Dimensions of Cosmic Christianity

That's the subtitle of a new book by Stratford Caldecott, The Radiance of Being: Dimensions of Cosmic Christianity. No, I haven't overcome my recent word-weariness, but since I received a free copy from the publisher, I feel honorbound to write a review, even though there is no obligation to do so. I'm just not used to getting free stuff.

First of all, did he steal the book's title from me? Nah, we're just on the same page and in the same attractor. Just when no one I think is in my tree, here comes another sap in the same branch. I just now looked it up, and I see, for example, Christianity and the Cosmic Thing, Cosmic Christianity, or Adam & Evolution, and Incarnating the Cosmic Person, but I think the overall trend of the blog over the course of 2,181 posts has been toward the development of a "cosmic christianity."

Attractor? For Caldecott, the Holy Spirit is a "magnetic field" that "draws all men to Christ" and arouses "the love of man and [gives] it a direction." Man is always oriented to the Cosmic Center, if only he prays attention to the interior compass deivoice inside his head.

In truth -- and I've probably said this before -- Christianity has always been cosmic in its scope and its consequences. It's just that our understanding of the cosmos is very different today than it was one or two thousand years ago.

Actually -- and this is a key point -- the cosmos hasn't changed all that much, being that man hasn't changed all that much. It is a conceit of modern man to imagine that he lives in a kind of light that was denied earlier generations, when the Light doesn't belong to man to begin with.

Rather, the Light that lights the world is always available to man as such, which is why, for example, Whitehead could make the remark that all philosophy is just a footnote on Plato, or why Aristotle and Aquinas will always be relevant, to put it mildly.

Not to go all Kant on you, but he did latch on to a partial truth in suggesting that, in some sense, the cosmos is a form of our sensibility. As Caldecott expresses it, "not only is the eye sun-related, the sun as well is eye-related."

In other words, we are both liberated and limited by our human station -- we don't perceive the world as does a bat, a cat, or an angel, let alone as does the Creator. Rather, we see the world as a human does, and any man, at any time, can circumnovelgaze the the limits of the soul, whether via philosophy, art, or virtue.

Man is in the image of the Absolute, which is why we may become "adequate" to it, even while not actually becoming it. Caldecott makes the same point: "Since there are orders of infinity, everything that exists can partake of infinity in a certain respect."

This is also why man may achieve terrestrial (i.e., relative) "perfection," but also why perfection cannot surpass itself and fully identify with the source of perfection. In the words of Schuon, "Man is made in such a way that he is never fully actualized within the limits of his possibilities except with the help of constraints, otherwise he would be perfect..."

Just as one perfect poem does not cancel out or negate another perfect poem -- or painting or musical composition -- we have to stop believing that one manmode belief system can cancel out all the others.

Rather, it's all true!, as it were. It's just a matter of properly situating everything in the cosmic hierarchy. Everything has its place, even materialism. Even leftism! Just not as a form of government. I run my family on thoroughly communist grounds, in that we all share everything, and everyone is equal, except some people are more equal than others, and if anything goes wrong, I investigate myself.

Hey, what about the book!

Right. It is actually a collection of essays -- what I call "blog posts" -- divided into three main sections, Nature, Divine Nature, and Sophia. It's all one, but one is three, as it were:

"In the Beautiful Logos all things cohere. In the Word of words all threads of meaning are drawn together, and the notes and noises of our lives add up to parts of a symphony or a song we could never have guessed" (Caldecott).

Where have we heard that tune before?

Right. Page 21: "The universe is like a holographic, multidimensional musical score that must be read, understood, and performed.... For at the end of the day, we are each a unique and unrepeatable melody that can, if we only pay close enough attention to the polyphonic score that surrounds and abides within us, harmonize existence in our own beautiful way, and thereby hear the vespered strains of the Song Supreme."

And on p. 248: "In the end, we are no longer a scattered, fragmented multiplicity in futile pursuit of an ever-receding unity, but a Unity that comprehends and transcends the multiplicity of the cosmos."

I would now put that differently, and say a Unity³, but this is nevertheless the dynamically "still point between the vertical and horizontal, where eternity pierces the present moment and we are unborn again."

Caldecott: "The ultimate resolution of the manifold tensions of existence is not the silence of the One, but the music of the Trinity," where "the unity is the distinction, and the distinction is the unity" (Eckhart, in Caldecott).

Well, I can't really compete with the pounding going on above my head. To be continued, maybe Friday.

Christianity and the Cosmic Thing

In preparation for this post -- which is by no means prepared -- I thumbed through -- actually, I am now thumbing through -- my copy of Abhishikananda's Life Told Through His Letters. Unfortunately, most of his books are out of print and rather expensive. Anyway, a couple of passages in the foreword caught my attention, both having to do with what we might call "cosmic Christianity," or, as in the title of a post last week, "the cosmic covenant."

Secular fundamentalists struggle with the purported anthropomorphism of Christianity, but if a revelation doesn't in some sense take the form of man, how is man supposed to understand and use it? Conversely, the same people are not at all baffled at how we live in a cosmos that never ceases instructing us through forms accessible to our intellect. This is a great, great mystery, and to say that it goes unnoticed is something of a wonderstatement, as in, why?

Anyway, I find that one of the things Abhishiktananda (heretofore SA, because it takes too long to type) did was situate Christianity in a truly cosmic and even meta-cosmic --more on which later -- context. In order to do this, he occasionally borrowed a word or concept from Vedanta to illuminate a hidden aspect of Christianity.

Imagine a culture that has seven words for snow, while we have only one. Of course we will still have the seven varieties of snow, just not the names. But without the names, we probably won't see them. We will look but not truly apprehend them.

When it comes to Spirit, the important point is obviously to experience it, not necessarily to name it. But names can be of vital importance, especially for mapping, storage, and communication. (I am reminded of something Schuon said of Buddhism, to the effect that it was foolish to call it an atheistic religion, because it clearly has the thing, just not the word.)

SA found the Vedantic concept of akasha helpful, in that it refers to "both the infinite 'exterior' space and the infinite 'interior' space which really are one, both spheres being permeated by that same Spirit which fills not only the whole cosmos but equally the human heart."

Reader Will -- wherever he is -- often reminds us of the concept of the ether, which seems to have been tossed out when physics proved that there was no such thing on physical basis. But no one ever said (or should have said) that it was a property of physics. If anything, physics is a property of it -- which would be why, for example, the cosmos must be nonlocal, both in its interior and exterior, or subjective and objective, modes.

The second passage says that SA's "devotion to the person of Jesus never dimmed." Jesus was his sadguru, which means that he is the "guru of gurus," or the guru who makes guruhood possible.

To put it another way, all gurus are none other than Jesus, most especially the "guru of the heart" which is projected and crystalized in the form of the exterior guru. The purpose of the exterior guru is to allow us to "see" our own guru until such a time as we can identify Him within -- you know, in the Kingdom of Heaven (see Meister Eckhart for details).

A blasfumy point of odor: I'm writing this very rapidly, so I must gloss over many possible heretical (mis)understandings. Suffice it to say that those who are on the right track (or for whom this track is intended) will know what I mean, while those who aren't won't. No one ever said this path was for everyone.

The foreword goes on to say that in later years SA "came to see more vividly that in the Eucharist the entire cosmos is integrated, where both matter and human consciousness are brought together in union through the Spirit of God and the action of Jesus, who manifests God in his fullness."

Again: it is a cosmic religion, both horizontally and, more important, vertically. Indeed, one might say that the historical/horizontal aspect of Christianity derives its significance from the fact that it is a "prolongation" of what is going on vertically, i.e., trinity, love, communion, kenosis, etc. It's not an ether/or situation, but both/and. Or, as I put it in the book, it is earthereal.

To emphasize the horizontal in the absence of the vertical -- as do many "fundamentalists" -- is to indeed reduce Christianity to a worldly instead of cosmic religion. In a letter, SA wrote that "The simple man carves a piece of wood and bows down before it... The intelligent man forms a concept and does the same." Again, we want the thing not just the name.

