» humility The Spiral Path

09 Aug 2012

RS22: Freedom and Slavery

“If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have certainty, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I many boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own ways. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends” (1 Cor 13: 1 – 8a). This short passage, long attributed to Paul, is so unlike Paul’s teachings and is so resonant with Jesus’ teachings (especially as seen in the Gospel of Thomas), it’s amazing Paul still gets the credit. Shown here are the Pyramids at Giza, photo credit Historylink101.com (Egyptian Picture Gallery).

A: Last time you said Paul’s religious masters feared contamination by the forces of chaos. You then defined the forces of chaos as the forces of Love and All Things Feminine. My first thought was to ask about the reaction from Christians who insist that Paul speaks eloquently about Love. Then I remembered that you yourself wrote the famous ode to love in First Corinthians 13. I also remembered the academic papers I’d read about the meaning of the word “love” (aheb in Hebrew) in Second Temple Judaism. At that time “loving God” meant “obeying God” rather than “liking God” or “being in relationship with God.” Love for God was a duty, a contractual obligation, a way for human beings to hold up their end of the bargain with God.

Why did Paul talk so much about love (agape in the Greek) if he didn’t believe in love?

J: Paul was not a man who was capable of love. What he meant by love was something much closer to the mindset you and I have defined as humility — turning yourself into an empty vessel — an obedient vessel — so you can properly receive Paul’s authority.

A: He doesn’t use the word “humility” in his letters.

J: No. He uses the words “weakness” and “foolishness.” But it’s still humility.

A: The meaning is the same.

J: Paul didn’t believe at all in the concept of love as I understood love. He believed in obedience. In orderly, obedient communities. In pyramids of mystical power where the people at the bottom of the pyramid “knew their place” and obeyed those who were higher up in rank and authority and supported them in their “great mission.” But he doesn’t use the word “pyramid.” He uses the metaphor of the body — the one body in Christ. Christ is the head. All the members of the community are part of this one body, which makes sense from a practical viewpoint, because a body can move more swiftly if it has two healthy feet. But make no mistake — the feet are still at the bottom of this pyramid of power. So slaves are loved in Paul’s community because they help bring order and stability to the community. But they’re still slaves.

A: Christians today read Paul’s speech about the one body (1 Cor 12: 12-31) as a rejection of hierarchical values in Hellenistic culture. But you’re saying it’s not a rejection.

J: It’s a different understanding of hierarchy. For Paul, it’s a superior understanding of hierarchy. It’s an attempt to reveal the real truth about hierarchy, the real mystical underpinnings of hierarchy that exist within all the worlds of Heaven. It’s Paul’s attempt to bring “the one true” hierarchy into the corrupt world. Again, alchemy. An attempt to bring order and harmony into the corrupt physical world by controlling the powers of chaos. An attempt to corral the behaviour of everybody so they’ll fit properly within the pyramid of power that Paul and his religious masters are trying to build.

A: When you say they’ll fit properly, how do you mean that? Do you mean that figuratively?

J: No. I mean that literally. Don’t forget — “The One True Religion” Paul was commissioned to spread was about 3,000 years old by the time Paul came on the scene. This group had already spent 3,000 years researching and experimenting with different ways to acquire power. Their early attempts were focussed on external tools — projects such as the Pyramids of Giza and subsequent wonders of the ancient world. Eventually, though, they noticed they were having problems with other people’s brains. People had an annoying habit of trying to find freedom for themselves and their families. Then they wouldn’t behave!

The Seekers of the Rock decided that all those busy human minds that were always getting in the way of the group’s goals were nothing more than fractured little bits of the universal Order and Perfection that Spirit had already created in pure form for the higher levels of Heaven. Order and Perfection were envisaged as a pyramid of perfect, exquisite, divine geometry. Each of the four sides at the base of the pyramid represented one of the immutable Divine Laws (as this group understood them). One side — the north side — represented vengeance — in other words, the Divine Right to punish lawbreakers. The south side represented knowledge — the Divine Right to control all knowledge. The west side represented “mass” — great weight, strength, force, inertia — or the Divine Right to build great armies to seize what was rightfully its own. The east side represented sacrifice — the Divine Right to demand sacrifice for purposes that cannot be understood by mortal minds.

The Seekers believed that if communities of believers could be gathered together in accordance with these four main principles, they could literally create a metaphysical pyramid that would be pleasing to Spirit. But, as with a physical pyramid built of carefully cut stones, a mystical pyramid can only be strong and whole and worthy of Spirit’s approval if each “stone” is properly placed in relation to neighbouring stones. The pyramid is built of many smaller stones. So all the stones are necessary if the pyramid is to achieve its purpose. If you remove some of the stones at the bottom, the whole construct might topple.

A: So, for Paul, slaves are like the stones at the bottom.

J (nodding): When the slaves know their proper place, and stay where they’ve been placed at the bottom of the pyramid, the Divine Rights of Vengeance, Knowledge, Strength, and Sacrifice will remain in balance, and Order is achievable. But if the slaves dare step outside the bounds of the pyramid and into the frightening world of chaos that lies beyond, Spirit will have no choice but to exercise its Rights. That’s when you get divine actions like the Great Flood. It’s a simple matter of cause and effect.

A: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

J: As I said, this bunch saw themselves as scientists in pursuit of order and harmony. Their relentless attacks on free will were highly logical, if completely inhumane. From their twisted perspective, they were “saving” the slaves from the dire consequences of their foolish desire for freedom. They were acting in the best interests of the group as a whole. “We’re doing this for your own good. This hurts us more than it hurts you. One day you’ll thank us for this.”

A: Something tells me Paul’s rhetoric on “freedom” is not what it appears to be.

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Posted in anagogic mysticism, Divine Love, First Corinthians, free will, Gnosticism, HDM Myths, humility, Mother God, mysticism, Paul vs Jesus, Paul's teachings, Realspiritik, slavery, spiritual ascent and tagged Paul vs Jesus | Leave a Comment

23 May 2012

TBM39: The Perverting of Gratitude

Of all the spiritual practices that have been endorsed over the centuries by spiritual and religious leaders, the one that’s been twisted almost beyond recognition is the practice of gratitude.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m NOT saying that gratitude is a bad thing. In fact, gratitude as it’s practised by the soul is as important as breathing.

I’m saying that gratitude is so important to the hearts of regular people that bully after bully, tyrant after tyrant, has taken advantage of this deep need and twisted it — perverted it — to satisfy the status cravings of the tyrants.

Hence, we have a long history of psychopaths telling us things like this:

“You should be grateful I’ve given you the chance to die as a slave. These Pyramids are a tribute to the gods, and the gods will reward us for our obedience to their wishes. I’ve given you a chance to be worthy before you die.”

“You should be grateful you’re one of the Chosen People. These bloodlines are a tribute to the gods, and the gods will reward us for our obedience to their wishes. I’ve given you a chance to rule over the world.”

“You should be grateful you’ve been saved by Jesus Christ. These sacraments are a tribute to God, and God will reward us for our obedience to his wishes. I’ve given you a chance to be saved in the End Times.”

And on a more personal level . . .

“You should be grateful for my superiority, woman. Without men, without me, you’d be nothing.”

“You should be grateful to have a job with my company. Without me, you’d be nothing.”

“You should be grateful for the gift of God’s grace. Without it, you’d be nothing.”

Needless to say, this is not what the soul means by gratitude.

There are countless examples of the perverting of gratitude in all cultures and time periods. No culture and no religious tradition is exempt from the tendency among status-addicted psychopaths to seize upon a person’s heart and suck up the gratitude like a vampire drinking from a straw. This is why so many religions start out as an expression of faith and end up as a form of worship. Worship is the perverted form of gratitude.

Despite the plethora of examples to choose from, the one that stands out for me as a sort of “symbol” or “archetype” of how NOT to do gratitude is the biblical tale of Abraham and Isaac (Genesis 21:1 – 22:19). It’s pretty tricky to come out and tell the truth about a biblical tale that billions of Jews, Christians, and Muslims hold dear, but I gotta say — this one biblical lesson has been used over the centuries to justify more crimes against humanity than we’ll ever know.

The writers (more accurately, the redactors) of the book of Genesis want us to accept a number of claims about the proper way to be in relationship with God. Despite the fact that Genesis was probably collated and redacted in the last part of the 3rd century BCE in Alexandria, Egypt,* the writers were very modern, very astute, in their understanding of human nature. They were not naive. They were not poorly educated. They were not simply misguided. They knew exactly what they were doing.

What they were doing was taking the ancient texts of early Judaism — such as the codes of ethical conduct that now appear in Exodus — and creating a mythical “back-story” to make Jewish teachings more appealing to a “modern,” post-Alexandrian, Greek speaking Ptolemaic empire. It’s no accident that, in the Book of Genesis, God gives Abraham and his descendants the rightful claim to all the lands “from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates” (Genesis 15:18). That’s a big hunk of choice real estate, real estate that by no coincidence Alexander the Great had already successfully conquered in the 4th century BCE (not that anyone in the Jewish canon ever breathes a word about Alexander’s conquest . . . )

I can live with megalomaniacal claims to land and territory. They’re nothing new in the history of tyrants and emperors. What I can’t live with is the claim that God would actually tell a man of faith to sacrifice both his sons for the sake of obedience to God. God would never do that, and God’s angels would never do that. To Mother Father God, the loving care of children is paramount

So first we have God telling Abraham it’s okay for him to disown and cast out his young son Ishmael, along with Ishmael’s mother, the slave Hagar. They get turfed into the desert, afraid and alone. But, hey, not to worry — they should be grateful for this abusive treatment, because God “will make a great nation of him [Ishmael].” Then we have God “testing” Abraham, telling him directly (that’s a claim for channelling, folks!) to “take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.”

So Abraham takes his son — the son he supposedly loves — to the mountain, and forces Isaac to carry the firewood up the slope, and then ties his son to the altar and raises his knife with every intention of killing him as a sacrifice to God.

Firewood (c) JAT 2014: Is this really the kind of symbol we should be using if we want to be in relationship with God?

Is this really the kind of symbol we should be using if we want to be in relationship with God? Photo credit JAT 2014.

Okaaaaaaaaaay. Let’s stop right there Let’s not go on to the next part of the story, the part where an angel of the Lord intervenes and tells Abraham not to harm the boy. Let’s just think for a minute about the first part, the part where Abraham actually believes God has told him it’s okay to scare the living shit out of a vulnerable, trusting child. The part where Isaac is lying on the altar and it finally dawns on him that his father is going to murder him. The part where Isaac experiences all the precipitating factors for lifetime post-traumatic stress order, not to mention a lifetime inability to ever trust his father’s love or integrity again. What, you think Isaac’s gonna forget something like that?

Ah, but we’re not supposed to be asking questions like that, are we? We’re not supposed to be asking questions about Ishmael’s or Isaac’s feelings or their brain health. Instead, we’re supposed to be saying to ourselves, “Who am I to withhold anything from God’s messengers if Abraham, our chosen forefather, did not withhold his only son from God?” (Never mind the fact that Abraham clearly had two sons, not one.)

The editors of Genesis and several chunks of the New Testament want us to be saying to ourselves that obedience to God’s messengers (the prophets, priests, and eventually the Apostles) trumps everything, even charity and compassion towards our own children. Proper sacrifice to God demands, well, sacrifice. After all, sacrifice and gratitude go hand in hand. Don’t they? You’re grateful to God for the blessings in your life, so obviously you want to give God a sacrifice — something tangible, something that takes money or goods or food away from you and your family, or maybe something that takes away your health and your children’s health — but the main thing is you must willingly put a sacrifice on the altar so you can prove your humility.

‘Cause, yeah, it’s . . . like . . . a totally crazy idea that you could just say thank you to God with all your heart and all your mind and all soul and all your strength, and that God would find your genuine gratitude a good enough response.

I’m certainly not the first person to point fingers at the horribleness of the Abraham-and-Isaac “wisdom teaching,” and I hope I won’t be the last. It’s just the stupidest idea imaginable to believe that God (who created billions and billions of galaxies) would actually want you to say thank you by abusing, enslaving, or humiliating your children. If you really want to show God how grateful you are, you can start by treating children well.

Jesus knew all this. Good luck finding any reverence for Abraham in the original teachings of Jesus (as witnessed in the Gospel of Mark and parts of the Letter of James).

The Sacred Spring at the Roman Baths, Bath, England. Photo credit JAT 2023.

Jesus once said (in writing!) you can’t expect a spring to pour both fresh and brackish water from the same opening (James 3:11). He said it this way because in a dry and arid terrain (such as Judea) fresh water is synonymous with genuine gratitude. It’s the source of life and healing, a blessing not to be taken for granted. Brackish water is synonymous with ill health and disease, and, by extension, diseases of human nature such as hypocrisy and deceit.

Just as you can’t expect a spring to give both fresh and mouldy water at the same time, you can’t expect to find the truth about relationship with God in the midst of a story about abuse, self-aggrandizement, and forcing somebody to submit to sacrifice.

Pick one — fresh or brackish. Then be honest about your choice. Pick either gratitude or worship — but not both, because they’re mutually exclusive.

This means you have to decide whether you can live without entertainment news (worship of status addicted stars) and professional sports scores (also worship of status addicted stars).

Just don’t pretend you’re so grateful for these people (e.g. famous pop stars) that you can’t imagine living without them. This isn’t gratitude. It’s plain ol’ status addiction wrapped up in a pretty package of fakey-fakey gratitude.

Tough words. But necessary to understand if you want to find and stay on the Spiral Path.

Good news, though — you don’t have to give up the songs or the films or the sports activities that inspire and encourage you. You just have to give up the worship!

* For more on the history of the writing of Genesis, please see the post entitled “The Book of Genesis.”

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Posted in Bible, Book of Genesis, gratitude, humility, Letter of James, psychopathy, psychopathy (niceness), relationship with God, spiritual practices, status addiction, The Blonde Mystic, worship and tagged science & faith, spiritual practice in the 3rd millennium | Leave a Comment

13 Mar 2012

TBM27: Prayers Your Angels Will Refuse to Answer

Last time I said I’d talk about some of the ways in which your angels can help you. Many readers are not going to like this post.

Before you can understand the ways in which your angels can help you, you need to spend some time thinking about the ways in which your angels cannot help you.

This statement in itself will shock some people, because we’ve all been told again and again that God can do anything for us if we ask in the right way. Hence, the many books and workshops and rituals around prayer. We’ve been conditioned to believe that prayer is a powerful form of mystical energy, as it were, a powerful form of mystical energy that can change the world if properly invoked.

Indeed, so central is prayer to the experience of conservative, evangelical, and fundamentalist Christianity that if you were to remove all the prayers from the worship services (e.g. the Anglican Book of Common Prayer), there’d be precious little left.

Which is exactly my point.

In a world where human beings are called upon to juggle the 4D needs of the soul and the 3D needs of the body in a balanced, holistic, seamless way, there’s something wrong with a religious experience that lets you off easy if you say a bunch of prayers. In most cases, you don’t even have to write the prayers yourself. You just have to copy what the prayer leader is saying!

Thutmose III offering two containers of incense to the god Amun. Reproduction from the 18th Dynasty (15th century BCE) original at Deir el-Bahri, Egypt, on display at the Royal Ontario Museum. The idea that you can open the door to God’s blessings by saying the right prayer or offering the right gift is very, very old. As Jesus tried to point out, the fact that a religious idea is old is no guarantee that it’s right.

I’ve taken university theology courses that teach prospective ministry students how to design worship services and write prayers, and believe me, there’s no great mystery involved. Ya just gotta follow the traditional prayer formulas and string together a lot of popular cliches about faith and peace and love, and, presto!, ya got yerself a pretty new prayer to recite on Sunday. Piece of cake.

The real question is, will God or your guardian angels pay any attention to you as you dutifully recite these prayers?

Well, this depends on two things. The first factor is your own personal intent or “meta-choice.”* The second factor is the relationship you already have with God. These two factors are intertwined with each other.

Maybe I should start by explaining that although I’m a practising mystic, I stopped praying to God years ago. In place of traditional prayer, I’ve learned to communicate with God.

But aren’t prayer and communication with God the same thing, you’re saying?

They’re only the same thing if (1) part of your personal meta-choice is to learn each day from your own mistakes and if (2) you have faith that God and God’s angels are going to intervene in your life whether or not you ask for help.

Prayer, as it’s traditionally understood, starts with the assumption that God hears and acts upon the words you say in prayer, but that until you actually “open your heart” by speaking the prayers, God is standing helplessly but hopefully on the other side of the divine door as he waits for you to ask.

In my rather large collection of books that contain what I feel are “toxic teachings,” I have a gem called Ten Prayers God Always Says Yes To by Anthony DeStefano (New York: Image Books/Doubleday, 2007). On the cover there’s a stamp that says, “Endorsed by the National Day of Prayer,” so right off the bat you can tell I’m going to have a problem with the content.

