Tag Archives: mystic

Gnosticism and Nature

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How should the spiritual person look upon nature? Is it a manifestation of the divine, full of numinous energy, in which everything is a marvelous, harmonious whole? Or is it nature red of tooth and sharp of claw, where life is painful, brutish and short, and where death and entropy eventually destroy everything?

In general, Gnosticism has been accused of having the second approach. After all, most Gnostics believe the world was created by a “demiurge” – an evil or incompetent creator whose domain must be transcended by the children of light. In seeming contrast to this are the pagans, who find the highest divinity in the natural world and the forces that animate it.

One of my initial objections to Gnosticism was this reputation of animosity for the material world. After all, most of us have had experiences of “nature mysticism”. We have felt numinous, almost religious awe at a starry sky, or the perfection of a flower, or the miracle of the human body. Small wonder the pagans find their connection to the divine in nature.

On the other hand, there are parts of nature that aren’t quite so “nice”, at least when judged from a human perspective. Are parasites and viruses really part of the greater good? What about bizarre genetic mutations or terminal cancer? What about the tremendous amount of death that is fundamental to natural selection – the thousands who must die so that the “fit” can survive to improve the species? Perhaps we can rationalize and come to terms with this on an intellectual level. But try to feel that way when watching a pack of predators tear apart a baby animal screaming for its mother. Try it when looking at an infant born with harlequin baby syndrome – a grotesque and fatal genetic defect that will slowly strangle the baby to death in its own hardening skin. And try to reconcile an uplifting view of nature with the overriding cosmic principle of entropy – which tells us that the entire universe is doomed to slowly wind down into a lifeless darkness of absolute cold.

So there we have the facts. Nature is cruel and depressing, yet nature seems to have divinity peeking through it. William Blake sensed this dichotomy in a pair of his poems. In the Songs of Innocence he praises the lamb, who is a picture of the peaceful kingdom of God, and seems to echo the goodness of his Creator:

Little Lamb, who made thee?

Dost thou know who made thee?

Gave thee life, & bid thee feed

By the stream & o’er the mead;

Gave thee clothing of delight;

Softest clothing, wooly, bright;

Gave thee such a tender voice,

Making all the vales rejoice?

Little Lamb, who made thee?

Dost thou know who made thee?

 

Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee,

Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee:

He is called by thy name,

For he calls himself a Lamb.

He is meek, & he is mild;

He became a little child.

I a child, & thou a lamb,

We are called by his name.

Little Lamb, God bless thee!

Little Lamb, God bless thee!

(From the Songs of Innocence – William Blake)

But then he seems to re-think the situation in a later poem:

Tiger, Tiger, burning bright

In the forest of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what art

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And, when thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand and what dread feet?

What the hammer? What the chain?

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? What dread grasp

Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,

And water’d heaven with their tears,

Did He smile His work to see?

Did He who made the lamb make thee?

Tiger, Tiger, burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

There are certainly plenty of forms of life abounding on the planet that strain our belief that any sense of beauty resembling our own had anything to do with their creation. (Have a loot at some of the candidates at http://listverse.com/nature/top-10-ugliest-creatures/ )

So which is it? Is this, as the pagans would prefer, a wonderful and harmonious world of natural beauty and balance? A place of infinite natural wisdom through which we can reconnect to a golden age of enlightenment? Or is it a black-iron prison of pain and fear and death from which our only hope is a quick escape?

Perhaps it is both.

Woven into some of the Gnostic myths, particularly the Valentinian, is the idea that the purpose of the higher God is not simply to redeem the divine sparks that are trapped in evil matter – but to transform the world of matter and make it a place where the spirit is supreme.

Paul seems to allude to this in one of his more Gnostic verses:

For the creation waits with eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of decay into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now. Not only so, but ourselves also, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for adoption, the redemption of our body.

(Rom 8:19-23 WEB)

The Gospel of Thomas, a document with early gnosic elements, seems to say the same thing in verse 113:

His Disciples say to him: When will the Sovereignty come? || (Yeshúa says:) It shall not come by expectation. They will not say: Behold here! or: Behold there! But the Sovereignty of the Father is spread upon the earth, and humans do not perceive it.

Perhaps, then, the beauty and numinous energy that we seem to feel from nature isn’t something native to it. Perhaps what we feel is the kingdom of heaven which is the higher God’s power beginning to infiltrate and transform the earth in a tremendous act of transubstantiation. Perhaps, when we feel the harmony of nature, what we are sensing is not the material world AS IT IS, but rather how Spirit INTENDS it to be.

“Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

This is, in effect, the Bodhisattva version of Gnosticism. We may recognize the corrupt elements of the material world as evil. But we are committed to raising the vibration of the material world and all the divine sparks in it.

So What is a Christian

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It gets harder every day to explain my spirituality to others. I am a follower of the Master Jesus, and an independent priest. But am I a Christian? Many would say no, because I have unorthodox beliefs.

C. S. Lewis argued, in Mere Christianity, that “Christian” should mean someone who claims to hold to the “Christian doctrine”. He was arguing against those who prefer to use “Christian” as a word meaning someone who is loving and charitable. Lewis would prefer us to say of a baptized scoundrel, “he’s a bad Christian” rather than “he’s not a Christian”.

