Reflection for July 13, 2022: The Time is Now

These are the forgeries of jealousy:
and never, since the middle summer’s spring,
Met we on hill, in dale, forest or mead,
By paved fountain or by rushy brook,
Or in the beached margent of the sea,
To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,
But with thy brawls thou hast disturb’d our sport.
Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,
As in revenge, have suck’d up from the sea
Contagious fogs; which falling in the land
Have every pelting river made so proud
That they have overborne their continents:
The ox hath therefore stretch’d his yoke in vain,
The ploughman lost his sweat, and the green corn
Hath rotted ere his youth attain’d a beard;
The fold stands empty in the drowned field,
And crows are fatted with the murrion flock;
The nine men’s morris is fill’d up with mud,
And the quaint mazes in the wanton green
For lack of tread are undistinguishable:
The human mortals want their winter here;
No night is now with hymn or carol blest:
Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,
Pale in her anger, washes all the air,
That rheumatic diseases do abound:
And thorough this distemperature we see
The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts
Far in the fresh lap of the crimson rose,
And on old Hiems’ thin and icy crown
An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds
Is, as in mockery, set: the spring, the summer,
The childing autumn, angry winter, change
Their wonted liveries, and the mazed world,
By their increase, now knows not which is which:
And this same progeny of evils comes
From our debate, from our dissension;
We are their parents and original.

A recent Salon of The Western Mysteries reminded me that, most of the Western path is, drivel.

By drivel I mean exactly that. Stuck in Victorian largely attitudes or age of reason attitudes. Man controlling his own destiny. Man controlling nature. Man as superior to Woman. Money as. …A recent Farcebook Discussion reminded me I have little to nothing in common with most Western Practitioners.

Moving beyond a need for self improvement (that removes many ‘occult orders’), moving beyond gain (many see the Western path as a way to get stuff, be it Talismans, money magic etc)…

We find The Western path is about now, and what is now? It is crisis. It is about coming into harmony with the planet. This means putting down your special wands, put down the money spells.

For Christ commanded us to be Gardeners. This is why he was reborn in the garden.

One expression of this Garden is Faery and the very planet itself.

Magic then in the 21st century is not about self improvement, not about lodges, not about initiations, not about special tools, not about an order … …But it is bout Humanity, the planet and working within well established magical pathways to build bridges to the future.

I understand now, why most Occult groups for want of a better word are ‘lifeless.’ They are stuck in wish fulfillment, self improvement and thus largely Humanocentric thinking.

It is the 21st Century, the time is Now, our environment is crying…. It time to move away from stuffy lodges and dusty academia, throw away your talisman to avoid fungal warts…

It is a time for participation. It is a time to enable. It is a time to give. It is a time of compassion.

This is magic in the 21st Century.

Upon reflection I also see this as a call to arms for myself. To knuckle down with praxis.

This morning I entered the Inner Convocation, it was very liberating

 

Reflection for March 23, 2017: Dreaming

Dreaming

Presenting preview and “sketches” of work in progress coming soon as a book “The Western Mysteries (White, Red & Green)” by me.

………………………………………………………………………………………………….

In the month of Heshvan in the year 5413(1652) I dreamed of an enormous camel pursuing me. Fleeing it, I entered a room and closed the door with a double bolt. The animal broke through the door with a double bolt. The animal broke through the door, so I hid myself successively in many other rooms. In the last room there was a fragile light as transparent as a wave in which I wrapped myself. Having descended into the sea, I no longer feared the camel. There a young woman of great beauty came out to meet me, embracing me intimately and beseeching me not to forget that I was to be married to a queen who was, at present, hidden both by the sun and the moon. Much moved by this, I swore by her and believe I had relations with her. Immediately after, another young woman appeared, followed by the sun and the moon and I saw the resplendent queen who  apparently was my destiny. Full of terror, I awoke, stirred by that vision in which nothing in me was hidden. I went to Torah!

Abraham ha-Yakini (transl. by Jack Hirschman)

Abraham Yachini (Heb: אברהם יכיני ; also transliterated as Abraham Yakhini, or Abraham ha-Yakini) b. 1617 – d. 1682,^[1][2] was one of the chief agitators in the Sabbatean movement, the son of Pethahiah of Constantinople. He studied under Joseph Trani of Constantinople (died 1644), and under Mordecai, a German kabbalist. From the latter he probably derived the touch of mysticism which, combined with cunning and great intelligence, made him the most suitable representative of Sabbatai Zevi. Yachini persuaded Sabbatai Zevi, who at that time was convinced that he was the Messiah but was timid and fearful of proclaiming himself, boldly to declare his claims. It was in Constantinople, about 1653, that Sabbatai Zevi became acquainted with Yachini, who, on account of his learning and oratorical powers, enjoyed a great reputation in his native town.^[3] He is described by contemporaries as the best preacher of his day.

Yachini is said by some to have put into the hands of Sabbatai Zevi a spurious book in archaic characters, which, he assured him, contained the Scriptural proof of his Messianic origin. This fabrication, entitled The Great Wisdom of Solomon, began as follows:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Yachini

“

I, Abraham, was confined in a cave for forty years, and I wondered greatly that the time of miracles did not arrive. Then was heard a voice, proclaiming, “A son will be born in the year 5386 [1626] to Mordecai Ẓebi and he will be called Sabbatai. He will humble the great dragon… he, the true Messiah, will sit upon My [God’s] throne.”