DeStefano outlines what he sees as the top ten questions people ask in their lives. He then offers a prayer you can use to answer each of these questions in turn.

So for the No. 1 Question — “I Wish I Could Believe” — DeStefano says you should use this prayer — “God, please show me that you exist” — again and again until “God starts to reveal himself to you (page 22).”

Says the author (pages 23-24):

“And it all starts with one simple prayer: God, please show me that you exist.

There is a beautiful nineteenth-century painting that illustrates this point well. It’s called The Light of the World. In it, Christ is shown holding a lantern, standing outside a little cottage on a dark, stormy night. He is knocking on the door of the home, waiting to be let in, but the occupant, unseen behind the door, does nothing. The figure of Christ, bathed in a golden green light, is supremely serene and looks as if he is prepared to stay outside the cottage door knocking forever. It is a striking image because of what it says about the light of truth in a dark world. But the really interesting thing about the painting is that there is a curious detail missing. If you look closely at the door of the home, you will see that there is not a knob or a latch anywhere to be found. Why? It can’t be that the artist forgot to put it in. Rather, he was making a sublime theological point: the door to the human heart can be opened only from the inside. God will never force his way in.”

Oh, let me swoon for the wonder of having a divine father who’ll stand outside knocking on a dark and stormy night because he cares whether or not I’m going to make it into heaven (page 4)! He cares what will happen to me on Judgment Day and doesn’t want me to have to go to Hell! Because he loves me sooooo much that he created all sorts of stupid things he can’t do anything about — things like Judgment Day and Atonement and angels that fall (like Satan) and Original Sin and Hell! I’m just so lucky that he cares enough to stand outside the door knocking, knocking, ever so patiently knocking!

Yeah, this sounds like Divine Love to me . . .

DeStefano thinks that after you open your heart to God, God will step through the door and into your heart. Once this happens, of course, you’ll become an instrument of God — which is Prayer No. 2 in this book. When you say repeatedly that you want God to make you an instrument (i.e. an empty vessel of service and “mercy”), what you’re actually asking for is religious humility. (Just so we’re clear on the intent of the “God, make me an instrument” prayer).

And then, because you’re now an empty vessel through whom God works, you have to use four of your “Top Ten” Prayers just to fill you up with various graces from God: “God, forgive me (No. 5). God, give me peace (No. 6). God, give me courage (no. 7). God, give me wisdom (No. 8).”

If you start your journey on the Spiral Path with the same assumptions that DeStefano advocates, you’re going to have some serious trouble understanding the messages of your own guardian angels. Why? Because angels don’t believe any of this shit. They’re operating from an entirely different set of truths, and they ain’t gonna budge on their truths, no matter how much you think they should.

Your angels know that God never enters your own core being, your own soul (i.e. “entering your heart,” as DeStefano describes it), because to do so would be a terrible violation of your own personal boundaries as a core consciousness and child of God. God is God, and you are you, and ne’er the twain shall meet. God will tap you on the shoulder. God will frequently hold your hand. God will sit beside you and talk to you for hours. God will sometimes pick you up and carry you for a while. But don’t EVER ask God to “come inside and fill you up,” because from God’s point of view this request feels like a creepy and incestuous form of contact. (Sorry to be so blunt, but you need to know what it feels like from God’s perspective, not from your status-addicted preacher’s perspective.) This is one of the few permanent rules you should keep in mind as you move forward on the Spiral Path: always treat God the Mother and God the Father in the respectful manner you’d treat your human parents. They’re your parents, not your lovers.

Your angels also know that it isn’t up to God or God’s angels to give you peace or courage or wisdom. You already have those strengths inside your core self, your own soul. Your job is not to ask to be given those things, but to ask how to remember those things which are already part of you.

(If this sounds like the plot of The Wizard of Oz, it’s because The Wizard of Oz has some timeless things to say about the spiritual journey.)

Third, your angels don’t wait for you to ask before they intervene in your life. They step in whenever and wherever they please. Why? Because they care about you, and they know it’s difficult and confusing to live as a 4D-soul-in-temporary-human-form.

If angels see a problem brewing, they don’t stand there knocking endlessly on the other side of the door (like Sheldon knocking on Penny’s door in The Big Bang Theory). I mean, what would be the good of that? Do you really want a guardian angel who stands there wringing his hands helplessly until you use the “right prayer,” the one with the “right mystical energy” that suddenly opens the door so God can walk in?

In my experience, angels don’t beat around the bush. They come right out and say what they’re thinking — even if (as is usually the case) you don’t want to hear it.

God and God’s angels are always talking. They’re a very chatty bunch, in fact. And they like to talk to each other — you know, pass along information about what you’re actually thinking and feeling instead of what you say you’re thinking and feeling.

You can fool some of the people some of the time, and a few of the people all of the time. But you can never, ever fool a guardian angel.

They always know your true intent. And they always have an opinion on your true intent. Which is a good thing, because this way they can guide you to the people and ideas and books (etc.) that can help you learn more about healing, forgiveness, and redemption.

As I said in an earlier post, angels aren’t wusses.

* For more on intent and meta-choices, see “Knowledge” Versus “Truth” and Pelagius and Personal Responsibility.

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Posted in angels (i.e. persons-of-soul), brain-soul connection, ethical mysticism, free will, humility, intent, meta-choice, prayer, spiritual practices, The Blonde Mystic and tagged Divine Heart, spiritual practice in the 3rd millennium | Leave a Comment

20 Feb 2012

TBM23: Beauty in the Home As a Spiritual Practice

Yesterday, in response to Lesson #1 in the Workbook for Students in A Course in Miracles, I got talking about chairs.

Today I’d like to talk more about “chairs,” and, in a broader sense, the importance of living in an environment that matches who you are as a soul.

The importance of living in an environment that matches who you are as a soul has been seriously underestimated by religious authorities as a source of both spiritual practice and spiritual healing.

In other words, the place where you eat and sleep and pray and live matters.

It matters a lot.

I’ve mentioned in my profile that my mother is a well-known Canadian watercolourist. But she wasn’t a watercolourist when I was growing up. When I was growing up, she was a professional interior designer, a graduate of the Ontario College of Art’s Architecture and Interior Design program. Everything in our house and everything in our small summer cottage was expected to work from a design point of view. Even the colour of the Kleenex box had to be right.

So I was raised to appreciate art and art history and fine furniture and also the museums that showcase said topics. Of course, the really expensive stuff could only be admired from afar, as my family was far from wealthy. But window-shopping at fine furniture galleries cost nothing. And if there was a piece my mother really wanted, she was prepared to save her money until she could afford to buy it. Or she would buy a piece of “junk” at an antique store and make my father refinish it, which he did often and well. (Both my parents carried the weight of Depression Era attitudes towards money and buying things.)

Still, for all my mother’s keen interest in art and design, she wasn’t really a spiritual person in a conscious sort of way, and it never occurred to her that her passion for creating balanced, harmonious environments could be considered a spiritual practice.

It was my own guardian angel who introduced me to this concept in 2002. At the time I was struggling mightily with questions about spirituality and money, asceticism and humility. I really believed I was supposed to be letting go of all my attachments to beauty, sentimentality, comfort, and safety in my own environment. Needless to say, as the daughter of an artist, and as an artist, art historian, and art conservator in my own right, I felt I was being asked to give up the very essence of my soul (which, in fact, I was being asked to do by various New Age idiot teachers).

In 2002, my ever-so-wise guardian angel conspired with other guardian angels to keep me in touch with my soul’s need for beauty and art by doing an end-run around my semi-ascetic beliefs. He told me that I would be opening a spiritual healing centre in partnership with my “spiritual mentor” Grace (of whom I’ve spoken before.) In the context of this spiritual healing centre, said he, beautiful and harmonious decor would not only be allowed by God but would be required by God as a necessary way to help put other spiritual seekers at ease.

This is how he talked me into buying the ornate piece of furniture pictured here:

Early 20th century oak cabinet (c) JAT

Now, if ever there were a piece of furniture that would not qualify as ascetic, it’s this piece. It’s made of solid oak (so it weighs a friggin’ ton), and it’s covered in beautiful carving. The foliate carvings are done in a different wood (possibly walnut, which has a much finer grain than oak and is therefore easier to carve). There are also some burled panels (which I find utterly fascinating in pattern and texture). A previous owner of the piece had removed the original dark stain and covered most of the exterior surfaces in a white-wash finish that I just love. Even better, the cabinet has lots of good storage space, making it both practical and, to my eye, strikingly beautiful.

When I first saw this piece in the dark basement of a junk shop in 2002, I’ll admit that in the first few moments my heart literally leapt with joy and excitement. Why? Because this particular piece is a perfect match for me as a soul. (Among my favourite artists are Botticelli, Gustav Klimt, and Vermeer, which explains why I’m attracted to a piece of early 20th century Art Nouveau influenced furniture.)

About five seconds after my heart first leapt with joy, my mind took over. “You need this cabinet like a hole in the head,” said my logical mind. “It’s too big,” said my mind. “It’s too fancy,” said my mind. “What will other people say?” “It’s not modest. It’s . . . it’s too . . . ” My mind stopped to grope for the right word. “Too gorgeous?” supplied my heart before I could stop it from piping up.

“Okay,” said my logical mind. “The ticket price says $600. If we can talk the owner into selling it for $500, with free delivery, we can perhaps consider it. Possibly. Maybe. But only because we need it for the foyer of the spiritual centre we’re buying. Only because it makes sense from a business point of view.”

Yeah, right. From a business point of view.

Anyway, as you can see, the cabinet came home with me, and I love it every bit as much today as I did in the first moment I saw it. It’s an important part of the spiritual space I live in — a spiritual space that helps me live a balanced, holistic life where beauty and practicality and gratitude all blend seamlessly together in a way that’s right for me.

Since 2002, I’ve rarely had this strong a reaction to a piece of furniture, but when I do, I pay attention to the sense of connection that pops into my heart. Most often, this sense of connection is all I’m going to take home with me, because I live in a small apartment and I’m on a tight budget, so there’s no room and no money for more furniture. But the sense of connection tells me more about who I am as a soul. It tells me more about my unique “likes” and “dislikes” as a child of God. It tells me more about how I can live as a human being in full relationship with God and, well, with furniture designers and wood carvers!

Furniture designers and wood carvers are no less worthy of God’s love and devotion than all the saints who’ve ever been named. I thank these artists for the lasting gift they’ve given me. Their talents are much appreciated.

Amen.

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Posted in humility, mystic, Soul, soul blueprint, spiritual practices, The Blonde Mystic and tagged spiritual practice in the 3rd millennium | Leave a Comment

13 Feb 2012

TBM21: Humbleness: Excellence Without Status

Last time, I said that “humility” and “humbleness” aren’t the same thing. So here’s my definition of humbleness:

Humbleness is your ongoing choice to feel grateful for the soul talents your neighbour has.

Cosmos (c) JAT 2014

Hmmmm . . . so . . . to unpack this a bit more, humbleness is an expression of gratitude . . . but it’s not gratitude for your own talents . . . and it’s an expression of relationship with your neighbour (because you actually have to pay attention to what your neighbour’s talents are if you’re going to feel gratitude for his/her talents) . . . and it’s kinda the opposite of envy (because it’s pretty much impossible to be truly grateful if you’re gnashing your teeth in envy) . . . and it’s kinda the opposite of worship (because as soon as you put somebody on a pedestal of worship you’re providing fuel for status addiction) and it’s kinda the same as empathy (because you can put yourself in your neighbour’s shoes and imagine how happy he/she is to have a talent to share with others) . . . and it’s kinda the same as seeing yourself as a complete and worthy person even if you don’t have the same talents as your neighbour.

So, in the end, it IS a form of gratitude for your own talents, but it’s a radically egalitarian feeling that refuses to apply adjectives like “better” or “smarter” or “more worthy of God’s love” to anyone.

It’s a form of gratitude that’s built on honesty and truth-telling. And on strong interpersonal boundaries.

Humbleness means you know exactly who you are. You know where your own boundaries start and end. You know what your talents are. You know what your talents aren’t. You use everything you are to the best of your own ability. You don’t try to “be” your neighbour because you know you aren’t your neighbour. And this is okay with you. Ideally, it’s also okay with your neighbour.

What’s really interesting about the experience of humbleness is the lack of fear you feel about going about your daily life and doing a damned good job at what you do. You lose the fear that your neighbours will envy you and try to take you down a notch or two because they believe you’re trying to “show them up.” (They may, indeed, decide to take action against you, but if this happens you understand it’s not your fault if they take offense — it’s their own fault — and you then forgive them).

Christian teachings on humility create a constant climate of judgment and tit-for-tat comparison among neighbours. The Christian bar of humility is set low — very low — and anyone who tries to exceed this “oneness of mediocrity” will be harshly accused of pride, hubris, and a lack of surrender to God’s will.

What they really mean when they say “you don’t know your place” is that you’re being a pain in the ass, and you’re showing through your own hard work and courageous conduct that the bar is set too low.

Humility breeds obedient, unquestioning doormats who believe religious propaganda about their own unworthiness. Humbleness, on the other hand, leaves no room for excuses or blaming other people for your own mistakes or sitting around on your butt while other people are doing the hard work of healing individuals, families, and communities.

Humbleness assumes you ARE worthy. Humbleness assumes that your own Soul Purpose is just as important as your neighbour’s.

Humbleness assumes that you ARE a soul — a child of God with a unique soul blueprint and a unique way of contributing to the lives of your brothers and sisters in divine love.

If you’re like most people on Planet Earth, the greatest obstacle for you on the Spiral Path will be the many myths and the many lies generated by status addiction. Status addiction and humbleness are mutually contradictory paradigms. And right now, status addiction has a much greater grip on your life than you probably realize. Please don’t judge yourself for this. We’re all in this together. We all created this problem together, so no one can fix it alone. We have to work together in teams and groups and communities to heal this massively painful issue. We need lots of teachers and mentors and healers to carry this work forward.

It’s my great hope that individuals will begin to form small groups to heal this issue using the established Twelve Step method.

Hey, look at that! The Twelve Step program is already using the humbleness paradigm!

Thank goodness for that.

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Posted in boundary issues, gratitude, humbleness, humility, Kingdom teachings, Peace Sequence, Soul, soul blueprint, soul purpose, status addiction, The Blonde Mystic and tagged Kingdom teachings | Leave a Comment

11 Feb 2012

TBM20: Definition of Status Addiction

One of the great advantages of walking the Spiral Path in fellowship with God and your guardian angels is that you’re constantly being encouraged to learn new things and meet new people. You’re constantly being encouraged to let go of belief systems that are holding you back in your quest to know your full potential as a child of God.

“Living your full potential” is another way of saying “living your soul purpose.” It’s a positive, hopeful concept, one that Jesus son of Joseph taught his own followers 2,000 years ago. Jesus described the quest to know yourself and live according to your soul purpose as “entering the kingdom of the heavens.” It’s not really God’s kingdom you’re entering (though parts of the Bible describe it as such). It’s your own little kingdom — your own little corner of God’s spiritual kitchen. It’s the truth about yourself you have to understand so you can better help other people.

The Apostle Paul hated and feared Jesus’ teachings about “the Kingdom.” He was determined to snuff out Jesus’ teachings on the nature of the soul because he (Paul) wanted to help preserve the status quo. The status quo protected the rights and privileges of the people at the top of the social pyramid — the priests, the kings, the lawmakers, and the chosen bloodlines of their families.

Things haven’t changed much since then, eh?

The danger in Jesus’ teachings was — and is — the lack of “fuel” for people who are addicted to status. By that I mean people who are physiologically addicted to status. People who are biologically addicted to status. People whose dopamine receptors and orexin receptors (to greatly simplify) respond in imbalanced ways to an ingestion of “status points.” (You can read more about this in the post called “The Corruption of Free Will Through Addiction.”)

Unfortunately, not much useable research has been done on this topic, but I’m hopeful that, in time, researchers in cross-disciplinary studies will come together to discuss the reality of status addiction from all angles: neuroscience combined with psychiatry, education theory, sociology, parenting skills, and Twelve Step programs.

Status addiction, like any other addiction disorder, isn’t a black-or-white psycho/social/medical issue but a spectrum of need. At one end of the spectrum are the people who only occasionally use the substance. Sure, they have cravings, but other factors in their lives help them keep a lid on their using.

At the other end of the spectrum are the full-blown addicts, the ones who can’t get through a few hours let alone a few days without a fix. The behaviour of a full-blown addict makes sense only to the addict himself or herself. To everyone else, the status addict’s behaviour is cruel. Lacking in empathy. Intolerant. Judgmental. Perfectionistic. Demanding. Controlling. Angry. Abusive. And in a constant state of denial.