But what, exactly, constitutes “Christian doctrine?” At one time, we could identify the earliest Christian creeds and doctrines and insist that a Christian must claim to believe them. But with the emergence of early Christian writings such as the Nag Hammadi texts, our view of what early Christianity looked like is changing. Early Christians were a much more diverse bunch than originally thought. From the very beginning, there existed apostolic groups with radically different notions of what Jesus message was.

I would tend to call myself a “gnostic” Christian, but this is misleading also. No Christian group actually called itself “gnostic”. This was a catch-all phrase for several groups that differed considerably with each other. There are a few common features of “gnosticism”, such as the emphasis on individual enlightenment, that are appealing. Then on the other hand are the strange cosmologies and a very negative attitude toward the material world.

“Mystical Christian”, “Esoteric Christian”, and “Hermetic Christian” are also possibilities, but seem to conjure up strange images in the modern mind.

So, what do you think is the best self-label for an “inner” Christian in the modern world?

More on Lucid Dreaming

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In the previous article I mentioned that remembering and journaling your dreams is a good way to begin lucid dreaming. Consciously remembering and writing down your dreams has the effect of programming your mind to stay more conscious during the dream state. Sometimes this exercise alone is enough, after some time, to start lucid dreams. But there are other tricks that you can use to hurry the process along a bit.

Some people find pre-sleep programming effective. You simply repeat to yourself,just before going to sleep and any time you awake at night, “I will be lucid in my dreams”. Repeating this for as long as possible before going to sleep will often help.

Another system that is successful for many, but requires some discipline and time, is to program a cue for checking your state of wakefulness. For example, you might wear a ring, and make it a habit that every time you notice your ring, you will ask yourself, “Am I awake or asleep?” This has to revolve around some sign that you will see several times a day. Once asking yourself this question repeatedly becomes an ingraned habit, you will begin to ask the question in your dreams. And when you do, it can snap you into the realization that you are dreaming and begin a lucid dream.

Anything that changes the sleep cycle seems to increase your chances of lucid dreams. Going to bed when especially tired, or when not really tired at all sometimes helps. Various herbs or suppliments which affect sleep, such as valarian root, kava kava, catnip, or B vitamins has been known to have an effect. In the home temple, gardina and jasmin essential oils, applied to the crown, forhead and throat chakras are used to incubate vivid dreams.

Finally, you can go high-tech with machines that will use cues, such as flashing lights or sounds, to partially awaken you when you begin to dream. If done properly, this can induce lucid dreams. The more expensive of these devices, such as the Nova dreamer, actually detect when you are dreaming by detecting your eye movements under your closed lids. You can also find information for constructing these devices yourself. Often the home-made versions forgo trying to detect dreams, and simply fire off at regular intervals. You can pretty much count on it eventually catching you while dreaming.

I’ve also tried a simple computer program, DreamScape, which is somewhat effective for me. You simply leave your laptop on near your bed, and the program will play a sound at a programmed interval, either through the speakers or (if you need to keep it silent) thorough earphones. It is a bit awkward to get used to having an earphone in your ear while sleeping, but eventually it works out.

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The Mystic and the Esoteric

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I had mentioned in one of my posts earlier the categories “mystic” and “esoteric”, and that there is a distinct difference between them. I ran into this distinction in a really excellent book by Richard Smoley titled “Inner Christianity“. Since the distinction is his I’d best let him clarify it:

Esotericism is characterized by an interest in these different levels of consciousness and being. Mysticism is not quite so concerned with these intermediate states; it focuses on reaching God in the most direct and immediate way. The mystic wants to reach his destination as quickly as possible; the esotericist wants to learn something about the landscape on the way. Moreover, mysticism tends more toward passivity: a quiet “waiting upon God” rather than active investigation.

I had mentioned that Eckhart Tolle, for example, is a mystic, whereas I think Ken Wilber is more of an esotericist. Myself, I’ve wandered back and forth as the mood strikes me. This distinction is similar to Ken Wilber’s distinction of “ascending” vs. “descending” spiritual currents. The “ascenders” focus on finding God in the absolute, infinite unity of being. They often disdain the physical manifestations. This group includes such folks as most gnostics, particularly Manicheans. Also in this category would be the Christian contemplatives and practitioners of Raja yoga.

The “descenders” on the other hand, celebrate God in the infinite variety of physical manifestation. Most forms of wicca, paganism and shamanism fall into this category, along with tantric yoga and “social” Christianity. The descenders often seem somewhat unconcerned with higher reality as a goal.

Both currents of spirituality are important, because God exist equally as the infinite one, and as the infinite many. Perhaps this makes esotericism a sort of compromise, because it seeks the divine unity while making plenty of interesting tours of the infinite many on the way up.

What can be frustrating about esotericism is that the “facts” of the esoteric tend to vary somewhat from teacher to teacher and from school to school. One of my favorite topics, for example, is angeology. But although nearly every religion and every esoteric school agrees that there ARE angels, and that they are important – none agree about exactly what they are, what their nature is, or their names, activities and heirarchy.

The trick seems to be to pick a system and stick with it, while realizing that all esoteric systems are somewhat arbitrary – vehicles for focusing the efforts of the student as he or she progresses on the spiritual path.

How about you? Are you a mystic or an esoteric?