Queen Ragnhild’s dream Erik Werenskiold (1855-1938) – Snorre Sturlassons Kongesagaer

“Ragnhild, who was wise and intelligent, dreamt great dreams. She dreamt, for one, that she was standing out in her herb-garden, and she took a thorn out of her shift; but while she was holding the thorn in her hand it grew so that it became a great tree, one end of which struck itself down into the earth, and it became firmly rooted; and the other end of the tree raised itself so high in the air that she could scarcely see over it, and it became also wonderfully thick. The under part of the tree was red with blood, but the stem upwards was beautifully green and the branches white as snow. There were many and great limbs to the tree, some high up, others low down; and so vast were the tree’s branches that they seemed to her to cover all Norway, and even much more.”[15]

Heimskringla orThe Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Halfdan the Black Saga

….

Dreams could sometimes foretell the future. Their ability to do so went hand in hand with the Norse view that all events were directed by fate; as the Eddic poem The Song of Skirnir (Skírnismál) puts it, “My destiny was fashioned down to the last half-day, and all my life was determined.”[2] Since the future was preordained, it could be known in advance.

Take, for example, the famous dream of Queen Ragnhild, who reigned in southern Norway during the ninth century alongside King Halfdan the Black. One night, Ragnhild dreamed that she took a brooch off of her cloak and held it out in front of her. Roots immediately began trailing out of it and toward the ground, where they took hold. Branches then shot up from the brooch, and the tree soon grew so tall that Ragnhild was unable to see over it. The tree’s bowl was blood-red, its upper trunk green, and its branches snowy white. The branches spread out to cover all of Norway, and even extended into other lands as well.[3]

Years later, Ragnhild realized the significance of the dream. The tree symbolized her descendants. Her son, Harald Finehair, was to become the first ruler of all of Norway. The tree’s blood-red bowl symbolized the bloodshed that would occur while Harald was coming to power, the green upper trunk the vigor and glory of his reign, and the white branches his own descendants, from whom would come Norway’s rulers for many generations.[4]

The Viking Spirit by Daniel McCoy

References:

[1] Davidson, Hilda Roderick Ellis. 1988. Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe: Early Scandinavian and Celtic Religions. p. 138-139.

[2] Turville-Petre, E.O.G. 1972. Nine Norse Studies. p. 32.

[3] Ibid. p. 30-31.

[4] Ibid

…………………………………………………………………………………………..

Queen Ragnhild’s dream gives us a vision of White Green and Red. White above, Green in the middle and Red below. This traditional pattern we may find in the three realms. The White above, the Green in the middle and Red Below. This is the familiar pattern found in European myth. The White and the White and Red we see war of the roses, the Houses of York and Lancaster. In alchemy we see the marriage of Red King and White Queen.

This is a familiar pattern, the marriage of Sun and Moon, Gold and Silver. In Plato we see the red and white rivers of blood and stars. The World of the Sky we can see the Celestial realms full of the Angelic hosts and beings of the “sky.” The Gods of Thunder, Zeus, Taranis. The Wisdom of the Birds breathing breath from the heavens.

The Red shows us the blood of the earth or the deep fiery “blood” of the planet itself. This is not without significance, that we can see allusions to three “bowls”; or as tradition would have would be three cauldrons. Caitlin Matthew’s points to this as Knowledge, Vocation and Warming (Coire Sois, Emmae and Goirath: Three Cauldrons of Inspiration, Caitlin Matthews, from “Encyclopedia of Celtic Wisdom.”)

………………………………………………………………………………………………..

In that Earth there are gardens, paradises, animals, minerals…

Everything that is to be found on that Earth,

absolutely everything, is alive and speaks, has a life analogous

to that of every living being endowed with thought and

speech. Endowed with thought and speech, the beings there

correspond to what they are here below, with the difference

that in that celestial earth, things are permanent, imperishable,

unchangeable; their universe does not die.

Ibn Arabi

….

For it is one of their Tenets that nothing perishes, but, as the

Sun and Year, everything goes in a Circle, Lesser or

Greater, and is renewed, and refreshed in its revolutions.

As it is another that Every Body in the Creation moves,

which is a sort of life, and that nothing moves but what has

another Animal moving on it, and so on, to the utmost

minute corpuscle that is capable to be a receptacle of life

Robert Kirk

…

Here is no water but only rock

Rock and no water and the sandy road

The road winding above among the mountains

Which are mountains of rock without water

If there were water we should stop and drink

Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think

Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand

If there were only water amongst the rock

Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit

Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit

There is not even silence in the mountains

But dry sterile thunder without rain

There is not even solitude in the mountains

But red sullen faces sneer and snarl

From doors of mudcracked houses

T.S. Eliot

Above image from secret symbols of the rosicrucians

Here we The Heavenly energies and the divine magnet, pouring down into the Prima Materia. From here we travel to the mysteries again of Red and White. The Red rose of Christ and the White Lily of the Virgin Mary. We can of course continue this pattern and discus Christ’s wounds and of course Red and White roses.

But what is the Green? In Green we see Venus and Aphrodite and Copper. It is from Copper Sulphate that is once source for traditional green pigment. In the Rosicrucian mysteries we see Venus as the Light within the Earth itself. She is the source, the Spirit trapped in amber, the Goddess of Matter itself. It is not without reason we see this green repeat within the Western mysteries. We see Green prominently in several places. The Emerald Tablet of course is a well known image. A green tablet of Wisdom, found deep within the Earth. The green skin of Osiris in some depictions.. In Queen Ragnhild’s vision we see Green as the trunk and “the Glory of her reign.” Perhaps this links to the well known Arthurian axiom “ The King and the Land are One.” Thus the Body of the Tree not only is the very Kingdom, or as we know Kingdom is all manifest reality in Qabalah, it is the very person sitting on the throne and their actions as they do. Signifying that the candidate is the very land they walk upon, as touched upon briefly in “The Rose Cross and The Goddess” (Gareth Knight).