Sound familiar? Everyone knows a person who’s chosen the path of status addiction. They’re the bullies, tyrants, narcissists, and psychopaths of the world. They’re the ones who thrive at a biological level on the idea that they’re better than other people. Better or smarter or faster or stronger. Nicer. More generous to others or more obedient to God than you. More deserving of praise, reward, health, and wealth than you.

It’s not in a status addict’s best interests to agree in principle with the idea that God doesn’t play favourites. Nor is it in a status addict’s best interests to agree in principle with the idea that human beings are responsible for their own choices, including the choice to be angry, cruel, and abusive.

Being around a status addict makes you feel as if you need a gas mask and protective armour. ((C) Image*After)

It’s important to understand that the Apostle Paul was convinced God plays favourites. Paul’s Letter to the Romans explains in gory detail who will be saved by God and who won’t (or who won’t be saved at first, anyway). For Paul, there’s no question that Christians are better than other people. There’s also no question, when you read Paul’s convoluted thesis about “Sin,” that he himself was trapped by the selfish behaviours of status addiction.

If you find all the places in Romans where Paul talks about cosmic “Sin” and replace the word “Sin” with “status addiction,” you’ll quickly realize that Paul was a man in a state of denial about his own addiction issues. He didn’t want to take responsibility for his own choices, and he was prepared to invent ever more status-soaked theologies to explain why he wasn’t responsible for the way he felt inside his own head.

I want to emphasize an important point, though. Paul knew what he was doing. He wasn’t mentally incompetent in a legal or moral or medical sense. He maintained a grip on many of his mental faculties, including his ability to write cogently and logically; his ability to manipulate and coerce others in subtle, sophisticated ways; and his ability to stay clearly focussed on tasks and goals. He wasn’t dysfunctional in the way that a person with a serious, untreated psychotic disorder is dysfunctional. He knew what he was doing and he wanted to do it so he and his followers could acquire more status points.

Paul, in fact, was so shrewd in his observations about human nature that he understood what tyrants such as Pol Pot have failed to understand. Paul understood that if you want to build a stable social structure to support the status needs of those at the top of the pyramid, you have to put an effective leash on the status-seeking behaviours of everyone, even the people at the top. Otherwise, chaos runs rampant as countless individuals seek a “hit” of status at the expense of their neighbours.

Paul’s leash is humility. And it’s as effective a scam today as it was 2,000 years ago, judging by this quote from Rick Warren’s book The Purpose-Driven Life (Rick Warren, The Purpose-Driven Life (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002)):

“Cultivating community takes humility. Self-importance, smugness, and stubborn pride destroy fellowship faster than anything else. Pride builds walls between people; humility builds bridges. Humility is the oil that smoothes and soothes relationships. That’s why the Bible says, ‘Clothe yourselves with humility toward one another.’ The proper dress for fellowship is a humble attitude.

The rest of that verse says, ‘. . . because, God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble.’ This is the other reason we need to be humble: Pride blocks God’s grace in our lives, which we must have in order to grow, change, heal, and help others. We receive God’s grace by humbly admitting that we need it. The Bible says anytime we are prideful, we are living in opposition to God! That is a foolish and dangerous way to live (page 148).”

Humility and humbleness. Are they the same thing? I argue they’re not the same. Humility is what Paul and others have taught as a leash on the selfishness of status addiction. Humbleness, on the other hand, is what Jesus taught as a tonic for the wounds caused by status addiction.

Warren says, “Humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less. Humility is thinking more of others. Humble people are so focused on serving others, they don’t think of themselves (page 148).”

Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!

(I loved the TV show Lost in Space when I was a kid.)

If you try to always think of others, and never think of your own needs, you’ll become one messed-up puppy.

I tried this whole dissolve-yourself-in-service-to-others gig for three whole years in the “middle phase” of my spiritual journey, and guess what happened? I ended up being an enabler for status-addicts.

There’s nothing a status-addict loves more than having an obedient, admiring, selfless acolyte to kick around. (Well, having a whole group of acolytes would probably be better than having just one doormat to wipe his/her feet on, but even one servant is better than none.)

Humility is not the oil that smoothes and soothes relationships. Forgiveness is the oil that smoothes and soothes relationships. Forgiveness and tough love are closely linked to each other because both require you to dredge up your own soul-given courage. Knowing yourself and trusting yourself also require great courage.

Being a doormat and an enabler of status addicts may be the easy way out, but it’s not the divine way out.

Did you know that Paul almost never discusses forgiveness in his known letters? Yeah, that’s because if you tell people they have the power within themselves to forgive themselves and each other, they may discover on their own that we’re all equally amazing children of God and nobody — but nobody — is “chosen.”

Couldn’t have that, now, could we?

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P.S. After I posted the body of this article, I was prompted by my guardian angels to look closely at the index of Rick Warren’s book. His book is divided into a preface plus 40 chapters (one chapter for each day of the “journey”). There are many footnotes. Most of the footnotes give scriptural references to support Warren’s argument, and a few refer to recent Christian publications he admires.

Of the 787 footnotes in this book, only 7 refer to the biblical Gospel of Mark (with one footnote listing 2 different verses in Mark). (There’s a ninth footnote reference to Mark, but this is for Mark 16:15, which is generally believed to be a later addition to the gospel).

The Gospel of Mark is a troublesome book for evangelical and conservative Christians because this is the story of a physician-scholar who gives up his status and breaks a lot of religious rules in order to help the poor, the disenfranchised, and the sick. It can also be called the Gospel of Forgiveness, ’cause that’s what Jesus does throughout.

As I said, it’s a troublesome book. (You can read more about the dispute between Mark and Paul at “Choosing Between Paul and Jesus,” “The Case for Mark Versus Paul,” and “Mark’s Themes of Understanding and Strength.”

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Posted in forgiveness, Gospel of Mark, humbleness, humility, Kingdom teachings, Paul vs Jesus, psychopathy, status addiction, The Blonde Mystic and tagged Jesus vs Paul, religion + mental illness | Leave a Comment

05 Feb 2012

TBM19: Soul Purpose – Your Corner of God’s Spiritual Kitchen

Rick Warren, evangelical preacher and founder of a religious empire built on the bestselling Purpose-Driven books, has stumbled onto an important truth. People want to know why they’re here on Planet Earth. They want to know what their life purpose is.

Warren’s book called The Purpose-Driven Life has apparently sold over 30 million copies.* That’s a lot of people looking for purpose.

I bought the book in 2004, shortly before I flew to Orange County, California, to participate in a Normal Brain Study. While I was there, I decided “what the heck, I’m so close, why not drive over to see Rick Warren’s church?” So I found myself, one weekday morning in December 2004, walking into his humongous building to check out the feel of the place.

My visit to Saddleback Church helped me better understand why I don’t agree with most of Warren’s teachings,** and why I particularly dislike what he says in The Purpose-Driven Life.

The blurb on the back of copy I own says this about the book: “This book will help you understand why you are alive and God’s amazing plan for you — both here and now, and for eternity. Rick Warren will guide you through a personal 40-day spiritual journey that will transform your answer to life’s most important question: What on earth am I here for? Knowing God’s purpose for creating you will reduce your stress, focus your energy, simplify your decisions, give meaning to your life, and, most, important, prepare you for eternity.”

According to Warren, you’ll find all these benefits if you understand you’re here to fulfill five main purposes. You need to know that (#1) you were planned for God’s pleasure; (#2) you were formed for God’s family; (#3) you were created to become like Christ; (#4) you were shaped for serving God; and (#5) you were made for a mission.

Well, you know, I couldn’t disagree more. This is not a recipe for finding your soul purpose. This is a recipe for finding humility, a recipe for eradicating all knowledge of your core self. This is Paul’s religious recipe, not Jesus’ recipe. (You can read more about the differences between these two sets of teachings in the Jesus Redux series of posts.)

This watercolour was painted by my mother in 1983. You’d never know from looking at this piece that she had cerebral palsy. It was mild compared to what some people face, but it made her hands shake and prevented her from participating in team sports. These things never stopped her, though. She knew from an early age that her gift was art, and she didn’t let anyone get in the way of her plans to go to art college in the 1950s (at a time when nice girls from good families didn’t do such things). As soon as she sat down at her drafting board to work on a watercolour, she had incredible control of her hands. It was through her watercolours that she was able to share a deep, calming, gentle love of beauty with others. She was lucky to find one of her life purposes.

Warren, like so many religious teachers, is adamant that you can’t get to know God by focussing on yourself or your own self-actualization: “[Y]ou cannot arrive at your life’s purpose by starting with a focus on yourself. You must begin with God, your Creator. You exist only because God wills that you exist. You were made by God for God — and until you understand that, life will never make sense. It is only in God that we discover our origin, our identity, our meaning, our purpose, our significance, and our destiny. Every other path leads to a dead end (page 18).”

See, Warren’s whole argument rests on his assumption that human beings are made by God for God’s pleasure and God’s own purpose. You don’t get a say in this. Once you stop fighting this “truth,” says Warren, you’ll find contentment.

I read this and what I hear is a man telling you to accept your lot in a life as a slave. A slave who is owned by a powerful master. A slave who exists only to serve the needs of his master (i.e. the need for worship and glory). A slave who has no rights of his/her own. A slave who should be grateful to a master who provides air to breathe and food to eat and nothing more. Amen.

Of course, the Bible says this very thing about our relationship with God in many different ways, so it’s not surprising that an evangelical Christian (who believes the Bible is God’s infallible “word”) would conclude that people are empty-vessels-waiting-to-be-filled-up-by-God. After all, this is what the Bible says — both the Old Testament and parts of the New Testament.

According to this traditional Christian view, there’s only one Spiritual Kitchen in the universe, and it belongs exclusively to God. No other kitchens exist. And no other chefs exist, either. There’s only one chef, and he needs a lot of kitchen slaves to bring him the ingredients he needs so he can make his big, fancy souffles.

God is apparently too stupid to make his own eggs and apparently too selfish and vain to share the kitchen with anyone else.

Iain standing on a chair so he can reach the kitchen sink (c) JAT 1988

Iain standing on a chair so he can reach the kitchen sink. Photo credit JAT 1989.

When my younger son was a toddler, he became enthralled with water — especially running water. He would stand on a chair at the kitchen sink while I was preparing meals and he’d play with the water from the cold water tap. He’d hold a plastic cup under the stream of water, wait for it to fill, pour out the water, and start over again. This would go on for half an hour or more. (He had a long attention span). He seemed to find it both fascinating and soothing.

It was fascinating and soothing for me, too, to see him standing there, so intent on his task, so trusting, so happy.

He was very different from his older brother (a fellow who was born to move). Early on, Iain showed a deep interest in Newtonian physics. He would discover a principle of mechanics, then test it repeatedly. “Fan on, fan off,” he would say aloud as he turned the wall fan on, then off, again and again, using the switch on the lower part of the wall. It’s amazing he didn’t burn out the fan’s motor. On the other hand, two expensive tape decks had to be taken in for repair after he pulled off the tape compartment doors in his quest to understand how the machines worked.

He could run the VCR by the time he was two.

I have little doubt that, had he lived, he would have grown up to be an engineer — maybe electrical, like his grandfather (my dad), who trained as a chemical engineer but worked for an electrical engineering firm for many years. It was there right from the beginning, our son’s true soul talent. Nobody “gave” it to him. He was born that way. He was hardwired from birth to focus on the things in the world that he recognized, that were familiar to him in the essence of his consciousness because of who he is as a child of God.

By the time Iain was born, our house was overflowing with all manner of toy vehicles — “cars and trucks and things that go” (which was also the title of a Richard Scarry book adored by our older son). But wheels weren’t on our younger son’s “soul recognition list.” He had his own list of things to learn about and share with others, things he’d “brought with him,” so to speak, because they’re part of his true soul blueprint.

People speak of the mind’s eye, but I believe we have a heart’s eye, too. In my heart’s eye, I see my little boy standing with me in the kitchen, propped up on a chair because that was the only way he could reach the tap, talking to me, listening to me, sharing his deep love of learning with me, and bringing so much love and joy into my life because he wasn’t afraid to be himself.

Our loving divine parents — God the Mother and God the Father — have a kitchen like this, only it’s really, really big because our divine family is really, really big, and there has to be a spot for everyone. Over in one corner are the kids who love to play with the kitchen pot set, and over there are the kids who have an Easy Bake Oven, and over there are the kids who love to make sticky, gooey messes while they learn, and over there are the older kids — the teens, as it were — who are helping keep an eye on their younger brothers and sisters as they stand beside the stove with Mom and Pop and learn how to safely cook with gas.

This is what our relationship with God feels like to me. This is what our relationship with ourselves feels like to me. So few adults can remember who they were as young children. So few can say with any certainty what they recognized in their early years as their own little corner of the spiritual kitchen. But you have a corner. You have a spot that belongs just to you. It’s the place in God’s creation where you feel both happiest and safest, and, at the same time, most able to give of yourself to others.

When you’re in the right place — not the place your parents tell you, not the place your status-addicted peers tell you, but the place your own soul tells you — you can begin to make a lasting difference in the world.

When you fill your cup with your soul’s own truth — your courage, your gratitude, your devotion, your trust, your forgiveness — you’ll discover you can see these truths and feel these truths and KNOW these truths in others. Including God.

As they say, water seeks its own level.

* Rick Warren, The Purpose-Driven Life (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002).
** Naturally I have no quarrel in principle with Warren’s efforts to address worldwide issues of poverty, illness, education, and environmental care. However, I disagree with his suggested methods.

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Posted in Bible, humility, relationship with God, slavery, Soul, soul blueprint, soul purpose, The Blonde Mystic and tagged Divine Heart | Leave a Comment

29 Jan 2012

TBM18: Some Thoughts on Soul Purpose

Soul purpose is one of the least discussed issues of mainstream religion and one of the most poorly understood issues for New Age teachers.

The concept of soul purpose is so deeply intertwined with Divine Love that it can’t be separated from other core spiritual values such as forgiveness, healing, courage, trust, gratitude, and devotion.

Indeed, it wouldn’t be possible for you to know courage, trust, gratitude, and devotion without your own unique “envelope” of soul purpose to hold all these blessings together inside your own consciousness.

That’s a bit of twist on your understanding of soul purpose, isn’t it?

I’ve read many different theories about soul purpose, theories that attempt to explain why you’re here on Planet Earth and what you can do about this painful reality. The core teachings of Buddhism (the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path) are devoted exclusively to the question of soul purpose, even though these teachings don’t include the word “soul.”

Traditional Christian teachings, which are founded on Paul’s theories of sin, separation from God, sacraments, and salvation, are similarly devoted exclusively to the question of soul purpose, though they never actually say so.

The honest truth is, you don’t need a religion founded on a promise of “Escape” from your own corrupted soul unless you believe in the first place that you ARE a corrupted soul.

I grew up in a household that operated according to Northern European Protestant teachings on the sinful nature of humankind and the absolute duty of every individual to crush sinful thoughts through hard work, suppression of emotions, obedience, lawfulness, and the pursuit of excellence.

So my sister and I, we always felt guilty. We weren’t quite sure why we felt so guilty, but we did, and we tried very hard to behave correctly so we wouldn’t have to feel so guilty.

In the Protestant culture I was raised in, it was assumed that individuals, including children, are not capable of generating a sense of duty and service to others — that is, a sense of soul purpose — from within. They’re not capable of finding and living a sense of soul purpose on their own. Duty must therefore be imposed from the outside by the laws and traditions of the culture, we’re told.

This assumption comes, in part, from the orthodox teachings of the Protestant Church, as expounded by men such as Martin Luther, John Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli, and John and Charles Wesley, to name a few. These men believed that human beings don’t have anything to brag about. Ever. They believed that all people are born sinful at the core, and that we as human beings can best serve God by never thinking for a moment that there’s anything good inside us that we can claim as our own. We must, according to these thinkers, take full responsibility for all the “bad” we think and do, but we are never, ever, allowed to take full responsibility for the “good” we think and do. To believe in our inner goodness would be pure hubris — a terrible violation of the laws of humility.

If you’ve been reading my other blogs, you know what I think of the Church’s traditional teachings on humility.

So it would be fair to say that the search to find your own soul purpose is the search to let go of religious humility.

It’s impossible to simultaneously live your own soul purpose AND accept religious teachings on humility (that is, intentional eradication of the self). You have to choose between wanting to learn to like and trust yourself (soul purpose) OR wanting to become “an empty vessel in service to God” (humility). The former choice will take you forward on the Spiral Path. The latter choice will derail you. But the choice is still up to you because you have free will.

When I entered graduate studies in theology in 2007, my original goal was to seek ordination in the United Church of Canada. This was before I discovered that the United Church requires its ministry candidates to choose humility.

I just can’t understand why the Church believes a minister can only be of true service to God if he or she submits to a process of eradicating the core self that is the good soul.