Eckhart Tolle

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My wife completely surprised me by becoming intensely interested in Oprah Winfrey’s recent webcasts in collaboration with Eckhart Tolle. What was puzzling is that up till now, she has not liked Oprah at all and has shown no interest in Eckhart! For some reason the combination “clicked” for her.

For those who aren’t aware of him, Eckhart Tolle is, in my opinion, the most direct, no-nonsense teacher on the subject of enlightenment walking around today. His teaching is generic and non-religious ,while using illustrations from several religions. His concepts are profound but simple. Eckhart is a true mystic as opposed to an esotericist (more on that later perhaps).

I enjoy both his books and his audio and visual seminars. I remember that it took me a few minutes to get used to his lecture style. Eckhart is not afraid of silence, and at several points I thought there was something wrong with my CD or that the lecture was over. My impatience for the next piece of information was very revealing.

I quickly came to enjoy the style he uses, and luxuriated in the intervals of silence. For the type “A”‘s out there who need a brisker pace, the Oprah webcasts mentioned above might be a good intro.

His first book is The Power of Now, and the follow up (the subject of the Oprah webcase) is A New Earth. If you haven’t been exposed to his work, I highly recommend it. Amazon has a nice page with all his work featured here. I’d be interested to know if anyone else is a Tolle fan (or critic) and what your thoughts are.

Anti-Intellectualism

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The whole foundation of Christianity is based on the idea that intellectualism is the work of the Devil. Remember the apple on the tree? Okay, it was the Tree of Knowledge. “You eat this apple, you’re going to be as smart as God. We can’t have that.” – Frank Zappa

Zappa, of course, wasn’t the first to find God’s behavior in Genesis 2 absurd. Shortly after Jesus, the Christian Gnostics read the Genesis account and saw something entirely different than what the orthodox saw. To them, it was obvious that the God of Genesis 2 was a bully – ignorant if not downright malevolent. To them, it was basically this “God” of Genesis 2 who was the REAL devil, and the serpent was sent from the true God to deliver Adam and Eve from Ignorance. The Gnostic “Testimony of Truth” put it in words Zappa would probably have approved of:

“But what sort is this God? First he maliciously refused Adam from eating of the tree of knowledge, and, secondly, he said “Adam, where are you?” God does not have foreknowledge? Would he not know from the beginning? And afterwards, he said, “Let us cast him out of this place, lest he eat of the tree of life and live forever.” Surely, he has shown himself to be a malicious grudger!”

But other mystical interpretations of Genesis pick up on additional subtleties. It is not simply wisdom that the fatal tree gives Adam and Eve – it is dualistic knowledge – categorical knowledge. Good vs. Evil. Light vs. Dark. Ultimately – myself vs. everything NOT myself. In other words, the developed Ego. The story in Genesis is basically the story of humanity rising above animal awareness and developing self-consciousness; a story repeated in the psychological development of every subsequent human being. Thorough the ego, humanity not only becomes aware of good and evil, but also life and death. We come to understand, anticipate… and dread our own mortality.

This is our “fall”. But it is a fall UPWARDS. The Ego is our only vehicle upwards toward transcendence, but it also can become our prison.

And so, in one important sense, the intellectual, categorical, dualistic mind IS an obstacle. Not because it allows us to question dogma or doubt doctrine, but because it isolates us from the rest of the universe in a prison of concepts, tortured by the suffering of remembered or anticipated pain and death and annihilation. The ego is our hell, and our only salvation is that the ego is temporary. To live forever in our present state would indeed be a grim fate.

Every mystical tradition recognizes that the intellectual mind is an obstacle to be overcome in the spiritual path. Zen masters give their disciples torturous, insoluble mental puzzles (koans) to trick the mind into exhausting itself. Yogis practice for years to quiet the noise of the mind. In Christianity, “contemplative prayer” involves a long discipline of focusing the mind on divine emptiness.

John Wren-Lewis, an atheist mystic, describes his experience of awakening from the conceptual world into emptiness:
“Now all the judgments of goodness or badness which the human mind necessarily has to make in its activities along the line of time were contextualized in the perspective of that other dimension I can only call eternity, which loves all the productions of time regardless.”

Confessions of a Narnian – a Theistic Apologia

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Science rules out all religion except the highest. "

- D.E. Harding

 

As most of you know, I have a lot of sympathy with atheists. There’s something noble in many of them. Since childhood, most of them have been approached with crass literal interpretations of the religious metaphors of the Bible. They have heard irrational justifications for the divine misbehavior in the Old Testament. They have been told they are damned for wrongs they never personally committed. They have been offered contradictory and arcane explanations for why Jesus dying on the cross should matter to them. They have been called fools and swine when they found all these ideas unpersuasive. Ultimately they have been threatened with everlasting torture and finally shunned.

 

There’s a refreshing courage in someone who can simply tell the Christian culture it can take a hike. And buried under a reasonable skepticism is often a profound regard for the truth, however stark it may be. But… I find that I cannot be an atheist. There are simply too many important things in my experience that hard-line atheism either dismisses or disparages.

 

One of my favorite quotations from G. K. Chesterton goes like this: “We have all forgotten what we really are. All that we call common sense and rationality and practicality and positivism only means that for certain dead levels of our life we forget that we have forgotten. All that we call spirit and art and ecstasy only means that for one awful instant we remember that we forget.”