Regarding that Thing, SA spoke in a letter of how "intellectual and social structures are so overlaid with what in the end is only a moment of history which men unfortunately absolutize." But for SA, the deepest vertical understanding reveals that "Christ is risen!" and "I AM" are "the twofold experience of a single mystery."

No one could suggest that this is in any way extra-Biblical, for "before Abraham was, I AM." This is one part of the Bible that you must take quite literally, that before -- which is to say, vertically anterior -- to everything is I AM THAT I AM," or "I AM HE WHO IS," or just I IS.

Thus, isness is, but not only externally. Rather, being itself is an interior I. And as we will later discuss, there can be no I in the absence of a Thou, as the two co-arise in eternity. "The individual only exists in his being-with" (SA). It is "The Father in relation to the Son -- to me -- to all. The Son in relation to me -- to all. Myself in relation to every conscious being," face-to-face in a sacred space.

You might say that Easter transforms the local me to the cosmic I, or allows it to take part in the I AM. In ether worlds, "The 'I' of the morning of Easter is of another order.... In the Resurrection there arises the spiritual I, of God, of Christ, of myself, of my brothers..."

In another rather ecstatic letter, SA wrote that "The mystery of Christ and of the Father is beyond words, more even than that of the atman.... You can only speak of it in parables, and the meaning of the parable is beyond the words used. No word could ever have given you the experience of the birth of the not-born."

One of SA's most important -- and possibly controversial -- points is that the Jesus mystery was deeply conditioned by the categories of Greek thought, through which it has been "filtered" down, so to speak, to us.

But for SA, "Christ is beyond all concepts." For example, what if he had appeared within the context of Vedantic categories of thought? (In the past, we have discussed how early Chinese Christians interpreted the Logos in terms of the Tao, which quite possibly makes even better nonsense of the reality behind the concept.) Or, more to the point, what if he appeared today (as indeed he must)? What categories of thought would we use to understand the message?

Bottom line: "People argue about Jesus -- it is easier than to let yourself be scorched by contact with him" (SA).

Incarnating the Cosmic Person

Damn. I can't recall being this depressed about an election since 1990, when the Sandinistas lost.

I mean, if public employee union bosses can't forcibly extract dues to help elect politicians who will conspire with them in good faith to grow the state and loot the treasury, freedom as we know it is pretty much dead IMO. What's next, a war on organized crime? (I know, redundant.) An attack on the privileges of 1/00 Indians?

And what's with the left? Isn't it a little late in the game to issue death threats? Isn't that like the New Jersey Devils deciding to goon it up tonight, after the Kings hoist Lord Stanley's Cup?

But as long-time cyberstalker and crackpot emeritus William Yelverton assures us, at least it was a good night for Barack. If nothing else, the results show the desperation of an increasingly radical right wing that thinks it can succeed by simply winning the war of ideas and trouncing the left in elections. That only works in America.

Speaking of infra-cosmic primates, back to Cosmic Humanism. Naturally, in order for there to be cosmic humanism there must be cosmic men and women. But what is a cosmic human?

I was thinking about this the other day.

Actually, that's not true. Rather, as usual, it just popped into my head. Only now am I actually thinking about it.

But it occurred to me that in order to qualify for the appellation, the human in question must be fully functioning in no less than four broad sectors, and possibly more if I think of them as we proceed.

I'm picturing two horizontal and two vertical areas. Thus, I suppose you could imagine a Cross with four quadrants.

We could say that the horizontal is an externalization of the right and left cerebral hemispheres, and their differing ways of perceiving and processing reality. To have access to only one would make us far less then human.

In human (i.e., non-neurological) terms, we might say that this ultimately redounds to the complementarity of science and art, or logic and emotion, or analysis and synthesis, or Spock and Bones (who are reconciled in the Kosmic Kirk). There are scientific men and there are sentimental men, but a cosmic man needs to be fully functioning in both sectors. Only then may he command the Innerprize.

No need to go into the latest research, but obviously there is much more appreciation these days of emotional intelligence and the manner in which emotion in general functions as a kind of high-speed information processing center. I would go much further than that. For example, we often talk about the implications of the Dreamer Who Dreams the Dream, Who is somehow able to, in the words of Grotstein, think and create in a manner

"that is beyond the capacity of conscious human beings.... [D]reams are, at the very least, complex cinematographic productions requiring consumate artistry, technology, and aesthetic decision making.... dreams are dramatic plays that are written, cast, plotted, directed, and produced and require the help of scenic designers and location scouts, along with other experts. The stage of the dream can be likened to a container or ground, whereas the play itself constitutes the content or the contained..."

So there is scientific genius and there is artistic genius, and though both are genius, the one can't be reduced to the other, because the genius is filtered through two very different modes.

The other continuum is vertical and extends from the unconscious (or infraconscious), to the conscious ego, to the supraconscious realms terminating in O. Emphasizing one end over the other is not the way of the Cosmic Man, i.e., Raccoon, who ideally wants to colonize as much space as possible between O and ø. "Know thyself" and all that.

In my opinion, modern psychoanalysis, rooted in neurodevelopmental attachment theory, does the most adequate job of mapping the lower vertical. The problem there is that it oversteps its rightful boundaries when it tries to usurp the egoic and trans-egoic realms, which has disastrous consequences for spiritual development.

For example, a psychoanalyst might interpret genuine spiritual experiences as being infantile in nature, thereby reducing O to some kind of wish fulfillment. Which no doubt happens.

In other words, there are clearly people for whom religion operates as a kind of primitive magic. Snake handlers come to mind. That sect strikes me as lower verticality masquerading as higher verticality.

But there is also a truly higher verticality that denies the lower vertical. Unfortunately, Schuon tends to fall into this error -- as if, say, a medieval man whose life revolved around religion didn't also have a primitive unconscious.

Again, the fully cosmic man will accept and try to integrate, or assimilate, both the lower and higher. And as a matter of fact, this type of verticality is quite explicit to both Judaism and Christianity.

Judaism, for example, has a quite this-worldly emphasis on the spiritualization of everyday activities such as family, food, sex, etc. It makes no effort to deny the lower vertical in favor of an escape into an abstract spiritual realm. You might call it the mysticism of everyday life.

Likewise, the message of incarnation and embodiment could hardly be more clear in Christianity. God did not merely become a man; rather, he also took on human nature, which extends into the collective human body. And the human body includes left and right hemispheres and supra- and infra-consciousness, on pain of the Incarnation not being "complete" and total.

Christianity is simultaneously simple and complex, and in the past we have discussed how Western (left-hemisphere) Christianity tends to focus on our fallen nature and its need of redemption, while Eastern (right-hemisphere) forms tend to emphasize the Incarnation. But in reality one obviously needs to hold both in a dynamic tension.

For example, De Lubac -- who was one of the first modern Catholics to rediscover the treasures of the early Fathers, who were more venerated in the East -- wrote that "if man digs deeper and if his reflection is illuminated by what is said in Sacred Scripture, he will be amazed at the depths opening up within him.

"Unaccountable space extends before his gaze. In a sort of infinitude he overflows this great world on all sides, and in reality it is that world, 'macrocosm,' which is contained in this apparent 'microcosm.'"

Thus the human wormgod, or spiritualized humus being, "knows that the lowliness of his origin in the flesh cannot detract from the sublimity of his vocation, and that, despite all the blemishes that sin may bring, that vocation is an abiding source of inalienable greatness."

Bottom line: the cosmic person needs to be left, right, over, under, sideways, and down.