I can understand the Church’s desire to insist on high standards of ethical conduct in its ministers. I can understand the Church’s desire to identify and arrange treatment for addiction problems and major mental health issues. I can understand the Church’s desire for ministers to be reliable and trustworthy and empathetic and genuinely interested in serving the needs of others.

But, you know, the only way to accomplish these worthy goals is to ensure that ministerial candidates know more about themselves, not less.

And this goes for other religions, too, not just Christianity.

The inner soul of every human being is desperate to be kind, helpful, brave, polite, grateful, humble, and not addicted to status. Every. Single. Human. Being.

Young children (under the age of 2), except for those raised from the get-go in an abusive environment, are naturally and instinctively kind, helpful, brave, polite, grateful, humble, and not addicted to status.

I had to wait until I became a mother myself to see this lesson right in front of my face.

My two young sons were really nice people. Sure, they were small and physically helpless. But they were so observant. And so quick to learn. And so kind to me. And so nice.

And soon I would discover, when my younger son was diagnosed at age 2 1/2 with leukemia, that my sons were not only nice, they were trusting and courageous at a level that astounded me. That stunned me. That told me they knew something important that I didn’t — or that I’d long since forgotten.

My sons weren’t “special” or “chosen.” They were just being themselves. They were being their core selves — good souls, kind souls, loving children of God.

Unless you’ve seen for yourself the unrelenting forgiveness offered by a child who’s been trapped in a hospital isolation room for months and given searingly painful medical treatments again and again, who has suffered a massive stroke but relearns to walk anyway without complaint, who is prevented by medical protocols from playing with other children or living a normal life despite his great love for other people, you may not believe me. Until you’ve seen for yourself the courage of a 5 year old boy who gives his bone marrow to his little brother without ever complaining or doubting, you may not believe me.

But I’m telling you the truth my children told me. I’m telling you that you were born this way. I’m telling you that inside your own battered head lives a kind, helpful, brave, polite, grateful, humble, status-free angel who doesn’t need any law books or contract clauses or religious codes to know the difference between right and wrong. I’m telling you that your core self is real and can never be taken away from you. I’m telling you it’s okay for you to believe that, as a soul, you’re a person God not only loves, but that God actually likes and trusts. (Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here.)

You’re richer than you think.

From the earliest months of their lives, my two sons were completely different from each other in temperament and talent. Yet both were kind, trusting, curious, and true to their soul selves. They were my greatest teachers. Photo (c) JAT 1988.

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Posted in "4 S's", "Escape", angels (i.e. persons-of-soul), humbleness, humility, orthodox teachings about the soul, Soul, soul blueprint, soul purpose, The Blonde Mystic and tagged Divine Heart | Leave a Comment

21 Nov 2011

RS14: Balance As a Spiritual Practice

A: Last time you finished by saying there’s only one path to love and belonging, and that one path is balance. That sounds way too easy.

J: If it were easy, the vast majority of human beings would already be living lives that are full of love and belonging, but few people are. Living in the Christ Zone is a path that’s logical and clear and consistent regardless of race or gender or age, but it’s a lifelong challenge. It’s an everyday way of living, not a “one-off” experience. It’s something you have to keep working at your whole life.

A: There you go, using those annoying words like “life” and “living” again! Readers might start to get the idea that you’re promoting the radical idea of full engagement with life! Gosh, wouldn’t that be heresy? ;))

J: Orthodox Western Christianity has been preaching Escape for two thousand years. Gnostic Christianity and other forms of Gnosticism have been preaching Escape for even longer. I didn’t preach Escape. I preached compassion, forgiveness, and healing — all of which arise out of the practice of balance.

A: Hang on. You’re saying that living a life of balance is a form of spiritual practice. What Christians would call praxis?

J: You bet. And it’s the only form of spiritual practice that actually works.

A: That’s a bold statement.

J: Fortunately for me, I have science on my side. That’s more than the apophatic and anagogic mystics can say.

A: Okay. So can you try to explain why it works when other forms of spiritual practice don’t (according to you)?

J: It works because it flows with the grain of scientific law instead of against it. Traditional mystical practices have always flowed against the grain. Traditional mystical practices such as lengthy fasting, rigorous asceticism, intentional segregation from others, self-induced or drug-induced trances, sleep deprivation, celibacy, begging for alms, withdrawal into cloistered communities, and veneration of saints are all practices that damage one or more circuits of the biological brain.

It’s a straightforward task to draw up a list of traditional spiritual practices, such as fasting, and compare this list to the needs of the Christ Zone model. Right off the bat you can see that fasting is going to seriously interfere with a person’s physiological need for ongoing nutrition to fuel the brain. Chronic sleep deprivation makes mincemeat of the brain’s circuits. Celibacy causes damage on all fronts, and impairs the functioning of the immune system. Same with asceticism. Being forced to beg for alms is an affront to one’s dignity and sense of self worth (the soul would much rather be working for a living). Intentional segregation snuffs out all hope of building on your love and belonging needs to create full, mature, transformative relationships with others. Self-induced or drug-induced trance states — including those brought on by prolonged periods of prayer, meditation, chanting, scriptural study, recitation of the Psalms, praying the Rosary, and contemplation of icons — all force the brain to divert important resources to parts of the brain that are of little or no use to people in their everyday lives.

Those who devote their daily lives to these practices are not balanced. They can’t be. It’s impossible to be balanced if you don’t choose balance on a daily basis. Balance isn’t a magical gift from God. It’s a daily choice that requires you to use all your best attributes in combination with your God-given free will. It’s a daily choice that draws upon your soul’s great courage.

The most toxic spiritual practice of all — one that’s unfortunately all too common in major world religions — is the goal of eradicating the self so one can become an empty vessel. This is the dumbest, stupidest, most dangerous practice imaginable, and I can’t state strongly enough how much we, the angels, want it to stop. But people have got it in their heads (thanks to mystics and mystery schools) that the people who have detached themselves from their own core selves are somehow more saintly, more virtuous in their spiritual devotion than regular folk. Nothing could be further from the truth.

A: So what’s the end result of these traditional practices? People join a cloistered religious community to get closer to God and end up getting farther and farther away from God because of damage to their brains?

J: Couldn’t have said it more clearly.

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Posted in "Escape", anagogic mysticism, apophatic mysticism, Christ Zone, Church of today, free will, healing, humility, Jesus' teachings, life and death, Realspiritik and tagged Kingdom teachings, Whole Brain Thinking | Leave a Comment

08 Nov 2011

RS12: How the Christ Zone Is Unwelcome in the Church

A: I think there’s a danger in posting the Christ Zone model. I think there’s a danger that many Christians will glance at it and assume this model isn’t new and isn’t different. I want to be very clear, for the record, that this model has nothing in common with the traditional teachings of orthodox Western Christianity. Many devout Christians want to believe their religion has always taught people how to live a life of balance and humbleness and self-actualization. But the truth is, it hasn’t. If Christians want to heal the church of the third millennium, and help people of faith understand more fully how to be in relationship with God, they have to be honest about the psychological abuses perpetrated within the halls of Christendom over the centuries.

Fenced (c) JAT 2014

J: Living your life according to the Christ Zone model — or, as I called it, “entering the Kingdom of the Heavens” — appeals tremendously to anyone who cherishes values such as gender equality, egalitarianism, humbleness, self-respect, and service. It should go without saying that many religious folk have been taught by their religious leaders to be suspicious of gender equality, egalitarianism, humbleness, and self-respect (though service work is usually endorsed). So let’s be honest — most conservative religious leaders do not ever want to hear about the Christ Zone model. If they had their way, they’d bury it. Permanently. It flies in the face of everything they’ve been teaching.

A: This was true 2,000 years ago when you first introduced your Kingdom teachings.

J (nodding): Here’s the problem: individuals who live their lives according to the Christ Zone model do not and will not play the “Status Addiction Game.” They have too much common sense and too much faith in God to listen to religious bullshit about Chosen People and Salvation and Sin and Special Sacraments and Atonement and Judgment Day (that is, doctrines which feed status addiction). Their brains work really well — the way God intends — and they have no tolerance for cruel or unjust treatment of anyone. They see Creation as a beautiful and good place, a place to appreciate and learn more about. They see God as a person* with feelings who cares about all beings. They’re natural-born social democrats who scoff at ideas such as special royal bloodlines. They make very poor slaves.

A: You don’t have to put metal chains on people to enslave them.

J: No. In fact, the best chains are the invisible ones. The mental and emotional chains that come with indoctrination of regular people can serve a tyrant for a lifetime. Very useful as far as a psychopath is concerned.

A: This morning I was thinking about the early 6th-century Rule of Saint Benedict (see also Humility: Vice or Virtue?). I had to read the whole Rule for one of my church history courses. This helped me pinpoint the ways in which traditional Christian monastic practice has done everything in its power to prevent individuals from feeling what it’s like to live in the Christ Zone — to prevent people from living in relationship with God. Everything about Benedict’s Rule seems almost designed to obstruct a person’s chances of balancing the four main needs of the Christ Zone model.

J: Actually, your observation is accurate. It’s an intentional design. It’s a Rule for Living that’s intentionally designed to break an individual’s sense of self and force him (or her) to be a willing and obedient slave to his master’s authority — and by “master” I don’t mean God or Christ; I mean the abbot, bishop, or land-owning aristocracy. Benedict’s Rule has nothing to do with being in relationship with God, and everything to do with crushing the human spirit so it won’t rebel against injustice.

A: Well, that’s a pretty picture!

J: I don’t want to make it sound as if Benedict “invented” this system of control through religious teachings that beats humility and obedience into people’s heads. Far from it. This method of controlling potential troublemakers through psychological means has been around for at least 5,000 years. In my time, the Essenes were the Jewish group that “rediscovered” these teachings and embraced them. But the Essenes didn’t invent this method of control. Just as Paul, when he founded a new theistic religion based on a Saviour called Jesus Christ, didn’t invent this method. Just as Paul’s orthodox followers didn’t invent the “humility and obedience” paradigm. But it’s time for Christians to be honest about this gruesome intent among early orthodox Christians. It’s time for them to recognize that the orthodox Western church has never wanted regular people to imitate the kind of life I actually lived. God forbid that anyone should be allowed to think God likes them!

A: One of my theology classmates a few years back was a devout Roman Catholic. One day in a small group discussion he asserted (with tears in his eyes) that God doesn’t need us. Not any of us. Apparently, God only needs Jesus. This is what the Roman Catholic church has taught him. And he believes it.

I was horrified. Shocked to the core.

The worst part is that millions and millions of Christians would agree with him.

J: These teachings help destroy the ability of regular people in the Christian community to seek the path of wholeness and humbleness that I found during my ministry. My heart goes out to them in their suffering. The church is abusing them — spiritually abusing them — and they’re going to keep paying the price for this abuse until they decide to walk away from it.

The good news is that you can walk away from the church’s teachings without walking away from God.

God is always with you. Whether you like it or not!

* The English language doesn’t easily allow the use of plural verbs, pronouns, and adjectives when referring to God. But when I type the word “God” I’m always thinking of two people rather than one — God the Mother and God the Father working in love together for all we know and love in Creation.

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Posted in Christ Zone, Church of today, Essenes, humbleness, humility, Jesus' teachings, Kingdom teachings, Realspiritik, relationship with God and tagged Kingdom teachings | Leave a Comment

31 May 2011

JR45: Lien or No Lien on Your Soul?

“His disciples said to him: When will the resurrection of the dead take place and when will the new world come? He said to them: What you look for has come, but you do not know it” (Gospel of Thomas 51). In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus talks often about “life” and “beginnings,” yet his sayings involving “death” are not what we typically find in eschatological or apocalyptic teachings. Rather, the sayings about “life” and “death” in Thomas seem closely related to parts of the first century CE text known as The Didache, in which “the way of life” and “the way of death” are used as metaphors for how to live a moral life in full relationship with God. In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus spends quite a bit of time and energy trying to persuade the disciples to let go of the eschatological doctrines held by the Pharisees and the Essenes at that time. Photo of my red car. Photo credit JAT 2015.

A: Last week, I bought a 2007 Pontiac to replace my 1998 Nissan, which was close to death. The Carproof report found a lien against the Pontiac — a financing lien held by Chrysler. At first I wasn’t worried. I figured the paperwork for the clearance of the lien hadn’t yet made it into the computer system at the proper government ministry. But being a thorough person, I decided to phone the ministry yesterday morning to make sure the lien had been cleared. Imagine my surprise when I discovered the lien was still attached to my car! I quickly got the problem straightened out with the dealer I bought the car from. But in the meantime I had a chance to reflect on my feelings about the lien. In Ontario, as in many other jurisdictions, a person who unwittingly buys a car or house that has a lien against it can lose the property they bought. It can be legally seized by the lien holder if the debt hasn’t been paid by the original debtor. The car you think you own outright can be towed away in the blink of an eye by the original lender. It’s a scary thought.

Anyway, I was thinking about my feelings around the lien on my car. I was noticing how upset I was at the thought that somebody could — theoretically — swoop down on my little Pontiac and take it away with no say on my part. I was thinking how I’d paid for the car in full, how I could lose all the money I’d invested (unless I were inclined to sue, which would cost me even more money). I was thinking how unfair it would be for such a thing to happen. I’d bought the car in good faith. Why should I be punished for somebody else’s mistake? Or somebody else’s willful fraud?

So I’m standing in the bathroom and I’m drying my hair so I can get ready for work and it suddenly dawns on me that the feelings I’m expressing to myself about the lien on the car are the same feelings I have about orthodox Western Christianity’s teachings on the soul. The Church teaches us there’s a lien on our souls!

J (grinning): Yes. Not a nice feeling, is it?

A: No! It totally sucks. I never noticed till yesterday how deeply, deeply unfair the church’s claims are. I knew their claims about the soul were based on the writings of Paul, Tertullian, Augustine, and so on. I knew their claims were self-serving. I knew their claims were just plain wrong in light of God’s loving and forgiving nature. But I never felt the unfairness of it before at such a deep level — at a gut level, a visceral level. It’s just wrong to tell people their soul can be taken away from them by lien-holders. It’s so . . . so . . . unfair. And cruel. It’s cruel to tell people they have to invest themselves wholly in their faith while at any time the great big tow truck in the sky could show up to haul them or their loved ones away to the fiery pits of hell. Not to pay their own debts, but to pay somebody else’s debts! Namely Adam and Eve’s debts!

J: Ah, the wages of sin.

A: Very funny. This God-and-Devil-as-lien-holders thing means that devout Christians are always looking over their shoulder, waiting for the cosmic tow truck they can’t do anything about. It makes people feel helpless. It makes them feel like slaves-in-waiting. Their soul isn’t their own. Their time isn’t their own. Their life and their choices and their free will aren’t really their own. They’re always on tenterhooks because they think they don’t fully own their own soul. This is abusive.

J: That’s why it works. From the perspective of certain members of the church hierarchy — stretching all the way back to the time of Paul and his backers — it’s an excellent strategy for gaining control of the populace. People who feel helpless and hopeless tend to cause less trouble. They ask fewer questions. They tend to do what they’re told because they’re frightened. Frightened people turn to strong leaders — in this case, church leaders. The Church is using a psychological control strategy that other groups in other cultures have used to similar effect. Paul’s teachings have been particularly successful in this regard.

The teachings of myself and other like-minded spiritual teachers are useless for this kind of psychological strategy. Totally useless. You can’t frighten people into submission if you’re actually giving them real hope. Real hope doesn’t come from words. Real hope comes from actions — from people’s ongoing choices to help their neighbours. Real hope comes from healing and relationship and dignity and change. If the early church had wanted to teach real hope, it wouldn’t have chosen the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed and the Chalcedon Creed as its operative statements of faith.

A: Ah. You mean they might have mentioned the themes of divine love, forgiveness, healing, redemption (as opposed to salvation), and egalitarianism?

J: If the bishops in the first few centuries of Christianity had spent one tenth the time on compassion that they spent on their endless arguments over the “substance” of the Trinity, medieval Europe would have been a much nicer place to live in.

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Posted in "4 S's", free will, hope, humility, Jesus Redux, life and death, occult themes, Original Sin, orthodox teachings about the soul, Paul vs Jesus, Paul's teachings, resurrection, Soul, Trinitarianism and tagged Jesus vs Paul | Leave a Comment

23 May 2011

JR42: Harold Camping’s Failed Apocalyptic Prophecy . . . Like, There’s a Surprise

A: Well, it’s May 23, and the world didn’t end two days ago as prophesied by Harold Camping and his multi-million dollar non-profit apocalyptic Christian media ministry. The 200 million people who were supposed to be taken up into heaven in the Rapture are still here. Slightly impoverished after giving their money to Camping, but still here. All is well with the universe.