 

There are moments in my experience when rationality and positivism aren’t an adequate world view. In fact, to say they are inadequate is a terrible understatement. They seem, as Chesterton said, “dead”. When I try to get into the mindset of the hard-core materialism, I feel like the men in Eliot’s poem.

 

“We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar”

 

The External World

“Flower in the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the crannies, I hold you here, root and all in my hand, little flower—but if I could understand what you are, root and all, and all in all, I should know what God and man is.” – Tennyson

I felt the dryness of rationalism first in relation to the external features of the cosmos. My first major in college was zoology, so I had a reasonably good scientific education. But time and time again I would find that science simply pointed me toward profound states of awe, but then couldn't follow me into the wonder of it. I can remember many of the exact experiences – Looking at a map of the universe in National Geographic. Staring up into a profoundly clear night sky at sea. Studying the ATP cycle in molecular biology. I would be left with a overwhelming sense of wonder and amazement, and nothing to this day changes my belief that these things are WORTHY of amazement – in fact demand it. It makes no difference to point out that the ATP cycle, for example, could have come about by “natural” processes. All this does is rearrange the wonder, not diminish it. It is just as inexplicable that it should be possible for “natural processes” to create such a marvel. The natural processes themselves become the wonder.

 


The Internal World

"The heart has reasons that reason knows not of. We feel it in a thousand things. . . . . do you love by reason?" – Pascal

 

Looking at my own inner life inspires more wonder. Is it really possible that so much meaning and joy and wonder arises in a cosmos who’s own interior is entirely dead and inert? No physical explanation of cognition even touches the inner experience. Joy, and spirit and art and ecstasy simply are not, to my mind, fortunate epiphenomena arising out of the cold physical facts of the world. They are more important to me, and more real to me, than the physical world itself, and it seems unavoidable that they arise out of the innermost nature of the cosmos itself. And so I suspect that not only in myself, but in the entire cosmos, “inner experience” is a fact, and that the whole cosmos has an “interior life” of some kind.

Aesthetic experience

When I experience natural beauty, look at a sunset or ponder a flower – or when I read a transcendent poem or look at a great painting – what is this profound feeling I experience in connection with the quality of these objects? It is really a matter of my mere subjective preferences – just as I like carrots but abhor beets? This seems a totally unsatisfactory answer for aesthetic experience. When we appreciate quality in the world, we are appreciating something real – something supremely important. This quality is recognized by a non-thinking process, and hence cannot be defined, tested for or recorded by an instrument. And yet… we know what it is.

 

Existence Itself

Nothing is more amazing than the fact that anything exists at all. It's difficult to really wrap our mind around just how bizarre the fact of existence is. I remember at least one occasion, however, when the whole foreign mystery of existence itself came crashing through to my consciousness. I felt trapped in some terribly foreign state of being, totally out of place. I suspect many have had similar experiences. WHY is there something rather than nothing – this seems the ultimate question, and it is impossible to feel the full weight of this mystery bearing down on your consciousness without sensing that something terribly important is behind it all. But, as Ken Wilber pointed out, strict materialism has nothing to offer to the mystery of existence beyond what he calls "the philosophy of oops" – a reluctance even allow the question of "why?"

Mystical experience

At the end of his life, Thomas Aquinas (the real one that is) experienced a profound mystical vision that caused him to put down his pen and leave his Summa Theologica for another to finish. His scribe begged him to complete the work that would come to be considered the greatest masterpiece of rational theology of all time. "I cannot.” Thomas replied. “Such things have been revealed to me that what I have written seems but straw." Profound mystical experiences of various kinds open up a perspective that is not adequately addressed by rationality alone. These range from such things as out-of-body experiences to profound states of non-dual awareness that, while impossible to completely communicate, make it utterly impossible to look at the world without seeing it asmanifestation of a divine unity. I'd recommend the following link as an excellent example of such an experience: http://www.nonduality.com/dazdark.htm. It's understandable that a hard-line atheist would find a description of someone else's experience unpersuasive. But I believe it's utterly impossible to have one and remain entirely satisfied with hard-line atheism alone as a worldview. To quote a line from Sagan's Contact, where Ellie is explaining her experience, "I… had an experience… I can't prove it, I can't even explain it, but everything that I know as a human being, everything that I am tells me that it was real! I was given something wonderful, something that changed me forever… A vision of the universe, that tells us, undeniably, how tiny, and insignificant and how… rare, and precious we all are! A vision that tells us that we belong to something that is greater then ourselves, that we are *not*, that none of us are alone!"

This is just a brief survey of some of the areas that make hard-core atheism, as a worldview, something I can't accept. Is it possible that I'm deceiving myself – that all this meaning and beauty and unity that I seem to sense in the world are really just epiphenomena of physics and chemistry? Logically, I would answer that yes, it's possible. But my whole point is that logic is inadequate to the task of answering this question.

I'll close with a few words from "The Silver Chair" by C.S. Lewis. The story is about several children, accompanied by a strange pessimistic creature called a “marshwiggle” named “Puddleglum” who descend from the kingdom of Narnia, ruled by the good lion Aslan and enter a subterranean kingdom ruled by a witch-queen to try to rescue a kidnapped prince. Once there, the witch puts them under a spell of confusion and forgetfulness. She gradually convinces the children that there IS no world above ground, no sun, no sky, no Aslan. They become convinced that these are all simply children’s tales and dreams – projections they have created in their minds from the drab and ordinary objects in the miserable underground world ruled by the witch. Only Puddleglum rebels.