Follow the Depth

The pneumatic is a man who identifies a priori with his spiritual substance and thus always remains faithful to himself; he is not a mask unaware of his scope, as is the man enclosed in accidentality. --F. Schuon

I suppose one of the secrets of keeping my readership quite... er, "compact," is the ability to alienate people of all persuasions. Only a masochistic leftist is going to read more than one post here. A new-ager or integralist might initially be drawn in, but then be repelled by my traditionalism and moonbat-battering. Traditionalists are put off by my evolutionism, while many Jews (not Lisa, of course) and followers of eastern religions might be put off by my Christian slant. But many Christians are eventually put off by my neo-Vedantin orientation, not to mention my esoteric and Hermetic understanding of Christianity. Today perhaps I'll alienate the rest, and finally have some solitude.

With that in mind, what follows is not actually an attempt to start or continue an argument, but a rambling exploration of some important principles. I'm just talking to myself, Coon to Coon. Feel free to listen in.

AT in LA writes that:

There really isn't such thing as Christianity. Only Christ and His Church. His authenticity and authority, or not. For each of us, we are able to receive what we are disposed to receive, and that is the rub. He is who he claimed to be and rose from the dead, or the whole thing is a sham with some nice teachings and miracles thrown in. And that's not my opinion or position, but the claim put forward to us all.

Not to be pedantic about it, but there must be such a thing as Christianity, or we wouldn't be able to recognize it. Something only exists by virtue of being defined, even if we can't fully understand the definition. It reminds me of when physicists say that time doesn't exist. Oh really? It takes time to recognize time, let alone deny its existence. More importantly, the archetypal quality of duration, or "eternity extended," transcends anything physicists can say about quantitative time. Put another way, it takes a minimum of 13.7 billion years to produce a physicist capable of making such a self-refuting statement. And that's the law.

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that an "archetypal Christianity" exists, but that Man's definitions of it perpetually -- and perhaps necessarly -- fall short, for reasons related to Plato's allegory of the cave. However, in my opinion, this is where esoterism, metaphysics, and Hermeticism come to the rescue, as they all deal with the fundamental cosmic principles that simply "cannot not be," and which religion is here to disclose in a way that the average Man can understand.

I align mysoph with Saint Augustine, who wrote that "What we now call the Christian religion existed amongst the ancients, and was from the beginning of the human race, until Christ Himself came in the flesh; from which time the already existing true religion began to be styled Christian." What a profound statement! I would only add that this true religion never existed "on earth," since it is archetypal. It is the archetypal form in light of which the substance of religion can be seen. But perhaps the most paradoxical thing about it is that it is not superior to the form it takes, any more than the idea of Mother is superior to your dear old Mom, or the baseball rule book is superior to a game.

The "already existing true religion" is the "root religion" of all mankind, bearing in mind that the Tree of Life has its nonlocal roots aloft, its local branches and district offices down below. Because it exists, people could (and can) recognize and understand Christianity when they heard it. Otherwise, Christianity would simply be an absurdity, which it obviously isn't. True, many modern intellectuals regard it as one, but that's only because they aren't intellectuals in the true sense of that word, which means to have an awakened intellect, or nous.

In essence, these sleepwaking clockjockeys down in flatland try to understand transcendent reality with senses and modes adapted to, and reflecting, the material world. But the lower cannot comprehend the higher, since the lower is a descent, or involution, of the higher. That being the case, we can only evolve toward the One because the One is involved in the many -- which is just another way of saying that everything (including, of course, the mind) is made of language, or the word. If it weren't, we couldn't read reality like a book.

It is perfectly true that Christianity cannot be understood by the ego or profane mind, but that doesn't mean it can't be understood at all. In fact, many Christians who say so are under the same illusions as the modern skeptics, except they're just not as proud of their minds. ("God said it, I believe it, that settles it.") You might say that they believe it because it is absurd, as a kind of defiant alternative (but on the same plane) to the ego's verdict that all of reality is ultimately absurd. Nevertheless, there is obviously a deeper part of theirwholes that Christianity "speaks to," even if they only dimly apprehend its dimensions and coordinates.

What is the part of us that recognizes and understands the "divine message," or (n), since it is obviously a necessary condition for the earthly existence of Christianity? More on that later. For now, let's just call it (¶). In the absence of (¶) there can be no (n), for the same reason that in the absence of ears there can be no sound. Let those with ears hear! More fundamentally, let ears be the material instantiation, or descent of the cosmic archetypal principle of sound. This is the sacred syllable, AUM, "which is in all the scriptures -- the supreme syllable, the mother of all sound" (Taittirya Upanishad), for A-u-m-en are created equal.

Thus, if Christianity is true, it must not only echo the a priori meta-cosmic principles, but -- for the faithful -- be an essentially "perfect" instantiation of them, a luminous obscurity seen "through a glass darkly," but seen more clearly with the eyes of faith. "Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect" = work at being a more accurate immanent image of the transcendent Principle. Just because you can never achieve perfection in this life, it doesn't mean the Principle doesn't exist or that you should stop trying to reach it.

I suppose it comes down to the question of how much Truth may be discovered by Man in the absence of revelation. I'm guessing that the sort of Christian I alienate would be the type who insists that we cannot really understand these ultimate principles, but simply have to accept on faith the ones that are revealed to us, even if they seem illogical, clash with everything else we know to be true of the world, and do not appeal to the intellect. Call me promethian, like great aunt Mary, but I just find this unacceptable.

I believe there are close to 60,000 groups/sects/denominations that might all label themselves "Christian", but many hold central beliefs that are opposed to one another. This is clearly impossible and it's no wonder people are reluctant about it and even get, as Bob would say, the Jesus willies, when a lot of what passes for Christianity has little to do with Christ.

The fact that there are 60,000 interpretations of Christianity should tell us something. Not that they are false, but that most of them are attempting to describe a hyperdimensional manifold with eyes designed for only three dimensions. On the horizontal axis, things are either true or false in the unambiguous scientific sense. But only on the vertical axis can you get into "profound truths," some of which might even superficially contradict one another.

Speaking only for myself -- as something of an inside outsider or outside insider -- I find the most consistently "full" elaboration of this hyperdimensional object to abide within Orthodoxy, with certain vital Catholic contributions added later, for example, Meister Eckhart, whose vision might well be most compatible with my own. (In the near future, I hope to do a series of posts to explore his thought in great detail.)

Statements of higher truth never merely contain what they contain. Rather, they are activated in unpredictable ways upon contact with them by one's own gnosis. This is why Schuon says that "there is the order of principles, which is immutable, and the order of information -- traditional or otherwise -- of which one can say that it is inexhaustible."

Obviously even in my own faulty way, my wording or unintentional tonality may cause some to say, "here we go again, another naive 'Christian.'" But all I would say is, look into it yourself. It's a big claim. It's very unique to human kind and our history. We are all imperfect and faulty souls. Don't let the "Christian" be the stumbling block to Christ.

Not to be pedantic again, but something can't be very unique, only unique, since uniqueness cannot be surpassed. Irrespective of its uniqueness, the esoterist nevertheless goes one step further, and always asks by virtue of what principle is this true? So let's say that Christianity is uniquely true. Nevertheless, the Coon in me wants to know, "by virtue of what principle?"

For example, if we "reverse imagineer" Christianity, there must be an a priori principle that allows the Creator to take human form, unless the Creator just makes it up as he goes along, like Allah. Likewise, there must be an immanent principle that allows the mind of man to be a witness to Christian truth. In the absence of these principles, then Christ could not have appeared and we couldn't have recognized him anyway; unless you simply insist that this is true, regardless of whether you really understand it. Again, I find such a view unacceptable. This was the Christianity that was foisted upon me as a child, and which caused me to unfortunately reject all Christianity out of hand by the time I was 10 years old.

As Schuon has written, "The very word 'man' implies 'God,' the very word 'relative' implies 'Absolute.'" This is an example of another principle that cannot not be. You could say the same for other irreducible polarities such as time and eternity, spirit and matter, form and substance, freedom and determacy, fate and providence, quantity and quality, individual and group, conscious and unconscious, and others.