J: People are easily parted from their assets once they’ve lost their common sense.

A: I read the Globe and Mail on-line. Usually when I check an article there are a few dozen readers’ comments — 40 or 50 posts at most. Yesterday, by 2:50 p.m., there were 1,052 comments attached to an article by Garance Burke (Associated Press) called “Believers confused as Judgment Day doesn’t come.” I didn’t read the comments. But I thought it was interesting that a failed prophecy from a retired civil engineer in a different country would attract so much attention.

J: People have very strong opinions about religion and religious leaders.

A: Can’t argue with you there. So let’s talk about angels instead — souls who are not currently incarnated as human beings on Planet Earth. How do you and other angels feel about apocalyptic prophesies?

J (chuckling): Isn’t this a holiday in Canada? Wouldn’t you rather be outside barbequing or something?

A: It started raining again a few minutes ago. There’s been a lot of rain and cool weather this spring. All the more reason to sit down and do some typing.

J: Well, it’ll come as no surprise to you that angels are fully aware of the kinds of things that are being said about us by religious leaders in various parts of the world. You could say we have our own clipping service.

Most people have been conditioned to believe that apocalyptic prophecy is a rare and sacred gift granted by God. Few people realize that from the point of view of God’s angels, all claims from apocalyptic human prophets look like temples — temples to the glory of narcissistic humans. Nothing good comes from prophecies about the End Times, and your angels know it. They see the fear, contempt, and justification of hatred that pour into every aspect of your life if you buy into these unloving lies about God. This is one temple where your angels will always let you fall flat on your face. Shown in this photo are remnants of the temple pediment found during excavations of the Roman Baths at Bath, England (because all good Remnants must come to an end). Photo credit JAT 2023.

A: A man like Harold Camping is giving God bad press — telling people that God is so narcissistic and selfish that “he” enthusiastically plays Russian Roulette with his own children. Do angels care about this bad press? Does God?

J: Would you be happy if the people who claim to know you went around town saying you’re a controlling, manipulative, obsessive compulsive, right wing, politically conservative, Medicare-hating, gun-loving bigot who hates gays, people of colour, and women?

A: No. I’d know they were lying, and I’d forgive them. But I’d still be hurt.

J: Same with angels. Every day in every culture these lies about God are being preached. Angels not only feel hurt on behalf of God the Mother and God the Father, but they feel hurt on behalf of the souls who speak these lies while they’re struggling with human brain dysfunction.

You can be very sure that Harold Camping’s own guardian angels are now very relieved to have the whole thing over with and the lie of his prophecy revealed for what it is — not just among his own followers, but among all those who heard about it on the daily news.

A: Camping’s angels aren’t upset that he’s been embarrassed in front of millions of people?

J: Far from it. They know he’s hurt a lot of people with his narcissistic predictions. At the same time, they know that his harmful choices emerged from his dysfunctional human brain — not from his true self, not from his soul. They forgive him, but they also have to do the right thing by him and by others. They have to allow people to see the consequences of these kinds of abusive choices. If they protect Camping from the consequences of his own choices, and if they protect his followers from their own arrogance and stupidity, how will it be possible for human beings to learn not to make these kinds of choices? Tough Love is an angel’s expression of courage, trust, and faith in the ability of human beings to live their human lives in loving ways. Divine ways. Ways that don’t prey on other people’s vulnerabilities.

A: Ooooooohhh. I can just hear the response from readers. What you’re saying about Tough Love sounds perilously close to the idea of divine punishment — an idea that many liberal and progressive Christians reject as incompatible with the idea of a loving and forgiving God.

J: I can’t help it if some individuals want to reject the possibility of Tough Love from God and God’s angels. Usually the people who are most keen to reject this belief are the ones who are most interested in NOT having to learn from their own mistakes.

A: The narcissists.

J: Religious narcissists — and there are plenty of those — employ a number of psychological defences to try to shift responsibility for their own mistakes onto other people or onto other time frames. Religious doctrines such as Original Sin, Satan, Judgment Day, and the Rapture make it possible for the narcissists to stop blaming themselves for their own choices. They can shift the blame onto “conditions” that are outside their control. “Conditions” that make it easy for them to shrug their shoulders and say — with Godfather-like equanimity — “Hey, we can’t help being who we are. One day God will make us answer for our crimes, but not today. Today we have a ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card and we plan to use it. Because we can. So screw you.”

Really, I mean, come on. Do people think God can’t hear that? Of course God can hear that. God forgives them when they say it, which is exactly what you’d expect from a loving and forgiving God. But forgiving somebody means you have faith in their true potential, their truest and most loving nature. Forgiving somebody means you don’t walk away from them when they’re in distress. Forgiving somebody means you do your best to help them better understand the choices they’re making. This usually means you have to let them experience consequences for their choices. That’s how they begin to recognize the harm caused by their abusive choices. Every loving parent knows this.

A: Loving parents also know you have to “choose your battles.” You can’t harangue your child about every little mistake, or he stops listening. You have to save your authoritative tone for the times when it really matters.

J: Guardian angels are no different. Their job is to help guide their human “foster children,” if you will, in the direction of greater compassion, greater balance, greater common sense. They have complete discretion and free will in carrying out this task. Sometimes they decide to help soften the consequences of a really poor human choice. Sometimes they decide to let the consequences build into one mega-consequence that hurts like hell. This is the reality. God has free will and angels have free will. Therefore, God and God’s angels are free to create consequences or not as they see fit. They aren’t bound by religious contract laws. Neither are they bound by laws of cause and effect. God is a heck of a lot smarter than the Law of Cause and Effect would suggest.

A: I don’t think religious narcissists actually want God to be smarter.

“His disciples questioned him: Should we fast? In what way should we pray? Should we give to charity? From which foods should we abstain? Jesus responded: Do not lie. If there is something that you hate, do not do it, for everything is revealed beneath heaven. Nothing hidden will fail to be displayed. Nothing covered will remain undisclosed (Gospel of Thomas 6).” This life-size Roman bronze hand is covered in sacred symbols — well, sacred to occult believers, anyway. It dates from 200-400 CE and was found at Caglia, Umbria, in Central Italy. It’s on display at the Royal Ontario Museum. Photo credit JAT 2017.

J: True. Then again, that’s what narcissism is all about. It’s about human beings whose brains are so dysfunctional — whether from head injury, toxic substances, stress hormones, malnutrition, sleep deprivation, lack of social and emotional supports, abusive upbringing, or lack of education — that they start trying to cope by inventing inner myths about their own wonderfulness and superiority and breathtaking talent. There’s no room within the myth for somebody else who’s smarter or faster or stronger. Even if that somebody else is God.

Of course, this is why religious narcissists rely so heavily on the theme of humility. A person of humility — as opposed to a person of humbleness — can see in a logical and practical way that it isn’t very smart to go around proclaiming to be as smart as God, if not smarter. That’s no way to recruit followers who’ll willingly give you money and tell you how wonderful you are. So you don the sackcloth of humility, and you tell everyone who’ll listen that you’re just an empty vessel waiting to be filled by Spirit, by God’s inspired Word. That’s how the world acquires its apocalyptic prophets.

A: So it’s layers upon layers. A myth of personal superiority that has to be cloaked in another myth — the myth of humility. Then, when this isn’t enough to get you the reverence you crave, you add other layers, other myths, each more convoluted than the last to explain why you deserve to be treated as “special.”

J: This is what happens when people aren’t honest with themselves about their own abilities, their own intentions, and their own unhealed anger. The lies build and build on top of each other. After a while the lies can take on an entire imaginary life of their own. Such is the case with orthodox Western Christianity. Its official doctrines are largely a body of lies. Only when individual Christians choose to help their neighbours in love rather than piety do they walk the path of genuine spirituality and faith. These are the times when their guardian angels smile.

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Posted in angels (i.e. persons-of-soul), apocalyptic prophecy, Cause & Effect, forgiveness, free will, humility, Jesus Redux, Mother and Father God, narcissism, occult themes, psychopathy, religion and mental Illness, theodicy and tagged religion + mental illness | Leave a Comment

14 Mar 2011

JR21: Saying 67 in the Gospel of Thomas

A: Okay. Here’s another pretty big question for you. Stevan Davies translates Saying 67 of the Gospel of Thomas as “Jesus said: One who knows everything else but who does not know himself knows nothing.” Was this saying central to your teachings? Was it an important theme for you?

J: Yes. I tried very hard to express this idea. I tried to express it in many different ways.

A: Similar ideas have been taught by many spiritual leaders over the centuries. In fact, it’s almost a spiritual cliche. It’s so easy to say, “One who knows everything else but who does not know himself knows nothing.” But what exactly does it mean?

J: It means you have to know who you actually are as a soul — “the core you” that’s left after you strip away all the false, damaging prejudices and religious doctrines and abusive teachings of your family and culture. It means you have to love, honour, and respect the person you are when you remove all the weeds from the garden of your biological brain. It means you have to trust that when you pull out all the weeds, there’s still going to be something left in there. You have to trust that when you pull out all the weeds, you won’t be left with a barren patch of lifeless dirt. Instead you’ll be able to see the flowers of your soul — the lilies of the field — for the first time.

Gardens of the soul (Photo credit JAT 2014)

A: I take it you’re not too fond of the image of Creation in Genesis 2:7: the Lord God forming Adam from dust and then breathing the breath of life into his nostrils so he’ll become a living being.

J: No. The Bible has many references to human beings as dirt or clay or potters’ vessels. Clay is nothing more than a kind of dirt that can be shaped, moulded according to the creator’s will. The message that’s repeated again and again is that human beings are malleable in the way that wet clay is malleable. Wet clay starts out as a lump. It can be turned into any shape imagineable (as long as the laws of physics and chemistry aren’t broken). You can make a plate. You can make a bowl. You can make a large urn. You can make a small storage container. A complex sculpture. A string of beads. Clay is like that. You can make whatever you want. Many people — pious Pauline Christians especially — believe that God intends human beings to be like clay. They believe that each person is basically a lump of malleable clay. Based on this belief, they assume that God can reshape each individual in any way God chooses. It’s the idea of neuroplasticity taken to absurd extremes: “I can be anything God wants me to be if only I try hard enough to surrender to God’s will!!!” How often have you heard a sanctimonious preacher say that?

A: It’s a popular Christian idea.

J: It was a popular idea with many Essene and Hellenistic philosophers in my time, too. It’s an idea that makes it very easy for religious leaders to blame people in their flock for “not trying hard enough.” It makes it very easy to accuse regular people of being “weak”. To accuse them of falling short of true faith. To make them feel guilty for “letting God down.” To point fingers at them and say they’re filled with sin. These teachings are spiritually abusive.

A: You’re talking about the bread & butter of fundamentalist and evangelical Christians.

J: And fundamentalists of other faiths, too.

A: You’re saying, then, that the doctrine of malleable clay is factually incorrect. That Genesis 2:7 is wrong in its portrayal of human beings.

J: Both Creation stories in Genesis are wrong. Obviously (without apologies to any Creationists who might read this) there is no literal truth to Genesis 1 or Genesis 2-3. On top of that, there’s no metaphorical truth, either. Human beings are not malleable lumps of clay. They can’t be shaped by God or by anyone else into something they’re not. You can’t force a woman to become a man (though some people would like to try). You can’t force a gay man to become straight (though some Christians would like them to try). You can’t force a musician to become an engineer (though sadly many parents have tried. And tried and tried and tried.) God the Mother and God the Father don’t make souls this way. Souls aren’t malleable. Each soul has a unique identity, a unique blueprint, a unique set of talents and traits and strengths and absences of strengths. Souls are like snowflakes — no two are alike. You can’t take what God the Mother and God the Father made and “fix it.” You can’t turn a bowl into a plate. You can’t turn a sculpture into a wind chime. You are who you are. It’s true that you may not know who you are. It’s true that you may not know whether you’re a bowl or a plate or a sculpture or a wind chime. But your soul knows. And God knows. Between you — between you and God — you can uncover your own true soul identity.

A: I like the garden metaphor better. I’d rather discover what kind of “flower” I am. I’m not sure I really want to “see” myself as a set of dishes in the kitchen cupboard.

J: I hear ya. Nature metaphors are much more natural, much more helpful. That’s why I used so many images from nature in my teachings. There’s a natural resonance, a natural harmony between the images of nature and the soul’s own language. The soul “gets” nature imagery. The soul doesn’t mind being likened to trees or flowers or fruits. Or the totems of Native North American tradition. It helps human beings to have a nature metaphor of their own soul. An image to help them “see” themselves as God sees them.

A: If I were a tree, what kind of tree do you think I’d be? (Not that I’m saying I’m literally a tree . . .)

J: You’d be a yew. A tough, gnarly yew. That reminds me a lot of you.

A: Yeah? Okay, well that makes sense to me. I even really like yews. Always have. Nobody’s gonna believe this when I say this, but to me, you’re most definitely a magnolia. A big, showy magnolia. And damn but you wear it well! Of course, if the shrivelled up hearts of the pious Pauline Christians had their way, you’d be a bleeding, suffering, miserable, ugly thorn bush.

J: What? No burning bush? No branch of Jesse? No grafted grapevine? No olive tree? I think I’d make a particularly fine Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Don’t you?

A: You’re such a cynic.

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Posted in "4 S's", Book of Genesis, Davies (Stevan), Essenes, Gospel of Thomas, humility, insight, Jesus Redux, orthodox teachings about the soul, soul blueprint, Thomas 67 and tagged Gospel of Thomas, Kingdom teachings | Leave a Comment

21 Feb 2011

JR13: Jesus Speaking on Prayer

A: This morning I was tidying up some papers and I came across an insert from the worship bulletin of a small local church. This particular church is a “one of a kind” group that’s blending ideas from Unitarianism, the United Church of Canada, Gnosticism, and maybe some Eastern ideas filtered through a New Age lens. I notice that I circled the group prayer and wrote in the margin, “How Not to Pray.” I wondered if you could go through the prayer with me and explain — from your angelic perspective — why this kind of prayer isn’t helpful.

J: Sure. Can you type the prayer here for reference?

A: Typing fingers coming right up. Okay. It says on this insert that the prayer is called the “Prayer of Transfiguration,” adapted from the Prayer of Abandonment by Charles de Foucauld. Here’s the text:

I abandon myself to the Light; Let it transform my life. Whatever it does, I am open; I am present to all, I accept all. Let the Divine will be done in me. And in all creation — I wish no more than this. Into the hands of Life I commend my spirit; I offer it with all the love of my heart. For I am Light, And so need to give my self, To surrender my self into Life’s hands without reserve, And with boundless confidence and gratitude, For we are all called — to Live in the Light!

A: I think a lot of people would find this prayer quite lovely, quite meaningful. However, I happen to know from personal experience that you don’t encourage people to pray this kind of prayer. Can you explain your thoughts, your reasoning?

J: Prayer is a messy topic. People of faith have a tendency to claim that all prayer is good, all prayer is helpful. But it’s not. From the point of view of angels — the angels who are tasked with looking after the human beings who live on Planet Earth — all prayer is not created equal. There are what I might call genuine prayers — the ones spoken with the soul’s own loving intent. There are also pseudo-prayers — words strung together with unkind intent and directed at God. Pseudo-prayers predominate, unfortunately.

A: Let’s talk more about the pseudo-prayers. Can you be more specific about the “unkind intent” you’re referring to?

J: When people try to speak with God, communicate with God through prayer, the words they speak are of little interest to God or to God’s angels. There are meaningful prayers that consist of only one word or one sound. The actual words are not that important.

A: Mantras. When you speak of prayers that contain only one sound, you’re talking about mantras.

J: Mantras work for some people. Not for everyone. But for some people. Mantras should not be recommended for everyone on a spiritual path.

A: Why not?

J: Because everyone’s soul is different. Therefore everyone’s learning style is different. And everyone’s communication style is different. There is no single form of communication with God that can recommended for all people. Each person has to find his or her own best path.

A: I’m not a mantra person. I’m definitely a word person. I have to talk with God in words.

A utility shed made into a charming gift that lifts the soul and brings a smile to your day. A great way to pray is to simply say, “Thank you for lifting me up in this moment. I really needed that. Thank you for guiding me to this!” New Brunswick Botanical Gardens. Photo credit JAT 2022.

J: I’m also a word person. It works for me, but it doesn’t work for everyone. Here’s one area where people definitely shouldn’t try to do what Jesus does. They should try to find their own best form of communication with God. There are many nuanced forms of conversing with your Divine Parents. Some people need to go outside and sit quietly in the sun. Some need to be actively engaged in the outdoor world of nature — maybe through hiking, camping, sailing, canoeing. Gardening is another big one. Some people can’t hear God unless the music is on really, really loud. Some people can’t hear God unless the room is very, very quiet. There’s no one correct way. They’re all equally valid, equally beautiful ways as far as God is concerned. God always meets you where your soul longs to be. So if your soul is the kind of soul that hears God when it’s very, very quiet, that’s when God will be speaking with you. God respects who you are as a soul. Therefore, God won’t try to “force” you to listen at a time that’s not good for you. God is nothing if not respectful.