“One word, Ma’am” he says to the witch, “All you’ve been saying is quite right, I shouldn’t wonder. I’m a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face on I can on it. So I won’t deny any of what you said. But there’s one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we HAVE only dreamed, or made up, all those things – trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours IS the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that’s a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We’re just babies making up a game, if you’re right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That’s why I’m going to stand by the play world. I’m on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it. I’m going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn’t any Narnia. So thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we’re leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that’s a small loss if the world’s as dull a place as you say.”

Is Jesus the Messiah?

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Is Jesus the Jewish “messiah”, and if so, why do more Jews not believe in him?

 

The first difficulty in deciding if Jesus is the Jewish “messiah” is the ambiguity of the term “messiah” in Judiasm. “Messiah” is a rather general term in the Bible meaning “anointed”. Because kings and priests were anointed with oil to set them apart, the word “messiah” can apply to any king, high priest, or other “anointed” one.  Even the pagan King Cyrus is called the Lord’s “messiah” in Isaiah 45:1.

 

There are a number of prophecies in the Old Testament that seem to point to one particular messiah of unique importance. The problem is that Jewish interpreters differ on just what these prophecies mean. Reformed Jews tend to interpret the “messiah” prophecies as pointing to the nation of Israel as a whole. Kabbalist Jews often interpret the messiah as an immortal spiritual force. Even among those who interpret the prophecies as indicating a unique human individual, there is disagreement about the characteristics of that individual, or even how MANY “unique” messiahs there are supposed to be. These disagreements were even more significant in Jesus’ day – when Judaism was possibly even more diverse than it is today.

 

In particular, there were some teachers who talked about the Messiah “ben David” (son of David) and others who talked about the Messiah “ben Joseph” (son of Joseph). Some apparently believed in the priority of one or the other of these messiahs, some believed both would come, with different roles to play.

 

In very general terms, the Messiah ben David was seen as a military conqueror, who would restore the Kingdom of Israel and the temple. The Messiah ben Joseph was seen as bringing spiritual renewal through personal sacrifice (much as Joseph of Egypt saved his family through his own personal ordeal). Of those who believed in both messiahs, the Messiah ben Joseph was seen as a precursor to the Messiah ben David.

 

If we take into account what I wrote on earlier about the different sources of the Old Testament (http://perennis.pathstoknowledge.com/documentary_hypothesis) these two different messiahs fit rather neatly into the agendas of the primary sources of the Old Testament – the “J” (and “P”) sources and the “E” (and “D”) sources. The “J” and “P” sources champion David and the Southern Kingdom – whereas the E and D sources are more critical of David and champion the Northern Kingdom – home of the traditional descendents of Joseph (Ephraim and Manasseh)

 

In the context of Jews arguing about whether the primary messiah is the son of David or of Joseph, Jesus’ dialogue in the temple assumes a whole new meaning:

“Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, saying, What do you think of the Christ [messiah]? Whose son is he?They said to him, Of David.  He said to them, How then does David in the Spirit call him Lord, saying,  The Lord said to my Lord, sit on my right hand, until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet?  If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?” (Matthew 22:41-45 WEB)  Jesus is apparently coming down on the “ben Joseph” side of the argument. It’s also interesting that “Joseph” is traditionally the name of Jesus foster father as well.  There is no doubt that many of those who followed Jesus did so because they HOPED we was the Messiah ben David. He is often addressed by the hopeful crowd as “son of David”, and he doesn’t seem to discourage this – but there are a number of indications that Jesus did not see himself in the role of Messiah ben David. When identifying his mission, he several times refers to Isaiah 61 – a relatively gentle and compassionate picture of messiahship – more in keeping with the Messiah ben Joseph.  As Jesus reads in the synagogue:  The Spirit of the Lord is on me,because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted,to proclaim release to the captives,recovering of sight to the blind,to deliver those who are crushed, and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. (Luke 4:18-19 WEB) Other indications of how Jesus saw his role: For the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost. (Luke 19:10 WEB) For the Son of Man didn’t come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them. (Luke 9:56 WEB) I argued earlier (http://perennis.pathstoknowledge.com/bibliolatry) that Jesus seems to share some of Jeremiah and Isaiah’s criticism of the priestly code. It may well be that Jesus is not in agreement with the idea of the Messiah ben David.  However, it’s clear that some of the New Testament authors intend to keep that option open. Matthew and Luke both try to establish Davidic descent for Jesus, and Matthew in particular tries to mention every possible prophetic fulfillment for Jesus.  We need to candidly admit that some of these apparent “fulfillments” of prophecy are problematic. Some of them rest upon questionable translations and many of them are clearly taken out of context with regard to their primary fulfillment. Personally, I like to credit the New Testament authors with enough intelligence to realize (at least some of the time) that this is occurring.  When Matthew, for example, tells us that Jesus’ sojourn in Egypt fulfilled Hosea: “When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt.” (Hosea 11:1 WEB) …He must certainly realize that this verse of Hosea does not appear to be a messianic prophecy of any sort. What the author of Matthew seems to be saying is that Jesus recapitulates or represents various scriptural patterns or archtypes in scripture. Jesus can be understood, in other words, in terms of scriptural themes well known to readers of the Old Testament.  As a tangent, it’s interesting that the prophet quoted here, Hosea, is a prophet of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, not Judah – and the theme of the sojourn in Egypt is most associated with Joseph, and the suffering messiah.  This having of seeing the events of one’s own time in prophecy isn’t unique to Christian apologists.  For example the promise in Deuteronomy (18:15-18) that a second Moses would arise. Many Jews today regard this as a prophecy of a still-future messiah. But many scholars believe that the Deuteronomists who collected or created the “second Moses” prophecy actually saw them as being fulfilled by their great hero, King Josiah.  Compare the wording Deuteronomy 34:10 with 2 Kings 23:25 – and remember that scholars believe both Deuteronomy and 2 Kings 23 were written by the same individual or group.  There has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom Yahweh knew face to face (Deuteronomy 34:10 WEB) Like him [Josiah] was there no king before him, who turned to Yahweh with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; neither after him arose there any like him. (2 Kings 23:25 WEB) Nevertheless, the idea of a “second Moses” is an idea and pattern that persisted long after Josiah, and has been applied by Christians to Jesus and by Jews to a future Messiah.  Is Jesus, then, the Messiah?  He certainly has a spiritual anointing from God, and embodies many of the patterns and archetypes of messiaship found in the Old Testament, particularly when referring to the Messiah ben Joseph. The fulfillment, however, is often in a more spiritual sense. The messianic prophecies are, in effect, symbols of what Christians see in Jesus to be spiritual realities. Christians should have no problem in seeing Jesus as “anointed” – with it’s original meaning of “set apart for God’s purpose”.  In this sense, he is the Messiah (or “Christ” as it would be rendered in Greek). Jesus does NOT meet all of the specific requirements that have been derived from the Old Testament by Jewish tradition over the centuries. This is particularly true in that there are several versions of these requirements depending on the body of Jewish tradition being discussed.  As this short essay began as a response to a particular article on the web

(http://www.aish.com/jewishissues/jewishsociety/Why_Jews_Dont_Believe_In_Jesus.asp)

 

-         there are a few specific remarks I should make in response to that article directly. The point of the article is that Jesus does not meet the requirements of a Jewish Messiah – a conclusion with which I’ve partially agreed above. A few points in the article, however, need comment.

 

Regarding Jesus as a prophet, the site says:

 

Ø      Prophecy can only exist in Israel when the land is inhabited by a majority of world Jewry, a situation which has not existed since 300 BCE.

 

While this may be a Jewish tradition, it is, biblically, completely ad-hoc. No such rule is apparent from scripture.

 

Ø      The Messiah must be descended on his father's side from King David (see Genesis 49:10, Isaiah 11:1, Jeremiah 23:5, 33:17; Ezekiel 34:23-24). According to the Christian claim that Jesus was the product of a virgin birth, he had no father — and thus could not have possibly fulfilled the messianic requirement of being descended on his father's side from King David.

 

Actually, none of the scriptures cited actually SAYS this. They only mention Davidic descent.

 > The Messiah will lead the Jewish people to full Torah observance. The Torah states that all mitzvot remain binding forever, and anyone coming to change the Torah is immediately identified as a false prophet. (Deut. 13:1-4)

Actually, that’s not what Deut 13:1-4 says. It says a false prophet is identified by the fact that he… well, makes false prophecies. In point of fact, the authors and editors of Deuteronomy – Jeremiah very likely being one of them, believed that many of the priestly laws were not God-given at all.

 “For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices: “(Jeremiah 7:22 KJV)

>Throughout the New Testament, Jesus contradicts the Torah and states that its commandments are no longer applicable. For example, John 9:14 records that Jesus made a paste in violation of Shabbat, which caused the Pharisees to say (verse 16), "He does not observe Shabbat!"

Only rarely does Jesus contradict the Torah – or more specifically attribute a commandment of the Torah as being of human origin. What he does do on a regular basis is apply a very spiritual, humanistic interpretation to the Torah. Jesus does not believe that making paste to heal a blind man on the Shabbat violates the spirit of Shabbat. It certainly doesn’t violate scripture – only the traditional accretions piled on top of scripture. Jesus would have a few words to say regarding anyone who feels that leaving someone blind honors God.

> Of the thousands of religions in human history, only Judaism bases its belief on national revelation — i.e. God speaking to the entire nation. If God is going to start a religion, it makes sense He'll tell everyone, not just one person.

This national revelation has not prevented the existence of various “branches” of Judaism with different beliefs and practices, including different beliefs about the Messiah.

(from the footnotes)

Ø      Saying that God assumes human form makes God small, diminishing both His unity and His divinity. As the Torah says: "God is not a mortal" (Numbers 23:19).

