tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60822841242386850672024-02-19T21:34:05.246-08:00Undiscovered GeniusRichard Freeman-Toolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03480701171151843224noreply@blogger.comBlogger123125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6082284124238685067.post-25310702309566201852018-07-24T06:50:00.003-07:002018-07-24T06:50:43.758-07:00On Descartes, Spinoza and Intuition<h2>
On Descartes, Spinoza and Intuition</h2>
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by Richard Freeman-Toole</div>
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March 8, 1997</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>I write this paper in an attempt to assimilate some aspects of the philosophies of Descartes and Spinoza into a theory of intuitive thought, the formulation of which has preoccupied me for the last two years; this theory (in the context of a musical application) attempts to establish a relationship between the intuitive thought process and the so-called collective unconscious, or the collective mind. It was to strengthen my background for this research that I decided to take this class, and it was therefore with this work in mind that I came to the philosophers at hand.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I am aware that the the subject matter of this course historically precedes the formulation of anything like a modern conception of psychology , but in order to appreciate these philosophers it was necessary for me to translate into my own<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>language what was being said; the consequence of this has been that, while I reject much of the language of the texts under discussion, I have been able to relate the spirit of the text to my own special interest.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Only in this way has the writing had any personal significance for me, touched my life in any way.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Neither my theory, nor its full range of sympathetic resonance with intuitive thought processes discernible in Descartes and Spinoza will be given the space they deserve, but a general connection between my theory and their work will obtain.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Thus, this<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>paper must be seen as a minor commentary by a somewhat up-to-date view of psychology on thought processes which were responsible for the birth of modern philosophy</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>It is arguable that Descartes' most significant positive contribution to history was the example he set in breaking from the scholastic tradition with its emphasis on the handed down authority of the past. As the march of time time was leading Europe further and further away from a conception of the created world as a rigidly predetermined hierarchy of inflexible, inherited laws, toward a conception of man as a a free agent in a cosmology which allowed him the possibility of upward or downward mobility based on his individual efforts to achieve or fail, it was necessary for somebody<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>to come along and announce that we should start over again with a systematization of knowledge based on the new science; if in so doing we should stumble once again onto the old verities, so much the better. It was courageous of Descartes to insist that the contemporary authority of the personal, subjective experience was more powerful than the experiences of dead people expressed in musty monk-copied books. It was also prophetic of him in that the same kind of attempts to reconcile the claims of the opposing worlds of science and mysticism persist to this day; in fact, some might say that these reconciliatory attempts are approaching a particularly intense climax (not to say a resolution) in the current decade with the discoveries in quantum physics echoing and reinforcing many of the traditional propositions of parapsychology and the ancient religions. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span> Aside from the elegance of his writing (not necessarily to say his logic) I found not much to commend his arguments; he seems to be a man spinning his wheels, looking for a definite answer to a definite question, in the definitely wrong place. Especially in his replies to criticism, he appears unable stand up to attack except by either stooping to<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>name-calling, referring to the precedent of traditional philosophical language, or invoking the natural light. However, it is the sincerity of his effort, the power of his conviction to express his vision, that most impressed me--with which I found myself resonating sympathetically.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Descartes takes pains to clothe his concepts in the ill-fitting garb of rationalism, in an effort to align his thinking with the radically changing world view of the new science, a noble and inspired effort to be sure;<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>but it is nonetheless evident that the most primary tenets of his philosophy are founded on irrational<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>conclusions. Even motivated as he was to avoid the use of the antiquated, authoritarian language of the church, Descartes was unable to be unequivocally rational in expressing the reality of his own consciousness; aspects of my theory (outlined below) indicate that Descartes, in sorting out the paradoxical imbroglio of entangled considerations of objective rational thought and subjective religious experience, has relied heavily on intuitive<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>thought processes--processes which inevitably lead, via the collective mind (as we shall see),<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>to perceptions of a higher reality.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Descartes' efforts to justify his intuitive responses with rational arguments seem to us pretty silly, but the sensitive reader may readily go into "between-the-lines" mode to see how the collective mind is informing his subjective experience, if not his writing.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>To summarize my theory concerning the collective mind :<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>1. The intuitive response is a goal-oriented mental process motivated by a pre-conceived end condition. An event called re-centering<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>takes place during this goal-seeking process. Re-centering is a moment in time when the mind takes the components of an emotional set and radically restructures them in an effort to find the path of least resistance to the pre-conceived end condition. (Bastick)</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>2.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>There are various states of mind that are associated with re-centering, which help initiate the process. One precondition for re-centering is redundancy; the use of familiar or repeated material (functional fixation) sets the stage for the next mental state which is psychological regression. Psychological regression is a kind of mental reversion to primitive mind states; during psychological regression there is a pronounced tendency for unconscious or so-called preconscious material to surface onto the stage of literal consciousness. Indeed, it is the manipulation of preconscious material that is the most obvious literal manifestation of the operation of intuitive forces on mental material. This preconscious material tends to express itself in forms which are universally shared archetypes; forms which are echoed and varied in the world's library of inherited artifacts, and which are universally (innately) understood without literal explanation.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>3.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>It is my contention that the universal quality of, and the unlearned, shared agreement about, so much of this planet's archetypal symbology indicates that the intuitive response is keying in a higher state of mind, a super-personal state of mind. This mind state represents a tangible<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>access to a supernatural world, (maybe even a measurable access), which defines the subjective reality of the individual as a bubble in the consciousness of a cosmic mind which includes more and more such bubbles at ever high hierarchic levels. Hence, the intuitive response uses the subject's contact with the collective mind as a first step in the multi-stage progress toward the ultimate mind of God.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>4.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The tip-off that an intuitive re-centering response has been initiated is a characteristic rhythmic acceleration of the sequential presentation of the conceptual material. If the flow of ideas speeds up such that their identities become blurred or integrated into a synthetic gestalt (kind of like escape velocity), it is a safe bet that the literal mind has made contact with the higher mind.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Thank you very much for listening, and what the hell does this have to do with Descartes ?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Well, I was particularly struck by two aspects of Descartes' proof of his own existence and of God's existence. First (actually second), the fact itself, that we can have a conception of God which is quantitatively different from our conception of anything else, proves the existence of God, and second (actually first), that my experience of myself as a thought makes me real. I find the relationship between these two ideas to be fascinating and revealing. There is an implication here that the only true<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>reality is the reality of mind--that God exists because I can conceive of Him, and that I exist for the same reason. Therefore it is possible to say that God and I are cut from the same cloth, since the ultimate test of our reality is whether we can be mentally conceived. If this is true, then Descartes is recapitulating an ancient Hindu concept of man as a little piece of God, a piece that is momentarily lost in the time distortion of the world of material illusion, but who is destined to rejoin the creative mind in eternal ecstacy after his worldly trials are ended. Furthermore, the Christian (and Jewish) idea of the Christ, as a focus of the Creator-mind in the flesh, the mysterious worldly manifestation of cosmic reality, sounds very similar to Descartes' dualistic, subjective self-conception as both a material machine and an infinite mind.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>My point is that, although Descartes is attempting to dress up his ideas in fancy Cadillac terminology, his basic Chevy impulse to express his thoughts comes from an intuitive<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>experience of himself in relation to (or in) a higher mind state.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The fact is that "the natural light" does not tell us beans about anything, does not dignify anything, is not a resource for rational confirmation of anything; however, it does sensitize us to higher mental realities which are essentially irrational, or better, super-rational. [At this point let me comment on the expression psychological regression : at face value the term seems to point to a state of mind which is animalistic, or somehow subhuman; still, if we view the regression to preconscious states as a raising of consciousness to the level of super-personal collective consciousness, then we have no choice but to see the regression<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>as a progression.] Thus, Descartes' experience of himself as a thought of finite dimensions, allied to God as a thought of infinite dimensions, comes not from any objective,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>rational operation, but merely from the quantum leap from the literal mind state to a supernormal mind state--an effect that is typical of intuitive re-centering . <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>To arrive at the foregoing conclusion, one element is missing, namely, a description of how Descartes achieves, in his meditations, the mind state whereby he comes into contact with the collective mind. In a piece of music, the progression from redundancy to functional fixation to psychological regression to inspiration, as in, say, a jazz improvisation, or the development section of a symphony, is a pretty well-marked pathway, since musical cliches are fairly easy to identify, and the acceleration of the sequential presentation of these identities is easy to detect.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>In philosophy the game is not so clear, since rhythm is not usually considered to be a significant parameter.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>However, one need not look very far in the Meditations to find a number of personal asides like this one from the Third Meditation<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>:</div>
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The longer and more carefully I examine all these points, the more clearly and distinctly I recognize their truth. But what is my conclusion to be? If the objective reality of any of my ideas turns out to be so great that I am sure the same reality does not reside in me, either formally or eminently, and hence that I myself cannot be its cause, it will necessarily follow that I am not alone in the world, but that some other thing which is the cause of this idea also exists. (p. 43)</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>This paragraph is a polaroid postcard report of a person who has had an intuitive re-centering experience.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>It begins with the suggestion of time spent in laborious pondering ("the longer and more carefully I examine all these points"), the end condition is called for ("But what is my conclusion to be?"), four concepts flash by in quick succession (1. "If the objective reality of any of my ideas turns out to be" 2. " so great that I am sure the same reality does not reside in me," 3. "either formally" 4. "or eminently,"), and finally a feeling of ego-death, of detachment from physical reality ("I myself cannot be its cause"), and a feeling of kinship with a collective mind ("I am not alone in the world").<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The culmination of the paragraph ("some other thing which is the cause of this idea also exists") is the consequence of a radical recentering process that takes the subject from an egocentric consideration of literally-defined self to an experience of super-personal reality.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Spinoza's contribution to all this is a commentary on the relationship of finite things to eternal things which supports the idea of a collective mind. In Prop. XVI of the Ethics ,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>he says,</div>
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<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>". . . from the given definition of anything a number of properties necessarily following from it (that is to say following from the essence of the thing itself) are inferred by the intellect, and just in proportion as the definition of the thing expresses a greater reality, will more properties be inferred. But the divine nature possesses absolutely infinite attributes . . each one of which expresses infinite essence in its own kind (in suo genere), and therefore,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>from the necessity of the divine nature, infinite things which in infinite ways (that is to say, all things which can be conceived by the intellect) must necessarily follow. ( p. 309)</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>It will be apparent from this quote that Spinoza, with Descartes, sees mind as the ultimate reality. It will also be noted that Spinoza is in agreement with an idea that I suggested earlier, i.e. that the infinite is subject to subdivision; indeed, the subdivision of infinite essence into consciously accessible components seems to be that primary activity of intellect, bearing in mind that each definition arrived at consciously is a mere reduction of the essence into incomplete parts of the whole, a whole which becomes more and more vast as the intellect climbs back up the hierarchic beanstalk toward God. The stages in the intuitive mental process outlined above, from literal goal-oriented consciousness, to psychological regression, to the collective mind state and higher, consists of the same kind of breakdown in psychological material that Spinoza hints at here.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Since Spinoza's idea of intuitive knowledge is that of knowledge which is initiated by rational processes, gives knowledge of ideational particulars which correspond to all the particles of nature, but which nevertheless sees nature as timeless substance, manifesting the mind of God, it will be evident that the type of progression of mind states I have previously suggested is consistent with Spinoza's assessment of things. In fact, the quoted paragraph indicates that Spinoza's conceptual picture of mind is of a very fluid two-way street running back and forth between higher and lower;<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>the essences<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>of things<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>are perceivable as subdivisions of the mind of God, and our internal perceptions of these things<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>as subdivisions of those essences.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>In particular, it is necessary to emphasize the idea that "as the definition of the thing expresses a greater reality, [so] will more properties be inferred"; this idea corresponds to my idea that the joining of the literal mind with the collective mind makes available to the subject the vast astral library of the inherited archetypal forms of Man, enabling Man to communicate with himself in an universally understood symbolic language, and to approach higher states of God-consciousness. Surely the expression of a particular idea of a particular subject will tend to be more unique than a collective generalization, but the collective generalization is actually more complex than a personal statement because the averaging process of archetypal formalization involves synthesizing the essence of many<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>subjective particularizations into a single composite form--thus the one includes the many, as each tiny voice in the whole cosmic chorus sings out its individual part as the whole is articulated through<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>the many. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>In summary,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>although as a work of logic the Meditations<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>of Descartes fail at least as much as they succeed, as the efforts of a man seeking to articulate the truth<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>there is more to commend them than petty quibbling has the power to vitiate. Spinoza, not as dedicated to rational expression (we say jargon<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>nowadays) as Descartes, does not seem so ridiculous as a logician; Spinoza makes himself ridiculous (to the cynical modern eye) in a different way--by using metaphysical language which sounds like so much gobbledy-gook to the rationalist, who would always prefer to assign a precise value to an essence and then divide by the current rate of inflation.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>From my point of view, I appreciate the heartfelt sincerity of this work, and relate to it, as I do to most things, as music; i.e. as the subtle interplay of abstractions which refer only incidentally to the material world, but which always point with prophetic finger to higher worlds.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>If my work with intuition has helped create a flimsy bridge between psyche and anima it is of no ultimate consequence, mere wordplay.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>But without this wordplay what would our minds do while our hearts seek out the face of God?</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Urbana</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>March 8, 1997</div>
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Bibliography</div>
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Descartes , Selected Philosophical Writings , Cotingham, Stoothoff, and Murdoch, trans. , Cambridge University Press, 1988</div>
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From Descartes to Kant , ed. T.V. Smith and Marjorie Grene, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1940, Ethics,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Part I <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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Intuition<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>by Tony Bastick, 1982, John Wiley and Sons, New York</div>
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(Supplemental Bibliography)</div>
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Bastick, Tony</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>1982<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Intuition<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>. New York : John Wiley and Sons</div>
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Borges, Jorge Luis</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>1964<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Dreamtigers<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>. Austin : University of Texas <span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Press</div>
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Brun, Herbert</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>1972<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Compositions<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>(liner notes)</div>
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Durant, Alan</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>1989<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>"Improvisation in the Political Economy of <span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Music." in Christopher Norris, ed.,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Music and the Politics of Culture (New York: St. Martin's <span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Press) pp. 252-82</div>
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Godwin, Joscelyn</div>
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Ives, Charles</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>1947<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Essays Before a Sonata and Other Writings<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>. <span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>New York : W.W. Norton</div>
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Keil-Feld</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>1994<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Music Grooves<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>, "Aesthetics as Iconicity of <span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Style" . Chicago : University of Chicago Press</div>
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Kosslyn, Stephen Michael</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>1948<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Ghosts in the Mind's Machine<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>. New York : <span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>W.W. Norton</div>
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Maraire, Abraham Dumisani</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>1971<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>"Introduction," Mbira Music of Rhodesia <span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>[Notes with the Recording, Mbira Music of <span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Rhodesia, UWP 1001] Seattle : University of<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Washington Press</div>
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Merriam, Alan P.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>1964<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>The Anthropology of Music<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>. Evanston : <span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Northwestern University Press</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>1967<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>The Science of Art<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>. New York : John Day Co.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>1977<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Structure, Sign, and Function -Selected <span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Essays.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>New Haven : Yale University Press</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>1974<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>"Thoughts on Improvisation : A Comparative <span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Approach,"<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Musical Quarterly<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>60 : 1-19</div>
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Pressing, Jeff</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>1988<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>"Improvisation : Methods and Models," in<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>John A. Sloboda, ed. Generative Processes in Music (Oxford : Oxford University Press),<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>pp. 130-177.</div>
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Treitler, Leo</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>1991<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>"Medieval Improvisation," World of Music 33, <span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>no. 3: 66-91</div>
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Yutang, Lin</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>1967<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>The Chinese Theory of Art . New York : G.P. <span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Putnam's Sons</div>
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<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Freeman-Toole</div>
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Richard Freeman-Toolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03480701171151843224noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6082284124238685067.post-91503039703748385542018-07-20T07:43:00.002-07:002018-07-20T07:43:28.305-07:00Gospel of Truth - 1-Truth/Error, HeavenonEarth<h2>
Gospel of Truth - 1</h2>
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The last two weeks have been spent taking an overview of Valentinus as seen through the eyes of a number of experts in the field of ancient texts. But there is no substitute for the real thing, and so today I will attempt to delve, in earnest, into Valentines’ magnum opus, <i>The Gospel of Truth.</i></div>
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This sermon will cover the first few sections. First we will read a short summary out of Wikipedia, then we will go directly into the book. The work begins with a salutation and praise: “<i>The Gospel of Truth</i><b> </b>is joy!” This is followed by a discussion of language, then comes obeisance to Jesus Christ, “He it is who is called "the Savior”; then we turn to the a basic gnostic tenet: that ignorance of the Father brought about terror and fear, along with this remarkable thought, “Forgetfulness did not exist with the Father, although it existed because of him.” Remember “gnosis” means “knowledge”, and in a higher sense, “knowledge of God”. Of Jesus, Valentinus states: “What exists in him is knowledge, which was revealed so that forgetfulness might be destroyed, <span class="s1">He did not, however, destroy them because they ate of it. He rather caused those who ate of it to be joyful because of this discovery.” Opposites come into play here. Finally we wills mention various aspects of Heaven on Earth.</span></div>
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<i>The Gospel of Truth </i>is one of the more talked-about of the apocryphal works because it is, more than many of the other gnostic texts, jam-packed with doctrinal principles and sacraments. Terms like “logos” and “pleroma” appear consistently, as do the gnostic attitudes toward knowledge and spiritual manifestation. Wikipedia has this to say:</div>
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<span class="s1">“The <b><i>Gospel of Truth</i></b> is one of the Gnostic texts from the New Testament apocrypha found in the Nag Hammadi codices ("NHC"). It exists in two Coptic translations, a Subakhmimic rendition surviving almost in full in the first codex (the "Jung Codex") and a Sahidic in fragments in the twelfth.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">The <b><i>Gospel of Truth</i></b> was probably written in Greek between 140 and 180 by Valentinian Gnostics (or, as some posit, by Valentinus himself). It was known to Irenaeus of Lyons, who objected to its Gostic content and declared it heresy. Irenaeus declares it one of the works of the disciples of "Valentinius", and the similarity of the work to others thought to be by Valentinus and his followers has made many scholars agree with Irenaeus on this point.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">“But the followers of Valentinus, putting away all fear, bring forward their own compositions and boast that they have more Gospels than really exist. Indeed their audacity has gone so far that they entitle their recent composition the <i>Gospel of Truth</i>, though it agrees in nothing with the Gospels of the apostles, and so no Gospel of theirs is free from blasphemy. For if what they produce is the Gospel of Truth, and is different from those the apostles handed down to us, those who care to can learn how it can be shown from the Scriptures themselves that [then] what is handed down from the apostles is not the <i>Gospel of Truth</i>.<sup>”</sup></span></div>
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<span class="s1">After its Coptic translations and their burial at Nag Hammadi, the text had been lost until the Nag Hammadi discovery. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s2">The text is written with strong poetic skill (notable even in translation), and includes a heavily cyclical presentation of themes. It is not a "gospel" in the sense of an account of the </span><span class="s1">works of Jesus of Nazareth, but is better understood as a homily. The text is generally considered by scholars one of the best written texts in the whole Nag Hammadi collection, considering its worth highly as both a great literary work and a gnostic exegesis on several gospels, canonical and otherwise.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Not all scholars, however, agree that the text is to be considered Gnostic. Paterson Brown has argued forcefully that the three Nag Hammadi Coptic Gospels of <i>Thomas</i>, <i>Philip</i> and <i>Truth</i> are demonstrably not Gnostic in content, since each explicitly affirms the basic reality and sanctity of inca</span><span class="s2">rnate life, which Brown argues that Gnosticism considers illusory or evil.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">The writing is thought to cite or allude to the New Testament Gospels of <i>Matthew</i> and <i>John</i>, as well as <i>1</i> and <i>2 Corinthians</i>, <i>Galatians</i>, <i>Ephesians</i>, <i>Colossians</i>, <i>Hebrews</i>, <i>1 John</i> and the <i>Book of Revelation</i>--<i>John's Gospel</i> the most often. It is also influenced by <i>Thomas</i>; for instance at one point (22:13-19) it cites <i>John 3:8</i> alongside <i>Thomas 28</i>.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">The text describes a theory of the rise of Error in personified form. The ignorance and yearning to see the Father bred fear, which coalesced into a fog by which Error gained power.”</span></div>
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Let’s read about that far:</div>
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“<b>The Gospel of Truth </b>is joy to those who have received from the Father of truth the gift of knowing him by the power of the Logos, who has come from the Pleroma and who is in the thought and the mind of the Father;”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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[Sidebar: To get us started, let us make examine these terms, “logos” and “pleroma”, not out of ignorance, but because there are so many various definitions of some of these words that we must be quite clear about what is meant in the gnostic sense:</div>
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<span class="s1"><i>Logos</i></span><span class="s3"> </span><span class="s1">From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i>“</i><b><i>Logos</i></b> ; is a term in Western philosophy, psychology, rhetoric, and religion derived from a Greek word variously meaning "ground", "plea", "opinion", "expectation", "word", "speech", "account", "reason", "proportion", and "discourse", but it became a technical term in philosophy beginning with Heraclitus (c. 535 – c. 475 BC), who used the term for a principle of order and knowledge.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i>Logos</i> is the logic behind an argument. <i>Logos</i> tries to persuade an audience using logical arguments and supportive evidence. <i>Logos</i> is a persuasive technique often used in writing and rhetoric.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Ancient Greek philosophers used the term in different ways. The sophists used the term to mean discourse; Aristotle applied the term to refer to "reasoned discourse"or "the argument" in the field of rhetoric, and considered it one of the three modes of persuasion alongside <i>ethos</i> and <i>pathos</i>. Stoic philosophers identified the term with the divine animating principle pervading the Universe.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">[Sidebar: This is the definition we will come back to: “the divine animating principle pervading the Universe.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Back to Wikipedia:]</span></div>
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<span class="s1">“Within Hellenistic Judaism, Philo of Alexandria (c. 20 BC – c. 50 AD) adopted the term into Jewish philosophy. The Gospel of John identifies the Logos, through which all things are made, as divine (<i>theos</i>), and further identifies Jesus Christ as the incarnate Logos. The term is also used in Sufism, and the analytical psychology of Carl Jung.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Despite the conventional translation as "word", it is not used for a word in the grammatical sense; instead, the term <i>lexis</i> (λέξις, <i>léxis</i>) was used. However, both <i>logos</i> and <i>lexis</i> derive from the same verb <i>légō</i> (λέγω), meaning "(I) count, tell, say, speak”.<sup>”</sup></span></div>
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Now “pleroma”:</div>
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<span class="s1">“<b>Pleroma</b> generally refers to the totality of divine powers. The word means <i>fullness</i> from πληρόω ("I fill") comparable to πλήρης which means "full", and is used in Christian theological contexts: both in Gnosticism generally, and by St. Paul the Apostle in <i>Colossians 2:9:</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1">“For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form,”</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The word is used 17 times in the New Testament.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Pleroma is also used in the general Greek language and is used by the Greek Orthodox Church in this general form since the word appears in the book of <i>Colossians</i>. Proponents of the view that Paul was actually a Gnostic, such as Elaine Pagels of Princeton University, view the reference in <i>Colossian</i>s as something that was to be interpreted in the Gnostic sense.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><sup>[Sidebar: It is interesting to me how much hidden meaning is embedded in our language; we all know that knowledge of a person’s position in the social hierarchy, his income, even his place of birth, may be discovered merely by listening to his accent and vocabulary. Thus, merely by using the word Pleroma, the authorities place Paul in the box marked “gnostics”. And this is not without reason— remember what Frank Zappa said:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></sup></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><sup>“Everyone in this room is wearing a uniform, and don’t kid yourself.”</sup></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><sup>Everything we do and say identifies us with a culture or a clique, a country or a county. If Paul used the word “pleroma” he had to have heard the word somewhere, and where else than from a gnostic philosopher? Remember that Paul was classically educated, and was well aware of the ideas underlying much of the philosophical outlook of the time. Thus, if the presence of a gnostic philosophy was felt in the pulse of the collective consciousness, surely the word pleroma would have been public domain but with an obvious and telling pedigree. I think the word “gnostics”, just like any other label you can name, is sort of like the word “politicians”—there are lots of them and they can’t agree on anything.</sup></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><sup>Now back to Valentinus:]</sup></span></div>
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“<b>The Gospel of Truth </b>is joy to those who have received from the Father of truth the gift of knowing him by the power of the Logos, who has come from the Pleroma and who is in the thought and the mind of the Father;”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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[Sidebar: The language is very twisted here, but I think a reasonable paraphrase of this might go like this:</div>
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“<b>The Gospel of Truth </b>is joy to those who have received from the Father of truth the gift of knowing him (the Father) by the power of the Logos, (Jesus Christ) who has come from the Pleroma (come to where from the pleroma? here into the physical, OUTSIDE the pleroma—remember? to rescue the lost Sophia who has abandoned herself to the illusions of grief and suffering which comprise the outer darkness), who (Jesus again) is in the thought and the mind of the Father;”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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You can see here that, in just this one paragraph, there is concentrated a lot of material that requires a background in Gnostic mythology to understand. Thus did <span class="s1">Irenaeus</span> declare in<b> <i>Against Heresies</i> 3:2:1</b>:</div>
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"The scriptures are ambiguous and the truth cannot be extracted from them by those who are ignorant of tradition." <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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There is an important point to be brought home, here: the interpretation of sacred texts (or any text for that matter) must take place in the light of the CONTEXT of the material, the historical era during which it was created. To confuse things, idiomatic expressions, especially those of an abstract nature, elicit complicated sometimes contradictory definitions; also, we must be aware that these verbal nuances are specific to the life of that particular time. Moreover, we must admit that the process of using words, to express intangible things, is infected with many problems of a philological nature; thus, from a passage filled with language whose words bear many multiple meanings, no LITERAL interpretation of a sacred text will yield any eternal truth. A literal interpretation demands a fixed definition of static realities—and yet there ARE NO static realities—we say that “reality” is a verb, and “time waits for no man”. There has never been a single moment in time that has ever stopped flowing like a river to the sea.</div>
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Thinking about the river flowing to the sea, I began to see it as an apt metaphor that could apply to several other metaphors we have been developing. We think of the river as constantly flowing—moving—to empty into a vast becalmed ocean of bliss, where still and silence reign. Thus, the endlessly flowing river represents time, while the ocean represents timelessness. Also, in terms of the Father/Mother God dichotomy, the river represents the masculine, and the ocean represents the feminine.</div>
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Back to Valentinus; this is where he attributes to Jesus, the Savior, the qualities of Hope, Infinite Knowledge, and Humility.]</div>
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“He it is who is called "the Savior," since that is the name of the work which he must do for the redemption of those who have not known the Father.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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For the name of the gospel is the manifestation of hope, since that is the discovery of those who seek him, because the All sought him from whom it had come forth.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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[Sidebar: This is a complicated issue: seeking. The passage states, somewhat ambiguously, that the one separated from the Pleroma SEEKS to return to the Source, HOPES to return to the Source. But then it says, “the All sought him from whom it had come forth”; this implies the ALL (the Pleroma) also sought the lost one. There is a law of mutual attraction here that cannot be ignored, a law of opposites, possibly of a masculine/feminine nature. [Sing:] “Oh how I love Jesus, because He first loved me.”]</div>
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Valentinus goes on to explain:</div>
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“You see, the All had been inside of him, that illimitable, inconceivable one, who is better than every thought. This ignorance of the Father brought about terror and fear. And terror became dense like a fog, that no one was able to see.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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[Sidebar: The sentence structure is somewhat confused, here, but I think a proper annotation for the passage would go something like this:</div>
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“You see, the All (the Pleroma, that illimitable, inconceivable one) had been inside of him (the protagonist). The All, who is better than every thought (the ALL Who is beyond thought in the Cloud of Unknowing). This ignorance of the Father (ignorance engendered by false thoughts (or any thoughts)) brought about terror and fear. And terror became dense like a fog, that no one was able to see. (This fog may be thought of as the illusory material from which the Physical universe was created.)</div>
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Back to Valentinus:]</div>
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“Because of this, error became strong. But it worked on its hylic substance (of matter; material, the opposite of psychic) vainly, because it did not know the truth. It was in a fashioned form while it was preparing, in power and in beauty, the equivalent of truth.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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[Sidebar: This passage gets a big hooray from me, because it recapitulates a point I have made several times: that false doctrine springs from an adherence to a tangible form, a form which deludes the observer with an EQUIVALENT Truth, a truth with a bright glowing surface, but whose innards are defiled by subtle misdirections of language.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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The next passage returns to the Logos (Jesus); notice that the descent into the Outer Darkness, to rescue Sophia, was not a humiliation for Him. From this (no humiliation) is true humility born.]</div>
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“This then, was not a humiliation for him, that illimitable, inconceivable one. For they were as nothing, this terror and this forgetfulness and this figure of falsehood, whereas this established truth is unchanging, unperturbed and completely beautiful.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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For this reason, do not take error too seriously. Thus, since it had no root, it was in a fog as regards the Father, engaged in preparing works and forgetfulnesses and fears in order, by these means, to beguile those of the middle and to make them captive. The forgetfulness of error was not revealed. It did not become light beside the Father. Forgetfulness did not exist with the Father, although it existed because of him.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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[Sidebar: Embedded in this paragraph are several deep concepts. Recall our numerous discussions of the<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>parable—we have suggested that Jesus spoke in parables to protect the uninitiated from too much too soon. Now, this passage from Valentinus makes reference to “the middle”, the people who have become the target of Satanic fascination:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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“engaged in preparing works and forgetfulnesses and fears in order, by these means, to beguile those of the middle and to make them captive.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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This “middle” must refer to the common layman, the poor peasant who cannot be trusted with the secret truths of Jesus, but only the parables of Jesus. Unfortunately, the mediocre spirit consciousness poses the most convenient target for the beguiling powers of Satan. All this points to a recommendation of “Knowledge” over “Forgetfulness”, and the affirmative moral imperative of the initiate to rescue the uninitiated, as Jesus came to rescue Sophia.</div>
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Notice the use of the term “forgetfulness”; remember that at the heart of Gnostic doctrine is the idea that: through Gnosis, Knowledge, the Truth will be revealed. Coincidentally, a primary article of New Age theology is that: we all already know who we are and where we come from, but we have merely forgotten. Gnosis is not discovering something new, but is, rather, uncovering something ancient.</div>
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And this part kills me: “Forgetfulness did not exist with the Father, although it existed because of him.” Again I sense an attraction of opposites i.e.,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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forgetfulness is <span class="s4">bad</span> because it separates us from the All, but forgetfulness is <span class="s4">good</span> because it comes from the Father, and only <span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>good can come from the Father, and, as many Hindus <span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>would say, this forgetfulness may be seen as God’s play.</div>
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Also, don’t forget that God created EVERYTHING, the good with the bad, and set up the whole lost-soul-redemption thing.</div>
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This is one of two references, close together, to God as the Source of all evil as well as good. The first is: “Thus, since it had no root, it was in a fog as regards the Father, engaged in preparing works and forgetfulnesses and fears.” This sentence is confusing; it can either mean, “It—the error—was engaged in preparing works and forgetfulnesses and fears,” or “the Father was engaged in preparing works and forgetfulnesses and fears.” If we choose the latter meaning, the one where the Father prepares forgetfulnesses and fears,we clearly portray a demonic God who curses His creation at the same time He blesses it.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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It is difficult to come to grips with the idea that God created Good and Evil at the same time, perhaps as expressions of gender; we like to think of spiritual life as a constantly forward-moving progress, down a path toward some bright ineffable star— but what if William Blake’s idea of the Contraries is true, and all there is, is opposition of opposites?</div>
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I’m sure that, on some level, any description of reality you can think of may be said to be true; but the following paragraph gives this GoodGod/BadGod scenario a happy ending, as we read that Knowledge is the cure for Forgetfulness.</div>
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“What exists in him is knowledge, which was revealed so that forgetfulness might be destroyed and that they might know the Father, Since forgetfulness existed because they did not know the Father, if they then come to know the Father, from that moment on forgetfulness will cease to exist.”</div>
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<span class="s1">The next section describes Jesus as having been sent down by God to remove ignorance. Jesus was a teacher confounding the other scribes and teachers, and asserted they were foolish since they tried to understand the world by analyzing the law. But Error grew angry at this, and nailed Jesus to a cross. It also proceeds to describe how it is knowledge of the father that grants salvation, which constitutes eternal rest, describing ignorance as a nightmare.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">“That is the gospel of him whom they seek, which he has revealed to the perfect through the mercies of the Father as the hidden mystery, Jesus the Christ. Through him he enlightened those who were in darkness because of forgetfulness. He enlightened them and gave them a path. And that path is the truth which he taught them.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">For this reason error was angry with him, so it persecuted him. It was distressed by him, so it made him powerless. He was nailed to a cross. He became a fruit of the knowledge of the Father. He did not, however, destroy them because they ate of it. He rather caused those who ate of it to be joyful because of this discovery.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">[Sidebar: I find this paragraph amazing! It begins with the statement that “error”, (the power of Darkness personified), was angry with Him, and so persecuted Him; persecuted Him through the power of dominion over the Earth that had, for a time, been given by God to Satan. Jesus’ crucifixion is described as “a fruit of the knowledge of the Father.” Thus, is the suffering of Jesus justified in the inexorable bonds of Fate. This Knowledge, this fruit, is Knowledge not unlike the fruit that blossomed from the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden, but THIS time, instead of bringing down a curse,</span></div>
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<span class="s1">“He rather caused those who ate of it to be joyful because of this discovery [of Knowledge].”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">This shocking revelation is similar to the many shocking turns of plot in the <i>Bhagavad Gita</i>. It seems that religious literature thrives on paradox, little crusts of doctrine stuffed between the cracks of short parenthetical statements. Where physical reality touches eternity—there is the essence of paradox; hence, a new spirit of Mankind is born out of the suffering of a single person. Jesus’ death gives new life to an ailing world, His Ghost rises out of His body, nailed to the cross, and He thus makes us all free.]</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Back to Valentinus:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">“And as for him, them he found in himself, and him they found in themselves, that illimitable, inconceivable one, that perfect Father who made the all, in whom the All is, and whom the All lacks, since he retained in himself their perfection, which he had not given to the all.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Wikipedia provides some summary remarks:</span></div>
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<span class="s1">“In this gospel we see darkness and Satan recast as 'error', which can be taken as another way of describing the same thing. It's a poetic way of presenting the data of life: the world is dark, Jesus is the light. But Jesus is also the path to the father. What the father brings, according to this gospel, is 'fullness' for the 'deficient'. But this is clearly the same thing as the 'inexpressible joy' and the peace that passes all understanding discussed in the canonical gospels. It's the place of rest. It's the Kingdom of Heaven, which followers of Jesus find, and live in, while they are still on earth.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">A key point here is:</span></div>
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<span class="s1">“It's the Kingdom of Heaven, which followers of Jesus find, and live in, while they are still on earth.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">The idea of Heaven on Earth is one we have visited many times in the past. Last week we read this from the Brons article on Valentinus:</span></div>
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“Valentinians describe the process of union with the divine in terms of a general eschatology that can be realized in the individual here and now. First the person spiritually ascends above the Craftsman and the lower powers to join Sophia, the Savior and their angel. Rejoicing with all of the saved, the person is joined with their angel and enters the Fullness. Such a person is "in the world but not of it." They have already attained a spiritual existence such that, for them, the world has become the Fullness.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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<span class="s1">There are numerous references, in scripture, to a Heaven on Earth:</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b>1 Chronicles 29:11-12</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1">"Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, indeed everything that is in the heavens and the earth; Yours is the dominion, O LORD, and You exalt Yourself as head over all. "Both riches and honor come from You, and You rule over all, and in Your hand is power and might; and it lies in Your hand to make great and to strengthen everyone.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Jesus’ promise of a Heaven on Earth is well documented:</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Matthew</i> 6:9-13 Jesus taught us to pray:</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i>Matthew</i> 5:16:</span></div>
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<span class="s1">“In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">In <i>Matthew</i> 16:19 Jesus tells his disciples,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”</span></div>
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<li class="li1"><span class="s1"><i>Luke </i>13:29:</span></li>
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<span class="s1"><b>“</b>People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i>Luke </i>9:1-2: </span></div>
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<span class="s1">“<b>1</b>And he called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b>2 </b>and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">The apostle Paul has many comfortable words on the subject:</span></div>
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<li class="li1"><span class="s1"><i>Colossians</i> 3:1-7:</span></li>
<li class="li1"><span class="s1">“<b>1</b> Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. <b>2</b> Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></li>
<li class="li1"><span class="s1"><b>3</b> For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. <b>4</b> When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. <b><br />
</b></span></li>
<li class="li1"><span class="s1">John sees the ending of the old and the beginning of the new world:</span></li>
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<span class="s1"><i>Revelation</i> 7:13-17:</span></div>
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<span class="s1">“<b>13</b> Then one of the elders asked me, “These in white robes—who are they, and where did they come from?”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b>14</b> I answered, “Sir, you know.” And he said, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b>15</b> Therefore, “they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b>16</b> ‘Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat down on them,’nor any scorching heat.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b>17</b> For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; ‘he will lead them to springs of living water.’‘And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’ ”</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i>Revelation</i> 21:4-8:</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b>4</b> ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b>5</b> He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b>6</b> He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b>7</b> Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">The mistake people make, when interpreting <i>Revelation</i>, is in thinking that these apocalyptic visions are descriptions of some tangible event, in the history of time; many of us New Agers agree that these visions are merely metaphoric expressions of the soul’s migration from one consciousness level to another. And thus it is that on visiting the Kingdom, the soul’s victory over temptation delivers the devotee to his own personal Heaven on Earth.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Joseph Campbell agrees with this:</span></div>
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<span class="s1">“Our world as the center of the universe, the world divided from the heavens, the world bound by horizons in which God’s love is reserved for members of the in group: That is the world that is passing away,” said Campbell. “Apocalypse is not about a fiery Armageddon and salvation of a chosen few, but about the fact that our ignorance and our complacency are coming to an end.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">William Blake gives us this assurance:</span></div>
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<span class="s1">“In your own bosom you bear your heaven and earth,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">And all you behold, though it appears without,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">It is within, in your imagination,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">Of which this world of mortality is but a shadow.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">From Nikos Kazantzakis we read:</span></div>
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<span class="s1">“I lack nothing, I tell you!”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">“Nothing?” I asked. “Not even heaven?”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">He lowered his head and was silent. But after a moment:</span></div>
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<span class="s1">“Heaven is too high for me. The earth is good, exceptionally good–and near me!”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">“Nothing is nearer to us than heaven. The earth is beneath our feet and we tread upon it, but heaven is within us.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Finally, I offer these remarks by Rudolf Steiner from his <i>An Esoteric Cosmology Chapter XI: THE DEVACHANIC WORLD (HEAVEN):</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1">“Thus man is bound up with all the kingdoms of Nature. <b>Plato</b> speaks of the symbol of the Cross, saying that the soul of the world is bound to the body of the world as it were upon a Cross. What is the meaning of this symbol? It is an image of the soul passing through the kingdoms of Nature.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">In contrast to the human being, the plant has its root beneath and its organs of generation above, turned towards the Sun. The animal is at the intermediary stage, its organism lying, generally speaking, in the horizontal direction. Man and the plants stand vertically upright and with the animal form a Cross — the Cross of the world.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">In future ages there will be conscious participation on the part of man in the higher worlds after death in the work of building up the lower kingdoms of Nature. The consciousness of man will govern the circumstances whereby a new civilisation comes into being, concurrently with the appearance of a new flora. The divine mission of the Spirit is to forge the future.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">A time will come when there will be no question of ‘miracle’ or chance. Flora and fauna will be a conscious expression of the transfigured soul of man. Creative works on Earth are wrought by the Devas and by man. If we build a cathedral, we are working on the mineral kingdom. The mountains, the banks of the holy Nile are the work of the Devas the temples on the banks of the Nile are the work of man. And the aim is one and the same — the transfiguration of the Earth.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">In future ages man will learn to mould all the kingdoms of Nature with the same consciousness with which today he can give shape to mineral substances. He will give form to living beings and take upon himself the labours of the Gods. Thus will he transform the Earth into Devachan.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">This concludes this first installment from Valentinus’ <i>The Gospel of Truth. </i>In this sermon we have established that:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">Mankind’s Fall from Grace was initiated by error—error in thinking, false thinking almost certainly inspired by Satan’s perversions of language;<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">Knowledge of the Logos is the key to the Kingdom of God, and</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Having entered into the Kingdom, Heaven is available to all on any dimension of existence.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">I find this doctrine to intellectual satisfying without demanding allegiance to the language in which it is expressed. Such a deal.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Let us pray: Jesus inspire us to overcome our spiritual forgetfulness and see what is before us, visible by the spiritual eye. Amen.</span></div>
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Richard Freeman-Toolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03480701171151843224noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6082284124238685067.post-58993486352346591072018-07-06T15:47:00.002-07:002018-07-06T15:49:01.467-07:00 Gospel ofTruth —II--Forgetfulness; childlike; naming<h2>
<br />Gospel ofTruth —II</h2>
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Last week we plowed into the first section of the <i>Gospel of Truth</i>, attributed to Valentinus, ending with numerous descriptions of a Heaven on Earth. The last section that we read was this knotty Zen puzzle:</div>
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<span class="s1">“And as for him, them he found in himself, and him they found in themselves, that illimitable, inconceivable one, that perfect Father who made the all, in whom the All is, and whom the All lacks, since he retained in himself their perfection, which he had not given to the all.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">A wondrous concept is embedded in the descriptor: “in whom the All is, and whom the All lacks”. And it generates much food for thought, much revamping of our WASP visual image of God as a benevolent Grandfather with an unconditional forgiving kiss for all his erring children. This sentence implies that God exists inside and outside of Himself, and was Himself responsible for the flawed universe that Valentinus complained of. Remember, last week we heard Valentinus accuse God of creating evil:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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“Forgetfulness did not exist with the Father, although it existed because of him.”</div>
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<span class="s1">In other words, God created the forgetfulness which drew Sophia away from the Pleroma. With the phrase, “in whom the All is, and whom the All lacks” is summarized the Gnostic attitude toward the Father. To be sure, as a mythologem, mind you, God is still the “illimitable, inconceivable one, that perfect Father who made the all”, but, “he retained in himself their perfection, which he had not given to the all.” God has held something back for Himself, the I AM Presence has declared its sovereignty over All, including anything in the NOT ALL. Here, again, we find the portrait of an infinitely loving God face to face with an evil, self-centered, demonic God.</span></div>
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Let us review <span class="s1">Wikipedia’s summary remarks on the <i>Gospel of Truth</i>, which try to reconcile Valentine doctrine with the doctrine of the Catholic Church, by citing parallel meanings found in the accepted gospels; equating, specifically, Valentinus’ “error”, with the canonical gospels’ “Satan”, and Valentinus’ “fullness' for the 'deficient” with the canonical gospels’ “inexpressible joy”:</span></div>
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<span class="s1">“In this gospel we see darkness and Satan recast as 'error', which can be taken as another way of describing the same thing. It's a poetic way of presenting the data of life: the world is dark, Jesus is the light. But Jesus is also the path to the father. What the father brings, according to this gospel, is 'fullness' for the 'deficient'. But this is clearly the same thing as the 'inexpressible joy' and the peace that passes all understanding discussed in the canonical gospels. It's the place of rest. It's the Kingdom of Heaven, which followers of Jesus find, and live in, while they are still on earth.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Thus, we arrive again at this phrase:</span></div>
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<span class="s1">“the Kingdom of Heaven, which followers of Jesus find, and live in, while they are still on earth.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Knowledge of the God of Light and the God of Dark, the God of existence and the God of non-existence, frees the devotee to enter the celestial realms from any dimension, including Earthly existence; knowledge, of the God of the All, allows the devotee to enter the inarticulate Cloud of Unknowing and Know All in union with the Father, while yet retaining a memory, an image, of the lower world. Moreover, knowledge of the God of Light and the the God of Dark, ensures that the devotee may live a righteous, purposeful life with one foot in Heaven and, still, one foot on Earth.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Going on with Valentinus:</span></div>
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<span class="s1">“The Father was not jealous. What jealousy, indeed, is there between him and his members? For, even if the Aeon had received their perfection, they would not have been able to approach the perfection of the Father, because he retained their perfection in himself, giving it to them as a way to return to him and as a knowledge unique in perfection. He is the one who set the All in order and in whom the All existed and whom the All lacked.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Once again, we see a God who is satisfied with His creation including its flaws, or more generally put, its deficiencies, its negative charge. I have heard it said the material world, including all of us, is God’s “play”. This idea certainly smacks of anthropomorphism, and yet the paragraph above makes it seem almost as though God’s creation is a little game He plays with Himself; He takes away knowledge of the Pleroma with a cosmic forgetfulness, and then leads the way back to Himself, somehow made more perfect through the disciplines of mundane existence.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Going on:</span></div>
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<span class="s1">“As one of whom some have no knowledge, he desires that they know him and that they love him. For what is it that the All lacked, if not the knowledge of the Father?”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Note the phrase, “he desires that they know him”; such is God’s game: He creates All, inflicts forgetfulness on It, and then He DESIRES its return unto Himself; thus, in the last analysis, the devotee’s motivation to acquire knowledge, gnosis, is Love of Self; it is Self-Love that generates the DESIRE in God the reclaim His lost Selves. God hides Himself from the insensitive, but for the initiates He manifests His Cosmic Personality through every sign and wonder emanating from the material world. God loves the world as He loves Himself; and, even in disguise, His Presence can be felt. This sentence makes me realize how every minute of my life is filled with Love, the connectedness of Love, the artifacts of Love. I don’t think Love motivated the creation of Man, but Love pervades every molecule of my existence, pulling me back to the Source. Are we really little cosmic yo-yos, endlessly going up and down the heavenly stairs, or is there a point of stillness where all activities cease, and peace reigns over the waters? Who can know?</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Going on, we encounter a change in narrative direction; we have turned from a discussion of the Father to what can only be understood as a discussion of the Son; in fact, the paragraph almost seems to refer to the episode in Jesus life when He, a 12-year-old boy, instructed the doctors in the synagogue:</span></div>
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<span class="s1">“He became a guide, quiet and in leisure. In the middle of a school he came and spoke the Word, as a teacher. Those who were wise in their own estimation came to put him to the test. But he discredited them as empty-headed people. They hated him because they really were not wise men.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">This doesn’t necessarily have to refer to the 12-year-old episode, because Jesus had this negative reaction to His teaching often enough, during His career spent trying to change the world’s mind. Sometimes, because we esteem Jesus so highly, we kid ourselves into thinking that Jesus was <i>universally</i> hailed as a hero and a saint, that Jesus’ enemies were an exception not the rule; but there was probably more negativity attached to His reputation among His contemporaries than we think. It is interesting that Christianity took hold in the hearts of the common man—the experts rejected Him. It just goes to show that power over others corrupts itself, and moral acts performed on the basis of Law are dangerously infected with Evil Intent. A doctrine based on the Law has no heart. On the other hand, Jesus’ Doctrine contained, among so many other things, the seeds of democracy: the seeds of a universal equality among Men—a new idea that could, only after ages of evolution, flower into a kind of freedom, a freedom inexorably driving toward a Heaven on Earth.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">We will recall Jesus’ declaration that Heaven is only available to a child-like heart. Perhaps this is why it was easier for the uneducated (child-minded) peasant folk to resonate with Jesus’ message, than it was for the San Hedron to abandon their Law. Here, Valentinus refers to the child-like knowledge of children—innocent but knowing, intimate with the inarticulate truth:</span></div>
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<span class="s1">“After all these came also the little children, those who possess the knowledge of the Father. When they became strong they were taught the aspects of the Father's face. They came to know and they were known. They were glorified and they gave glory. In their heart, the living book of the Living was manifest, the book which was written in the thought and in the mind of the Father and, from before the foundation of the All, is in that incomprehensible part of him.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">This paragraph is so rich in meaning I don’t know where to start. It begins by reminding us that, to acquire knowledge of the Father, Child-like innocence is necessary as a starting point; but it goes on to say that spiritual progress is made through the acquisition of deeper knowledge. “When they became strong they were taught the aspects of the Father's face. They came to know and they were known.” This sentence reiterates the suggestion, I have made several times, that spiritual progress is made in the physical; the energy of motion, of time, has a mysterious effect on the spirit, and growth acquired in the physical translate to growth in the celestial.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">I was pondering the question of why innocence is required of the initiates, when it occurred to me that this is not an unheard-of concept in my field, music teaching. For instance, it is customary for new music students to relearn their technique, because teachers prefer to build a student from the ground up—preconceived ideas will often come between the student and the new concepts he has come to the new teacher to learn.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">I had a friend who won a prestigious performance competition on the cello; her reward was to get to play the <i>Dvorak Cello Concerto</i> with the New York Philharmonic, and to get free lessons for the summer with a famous French cellist. So she played what is arguably the hardest cello concerto in the literature with one of the world’s great orchestras, and then she went to this teacher who wouldn’t let her play anything but open strings for a month! She had to relearn her bow technique from the ground up; that is to say, she had to UNLEARN a lot of bad habits. We have bad mental habits too, and we must unlearn them in order to experience the virgin birth in the Kingdom of the Father. That does’t mean we have to STAY childlike—we just need to be childlike enough to start over; then the work begins.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">Once again we return to the issue of language. Remember that our thoughts are made out of words, and that misdirection of semantic meaning is one of Satan’s favorite tricks. Therefore, the more a verbalized doctrine dominates a person’s thinking, the harder it for him to tear all those verbal structures apart and start over; also, the easier it is for Satan to feed us false thoughts.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">Notice that the passage ends with:</span></div>
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<span class="s1">“They came to know and they were known. They were glorified and they gave glory. In their heart, the living book of the Living was manifest, the book which was written in the thought and in the mind of the Father and, from before the foundation of the All, is in that incomprehensible part of him.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">So, the innocent mind state, you might say the “tabula rasa”, offers a perch for the new knowledge of the Father to take hold and grow into an expanded awareness of the Father. But the devotee does not acquire this knowledge by sustaining the ignorance of childhood—he comes to know, he becomes KNOWN, he gets himself NAMED, and, once his name is inscribed in the Book, he joins the Father in the incomprehensible realm of the Cloud of Unknowing.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Then there is the “Praise” factor:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">“They were glorified and they gave glory. In their heart, the living book of the Living was manifest, the book which was written in the thought and in the mind of the Father,”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">It seems the drive to “manifest” is essential to our spiritual structure; the desire to bring spiritual knowledge into physical reality motivates our every mundane act. In fact, the manifestation of spiritual reality may be properly thought of as “Praise”. Therefore, every note of music we hear, every word we read, every image we project onto the screen of visual sensation, is Praise. And Praise is a direct manifestation of the Face of the Father. Thus, every physicalization of an inner reality, any idea, any image, any project, MUST be thought of as Praise, and therefore, sacred.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Now what about this section?</span></div>
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<span class="s1">“In their heart, the living book of the Living was manifest, the book which was written in the thought and in the mind of the Father and, from before the foundation of the All, is in that incomprehensible part of him.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">For me, the key to this passage is the idea that the “book”—by this we can safely assume is meant the “akashic record”— the “book” “is in that incomprehensible part of him.” The book cannot be written and cannot be understood, and yet it is written on the heart; it LIVES in the heart. This sounds like the Cloud of Unknowing to me.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">I will now quote a lengthy section without interruption. It is all about Jesus’ teaching, the mystery of His purpose on Earth, and His ultimate demise on the cross. It opens with the statement that the truth of the “Book” was reserved for the Christ (the anointed one) alone, perhaps because He is the only One Who could understand it:</span></div>
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<span class="s1">“This is the book which no one found possible to take, since it was reserved for him who will take it and be slain. No one was able to be manifest from those who believed in salvation as long as that book had not appeared. For this reason, the compassionate, faithful Jesus was patient in his sufferings until he took that book, since he knew that his death meant life for many. Just as in the case of a will which has not yet been opened, for the fortune of the deceased master of the house is hidden, so also in the case of the All which had been hidden as long as the Father of the All was invisible and unique in himself, in whom every space has its source.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">For this reason Jesus appeared. He took that book as his own. He was nailed to a cross. He affixed the edict of the Father to the cross. Oh, such great teaching! He abases himself even unto death, though he is clothed in eternal life. Having divested himself of these perishable rags, he clothed himself in incorruptibility, which no one could possibly take from him. Having entered into the empty territory of fears, he passed before those who were stripped by forgetfulness, being both knowledge and perfection, proclaiming the things that are in the heart of the Father, so that he became the wisdom of those who have received instruction.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">It is the intercourse of temporal and eternal values in this paragraph that make it so mind-bending; man’s mind, however fervently it seeks clear-cut answers to cosmic questions, seems doomed forever to receive paradox instead of verbal reassurance. Indeed it is the ability to see two things at once that enables higher spiritual sensitivities to emerge.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">There are so many beautiful, heroic expressions in this paragraph:</span></div>
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<span class="s1">“Oh, such great teaching! He abases himself even unto death, though he is clothed in eternal life.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">This paragraph identifies the sacrifice of Jesus as a LESSON; by example, Jesus shows us the impotence of death, as well as the possibility of an Earthly life suffused with heavenly light. The drama of it excels all possible fiction, the flamboyance of it takes my breath away. Jesus knows no shame, for His knowledge of the Father repels all attacks on his ego; Jesus has no false ego structures, like the ones we languish under, because He is all-knowing and never falls for Satan’s sleight-of-hand. The armor of God has nary a chink, nary a scratch; it keeps out Evil and holds in the Good. Likewise must we be shameless, even in the shadow of Original Sin, because the gnostic experience cancels all Karmic debts, and frees us to explore ever-higher spiritual frontiers.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">I want to emphasize this last point:</span></div>
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<span class="s1">“he passed before those who were stripped by forgetfulness, being both knowledge and perfection, proclaiming the things that are in the heart of the Father, so that he became the wisdom of those who have received instruction.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">The heart of the Father became wisdom. The HEART of the Father. How are we to be instructed by the Father. I’m glad you asked:</span></div>
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<span class="s1">“But those who are to be taught, the living who are inscribed in the book of the living, learn for themselves, receiving instructions from the Father, turning to him again.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Well, so much for that question—we learn for ourselves, receiving instruction from the Father. This instruction must be of a type that cannot be written. One time at an interview for a church choir job, an earnest young assistant pastor asked me, in close, inquisitorial tones, “Who do you think Christ is?” Well the question pissed me off right away, because the term Christ is a TITLE not a name—if he had asked me who I thought the Christ was, or who I thought Jesus Christ was, I would have liked it better. Still, unperturbed, I gave the answer that I couldn’t say, that was a very personal thing, my relationship with Jesus is very private, and also inexpressible. Anybody who can describe a spiritual experience has not had one. My answer was not in this guy’s playbook. I did not get the job.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Going on, the soul’s aspiration to ASCEND to the Father is supported by the magnetism of the Father drawing the soul back to Himself:</span></div>
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<span class="s1">“Since the perfection of the All is in the Father, it is necessary for the All to ascend to him. Therefore, if one has knowledge, he gets what belongs to him and draws it to himself. For he who is ignorant, is deficient, and it is a great deficiency, since he lacks that which will make him perfect. Since the perfection of the All is in the Father, it is necessary for the All to ascend to him and for each one to get the things which are his.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">The sentence, “it is necessary for the All to ascend to him and for each one to get the things which are his”, refers to things which are already his. What are these things? Clearly they are the self in God which has been forgotten. The devotee’s ascent to God is an ascent unto himself—the self he has always known but has temporarily forgotten.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Here, I will read another long quote without interruption. This is a very powerful section and speaks for itself with the tongues of angels.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">“He registered them first, having prepared them to be given to those who came from him. Those whose name he knew first were called last, so that the one who has knowledge is he whose name the Father has pronounced. For he whose name has not been spoken is ignorant. Indeed, how shall one hear if his name has not been uttered? For he who remains ignorant until the end is a creature of forgetfulness and will perish with it.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">If this is not so, why have these wretches no name, why do they have no sound? Hence, if one has knowledge, he is from above. If he is called, he hears, he replies, and he turns toward him who called him and he ascends to him and he knows what he is called. Since he has knowledge, he does the will of him who called him. He desires to please him and he finds rest. He receives a certain name. He who thus is going to have knowledge knows whence he came and whither he is going. He knows it as a person who, having become intoxicated, has turned from his drunkenness and having come to himself, has restored what is his own.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">It’s no wonder that this material was rejected by the Nicean Council—it is jammed full of mysticism: calls from invisible voices, astral communication with spirits (probably angels), merging of wills, turning from drunkenness into what is his own. Claiming a cosmic birthright doesn’t quite jive with the Catholic emphasis on guilt and spiritual sobriety.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">“If he is called, he hears, he replies, and he turns toward him who called him and he ascends to him and he knows what he is called.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">These words so are full of comfort and hope. I particularly like the phrase “and he ascends to him”. There is such an interplay pf magnetism and intention here. There is actually a little story here, told in steps, one stage to the next:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">“God calls the forgetful devotee, whose face is turned away, the devotee turns toward God, and God’s magnetism (His Love) pulls the devotee ever closer the Source.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">It is the ASCENT that brings Heaven to earth—in other words, Heaven does not come down, we go up to meet it. Remember the passage from last week’s sermon:</span></div>
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<span class="s1">“The apostle Paul has many comfortable words on the subject:</span></div>
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<li class="li2"><span class="s1"><i>Colossians</i> 3:1-7:</span></li>
<li class="li2"><span class="s1">“<b>1</b> Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. <b>2</b> Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></li>
<li class="li2"><span class="s1"><b>3</b> For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. <b>4</b> When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. <b><br />
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<li class="li2"><span class="s1">I really hate to admit it, but sometimes Paul hits the nail on the head! The secret to creating a heaven on Earth is to simply will it, and there it will be: “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things”. This advice is based on the proposition that where your mind goes, your body follow. Heaven on Earth is a tangible reality for me—I reach with my imaginative self into a place beyond where I can see, and there is Heaven vibrating with colors and sounds unheard in the physical dimension. It falls over me like a blanket, and my cosmic memory suggests traces of ancient doings, times out of memory.”</span></li>
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<span class="s1">In conclusion, let me reprise some of today’s discussion: today we have contemplated unusual perspectives on the Father, and considered the purposefulness of physical incarnation. For me, the operative word in this section is, above all, “ASCENT”. Religious texts are usually scantily supplied with actual play-by-play descriptions of the interplay between spirit and flesh, but this section describes the process of communication with heavenly intelligence. They are simple, vague instructions, to be sure, but there is still a very recognizable series of steps, that the initiate will already understand and the novice may soon discover by opening his attention to an abstract realm above and beyond his limited mundane ego structure. Here they are again:</span></div>
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<span class="s1">1. If he is called, he hears, he replies, and he turns toward him who called him and,</span></div>