A: None of the spiritual practices you just mentioned sound like traditional religious prayer. Why not?

J: As I was mentioning, it’s not the words that God listens to. It’s the intent. God pays no attention to rote prayer, to be honest. It’s just a waste of everybody’s time. Rote prayer isn’t about communication or relationship. Rote prayer is just a habit — a habit like making your bed every day or putting the toilet paper roll on the same way every time. It’s something you do because it helps you cope with daily stress. Or maybe it’s something you do so you won’t be punished by an authority figure who expects you to pray. But it’s not relationship between you and God. You can’t expect to recite the Lord’s Prayer every day and have it mean anything or do anything. The Lord’s Prayer has no special power in Creation, despite what many orthodox Christians would like to believe.

A: Define what you mean by “unkind intent.” Can you give specific examples of that?

J: Sure. Prayer directed at getting somebody cursed by God. Prayer directed at getting special favours for yourself at the expense of those around you. Prayer directed at cursing yourself for your own unworthiness before God. Prayer directed at getting healing for somebody else. Prayer directed at getting somebody’s soul saved. Prayer directed at getting somebody’s loved ones released from purgatory or hell. Prayer directed at being chosen to be among God’s elect. Prayer directed to saints. Prayer directed to holy relics. Prayer directed at getting somebody blessed by God.

A: So . . . pretty much all the most popular orthodox Western Christian prayers.

J: Yup. God doesn’t curse people. God doesn’t favour you over your neighbour. God doesn’t accept your self-pity, because God knows your true potential. God heals with or without anybody’s prayers, but it’s up to God to decide the right time and the right place. God hasn’t lost any souls, so God doesn’t need to save any souls. There is no purgatory and there is no hell, so God doesn’t need help freeing anyone. God doesn’t have any chosen children and there is no group of elect souls. All souls are created equal, so there is no hierarchy of saints or angels to intervene on anybody’s behalf. Praying to holy relics is occult magic, and it hurts your brain, so don’t do it. All of God’s children are equally blessed.

A: You don’t give an inch to tradition, do you? Not one tiny inch.

J: No. Martin Luther, John Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli, and others didn’t go nearly far enough with their “protesting” reformation of Western Christianity. The work of reforming the church to reflect the core values of God the Mother and God the Father still remains to be done.

A: A make-work project for the church of the third millennium. Okay. I’d like to return to the original question about the “Prayer of Transfiguration” above. What about this prayer feels “out of synch” to you, if I can use that expression?

J: It feels out of synch with the values of the soul because of the underlying assumptions implicit in the prayer. To begin with, I take issue with the imagery of “light.”

A: Why? Haven’t spiritual seekers long equated good spiritual choices with “light”?

J: My point exactly. Nobody’s questioning the metaphor. People say, “Oh, the light, the light, we’re getting closer to the truth! Hurray! We’re making progress!” But if people are moving towards the light, what are they moving away from?

A: The darkness.

“Jesus said to them: If you fast you will bring sin to yourselves, and if you pray you will be condemned, and if you give to charity you will damage your spirits. When you go into a region and walk around in the rural areas, whenever people receive you, eat whatever they provide for you, and heal their sick. For what goes into your mouth will not defile you, but what comes out of your mouth can defile you” (Gospel of Thomas 14 a-c). In other words, if you want to have a strong faith relationship with God, you have to give up the idea that God enjoys your displays of power, rote piety, religious ritual, and subjugation of others. Use your skills instead to help others find their own courage, faith, and humbleness. Photo shows a scarab commemorating Kushite victory over inhabitants of the Negev desert, carved from steatite, 25th Dynasty, c. 710 BCE. (On display at the Royal Ontario Museum. Photo credit JAT 2017.)

J: Exactly. It’s an immature, dualistic claim. Good versus evil. Light versus dark. It’s so ingrained in people’s minds that they don’t even question the metaphor any longer. But let me ask you — what’s so bad about the dark? Is the night sky to be feared? Is the darkness of the ocean bottom to be despised? Why is light good and darkness bad? Why does “white” mean pure in Western culture, and “black” mean corrupt or evil? God’s Creation isn’t about good versus evil and light versus dark. Creation isn’t dualistic. So why have people recite a prayer that reinforces sloppy dualistic thinking? The human brain — the biological 3D brain — is kind of stupid at times, and it needs good guidance. It needs to be constantly reminded not to fall into overly simplistic thinking, which leads to overly simplistic “solutions.” A solid prayer of the genuine kind is a prayer that challenges people to acknowledge and respect the complexity of God’s Creation. A solid prayer does not speak of abandonment and surrender without first acknowledging the difficulty of this spiritual task (and spiritual task it is!). A solid prayer reminds people that they have an important role to play in Creation, even if they don’t fully understand that role. A solid prayer speaks of balance — both the difficulty of finding it and the difficulty of maintaining it. A solid prayer never speaks of people as empty vessels to be filled by pure Divine will. To speak of empty vessels negates the integrity of the soul. A solid prayer helps people remain humble yet at the same time courageous. The prayer typed above is a prayer of humility, not a prayer of humbleness. And you know what I think of false humility!

A: Yessiree. Do I ever! Any final words of advice for readers who want to be able to communicate clearly with God?

J: Yes. Don’t ever put yourself down while you’re engaged in prayer. Don’t ever say you’re unworthy of God’s love and forgiveness. Be honest about mistakes you’ve made, but ask God to help you learn from your mistakes. Be brave. Don’t whine. Remember you’re a child of God. And I mean that in every possible way. You’re a child of God, and nobody can take that away from you. That’s a pretty good starting point for finding the courage to make gradual changes in your life.

A: And yes, folks! You’re not listening to anything I haven’t had to listen to a thousand times myself. And yes! Angels really do talk this way. (Don’t you feel sorry for me?) And yes! Sometimes you just want to scream because your angels are so tough and so determined to help you make positive changes, and they’re so annoyingly dedicated to helping you be your best self! And guess what? YOU CAN’T MAKE THEM GO AWAY NO MATTER HOW HARD YOU TRY. They stick to you like Velcro. SO IF YOU CAN’T LICK ‘EM, YOU MAY AS WELL JOIN ‘EM. That’s my humble opinion, anyway.

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Posted in angels (i.e. persons-of-soul), Church of today, dualism, humbleness, humility, intent, Jesus Redux, Jesus' teachings, Kingdom teachings, prayer, relationship with God, Soul, spiritual practices and tagged spiritual practice in the 3rd millennium | Leave a Comment

20 Feb 2011

JR12: A Divine Love Story

Beauty. Photo credit JAT 2014.

A: You know, for the past two weeks I’ve been doing a lot of research on the Dead Sea Scrolls, and after wading through the English translations [Wise, Abegg, and Cook]* of the Essene’s own teachings, I’m sick of them. Just sick of them.

J: Sick of the teachings? Or sick of the Essenes?

A: I’m sick of the teachings. And I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want to go to dinner with anybody who believes in these teachings, either. The writings are so . . . so self-centred and narcissistic. So full of themselves. So full of hot air. They don’t say anything moderate or balanced about our relationship with God. They’re full of cliches and bluster and prophecy and big long strings of fancy-sounding words. But where is the love? There’s no love in them — no kind, respectful, trusting, compassionate, inclusive love. It’s just narcissistic bullshit. Did I say that already? I think I said that already.

J: Don’t forget paranoid. The teachings are also very paranoid.

A: Yeah. Enough with the evil Belial, for God’s sake! Enough with the final battle where the pure and virtuous Essenes will lead the armies of Light to victory! Get a life, people.

J: Or Pauline Christianity.

A: Say what?

J: If they don’t want to get a life, they could always get some serious, heavy-duty evangelical Christianity. Evangelical Christianity doesn’t say much that the Essenes didn’t say within their own brand of Community Rule.

A: Yeah, well, I’m not feeling the love from evangelical Christianity, either. Again, lots of narcissism, not so much trust in God. I can’t believe what these people are saying about God!

J: Which people? The Essenes or the Pauline Christians?

A: Both. I’m not seeing a lot of difference between them, as you’ve pointed out. This is not what you’ve taught me about God. I don’t see any resemblance at all. I don’t see any resemblance between your teachings and Paul’s teachings, or your teachings and John’s teachings. This is crazy! How did orthodox Christianity get so far from the truth?

J: I hate to sound like a broken record, but, again, it’s the mental health issue. My teachings have no appeal for narcissists. Or psychopaths.

A: Because there’s no “fuel” for status addiction. Narcissists and psychopaths suffer big-time from status addiction.

J (nodding): And as for people suffering from psychotic illnesses . . . they’re not in a position to take full control of their thoughts and feelings. They can’t. The illness interferes with their thinking and feeling processes. So they’re filled with fear and paranoid thoughts even before you add the religious paranoia. They can also suffer from narcissism on top of those biologically confused thoughts and feelings, as John did. But the main point is they’re not mentally or emotionally well, and their writings — if they write about spiritual or religious topics — always reflect their inner mental state. The writings of a person suffering from a psychotic illness sound psychotic. You have to step back from their writings and ask yourself . . . would an adult human being with a clean bill of health as far as the DSM-IV is concerned — and taking into consideration the psychopathy that the DSM-IV writers left out for bizarre reasons — would a non-paranoid, non-manic, non-depressed, non-psychotic, non-substance-addicted person write this? Is this writing the reflection of a person in a highly stressed mental state? Is this writing the reflection of a person who understands what compassionate love is? Is this writing the reflection of a person who understands what it means to trust in God’s goodness? Because let’s be honest — a person who writes all the time about the devil or Belial or whatever you want to call this imaginary evil entity is showing that he or she does not trust in God’s goodness. How can anybody say they trust wholly in God, then turn around and say God is too weak to prevent the existence of a devil? You can’t have it both ways.

A: Orthodox Western Christianity says you can. And another thing —

J (starting to chuckle):

A: Yes, I’m on a rant this morning. I’m sick of the way these writers — the Essenes and Paul especially — talk about women. I’m sick of the way they’ve just gone ahead and eradicated the Divine Feminine from everything. I’m sick of their pompous warrior-king Messiahs and I’m sick of their divinely appointed male priests and I’m sick of their testerone-soaked jockeying for the best places at the table. Me, me, me. Look at me — I’m special! That’s all these people can talk about. For religious people who claim to be serving God humbly and piously, they sure spend a lot of time bragging about their own status and putting other people down. Have you read what the Essenes say about people with physical infirmities and imperfections [IQSa]? It’s just plain cruel!

J: The difference between humbleness and humility. You and I have talked about that a lot.

A: It wasn’t very humble of early teachers such as Second Isaiah or the redactors of Genesis to go ahead and do a hatchet job on God the Mother — to just slice her out of the story of Creation. Even the Greeks, for all their crazy Homeric myths, had the sense to include strong female archetypes in their pantheon. Anybody with half a heart can see that Creation — the world of beauty and wonder and mystery all around us — is a Love Story. It’s a testament to the love shared by God the Mother and God the Father for each other, a record of their journey of love, growth, commitment, struggle, and faith. It’s a giant love story. That’s what you’ve taught me. That’s what I feel myself. It’s a painful story, but a truthful one. Everything around us talks about the importance of relationship, the importance of balance. How can religious people look at the world and see a Judeo-Christian Covenant? How can they think “it’s all about them”?

J: Narcissists always think it’s all about them. It’s how they view the world — through a very small lens of “I.” Me, myself, and I. It doesn’t matter whether or not they’re religious. The issue isn’t one of spirituality or faith or God. It’s simply a matter of biological brain health. Sadly — broken record again — it’s about the human brain and how people use the brain God gives them.

A: I notice that God gave women brains, too. You’d think that would count for something in the grand religious scheme of things.

J: Not to mention the thorny reality that 75% of the human sex chromosomes are X chromosomes — female chromosomes, not male. I’m thinkin’ that’s probably an important “Post-It Note” in the biologist’s Book of Creation.

A: I’m so glad I was raised in a family where I was taught that men and women are equal in terms of their intellectual gifts and in terms of their right to be treated with dignity, respect, and equality. Thanks, Mom and Dad!

J: I’ll second that. I wouldn’t be able to talk to you this way if your human brain hadn’t developed along the lines of dignity, respect, and equality. That’s what the relationship between God the Mother and God the Father is all about — dignity and respect as the basis of their mutual love and trust, despite their respective differences in temperament and talent and size. As above, so below. When human beings live according to the values and principles of their beloved Divine Parents, they can feel the love of God coming into their daily lives. When they reject those values, their biological brains become like big pots of quivering jello — lots of colour, lots of movement, but not much substance. It’s fun to eat, but 15 minutes later, you’re hungry again.

A: They feel empty inside when they reject the core values of the soul.

J: Which is all very confusing when it’s their time-honoured religious traditions that insist they reject their soul’s own values. They’re taught by their religious leaders to reject divine notions of equality amongst all life, to reject balance, to reject symbiotic relationships — to reject all mutuality. Then they complain because they can’t feel God’s love. They complain they’ve been abandoned by God. It’s a crock. It’s not God who’s abandoned them. It’s they who have abandoned God. They usually don’t realize that this is the cause of their feeling of inner emptiness. They think their religion is helping them fill the void. But unless they have an unusually mature, unusually intuitive religious leader, their church services are just making the inner bowl of jello bigger. There’s no substance because there’s a lack of will, a lack of courage, to teach the truth about God.

A: The truth that God is the God Who Is Two, not the God Who Is One. And not the God Who Is Three, if you’re a Trinitarian.

J: It’s a simple truth, seen everywhere in Creation. There’s no relationship when it’s only “me, myself, and I.” Relationship MUST begin with two. It can involve more than two — and, in fact, the angelic community of God’s children is so large, so much bigger than two, that I can’t give you a number that’s meaningful to the human brain.

A: Gajillions?

J (smiling): Yes. Gajillions of angels, both male and female. But no matter how many angels exist within God’s family, it’s still about relationship. It’s still about people — angels — knowing each other, respecting each other’s uniqueness, respecting each other’s differences, working together in a symbiotic way to make a “whole” that’s much larger than the component “parts.” The sense of Oneness that people long for in their relationship with God isn’t a sense of losing themselves in the infinite Mind of God. It’s the sense of Oneness that comes from combining your strengths with the strengths of your brothers and sisters towards a common goal. It’s not Oneness of identity. It’s Oneness of Purpose. It’s Oneness of Commitment. It’s family. It’s people with differences coming together to work as a Team to create something much bigger than each could create on his or her own. That’s what Divine Love feels like.

A: Habitat For Humanity. It feels like the charity called Habitat For Humanity. Where groups of committed people volunteer their time and their skills to help build safe, affordable housing for families.

J: Exactly. It feels just like that. Everybody has different talents. Some are good with plumbing. Some are good with woodworking. Some are good with designing. But all the talents are needed, and no one talent is more important than another. Everybody’s got a job to do, and everybody’s job is important.

A: Especially the guy who makes the coffee. Ya gotta have your coffee breaks while you’re busting your butt to get a job done.

J: Even angels take coffee breaks.

* Wise, Michael, Martin Abegg Jr., and Edward Cook, trans. The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation. New York: HarperCollins–HarperSanFrancisco, 2005.

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Posted in apocalyptic prophecy, Christ archetype, dissociation, dualism, Essenes, gender and sexuality, humility, Jesus Redux, Mother and Father God, narcissism, Paul's teachings, religion and mental Illness, Soul and tagged Christ Archetype, religion + mental illness | Leave a Comment

20 Nov 2010

CC43: The Hole-y Bucket of Humility

“There’s a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza, there’s a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, a hole.”

“Then fix it, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry, then fix it, dear Henry . . . “

“With what shall I fix it, dear Liza, dear Liza . . .”

The hole-y bucket of religious humility. There’s a big hole right in the middle (or worse, the bottom) where the good stuff gushes out. You always feel half-empty in your relationship with God, instead of full to the brim with courage, trust, gratitude, and devotion. Photo credit JAT 2014.

You probably know this song from your childhood. We used to sing it at Brownies and at summer camp. It always made us laugh when we got to the punchline of the song: the bucket that started the song because it had a hole in it was the tool that was needed by Henry and Liza to fix said bucket. Without an un-holey bucket, they couldn’t fix the hole-y bucket. But they only had one bucket — the one with the hole in it. It was a circular argument.

The orthodox Western Church’s teachings on humility are exactly like this childhood song.

Before I talk about the Church’s teachings on humility, though, I want to talk about a different core virtue, one that’s never discussed in the church. This is the core virtue of humbleness. Humbleness is what Jesus taught. By contrast, humility is what Paul taught.