The Tree of course like the Garden is an ideal form, a paradise or Pardes (Orchard, Garden, Paradise) image. Our image above from the Secret Symbols of the Rosicrucians moves from our two flowers to the fons miraculorum. The tree, the garden and paradise. So here we begin to understand our Green circle. The intermediary between White and Red, and idealised paradisical world, the physical realm. In Dreams though we see something perhaps inherent in the human consciousness.

So the Green circle then become the doorway, gateway between the sky and land. In turn it is a doorway between the land and the paradise world and into the under realms of the Ocean (interior ocean) realms, or Chthonic.

‘From Ismarus we sailed, with heavy hearts for the loyal friends lost, though happy to have escaped death ourselves: nor would I let the curved ships leave till we had called three times in ritual to each of our luckless comrades, who died there on the plain, at the hands of the Cicones. But Zeus, the Cloud-Gatherer, stirred the north wind against our ships, in a blinding tempest, hiding the land and sea alike in cloud, while darkness swept from the sky. Headlong the ships were driven, sails torn to shreds by the force of the gale. In terror of death we lowered the masts on deck, and rowed the vessels wildly towards land.

There we stayed for two days and nights, troubled at heart with weariness and grief. But when Dawn of the lovely tresses gave birth to the third day, we upped masts, hoisted the white sails, and took our seats aboard, and the wind and helmsman kept us on course. Now I would have reached home safely, but as I was rounding Cape Malea, the north wind and waves and the ocean currents beat me away, off course, past Cythera.

For nine days I was driven by fierce winds over the teeming sea: but on the tenth we set foot on the shores of the Lotus-eaters, who eat its flowery food. On land we drew water, and my friends ate by the ships. Once we had tasted food and drink, I sent some of the men inland to discover what kind of human beings lived there: selecting two and sending a third as herald. They left at once and came upon the Lotus-eaters, who had no thought of killing my comrades, but gave them lotus to eat. Those who ate the honey-sweet lotus fruit no longer wished to bring back word to us, or sail for home. They wanted to stay with the Lotus-eaters, eating the lotus, forgetting all thoughts of return. I dragged those men back to the shore myself by force, while they wept, and bound them tight in the hollow ships, pushing them under the benches. Then I ordered my men to embark quickly on the fast craft, fearing that others would eat the lotus and forget their homes. They boarded swiftly and took their place on the benches then sitting in their rows struck the grey water with their oars.’

Homer, Odyssey, Book IX, 63-104

W. Heath Robinson – Stories from the Odyssey Told to the Children – Jeanie Lang

This image of a dreamer, laying on the ground is significant. We know Green shows us the earth, growth, regeneration within and on the land. Thus we can see in tradition the importance of the inner landscape and the Dreamers Within the land itself. The King and the Land are One is one Arthurian Axiom. Another well known Arthurian theme is that Arthur is not dead, but is asleep deep within the land itself. Traditionally under Glastonbury Tor or similar in the Celtic Anwynn or Avalon. Barinthus perhaps helped guide Arthur to Avalon after his final battle.

Who live in this idealised paradisical landscape? We can see this in several european traditions. Most notably we see the Celtic and often Norse traditions we see the “faery races.” Most notably these are detailed by the likes of Robert Kirk, William Sharpe and many others, Jim (1891-1945) and Michael (1876-1937) of County Sligo, Eire famously entered the Illuminated Landscape and thus into Faery Land. Unlike the trite images of Walt Disney though, these are more the proud races of Tolkien. Tall and majestic. But in reality we know they may be small or tall. Scottish tradition shows us short beings such as Brownies. As short as two or three feet or typically around six feet. In the writings of William Sharpe/Fiona Macleod (member of the Golden Dawn) we find the faery cities of Falias, Gorias, Finias and Murias; similar to those mentioned in poems such as the Arthurian Spoils of Anwynn.

Dreamers then besides King Arthur we know, the sacred King Sacrificed and placed into the earth for the Goddess. We see this in the Merlin Stories.At the end Merlin is taken to the Crystal cave by Vivienne/Nimue. The Faery crystal cave deep within the earth. In turn we can return to our axis mundi tree of Buddha, surrounded by “demons” points to the earth under the Bodhi tree. Of course this pattern in the early Merlin tales ends with Merlin in his Observatory of the Stars within the Forest (1) which is also significant. We see Merlin the King having faced trials, gone mad through the reality of war, eventually ends his days in contemplation. Contemplating The Land the Stars, the Goddess. For Merlin the Land is not only the King and the Land, but also the Land and the Stars. So we see from our above diagram from the Secret symbols, we see the fruits of the planet, the metals, which we can see are fruits below that reach to the fruits above.

Dreamers are found not only in the Land but in the stars, for the Crown is within the Kingdom as any Qabalist knows. Familiar dreamers of course are Sleeping Beauty and of course Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (Gnomes). It is not perhaps without merit that we see the returning motifs of the garden, the rose garden, paradise and sleepers. This we see in the Chemical wedding, Snow white and ancient stories such as Beauty and the beast (2). In the Islamic and Sufi traditions we of course see the faery races associated with trees. The rose garden in Islam is important. The gardens of figs, olives, dates and pomegranates surrounding a fountain, in which was a garden that Adam and Eve we commanded to grow roses. (3)

(1) The Vita Merlini (Life of Merlin) , Geoffrey of Monmouth.