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<span class="s1">2. he ascends to him and he knows what he is called.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">3. Since he has knowledge, he does the will of him who called him. He desires to please him and he finds rest.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">4. He receives a certain name.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">Oh to hear one’s name in the BOOK. What glory!. What a relief!</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Let us pray:</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Jesus, the majesty of your overwhelming personality leaves us speechless; and perhaps that is a good thing. Amen.</span></div>
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Richard Freeman-Toolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03480701171151843224noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6082284124238685067.post-50576392338961944332018-06-20T10:30:00.003-07:002018-07-04T21:08:58.712-07:00On the Relationship Between Forgiveness and Attachment<h2>
On the Relationship Between Forgiveness and Attachment</h2>
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It is the quandary of my life that I've been so respected by so many musical big-shots in the professional world, yet have never become a big-shot myself. I look at the level of talent that fills the number one spot in any of the areas where I have expertise (mainly violin, conducting, and composition, but also in the important realm of teaching), and I say to myself, “I can do that, I can sound like that! Why is it not recognized that I deserve the same respect that these people enjoy?”</div>
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The answer always comes resounding back out of the void in great black cartoon letters, spoken by the voice of grandmother God, “YOUR PERSONALITY SUCKS!!!”</div>
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“oh,” I say.</div>
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I have given so much thought to this problem, and have so many times stubbornly set my heels in the dirt against the pull of change, I thought I must ever remain<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>frustrated and cursed by a character flaw that I was powerless to transcend. Of the many things upheld against my father, his total failure to nurture a talent in his son that he really couldn't comprehend in the slightest, I blame my father for this personality trait because it is the exact same trait that plagued him all the time I knew him, and that eventually brought them down to the lowest possible professional level, that of a janitor. The short temper, the egocentricity, the always thinking I'm always right, the reveling in being the oddball, the superior attitude to the world, these all came from him. I loved and respected my father, and imitated him so well that it brought about our alienation and loss of contact. It is a terrible thing to have what you have had thought were significant gifts, and watch the world pass you by, and all because you can't control your obnoxious behavior in public or at home.</div>
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The big argument I kept coming back to over and over when I was refusing to adopt certain social conventions that might have made be more accessible to many, was that my best qualities in teaching and conducting are my spontaneity, my honesty, my caring enough to get personal right away; I thought if I started acting fake I would cheapen and deaden my aesthetic sensitivities--it would be like constantly feeling everybody's hands all over me, chains! chains! I've actually got better with the polite clichés recently, but the central problem remains, the central problem remains, the central problem remains.</div>
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I believe it must start with envy--coveting my neighbor's goods--the first ugly entangling vines from the seed of ATTACHMENT. I am in need of security, I'm in need of freedom from the fear of death, that my life will have net something, and I am so ATTACHED to the transitory delights of the physical world that I begin to interpret success in terms of material accomplishments. This leads to holding a grudge against the wall for not giving me what I deserve, starting at the top with the publishers didn't publish me, and the colleges that didn't hire me, straight down to the janitor who works in this crummy shithole where I work, where they are so desperate they have to hire me because nobody from Juilliard would touch this job.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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IshouldbeteachingatJuilliardIshouldbefamous….</div>
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What a realization! I am treating store clerks and secretaries like shit because I never got published!</div>
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I have started a campaign my life to forgive the world for not appreciating me and mistreating me. “Forgive them for they know not what they do.” Why not let them know what they do, let them know the person they are screwing by spreading vicious gossip, or forming step judgments that don't change for the next 10 years. Let yourself like people! Let yourself “give as before”. There is no ultimate value to any of the things we do on this earth, so why let attachment to a false value screw up your play time here in Eden?</div>
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The enormous pressure of pent-up tension and anger is released through the power of forgiveness. By letting go of my personal desire for fame I am thus able to forgive the world for not giving me fame, and am thereby made free to love and cherish the spiritual, the non-transitory realities of life. If I put myself in God's hands and trust Him to realize my potential at His leisure, I am happier, more confident, more powerful, more powerful, and even better equipped to create and handle success for myself than ever before.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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It is with this revised attitude I enter the new year. It is my sincere desire to remain a small part of your life. In any case we are sure to catch up with one another in the next life.</div>
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Yours,</div>
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RFT</div>
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</style>Richard Freeman-Toolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03480701171151843224noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6082284124238685067.post-53909941678452043382018-06-17T09:35:00.003-07:002018-06-17T09:35:27.103-07:00A Musician Seeks His Own Level<h2>
A Musician Seeks His Own Level</h2>
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When describing the potential for human achievement, it is often cynically and offhandedly stated that, where groups are concerned,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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“Water seeks its own level." It is my purpose, in this article, to do battle with this shallow truism, and to show that the average-seeking characteristics of water (i.e. the physical dimension) are not necessarily those of human consciousness—human consciousness is physical but also spiritual, and therefore it is individuality-seeking not average-seeking. It is a basic premise of this article that human beings are spiritual beings and do not need to be limited by the laws of the physical universe unless they choose to be; that by choosing to make more of themselves, people and groups can transcend the group-created self-limiting concepts and can become more than physical laws normally allow. By seeking his own level, finding and realizing his own unique spiritual identity, an individual contributes to group identity that is more than the sum of its parts—that is on a higher energy level than the average of its parts.</div>
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I recognize "pride" as a significant motivating factor behind my indignant attitude toward this statement. I'm exceptional, and have tried not to allow myself to let the lukewarm energies of my peers make the fires in myself burn less brightly, though this is not been an easy task; indeed, my struggle with making mediocrity (in the literal " middle seeking " sense of the word) is ongoing and seemingly endless. The story of my battle with mediocrity in various contexts constitutes the main body of this article. It is my desire to demonstrate, using myself as an example, that it is not necessary to submerge one's uniqueness for the sake of a group identity; rather, that the group identity is enhanced, by the raised consciousness of all the members of the group, of their own beautiful, singular individuality.</div>
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I do not represent myself as an ascended master holding the secrets of divine power. I'm just a man struggling to find himself in a society where self’s widespread alienation from self has not only become accepted as normal, it has become a moral standard for proper social behavior. Where I am concerned, I find that even when I get free of the mean-finding tendencies of social organizations, there is still the mediocrity in myself which I must unceasingly attempt to transcend; I am still quite far from achieving that great goal. Oh well, this is not such a terrible thing from the standpoint of this article, because I'm not attempting to write some fascinating account of my personal confessions, nor am I attempting to make the reader want to be like me (much is my petty ego might like that). I <span class="s1">am</span> attempting to make the reader aware of a materialist social consensus; this consensus is materialist because it treats man as though he were merely physical, and subject absolutely to laws governing the material world. I wish to describe (also to condemn) the social phenomenon that works against the integrity of the individual as a social being and is a spiritual being endowed with the infinite potential for achievement, for the creation of good. The expression “Water seeks its own level”, suggests that human organizations can only achieve ends determined by the desires of the average of the members of the group. It is a self-limiting concept that is blindly accepted by millions, when it might, by an act of will, be overthrown, thus freeing individuals to seek their own unique level, and revolutionize the quality of excellence that people and groups normally experience.</div>
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I admit it, I'm a musician, and the personal experiences I'm about to relate come mostly from the contexts of professional music-making; that makes this article of interest primarily to musicians, in a way. I would hasten to add, however, that the fundamental issues of this article are <span class="s1">not</span> about music, and I beg the non-musician to be patient and try to see that the psychological patterns I'm describing are by no means specific to music. Although I will be describing situations that musicians will be able to relate to most easily, is my hope that the reader will perceive the musical context as microcosm of the way people in all kinds of groups perform their social functions; the inspiration I seek to offer to apply to the process of serving on a Parks and Recreation planning committee, just as well as the process of playing in a string quartet.</div>
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It was somewhere during grade school that I embraced the philosophical attitude that individuality was good. I think I learned it in school, it might of been from television, I might have just <span class="s1">known</span> it intuitively. Anyway, the idea being my own person, doing my own thing came naturally to me. My father was not the slightest bit interested in my doing things my way, but he was very interested in doing things his way, so I was provided with a model I would come to emulate more and more as time went on, my different drummer thrum- thrumming louder and louder.</div>
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It was not really until junior high that I began to realize the tragic paradox that was to become a major theme of my life, namely, the individualist, much-glorified in word and song, was, in daily life, a much-maligned social entity. Almost every element of my public education was in some way self-contradictory on this point. We would read Thoreau, that magnificent phrase-maker, then be instructed as to exactly what to think about him, and what school-speak phrases we were allowed to write about him. It was during an oral report on <i>Brave New World</i>, that rhapsodic lament on the death of individuality, that the teacher actually said to me, “Who are you to criticize Huxley? " "I am me," I replied, ungrammatically. The teacher was unconvinced. Whoever heard of someone that wasn't famous having a valid opinion about anything? To her, I was a slot in a great book, and my application for a poetic license (among other things) was denied on the grounds that there was no room to notate such irregularities in my slot. “Why, " I wondered, "do they give us this stuff to read if they consider the content to be untrue? "</div>
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In music class there was a different atmosphere. There, my talent and leadership abilities were appreciated and nurtured by the teacher, who thought that it was so good to have someone who could play and keep going, that any quirkiness in my personality was indulged as a fair trade for my positive impact on the class. I realize, now, that I was lucky in this respect, for I have known many tremendously gifted music students who have been shot to pieces by less-gifted teachers.</div>
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So, lucky me, I came to consider music a haven from the hypocrisy of society and the educational system. I progressed rapidly and developed many strong soloistic qualities, which distinguished my playing from those around me. I was also singled out of a pack of kids at music camp, to be taught privately by a world-famous teacher, who happened to be a great genius and a great pioneer. His influence caused my playing to become more individualistic than ever, because of certain technical innovations he had created in his laboratory. It was agreed by all, that, by the time I finished college, I played "pretty good".</div>
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So, I jumped out of the ivory tower nest and tried my wings in the professional world; almost immediately things began to go bad. I was hired as a "ringer" in various community orchestras, did a fair amount recording, and was fairly well respected by a number of contractors, so that I kept getting hired; but an annoying pattern began to emerge, a pattern that began to get more telling every time it happened: I would be playing my heart out, making beautiful sounds, when, out of the blue, someone would tell me to tone it down. There were variations on this theme, some more polite than others, but all of the same underlying message: I was doing something that was different enough to be noticed by the players (by no means would this differentness be obvious enough to be discernible by the audience, except, perhaps, visually) and they wanted me to stop it. There were never any real musical complaints, it was more like an aura of confidence and superiority that they didn't like; they wanted me to be one of the guys, to fit in, to seek <span class="s1">their</span> level.</div>
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Once I was actually kept out of an orchestra that badly needed strong players on the instrument, because the conductor thought I was "too flashy", that I would alienate the other weaker players around me. I've already admitted that he was right, in a sense, and will continue to cite further examples of how right he was, but, in a larger moral sense it was wrong that he was right; he should not have been right, it was bad for him, the orchestra, and me that he was right; and I later proved him wrong about what he had been right about, by joining the orchestra later<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>(under a different conductor) and eventually by playing under him, and receiving the unanimous approval of the orchestra and lavish praise from the conductor himself.</div>
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Another time I had a section leader tell me, “You’re section leader material, but you do not have a section leader position,” ergo, I should stop playing like a section leader, i.e. with confidence, tone, and personality. The idea was that it was okay for him to play well, but not me—I was a follower, a little tin soldier, and I should know my place. A covert implication of this whole line of reasoning was that this section leader didn't want anybody else sharing the spotlight, and this, not even out of any particularly egomania, but merely because this is "the way it is done".</div>
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Here, we begin to arrive at the crux of the matter. In musical organizations, and, if I'm correct, <span class="s1">all</span> social organizations, a group consensus is arrived at, unconsciously, as a consequence of an averaging process (sort of like democracy), whereby the average energy level of the group comes to be interpreted as the standard energy level, such that all significant deviations from the standard are taken as socially obnoxious. Through inference, "socially obnoxious" comes to be interpreted as "musically obnoxious", even though the only musical offense may be merely this stepping outside the established social boundaries.</div>
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To be more specific: there are, in the music world, certain geographic areas where a certain style of playing predominates over other styles which are to be readily encountered and accepted in other geographic areas. These styles are, after all, mere variations on a theme, with no fundamental differences; however, the exponents of these various styles cling to their specific eccentricities with passionate intensity, and, like devout churchgoers, proclaim their style to be the only true style. Therefore, when a social deviant from out of town arrives on the scene, there will naturally be some ruffling as the new man seeks to integrate himself into the system. If the home folk recognize the out of towner as a legitimate player, with something to contribute, there is an enriching of the two styles as their energy amplitudes are added to each other. Sadly, prejudice and religious fervor all too often eliminate the new player <span class="s1">and</span> the richness before has had a chance to gel.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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There have come to be elaborate rationalizations ("schools of thought ") to justify this average-seeking phenomenon as proper musical behavior:</div>
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One word that is much bandied about among the mediocre is “blend". The term “blend" has come to refer to the depersonalization of the individual sound quality in favor of a group sound that is even, neutral, and usually bland and innocuous. The theory is pretty simple-if you play without any personality "you will fit in with a bunch of other people playing without any personality. When you sound very nearly like everybody else you are "blending", and when you sound different you are marring the “blend".</div>
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The idea of “blend” refers primarily to sound quality, which is the single most personal aspect of playing an instrument; to reject a musician’s sound can be thought of as the most personal rejection a musician can experience, and it is on a personal level rejection is felt, causing the sound-offender to suffer great loss of confidence and personal motivation.</div>
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Now, no reasonable musician would promote the idea of people playing a piece in contradictory styles at the same time-the idea of a section is to sound like one big instrument— but the definition of contradictory styles has become too narrow in many people's minds, such of the sound that is different is automatically considered contradictory, even though it might, with a modicum of acceptance, be seen as truly complementary, and in a glorious, truthful way.</div>
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Style is not the same as sound in the vast majority of orchestra playing contexts (excluding musicological efforts with original instruments, etc.); therefore the questions of sound and style are very separate issues; very many different sound qualities are acceptable within a given style, as can be demonstrated by the recordings of great masterpieces produced in widely divergent geographical locations, and (now, in 1988), several different time periods. A largeness of mind on the subject of sound quality will result in an attitude of acceptance toward sound variations, since no connoisseur of discography can reasonably reject the playing of Elman or Kreisler in favor of Heifetz, Oistrakh, or Perlman, though serious examination of these artists will reveal more fundamental disagreement in terms of sound than of style.</div>
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The element of style most critical in section playing is to be seen in the area of rhythm and nuance; if these elements are uniform throughout the section, the ideal of sounding like one big instrument will be achieved regardless of the level of richness of sound. In terms of style, the extent to which a musical performance is <span class="s1">correct</span> is the extent to which it remains faithful to known musicological facts having to do with articulation, embellishment, tempo, etc.; however, the extent to which a musical performance is <span class="s1">alive</span> is wholly due to the personal commitment of each player to giving his best self to every moment of the piece. I am, in this argument, attempting to show that just by making yourself sound like everybody else, you do not necessarily make the section sound like a single instrument, as you can, by undercutting your own energy, make the section sound like a wimpier instrument; by lowering your personal energy level to accommodate the group level, you rob the orchestra of a dimension of its potential group identity.</div>
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There is a long list of great conductors who encourage their players to play like soloists. These conductors have been big enough themselves to see that the music gets its life from inside the hearts of the people playing it; these conductors have recognized that they will only reach their own level of peak artistic expression by allowing the players to achieve <span class="s1">their</span> own level of peak artistic expression. I'm not saying that playing music is all cathartic fun and feeling, no, the Apollonian constraints placed upon musicians are numerous and necessary, since the mind is often the round-about road to the heart; a musical group must be led to a piece of music through a keen intellectual alignment. But the SOUND is where the player’s soul meets his instrument in a glorious Dionysian revelry that cannot be understood or controlled intellectually without repression of energy.</div>
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Let us examine the term repression a little more closely. Since art is understood largely in psychological terms, the idea of repression, as an element in the truthful representation of the human condition, must play a part in developing an attitude toward repression in the interpretive act of playing. The music, the composer is often objectively describing the feeling of repression; just as often the composer is actually feeling repressed himself, as he struggles to overcome some personal issue which is the subject matter of his composition. In either case, the end result, the finished piece, is <span class="s1">expression</span>. Even if the repression in the piece is a consequence of unconscious psychological processes, the notes on the page are an <span class="s1">expression</span> of repression (as opposed to a repression of expression—ha ha.). The player, therefore, must always be <span class="s1">expressing</span> (out + pressing) repression, not feeling repressed; at least not feeling personally repressed. He may create the feeling of repression in himself as he acts out the drama of the piece, but to feel repressed by forces external to the forces of the music can only result in distraction, lack of focus, and frustration.</div>
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Frustration is a natural consequence of repression, because to be <span class="s1">made</span> to be less than you are is the most unpleasant, insulting violation of basic human freedom a person can experience; to be less than you truly are makes you feel like nobody. Indeed, the frustrations of anonymity are the single most published complaint of orchestral players in the world; whenever professional musicians are interviewed, they bitch and moan that they don't feel that it matters whether they play well or not, as they are part of a huge depersonalized machine. It is true that the fight for identity is fierce in large social organizations, but so many people attempt to deal with the problem by giving in to the situation--by giving up their personal identity before all the votes are in. By admitting at the outset that you will make no difference, you ensure the fact that you will make no difference, and obliterate the possibility of your ever making a difference. Consequently, in a system where conformity is a conscious goal, the strong players become weak, and the weak players, without the inspiration and example of their betters, become weaker. No one takes any responsibility for the music except to make sure that no one else takes responsibility for the music.</div>
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Another argument against the enforcement of average-seeking is the fact that some players are just plain <span class="s1">better</span> than other players and naturally play with more personality because they <span class="s1">have</span> more personality. In a situation like this, there is a tendency for the better player to "stick out", but this is not necessarily a bad thing. First, a soloistic sound, singing above a more bland section sound, can give a clarity and punch to the sound, an added harmonic that is very pleasing. This is a common trait of the great concertmasters of the world, and “sticking out " is precisely how they lead their sections. If more players in the section "stuck out" the sound would be even more brilliant. Secondly, the better players, if accepted by their peers, can have an inspirational effect on the weaker players to raise the energy the section. I've seen this happen again and again, especially among younger, more innocent professionals who are more willing to be influenced by positive energy around them, and anxious to imitate that which their hearts identify as "good". It is usually the older pros, set in their ways, who resist the influence of the new, and who actually resent soloistic playing. Is the old pros who band together during the intermission to collectively repress energies of the offender. I think they may be thinking that they are "keeping the niggers down", but they are really committing a crime against heaven, the orchestra, and themselves.</div>
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I've heard vocal ensembles (where the term “blend” is most often used, and where there is a greater variety of sound qualities than any other musical context) consisting of singers whose voices sounded <span class="s1">very</span> different from each other, but whose “blend” was a truly glorious milkshake of sounds. Each person’s best self harmonized with the others to create a synergistic whole that was unexpected, and unconventional, but truly beautiful and exciting, precisely because of the richness of the sound palette. If the sounds agree with each other in terms of objective criteria, like intonation, rhythm, dynamics, etc., the more subjective quality of sound can only be enriched and energized by individualistic contributions. Every rose does not have to be red to make a garden. To play with your heart and to give to the orchestra your best self is a most beautiful and courageous humanitarian act. It is such a shame that musicians insist on undercutting each other's individuality and constricting their musical reality. Then they complain about anonymity. Dumb.</div>
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An even more serious consequence of musical conformity is a habit I've encountered very often in orchestras who suffer from a lack of confidence; the problem is that of playing behind the beat. In groups where people are afraid to take a chance, there's always the question of “Who is going to play first?” To my mind, when you're supposed to play has always been a fairly uncomplicated matter-you play when the conductor's baton hits the bottom of its trajectory; the rhythm in the conductor's body becomes the rhythm of the group. However, I have played in so many orchestras where <span class="s1">all</span> the players are so afraid of making a mistake, of sticking out, that they have developed a style of waiting for the baton to fall and bounce back before they play, so that the visual effect is what you get when you listen to music outside, from several thousand feet away-you see the baton go down a second or two before you hear the sound. Orchestras play this way because they wait for each other to play rather than trusting their own ability to play with the conductor. As a conductor, I'm always searching the orchestra for uplifted eyes to make contact with; for this reason, I've always been appreciated by other conductors when I'm playing in the section, because they can always rely on my eye when <span class="s1">they</span> search the orchestra for contact.</div>
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It is my understanding that the role of orchestral conductor was invented when ensembles got too large for chamber music ensemble playing (hearing) to keep people together; rather than listening to things happening (sometimes over an area of 100 feet and more), the visual impulse of the conductor was used to keep people together. No doubt, it is more difficult to play music from a visual cue rather than an aural cute, because, rather than the immediate feedback of the physical sounds, the playing takes on an inner quality, as the individual player draws the sound out of a kind of silent void; granted this is difficult, but it is the price we pay for the creation of large ensembles, and anyway, it develops faith and character. The system of visual cueing really does work if the conductor is clear and strong, and is able to convince the people that they must follow him and not each other.</div>
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The unfortunate fact is that everybody <span class="s1">doesn't</span> follow, especially in the back of the orchestra. Time after time I've heard rhythms radiate outwards from the podium like a row of falling dominoes, such that by the time the guy in the back figures it is safe to play, the guy in the front is already playing the next note. The conductor complains “It's late! It's sounding late!" to which the back bench player pathetically replies, “But we can't hear!" I say, in all humility, ha ha, “You're not supposed to hear! It is assumed you can’t hear, that's why where paying this conductor so much money, so you don't have to hear! If you would only have the courage to play with what you <span class="s1">see</span>, you would all play together!! !”</div>
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In this kind of group, a strong player in the back can make a section sound very off-the-beat because he will be playing <span class="s1">ahead</span> of the people in front of him, and sometimes even ahead of the section leader, if the section leader subscribes to the "behind the beat" philosophy. Such a player, playing with the conductor and not waiting his turn in the line of dominoes, will sound like he is making a mistake, and everybody will jump on him for "rushing", etc.; only he and the conductor will know his secret virtue, and even the conductor will have to say, “Folks, it's not together."</div>
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There is a further complication concerning section leading that deserves mention. I have sometimes been accused of playing ahead of the section leader. This is always a shock, because I felt certain that I was playing with conductor, and assumed the section leader was too. I hang back and check out the situation, I usually find that, yes, the section</div>
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leader is playing behind the beat. What a dilemma-to play with the conductor or play with the section, every one of whom follows the late section leader with sheeplike devotion? This really <span class="s1">should</span> <span class="s1">not</span> be a problem, since it is understood by all that, in the orchestral hierarchy, the conductor is the final word; yet, it <span class="s1">is</span> a problem because people have such an underdeveloped sense of their own ability to do their job that they are always, at every turn, looking to someone else for guidance. Consequently, there is often a situation where the various sections of an orchestra are perfectly together as sections, but are not playing anywhere near together as an orchestra. There would be no argument from the players that this is the wrong situation, but in actual practice, it is clear that they would rather be one of the 6 to 10 wrong people than the one right person. Dumb.</div>
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The problems of playing behind the beat are most acutely felt in situations where the tempo is changing. More rehearsal time is lost rehearsing ritards (slowing down) and accelerations than any other single musical effect, because the players will simply not trust themselves to respond instantly to the conductor signal; because they must hear the effect first, then repeat it by rote, tempo changes must be rehearsed twice every time they occur, whether they are surprise changes or extremely conventional things like ritarding the end of a piece. The operatic literature tends to be very easy music, technically, but because of the rhythmically erratic nature of dramatic music, or, indeed, any music where there is a rhetorical emphasis, an orchestra can spend hours getting it together by rote, and then if the singer feels it differently in the performance, runs out of breath, etc., it still won't be together. often, in such rehearsals I lament the Toscanini “A curse on Guido d’Arezzo for inventing music notation!"</div>
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I find it interesting, as I consider what I've just written, that the two main areas of orchestral individuality-repression that I have described, i.e., sound quality and rhythmic strength, are opposite each other on the right/left brain model of mental functioning that has come to be generally accepted over the past 10 or 15 years. Specifically, sound quality is the creation of the right brain, subjective sensitivity to space and emotion, while rhythm is clearly a left brain, objective, small- information-byte-processing function. It was seen then that what I have said is true—that the better players play both with a better sound <span class="s1">and</span> better rhythm; they are simply more <span class="s1">conscious</span>—in that both halves of their brains are more active when they play music. I will not go so far as to say these people are more awake mentally in all areas of life; we can readily cite examples of very mentally awake people, like Einstein, for instance, who were mediocre musicians, and we can also see excellent musicians who get overwhelmed by the idea of balancing a checkbook, or taking a simple telephone message for their wives. Neither can we categorically ascribe superior playing to superior training, because I've seen many superb musicians succumb to the herd propensity toward average-seeking tone quality and falling-domino rhythm.</div>
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At the level of consciousness of which I am speaking, the problem is not one of intelligence, or training, but is more a disease of the will. There develops, in any group, a consensus; it's a mind-set that comes to be accepted by all unless it is stubbornly resisted by those who refuse to let their personal energy level be dictated by an impersonal democratic process. I speak of a disease of the will because the mind-set is not a function of talent, it is a learned thing, and can be <span class="s1">changed</span> by an <span class="s1">act</span> <span class="s1">of</span> <span class="s1">will</span>. A person can achieve on a level several quantum leaps higher than the average, merely by <span class="s1">wanting</span> to. The <span class="s1">wanting</span> is critical. From <span class="s1">wanting</span> all else will follow.</div>
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In order to refute the idea that the water of man's collective consciousness necessarily seeks its own level, I must make some strong statements about the relationship of man's mind to his will. The mind as a physical machine that is prone to habitual repetition of similar functions. Yet, because the mind is also a vessel for the translation of spiritual realities into physical manifestation, the mind can be taught to respond, with superhuman energy, to suggestions of the will. There is so much about music that is not of this world anyway, that even the slightest suggestion can trigger thought processes and physical acts that are unearthly-impossible, according to the materialistic expectations of science and common sense. Wanting something is an act of will. Imagining something is an act of will. If there is faith in the will, there can nearly always be a material manifestation of a consciously expressed desire. Hence, by wanting to achieve an artistic effect, a person who believes in the power of the spirit to change the physical world, can change not only his own energy level, but the energy levels of those around him. Mind is dumb, and slow, but it is also obedient to the will, so by merely ordering the mind to reach up, the will can cause the mind to be filled with light from heavenly sources.</div>
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If other minds are reaching up for the same divine truth that will be, <span class="s1">not</span> <span class="s1">an</span> <span class="s1">addition</span> of their power to each other, <span class="s1">but</span> <span class="s1">a</span> <span class="s1">geometric</span> (or hyper mathematical) <span class="s1">multiplication</span> of their energies by each other. This is the truth. This is what can be.</div>
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This, patient reader, is why consciousness does not have to seek its own level— because consciousness is infinite, incalculable, and ultimately singular in its identity. The minds of a group of orchestral players can become one in a singular act of will. When this happens, there is no question of leading, following, sticking out, blending, or any such physical considerations. When people become of one mind, that divine mind equalizes everything-all individuals are perfectly harmonized in a divine symphony of joy and power.</div>
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At the beginning of this article, I referred to "pride" as a serious stumbling block for myself. I consider pride to be a very serious problem for most people, professional musicians possibly more than others. Performers must develop their ego-consciousness more than most people, because performers routinely put their best selves on public display. The ego, thus constantly exposed to the critical eye of society must be tough and solid, or it will buckle under the pressure. However, this toughening all-too-often results in a hardening of the arteries of the heart, and emotional responses which once were spontaneous and authentic begin to become automatic, calculated, and false. Pride becomes merely a self-limiting concept, a false self image. This is an on-going process that can continue to take place over many years; it is the main reason young players are so much more flexible and enthusiastic than "seasoned" professionals. This is my prayer: “Oh God, please never let me become a "seasoned” professional! Let me always find the new and fresh in music! Let me give life-support to an endless stream of newborn feelings and ideas, let me animate the paper notes with my single, unique, best self. Let me bury my pride and resurrect my single, unique, best self. Let me bury the pride and search the depths of my soul for that divine source from which all power and individuality spring!”</div>
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It is my conviction that man is a spiritual being, and that making music is a process of manifesting spiritual realities in forms that can be appreciated by man in the physical dimension. Music, being a kind of message-in-a-bottle from a divine source, draws on human powers and understanding several levels deeper than normal day-to-day living consciousness. Unfortunately, the attitude of devotion necessary to achieve this level of understanding is sadly lacking in the practice of music-making in the professional world. For the "seasoned” professional, music-making becomes a "normal” activity, like grocery shopping, and the magic wears off and is not renewed. Thus, as I have complained about all through this article, when someone comes along whose heart is still full of youthful enthusiasm and derring-do, his antic attitude is looked on with suspicion and fear, and his "inappropriate energy" is squashed by those practicers of the blasé who have forgotten, or never knew, how to be young.</div>
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Verily, verily I say unto you, it is possible to stay young. At a meta-level of self-programming, an individual can learn to,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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1. prevent the critical left brain from automatically responding to every new or unusual energy with negativity, and,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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2. to allow spontaneous self-created energies to overflow to overthrow the tyrannies of the petty ego, and fill the individual’s being with the light from a higher-than-normal level of consciousness.</div>
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At this point in my article, I wish I could follow through with the lengthy, detailed, rational description of the method of consciousness raising that would make better musicians out of everybody who tried it. I confess I cannot, not because there is no such method, but because for every musician, every person, the method is different. Learning to exercise the will in consciousness-raising is both the simplest and yet most impossibly complex thing that can be done. The power to make music live is found along the pathway to the heart, and every pathway to every human heart is different. This is the dilemma and this is the joy, that every human heart is and <span class="s1">must</span> <span class="s1">be</span> different. This is not a cop-out, because every heart shares, at its source, the same divine identity, so that the general description, or, you might say, roadmap to the heart is the same; but only the wildest fit of arrogance could persuade me to prescribe for others the techniques for awakening their spirit consciousness that I have used. Nevertheless, I <span class="s1">will</span> say that the first step along the path is to <span class="s1">want</span> to take a step. I cannot point the way any further than wanting to take the first step inward. From there on, "where your treasure is, there is your heart also."</div>
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Every musical performance should begin with an invocation of divine power, a turning of the consciousness inward, toward the heart. When this happens, many unusual and sometimes terrifying things can happen, because the supernatural worlds express themselves in our world in many unusual and terrifying ways. The reason for the terror is that they are never the same—the flow of time down the cosmic river provides endless variety of manifestation, and because we evolve and change with every second, we never get a chance to familiarize ourselves with the experience—everything is new every time. Because of this we must have completely anomalous aesthetic responses to same piece every time.</div>
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The key concept, for me, is acceptance; to accept who I am, to accept the rich and strange aspects of myself that come out when I dig deep, and to accept those around me, who, on a fundamental level, are a part of me. It is my hope that more people will learn to identify with the common thread that joins them to other people, and to stop being so quick to deny the humanity of, and to repress the energies of, those who are different from themselves. If you are a victim of repression, it is my hope that you will find the courage to continue to fight the good fight, and never stop believing in yourself and the power from God that is yours simply by <span class="s1">wanting</span> it.</div>
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7/8/88</div>
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Laus Dei</div>
Richard Freeman-Toolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03480701171151843224noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6082284124238685067.post-43730923062977900502018-06-17T08:23:00.001-07:002018-06-17T08:23:07.932-07:00The Conductor:Medium of Divine Communication<h2>
The Conductor:<br />Medium of Divine Communication</h2>
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Music is spoken of as the universal language. All people understand music. However it is precisely the fact that all people understand it, that indicates that music is not a language at all, but something higher. A language is a system of symbols with refer to tangible things. Although there are logical identifiable symbologies present and music of all times and places, the archetypal forms underlying these linguistic eccentricities do not refer to physical realities. These archetypal forms are divine realities manifesting in the physical—the spirit made flesh (or something like flesh-sound). These forms are not symbols for things, but actual spiritual truths brought into an objectification as sound in air.</div>
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The higher mind of man perceives and vibrates sympathetically with these truths and sends impressions down to the lower mind (what we call the conscious mind, although it is only a tiny fraction of total consciousness), where thoughts or ideas are created. In the sense that these thoughts are created in response to music, music may be thought of as a language, but it is a language removed by one; initial appreciation of music as a spiritual (therefore universal) reality has nothing whatever to do with linguistic references. The experience of music, before it becomes objectified in the lower mind, is the alchemical process of spiritual energy acting on the soul to create change, and spiritual advancement.</div>
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Nevertheless, to create the experience of music, there must be a constant dialogue between the higher and lower mind, as the individual elements of the experience are combined and mixed like chemicals in a laboratory. This is where the conductor of a musical organization comes in. The conductor is, in a real sense, the medium of communication between the higher and lower mind of the group. In fact, the conductor is the grand central station through which are channeled the higher and lower minds of the composer, the players, the attending divine Angels (angels, guides, etc. ), the audience, and himself. At a certain point in the composition’s life, the composer was the window through which the light of God's truth shone down on the earth; however, when a piece gets to the performance stage, the conductor becomes this window through which are reflected all the complicated energies that go into the creation of a human social event. The truth of the piece must shine through the conductor into the hearts and minds of his players (choral conductor substitute singers for players), and his players’ truth must channel through him into the hearts and minds of the audience. Thus, mystery and change attend every step in the process of music making.</div>
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One of the exciting things about music is that: as unique as each human soul is, that is just how unique the experience of music is to each participant. This gives a richness and majesty to the light of God's truth as it glints through the many facets of his created beings. However, since the dualistic nature of man's physical existence creates opposites, certain aspects of man's physical vibration tend to get out of phase with each other and cancel each other out, thereby diminishing the experience for all. One of the conductor's most important jobs, therefore, is to focus all the little lights of the players into one great ray, with all its constituent aspects in phase with each other, to create the brightest possible light. This is an heroic act of courage, for to become such a lens, to withstand the onslaught of so much accumulated power, requires great strength and breadth of character.</div>
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It also requires humility, for only by sacrificing ego to the higher purposes of God’s manifested truth, are the energies of all the players maximized and synthesized. Too many conductors make the mistake of imposing narrow interpretive ideas on the players, causing them to restrain or repress their own God-given energy; this is a tragic loss, and is the bane of the orchestral player, and the orchestra itself.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The razor's edge the conductor must walk is that of finding a way to get more out of his players than they thought they were capable of, while getting them to contribute this energy to a selfless group energy. The magic of the conductor's contribution to the music-making process is in his creation of a group consciousness that synergistically transcends the sum of the individual consciousnesses. This is accomplished by lighting a fire in the players’ minds for a single truth, and getting them to work together toward manifesting that truth.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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The relationship of thought to feeling determines the character of the group identity. Feeling is the link between the lower objective mind (where literal meanings are stored and manipulated), and the higher subjective mind (where there becomes less and less distinction between thought and reality). The feelings expressed in music are the universal truths which make music understandable to all men; as such they have a constant or static, unvarying quality; but, as mentioned before, the interpretation of these feelings by the lower mind results in mental structures, thoughts or ideas, which are as various as the individual minds interpret and him. Thus, the conductor’s first step in creating artistic unity is to take a single feeling and objectify the residual thought patterns into terms which do not neutralize each other either by contradicting each other, or by causing repression of energy among the players.</div>
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One tragic flaw one tragic flaw that too often mars the education of serious music students is that: teachers tend to become aligned with one or another of a variety of interpretive thought patterns, and then pass on this alignment (prejudice) to the students, preaching it as the gospel. This dogmatic approach to music teaching is so sad because it teaches students to think of music as thoughts rather than the larger feelings behind the thoughts. Nothing is so tragi-comical as two musicians from different schools of thought trying to argue out their “po-tay-toes” and po-tah-toes”, and then finally (in the words of Ira Gershwin, “Let’s call the whole thing off”; this, when they might have, by focusing their attention on the larger issue of feeling, found the common ground of higher understanding. The conductor’s job is to find this higher ground, and convey the sense of it persuasively to his players. He was make them understand that no artistic aspect of musical interpretation (tempo, style, sound quality, etc.) are matters of choice, and that, just as there is feeling behind every thought, there is life, a legitimate reality, behind every choice; that, and creating unity, choices must be made that sometimes contradict one's training, but are not, therefore, to because considered <span class="s1">wrong</span>.</div>
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Indeed, the whole issue of right and wrong (which is a subject for a separate article, if not a book) can too often come between the player and his enjoyment of his task. There are so many small decisions to be made in shaping a piece, and there are so many different attitudes toward each one of them, that squabbles over the “right” way can cause divisiveness and estrangement among the players. The conductor neutralizes this tendency by becoming the final decision-maker, dictating which way all the players must do their job. He must impress on them that there is no “right” way, there are only “good” ways, and good comes from making the best of every situation, even if, on the surface, it goes against the grain. There is a sense in which every literal configuration of meanings can be true, and it is never difficult for an open mind to find truth in a statement that, in another light, may appear false. The selfless player must subdue the petty ego, expand his consciousness outward to embrace the unity of group consciousness<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>consciousness outward to embrace the unity of group consciousness, and join with the group consensus shaped by the conductor.</div>
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“Good” is everybody's best effort. “Good enough” is an expression that has nothing to do with GOOD. “Good enough” is an objective standard created at different times by different individuals, today by the recording industry, pointing the way toward a level or type of perfection which may very well be “good”, but may also be, instead, merely “ right”. Conductors striving for a level of “good enough” that sounds like somebody's record, but which is not inherent in the temperaments of the players in hand, does not maximize those players potentialities, but rather, dehumanizes them and makes them resent both “the good enough” they cannot achieve, and the conductor for wanting them to be something they are not. Now players are <span class="s1">always</span> capable of giving more from a broader push from a broader spectrum than they think they are, but people are also individuals and should not be asked to parrot back somebody else's sound or phrasing when they may have a legitimate weight of their own that, for the person rings truer than the “good enough” way. The conductor should seek to bring forth the good inherent in the players in hand, probing into each player’s soul for the best that player has to offer. Rather than imposing some objective standard on the group, the conductor should reveal the group's own subjective reality to itself. Let the didactic conductor be warned, mismatching ideals is a deadly game, bringing much heartache and disappointment for all; it is like the poor tourist we find weeping brokenhearted on the steps of the church because he did not find the Mona Lisa anywhere inside the Sistine Chapel.</div>
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How does the conductor bring out the best in his players? First, he must get their attention. People do not automatically walk into a rehearsal revved up and on fire for the music; it is the conductor’s job to light the fire. Many conductors are so passionately in love with the music that they are shocked and insulted when the players do not immediately share this enthusiasm. Thus, emotional scenes and bitchiness ensue that have a tendency to awaken the lower minds of the players to concentration, but shut the doors to which spontaneous feeling must flow. The players become concerned with getting the conductor off their back, instead of finding the music. The annals of conducting are filled with tales of bitchy, even vicious conductors who were able to bring along unfocused players to a level of higher-than-normal intensity; but the price you pay for this kind of excellence is so dear, and it is so unnecessary to pay it.</div>
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There are many paths to higher consciousness; fear and grief are viable paths to higher levels, but they have a limited range of positive benefits; they also create a very unhealthy drop in energy when they wear off, so that a conductor may intimidate a group into performing one musical moment at a high vibratory rate, then pay for it with low vibration playing the rest of the night. Fear is a very unstable energy-it can cause things to go well, or it can cause things to get worse and worse.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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There is a story (true or mythical) of an orchestra rehearsal where a conductor publicly humiliated the principal flutist by making him practice a solo over and over in front of the whole group, meanwhile making rude comments about the flutist’s musicianship, intelligence, character, etc. That night of the concert, the flutist played the solo brilliantly, evoking a great smile from the conductor. Then the flutist rose from his chair, drew a gun from his vest, and shot the conductor.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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It is true that the conductor who is namby-pamby about giving direction, is not a good leader, and will not inspire respect or trust from his players; but it is also true that the great genius assholes of the art world, by any other name, are still assholes. The intensity achieved through impatience, arrogance, and intimidation is a shallow thing, and holds no promise for future growth. The apostle Paul points out that love, among other things, is long-suffering.</div>
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So how does a conductor get intensity from a cold group without yelling at them? A rehearsal is an intense thing, and must become intense immediately; but insulting the players’ ability, or denigrating their level of commitment (guilt tripping) only causes repression and contention. To get intensity from the players, the conductor must draw the players out, get them interested in the music for what it has to offer them, get all their minds focused on the concrete goal which feels and sounds good when it is achieved. Intensity comes from focus, focus comes from something to focus on. Thus, to literally objectify the goals, of the rehearsal, is the first task in beginning a rehearsal.</div>
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The word "objectify" is very important, especially since we have already spoken at length about the overriding importance of the “subjective reality " that a piece of music creates in the physical. The key to understanding is is to be found in the relationship of the objective meaning to the subjective state of being. For example, many times a conductor may desire a certain sound quality, or a certain style, which he hears clearly in his head, but not in the rehearsal room. He will begin to rhapsodize and poetic terms about the sound, describing it with onomatopoetic expressions. Most of the time this subjective treatment may mean something personal to the conductor, but usually relates personally to a small fraction of the players. Efforts to convey subjective realities through verbal means to those who did not already share the subjective reality higher-than-verbal level always fail. The players may try again, but since they have failed to understand, they fail to realize the conductor’s vision. More poetry, more failure, then insults, fits, frustration, anger, etc.</div>
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When describing the big picture (subjective content) fails to communicate the conductor's intentions, she should break the image down into smaller pieces. By breaking the subjective image down into pieces he is <span class="s1">objectifying</span> the image, reducing the high spiritual truth to a system of literal meanings which can be apprehended by the lower mind. Any sound or gesture can be so broken down; a crescendo, a ritard, a phrasing may consist of many discrete elements which can be rehearsed one at a time. This progressive building of an idea into a living gestalt can be grueling work, but a conductor should be man enough to teach his players, patiently, (no matter how good they are, or are <span class="s1">supposed</span> to be) what he wants down to the gnat’s eyebrow, because once a particular link is learned in a microscopic context, it is much easier for the players to extrapolate the information and transfer to other contexts. A conductor who can only generalize, and cannot explain what he wants in technical terms, this just an air beater. Even if his heart is full of enthusiasm, his mind alight with an inner vision, he must express enthusiasm and vision in terms that can be shared. To be sure, objective understanding is not the highest level of musical understanding; however it must be remembered that a vast chasm spreads between normal consciousness and higher subjective consciousness, and objectivity is our only pathway to the divine. Objective insights act like little links in a suspension bridge, which, when completely assembled, allow subjective insight to flow across from the higher mind and light the lower mind with truth and power. The objective analysis of a spontaneous gesture may momentarily drain some of the life out of the gesture. As the gesture is dissected, a synergistic unity is destroyed; but when the pieces are put back together, the conductor will reap the rewards of patience and insight which our joy and accomplishment, rather than the rewards of impatience and pride which are disappointment and anger.</div>
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Now, the use of imagery in directing the players’ attention toward a subjective reality is not always as ineffective as the preceding arguments may have implied. To tell the horn player that his solo should sound like “the rising sun", can give him insights that telling him to “play louder” cannot. However, the conductor should not just mention the rising sun, he should mention getting louder as well. Intangible, poetic quality should always be objectified by including direction toward getting the players to <span class="s1">do</span> something.</div>
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The physicalization of emotional qualities is the most crucial creative leap in music-making. Through physicalization, the word is made flesh. The conductor physicalizes the music through his movement. In this sense, his movement becomes a poetic image of the music as much as his verbal instruction; however, unlike his verbal instruction, his movement was always attempt to look like what the players <span class="s1">do</span> (to their instruments) to make the music. The conductor should dance the music for the players, taking care that his gestures are directed toward inspiring the player to perform specific actions. Many conductors’ movements degenerate into indistinct flopping and waving which, again, contain only subjective meaning. The conductor should never, for an instant, lose sight of the responsibility of the players to make them play better. The music comes from the players, not the conductor; when this fact becomes confused in the conductor's mind, petty ego takes over, and there is a breakdown of energy for the group; but when he loses contact with the group, and dwells on his own emotional investment in the music, the flow is interrupted. Therefore, the most selfless act the conductor can perform is to stop listening to the music, and focus himself on leading the players through their parts, moment by moment, letting the audience listen to the music. The conductor can always listen to the tape</div>
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There is an aspect of imagery which is para-physical, but which is nevertheless an instruction from the conductor to the player to perform an <span class="s1">act</span>. This is the act of will demanding than normal consciousness reach up into higher realms for insight and power. Most of the time the conductor’s plea for concentration or intensity is merely a plea for the player to<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>consciously enter a paranormal mind state. We do it, we all know how it feels, but somehow, in a materialist culture, we have neglected developing techniques for consciously entering higher mind states; therefore, we must rely on chance, or gargoyle-like fits from the conductor, to scare us into the divine realms.</div>
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Actually, it is very easy to get a group to raise its own consciousness, but it does take courage—for certain materialist predispositions, which, unfortunately are ingrained social attitudes, must be dispensed with.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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1.The first step in this “dispensing process” is to adopt the assumption that: the human personality is not confined to the human body-that we all, as holistic entities, take up more space than just our bodies do.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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2. Thus,we must then realize that, by reaching out with our senses, we can encompass much more space than our bodies might tell us we can.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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3.Lastly, we must realize that we can share space with other people.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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This <span class="s1">sharing</span> <span class="s1">space</span> is crucial to developing a group and identity. The senses that are reaching out are not physical senses, and the space shared is not physical space; but the registration of this experience in lower consciousness is just like the physical sensation of touching, only it is somehow more intimate than touching because we can feel the presence of the other person or persons through and through. The subjective experience of sharing a group consciousness can provide more unity of feeling and expression in any other single technique. Through this technique, sounds are blended, differences are unified, and energies are compounded. A moment of silence before the downbeat (preferably with eyes closed) can do more for her performance than anything in the world.</div>
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Now the conductor must take up more "space" than anyone else. The conductor must surround the entire group with this personality. He must have more confidence than anyone else (for the concentration and strength to reach out so far is enormous), but he must also be more selfless than anyone else (because to disperse his ego so far, he must give himself up completely to divine influence, and, on conscious and subconscious psychic levels, convey direction too many people at once.</div>
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We may speak of imagery in this regard because mental imagery is the technique most commonly employed to bring these energies into manifestation. The conductor may imagine the group enveloped in a cloud of pink light, or he may imagine rays of white light coming out of the top of everyone's head, joining in the central vortex above the group. Whatever the visualization, it is important to realize that the visualization makes it real. <span style="text-align: center;">What our</span> eyes cannot see, our spiritual eyes can see very well. Thus, through an effort of will, the conductor can create a divine reality, and if he asks the players to join him in the effort, the effects become exponentially enhanced.</div>
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Music is divine reality manifested in the physical. The goodness of God is that singular impulse which binds us together. Oneness is the object of all human endeavor; as such, music holds a special place in human activities, being such a perfect link between lower and higher mind functions. The conductor, more than any other person involved in a musical performance, is responsible for creating an atmosphere in which oneness may be achieved. This is a weighty responsibility indeed, and can reap, for him, great spiritual rewards. It can also load him down with tons of Karma (sic) if he allows ego and pride to come between him and the music and the players. God can change the world through music, and since the conductor is the high priest in this ministry, he must be tireless in his efforts to make himself a more and more perfect open channel for divine inspiration.</div>
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Laus Dei</div>
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November 17, 1987</div>
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</style>Richard Freeman-Toolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03480701171151843224noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6082284124238685067.post-11350266849504185092018-05-13T13:33:00.005-07:002018-05-13T13:33:52.635-07:00Valentinus – Introduction I<h2>
Valentinus – Introduction I</h2>
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It is interesting that the three very different ministers of the Basin Bible Church have all been moved to explore so many of the ancient extra-biblical religious texts of the Western World—I suspect that there are few if any other Christian churches in Alaska that are indulging such curiosities. Thus it is that, in keeping with this predilection for fringe Christian material, and consistent with my interest in the ancient Gnostics, and their powerful influence on the accepted Biblical Canon, we come to Valentinus. Today we will take <i>A Brief Summary of Valentinian Theology, </i>by David Brons, as far as the Principle of the Mother-God; next week we will examine the PROCESS of Gnosis.</div>
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Valentinus is one of those historical figures who ALMOST made it into the mainstream of theological thought—by that I mean, although his influence was deeply felt during his own life-time, his fringe philosophy was rejected by enough of a margin among the church fathers of the burgeoning Christian Church of the post-Apostolic Age, that he was eventually expelled from the mainstream and denied a lasting influence; thus Church history developed along lines that might have otherwise led to very different Catholic doctrines.</div>
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For good or ill, I think we have Paul and his disciples to thank for this. Even though, as we will read below, Valentinus is linked directly to Paul through Paul’s student, Theudas, we must remember, as we have seen quite often in the Gnostic texts, Jesus’ teaching was always on two levels—the level of the parable, (which was invented to give the layman a taste of the higher spiritual truths, but also to protect him from the truths he couldn’t handle), and the level of the secret truths, which were reserved for the initiates. In his letters, Paul dwells on the parabolic truth, to benefit the people, but, apparently, his other more esoteric teachings were passed on to a select few, the “spiritually mature”. It seems reasonable to conclude that these secret teachings were unwritten, perhaps because they COULD NOT BE WRITTEN. The Church Fathers, in choosing the accepted Biblical Canon, for reasons we have discussed several times before, favored the layman’s truth of Paul—thus consigning most of the more abstract scriptures, and scriptures of dubious authorship, to the consuming fires of time, and denying all of us the opportunity to ponder these higher level UNWRITTEN truths. If this was a good thing or a bad thing, you can decide for yourself after I read you some material on Valentinus, beginning with: </div>
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<i>A Brief Summary of Valentinian Theology</i></div>
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by David Brons</div>
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<b>The Secret Tradition </b></div>
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“According to Valentinus, there are esoteric teachings which originate from Jesus that were passed on in secret. When Jesus spoke in public, he used metaphors that did not disclose his complete teachings. He only passed them on to his disciples in private. He referred to this when he said: </div>
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<b>Luke 8:9-10</b>:</div>
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"The knowledge about the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but to the rest it comes by means of parables so that they may look but not see and listen but not understand." </div>
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Similarly, when Saint Paul encountered the risen Lord in a vision (2 Corinthians 12:2-4; Acts 9:9-10), he received the secret teaching from him. Valentinus claimed that he learned this secret teaching from Theudas. According to Valentinus, this secret tradition provides the key that is essential for a complete understanding of Jesus' message. One of his followers put this in the following words: </div>
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<b>Irenaeus <i>Against Heresies</i> 3:2:1</b>:</div>
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"The scriptures are ambiguous and the truth cannot be extracted from them by those who are ignorant of tradition." </div>
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The Valentinians claimed that the secret teachings are meaningful only to those who are spiritually mature. If a person was not ready to receive them, they seem like nonsense "because their value can be judged only on a spiritual basis".</div>
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<b>Corinthians 2:14-16:</b></div>
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“14But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. </div>
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15But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. 16For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.”</div>
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According to the Valentinian tradition, Paul and the other apostles revealed these teachings only to those who were 'spiritually mature’.</div>
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<b>1 Corinthians 2:6-8</b>:</div>
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“6Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought: 7But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: 8Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known <i>it</i>, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.”</div>
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With this, we return to our often-broached conversation concerning parables and the Unforgiveable Sin; remember that Jesus spoke in parables to protect the uninitiated from themselves. For a warning, we have this passage from <i>Hebrews </i>to recall:</div>
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<i>Hebrews 6:4-6:</i></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“<b>4</b> It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>5</b> who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, <b>6</b> if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.”</span></div>
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Continuing with this subject, I now turn to Swedenborg and his <i>Heavenly Secrets</i>: Whenever I read Swedenborg, the mad 18<sup>th</sup> Century Mystic, I am struck by the use of archaic language mixed in with perfectly contemporary, very clear and very simply expressed thoughts, quite readily accessible to the modern mind. Remember the section of <i>Heavenly Secrets </i>I am reading is concerned with interpreting the very first passages in <i>Genesis</i>. Related to Original Sin and the Expulsion from the Garden, Swedenborg has this to say on the subject of the parable, secret knowledge, and their relationship to the Unforgiveable Sin:</div>
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“The other secret is that if they had learned the mysteries of faith, they would have been destroyed forever. Such is the meaning of the words:</div>
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<i>now perhaps people will put out their hand and take from the tree of lives as well, and eat, and live forever. “</i></div>
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[Sidebar: For the sake of clarity, I must insert a little word of explanation, an explanation which Swedenborg supplies himself, later on, but which I think deserves some attention right now—otherwise what follows immediately may not make any sense. The point here is that, when Swedenborg points out that a sinner may live forever, this is NOT a good thing. Souls unprepared for enlightenment will profane the divine and thus permanently bar themselves from Heaven.]</div>
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“The situation is this:</div>
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People can reach a point where the structure of their life is turned upside down; they have no interest in receiving life or wisdom from any other source than themselves and their own powers. Under these circumstances,</div>
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when they hear anything about faith, no matter what it is, they debate in their minds whether it is true or not. Because they make</div>
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themselves—their sense impressions and the facts they have learned—their authority, they cannot help denying; and when they deny, they blaspheme and profane. They end up with no concern about whether they are intermingling profane and holy things.</div>
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If this is what we become, we are so utterly damned when we enter the other life that no hope of salvation remains; and this is because things that are mingled together through profanation cling to each other in their mixed condition. </div>
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As soon as an image of something holy comes to our minds, the attached image of something profane appears, preventing us from keeping company with any but the damned. </div>
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(People in the next life—even the spirits in the world of spirits, and more so the angelic spirits—keenly perceive what is present in, and linked with, the ideas that make up our thinking. Their perception is so keen that from a single thought they can tell what we are like.)</div>
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Profane things attached in this way to holy things cannot be wrenched apart from them without the tortures of hell—tortures so intense that if</div>
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we knew about them, we would stay as far away from profanation as we would from hell itself.</div>
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That is why the mysteries of faith were never revealed to the Jews, who were like this. So little was revealed to them that they were not even<b> </b>told plainly that they would live on after death or that the Lord was</div>
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going to come into the world to save them. They were (as they continue to be) kept so deeply ignorant and oblivious that they had no idea (nor do they yet) that we have an inner being or that an inner plane even</div>
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exists. If they had known it (and if they knew it now), to the point of acknowledging its truth, they are such that they would have profaned it, removing forever any hope of salvation in the next life.</div>
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These are the things the Lord meant when he said in <b>John 12:40</b>:</div>
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“He has blinded their eyes and closed off their heart to prevent them from seeing with their eyes and understanding at heart and turning and being healed by me.”</div>
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The Lord also spoke to them in parables without explaining a single one to them “so that seeing, they would not see, and hearing, they would not hear and understand,” as he himself says in Matthew 13:13.</div>
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For the same reason, all religious mysteries were hidden away from them and veiled in the representative acts and objects of their religion. For</div>
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the same reason again, that is what the Word’s prophetic mode is like, too. But it is one thing to know and another to acknowledge. When we know but do not acknowledge, it is as if we do not know. If we do acknowledge and then we blaspheme and profane, we are the people the Lord refers to.</div>
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We build a life through all the things whose truth we persuade ourselves of, that is, the things we acknowledge and believe. What we are not</div>
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persuaded of—what we do not acknowledge and believe—has no effect on our mind. As a result, we cannot profane holy things unless we are persuaded to the point of acknowledgment and yet deny them. . . . .</div>
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<b></b><br /></div>
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Genesis 3:24. <i>And he threw the humans out. And he caused guardian beings to live on the east of the Garden of Eden, and the flame of a sword</i></div>
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<i>turning itself, to guard the way to the tree of lives.</i></div>
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<i>Throwing the humans out </i>is completely depriving us of all the will to</div>
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do good and all comprehension of truth—so completely that those faculties</div>
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are withheld from us and we cease to be human. </div>
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<i>Causing guardian beings to live on the east </i>is making sure that we cannot enter into any of the hidden wisdom of faith; the <i>east of the Garden of Eden </i>is a heavenly quality from which an intelligent understanding comes. The <i>guardian beings </i>symbolize the Lord’s providence making sure that if we are like this we do not pry into the ideas that compose faith. </div>
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The <i>flame of a sword turning itself </i>symbolizes self-love with its mad desires and the delusions that grow out of them. These desires and delusions are such</div>
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that although we want to enter there, we are carried in the opposite</div>
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direction, toward bodily and earthly preoccupations. This is done <i>to</i></div>
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<i>guard the way to the tree of lives, </i>or in other words, to prevent us from</div>
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profaning holy things. Several passages in the Word mentioning the <i>guardian beings, </i>though, show that they symbolize the Lord’s providence making sure we do not incur death by profaning the mysteries of faith, through an</div>
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insane exploration of them that relies on our own powers, empiricism, or mere facts.</div>
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Those who do not acknowledge are capable of knowing, but it is as if they do not know. They are like people who know things but whose</div>
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knowledge amounts to nothing.</div>
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Now, back the Brons Valentinius summary:</div>
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<b>“God</b></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Valentinians believed that God is incomprehensible and cannot be known directly. Therefore he defies accurate description. He is infinite, without beginning or end and is the ultimate origin of all things. He encompasses all things without being encompassed. Everything including the world lies within the deity and continues to be part of it. The Godhead manifests itself through a process of self-unfolding in the subsequent multiplicity of being while maintaining its unity.” </div>
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[Sidebar: Here we get into one of the more fascinating details of Gnosticism—the Father/Mother God of the Pre-Christian, (probably Pre-Judaic) Period. Our own Creation myth includes the idea of male and female being created in God’s image:</div>
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“[1:26] Then God said, "Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth."</div>
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[1:27] So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”</div>
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It was suggested to me, when I was in Jr. High, that the use of the “Royal We” in “Let us make humankind in OUR image,” is not confusing, if you only understand 18<sup>th</sup> century English grammar; but if you are looking to argue about a scriptural reference to a plural, or Male/Female, creator— there it is: male and female were created in God’s image—male and female images intertwined and inter-dependent.</div>
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Swedenborg has a completely different interpretation of the expression “PLURAL GOD”:</div>
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“Genesis 3:22. <i>And Jehovah God said, “Here, the human has been like one of us, knowing good and evil, and now perhaps people will put out their hand and take from the tree of lives as well, and eat, and live forever.”</i></div>
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The reason Jehovah God speaks at first in the singular and then in the plural is that <i>Jehovah God </i>means the Lord and at the same time heaven with its angels. The fact that <i>the human knew good and evil </i>means that people became heavenly and so became wise and understanding. . . . </div>
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In Genesis 1, for instance, the only name used is God, and he speaks in the plural there as well—“let us make a human in our image.” Not until the next chapter, which treats of heavenly people, is he called Jehovah God.</div>
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He is called Jehovah because he alone <i>is, </i>he alone lives; the name comes from his <i>beingness.</i></div>
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Human beings are also called gods by virtue of their power, as in Psalms 82:6; John 10:34, 35. Moses was called a “God to Pharaoh” (Exodus 7:1). For the same reason, the [Hebrew] word for God, <i>Elohim, </i>is plural. Angels have no power at all on their own, however (as they themselves</div>
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confess), but only receive it from the Lord. Because of this, and since there is only one God, Jehovah God in the Word means the Lord alone. But when anything occurs through the ministry of angels, as in Genesis 1[:26], then the plural is used.”</div>
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So much for the “Royal WE”:</div>
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Back to Valentinus:]</div>
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“Valentinians believed that God is androgynous and frequently depicted him as a male-female dyad. This is related to the notion that God provides the universe with both form and substance. The feminine aspect of the deity is called Silence, Grace and Thought. Silence is God's primordial state of tranquillity and self-awareness. She is also the active creative Thought that makes all subsequent states of being (or "Aeons") substantial. The masculine aspect of God is Depth, also called Ineffable and First Father. Depth is the profoundly incomprehensible, all-encompassing aspect of the deity. He is essentially passive, yet when moved to action by his Feminine Thought, he gives the universe form.” </div>
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The idea of Feminine Thought giving form to the universe reeks of hidden mystery; indeed, the idea of a Mother-God, in some ways, contradicts the whole Monotheistic-Patriarchal paradigm that dominates the Judeo-Christian image of the Divine. I quote below a selection of previously presented comments on the subject of the Male/Female God. </div>