Focusing on God’s transcendence and totally ignoring his immanence, on the other hand, can make God distant and unapproachable. Jewish mysticism doesn’t seem to have a problem with the immanence of God. To quote J. Abelson from “Jewish Mysticism”

“ALL finite creatures are, in divergent senses and varying degrees, part and parcel of the Deity. Creatio ex nihilo is unthinkable, seeing that God, in the Neoplatonic view, is the Perfect One, 'an undivided One,' to whom no qualities or characteristics can be ascribed, and to whom, therefore, no such idea as that of intention or purpose, or change or movement, can be applied. All existences are emanations from the Deity. The Deity reveals Himself in all existences because He is immanent in them. But though dwelling in them, He is greater than they. He is apart from them. He transcends them.”

There are also several criticisms of Jesus descent based on the problems of Joseph being only his adopted father, and of Mary and Joseph’s Davidic line as being tainted.

While I regard the genealogies of Matthew and Luke as primarily symbolic, it seems to me that the criticism is misplaced. If we allow that God being the father of Jesus (rather than Joseph) is absolutely literal, then we are dealing with a totally unique situation, and it seems difficult to argue that any conventional laws of adoption or descent apply. How can being the Son of God “disqualify” someone for any honor whatsoever? If the critic is going to concede that Jesus is literally the Son of God, then proper messianic descent is the least of the critic’s issues.

If the critic assumes this is figurative, but still wants to calculate ancestry, then there is no reason not to consider Joseph’s genealogy.

As to the Jeconiah curse, an excellent job of refuting it is done by the Jews for Jesus

http://www.jewsforjesus.org/answers/prophecy/jeconiah

In brief, there are good arguments that the curse was reversed due to Jeconiah’s repentance, and the site in fact quotes a number of rabbinical opinions that it is specifically through Jeconiah’s line that the Messiah WILL come!

States of Consciousness

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What is the place of symbols in spirituality?  Myth and symbol have an important role in nourishing the human spirit. I’m very comfortable myself with “sacramentalism” – with using items in the physical world as symbols of and vehicles of divine power, grace and knowledge. This might be a good time to bring up the different “states” of consciousness that can impact spirituality.

 Studying the record of mystical experiences over time and across cultures, we find that there are basically four different “states” of mystical experience that are available to all people. These manifest as “peak experiences” of four general kinds. However, in spite of the similarity of these states as they are experienced by different people – the states will be INTERPRETED according to the level that person is at, spiritually. Here’s what the four states look like:

 Nature mysticism. This state is experienced as a profound sense of the unity, aliveness and wonder of the natural world and our connection to it. The whole world seems alive with beauty and meaning. We also feel a unity with all other human beings. People can often be pulled into this sort of state while gazing at the night sky, for example, or climbing a mountain. It is a spiritual state often associated with such paths as new-age paganism or Native American spirituality but is also seen in the writer of the psalms and St Francis of Assisi.

  1. “Subtle” mysticism (or “deity” mysticism) This state corresponds in some ways to the dream state. People experience visions and apparitions. Angels, spiritual guides, gods and other non-material beings are seen, and reality becomes fluid and dream-like. The person becomes aware of a “higher” spiritual order behind the world of form and substance. This spiritual state has examples in many spiritual paths – from Ezekiel to Carlos Castaneda to Paul on the road to Damascus.
  2. “Causal” mysticism (or “formless” mysticism). In this state, external objects and even spiritual objects fade and one is immersed in an infinite abyss of light, love and formless, timeless emptiness. This is also paradoxically a fullness – or an abyss so deep that all fullness is within it. You are one with this fullness and light, and experience it as your true self. There are many examples of descriptions of such states from the Gnostics, the Sufi, the Cabbalists, the Buddhists, the Christians mystics such as Eckhart, etc.
  3. Non-dual mysticism. This state unifies the others. One sees the manifest world of things and forms as an expression of the formless emptiness – and one sees in the formless emptiness the potential for all the manifest forms, physical and spiritual. You are the vast emptiness in which all manifest forms arise and fade, and you are the forms themselves.

One’s “God view” can change considerably in each of these states. A form or symbol of God that is highly meaningful  in the subtle state  can become trivial or even an impediment in the causal state. In the non-dual state, God is seen in all the symbols as well as in the emptiness devoid of symbols.

The Latest Home Temple Questions

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>1. What are the seven spirits of God?

Actually, there is some disagreement about that. The Home Temple uses the menorah, not because there are any specific spirits that are invoked, but because of its association with temple Judaism. However, there is some indication in scripture that the temple menorah was associated with “the seven spirits of God” Revelation 4:5 "From the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder. Before the throne, seven lamps were blazing. These are the seven spirits of God." Since the temple menorah had seven lamps, this seems like a reasonable association. As to what the “seen spirits of God” actually ARE, speculation abounds. They may be seven aspects of the Holy Spirit (See Isaiah 11:2) or seven archangels, or seraphim or cherubim. Or they may represent the seven (anciently known) planets. Or all of the above. For example, they could represent angels who also govern planetary bodies who are also associated with specific aspects of God's spirit. If anyone has the definitive answer, I don't know it yet.

>2. Do the three bases of the menorah have the same symbolic meaning as the three candlestands in a Masonic Lodge?

Unfortunately, I was careless with the preceding answer. There are FOUR bases on the stand and FOUR kabbalistic worlds. So the answer would be no. However, for the record, Bishop Kiezer is active in a modified and synthesized form of Masonry called Pansophic Freemasonry which is open to both genders. I know little about it and have not yet participated in it. I only say this only to make it clear that I don't expect he'd be in the least adverse to appealing to Masonic symbolism if the occasion warranted.