(2) Now thought to be approx. 5000 years old

(3) PaRDeS: On the Symbolism of the Fountain & the Garden By Nigel Jackson, Sacred Web 38

Now as to Cuchulain it has to be related thus: He called upon Laeg to come to him; and “Do thou go, O Laeg!” said Cuchulain, “to the place where Emer is; and say to her that women of the fairies have come upon me, and that they have destroyed my strength; and say also to her that it goeth better with me from hour to hour, and bid her to come and seek me;” and the young man Laeg then spoke these words in order to hearten the mind of Cuchulain:

It fits not heroes lying

On sick-bed in a sickly sleep to dream:

Witches before thee flying

Of Trogach’s fiery Plain the dwellers seem:

They have beat down thy strength,

Made thee captive at length,

And in womanish folly away have they driven thee far.

Arise! no more be sickly!

Shake off the weakness by those fairies sent:

For from thee parteth quickly

Thy strength that for the chariot-chiefs was meant:

Thou crouchest, like a youth!

Art thou subdued, in truth?

Have they shaken thy prowess and deeds that were meet for the war?

Yet Labra’s power hath sent his message plain:

Rise, thou that crouchest: and be great again.

And Laeg, after that heartening, departed; and he went on until he came to the place where Emer was; and he told her of the state of Cuchulain: “Ill hath it been what thou hast done, O youth!” she said; “for although thou art known as one who dost wander in the lands where the fairies dwell; yet no virtue of healing hast thou found there and brought for the cure of thy lord. Shame upon the men of Ulster!” she said, “for they have not sought to do a great deed, and to heal him. Yet, had Conor thus been fettered; had it been Fergus who had lost his sleep, had it been Conall the Victorious to whom wounds had been dealt, Cuchulain would have saved them.” And she then sang a song, and in this fashion she sang it:

Laeg! who oft the fairy hill

Searchest, slack I find thee still;

Lovely Dechtire’s son shouldst thou

By thy zeal have healed ere now.

Ulster, though for bounties famed,

Foster-sire and friends are shamed:

None hath deemed Cuchulain worth

One full journey through the earth.

It fits not heroes lying

On sick-bed in a sickly sleep to dream:

Witches before thee flying

Of Trogach’s fiery Plain the dwellers seem:

They have beat down thy strength,

Made thee captive at length,

And in womanish folly away have they driven thee far.

Arise! no more be sickly!

Shake off the weakness by those fairies sent:

For from thee parteth quickly

Thy strength that for the chariot-chiefs was meant:

Thou crouchest, like a youth!

Art thou subdued, in truth?

Have they shaken thy prowess and deeds that were meet for the war?

Yet Labra’s power hath sent his message plain:

Rise, thou that crouchest: and be great again.

And Laeg, after that heartening, departed; and he went on until he came to the place where Emer was; and he told her of the state of Cuchulain: “Ill hath it been what thou hast done, O youth!” she said; “for although thou art known as one who dost wander in the lands where the fairies dwell; yet no virtue of healing hast thou found there and brought for the cure of thy lord. Shame upon the men of Ulster!” she said, “for they have not sought to do a great deed, and to heal him. Yet, had Conor thus been fettered; had it been Fergus who had lost his sleep, had it been Conall the Victorious to whom wounds had been dealt, Cuchulain would have saved them.” And she then sang a song, and in this fashion she sang it:

Laeg! who oft the fairy hill

Searchest, slack I find thee still;

Lovely Dechtire’s son shouldst thou

By thy zeal have healed ere now.

Ulster, though for bounties famed,

Foster-sire and friends are shamed:

None hath deemed Cuchulain worth

One full journey through the earth.

Yet, if sleep on Fergus fell,

Such that magic arts dispel,

Dechtire’s son had restless rode

Till a Druid raised that load.

Aye, had Conall come from wars,

Weak with wounds and recent scars;

All the world our Hound would scour

Till he found a healing power.

THE SICK-BED OF CUCHULAIN TRANSCRIBED FROM THE LOST YELLOW BOOK OF SLANE. By Maelmuiri mac Ceileachair into the Leabhar na h-Uidhri in the Eleventh Century.

PaRDeS, an acronym formed from the first letters of the four levels of Torah interpretation, means ‘orchard’ in Hebrew. (The English word Paradise (PaRaDiSe) is derived from the same Persian root).

http://www.chabad.org/kabbalah/article_cdo/aid/1270231/jewish/Introduction.htm

	Peshat: often inaccurately translated as literal, it comes from the root which means simple, although peshat is sometimes anything but simple! Peshat correctly means the intended, explicit meaning.
	Remez: alluded meaning (reading between the lines). Remez in modern Hebrew means hint. Traditionally, remez referred to methods such as gezera shava (equivalent language implying equivalent meaning) and gematria (word-number values)
	Derash: Homiletical or interpretative meaning. The word ‘midrash‘ is from the same root. The drash is an interpretation that is not explicit in the text.
	Sod: (lit. secret). The mystical or esoteric meaning.

 

Reflection for March 5, 2015: Being begins with physical birth and terminates with death.

Right away this signifies a refusal to recognize any kind of living away from this world, or indeed taking the least interest in supramundane affairs.