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My favorite is this one from <i>The Gnostic Account of the Fall and the Creation of the Material World. </i>It gives an account of the “Little Wisdom”, a very heavy wisdom indeed, because it suggests that the wisdom of death is the impulse behind material creation:</div>
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“As a result of the new harmony established by "Christos and Holy Spirit", a new, unpaired Aeon, Jesus, is created, who is the "perfect fruit of the Pleroma", and expresses in his being the attributes of all the other Aeons.</div>
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The Christ-Aeon meanwhile shapes the "formless entity" into a new Aeon, called Achamoth (from the Hebrew Hokhmah, "Wisdom"), who becomes a kind of lower Sophia.</div>
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Achamoth, realising she is outside the Pleroma and unable to return, experiences emotions such as grief, fear, etc. Jesus then descends from the Pleroma and separates her from these emotions, which then become the substance or primal matter of the Cosmos, i.e. Psyche (Soul/Mind) and Hyle (Matter/Darkness). </div>
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The material world is thus derived ultimately from a projection of the sufferings of Achamoth. Inasmuch as Achamoth (like Sophia above her, and the Demiurge below her), is in many respects a mythological macrocosmic counterpart of the human ego, she is tormented by the longing for ultimate truth only able to produce a sort of bastard rationalism that has to be "crucified away" before she can be redeemed [E.R.Dodds, <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><i>Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety</i></span>, pp.19-20]”</div>
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The next excerpt is from The Nazarene Way of Essenic Studies.</div>
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It defines the Holy Spirit in its Feminine form:</div>
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<i>Shekhina; The Feminine Aspect of God ~<br />
The Esoteric Teachings of Jesus and the Nazarene Essenes:</i></div>
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“The Shekinah is held by many to represent the feminine attributes of the presence of God (shekhinah being a feminine word in Hebrew), based especially on readings of the Talmud and the Kabbalah. The word 'Matronit' is also employed to represent this usage. Comparative Religionists suggest a comparison to shakti, the female energy of Hindu gods, and to the Christian concept of the Holy Spirit.</div>
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Judaism and Christianity are both monotheistic religions, strongly connected to a patriarchal God - Yahweh. However, it may surprise many to discover that a goddess was associated with Judaism from its conception, and continued to play an important part, in various forms, to the present. The goddess is best known as Shekhina, a Talmudic term describing the manifestation of God's presence on earth. </div>
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While the Bible does not mention the name Shekhina, she is nevertheless bound to extremely old traditions, and closely relates to the ancient goddesses. Particularly significant is the Canaanite goddess Ashera who, at the beginning of the Israelites' settlement in the land of Canaan, was often referred to as Yahweh's Consort. </div>
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The literature also calls her the "Holy Spirit" which, in Hebrew, is also a feminine form.”</div>
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This next one tells another of the many creation stories that swell our world mythologies:</div>
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<b>The Babylonian Creation Story</b> <b>(<i>Enuma elish</i>)</b> </div>
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“Like the Greek <i>Theogony</i>, the creation of the world in the <i>Enuma elish</i> begins with the universe in a formless state, from which emerge two primary gods, male and female: </div>
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“When the skies above were not yet named Nor earth below pronounced by name, Apsu, the first one, their begetter, And maker Tiamat, who bore them all, Had mixed their waters together, But had not formed pastures, nor discovered reed-beds; When yet no gods were manifest, Nor names pronounced, nor destinies decreed, Then gods were born within them. (Dalley 233)”</div>
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Apsu, the male "begetter," is the sweet waters, while Tiamat, the female "maker," is the bitter, salt waters. Sweet and salt water mingle together at the mouths of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, site of the origins of Mesopotamian civilization.”</div>
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[Sidebar: When I read these myths (including Eve’s disastrous interview with the serpent) I can’t help thinking of Pandora’s Box—that box that contained all evil and suffering, which she inadvertently released into the world; somehow these stories all have a female doing something bad that, nevertheless, sets the world in motion. Surely life in Paradise must have been a very quiet, still, timeless experience, and it took original sin to get the clock ticking. Much to think about.</div>
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Back to Valentinus:]</div>
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<b>The Son</b></div>
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“The origin of the universe is described as a process of emanation from the Godhead. The male and female aspects of the Father, acting in conjunction, manifested themselves in the Son. The Son is also often depicted by Valentinians as a male-female dyad. The Son manifests himself in twenty-six spiritual entities or Aeons arranged into male-female pairs. The arrangement and names of the Aeons will not be discussed here. They represent the energies immanent within Son and were seen as part of his personality. Together they constitute the Fullness (pleroma) of the Godhead. </div>
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<b>The Fall</b></div>
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The Aeons who are manifested by the Son are conceived as having some degree of psychological independence. They lie within God but are separated from him by a Limit or boundary. As a result, they do not know the one who brought them into being. The Aeons sensed that they were incomplete and longed to know their origin. </div>
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This longing passed to Sophia (Wisdom), the youngest of the Aoens. On behalf of the whole Fullness, she took up the quest to know the supreme Parent. She attempted to know him by thinking alone, something that is impossible. As a result, she became separated from her consort and fell into a state of deficiency and suffering. Through the power of Limit, Sophia was divided in two. Her higher part was returned to her consort but her lower part was separated from the Fullness into a lower realm along with the deficiency and suffering. This lower realm is identical with the physical world.”</div>
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[Sidebar: This account of the Fall is identical to the one I read just a few minutes ago: I particularly like this summary:</div>
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“Sophia was divided in two. Her higher part was returned to her consort but her lower part was separated from the Fullness into a lower realm along with the deficiency and suffering. This lower realm is identical with the physical world.”</div>
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[Sidebar: It took a while for me to realize the blatantly obvious connection between the story of Sophia divided in two, and the story of Adam and Eve. When you think of the Garden of Eden as INSIDE the Pleroma, and their expulsion from it as OUSIDE the Pleroma, (an expulsion, by the way, motivated by the FEMALE), it is easy to see the analogy, as Adam, having been evicted from Paradise, spends the rest of his days trying to return Home. It is almost as if he was expelled from the Garden and THEN ate of the tree of knowledge. Ha! Parenthetically, the idea that the material world was generated from deficiency and suffering is in accord with the description of the physical world as a ‘veil of tears’. ]</div>
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St. Augustine makes some relevant comments about the Male/Female dichotomy in Book 14 of <i>The City of God</i>:</div>
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“But we, for our part, have no manner of doubt that to increase and multiply and replenish the earth in virtue of the blessing of God, is a gift of marriage as God instituted it from the beginning before man sinned, when He created them male and female — in other words, two sexes manifestly distinct. And it was this work of God on which His blessing was pronounced. For no sooner had Scripture said, <i>“Male and female created He them,”</i> Genesis 1:27-28 than it immediately continues, <i>“And God blessed them, and God said to them, Increase, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it,”</i> etc. And though all these things may not unsuitably be interpreted in a spiritual sense, yet <i>“male and female”</i> cannot be understood of two things in one man, as if there were in him one thing which rules, another which is ruled; but it is quite clear that they were created male and female, with bodies of different sexes, for the very purpose of begetting offspring, and so increasing, multiplying, and replenishing the earth; and it is great folly to oppose so plain a fact. </div>
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It was not of the spirit which commands and the body which obeys, nor of the rational soul which rules and the irrational desire which is ruled, nor of the contemplative virtue which is supreme and the active which is subject, nor of the understanding of the mind and the sense of the body, but plainly of the matrimonial union by which the sexes are mutually bound together. . .”</div>
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Notice the dichotomous pairs:</div>
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spirit — body</div>
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rational soul — irrational desire </div>
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contemplative — active </div>
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understanding of the mind — sense of the body;</div>
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In each case, the element of mind (spirit, rational, contemplative, understanding) are to be viewed as feminine, and each physical element (body, irrational, active, sense) is to be viewed as masculine. More on this below.</div>
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Back to Valentinus:]</div>
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“Valentinians envisioned the universe as a series of concentric spheres. The innermost sphere is the world or deficiency where the lower Sophia was exiled. Enclosing this is the Fullness (pleroma) where the Aeons are. The Aeons are enclosed within the Son. The outermost sphere which encompasses the Son is where the Father (Depth and Silence) is. There is a boundary or Limit between God and the Fullness. There is a second boundary or Limit between the Fullness and the deficiency. Just as the Fullness is a product of the Godhead and lies within it, so also the realm of deficiency is a product of the Fullness and lies within it. The deficiency arose as result of ignorance and it will be dissolved through knowledge (gnosis). </div>
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[Sidebar: The image of the universe as a series of concentric spheres appears in a number of ancient scriptures. For instance in <i>Ezekial</i>: </div>
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<b>Ezekiel 1:15-21:</b> </div>
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<sup>15</sup>As I looked at the living creatures, I saw a wheel on the ground beside each creature with its four faces. <sup>16</sup>This was the appearance and structure of the wheels: They sparkled like topaz, and all four looked alike. Each appeared to be made like a wheel intersecting a wheel. <sup>17</sup>As they moved, they would go in any one of the four directions the creatures faced; the wheels did not change direction as the creatures went. <sup>18</sup>Their rims were high and awesome, and all four rims were full of eyes all around. <sup>19</sup>When the living creatures moved, the wheels beside them moved; and when the living creatures rose from the ground, the wheels also rose. <sup>20</sup>Wherever the spirit would go, they would go, and the wheels would rise along with them, because the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels. <sup>21</sup>When the creatures moved, they also moved; when the creatures stood still, they also stood still; and when the creatures rose from the ground, the wheels rose along with them, because the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels.</div>
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<b>Ezekiel 10:1-14:</b></div>
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“1 Then I looked, and, behold, in the firmament that was above the head of the cherubims there appeared over them as it were a sapphire stone, as the appearance of the likeness of a throne.</div>
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2 And he spake unto the man clothed with linen, and said, Go in between the wheels, even under the cherub, and fill thine hand with coals of fire from between the cherubims, and scatter them over the city. And he went in in my sight.</div>
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3 Now the cherubims stood on the right side of the house, when the man went in; and the cloud filled the inner court.</div>
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4 Then the glory of the Lord went up from the cherub, and stood over the threshold of the house; and the house was filled with the cloud, and the court was full of the brightness of the Lord's glory.</div>
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5 And the sound of the cherubims' wings was heard even to the outer court, as the voice of the Almighty God when he speaketh.</div>
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6 And it came to pass, that when he had commanded the man clothed with linen, saying, Take fire from between the wheels, from between the cherubims; then he went in, and stood beside the wheels.</div>
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7 And one cherub stretched forth his hand from between the cherubims unto the fire that was between the cherubims, and took thereof, and put it into the hands of him that was clothed with linen: who took it, and went out.</div>
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8 And there appeared in the cherubims the form of a man's hand under their wings.</div>
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9 And when I looked, behold the four wheels by the cherubims, one wheel by one cherub, and another wheel by another cherub: and the appearance of the wheels was as the colour of a beryl stone.</div>
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10 And as for their appearances, they four had one likeness, as if a wheel had been in the midst of a wheel.</div>
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11 When they went, they went upon their four sides; they turned not as they went, but to the place whither the head looked they followed it; they turned not as they went.</div>
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12 And their whole body, and their backs, and their hands, and their wings, and the wheels, were full of eyes round about, even the wheels that they four had.</div>
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13 As for the wheels, it was cried unto them in my hearing, O wheel.</div>
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14 And every one had four faces: the first face was the face of a cherub, and the second face was the face of a man, and the third the face of a lion, and the fourth the face of an eagle.”</div>
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This scripture is packed with archetypal symbols which resonate in our unconscious minds; it is referenced in C.S. Lewis’ <i>Perelandra</i>: (chapter 16 p227): in this scene, the Gods of Mars and Venus are preparing to show themselves to the new King and Queen of Perelandra; they are trying out various physicalizations, on the hero Dr. Ransom, to try and get the right shape; one of the forms they tried looked like this:</div>
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“And he looked with some reluctance, and far off between the peaks on the other side of the little valley there came rolling wheels. There was nothing but that—concentric wheels, moving with a rather sickening slowness one inside the other.”</div>
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“This vision had to be inspired by Ezekiel Chap. 1 vs. 15-21, where the prophet writes of oddly designed wheels beneath the "living creatures" (angelic beings). Lewis wrote elsewhere that this "wheel within a wheel" vision closely resembles a modern dynamo, an electric generator. Although Ransom is impressed by the hugeness of the wheels, the vision has no meaning to him. It might as well be the biggest ferris wheel as far as he is concerned. </div>
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On the third try Malacandra and Perelandra get it right. They assume humanlike form. Giant and sexless, but human shaped. Yet even without sexual characteristics, Malacandra appears masculine and Perelandra seems feminine:” </div>
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[Sidebar: this commentary mentions not only the concentric circle idea, but the opposition of Male and Female modalities of cosmic structure. Notice that the commentary mentions, “Yet even without sexual characteristics, Malacandra appears masculine and Perelandra seems feminine.” By sexual characteristics this author must mean PHYSICAL characteristics; as you know I have been making a case for masculine and feminine attributes that have nothing to do with physicality. To me male and female are qualities of spirit more than body, and thus, when it is necessary to use the word “sex” I prefer to use the more non-specific term “gender”. Here is the section from <i>Perelandra</i>:</div>
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“Both the bodies were naked, and both were free from any sexual characteristics, either primary or secondary. That, one would have expected. But whence came this curious difference between them? He found that he could point to no single feature wherein the difference resided, yet it was impossible to ignore. </div>
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One could try-Ransom has tried a hundred times- to put it into words. He has said that Malacandra was like rhythm and Perelandra like melody. He has said that Malacandra affected him like a quantitative, Perelandra like an accentual, metre. He thinks that the first held in his hand something like a spear, but the hands of the other were open, with the palms towards him. But I don't know that any of these attempts has helped me much. </div>
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At all events what Ransom saw at that moment was the real meaning of gender. Everyone must sometimes have wondered why in nearly all tongues certain inanimate objects are masculine and others feminine. What is masculine about a mountain or feminine about certain trees? Ransom has cured me of believing that this is a purely morphological phenomenon, depending on the form of the word. Still less is gender an imaginative extension of sex. </div>
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Our ancestors did not make mountains masculine because they projected male characteristics into them. The real process is the reverse. Gender is a reality, and a more fundamental reality than sex. Sex is, in fact, merely the adaptation to organic life of a fundamental polarity which divides all created beings. Female sex is simply one of the things that have feminine gender, there are many others, and Masculine and Feminine meet us on planes of reality where male and female would be simply meaningless. Masculine is not attenuated male, nor feminine attenuated female. On the contrary, the male and female of organic creatures are rather faint and blurred reflections of masculine and feminine. Their reproductive functions, their differences in strength and size, partly exhibit, but partly also confuse and misrepresent, the real polarity. </div>
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All this Ransom saw, as it were, with his own eyes. The two white creatures were sexless. But he of Malacandra was masculine (not male); she of Perelandra was feminine (not female). Malacandra seemed to him to have the look of one standing armed, at the ramparts of his own remote archaic world, in ceaseless vigilance, his eyes ever roaming the earthward horizon whence his danger came long ago.”</div>
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The concept of masculine-vs-feminine is one to which C.S.Lewis often returns; here is a deep section from <i>That Hideous Strength</i>:</div>
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“She took it for granted, half-unconsciously, that the Director was the most virginal of his sex; but she had not realised that this would leave his masculinity still on the other side of the stream from herself and even steeper, more emphatic, than that of common men. Some knowledge of a world beyond Nature she had already gained from living in his house, and more from fear of death that night in the dingle. But she had been conceiving this world as "spiritual" in the negative sense--as some neutral, or democratic, vacuum where differences disappeared, where sex and sense were not transcended but simply taken away. Now the suspicion dawned upon her that there might be differences and contrasts all the way up, richer, sharper, even fiercer, at every rung of the ascent. How if this invasion of her own being in marriage from which she had recoiled, often in the very teeth of instincts, were not, as she had supposed, merely a relic of animal life or patriarchal barbarism, but rather the lowest, the first, and the easiest form of some shocking contact with reality which would have to be repeated-- but in ever larger and more disturbing modes-- on the highest levels of all?”</div>
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That does it for today. Next week we will continue with the Brons article; at that time we will reprise some of the information about the Male/Female God because it leads directly to the SON, and the Gnostic sacraments that help reveal His presence to Man.</div>
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Let us pray: Jesus we thank you for the promise of Wholeness which we find, and find, and find in the closeness of your warm embrace. Amen.</div>
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Richard Freeman-Toolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03480701171151843224noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6082284124238685067.post-64070019318076551692017-12-17T13:26:00.003-08:002017-12-17T13:26:42.916-08:00Advent III - Love<h2>
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Advent III - Love</h2>
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Today we will review key sections of two previous Christmas sermons: one on love and one on the wise men.</div>
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1. Today, according to SOMEBODY SOMEWHERE’S calendar, we have lit the candle of love. As the moment of the incarnation of the Christ Consciousness approaches, we are impressed with the idea of love born anew in our hearts, because love bears us into a new, and ever new, and ever renewing reality of spirit.</div>
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<b>1 John 4</b></div>
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“7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. </div>
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8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. </div>
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9 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. </div>
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10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. </div>
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11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. 12 No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. </div>
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13 Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.</div>
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14 And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. </div>
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15 Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. </div>
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16 And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.”</div>
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There can be no more important subject, than love, for human beings to consider at this time of year; and yet the vastness of the subject makes it difficult to approach in anything like a systematic way. Love is an easy word to bandy about, because it has so many meanings and inflections; therefore, it might behoove us to first narrow the field a little, so we have some clear idea of what we are talking about. A general definition of love will help me clarify my understanding of the meaning of Christmas love.</div>
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To me, the ultimate, all-purpose definition of love is as a synonym for CONNECTION--either that, or SYMPATHY. In either case, the implication is that people who love each other have something in common--they are connected by spiritual ties that enable them to share feelings, thoughts, and experiences, etc. It is love that enables us to magnify the resonance of our connection to our neighbors into a dynamic energy level that is cosmic in scope. The love at the source of all being brings us together through realization of the Christ Consciousness. Since the beginning of time, (and before then), we have been ONE in love, and, thanks to Jesus we can know it here and now. At Christmas we remember that the Christ Consciousness descended to earth in the body of Jesus Christ because God loves us, because God in us sought to reveal to our limited rational consciousness the CONNECTION between Himself and us. Furthermore, we, all of us, seek our places of harmony and sympathy, somewhere on the continuum of the manifold levels of human consciousness, through love; I say we SEEK it through love, but we FIND that place through the grace bestowed on us by the heavenly entities assigned to care for and guide us through the entanglements of mundane existence.</div>
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We can never be reminded too often that <span style="text-decoration: underline;">love came down</span>. </div>
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<b>James 1:17</b></div>
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<sup>“17</sup>Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.”</div>
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What a miracle that love falls on us from above, like the thrill of mental energy that radiates downward through us, when we make contact with higher worlds, or experience tangible spiritual blessings. Or, is this such a magnificent condescension after all? Does this love interpenetrate existence at every level, such that love coming down is the same thing as us reaching up? Again, if there is one dogmatic principle, I have become intellectually committed to since taking over the responsibility of composing these sermons, it is that love through grace is GIVEN, but the Personal Love of God is CHOSEN. Heaven came down and glory filled my soul--hmm--this construction leaves out the CHOICE. I think, maybe it should go:</div>
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"Heaven came down </div>
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and then we all moved in." </div>
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Would the doorman let us in bearing this slogan? Maybe the doorman is not that reliable? Saint Peter was always a little eccentric? </div>
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Clearly, though, the word "interpenetration" should appear somewhere in our definition of love. If we are going to succeed in "pumping up" our spiritual sensitivities this Christmas, we will need to focus conscious attention on states of mind that lean outside of the box. We must seek love in places where we don't usually seek it; we must look below in pre-conscious wells of collective memory, and we must look above at the glare of heaven, at the light, still too bright for our puny powers of apprehension.</div>
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<i>Author Unknown</i></div>
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“The message of Christmas is that the visible material world is bound to the invisible spiritual world.” </div>
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From Charles Dickens’<i> </i>the <i>Christmas Carol</i>:</div>
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“I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.” </div>
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The image in this quote of humanity flowing down a common road toward a common goal, is very compelling to me. I like, especially, to imagine the light of Christmas love drawing us closer together for a short season, focussing the crowd a little more densely on the road. It is tempting to wish for this common goal all year round, but the comfort of that idea is quickly dispelled when we remember that God's love makes us highly individual, with destinations on many difference street corners.</div>
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C. S. Lewis was quite definite about this point. He insists, repeatedly, that Losing your SELF in God (that is, losing the self you have made up in your mind)--losing your made-up self allows you to FIND your true self; a self that exceeds, in magnitude, all the distinctions and possibilities ever dreamt of by the made-up self. Thus, giving yourself to God realizes more of your one-of-a-kind self than any paltry literal definition ever could.</div>
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<i>C. S. Lewis</i></div>
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“The Enemy wants to bring the man to a state of mind in which he could design the best cathedral in the world, and know it to be the best, and rejoice in the fact, without being any more (or less) or otherwise glad at having done it than he would be if it had been done by another. The Enemy wants him, in the end, to be so free from any bias in His own favor that he can rejoice in his own talents as frankly and gratefully as in his neighbor's talents--or in a sunrise, an elephant, or a waterfall. He wants each man, in the long run, to be able to recognize all creatures (even himself) as glorious and excellent things. He wants to kill their, animal self-love as soon as possible: but it is His long-term policy, I fear, to restore to them a new kind of self-love--a charity and gratitude for all selves, including their own; when they have really learned to love their neighbors as themselves, they will be allowed to love themselves as their neighbors. For we must never forget what is the most repellent and inexplicable trait in our Enemy; He really loves the hairless bipeds He has created, and always gives back to them with His right hand what He has taken away with His left.” </div>
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As an artist, this passage always gives great comfort because the problems of ego are so troublesome. C. S. Lewis speaks of animal self-love, and "a new kind of self-love--a charity and gratitude for all selves, including their own." Christmas reminds us to sublimate self-love, into divine love connecting us to our neighbors, to God, to our-neighbors-in-God, and God-in-our-neighbors.</div>
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<i>Pope John XXIII</i></div>
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“Mankind is a great, an immense family. This is proved by what we feel in our hearts at Christmas.” </div>
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<i>Washington Irving </i></div>
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“Christmas is a season for kindling the fire for hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart.” </div>
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<i>Leigh Hunt</i></div>
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“Fail not to call to mind, in the course of the twenty-fifth of this month, that the Divinest Heart that ever walked the earth was born on that day; and then smile and enjoy yourselves for the rest of it; for mirth is also of Heaven's making.” </div>
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This invitation to merry-making, to celebrate the feast with song and trivialities, confirms my feeling that that materialist side of Christmas is really okay. I like presents, I like Santa Claus, I like getting out in that stream of life (I mean big-city commercial life) once in a while and tasting the excitement of the teeming masses before I retreat once again to my mountain hideaway. The laughter of man and the laughter of the Gods will be indistinguishable before my fire, and the silver giggles of giddy angels shall echo in the still of the following night--night that holds the promise of eternity.</div>
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2. Below are some thoughts on the wise men, but first here is a review of the wise men story in <i>Matthew 2:1</i>:</div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The Magi Visit the Messiah</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>“2 </b>After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi[</span><span style="color: #631e16; font-kerning: none;">a</span><span style="font-kerning: none;">] from the east came to Jerusalem <b>2 </b>and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>3 </b>When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. <b>4 </b>When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. <b>5 </b>“In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>6 </b>“‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> who will shepherd my people Israel.’[</span><span style="color: #631e16; font-kerning: none;">b</span><span style="font-kerning: none;">]”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>7 </b>Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. <b>8 </b>He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>9 </b>After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. <b>10 </b>When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. <b>11 </b>On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. <b>12 </b>And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.”</span></div>
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You would think that, chronologically, a sermon on the Three Wise Men would come AFTER Christmas, because that is when the Wise Men are traditionally thought to have come to the manger, January 6th, to be precise. I have chosen this strategy because it is with the same fervor of seek-to-find, that preoccupied the three kings, that I am preparing myself to solemnize the anniversary of the coming of the Messiah into the world; and it is with the same wonder that illuminated the eyes of the Magi on that first day of Epiphany, that I hope to contemplate the savior lying in a manger on Christmas Day in the morning.</div>
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The symbology of the Magi divides neatly into two distinct stages of discovery; seeking is the first stage, while the finding is merely the culmination of a much longer process. When you think about it, the thinking about the symbol, the preparation for the spiritual symbol, takes a lot more time, and is a lot more involved than the actual revelation of the spiritual reality. The fact is that, although the Three Kings are usually associated with Epiphany, the FINDING of Jesus, the moment of RECOGNITION in which the Christ Presence is made manifest to Man, this is not the whole story--there is the whole issue of the SEARCH for Jesus that preceded the FINDING. Thus, seeking and finding are very much a part of the Christmas season. Looking back and looking forward may be thought of in the same way. Remember our discussion of <i>sehnsucht </i>as the intense joy of unfulfilled desire, and our discussion of <i>HOPE </i>as the realization of a future good brought into the present. </div>
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Munachi E. Ezeogu, CSSP says:</div>
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“We are all seekers. There is something about this time of year that reveals the hunger in our hearts, this yearning for something.”</div>
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The Wise Men must have been filled with longing, a yearning for an undefined reality which, when it finally fell on them in that first moment of epiphany, must have been as overwhelming as it was transforming. How the realization of an expectation must have been completely unexpected! How it must have looked so completely different, from what they thought they were going to see, how new! How they must have struggled, in those first few moments, to get their minds around such a radical departure from the past.</div>
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“The Magi are described as "falling down", "kneeling" or "bowing" in the worship of Jesus. This gesture, together with the use of kneeling in Luke's birth narrative, had an important effect on Christian religious practices. They were indicative of great respect, and typically used when venerating a king. Inspired by these verses, kneeling and prostration were adopted in the early Church. While prostration is now rarely practiced in the West, it is still relatively common in the Eastern Churches, especially during Lent. Kneeling has remained an important element of Christian worship to this day."</div>
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I find it very interesting that so many of our religious ceremonies come from the accepted reports of the Magi-behavior--the "kneeling" is just one element of the whole royalty obeisance bit. The reference to Jesus as the "King of Kings, and Lord of Lords" definitely puts Jesus, as a descendant of the House of David, into the upper social class of a world in which class consciousness was (and is) a major indicator of the prestige enjoyed by royalty. I really think Jesus has to laugh at this--I believe He must be more democratic in His social attitudes, at the same time being aware that all men are NOT created equal.</div>
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Of course, the main Magi-behavior we imitate today is the gift-giving. Thus, with the following Martin Luther excerpt, our discussion of the Wise Men shifts from seeking to giving gifts. <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
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<i>Sermon for the Epiphany; Matthew 2:1-12</i>:A Sermon by Martin Luther; taken from his Church Postil of 1522.</div>
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</span>"3.This Gospel harmonizes with the Epistle and speaks of the temporal coming of the heathen to Christ, by which their spiritual coming to Christ, mentioned in the Epistle, is signified and commenced. It is both a terrifying and consoling Gospel: terrifying to the great and wise, the self-satisfied and the mighty, because they all reject Christ; consoling to the humble and despised, because to them alone Christ is revealed.</div>
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</span>4. These wise men are usually called the three Kings. As not much depends on this, we will grant this opinion to the simple minded people. However, it is not known whether there were two, three or more. But they certainly came from the rich country Arabia or Sheba, which is evident from their gifts viz. gold, frankincense and myrrh. All three of these are very precious in that country. It can certainly not be assumed that they had bought these elsewhere, for it is customary in these Eastern countries to do homage and make presents of the choice fruits and wealth of the country. just like Jacob commanded his sons to carry presents of the choice fruits of the land to Joseph in Egypt. Gen. 43, 11. Had these gifts of the wise men not been of their own country, why should they then have brought frankincense, myrrh and gold produced in the land of Judea, instead of silver and precious stones or fruits of some other country?</div>
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5. Therefore these gifts were not presented to Christ like artists paint the scenery that one offers gold, another frankincense and the third myrrh, but they presented the gifts in common as one man. And probably there were quite a number present, a few of them being the leaders, just as now a prince or a city sends a few brave men as messengers to the emperor with presents.</div>
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6. The Evangelist calls these men wise men which means in German weissager, i. e. (predictors, diviners); not in the same manner as the prophets predicted, but like those whom we call wise men and wise women, who can tell people all kinds of things; who know a great deal about the secret arts and follow adventures. The art of such people is called magic, which is sometimes accomplished by the black arts and the help of the devil, but not in all things as by the witches and sorcerers. For the wise men imitate the true prophets and prophesy like the true prophets, though not by the spirit of God. For this reason they sometimes happen to be correct as their work is not, like that of the witches, altogether the devil's work, but rather human reason aided by the devil. . . .</div>
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11. Hence these magi or wise men were not kings, but men learned and experienced in this natural art though without doubt they also practiced conjury. Even to this day men from these eastern countries are possessed of great and various magic powers and, when this real art ceased, being despised they brought forth sorcery and spread it throughout the world but prior to this they relied entirely on the course of the heavenly bodies. Thus presumptuous human reason has always mixed and disgraced that which was good by imitation and indiscretion, attempting to ape everything that it sees and bears. Hence false prophets imitate the true prophets, false work-righteous saints the true saints, and the falsely learned the truly learned. If we look at the world we will find, that the work of human reason is but aping to imitate the good, only perverts it and thus deceives itself and others.</div>
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12. These wise men, therefore, were nothing else than what the philosophers were in Greece and the priests in Egypt, and the learned among us in the universities. In short, they were the priests and learned in the rich country of Arabia; just as if learned men are priests from the universities were now sent to a prince with presents. For the universities also claim that they teach natural arts which they call philosophy while in reality they are teaching not only tomfoolery, but also poisonous error and idle dreams. . . .</div>
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30. How these wise men could see in this star a sign that unmistakably signified a new- born king, I do not know. Perhaps they read in their histories and chronicles that aforetime the birth of other kings had been signified in the heavens or through a star. For we find also in the histories of the Romans and the Greeks that the coming or birth of some great princes and extraordinary men had been foretold by miracles and signs in the air and in the heavens. These wise men also knew quite well that these Jews were the chosen people of God, who were and had been above all other people, especially favored of God. Therefore, as this was such a beautiful star, they certainly thought that God had given this people a new king. But the claim of some that these wise men knew the saying of Balaam: "There shall come forth a star out of Jacob," etc. (Num. 24, 17), will avail nothing, as this speaks mainly of the spiritual coming of Christ, who is the star himself. But whoever is not satisfied with this may think as he pleases about it. Perhaps they knew all by divine revelation.”</div>
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This preceding Martin Luther excerpt is quite involved and has many intertwining ideas. Perhaps the most important overarching point, that Luther is making, is that: as we seek the Christ, and we give him his presents, we must be careful to remember that Jesus does not suffer fools; finding the precise distinction between magic philosophy and true spirituality is a slippery slope, a razor's edge. I find that the whole idea of the word "Magi" leading to "Magic" is an untrivial philological coincidence, and is emblematic of the feeling of magic and wonder associated with our Christmas traditions and ceremonies. But cultivating wonder does not mean accepting false prophets for mere dramatic effect; neither does the fact that there are false prophets out there mean that every strange and new thing is also false. Every natural event must be evaluated on its own merits, with an open heart and mind. Thus as we seek, and find, and then give, we must make sure that we are seeking the right thing, finding the right thing, and giving of ourselves, our truest selves and not counterfeits. With Jesus as our arbiter and interpreter we cannot go wrong.</div>
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The following Rudolf Steiner excerpt throws some significant light on the quality of the symbology of the gifts of the Magi:</div>
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Rudolph Steiner:<b><i> </i></b><i>The Festivals and Their Meaning:</i><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"> </span><i>I</i><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"> </span><i>Christmas--On The Three Magi</i>: Schmidt Number: S-0994 VI (Extract from a lecture) Berlin, 30th December, 1904 GA B60</div>
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"You will remember that I have spoken of the meaning of the Christmas Festival in its connection with the evolution of races, or, better said, the epochs of civilisation, and indeed the significance of the Festival lies in this very connection both in respect of the past and of the future.</div>
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I want to speak to-day about a Festival to which in modern times less importance is attached than to the Christmas Festival itself, namely, the Festival of the Three Kings, of the Magi who came from the East to greet the newly born Jesus. This Festival of the Epiphany (celebrated on the 6th of January) will assume greater and greater significance when its symbolism is understood.</div>
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It will be obvious to you that very profound symbolism is contained in the Festival of the Three Magi from the East. Until the 15th century, this symbolism was kept very secret and no definite indications were available. But since that century some light has been thrown on the Festival of the Magi by exoteric presentations. One of the Three Kings — <i>Caspar</i> — is portrayed as a Moor, an inhabitant of Africa; one as a white man, a European — <i>Melchior</i>; and one — <i>Balthasar</i> — as an Asiatic; the colour of his skin is that of an inhabitant of India. They bring Myrrh, Gold and Frankincense as offerings to the Child Jesus in Bethlehem.</div>
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These three offerings are full of meaning and in keeping with the whole symbolism of the Festival celebrated on the 6th of January. Exoterically, the date itself throws some light; esoterically, the Festival is pregnant with meaning. The 6th of January is the same date as that on which, in ancient Egypt, the Festival of Osiris was celebrated, the Festival of the re-finding of Osiris. As you know, Osiris was overcome by his enemy Typhon: Isis seeks and eventually finds him. This re-finding of Osiris, the Son of God, is represented in the Festival of the 6th of January. The Festival of the Three Kings is the same Festival, but in its Christian form. This Festival was also celebrated among the Assyrians, the Armenians and the Phoenicians. Everywhere it is a Festival connected with a kind of universal baptism — a rebirth from out of the water. </div>
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Of this epoch the Bible says: ‘The Spirit of God brooded over the waters.’ The principle of Love was not within the beings, but outside, manifesting as earthly Kama (that is to say, earthly passion or desire). Kama is egotistic love. The first bringer of Love free of all egoism is Christ Who appeared in the body of Jesus of Nazareth.</div>
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Who are the Magi? They represent the Initiates of the three preceding races or epochs of culture, the Initiates of mankind up to the time of the coming of Christ, the Bringer of the Love that is free of egoism — the resurrected Osiris. </div>
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By what are the Three Holy Kings guided, and whither are they led? They are guided by a Star to a grotto, a cave in Bethlehem. This is something that can be understood only by one who has knowledge of the so-called lower, or astral mysteries. To be led by a Star means nothing else than to see the soul itself as a Star. But when is the soul seen as a Star? When a man can behold the soul as a radiant aura. But what kind of aura is so radiant that it can be a guide? There is the aura that glimmers with only a feeble light; such an aura cannot guide. There is a higher aura, that of the intelligence, which has, it is true, a flowing, up-surging light, but is not yet able to guide. But the bright aura, aglow with Budhi, is in very truth a Star, is a radiant guide. In Christ, the Star of Budhi lights up — the Star which accompanies the evolution of mankind. The Light that shines before the Magi is the soul of Christ Himself. The Second Logos Himself shines before the Magi and over the cave in Bethlehem.</div>
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The Festival of the Three Kings is celebrated every year on the 6th of January, and its significance will steadily increase. Men will understand more and more what a Magi is, and what the great Magi, the Masters, are. And then understanding of Christianity will lead to understanding of spiritual science."</div>
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To reiterate the subject line of this sermon: the bottom line to which we will be wending is the symbology of the Wise Men who use the art of nature to search for Jesus. By that we mean that, the search for Jesus may involve the seeker in signs and symbols that appear in the natural world, but which resonate in Eternity. As the search evolves, the seeker is transformed in unexpected ways, and the final Epiphany is a Rite of Passage into a new world. This arrival results in an out-pouring of spiritual gifts which, again, symbolize spiritual realities potent with energy and meaning.</div>
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One always wonders, when one takes a serendipitous needle-drop approach to selecting materials, how they will end up relating to each other. For today, I had two sermons I liked and wanted to reprise, but I was not aware of any unifying thread connecting the two pieces. I had to wait until the end to get it: as usual, spiritual advancement is a progression like this: our dwelling in the haven of love, found with Jesus, opens our hearts to the world, creating a flow of outpouring love, the richest gifts of all. </div>
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Let us pray: Jesus, thank you for the love. Bless the remaining hours of this holy day celebration. Lend us power to see the potential of the coming year with enthusiastic hope. Wait for us while we reach for your arms, and save for us, as the wrapping paper flies, an angel kiss. <span style="font-size: 19px; line-height: normal;">As the enactment of your birth approaches, let us open our eyes to the magic of the Magi, and discover with them the incalculable gifts you have given to us in the infinity of Your love.</span>Amen.</div>
Richard Freeman-Toolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03480701171151843224noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6082284124238685067.post-48678766223545664152017-12-10T15:56:00.003-08:002017-12-10T15:56:32.258-08:00Advent 2017-2<h2>
Advent 2017-2</h2>
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As you know, I really enjoy reading great poetry aloud. The great poets, like the great saints, grapple with spiritual problems and give us comfort of a different sort than the scriptures, although it is like the scriptures, in that it tells the truth. I have decided to make an Advent sermon completely out of quotes. </div>
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To begin, here are four truth-bearing poems:</div>
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Emily Dickinson’s <i>Poem #1309 (on the Paradox of Advent)</i>:</div>
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"The Infinite a sudden Guest<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>Has been assumed to be –<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>But how can that stupendous come<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>Which never went away?</div>
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Heaven is so far of the Mind<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>That were the Mind dissolved -<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>The Site - of it - by Architect<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>Could not again be proved -</div>
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‘Tis vast - as our Capacity -<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>As fair - as our idea -<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>To Him of adequate desire<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>No further ’tis, than Here -</div>
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Who has not found the Heaven - below -<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>Will fail of it above -<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>For Angels rent the House next ours,<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>Wherever we remove –"</div>
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George MacDonald:</div>
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<i>Advent</i><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
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"Come, saviour of nations wild,<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>Of the maiden owned the child<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>That may wonder all the earth<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>God should grant it such a birth.</div>
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Not of man's flesh or man's blood<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>Only of the Spirit of God<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>Is God's Word a man become,<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>And blooms the fruit of woman's womb.</div>
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Maiden, she was found with child,<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>Nor was chastity defiled;<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>Many a virtue from her shone:<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>God was there upon his throne.</div>
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From that chamber of content,<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>Royal palace pure, he went;<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>God by kind, in human grace<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>Forth he comes to run his race.</div>
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From the Father came his road,<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>And returns again to God;<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>Unto hell it did go down,<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>Up then to the Father's throne.</div>
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Thou, the Father's form express,<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>Get thee victory in the flesh,<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>That thy godlike power in us<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>Make sick flesh victorious.</div>
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Shines thy manger bright and fair;<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>Sets the night a new star there:<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>Darkness thence must keep away;<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>Faith dwells ever in the day.</div>
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Honour unto God be done;<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>Honour to his only son;<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>Honour to the Holy Ghost,<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>Now, and ever, ending not. Amen."</div>
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The “Journey of the Magi” was written by T.S Eliot in 1927. Many interpret this poem as a reflection of Eliot’s own journey from agnosticism to Christian faith.</div>
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<i>"A cold coming we had of it,</i><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span><i>Just the worst time of the year</i><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span><i>For the journey, and such a long journey:</i><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span><i>The ways deep and the weather sharp,</i><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span><i>The very dead of winter.’</i><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span><i>And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,</i><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span><i>Lying down in the melting snow.</i><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span><i>There were times we regretted</i><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span><i>The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,</i><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span><i>And the silken girls bringing sherbet.</i><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span><i>Then the camel men cursing and grumbling</i><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span><i>And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,</i><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span><i>And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,</i><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span><i>And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly</i><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span><i>And the villages dirty and charging high prices:</i><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span><i>A hard time we had of it.</i></div>
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<i>At the end we preferred to travel all night,</i><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span><i>Sleeping in snatches,</i><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span><i>With the voices singing in our ears, saying</i><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span><i>That this was all folly.</i><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span><i>Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,</i><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span><i>Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;</i><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span><i>With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,</i><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span><i>And three trees on the low sky,</i><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span><i>And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.</i></div>
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<i>Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,</i><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span><i>Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,</i><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span><i>And feet kicking the empty wine-skins,</i><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span><i>But there was no information, and so we continued</i><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span><i>And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon</i><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span><i>Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory</i><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span><i>All this was a long time ago, I remember,</i><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span><i>And I would do it again, but set down</i><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span><i>This set down</i><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span><i>This: were we led all that way for</i><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span><i>Birth or Death?</i><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span><i>There was a Birth, certainly,</i><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span><i>We had evidence and no doubt.</i><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span><i>I had seen birth and death,</i><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span><i>But had thought they were different; this Birth was</i><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span><i>Hard and bitter agony for us, like</i><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span><i>Death, our death,</i><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span><i>We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,</i><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span><i>But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,</i><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span><i>With an alien people clutching their gods.</i><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span><i>I should be glad of another death."</i></div>
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John Donne (1572-1631):</div>
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</span><i>Annunciation</i><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
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</span>"Salvation to all that will is nigh;<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>That All, which always is all everywhere,<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>Which cannot sin, and yet all sins must bear,<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>Which cannot die, yet cannot choose but die,<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>Lo, faithful virgin, yields Himself to lie<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>In prison, in thy womb; and though He there<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>Can take no sin, nor thou give, yet He will wear,<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>Taken from thence, flesh, which death's force may try.<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>Ere by the spheres time was created, thou<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>Wast in His mind, who is thy Son and Brother;<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>Whom thou conceivst, conceived; yea thou art now<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>Thy Maker's maker, and thy Father's mother;<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>Thou hast light in dark, and shutst in little room,<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb.”</div>
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The next two poems are about the Virgin Mary; the first is by Rainer Maria Rilke: </div>
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<i>Annunciation to Mary</i></div>
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"The angel’s entrance (you must realize)<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>was not what made her frightened. The surprise<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>he gave her by his coming was no more<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>than sun or moon-beam stirring on the floor<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>would give another, — she had long since grown<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>used to the form that angels wear, descending;<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>never imaging this coming-down<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>was hard for them. (O it’s past comprehending,<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>how pure she was. Did not one day, a hind<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>that rested in a wood, watchfully staring,<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>feel her deep influence, and did it not<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>conceive the unicorn, then, without pairing,<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>the pure beast, beast which light begot, — )<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>No, not to see him enter, but to find<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>the youthful angel’s countenance inclined<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>so near to her; that when he looked, and she<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>looked up at him, their looks so merged in one<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>the world outside grew vacant, suddenly,<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>and all things being seen, endured and done<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>were crowded into them: just she and he<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>eye and its pasture, visions and its view,<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>here at the point and at this point alone:-<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>see, this arouses fear. Such fear both knew."</div>
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The following is a medieval take on the Virgin Mary:</div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Anonymous, ‘I syng of a mayden’.</b>This medieval poem or carol dates from around 1400, so is roughly contemporaneous with Chaucer’s <i>Canterbury Tales</i> and the birth of modern English poetry. Written in Middle English, the poem tells of the Annunciation and Virgin Birth. Dew is a long standing literary figure for virginity: here the conception of the Son is seen as enhancing, rather than ending Our Lady's virginity.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The piece is to be found in a minstrel manuscript from the early fifteenth century. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“I sing of a maiden</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">That is matchless,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">King of all kings</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">To her son she chose.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">He came as still</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Where his mother was</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">As dew in April</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">That falls on the grass.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">He came as still</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">To his mother's bower</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">As dew in April</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">That falls on the flower.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">He came as still</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Where his mother lay</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">As dew in April</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">That falls on the spray.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Mother and maiden</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">There was never none but she;</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Well may such a lady</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">God's mother be.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Though no Christmas verses by St. Francis have come down to us, there is a beautiful “psalm” for Christmas Day at Vespers, composed by him partly from passages of Scripture. A portion of Father Paschal Robinson's translation may be quoted:—</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Rejoice to God our helper.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Shout unto God, living and true,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">With the voice of triumph.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal; margin-left: 35.6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">For the Lord is high, terrible:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">A great King over all the earth.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">For the most holy Father of heaven,p. 39 </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Our King, before ages sent His Beloved</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Son from on high, and He</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">was born of the Blessed Virgin,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">holy Mary.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">* * * * *</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">This is the day which the Lord</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal; margin-left: 35.6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">hath made: let us rejoice and be glad in it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">For the beloved and most holy</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Child has been given to us and</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal; margin-left: 35.6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">born for us by the wayside.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal; margin-left: 35.6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">And laid in a manger because He</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">had no room in the inn.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Glory to God in the highest: and</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">on earth peace to men of good will.” </span></div>
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Here is one about Christmas presents:</div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>The Christmas-Box </i>- by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal; margin-left: 36px; text-indent: 0.1px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">“THIS box, mine own sweet darling, thou wilt find</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal; margin-left: 36px; text-indent: 0.1px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">With many a varied sweetmeat's form supplied;</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The fruits are they of holy Christmas tide,</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal; margin-left: 36px; text-indent: 0.1px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">But baked indeed, for children's use design'd.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal; margin-left: 36px; text-indent: 0.1px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">I'd fain, in speeches sweet with skill combin'd,</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal; margin-left: 36px; text-indent: 0.1px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">Poetic sweetmeats for the feast provide;</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal; margin-left: 36px; text-indent: 0.1px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">But why in such frivolities confide?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Perish the thought, with flattery to blind!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">One sweet thing there is still, that from within,</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal; margin-left: 36px; text-indent: 0.1px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">Within us speaks,--that may be felt afar;</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">This may be wafted o'er to thee alone.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal; margin-left: 36px; text-indent: 0.1px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">If thou a recollection fond canst win,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">As if with pleasure gleam'd each well-known star,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The smallest gift thou never wilt disown.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;">This is another quote about Christmas presents: </span>it is a Christmas Eve sermon delivered by the Bishop at the end of the movie <i>The Bishop’s Wife</i>, and is a profound reflection on the best Christmas presents we can give to each other and to Jesus on his birthday:</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal; margin-left: 36.1px; text-indent: -0.7px;">
"Tonight I want to tell you the story of an empty stocking. Once upon a midnight clear, there was a child's cry. A blazing star hung over a stable and wise men came with birthday gifts. We haven't forgotten that night down the centuries; we celebrate it with stars on Christmas trees, the sound of bells and with gifts. But especially with gifts. You give me a book; I give you a tie. Aunt Martha has always wanted an orange squeezer, and Uncle Henry could do with a new pipe. We forget nobody, adult or child. All the stockings are filled -- all that is, except one. And we have even forgotten to hang it up. The stocking for the child born in a manger. It's his birthday we are celebrating. Don't ever let us forget that. Let us ask ourselves what he would wish for most, and then let each put in his share. Loving kindness, warm hearts and the stretched out hand of tolerance. All the shining gifts that make peace on earth."</div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Here are some fun quotes </span>from famous people about love at Christmas:</div>
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<br /></div>
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<i>Benny Hill</i></div>
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Roses are reddish</div>
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Violets are bluish</div>
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If it weren't for Christmas</div>
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We'd all be Jewish.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<i>Garrison Keillor</i></div>
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A lovely thing about Christmas is that it's compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together.<i> </i></div>
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<i></i><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal; margin-left: 35px;">
<i>Eric Sevareid</i></div>
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Christmas is a necessity. There has to be at least one day of the year to remind us that we're here for something else besides ourselves. </div>
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<br /></div>
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<i>Ogden Nash</i></div>
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People can't concentrate properly on blowing other people to pieces if their minds are poisoned by thoughts suitable to the twenty-fifth of December. </div>
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<br /></div>
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<i>Bing Crosby</i></div>
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"Unless we make Christmas an occasion to share our<br />
blessings, all the snow in Alaska won't make it 'white'."</div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<i>Helen Keller</i></div>
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The only blind person at Christmastime is he who has not Christmas in his heart. </div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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The following are two short but meaningful quotes, and a longer piece from Dietrich Bonhoeffer. From his <i>God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas:</i></div>
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<br /></div>
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“God can make a new beginning with people whenever God pleases, but not people with God. Therefore, people cannot make a new beginning at all; they can only pray for one. Where people are on their own and live by their own devices, there is only the old, the past.” </div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span>“A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes - and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent” <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span><i> </i></div>
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<i>The Coming of Jesus into Our Midst</i></div>
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Dietrich Bonhoeffer</div>
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"<i>Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.</i> Revelation 3:20</div>
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<b>When early Christianity</b> spoke of the return of the Lord Jesus, they thought of a great day of judgment. Even though this thought may appear to us to be so unlike Christmas, it is original Christianity and to be taken extremely seriously. When we hear Jesus knocking, our conscience first of all pricks us: Are we rightly prepared? Is our heart capable of becoming God's dwelling place? Thus Advent becomes a time of self-examination. "Put the desires of your heart in order, O human beings!" (Valentin Thilo), as the old song sings.</div>
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"Our whole life is an Advent, a time of waiting for the ultimate, for the time when there will be a new heaven and a new earth, when all people will be brothers and sisters."</div>
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It is very remarkable that we face the thought that God is coming so calmly, whereas previously peoples trembled at the day of God, whereas the world fell into trembling when Jesus Christ walked over the earth. That is why we find it so strange when we see the marks of God in the world so often together with the marks of human suffering, with the marks of the cross on Golgotha.</div>
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We have become so accustomed to the idea of divine love and of God's coming at Christmas that we no longer feel the shiver of fear that God's coming should arouse in us. We are indifferent to the message, taking only the pleasant and agreeable out of it and forgetting the serious aspect, that the God of the world draws near to the people of our little earth and lays claim to us. The coming of God is truly not only glad tidings, but first of all frightening news for everyone who has a conscience."</div>
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[Sidebar: There is an interesting ramification of the idea of FEARING Christmas; it is that Christmas, like all second comings, comes like a thief in the night, and inevitably catches us unawares, and unprepared. Christmas is a reminder to remind ourselves that human life is a serious business that requires serious people to PAY ATTENTION. KEEP YOUR LAMPS LIT.</div>
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Back to Bonhoeffer:]</div>
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"Only when we have felt the terror of the matter, can we recognize the incomparable kindness. God comes into the very midst of evil and of death, and judges the evil in us and in the world. And by judging us, God cleanses and sanctifies us, comes to us with grace and love. God makes us happy as only children can be happy.</div>
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God wants to always be with us, wherever we may be - in our sin, in our suffering and death. We are no longer alone; God is with us. We are no longer homeless; a bit of the eternal home itself has moved unto us. Therefore we adults can rejoice deeply within our hearts under the Christmas tree, perhaps much more than the children are able. We know that God's goodness will once again draw near. We think of all of God's goodness that came our way last year and sense something of this marvelous home. Jesus comes in judgment and grace: "Behold I stand at the door! Open wide the gates!" (Ps. 24:7)</div>
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One day, at the last judgment, he will separate the sheep and the goats and will say to those on his right: "Come, you blessed. I was hungry and you fed me." (Matt. 25:34). To the astonished question of when and where, he answered: "What you did to the least of these, you have done to me?" (Matt. 25:40).</div>
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With that we are faced with the shocking reality: Jesus stands at the door and knocks, in complete reality. He asks you for help in the form of a beggar, in the form of a ruined human being in torn clothing. He confronts you in every person that you meet. Christ walks on the earth as your neighbor as long as there are people. He walks on the earth as the one through whom God calls you, speaks to you and makes his demands. That is the greatest seriousness and the greatest blessedness of the Advent message. Christ stands at the door. He lives in the form of the person in our midst. Will you keep the door locked or open it to him?</div>
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Christ is still knocking. It is not yet Christmas. But it is also not the great final Advent, the final coming of Christ. Through all the Advents of our life that we celebrate goes the longing for the final Advent, where it says: "Behold, I make all things new" (Rev. 21:5).</div>
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Advent is a time of waiting. Our whole life, however, is Advent - that is, a time of waiting for the ultimate, for the time when there will be a new heaven and a new earth, when all people are brothers and sisters and one rejoices in the words of the angels: "On earth peace to those on whom God's favor rests." Learn to wait, because he has promised to come. "I stand at the door?" We however call to him: "Yes, come soon, Lord Jesus!" Amen."</div>
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[Sidebar: Even if a person makes it the disciplined purpose of his life, to remain fluid and open to the subtle influences spirit has on mundane existence, there will still naturally be moments of greater intensity, like a planet orbiting closer to the sun may feel the greater heat. Christmas is the season of lights because the seasonal darkness, by contrast, brings out the light of spirit more brilliantly.</div>
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What follows is a statement by James Joyce followed by commentary by Joseph Campbell; together they make a nice reminder that the Christ is everywhere and in all of us:</div>
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</b></span><b>From James Joyce's Ulysses: </b><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><b><br />
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</b></span>" ... Are you a god or a doggone clod? If the second advent came to Coney Island are we ready? Florry Christ, Stephen Christ, Zoe Christ, Bloom Christ, Kitty Christ, Lynch Christ, it's up to you to sense that cosmic force. Have we cold feet about the cosmos? No. Be on the side of the angels. Be a prism. You have that something within, the higher self. You can rub shoulders with a Jesus, a Gautama, an Ingersoll. Are you all in this vibration? I say you are ... " (U414)<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
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</b></span><b>And Campbell's commentary:</b><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><b><br />
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</b></span>"Joyce (I believe) says we are all in this vibration. The miracle of the Incarnation is the Magnificat of each one of us: Florry Christ, Stephen Christ, Zoe Christ, and so on—we are all particles of the Christ. Very frequently, you know, Joyce brings out key thoughts in a totally contrary kind of language and situation. So his essential message here—and this is the Gnostic message—is that the face of God is the face before you: your friend, a stranger, or whomever."</div>
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The great find of this week's meditations on Advent comes from, you guessed it, Rudolf Steiner:</div>
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Now we revisit Rudolf Steiner's insight into the <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span><b><i>The True Second Coming</i></b> - by Robert S. Mason<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><br />
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</span>"Another tremendous revelation from Steiner's spiritual science concerns the true nature of the <i>Second Coming of Christ</i>. <b>Steiner</b> was adamant that the physical incarnation of Christ can happen once and only once.</div>
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"Just as a pair of scales can have only one balancing-point, so in Earth evolution the event of Golgatha can take place only once".</div>
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The amazing fact is that the <i>Second Coming</i> is happening now, but that most of mankind is unaware of it. Actually, the term "second coming" is not in the New Testament; the Greek word is <i>parousia</i>, meaning roughly "active presence". It was this "presence" that Saul/Paul experienced on the road to Damascus; Paul being mankind's "premature birth" of the coming new experience of Christ.</div>
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<i>Parousia</i> was translated into Latin as <i>adventus</i>, which means arrival, thus helping to give rise to the expectation of a physical arrival of <i>Christ</i>. The original Greek term seems in consonance with Steiner's explanation. In fact, it is the driving force behind the "apocalyptic" convulsions and struggles of our time.</div>
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For, as the picture is given in the Apocalypse of John, the <i>bottomless pit</i> is opened, Michael casts the dragon and his hosts onto the earth, the vials of wrath are poured out, and Babylon is overthrown -- all in preparation for Christ's triumph that brings the New Heaven and New Earth. Most of us are unaware of this present Second Coming because it is not happening in the visible, material world, but in the "ethereal" region of the earth. "Ethereal" means the system of "formative forces", bordering on the physical, that raise inert matter to the realm of the living. . . </div>
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[ . . . the <i>Second Coming</i> shall be a tremendous event, not limited to a particular location:</div>
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"For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so also shall the coming of the Son of man be."</div>
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<b>(Matt. 24:27)</b></div>
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The ethereal is <i>super-physical</i>, not bound by the laws of material space; <i>Christ's</i> appearance in the ethereal earth is everywhere-at-once. And since the ethereal is super-physical, some degree of super-physical vision, or "clairvoyance", is needed to see into it."</div>
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Notice that Steiner places great emphasis on developing clairvoyance, not as some rarely discovered miracle, but as the stock-in-trade for the devotee on the spiritual path. He encourages us to develop "super-physical vision"--it's just one more way of paying attention.</div>
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Moreover, contrary to some of the comments I have quoted above, Steiner is telling us that Christmas is not about the FIRST coming of the Christ, it is about the eternally unfolding SECOND coming of the Christ. Now, as we have admitted above, there must be moments of heightened intensity in the rhythm of life, but it must also be admitted that the theme song of Christmas has always been, "Live in the spirit of Christmas all the year long." Perhaps the realization, waiting for us at Christmastime, is that, with each passing year, our own personal capacity for love and virtuous acts is expanding like the eternally unfolding SECOND coming of the Christ. </div>