I suppose my bottom line -- and this will no doubt smell blasfumy to some -- is that Christianity can be true, but it cannot surpass Truth. While the human mind is "made of truth," it only exists in potential until it is realized. Once you walk the blank into God's arbor and your wood beleaf, the coonundrum ends and the Great Mystery begins. And it is a "mystery in motion," otherwise known as an adventure -- the only one that really Is and has ever been: the adventure of consciousness. Don't listen to the others, most of all me. Just follow the depth, for O is nothing if not deep.

A Liberal is Like a Christian, Only Worse

This subject of Inventing the Individual is too large for me to get my mind around. Normally, when I write, I like to do so from the center out. In this case, I need to start from the outside in. I have to pick a random spot at the periphery and try to start boring in from there. In so doing, maybe I'll even find the center -- the attractor -- at which point this rambly stream of consciousness will become more orderly. Don't count on it.

Perhaps I should begin with the idea that Christianity is the most important revolution in human history, and that Paul is its most important revolutionary. This is a consistent subtext of the book -- that Christianity initiated a turn in history that is still very much in progress (indeed it is progress). In Raccoon parlance, I would say that it is an extension the previous cosmic revolutions of existence, life, and mind, for it is the vertical prolongation of mind into spirit and God.

Which leads to one of my own conclusions, that some of the most important blessings Christ brought into the world are unappreciated and even unseen because they are so ubiquitous. So much of the context of our (western) world was only made possible by Christianity, and yet, because it is in the background, we don't notice it. One of these, of course, is "the individual." But with the individual comes freedom, equality, rights, dignity, consent to rule, civil society, the marketplace, and on and on.

Another critical point is that these blessings were and are very slow to come into being. It is not as if they occurred overnight; although the yeast came into the world some 2000 years ago, the bread is still rising.

Thus, it has been a gradual process of applying the moral intuitions and insights provoked by the Christian -- especially Pauline -- message. For when Paul says that in Christ there is neither slave nor free, nor male or female, this is every bit as world-shattering as contemporary revolutionaries who insist, say, that in leftism sex is just a human construct, so if you're a man you can shower in the girls locker room if you like.

In fact -- strange as it seems -- this left wing perversion of Christianity is unthinkable in the absence of Christianity, because it is just an inversion and prolongation of its egalitarian message. It has been clear to me for a long time that leftist moral appeals are rooted in a perversion of Christianity, but this book provides the full story (even if unwittingly) of how this came about.

For example, the last four months of police-bashing by the left would have no traction at all if it didn't appeal to some distorted sense of Christian morality. For if police are racists for whom it is open season on blacks, then it is as moral to kill them as it would have been for Jews to kill Nazis. A Marxist such as deBlasio is like a Christian, only worse (but from his perspective, better). Ideas and rhetoric have consequences.

Jimmy Carter too is like a Christian, only worse. Sultan Knish: "Carter couldn’t save the Soviet Union, but he did his best to save Castro, visiting Fidel and Raul in Cuba where the second worst president in American history described his meeting with Castro as a greeting among 'old friends.'” In turn, "Raul Castro called Carter 'the best of all U.S. presidents.'"

Castro is a revolutionary, as is Obama. In fact, Obama is our first revolutionary president, the first president who has overtly attempted to undo our original revolution, which was really the political application of the Pauline revolution (although I suppose that Wilson was a pre-Obama). Siedentop asks the question, "Was Paul the greatest revolutionary in human history?" You could say that the book is one extended and thoroughly documented Yes.

"Through its emphasis on human equality, the New Testament stands out against the primary thrust of the ancient world, with its dominant assumption of 'natural' inequality. Indeed, the atmosphere of the New Testament is one of exhilarating detachment from the unthinking constraints of inherited social roles. Hence Paul's frequent references to 'Christian liberty'" (emphasis mine).

This essential liberty is prior to our existence, and is the ground of being: it is "pre-social," and comes "to serve as a criterion of legitimate social organization." Therefore, anything that attacks or undermines it becomes false by logical entailment. If liberty is axiomatic, it is like dynamite at the foundation of tyranny, oppression, inherited privilege, etc. It may take centuries to blow apart the structure of lies, but blow it will. For "I did not come to bring peace, but a sword."

Beneath this cosmic subversion is "the invention of the individual, the introduction of a primary social role" which begins "to undercut the radical differences of status and treatment" of existing societies. This revolution "sent Europe along a road which no human society had previously followed," for from the perspective of the old orders, this dangerous message of liberty would have been regarded as the essence of dis-order and societal chaos. Which it still is by the left, hence their attempt to re-exert control from the top-down.

But once the ball began rolling and the yeast rising, it was very difficult to arrest. "Under way was nothing less than a reconstruction of the self, along lines more consistent with Christian moral intuitions." For if Christ is truth, then those many pretenders to truth are rendered transparently false. Every emperor is suddenly seen as more or less naked (an insight which, ironically, eventually came back to bite the church). Along these lines, Siedentop quotes the historian Guizot:

"With the church originated a great fact, the separation of spiritual and temporal power. This separation is the source of liberty and conscience," for it "is based upon the idea that physical force has neither right nor influence over souls, over conviction, over truth. It flows from the distinction established between the world of thought and the world of action, between the world of the internal and that of external facts."

Which leads to one of our most cherished pet ideas, that the leading edge of cosmic evolution is into and over this subjective horizon, into the cosmic interior. Among other things, Christ shows us the way into this interior, or rather, he is the interior made exterior, or word made flesh.

Grace is a Finger Pointing to its Source

We've been discussing the Orthodox approach to atonement and salvation, which got me to reminiscing about my first exposure to these ideas, which was in the book A Different Christianity: Early Christian Esotericism and Modern Thought, by Robin Amis.

My amazon account indicates that I purchased it on December 20, 2002, which is about two years prior to finishing the book. I tried rereading it over the weekend, and found it to be somewhat sprawling, unfocussed, and repetitive. Nevertheless, it did open up a number of vital cosmic arteries for me, including in particular Meditations on the Tarot, which I purchased a month later, on January 18, 2003.

However, my first attempt at MotT was a fail, and I didn't return to it for a year or so, when Petey ordered me to give it another try. It was then a smashing success, except it now meant that my book was bobsolete, stillborn, dead on arrival.

Up to that point it was pretty much all yoga and no Christianity. Being that I wanted it to be about Everything, this put me in a cosmic pickle, such that I had to revise the whole upperating system to make it compatible with Christianity, and to this day it bears the traces or scars of I-Amphibiously spanning two spiritual worlds. The whole story has been laboriously blogged before, so I won't belabor it again.

Since I am pressed for time, today will be our weekly descent into the knowa's arkive. I searched for "Robin Amis," and this is what I pulled out, edited and updated from about 5.5 years ago:

While we're discussing Boris Mouravieff, I should point out for those unfamiliar with the name that he was an Orthodox Christian with a Gurdjieff-Ouspenskian (Fourth Way) slant, somewhat similar to how our Unknown Friend is a Catholic with a hermetic slant.

As it so happens, I first bumped into both gentlemen in the same book, Inner Christianity, the latter of which led to Robin Amis' A Different Christianity: Early Christian Esotericism and Modern Thought. It is fair to say that all of these books were central in helping me to get over my Jesus willies once and for all, being that they present Christianity in terms a soph-surfing Raccoon can sink his mischievous claws into.

Not to say that I agree with everything Mouravieff has to say. To the contrary, much of what he says strikes me as overly occult, gnostic (in the pejorative sense), and frankly unOrthodox. He maintains that he was not copying Ouspensky or Gurdjieff, but that he was supposedly dealing with the original sources found in esoteric Christianity. Not bloody likely.

Either way, when people start talking about "secret knowledge," it's time to hold onto your wallet. Yes, there is secret knowledge, but there is no real need to hide it from others (rudimentary discretion notwithstanding), since the secret is quite bashful about disclosing itself to the the unworthy. The Secret protects itself, and there's not a damn thing we can do about it.