All forms of religion, mysticism, magic, or the slightest hints of spiritual states must be resolutely rejected. Being begins with physical birth and terminates with death. Provided we stay within whatever bounds have been laid out by our “people-planners” our brief lives here may not be too bad. After all, we are only animals to be eaten up by earth when we are surplus on her surface. And so forth and so forth. The principle of all this is to divert us away from inherent divinity at all costs, whether by distracting attention, screening and obscuring viewpoints, or any other likely tactic.

People who are prepared to accept materialism as a way of living offer no opposition to intended evil or very much opportunity for intended good. So long as they willingly remain with their noses firmly glued to the ground their eyes are unlikely to discover any stars. They are no threat to evil doers at all. True, they may, and often do, draw distinct lines at physical or observable ills that might be traced to chemical and allied causes, but they will cheerfully allow all kinds of much more subtle and spiritually dangerous contaminants of consciousness first because they do not believe these have any reality, and then because they suppose that whatever will not respond to physical treatment can scarcely be much of a menace in a totally material world. The more humans who can be held as relatively happy captives of entirely greater opportunities earth bound environments, they occur for dedicated evil doers to operate on levels rather above the heads of those who refuse to up lift themselves beyond bodily bounds. In addition, if evil is intelligently presented as socially or economically expedient, it is incredible what materialists will not only accept, but actively insist upon. Perhaps the worst evil possible among materialists is to become convinced there is no such principle as evil at all. It has been said that the devil being the “father of lies”, his greatest deception has been to disguise himself from humanity altogether.

At all events, materialism might positively be marked up as a high major score for the “baddies” of life, whether incarnate or not. At a stroke, it reduces any serious opposition to their intentions right down to minimum. It may not provide over whelming possibilities of profit, but it does at least afford a definite work able basis in this world for whatever worst might be coming to it. By clever use of the powerful coercion compulsion persuaders to discourage man from seeing his divine spiritual heritage, humanity may remain condemned to the eventual extinction of all who refuse to rise above their material marks.

–W G Gray ( Exorcizing the Tree of Evil )

 

Reflection for October 10th, 2014: A projection of the human mind

Even if I walk in the light, I am not the light.

Even if I am a taut stringed lute, I am not the lute player

—Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī

Seeing Michael Dowd give a discussion on his work to prevent the catastrophe of global climate change was interesting. He appeared at my local Unitarian Universalism church. Dowd outlined a “new” movement where people of all faiths are coming together with Science and scientists to discuss and hopefully combat climate change.

Religious naturalism is an approach to spirituality that is devoid of supernaturalism. The focus is on the religious attributes of the universe/nature, the understanding of it and our response to it (interpretive, spiritual and moral). These provide for the development of an eco-morality. Although it has an ancient heritage in many philosophical cultures, this modern movement is currently not well defined. Theistic or nontheistic religious naturalism is a basic theological perspective of liberal religion and religious humanism, according to some sources.

Religious naturalism is concerned about the meaning of life, but it is equally interested in living daily life in a rational, happy way. An alternative, more anthropocentric approach, is to look at it as answering the question: “What is the meaning of one’s life and does it have a purpose?” It is an approach to understanding the natural world in a religious way and does not offer a detailed system of beliefs or rituals. Religious naturalism also attempts to amalgamate the scientific examination of reality with the subjective sensory experiences of spirituality and aesthetics. As such, it is a combination of objectivity with religious emotional feelings and the aesthetic insights supplied by art, music and literature. It is a promising form of contemporary religious ethics and pluralism responding to the challenges of late modern religious transformations and ecological peril. In so doing, it is emerging as an increasingly plausible and potentially rewarding form of religious moral life consistent with the insights of the natural sciences.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_naturalism

This is a very adimarable goal. I enjoyed Dowd’s talk, until he started discussing Humanism. Dowd himself and his wife, Connie Barlow, are partners and Co authors. Both have spent more than a decade on the road discussing their views, books and the problem of the scientific community in our modern lives.

Dowd himself admits he is a preacher, an ordained minister. Connie is described as an author of “popular science” books. Popular science books, the term doesn’t bode well.

Dowd outlined the need to view reality with reverence and the physical as sacred.

…….

The outer world of earthly existence corresponds in all its details to the inner world of man’s soul, and there is a similar correspondence between the Garden of the Heart and the Garden of the Soul, but these are only two particular  instances of the general truth that all the different domains in the Universe correspond to each other in that each is an image of the Universe itself. 

–Martin Lings, THE SYMBOL

QVOD SVPERIVS EST EST EST SICVT ID QVOD INFERIVS
(“The top is like the below”)

MACROPROSOPVS – Macrocosm

MICROPROSOPVS – Microcosm

Now, this is great. Of course reality is sacred as is the very ground beneath my feet. Dowd admirably preaches and teaches a philosophy of reality as sacred. Hardly news to me or anyone with an ounce of sanity, in my opinion.

For Dowd, reality, or God as he interchangeably calls or labels things, is sacred and must be treated as such. Reverence for all, in order to prevent climate change… Dowd outlines this by dismissing God, destroying any notion of the supernatural and proposes that observation is our savior and will enable the unification of science and religion. Of course this is overly simplistic and not something I could get behind.

Not that scientific and aesthetic understanding is not necessary –but it should do its work faithfully and immerse itself and disappear in the truth of the relation which surpasses understanding and embraces what is understandable.

–Martin Buber (I And Thou)

By discarding the divine for:

“reality” is divine, but only that which is
” observable” we are being dishonest. By dishonest that is, to me it is dishonest.

Observation only works due to assumptions.