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Next is an interesting poem by the 17th century poet Robert Herrick; the poem in the form of a sung anthem with responsive verses:</div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>A Christmas Carol</i>, by Robert Herrick</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“What sweeter music can we bring, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Than a Carol, for to sing </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The Birth of this our heavenly King? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Awake the Voice! Awake the String! </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Heart, Ear, and Eye, and every thing </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Awake! the while the active Finger </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Runs division with the Singer.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">From the Flourish they came to the Song.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Voice 1:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Dark and dull night, fly hence away, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And give the honor to this Day, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">That sees December turn'd to May.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Voice 2:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">If we may ask the reason, say: </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The why, and wherefore all things here </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Seem like the Spring-time of the year?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Voice 3:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Why does the chilling Winter's morn </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Smile, like a field beset with corn? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Or smell, like to a mead new-shorn, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Thus, on the sudden?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Voice 4:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Come and see </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The cause, why things thus fragrant be: </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">'Tis He is born, whose quick'ning Birth </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Gives life and luster, public mirth, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">To Heaven and the under-Earth.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Chorus:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We see Him come, and know Him ours, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Who, with His Sun-shine, and His Showers, </span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal; margin-left: 32.9px; text-indent: 1.5px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">Turns all the patient ground to flowers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Voice 1:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The Darling of the World is come, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And fit it is, we find a room </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">To welcome Him.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Voice 2:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The nobler part </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Of all the house here, is the Heart,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Chorus:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Which we will give Him; and bequeath </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">This Holly and this Ivy Wreath, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">To do Him honor; who's our King, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And Lord of all this Revelling.” </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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Here is another music poem, this by Anne Bronte:</div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Music On Christmas Morning</i></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Arial; line-height: normal;"><b> </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Music I love - but never strain</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Could kindle raptures so divine,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">So grief assuage, so conquer pain,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And rouse this pensive heart of mine -</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">As that we hear on Christmas morn,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Upon the wintry breezes borne. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Though Darkness still her empire keep,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And hours must pass, ere morning break;</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">From troubled dreams, or slumbers deep,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">That music kindly bids us wake:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It calls us, with an angel's voice,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">To wake, and worship, and rejoice; </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">To greet with joy the glorious morn,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Which angels welcomed long ago,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">When our redeeming Lord was born,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">To bring the light of Heaven below;</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The Powers of Darkness to dispel,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And rescue Earth from Death and Hell. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">While listening to that sacred strain,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">My raptured spirit soars on high;</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I seem to hear those songs again</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Resounding through the open sky,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">That kindled such divine delight,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In those who watched their flocks by night. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">With them, I celebrate His birth -</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Glory to God, in highest Heaven,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Good-will to men, and peace on Earth,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">To us a Saviour-king is given;</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Our God is come to claim His own,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And Satan's power is overthrown! </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">A sinless God, for sinful men,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Descends to suffer and to bleed;</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Hell must renounce its empire then;</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The price is paid, the world is freed,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And Satan's self must now confess,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">That Christ has earned a Right to bless: </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Now holy Peace may smile from heaven,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And heavenly Truth from earth shall spring:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The captive's galling bonds are riven,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">For our Redeemer is our king;</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal; margin-left: 71.2px; text-indent: -0.5px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">And He that gave his blood for men</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Will lead us home to God again.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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By far, my favorite Christmas poem is <span style="font-kerning: none;"><b><i>In the bleak midwinter</i></b> by Christina Rosetti:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In the bleak midwinter, long ago.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain;</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Enough for Him, whom cherubim, worship night and day,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Breastful of milk, and a mangerful of hay;</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Enough for Him, whom angels fall before,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The ox and ass and camel which adore.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Angels and archangels may have gathered there,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal; margin-left: 32.6px; text-indent: 0.8px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">But His mother only, in her maiden bliss,</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal; margin-left: 32.6px; text-indent: 0.8px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">Worshipped the beloved with a kiss.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal; margin-left: 32.6px; text-indent: 0.8px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">What can I give Him, poor as I am?</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal; margin-left: 32.6px; text-indent: 0.8px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal; margin-left: 32.6px; text-indent: 0.8px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal; margin-left: 32.6px; text-indent: 0.8px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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Let us pray:</div>
<br />
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Jesus we fear your coming, as we fear all great and terrible things. But let us embrace our fear, as a virgin wife embraces her husband for the first time, and push onward to the light. Amen</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Richard Freeman-Toolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03480701171151843224noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6082284124238685067.post-44838045059539272592017-11-19T08:37:00.002-08:002017-11-19T08:37:21.300-08:00Sermon 16A -- 2 Timothy Chapter 1-1<h2>
<b>Sermon 16A -- 2 Timothy Chapter 1-1</b></h2>
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<b></b><br /></div>
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Last week we presented a review of the career of the Apostle Paul. We heard reports of his many travels and of his ultimate martyrdom at the hands of Nero. Today we offer the first of a two-part examination of the first chapter of <i>2<sup>nd</sup> Timothy. 2nd Timothy</i> is the last of the letters we have from Paul, written shortly before he was beheaded. The theme of the letter is commitment. Today we will begin with establishing context for the letter, then we will get into a discussion of the Faith Vs Good Works controversy:</div>
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From Wikipedia we read:</div>
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“The date of <i>2nd Timothy</i> is shortly before Paul’s death. In many respects, this epistle is his last will and testament. In our view, Paul died in the summer of 64 CE. He had already gone through a preliminary trial, and the outcome was not promising. This letter should be dated within weeks of Paul’s actual death, for Paul’s request that Timothy try to come before winter would hardly have been uttered in the spring, and could not have been written in the late autumn.</div>
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Like several of the letters of Paul, there is some doubt as to who actually wrote <i>2<sup>nd</sup> Timothy</i>. Three main reasons have been advanced by those who question Paul's authorship of <i>1st Timothy, 2nd Timothy</i>, and <i>Titus</i>—also known as the <i>Pastoral Epistles</i>.</div>
<ul>
<li style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px;"><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 10px; line-height: normal;"></span>First, they have found a difference in these letters' vocabulary, style, and theology from Paul's acknowledged writings. Defenders of the authenticity say that they were probably written in the name and with the authority of the Apostle by one of his companions, to whom he distinctly explained what had to be written, or to whom he gave a written summary of the points to be developed, and that when the letters were finished, Paul read them through, approved them, and signed them.”</li>
</ul>
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[Sidebar: This is not a trivial point: we read practically the same words when we introduced the letter to the <i>Hebrews</i>—noting differences in vocabulary, style, and theology, between Paul’s acknowledged works and <i>Hebrews</i>; we also noted that Paul’s students were known for paraphrasing expressions originated by him, with subtle variants as to style and content. Thus, more than any of the Synoptic Gospels, the writings of Paul were, by in large, produced by a committee—a committee whose various points of view created a perspective that was both slightly self-contradictory on the one hand, and gloriously amalgamated on the other.</div>
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Back to Wikipedia:]</div>
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<li style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px;"><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 10px; line-height: normal;"></span>“Second, some believe there is a difficulty in fitting them into Paul's biography as we have it. They, like <i>Colossians</i> and <i>Ephesians</i>, were written from prison but suppose Paul's release and travel thereafter. </li>
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Whenever we have undertaken to examine ancient texts, the identity of the author always comes into question. The authorship of these documents is very important to many people—apparently they think that God speaks through people that they have heard of, but not through nameless figures from a distant past; many people think it is more important to know <span style="text-decoration: underline;">who</span> wrote something, than to know <span style="text-decoration: underline;">what</span> it is that what they wrote <span style="text-decoration: underline;">means</span>. Indeed, it is a miracle that as much well-preserved material from this period has survived as it has, because of the wholesale destruction of entire libraries, (as in the case of the destruction of the library in Alexandria in 30 BC), that took place whenever a conquering people, with its beliefs, replaced a conquered people. Furthermore, we have seen that authorship of many ancient texts may be claimed by several anonymous writers. Nevertheless, many people still need the authority of legitimate authorship in order to put their faith unreservedly in the written words--words that supposedly came from God anyway. </div>
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[Sidebar: </div>
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“The <b>Royal Library of Alexandria</b> or <b>Ancient Library of Alexandria</b> in Alexandria, Egypt, was one of the largest and most significant libraries of the ancient world. It was dedicated to the Muses, the nine goddesses of the arts. It flourished under the patronage of the Ptolemaic dynasty and functioned as a major center of scholarship from its construction in the 3rd century BC until the Roman conquest of Egypt in 48 BC, with collections of works, lecture halls, meeting rooms, and gardens. The library was part of a larger research institution called the Musaeum of Alexandria, where many of the most famous thinkers of the ancient world studied.</div>
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The library was created by Ptolemy I Soter, who was a Macedonian general and the successor of Alexander the Great.<sup> </sup> Most of the books were kept as papyrus scrolls. It is unknown precisely how many such scrolls were housed at any given time, but estimates range from 40,000 to 400,000 at its height.</div>
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Arguably, this library is most famous for having been burned down resulting in the loss of many scrolls and books; its destruction has become a symbol for the loss of cultural knowledge. Sources differ on who was responsible for its destruction and when it occurred. The library may in truth have suffered several fires over many years. Possible occasions for the partial or complete destruction of the Library of Alexandria include a fire set by the army of Julius Caesar in 48 BC and an attack by Aurelian in the 270s AD.”</div>
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I love the fact that all these subtly contradictory texts all add up to the same spiritual truth, and we must praise God for our good fortune that so many of these texts escaped destruction in the various purges that have plagued our social history. If anything, the controversy surrounding the legitimacy of these texts (texts that were either unknown, or were rejected by the Nicene Council of 325) adds to our appreciation of the texts that were ultimately accepted by the Church Fathers. All of the various interpretations of ancient writing yield contradictory doctrinal items, but we MUST remember that the bottom line remains the same—and this bottom line resonates in the depths of the inarticulate Cloud of Unknowing.</div>
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Now we will go through Chapter 1 of <i>2<sup>nd</sup> Timothy</i> line by line, guided by this summary provided by Wikipedia:</div>
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“<b>II. Argument</b></div>
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After a brief salutation to Timothy, Paul commences the body of this his final epistle. The body of the letter begins with personal encouragement. </div>
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“1:1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, according to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus,</div>
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1:2 To Timothy, my dearly beloved son: Grace, mercy, and peace, from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.”</div>
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Paul begins by encouraging Timothy in light of his own desperate situation. He offers thanks for Timothy, expressing a desire to see him once more and reminding him to “fan into flame the gift of God” because “God did not give us a spirit of timidity”.</div>
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“1:3 I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers with pure conscience, that without ceasing I have remembrance of thee in my prayers night and day;</div>
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1:4 Greatly desiring to see thee, being mindful of thy tears, that I may be filled with joy;</div>
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1:5 When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice; and I am persuaded that in thee also.</div>
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1:6 Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands.</div>
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1:7 For God hath not given us the spirit of timidity; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”</div>
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This naturally transitions into Paul’s own courage as an example for Timothy to follow:</div>
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“1:8 Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God;”</div>
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[Sidebar: There is a point here that deserves comment: it is hinted at in one of the commentaries below that Paul’s incarceration was considered shameful, as in the sentence, “Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner.” We moderns have seen so many movies and TV shows where the noble underdog is unjustly accused, that we automatically assume that being held by the bad guys is a good thing. Apparently this was not so in Paul’s day; in fact, much of what I have read recently indicates that many of Paul’s contemporaries did not unanimously believe him to be the hero that we now believe him to be; what seems to us to be unjustly shameful, must have appeared to most of the people back then as JUSTLY shameful. Paul was controversial even in his own day; thus, his imprisonment was not universally considered to be unjust. Who knew?</div>
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Going on:] </div>
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“1:9 Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,</div>
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1:10 But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel:”</div>
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This is the first clear-cut declaration, in the book, of the “Salvation through Faith Alone” doctrine. The Apostle Paul must have had a deeply personal relationship with Jesus to put so much stock in His saving Grace; notice the Word was given to Paul “before the world began”. More on this below.</div>
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Going on, Paul claims the role of teacher, and upholds his sufferings as the authority through which He transmits his Divine Knowledge:</div>
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“1:11 Whereunto I am appointed a preacher, and an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles.</div>
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1:12 For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.”</div>
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[Sidebar: That last sentence is quoted in one of my favorite hymns. I have only recently contemplated its meaning: what is it that Paul has committed unto Him? Clearly it is Paul’s suffering for the Good News, and the good works he has performed in Jesus’ name that are recorded in THE BOOK, and which constitute his personal restitution for Adam’s original sin. We perceive that these expenditures of Paul’s life energies will be recorded in the book and be repaid on THAT DAY—the day of resurrection and entry into Heaven. Thus, as Jesus will hold Paul accountable for his efforts and will reward him accordingly, we must admit two contradictions:</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>1. The law of Karma is clearly referenced here; Paul is saying that everything he has done for Jesus will pay him dividends in the afterlife—fair is fair, what goes around comes around. However, karma and the law were done away with through the sacrifice of Jesus-- thus Paul’s belief in his ultimate reward because of his works contradicts a basic premise of Jesus’ teaching.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>2. Therefore, since Paul expects to be rewarded in Heaven for his belief AND his ACTIONS, we have an example of “Salvation through Faith and Good Works”, NOT “Salvation through Faith alone”.</div>
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These contradictions do not bother me—I have always maintained that the somewhat hostile disagreements, between people who believe in salvation through faith and those who believe in salvation through good works, was pretty dumb; as I have mentioned before, working from the inner to the outer was the path to salvation favored by Jesus, but working from the outer to the inner is also a powerful technique for enhancing spirit consciousness; it is hard to think that Jesus disagrees with this, since He was the master of Good Works. </div>
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To reconcile this contradiction I have sometimes thought that possibly there is a natural progression here: first inner Faith leading to outer Works; and yet I must admit that very often external works, initially performed for their own sake have a beneficial effect on the soul. Back/forth, male/female, particle/wave —everything is connected and the ordering of events of a spiritual nature must always take place outside of time. This dichotomous problem of inner vs. outer bears on the argument of predestination vs. freewill, and is resolved by the same concept: OUTSIDE TIME.</div>
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As we have heard before, William Blake had a radical interpretation of the Inner/Outer dichotomy:</div>
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“One of Blake’s most famous works is <i>The Marriage of Heaven and Hell</i>, where he brings together things traditionally seen as opposites: subject and object, inner and outer, soul and body. Thus, where both the orthodox Church and orthodox Science sought to demonize and downgrade the body – for being sinful, bestial, mortal or (worst of all) mechanical – Blake declares it to be the source of divinity in the world, and the embodiment of Imagination itself: “The Eternal Body of Man is The Imagination, that is, God himself, The Divine Body” (from <i>Laocoön</i>, Blake’s extraordinary piece of graffiti art, 200 years before Jean-Michel Basquiat or Banksy!). As he explained:</div>
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1. Man has no Body distinct from his Soul; for that call’d Body is a portion of Soul discern’d by the five Senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age.<br />
2. Energy is the only life, and is from the Body; and Reason is the bound or outward circumference of Energy.<br />
3. Energy is Eternal Delight.</div>
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Another provocative take on Inner vs Outer appears in <i>The Divine Within: Selected Writings on Enlightenment</i> by Aldous Huxley:</div>
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“Take the piano teacher, for example. He always says, Relax, relax. But how can you relax while your fingers are rushing over the keys? Yet they have to relax. The singing teacher and the golf pro say exactly the same thing. And in the realm of spiritual exercises we find that the person who teaches mental prayer does too. We have somehow to combine relaxation with activity…</div>
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The personal conscious self being a kind of small island in the midst of an enormous area of consciousness — what has to be relaxed is the personal self, the self that tries too hard, that thinks it knows what is what, that uses language. This has to be relaxed in order that the multiple powers at work within the deeper and wider self may come through and function as they should. In all psychophysical skills we have this curious fact of the law of reversed effort: the harder we try, the worse we do the thing.”</div>
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Another ramification of the Inner/Outer paradox appears in the writing of Carl Jung:</div>
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“For Jung, synchronicity is not a surprising coincidence of two outer events. It is a coincidence of inner and outer events. In addition, the coincidence is necessarily <i>meaningful</i> in the sense that it serves to advance the process of psychological development Jung called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individuation%22%20%5Cl%20%22Carl_Jung%22%20%5Ct%20%22_blank"><span style="color: black;">Individuation</span></a><span style="color: black;">.</span> Synchronicity is also necessarily <i>acausal</i> in the sense that the inner experience is not an efficient cause of the outer experience, or vice versa. As a result, synchronicity phenomena are by their nature inherently spontaneous and unpredictable, placing them squarely outside the scope of repeatable scientific study by means of controlled experiment.<br />
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Because the phenomenon of synchronicity involves an acausal coordination of the inner and outer worlds in a meaningful way, Jung viewed it as not exclusively a psychological or physical phenomenon, but as a "psychoid" phenomenon, meaning that it somehow essentially involves both psyche and matter. Thus, Jung interpreted synchronicity to imply the existence of a profound level of reality prior to any distinction between psyche and matter. In other words, phenomena of synchronicity represent a manifestation of psychoid structures present in the depths of a transcendental unitary reality Jung called the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unus_mundus%22%20%5Ct%20%22_blank"><span style="color: black;"><i>Unus mundus</i></span></a><span style="color: black;">.”</span></div>
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I am particularly attracted to the expression, “transcendental unitary reality”, a “<span style="color: #424242;">profound level of reality prior to any distinction between psyche and matter”</span>. Thus, our discussion of the inner vs the outer really becomes moot when we ascend up the ladder of spirit consciousness beyond any semblance of duality. I have wondered many times about the void we seem to be engulfed by in sleep, and have been persuaded that that black world we enter is not absence of consciousness, but a higher consciousness that seems not to exist because our literal consciousness can find no expressions to describe it. As Jung says, a UNITY obtains at the higher level, and the paradoxes of material reality, that so confound us here, are simply diffracted radiations of the same sacred universal light. Thus, dreams (personal myths) and mythology (public dreams) simply constitute discrete elements of a consciousness continuum rising to an ever-more-focused identity, culminating in the level of consciousness we call GOD.</div>
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David Bohm, the great physicist who wrote <i>Wholeness and the Implicate Order,</i> has insisted that for every explicate order there is an underlying implicate order</div>
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"I would say that in my scientific and philosophical work, my main concern has been with understanding the nature of reality in general and of consciousness in particular as a coherent whole, which is never static or complete but which is an unending process of movement and unfoldment...." </div>
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Recently I have been reading Swedenborg’s <i>Heavenly Secrets</i>, and I found these wonderful paragraphs concerning the relationship between Inner and Outer; he begins by discussing the character of an “image”:</div>
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“What the people of the earliest church meant when they spoke of the Lord’s image involves more than can be put into words. People have no idea whatever that the Lord governs them through angels and spirits, or that at least two spirits and two angels accompany each of them. The spirits create a link with the world of spirits, and the angels create one with heaven. </div>
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We cannot possibly live without a channel of communication open to the world of spirits through spirits and to heaven through angels (and in this way to the Lord through heaven). Our life depends totally on such a connection. If the spirits and angels withdrew from us, we would be destroyed in a second.</div>
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As far as an image is concerned, it is not the likeness of another thing but is after a likeness of it, which explains the wording “Let us make a human in our image, after our likeness.” A person with a spiritual character is an image, but a person with a heavenly character is a likeness or exact copy.” </div>
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Now, here is where he gets into the Inner vs. Outer question:</div>
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“Genesis 1 deals with the spiritual person, Genesis 2 with the heavenly person. The Lord calls the person of spiritual character (or an “image”) a child of light, as he does in John: Those who walk in the dark do not know where they are heading. As long as you have the light, believe in the light, in order to be children of light. (John 12:35, 36) He also calls such a person a friend: You are my friends if you do whatever I command you. (<b>John 15:14, 15</b>)</div>
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But the person of heavenly character (or a “likeness”) he calls God’s child in John: As many as did accept him, to them he gave the power to be God’s children, to those believing in his name, who had their birth not from blood or from the flesh’s will or from a man’s will but from God. (<b>John 1:12, 13</b>) </div>
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As long as we are spiritual, we rule the outer self first and from this the inner, as illustrated here in <b>Genesis 1:26</b>: </div>
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“and they will rule over the fish of the sea and over the bird in the heavens, and over the beast, and over all the earth, and over every creeping animal that creeps on the earth.” </div>
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When we become heavenly, though, and do good because we love to, we rule the inner self first and from it the outer. The Lord describes this as being true of himself; and as it is true of him, it is also true of the heavenly type of person, who is a likeness of him.”</div>
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Here, we get into the main subject of the book which is about revealing symbologies hidden in the text of the Old Testament:</div>
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“In this passage, animals receive the first mention, next the bird, then the fish of the sea, because the heavenly person proceeds from love, which belongs to the will. Things are different with the spiritual person, for whom the fish and birds come first and the animals follow; fish and birds are associated with the intellect, which concerns itself with faith. </div>
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<b>Genesis 1:27</b>: </div>
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“And God created the human in his image; in God’s image he created them.” </div>
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Image comes up twice in this verse because faith, which belongs to the intellect, is called his image, but love, which belongs to the will, is called God’s image. Love comes second in the spiritual person but first in the heavenly person.” </div>
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Here we have presented a technique for spiritual advancement, similar to those recommended in other ancient texts—a step-by-step progression from one discrete level to another.</div>
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“While we are being reborn and learning to concern ourselves with the spirit, we are in constant battle (which is why the Lord’s church is described as militant). </div>
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Up to this point our cravings have controlled us, because our whole being is cobbled together out of nothing but those cravings and the distorted ideas they spawn. We cannot rid ourselves of those longings and distortions instantaneously during regeneration; to do so would destroy us completely, since we have not yet acquired another way of life. Consequently, evil spirits are left with us for a long time to trigger our appetites, which then break down in countless different ways, and break down so thoroughly that the Lord can turn them into something good. This is the way we reform. </div>
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If the Lord were not protecting us every moment, every split second, we would be wiped out instantly. Hatred against any aspect of love for the Lord or faith in him dominates the world of spirits, and the hatred is so deadly that it defies description. I can testify to the truth of this absolutely. For several years now I have visited the next world and the spirits there, though remaining in my body, and the evil ones (the worst, in fact) have crowded around me, sometimes numbering in the thousands. They have been allowed to spew out their venom and harass me in every possible way, but still they were unable to hurt a single hair on my head, so closely did the Lord guard me.</div>
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All these years of experience have taught me a great deal about the nature of the world of spirits and about the conflict that those who are being reborn inevitably suffer if they are to win the happiness of eternal life. No one, however, can learn enough from a general description to develop an unshakable belief in this information, so the details, with the Lord’s divine mercy, must come in what follows.</div>
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<b>Genesis 1:31</b>: </div>
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“And God saw all that he had done and, yes, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.” </div>
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This time it says very good but previously it said simply good, because now the components of faith combine with those of love to make one entity. A marriage between spiritual and heavenly things has taken place. </div>
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In sum, they see spiritual and heavenly realities in the Word, completely separate from the words and names.”</div>
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In a crowd of wonderful expressions, the crowning words are left for the very end:</div>
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“In sum, they see spiritual and heavenly realities in the Word, completely separate from the words and names.”</div>
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In this short sentence the Saving Power of Jesus is proclaimed! How so? you say. In this way: the words and names, mentioned in the text, refer to the LAW, from which Jesus gave us our freedom. Thus, by reminding us, at last, that no single word of our doctrine may ever be said to be true, but only the spirit of these things. How does all this tie in with the inner/outer dichotomy? Like this: the inner/outer conflict depends on self-images reflected onto the screen of consciousness; only through the opposition of charged poles can such repulsion take place; thus, by defusing the IMAGE, by denying the power of words to summarize it, we achieve spiritual freedom in the Cloud of Unknowing.</div>
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There is much to ponder here. </div>
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To reprise this material:</div>
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<li style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">We heard that <i>2<sup>nd</sup> Timothy </i>is Paul’s last will and testament, making this letter a crucial summation of all that Paul thought was most important;</li>
<li style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">We heard Paul thanking his forefathers and friends for their support throughout his trials;</li>
<li style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">We paid homage to Him ”Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began”;</li>
<li style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">We talked a lot about the different between the LAW of Karma, and faith alone.</li>
<li style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Finally, we talked about the role that the inner IMAGE plays in articulating heavenly ideas and carnal actions.</li>
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Let us pray:</div>
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Jesus, You see us trying to expand our consciousnesses to embrace the Divine Image. Bless our efforts, and protect us from false images. Amen.</div>
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Richard Freeman-Toolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03480701171151843224noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6082284124238685067.post-13219172442387072302017-05-07T16:09:00.002-07:002017-05-07T16:09:37.958-07:00Bridging the Suzuki Gap<h2>
Bridging the Suzuki Gap</h2>
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A Perspective on the Future of American String Playing</div>
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By Richard Freeman-Toole</div>
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The teaching of stringed instruments in this country is very much in a state of transition. The days of public school orchestra classes are, in more and more cities, becoming a thing of the past; indeed, a public school system that can boast a any string program at all, at the primary, middle, or high school level, is a solitary oasis in a desert of ever widening borders. Orchestra-consciousness seems to be dimming in the minds of the public to the point that many young people, otherwise reasonably cultured, have never even heard the word.</div>
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This is not to say that string teaching per se is dying out; no, paradoxically enough, Suzuki string programs thrive like mushrooms in the dark, every year introducing thousands of young people ( especially in the four-to-eight-year-old age range ) to string playing in every out-of-the-way grove and hamlet. Everywhere mothers want to give their children the edge in cognitive development offered by the muscular-coordinated challenges involved in such activities as aikido, ballet, gymnastics, and music. I stress the term " activities ", because this is precisely the attitude most parents take toward Suzuki lessons. Where the study of music was once considered a somewhat elitist, " rich kid " thing, a deep and serious discipline undertaken for the edification and advancement of mind and spirit, it is now one of a number of popular, quasi--educational diversions crammed materialistic into an hectic schedule of " activities "; activities designed to fill the two or three after-school-before-dinner hours was something fun to do, and heaven forbid if it isn't “FUN".</div>
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Hence the one or two class lessons, plus the one private or semi-private lessons for the week represent, in most cases, the parent and child's total commitment to the string instrument; some modicum of at-home practice is bound to take place right before the recital time, but the pervasive attitude toward the classes is that they are something to do for fun until the child gets tired of them (usually the second or third year), at which point the parent sells the instrument through the newspaper added 10-30% loss, and the kid promptly forgets everything he ever knew about music. Because of this deeply-rooted “learning must be fun" posture adopted by so many educators, parents become alarmed when the music classes get difficult or intense; the weak children invariably complain, and the parents either yank their children out of music altogether, or to seek a less intense teacher. For this reason, music teachers are terrified of losing income by pushing the students, so they slow down the class to the level of the least talented, repeat the same lesson over and over, and try to keep everybody happy by keeping everybody at a uniformly low energy level.</div>
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Since the beginners are often very young indeed, and since they usually quit right at the point where the music is beginning to get up into an intermediate level ( where it starts to be more than minimally taxing to keep up), and since the progress through the books ( excellent collections that they are ) is so slow, there's hardly ever question of any but a few of the children will be provided with even the basic mental equipment necessary for ensemble playing.</div>
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Obviously a gifted student who stays with the program long enough to get into the upper books will have finally caught on to music-reading without finger numbers and rote memorization ( although most of them, even the advanced ones, are lousy sight-readers), the students represent such a small percentage of the kids who start, the first simply are not enough to put together an orchestra big enough to sound like anything.</div>
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The sound isn’t even the most important drawback to small string groups, since the string quartet and the small string orchestra are two the nicest musical ensembles in existence; no, the biggest drawback is the “number " factor. We can't really blame the children for not supporting string programs, when the children themselves don’t support them. Kids like to be a part of something--they like to be with their friends, and they like to hide themselves in a crowd. String players already have enough rare-birds syndromes to deal with (" hey, what's he got in there, a machine gun? “), without taking the risk of sticking out in a dinky four or five-member group. In a certain sense, it can be said that Suzuki provides good preparation for band instruments, because every year thousands of junior high students desert the violin to join one of the much more popular and populous than programs which continue to thrive in the public schools.</div>
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The long and short of it is the Suzuki method does not prepare children to play in orchestral ensembles. Orchestras at every level, amateur to professional, are dying out, and without the local Youth Symphony or community orchestra to keep amateur playing alive, and an image, of what live classical music performances are like, in the mind of the public, the Suzuki programs themselves will crumble to nothing because no one really wants to give their child training in something that has absolutely guaranteed no future in it.</div>
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This article is aimed at the future. I believe the death of string playing is an unnecessary demise, and I expect that Suzuki-like programs could be the salvation of the American orchestra. I have no objection to the way children are introduced in the violin through the Suzuki method; if one takes a broad view the issue, one way is as good as another, and Suzuki has at least become identified in the minds of parents of primary-school-aged children as something wholesome and beneficial to do. The problem is getting the kids to stick--on this issue I am firmly convinced that the practicing/performing ensemble is the only answer. I'm just as convinced that unless the Suzuki teachers begin to take responsibility for the lack of ensemble training their students get, they will eventually lose their programs altogether by default.</div>
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As far as I can see, the responsibility for the musical education of our children is being shrugged off the shoulders of the public school system ( by the political system more more insensitive to the society's need for culture, higher mind ) and onto the shoulders of private, commercial organizations, of which Suzuki programs are a perfect example. The Suzuki teachers would broaden their view of their job’s potential impact on society, and if they are capable of extending the limits of their own musicianship to include ensemble leading/conducting, we might see a revival amateur orchestra playing of very positive statistical dimensions.</div>
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My suggestion is not complicated, it, but it does demand a higher level of commitment of private and class teachers—it is merely that we admit that whatever are the joys of learning the violin ( viola, cello, bass ) alone, the joy of contributing to the sound of a group gives that inner consciousness an outward, tangible manifestation, a reality that leaves an impression on the material world and creates meaning and significance out of implication and potential; the social experience, of being part of a group, of being caught up in a positive group energy, is a thrill that transcends your individual accomplishments, and can keep you going and motivate you to continue to accomplish even greater things.</div>
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Long after the solitary thrill is gone, the group thrill sings on in your heart. Playing music in parts is the bright fulfillment of a dream of which solo playing is merely the initial glimmer. Furthermore, I've always found playing in a progressing amateur group to be an incentive, more powerful than any other motivating factor, to get students hungry for a higher level of individual excellence; whenever I have started a string group, I have always wound up teaching, privately, a significant number of the players, because they want to get better for the group’s sake.</div>
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So, if Suzuki teachers expand their programs to include a rehearsal a week, playing in parts, and emphasizing sight-reading, that will save the American orchestra from extinction? Yes and no; for I believe that preparing children to play and an ensemble to be just one aspect ( the most important aspect, the object) of a unified vision of the future. How this preparation is accomplished is the soul of the solution, for the best of intentions can still fail to follow procedure if not strongly founded on far-sighted principles. The seem to me to be two glaring problems with the Suzuki mindset--one is the standard of excellence which the teachers hold up to the students as the goal they should shoot for, a standard that is well below the level that could make them players for life; the other is the time factor, i.e., getting them up to a high level of accomplishment in a short time, so that the good music becomes accessible to them before they get bored and quit.</div>
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A relatively high percentage of my students enter the professional world. I'm not a university professor, and am without any college affiliation; I'm merely a freelance private teacher and conductor, and attract the same class of students that Suzuki teachers do, mostly youngsters, plus a certain number of adult amateurs. Students do not normally come to me expecting to ever make money off the violin, and are surprised when I make the suggestion that they could. Music-making, as a profession, is not something highly recommended for people who have even the slightest affection for money ( indeed, when I say professional, I really mean semi--professional, since the vast majority of paid performers, and all of the handful of major orchestras, play music at night and work at other non-music jobs during the day ), yet, the moment I start a four-year-old or 40-year-old beginner, I always imagine that beginner as a professional player, four or five years down the road. The money is not the point, though these days it is the money that defines the word " professional"; the point is getting the student good enough that someone might actually like listening to him from the music's sake and not because he is a blood relative. I inspire the student to reach for a professional level of accomplishment, and consequently have been able to produce a fair number of professional players, and a large number of excellent, dedicated amateurs.</div>
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I realize this vision in two ways that differ fundamentally from the Suzuki approach: </div>
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[Let me interject at this point an important aside. I have, throughout this article been taking a certain liberty with the term " Suzuki "; I have meant the term to generalize a kind of string teaching I've encountered innumerable times, in many, many places. The style of Suzuki teaching I have witnessed, (based roughly, but only roughly, on the teachings of Suzuki), are all similar enough to each other to justify such a generalization. However, so as not to incur the wrath of the innocent, I must hasten to point out that I have the greatest respect for Suzuki himself, his method, and his contribution to world culture. My teacher, Paul Rolland, upon whose work my method is largely based, was extremely indebted to Suzuki, and was, in fact, called by many the “Suzuki of America”. I am therefore more than superficially indebted to Suzuki, his publications, his great idea, and his other magnificent accomplishments. I must also add that there are better and worse Suzuki teachers. Any good violinist will have some chance of being a good teacher, especially if guided by a master whose method has some internal depth. However, most of the Suzuki teachers I've known (some 30 or 40 in different parts of the country) have been attracted to the method because they see it as a chance to jump onto some somebody else's bandwagon and warm themselves financially, over in the glow of someone else's accomplishments. I contend the teaching of any method without some spark of originality can only be dry and lifeless; moreover, the Suzuki method tends to attract teachers who have few or no ideas of their own. Therefore, the popular Suzuki method upon which I'm commenting throughout this article is not the pure Suzuki originated in Japan with such outstanding results, but a gross globalization of that method, that becomes more and more puerile with each succeeding generation.]</div>
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The first main difference is the way I teach technique, not the techniques themselves, but more the chronology. Most teachers teach little pieces of music to the kids providing with just the amount of technique to play the pieces. Since the first piece a child learns must be simple, the techniques tend to be simple to--anything to get them playing tunes right away. The difference here with me is that I make it a cardinal rule to prepare the technique well in advance of the demands of the literature. In fact there are a handful of techniques I consider germane to a professional violinist sound, and I teach them all right from the beginning. For instance, I do not wait a year for the student to encounter a piece that require shiftings to third position to teach third position. The very first left hand exercise I teach is a shift up and down the entire length of the fingerboard, so that the student is impressed from the beginning with the idea that there are notes all over the violin, and therefore there is a reason to keep the hand open and loose. I teach vibrato, almost immediately, as a basic not an advanced technique. My students learn in quick succession a variety of bow strokes, articulations on and off the string, so that bow styles become identified with different historical periods, thereby investing in their first playing a level of musicianship much higher than normal.</div>
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The purpose of teaching advanced techniques well ahead of the literature is to spare the student the trauma typically involved in his first encounter with a passage that is different from anything he has ever played before. Technique prepared out of context is always a much more powerful problem-solving approach than gripping than grappling in context with one or more readjustments of technique which sometimes involve an entire revamping a position, posture, coordination, etc.</div>
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An important side benefit of looking forward to the technical problems in advance literature is that this advanced literature, thereby, becomes accessible to the student much faster. I refer to this as a side benefit because the main purpose of the anticipation of technical problems is to provide the student with a solid foundation that will not have to be redesigned at a later stage; it is not to promote accelerated learning, although accelerated learning is <span style="text-decoration: underline;">alway</span>s a bi-product of my method. I cherish this bi-product, because the sooner student moves into the world of real music ( real Bach, real Mozart), the sooner that student develops a life long devotion to the magical mysteries of serious music. The playing of original, unarranged versions of the Masters ( of whom there are plenty of intermediate level pieces) is an important quantum leap for the young musician, because even moderately untalented student can sense the underlying illegitimacy of mediocre, abridged, simplified arrangements of classical music. I remember with vivid clarity my first reading of <i>Eine Kleine Nachtmusik</i> when I was in junior high, when I thought, " Aa ha! This is real music !" the real thing is the real thing and anybody's ears--the tragedy is that so many people abandon music before they get to play the real thing.</div>
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You say, “How can all this accelerated musicianship be learned when your lessons and classes must be filled with technical exercises, scales, studies, etc.?” It is true that the first lessons are slow-moving--I'm in no hurry to play music and the students must accept this. I'm a great believer in the Zen slogan, " hurry slowly. " “Less is more, " is a good one, too. I can afford to take my time laying the foundation, because once the foundation is laid the students make very fast progress indeed, sometimes so fast that even I'm astounded after 20 years of teaching the same thing time and time again. This beginning stretch could be very difficult, and patience-trying, but it is like watching the rocket ship lifting off--once it gets going, it really goes, effortlessly, with joyful abandon.</div>
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After a successful lift-off, I work in a cycle, first concentrating on some technical area, then learning a piece that uses preponderantly that technique; then I go to a different technique for a different piece, etc. I do this in the private lessons, and with the ensembles, guiding them through the technical challenges of style while accumulating a backlog of technical expertise for the performance of ever more complex and varied music. Always the attempt is made to create, in the player's mind, living associations between a technical move and an integral element of style.</div>
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The second way my method differs from Suzuki is in the activity aspect of it, upon which I've already briefly commented:</div>
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I do find an activity as a group event which derives this group energy level by aiming for a lower average; by this I mean taking the energy output of the lower end (the least talented in the group) and bringing down the rest of the group to that level. Human beings are capable of harmonizing their energy with the energy of the established mean, and since group teachers are constantly establishing a group energy level based on what everybody can easily do, the talented kids rarely ever realize that they could give more, they could accomplish more, because they are never asked to try. What is worse ( if anything could be worse) the less talented students never get to feel what is it is like to be stretched. Consequently, everybody is sort of half-asleep, somewhat bored, certainly not excited, enthusiastic. One look at the posture of the students in these classes will tell you where their minds are.</div>
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It would be so easy to reverse poles and base the standard of excellence on the potentialities of the most gifted in the class rather than the least gifted, but the teachers firmly believe their income depends on moving slowly and carefully through the material, making few demands on the individuals in the group, and being satisfied with a low and uneven level of perfection. They think this is the way to keep everybody happy. In fact, catering to the most talented in the class would result in the same number of happy and unhappy kids, only instead of boring the talented, they might frustrate the untalented. There's no contest in my mind, because frustration can be dealt with by rising to the occasion, while boredom can only be dealt with by dissociation—this how we lose talented kids. The talented we might hang onto and make musicians out of them, the untalented, we're going to lose anyway sooner or later. To me talented, or untalented, it is the level of commitment that is important, a teacher who is committed himself can raise the level of commitment of his students by offering them a tangible goal and making them see themselves making progress towards that goal.</div>
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I have never catered to the lower average potential in any of my groups, yet I feel I've enjoyed a level of financial success at least equal to the less intense activity teachers. My classes are more like weekly workshops, than activities. I always push the students, getting them all to shoot for the higher potential average rather than the lower. I constantly single out individuals using them as examples when they do something well, and I give individual help when a student is having trouble. I ignore what psychologists call developmental stages, asking the same commitment, concentration, and accomplishment from all ages. I do not cater to touch-me-not egocentricity; I try to create an egoless atmosphere where the players face up to their inadequacies and constantly work on overcoming them. The standard not of excellence, but of acceptability is very high.</div>
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Most public school teachers will read the preceding paragraph and shudder with disbelief that a teacher could not only break all the rules, but <span style="text-decoration: underline;">advertise</span> that he is doing so! A major commandment in the divine mandates public education is, “Thou shall not single out individuals!”, and yet, I have found that once students get over the initial shock of being asked to perform individually, they cherish the experience and compete with each other to get to be the first one to try. </div>
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An old-fashioned, Piaget-derived teaching concept is that specific age groups have certain preordained abilities and certain fixed limitations. I could write a book refuting this idea, but, in a nutshell, let me just say that musical development is not like other kinds of cognitive development; it is much more like spiritual development which is ageless, epicene, crosses all borders, and knows no normal limits. Students typically prefer my classes the public school or Suzuki classes because they enjoy the feeling of putting out their best (which is rarely ever asked for), and because they can see they are getting somewhere. I can be rough on them, but the majority of them can see the good intentions behind my attic passions, and work hard to satisfy me, which, after all, is the point of it.</div>
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To summarize: </div>
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I have said that string instrumental instruction is in a state of transition, </div>
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the main arena of which is changing from public to private support. </div>
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The American orchestra, which gets his backbone from the string section, is in danger of extinction because of this—for the private string instructors do not provide their students with ensemble experience, nor do they prepare them adequately to keep up in even an intermediate ensemble elsewhere. With the death of the orchestra must necessarily follow the death of private string programs as well; so it is in these programs’ best interest to create and nourish amateur musical ensembles of a size big enough to attract and sustain the thousands of kids who start Suzuki classes every year. This can only be done through an extra effort on the part of these teachers to create the ensembles, provide them with substantial music, and prepare the beginners’ technique and musicianship with an eye toward future ensemble involvement. I've done all these things myself and have, in my small way, made a difference. If this article could inspire one person to try what I've done, it will have been worth writing. People <span style="text-decoration: underline;">must</span> keep playing music together, or else a unique source of social solidarity and spiritual power will be lost.</div>
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Laus Dei</div>
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February 16, 1989</div>
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Richard Freeman-Toolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03480701171151843224noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6082284124238685067.post-43408074515173382942017-05-02T07:02:00.004-07:002017-05-02T07:02:16.427-07:00Music and the Body/Spirit<h2>
Music and the Body/Spirit</h2>
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Music means "from the art (technique) of the Muse", or that which comes from that part of the mind which is least controlled by the fetters of human consciousness enslaved by the physical dimension. We play music to partially experience the feelings of freedom which are spirits know from our flights into deep psychic realms such as sleep, hypnotic states, religious ecstasy, and love. Each one of us has known freedoms of unlimited scope and dimension, but our physical embodiment limits are conscious memory of these freedoms, and our verbal mentality is incapable of expressing them in anything better than approximate, you might say, poetic, terms. Music is given by God as a path, as a half-way point between the language of man in the language of the soul. We cannot fully understand the message a piece of music gives us because understanding implies translation of information into the verbal language of thought, which is a physical phenomenon, centered as it is in the BRAIN, a physical organ. The spirit knows no specific values such as those which words express; therefore, to understand music must necessarily have something to do with transcending the physical into a super-conscious appreciation of values we cannot express in anything like physical terms. We understand music with our hearts--it is our hearts’ secret, not shared by our minds.</div>
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We appreciate the meaning of music in brief moments of recognition--an instant when the soul touches the mind with the light from the higher dimensions, and parts the veil for a little peek at the higher reality. We cannot hold on to this light any more than we can hold a rainbow in our hands—but the instant is palpable enough for us to want to continue coming back for more—we continue to seek that eternal moment, relive it over and over, and feel its influence affect our lives in ever more profound ways. Music whispers to our hald-waking mentalities that there is more to life than what we can see and touch and discuss and control.</div>
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Problems arise when our bodies interfere with the free movement of the spiritual energy through the material self. Part of our reason for physical incarnation is a need for groundedness—for that which makes us feel in contact with the earth. We are simple people who need the sense of safety attachment to physical things gives. However, music is always exerting a liberating pull away from the physical, such that, during the process of music-making, we can either flow with the spirit away from physical attachment, or we can succumb to the gravitational attraction of the flesh and remain attached, inflexible, earthbound. Observe a flag floating in the breeze—you cannot see the wind, but you can see the shape of the wind in the flag because it is supple and therefore malleable. If you put a piece of cardboard up there, you can still see the general DIRECTION of the wind (like a weather vane) but you cannot see the nuances. Thus, we must be relaxed to receive the subtle impressions of spirit on the muscles of our bodies—we must let go.</div>
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The choice of letting go is difficult, because our body-brain always seeks control, stasis, stability. Letting go is movement away from the central, fixed, ego structure into a wider de-centralized realm of consciousness. Furthermore, to let go of the physical, in making music, is a personal experience whose effects may not remain confined to making music alone. Certainly, the choice involves the adoption of a attitude toward physicality in general, which may go on to inform many other physical activities. To let go, when making music, is not to let go only when the music is playing, and then seize control again when the music is done—no, music motivates the energy for change within us, and, as such, it affects the entire human being, the multi-dimensional being, on every possible level, and keeps on changing him after the music has sunk into cosmic silence. We cannot pretend that the person who plays music is different from the person who eats, goes to school, spiced with her brother, etc. And we cannot pretend that the person, after playing music, is the same person he was before he played music.</div>
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To experience the “letting go” required by the best music-making is to experience a personal revelation of the first order. The transformations worked on the personality by music-making our all-encompassing and complete. Once a person has experienced the freedom of music-making, it is difficult to return to the old way of living.</div>
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I do not mean to say that in all cases there is a lightning bolt from Heaven that sears our consciousness with radical new insights; this happens often enough to be sure, but by far the most common experience is a subtle, day-by-day, moment-by-moment, gradual change in the way the instrument lies in the hand, the way the sound flows from mind to vibration in air, and the way the spirit shapes the emotional responses to what the body is doing in the ear is hearing.</div>
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You must realize that the body is the receptacle of the soul’s wisdom and must be loose and supple to receive the subtle guidance of the mind's instruction. Your heart’s delight is in making the world of spirit come alive in the physical world, so you must be free to respond to the Spirit's direction. If you are, the power of spirit will lead your body down the path to freedom and increased spiritual awareness; if not, the music will drag miserably, and your body will never know the secret.</div>
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R. Freeman-Toole</div>
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January 9, 1984</div>
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Richard Freeman-Toolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03480701171151843224noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6082284124238685067.post-48936410147728060862017-05-02T07:01:00.000-07:002017-05-02T07:01:16.899-07:00The Cost of Quality<h2>
The Cost of Quality</h2>
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This piece was written after a disastrous orchestra rehearsal; it was Christmas, and everybody was distracted and not giving the music their full attention. I responded with anger and harsh words. The end product was a very controlled and self-conscious concert of a transcendent quality, but the orchestra members held on to their irritation with me personally. A collection of quotations about musical temperament was distributed before the concert, and the following overview was given to them some weeks after the performance.</div>
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Here is a selection of the quotes I distributed to them right before the performance:</div>
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Apology</div>
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On Toscanini:</div>
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“I have talked to hundreds of men and women who have rehearsed under Toscanini, and there has not been one without some vivid memory, some scar, or some flash of the limited illumination to recall.</div>
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Yes, rehearsals have meaning, and if they have failed of this requirement, Toscanini has been unaccountable for his behavior.</div>
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All as well if the rehearsing musician shows good will, concentration, and energy. But let there be some sign of stupidity or indifference, and the conductor's gorge begins to rise, his language turns more colorful, and his words break off in the middle of sentences and phrases.</div>
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“Look at me! Look at me!" he exhorts. “Sing, make it sing! Piano! Piano!” The voice becomes loud and piercing, “PIANO!"</div>
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He did not get a soft effect once and suddenly he shouted thunderously, “Tranquillo here!"</div>
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Another time the tempo went wrong. “My tempo," he screamed, "not yours!"</div>
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The recent mistakes in the oft-repeated compositions drive him frantic. They haunt him even when he is not rehearsing with the players. There is a story of something that happened on tour with the New York Philharmonic that sheds a bright light on the way his mind works. During a short train hop, he was seated in a corner of a parlor car going over a score he was to conduct that night. The men could watch him waving his arms, beating time and giving cues to an invisible orchestra. At one point he gave the signal straight ahead of him--obviously to the wind section--and suddenly shouted, “No! No!” </div>
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When singing and gestures do not turn the trick, he breaks out into spoken common. His remarks are brief and ejaculatory as a rule. They made pierce through the sound of the music, or they may bring the music to a halt. They may be pleading, sympathetic, hurt, sorrowful, angry, abusive, piquant, funny, tortured, and apocalyptically outraged. They are always directed at the point in question; their purpose is always musical.</div>
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Another time his voice became pleading: "I know it is difficult to be intelligent--but try, please try!"</div>
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To the whole orchestra: “Damnation on we Guido d’Arezzo for his invention of notation!"</div>
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Musicians of several generations who have worked with him agree that he is a master psychologist. They wonder whether the temper tantrums that have shaken him and his rehearsals have not often been turned on deliberately. They admit that once he gets his steam up, his rages may follow an unpredictable course, but they feel that in many cases Toscanini's outbursts are nicely calculated to arouse the performers to the pitch of intensity and concentration he wants all rehearsals to have.”</div>
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“For to articulate sweet sounds together </div>
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Is to work harder than all these, and yet</div>
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Be thought an idler by the noisy set</div>
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Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergyman</div>
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The martyrs call the world. "</div>
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W.B. Yeats</div>
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On Beethoven:</div>
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“Etiquette, and all that etiquette implies, was something Beethoven never knew and never wanted to know. As a result, his behavior when he first began to frequent the palace of the Archduke Rudolph often caused the greatest embarrassment to the latter's entourage. An attempt was made to coerce Beethoven into the deference he was supposed to observe. This however, Beethoven found an unendurable. He promised betterment, it is true, but--that was the end of it. One day, finally, when he was again, as he termed it, being “Sermonized on court manners," he very angrily pushed his way up to the Archduke, and said quite frankly that though he had the greatest possible reverence for his person, a strict observance of all the regulations to which his attention was called every day was beyond him. The Archduke laughed good-humored and over the occurrence and commanded that in the future Beethoven be allowed to go his way unhindered; he must be taken as he was.</div>
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He had ears only for his composition and was ceaselessly occupied by manifold gesticulations to indicate the desired expression. He used to suggest a diminuendo by crouching down more and more, and at a pianissimo he would almost creep under the desk. When the volume of sound grew he rose up also as if out of a stage-trap, and with the entrance of the power of the hand he would stand up on the tips of his toes almost as to almost as big as a giant, and waving his arms, seemed about to soar upwards to the skies. Everything about him was alive, not a bit of this organism was idle, and the man was comparable to a perpetuum mobile.</div>
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That day I had well-nigh the two-hour lesson. When I left out something in the passage, a note or a skip, which in many cases he wished to have specifically emphasized, was struck around key, he seldom said anything; yet when I was at fault with regard to the expression, the crescendi or matters of that kind, or in the character of the piece, he would grow angry. Mistakes of the other kind, he said, were due to chance; but these last resulted from want of knowledge, feeling or attention. He himself often made mistakes of the first kind, even when playing in public.</div>
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Nobody but Beethoven could govern Beethoven; and when, as happened when the fit was on him, he did deliberately refused to govern himself, he was ungovernable.”</div>
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On Schonberg:</div>
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On one occasion, Schonberg asked the girl this class to go to the piano and play the first movement of a Beethoven sonata, which was afterwards to be analyzed. She said, “It is too difficult. I can't play it." Schoenberg said, “You are a pianist aren't you?" She said, “Yes." He said “Then go to the piano." She did. She had no sooner begun playing than he stopped her to say that she was not playing at the proper tempo. She said that if she played at the proper tempo, she would make mistakes. He said, “Play at the proper tempo and do not make mistakes." She began again, and he stopped her immediately to say that she was making mistakes. She then burst into tears and between sobs explained that she had gone to the dentist earlier that day, and that she had a tooth out. He said “Do you have to have a tooth pulled out in order to make mistakes?"</div>
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On Intuition:</div>
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“Spontaneity of execution is the essence of music vitally connected to the human body, through the mouth, the ears, and the emotions. Spontaneity does not necessarily imply any inconstancy of execution; it is almost always present when a piece of music is performed, with almost no deviations, as it was conceived, and the same every time.”</div>
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Sayings of Yogananda:</div>
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“The master was the meekest of the meek in many ways, what on suitable occasions she could be adamant. A certain disciple, having seen only the soft side of Paramahansaji, began to neglect his duties. The guru upbraided him sharply. Seeing the amazement in the young man's eyes and his unexpected discipline, the Master said:</div>
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“When you forget the high purpose that brought you here, I remember my spiritual obligation to correct your fault. "</div>
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Charles Ives:</div>
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“Perhaps music is the art of speaking extravagantly. Herbert Spencer says that some men, as for instance Mozart, are so peculiarly sensitive to the emotion that music is to them but a continuation not only of the expression but the actual emotion, though the theory of some more modern thinkers in the philosophy of art doesn't always bear this out. However, there is no doubt that in its nature music is predominantly subjective expression, and poetry more objective, tending to an objective expression.</div>
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There comes from Concord an offer to every mind--the choice between repose in truth--and God makes the offer. “Take which you please-... Between these, as a pendulum, man oscillates. He in whom the love of repose predominates will accept the first creed, the first philosophy, the first political party he meets--most likely his father's."</div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The Idea of Order at Key West</span></div>
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<span style="color: #505050; font-kerning: none;">BY </span><span style="font-kerning: none;">WALLACE STEVENS</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“She sang beyond the genius of the sea. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The water never formed to mind or voice, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Like a body wholly body, fluttering </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Its empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motion </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Made constant cry, caused constantly a cry, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">That was not ours although we understood, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Inhuman, of the veritable ocean. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The sea was not a mask. No more was she. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The song and water were not medleyed sound </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Even if what she sang was what she heard, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Since what she sang was uttered word by word. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It may be that in all her phrases stirred </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The grinding water and the gasping wind; </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">But it was she and not the sea we heard. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">For she was the maker of the song she sang. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The ever-hooded, tragic-gestured sea </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Was merely a place by which she walked to sing. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Whose spirit is this? we said, because we knew </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It was the spirit that we sought and knew </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">That we should ask this often as she sang. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">If it was only the dark voice of the sea </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">That rose, or even colored by many waves; </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">If it was only the outer voice of sky </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And cloud, of the sunken coral water-walled, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">However clear, it would have been deep air, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The heaving speech of air, a summer sound </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Repeated in a summer without end </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And sound alone. But it was more than that, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">More even than her voice, and ours, among </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The meaningless plungings of water and the wind, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Theatrical distances, bronze shadows heaped </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">On high horizons, mountainous atmospheres </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Of sky and sea. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> It was her voice that made </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The sky acutest at its vanishing. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">She measured to the hour its solitude. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">She was the single artificer of the world </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In which she sang. And when she sang, the sea, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Whatever self it had, became the self </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">That was her song, for she was the maker. Then we, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">As we beheld her striding there alone, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Knew that there never was a world for her </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Except the one she sang and, singing, made. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Ramon Fernandez, tell me, if you know, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Why, when the singing ended and we turned </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Toward the town, tell why the glassy lights, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The lights in the fishing boats at anchor there, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">As the night descended, tilting in the air, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Mastered the night and portioned out the sea, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Fixing emblazoned zones and fiery poles, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Arranging, deepening, enchanting night. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Oh! Blessed rage for order, pale Ramon, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The maker’s rage to order words of the sea, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Words of the fragrant portals, dimly-starred, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And of ourselves and of our origins, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In ghostlier demarcations, keener sounds.”</span></div>
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It is with a degree of dissatisfaction that I look back upon our recent Christmas concert. My fits of temper, in preparing the concert, have created a sensation which has been so damaging to the morale of the orchestra that I almost wish we had not attempted it. Yet, in every failure there is the seed for success, and I would like to discuss the various levels of failure and success of the concert, in an effort to disclose some insights I have had through the experience, and to point the way in a new direction for our exciting, fast-growing group. </div>
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First of all, sorry though I am that my emotional life is not what I might wish it to be, and might hope that it may become in future, I positively do <span style="text-decoration: underline;">not</span> apologize for my behavior, and I do <span style="text-decoration: underline;">not</span> accept the censure of those people are the orchestra whom I have offended; to be offended where no offense is intended, is petty, and I will continue to ignore pettiness and other people as I attempt to overcome it in myself. You have seen above, that I have created a collage of quotations about Toscanini, Beethoven and other great men who were likewise famous for the fits of temper, and I offer this collection for the amusement or enlightenment of those who might wish to learn the making of good music has never been a stress-free process. </div>
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Still, this mock-apology is not enough, because the implication is that I am right and it's all your fault. It truly takes two to tangle. If I were blameless, it is unlikely that I would have so many people mad at me, and yet, if there were not a grain of truth to my accusations that you were not working, not concentrating, not acting in a committed way, do you really think you would have got so defensive? The fact that I was able to get results by being rough with you is proof that you were not giving me the maximum energy you were capable of; you were tired, your tiredness made you lazy, or laziness made the music suffer. Was I can reward you for giving a small fraction of your potential? Is that what you pay me for? There isn't enough money to pay me to do that.</div>
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It may surprise you to know that I acknowledge, musically, that the concert was a great success. It took many hearings of the tape for me to get past the emotional residue of the experience and realize that there was a high level of ensemble feeling there, and that our identity as an orchestra (despite the numerous personal difficulties) was discernible in every bar. The concert was technically difficult in terms of the variety of the idioms we had to work through, and the counting problems associated with mixed meters (which to many are still a vague mystery). Whether you like to admit it or not, the pressure I put on you made you play better, even though many of you played better like a resentful child being made to stand and recite his lessons while the other children get to go outside. Hence, through force of will, I created the Frankenstein of all music teachers’ and nightmares, an orchestra that plays correctly without <span style="text-decoration: underline;">wanting</span> to. Your unwilling obedience to became a mockery of my intentions, which was to make you play with understanding and joy.</div>