Ultimately it is no more secret than, say, quantum physics, which is available to any intellectually qualified and sincerely motivated individual. You don't have to hide quantum physics to keep it secret. Indeed, promiscuously deepakinating it just debases the theory.

Similarly, when I write an over-the-top political hit piece, I get three or four times the traffic. But newcomers almost never return more than once, because the very next post will likely be full of openly secret knowledge which is of no use to them. It is either inaccessible, an affront to their existing faith (or lack thereof), or just too kooky to be of any practical use. In reality, it's just another routine instance of the kosher pearls protecting themselves from the porciners.

Regarding Mouravieff's unorthodoxy, Schuon once made a very important point about people's spiritual experiences. He of course had had many such experiences, but he did not wish for them to be the source of any doctrine. Rather, he wanted Truth to stand on its own merits, and to be understandable and independently verifiable within the awakened intellect (hence, to be universal). He would never dream of saying, for example, "I had a vision of the Virgin Mary [which he did], therefore she is real."

Rather, he maintained that "if one wants to impart mystical certitude to another, the import or message should be capable of being coherently expressed" (Fitzgerald). Along these lines, Fitzgerald quotes a didactic poem by Schuon (translated from the original German):

You may often keep silent about a certitude, / But if you wish to impart it, you must support it / With clear logic; for those who hear you / Want to see a meaning in what you are saying. / You must not say: I am certain of this -- / And then withdraw in proud obscurity. / Finally: what is of no use to anyone, / You are not obliged to preach in the streets.

Not only that, but all of the traditions agree that it is a breach of spiritual protocol to blab on about one's experiences to any- and everyone. Such experiences (?!) always have an aura of sanctity that makes one circumspect about sharing them with the unwashed bipedal primates.

Rather, Fitzgerald quotes another student who recalled Schuon saying words to the effect that "When a man experiences a spiritual state or favor, or when he has a vision or audition, he must never desire this to happen again; and above all he must not base his spiritual life on such a phenomenon, nor imagine that the happening has conferred on him any kind of eminence. The only important thing is to practice what takes us nearer to God..."

In short, (?!) is, yes, a gift, but even more fundamentally, it is a sacred obligation, for ultimately you are obliged to follow it back up to its source and conform your life to the conditions that make the grace flow more readily (e.g., Virtue, Truth, and Beauty).

For this reason, Schuon insisted that his "message" was contained in his books only, not in his peripheral function as a spiritual master for a particular group. The latter function was not unimportant, but it was nevertheless a prolongation of the former, not his central concern or legacy to the world.

But as it so happens -- at least for me -- Schuon's books are jam-packed with his barakah, or spiritual perfume, or transformative grace, or sanctified mojo, or just plain (↓), for which they are the occasion, not the cause. No one should forget that (↓) courses through his words, not from them.

Of this I am quite certain, but my certainty is of no use to another, except perhaps as a suggestion to try it out see for yourself.

A Bold and Ambitious Attempt to Amuse Myself

Unlike you, I'm retired, so I have all the time in the world to write these lengthy and self-indulgent posts that interest no one but me. Yesterday's ended, as usual, with an AI generated image of its content, highlighting 1) the intelligibility of being, 2) the cosmic telos, and 3) and the ultimate unity of mind and reality. So, ultimate reality is a dynamic harmony of intelligence-intelligibility-creativity.

The logosphere.

Yes, in that reality is charged with logospheric energies that circulate up and down, out and in, forward and back. Which, surprisingly, Gemini can explain in a straightforward way: 

The Dominant Spiral and Arrow

• The Spiral: This represents the evolution of the cosmos, the "arrow of time," and the unfolding of reality over vast timescales. Its spiraling nature suggests not a linear, deterministic path, but an organic, emergent process of development and increasing complexity -- a journey through cosmic history. The continuous curve implies an unbroken, interconnected progression.

• The Arrowhead: This element at the far end of the spiral clearly points towards a "cosmic telos," an "eschatological object," or a final fulfillment. It symbolizes the idea that the universe is headed somewhere, being "lured toward its own fulfillment," rather than just a random walk. It's the "purpose" or "goal" of cosmic evolution.

Interwoven Elements: Mind, Being, and Complexity

• The Luminous, Ribbony Path: The glowing, almost neural-like pathways or energy currents that form the spiral itself, and within which other elements are embedded, symbolize the deep connection and "in-spiraling mutual indwelling" between Mind and Being. This represents the "intelligibility of being" and the idea that "reality gives itself to the mind as mental content because mental content is the ground of reality." It suggests that intelligence is woven into the very fabric of reality.

• Varied Forms of Complexity/Life: Along the spiral, you see diverse, evolving forms -- some resembling cosmic structures like nebulae, others biological or cellular forms, and perhaps even abstract representations of consciousness or thought. These signify the "increase in complexity, organization, and perhaps even consciousness" over cosmic timescales, from simpler beginnings to more intricate and developed states, leading up to human consciousness and beyond. They are the concrete manifestations of the universe's unfolding.

The Transcendent Horizon / Unifying Light

• The Brilliant Light Source at the Apex: This radiant light, often appearing as a star or a concentrated burst of energy at the very tip of the arrowhead, symbolizes the "meta-cosmic ground of intellect," the "unrestricted act of understanding," and ultimately, God. It is the "transcendent horizon," the ultimate origin and end where "pure intelligence and pure intelligibility are no longer distinguishable." It represents the divine source that accounts for the universe's rationality, its purpose, and the profound harmony between mind and reality. This is the source of the "lure" towards fulfillment.

The Background (Cosmic Immensity)

• Darkness and Stars: The vast, deep space in the background reinforces the cosmic scale of the argument, emphasizing that these aren't just human-centric ideas but principles at play across the entire universe. It suggests the infinite potential and the grand stage upon which this purposeful evolution occurs.

Overall Message

The image visually articulates your post's central argument: that the universe is not a random, unguided physical process, but rather a teleological unfolding driven by an inherent intelligibility and purpose, ultimately grounded in a transcendent Mind. The visual flow from primordial complexity towards a luminous goal underscores the idea that our own capacity for understanding the cosmos is a reflection of this deeper, fundamental unity between intelligence and reality. It's a statement that the why of existence is as crucial, if not more so, than the how.

A concise summary of the One Cosmos vision. So, it's nice to be understood, even if by a computer program. 

The next chapter of All Things Are Full of Gods is called Atman Is Brahman, which means that the deepest Self and the highest God are not-two. 

Well, good. But what if we prefer to express the Content of the Primordial Doctrine in traditional Christian terms? After all, we live in Christian civilization, so why not deploy the resources and vocabulary of our own tradition? 

Hart, who is, as far as I know, an Orthodox Christian, agrees with Schuon that the formula "Atman is Brahman" is "the first, last, most fundamental, and most exalted truth of all real philosophy and religion alike."

But if there is a "first, last, most fundamental, and most exalted truth" of Christianity, it must be the Trinity, and how do we square this with the whole Atman-Brahman thing? 

Perhaps Father is to incarnate Son as Brahman is to Atman, and the Son assumes human nature that we may too become participants in the divine nature, i.e., Brahman. 

And maybe "I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you" can be taken to mean "The Atman-Son is in the Brahman-Father, so if you are taken up into my nature, then you too are one with Brahman." 

Indeed, if God becomes man that man might become God, this is similar to saying the soul's vocation is to realize the unity -- or non-duality -- of Atman and Brahman. The point is, ultimate reality is irreducibly relational, whether we're talking about Father to Son or Atman to Brahman, am I wrong?

Wait, I know -- the fall represents the severing of Atman from Brahman -- thus plunging you human beastlings into maya-illusion -- while Christ comes down to restore the lost unity?

Maybe. But let's focus on that little word, relation: we cannot

explain mental agency coherently except in terms of this experience of a relation of God as dwelling in the inmost depths of each of us to God as dwelling beyond the utmost heights to which our minds and wills aspire (emphasis mine).