Assumptions include a shared language, for example if we are discussing chickens it is assumed we are discussing chickens that all have two legs and two wings, in reality what if the chicken is deformed? In a real sense this means we are assuming like and like. We are assuming that 1 (chicken) plus 1 (chicken) is 2 (chickens)…. Assuming that both chickens are equal. Which in the real world they would not be.

Observation only works due to an agreed upon yardstick. To quote Dowd

“You don’t have to believe in the sea, it’s just there.”
No, you are wrong Mr Dowd. The sea is only the sea because we agree it is the sea. If we measured using an electromagnetic measuring device, for example, we may have problems separating the sea from nearby rivers. In turn, if we change our yard stick a drop of rainwater is the sea. Benoit Mandelbrot demonstrates this in his essay on the coastline of Britain, demonstrating it is of infinite length, measuring from rocks, stones, sand… atoms etc.

The work of Werner Karl Heisenberg famously explored the problem of light being a particle and a wave, though I understand to some modern physicists the solution is that it’s a wave. At the subatomic level we can only measure where something is or its velocity, not both. To summarize Heisenberg we can simply say the
“observed and observer are inseparable ”

This means any observation is a compromise as it is fully changed by being observed. People may counter this by saying this is only at the subatomic level. Again though, it depends on our yard stick. There are numerous ways and means that demonstrate this phenomenon of the inseparable nature of observation. In the end, it is just a complex way if stating observation is dependent upon perspective and perception. For example if we only studied the sky at night we could learn many things, during the day, yet other things, at both times we observe the sky.

Every experiment destroys some of the knowledge of the system

which was obtained by previous experiments.

“Critique of the Physical Concepts of the Corpuscular Theory” in The Physical Principles of the Quantum Theory (1930) as translated by Carl Eckhart and Frank C. Hoyt, p. 20; also in “The Uncertainty Principle” in The World of Mathematics : A Small Library of the Literature of Mathematics (1956) by James Roy Newman, p. 105

This isnt to mention other things like Godel’s incompleteness theorem, that demonstrates that the only logical conclusion of logic is that logic doesn’t work.

A statement sometimes known as Gödel’s second incompleteness theorem states that if number theory is consistent, then a proof of this fact does not exist using the methods of first-order predicate calculus. Stated more colloquially, any formal system that is interesting enough to formulate its own consistency can prove its own consistency iff it is inconsistent.

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/GoedelsIncompletenessTheorem.html

At a basic level, if we started to discuss Star Wars with a dog, the dog would not understand who Darth Vader is…. sadly humanists are assuming that through observation we can understand reality, just as a dog can one day discuss Luke Skywalker. Uh, no….

But the cult of the intellect knows no bounds.

The point where we seperate from our origins…or the divine/God.

It is this type of world along with its overriding orientation and pursuits which we have destroyed. Our society is man-made, not a divine order. It is one in fact which represents a projection of the human mind that has cut its links with the divine and with the earth; and in so far that it has any ideals these are purely temporal and finite and concern only the terrestrial welfare of its members.

–Philip Sherrard, MODERN SCIENCE AND THE DEHUMANIZATION OF MAN.

To a humanist mindset and many other similar groups (notably modern scientific pantheists for example) throwing out the divine makes perfect sense. If logic, observation, bar charts and other intellectual tools won’t cover reality then anything else is garbage, to the humanist (collectively humanists but each and every group with this mindset).

I am reminded by the recent book/TV show where Stephen Hawkins disproves God. All these groups seem to have one thing in common, an overly simplified verging on puerile understanding or concept of God. The science may or may not be remarkable, advanced and inspiring, but the understanding of the sacred is childlike at best. Hawkins demonstrated this very adequately in his television appearance, in his defense I have not, nor do I intend to read his book.

If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up til he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.

–William Blake (The Marriage of Heaven and Hell)

Dowd, like Hawkins touches upon God, largely only in a puerile simplistic manner, the sky daddy playing chess. This overly simplistic image betrays a lack of perspective or genuine lack of investigation into the nature of God. As such, there is no place beyond the observable, the logical or even beyond the physical. As such we, to this modernist mindset, are merely dogs learning about Star Wars, one day able through language and concept to discuss the finer points of Star Wars.

Of course the talk was only an hour or so long, and I have not actually read his books, so my understanding may be limited.

Language of course fails us every time. Modernists use mathematics to overcome this.

The problem with secular liberals, as distinct from traditionalist liberals and traditionalist conservatives, is that they insist on inventing reality by denying any higher truth than themselves. They deny the natural law of holistic education, including the metalaw of holistic haqq, which is to be sought heuristic ally and holistically not created by human fiat.

By claiming the source of truth they deny the essence of anything and anything, because without essence everything is relative and truth cannot exist. If everything is relavistic, there is no purpose, then the practice of human responsibilities and the corresponding and resulting human rights has no logical basis.

The denial of any reality beyond the power of personal preference is the source of all totalitarian ideologies, beginning with the liberal logic of the French Revolution, which produced Communism, Fascism, and both Zionist and Muslim Statism today, where the sovereign state or global caliphate claims divinity based on top-down political process of might makes right.

 The Metalaw of Holistic Haqq: Toward a Just Third Way beyond Capitalism and Socialism in the Holy Land
by Robert Dickson Crane

….