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So where do we place the blame? Many of you will raise up the objection, “But we are not professionals, we don't have the technique to do what you ask.” To which I repy, “I never ask you to do anything you had not already proven you could do. It was not your inability to do something I asked you to do <span style="text-decoration: underline;">once,</span> that infuriated me, it was your inability to do things I asked you to do repeatedly that infuriated me!” To which you reply, “Well, if you had asked nice, I would've tried harder.” To which I reply, "I did ask nice, the first five times.” To which you reply, “Well, you're a jerk." To which I reply, “Well, you're stupid.”etc., etc., etc. All to no avail. Indeed, the <span style="text-decoration: underline;">blame</span> cannot be assigned to any individual, but rather to reality--and who ever heard of blaming reality?</div>
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The reality was that we put together a difficult concert very quickly, and a semester's worth of musicianship was hammered into you in a month; all the time my perception saying, “You can do it, you can do it, JUST DO IT,” and your perception saying, "I can't, I can't, it's too much"; or, more correctly, your bodies’ ingrained habits were telling you you couldn't.</div>
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So the basis of our conflict of wills was over my insistence on a high level of professionalism stylistically, and your bodies’ insistence on staying the same. I was asking and later demanding that you change, while we all suffered from your bodies’ unwillingness to change. To change is made difficult, because the mind resents being forced out of its habitual groove, and thus creates negative emotional vibrations which can be indiscriminately directed at any available scapegoat. Do you not see that the changing caused the stress you felt, not me? How could you believe your inner monkey voice accusing me of belittling human hating you and thinking you were worthless, when all the time I was busting my butt trying to get you to realize the great musician that is within you. Does a teacher waste his energy on an untalented student? Does a well-digger sink a shaft where he thinks there is no oil?</div>
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Clearly, my error was in failing to explain to you the purpose or possibility of these little nuance I tried to teach you. Instead of letting the conception that lay behind my stylistic design unfold before you, I stood like a madman in front of you demanding blind obedience and becoming insensible when you fail to understand me, the clock ticking away behind me. Many of you who finally did what I had been asking could never appreciate how much better things were sounding because your attention was absorbed in disliking me for the way I got to do it, or in fearing that I would stop and say it was still not good enough. It is a shame that the tension involved in teaching all the details together robbed us all of the sensual enjoyment we might have experienced; but, in a larger sense, is enjoyment the deepest experience music and bring us?</div>
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Far from <span style="text-decoration: underline;">enjoying</span> a performance, I can hardly think of a performance in years where I was even fully conscious. My involvement in the moment puts me in a trance-like state which robs me of any objective perception of the performance’s gestalt. My mind cannot hold a performance experience in perspective, because the next moment, huge and dancing with its own life, crowds out the memory of the previous moment. For this reason, my mind tells me nothing about the quality of performance, least of all whether I am <span style="text-decoration: underline;">enjoying</span> it.</div>
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Feeling too, is an unreliable music critic, since feelings can be chaotic and unbalanced. If we become channels for divine energy, we may have no positive <span style="text-decoration: underline;">feeling</span> whatever, and yet we may still be the unconscious brush with which God paints a beautiful picture in the air. This is not the best way, but it is a valid way, and it is, moreover, the way I believe the energy from our Christmas concert was channeled. The tape tells me this. My heart tells me this. That concert had the kind of quality that you begin to appreciate in retrospect, after the smoke has cleared. Feelings of enthusiasm would have changed the character of the channeling, but the concentration I coerced out of you opened the Gates of Heaven and angels sang through our unwilling lower selves.</div>
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The task before us, as I see it, is to enlarge the orchestra's understanding of rhythmic notation in such a way that the movement of the conductor becomes a more meaningful reflection of what the player sees on the page. To inspire trust in my movements, I must patiently train that majority of the orchestra whose musicianship is not well developed. Discipline is the key word, but discipline through trust.</div>
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There may be a time for fast work in the future, but, for the time being, I am content to step back and spend a month or two going over basics. I wish to be understood, so that you can grow. I can teach you to find the great musician in yourself, but it will never be easy, and if you do not want to change, you will never like being in my orchestra, whether I am polite or not. The cost of quality is your ego. Leave it outside in the parking lot--that way no one will walk on it.</div>
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Laus Dei </div>
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December 31, 1986</div>
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Richard Freeman-Toolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03480701171151843224noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6082284124238685067.post-5002034600804856362017-04-22T16:05:00.004-07:002017-04-22T16:05:47.331-07:00December 24, 1994<h2>
December 24, 1994</h2>
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Dear friends and relations,</div>
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The Christmas season is always a time for looking back, remembering with affection those whom we seldom see or whom we may never see again. It is easy to say we remember each other and love those memories, but the here-and-now keeps making us think our actions speak louder than words-and my actions toward most of you are a big fat nothing. The hypocrisy of a yearly letter that makes a pitiful grotesque gesture of devotion and which is not followed by anything but a pitiful, grotesque letter a year from now makes me ashamed. I've always been a terrible friend. My only hope is that we are meeting regularly, or will meet, and some higher dimension where there is no time, distance, or money to keep us from enjoying the community of those with whom we share an affinity. We must cling, in the hypocrisy of our lazy actions, to the idea that like minds can never be parted, and will one day be joined in mutual acts of praise of and in the One Consciousness that creates and binds us together and timeless, distanceless love, with no end-of-the month billing statement or interest accrued “sic”.</div>
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With that cheery overture let us turn to the details of this year's events:</div>
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This year has been one of momentous change in preparation for even bigger changes in the coming year. As most of you know I've been teaching at Lewis and Clark College in Lewiston Idaho for the past 5 1/2 years, teaching most of the real music classes (music survey, electronic music, piano, violin, theory, composition, conducting, orchestra, and piano class), rendering the fall of 1993 I began teaching survey at the University of Idaho. These developments, which have taken place over time with practically no effort on my part to make them happen, have reversed a prophecy which was made at UCLA 15 years ago to the effect that I would never teach college. </div>
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I have now been teaching college for six years, with great success. That is to say my teaching has been a success-I have a very extensive, positive reputation throughout most of the area, and a large class a very devoted students. However, anybody who thinks this career has been lucrative, is not understand the meaning of the term "adjunct faculty". Adjunct faculty are people like me (professional failures) who are willing to work for practically nothing, and pretend to be on a college faculty. Their unknowing students refer to them as "Dr." and “Professor " while the administration treats them like shit on their shoes. I saw an Ernie Kovacs comedy routine a long time ago about the difference between 1st and 2nd class seats on an airplane: </div>
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The people in 1st class got to drink champagne and eat caviar, while the 2nd class passengers got Cheeze Whiz on a stale cracker; </div>
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at the end of the routine, the second class passengers are instructed to de-board the plane, after which an announcement comes over the loudspeaker, to the 1st class passengers, that the plane would be landing in 10 minutes.</div>
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This is what it is like being adjunct faculty. I make about 30% of what the regular tenure-track faculty make for the same amount of work. Consequently, since I practically AM the music department, in terms of the number of students I see and the number of courses I teach, I am working constantly for an amount of money that will simply not support a family. Since I never thought I would ever make it in the academic world, the success of the past six years is a startling surprise for me—so much so that Louise and I decided to try to do something about it-to act on this success and try to get a position somewhere for real money, with the real identity in the bureaucratic structure.</div>
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At first I began applying for jobs. I've applied for several jobs in the past year (maybe 10, I get them mixed up with the competition I enter, since I never keep track of them was the stuff is set off, and applying for a job is just like entering a contest-a lot of xeroxing and mailing) with no positive response. Not that I think 10 applications is a lot, but I know that if I could get to the interview stage with some of these jobs I would be a very strong contender, and I also know that the applicants with PhDs get first choice. Therefore, WE decided that a trip back to school was the only sane decision to make. It is a long shot, but I am still young, and if I could get a degree and get a job before Emlyn is 16 I can probably send them to college. If not, Louise has to get a job at McDonald's and my kids have to attend Podunk Community Trade School.</div>
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Louise’s father died this spring. It was a very tragic affair, since we were getting on the plane to attend his wedding and three weeks later we were attending his funeral. It was really shocking since Louise’s father seemed to be the most indestructible person will knew, but his death, and the inheritance associated with it, gave us a little leverage to think about investing in an uncertain, life-altering future. This summer, I got the chance to do something I've always wanted to do —go on a long car ride with my boys to see some of the country (Mt Rushmore, Chicago, the Badlands) to be with them for an intense period of quality time, and to check out possible places to relocate to an appropriate graduate school. We went to Lincoln, Nebraska, Lawrence, Kansas, and Champaign, Illinois. In Illinois, my boys got to see where I grew up, meet my Aunt Dorothea (who was like a mother to me), my cousin Judy K (who was like a sister to me), my aunt Betty (who, as a professional teacher for the past 35 years, has more in common with me than probably any other relative), and my father and his family. I felt a renewed interest in family at that time, and since the death of Louise’s father has weakened all ties with California, it is an inviting thought that I might give my kids a sense of family with people I have not had anything to do with for the past 20 years. I'm not confident that I can be any better of a family member than I am a friend, but if convenience counts for anything, I might be able to pull something out of the toilet.</div>
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Louise (good and faithful, hard-working, patient, diligent, resourceful, and humble Louise) and I copied a mass of papers and forms this fall, and this week I sent the last of the applications off. I had to put together resume packages, take two major pain in the ass standardized tests, print music, make tapes, and write letters. I'm sure I worked harder this semester than I ever will when I finally get to college. We have financial aid forms to face in January, but I will know by March if either the U of Kansas, U of Illinois, or the U of Washington (Seattle) wants me. Then we have to discern if there is any chance of an assistantship.</div>
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My main problem with getting into graduate school is the same as my problem with every music job I ever had-I'm over-qualified and under- certified. I filled out an assistantship application for the UW that listed about 12 types of classes (piano class, choral conducting, accompanying, etc.), asking what experience I had teaching any of those classes; it turns out that I already taught every single entry at least twice of the college level. I say this is a problem, because the current educational biases in favor of specialization. It is going to be hard for a bureaucrat sitting in a fluorescent-lit office somewhere to believe that anybody can do so many different things with anything like a professional level of competence, so the compelling conclusion will be that I can't really do anything. The problem is compounded by the personal ambition I have of continuing to do all the things I do now. I really like having my own orchestra, my own class of college piano students, my own electronic music studio. I don't want to give up my job at LCSC, I just want to make more money.</div>
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I’ve never cared about money. I know I could have stayed in LA and made lots of money, but I rejected the madness. I've always cared about reputation a lot more, and have cherished the high regard in which have been held by the many international musicians I've known; however, I have not cared enough to implement a steadfast aggressive tactic for acquiring fame. Part of it is laziness, and part of his knowing that I have been too far ahead to be understood by the decision-making, check-writing establishment.</div>
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The third part is something I've always known about myself-that I would be a late bloomer. I feel that I've arrived at a major crossroads in my life. I feel that my work is beginning to come into focus-I'm entering my prime and may never get much better than it is going to get in the next few years. I learned to adapt, I've learned how to be liked, so it is <b>now or never</b>.</div>
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My family is growing up. My boys are always achieving new levels of us copies but in the arts. They're both writing music with me at the computer, and wowing the locals with their creative precocity. Ambrose keeps creating wonderful abstract computer drawings, and he has begun writing very intense, literate poetry. Emlyn continues to win prizes for his fiction writing and is now involved in converting one of his stories into a radio play. He plays very good oboe for a 10-year-old, both holding down the second part and major orchestral literature we play with the LCSC Community Orchestra, and improvising Windham Hill free jazz with me. Ambrose is the second worst violin student I ever had (he just broke his second violin bow in a fit of temper) but Santa Claus got him a guitar for Christmas, which he is very intent on learning, and he is the Pullman's foremost expert on the music and history of the Beatles. Louise is getting a piece published in an anthology of feminist articles about grandmothers, and has a serious offer from the U of Idaho press to publish her grandma Val’s Square Island Journals.</div>
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Our marriage has his ups and downs. It's in the shithouse today, fine tomorrow, like life I guess. <b>I hate the dog</b>, but other than that, there is not much else to report on that front.</div>
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The orchestra played a concert of piano concerti (Beethoven #1, and Bach A major) and my students played like Angels. We're now involved in preparing a concert of student compositions created in the compositions/arranging class. I seem to have an even more remarkable talent for teaching composition than I do for anything else, and the works produced this semester can bear comparison with any undergraduate composition program in the country.</div>
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Then there's the Chinese connection. I'm getting interested in a major way in moving to China to teach. I've had better than 80% Asian students for the past six years, and I'm really wondering if my destiny is not leading me to the east. DMA first, then we'll see.</div>
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I'm running out of things to say.</div>
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It is hard to feel that I'm not talking to myself, so if this letter is not going to out into a vacuum let me hear from you. We all had to say goodbye sometime. When will it be?</div>
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Yours,</div>
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RFT</div>
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Richard Freeman-Toolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03480701171151843224noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6082284124238685067.post-25779794418844768632017-04-22T16:04:00.000-07:002017-04-22T16:04:47.439-07:00On the Relationship Between Forgiveness and Attachment<h2>
On the Relationship Between Forgiveness and Attachment</h2>
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It is the quandary of my life that I've been so respected by so many musical big-shots in the professional world, yet have never become a big-shot myself. I look at the level of talent that fills the number one spot in any of the areas where I have expertise (mainly violin, conducting, and composition, but also in the important realm of teaching), and I say to myself, “I can do that, I can sound like that! Why is it not recognized that I deserve the same respect that these people enjoy?”</div>
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The answer always comes resounding back out of the void in great black cartoon letters, spoken by the voice of grandmother God, “YOUR PERSONALITY SUCKS!!!”</div>
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“oh,” I say.</div>
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I get so much thought to this problem, and have so many times stubbornly set my heels in the dirt against the pull of change, I thought I must ever remain frustrated and cursed by a character flaw that I was powerless to transcend. Of the many things upheld against my father, his total failure to nurture a talent in his son that he really couldn't comprehend in the slightest, I blame my father for this personality trait because it is the exact same trait that plagued him all the time I knew him, and that eventually brought them down to the lowest possible professional level, that of a janitor. The short temper, the egocentricity, the always thinking I'm always right, the reveling in being the oddball, the superior attitude to the world, these all came from him. I loved and respected my father, and imitated him so well that it brought about our alienation and loss of contact. It is a terrible thing to have what you have had thought were significant gifts, and watch the world pass you by, and all because you can't control your obnoxious behavior in public or at home.</div>
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The big argument I kept coming back to over and over when I was refusing to adopt certain social conventions that might have made be more accessible to many, was that my best qualities in teaching and conducting are my spontaneity, my honesty, my caring enough to get personal right away; I thought if I started acting fake I would cheapen and deaden my aesthetic sensitivities--it would be like constantly feeling everybody's hands all over me, chains! chains! I've actually got better with the polite clichés recently, but the central problem remains, the central problem remains, the central problem remains.</div>
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I believe it must start with envy--coveting my neighbor's goods--the first ugly entangling vines from the seed of ATTACHMENT. I am in need of security, I'm in need of freedom from the fear of death, that my life will have net something, and I am so ATTACHED to the transitory delights of the physical world that I begin to interpret success in terms of material accomplishments. This leads to holding a grudge against the wall for not giving me what I deserve, starting at the top with the publishers didn't publish me, and the colleges that didn't hire me, straight down to the janitor who works in this crummy shithole where I work, where they are so desperate they have to hire me because nobody from Juilliard would touch this job. </div>
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IshouldbeteachingatJuilliardIshouldbefamous….</div>
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What a realization! I am treating store clerks and secretaries like shit because I never got published!</div>
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I have started a campaign my life to forgive the world for not appreciating me and mistreating me. “Forgive them for they know not what they do.” Why not let them know what they do, let them know the person they are screwing by spreading vicious gossip, or forming step judgments that don't change for the next 10 years. Let yourself like people! Let yourself “give as before”. There is no ultimate value to any of the things we do on this earth, so why let attachment to a false value screw up your play time here in Eden?</div>
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The enormous pressure of pent-up tension and anger is released through the power of forgiveness. By letting go of my personal desire for fame I am thus able to forgive the world for not giving me fame, and am thereby made free to love and cherish the spiritual, the non-transitory realities of life. If I put myself in God's hands and trust Him to realize my potential at His leisure, I am happier, more confident, more powerful, more powerful, and even better equipped to create and handle success for myself than ever before. </div>
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It is with this revised attitude I enter the new year. It is my sincere desire to remain a small part of your life. In any case we are sure to catch up with one another in the next life.</div>
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Yours,</div>
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RFT</div>
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Richard Freeman-Toolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03480701171151843224noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6082284124238685067.post-55148185605630665552017-04-22T16:02:00.000-07:002017-04-22T16:02:05.968-07:00C.G. Jung’s Existential Split in the Collective Unconscious of Western man, and Its relation to Western Art <h2>
C.G. Jung’s Existential Split<br />in the Collective Unconscious<br />of Western man,<br />and Its relation<br />to Western Art </h2>
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by Richard Toole</div>
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Los Angeles</div>
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1974</div>
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Prefatory Note:</div>
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An overarching first principle, upon which this paper is based, is that: what is true about the musical arts is also true of the other art media as well. There are some purely inductive grounds for making this assumption, but the task of finding specific substantiating examples, from the literary and particularly the plastic arts, must be left up to somebody else; as my primary technical expertise is in the musical field, so it is from that field that most of my illustrations of the principle are drawn. For now, if the reader thinks that the various Western art mediums follow fundamentally different psychological paths, the word “art”, used constantly throughout the paper, must be taken with a grain of salt.</div>
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Also, this paper was written in 1976, or so, and many generalizations made about the Eastern mind set which I fear are much less true now (2017) than they were then. Nevertheless, there are insights suggested below that, in the most pragmatic sense of the word “metaphor”, are still true.</div>
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I.</div>
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The numerous conclusions and projections made in this paper stem from but do not explicitly depend on the truth of this remark made by Carl Jung to Miguel Serrano in 1959:</div>
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“So far as I can see, an Indian, so long as he remains an Indian, doesn't think----at least in the same way we do. Rather, he perceives a thought. In this way, the Indian approximates primitive ways of thinking. I don't say that the Indian is primitive, but merely that the processes of his thought remind me of primitive methods of producing thoughts. Primitive reasoning is, in essence, an unconscious function which only perceives immediate results. We can only hope to find that kind of reasoning in a civilization which has progressed virtually without interruption from primitive times. Our natural evolution of Western Europe was broken by the introduction of a psychology and a spirituality which had developed from a civilization higher than our own. We were interrupted at the very beginnings when our beliefs were still barbarously polytheistic, and these beliefs were forced underground and have remained there for the last 2000 years. That, I believe, explains the divisiveness that is found in the Western mind.”</div>
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[Sidebar:</div>
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Since the East and West have become so much closer since 1976, and since the generalization suggested above was probably never true of EVERY SINGLE INDIAN in India, the statements above describing a racial stereotype must be taken with more salt; but the typification of an idealized “Indian” or “Primitive” mind set, as a paradigm, must be taken for what it is—a generalized description of a certain way of perception—a certain way that certainly does exist, and is practiced by many.]</div>
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Jung arrives at this idea as an element in his larger concept of the collective unconscious; the primitive mind set may be characterized as comprising a particular attitude toward childlike innocence and its place in the psychic anatomy of the individual. A pattern he identifies in Western man is that: </div>
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he characteristically is born an innocent child,</div>
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grows up with a loss of innocence, and then, if he expects to keep experiencing the world as something fresh and new, </div>
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he must forcibly REGAIN his innocence (instead of never losing it). </div>
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The career of a Christian, for instance, is defined by the steps he takes to regain the Garden of Eden lost to him by Adam. Indeed, the admonition of Jesus to Nicodemus, (“Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”), seems to be an appropriately modern prescription for regaining a Paradise lost, but also seems embarrassingly like locking the barn door after the horse has been stolen.</div>
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According to Jung, the Eastern mind is designed to work at all times at this basic level of innocent perception. Jung states that the Indian mind identifies the picture thought as the reality, with no verbal intermediary. It is the verbal intermediary that necessitates the split in consciousness from subjective to objective. Thus, the main point this paper will attempt to demonstrate, is that the element of conflict in Western art is a direct result of this split in the Western collective unconscious; and that this unique aspect of Western art (compared to the primitive art of almost all the rest of the world) is in many respects unhealthy and destined for a final reconciliation as the world society approaches a new level of psychic integration.</div>
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First, let us attempt a definition of psychic innocence as referred to in this context. It is actually not too hard to think of it in terms of psychic immediacies; when a child thinks of a puppy, say, he does not think the word “PUPPY”, he sees a picture, in his mind, of a puppy, probably the last puppy he saw; the child (and the Eastern man) thinks in pictures, he does not take the puppy impulse, translate it into verbal form, and then translate it back into a picture as the mature Western man most certainly does. Again, Jung points out,</div>
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“The gods of Tibetan Buddhism belong to the sphere of illusory separateness and mind-created projections, and yet they exist; but so far as we are concerned an illusion remains an illusion, and thus is nothing at all. It is a paradox, yet nevertheless true, that with us a thought has no proper reality; it is a nothingness.”</div>
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It would seem from this, then, that a child's thought of a puppy is not a thought of a puppy, but a PUPPY! Like the Eucharist at the Catholic altar, where the representations of the blood and body of Christ become in reality the transfigured blood and body of Christ, the thought of a puppy generates in a child (or a primitive) the subjective reality, PUPPY, rather than the objectified verbal reality “puppy”. This distinction is fundamental to the understanding of the difference between the way the Eastern and Western man experiences and creates a work of art; the Eastern man accepts the products of his mind, for what they are actually just symbols for, and he is satisfied with the symbols’ autonomous reality (there is no active distinction between the symbol and the reality), whereas Western man must always absorb the external image back into himself in order to substantially validate the experience. Hence, for instance, Western art is emotional where Eastern art is not, because the primary activity of Western art is internal (where the emotions are) while Eastern art is, by definition, external. Of course, this is a very broad generalization, but it describes an approximate dichotomous polarity that becomes more and more pronounced with the progressive accumulation of history.</div>
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Now, it is necessary to introduce one more socio-psychological concept before we can devote our attention exclusively to the art self; that concept is the opposition of matriarchal and patriarchal referential orientations: </div>
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A matriarchal society is one in which the concept of unconditional mother's love is all pervasive; one exists in perpetual peace with Mother Earth because, whatever one does or becomes, the conditions of that love are never infringed upon (this will naturally influence what one ultimately does and becomes); the tremendous significance attributed to Mary the Mother of Christ, in the Catholic Church, is a residue of this orientation. Nevertheless, we can see how God the Father becomes increasingly important, as European society responds to the fundamental consciousness split, culminating in Lutheran Protestantism and, possibly, the more recent Death of God Himself. </div>
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A patriarchal society places great emphasis on the expressions of worthiness, the Puritan ethic, etc. Patriarchal love is conditional in the extreme (kind of like Karma); it must be earned, and will only be returned for services rendered. </div>
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[It must be pointed out that this concept resulted in the idea of Hell as a place where one goes, not as a consequence of dying, but as a consequence of dis-serving the Father; it also resulted in Heaven.] </div>
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The concept of Heaven as the distant seat of the Godhead, and of Mother Earth, as an ever-present, ever-loving protectress, are fundamental keys to understanding the differing, somewhat opposing, psychological motivations of Eastern v.s. Western art.</div>
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There are some fascinating examples of how Eastern and Western art are different; one difference is to be found in the significance of the directions: up, (toward heaven) and down, (toward the bosom of mother Earth). The primary movement accents in Eastern dance are all downward— downward, establishing contact with the ground, the earth; the usual dance position, more often than not, is that of crouching, the knees bent. In Western dance, especially since 17th century ballet on, the accents are upward, accompanied by tremendous leaps and bounds; one can see the ballerina, arched on tiptoes, arms extended, aspiring to the Godhead. East—toward the center of the Earth, West—toward the stars.</div>
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In the case of so simple a musical concept as a scale, there is a dramatic difference between European and Indian music: tell any Western musician to play a scale and he will choose a tonic note and play seven notes in <span style="text-decoration: underline;">ascending</span> order; an Indian musician will inevitably play a scale in a <span style="text-decoration: underline;">descending</span> order! Furthermore, the names of the notes in an Indian scale correspond to various parts of the body starting with the head on down; the note corresponding to the feet (the most ignoble part of the body) is the highest note! For both the Eastern and the Western musician, the same psychological-theoretical response is elicited from the respective scales, but the opposition of the major referential orientations of the two is implicit in the scales’ reverse order; implicit in an opposition of dramatic forms, in a largely unlearned response to the meanings inherent in language. Clearly, then, the ascending motion, so firmly embedded in the Western consciousness as a resolution of tension, could be heard by any Indian (our idealized primitive Indian) as an anacrusis.</div>
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Now, we have three categories of collective unconsciousnesses in operation here, which, on a naturally (autonomously) evolved continuum, form a progression from the </div>
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primitive or tribal consciousness, to the </div>
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matriarchal orientation, to the </div>
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patriarchal. </div>
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The matriarchal orientation has evolved smoothly and gradually from the tribal, and the patriarchal has evolved from the matriarchal, much like an individual progresses from the Freudian oral, to the anal, to the genital stages of development. As many psychologists have stated, if an individual becomes fixated at one stage, he will begin to engage in neurotic behavior patterns as a form of compensation for this lack of integration. Thus, if this theory has anything behind it, the Western man's collective unconscious as a non--integrated one, a fixated one, will tend toward a total cultural mind set plagued by neurosis. I maintain that the split in our collective unconscious has done precisely that.</div>
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So the two constituents of the split in the Western collective unconscious are the </div>
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primitive, tribal unconscious (in which perception of, in response to, nonverbal symbols is at a height of physicalization and is, for that reason, even less specific, in terms of cognition, than the matriarchal orientation) </div>
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and the verbally articulate patriarchal consciousness (in which experience is subjected to a hierarchy of artificially graduated validations); the verbalization resulting in a propensity to deny the validity of certain experiences and to hyper-validate others. </div>
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Western man's existential dilemma, then, is the problem with figuring out ways to reconcile this split with his own tendency to seek unity and ultimate equilibrium; harmony with the universe.</div>
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It is possible to take the concept of the split, between primitive consciousness and patriarchal consciousness, and translate it into Freudian terms. It is not generally understood, (by those who like to artificially pit Jung and Freud against each other), that Freud upheld a firm belief in a collective unconscious, no less than Jung, which he tried to explain as some process of hereditary implementation. Furthermore, “To the frequently presented 19th century ideal of an unconscious, Freud added a novel idea in distinguishing between two unconscious processes--the primary, or absolute, and the secondary, and preconscious—of fundamentally different character." </div>
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It is interesting to note, here, one of Freud's all-pervasive prejudices: Freud’s attitude toward the primitive, pictorial, element of his unconscious was that it was animalistic and therefore unworthy of expression—it must be constantly suppressed—sublimated by the cognitive consciousness. This is an understandable prejudice for a post-technological man to have, and, as we shall see, it is the primary <span style="text-decoration: underline;">artistic</span> orientation of Western technological man as well. Freud distinguishes between the primitive, symbolic consciousness, and the higher, verbal consciousness, and, in describing the process of dreamwork displacement, he says: </div>
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“[When] one particular idea replaces another to which it is somehow related, there is a second [process] in which a verbal expression substitutes for the thought. In this case, a pictorial and concrete expression replaces a colorless and abstract one, with the advantage for the dream that a pictorial thing is capable of being represented. This pictorial language, which is not made with the intention of being understood, can nevertheless be translated like ancient hieroglyphics scripts." </div>
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The notion of a pictorial language as "<span style="text-decoration: underline;">not made with the intention of being understood</span>" is in accord with the idea of a child's thought about the being a PUPPY! Freud does not mean that a picture is not understood, but that pictorial understanding is, by definition, not verbal—that the experience of understanding, or knowing, is not exclusively a cognitive experience. And yet, Western man, because of his patriarchal orientation NEEDS to understand cognitively. Accordingly, the constituents of the primitive, symbolic unconscious become the constructive material with which the patriarchal consciousness press its way to heaven, the ultimate affective reconciliation being a synergistic synthesis of the two into a perception of reality at once higher and lower than either one separately.</div>
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In this light, then, the basis of Freud’s theory of sublimation becomes much more clear. Substitute the word “physical” for the word “sexual”. As we know, Freud traced all animalistic impulses back to the sex drive; nowadays, however, as seen from a wider perspective, we must conclude that he used the term “sex” consistently, apparently unawares, as a metaphor for anything comprising the totally primitive, symbolic experience. Thus, we can see how all of Freud's tremendous insights, into the interplay of the unconscious and the subconscious, have their origin in an intuitive perception of the two psychological heritages—heritages even more distinctly separate than the conscious and the subconscious (which is, after all, simply in intermediate step). </div>
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The process of sublimation is precisely this reconciliation of symbolic impulses with the need for cognitive validity (rational consistency?). All of Western man's endeavors, then, must be intimately related to his need for getting these two discrete consciousnesses idioms in contact with each other; one might say, functionally, getting his mind in contact with his body. These endeavors include his social, philosophical, and religious doctrines, his scientific aspirations, and his art. Furthermore, the more separate these two consciousnesses become, the more urgent becomes the need for bringing them together again; this increasing urgency is a major feature in the history of Western art</div>
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II.</div>
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Having proposed the existence of this existential split, having defined it, and having extended the definition to the thought picture to encompass the <span style="text-decoration: underline;">physical</span> and the thought verbalization to encompass the <span style="text-decoration: underline;">mental</span>, let us now turn to some examples of the split. The history of Western art music is a classic case of the schizophrenic condition, not only in terms to its relationship to its companion in the oral tradition, which naturally would tend to be more childlike, but in relation to itself as the body of philosophical thought. This history is a constant, restless ebb and flow of the Western artist’s struggle to strike a balance between his heart and his mind. The earliest examples of Western music, the Catholic liturgical chants, still retain the essential childlike innocence of their primitive Hebrew, Greek and Byzantine sources; but even the austerity of being written down seems to bear and implication related to the chant’s ultimate dehumanization; the complex rhythmic and melodic systems of Indian music never had to be written down until modern times: the Japanese Kabuki theater has existed for some 300 years with literally no change, and the Noh theater, though less popular, is two or three centuries older than that. It would appear then, that under conditions of social (or psychic) solidarity there is experienced no anxiety about the preservation of an oral tradition or, by extension, a temporal idea; the writing down of the chant, then, is not an expression of the solidarity of the chant, but rather an admission of its ultimate perishability in the face of a restlessness and need for change that is at the core of the Western idea of progress. The function of the existential split in the Western collective unconscious, therefore, is to perform the impossible task of achieving stability within an irresistibly evolving dynamic system. We want our verbalizations to stop the world from turning.</div>
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This conflict is expressed in the opening of Wallace Stevens <i>Connoisseur of Chaos</i>:</div>
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“A. A violent order is disorder; and</div>
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B. A great disorder is an order. These</div>
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Two things are one. (Pages of illustrations.)”</div>
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Western man's basic distrust of his perceptions is neatly summed up in a line from Stevens’ <i>Man with the Blue Guitar</i>,</div>
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The man replied, “Things as they are</div>
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Are changed upon the blue guitar."</div>
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This is not a thought a child would have; he may experience it, but he would never think of that process as being less real than any other direct perception, because in the child the perception is the reality; but for the Western man, as expressed by T.S. Eliot:</div>
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“Between the idea</div>
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And the reality</div>
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Between the motion</div>
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And the act</div>
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Falls the shadow.</div>
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Since the original sin of writing down the chant, removing it from the Garden to keep from forgetting it, the Western musician has suffered the most extreme case of amnesia imaginable and is forgetting more every day. Between himself and, not just the common man and the serious musician, but, the very audience the serious musician has always performed for, small though it may be, the gap is widening all the time.</div>
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The musical elite and the man on the street have got so far apart, (particularly since the birth of the bourgeoisie transformed the Hellenistic rite into a capitalist commodity), that there is virtually no communication between them. The common man is becoming more and more common, the musical elite is becoming more and more elite (to the point of microscopic insignificance), and never the twain shall meet. Our concert halls and opera houses have become museums; never before has there been such a large number of years separating the contemporary audience from the audience the music was originally written for; I refer to the current popular interest in music written between 1750 in 1900. At first glance this phenomenon looks like a manifestation of the very solidarity so desperately needed, but, on closer inspection, one can see that even this ecology system has been invaded by the paranoia of technology. Violinists and pianists that play faster than humanly possible, singers who sing louder and higher than the human voice was built to sing, conductors the play sharper attacks, longer more impassioned rubatos, more this, more that, always more, something, anything to distinguish his <span style="text-decoration: underline;">interpretation</span> from somebody else's interpretation. All these technicians are gradually buckling under the weight of their own technology, and sucking the very life out of the music they hoped to preserve. Again, Brahms is played on every concert not out of any reverence for eternal truths expressed in Brahms, but out of an hysterical fear of confronting the fragmentation and anxiety it has fallen to the contemporary composer to express, but not to offer a solution for.</div>
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We, You and I, Together,</div>
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Are involved in a conspiratorial collusion,</div>
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Enmeshed in the gears of a vicious mechanical tirade;</div>
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We arm ourselves against the surreptitious dissolution</div>
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Of the construct we value, not because it is worth anything,</div>
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But because it is all we have.</div>
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The having is enough.</div>
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Nietzsche has suggested, in <i>The Birth of Traged</i>y, that the height of the Athenian Golden age was high not because of some great life affirmation, but from an hysterical fear of the downfall of a tremendous super--structure tottering on the brink. Thus endeth <i>Die Gotterdammerung</i>.</div>
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In Western aesthetics, we use the term, "art object”. In order to appreciate this term it is necessary to understand an apparently paradoxical aspect of the primitive/patriarchal dichotomy. The primitive orientation emerges from peculiarly physical sources, but reveals itself through symbols, bits of meaning which, though not necessarily rational, are still perceived on the proscenium of the mind, the imagination. The patriarchal orientation, though largely cognitive, exerts its influence in terms of physical reality; the highways of Rome and the freeways of Los Angeles are analogous accomplishments, and they fulfill the same psychological function. The race to the moon, which Freud would explain as a highly sublimated form of infantile sexual curiosity, is an example of an aspiration to the Godhead raised to such a pitch of frenzy so as to become ridiculous; however, this aspiration is in harmony with the cognitive man's search for his own identity <span style="text-decoration: underline;">outside</span> himself; this is because, as we have seen, and Western man's thought has “no proper reality”, and <span style="text-decoration: underline;">must</span> validate itself outside itself. In short, everything in Western man's universe is real except himself, whereas, for the primitive man and even, to a large extent, the matriarchal man, precisely the opposite is true.</div>
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And "art object" then, is a sort of bastard of empirical thought. The Western artwork, in order to be considered culturally valid, (and for that reason, valuable), must stand on its own as a rational document; hence, the emphasis, in Western art, not on <span style="text-decoration: underline;">what</span> one says, but <span style="text-decoration: underline;">how</span> one says it. There is, here, a rigidly enforced logic, not of meaning but of rhetoric. The perpetual battle of form versus content is the single most important distinctive feature of Western art, and a major substantiation of the claim that Western man's thought has no proper reality for him. Western art deals not with universals, but with the juxtaposition and superimposition of particulars; the meanings come from the stress of interplay, (we say, the holography, the diffraction of experience into ergodic particles); the climactic emotional catharsis so typical of Western art, and so atypical of Eastern art, comes from these particulars colliding in imaginary space, eventually canceling each other out. </div>
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The physicalization of Western art takes place in the arena of form. The symbolic meanings arise from the primitive imagination and are then validated by being put into contexts that heighten their meaning beyond themselves; but no matter how obviously truthful a statement, no matter how humanly honest the gesture, the Western man will reject it, if it does not function in a total architectural gestalt. </div>
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(It is interesting to point out that this orientation is historically cyclical, to a certain degree: each major cycle in the history of Western music, beginning with the chant, begins as an outgrowth of some oral, popular tradition, and then gradually becomes formalized to death until some new oral traditions steps in and the cycle starts over. The alarming part, and, as this paper will later claim, the hopeful part, is that these cycles have been getting, timewise, shorter and shorter.)</div>
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One reason, for the formal physicalization of ideas, is connected to Western man's problem with communication. With a conscious orientation as disembodied as Western man's, communication is very difficult: </div>
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firstly, because there are so many consciousness barriers between individuals (for instance, the way information is converted back and forth from a symbolic to a cognitive language, constitute one barrier; another is the simple fact that a person, out of contact with his own body, will have an even harder time contacting someone else’s.) </div>
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And secondly, because Western man does not experience himself as being effectual in his endeavors without seeing a physical response; gestures of love and goodwill must always be reciprocated. This is why, in particularly fanatic periods, art becomes propagandistic and the artist tries to “move the masses"; similarly, a piece of music written in private must be performed in public, a painting must be exhibited, a poem published, all to give the artist an artificial sense of potency and self-validation. </div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;">The communication in Western art is in the eliciting of a response</span>. This aspect of Western art, this obligatory extroversion, is the Achilles' heel; it is the source of all the artistic vulgarizations we must constantly endure. Furthermore, this level of inverted autism is not only symptomatic of the fragmented consciousness, but is instrumental in perpetuating the split; for this reason it must ultimately bring about the disintegration of Western art as we know it.</div>
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How does form operate, and how does it evolve in relation to content in Western art? Let us take, for example, a cursory look at the most important aspect of musical form from the classical period to at least the first The 20th century I: the theme. The idea of discrete tunes as the material for serious music came from the oral tradition as a function of Rousseau's famous "return to nature”. From Wikipedia we read:</div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Rousseau criticized </span><span style="color: black; font-kerning: none;">Hobbes</span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> for asserting that since man in the "state of nature... has no idea of goodness he must be naturally wicked; that he is vicious because he does not know virtue". On the contrary, Rousseau holds that "uncorrupted morals" prevail in the "state of nature" and he especially praised the admirable moderation of the Caribbeans in expressing the sexual urge despite the fact that they live in a hot climate, which "always seems to inflame the passions".</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Rousseau asserted that the stage of human development associated with what he called "savages" was the best or optimal in human development, between the less-than-optimal extreme of brute animals on the one hand and the extreme of decadent civilization on the other. "..</span></div>
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<span style="color: black;">I do not believe Jung would say that the </span><span style="font-kerning: none;">”savage" mind set is the best or optimal stage of human development, but as far as a typification of the “primitive” Rousseau and Jung are in agreement. Clearly the appearance of the primitive in classical music must be thought of as the insistent, physicalized repetition of motivic fragments; the Apollonian transfiguration (Freud would say “sublimation”) of these animalistic bits into rational architecture is accomplished by the mind—the literal mind. Indeed, the structure of classical music has been much more the center of attention with composers and performers than the onomatopoetic content of themes. But the carnal drive behind the idea always rears its ugly head, grounding the music to a terrestrial core.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Thomas Mann depicts the intrusion of the carnal into the Apollonian context by painting for us choirs of heavenly angels, who, on closer inspection, are seen to have worms of death crawling out of their noses; behind the perfect columns of the Greek Acropolis, an orgy is going on. About Thomas Mann, and the opposition of the primitive/Apollonian mind sets discussed in <i>Doctor Faustus</i>, we read: </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“The proximity of aestheticism and barbarism, of beauty and crime, is a <i>second</i> central element in Mann’s description of German culture which touches the fundamental role of art in society. Walter Benjamin has spoken of the fascist aestheticization of politics. Zeitblom says about one of Leverkühns major works, the <i>Apocalypsis con figuris, </i>that it had “a peculiar kinship with, was in spirit a parallel to, the things I had heard at Kridwiss’s table-round”, an inter-war circle in Munich that Mann describes flatly as “arch-fascist”. A few pages later, Zeitblom worries about “an aestheticism which my friend’s saying: ‘the antithesis of bourgeois culture is not barbarism, but community,’ abandoned to the most tormenting doubts. … Aestheticism and barbarism are (near) to each other: aestheticism as the herald of barbarism.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It is interesting, the suggestion that aestheticism is the herald of barbarism. You might just as easily say barbarism is the herald of aestheticism, since the two mind sets circle each other in an endless oscillation from one extreme to the other. The point is that Mann must also be found to be in agreement with Jung, Freud, and Rousseau, about the existence of a primitive mind state that operates as an underlying motivation in all art. The only apparent disagreement is, “Which end of the declension do we start with?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">So, as we peer closer at this opposition of mind sets, let us look at the historical period of music wherein the style was largely a function of universally agreed-upon formal templates super-imposed upon which a wealth of carnal inspiration has been lavished. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The Sonata Allegro form is the most elaborate form handed down to us. It was pretty much established by Haydn, perfected by Mozart, and degraded by Beethoven. In a nutshell the sonata allegro form echoes the logical form of the syllogism: if A and B then C, or thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In terms of thematic structure, the form goes: </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Theme 1 (thesis), transition, Theme 2 (anti-thesis), transition, development (laboratory section—how many ways can we <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>state a theme?), </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Theme 1, transition, Theme 2, transition, ending. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The synthesis component is related to the key structure which is:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Theme:Thm1 trans Thm2 trans, closing, repeat, Thm1 trans Thm2 trans, closing,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Key: I (tonic) V(dominant) I (tonic) V(dominant) </span></div>
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<span style="color: #232323; font-kerning: none;">Theme: Development</span><span style="font-kerning: none;">, Thm1 trans Thm2 trans, closing, coda</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Key: (all keys) I (tonic) I(tonic) I (tonic) </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Thus, the reprise of the 2nd Theme in the tonic key represents a synthesis of the two opposing ideas—the 2nd Theme melody in the key of the 1st Theme. This form has a magical effect on thematic material that is consistently predictable from one piece to another. The form carries the brunt of responsibility for the aesthetic effect of the piece, and this was so all through the works of Haydn and Mozart. The thematic materials themselves were more or less taken from a library of hit musical gestures that did not necessarily originate in the individual mind of the composer, but, rather from the collective mind of the culture. Mozart’s music is said to be channeled directly from heaven because it flows so flawlessly and effortlessly down the river of time, straight from the mouths of angels who live in the cloud of the collective unconscious. The <i>Requiem Mass</i>, left unfinished at his death, does not suffer from its completion by a student of Mozart, because the music is already plugged into the form. Other unfinished pieces from later periods when sonata allegro was not the dominant form, like Puccini’s <i>Turandot</i>, and Bartok’s <i>Viola Concerto,</i> have not enjoyed such successful completions.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Sonata Allegro is an argument between opposing themes, one masculine (usually the 1st Theme, but not always), one feminine. The battle between Yin and Yang is played out in the form. As such it is a battle, not so much depicted by the onamatopoetic content of the themes, but rather, by the relationships between the themes—how the form is realized by the material. The dramaturgy of the music is to found in how the form </span><span style="color: black;">pushes the dramatic action along irrespective of the relative value of the themes in the purely formal structure. </span></div>
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One of Beethoven's favorite games was to create expositions in which each bit had so much magnetic attraction it was impossible to tell which were the transitions until the repeat. Finally, Schubert, who based his art on the same forms as Mozart and Haydn, wrote movements two or three times longer than either Mozart or Haydn by sheer dint the magnitude of his thematic ideas. Wagner’s use of leitmotifs and Liszt’s idea of thematic transformation finally culminated in the thematic essays of Mahler and the ultimate logical extension in Schonberg, where not only every tune, but every single note had its own singular identity and discrete meaning. In short, there is visible, in this historical cycle, a progression from a highly formalized cognitive base to a culmination in a symbology much more clearly sprung from the primitive symbolic consciousness. <span style="font-kerning: none;">Aestheticism is the herald of barbarism.</span></div>
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If we examine the relationship of theme to transition in three piano pieces, arranged in chronological order, perhaps we can see more clearly how form and content evolve in relation to each other, and how the relative values change in the minds of their composers:</div>
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The B-flat Sonata of Mozart, K. 333, begins with a very clear-cut theme divided into two complementary phrases, four bars in length, which we will call phrases a and b of Theme 1. These phrases further divide themselves in the complementary halves in a question-and-answer relationship to each other. Notice how this compound arsis thesis relationship creates an extreme solidity of this material; the repetition of the appoggiatura idea throughout phrase a, at intervals of about four beats, results in a feeling of, “Yes, this is the way things are, everything around us proves it,” but in phrase b the insistent repetition of twice as many appoggiaturas (m. 5 and 7) in half the time, separated by a meandering scale, creates a tension in two ways: </div>
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first, the rhythmic contraction is an analog physically to the speeding up of the heart, breathing, etc., and our bodies react accordingly, and </div>
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secondly, something repeated incessantly reminds us, psychologically, of hysteria—a condition which must call into question the rational truth of what is being said. </div>
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However, for the present, the positive ascent to the Godhead, in the form of a B-flat major scale, m. 8, and the closing off of the thought (re-descent) by an idiomatic cadence figure, m. 9, bring us back to a level of relative stability.</div>
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At this point the transition begins. Transition material, more often than not, is made of some significant melodic fragment of the main theme. In this case the appoggiatura of phrase a, and the 16th-note figures of phrase b constitute the material for the transition. Two aspects of Western musical form are inherent in this passage: </div>
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firstly, a transition is always supposed to convey the sense of movement (creation of perspective); thus, movement here is expressed by obvious rhythmic activity, again, a physical function; </div>
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secondly, the idea of thematic permutation for its own sake is a psychological variation, created to accommodate underlying harmonic alterations; this expresses how Western man searches for identity by constantly rearranging the physical aspect of his universe. </div>
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The alterations, in the shape of both fragments of Theme 1, used in the transition, are a recapitulation, in a heightened form, of the idea of hysterical aspersion cast on phrase a by its contradiction in phrase b, and, furthermore, the alternatives are expressions of Western man's <span style="text-decoration: underline;">failure</span> to find that identity; what emerges from this hysterical questioning is <span style="text-decoration: underline;">not</span> an answer but a <span style="text-decoration: underline;">new theme</span>, a place for the cycle to start all over again.</div>
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What is being said here, is that the satisfactory answer to a question is one to which there can follow no more questions. A cognitive dissonance should be resolved in the physical harmony of the body. Physical pain and suffering are ameliorated by the assessment of relative values in the mind. Western man is sick because he attempts to cure his body with his body, and his mind with his mind. On the other hand, Eastern music never answers any questions because it never asks any. Moreover, we can see the split between mind and body, and their sublimated attempt to reach each other, very clearly represented by a few details of a Mozart sonata. Let us see if things get any better.</div>
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The opening of the <i>Pathetique Sonata </i>of Beethoven presents a more complicated view of themes in relation to form; in fact, messing with the form is what the piece is all about. Firstly, we begin with a slow French overture rhythm. The theme is developed over some 11 bars until an agitated allegro takes over. Now, many symphonies, string quartets, and other chamber music forms, begin with a slow section, which functions as an introduction—a kind of kick-off for the main theme. On hearing the Adagio opening, a classical musician’s expectation will be that: this is a slow introduction, which will bear no resemblance to any of the succeeding material, and will not be reprised. However, this opening becomes so long, and the Mannheim sigh that characterizes it, becomes so significant (by virtue of incessant repetition) that we decide that Beethoven must be violating the sonata form by beginning with a slow movement. Just about the time we have settled into the idea of a slow movement, the allegro intrudes, and we are caught between the idea that this fast music ought to be a 1st Theme, and the sense that, melodically, it is not characteristic enough, being composed entirely of stacked up chords—it sounds like a typical transition. Which is it? 1st Theme or transition? Only the repeat will tell.</div>
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The sudden rhythmic activity and the formal confusion tend to give this section a great deal of magnetic attraction; in fact, even more attraction than the main theme. Here, we have another major statement about Western man: that it is not the projected end that counts, but the process of achieving it; it is not what I say that is important, but what I went through to say it; not the mountain but the climbing. This, you will say, is precisely the psychic condition of primitive man, and must therefore represent the symbolic element in the psychology of Western man.</div>
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Yes, it would be but for the fact that Western man can never sustain this experimental mode long enough to get used to it. The pathos inherent in the Beethoven sonata is not so much in the lyric affectation of the first theme, which is a product of classical cognitive restraint emphasizing perfection of form and logical substantiation; the transition material, by virtue of its energetic dance rhythms, and it's simple, undignified melodic shape, springs directly from the oral, peasant tradition. Either of these two, exposed separately, would tend to create an integrated effect, but, juxtaposed as they are in violent contrast, each heightens the others effect—and the effect is not inherent in the material but in the JUXTAPOSITION of the disparate materials; the pathetic tune becomes more pathetic, the dance tune becomes more boisterous; the element that at first wants to be understood as an un-selfconscious life affirmation, must finally be understood as a cry of the body for liberation from the paralyzing clutches of the mind; the battle between mind and body is simply transported to higher ground. The animal magnetism of the passage comes to represent the primitive consciousness under stress, not release.</div>
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Even so, this magnetism, by virtue of it hedonistic, Dionysian character, might have been a step toward the a union of the mind and body, merely by calling attention to the split. However, what happens historically is that this magnetism, importance, of the transition material finally clarifies itself into a discrete particle in the anatomy of the thought—this until the effect of physical movement becomes the formalized language bit, loses its freshness and its psychological function, and begins to function as an element of form. The Romantic artist snatches defeat from the very jaws of victory, (as it were), puffing up his feelings to greater and greater heights of grotesquerie—thus approaching the primitive by inference, but never becoming satisfied with it, nor allowing its symbolic character to totally dominate his perceptions. At this point Freud comes in and tries to teach us, not how to integrate our primitive drives and perceptions, but how to <span style="text-decoration: underline;">suppress</span> them! It is of paramount importance to understand that: the more rigidly primitive drives are suppressed, the more desperately they will seek an outlet.</div>
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For this reason, the music of Schonberg is some of the most civilized and at the same time, the most primitive music of the century. The “Menuett" from the <i>Piano Suite Op. 25</i> is a good illustration of the fact that a primary function of <span style="text-decoration: underline;">su</span>ppression is <span style="text-decoration: underline;">com</span>pression. The piece is made of a series of a series; each melodic constellation is a different quarter of various permutations of the 12-tone row. The numerous cognitive subtleties, such as pitch selection, are of little relevance to this paper; suffice it to say that: anyone with the slightest familiarity with the 12 tone technique has an idea of the rigid discipline involved in choosing the pitch constituents of melodies and harmonies.</div>
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This discipline has important consequences, however, in relation to thematic formations. Theme, in this context, becomes almost exclusively a function of rhythm. The first four bars are dominated by a dotted rhythm repeated five times over a syncopated 8th-note figure in the left hand; this evokes the supple grace of the archaic minuet form which determines the gross structure of the piece. In bars 5 and 6, the left hand assumes melodic prominence over 32nd-note butterfly flits in the right hand. Bars 7 and 8 resume the dotted rhythm at the top of the pseudo-arpeggiated sweep, then see down to an a tempo on an augmentation of the dotted rhythm, in a low register, for two bars (measure 9 and 10). A single bar, (measure 11), in which the original dotted rhythm is played twice, leads back to the beginning.</div>
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Nowhere in this first section is there a repetition of a series of pitches in the same rhythm which would fulfill the definition of a melodic theme. Rhythmically, as has been pointed out, there are lots of repetitions, and certain melodic shapes are even <span style="text-decoration: underline;">approximately</span> repeated (alto m. 1/1 and soprano m. 3/9, alto m. 5/2 and alto m. 6/2, etc.); but never is there a precise restatement of a tune. This effect gives the whole a rather amorphous, not-quite-there quality because we hear constant references to the theme, but never the theme itself; the idea is constantly transformed— rather like the pieces in the kaleidoscope which retain a tangible relationship to each other but never repeat a pattern. </div>
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So, whereas we understand repetition, in this context, as a heightened dissociation and fluidity, this fluidity is meant to give extreme independence (equal importance) to all the notes, and is very symbolic; it is possible to sense the liberated subconscious glide over the artifice like the latent content of the dream. But the transparent, insubstantial artifice is propped up by a hyper-rational, patriarchal, intelligent design. The compression of ideas is extreme, and it is possible to infer a degree of suppression proportional to it, whereas, in a classical sonata rhythmic and melodic transformation would occur separately, or at least later. Schonberg's music creates a perpetual state of transition at once and immediately. Compare this piece to a primitive form such as Balinese Gamelan, or Cambodian ceremonial orchestral music, and you will find in them an equal degree of rhythmic complexity and contrapuntal subtlety without, however, the feeling of personal suppression; on the contrary, one senses in this music a primitive communal freedom and simple serenity; a kind of integrated natural complexity virtually devoid of struggle, at least of a neurotic or existential kind.</div>
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Now, in citing examples of the existential split taken from the music of three of the greatest geniuses who ever lived, I hope the reader does not presume that I find this music in any way immoral or un-satisfying; naturally men as superior as Mozart, Beethoven, and Schonberg would reach some kind of philosophical reconciliation with the Western existential split, or any other obstacle in the path to enlightenment, in any cultural context. I am saying, though, that, no matter how great, no man could totally escape the influence of his cultural heritage. In the case of the artist, he can never keep from expressing the graces and the curses of his age. Furthermore, lesser artists, as lesser men, will not only succumb more easily to the social disease, they will help propagate the disease.</div>
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To summarize: the split in the collective unconscious of Western man is discernible in a variety of contexts ranging from: </div>
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a comparison of basic theoretical details of Western music,</div>
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to larger affective aspects of Eastern music, </div>
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in contradistinction to Western music, where the split can be seen, from the historical perspective, as gradually expressing itself— accumulating force, intensity, and, ultimately, speed of cyclical revolution; the split is best seen in specific works of art themselves and, finally, in the present social scene.</div>
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III.</div>
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Now, how are we dealing with this problem? How are we trying to integrate these primitive impulses constructively into the fabric of our cognitive universe? How do we experience our primal origins without becoming barbarians?</div>
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Firstly, we are becoming more and more aware of the split. Many new revolutionary movements in psychology are recognizing neurosis as a psycho-physiological phenomenon, and are going directly to the source: the body, the brain, the glands, the diet, etc. A lot of new art, in all the media, is be created not to be beautiful, but to force the audience to experience life in new, non-rational ways; three-dimensional paintings, group participation musical compositions, and mechanical sculptures designed to be handled, are all efforts on the part of the artist to get some kind of tribal communion going between themselves, their performers, and their audiences. John Cage’s renunciation of personal involvement in the process of composition, is an effort to get his audiences’ thoughts to become realities instead of transmuting <span style="text-decoration: underline;">his</span> thoughts into illusions. Instead of serving up platters of tunes and sublimated psychological garbage, to be consumed, digested, and defecated, the modern artist demands that his public join him in a communal experience in which the audience is just as important as he is. (Of course, men of any culture will respond negatively to any use of force, hence, the failure and alienation of modern art; naturally, an alienated man will produce alienated art, but inherent in this alienation is the plea for communion. (At least they are trying.)</div>
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Consciousness of the split has motivated mass cultural movements aimed at bridging the gap; these movements are extremely potent, and are yielding results we have barely begun to see. </div>
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The drug movement, for example, is all-pervasive among the youth of today, and is getting stronger all the time. Now, any drug produces an effect on the body, therefore making us aware of our bodies in unusual ways, but the habitual use of psychedelic drugs may heighten physical sensation, and promote the communal experience; the American Indian saved his use of psychedelic drugs for important tribal ceremonies where the communal experience was most sought; modern "pot parties" heighten the sense of the physical and the social in ways that traditional “booze parties" never could.</div>
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The sexual revolution is another manifestation western man’s efforts to revive and stimulate the senses. Sex, so long suppressed by society as a dark and dangerous drive, is being liberated from its role as a social institution, and is being reveled in, as an element of doctrine, for the pure sensual pleasure of it. The sex drive is beginning to be accepted as one of many primitive drives which demand expression and, furthermore, <span style="text-decoration: underline;">ought</span> to be expressed.</div>
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The “Rock" movement, of such tremendous importance in the musical scene of the 60s, has risen from its previous role as a mere commercial commodity, and is attracting vast numbers of "serious" musicians, by virtue of its magnificent powers of life affirmation, and the joy of sexual joy stimulation inherent in the form. Some of the numerous tribal aspects of rock are:</div>
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1. its virtually unviolated oral tradition,</div>
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2. its development of tone color, ostinato, and sheer volume as a means of involving the body.,</div>
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3. its universal acceptance by way of a common voice for the masses, and</div>
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4. the fact that rock attracts other aspects of contemporary tribal life to it. </div>
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Vast numbers of fans attend concerts and festivals—they are all focused on the same rite—a musical ceremony that brings with it a message of sexual, moral, and psychological liberation—and usually vast quantities of dope. </div>
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One highly significant aspect of the more sophisticated genres of rock, especially since the introduction of multi-track tape recorders and involved electronic sound processing apparatuses, is that much of the effect of it is designed to be enhanced if the audience is stoned. Just as all artists of the past have expressed their life experiences in their art, the contemporary young artist, involved as he is in the psychedelic experience, has no choice but to represent that experience in his art. Psychedelic music has a certain style, such that any so-designed music, even when listened to straight, (if the listener is familiar with the psychedelic experience) will immediately evoke a type of perceptual orientation, which is either subtly or (often) fundamentally different from that of the past 200 years. </div>
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In contemporary avant-garde tape music there is great emphasis on altered perception, in the creation of musical environments which flow one into the other without the obsessive preoccupation with classic forms that so dominates the mainstream of music. These environmental experiments reflect an orientation tending toward the tribal for several reasons: </div>
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firstly, the musical gestures available to the electronic music composer are constitutionally different from musical gestures available, in any idiomatic way, to instrumentalists; the integrated analog circuitry of the electronic music synthesizer automatically creates rhythmic and melodic patterns more immediately recognizable as reflections of human physiology (body functions, groans, screams, quarks, heartbeats, etc.) than those it is possible to perform on traditional instruments, by virtue of their essentially digital construction; </div>
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secondly, the act of creating tape compositions is inherently more physical than writing music in the abstract; no matter how fully conceptualized a piece may be before the recording starts, in order to get a tape piece on tape, a tape composer must confront his sonic material full in the face, and make decisions in which his ears <span style="text-decoration: underline;">and his hand</span> must contribute a part equal in importance to the contributions of his <span style="text-decoration: underline;">mind</span>. </div>
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Perhaps the most important primitive aspect of tape music is that it forces the composer, to a significant degree, back into the oral tradition; this is not a universal rule, but for many tape composers the final product, the tape, <span style="text-decoration: underline;">is</span> the composition (the puppy is the PUPPY); thus a repeat performance (new versions) are either impossible (in cases in which there never was a score) or of extremely tenuous validity (the new version will tend to be unlike the original, in large part, simply because electronic music synthesizers are extremely temperamental, and hardly ever produce the same exact sound two days in a row). All these factors force the tape composer and the tape audience into a level of perceptual immediacy one step beyond the normal perceptual orientation of classical music.</div>
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This Gestalt switch is in harmony with the popular philosophic trend toward mysticism, meditation and the occult. Although many significant artists of the past have been vitally interested in astrology, numerology, communication with spirits, and the like, not since the Inquisition has there been so universal an interest in abnormal consciousness states. All these attitudes must play a part in the creation of new art and categorically enhance the perception of works of art. The mind expanding character of op Art and the philosophical connection between meditation and environmental tape music are examples of this prevailing attitude.</div>
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The influence of Eastern thought on the West, not only in terms of philosophical-religious teaching but the art itself, is of overriding importance. The Indian influence, in particular, is all pervasive, again, in the society of the younger-than-30 generation; Indian rugs, tapestries, cloth, ornamental jewelry, etc., are to be found in every home; the <i>Tibetan Book of the Dead</i>, along with LSD and free sex, rank as primary constituents of the 60s “generation gap". Indian classical music is being assimilated into the Western musical consciousness through the performances, by Indian musicians, of the music in its pure form, through the presence of Indian instruments like the sitar and the tabla on rock albums, and through its essential philosophical and theoretical assimilation by jazz musicians like McLaughlin, Coltrane, and Corea, to mention only a few.</div>
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All these innovations cannot help but result in an eventual alteration in the structure of, not only the Western but, the WORLD collective unconscious.</div>
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The last and final point this paper will try to make is: </div>
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the split between the primitive in the patriarchal aspects of the Western collective unconscious has resulted in a psychological tension that not only dominates Western art but, in fact, is very close to dominating the entire world. </div>
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In this paper we have examined some broad historical manifestations of the split in the history of music, and have seen how specific pieces have displayed microscopic reflections of the macrocosm. We then saw how changing tides have given us grounds for some hope, not for art but for the world. As long as Western art continues to reflect the split, it will remain beautiful, exciting, powerful, but tragic; as long as the split persists in the collective unconscious of the artist, we must live in perpetual fear of annihilation which is the logical consequence of the split.</div>
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We, the artist, the statesman, the scientist, you and I, must all strive to find reality within <span style="text-decoration: underline;">and</span> without ourselves. Only when we can validate all manifestations of psychic life in an integrated language will we approach an affirmation of life unmitigated by the clang of doom.</div>
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The eminent British psychologist, R. D. Laing, has spoken out in favor of the psychotic experience as one that is very valuable in establishing ways of validating one's inner life. In connection with this theory I quote an excerpt from the <i>Memoirs</i> of Hector Berlioz in relation to the premiere of his <i>Requiem Mass</i>:</div>
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“The day of the performance arrived, in the church of the Invalides, before all the princes, peers, and deputies, the French press, the correspondents of foreign papers, and an immense crowd. It was absolutely essential for me to have a great success; a moderate one would have been fatal, and a failure would have annihilated me altogether.</div>
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Now listen attentively.</div>
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Various groups of instruments in the orchestra were tolerably widely separated, especially the four brass bands introduced in the <i>Tuba Mirum</i>, each of which occupied a corner of the entire orchestra and chorus. There is no pause between the <i>Dies Irae</i> and the <i>Tuba Mirum</i>, but the pace in the latter is reduced to half what it was before. At this point the whole of the brass enters, first altogether and then in passages that challenge and answer each other--each entry being a third higher than the last. It is obvious that it is of the greatest importance that the four beats of the new tempo should be distinctly marked, or else the terrible explosion, which I so carefully prepared with combinations and proportions never attempted before or since, and which, rightly performed, gives such a picture of the Last Judgment as I believe is destined to live, would be a mere and enormous and hideous cacophony.</div>