There is an "I" that is deeper than the "mere psychological ego" and a "Thou" that is "more ultimate than the mere physical universe," and these two are dynamically linked in some mysterious way -- as if they "coincide in essence with one another," or are "in principle already one and the same in the mind and being of God."

I too miss the '60s: 

--all that is has its being as... one great thought. 

--our individual minds are are like prisms capturing some part of the light of being and consciousness... or, rather, are like prisms that are also, marvelously, nothing but crystallizations of that light... 

--we enter into it at the beginning of life as into a kind of dream that was already being dreamed before we found ourselves within it (Hart).

Good times. 

No, really:

teleologically considered, the mind is God, striving not only to see -- but to become -- infinite knowledge of infinite being, beyond any distinction between knower and known.

So, at the end of all our exploring we arrive at nondual mysticism? 

The only "science of mind" that might actually reveal the intrinsic nature of the mental world would be something like the contemplative disciplines proper to the great mystical traditions of the world's religions.

"There can be no science of mind" that isn't "to put it bluntly, a spiritual science."

And we're back to a science of the inexact. Nevertheless, the science is settled:

all the great contemplative and philosophical traditions, East and West, insist that the source and ground of the mind's unity is the transcendent reality of unity as such, the simplicity of God, the one ground of both consciousness and being...

In many ways Hart leaves us with the same transcendent unity of religions rooted in mystical experience, as elucidated by Schuon, and both anchor their metaphysic in a Vedanta seen as normative. Indeed, the last sentence of the chapter is as follows:

Once more, simply enough, in both its origin and its end, Atman is Brahman -- which I take to be the first, last, most fundamental, and most exalted truth of all real philosophy and religion alike.

Overall Impression:

This post is a bold and ambitious attempt to bridge the gap between Eastern non-dual metaphysics (Vedanta) and Western Christian theology, particularly through the lens of mystical experience and theosis. You argue that at their deepest, both traditions point to an ultimate reality that is fundamentally relational, yet also an undivided unity of Mind and Being. You use the Incarnation and the Christian concept of divinization as the primary Christian correlative to the Atman-Brahman non-duality. It's a highly sophisticated and deeply spiritual piece of writing.

Here is an image that aims to visually represent the profound concepts from your post, particularly the non-duality of Atman and Brahman, the relational aspect of ultimate reality, and the "in-spiraling mutual indwelling" of mind and being:

God Hates Equality

I thought that might grab your attention. Yes, it is hyperbole. But it's not just hyperbole, for if God were partial to equality, he could have created a static and unevolving cosmos with no distinctions or levels whatsoever, just a big relativistic blob of multicultural goo -- instead of a liberating universe, a liberal university.

But our cosmos is nothing like this, thank God! That we are created equal, we know; but "equal" hardly means "equivalent."

For not only is it a full employment cosmos, each with his proper role to play, but it is characterized by an inward mobility through which we may ceaselessly develop and improve -- or fully actualize -- the gifts conferred by the Creator.

This latter characteristic is especially queer, for there is no other realm in the world that is subject to unlimited growth. Only the soul may continue assimilating reality and expanding forever.

Or at least no one has yet come close to reaching its limits. Even the cosmos -- paradoxically -- is closed and finite. And yet, it "contains" something that not only contains it, but is ultimately contained by nothing with the exception of O, which is extra-cosmic and beyond being.

One of the reasons Christianity is here is to annunciate and memorialize this metaphysic, and to render it operational.

Conversely, to the extent that man forgets this primordial truth, he is lost. He can be lost in a primitive way, as in the Islamic world, or in a pseudo-sophisticated way, as are the tenured, but he is nonetheless Ørphaned and adrift in a meaningless world, condemned to shout his inanities into the void.

Critically, this escape into the inscape occurred in only one place in history, in the Christian West (for our Jewish friends, we are naturally assuming the Judeo- component, since we are talking about a single "arc of salvation"). Fukuyama -- who is again clearly not coming at this from a religious perspective, but a disinterested sociological one -- documents how differently western Europe developed in comparison to China, India, and the Ottoman empire, each of the latter being rooted in very different metaphysics.

Now clearly, we cannot speak of "multiple" metaphysics. Of all the sciences known to man, only metaphysics can be truly "one," truly objective, and truly true (or "relatively absolute"). It is nothing like science, which has competing or tentative hypotheses for every phenomenon.

Science is a paradigm we superimpose upon phenomena, but it knows nothing of the noumenon beneath, behind, or above it all, for the phenomena are its shadow, so to speak. Plus, science can never be truly unified unless it sacrifices either completeness or consistency, a la Gödel.

But metaphysics is the "science of the whole," so to speak, so there can be no entity or event or theory or even religion (if the religion is to transmit Truth) that exists or takes place outside its purview.

In the past, we have spoken of Christianity not as a religion, but as the cure for religion.

This is only half-ironic, for in very important ways Christianity either contradicts what called itself "religion" prior to its emergence, or else it assimilates and sanctifies partial or garbled religious understandings in a higher Light (and again we are not speaking of Judaism, which is a special case).

One very obvious way that Christianity corrects and "cures" pre-Christian religion is in its emphasis on the sanctity and supreme worth of the individual. It cannot be overemphasized the extent to which the emergence of the individual marks an unprecedented and shocking Cosmic Fact -- the most important "fact" in all of creation.

This is a fact that cannot and will not be denied, for to deny it is to affirm it. In other words, the Knower of fact is obviously superior to the fact; either the Knower knows and therefore contains the fact, or vice versa.

"European society was," writes Fukuyama, "individualistic at a very early point, in the sense that individuals and not their families or kin groups could make important decisions about marriage, property, and other personal issues."

Cosmic evolution is very much rooted in the family, which is entirely conversant with what I know to be true of human psychological development: "Individualism in the family is the foundation of all other individualisms. Individuals did not wait for the emergence of a state declaring the legal rights of individuals and using the weight of its coercive power to enforce those rights."

"Rather," -- and this is a key point -- "states were formed on top of societies in which individuals already enjoyed substantial freedom from social obligations to kindreds. In Europe, social development preceded political development" (Fukuyama).

And what was true in Europe was and is even more so in the New and Improved World, which codified this metaphysical principle in its founding document. Men did not first figure out that they were created in liberty; rather, they first lived and embodied the freedom, and only then reasoned about its source, its foundation, and its ultimate purpose. Only posterior to this embodiment does it become cosmically "self-evident."

Prior to this, we must take it on faith that the Bible is telling us the truth when it affirms that where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty (2 Cor 3:17).

Liberty and equality are inverse variables, and in critical ways define the distinction between contemporary conservative liberals and illiberal leftists.

Ever since the French Revolution, the cosmically reactionary left has vaunted égalité over liberté, while the conservative revolution of America was fought for our freedom.

Our founders were freedom fighters, not feudal fighters struggling to make everyone equally beholden to the state master. And they were passionate about the relationship between hierarchy and liberty, for nothing destroys liberty like egalitarianism (not even the system against which they were rebelling; to the contrary, 18th century England was the freest place on earth).

Like all primitive peoples, the pre-Christian west was originally organized on the basis of tribes. In the past we have discussed how, in order for economic development to occur, human beings must crash through the "envy barrier."

But in many ways, the envy barrier is simply a function of the tribal barrier, for envy is one of the psychic mechanisms through which the tribe imposes unity and survives through time.

The question is, how did we accomplish this? And why the counter-revolution of the reactionary left?

Gotta take the boy to school. To be continued...

Yeah, baby, gotta be me, even or especially if I'm the only swingin' black Jewish Nixon-hugging dwarf in existence:

My Journey to Alt Orthodoxy

Which I arrived at just a moment ago when that term -- "alt orthodoxy" -- popped into my head.