In conclusion, Dowd and other humanists make giant compromises. Dowd does however stress the urgency of climate change. His concepts work for the ignorant i.e. those expecting the rapture, denying evolution, biblical aging of the planet and other ridiculous literalisms that demonstrate once again observer and observed change things; as literalisms as found in modern times, never existed in the ancient world. However, Dowd is educating the small of understanding, the ones that arguably need to be spoon fed understanding. His goals are also good ones. However, I don’t agree with all his political leanings. Sadly, I think Dowd’s allusions fit well at my church amongst the right people (which may or may not be a good thing depending on your perspective). I enjoyed his conclusions i.e. live in harmony with the earth or die, it is not all doom and gloom, we may do better in regards to combating climate change.

                       .

…

 

Reflection for October 9th, 2014: our own self image.

yet the crisis itself is not first of all an ecological crisis. It is not first of all a
crisis concerning our environment. It is first of all a crisis concerning the way we think. We are treating our planet in an inhuman, God-forsaken manner because we see things in an inhuman and God-forsaken way. How we see the world depends above all upon how we see ourselves. Our model of the universe – our worldview – is based upon the model we have of ourselves, upon our own self image. Unless our own evaluation of ourselves, and of what constitutes the true nature of our being, changes, the way we treat the world around us will not change either. The industrial and technological inferno we have produced around us, and by means of which we are now devastating our world, is not something that has come about accidentally. On the contrary, it is a direct consequence
of our allowing ourselves to be dominated by a certain paradigm of thought that impels us to look upon ourselves as little more than two-legged animals whose destiny and needs can best be fulfilled through the pursuit of social, political and economic self-interest. And to correspond with this self-image we have invented a worldview in which nature is seen as an impersonal commodity, a soulless source of food, raw materials, wealth,
power and so on, which we think we are entitled to abuse by means of any scientific and mechanical technique we can devise and produce, in order to satisfy our self-interest. Having in our own minds de-sanctified ourselves, we have de-sanctified nature as well.

Our contemporary secular scientific mentality goes hand-in-hand with a
corresponding and increased erosion in us of the sense of the sacred. We do not have any respect, let alone reverence, for the world of nature because we do not fundamentally have any respect, let alone reverence, for ourselves. It is because we have lost the sense of our own reality that we have lost the sense of every other reality as well. It is because we cripple and mutilate ourselves that we cripple and mutilate everything else as well. Our contemporary crisis is really our own depravity writ large.

So the only real answer to this crisis is to stop depraving ourselves. It is to
recover a sense of our true identity and dignity, of our creation in the image of God, of our self image as sacred beings. Once we repossess a sense of our own holiness, we will recover a sense of the holiness of the world about us as well and we will then act towards the world about us with the awe and humility that we should possess when we enter a sacred shrine, a temple of love and beauty in which we are to worship and adore the Creator. Without a sense of the holy – that everything that lives is holy – and without
humility towards the whole – towards man, towards nature and to God Himself Who is beyond both man and nature, their transcendent source and origin – we will simply proceed headlong along the course to self-destruction to which we are now committed and which is our own choosing and for which we are entirely responsible.

Philip Sherrard (1922-1995)
(The Rape of Man & Nature: An Inquiry Into the Origins and Consequences of Modern Science)

 

Reflection for september 11, 2014: The process of secularization of the microcosm

There are practically no athiests among traditional farmers, even in England –a country whose main “intellectual” export right now is atheism. Also in a country like France, which is known for its secularism, where only 11% of people go to church and 40% of people are agnostics and atheists, if you were to go to the French countryside and talk to a farmer who produces that wonderful French cheese you eat for lunch, there are hardly any athiests among them. To do something that is close to God’s world is to participate in a sense in things which are natural, and thereby to circumvent the illusion of the absence of God which the modern world has created, an illusion upon which the modern world is based.

–Seyyed Hossein Nasr

The process of secularization of the microcosm resulted in one impoverishment after another of the human reality. First, the depletion of the angelic content of the microcosm helped transform the three dimensional traditional man into the two dimensional modern man. Since traditional psychology is closely related to angelology the transformation resulted in the disappearance of the idea of the soul from modern science wheras its reality at various ontological levels was affirmed in the traditional sciences. Not only that, the soul served as a key scientific concept in traditional sciences. For example, in Islamic science, we encounter the development of scientific concepts of plant, animal, rational and even universal souls. Second, the human reality became further reduced when two-dimensional man comprising body and mind was transformed into a living organism with a mechanistic body and mind largely determined by the brain. Mechanization of the human body was only one side of the coin of mechanization of the cosmos, the other being the better known mechanization of the macrocosm. The reduction of human reality reached its extreme end when every aspect and dimension of it, including consciousness, is visualized as being entirely determined by matter and physical processes.

–Osman Bakar (From secular science to sacred science: The need for a transformation, sacred web 33)

The traditional man is defined by its three essential components, namely body, soul and spirit. In the constitution of modern man the combined reality of soul and spirit has shrunk to what is called mind, a fused reality without a sacred meaning and significance.