Humbleness is a feeling that sort of settles into the middle of your heart after you find redemption. Humbleness is the natural state of thinking, feeling, behaving, and understanding that you end up with when you accept the redemptive power of God’s forgiveness in your life. Humbleness is your natural soul state. It’s who you really are underneath all the bullshit layers of status addiction. It’s a deep sense of trust in yourself — not a sense of pride or hubris, but a sense of trust. It’s an unshakable sense of acceptance. It’s a sense that God made you to be a particular person, and that’s the only person you can be. So you stop fighting your inner self. And you become free to become your inner self.

That’s what humbleness is. It’s a state of absolute freedom from the tyranny of status addiction. Once you’re free from the constant voice of status addiction in your head — the constant judging of yourself, the constant comparing of yourself to others, the constant criticism of others, the perfectionism, the self-pity, the lack of common sense, the lack of peace, comfort, and safety in your life — once you’re free of all that you can begin to like yourself as a person. (Wouldn’t that be a refreshing change?)

A humble person is free to make choices based on a whole new set of criteria. A humble person isn’t worried about getting more status, so a humble person is free to practise the virtues of common sense. A humble person isn’t trying to be somebody he’s not, so a humble person doesn’t feel guilty about following his calling. A humble person thinks it’s wrong to accuse of God of being too stupid or too lazy to make souls that are all different from each other yet all equally beautiful and worthy. A humble person shows her love and respect for God by trying every day to be who she really is, instead of trying to be somebody she’s not. A humble person knows his limits.

This is not what the Church means when the Church talks about humility.

The traditional orthodox Western position is that no human being (except that Jesus dude) has ever been truly worthy of God’s love and trust. The Church starts with the assumption that you are a bucket (aka “a vessel”) with a big, fat hole in the bottom.

You are a bucket that needs to be fixed. All your courage and your faith have been draining out through the hole. Obviously, the hole needs to be patched. You must use your free will and your self-discipline to patch the hole so “the vessel that is you” can contain the love of Christ. But you must also practise humility. Humility demands that you not consider yourself a bucket at all, because then you’d be able to carry your own portion of courage and faith, which you’re not allowed to have, because that would be presumptuous. Only when you rejoice in the fact that you’re a bucket with a humongous hole in the bottom will you be able to feel Christ’s love flowing through you and out into the world through the hole. You must therefore be a hole-y bucket in order to fix the hole-y bucket that is you.

Catch 22, anyone?

Let’s imagine instead that the hole-y bucket is your biological brain/central nervous system. This bucket admittedly has a few holes in it by the time you’ve grown up. But these holes are fixable. More importantly, the holes are not you. They’re not the real you. They’re damaged biological parts that need to be healed (same as clogged arteries or a broken arm). So you find some qualified people who can help you heal them. Slowly, one by one, the holes begin to heal. You begin to discover somewhat to your surprise that you — you, yourself, and you — are capable of startling feats of compassion. The more healed your bucket, the more love and courage and faith your bucket is able to hold.

Go figure. Who would guess that a bucket without a big hole in it would actually hold more of the good stuff (like love and forgiveness) than a hole-y bucket? Gee whiz, Mother and Father, that’s, like, totally unfair of you to make our reality as humans so logical!

Mother and Father, you rock!

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Posted in brain-soul connection, Concinnate Christianity, healing, humbleness, humility, Paul vs Jesus, redemption, Soul, status addiction, trust and tagged Jesus vs Paul, spiritual practice in the 3rd millennium | Leave a Comment

18 Nov 2010

CC42: Humility: Vice or Virtue?

Monte Cassino - wide view by Pilecka - Own work. Licensed under CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - httpcommons.wikimedia.orgwikiFileMonte_Cassino_-_wide_view.JPG#mediaFileMonte_Cassino_

Abbey of Monte Cassino, Italy, site of the early 6th century CE monastery founded by St. Benedict of Nursia. Monte Cassino was the first monastery founded by Benedict, author of the highly influential Rule of St. Benedict. The buildings were reconstructed after being largely destroyed in the WWII Battle of Monte Cassino. Photo credit: Monte Cassino – wide view by Pilecka – Own work. Licensed under CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Ah, the joys of humility, that most cherished of Christian virtues! O ye wondrous affliction, scourge of my heart, desiccator of my soul! How could I envision Original Sin without you, you who from ancient times have trampled all that is good and true and beautiful within me! You who are the very face of Christian orthodoxy! You who demands that I obey my earthly leaders! Fair Humility, you are an idol beyond compare!

Humility, your justness and righteousness have been proved again and again within orthodoxy’s precincts. To you we owe a great debt, for you have protected the Church throughout the centuries from the evils of independent thought. Even more important, you have locked the door to Jesus’ Kingdom of Heaven to ensure that people of true faith and good heart can’t get in. Verily, you are one of the rocks upon which the orthodox Western Church stands.

Hear now a modern summary (written by this humble author) of the famed Rule of St. Benedict, first written in Latin in Italy in the early 6th century. (The reader is referred to the following text: Timothy Fry, ed., The Rule of St. Benedict in English (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1982)).

FIVE CORE CHRISTIAN VIRTUES IN THE RULE OF SAINT BENEDICT
For St. Benedict, author of The Rule, the most important Christian quality is to place the love of Christ before all else, a point he returns to several times in his book of instructions for beginners (for example,Chapter 4:1, 20; Chapter 72:11). Benedict takes a two-pronged approach – faith combined with good works – to this religious vocation (an approach which turns out to be particularly effective, too, if we are to consider the fact that his Rule is still used by many religious orders today). First, he creates guidelines that affect how the monks will think and feel about their relationships with themselves, each other, and God; in other words, he tries to fulfill the needs of faith. These are the instructions that pertain to renouncing the self and to humility, both great virtues in Benedict’s opinion. In order to follow Christ, monks must renounce themselves, taking no notice of anything good in themselves except to give the credit to God, not themselves (4:42). No one is to follow his own heart’s desire (3:8). Neither should monks expect to have free disposal even of their own bodies and wills (33:4; 58:25). Private ownership is a vice (Chapter 33), and, along a similar vein, a monk may not exchange letters, tokens, or gifts with anyone – or be found to be in possession of such items – without the abbot’s consent (Chapter 54). These rules, if followed, draw the monk’s thoughts and feelings away from anything that makes him distinct or different from his peers, and make it easier for him to practise humility. “Humility” is one of the core features of Benedict’s Rule. Chapter 7 outlines the 12 steps of humility, and many other chapters of the book exalt humility as well. A monk who ascends Benedict’s ladder of humility will find at the twelfth and highest stage an awareness that he is always guilty on account of his sins, and through this awareness of his true unworthiness, he will be able to receive cleansing of his vices and sins through the grace of the Holy Spirit (7:62-70). In this way, the monk will finally know the perfect love of God.

Second, Benedict creates a set of strict guidelines that governs what monks do, when they do it, and how they do it. In other words, he tells them exactly how to perform good works – how to act. Monks who agree to these rules, which can be thought of as the day-to-day tools and practical routines necessary to the vocation of loving Christ, will acquire the essential Christian virtues of obedience and self-discipline. Obedience to the abbot and the rule is profoundly important in imitation of obedience to Christ. Indeed, the abbot is believed to hold the place of Christ in the monastery (2:2). Moreover, obedience must not be blighted by the evil of grumbling (5:14; 34:6; 53:18) but must be given always with gentleness (Chapter 68) and purity of heart (20:3). Monks who take their final vows must promise three things: stability, fidelity to monastic life, and obedience (58:17). From that day forward, they are no longer free to leave the monastery (58:15), although they may be cast out or excommunicated after due process if they are sufficiently disobedient. It is therefore in the monks’ best interests to exercise self-discipline, which could perhaps be defined as being “not slothful, not unobservant, not negligent” (the vices that Benedict lists in his concluding chapter, 73:7). In Benedict’s monastic communities, this self-discipline meant more than just “a little strictness in order to amend faults and to safeguard love” (Prologue: 47). It meant remembering all the rules, and practising all the rules, even on rare occasions when monks were travelling or were working far away from the oratory; so, for instance, monks on a journey could not omit the prescribed hours (50:4), nor could monks sent on a day errand presume to eat outside the monastery on pain of excommunication (Chapter 51). Self-discipline may also have been helpful when it was time to get up in the middle of the night to celebrate the Divine Office! [from an unpublished paper by the author; italics added]

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The apostle Paul would be proud of you, noble Humility. For you are the theological sleight of hand that keeps good, pious Christians in their place, doomed to feel unworthy, sinful, desperate to be saved, and constantly separated from God.

You are a proud and cruel goddess, Humility.

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Posted in "4 S's", anagogic mysticism, Concinnate Christianity, humility, Original Sin, orthodox teachings about the soul, Paul and tagged monasticism | Leave a Comment

03 Sep 2010

CC31: How God Listens To Your Soul and Not To Your Idiocy

I remember the day when I finally accepted the fact that God could hear all the nasty thoughts I was thinking. I wanted to throw up.

Up until then, I’d been trying hard to convince myself that “what happens in my head, stays in my head.” I was sure that my nasty, judgmental thoughts about other people were my own little secret. Sure, I felt guilty about those unkind thoughts. But as long as I didn’t express them out loud, nobody would know about them but me.

But then I decided I wanted to learn to be a mystic. It was a conscious decision. Nobody forced me to become a mystic. Nor did I have any big epiphanies or any life-altering visions or any sudden calls from God (i.e. conversion experiences). I simply thought it would be cool.

Photo credit JAT 2018.

I confess now, with the full benefit of 20/20 hindsight, that ten years ago, when I made this decision to learn to be a mystic, my motivation reeked of status addiction. This was not the best of motivations, as I’ve pointed out in earlier posts. I wanted to be “special,” and it seemed to me that “the mystical path” would be a good way for me to become “better” than others. I admit now that this was my motivation at the time, but ten years ago, I wouldn’t have been willing to admit this to myself. I desperately wanted to believe that I was becoming a mystic “for the benefit of others.” I wanted to believe that I was only a humble servant of God — a humble vessel of God’s will. Really, though, what I wanted at the time was the status that comes with being a mystic.

I wasn’t entirely devoted to my own selfishness, however. There was a part of me that genuinely yearned for a deep sense of connection with God. There was a part of me that was very . . . lonely. Very sad. There was a part of me that felt small and quiet and vulnerable, that wanted to reach out to God, but didn’t know how. This part, of course, was my soul. But I didn’t know that at the time. I was too busy filling up my head with New Age idiocy to recognize the voice of my own soul.

Good news, though. God was much smarter than I was, and God didn’t pay any attention to my ridiculously vain and selfish New Age/devout Christian prayers. God listened only to my soul. My soul was saying, “I want to remember how to love,” and that’s the only choice I made that God was willing to help me with. I must have offered up 20 selfish prayer requests for every time I asked God to help me learn how to love. God ignored the many selfish demands I made (thank heaven we have a God with common sense!), then God put my nose to grindstone on the one prayer I’d asked that was worth asking.

I had no idea that this one sincere prayer would be such hard work for me, my family, and God. I had no idea that I was literally asking God to help me rewire my entire biological brain.*

You would assume, naturally, that the process of rewiring a person’s entire biological brain would take a great deal of time. (It did). And a great deal of experienced help. (It did). And a great many changes in daily lifestyle. (It did). And a great many conscious changes in attitude. (It did). And many moments of painful insight. Plus setbacks. And moments of quiet healing. And tears along with great joy.

It did.

How I Felt At First - Photo credit JAT 2014

How I Felt At First. Although most of the time my brain felt rigid and full of selfish weeds, God saw the spring flowers waiting to bloom. My sincere wish to remember how to love was the trillium God saw and nurtured. Photo credit JAT 2014.

That’s what it felt like, and many spiritual seekers have described similar feelings. But inside my biological body, at a neurophysiological level, changes were taking place. My neurons and glial cells were changing, adapting, making new connections, breaking old connections. My immune system was changing along with my central nervous system (CNS). I was getting a gradual “internal CNS makeover.” This happened because my body was rewiring itself to accommodate my new regimen — my new regimen of remembering how to love.

If I’ve learned anything about the spiritual journey, it’s this: no human being anywhere on Planet Earth at any time in Earth’s history has ever been exempt from this biological reality. You are a package deal. You have a soul intertwined with your biological body, and you can’t find spiritual enlightenment if you’re abusing your physical body. It’s a scientific reality that nobody can escape (though most mystics want to pretend they’re exempt from these rules).

Eventually I realized that I was — am — a package deal, and that as part of this package deal, my thoughts and feelings are not hidden from God. My thoughts and feelings are an open book. I can try to fight this reality, or I can work with this reality. It’s my choice. If I try to fight it, I hurt myself, and I end up hurting the people I love. If I decide to work within this paradigm, and trust that God forgives me even when I make a mistake, then I’m using my free will in the fullest way possible. I’m using my free will to trust in God’s love and forgiveness. I’m using my free will to be in full connection and relationship with God. I’m using my free will to be open to their observations and suggestions for constructive change.

Of course, this paradigm pretty much implies that change is part of the healing process.

So . . . this also pretty much implies that religious leaders who reject change in favour of the status quo (status addiction) are not part of the healing process.

I’m very grateful to God the Mother and God the Father, plus the soul who once lived as Jesus son of Joseph, for being so patient and so firm and so consistent with me. They got me on track — the track I’d chosen of remembering how to love — and they never gave up on me. They stuck right with me, and they put up with a lot of abuse from me, until I got it through my thick head that my soul was — is — okay.

As for those nasty thoughts I used to have . . . I don’t have them anymore. Eventually I learned that those nasty thoughts were the “voice” (as it were) of status addiction. I was looking for a way to raise myself up inside my own head by putting other people down. (Yeah, it really is that simple!) When I confronted my own issues with status addiction, and stopped denying the harm I was creating for myself and others, I no longer needed the “high” of thinking nasty thoughts.

So I stopped.

It’s a great cure for that feeling of wanting to throw up because you’re carrying so much guilt, remorse, and embarrassment about your own nastiness.

* Only recently have neuroscientists come to understood how malleable and changeable the human brain is. This new field of research is known as “neuroplasticity.”

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Posted in Concinnate Christianity, ethical mysticism, free will, healing, humility, My Spiral Path, mystic, mysticism, prayer, Soul, status addiction and tagged ethical mysticism | Leave a Comment

08 Jul 2010

CC24: The Emperor’s New Clothes: Psychopathy in the Church

There’s a fellow in my graduate theology program who is a constant reminder to me of how the orthodox Western church ended up preaching the doctrines of sin, salvation, sacraments, and separation from God (the four S’s). If we were to put this fellow — I’ll call him Titus — in a time machine, and send him back to Carthage in the early fifth century CE to argue with the famously tortured Christian theologian Augustine of Hippo, I’m not sure which of the two would prevail. That’s because, in traditional parlance, “they’re both cut from the same cloth.” They share certain dysfunctional psychological traits along with certain coping mechanisms to compensate for their dysfunctional traits. They’re also both deeply sincere in their beliefs. This is why both men cause so much suffering in the lives of others.

It’s important to emphasize that the man I know, Titus, is absolutely convinced he’s been called to ministry by God. He’s not a con man or a criminal with a conscious intent to harm others. In fact, if you asked him about his motives, he’d look you straight in the eye and tell you that he’s a humble servant of God. He truly believes this.

But Titus has serious issues — as in unresolved psychodynamic issues. He’s a walking powder keg of narcissistic bullying, and he’s utterly blind to this. (His classmates, who are the targets of his behaviour, see his issues quite clearly). So serious is his lack of empathy and his lack of respect for boundary issues that I suspect he suffers a great deal. I suspect he suffers inside his own head. He’s tormented by his own “demons,” and, like so many other people, he’s looking for some form of relief from his inner despair. And who can blame him? It’s not fun to feel like crap all the time.

Secular treatments have given him no long-term relief. So now he’s looking to the Church — traditionally, one of the great sanctuaries for narcissistic men (and narcissistic women). Here he can find a logical explanation for his suffering. Here he can be absolved of personal responsibility for the current state of his life. Here he can finally use his intellectual gifts, his musical gifts, and his badger-like tenacity in order to create something meaningful in his life. I’m not being facetious here — Titus is a talented, well educated man.

I have no doubt that he’s finding psychological comfort and relief in the teachings of men such as Paul the Apostle, Augustine of Hippo, and Martin Luther. That’s because these famous theologians were also talented, well educated men who were suffering from the effects of their own unaddressed issues. They were not stupid, nor ill-informed, nor criminally minded. But they knew something was wrong, and they earnestly wanted to fix it. If they found themselves forced to alter everything Jesus once taught in order to fix it, then so be it. Once they’d found a theological solution that offered some relief for their personal feelings of emptiness, well, who can blame them for wanting to tout their solution to others? Who can blame them for intentionally supplanting Jesus’ message of personality responsibility and forgiveness with a message of sin and salvation? It’s a much easier “sell” than Jesus’ message, and besides, each of these men had personally felt the relief that came with the “4-S package.” So they weren’t really lying — they were just improving on Jesus’ message.