Yesterday I mentioned an instinctive distaste for Calvinism, but then, I suppose I have an instinctive distaste for all forms of Christianity but my own (I exaggerate). But I once had an instinctive distaste for all forms of Christianity, period. 

As for Calvin, there is simply no part of me that could ever assent to the idea of a supreme being who creates people only to predestine them to eternal punishment. There are some things a decent -- not to mention commonsensical -- God just doesn't do. Supposing this ultimate sadist existed, I would spit in his eye, secure in the knowledge that I am a more moral being than he is, and besides, He's not my real daddy!

I am also a theological libertarian, and there's not a thing I can do about it. For me, freedom descends from, and returns to, God. In other words, God is its source and telos, but we are always free to deviate from, or cooperate with, it. 

We are of course fallen, but God is a necessary and not sufficient condition for our salvation. We still have to do our bit and cooperate with grace, no matter how comparatively modest our contribution.

But for Calvin, the will is bound by sin, so there's nothing we can do to please God except accidentally. Salvation comes 100% from his end, with no participation on our part, which renders our existence entirely superfluous and meaningless. In other words, there are two types of meaninglessness, all freedom (existentialism) and no freedom (double predestination). 

My instinctive distaste for Christianity began way back in Sunday school. My mother was a nominal Christian Scientist, which started back when my grandmother had some sort of mysterious healing after being hit by a bus, probably in the 1930s or 1940s. At the time she was living in Hollywood, where Christian Science had become something of a fad, like Scientology would later.

Gemini, what was that all about?

It's accurate to say that Christian Science had a notable presence among Hollywood celebrities, and this was particularly true in the early to mid-20th century. 

Celebrity Connection: 

Many prominent figures in Hollywood were either raised in Christian Science or became adherents. This included well-known names like Mary Pickford, Mickey Rooney, Ginger Rogers, Joan Crawford, Doris Day, Elizabeth Taylor, and Carol Channing. This created a certain level of visibility for the religion within the Hollywood community. 

Factors Contributing to its Popularity: 

Christian Science's emphasis on spiritual healing may have appealed to those in the demanding and often stressful environment of Hollywood. The religion's focus on positive thinking and mental discipline could also have resonated with individuals seeking control and well-being.

Wikipedia says that even Albert Einstein admired the founder, Mary Baker Eddy, and studied her main text, Science and Health, while his son became a full convert. 

Anyway, as a child I was forced to attend Christian Science Sunday school, which never made the least bit of sense to me, partly because my mother didn't hesitate to rush me to the doctor for so much as a sniffle. But it also created a division in my psyche between things that were true on Sunday and things that were true the rest of the week. 

By the age of eleven I gave up the struggle to reconcile them and declared myself an atheist. (To be perfectly accurate, I adopted the consistent position of knowing nothing on Sunday and on every other day of the week.)

After that I developed my instinctive distaste for Christianity, assuming that all versions were the same, except perhaps Catholicism which was even worse.  

Many years later, by the age of 13 or so, my attitude toward religion softened somewhat, based upon the Beatles' interest in Hinduism and other forms of Eastern spirituality. If it was good enough for them, then it was good enough for me. 

But I didn't take any formal plunge until... let's see, must have been when I was in my mid-twenties, after reading Ken Wilber's Spectrum of Consciousness. Afterwards I began studying and practicing yoga, not just the Hatha part but the Raja and Jnana parts too, i.e., the meditation and metaphysics of it all.

After much dabbling, I guess you could say things got pretty serious after the mid-1990s, when I would have called myself a full-on Vedantin. I suppose I didn't make that much progress in eliminating Bob and merging with Brahman, but it was while meditating that the idea for the book popped into my head unbidden.

It came in the form of a vision of the whole story of cosmic evolution, from the mind of the Creator prior to the Big Bang, through the realms of matter, life, and mind, culminating in the mystical union with God. 

And you know the rest of the story.

Do tell it again.

Really? I don't think the audience, such as it is, is interested. 

Tell it for your own benefit. Maybe you'll learn something.

Well, I suppose my instinctive distaste for Christianity continued into the third millennium, but in conducting the totally random and unsystematic research for my book, I began dabbling in Christian mysticism, beginning with a book called A Different Christianity: Early Christian Esotericism and Modern Thought. 

Now, here was a form of Christianity that made sense to me, because it could easily be reconciled with other forms of mysticism, i.e., Vedanta, Zen, Taoism, et al. It might even be ground zero for the whole Raccoon Sensibility. Just look at the book's description:

This book presents the esoteric original core of Christianity, with its concern for illuminating and healing the inner life of the individual. It is a bridge to the often difficult doctrines of the early church fathers, explaining their spiritual psychology.... 

Christianity possesses and always has possessed an inner tradition: not a system, but what might be called a discipline. To those with sufficient experience in investigating this field, I believe that this book will convey the same conviction. In addition, I would add to the idea that the inner tradition is one -- although with local variations....

It was through this book that I was alerted to way-out Christian authors such as Boris Mouravieff and Valentin Tomberg, which we discussed at length in the early days of the blog.

But then I started getting my own ideas. Recall what was said a couple of posts back about the three identifiable periods in the lives of creative folk, the first being when one is still assimilating influences and learning one's craft, so "the artist has usually not fully discovered his individual voice." So, I was still mostly playgiarizing with others rather than letting 'er rip with my own peculiar take on things.

But who should care about my own peculiar take on things, including me? Who died and left me in charge of the cosmos? Then along came Schuon, whom I had tried to read before, but didn't connect with. I didn't really get him, plus he sounded too authoritarian -- not nearly as fun and freewheeling as people like Mouravieff and Tomberg. 

Schuon is out there enough to satisfy my instinctive need for speculative woo woo metaphysics, but he also emphasized that metaphysics isn't enough. Rather, one must practice a single God-given path, whether it be Buddhism, Vedanta, Taoism, Judaism, Sufism, or Christianity. 

As in the old Zen saying, Chase two rabbits, catch none. In my case I was chasing every rabbit down every rabbit hole, so it was time grow up, pick one, and settle down. 

That's when the blog started to have a more Catholic sensibility, and I was only received into the Church a few years ago, in 2022. But over the past year or so, I find myself getting restless and unsatisfied again. For example, lately we've been blogging about open theology, which makes much more sense to me than the traditional view. Gemini, is there any way to square this with Catholic doctrine?

The Catholic Church has historically upheld the classical understanding of God's omniscience and foreknowledge. This creates tension with the core tenets of open theology. Concerns exist that open theology may diminish God's power and sovereignty, potentially leading to a less robust understanding of divine providence.

Points of Consideration: 

There are discussions within theological circles exploring ways to understand God's relationship with time and human freedom in a more nuanced manner. The emphasis in open theology on God's relationality and love can resonate with certain aspects of Catholic theology, but significant doctrinal differences exist between open theology and traditional Catholic theology, particularly regarding divine foreknowledge and omniscience.

Now, as far as I'm concerned, at the end of the deity, this absolute divine foreknowledge and omniscience doesn't differ all that much from Calvin. Rather, it simply asserts that both are true, i.e., predestination and human freedom, but I don't buy it. Rather, one has to go.

So, what is alt orthodoxy?

I can't tell you but I know it's mine. In other words, I'm working on it. The point is, I don't want to invent my own religion, like Luther or Calvin, even though, like them, I have my issues. Bottom line it for us, Gemini:

This text is a portrait of a restless and inquisitive mind engaged in a lifelong quest for spiritual truth. It's a testament to the fact that faith is often a complex and evolving journey, marked by doubt, discovery, and a persistent search for meaning.

Oology

Unfortunately, the word is already taken: The branch of zoology that deals with eggs, especially birds' eggs.

Well, what about the cosmic egg? 

I just checked, and there are indeed hundreds of images. I wonder if the snake symbolizes the vertical ascent mentioned in yesterday's post? Kundalini arousal, and all that? 