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With my habitual distrust, I had stationed myself behind Habanek, and, turning my back on him, overlooked the group of kettle drums, which he could not see, when the moment approached for them to take part of the general melee. There are, perhaps, 1000 bars in my <i>Requiem</i>. Precisely in that of which I have just been speaking, when the movement broadens out, and the brass burst in with their terrible fanfare; in fact, just in <span style="text-decoration: underline;">the</span> one bar where the conductor is absolutely indispensable, Habanek <span style="text-decoration: underline;">puts down his baton, quietly takes out his snuff-box and proceeds to take a pinch of snuff</span>. I had never taken my eyes off him; instantly I turned rapidly on one heel, and, springing forward before him, I stretched out my arm and marked the four great beats of the new movement. The orchestra followed me, each in order. I conducted the piece to the end, and the effect which I had dreamed of was produced. When, at the last words of the chorus, Habanek saw that the <i>Tuba Mirum</i> was saved, said: “What a cold perspiration I have been in! Without you we should of been lost. “Yes, I know,” I answered, looking fixedly at him.”</div>
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This story exciting as it may be, is almost certainly a historical falsehood. (I recently discovered some slight grounds for musicological debate, on this score, but, even if something like what is described in Berlioz's narrative actually happened, the various physical inconsistencies in the story point, at best, to some gross exaggeration.) However, this story, as others Berlioz (perhaps all of us?) told, cannot be properly understood as a lie; on the contrary, the story is more valid than any mere fact, precisely because Berlioz imagined it so vividly <span style="text-decoration: underline;">he actually thought it was true</span>! Puppy is the PUPPY!</div>
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There is a fashionable mystique that portrays artists (and scientists, professors and politicians, for that matter) as wild, neurotic, irrational--in other words, crazy. Is it possible to see these crazy artists as more fundamentally hooked-up to their primitive consciousness, their bodies, than the norm, and therefore as being subjected to a prejudicial, sometimes hostile, attitude by the normal, crazy, man on the street? Is it possible to see the tremendous upsurge of creativity during the past 20 years as a propensity toward the revalidation of inner psychic life? I think the answer to both these questions is “Yes.”</div>
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Richard Freeman-Toolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03480701171151843224noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6082284124238685067.post-23307519087576726122017-04-22T16:00:00.000-07:002017-04-22T16:00:19.452-07:00A Musician Seeks His Own Level<h2>
A Musician Seeks His Own Level</h2>
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When describing the potential for human achievement, it is often cynically and offhandedly stated that, where groups are concerned, </div>
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“Water seeks its own level." It is my purpose, in this article, to do battle with this shallow truism, and to show that the average-seeking characteristics of water (i.e. the physical dimension) are not necessarily those of human consciousness—human consciousness is physical but also spiritual, and therefore it is individuality-seeking not average-seeking. It is a basic premise of this article that human beings are spiritual beings and do not need to be limited by the laws of the physical universe unless they choose to be; that by choosing to make more of themselves, people and groups can transcend the group-created self-limiting concepts and can become more than physical laws normally allow. By seeking his own level, finding and realizing his own unique spiritual identity, an individual contributes to group identity that is more than the sum of its parts-that is on a higher energy level than the average of its parts.</div>
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I recognize "pride" as a significant motivating factor behind my indignant attitude toward this statement. I'm exceptional, and have tried not to allow myself to let the lukewarm energies of my peers make the fires in myself burn less brightly, though this is not been an easy task; indeed, my struggle with making mediocrity (in the literal " middle seeking " sense of the word) is ongoing and seemingly endless. The story of my battle with mediocrity in various contexts constitutes the main body of this article. It is my desire to demonstrate, using myself as an example, that it is not necessary to submerge one's uniqueness for the sake of a group identity; rather, that the group identity is enhanced, by the raised consciousness of all the members of the group, of their own beautiful, singular individuality.</div>
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I do not represent myself as an ascended master holding the secrets of divine power. I'm just a man struggling to find himself in a society where self’s widespread alienation from self has not only become accepted as normal, it has become a moral standard for proper social behavior. Where I am concerned, I find that even when I get free of the mean-finding tendencies of social organizations, there is still the mediocrity in myself which I must unceasingly attempt to transcend; I am still quite far from achieving that great goal. Oh well, this is not such a terrible thing from the standpoint of this article, because I'm not attempting to write some fascinating account of my personal confessions, nor am I attempting to make the reader want to be like me (much is my petty ego might like that). I <span style="text-decoration: underline;">am</span> attempting to make the reader aware of a materialist social consensus; this consensus is materialist because it treats man as though he were merely physical, and subject absolutely to laws governing the material world. I wish to describe (also to condemn) the social phenomenon that works against the integrity of the individual as a social being and is a spiritual being endowed with the infinite potential for achievement, for the creation of good. The expression “Water seeks its own level”, suggests that human organizations can only achieve ends determined by the desires of the average of the members of the group. It is a self-limiting concept that is blindly accepted by millions, when it might, by an act of will, be overthrown, thus freeing individuals to seek their own unique level, and revolutionize the quality of excellence that people and groups normally experience.</div>
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I admit it, I'm a musician, and the personal experiences I'm about to relate come mostly from the contexts of professional music-making; that makes this article of interest primarily to musicians, in a way. I would hasten to add, however, that the fundamental issues of this article are <span style="text-decoration: underline;">not</span> about music, and I beg the non-musician to be patient and try to see that the psychological patterns I'm describing are by no means specific to music. Although I will be describing situations that musicians will be able to relate to most easily, is my hope that the reader will perceive the musical context as microcosm of the way people in all kinds of groups perform their social functions; the inspiration I seek to offer to apply to the process of serving on a Parks and Recreation planning committee, just as well as the process of playing in a string quartet.</div>
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It was somewhere during grade school that I embraced the philosophical attitude that individuality was good. I think I learned it in school, it might of been from television, I might have just <span style="text-decoration: underline;">known</span> it intuitively. Anyway, the idea being my own person, doing my own thing came naturally to me. My father was not the slightest bit interested in my doing things my way, but he was very interested in doing things his way, so I was provided with a model I would come to emulate more and more as time went on, my different drummer thrum- thrumming louder and louder.</div>
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Was not really until junior high that I began to realize the tragic paradox that was to become a major theme of my life, namely, the individualist, much-glorified in word and song was, in daily life, a much-maligned social entity. Almost every element of my public education was in some way self-contradictory on this point. We would read Thoreau, that magnificent phrase-maker, then be instructed as to exactly what to think about him, and what school-speak phrases we were allowed to write about him. It was during an oral report on <i>Brave New World</i>, that rhapsodic lament on the death of individuality, that the teacher actually said to me, “Who are you to criticize Huxley? " "I am me," I replied, I'm grammatically. The teacher was unconvinced. Whoever heard of someone that wasn't famous having a valid opinion about anything? To her, I was a slot in a great book, and my application for a poetic license (among other things) was denied on the grounds that there was no room to notate such irregularities in my slot. “Why, " I wondered, "do they give us this stuff to read if they consider the content to be untrue? "</div>
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In music class there was a different atmosphere. There, my talent and leadership abilities were appreciated and nurtured by the teacher, who thought that it was so good to have someone who could play and keep going that any quirkiness in my personality was indulged is a fair trade for my positive impact on the class. I realize, now, that I was lucky in this respect, for I have known many tremendously gifted music students who been shot to pieces by less-gifted teachers.</div>
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So, lucky me, I came to consider music a haven from the hypocrisy of society and the educational system. I progressed rapidly and developed many strong soloist equalities, which distinguished my playing from those around me. I was also singled out of a pack of kids at music camp, to be taught privately by a world-famous teacher, who happened to be a great genius and a great pioneer. His influence caused my playing to become more individualistic than ever, because of certain technical innovations he had created in his laboratory. It was agreed by all, that, by the time I finished college, I played "pretty good".</div>
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So, I jumped out of the ivory tower nest and tried my wings in the professional world; almost immediately things began to go bad. I was hired as a "ringer" in various community orchestras, did a fair amount recording, and was fairly well respected by a number of contractors, so that I kept getting hired; but an annoying pattern began to emerge, that began to get more telling every time it happened: I would be playing my heart out, making beautiful sounds, when, out of the blue, someone would tell me to tone it down. There were variations on this theme, some more polite than others, but all of the same underlying message: I was doing something that was different enough to be noticed by the players (by no means would this differentness be obvious enough to be discernible by the audience, except, perhaps, visually) and they wanted me to stop it. There were never any real musical complaints, it was more like an aura of confidence and superiority that they didn't like; they wanted me to be one of they wanted me to be one of the guys, to fit in, to seek <span style="text-decoration: underline;">their</span> level.</div>
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Once I was actually kept out of an orchestra that badly needed strong players on the instrument, because the conductor thought I was "too flashy", that I would alienate the other weaker players around me. I've already admitted that he was right, in a sense, and will continue to cite further examples of how right he was, but, in a larger moral sense it was wrong that he was right; he should not have been right, it was bad for him, the orchestra, and me that he was right; and I later proved him wrong about what he had been right about, by joining the orchestra later (under a different conductor) and eventually by playing under him, and receiving the unanimous approval of the orchestra and lavish praise from the conductor himself.</div>
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Another time I had a section leader tell me, “You’re section leader material, but you do not have a section leader position,” ergo, I should stop playing like a section leader, i.e. with confidence, tone, and personality. The idea was that it was okay for him to play well, but not me—I was a follower, a little tin soldier, and I should know my place. A covert implication of this whole line of reasoning was that this section leader didn't want anybody else sharing the spotlight, and this, not even out of any particularly egomania, but merely because this is "the way it is done".</div>
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Here, we begin to arrive at the crux of the matter. In musical organizations, and, if I'm correct, <span style="text-decoration: underline;">all</span> social organizations, a group consensus is arrived at, unconsciously, as a consequence of an averaging process (sort of like democracy), whereby the average energy level of the group comes to be interpreted as the standard energy level, such that all significant deviations from the standard are taken as socially obnoxious. Through inference, "socially obnoxious" comes to be interpreted as "musically obnoxious", even though the only musical offense may be merely this stepping outside the established social boundaries.</div>
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To be more specific: there are, in the music world, certain geographic areas where a certain style of playing predominates over other styles which are to be readily encountered and accepted in other geographic areas. These styles are, after all, mere variations on a theme, with no fundamental differences; however, the exponents of these various styles cling to their specific eccentricities with passionate intensity, and, like devout churchgoers, proclaim their style to be the only true style. Therefore, when a social deviant from out of town arrives on the scene, there will naturally be some ruffling as the new man seeks to integrate himself into the system. If the home folk recognize the out of towner as a legitimate player, with something to contribute, there is an enriching of the two styles as their energy amplitudes are added to each other. Sadly, prejudice and religious fervor all too often eliminate the new player <span style="text-decoration: underline;">and</span> the richness before has had a chance to gel. </div>
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There have come to be elaborate rationalizations ("schools of thought ") to justify this average-seeking phenomenon as proper musical behavior:</div>
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One word that is much bandied about among the mediocre is “blend". The term “blend" has come to refer to the depersonalization of the individual sound quality in favor of a group sound that is even, neutral, and usually bland and innocuous. The theory is pretty simple-if you play without any personality "you will fit in with a bunch of other people playing without any personality. When you sound very nearly like everybody else " you are "blending", and when you sound different you are marring the “blend".</div>
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The idea of “blend” refers primarily to sound quality, which is the single most personal aspect of playing an instrument; to reject a musician’s sound can be thought of as the most personal rejection a musician can experience, and it is on a personal level rejection is felt, causing the sound-offender to suffer great loss of confidence and personal motivation.</div>
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Now, no reasonable musician would promote the idea of people playing a piece and contradictory styles at the same time-the idea of a section is to sound like one big instrument— but the definition of contradictory styles has become too narrow in many people's minds, such of the sound that is different is automatically considered contradictory, even though it might, with a modicum of acceptance, be seen as truly complementary, and in a glorious, truthful way.</div>
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Style is not the same as sound in the vast majority of orchestra playing contexts (excluding musicological efforts with original instruments, etc.); therefore the questions of sound and style are very separate issues; very many different sound qualities are acceptable within a given style, as can be demonstrated by the recordings of great masterpieces produced in widely divergent geographical locations, and (now, in 1988), several different time periods. A largeness of mind on the subject of sound quality will result in an attitude of acceptance toward sound variations, since no connoisseur of discography can reasonably reject the playing of Elman or Kreisler in favor of Heifetz, Oistrakh, or Perlman, though serious examination of these artists will reveal more fundamental disagreement in terms of sound than of style.</div>
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The element of style most critical in section playing is to be seen in the area of rhythm and nuance; if these elements are uniform throughout the section, the ideal of sounding like one big instrument will be achieved regardless of the level of richness of sound. In terms of style, the extent to which musical performances <span style="text-decoration: underline;">correct</span> is the extent to which it remains faithful to known musicological facts having to do with articulation, embellishment, tempo, etc.; however, the extent to which a musical performance is <span style="text-decoration: underline;">alive</span> is wholly due to the personal commitment of each player to giving his best self to every moment of the piece. I am, in this argument, attempting to show that just by making yourself sound like everybody else, you do not necessarily make the section sound like a single instrument, as you can, by undercutting your own energy, make the section sound like a wimpier instrument; by lowering your personal energy level to accommodate the group level, you rob the orchestra of a dimension of his potential group identity.</div>
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There is a long list of great conductors who encourage their players to play like soloists. These conductors have been big enough themselves to see that the music gets its life from inside the hearts of the people playing it; these conductors have recognized that they will only reach their own level of peak artistic expression by allowing the players to achieve <span style="text-decoration: underline;">their</span> own level of peak artistic expression. I'm not saying that playing music is all cathartic fun and feeling, no, the Apollonian constraints placed upon musicians are numerous and necessary, since the mind is often the round-about road to the heart; a musical group must be led to a piece of music through a keen intellectual alignment. But the SOUND is where the player’s soul meets his instrument in a glorious Dionysian and revelry that cannot be understood or controlled intellectually without repression of energy.</div>
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Let us examine the term repression a little more closely. Since art is understood largely in psychological terms, the idea of repression as an element in the truthful representation of the human condition must play a part in developing an attitude toward repression in the interpretive act of playing. The music, the composer is often objectively describing the feeling of repression; just as often the composer is actually feeling repressed himself, as he struggles to overcome some personal issue which is the subject matter of his composition. In either case, the end result, the finished piece, is <span style="text-decoration: underline;">expression</span>. Even if the repression in the piece is a consequence of unconscious psychological processes, the notes on the page are an <span style="text-decoration: underline;">expression</span> of repression (as opposed to a repression of expression—ha ha.). The player, therefore, must always be <span style="text-decoration: underline;">expressing</span> (out + pressing) repression, not feeling repressed; at least not feeling personally repressed. He may create the feeling of repression in himself as he acts out the drama of the piece, but to feel repressed by forces external to the forces of the music can only result in distraction, lack of focus, and frustration.</div>
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Frustration is a natural consequence of repression, because to be <span style="text-decoration: underline;">made</span> to be less than you are is the most unpleasant, insulting violation of basic human freedom a person can experience; to be less than you truly are makes you feel like nobody. Indeed, the frustrations of anonymity are the single most published complaint of orchestral players in the world; whenever professional musicians are interviewed, they bitch and moan that they don't feel that it matters whether they play well or not, as they are part of a huge depersonalized machine. It is true that the fight for identity is fierce and large social organizations, but so many people attempt to deal with the problem by giving in to the situation-by giving up their personal identity before all the votes are in. By admitting at the outset that you will make no difference, you ensure the fact that you will make no difference, and obliterate the possibility of your ever making a difference. Consequently, in a system where conformity is a conscious goal, the strong players become weak, and the weak players, without the inspiration and example of their betters, become weaker. No one takes any responsibility for the music except to make sure that no one else takes responsibility for the music.</div>
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Another argument against the enforcement of average-seeking is the fact that some players are just plain <span style="text-decoration: underline;">better</span> than other players and naturally play with more personality because they <span style="text-decoration: underline;">have</span> more personality. In a situation like this, there is a tendency for the better player to "stick out", but this is not necessarily a bad thing. First, a soloistic sound, singing above a more bland section sound, can give a clarity and punch to the sound, an added harmonic that is very pleasing. This is a common trait of the great concertmasters of the world, and “sticking out " is precisely how they lead their sections. If more players in the section "stuck out" the sound would be even more brilliant. Secondly, the better players, if accepted by their peers, can have an inspirational effect on the weaker players to raise the energy the section. I've seen this happen again and again, especially among younger, more innocent professionals who are more willing to be influenced by positive energy around them, and anxious to imitate that which their hearts identify as "good". It is usually the older pros, set in their ways, who resist the influence of the new, and who actually resent soloistic playing. Is the old pros who band together during the intermission to collectively repress energies of the offender. I think they may be thinking that they are "keeping the niggers down", but they are really committing a crime against heaven, the orchestra, and themselves.</div>
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I've heard vocal ensembles (where the term “blend” is most often used, and where there is a greater variety of sound qualities than any other musical context) consisting of singers whose voices sounded <span style="text-decoration: underline;">very</span> different from each other, but whose “blend” was a truly glorious milkshake of sounds. These person’s best self harmonized with the others to create a synergistic whole that was unexpected, and unconventional, but truly beautiful and exciting, precisely because of the richness of the sound palette. If the sounds agree with each other in terms of objective criteria, like intonation, rhythm, dynamics, etc., the more subjective quality of sound can only be enriched and energized by individualistic contributions. Every rose does not have to be red to make a garden. To play with your heart and to give to the orchestra your best self is a most beautiful and courageous humanitarian act. It is such a shame that musicians insist on undercutting each other's individuality and constricting their musical reality. Then they complain about anonymity. Dumb.</div>
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An even more serious consequence of musical conformity is a habit I've encountered very often orchestras who suffer from a lack of confidence; the problem is that of playing behind the beat. In groups where people are afraid to take a chance, there's always the question of “Who is going to play first?” To my mind, when you're supposed to play has always been a fairly uncomplicated matter-you play when the conductor's baton hits the bottom of this trajectory; the rhythm in the conductor's body becomes the rhythm of the group. However, I have played in so many orchestras where <span style="text-decoration: underline;">all</span> the players are so afraid of making a mistake, of sticking out, that they have developed a style of waiting for the baton to all and bounced back before they play, so that the visual effect is what you get when you listen to music outside, from several thousand feet away-you see the baton go down a second or two before you hear the sound. Orchestras play this way because they wait for each other to play rather than trusting their own ability to play with the conductor. As a conductor, I'm always searching orchestra for uplifted eyes to make contact with; for this reason, I've always been appreciated by other conductors when I'm playing in the section, because they can always rely on my eye when <span style="text-decoration: underline;">they</span> search the orchestra for contact.</div>
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It is my understanding that the role of orchestral conductor was invented when ensembles got too large for chamber music ensemble playing (hearing) to keep people together; rather than listening to things happening (sometimes over an area of 100 feet and more), the visual impulse of the conductor was used to keep people together. No doubt, it is more difficult to play music from a visual cue rather than an aural cute, because rather than the immediate feedback of the physical sounds the plane takes on an inner quality, as the individual player is a sound into a kind of silent void; granted this is difficult, but it is the price we pay for the creation of large ensembles, and anyway, it develops faith and character. The system of visual cueing really does work if the conductor is clear and strong ending at the people to follow him and not each other.</div>
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The unfortunate fact is that everybody <span style="text-decoration: underline;">doesn't</span> follow, especially in the back of the orchestra. Time after time I've heard rhythms radiate outwards from the podium like a row of falling dominoes, such that by the time the guy in the back figures it is safe to play, the guy in the front is already playing the next note. The conductor complains “It's late! It's sounding late!" to which the back bench player pathetically replies, “But we can't hear! We can hear a commission point " I say, in all humility, ha ha, “You're not supposed to hear! It is assumed you can’t hear, that's why where paying this conductor so much money, so you don't have to here! If you would only have the courage to play with what you <span style="text-decoration: underline;">see</span>, you would all play together!! !”</div>
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In this kind of group, a strong player in the back and make a section sound very off-the-beat because he will be playing <span style="text-decoration: underline;">ahead</span> of the people in front of him, and sometimes even ahead of the section leader, if the section leader subscribes to the "behind the beat" philosophy. Such a player, playing with the conductor and not waiting his turn in the line of dominoes, will sound like he is making a mistake, and everybody will jump on him for "rushing", etc.; only he and the conductor will know his secret virtue, and even the conductor will have to say, “Folks, it's not together."</div>
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As a further complication concerning section leading that deserves mention. I have sometimes been accused of playing ahead of the section leader. This is always a shock, because I felt certain that I was playing with conductor, and assumed the section leader was to. I hang back and check out the situation, I usually find that, yes, the section</div>
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leader is playing behind the beat. What a dilemma-to play with the conductor or play with the section, every one of whom follows the late section leader with sheeplike devotion? This really <span style="text-decoration: underline;">should</span> <span style="text-decoration: underline;">not</span> be a problem, since it is understood by all that, in the orchestral hierarchy, the conductor is the final word; yet, it <span style="text-decoration: underline;">is</span> a problem because people have such an underdeveloped sense of their own ability to do their job that they are always, at every turn, looking to someone else for guidance. Consequently, there is often a situation where the various sections of an orchestra are perfectly together as sections, but are not playing anywhere near together as an orchestra. There would be no argument from the players that this is the wrong situation, but in actual practice, it is clear that they would rather be one of the 6 to 10 wrong people than the one right person. Dumb.</div>
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The problems of playing behind the beat are most acutely felt in situations where the Temple is changing. More rehearsal time is lost rehearsing ritards (slowing down) and accelerations than any other single musical effect, because the players will simply not trust themselves to respond instantly to the conductor signal; because they must hear the effect first, then repeat it by rote, tempo changes must be rehearsed twice every time they occur, whether they are surprise changes or extremely conventional things like ritarding the end of a piece. The operatic literature tends to be very easy music, technically, but because of the rhythmically erratic nature of dramatic music, or, indeed, any music where there is a rhetorical emphasis, an orchestra can spend hours getting it together by rote, and then if the singer feels it differently in the performance, runs out of breath, etc., it still won't be together. often, in such rehearsals I lament the Toscanini “A curse on Guido d’Arezzo for inventing music notation!"</div>
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I find it interesting, as I consider what I've just written, that the two main areas of orchestral individuality-repression that I have described, i.e., sound quality and rhythmic strength, are opposite each other on the right/left brain model of mental functioning that has come to be generally accepted over the past 10 or 15 years. Specifically, sound quality is the creation of the right brain, subjective sensitivity to space and emotion, while rhythm is clearly a left brain, objective, small- information-byte-processing function. It was seen then, it what I have said is true, that the better players play both with a better sound <span style="text-decoration: underline;">and</span> better rhythm that they are simply more <span style="text-decoration: underline;">conscious</span>-that both halves of their brains are more active when they play music. I will not go so far as to say these people are more awake mentally in all areas of life; we can readily cite examples of very mentally awake people, like Einstein, for instance, who were mediocre musicians, and we can also see excellent musicians who get overwhelmed by the idea of balancing a checkbook, or taking a simple telephone message for their wives. Neither can we categorically ascribe superior playing to superior training, because I've seen many superb musicians succumb to the herd propensity toward average-seeking tone quality and falling-domino rhythm.</div>
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At the level of consciousness of which I am speaking, the problem is not one of intelligence, or training, but is more disease of the will. There develops, in any group, a consensus, it's a mind-set that comes to be accepted by all unless it is stubbornly resisted by those who refuse to let their personal energy level be dictated by an impersonal democratic process. I speak of a disease of the will because the mind-set is not a function of talent, is a learned thing, and can be <span style="text-decoration: underline;">changed</span> by an <span style="text-decoration: underline;">act</span> <span style="text-decoration: underline;">of</span> <span style="text-decoration: underline;">will</span>. A person can achieve on a level several quantum leaps higher than the average, merely by <span style="text-decoration: underline;">wanting</span> to. The <span style="text-decoration: underline;">wanting</span> is critical. From <span style="text-decoration: underline;">wanting</span> all else will follow.</div>
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In order to refute the idea that the water of man's collective consciousness necessarily seeks its own level, I must make some strong statements about the relationship of man's mind to his will. The mind as a physical machine that is prone to habitual repetition of similar functions. Yet, because the mind is also a vessel for the translation of spiritual realities into physical manifestation, the mind can be taught to respond, with superhuman energy, to suggestions of the will. There is so much about music that is not of this world anyway, that even the slightest suggestion can trigger thought processes and physical acts that are unearthly-impossible, according to the materialistic expectations of science and common sense. Wanting something is an act of will. Imagining something is an act of will. If there is faith in the will, there can nearly always be a material manifestation of a consciously expressed desire. Hence, by wanting to achieve an artistic effect, a person who believes in the power of the spirit to change the physical world, can change not only his own energy level, but the energy levels of those around him. Mind is dumb, and slow, but is also obedient to the will, so by merely ordering the mind to reach up, the will can cause the mind to be filled with light from heavenly sources.</div>
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If other minds are reaching up for the same divine truth that will be, <span style="text-decoration: underline;">not</span> <span style="text-decoration: underline;">an</span> <span style="text-decoration: underline;">addition</span> of their power to each other, <span style="text-decoration: underline;">but</span> <span style="text-decoration: underline;">a</span> <span style="text-decoration: underline;">geometric</span> (or hyper mathematical) <span style="text-decoration: underline;">multiplication</span> of their energies by each other. This is the truth. This is what can be.</div>
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This, patient reader, is why consciousness does not have to seek its own level— because consciousness is infinite, incalculable, and ultimately singular in its identity. The minds of a group of orchestral players can become one in a singular act of will. When this happens, there is no question of leading, following, sticking out, blending, or any such physical considerations. When people become of one mind, that divine mind equalizes everything-all individuals are perfectly harmonized in a divine symphony of joy and power.</div>
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At the beginning of this article, I referred to "pride" as a serious stumbling block for myself. I consider pride to be a very serious problem for most people, professional musicians possibly more than others. Performers must develop their ego-consciousness more than most people, because performers routinely put their best selves on public display. The ego, thus constantly exposed to the critical eye of society must be tough and solid, or it will buckle under the pressure. However, this toughening all-too-often results in a hardening of the arteries of the heart, and emotional responses which once were spontaneous and authentic begin to become automatic, calculated, and false. Pride becomes merely a self-limiting concept, a false self image. This is an on-going process that can continue to take place over many years; it is the main reason young players are so much more flexible and enthusiastic than "seasoned" professionals. This is my prayer: “Oh God, please never let me become a "seasoned” professional! Let me always find the new and fresh in music! Let me give life-support to an endless stream of newborn feelings and ideas, let me animate the paper notes with my single, unique, best self. Let me bury my pride and with my single, unique, best selves. Let me bury the pride and search the depths of my soul for that divine source from which all power and through individuality spring!”</div>
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It is my conviction that man is a spiritual being, and that making music is a process of manifesting spiritual realities in forms that can be appreciated by man in the physical dimension. Music, being a kind of message-in-a-bottle from a divine source, draws on human powers and understanding several levels deeper than normal day-to-day living consciousness. Unfortunately, the attitude of devotion necessary to achieve this level of understanding is sadly lacking in the practice of music-making in the professional world. For the "seasoned” professional, music-making becomes a "normal” activity, like grocery shopping, and the magic wears off and is not renewed. Thus, as I have complained about all through this article, when someone comes along whose heart is still full of youthful enthusiasm and derring-do, his antic attitude is looked on with suspicion and fear, and his "inappropriate energy" is squashed by those practicers of the blasé who have forgotten, or never knew, how to be young.</div>
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Verily, verily I say unto you, it is possible to stay young. At a meta-level of self-programming, an individual can learn to, </div>
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1. prevent the critical left brain from automatically responding to every new or unusual energy with negativity, and, </div>
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2. to allow spontaneous self-created energies to overflow to overthrow the tyrannies of the petty ego, and fill the individual’s being with the light from a higher-than-normal level of consciousness.</div>
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At this point in my article, I wish I could follow through with the lengthy, detailed, rational description of the method of consciousness raising that would make better musicians out of everybody who tried it. I confess I cannot, not because there is no such method, but because for every musician, every person, the method is different. Learning to exercise the will in consciousness-raising is both the simplest and yet most impossibly complex thing that can be done. The power to make music live is found among the is found along the pathway to the heart, and every pathway to every human heart is different. This is the dilemma and this is the joy, that every human heart is and <span style="text-decoration: underline;">must</span> <span style="text-decoration: underline;">be</span> different. This is not a cop-out, because every heart shares, at its source, the same divine identity, so that the general description, or, you might say, roadmap to the heart is the same; but only the wildest fit of arrogance could persuade me to prescribe for others the techniques for awakening their spirit consciousness that I have used. Nevertheless, I <span style="text-decoration: underline;">will</span> say that the first step along the path is to <span style="text-decoration: underline;">want</span> to take a step. I cannot point the way any further than wanting to take the first step inward. From there on, "where your treasure is, there is your heart also."</div>
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Every musical performance should begin with an invocation of divine power, a turning of the consciousness inward, toward the heart. When this happens, many unusual and sometimes terrifying things can happen, because the supernatural worlds express themselves in our world in many unusual and terrifying ways. The reason for the terror is that they are never the same—the flow of time down the cosmic river provides endless variety of manifestation, and because we evolve and change with every second, we never get a chance to familiarize ourselves with the experience—everything is new every time. Because of this we must have completely anomalous aesthetic responses to same piece every time.</div>
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The key concept, for me, is acceptance; to accept who I am, to accept the rich and strange aspects of myself that come out when I dig deep, and to accept those around me, who, on a fundamental level, are a part of me. It is my hope that more people will learn to identify with the common thread that joins them to other people, and to stop being so quick to deny the humanity of, and to repress the energies of, those who are different from themselves. If you are a victim of repression, it is my hope that you will find the courage to continue to fight the good fight, and never stop believing in yourself and the power from God that is your simply by <span style="text-decoration: underline;">wanting</span> it.</div>
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7/8/88</div>
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Laus Dei</div>
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Richard Freeman-Toolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03480701171151843224noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6082284124238685067.post-17685022755754448702017-04-18T07:10:00.004-07:002017-04-18T07:10:58.760-07:00The Conductor: Medium of Divine Communication<h2>
The Conductor:<br />Medium of Divine Communication</h2>
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Music is spoken of as the universal language. All people understand music. However it is precisely the fact that all people understand it, that indicates that music is not a language at all, but something higher. A language is a system of symbols with refer to tangible things. Although there are logical identifiable symbologies present and music of all times and places, the archetypal forms underlying these linguistic eccentricities do not refer to physical realities. These archetypal forms are divine realities manifesting in the physical-the spirit made flesh (or something like flesh-sound). These forms are not symbols for things, but actual spiritual truths brought into an objectification as sound in air.</div>
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The higher mind of man perceives and vibrates sympathetically with these truths and sends impressions down to the lower mind (what we call the conscious mind, although it is only a tiny fraction of total consciousness), where thoughts or ideas are created. In the sense that these thoughts are created in response to music, music may be thought of as a language, but it is a language removed by one; initial appreciation of music as a spiritual (therefore universal) reality has nothing whatever to do with linguistic references. The experience of music, before it becomes objectified in the lower mind, is the alchemical process of spiritual energy acting on the soul to create change, and spiritual advancement.</div>
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Nevertheless, to create the experience of music, there must be a constant dialogue between the higher and lower mind, as the individual elements of the experience are combined and mixed like chemicals in a laboratory. This is where the conductor of a musical organization comes in. The conductor is, in a real sense, the medium of communication between the higher and lower mind of the group. In fact, the conductor is the grand central station through which are channeled the higher and lower minds of the composer, the players, the attending divine Angels (angels, guides, etc. ), the audience, and himself. At a certain point in the composition’s life, the composer was the window through which the light of God's truth shone down on the earth; however, when a piece gets to the performance stage, the conductor becomes this window through which are reflected all the complicated energies that go into the creation of a human social event. The truth of the piece must shine through the conductor into the hearts and minds of his players (choral conductor substitute singers for players), and his players’ truth must channel through him into the hearts and minds of the audience. Thus, mystery and change attend every step in the process of music making.</div>
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One of the exciting things about music is that: as unique as each human soul is, that is just how unique the experience of music is to each participant. This gives a richness and majesty to the light of God's truth as it glints through the many facets of his created beings. However, since the dualistic nature of man's physical existence creates opposites, certain aspects of man's physical vibration tend to get out of phase with each other and cancel each other out, thereby diminishing the experience for all. One of the conductor's most important jobs, therefore, is to focus all the little lights of the players into one great ray, with all its constituent aspects in phase with each other, to create the brightest possible light. This is an heroic act of courage, for to become such a lens, to withstand the onslaught of so much accumulated power, requires great strength and breadth of character.</div>
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It also requires humility, for only by sacrificing ego to the higher purposes of God’s manifested truth, are the energies of all the players maximized and synthesized. Too many conductors make the mistake of imposing narrow interpretive ideas on the players, causing them to restrain or repress their own God-given energy; this is a tragic loss, and is the bane of the orchestral player, and the orchestra itself. The razor's edge the conductor must walk is that of finding a way to get more out of t</div>
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his players than they thought they were capable of, while getting them to contribute this energy to a selfless group energy. The magic of the conductor's contribution to the music-making process is in his creation of a group consciousness that synergistically transcends the sum of the individual consciousnesses. This is accomplished by lighting a fire in the players’ minds for a single truth, and getting them to work together toward manifesting that truth. </div>
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The relationship of thought to feeling determines the character of the group identity. Feeling is the link between the lower objective mind (where literal meanings are stored and manipulated), and the higher subjective mind (where there becomes less and less distinction between thought and reality). The feelings expressed in music are the universal truths which make music understandable to all men; as such they have a constant or static, unvarying quality; but, as mentioned before, the interpretation of these feelings by the lower mind results in mental structures, thoughts or ideas, which are as various as the individual minds interpret and him. Thus, the conductor’s first step in creating artistic unity is to take a single feeling and objectify the residual thought patterns into terms which do not neutralize each other either by contradicting each other, or by causing repression of energy among the players.</div>
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One tragic flaw one tragic flaw that too often mars the education of serious music students is that: teachers tend to become aligned with one or another of a variety of interpretive thought patterns, and then pass on this alignment (prejudice) to the students, preaching it as the gospel. This dogmatic approach to music teaching is so sad because it teaches students to think of music as thoughts rather than the larger feelings behind the thoughts. Nothing is so tragi-comical as two musicians from different schools of thought trying to argue out their “po-tay-toes” and po-tah-toes”, and then finally (in the words of Ira Gershwin, “Let’s call the whole thing off”; this, when they might have, by focusing their attention on the larger issue of feeling, found the common ground of higher understanding. The conductor’s job is to find this higher ground, and convey the sense of it persuasively to his players. He was make them understand that no artistic aspect of musical interpretation (tempo, style, sound quality, etc.) are matters of choice, and that, just as there is feeling behind every thought, there is life, a legitimate reality, behind every choice; that, and creating unity, choices must be made that sometimes contradict one's training, but are not, therefore, to because considered <span style="text-decoration: underline;">wrong</span>.</div>
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Indeed, the whole issue of right and wrong (which is a subject for a separate article, if not a book) can too often come between the player and his enjoyment of his task. There are so many small decisions to be made in shaping a piece, and there are so many different attitudes toward each one of them, that squabbles over the “right” way can cause divisiveness and estrangement among the players. The conductor neutralizes this tendency by becoming the final decision-maker, dictating which way all the players must do their job. He must impress on them that there is no “right” way, there are only “good” ways, and good comes from making the best of every situation, even if, on the surface, it goes against the grain. There is a sense in which every literal configuration of meanings can be true, and it is never difficult for an open mind to find truth in a statement that, in another light, may appear false. The selfless player must subdue the petty ego, expand his consciousness outward to embrace the unity of group consciousness consciousness outward to embrace the unity of group consciousness, and join with the group consensus shaped by the conductor.</div>
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“Good” is everybody's best effort. “Good enough” is an expression that has nothing to do with GOOD. “Good enough” is an objective standard created at different times by different individuals, today by the recording industry, pointing the way toward a level or type of perfection which may very well be “good”, but may also be, instead, merely “ right”. Conductors striving for a level of “good enough” that sounds like somebody's record, but which is not inherent in the temperaments of the players in hand, does not maximize those players potentialities, but rather, dehumanizes them and makes them resent both “the good enough” they cannot achieve, and the conductor for wanting them to be something they are not. Now players are <span style="text-decoration: underline;">always</span> capable of giving more from a broader push from a broader spectrum than they think they are, but people are also individuals and should not be asked to parrot back somebody else's sound or phrasing when they may have a legitimate weight of their own that, for the person rings truer than the “good enough” way. The conductor should seek to bring forth the good inherent in the players in hand, probing into each player’s soul for the best that player has to offer. Rather than imposing some objective standard on the group, the conductor should reveal the group's own subjective reality to itself. Let the didactic conductor be warned, mismatching ideals is a deadly game, bringing much heartache and disappointment for all; it is like the poor tourist we find weeping brokenhearted on the steps of the church because he did not find the Mona Lisa anywhere inside the Sistine Chapel.</div>
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How does the conductor bring out the best in his players? First, he must get their attention. People do not automatically walking rehearsal into a rehearsal revved up and on fire for the music; it is the conductor’s job to light the fire. Many conductors are so passionately in love with the music that they are shocked and insulted when the players do not immediately share this enthusiasm. Thus, emotional scenes and bitchiness ensue that have a tendency to awaken the lower minds of the players to concentration, but shut the doors to which spontaneous feeling must flow. The players become concerned with getting the conductor off their back, instead of finding the music. The annals of conducting are filled with tales of bitchy, even vicious conductors who were able to bring along unfocused players to a level of higher-than-normal intensity; but the price you pay for this kind of excellence is so dear, and it is so unnecessary to pay it.</div>
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There are many paths to higher consciousness; fear and grief are viable paths to higher levels, but they have a limited range of positive benefits; they also create a very unhealthy drop in energy when they wear off, so that a conductor may intimidate a group into performing one musical moment at a high vibratory rate, then pay for it with low vibration playing the rest of the night. Fear is a very unstable energy-it can cause things to go well, or it can cause things to get worse and worse. </div>
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There is a story (true or mythical) of an orchestra rehearsal where a conductor publicly humiliated the principal flutist by making him practice a solo over and over in front of the whole group, meanwhile making rude comments about the flutist’s musicianship, intelligence, character, etc. That night of the concert, the flutist played the solo brilliantly, evoking s great smile from the conductor. Then the flutist rose from his chair, drew a gun from his vest, and shot the conductor. </div>
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It is true that the conductor whose namby-pamby about giving direction, is not a good leader, and will not inspire respect or trust from his players; but it is also true that the great genius assholes of the art world, by any other name, are still assholes. The intensity achieved through impatience, arrogance, and intimidation is a shallow thing, and holds no promise for future growth. The apostle Paul points out that love, among other things, is long-suffering.</div>
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So how does a conductor get intensity from a cold group without yelling at them? A rehearsal is an intense thing, and must become intense immediately; but insulting the players’ ability, or denigrating their level of commitment (guilt tripping) only causes repression and contention. To get intensity from the players, the conductor must draw the players out, get them interested in the music for what it has to offer them, get all their minds focused on the concrete goal which feels and sounds good when it is achieved. Intensity comes from focus, focus comes from something to focus on. Thus, to literally objectify the goals, of the rehearsal, is the first task in beginning a rehearsal.</div>
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The word "objectify" is very important, especially since we have already spoken at length about the overriding importance of the “subjective reality " that a piece of music creates in the physical. The key to understanding is is to be found in the relationship of the objective meaning to the subjective state of being. For example, many times a conductor may desire a certain sound quality, or a certain style, which he hears clearly in his head, but not in the rehearsal room. He will begin to rhapsodize and poetic terms about the sound, describing it with onomatopoetic expressions. Most of the time this subjective treatment may mean something personal to the conductor, but usually relates personally to a small fraction of the players. Efforts to convey subjective realities through verbal means to those who did not already share the subjective reality higher-than-verbal level always fail. The players may try again, but since they have failed to understand, they fail to realize the conductor’s vision. More poetry, more failure, then insults, fits, frustration, anger, etc.</div>
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When describing the big picture (subjective content) fails to communicate the conductor's intentions, she should break the image down into smaller pieces. By breaking the subjective image down into pieces he is <span style="text-decoration: underline;">objectifying</span> the image, reducing the high spiritual truth to a system of literal meanings which can be apprehended by the lower mind. Any sound or gesture can be so broken down; a crescendo, a ritard, a phrasing may consist of many discrete elements which can be rehearsed one at a time. This progressive building of an idea into a living gestalt can be grueling work, but a conductor should be man enough to teach his players, patiently, (no matter how good they are, or are <span style="text-decoration: underline;">supposed</span> to be) what he wants down to the gnat’s eyebrow, because once a particular link is learned in a microscopic context, it is much easier for the players to extrapolate the information and transfer to other contexts. A conductor who can only generalize, and cannot explain what he wants in technical terms, this just an air beater. Even if his heart is full of enthusiasm, his mind alight with an inner vision, he must express enthusiasm and vision in terms that can be shared. To be sure, objective understanding is not the highest level of musical understanding; however it must be remembered that there is a vast chasm spread between normal consciousness and higher subjective consciousness, and objectivity is our only pathway to the divine. Objective insights act like little links in a suspension bridge, which, when completely assembled, allow subjective insight to flow across from the higher mind and light the lower mind with truth and power. The objective analysis of a spontaneous gesture may momentarily drain some of the life out of the gesture. As the gesture is dissected, a synergistic unity is destroyed; but when the pieces are put back together, the conductor will reap the rewards of patience and insight which our joy and accomplishment, rather than the rewards of impatience and pride which are disappointment and anger.</div>
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Now, the use of imagery in directing the players’ attention toward a subjective reality is not always as ineffective as the preceding arguments may have implied. To tell the horn player that his solo should sound like “the rising sun", can give him insights that telling him to “play louder” cannot. However, the conductor should not just mention the rising sun, he should mention getting louder as well. Intangible, poetic quality should always be objectified by including direction toward getting the players to <span style="text-decoration: underline;">do</span> something.</div>
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The physicalization of emotional qualities is the most crucial creative leap in music-making. Through physicalization, the word is made flesh. The conductor physicalizes the music through his movement. In this sense, his movement becomes a poetic image of the music as much as his verbal instruction; however, unlike his verbal instruction, his movement was always attempt to look like what the players <span style="text-decoration: underline;">do</span> (to their instruments) to make the music. The conductor should dance the music for the players, taking care that his gestures are directed toward inspiring the player to perform specific actions. Many conductors’ movements degenerate into indistinct flopping and waving which, again, contain only subjective meaning. The conductor should never, for an instant, lose sight of the responsibility of the players to make them play better. The music comes from the players, not the conductor; when this fact becomes confused in the conductor's mind, petty ego takes over, and there is a breakdown of energy for the group; but when he loses contact with the group, and dwells on his own emotional investment in the music, the flow is interrupted. Therefore, the most selfless act the conductor can perform is to stop listening to the music, and focus himself on leading the players through their parts, moment by moment, letting the audience listen to the music. The conductor can always listen to the tape</div>
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There is an aspect of imagery which is para-physical, but which is nevertheless an instruction from the conductor to the player to perform an <span style="text-decoration: underline;">act</span>. This is the act of will demanding than normal consciousness reach up into higher realms for insight and power. Most of the time the conductor’s plea for concentration or intensity is merely a plea for the player to consciously enter a paranormal mind state. We do it, we all know how it feels, but somehow, in a materialist culture, we have neglected developing techniques for consciously entering higher mind states; therefore, we must rely on chance, or gargoyle-like fits from the conductor, to scare us into the divine realms.</div>
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Actually, it is very easy to get a group to raise its own consciousness, but it does take courage—for certain materialist predispositions, which, unfortunately are ingrained social attitudes, must be dispensed with. </div>
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1.The first step in this “dispensing process” is to adopt the assumption that: the human personality is not confined to the human body-that we all, as holistic entities, take up more space than just our bodies do. </div>
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2. Thus,we must then realize that, by reaching out with our senses, we can encompass much more space than our bodies might tell us we can. </div>
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3.Lastly, we must realize that we can share space with other people. </div>
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This <span style="text-decoration: underline;">sharing</span> <span style="text-decoration: underline;">space</span> is crucial to developing a group and identity. The senses that are reaching out are not physical senses, and the space shared is not physical space; but the registration of this experience in lower consciousness is just like the physical sensation of touching, only it is somehow more intimate than touching because we can feel the presence of the other person or persons through and through. The subjective experience of sharing a group consciousness can provide more unity of feeling and expression in any other single technique. Through this technique, sounds are blended, differences are unified, and energies are compounded. A moment of silence before the downbeat (preferably with eyes closed) can do more for her performance than anything in the world.</div>
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Now the conductor must take up more "space" than anyone else. The conductor must surround the entire group with this personality. He must have more confidence than anyone else (for the concentration and strength to reach out so far is enormous), but he must also be more selfless than anyone else (because to disperse his ego so far, he must give himself up completely to divine influence, and, on conscious and subconscious psychic levels, convey direction too many people at once.</div>
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We may speak of imagery in this regard because mental imagery is the technique most commonly employed to bring these energies into manifestation. The conductor may imagine the group enveloped in a cloud of pink light, or he may imagine rays of white light coming out of the top of everyone's head, joining in the central vortex above the group. Whatever the visualization, it is important to realize that the visualization makes it real. One of physical eyes cannot see, our spiritual eyes can see very well. Thus, through an effort of will, the conductor can create a divine reality, and if he asks the players to join him in the effort, the effects become exponentially enhanced.</div>
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Music is divine reality manifested in the physical. The goodness of God is that singular impulse which binds us together. Oneness is the object of all human endeavor; as such, music holds a special place in human activities, being such a perfect link between lower and higher mind functions. The conductor, more than any other person involved in a musical performance, is responsible for creating an atmosphere in which oneness may be achieved. This is a weighty responsibility indeed, and can reap, for him, great spiritual rewards. It also load him down with tons of, Karma (sic) if he allows ego and pride to come between him and the music and the players. God can change the world through music, and since the conductor is the high priest in this ministry, he must be tireless in his efforts to make himself a more and more perfect open channel for divine inspiration.</div>
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Laus Dei</div>
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November 17, 1987</div>
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Richard Freeman-Toolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03480701171151843224noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6082284124238685067.post-89217629756471865812014-10-19T14:58:00.006-07:002014-10-19T14:58:58.510-07:0018-Gospel of Thomas Act 2-3<h2>
18-Gospel of Thomas Act 2-3</h2>
<br />Last week we were introduced to Thomas, the apostle Jesus sent on an evangelical mission to India. In the first two acts, we saw miracles of prophecy, and the storing up of treasures in heaven, in this case treasures of heavenly real estate, created in heaven for King Gundaphorus, and his brother Gad. It will be noted, I believe, that the primary interest, of the 1st and 2nd Acts of Thomas, is in the symbolic significance of the narrative activity, whereas the primary interest of this Third Act of Thomas is in the doctrinal principles and the pure sacraments of praise expressed in the long prayers offered by the apostle. This 3rd Act is filled with prayers and poetry, which present principles and images very like the wisdom of the Vedas. <br /><br />Now, going on from where we left off: <br /><br />After Thomas gains the sympathy of the King and his brother, who acknowledge that a mansion in heaven is better than a mansion on earth, they go out into the forest, to get away from everybody. The following speech occurs at the end of a very magical scene in which Thomas, Gundaphorus, and Gad all enter a bath in order to be baptized. The scene appears in conjunction with a Eucharistic ceremony; at this ceremony Thomas prays a beautiful prayer over them:<br /><br />
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"26 . . . . And the apostle said unto them: I also rejoice and entreat you to receive this seal, and to partake with me in this eucharist and blessing of the Lord, and to be made perfect therein. For this is the Lord and God of all, even Jesus Christ whom I preach, and he is the father of truth, in whom I have taught you to believe. And he commanded them to bring oil, that they might receive the seal by the oil. They brought the oil therefore, and lighted many lamps; for it was night: and the king gave orders that the bath should be closed for seven days, and that no man should bathe in it: and when the seven days were done, on the eighth day they three entered into the bath by night that Judas might baptize them. And many lamps were lighted in the bath.<br /><br />27 And the apostle arose and sealed them. And the Lord was revealed unto them by a voice, saying: Peace be unto you brethren. And they heard his voice only, but his likeness they saw not, for they had not yet been baptized. And Judas went up and stood upon the edge of the cistern and poured oil upon their heads and said:<br /><br />"Come, thou holy name of the Christ that is above every name.<br /><br />Come, thou power of the Most High, and the compassion that is perfect.<br /><br />Come, gift of the Most High.<br /><br />Come, compassionate mother.<br /><br />Come, communion of the male.<br /><br />Come, she that revealeth the hidden mysteries.<br /><br />Come, mother of the seven houses, that thy rest may be in the eighth house."</blockquote>
<br />[Sidebar: Note that several passages in this gospel have an Old Testament resonance with pre-Christian Gnosticism, which makes, fairly consistently, reference to a mother God.<br /><br />Also, the presence of numerology, as witnessed by the catalog of "seven houses", "the eighth house", and "the five members" (below) etc., literally reeks of pre-Christian cosmology. Now, one gateway to appreciating biblical arithmetic, which abounds with mathematical metaphors, must be the theories of Pythagoras--Pythagoras (500 B.C.) who not only divided the universe into coherent proportions, but found precise personal analogs in mathematical relationships, which are, after all, very abstract, highly mental forms of consciousness.<br /><br /><br />Going on:]<br /><br /><br />
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"Come, elder of the five members, mind, thought, reflection, consideration, reason; communicate with these young men.<br /><br />Come, holy spirit, and cleanse their reins and their heart, and give them the added seal, in the name of the Father and Son and Holy Ghost."</blockquote>
<br />[Sidebar: This speech of Thomas has some interesting sidelights. There's clearly the Gnostic tendency toward God in everything, and there is also this remnant of the Buddha age, which divides the universe into discrete blocks and divisions and levels. Once again the type of enumeration presented above, <br /><br />
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("Come, elder of the five members, mind, thought, reflection, consideration, reason;"), </blockquote>
<br />is a very Old Testament Way of talking about truth, and it affirms and reinforces the interpretation Rudolf Steiner has placed on this period of history. I don't mind reiterating a Steiner quote I offered last week:<br /><br /><br />
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"In our period of evolution two streams of spiritual life are at work. One of them is the stream of wisdom, or the Buddha stream, containing the most sublime teaching of wisdom, goodness of heart and peace on earth. To enable this teaching of Buddha to permeate the hearts of all men, the Christ impulse is indispensable. The second stream is the Christ stream itself that will lead humanity from intellectuality, by way of aesthetic feeling and insight, to morality."</blockquote>
<br />It is interesting that the Christ impulse is characterized, by Steiner, as leading to RIGHT ACTION by way of aesthetic feeling and insight. I, myself, would tend to summarize the aesthetic response as: <br /><br />
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a response to order and sense--to the divine intelligence manifested in divine forms. </blockquote>
<br />To be sure the word God, (omnipotent, omnipresent, eternal, limitless, unfathomable) is slightly at odds with the idea of "form", a concept which necessarily refers to the limitations, restrictions, and boundaries of an articulate, fathomable, defined, material reality. In the pantheistic world, God is in everything, the earth the sky, the stars; but now, through the incarnated Christ impulse, the omnipresent God has a personality which He extends to us as a model and a mold. Moreover, as the two historical eras pass each other in the night, the ancient karmic law of pantheism is supplanted by a new age of GRACE.<br /><br />This Note by Professor F. C. Burliitt, D.D. appears as a footnote in the <i>Gospel of Thomas</i>:<br /><br />
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"In the Acts of Thomas, 27, the apostle, being about to baptize Gundaphorus the king of India with his brother Gad, invokes the holy name of the Christ, and among other invocations says:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
'Come, O elder of the five members, mind, idea, thoughtfulness, consideration, reasoning, communicate with these youths.'</blockquote>
<br />What is the essential distinction of these five words for 'mind', and what is meant by the 'elder'? We turn to the Syriac, as the original language in which our tale was composed though our present text, which rests here on two manuscripts, has now and then been bowdlerized in the direction of more conventional phraseology, a process that the Greek has often escaped. Here in the Syriac we find:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
'Come, Messenger of reconciliation, and communicate with the minds of these youths.'</blockquote>
<br />The word for 'Come' is feminine, while 'Messenger' is masculine. This is because the whole prayer is an invocation of the Holy Spirit, which in old Syriac is invariably treated as feminine. The word for Messenger is that used in the Manichaean cosmogony for a heavenly Spirit sent from the Divine Light: this Spirit appeared as androgynous, so that the use of the word here with the feminine verb is not inappropriate. It further leads us to look out for other indications of Manichaean phraseology in the passage. But first it suggests to us that [presbuteros, elder] in our passage is a corruption of, or is used for, [presbeutes], 'an ambassador'.<br /><br />As for the five words for 'mind', they are clearly the equivalents of [hauna, mad'a, re'yana, mahshebhatha, tar'itha], named by Theodore bar Khoni as the Five Shekhinas, or Dwellings, or Manifestations, of the Father of Greatness, the title by which the Manichaeans spoke of the ultimate Source of Light."</blockquote>
<br />A brief review of Mancheism seems appropriate at this point, generously supplied by Wikipedia:<br /><br />
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"Manichaeism was a major Gnostic religion that was founded by the Iranian prophet Mani (c. 216–276 AD) in the Sasanian Empire.<br /><br />Manichaeism taught an elaborate dualistic cosmology describing the struggle between a good, spiritual world of light, and an evil, material world of darkness. Through an ongoing process which takes place in human history, light is gradually removed from the world of matter and returned to the world of light whence it came. Its beliefs were based on local Mesopotamian gnostic and religious movements.<br /><br />Manichaeism was quickly successful and spread far through the Aramaic-Syriac speaking regions. It thrived between the third and seventh centuries, and at its height was one of the most widespread religions in the world. Manichaean churches and scriptures existed as far east as China and as far west as the Roman Empire. It was briefly the main rival to Christianity in the competition to replace classical paganism. <br /><br />Manichaeism survived longer in the East than in the West, and it appears to have finally faded away after the 14th century in southern China, contemporary to the decline in China of the Church of the East – see Ming Dynasty. While most of Mani's original writings have been lost, numerous translations and fragmentary texts have survived.<br /><br />An adherent of Manichaeism is called, especially in older sources, a Manichee, or more recently Manichaean. By extension, the term "manichean" is widely applied (often disparagingly) as an adjective to a philosophy or attitude of moral dualism, according to which a moral course of action involves a clear (or simplistic) choice between good and evil, or as a noun to people who hold such a view."</blockquote>
<br />Going on with Thomas:<br /><br />
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"And when they were sealed, there appeared unto them a youth holding a lighted torch, so that their lamps became dim at the approach of the light thereof. And he went forth and was no more seen of them. And the apostle said unto the Lord: <br /><br />"Thy light, O Lord, is not to be contained by us, and we are not able to bear it, for it is too great for our sight."<br /><br />And when the dawn came and it was morning, he brake bread and made them partakers of the eucharist of the Christ. And they were glad and rejoiced.<br /><br />And many others also, believing, were added to them, and came into the refuge of the Saviour. . . .<br /><br />"Take no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Remember also that word of him of whom I spake: Look at the ravens and see the fowls of the heaven, that they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and God dispenseth unto them; how much more unto you, O ye of little faith?" </blockquote>
<br />[Sidebar: notice that the image here, of the ravens, is almost identical to parallel speeches appearing in Matthew and Luke, to whit: <br /><br /><b>Matthew 6: 25-30</b><br />
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“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?"</blockquote>
<br /><b>Luke 12:27-28</b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"27 “Consider how the wildflowers grow: They don’t labor or spin thread. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was adorned like one of these! 28 If that’s how God clothes the grass, which is in the field today and is thrown into the furnace tomorrow, how much more will He do for you—you of little faith?"</blockquote>
<br />This is not the only story in Thomas or, indeed, some of the other Gnostic Gospels, which is precisely analogous to passages in the accepted Gospels. <br /><br />Going on:]<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"But look ye for his coming and have your hope in him and believe on his name. For he is the judge of quick and dead, and he giveth to every one according to their deeds, and at his coming and his latter appearing no man hath any word of excuse when he is to be judged by him, as though he had not heard. For his heralds do proclaim in the four quarters of the world." </blockquote>
<br />[Sidebar: We, at the Basin Bible Church, have proclaimed this principle more than once--that IGNORANCE IS NOT AN EXCUSE! Jesus often said, "ye with ears to hear", as an invitation to look around and get a load of what's going on! This warning: "at his coming and his latter appearing no man hath any word of excuse when he is to be judged by him" is worth heeding in any philosophy. And if the trumpets play as loud in heaven as they do on earth it is going to be hard to miss that message.<br /><br />Going on:]<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Repent ye, therefore, and believe the promise and receive the yoke of meekness and the light burden, that ye may live and not die. These things get, these keep. Come forth of the darkness that the light may receive you! Come unto him that is indeed good, that ye may receive grace of him and implant his sign in your souls."</blockquote>
<br />I believe that too much emphasis is placed on the authenticity of these ancient texts, on EXACTLY WHO wrote WHAT. It is easy to imagine that a speech as memorable and pithy as the "lilies of the field speech" might be sustained in pristine form, for some length of time, by oral tradition--certainly long enough to be written down by some Gnostic author, 200 years after the fact. Therefore, if analogous passages to the accepted Gospels appear in the Gnostic gospels, why should we doubt the legitimacy of other more obscure and difficult passages, if they ring true? For me, the question was never "were these words written and spoken by the people we are told wrote and spoke them, but : "do the words ring true?" <br /><br />I have a truth meter inside me which I turn on when I'm assessing the quality of a piece of music. The meter turns itself on automatically, and I keep the instrument focused down to a very fine sensitivity resolution. I can tell the truth of a piece of music pretty reliably. So too, can we all learn to turn our own philosophical truth meters on, to assess the truth of the words we read in whatever language, from whatever culture. The super intelligence of Jesus is an umbrella over-arching all these cultural and linguistic differences, merging them all into a single essence of truth, a truth whose light radiates outward from whatever source it comes from; moreover, since it comes from all sources, we can experience the truth radiating abundantly all around us and through us, if we only pay attention. <br /><br />* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * <br /><br />The <i>3rd Act of Thomas</i> is the story of <i>The Young Man and the Demon</i>. The story begins with Thomas sleeping among his followers, at the camp that was chosen for the King's baptism. In a dream, Thomas is directed to go to a certain other spot, some distance away. He does this, and discovers the body of a young man lying dead in the road. Immediately he prays this prayer:<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"O Lord, the judge of quick and dead, of the quick that stand by and the dead that lie here, and master and father of all things; and father not only of the souls that are in bodies but of them that have gone forth of them, for of the souls also that are in bodies thou art lord and judge; come thou at this hour wherein I call upon thee and show forth thy glory upon him that lieth here. And he turned himself unto them that followed him and said: This thing is not come to pass without cause, but the enemy hath effected it and brought it about that he may assault us thereby; and see ye that he hath not made use of another sort, nor wrought through any other creature save that which is his subject."</blockquote>
<br />Here Thomas refers to "the enemy", whom we immediately identify as Satan; but he also sort of implies some ground rules for the following encounter--by saying the enemy has not done this "through any other creature save that which is his subject," he is saying that Satan has dominion over a certain kind of entity. The implication, realized momentarily, is that Thomas also comes armed with the weapons of HIS master, Jesus Christ.<br /><br />As Thomas considers the various options available to him, out of the bushes comes an ugly stinky Dragon. Thomas questions the dragon, and, at first the dragon attempts to justify his murderous deed with karmic logic:<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I will tell before thee the cause wherefore I slew this man, since thou art come hither for that end, to reprove my works. And the apostle said: Yea, say on. And the serpent: There is a certain beautiful woman in this village over against us; and as she passed by me (or my place) I saw her and was enamoured of her, and I followed her and kept watch upon her; and I found this youth kissing her, and he did other shameful acts with her: and for me it was easy to declare them before thee, for I know that thou art the twin brother of the Christ and always abolishest our nature (Syr. easy for me to say, but to thee I do not dare to utter them because I know that the ocean-flood of the Messiah will destroy our nature): but because I would not affright her, I slew him not at that time, but waited for him till he passed by in the evening and smote and slew him, and especially because he adventured to do this upon the Lord's day."</blockquote>
<br />[Sidebar: It's interesting that the demon, even with the fruits of his labor lying dead in the road, attempts to justify his murderous act with Old Testament logic. Remember that the most brilliant of all intelligences is that of Satan--he maintains, <br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"it is only fair that wrong is answered with wrong, that an eye is given for an eye, and the death is the just consequence of an insult." </blockquote>
<br />These are all trains of logic which Satan is very familiar with, and with which he will attempt to ensnare us every time.<br /><br />The next section of the dragon's speech is highly dramatic and highly rhetorical, and looks forward to the famous speech of Satan, in Paradise Lost by John Milton. Notice, at the beginning of this long, involved, violent Satanic monologue, the spirit first speaks of himself as the son of Satan, (he never uses the name Satan but we infer it from the narrative bits that follow); but about halfway down, we begin to hear Satan himself speaking through the demon, now a mouthpiece for the greatest deceiver. It is not precisely accurate to say that the voice of the demon is replaced by the voice of Satan, because it clearly says that it was sent by his father--however, it does say he speaks with his father's voice. This is clearly an example of how demons may actually possess each other. We saw an example of this in C.S. Lewis' <i>Perelandra</i>, where the body of the evil scientist carries the intelligence of Satan, incarnate, to a distant planet.<br /><br />Going on:]<br /><br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"And the apostle inquired of him, saying: Tell me of what seed and of what race thou art." <br /><br />32 And he said unto him: <br /><br />I am a reptile of the reptile nature and noxious son of the noxious father: of him that hurt and smote the four brethren which stood upright, the fours elements. I am son to him that sitteth on a throne over all the earth that receiveth back his own from them that borrow: I am son to him that girdeth about the sphere: and I am kin to him that is outside the ocean, whose tail is set in his own mouth:"</blockquote>
<br />[Sidebar: This is where the transition from minion to Satan himself is effected:]<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I am he that entered through the barrier (fence) into paradise and spake with Eve the things which my father bade me speak unto her: <br /><br />I am he that kindled and inflamed Cain to kill his own brother, and on mine account did thorns and thistles grow up in the earth: <br /><br />I am he that cast down the angels from above and bound them in lusts after women, that children born of earth might come of them and I might work my will in them:"</blockquote>
<br />[Sidebar: I'm sure that Al Rothfuss will appreciate the foregoing comment about women, because it clearly suggests a picture of fallen angels mating with earthly females and producing infernal offspring.<br /><br />Going on:]<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I am he that hardened Pharaoh's heart that he should slay the children of Israel and enslave them with the yoke of cruelty: <br /><br />I am he that caused the multitude to err in the wilderness when they made the calf: <br /><br />I am he that inflamed Herod and enkindled Caiaphas unto false accusation of a lie before Pilate; for this was fitting to me: <br /><br />I am he that stirred up Judas and bribed him to deliver up the Christ:" </blockquote>
<br />[Sidebar: Notice that this detail, contrary to the Gospel of Judas, upholds the conventional wisdom that Judas was a traitor. So many versions of the story--which to choose? which to choose?<br /><br />Going on:]<br /><br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I am he that inhabiteth and holdeth the deep of hell, <br /><br />but the Son of God hath wronged me, against my will, and taken them that were his own from me: I am kin to him that is to come from the east, unto whom also power is given to do what he will upon the earth."</blockquote>
<br /><br />After listening to this speech Thomas pulls out the Jesus card, and commands the Dragon to put its teeth back in the poor boy and withdraw the poison that he injected into the boy to kill him. At first the demon refuses, but somehow Thomas gets him to do it, and, when he does, the boy comes back to life and the demon explodes like a burst bladder.<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"33 And when that serpent had spoken these things in the hearing of all the people, the apostle lifted up his voice on high and said: Cease thou henceforth, O most shameless one, and be put to confusion and die wholly, for the end of thy destruction is come, and dare not to tell of what thou hast done by them that have become subject unto thee. And I charge thee in the name of that Jesus who until now contendeth with you for the men that are his own, that thou suck out thy venom which thou hast put into this man, and draw it forth and take it from him. <br /><br />But the serpent said: Not yet is the end of our time come as thou hast said. Wherefore compellest thou me to take back that which I have put into this man, and to die before my time? for mine own father, when he shall draw forth and suck out that which he hath cast into the creation, then shall his end come. <br /><br />And the apostle said unto him: <br /><br />"Show, then, now the nature of thy father." <br /><br />And the serpent came near and set his mouth upon the wound of the young man and sucked forth the gall out of it. And by little and little the colour of the young man which was as purple, became white, but the serpent swelled up. <br /><br />And when the serpent had drawn up all the gall into himself, the young man leapt up and stood, and ran and fell at the apostle's feet: but the serpent being swelled up, burst and died, and his venom and gall were shed forth; and in the place where his venom was shed there came a great gulf, and that serpent was swallowed up therein. <br /><br />And the apostle said unto the king and his brother: <br /><br />"Take workmen and fill up that place, and lay foundations and build houses upon them, that it may be a dwelling-place for strangers."</blockquote>