Silenos was a figure from Greek Mythology. He was said to be a close companion of the Greek god Dionysos and was known for his drunkenness, one of the “sins” that human beings tend to blame on everyone but themselves until they find the courage to take responsibility for their own actions. Anyone who has succeeded in healing an addiction to alcohol knows that this particular “sin” can be overcome with the right sort of help (which doesn’t include being told you’re a worthless, hopeless, “demon-possessed” wretch who has no control over your unloving choices because of Original Sin). This Roman marble after a Hellenistic work of the 3rd C BCE is on display at the Royal Ontario Museum. Photo credit JAT 2019.

The problem is that this package of theological doctrines — the 4-S package of sin, separation, sacraments, and salvation — only offers psychological relief to a certain subsection of the population that’s suffering from certain kinds of psychiatric dysfunction. It enables the narcissistic bullies to feel a lot better about themselves. But it doesn’t do a damned thing for anybody else.

This notion will be extremely unpopular among devout Christians who cherish their traditional, orthodox beliefs about original sin, etc., etc., and this notion will be especially offensive to those who insist that Church doctrines are the handiwork of God instead of the handiwork of a few dysfunctional theologians. But there you have it — the Church has codified within its body of sacred laws a self-correcting, virtually impregnable suit of body armour to protect the “rights” of a select group of self-entitled, selfish, controlling, abusive, HUMBLE (!!!!) servants of God.

How could such a self-serving system survive for so long if it wasn’t God’s true intention?

Well, that’s an easy question to answer. Have you ever tried to live with a severe narcissist? Or work with a severe narcissist? Or live in a community (or even a country) ruled by a severe narcissist? Once a narcissist crosses the line into full-blown psychopathy (and this happens more often than good-hearted intellectuals want to admit), the rule of terror takes over. It’s very hard to think straight, let alone challenge official doctrine, when you and your loved ones are being terrorized, abused, relentlessly persecuted, tortured, raped, imprisoned, and silenced in every way imaginable.

We’ve recently seen this kind of psychopathic behaviour emerge in group-form in the European Holocaust, the Cambodian Holocaust, and the Rwandan Holocaust. These holocausts were all instituted by “revered leaders.” The Church, I would argue, has had its own share of “revered leaders” who relentlessly preached holocausts (crusades) against “heretics” who rejected official church doctrine.

Am I saying that some of the Church’s revered theologians and past leaders would match today’s understanding of psychopathy?*

That’s exactly what I’m saying.

* For more information, please see Robert D. Hare’s Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us (New York & London: The Guilford Press, 1993.)

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Posted in "4 S's", boundary issues, Church of today, Concinnate Christianity, conscience & morality, humility, narcissism, Original Sin, Paul's teachings, psychopathy, religion and mental Illness, theodicy and tagged Jesus vs Paul | Leave a Comment

05 Jul 2010

CC23: Seeing God in Black and White: A Parable

Here is your class assignment for the day: using only two tubes of paint, one white and one black, you are to paint a full-colour picture of something beautiful.

Get to work, everyone! Now! And don’t complain to me that the assignment is unfair. If you’re truly righteous, pious, and devout, God will show you how to paint a full-colour picture using only black and white paint. If you fail, well . . . if you fail, you obviously don’t have enough faith in God. Don’t blame me for your failure. I didn’t make the rules. If you fail, it’s your own fault (you poor sin-saturated thing, you).

Pray, people, pray! Pray with all your might! If you pray correctly, maybe God will grant you the grace of being able to paint pictures in glorious, divine colour. Prove to me that you have faith! Pick up your paintbrushes and paint! Anyone caught cheating by bringing in tubes of red, blue, or yellow paint will immediately be brought before the Inquisition. Possession of any paints except Lead White and Carbon Black will be considered a shameful act of hubris, because only God is allowed to have coloured paints. Those other tubes you’ve seen at the store are the work of the Devil.

That’s right, class — everyone down on their knees. That’s better. And remember not to look up while you’re painting. Don’t look up at the trees or flowers or clouds or hills that you’re trying to paint. Such viewing is an unpardonable sin. You will paint beautifully coloured images based solely on the black and white words I’m about to recite aloud to you. Are you ready, everyone? Good. Here we go. In the beginning was the Word . . . .

Ah. A question. What is your question, child? You want to know what the colour red is? Well, as all the great mystics have taught, you’ll only be able to see the divine colour red once you’ve let go of all desire to know what red is. Once you no longer care what red is, perhaps God will open your eyes for you so you can see it. But until then, there’s nothing you yourself can do. No one can learn how to see red, or be taught how to see red. To claim this would be the height of human pride and arrogance! Be grateful you can see black and white, child! Some people can’t even see that.

If you tell me you can already see red and blue and yellow, it’s proof that the Devil has captured your soul, you poor thing. Resist, resist! Pray harder. Ask for deliverance from the torment of False Colour. Ask that you may be given the divine gift of Church-Approved Sunglasses to block out those dangerous visions of colour. Life is much simpler in black and white. Everything is less confusing when I tell you what to do. Naturally, I always have your best interests at heart, you poor, weak, inferior creature, you.

I promise to look after you, as Christ looks after us all! It’s the least I can do in this broken, corrupted, black and white world.

Well, the day is over, and I see that once again no one in my class has enough faith in God to produce a thing of explosive beauty from the paints I have humbly provided.

Lilies of the Field (c) Image*After

You in the back corner! Joshua, Yeshua, whatever your name is! You will be turned over to the Inquisition, and tried on charges of heresy for presuming to tell the class that all people can learn to see red lilies in the field if they listen to God with open hearts and not with closed minds!

As if God even wants to talk to regular people!

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Posted in "4 S's", Church of today, Concinnate Christianity, humility, Jesus' teachings, Kingdom teachings, Original Sin, parables, prayer, spiritual ascent and tagged Jesus vs Paul, Kingdom teachings | Leave a Comment

28 Jun 2010

CC22: The Trinity: A Perfect Shell Game

Then Job answered the Lord: ‘I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. “Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?” Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. “Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you declare to me.” I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you’ (Job 42 1-5). As Job finally came to understand, it’s always better to listen to what God has to say about God instead of what theologians say about God. If you want to know God, you have to look beyond the limited scope of church doctrines on the nature of God; you have to be willing to look at all of Creation. Photo credit Hemera Technologies 2001 – 2003.

If you’ve been reading my last few posts and you’re now hopelessly confused, then I’d like to thank you — it means you’ve been paying attention!

My last post (about the Law of Attraction) seems to contradict my earlier posts about prophecy and apocalypticism and the Church’s claim that we can’t change anything in our relationship with God because of original sin. But hey — that’s the great thing about orthodox Western Christian theology! It doesn’t have to make sense! Mutually contradictory doctrines are more than welcome in the pulpit — in fact, the more confusion, the better. That way, people in the congregation will always feel off balance and slightly stupid in comparison to the elevated seminarians who have humbly answered God’s call to preach the Chalcedon Creed.

And such a joy it is to be able to preach the mystery of the Trinity and the whole homoousios (one substance) thing!* Of course it doesn’t make any sense . . . but that’s the beauty of it! Our inability to understand the Trinity reminds us constantly that we’re weak and unworthy in comparison to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Obviously, if we weren’t so weak and unworthy, we’d understand the whole thing better, more like those specially chosen priests and ministers who are higher than we are on the ladder of spiritual ascent. But, alas, ours is not to wonder why, as the old saying goes. Ours is to obey.

The Church says that God is One, but is also Three, and we must obey the Church’s teachings on this matter. We must submit to a Trinitarian God. Even in the United Church of Canada, where a lot of people no longer feel comfortable with Trinitarian theology, General Council still requires that baptisms be carried out in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (all of whom are male).

It’s a neat trick, this God-is-One-but-also-Three thing. It’s a convenient way to play a shell game with the contradictory teachings in the Bible and in the Church’s own body of doctrines. By insisting that God is of one substance but three different natures, the Church can preserve its traditional image of God as a transcendent, monotheistic, unemotional King and Judge, while at the same time keeping the idea of God as interventionist Spirit, and God as Suffering Son. But don’t forget — God is all these things at the same time, so you mustn’t try to imagine that the Suffering Son is a different being or entity in comparison to the transcendent and unemotional King. And don’t forget that although the Son conquered the devil and original sin while he was here, you’re still suffering from the effects of the devil and original sin because, well, because, ummm, the End Times aren’t here yet, so the promise of salvation hasn’t been completely fulfilled yet. But don’t worry too, too much, because even as we speak, God is stretching out his hand from the future End Times (where all things have already been fulfilled), and is reaching into the present time through the actions of the Spirit and the miracle of prolepsis to bring some of that fulfillment into your life today.

Like, huh?

I have a better idea, one that’s much less complicated. Let’s try Jesus’ own teachings about God for a while, and see if we can do better in our ongoing efforts to forge a meaningful, sensible, joyous relationship with God the Father and God the Mother.

Jesus’ own teachings can’t be any worse than what we’ve got right now.

*If you want to read about the history of the debates that led to the christological and trinitarian doctrines still held by the church, a good introduction can be found in Justo L. Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity, Vol. 1: The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1984). An extremely thorough and erudite theological review of the relevant early doctrines is presented in Jon Sobrino, Christ the Liberator (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2001).

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Posted in "4 S's", apocalyptic prophecy, Book of Job, Church of today, Concinnate Christianity, humility, Mother and Father God, Original Sin, spiritual ascent, Trinitarianism and tagged spiritual practice in the 3rd millennium | Leave a Comment

28 May 2010

CC15: On the Road to Jericho

Yesterday, I watched a rerun of Law and Order that was fascinating for its depiction of a righteous, devout, sincere Roman Catholic woman who was put on trial for murder after a botched exorcism killed a teenaged girl. Interestingly, the woman had been a nun before leaving the convent to follow her “gift from God.”

The assistant DA was sent to interview the woman’s former Mother Superior. The Mother Superior informed a surprised DA that the former nun’s intense belief in the devil proved that she was more obedient to her faith than other people, not less so.

In the show, everyone agreed that the woman’s faith was sincere. In court, she testified in a calm, persuasive voice that she had a gift from God, and that the archangel Michael had commanded her to beat the devil out of the rebellious girl. She had obeyed St. Michael. She had failed in her mission not because the divine command was flawed, but because she wasn’t strong enough to overcome the devil. The girl had died when the devil took her soul. She regretted her personal failure to save the girl’s soul, but she didn’t regret the attempt. She had cared about the girl, and she’d been trying to do the right thing.

Fiction? Exaggeration? Misrepresenting the facts in order to make good TV?

Not really. In fact, the show didn’t go far enough in showing the reality of this kind of religious mindset, and the damage these “sincere, devout, faithful” people cause with their beliefs.

Many “sincere, devout, faithful” people used to believe in creatures that were part man, part horse — the centaurs of Greek religion. Sincerity of belief has no bearing on the veracity of a belief. You don’t have to accept the Church’s teachings about “the devil” any more than you have to accept the ancient Greek belief in centaurs. Shown here is South Metope XXVIII, originally from the Parthenon in Athens, now on display at the British Museum, London. Photo credit JAT 2023.

Just last week, the Globe and Mail published a brief article about three cult members in Baltimore who have been convicted in the death of a toddler (“U.S. Cult Members To Be Sentenced For Starving Child,” The Globe and Mail, May 18, 2010). Says the article, “Prosecutors say cult leader Queen Antoinette told the mother that denying food would cure her child’s rebellious spirit.” What had the child done? He had refused to say “Amen” after meals.

The article also includes this eye-popping fact: the child’s 23-year old mother (who is already in a residential treatment program) made an unusual plea bargain “in which her plea will be withdrawn if the child is resurrected.”

If the child is resurrected?

Many members of today’s church would like to distance themselves from this kind of bizarre thinking, and would like to pretend that church teachings on the devil, on Judgment Day, on bodily resurrection of the dead, and on exorcism aren’t really real. But these teachings are real. And they continue to create terrible suffering in the world today.

Let me be clear. I’m not saying that the devil is real. I’m saying that the teachings about the devil are real.

The teachings are still official church law. If you’re a righteous Christian — a sincere, devout, faithful believer in the church’s teachings — you’re supposed to believe in all this apocalyptic b*llsh#t.

Mind you, apocalyptic b.s. is not new to the world, and it’s not limited to Christianity. Scholars aren’t sure when apocalyptic religious claims first surfaced, but they know that plenty of bizarre apocalyptic claims about God and the devil had been circulating long before Jesus of Nazareth lived. There’s a lot of raw apocalyptic material in Plato’s writings, but Plato wasn’t the only one to make dualistic claims about good versus evil. There’s a long track record for this kind of scary religious belief, and it’s found all over the world.

Why is it found all over the world? It’s found throughout history and throughout the world because — radical thought, this — because serious mental illness is found throughout history and throughout the world.

Human beings all share the same basic DNA. Part of our human DNA package includes a susceptibility to major mental illnesses such as unipolar depression, psychotic depression, bipolar disorder, psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia, not to mention addiction disorders, personality disorders, and psychiatric symptoms that are secondary to primary medical disorders. (For instance, sepsis — systemic blood poisoning — can cause sudden psychosis). Certain kinds of major mental illness are known to lead to certain kinds of recognizable — but highly dysfunctional — thinking patterns.

Apocalyptic thinking patterns are dysfunctional. I do not care that apocalyptic beliefs have been enshrined in many different major world religions. I do not care that I’m supposed to fully honour and respect everybody’s religious beliefs. I refuse to honour any religious belief — whether it’s Christian, Kabbalist, Muslim, animist, or whatever — if that particular belief system is founded on teachings that emanated from mental illness. So I don’t care what somebody’s revered prophet once said if that prophet showed clear signs of mental illness. Apocalyptic teachings are a clear sign of mental illness.

The human genome hasn’t changed much over the past few millennia, and that means that prophets who lived and taught 3,000 years ago had the same DNA as you and I, and they had the same vulnerability to biologically-based psychosis as you and I. The difference between then and now is that we finally have the tools to recognize these major mental disorders, and we finally have some good treatments for them — such as SSRI’s and olanzapine.

I have no patience and no sympathy for people who tell me that all religious traditions are equally worthy of respect. They are not. Religious traditions founded on dysfunctional, dualistic, good versus evil thinking are not worthy of respect. This means I believe that some aspects of the Christian tradition are not worthy of respect. I also believe that some aspects of certain other religious traditions are also not worthy of respect.

I’m not going to apologize for this. Religious leaders have a moral duty to reexamine the traditions of their respective faiths to weed out all teachings that originated in mental health disorders, teachings that continue to contribute to mental health disorders, teachings that create great harm in the world today.

The church must take responsibility for its past failure to work closely with scientific researchers who have been trying to show that bizarre, abusive behaviour is a medical, social, and educational issue, not a spiritual or religious issue involving evil forces.

The church needs to “grow up.” It’s not helpful to anyone — especially to those who have a genetic vulnerability to major mental illness, and are therefore easily traumatized by teachings about evil forces — for us to pretend that we can all happily and lovingly accept every “religious belief.” We can’t. Each world faith must start to take responsibility for its own doctrinal garden. Each world faith must begin to weed out the destructive teachings that have grown in its garden over the centuries. Each world faith must plant new seeds that can close the current and utterly inexcusable chasm between science and faith. Each world faith must begin to cherry-pick among its own teachings, and keep only those teachings and traditions that allow people to enter into a full, loving relationship with God based on the values of trust, courage, devotion, and gratitude.

This is what Jesus was trying to say 2,000 years ago. Maybe it’s time we listened.

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On the Road to Jericho (Photo Credit JAT 2013)

Once upon a time, long, long ago and far, far away, there was a certain man who was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho. He fell into the hands of robbers who were led by a man named Saul. They stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half resurrected.

Now by chance an orthodox Western priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a universalist ecumenist, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.

But a woman who came from a distant land and had also once been beaten and left for dead by her kinfolk came near him; and when she saw him, she was moved to pity. She bandaged the wounds that had been bleeding for 2,000 years, and she took him to the local women’s shelter. There the little children knew him, and those who were like the little children knew him.

The man who was just a man happily died.

Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers led by Saul?

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Posted in apocalyptic prophecy, Church of today, Concinnate Christianity, dualism, humility, mental illness, mysticism, Paul vs Jesus, Plato, prophets, religion and mental Illness and tagged religion + mental illness | Leave a Comment

The Spiral Path

Wonder, Science, and Faith

Archive for the category “humility”