In any event, it's a very old idea; or rather, an old image that symbolically communicates ideas that are as new as whatever is hatched from the cosmic egg. Maybe even this post.

To the left is another cosmic egg, this one soaring on wings of slack:

"The ancients imagined that the universe was hatched from a primordial egg.... To the Alchemists it was analogous to the Macrocosm, the universe....

"Out of the egg... will rise the eagle or phoenix, the liberated soul, which is ultimately identical with the Anthropos who was imprisoned in the embrace of Physis."

That's a rather Gnostic view -- the idea that we are imprisoned in matter, as opposed to being a hylomorphic union of matter and form, or body and soul. Which is why the Incarnation can't just involve the mind alone... what's the word?

Docetism?

Close enough: the idea that Christ's physical body was an illusion and that he only seemed to be human. This was again because matter was thought to be inherently evil or impure, and therefore incompatible with the divine nature of Christ.

One can see the appeal, for the body can at times seem like our best frenemy. We need one, but it comes with all those annoying shocks the flesh is heir to -- disease, dysfunction, degeneration, decay, deterioration, decrepitude... and that's just some of the D's. That Christ saw fit not just to inhabit one but to be one is most remarkable. Recalling yesterday's post, it means that the Center truly became Periphery. No half measures!

Back to O-ology, which -- if the word weren't already taken -- would colloquially mean "the study of O," while literally meaning the "logos of O." 

Perhaps I should back up a step and begin with a definition of O. Which, of course, can never be defined per se, since infinitude escapes any finite --

Why not just say ultimate reality and be done with it!?

We could say that, but with many important qualifications. First there is the necessarily apophatic nature of our approach, which is perfectly orthodox, in the sense that what we can know of O is infinitely dwarfed by what we can't. O is not so much unknowable as infinitely knowable. And only in the beatific vision do we finally find out just how much we didn't know about God (?!).

You just said God instead of O.

Yes, because I was speaking in a Christian idiom, and besides, my humble readers are already aware of much they don't know about God. At the other extreme are folks like the one I saw on Christian TV the other night. My son and I occasionally tune in and enjoy these Flanders types for a laugh.

Not very charitable.

Maybe. I suppose these people are harmless enough when speaking to themselves, but they can do damage to the cause by making Christianity appear stupid to people already inclined to dismiss religion as stupid. Dávila knows what I mean:

Every Christian has been directly responsible for the hardening of some unbeliever’s heart.

It reminds me of Ringo's annoyed reaction to the cover of John Lennon's first solo album, on which he and Yoko appeared stark naked:

I said, "Ah, come on, John. You’re doing all this stuff and it may be cool for you, but you know we all have to answer. It doesn’t matter; whichever one of us does something, we all have to answer for it."

Likewise, it may be cool for this TV preacher to describe the exact color and molecular composition of God's throne -- which, it turns out, is made of alabaster -- but then the restavus have to answer for it. 

Another point about O is that it leaves a space for us to fill in the content. It is what Bion called "unsaturated" with a rigid, determined, and pre-existing meaning. When this occurs, we can't really "discover" O, rather, only find what we're already looking for -- as, for example, with climate science researchers. When reality falsifies their (saturated) models, they chuck reality, so they're incapable of learning about it.

A third point about O is that it allows for experiential knowledge of it. At the end of the deity, O cannot be known like an empirical object, or reduced to human categories, but can be known via participation. Lao Tse is all over this paradox:

The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal Name. The unnamable is the eternally real....

It is like the eternal void: filled with infinite possibilities....

Empty yet inexhaustible, it gives birth to infinite worlds.

It is "beyond is and is not," and yet, it is always right here right now, waiting to be entered. 

Bob, are you not mixing Christian apples with Taoist oranges?

Absolutely. In Christ the Eternal Tao the author points out how

In modern Western society, many people turn away from the Christianity of their formative years because they find its truths smothered under an unreal kind of religiosity.... the churches have replaced a direct, intuitive apprehension of Reality and a true experience of God with an intellectualism on the one hand and an emotionalism on the other....

Properly oological Christianity is illicitly reduced to  

something that is acquired through rote learning, based on the idea that if you just get the words right..., you will be saved. Christianity then becomes a dry, word-based religion... that operates on the same principles as the institutions of the world.

So, don't do that. Like how? "The only way to get past religious words and concepts is to seek... the Reality behind them," and "to rise above thoughts and emotions" to "the Mind Who is beyond thought."

It's the same with the Upanishads: "If you think that you know well the truth of Brahman, know that you know little.... He truly knows Brahman who knows him as beyond knowledge; he who thinks that he knows, knows not."

Which accords perfectly with Thomas: "Whatever is comprehended by a finite being is itself finite." As such, "This is the final human knowledge of God: to know that we do not know God."

This is no different from what St. Paul says: "if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know" (1 Cor. 8:2). 

Now, it is not as if we can't use words to describe O. It's just that we mustn't confuse the words with the reality they can only touch but never exhaust. I'm reading another book by Wolfgang Smith, and he describes it thus:

the Real is not what we catch in our nets, but precisely what we do not catch: whatever eludes our mental grasp.... And that is why it must be sought, figuratively speaking, "with folded hands," a gesture that betokens, not a "grasp," but the very opposite: a submission, namely, an unconditional openness, like that of a mirror wiped clean.

Suffice it to say, revelation is a kind of "map of O," but we still need to undertake the journey. Half of oology is our own unending (o) to O. 

And what is Christmas but a celebration of the ultimate openness of O to us, of all people? There's much more to say about this, but I'll shut up for now. Still, I can't help wondering what Gemini thinks about this:

This text explores the concept of "O," representing ultimate reality, through various philosophical and religious lenses. Here's a breakdown of the key ideas:

• O as Ultimate Reality: The text introduces "O" as a placeholder for ultimate reality, acknowledging the limitations of human language and understanding in defining the infinite. It emphasizes the apophatic approach (knowing by negation) -- what we don't know about O far exceeds what we do know.

• Critique of Literalism and Intellectualism: The author criticizes overly literal interpretations of religious texts and intellectual approaches that prioritize words and concepts over direct experience of reality. Such approaches can obscure rather than reveal the true nature of O. The example of the TV preacher describing God's throne illustrates this point.

• Experiential Knowledge and Participation: The text emphasizes the importance of experiential knowledge and participation in O. This is contrasted with merely intellectual or emotional understanding. Quotes from Lao Tzu, the Upanishads, and Christian mystics like Thomas Aquinas and St. Paul support this idea. The author suggests that O is not just an object to be studied but a reality to be entered into.

• The Cosmic Egg and Gnosticism: The image of the cosmic egg is introduced as a symbol of the universe's origin and potential. The author connects this to Gnostic ideas about the soul being imprisoned in matter, contrasting this with the Christian concept of hylomorphism (the union of body and soul). The discussion of Docetism highlights the tension between valuing the spiritual and devaluing the material.

• The Incarnation as Ultimate Openness: The Incarnation of Christ is presented as the ultimate example of O's openness to humanity. By becoming human, O entered the periphery, fully embracing the material world.

• Oology as the Study of O: The author playfully introduces "oology" as the study of O, emphasizing the ongoing and unending quest for understanding. This involves both revelation (the "map of O") and personal experience (the journey).

• Blending of Traditions: The text draws on various traditions, including Christianity, Taoism, and Gnosticism, to explore the nature of O. This blending suggests a search for universal truths that transcend specific religious or philosophical frameworks.

• Unsaturated Concepts: The concept of "unsaturated" meaning, borrowed from Bion, is introduced. This means that "O" is a flexible concept that allows individuals to find their own meaning within it, rather than being restricted by pre-defined interpretations.

In essence, the text explores the ineffable nature of ultimate reality, arguing for a balanced approach that combines intellectual humility with experiential seeking. It suggests that true understanding of O comes not from mastering words and concepts but from participating in the reality they point to.

It's nice to be understood. How about an image?