<br />I love this picture of Thomas ordering the demon to suck out the poison from his victim, which then causes the demon to explode. It goes back to the principle of the Armor of God. The Armor of God has not only the power to protect us from demonic influence, but it can become a sword of God, to attack and defeat the minions of Satan who always crowd around us whenever we do anything good. Remember also that Thomas is not Jesus--Thomas is not the Messiah, but he does share in the Christ consciousness and therefore is able to share in the Christ power to defeat evil. The demon's weapons are infernal, and wield the power of the fallen angel, but Thomas' power comes from God, clearly the stronger power. It just goes to show that, in the battle of good against evil, it does not pay to join up with the weaker side. <br /><br />In conclusion, it can readily be seen that this act of Thomas is laced with nuggets of insight and comfort. We have the beautiful prayer of baptism, elevating the ceremonial resonance of that event to a very high level by invoking the Divine Presence:<br /><br />
<blockquote>
"Come, thou holy name of the Christ that is above every name.<br />Come, thou power of the Most High, and the compassion that is perfect.<br />Come, gift of the Most High."</blockquote>
<br />(In this prayer we encounter a worthy model for all prayer, equivalent to the Lord's Prayer); we have the reiteration of the "lilies of the field speech", which, historically, has demonstrated such magnificent staying power over the minds of Christian initiates; and we have insight by way of a comparison between Infernal Power and the Armor of God, or, in the case of the apostle's power over the demon, the SWORD of God. <br /><br />I find these insights, and these fresh stories of Apostolic Miracles, to be energizing. I love what I perceive to be a kind of internal innocence in these texts. The joy of discovery seems to radiate great beams of wonder onto my mind; and my heart is warmed and reassured as I receive this spiritual food, and, in Holy Communion, join in this sacrament of praise.<br /><br />Let us pray: Jesus, we are blessed by these stories of the Christ impulse surging through the world of then and the world of now. We thank you for the blessings which come from You, only You, and kiss the Face, the articulated Face of God. Amen.<br />Richard Freeman-Toolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03480701171151843224noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6082284124238685067.post-15865751682770329812014-09-29T08:05:00.000-07:002014-09-29T08:05:04.353-07:0017-Introduction to Thomas - Act 1, Act 2<h2>
17-Introduction to Thomas - Act 1, Act 2</h2>
<br />I was made aware that there would be visitors here this morning, so I felt it necessary to do a little catch-up review. In my recent sermons I have presented certain principles, in long chains of logical sequences, creating a certain point of reference; therefore, an understanding of some of the things I will be saying today, depends on a familiarity with some of these previously presented concepts. To whit:<br /><br />About two months ago, having gone through some major philosophical digressions about ecstasy and death, I had just decided to get back to the Bible, and embark on a survey of the <i>Acts of the Apostles</i>; however in the very first chapter, I noticed a discrepancy: in <i>Acts</i>, Judas' death is described as taking place in a field, where his guts burst open. Of course, we know that, in the Synoptic Gospels, Judas hangs himself. Whassup wit dat? So, I got curious about Judas. Then I stumbled onto this whole big a library of so-called Gnostic Gospels, not all of which are actually Gnostic, but all of which are texts which were either rejected by the 4th century Nicene Authority, or that were discovered within the last 150 years most of them in the 20th century and some of them as recently as 2007.<br /><br />As I familiarize myself with the Gnostic Gospels, and the principles of Gnosticism, I have come more and more to realize what we are actually talking about: we are talking about an intersection between the Historical Jesus and the Mythologized Jesus. Although it is well understood that the very moment in which Jesus shed His blood upon the ground for all mankind--that very instant--was a turning point in history; a moment too short to name, but which, nevertheless, changed the flow of events down the river of time forever. The pantheism of primitive man became doomed to extinction, and a God with a Human face was born. The ancient wisdom, which deplored earthly life and looked forward to the life everlasting as the ultimate spiritual goal, was replaced with a new idea--the idea of heaven on Earth. Jesus inaugurated this idea, here nicely expressed by Rudolf Steiner:<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"When the apparently worthless in our existence is taken hold of by the spiritual, it is resurrected in a degree more perfect than before and is spiritually embodied. Nothing in existence is really worthless because it rises again if the spirit has entered into it aright."</blockquote>
<br />Indeed, God is in everything, the earth the sky, the stars, but now the God has a personality which He extends to us as a model and a mold. As to the passing by of two historical eras, Steiner says this:<br /><br />
<blockquote>
"In our period of evolution two streams of spiritual life are at work. One of them is the stream of wisdom, or the Buddha stream, containing the most sublime teaching of wisdom, goodness of heart and peace on earth. To enable this teaching of Buddha to permeate the hearts of all men, the Christ impulse is indispensable. The second stream is the Christ stream itself that will lead humanity from intellectuality, by way of aesthetic feeling and insight, to morality."</blockquote>
<br />Thus, the Christ Consciousness, experienced as a MORAL impulse, is the power that can transform Hell into Heaven. Now, even though the essential change was instantaneous, it took several centuries for this change to gather momentum, in the minds of the people, and influence the culture to a degree to which an appreciably different quality could be discerned in the collective unconscious. During this time of growth, those two to three hundred years, many things happened to translate the History of what happened into the Myth of what happened, and, hence, into a Literature of culturally held Philosophic/Religious principles.<br /><br />As we know, history never happens in stepwise motion, it always evolves in gradual, slowly morphing, circular transitions, from one state to another. So, the charm of the Gnostic gospels, and of Gnosticism in general, especially Christian Gnosticism, is in its paradox: the apparent contradictions between certain dogmatic items in the two philosophies. At first glance, these contradictions threaten to cancel each other out, but, on closer inspection, we find that the disagreements are not fundamental, they are incidental--furthermore they are disagreements in transit. By this I mean: the Christian Gnostics represent an historical blending of two philosophies as the older, primitive, pantheistic philosophy morphs into the newly enlightened Christian age, in which the incarnation of God, as the Christ, becomes available to us, to enrich our lives, and to help us along a path toward ever more defined person-ness, and higher, ever higher, levels of consciousness. <br /><br />As we study the Gnostic Gospels we witness the primitive, pantheistic, inarticulate Gnostic God, infusing Himself with the newly transformed personality of the Christ. Indeed it is fair to say that during the 200 years after Jesus' death (sic), there was a kind of a passing of the torch from the old to the new. Several general characteristics of the Gnostic Gospels consistently exemplify this idea, for instance: many of the things in the Gnostic Gospels, certainly in the Judas gospel, include Genesis-like descriptions of the beginning of the universe, and so on, which are not precisely in sync with our normal Old Testament readings. Heavenly hierarchies are described in majorly Old Testament language, which clearly look backwards, toward an older, more primitive world view.<br /><br />Additionally, the Gnostic Gospels tend to portray the character of Jesus in unprecedented ways; the Gnostic portrayals of Jesus are mostly consistent with the synoptic Gospels, but they also contain reports of occasional outlandishly-eccentric behaviors, the like of which do not appear in any of the accepted gospels. Examples of Jesus' outlandish behavior include His laughter, (nowhere in the accepted Bible does Jesus laugh--He weeps, but He doesn't laugh), His disapparition, (He comes and goes mysteriously, disappearing sometimes in the middle of a conversation), and, (the most outlandish action of all), at one point, He actually sells Thomas into slavery. These, if not shocking, are certainly surprising behaviors, which parallel some of the actions of Krishna, in the Mahabarata.<br /><br />Thus, as the ancient idea of earthly life as a veil of tears from which we gladly escape, morphs into something new, with Jesus' message of Heaven on Earth, we witness, throughout Gnostic Gospels the growth of an idea, planted and watered by Jesus, (as mentioned in Judas), flowering into an era of hope, discovery, and worldly celebration.<br /><br />A scene illustrating the passing of one era into another, appears in C.S. Lewis' <i>Till We Have Faces</i>. In this scene a temple is described in which are situated two statues, representations of a lower and a higher goddess. The lower goddess, Ungit, is a great, round stone, of no particular shape; as the blood offerings trickle down its sides, the observer may see a face, or faces, or no face in the uninflected gray. The higher goddess is a white marble Grecian statue, beautiful, articulate, focused. A peasant woman has just come in and said prayers to Ungit, the lower goddess, and, as she is leaving, the the onlooking queen stops her:<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Has Ungit comforted you, child" I asked.<br /> "Oh yes, Queen" said the woman, her face almost brightening, "Oh yes. Ungit has given me great comfort. There's no goddess like Ungit."<br /> "Do you always pray to that Ungit," said I (nodding toward the shapeless stone), "and not to that?" here I nodded towards our new image, standing tall and straight in her robes and (whatever the Fox might say of it) the loveliest thing our land has ever seen.<br /> "Oh, always this, Queen," said she. "That other, the Greek Ungit, she wouldn't understand my speech. She's only for nobles and learned men. There's no comfort in her." </blockquote>
<br />The representations in this temple are very different faces of a single goddess, different phases (note the word "phases")--I say, the representations in this temple are very different faces of a single goddess, different phases of a single identity. Although the outer forms of these two opposing representations are quite unlike each other, they both tend toward the same spiritual essence, even though it must be emphasized that the ARTICULATED form is the one that is finally accessible to all who embrace the new age. Some people need the old gods for comfort; they don't know what they are missing.<br /><br />So, with these words, let us now proceed to the <i>Gospel of Thomas</i>.<br /><br />This is the most popular, and longest of the Gnostic Gospels. It is also more like the Synoptic Gospels than the other Gnostic Gospels, with some significant differences. This is taken from an internet article, <b>Where did the Gospel of Thomas come from?</b><br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"The spirituality in the Gospel of Thomas is a form of early Christian mysticism. It was a contemplative type of Christianity that grew in Syria as well as Alexandria. The idea was that each person had the choice to grow into God's Image or to remain stunted due to Adam's decision. If the person chose to grow, then the divinization process was gradual and included not only ritual activities like baptism and eucharist, but also instructional and contemplative activities. Part of the process then was living as Jesus lived - it was imitative. The other part was contemplating who and where Jesus was. This contemplative life led to heavenly (or interiorized) journeys and visions of God. Eventually the faithful would become like Jesus, replacing their fallen image with the image of God. This contemplative Christianity is not heretical, but an early form of eastern orthodoxy! . . .<br /><br />This gospel understands Jesus to be a charismatic figure. By this I mean, Jesus continues to live in their community even after he has died. His spirit continues to speak to this community of faithful, and they continue to record his teachings. They do not appear to have made any distinction between the "historical" Jesus before death and the "spirit" Jesus after death, at least in terms of authority or historicity of his words. The Jesus that emerges in the Gospel of Thomas is not entirely foreign to the New Testament portrayals, particularly as we see him emerge in the Gospel of John - but also, as we see him in Mark, teaching publicly to the crowds and privately his mysteries to a few close followers." </blockquote>
<br />[Sidebar: In the accepted Gospels, Jesus is OCCASIONALLY depicted with a single disciple, off to the side, giving personal, exclusive, advice and insight. In the Gnostic Gospels Jesus is nearly ALWAYS depicted that way. Each Gnostic Gospel's author seems to have been singled out by Jesus for some distinct quality or other, and given an anomalous, personal message. This action may violate our democratic sense of fair play and equality, however, it is not untrue that all men are UNequal. The hierarchical division of the cosmos into levels, in the Gnostic Gospels, is paralleled by the idea that every created soul inhabits an absolutely unique place in the cosmic hierarchy.<br /><br />Back to <b>Where did the Gospel of Thomas come from?</b>:<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"His message is either similar to the New Testament Jesus, or contiguous with him. He teaches against carnality and succumbing to bodily desire. He's an advocate for celibacy. He preaches that the Kingdom of God is here, that people must make a choice whether to enter it or not, that this choice requires an exclusive commitment to him and God, that the going is tough and few will be able to make it. He demands a lifestyle of righteous living, promises rewards including personal transformation and revelation."</blockquote>
<br /> So, the book is called the <i>Gospel of Thomas</i>, though it is sometimes called the <i>Acts of Thomas</i>, or The <i>Acts of Judas Thomas</i>. The <i>Acts of Judas Thomas</i>, are a group of tales--each act is a discrete story, which may have one or two miracles involved in it. Today we will explore the first two acts.<br /><br />The first act is a two-part story, so beautifully told, in the book, I really hate to vulgarize it with a prosaic summary; but I just can't read out the whole thing, it would take too long, so, in order to focus on the more spiritually meaningful sections, we must sacrifice some of the elegant, narrative details.<br /><br />The thing begins with Jesus: the Jesus who hung around after His resurrection to give the Apostles some final instructions before sending them out into the world with the Good News. There are many people who think that Jesus remained physically incarnated and physically active for some time after his resurrection, and continued to teach and direct the disciples into their various missionary objectives. In just such a missionary assignment, Thomas was chosen to go to India. Thomas didn't want to go, he refused to go, so Jesus simply sold Thomas, as a slave, to this merchant who was in the market for a carpenter capable of building a palace for his master, a king of India. So Thomas, kind of like Jonah, found himself on a boat bound for someplace he didn't really want to go.<br /><br />So, the ship travels around the horn, through the gulf of Aden, into the Arabian Sea, and lands in a coastal city of India. The King of that city has just proclaimed that there will be a great marriage feast, because his daughter is getting married. Everybody in town is expected to attend this big party, and Thomas and his new master, the Merchant, decide to go to the feast, so that the King will not be offended.<br /><br />At the wedding feast Thomas is just sitting there, stoically, not doing anything, when this busboy comes up and slaps him in the face, because he is not doing anything, eating, or drinking, or celebrating. Thomas takes this the slap in the face, then he says, <br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"My God will forgive thee in the life to come this iniquity, but in this world thou shalt show forth his wonders and even now shall I behold this hand that hath smitten me dragged by dogs." </blockquote>
<br />Of course, he was speaking the Hebrew language, and nobody there understood what he was saying, except this flute player. There was this girl flute player, entertaining at the party, going from group to group, playing for them; she happened to be standing next to Thomas when the cup-bearer struck him. Since she was also Jewish, she understood the Hebrew that Thomas spoke, so she understood what happened later. The plot thickens:<br /><br />Presently, this cup-bearer goes outside to the well, to get more water, and there he encounters a lion; the lion tears him to pieces and leaves him lying on the ground, where the town dogs fight over his flesh. One of the dogs picks up a severed hand in his teeth, and walks into the marriage ceremony, like dogs do, saying, "Look at me! Look at the prize I've got in my mouth! Yummy!" <br /><br />So when the flute player sees this, she announces to the party at hand that Thomas has performed a miracle of prophecy. Some of them believe that he has, and some don't. But, in any case, word of this reaches the King, and the King sends for this doer of miracles to pronounce a blessing on his daughter on her wedding night. Thomas follows, it says, <i><b>unwillingly</b></i>.<br /><br />I'm interested in the detail that mentions that Thomas goes to see the king unwillingly. One wonders why he was unwilling. Perhaps he just didn't want to be told what to do, and thus be diverted from his mission to go with the merchant to build a palace for this OTHER King; or it may have been something like when Jesus turned water into wine--remember He chastises His mother for making Him do what it wasn't quite time to do, ("Woman My hour is not yet come."); perhaps Thomas was unwilling because he knew that the truth of what he had to say might change the children's lives, and cause the father to take revenge on him, or detain him, which almost happened. <br /><br />How many of us are unwilling witnesses? How often do we allow ourselves stick out, in a society in which spirituality is not openly spoken of, in which spirituality is not part of normal daily conversation? How many times have we made reference to it, in informal conversation, and watched the conversation freeze in embarrassment, or in a paroxysm of complex of emotional responses. Certainly, in the academic world, mention of anything spiritual, or even nonscientific, is expressly taboo. It is the rare person who is willing to take the risk of speaking out, in a social context in which the word "religion" may ignite a tinder box of preset prejudicial reactions. So, an unwilling witness is really a hero, because nobody wants to stick his neck out, but we know we must be willing to do it anyway. Let us not forget that the unwilling witness is the most effective proselytizer of them all, because he witnesses only when the Spirit is present and decrees, through divine intervention, that an act of primordial significance must be performed.<br /><br />Going on.<br /><br />When Thomas meets the bride and groom at their home, he speaks the following prayer; the prayer is a song of praise to God in His manifold manifestations, and it has a structure and poetic feel similar to that of the Rig Vedas:<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"'My Lord and MY God, that travellest with thy servants, that guidest and correctest them that believe in thee, the refuge and rest of the oppressed, the hope of the poor and ransomer of captives, the physician of the souls that lie sick and saviour of all creation, that givest life unto the world and strengthenest souls; thou knowest things to come, and by our means accomplishest them: thou Lord art he that revealeth hidden mysteries and maketh manifest words that are secret: thou Lord art the planter of the good tree, and of thine hands are all good works engendered: thou Lord art he that art in all things and passest through all, and art set in all thy works and manifested in the working of them all. Jesus Christ, Son of compassion and perfect saviour, Christ, Son of the living God, the undaunted power that hast overthrown the enemy, and the voice that was heard of the rulers, and made all their powers to quake, the ambassador that wast sent from the height and camest down even unto hell, who didst open the doors and bring up thence them that for many ages were shut up in the treasury of darkness, and showedst them the way that leadeth up unto the height: l beseech thee, Lord Jesu, and offer unto thee supplication for these young persons, that thou wouldest do for them the things that shall help them and be expedient and profitable for them.'<br /><br />And he laid his hands on them and said: The Lord shall be with you, and left them in that place and departed."</blockquote>
<br />The story goes on:<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"And the king desired the groomsmen to depart out of the bride-chamber; and when all were gone out and the doors were shut, the bridegroom lifted up the curtain of the bride-chamber to fetch the bride unto him. And he saw the Lord Jesus bearing the likeness of Judas Thomas and speaking with the bride; even of him that but now had blessed them and gone out from them, the apostle; and he saith unto him: Wentest thou not out in the sight of all? how then art thou found here? But the Lord said to him: I am not Judas which is also called Thomas but I am his brother. And the Lord sat down upon the bed and bade them also sit upon chairs, and began to say unto them:<br /><br />"Remember, my children, what my brother spake unto you and what he delivered before you: and know this, that if ye abstain from this foul intercourse, ye become holy temples, pure, being quit of impulses and pains, seen and unseen, . . ."</blockquote>
<br />[At this point there is a long diatribe against carnal knowledge, and the many disastrous consequences of having children. <br /><br />Going on:]<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"But if ye be persuaded and keep your souls chaste before God, there will come unto you living children whom these carnal blemishes touch not, and ye shall be without care, leading a tranquil life without grief or anxiety, looking to receive that incorruptible and true marriage, and ye shall be therein groomsmen entering into that bride-chamber which is full of immortality and light."</blockquote>
<br />And when the young people heard these things, they believed the Lord and gave themselves up unto him, and abstained from foul desire and continued so, passing the night in that place. And the Lord departed from before them, saying thus: The grace of the Lord shall be with you."<br /><br />After this, the bride and the groom are so moved by Thomas' sermon, and the first-hand experience of Jesus the Christ, that they decide not to get married and to remain celibate. They both make speeches to the king:<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"And the bride answered and said: Verily, father, I am in great love, and I pray my Lord that the love which I have perceived this night may abide with me, and I will ask for that husband of whom I have learned to-day: and therefore I will no more veil myself, because the mirror (veil) of shame is removed from me; and therefore am I no more ashamed or abashed, because the deed of shame and confusion is departed far from me; and that I am not confounded, it is because my astonishment hath not continued with me; and that I am in cheerfulness and joy, it is because the day of my joy hath not been troubled; and that I have set at nought this husband and this marriage that passeth away from before mine eyes, it is because I am joined in another marriage; and that I have had no intercourse with a husband that is temporal, whereof the end is with lasciviousness and bitterness of soul, it is because I am yoked unto a true husband."</blockquote>
<br />[Sidebar: Reflection on celibacy:<br /><br />Celibacy affirms a basic principle of Gnosticism, in its favoring of the spiritual body over the physical body. In the speech to the bride and bridegroom Jesus makes reference to "foul desires". Foul desires can only mean what Freud called primitive consciousness, and what the Hindus would called lower chakra consciousness. So celibacy is one more article in the Gnostic doctrine which denies the reality of a Heaven on Earth; it says Heaven is not possible if earthly desire is part of the package, even though earthly desires occupy most of us most of the time. <br /><br />Many religious disciplines promote celibacy, for instance the Catholic Church; notice that the comments of the bride sound a lot like the type of vows that a nun might make on entering a convent. Catholic priests, nuns, and monks are supposed to be celibate, (although of course many of them aren't); the purpose of celibacy is to enable the devotee to give him-her-self totally, mind and body, to God.<br /><br />In kundalini yoga, celibacy is demanded, because the life force of kundalini is intimately related to sexual impulses, or, that is to say, primal energy. It is thought that wasting this precious life force on sex, when you could be directing it toward achieving enlightenment, is a sin against your own spiritual progress. Remember that boxers don't have sex before a fight, because sex drains them of the power to go the distance. The total celibacy so uncompromisingly spoken of here, is not a new recommendation; indeed, it must be remembered that this recommendation is for the special Elect of God, and not necessarily for the layman, whose responsibility it is to replenish the earth.<br /><br />In the preceding paragraph I made reference to the "Elect of God". Is there such a thing, or is this a choice we all make--whether to be included in the Elect of God or not, to go the distance or not? Can it really be said that any one of us is not the Elect of God, or would choose NOT to become the Elect of God. Can there actually be levels of religious devotion acceptable in the sight of God? As we have seen, in ALL the gospels, Jesus' ministry to His disciples was very personalized--each disciple received his own special insights, and his own special blessings. Can it possibly be that Jesus accepts each one of us, each of us having ever, ever, ever so slightly different graduated niches in the hierarchy of the cosmos? We must admit that upward and downward mobility in this hierarchy is a feature of its construction, but the idea, that each one of us might be on a different plane, is somewhat mind-boggling, but also somewhat clarifying.<br /><br />Jesus' commentary on celibacy sounds a lot like Shakespeare. As such, it is not only suggesting a strongly Gnostic perspective, it is also very rhetorical. This rhetorical aspect is one of the things that weakens the impact of the message here, in terms of making us believe that Jesus would actually say this. To me, this section does not sound as much like Jesus, as lots of the other places in the Gnostic Gospels. That may be because I'm not especially in favor of celibacy, but it also might be because this section, more than other sections in the Gospels, seems to be preaching a dogmatic principle, an action which is at odds with the typically free-and-unfettered-through-grace philosophy of Jesus. If He were a teacher of Kundalini yoga, as many people think He was, then he might be preaching absolute celibacy for all worthy travelers on the spiritual path. Nevertheless, as I was saying, the rhetorical aspect makes Him seem more like a character in a play, especially if we think of the character participating in the "Play of the Prince and the Princess". Also, once again perhaps this whole speech should be thought of as a personal message to those two kids, a message which may not be intended to be universally applicable. At least that's what I would like to think.<br /><br />This speech of the bride to her father is of interest, not only because it expounds the many virtues of celibacy and the deplores evils of carnal reproduction, (to say the least), but because it also includes a rhapsodic love song to God. Perhaps this humble bride is a good example for all of us; perhaps there is a lesson here about where we all should be placing our most high affections. <br /><br />The bridegroom has this to say:]<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"And while the bride was saying yet more than this, the bridegroom answered and said: I give thee thanks, O Lord, that hast been proclaimed by the stranger, and found in us; who hast removed me far from corruption and sown life in me; who hast rid me of this disease that is hard to be healed and cured and abideth for ever, and hast implanted sober health in me; who hast shown me thyself and revealed unto me all my state wherein I am; who hast redeemed me from falling and led me to that which is better, and set me free from temporal things and made me worthy of those that are immortal and everlasting; that hast made thyself lowly even down to me and my littleness, that thou mayest present me unto thy greatness and unite me unto thyself; who hast not withheld thine own bowels from me that was ready to perish, but hast shown me how to seek myself and know who I was, and who and in what manner I now am, that I may again become that which I was: whom I knew not, but thyself didst seek me out: of whom I was not aware, but thyself hast taken me to thee: whom I have perceived, and now am not able to be unmindful of him: whose love burneth within me, and I cannot speak it as is fit, but that which I am able to say of it is little and scanty, and not fitly proportioned unto his glory: yet he blameth me not that presume to say unto him even that which I know not: for it is because of his love that I say even this much."</blockquote>
<br />These speeches of the bride and the bridegroom are a manifesto of dissatisfaction with earthly relationships, and set up a very high spiritual goal for the soul. Now, it must be admitted that there is, lurking in the background of this speech, a very Gnostic idea: the bride and the bridegroom both appear to be affirming the superiority of spiritual existence, and degrading earthly experience. This would be a typical Gnostic interpretation of life, and, although we, as Christians, want to place our highest value on eternal things, we still, I reiterate one more time-- we still strive to experience and realize the eternal within the confines of the earthly realm.<br /><br />When all this comes down, the King sends out a group of soldiers to bring Thomas back to the city, to receive the thanks of the King; but Thomas has already set sail for India.<br /><br />The concluding scene in the first in the first act is very touching, because we find the flute girl (the girl who introduced Thomas to the men at the party, and through them the King), we find the flute girl lamenting. She is very sad because Thomas did not take her with him to India, but she goes to see the bride and the bridegroom, and they speak together of the message of Thomas, and through Thomas, Jesus, and they sort of begin the first Christian community in India. They successively bring in the father King, and then the rest of the town.<br /><br />It's a lovely story in the about the power of the mission, and it shows that you that an idea is like a virus--that the truth can be catching, and can spread through the minds of men like a wave. the message for us is one of witnessing. We should learn that, by standing our ground in social situations, where it might be embarrassing to proclaim our Christianity, we should, instead, stick to our convictions, and hold forth on some point or other which might bring the mediator ship of Jesus to the forefront. This might turn out to be an aggressive action pregnant with possible good ramifications.<br /><br />The second act of Thomas is a very charming story indeed. <br /><br />Thomas and the merchant arrive at the city of the employer of the merchant, The King who needs a palace built. Thomas goes to the King, and the King interviews him for the job--asks him about his qualifications. Thomas says, "Out of wood I can make pulleys, and plows, and yokes, etc., and I can make columns and palaces out of stone." The king hires Thomas for the job. <br /><br />So they go out in the country to this beautiful place where the palace should be built, and the King leaves Thomas there, and goes back to the city to wait for Thomas to build the palace.<br /><br />While Thomas is at it, he prays this elegant prayer:<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I thank thee O Lord in all things, that thou didst die for a little space that I might live for ever in thee, and that thou hast sold me that by me thou mightest set free many. And he ceased not to teach and to refresh the afflicted, saying: This hath the Lord dispensed unto you, and he giveth unto every man his food: for he is the nourisher of orphans and steward of the widows, and unto all that are afflicted he is relief and rest."</blockquote>
<br />So the King gives him a huge pile of cash for building the palace, for workers and materials, and such, and Thomas goes out into the countryside, performing miracles and distributing the money among the poor. The King sends again, "How's it going on the palace?" and Thomas says, "Almost done, just have to put on the roof." So the King sends more money, and it is once again distributed among the poor. When the King finally comes to the place, to see the palace there is nothing there. The King questions Thomas thus:<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Hast thou built me the palace? <br />And he said: Yea. <br />And the king said: When, then, shall we go and see it? but he answered him and said: Thou canst not see it now, but when thou departest this life, then thou shalt see it. And the king was exceeding wroth, and commanded both the merchant and Judas which is called Thomas to be put in bonds and cast into prison until he should inquire and learn unto whom the king's money had been given, and so destroy both him and the merchant."</blockquote>
<br />So the king is getting ready to flay Thomas and the Merchant alive when this subplot sneaks in: <br />At the same time all this palace-building is happening, the King's brother falls ill, and on the very same night that Thomas and the Merchant are locked up, the sick brother dies. He goes to heaven and the angels show him around looking for a place to live. During this tour of heaven, the brother comes upon the magnificent house that Thomas has built for the King and, immediately, he desires it. The angels say he can't have it, because it belongs to the King. Thomas has built the palace the King asked for, but he has built it in Heaven not on Earth. <br /><br />The brother instantly becomes enchanted with his house and wants it for himself, so, instead of dying he goes back, his body wakes up, says to his brother, "I want to buy this house that Thomas has built for you." When the King gets the idea, he refuses the brother's request:<br /><br />
<blockquote>
"Then the king considering the matter, understood it of those eternal benefits which should come to him and which concerned him, and said: That palace I cannot sell thee, but I pray to enter into it and dwell therein and to be accounted worthy of the inhabiters of it, but if thou indeed desirest to buy such a palace, lo, the man liveth and shall build thee one better than it." </blockquote>
<br />At the end of the episode, Thomas prays this prayer:<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"And the apostle, filled with joy, said: I praise thee, O Lord Jesu, that thou hast revealed thy truth in these men; for thou only art the God of truth, and none other, and thou art he that knoweth all things that are unknown to the most; thou, Lord, art he that in all things showest compassion and sparest men. For men by reason of the error that is in them have overlooked thee but thou hast not overlooked them. And now at mv supplication and request do thou receive the king and his brother and join them unto thy fold, cleansing them with thy washing and anointing them with thine oil from the error that encompasseth them: and keep them also from the wolves, bearing them into thy meadows. And give them drink out of thine immortal fountain which is neither fouled nor drieth up; for they entreat and supplicate thee and desire to become thy servants and ministers, and for this they are content even to be persecuted of thine enemies, and for thy sake to be hated of them and to be mocked and to die, like as thou for our sake didst suffer all these things, that thou mightest preserve us, thou that art Lord and verily the good shepherd. And do thou grant them to have confidence in thee alone, and the succour that cometh of thee and the hope of their salvation which they look for from thee alone; and that they may be grounded in thy mysteries and receive the perfect good of thy graces and gifts, and flourish in thy ministry and come to perfection in thy Father."</blockquote>
<br />In conclusion, these two acts of Thomas convey truths which are important for us to remember today, and which are consistent with any traditional interpretation of Christian doctrine. The idea of the unwilling witness is important; the responsibility of the initiated to witness, constitutes the brunt of the weight of the cross each one of us must bear. But, by far the most important point to remember is made in both of these first two <i>Acts of Thomas</i>: the story of the celibate devotee, saving his/her sexual energy for transport to God, and story of the palace built in Heaven for the life to come, are both glorifications of the spiritual, and remind us of the sentiments exposed this morning's call to worship:<br /><br /><b>Matthew 6:19-21</b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"19 Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."</blockquote>
<br />So once again, as we speak of the Gnostic Gospels bridging the gap between the historical Jesus and the mythologized Jesus, we are reminded of an eternal principle which surely has dominated man's spiritual strivings since time immemorial, then and now, principles which are very consistent with every principle taught by the accepted Gospels: we must put God first. Now, there's a thought.<br /><br />Let us pray. Jesus thank you for this testament to universal values. Thank you for appearing to us and yet more magnificent character portrayals, and thanks especially for passing on your knowledge and your power into the hearts and bodies of those who put their faith in you and rely on you for guidance and strength. Amen.<br /><br />Richard Freeman-Toolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03480701171151843224noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6082284124238685067.post-36900690487454359032014-09-07T16:47:00.000-07:002014-09-07T16:47:51.684-07:00 16 Intro to the Gospel of Judas - 3<h2>
16 Intro to the <i>Gospel of Judas</i> - 3</h2>
<br />As I familiarize myself with the Gnostic Gospels, and the principles of Gnosticism, I have come more and more to realize what we are actually talking about: we are talking about an intersection between the Historical Jesus and the Mythologized Jesus. Although it is well understood by all Christians, and especially by me, (via the Theosophy of Rudolf Steiner), that the very moment in which Jesus shed His blood upon the ground for all mankind--that very instant was a turning point in history; a moment too short to name, but which, nevertheless, changed the flow of events down the river of time forever. The essential change was instantaneous, and yet it took several centuries for this change to gather momentum, in the minds of the people, and influence the culture, to the degree to which an appreciably different quality could be discerned in the collective unconscious. During this time of growth, those two hundred years, many things happened to translate the History of what happened into a Literature of culturally held Philosophic/Religious principles. <br /><br />As we know, history never happens in stepwise motion, it always evolves in gradual, slowly morphing, circular transitions, from one state to another. So, the charm of the Gnostic gospels, and of Gnosticism in general, especially Christian Gnosticism, is in its paradox: the apparent contradictions between certain dogmatic items in the two philosophies. At first glance, these contradictions threaten to cancel out one another, but, on closer inspection, we find that the disagreements are not fundamental, they are incidental--furthermore they are disagreements in transit. By this I mean: the Christian Gnostics represent an historical blending of two philosophies as the older, primitive, pantheistic philosophy morphs into the newly enlightened Christian age, in which the incarnation of God, as the Christ, becomes available to us, to enrich our lives, and to help us along a path toward ever more defined person-ness, and higher, ever higher, levels of consciousness. Levels of consciousness, indeed, will turn out to be the ultimate theme of this sermon, although we will touch on many other side-issues along the way.<br /><br /><br />Now, the fact that the crucifixion of Jesus articulated an historical turning point, does not necessarily mean that, before the crucifixion, God was unavailable to, or invisible to, primitive man; (I say it does not NECESSARILY mean that); but it does appear to affirm a certain scenario, which I have encountered in a lot of new age philosophy--it has to do with the idea of spiritual identity:<br /><br />Consider the question of whether or not dogs have souls--Aristotle says, no--so does C.S.Lewis. Some say animals are reincarnated, and are graduated up the spiritual path, just like humans. But, some say that, although the spirit of a dog has no specific individual personal stamp, it does have an essential identity, i.e. "dog": hence, when the dog dies, the spirit of the dog goes back to this kind of pool of dog consciousness, all mixed up into one, big, undifferentiated vat of DOG. <br /><br />We human beings deplore the idea that we have no personal consciousness; indeed, it is a frightening, but not-impossible- to-believe thought, that I, myself, might some day disappear into an inarticulate vat of MAN GOO. Jesus has assured us that this will NOT happen, if we believe on Him. How so? Perhaps it is this: that Jesus' ceremonial sacrifice created the possibility that human beings might become individuated-- that Jesus' sponsorship of the world, made it so that all the followers who shared in His Christ-Consciousness, could, vicariously, (and eventually), come to share in His God-Consciousness: thus, making it possible for them to live out their future spiritual lives, on Earth and in Heaven, with the same static identity, the same personal quality, the same memories, the same distinctly articulated essence. This MIGHT be the precise meaning of the word "salvation": that, through Grace, we are allowed to continue to exist as a discrete focus of God-Consciousness, instead of returning to the fiery pit of chaos. To imagine that, before Jesus, all human souls disappeared, at their end, into an indiscriminate void, is the most frightening image of death I can think of; the thought of losing my individuality sends waves of panic down through my entire frame. And yet, with this terror looming before them, we suspect that nonbelievers, the people who choose not to call on Jesus, are condemning themselves to an eternal anonymity. Perhaps His sponsorship is the only passport to Eternity? Something of this is touched on in the passage taken from the <i>Gospel of Judas</i>, below:<br /><br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"The next morning, after this happened, Jesus appeared to his disciples again. They said to him, <br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Master, where did you go and what did you do when you left us?”</blockquote>
<br />Jesus said to them, <br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
“I went to another great and holy generation.”</blockquote>
<br />His disciples said to him, <br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Lord, what is the great generation that is superior to us and holier than us, that is not now in these realms?”</blockquote>
<br />When Jesus heard this, he laughed and said to them, <br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Why are you thinking in your hearts about the strong and holy generation? Truly I say to you, no one born of this aeon will see that generation, and no host of angels of the stars will rule over that generation, and no person of mortal birth can associate with it.”</blockquote>
<br />When his disciples heard this, they each were troubled in spirit. They could not say a word.<br /><br />Another day Jesus came up to them. They said to him, <br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Master, we have seen you in a vision, for we have had great dreams in the night. We have seen a great house with a large altar in it, and twelve men—they are the priests, we would say—and a name; and a crowd of people is waiting at that altar, until the priests receive the offerings. But we kept waiting.”</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<br />[Sidebar: The dream goes on to describe a group of men committing obscene and immoral acts, killing their own children and wives and whatnot. Jesus tells the disciples that this group of men in the dream represent the lower minds in themselves; this upsets the disciples, but then He refers to the appearance of the generation of stars, finally saying: <br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Stop struggling with me. Each of you has his own star."</blockquote>
<br />We are heading toward a most important point: as mentioned above: <br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"To imagine that, before Jesus, all human souls disappeared, at their end, into an indiscriminate void, is the most frightening image of death I can think of; the thought of losing my individuality sends waves of panic down through my entire frame. And yet, with this terror looming before them, it may be that the nonbelievers, the ones who do not call on the aid of Jesus, are condemning themselves to an eternal anonymity."</blockquote>
<br />We must accept the possibility that, as unfair as it sounds, before the coming of Jesus, generations of men walked the earth and then simply ceased to exist when their bodies died. Even Moses. Is there any other interpretation? Is there a Pre-Jesus/Post-Jesus quality of soul? Perhaps our definition of "existence" is too narrow? As we will read below, an important component of Jesus' Cosmography is "hierarchy". Jesus flatly states that some of these disciples will not be permitted to enter the House of God which they have seen in their vision, (apparently, Judas will), but that doesn't mean they will not be accepted SOMEWHERE ELSE. The final sentences of Jesus' interpretation of the dream are a very strong indicator of the idea that there is a celestial hierarchy. It also begins with an affirmation of Grace over GoodWorks:] <br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Stop sacrificing over the altar, since they are over, your stars and your angels, and have already come to their conclusion there." </blockquote>
<br />[Sidebar: that sounds like pre-destination to me.]<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"So let them be ensnared before you, and let them go. A baker cannot feed all creation under heaven."</blockquote>
<br />Jesus said to them, <br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Stop struggling with me. Each of you has his own star, and everybody who has sprung from the tree of this aeon. The Son of Man is here for a short time: He has come to water God’s paradise, and the generation that will last." </blockquote>
<br />[Sidebar: Let me read that again, it is such a happy thought that Jesus has come to tend the Garden, and plant the seeds of OUR immortality:]<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"The Son of Man is here for a short time: He has come to water God’s paradise, and the generation that will last, because He will not defile the walk of life of that generation, but will live for all eternity.”</blockquote>
<br />[Sidebar: I have spoken many times about the many different levels of consciousness in which God and Man may manifest; in this regard, Jesus' interpretation of the disciples' dream, about seeing but not being allowed to enter the ultimate house of God, means that, because of their various sins, they fall short of attaining entry, but they might possibly attain this consciousness level later down the road of spiritual evolution. Thus, rather than the idea that Judas is, exclusively, made privy to an ultimate state of consciousness while the other disciples are not, I rather think it is more likely that the text means this: certain spiritual levels attract certain spiritual identities and not others, such that, far from being the single saved disciple of the twelve, Judas simply happens to be the first to ascend to a higher level in the hierarchy, (of which there are many more levels), while the other eleven disciples temporarily remain below, harboring the hope that they may someday rise to some of those higher levels--that is to say the generation of stars.<br /><br />Now on to another passage, from the <i>Gospel of Judas</i>, which clearly represents a blending of the pantheism of Gnosticism with true Christianity:<br /><br /><br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
THE SPIRIT AND THE SELF -GENERATED<br /><br />"Jesus said, “Come, that I may teach you about secrets no person has ever seen. For there exists a great and boundless realm, whose extent no generation of angels has seen, in which there is a great invisible Spirit, which no eye of an angel has ever seen, no thought of the heart has ever comprehended, and it was never called by any name.<br /><br />“And a luminous cloud appeared there. He said, ‘Let an angel come into being as my attendant.’<br /><br />“A great angel, the enlightened divine Self-Generated, emerged from the cloud. Because of him, four other angels came into being from another cloud, and they became attendants for the angelic Self-Generated. The Self-Generated said, ‘Let him come into being,’ and he came into being."</blockquote>
<br />[Sidebar: I find the numerous ramifications of the term "self-generated" to be quite tantalizing. Clearly, in a pantheistic world, God-in-everything would certainly manifest in a self-generated entity. However, there are two parts to this expression: the "generated" part, and the "self" part. SELF-GENERATED. Again, for the past few weeks, I have been making a distinction between purely Jesus-based Christianity, and the Gnostic Christianity: this distinction concerns the issue of the Person of God. The pantheistic aspect of Gnostic philosophy attributes a God-Consciousness to all things--but Christianity brings to humanity the Personality of God, through Jesus the Christ. To be sure, only a bogus quality of God-consciousness can possibly manifest in the physical, because this focus of consciousness MUST be compromised by physical limitations; and yet, the miracle of the Christ consciousness, the Word Incarnate, is that, so limited by carnal illusion, it is still imbued with an infinite range of dynamic and spiritually transforming possibilities. The Person of the Christ is the dimension of God-Consciousness which is able to become human, address the human, and transform the human. Again, Jesus has always been seen as a mediator: a mediator between the unfathomable Person of God and the fathomable Person of God.<br /><br />Back to <i>Judas</i>:]<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"And he created the first luminary to reign over him. He said, ‘Let angels come into being to serve him,’ and myriads without number came into being. He said, ‘Let an enlightened aeon come into being,’ and he came into being. He created the second luminary to reign over him, together with myriads of angels without number, to offer service." </blockquote>
<br />[Sidebar: It is of some interest that: several times in this section the expression "without number" is used. This expression calls to mind the distinction we have previously made between the terms "everlasting" and "eternal". Remember that "everlasting" refers to a sequence of time moments which are numberless, and which must therefore be considered to be infinite, whereas, the "eternal" moment is an infinity outside time. It is interesting to me how many subtle shades, gradations, and modes of time there are. <br /><br />Indeed, of central importance, when comparing the Gnostic gospels with the Synoptic Gospels, is the cosmic view of the Primitive Universe compared to the somehow CIVILIZED view of the Christian Universe. As we know, the Nicene priests exerted their own prejudices in choosing the gospels that they chose to accept, and rejecting the gospels they chose to reject. But the fact that the early church fathers had a problem with magic, doesn't mean there is no longer any magic in the world. The Gnostic Gospels remind us that there is a mystery out there beyond all mysteries, and this mystery has many faces.<br /><br />Back to <i>Judas</i>:]<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"ADAMAS AND THE LUMINARIES<br />“Adamas was in the first luminous cloud that no angel has ever seen among all those called ‘God.’ He created the image of Man after the likeness of this angel. He made the incorruptible generation of Seth appear."</blockquote>
<br />[Sidebar: I have always been curious about this mention of Seth. I looked it up in Wikipedia, and found a connection between Seth and the Gnostics:<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"The Sethians were a Christian Gnostic sect who may date their existence to before Christianity. Their influence spread throughout the Mediterranean into the later systems of the Basilideans and the Valentinians. Their thinking, though it is predominantly Judaic in foundation, is arguably strongly influenced by Platonism. Sethians are so called for their veneration of the biblical Seth, who is depicted in their myths of creation as a divine incarnation; consequently, the offspring or 'posterity' of Seth are held to comprise a superior elect within human society."</blockquote>
<br />I mention this because, in the <i>Gospel of Judas</i>, Jesus clearly indicates that certain races of human beings are superior to other races; the Sethians considered themselves to be direct descendants of the third, most righteous Son of Adam, and therefore the most viable candidates for celestial ascendancy.<br /><br />Back to <i>Judas</i> on the subject of hierarchy:]<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"He made seventy-two luminaries appear in the incorruptible generation, in accordance with the will of the Spirit. The seventy-two luminaries themselves made three hundred sixty luminaries appear in the incorruptible generation, in accordance with the will of the Spirit, that their number should be five for each.<br /><br />“The twelve aeons of the twelve luminaries constitute their father, with six heavens for each aeon, so that there are seventy-two heavens for the seventy-two luminaries, and for each of them five firmaments, for a total of three hundred sixty firmaments. They were given authority and a great host of angels without number, for glory and adoration, and after that also virgin spirits, for glory and adoration of all the aeons and the heavens and their firmaments."</blockquote>
<br />This section is very biblical, in its use of all sorts of numbers in groups of hierarchical orders, and its use of numerical proportions; it's like the "begats", or the dimensions, in cubits, of an Arc, for instance. It sounds like a rewrite of an earlier Old Testament text. Again, with the Gnostic Gospels, we encounter of phase of history where an old tradition is meeting a new tradition, and, there, morphing into a new consciousness. Knowing, as we do, that the Gospel of Judas is written by a Gnostic author, (certainly not by Judas himself), it is very reasonable to suggest that this Gnostic writer might be quoting some earlier theology from an earlier book; in fact, he might possibly be quoting an Old Testament writer whose work would have been retained only by oral tradition--written down for the first time in the Gospel of Judas. It's just a thought.<br /><br />My Favorite part is Judas' vision of his own martyrdom:<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
3: Judas recounts a vision and Jesus responds:<br /><br />"Judas said, <br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Master, as you have listened to all of them, now also listen to me. For I have seen a great vision.”</blockquote>
<br />When Jesus heard this, he laughed and said to him, <br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
“You thirteenth spirit, why do you<br />try so hard? But speak up, and I shall bear with you.”</blockquote>
<br />Judas said to him, <br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
“In the vision I saw myself as the twelve disciples were stoning me and persecuting me severely. And I also came to the place where following after you. I saw a house, and my eyes could not comprehend its size. Great people were surrounding it, and that house had a roof of greenery, and in the middle of the house was a crowd of men, and I turned to you saying, <br /><br />‘Master, take me in along with these<br />people.’”</blockquote>
<br />Jesus answered and said, <br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Judas, your star has led you astray.” </blockquote>
<br />He continued, <br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
“No person of mortal birth is worthy to enter the house you have seen, for that place is reserved for the holy. Neither the sun nor the moon will rule there, nor the day, but the holy will abide there always, in the eternal realm with the holy angels. Look, I have explained to you the mysteries of the kingdom and I have taught you about the error of the stars; and of the twelve aeons.”</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<br />[Sidebar: It is charming how we get the feeling that Judas has merely followed along behind his master into Heaven, and then Jesus turns around and sees him standing there. Nevertheless, Jesus must reiterate to Judas what He had previously told the other eleven: that entry into that great heavenly house is forbidden (even though, later, it turns out that Judas actually does end up entering that great house). Also of interest is Jesus' curious remark about "the error of the stars". It is tempting to get involved in the various possible interpretations of this, but I think I will go with the idea that spiritual evolution is outside time, and is therefore unaffected by the "sun nor the moon". This, then, leaves the door wide open to all sorts of developments in spiritual time which have no precedent in physical time. Thus, the possibility of upward or downward mobility on the spiritual ladder is introduced, in mythological time, well ahead of Jacob and his vision at Bethel.<br /><br />I'm not sure what interests me more, the idea of Judas being stoned by the Eleven, or his vision of the heavenly house. Many of the abstrusely sinister remarks Jesus makes in all the Gospels, (about how it would be better if Judas had never been born, for instance), are made bright as day when the ultimate fate of Judas is factored into the narrative. On the other hand, the description of the heavenly house, so similar to the house in the dream of the Eleven, (possibly on the same night?), has much to say about the role of Jesus as savior, meanwhile offering a possible description of the spiritual structure of the Universe. The next section brings these two issues together when Judas asks about his own future:<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
JUDAS ASKS ABOUT HIS OWN FATE<br />"Judas said, <br />“Master, could it be that my seed is under the control of the rulers?”</blockquote>
<br />[Sidebar: The "rulers" mentioned earlier in the text, to whit:<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
THE RULERS AND ANGELS<br />“The twelve rulers spoke with the twelve angels: ‘Let each of you bring forth a new generation of angels’:<br />The first is Seth, who is called Christ.<br />The second is Harmathoth.<br />The third is Galila.<br />The fourth is Yobel.<br />The fifth is Adonaios.<br />These are the five who ruled over the underworld, and first of all over chaos."</blockquote>
<br />So, by inquiring about the "rulers" Judas is, in a way, asking about his fate, and ultimately about his subjection to the rule, not only of a choir of angels, but of the stars:<br /><br />Back to <i>Judas</i>:<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Jesus answered and said to him,<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
“You will grieve much when you see the kingdom and all its generation.”</blockquote>
<br />When he heard this, Judas said to him, <br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
“What good is it that I have received it? For<br />you have set me apart for that generation.”</blockquote>
<br />Jesus answered and said, <br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
“You will become the thirteenth, and you will be cursed by the other generations—and you will come to rule over them. In the last days they will curse your ascent to the holy generation.”</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<br />In this last sentence, Jesus is clearly prophesying the ascent of Judas into the ranks of the "holy generation". It is worth noting that, in spite of the simple message of "love thy neighbor", there is a mind-boggling complexity of cosmic structure described by Jesus in this gospel. There is nothing democratic about this heavenly hierarchy. Grace and Karma battle for supremacy as the prime mover of all things, and the Jesus of the Gospel of Judas does not give us any simple answers. Nevertheless, there is one absolute truth we MUST glean from this book: that spiritual progress is a process that takes place on many levels of consciousness, and in many modes of time. With this in mind, I will close with this insight that came to me while I was studying this gospel: <br /><br />I have always defined love as "the connection between people". I have recently come to the realization that Love is not the connection between people, it is the process of discovering the connection between people. And without Jesus in our corner, we could never participate in that process.<br /><br />Let us pray: Jesus thank you for the knowledge that passionate people have passed down to us. Thank you for the knowledge that has been gathered from the truth of history, and thank you for the truth of the heart, which transforms the greatest history into myth. Amen.<br /><br />Richard Freeman-Toolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03480701171151843224noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6082284124238685067.post-41898585615000115632014-08-24T17:44:00.000-07:002014-08-24T17:44:03.505-07:0015 Introduction to the Gospel of Judas - 2<h2>
15 Introduction to the Gospel of Judas - 2</h2>
<br />Last week we began a review of the <i>Gospel of Judas</i>. We discussed gnosticism in general, and I mentioned that I had begun to suspect that the study of the Gnostic Gospels was not mostly about the content of the material, but, rather, about enjoying a collection of spiritual allegories and poetic inventions, stylistically characteristic Jesus' time and place. I specifically and repeatedly emphasized the idea that the Gnostic view of the physical as a prison, (from which the spirit must enthusiastically escape), is not particularly harmonious with the idea that Jesus proclaimed about the possibility of a Heaven on Earth. To be sure, Jesus taught us to focus our perception of identity on the spiritual component; He taught us not to feel bound to the body, and to look forward to an ultimate destiny free of the body. But He did NOT say that the body is total dross, and ought not to be glorified. Indeed, Jesus taught us that the experience of spirit in the physical is, in some ways, just as legitimate and necessary for the evolution of the soul, as its entry and reentry into and out of etheric dimensions. He taught us to see Heaven on Earth, to see God in everything. And remember that this is not pantheism, because our God reveals Himself Personally, through Jesus Christ, and that has made all the difference.<br /><br /><br />The more I get to know about the Gnostic Gospels, the more I begin to suspect that the Gospel of Judas is a work of fiction. Now, that does not mean that the <i>Gospel of Judas</i> does not have something important to say, and true to say. The historical details, such as whether Judas really betrayed Jesus or not, are not of primary interest to me. It's like whether the world was created in six days or not: I don't really care. I don't care if Judas did or didn't betray Jesus; I don't care if Judas escaped to India; I don't care if he was stoned to death by the other disciples. I don't know these people, and I don't really have anything to do with what exactly happened. I am a Christian Ex Post Facto--AFTER THE FACT. That Jesus is available to me, in spirit, is the most important ramification of the historical Jesus. Something happened, Jesus became a personal savior, and how He got there, is less important to me than that HE IS. Furthermore, remember that most of the Gospels, most of these sacred texts inspired by God, both the accepted and the unaccepted ones, are compositions created by mere by men, who may not even have had direct experience of the events they are reporting; thus it becomes easier to endorse the sacredness of the <i>Gospel of Judas</i>.<br /><br />Now, we will re-enter a scene we left mid-way last week;<br />
<br />the disciples are gathered over a meal, and have been praying a blessing over the food. Jesus walks in on them and begins to laugh. The disciples get all offended, because they think He is making fun of them. Jesus comforts their bruised egos, but then goes on to challenge them:<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"When Jesus observed their lack of understanding, he said to them,<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Why has this agitation led you to anger? Your god is within you and yet these outward signs have provoked you to anger within your souls. <br />Let any one of you who is strong enough among human beings bring out the perfect human and stand before my face.”</blockquote>
<br />They all said, <br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
“We have the strength.”</blockquote>
<br />But their spirits did not dare to stand before Him, except for Judas Iscariot. He was able to stand before him, but he could not look him in the eyes, and he turned his face away.<br /><br />Judas said to him,<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
“I know who you are and where you have come from. You are from the immortal realm of Barbelo. And I am not worthy to utter the name of the one who has sent you.”</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<br />[Sidebar (from Wikipedia):<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"The Gnostic term "Barbēlō" (Greek: Βαρβηλώ) refers to the first emanation of God in several forms of Gnostic cosmogony. Barbēlō is often depicted as a supreme female principle, the single passive antecedent of creation in its manifoldness. This figure is also variously referred to as 'Mother-Father' (hinting at her apparent androgyny), 'First Human Being', 'The Triple Androgynous Name', or 'Eternal Aeon'."]</blockquote>
<br /><br />Now, in this story from Judas there are many features of Jesus' personality and Jesus' wisdom that are consistent with the portrait of Jesus drawn in the synoptic gospels; one of the big differences, is that, in this story, Jesus laughs. Jesus is never depicted as laughing in any of the other gospels. This is particularly resonant with me, because I have always known, intuitively, the Jesus had a smile on His face all the time. Being One with the Spirit is so powerful, and so positive, and so full of joy, that He must have smiled all the time, and I bet He was a jokester too. I just have this feeling, and I don't have anything to back it up with except an intuitive impression acquired from what He says, and from the kind of answers to prayer I get.<br /><br />Another archetypal element of this story is the "Competition-for-the-Place-of-Best-of-the-Best" scenario. This is a theme that is echoed in a number of other places in the Bible and elsewhere--The first story that springs to mind is from Mark:<br /><br /><b>Mark 9:33-35</b>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"33 They came to Capernaum. When he was in the house, he asked them, <br />“What were you arguing about on the road?” <br />34 But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest.<br />35 Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, <br />“Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.”</blockquote>
<br />The Jews, in particular, were very Place/Face conscious, and it was important to them to establish, among themselves, who was worthy to claim authority. This passage, where Judas steps forward to meet the infinite gaze of Jesus, contributes to the perception, suggested by the gospel, of Judas as "the only disciple with true understanding of Jesus' teaching".<br /><br />A similar scene occurs in the <i>Gospel of Thomas</i>--in this case Thomas is the cool dude:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"(13) Jesus said to his disciples,<br />"Compare me to someone and tell me whom I am like." <br />Simon Peter said to him, <br />"You are like a righteous angel." <br />Matthew said to him, <br />"You are like a wise philosopher."<br /> Thomas said to him, <br />"Master, my mouth is wholly incapable of saying whom you are like."</blockquote>
<br />In <i>King Lear</i>, Shakespeare begins the play with the old prideful King posing this question to his three daughters: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Who loves me best?” </blockquote>
The first two daughters sing out their love to the heavens, in rhapsodies accompanied by angels voices and harps, their vain tunes signifying nothing--while the most truly loving daughter gives this answer to the audience in an aside:<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"CORDELIA:<br />(to herself) What will I say? I can only love and be silent."</blockquote>
<br />Thus, the battle to be the best of the best must always be defeated by the pronouncement,<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.”</blockquote>
<br />I find the portrait of Jesus, in the <i>Gospel of Judas</i>, to be beautifully literate; it really helps to hear Jesus at His most eloquent and mystical, even if the intrusion of the demiurge associates him with the most primitive aspects of gnosticism.<br /><br />Another interesting scene is when Jesus takes Judas aside, and honors him by telling him that he, among all the disciples, understands best the teaching of the Messiah:<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"JESUS SPEAKS TO JUDAS PRIVATELY<br /><br />Knowing that Judas was reflecting upon something that was exalted, Jesus said to him,<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Step away from the others and I shall tell you the mysteries of the kingdom. It is possible for you to reach it, but you will grieve a great deal. For someone else will replace you, in order that the twelve [disciples] may again come to completion with their god.”</blockquote>
Judas said to him, <br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
“When will you tell me these things, and [when] will the great day of light dawn for the generation?”</blockquote>
But when he said this, Jesus left him." </blockquote>
<br />There is more than one place in the gospel that merely states, "Jesus left." Very abrupt, very final. We recall, from the episode of Jesus at Nazareth, where the prophet goes unrecognized in His own country, and from several other scenes where Jesus has had to escape from a crowd--we recall that He just "disappears". The way that Jesus mysteriously comes and goes, in this gospel, is consistent with the rumor that Jesus could disapparate and reappear at will--definitely a Gnostic idea, but not unheard-of in the annals of the great saints.<br /><br />Interestingly, this passage from <i>Judas</i> is very like a passage in the <i>Gospel of Thomas</i>:<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"And he took him and withdrew and told him three things. When Thomas returned to his companions, they asked him, </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"What did Jesus say to you?" </blockquote>
Thomas said to them, </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"If I tell you one of the things which he told me, you will pick up stones and throw them at me; a fire will come out of the stones and burn you up."</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<br />The same scenario occurs in the <i>Gospel of Mary</i>; apparently Jesus, was able to give highly personal insights to his disciples, thereby making them each feel that they had personally been given the unique keys to the Kingdom. Nothing has changed--Jesus still gives us all exactly what we need.<br /><br />The passage from <i>Thomas</i>, concerning the disciples stoning someone, along with the idea that the victim will be vindicated, anticipates similar developments in <i>Judas</i>. We will get there.<br /><br />Now, we know that any discussion of the <i>Gospel of Judas</i> must eventually work its way around to the question of whether or not Judas was working FOR or AGAINST Jesus--was Judas following or NOT following Jesus' specific instructions in the matter of the betrayal in the Garden of Gethsemane? This is the most difficult controversy in the book, and it is a central idea around which all the other material revolves. So let us take a look at that portion of the text for a moment. <br /><br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"JESUS SPEAKS OF THOSE WHO ARE BAPTIZED, AND JUDAS’S BETRAYAL<br /><br />Judas said to Jesus,<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Look, what will those who have been baptized in your name do?”</blockquote>
<br />Jesus said, <br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Truly I say to you, this baptism is done in my name. Truly I say to you, Judas, those who offer sacrifices to Saklas make a righteous sacrifice to God. <br />But you will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me."</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<br />[Sidebar: Interesting expression, "the man that clothes me." With this sentence, Jesus is denying identification with His physical body--His body is just a suit of clothes He wears to walk around in, on Earth. This expression helps Judas realize that he is not betraying anything permanent, but is merely helping Jesus in staging His extravaganza!<br /><br />Again:]<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me.<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Already your horn has been raised,<br />your wrath has been kindled,<br />your star has shown brightly,<br />and your heart has been hardened"</i></blockquote>
</blockquote>
<br />[Sidebar: It is interesting how, when Jesus sends Judas off to betray Him, the text mentions that Judas must harden his heart. I think this means that Judas really loves Jesus very much, and, even though he can see the big picture, he still regrets turning Jesus over to the Pharisees, thus insuring Jesus' execution. Jesus is saying, here, "Buck up man, and do your duty. How else am I ever going to get crucified on Passover?!" My point is that: if Judas were truly betraying Jesus, his heart would be hardened already.<br /><br />Back to <i>Judas</i>:]<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Truly your last place will become first, so do not grieve. And then the image of the great generation of Adam will be exalted, for prior to heaven, earth, and the angels, that generation, which is from the eternal realms, exists. Look, you have been told everything. Lift up your eyes and look at the cloud and the light within it and the stars surrounding it. The star that leads the way is your star.”</blockquote>
<br />Judas lifted up his eyes and saw the luminous cloud, and he entered it. <br />Those standing on the ground heard a voice coming from the cloud.<br /><br />CONCLUSION: JUDAS BETRAYS JESUS<br />Their high priests murmured because He had gone into the guest room for his prayer."</blockquote>
<br />[Sidebar: This bit is interesting, too: it is not illogical that Jesus might have been apprehended in a room of the same house where He had His Last Supper; but this version does away with some of our favorite Jesus portraits--the whole Garden of Gethsamane story, and the Peter cutting-off-the-ear story--bummer:]<br /><br />"But some scribes were there watching carefully in order to arrest him during the prayer, for they were afraid of the people, since he was regarded by all as a prophet. They approached Judas and said to him, “What are you doing here? You are Jesus’ disciple.” Judas answered them as they wished. And he received some money and handed him over to them."<br /><br />Many points in this text deserve comment. Let's begin with the mention of Saklas. As we learned last week, Saklas is a name associated with one of the founding angels of the universe, perhaps the Creator God Him(Her)Self:<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"And the aeon that appeared with his generation, the aeon in whom are the cloud of knowledge and the angel, is called. And Saklas said, ‘Let twelve angels come into being to rule over chaos and the underworld.’ And look, from the cloud there appeared an angel whose face flashed with fire and whose appearance was defiled with blood.<br /><br />Another angel, Saklas, also came from the cloud. <br /><br />“Then Saklas said to his angels, ‘Let us create a human being after the likeness and after the image.’ They fashioned Adam and his wife Eve, who is called, in the cloud, Zoe. For by this name all the generations seek the man, and each of them calls the woman by these names. And the [ruler] said to Adam, ‘You shall live long, with your children.’” </blockquote>
<br />This concept is clearly in agreement with the fundamentals of Gnostic philosophy, but it is not clear whether it is in agreement with Christian philosophy. However you slice it, this theology is Old testament stuff, and does not bear crucially on the role of Jesus in our lives here and now.<br /><br />Here, let me remind you of the sidebar above, about Barbelo, taken from Wikipedia):<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"The Gnostic term "Barbēlō" (Greek: Βαρβηλώ) refers to the first emanation of God in several forms of Gnostic cosmogony. Barbēlō is often depicted as a supreme female principle, the single passive antecedent of creation in its manifoldness. This figure is also variously referred to as 'Mother-Father' (hinting at her apparent androgyny), 'First Human Being', 'The Triple Androgynous Name', or 'Eternal Aeon'."]</blockquote>
<br />The idea of the MOTHER-CREATOR, (Saklas or Barbelo, it is not clear which) is an item included in many primitive, aboriginal mythologies; it is not unfamiliar to C.S, Lewis, who has much to say on the subject; he speaks, always, of the Father-Creator in preference to the Mother-Creator, especially in light of the sacrifice on Calvary, which changed the relationship of God to Man. For instance, at the climax of Till We Face Faces, the primordial Mother-God, Ungit, is contrasted with the newly articulated sculpture of the Goddess, Psyche; Ungit has no face--Psyche does. It will be apparent from this historical comparison of God's relationship to Man, before and after the crucifixion, (Ungit the Old God, Psyche the New God), that Lewis is in agreement with many statements, we quoted from Rudolf Steiner, emphasizing the significance of the Historical Jesus.<br /><br />On the subject of masculine versus feminine, there is this illuminating principle set forth in his so-called "science fiction" novel, That Hideous Strength. In this excerpt we encounter the PERSON of God, not as a mothering birth-giver, nor as a pantheistic non-entity, but as a supra-masculine Identity:<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"But she had been conceiving this world as "spiritual" in the negative sense--as some neutral, or democratic, vacuum where differences disappeared, where sex and sense were not transcended but simply taken away. Now the suspicion dawned upon her that there might be differences and contrasts all the way up, richer, sharper, even fiercer, at every rung of the ascent. How if this invasion of her own being in marriage from which she had recoiled, often in the very teeth of instincts, were not, as she had supposed, merely a relic of animal life or patriarchal barbarism, but rather the lowest, the first, and the easiest form of some shocking contact with reality which would have to be repeated-- but in ever larger and more disturbing modes-- on the highest levels of all?<br /><br />"Yes," said the Director. "There is no escape. If it were a virginal rejection of the male, He would allow it. Such souls could bypass the male and go on to meet something far more masculine, higher up, to which they must make a yet deeper surrender. But your trouble has been what old poets called <i>daungier</i>. We call it Pride. You are offended by the masculine itself: the loud irruptive, possessive thing-- the Gold lion, the bearded bull-- which breaks through hedges and scatters the little kingdom of your primness as the dwarfs scattered the carefully made bed. The male you could have escaped, for it exists only on the biological level. But the masculine none of us can escape. What is above and beyond all things is so masculine that we are all feminine in relation to it."<br />. . .</blockquote>
<br />[Sidebar: Skipping ahead, C.S. Lewis gives this vivid report of a heroine's DIRECT ENCOUNTER with this supra-masculine, PERSONAL IDENTITY:]<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"What awaited her there was serious to the degree of sorrow and beyond. There was no form nor sound. The mould under the bushes, the moss on the path, and the little brick border, were not visibly changed. But they were changed. A boundary had been crossed. She had come into a world, or into a Person, or into the presence of a Person. Something expectant, patient, and inexorable, met her with no veil or protection between. In the closeness of that contact she perceived at once that the Director's words had been entirely misleading. This demand which now pressed upon her was not, even by analogy, like any other demand. It was the origin of all right demands and contained them. In its light you could understand them; but from them you could know nothing of it. There was nothing, and never had been anything, like this. And now there was nothing except this. Yet also, everything had been like this; only by being like this had anything existed. In this height and depth and breadth the little idea of herself she had hitherto called me dropped down and vanished, unfluttering, into bottomless distance, like a bird in a space without air. The name me was the name of a being whose existence she had never suspected, a being that did not yet fully exist but which was demanded. It was a person (not the person she had thought), yet also a thing, a made thing, made to please Another and in Him to please all others, a thing being made at this very moment, without its choice, in a shape it has never dreamed of. And the making went on amidst a kind of splendor or sorrow or both, whereof she could not tell whether it was in the moulding hands or in the kneaded lump.<br /><br />Words take too long. To be aware of all this and to know that it had already gone made one single experience. It was revealed only in its departure. The largest thing that had ever happened to her had, apparently, found room for itself in a moment of time too short to be called time at all. Her hand closed on nothing but a memory. And as it closed, without an instant's pause, the voices of those who have not joy rose howling and shattering from every corner of her being."</blockquote>
<br />I would love reading that, in any context, but its relevance, to the subject of Judas, is this: whereas, in the section from <i>Judas</i> we clearly recognize obvious Gnostic authorship, with its attendant Heathen vision of the Mother-God, in the Lewis section presents, we see, in no uncertain terms, a clear refutation of that primitive theological concept. Too bad. But we knew this--we knew that the author of the <i>Gospel of Judas</i> was a gnostic, so why be surprised when information we believe in gets mixed up with information we don't believe in?<br /><br />Much more pertinent (and much LESS dependent on the gnostic prejudices of the author) is the question of whether Judas' betrayal was truly a betrayal, or merely an element in a conspiracy, led by Jesus Himself. The idea of Judas being in on the plot to get Jesus crucified is not a new idea. I thought of it myself many, many years ago, and I believe it appears in several New Age authors of the mid-20th-century. There are even plays and movie scripts that delight in casting Judas in a murky light. Did he, or didn't he? Judas has always been a complicated guy. <br /><br />Now, if you accept this premise, you can play an interesting kind of word game: take all of the pertinent passages from the Synoptic Gospels, and interpret them from the perspective of Judas as villain. Then, re-interpret--perform a switcheroo, and run through all the pertinent lines from the perspective of Judas as saint. I, myself, am not personally involved in the history, so I don't have any trouble re-interpreting the story from the saint point of view. For instance, if Judas were, indeed, working to set up Jesus, we have to look at the various lines in the synoptic Gospels that appear to blame Judas and accuse Judas. The thing is that: if you think of Jesus instructing Judas to betray him, then none of the instructions he gives Judas at the Last Supper seem out of character. For instance, "Go and do what you need to do quickly," etc. These instructions are perfectly consistent with the idea of a conspiracy, rather than an actual betrayal. <br /><br />[Sidebar: On the subject of "Go do what you must do quickly," it is fun to imagine Jesus in a spy movie, privately leaning over the table to Judas' ear, looking at his watch, saying, "Synchronize watches, sixteen hundred in 5-4-3-2-1. Now, go you quickly and do what must be done--and stay on schedule."]<br /><br />Now, what about when Jesus says to the other disciples, "One of you is about to betray me. One of you is a bad dude, and it would be better if you had never been born."? That quote is consistent with the next portion of the Judas gospel, my favorite part, where Judas comes to Jesus and reports that he's had a vision of himself being stoned--but then sees himself going up to a heavenly mansion in upper Heaven. (We will dwell on that next week.)<br /><br />One of the ramifications of the idea that Judas was working with Jesus to arrange the spectacle of His own execution, is that it turns the whole crucifixion into a kind of performance art piece. It seems sort of crass to think of the crucifixion as a dramatic show, (with Jesus as the star, kind of like a gladiator), and yet we've said many times that Jesus was sent to sacrifice Himself; he was sent as the Lamb of God to be slaughtered; so when? It had be sometime--Jesus showed Himself often to be able to evade crowds and authorities when He wanted to, so I find it hard to believe that He just fell into the clutches of the Pharisees against His will. He even says so to Pilate. <br /><br /><b>John18:36-37</b>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"36 Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.<br />37 Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice."</blockquote>