 

Reflection for january 16, 2014: Cruelty is only possible as a calculated discharge of destructive energy

Just in case there are those who refuse to be caught forever by ugliness and seek some alternative, the evil of cruelty makes its claims. Cruelty is something we recognize so easily as a physical activity, yet find so hard to identify in its finer but no less dangerous forms. It is essentially an intentional misuse of power by a strong entity toward a weaker one on the same plant’ of action. For instance, a helpless cripple could scarcely be physically cruel to a strong and healthy person, yet could very well be diabolically cruel mentally to the same person if he were intellectually vulnerable. Cruelty is only possible as a calculated discharge of destructive energy directed at feebler creature unlikely to retaliate effectively. Thus cruelty automatically implies cowardice as well.The motivation of cruelty is commonly again the artificial ego-enlargement resultant from its practice. It makes the little boy feel bigger when he kicks his baby brother. If we can make others frightened of us we seem larger by comparison to their shrinking. That is the secret of cruelty. A false sense of boost because of aggressive action which appears to avoid injurious reprisals. To hurt and kill some helpless and defenseless creature makes cruel people feel enormously powerful by contrast. They may even delude themselves for an instant that they are acting like gods. Taking their pathetic little share of life energy, they are willing to expend this on damaging the lives of weaker beings for the sake of supposing themselves more powerful than they truly are. None cry louder than such cowardly criminals when justified retribution rebounds on them. Nobody hates being hurt more than those who hurt with hate. We need not always look for evident violence in order to recognize cruelty. It is possible to be extremely cruel in the “nicest and sweetest” ways. Staging little scenes deliberately to humiliate and hurt someone’s feelings while remaining righteously on the side of conventional virtue meanwhile. With the aid of a little intelligence people can contrive all sorts of cruelties yet themselves keep in the clear so far as rule books apply. Attendants in mental hospitals, for instance, have ample opportunity on these lines. So has anyone in charge of children or animals, or whoever is unable to hit back where it hurts most. Let those who think they could not be cruel examine what conscience they have within their own life-frameworks If we are still in human bodies then we are yet capable of cruelty in some degree or another. It is well to see this and convert our energies otherwise as we can. –William G. Gray (Exorcizing the Tree of Evil)

 

Reflection for January 15, 2014:Families work the same way; no person is completely separate

If only this did not relate to numerous people in my life at the moment… lol oh well, can’t change them, when it is their own internal battle, their own lack. A baby will eventually soil it’s diapers, a hateful, spiteful, ungrateful, manipulative personage will soil their diaper too…although as they are so oblivious they’ll probably sit in their own feces and not notice the difference…..

Sometimes kitty’s are so honest… at least their malice is only over kibble, belly rubs and how much wool you dangle in front of their face….
……………………………………………………………………………….

We and God are not two separate existences; therefore the will of God is also our own will. If we want to change, then God will not stop us from changing. The poet Nguyen Du put it like this:
“When necessary, the heavens will not stand in the way of humans.
The result of past actions can be lifted,
future causes and conditions can be created.”
The real question is, do we want to change or not?

Do we want to hold on to the lure of suffering and let our minds wander around in dreams? If in your heart you want to change, then whatever spiritual being you believe in will also be happy for you to change.

Families work the same way; no person is completely separate. If the son or daughter changes, then the father and mother will also change. If the energy arises from the son or daughter and effects a change in them first, then it will also produce a change in the heart of the father and mother some time later. Families are not made up of completely separate entities. Even if God has predisposed things to be a certain way, we can still change because, as the Bible says, “we are children of God” (I John 3:2).

What is the relationship between the creator and the creature? One has the ability to create and the other is what is created. If they are connected to each other then we can talk about them as subject and object. If they are not connected to each other, how can we call them subject and object? The subject that creates is God; the object created is the universe in which we live. Between the subject and the object there is a close relationship, just as there is a close relationship between left and right, night and day, satisfaction and hunger; just as, according to the law of reflection, the perceiver and the perceived have a very close link.

When the angle of incidence changes, the angle of reflection will change immediately. What we call the will of God is linked to our own will. That is why the retribution of our past actions can be changed.

— Thich Nhat Hanh (The Energy of Prayer: How to Deepen Your Spiritual Practice)

 

Reflection for August 7th, 2013: The greater must reveal itself to the lesser

If this metaphysical space is to be known,

such knowledge can be attained only by faith and grace,

not by ‘entering’ but by ‘being entered’

-this is so because the greater must reveal itself to the lesser.

Put differently, that which is immanently ‘Spirit’ can only be known receptively,

through its own intellective vision, and not any derivative faculty such as reason,

feeling or sensation. Reason can only discern conceptually,

at best reducing reality to a dualism of subject and object

(as in the case of Descartes) or catagorical postulate

(as in the case of Kant) or dialectic process

(as in the case of Hegel) – its ‘telos’ will tend to be utopian(as in the case of Marx),

fundamentalist( as in the cases of religious, political or secular dogmatism)

or anthropocentrically consencual (as in the case of Rousseau’s social contract);

while sensation or feeling even where elevated to

the level of empirical ‘science,’ can only discern reality as matter or as psyche,

quantitatively, thereby cutting it off from its transcendent

and qualitative roots, leading to an emphasis on hypertrophic subjectivism

(as in the case of Nietzsche), Psychologism(as in the case of Freud),

or reductive positivism(as in the cases of philosophical positivism and of scientism).

That which transcends us cannot be known reductively

but only by that transcendent faculty which is immanent in us-which in

Tradition is termed the ‘Intellect’

or the Self-knowing Spirit. To know is to discern BEING.

We must empty ourselves or our ‘self’ in order to know who we ARE.

We must return to the sacred emptiness of the space that is our

ontological core in order to know that which truly IS.

–M Ali Lakhani (the Distance between us, found in Sacred Web issue 31)

 

Reflection for May 30, 2013: At the borders of speech

It is precisely the challenge involved

in using inadequate words

that drives the mind

beyond all words…

At the borders of speech

we open ourselves

to the positive value of silence….

Literary reading,

through its complexity, its music,

its suggestiveness, points to a fuller realm of being.

–Edward k Kaplan (citing Abraham Joshua Heschel)