>3. How does Jesus Christ fit into the Shema Israel?

He's not specifically mentioned in that particular prayer. “Hear oh Israel – the LORD thy God, the LORD is one” For that matter, he's not mentioned specifically in the Lords Prayer. But he's clearly central to the Liturgy.

>4. In re your description of the resonators of the power of the ritual, is this what is meant by vibrations?

I don't think I actually used that word. I said: “An emphasis is placed on the musical tones and specific sounds intoned, as these are believed to be important resonators of the power of the ritual” What I meant is that specific musical tones and vocal sounds are believed to have various spiritual effects which augment the other spiritual benefits of the Mass. This is a rather complex field in which I am only a neophyte. I hope to improve my knowledge of it.

 >5. Do you ever actually hear a voice or voices at your liturgy, or is everything that takes place interior?

No, I haven't. The only time I've quite distinctly heard an actual disembodied voice, that I recall, was during a morning family devotional. We were quite throughly Roman Catholic at the time, and several of us heard a rather resonant “Amen” after the Fatima prayers during the Rosary. It was a bit startling. I've often had inner impressions of various sorts during prayers and liturgies, but except for that occasion nothing on the physical plane.

>6. Is the nacham a ritual of Judaism from the Kabbalah or from the time of Christ?

 I'm afraid I don't know if the gesture itself is ancient or recent. “Nacham”in Hebrew indicates repentance or submission to God. The right arm (representing the ego or lower self) is placed across the chest touching the left shoulder, and covered by the left arm touching the right shoulder while making a slight bow. This indicates the submission of our personal will to that of God. I'm told by several from the Eastern Rite that this is how they receive communion – which is ironic, as it is the gesture adopted by the modern Western Rite to indicate “I'm not receiving communion, just give me a blessing”.

>7. Your understanding of the nature of sacraments is actually much better than the understanding a lot of Catholics hold, though it is the same understanding that is taught in our catechism.

Thank you.

>8. According to Gershom Scholem, I believe Merkabah mysticism was being taught at the time Christ walked the earth. Kabbalah, however, is from the Middle Ages. The Roman Catholic Church condemned the mysticism borrowed from the Kabbalah.

Traditional Jewish practitioners, of course, believe the concepts of the Kabbalah date back to Adam, but it certainly didn't exist in present form till the middle ages. On re-reading, I see how my sentence on this was confusing. Jesus, the early Jewish mystics, and the early Jewish Gnostics had access to a body of mystical teaching which by that time was called Merkabah, and which only later became the seed for the more extensive concepts of Kabbalah. Although the Roman Catholic condemnations don't persuade me, as I find many Kabbalistic concepts very helpful and profound, I'd be interested in reading them.

>9. Are ascended masters what Catholics call saints?

The concept is similar and there is probably some overlap in the groups, but ascended masters are primarily those of various esoteric traditions who are believed to have achieved great spiritual progress and enlightenment, and who guide and help humanity. The concept is, I believe, primarily a Rosicrucian/Theosophical one.

>10. What is the difference between theurgy and magic?

As I understand it, Theurgy is the work of using instruments or vehicles of divine power to achieve divine purposes – particularly union with God. Some esotericists would describe the Mass as an example of Theurgy. Magic tends to indicate that the instruments, vehicles and purposes of the operation may be less than divine in some way. Some would say that Theurgy is always under the umbrella of “Thy will be done”, whereas magic is more of a direct imposition of the human will. However, at some levels it is more difficult to distinguish the two, as the Higher Self is an expression of the divine.

>11. I have downloaded and printed Dr. Keizer's book on Wandering Bishops. In there he refers to C. W. Leadbeater as a saint. I'm sure you know that he had some difficulties with a young boy, or with several young boys, depending upon the source of reference. Yet Dr. Keizer has labeled Leadbeater a saint in the book. While it is true that we have had bad popes, we have not canonized them.

Actually, I only recently became aware of Leadbeater, and about the accusations against him I only know what I could quickly Google. Leadbeater is by no means a “saint” in the sense of having passed through a complex canonical process proving his heroic virtue – having his own feast day – being mentioned in the prayers of the Mass – being invoked for intercessory prayer, etc. No such process exists for the Independent movement. As far as I can tell, Kiezer uses this term informally and generally meaning “mystic” – someone advanced in esoteric knowledge and ability. Leadbeater certainly was this. However, Bishop Keizer only labels Leadbeater a “saint” in one of the photos, and in the text says that he was “…more scientist than saint”. If the worst of the accusations against him are correct (and I have no way of knowing that they are) then he certainly should not be regarded as heroically virtuous. I understand that the Roman Catholic Church doesn't canonize the Borgia, but there have certainly been several individuals who have not made it through the process (or partially through the process) without considerable opposition and accusation. I'm sure you can think of a couple names.

>.12. Have many Catholics joined the Home Temple Movement? Have former Catholic priests joined the Home Temple Movement?

I know of some Catholics that have joined. I know of several people who were ordained in other jurisdictions and denominations who have joined, but I'm not directly aware of any Catholic priests. But as I said, this is a small, home-church movement, and I don't know the exact number who consider themselves affiliated.