<br />(Again, we will develop this idea next week.) <br /><br />So Jesus admits that He is CHOOSING to submit to the power of Pilate--that Pilate has no power over Him that is not freely given to him by the Messiah in accordance with the Divine Plan. Thus, it makes much more sense, to me, for Jesus to have choreographed this entire event, planned it out, and executed it (ha ha) by Himself, possibly assisted by an organization, possibly the Essenes working with Jesus at their head. <br /><br />Remember that Jesus often called upon the authority of prophecy to prove His claims to the Christ-hood. Perhaps the precise date and time of the crucifixion were chosen on the basis of some sort of prophetic timetable that they were attempting to adhere to--or had no choice but to adhere to. Jesus often mentions that He's fulfilling prophecy. This cannot be accidental. And remember that we have often spoken of prophecy, hope, <i>sehnsucht</i>, and pre-destination--all as choices that are made outside time, choices made before the world began. Indeed, sometimes Jesus goes out of his way to fulfill prophecy, and sometimes you can see that he is riding on a tide which nothing could ever interrupt; so, the idea that Jesus engineered his own death, using Judas as one of the instruments to fulfill His plan, is not inconsistent with the idea of God sending his own son to be sacrificed.<br /><br />What, truly, was the significance of the crucifixion? Perhaps the entire event was symbolic! Perhaps Jesus was working as the Father's press agent--announcing to the world this attention- grabbing headline: <br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Death no longer has any power over the spirit. Video at Sundown! Come and see! Bring the kids!" </blockquote>
<br />Perhaps the whole thing was a grand ritual, designed to interrupt the inertia of history, and divert the flow of time into new paths!<br /><br />We have spoken, on many occasions, about the significance of ritual--going through our little motions, here at the empty Basin Bible Church, every week, we enact these precious little ceremonies, which somehow solemnize our lives. I just participated in a wedding in which a bundle of sage was set on fire and pointed in the four directions of the compass, as if that meant anything! What purpose did that serve other than as a ritual which solemnized the moment? <br /><br />Jesus announced to the world, from the cross, in the most flamboyantly dramatic object lesson in history, that there is no death, and that there can be Heaven on Earth. Death is not our final condition, so the eternal moment of NOW ought to be celebrated with every breath we take in this physical plane. Remember that Jesus chose the time of his execution--he chose Passover, the most solemn feast of the Jewish year, and the time when the Big Apple, Jerusalem, was most densely populated with penitents and pilgrims. At Passover, more than any other time of the year, Jerusalem was packed with people, that is to say, WITNESSES. <br /><br />In terms of sheer showmanship, He did a very similar thing on the occasion of the death of Lazarus; you will remember that He could have come to Lazarus immediately, but He chose to tarry a few days to pump up public interest; this, so when He brought Lazarus back from the dead, more people would hear about it, more people would be affected by it. If He could orchestrate the "Raising-Lazarus-from-the-Dead Show" why couldn't He do the same with his own execution? <br /><br />Again, I am not proposing an ironclad belief in any of the scenarios I'm suggesting, here. I have an open mind, but I don't have a hidden agenda, so I have nothing to lose by any admission, one way or the other. But you must admit that, logically speaking, dramaturgically speaking, these scenarios are well within the realm of possibility. Indeed, it is not the actuality but the POSSIBILITY that transforms history into myth, such that, in spiritual terms, the history may lie, but the myth always tells the truth--the spiritual truth.<br /><br />As I mentioned earlier, I intend to review several more of the Gnostic Gospels, over the next few weeks, and search them for nuggets of meaning. Next week we will review two more stories from the <i>Gospel of Judas</i>. I do not expect we will be in universal agreement about the significance of these texts, but there can be no doubt that they should be considered; it remains to be seen whether I will remain as interested in the subject as I now am, but it will be a ride.<br /><br />Next week we will consider Judas' prophetic dream of his own martyrdom.<br /><br />For now, let us pray: Jesus, we thank you for the opportunity to test our spiritual acuity with texts which pose as many problems as they offer solutions. We praise the power of your Magnificent Personality to enlighten our minds with images of Truth, which transcend the literal and evoke the eternal. Amen.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Richard Freeman-Toolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03480701171151843224noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6082284124238685067.post-73104005680532860892014-08-17T10:32:00.000-07:002014-08-17T10:32:00.230-07:0014 - Introduction to the Gospel of Judas<h2>
14 - Introduction to the <i>Gospel of Judas</i></h2>
<br />At the outset, I want to ask the question, "Why the Gnostic Gospels?" As you will see below, I am in fundamental disagreement with a crucial component of the Gnostic philosophy; I emphasize this, because there can be no doubt that these Gospels were composed by a Gnostic author who unabashedly puts a Gnostic slant on all of his material. So what's the point? Why read a piece of ancient fiction--in church? Well, as I will elucidate below, the Gnostic Gospels certainly show us a little slice of history that is usually hidden from us by the sands of time, but, more importantly, they are illustrative of Jesus' power to mythologize Himself; by that, I mean: the impact Jesus made on the world was so great that He became legend before He became bio-graphed. These scriptures are filled with legitimate portraits, and expressions of Jesus, even if they have been decorated by the embellishments of oral tradition; they may not actually turn out to be what they pretend to be, but what ancient scripture is immune to pedagogical dispute? These Gospels may or may not contain historical fact, but they are absolutely imbued with the Holy Spirit, and I have already benefited from exposure to them.<br /><br />I'm going to kick off this presentation of the <i>Gospel of Judas</i> by first quoting the very last verse of John.<br /><br /><b>John 21:25:</b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written <br />every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. <br />Amen."</blockquote>
<br />It is significant that John asserts that there are many, many more stories about Jesus that are not recorded in his gospel, (including the other four synoptic gospels, as well, of which many of the stories are the same); John is telling us that there are more untold stories of Jesus. Way cool! If you simply look at the gnostic gospels as a warehouse of new stories about Jesus, you can't go wrong. What a find! What an opportunity! The Gnostic gospels are a treasure trove of new Jesus stories, all of which are resonant with the Jesus stories recorded in the accepted four gospels. <br /><br />However, let me make this hefty disclaimer before we go any further: in my brief exposure to the field, (which, I find, is immense), I have begun to suspect that the study of the Gnostic Gospels is not mostly about the content of the material, but, rather, it is about enjoying a collection of spiritual allegories and poetic inventions, stylistically characteristic Jesus' time and place. <br /><br />We know that many of the stories in the Canonical Gospels were told second or third hand, before they were written down. These stories were kept alive, and circulated among believers, through oral transmission. Therefore, certain orally handed-down stories, well-known among the people, might have easily attracted some narrative embroidery, of an archetypal character--and this process of embroidery might have easily yielded some outlandish variants. The beauty of this is that Jesus became a myth practically in his own lifetime! It is, therefore, not surprising that man's tendency to mythologize resulted in so many various religious speculations. <br /><br />Simply stated, we know through faith, and habit, that the stories in the Synoptic Gospels are historically true, and that Jesus is quoted with literal accuracy. The stories in the Gnostic Gospels, though beautiful, are much more historically suspect; this suspicion compromises the validity of the works as truthful, spiritually resonance documents, because we can't really count on the FACT that Jesus actually said something that they say He said. It may be possible that He said it, it may be CONCEIVABLE that He said it, it may be LIKELY that He said it, but there is no GUARANTEE that He said it. <br /><br />Admittedly everything is subject to interpretation, such that: any mythological story will communicate not only itself, but the culture and religious prejudices of the author. The stories in the Gnostic gospels are told from the viewpoint of a Gnostic, so they unavoidably tend to echo, implicitly or explicitly, the philosophy of the author. This is where the seed of doubt is planted. It appears that, according to Jesus, Gnosticism is based on a mistaken interpretation of mundane existence: the principle is that we are enslaved by our bodies, and seek, through the use of magic and meditation, to transcend our physical bodies, to become free in the Cloud of Unknowing. This is not unlike the ultimate goal of Jesus, which, to be sure, is to transcend the physical. However, Jesus' transcendence of the physical includes the glorification of the physical in the mundane dimension, finding the eternal in the temporal, and, thereby, establishing the Kingdom of God on earth. Gnostics are not big on "Heaven on Earth"; they just basically want to get the heck out of here as soon as possible.<br /><br />Iraneus' rejection of the Gnostic Gospels might very well have been driven by a quarrel with Gnosticism, not in any specific sense, but merely on general principles; all of the texts he rejected are more or less actually Gnostic. Perhaps Iraneus took the easy way out--rejecting the principles of Gnosticism, as a school of heretical philosophy, would make it easy for the church fathers to reject the Gnostic Gospels outright, even though there are many non-Gnostic principles expressed in them.<br /><br />It must be emphasized that the Gnostic view of the physical as a prison, (from which the spirit must enthusiastically escape), is not particularly harmonious with the idea that Jesus put forth of a possible Heaven on Earth. Jesus taught us to focus our perception of identity on the spiritual component; He taught us not to feel bound to the body, and to look forward to an ultimate destiny free of the body. But this does not mean that one's body may not be glorified. Jesus taught us that the physical experience of spirit is, in some ways, just as legitimate and necessary for the evolution of the soul, as its entry and reentry into and out of etheric dimensions.<br /><br />The more I get to know about the Gnostic Gospels the more I begin to suspect that the gospel of Judas is a work of fiction. Now, that does not mean that the Gospel of Judas does not have something important to say, and true to say. The fact of whether Judas really betrayed Jesus or not, is not of primary interest to me. It's like whether the world was created in six days or not: I don't really care. I don't care if Judas did or didn't betray Jesus; I don't care if he escaped to India; I don't care if he was stoned by the other disciples. I don't know these people, and I don't really have anything to do with what exactly happened. I am a Christian Ex Post Facto--AFTER THE FACT. That Jesus is available to me, in spirit, is the most important part. How He got there, is less important. Furthermore, if we remember that most of the Gospels, most of these these sacred texts, inspired by God, are compositions created by mere by men, who may not even have had direct experience of the events they are reporting, it becomes easier to affirm the the sacredness of the Gospel of Judas.<br /><br />To be sure, the point of the Gospels is to give us an historical record of Jesus' career, including quotations of His profound sayings--sayings which give us comfort, and direct our the minds toward higher things. However, the mystical experience of Jesus does not depend on the accuracy of any history or doctrine we may have formulated in our minds; it is the higher self which is truly in communion with the Christ.<br /><br /><br />I find that the word "apologist" keeps attracting my attention. I read up on Iranaeus (who is, as I mentioned last week, largely responsible for choosing the four accepted synoptic gospels, and many other books of the New Testament, meanwhile rejecting many books of Gnostic philosophy. He wrote long books condemning Gnosticism as a false religion, and the gnostic philosophical books as works of heresy. Iraneus is labeled an "apologist" because, with his writing, he justifies his position, and attacks various other positions. So, I find the word "apologist" means to "make apology" in the classic Greek sense of the "apologia" or "defense", the most famous of which is probably the Apologia of Socrates to the Greek accusers who condemned him to death. C.S. Lewis is also always referred to as an apologist. I suppose Martin Luther could be considered one, as well. So in discussing the Gnostic gospels in the present apologia, we have not only the task of presenting the material, which is new to many of us, but also to provide an historical context for it, and then to apologize, or defend, its content--that is, either to confirm it or refute it, or, in some way or other, pass judgement on it. Thus, in struggling to find the truth, we may find items which seem to be somewhat dissonant with the images from the accepted synoptic gospels we have in mind. Those dissonant stimulants must be examined thoroughly to see whether the stimulation is a good thing or a bad thing.<br /><br />Gnosticism comes in many flavors and intensities, such that it is virtually impossible to describe a single Gnostic philosophy that agrees with all the different varieties. However, this summary of Gnosticism taken from Wikipedia is a good start at providing a meaningful overview:<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Gnostic systems, particularly the Syrian-Egyptian schools, are typically marked by:<br /> • The notion of a remote, supreme monadic divinity, source – this figure is known under a variety of names, including "Pleroma" (fullness, totality) and "Bythos" (depth, profundity);<br /> • The introduction by emanation of further divine beings known as Aeons, which are nevertheless identifiable as aspects of the God from which they proceeded; the progressive emanations are often conceived metaphorically as a gradual and progressive distancing from the ultimate source, which brings about an instability in the fabric of the divine nature;</blockquote>
<br />[Sidebar: You will remember the section on Aeons from last week's sermon. One of the sections of the <i>Gospel of Judas</i> summarizes the Gnostic cosmography. So do we accept the idea that these ideas as, indeed, coming out of Jesus' mouth, or do we, in rejecting this hypothesis, reject the whole of Judas as spurious and heretical?<br /><br />Back to the Wikipedia summary of Gnosticism:]<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
" • The introduction of a distinct creator god or demiurge, which is an illusion and a later emanation from the single monad or source. This second god is a lesser and inferior or false god. This creator god is commonly referred to as the demiourgós used in the Platonist tradition. The gnostic demiurge bears resemblance to figures in Plato's Timaeus and Republic. In the former, the demiourgós is a central figure, a benevolent creator of the universe who works to make the universe as benevolent as the limitations of matter will allow; in the latter, the description of the leontomorphic "desire" in Socrates' model of the psyche bears a resemblance to descriptions of the demiurge as being in the shape of the lion; the relevant passage of The Republic was found within a major gnostic library discovered at Nag Hammadi, wherein a text existed describing the demiurge as a "lion-faced serpent". Elsewhere, this figure is called "Ialdabaoth", "Samael" (Aramaic: sæmʻa-ʼel, "blind god") or "Saklas" (Syriac: sækla, "the foolish one"), who is sometimes ignorant of the superior god, and sometimes opposed to it; thus in the latter case he is correspondingly malevolent. The demiurge typically creates a group of co-actors named "Archons", who preside over the material realm and, in some cases, present obstacles to the soul seeking ascent from it;<br /> • The estimation of the world, owing to the above, as flawed or a production of "error" but possibly good as its constituent material might allow. This world is typically an inferior simulacrum of a higher-level reality or consciousness."</blockquote>
<br />One of the interesting sidelights of Gnosticism is the idea of the demiurge, which, translated into Gnostic-ese, means "Creator God". This creator god is not the Supreme God, but merely an "emanation of the Monad". The idea of "levels of the Godhead" is actually something I had thought of before, to whit: in an infinite array, an infinite continuum of material densities, of consciousness states, it is entirely reasonable to think of the God, to whom we pray, as the Creator God--as one more (LOWER) level on an infinite continuum of levels, culminating in the highest infinite, unnamed and unnamable, unthinkable God. <br /><br />One expression of the Gnostic principle of "levels of Godhead" is the so-called "Gnostic Dualism:<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Some dualism was indeed congenital with Gnosticism, yet but rarely did it overcome the main tendency of Gnosticism, i.e. Pantheism. This, however, was certainly the case in the system of Marcion, who distinguished between the God of the New Testament and the God of the Old Testament, as between two eternal principles, the first being Good, agathos; the second merely dikaios, or just; yet even Marcion did not carry this system to its ultimate consequences. He may be considered rather as a forerunner of Mani than a pure Gnostic. Three of his disciples, Potitus, Basilicus, and Lucanus, are mentioned by Eusebius as being true to their master's dualism (Church History V.13), but Apelles, his chief disciple, though he went farther than his master in rejecting the Old-Testament Scriptures, returned to monotheism by considering the Inspirer of Old-Testament prophecies to be not a god, but an evil angel. On the other hand, Syneros and Prepon, also his disciples, postulated three different principles. A somewhat different dualism was taught by Hermogenes in the beginning of the second century at Carthage. The opponent of the good God was not the God of the Jews, but Eternal Matter, the source of all evil. This Gnostic was combatted by Theophilus of Antioch and Tertullian."</blockquote>
<br />In the <i>Gospel of Judas</i>, Jesus makes reference to an entity Who has never been named, and yet we have, in Hebrew, the Jewish name for God, which is Yahweh. This idea, of the name of God, is somewhat inconsistent with the idea of an unnamed God. This would have been an heretical thought in 200 A.D., and, therefore, would have made The Gospel of Judas a very obvious candidate for expulsion from the Gospels by Iraneus, and the later church fathers who made the final selection of acceptable Gospels. However, once again, for me, it is not a difficult leap to imagine the higher infinite consciousness of God delegating the creation of the world to a lower, co-extensive, creative entity; the idea of progressive distancing from the ultimate source doesn't trouble me at all--as if, by any literal definition, we could ever begin to measure, in anything like an adequate description of spiritual levels and degrees, the height and breadth of God .<br /><br />Now, going on with more specific excerpts of<i> </i>the<i> Gospel of Judas</i>:<br /><br />One of the most distinctive features of the portrait of Jesus given in the <i>Gospel of Judas</i>, is that it shows Jesus laughing. There are three places, in this very short book, where Jesus laughs; and, although He denies it, the disciples take this laughter as mocking or making fun of them, and they get pissed off. Where in the synoptic gospels do the disciples ever get pissed off? And yet, faced with this magnificent paradox, Jesus, how could they not? In an effort to make the disciples holy, the synoptic gospels often forget to make the disciples human.<br /><br />Now, as we know, laughing at the foibles and weaknesses of our friends or children, can be a very open-hearted loving kind of laughter, an indulgent, understanding, forgiving laughter, or it can be a snide, superior, insulting kind of laughter. Of course the disciples, concerned with social status, as the Jews always were, (always pridefully defending their place in the pecking order), take offense at this laughter, and get quite angry with their teacher. Jesus assures them that He is not laughing at them, but with them.<br /><br />We will begin our review of the <i>Gospel of Judas</i> with that scene. The disciples are gathered over a meal, and have been praying a blessing over the food. Jesus walks in on them and begins to laugh. The disciples get all offended, because they think He is making fun of them. So here is the story, and here is what Jesus has to say:<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"SCENE 1: Jesus dialogues with his disciples: The prayer of thanksgiving or the eucharist:<br /><br />One day He was with His disciples in Judea, and He found them gathered together and seated in pious observance. When He approached, His disciples were gathered together and seated and offering a prayer of thanksgiving over the bread. Then He laughed.<br /><br />The disciples said to Him, <br /><br />“Master, why are you laughing at our prayer of thanksgiving? We have done what is right.”<br /><br />He answered and said to them, <br /><br />“I am not laughing at you. You are not doing this because of your own will but because it is through this that your god will be praised.”</blockquote>
<br />[Sidebar: So we can see already, that, far from being a humorous laughter at some incongruity, between the intentions of the disciples' prayer and the effect of the prayer, Jesus is merely laughing for joy, that the Father is so intentionally glorified. It MIGHT be that Jesus is amused by the mechanical nature of the Jewish ritual ("We have done what is right."), it MIGHT be that He sees a certain shallowness in the prayer, ("You are not doing this because of your own will,"), but He MIGHT merely be affirming the mystic solemnity of a ritual of praise which transcends its social context, and elevates itself into sacred joy.<br /><br />The second part of the astray is the telling part:]<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"They said, <br /><br />“Master, you are the son of our god.”<br /><br />Jesus said to them, <br /><br />“How do you know me? Truly I say to you, no generation of the people <br />that are among you will know me.”<br /><br />When his disciples heard this, they started getting angry and infuriated and began blaspheming against him in their hearts."</blockquote>
<br />[Sidebar: Notice it says, they "began blaspheming against him in their hearts". No word was spoken, and yet Jesus read their hearts, just as He had done many times in the Synoptic Gospels. This is, indeed, our old friend, whom we have cherished and adored many times before, because He always sees through our petty subterfuges.]<br /><br />Now, we know that any discussion of the <i>Gospel of Judas</i> must eventually work its way around to the question of whether or not Judas was working FOR or AGAINST Jesus--was Judas following or NOT following Jesus' specific instructions in the matter of the betrayal in the Garden of Gethsemane. This is the most difficult controversy in the book, and it is a central idea around which all the other material revolves. Next week we will take a look at that potion of the text.<br /><br /><br />For now, let us pray: Jesus, as always, we stand in awe of the focus of God that was able to communicate a sliver of its mystery to humankind. We thank you for the opportunity to experience and assess these ancient documents, and we pray, at all costs, that Your Divine Intelligence be available to us, as we explore a vision of you that has been unknown for all these years. Bless our investigations with Heavenly discrimination and open-hearted acceptance. Amen.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Richard Freeman-Toolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03480701171151843224noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6082284124238685067.post-38027951970945966252014-08-03T14:24:00.000-07:002014-08-03T14:24:37.844-07:0013 Introduction to the Gnostic Gospels<h2>
13 Introduction to the Gnostic Gospels</h2>
<br /><br />Having finished my 7-part series on Ecstasy and the Holy Ghost, my plan was to begin a series on the Acts of the Apostles. As you will remember, about a year ago I finished a review of the Synoptic Gospels, so it seemed about time to hit the rest of the New Testament. I've never been that interested in Peter or Paul, that is to say: I was not as interested in what they had to say as in what Jesus had to say; but recently I have been attracted to the Acts, as directed by Steiner you may recall, so I began to read the book systematically, for the first time in maybe thirty years.<br /><br />I had just delved into the first chapter, when the telling of the death of Judas caught my eye. The death of Judas, as told in the first chapter of Acts, is quite unlike the story told in the synoptic Gospels: <br /><br /><b>Acts 1:18-19</b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"(With the payment he received for his wickedness, Judas bought a field; there he fell headlong, his body burst open and all his intestines spilled <br />out. Everyone in Jerusalem heard about this, so they called that field in their language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood.)"</blockquote>
<br /><br />The image of Judas dying in a field that he has just bought for 30 pieces of silver, (his guts exploding everywhere), is very different from the image of Judas hanging himself. This discrepancy led me to investigate Judas. In so doing, I found that there was in fact a Gnostic Gospel of Judas. A little more investigating revealed that there are also Gospels of Mary Magdalene, James, Thomas, Phillip, and Judas. These Gospels constitute the so-called Gnostic Gospels, which were thought to have been rejected by the Church fathers in the First Council of Nicaea:<br /><br />This concise summary of that meeting is taken from Wikipedia:<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"The First Council of Nicaea (/naɪˈsiːə/; Greek: Νίκαια [ˈni:kaɪja]; Turkish: Iznik) was a council of Christian bishops convened in Nicaea in Bithynia by the Roman Emperor Constantine I in AD 325. This first ecumenical council was the first effort to attain consensus in the church through an assembly representing all of Christendom.<br /><br />Its main accomplishments were settlement of the Christological issue of the nature of the Son of God and his relationship to God the Father, the construction of the first part of the Creed of Nicaea, establishing uniform observance of the date of Easter, and promulgation of early canon law.<br />The First Council of Nicaea was the first ecumenical council of the Church. Most significantly, it resulted in the first uniform Christian doctrine, called the Nicene Creed. With the creation of the creed, a precedent was established for subsequent local and regional councils of Bishops (Synods) to create statements of belief and canons of doctrinal orthodoxy—the intent being to define unity of beliefs for the whole of Christendom. . . . ."</blockquote>
<br />[Sidebar: The Nicene Creed is important for more than one reason. Of primary interest to me, of course, are the many beautiful musical settings of the Credo. Compared to some of the other, much shorter, texts in the Catholic Ordinary (like the Kyrie, or the Agnus Dei) the Credo is very wordy; because of this, many settings are prosaic, and run through the text, syllabically, like a speed reader (or a chanter, ha, ha); and yet some masses have credos that take 30 minutes to play through, each movement dwelling on, and glorifying, a single idea or image in the text. <br /><br />But the Nicene creed is most important because it sets a tone, an attitude toward religious belief: it fixes Christian doctrine in an inflexible conceptual straight jacket. It tells people that the church assumes absolute authority in directing its flock's thinking, and makes it heresy to believe anything that is in disagreement with what the church fathers have agreed upon. To be sure, some such direction moth be considered necessary in an ignorant illiterate society, but I'm not sure we need such pervasive protections now. It has always struck me that the words of the Credo are written in stone.<br /><br />Here, for the record, is the:<br /><br /><b>Nicene Creed</b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.<br /><br />And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.<br /><br />Who, for us men for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried; and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.<br /><br />And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceeds from the Father [and the Son]; who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets.<br />And I believe one holy catholic and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen."</blockquote>
<br />This is indeed a wonderful text. But it must still be admitted that it carries with it some of the moral baggage of its time--prejudices which, in subtle manifestations, compromise some the universal resonance that pervades MOST of the text. The Credo has been used as a weapon, more times than I care to recall.<br /><br />Going on with Wikipedia:<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"A number of erroneous views have been stated regarding the council's role in establishing the biblical canon. In fact, there is no record of any discussion of the biblical canon at the council at all. The development of the biblical canon took centuries, and was nearly complete (with exceptions known as the <b>Antilegomena</b>, written texts whose authenticity or value is disputed) by the time the <b>Muratorian</b> fragment was written. . . .<br /><br />The <b>Muratorian</b> fragment is a copy of perhaps the oldest known list of the books of the New Testament. The fragment, consisting of 85 lines, is a 7th-century Latin manuscript bound in a 7th or 8th century codex from the library of Columban's monastery at Bobbio; it contains features suggesting it is a translation from a Greek original written about 170 or as late as the 4th century. Both the degraded condition of the manuscript and the poor Latin in which it was written have made it difficult to translate. The beginning of the fragment is missing, and it ends abruptly. The fragment consists of all that remains of a section of a list of all the works that were accepted as canonical by the churches known to its anonymous original compiler. . . . .<br /><br />In 331 Constantine commissioned fifty Bibles for the Church of Constantinople, but little else is known (in fact, it is not even certain whether his request was for fifty copies of the entire Old and New Testaments, only the New Testament, or merely the Gospels), and it is doubtful that this request provided motivation for canon lists as is sometimes speculated. In Jerome's <i>Prologue to Judith</i> he claims that the <b>Book of Judith</b> was "found by the Nicene Council to have been counted among the number of the Sacred Scriptures"."</blockquote>
<br />So, you can see that one of the big problems with talking about ancient texts is the question of authenticity. The pedigrees of all these ancient books are shrouded in mystery, and nobody knows quite where what came from what. The questionable pedigrees, of some of these ancient texts, make it difficult to forge an allegiance with a text, because it might end up being proven to be spurious, and what fools we were for believing it!<br /><br />I have long been aware of the gospel of <i>Thomas</i>, but stumbling onto the <i>Gospel of Mary Magdalene</i>, the <i>Gospel of James</i>, <i>The Gospel of Philip</i>, and the <i>Gospel of Judas</i>, was a very inspiring discovery. Discovering the so-called Gnostic Gospels was like discovering ANOTHER piano concerto by Mozart, or finding the missing last page of <i>The Art of Fugue</i>. More Jesus stories, oh goody! And I tell you, the stories are REALLY good, although they demand a widening of many of our pre-conceptions of the personality of Jesus as portrayed in the Synoptic Gospels. <br /><br />So a cursory survey of these rogue gospels sounded like a good, casual, fun idea. At first, I was just going to present a single sermon on Judas; but, looking closer, I saw that the wealth of material to be gone over demanded multiple presentations, not only about Judas, but about the other Gnostic Gospels as well. Therefore today's sermon is going to be an introduction to the whole Gnostic Gospel scenario. We will soon see a common thread that runs through all the Gnostic Gospels, unifying characteristics which make them of a piece, but which also make them distinct from the synpotic versions. In a moment we will take a first look at some of these characteristics as exemplified in the <i>Gospel of Judas</i>.<br /><br />First, here is a Wikiedia summary of the Gnostic Gospels:<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Gnostic Gospels<br />"The Gnostic Gospels are a collection of about fifty-two texts based upon the teachings of several spiritual leaders, written from the 2nd to the 4th century AD. The sayings of the Gospel of Thomas, compiled circa 140, may include some traditions even older than the gospels of the New Testament, possibly as early as the second half of the first century. These gospels are not part of the standard Biblical canon of any mainstream Christian denomination, and as such are part of what is called the New Testament apocrypha. Recent novels and films that refer to the gospels have increased public interest.<br /><br />The word gnostic comes from the Greek word gnosis, meaning "knowledge", which is often used in Greek philosophy in a manner more consistent with the English "enlightenment". Some scholars continue to maintain traditional dating for the emergence of Gnostic philosophy and religious movements. It is now generally believed that Gnosticism was a Jewish movement which emerged directly in reaction to Christianity. <br />The name Christian gnostics came to represent a segment of the Early Christian community that believed that salvation lay not in merely worshipping Christ, but in psychic or pneumatic souls learning to free themselves from the material world via the revelation. According to this tradition, the answers to spiritual questions are to be found within, not without. Furthermore, the gnostic path does not require the intermediation of a church for salvation. Some scholars, such as Edward Conze and Elaine Pagels, have suggested that gnosticism blends teachings like those attributed to Jesus Christ with teachings found in Eastern traditions.<br /><br />The documents which comprise the collection of gnostic gospels were not discovered at a single time, but rather as a series of finds. The Nag Hammadi Library was discovered accidentally by two farmers in December 1945 and was named for the area in Egypt where it had been hidden for centuries. Other documents included in what are now known as the gnostic gospels were found at different times and locations, such as the Gospel of Mary, which was recovered in 1896 as part of the Akhmim Codex and published in 1955. Some documents were duplicated in different finds, and others, such as with the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, only one copy is currently known to exist.<br /><br />Although the manuscripts discovered at Nag Hammadi are generally dated to the 4th century, there is some debate regarding the original composition of the texts. A wide range and the majority of scholars date authorship of the Gnostic gospel of Nag Hammadi to the 2nd and 3rd century. Scholars with a focus on Christianity tend to date the gospels mentioned by Irenaeus to the 2nd century, and the gospels mentioned solely by Jerome to the 4th century. The traditional dating of the gospels derives primarily from this division. Other scholars with a deeper focus on pagan and Jewish literature of the period tend to date primarily based on the type of the work:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
1. <i>The Gospel of Thomas</i> is held by most to be the earliest of the "gnostic" gospels composed. Scholars generally date the text to the early-mid 2nd century. The Gospel of Thomas, it is often claimed, has some gnostic elements but lacks the full gnostic cosmology. However, even the description of these elements as "gnostic" is based mainly upon the presupposition that the text as a whole is a "gnostic" gospel, and this idea itself is based upon little other than the fact that it was found along with gnostic texts at Nag Hammadi. Some scholars including Nicholas Perrin argue that Thomas is dependent on the Diatessaron, which was composed shortly after 172 by Tatian in Syria. A minority view contends for an early date of perhaps 50, citing a relationship to the hypothetical Q document among other reasons.<br /> 2. <i>The Gospel of the Lord</i>, a gnostic but otherwise non-canonical text, can be dated approximately during the time of Marcion in the early 2nd century. The traditional view holds Marcion did not compose the gospel directly but, "expunged [from the Gospel of Luke] all the things that oppose his view... but retained those things that accord with his opinion". The traditional view and dating has continued to be affirmed by the mainstream of biblical scholars, however, G. R. S. Mead His Gospel was presumably the collection of sayings in use among the Pauline churches of his day. Of course the patristic writers say that Marcion mutilated Luke's version, and have argued that Marcion's gospel predates the canonical Luke and was in use in Pauline churches.<br /> 3. The <i>Gospel of Truth</i> and the teachings of the Pistis Sophia can be approximately dated to the early 2nd century as they were part of the original Valentinian school, though the gospel itself is 3rd century.<br /> 4. Documents with a Sethian influence (like the <i>Gospel of Judas</i>, or outright Sethian like Coptic Gospel of the Egyptians can be dated substantially later than 40 and substantially earlier than 250; most scholars giving them a 2nd-century date. More conservative scholars using the traditional dating method would argue in these cases for the early 3rd century.<br /> 5. Some gnostic gospels (for example <i>Trimorphic Protennoia</i>) make use of fully developed Neoplatonism and thus need to be dated after Plotinus in the 3rd century.</blockquote>
<br />Selected gospels<br /><br />Though there are many documents that could be included among the gnostic gospels, the term most commonly refers to the following:<br /> • <i>Gospel of Mary</i> (recovered in 1896)<br /> • <i>Gospel of Thomas</i> (versions found in Oxyrhynchus, Egypt in 1898, and again in the Nag Hammadi Library)<br /> • <i>Gospel of Truth</i> (Nag Hammadi Library)<br /> • <i>Gospel of Philip</i> (Nag Hammadi Library) 4 Period<br /> • <i>Gospel of Judas</i> (recovered via the antiquities black market in 1983, and then reconstructed in 2006)."</blockquote>
<br /><br />So you can see, there is a great deal of material to look at, and I felt a moral imperative compelling me to look at it. It seems to me that an investigation of the Gnostic Gospels is really required of the seeking, literate Christian: i.e., the Christian who seeks a personal experience of Jesus, and not mere literal conformity to some moral law, generated out of the prejudices of a society. We call ourselves the Basin Bible Church, which means we place tremendous emphasis on the meaning contained in the preserved sacred writings of this time; whether they are divinely inspired, or merely historically inspired, these writings are the backbone of our faith, and provide the cognitive framework upon which we may hang our subjective, intuitive experience of grace and spirit.<br /><br />Now, as I began to familiarize myself with the Gnostic Gospels, the first question I asked myself was this: why were the Gnostic Gospels rejected? Why did the church fathers feel that the material exposed in these Gospels was not acceptable? Well, one pattern that I perceived right away, that distinguished the Gnostic Gospels from the synoptic Gospels, was that the Gnostic Gospels have more magic in them; there are more Angels, and trans-dimensional travel, more miracles, and more mystic states. For instance, next week we will review the report of a vision that Judas had of his own death, and his first sight of heaven; it is very similar to the apocalyptic images portrayed in Revelation, and yet it also presages literary works such as Dante's the Divine comedy, and those many many other reports of people walking the boulevards of heaven after death-- very new age. Even the language in which these mystical experiences are expressed cross the border from mainstream Christianity into the realm of the new age--(the new age in the case of the <i>Gospel of Judas</i> is about 200 A.D. Can this be the problem? That in an effort to civilize religion, man has chosen to delete from his doctrine the most mystical elements of Christianity, perhaps because these most transcendent elements are also the most frightening?<br /><br />The time of the creation of the Gnostic Gospels was the same exact time as for all the other Gospels. In fact, many of the accepted texts were written much later than the events which they describe, and later than some of the stories told in the Gnostic Gospels. But it cannot be denied that the Gnostic Gospels do contain some problematical content, content which, I imagine, the church fathers felt might lead the poor, stupid peasants astray. It was therefore necessary to delete this material for the sake of the peasant population of the time. <br /><br />But it is not necessary for us to delete these texts now; if they truly enjoy the same status of creation as the accepted Gospels, they deserve equal attention. This is not the 3rd century, and we do not need to protect ourselves from deeply mystical reports of Jesus and his sayings. We must take the Gnostic Gospels just as seriously as the accepted ones, and make an effort to resolve the many seeming contradictions between the texts.<br /><br />Of course the most popular conventional objection to the Gnostic Gospels centers around the problem of authenticity. Where, in fact, do these texts come from, and who, in fact, wrote them? Always afraid of the false prophet, the Christian must sincerely doubt any new discoveries, statements, descriptions, or ideas which have not been thoroughly tested by religious authority. The Nicene authority, which decided on the original definitive form of the Bible, must have been, in an age of superstition, very careful to direct the layman's attention away from those mystical dimensions of life which might lead him down Satan's path to hell. Nevertheless, to deny this dimension of religious experience is to starve the soul of those seekers who wish to experience more fully the heaven on earth which was promised by Jesus.<br /><br />One wonders, in the light of the good which is expressed in these Gospels, "Who cares if the manuscript is a fake, if it was written by medieval commentator, or by some completely unknown ancient author?" It seems to me that the truth would be trans-temporal, and not depend on when it was written for its validity. Indeed, what is a holy Scripture? What makes these words holy, and these words unholy? We usually say, that the words of the Bible are divinely inspired, and in so doing we give the impression that a very few people in history have been divinely inspired. This seems sort of exclusive, and la dee dah. The fact is, the most attractive aspect of the Gnostic Gospels is the narratives they feature; the stories, that the Gnostic Gospels add to the portfolio of Jesus' earthly activities, are very welcome. The stories are universal, just like all the other stories of Jesus' career; they are extravagantly human, and this humanity transcends temporal origin and legitimate authorship. My feeling is that if new material is not in contradiction with the accepted holy Scriptures, then the spirit has been served.<br /><br />The archaic language in which these stories are told seem to me to conceal a secret truth. The stories, imbued with divine resonance, become myth. Indeed, perhaps it was the mythological character of the Gnostic Gospels which deterred the Nicene church fathers from accepting these new myths.<br /><br />Now before we go on, let me make it clear that I am not presenting any of this material as alternatives to any doctrines you may already be upholding. It is not that I am being namby-pamby about it, it is just that I really have not quite made up my mind how much of this material to take seriously, let alone believe. I merely present this material as historical fact, and leave it to you to decide how much of it you can incorporate into your personal theology. As I indicated before, some of the Gnostic Gospels give a completely new portrait of Jesus, and many unsuspected miracles are revealed. I find these items invigorating in the extreme, but they do require leaps of recognition that you may be unwilling to risk.<br /><br />For instance: an example of a Gnostic story which might possibly be considered to be in conflict with accepted biblical stories, is the account in Judas of the creation of the world; in Judas, the narrative begins before "the beginning". It describes a great luminous cloud with no name, no beginning and no end, out of which the first Angel emerges. From this point on, several other items in a progression take place, before the world is even created. <br /><br />I find the whole image of a cloud to be archetypal. Disappearing and reappearing, from clouds, are a events depicted in many many theologies. The cloud is of interest; consider the symbolism of a cloud: a cloud is a loosely put together thing, which prevents you from seeing clearly in front of you. Thus is the literal mind defeated by a dispersal of egoic energy outwards into the cosmos. The "cloud" is an item which appears, universally, in religious symbology in just about every global religion you can name.<br /><br />I find this pre-Genesis story to be not only charming in its mythological idiom, but also very helpful in developing an image of eternity and the character of God and the religious experience. The luminous cloud is necessary not only as a visual prop to the story, it is a central feature not only of Judas' cosmology, but of his spiritual translation from the physical to the heavenly. It will not escape your notice that the luminous cloud described at least once in Judas as a "Cloud of Knowledge" is very much like the "Cloud of Unknowing" of which we have spoken many times. Cute, huh? That a cloud of knowing and a cloud of unknowing could be the same thing!<br /><br />The cloud of <b>Knowing</b> is perceived by the subject from the outside, from which vantage point he witnesses the <b>All-Knowingness of God</b>. However, if the cloud is witnessed from inside, the subject finds his ego dispersed in a radiant rain of <b>Un-Knowing</b>; all of what he thought he knew is dispersed into a fog of discontinuous bits. What we usually consider to be knowledge is reduced to a blur. By analogy, pretend that all the things you think you know are like a tangle of wires and strings; when you untangle those strings you lose your focussed self, but, by way of this opening, you are granted clarity, a vision of higher, laser-like knowledge. So the <b>Cloud of</b> <b>Un-Knowing</b> turns out to be "the cloud of tearing-away-the-chains-you-have-wrapped-around-your-literal-mind", so that your consciousness may expand into the higher knowing of the <b>Cloud of Knowing</b>.<br /><br />Here is the story of creation contained in the <i>Gospel of Judas</i>:<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"<b>JESUS TEACHES JUDAS ABOUT COSMOLOGY: <br />THE SPIRIT AND THE SELF -GENERATED</b><br /><br />Jesus said, “[Come], that I may teach you about [secrets] no person [has] ever seen. For there exists a great and boundless realm, whose extent no generation of angels has seen, [in which] there is [a] great invisible [Spirit], which no eye of an angel has ever seen, no thought of the heart has ever comprehended, and it was never called by any name.<br /><br />“And a luminous cloud appeared there. He said, ‘Let an angel come into being as my attendant.’<br /><br />“A great angel, the enlightened divine Self-Generated, emerged from the cloud. Because of him, four other angels came into being from another cloud, and they became attendants for the angelic Self-Generated. The Self-Generated said, ‘Let him come into being,’ and he came into being. And he [created] the first luminary to reign over him. He said, ‘Let angels come into being to serve [him],’ and myriads without number came into being. He said, ‘[Let] an enlightened aeon come into being,’ and he came into being. He created the second luminary [to] reign over him, together with myriads of angels without number, to offer service. That is how he created the rest of the enlightened aeons. He made them reign over them, and he created for them myriads of angels without number, to assist them.</blockquote>
<br />[Sidebar: The next section makes reference, constantly, to the term "aeon"; I looked it up:<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"In many Gnostic systems, the various emanations of God, who is also known by such names as the One, the Monad, Aion teleos (αἰών τέλεος "The Broadest Aeon"), Bythos ("depth or profundity", Greek βυθός), Proarkhe ("before the beginning", Greek προαρχή), the Arkhe ("the beginning", Greek ἀρχή), "Sophia" (wisdom), Christos (the Anointed One) are called Aeons. In the different systems these emanations are differently named, classified, and described, but the emanation theory itself is common to all forms of Gnosticism.<br /><br />In the Basilidian Gnosis they are called sonships (υἱότητες huiotetes; sing.: υἱότης huiotes); according to Marcus, they are numbers and sounds; in Valentinianism they form male/female pairs called "syzygies" (Greek συζυγίαι, from σύζυγοι syzygoi).<br /><br />Similarly, in the Greek Magical Papyri, the term "Aion" is often used to denote the All, or the supreme aspect of God. "</blockquote>
<br />Back to Judas:]<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"<b>ADAMAS AND THE LUMINARIES</b><br />“Adamas was in the first luminous cloud that no angel has ever seen among all those called ‘God.’ He created the image of Man after the likeness of [this] angel. He made the incorruptible [generation] of Seth appear. He made seventy-two luminaries appear in the incorruptible generation, in accordance with the will of the Spirit. The seventy-two luminaries themselves made three hundred sixty luminaries appear in the incorruptible generation, in accordance with the will of the Spirit, that their number should be five for each.<br /><br />“The twelve aeons of the twelve luminaries constitute their father, with six heavens for each aeon, so that there are seventy-two heavens for the seventy-two luminaries, and for each [of them five] firmaments, [for a total of] three hundred sixty [firmaments ...]. They were given authority and a [great] host of angels [without number], for glory and adoration, [and after that also] virgin spirits, for glory and [adoration] of all the aeons and the heavens and their firmaments.<br /><b><br />THE COSMOS, CHAOS, AND THE UNDERWORLD</b><br />“The multitude of those immortals is called the cosmos— that is, perdition—by the Father and the seventy-two luminaries who are with the Self-Generated and his seventy-two aeons. In him the first human appeared with his incorruptible powers. <br /><br />And the aeon that appeared with his generation, the aeon in whom are the cloud of knowledge and the angel, is called. And Saklas said, ‘Let twelve angels come into being [to] rule over chaos and the [underworld].’ And look, from the cloud there appeared an [angel] whose face flashed with fire and whose appearance was defiled with blood. <br /><br />His name was Nebro, which means ‘rebel’; others call him Yaldabaoth. Another angel, Saklas, also came from the cloud. So Nebro created six angels—as well as Saklas—to be assistants, and these produced twelve angels in the heavens, with each one receiving a portion in the heavens.<br /><br /><b>THE CREATION OF HUMANITY</b><br />“Then Saklas said to his angels, ‘Let us create a human being after the likeness and after the image.’ They fashioned Adam and his wife Eve, who is called, in the cloud, Zoe. For by this name all the generations seek the man, and each of them calls the woman by these names. And the [ruler] said to Adam, ‘You shall live long, with your children.’”</blockquote>
<br /><br />I have to admit that it is nice to have an expanded Christian version of the Creation, like a lot of other world mythologies. I do not mean I believe this, literally, any more than I believe the world was created in six days, but the story (whatever it means) adds a dimension to my religious background and adds to the wonder and miracle of it all. Next week we will present one or two stories from the Gospel of Judas, including the one that makes Judas a hero rather than a villain.<br /><br />For now let us pray for guidance in these murky philosophical waters, and hope for insight in the paradoxical personality of Jesus.<br /><br />Let us pray: Jesus, thank you for this opportunity to add to our knowledge of the Infinite You. Give us both the powers of discrimination, and the power of an open mind. Amen.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Richard Freeman-Toolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03480701171151843224noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6082284124238685067.post-16078289946011564342014-07-13T13:35:00.005-07:002014-07-13T13:35:58.422-07:0012 What is Christianity? <h2>
12 What is Christianity?</h2>
<br />Christianity is a word that wears many hats; it is a belief system, to be sure, but it is also a social system, a religious discipline, a global philosophy, an organization of like-minded people, and an opposition of contrary-minded people; it is a mysterious spiritual union of souls transcending time and space, and yet it is a powerful financial institution serving many mundane cross-purposes in terms, for instance, of humanitarian activities.<br /><br />C.S. Lewis describes it thus:<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
" . . . the Church as we see her spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners."</blockquote>
<br />The fact that there exists contradiction within factions of an admittedly splintered belief system, (the various dialects of which presumably all came from the same source,) is somewhat troubling; not because disagreement is nothing if not merely human, but because these religious differences of opinion have, historically, resulted in unspeakable violence. It is a good thing that people are passionate about their religion: the passion for God is a fire that lights our way up the spiritual path; however, when we meet other pilgrims, traveling along an ever so slightly different track along the pathway, we hail to them to join us on our ONLY TRUE path, and when they don't, we try to kill them.<br /><br />I have spoken before of the evils of the spirituality that is religion-driven, as opposed to the religion that is spirit-driven. The very existence of the various Christian denominations attests to man's inborn propensity toward contentious social/moral attitudes; this only becomes a bad thing when we want to be right more than we want to be good. We cannot help but want the whole world to agree with us that the face we have painted on God is His only possible face, universally accepted by all mankind; and if somebody doesn't see the same face as we do, we try to kill them.<br /><br />In a way it is beautiful thing--all these people who want to kill all the other people who don't believe the way they do: it means that people are willing to put their lives on the line for something they consider to be more important than themselves, something bigger than themselves. However, I always worry that this killing seems to be over disagreements about gradations of semantic subtlety, and not transcendent spiritual experience-- it is my feeling that true spiritual experience always obliterates the confinements of literal definition, thereby freeing the soul to soar with flights of angels, all angles of God, all one in spirit.<br /><br />From Wikipedia, here are some comments on, and a list of some (not all) of the many various "Christian" denominations:<br /><br />
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(November 2009)<br />"A Christian denomination is an identifiable religious body under a common name, structure, and doctrine within Christianity.<br />Some groups are large (e.g. Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans, Anglicans or Baptists), while others are just a few small churches, and in most cases the relative size is not evident in this list. Modern movements such as Fundamentalist Christianity, Pietism, Evangelicalism, Pentecostalism and the Holiness movement sometimes cross denominational lines, or in some cases create new denominations out of two or more continuing groups, (as is the case for many United and uniting churches, for example). Such subtleties and complexities are not clearly depicted here.<br /><br />Note: This is not a complete list, but aims to provide a comprehensible overview of the diversity among denominations of Christianity. As there are reported to be approximately 41,000 Christian denominations (figure includes overlap between countries), many of which cannot be verified to be significant, only those denominations with Wikipedia articles will be listed in order to ensure that all entries on this list are notable and verifiable.<br />Between denominations, theologians, and comparative religionists there are considerable disagreements about which groups can be properly called Christian, disagreements arising primarily from doctrinal differences between groups. <br /><br />There is no official recognition in most parts of the world for religious bodies, and there is no official clearinghouse which could determine the status or respectability of religious bodies. Often there is considerable disagreement between various churches about whether other churches should be labeled with pejorative terms such as "cult", or about whether this or that group enjoys some measure of respectability. Such considerations often vary from place to place, where one religious group may enjoy majority status in one region, but be widely regarded as a "dangerous cult" in another part of the world. Inclusion on this list does not indicate any judgment about the size, importance, or character of a group or its members.<br />· Catholicism<br />· Protestantism<br />· Lutheranism<br />· Anglicanism<br />· Calvinism<br />· Anabaptists and Schwarzenau Brethren (Amish, Hutterites, Mennonites)<br />· Plymouth Brethren and Free Evangelical Churches<br />· Methodists<br />· Pietists and Holiness Churches<br />· Baptists<br />· Apostolic Churches – Irvingites<br />· Pentecostalism<br />· Charismatics<br />· African Initiated Churches<br />· Messianic Judaism / Jewish Christians<br />· United and uniting churches<br />· Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)<br />· Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement<br />· Southcottites<br />· Millerites and comparable groups<br />· Adventist (Sunday observing)<br />· Adventist (Seventh Day Sabbath/Saturday observing)<br />· Church of God movements (Sunday observing)<br />· Church of God movements (Seventh Day Sabbath/Saturday observing)<br />· 9 Nontrinitarian groups<br />· Latter Day Saints<br />· Oneness Pentecostalism<br />· Unitarianism and Universalism<br />· Swedenborgianism<br />· Christian Science<br />· 10 New Thought (Church of Divine Science, Anthroposophical Society, Theosophy, Rosicrucian Fellowship)<br />· 11 Esoteric Christianity<br />· 13 Syncretistic religions incorporating elements of Christianity (Native American Church, Cult of Santa Muerte, Voodou, Chrislam)"</blockquote>
<br />Many of (let's admit it, MOST of) these denominations make claims of exclusivity when it comes to spiritual truth, even to the point of denying the spiritual validity of all the other denominations. Now, since one of the bottom lines in Christian dogma is the existence of Hell as the ultimate destination for nonbelievers, it is therefore an implicit conclusion that, members of all other opposing denominations/belief systems are condemned to Hell. There many somewhat subtle dogmatic disagreements which may thus condemn the so-called heathen infidel to Hell. This is the belief that turned me away from Christianity for about 20 years. <br /><br />One big dogmatic disagreement, that divides the various denominations, is the issue of Salvation through Grace, as opposed to Salvation through Good Works. One component of the Salvation-through-Grace philosophy is the law of pre-destination--a law which grants life to certain chosen believers, and condemns rest of the world to Hell. I have spoken on this subject before, and find the disagreement to be essentially transparent and insubstantial. The question of pre-destination as opposed to free will is a quandary whose resolution resides outside time, and is, therefore, beyond man's powers of literal comprehension. As such, literal disagreements about this issue are fundamentally non-applicable if not right down silly.<br /><br />Many disagreements, among the denominations, reside in the domain of BEHAVIOR. It will be no surprise to hear that many Christians disavow the legitimacy of the beliefs of other Christians on the basis of things like whether they smoke, whether they go to movies, whether they use slang expressions like "gosh", or "jeez", or "darn", or "frickin'", whether they say "a-men" or "hallelujah", after key points in sermons, whether they work on Sundays, or whether they vote Republican.<br /><br />Now, so far, we have been discussing the various flavors of Christianity merely within the generally accepted world Christian community. However, one of the purposes of this address is consider how “Christian” some other world religions are, religions which do not even recognize Jesus at all. Below are some relevant comments; this first one, from <i>Bible evidences.com</i> sums up the conventional view:<br /><br />
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“<b>What About the Other Religions?</b><br />To non-Christians one of the most offensive claims of Christianity is that it provides the only path to heaven. If you are a non-Christian it is certainly understandable why this would offend or upset you, but I would hope you can at least appreciate and respect why it is important for Christians not to skirt such an important tenet of Christianity. If the Bible truly is the Word of God, wouldn't you agree that it would be incredibly selfish of Christians to fail to mention such a far-reaching, eternally important component of the Bible?<br /><br /><b>Comparing World Religions</b><br />The first thing we should do is determine how the major religions of the world differ from each other, and to ascertain whether these differences are bridgeable. Christianity is based on the Triune God of the Bible - the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and particularly the life of the Son, Jesus Christ. All other religions are based on the writings of men and not the life of any particular individual. Judaism, the sister religion to Christianity, is based on the Old Testament of the Bible, rejecting the entire New Testament and holding that the Messiah has not yet come. Islam is based on the writings of Muhammad, where they worship a single, impersonal god. Mormonism is based on the writings of Joseph Smith, where they deny the eternal divinity of Jesus, believe in many gods, and believe men can attain godhood (as their Jesus and Father did) and rule over their own planet. The Eastern religions, including Hinduism and Buddhism, and Western new-age religions, such as Christian Science, essentially believe everything is god (Pantheism - may the force be with you). These religions also teach reincarnation until the spirit reaches a level of "enlightenment" and oneness with god or the gods. <br /><br />Christianity teaches one death and one judgment (Hebrews 9:27).<br /><br />Christianity is also the only religion that recognizes the hopeless gap between man and a Holy and Righteous God, teaching that salvation can only be obtained through God's grace. All other religions teach that salvation can be achieved through human effort."</blockquote>
<br />[Sidebar: This last paragraph is such a distortion and over-simplification of the truth, it borders on “bald-face lie.” The author uses, in the same sentence, the terms “hopeless” and “grace”. Now, it goes without saying that without grace, sinful man would indeed be hopeless; but the simultaneous reference to hopelessness and grace in the same sentence is an obvious contradiction in terms, and a logically confused concept. The words are used for dramatic effect and not clarity of meaning, hence revealing an emotionally charged subtext which defies reason. This author cares more about being right than about being good. It will also be immediately apparent that this sentence refers to the “grace vs. good works” controversy, and that the author is not only condemning the heathen masses of the world to Hell, he is also condemning the entire Catholic denomination to Hell as well. Furthermore, and finally, the sentence, “All other religions teach that salvation can be achieved through human effort,” is just plain ignorant; it makes presuppositions about the other world religions that are clearly apples and oranges contradictions. Indeed, the whole idea of “salvation”, in the sense that this author clearly means, is not even an issue for many of the Eastern religions.<br /><br />Back to <i>Bible evidences.com</i>:] <br />
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“I think at this point we should be able to agree that that the major world religions are quite different, with many conflicting and contradictory views. To hold that all religions are equally true is simply not a rational belief.”</blockquote>
<br />[Sidebar: Sorry to disagree, but: “to hold that all religions are equally true” is, absolutely, a rational belief, because truth must forever be enslaved by the constraints of rationality. It is the UN-Truth, the NON-truth, the SUPER-Truth that interests me, and if I can find, in any of the other religions, the inarticulate Love of God permeating the Cloud of Unknowing, I spit on rationality, or, in less graphic terms, I rise above rationality. The trouble with religion is that everybody wants it to make sense!<br /><br />Back to <i>Bible evidences.com</i>:] <br /><br />
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"Biblical View on Other Religions So, what does the Bible have to say about other religions? It teaches that there is a spiritual war going on and the intention of Satan and his host of demonic spirits is to divert us from the truth. The apostle John wrote that "the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one (1 John 5:19)", and the apostle Paul warned us that people will "follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons (1 Timothy 4:1)". From the beginning Satan has been deceiving humanity. In the garden he convinced Eve that "ye shall be as gods". Don't you find it interesting that to be divine "as God" is a common thread among many religions, including Buddhism, Hinduism, Mormonism, and even false Christianity teachings by Kenneth Copeland, Benny Hinn and others? The Bible also teaches that Satan and his servants will masquerade as ministers of righteousness (2 Corinthians 11:13-14). Satan's hoisting of false religions has been a very effective lie since it mixes in some truth. A lie mixed in with truth is much like rat poison, which contains 99% good food and 1% poison - its that 1% of poison (or lie) that will kill you!”<br /> </blockquote>
We are quite familiar with the preceding train of thought. It is an obvious conclusion based on mainstream Christian dogma. The next comment is from the <i>Commission for Interreligious Dialogue</i>:<br /><br /><br /> <br />
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<b><i>CHRIST AND THE OTHER RELIGIONS</i></b><br />Michael Fitzgerald<br /><br /><br /><br /><b>The Jewish Tradition</b><br />"With regard to the Jewish tradition it is important not to overlook the Jewishness of Jesus. There is not only the fact of his birth, but also his love for the Scriptures and for the Temple as evidenced in his preaching and his ministry in general. It should be remembered too that the first Christians were in fact Judeo-Christians, though very soon Gentiles entered the Church.<br /><br />In the first two centuries there does not appear to be much opposition on the part of the Jews to Jesus as a human person. From the 3rd century onwards, as the Christian faith in the divinity of Christ became more clearly expressed, and the distance between Judaism and Christianity grew, Jews tended to ignore Jesus. After the year 1000, when persecution of Jews increased, and Jesus was perceived to be the source of all their woes, Jews adopted a more critical stance. Yet some Jewish sages, writing between the 12th and 14th centuries, could speak of Jesus as a "saint", as one who "served to prepare the whole world for the veneration of God in the communion of hearts".<br /><br /><b>Islam</b><br />The Qur' an contains several passages on Jesus and Mary. The virginal birth, the role of Jesus as a prophet, his mission to confirm the Torah, but to abrogate some of its prohibitions, the calling of "helpers" in his mission, - these are all features of the Quranic portrait of Jesus.<br />There are thus similarities with the Christian understanding of Jesus, but there are essential differences. The divinity of Christ is denied, as is also the reality of the Crucifixion. . . .<br /><br /><b>Hinduism</b><br />Hindus, who have heard about Jesus Christ from Christian missionaries, have reacted in various ways. Some have come to admire Jesus, but without any feeling of commitment to him. Others have come to know and love Jesus and have committed themselves to him, but within the context of Hinduism. Still others have responded to the person of Christ by seeking baptism and incorporation into the Church.<br />Mahatma Gandhi is an example of one who greatly admired the teaching of Jesus but who, as he himself said, was not interested in the historical person of the teacher. He was particularly struck by the Sermon on the Mount. For him Jesus, through his message, became an ethical symbol.<br /><br />Many Hindus have no difficulty in accepting Jesus as divine. What they find difficult is the Christian understanding that the Incarnation of God in Jesus is unique. Jesus is often seen as the supreme example of self-realization, the goal of the Hindi dharma. He is taken to be a symbol of human progress. For some he becomes more of an ideal than a historical person. According to Hindu traditions, history always provides an imperfect knowledge of reality. In such a context, to identify the mystery of Jesus Christ with historical fact is seen as reducing God to imperfection.<br /><br /><b>Buddhism</b><br />Since Buddha deliberately avoided talking about the existence or non-existence of God, it is obvious that Buddhists will have difficulty when faced with the Christian belief in Jesus as the Son of God, true God and true man. Yet some Buddhists have paid serious attention to Jesus Christ. A contemporary Japanese scholar, Masao Abe, has reflected on the self-emptying of Christ as referred to by Paul (Phil 2: 5-8). He compares this kenosis with the concept of sunyata (emptiness) in Buddhism. Christ is here an example of denial of the self (ego). So it can be said that «Every day, here and now, we die as the old person, and resurrect as the new person with Christ».<br /><br />Other Buddhists see Jesus as the liberator, because he teaches people the correct view of life, helping them out of darkness and blindness. Jesus does not impose liberation, but offers it, through faith in him. For the Dalai Lama it is the compassion of Jesus that is most striking. He sees the importance of the Gospel teaching on love of neighbour, kindness, forgiveness.”</blockquote>
<br />It must be apparent from the foregoing quotations I have chosen, that I am building a case for a sort of “religion without walls”, a dogmatic system that includes more than it excludes. To some, this may seem like the road to insanity. Indeed, it is well understood that your egoic definition of who you are consists of two opposing components: who you are, and who you are not. I give this lecture all the time to children who have turned 13, and have contracted the “Jr. High Disease”-- the state of mind where you have to disagree with everything your parents say because that is the only way you can separate yourself from them and find yourself. Of course, as natural as it is, victims of the Jr. High Disease typically throw the baby out with the bath. There is a philosophy that affirms that “the more people you can relate to without going crazy, the wiser you are.” Clearly not everybody’s threshold of insanity is not the same, so most people cannot embrace the humanity of all without losing themselves. Everybody needs to have somebody they are NOT; every right needs a wrong. When it comes right down to it, the RELIGION part of Christianity is merely a question of the devotee's RANGE of intellectual capacity, NOT absolute truth.<br /><br />The next comment is from, you guessed it, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:<br /><br /><br />
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<b>Religious perspectives on Jesus</b><br /><br />"The religious perspectives on Jesus vary among major world religions. Jesus' teachings and the retelling of his life story have significantly influenced the course of human history, and have directly or indirectly affected the lives of billions of people, even non-Christians.<br /><br />Christianity teaches that Jesus is the Messiah (Christ) and the Son of God Incarnate. Christians believe that through his death and resurrection, humans can be reconciled to God and thereby are offered salvation and the promise of eternal life. These teachings emphasize that as the willing Lamb of God, Jesus chose to suffer in Calvary as a sign of his full obedience to the will of his Father, as an "agent and servant of God". Christians view Jesus as a role model, whose God-focused life believers are encouraged to imitate.<br /><br />The Bahá'í Faith consider Jesus to be a manifestation of God, who are a series of personages who reflect the attributes of the divine into the human world. Bahá'ís rejects the idea that divinity was contained with a single human body.<br /><br />Traditionally, Buddhists as a group take no particular view on Jesus, and Buddhism and Christianity have but a minor intersection. However, some scholars have noted similarities between the life and teachings of Gautama Buddha and Jesus. These similarities might be attributed to Buddhist missionaries sent as early as Emperor Ashoka around 250 BCE in many of the Greek Seleucid kingdoms that existed then and then later became the same regions that Christianity began. Jesus was seen as the savior and bringer of gnosis by various Gnostic sects, such as the extinct Manichaeism. In the Ahmadiyya Islamic view, Jesus survived the crucifixion and later travelled to India, where he lived as a prophet (and died) under the name of Yuz Asaf.<br /><br />The Religious Science/Science of Mind teaching generally incorporates idealistic and panentheistic philosophies. RS/SOM teaches that all beings are expressions of and part of Infinite Intelligence, also known as Spirit, Christ Consciousness, or God. It teaches that, because God is all there is in the universe (not just present in Heaven, or in assigned deities, as believed by traditional teachings), Its power can be used by all humans to the extent that they recognize and align themselves with Its presence. Ernest Holmes said "God is not ... a person, but a Universal Presence ... already in our own soul, already operating through our own consciousness."</blockquote>
<br />It will be noticed that even belief systems that include science fiction in their catechisms, find it difficult to keep clear of this notion of the “Christ”. Even though the orientations of these religions toward spiritual discipline may be obliquely opposed, sometimes, they can’t seem to stay clear of this idea of God incarnate. Even though they can’t look at the historical record and give a name to this Christ, they cannot escape a compulsion to acknowledge His presence. The Holy Trinity seems also to be an inescapable conclusion even for philosophers who are not wholly committed to the divinity of Jesus--as we saw last week in the writing of Joseph Campbell in <i>A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living</i>:<br />
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"The key to understanding the problem that’s solved with the symbolic idea of the Trinity is the Tantric saying, <br />'To worship a god, one must become a god.' <br />That is to say, you must hit that level of consciousness within yourself that is equivalent to the deity to whom you are addressing your attention.<br /><br />"In the Trinity, the Father is the deity your attention is addressed to; you are the Son, knower of the Father; and the Holy Spirit represents the relationship between the two.<br /><br />It seems to me you cannot have the notion of a god without having implicit the notion of a Trinity: a god, the knower of the god, and the relationship between the two, a progressive knowing that brings you closer and closer to the divine.<br />"The divine lives within you."</blockquote>
<br />Now, I know that to many people what I am saying resides in the frontier between truth and blasphemy, and to many more it crosses way over the border into the realm of heresy. In this regard, we know that unfamiliar material is always greeted with suspicion by those who do not understand it. The shadow of "false prophet" lurks on many pages of the Bible; thus the greatest philosophical feat of all is to be able to distinguish something that is true from something that is Satanic in character. Is something Satanic because you never heard of it before? Or is something new, also true, because we are eternally directed to "Sing unto the Lord a new song!"?<br /><br />Last week I sent my "<i>HolyGhost III</i>" sermon to my brother, a Nazarene minister. He wrote back and mentioned the section on angels. <br /><br />
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"Richard,<br />Thanks for sharing. Your idea about angels being messengers for the Spirit is intriguing."</blockquote>
<br />I wrote back and said:<br /><br />
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"By the way, the bit about angels is not an "idea". I have either talked with angels many times, I am delusional, or I am the victim of satanic possession and am a false prophet. I feel pretty good about the "talked with angels many times" sentence. The impressions we get in prayer are heaven-sent, and the mechanism of transmission is the Angel. The fact that angels have no personal identity does not make their messages impersonal, because they come from God, the BIG PERSON. The abstract nature of the angelic "personality" is what makes their messages resonate in eternity."</blockquote>
<br />It must never escape our attention that forays into the realm of the so-called "occult" may lead us down paths forged by Satan; heightened spiritual sensitivity always includes the threat of misdirection by the Prince of Liars and his minions. Still, communion with higher beings is very Biblical, and was known to all the great saints. In our thirst for higher knowledge, we must not only keep an open mind, but a DISCRIMINATING mind. As John says in 1 John 4:1-13:<br /><br />
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"1 Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.<br />2 Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God:<br />3 And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.<br />4 Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.<br />5 They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them.<br />6 We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.<br />7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.<br />8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.<br />9 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.<br />10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.<br />11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.<br />12 No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.<br />13 Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit."</blockquote>
<br />This passage is loaded with nuggets of encouragement and warning for the seeker of spiritual knowledge in the psychic world. <br />
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1. The sentence, "believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God" says that we do receive messages, from the Holy Spirit, message which come from the super-physical dimension, but we must not trust every impression that floats into our consciousness.<br /><br />2. The sentence "Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God" attributes ultimate authority to Jesus. Thus, a simple test of the spiritual validity of any psychic impression is whether it claims, as its source, the Divinity of the Son. This is something that the spiritual devotee learns to FEEL. Trust me, I have been deceived enough times to tell the difference, but it is not an easy road, and it requires constant exercise of high-minded discrimination.<br /><br />3. The sentence, "And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist," reveals the fatal weakness of Satan: he cannot bear the name of Jesus. He may twist and squirm around it, but Jesus' name is filled with the power of the armor of God, and can defeat every trick of the devil to confound us.<br /><br />4. The sentence, "We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us," affirms that the devotee's love for God reveals the knowledge of God in unmitigated purity and strength.<br /><br />5. Finally, the sentence, "Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God," draws a pretty clear bottom line: spirituality is love of God. We Christians have given a name to God's love: it is Jesus. Conversely, when we use the word Jesus, we mean, and will always and ultimately mean: LOVE.</blockquote>
<br /><br />I have only one point to make today: the bottom line of Christianity, in all its articulate, (and thereby contradictory), expressions, is Jesus Christ. Jesus created the moment in human history when the voice of God came to Earth incarnate in the body of a Man; Jesus accepted responsibility for Original Sin, and gave His life in order to demonstrate to humankind that death is an illusion, and that God has established a Kingdom on Earth which is habitable by any who are willing to open their eyes and see it. True, absolutely essential moral imperatives are imbedded in the teachings of Jesus; but they are very, very few, and all are specific to the individual anomalous soul and not to any generalized, or culturally specific principles.<br /><br />I think of the language of religion in very much the same way I think of the language of music: I know there are many levels of literacy, many vernacular and elitist dialects, but I also know that all these levels come from and lead back to a single source. The legitimacy of your chosen musical dialect depends on YOU not IT. For an example of "vernacular" Christianity we merely turn to the Fundamentalist Southern Baptist denomination; these people like things simple, down-to-earth, anti-intellectual, and black-and-white, in Alabama, mostly white, ha ha. <br /><br />For an example of a more mainstream denomination we could look to the Methodists (mainstream for the present, anyway, as the fundamentalists gain ground every day); these people place a high value on church family potlucks, and community Christmas trees; the language of their catechism reads a lot like the constitution of the United States—nothing extreme, nothing particularly charismatic, very familiar, very comfortable, very 1950s, very Chamber of Commerce. <br /><br />For an example of an elitist form of Christianity, or a so-called “New Thought” dialect, we turn to Rudolf Steiner’s Anthroposophy; as you well know, I lean hard toward this body of literature for my articulated theology, and, like any snob, I have a hard time not feeling superior to lower forms of Christianity; but I know enough to recognize prideful vanity when I see it, so I never let these thoughts lead me down unwholesome paths.<br /><br />The quality that distinguishes these three points on the continuum is nothing more than language, and the amount of information that language expresses. I like Steiner because, while he places Jesus squarely in the center of his belief system, his theology INCLUDES vocabulary, concepts, events, and consciousness states from many more points of origin than that of the Baptist old time religion. The problems I always had, making sense of the many socially generated articles of faith included in the Baptist (Nazarene) dogma, are done away with in Steiner’s cosmic view. Of course, it is this very cosmic dimension that is so off-putting to Fundamentalist or even Mainstream Christians, because, in an effort to do away with superstition, both of these schools of thought have tended to suspect (and condemn) anything that smacks of magic or mysticism. They seem to have lost the idea of a Heaven on Earth, where miracles are a stock in trade; they prefer to put off the experience of heavenly ecstasy for after death.<br /><br />Still, what is it that makes these people one body—THE CHURCH. It is the unifying power of Jesus—Jesus the Mediator between God and Man, Jesus the perfect superman whose beneficent smile neutralizes all our estrangements in a great wave of love. Jesus’ divine intellect is available to all in whatever dialect they need to see it in. Jesus’ patience and tolerance are available to all, in whatever capacity or degree they are able to receive it.<br /><br />In this regard, I have one more important point to make: much is made, in Christian dogma, of the necessity of BELIEVING in Jesus. I do not think that believing in Jesus has much to do with our ultimate salvation, nor do I consider it a requirement for membership in the Invisible Church; Jesus believes in YOU, whether you believe in Him or not; thus, as we mentioned above, religions that don’t even recognize the historical Jesus as significant, let alone divine, are not cut off from His boundless mercy and grace. Here I quote these words from C.S. Lewis’ <i>The Last Battle</i>:<br /><br />Even C. S. Lewis, a man who could never be confused with a namby-pamby, or Pantheist Christian, made allowances for differences of opinion at this basic level. At the end of <i>The Last Battle</i> there appears the following conversation between Aslan and a Calormene soldier--a soldier who, though born an enemy of Aslan, was, at heart, a friend:<br /><br />
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“Then I fell at his feet and thought, surely this is the hour of death, for the Lion (who is worthy of all honour) will know that I have served Tash all my days and not him. Nevertheless, it is better to see the Lion and die than to be Tisroc of the world and live and not to have seen him.”<br /><br />“But the Glorious One bent down his golden head and touched my forehead with his tongue and said, Son, thou art welcome. But I said, Alas, Lord, I am no son of thine but the servant of Tash. He answered, Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me.”<br /><br />“Then by reasons of my great desire for wisdom and understanding, I overcame my fear and questioned the Glorious One and said, Lord, is it then true, as the Ape said, that thou and Tash are one? <br /><br />The Lion growled so that the earth shook (but his wrath was not against me) and said, It is false. Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to me the services which thou hast done to him. <br />For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him.Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath’s sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him.<br /><br />And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted.<br />Dost thou understand, Child?<br /><br />I said, Lord, thou knowest how much I understand. But I said also (for the truth constrained me), Yet I have been seeking Tash all my days.<br /><br />Beloved, said the Glorious One, unless thy desire had been for me thou shouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek."</blockquote>
<br /><br />I have read this passage before; to me, it is one of the most meaningful sections in all of C.S. Lewis, because it affirms a basic principle: that Jesus' love is universal, and not restricted by verbal constraints. Jesus loves us all equally, and makes Himself available to everyone who tries to do good, regardless of creed or allegiance.<br /><br />Religious snobs are not able to understand how Jesus can love all equally; they are not able to accept that there is no continuum in Heaven—that we are all poured into an infinity of molds, from exactly the same well; they are not able to see that One in Christ means ONE IN CHRIST. This is what it means to be a Christian—every other definition is vanity and declusion. If this belief makes me a false prophet, I have truly been deceived--but I don't think so; in Jesus' name, I don't think so.<br /><br />Let us pray: Jesus, lead us to each other, and to You. Teach us to listen to our minds JUST ENOUGH for our hearts to open to your divinity in all its glory and diversity. Teach us to recognize your voice in the din; teach us the simplicity of silence. Amen.<br />Richard Freeman-Toolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03480701171151843224noreply@blogger.com0