Banging the Boards with Your Cosmic Big Man

As children develop, it is as if certain neurological windows open for the purpose of imprinting various things, e.g., speech, attachment, basic trust, etc.

For example, when the language window is open, children learn to speak with the greatest of ease. After it closes, it becomes much more of a challenge. My kid picks up Mandarin as easily as I forget what happened yesterday.

I wonder if something similar occurs with the collective? I was thinking about the so-called axial age, when so many of the world's major revelations were downloaded. Was there something analogous to a historo-developmental window that made such divine-human communication more fluid and "present"? It would certainly explain a lot.

Voegelin notes that the Pentateuch starts to be assembled and organized by the sixth century "and is substantially completed in the first half of the fourth century B.C." Additional scripture is downloaded later, and debates about what to include and exclude are wrapped up by the second century A.D. You might say that the revelational window has closed.

How do we know when revelation is occurring, how long it is going on, and when it ends? Whatever the case may be, "By a remarkable feat of mythical imagination," a testament is assembled "against the pressure of competing wisdoms," with the purpose of revealing "once and for all the mystery of divine creativity in the cosmos as well as man's existence in society and history" (Voegelin). Well played!

It seems to me that this is something one couldn't do if one were "trying," and perhaps that provides an insight into why such a thing couldn't occur today.

As alluded to at the top, who but a child is able to be so empty and fluid as to effortlessly download language? Who but a child can listen so well, without even trying? Perhaps it's the same with premodern man, whose mind must have been so uncluttered compared to ours.

It reminds me of something the great Chick Hearn once said about a certain beast of a power forward, maybe Karl Malone: "He's got muscles in places I don't even have places!"

Similarly, modern man has thoughts and ideas and concepts and lies and trivia in places premodern men didn't even have places. The mind must have been like a beautiful and expansive clear blue sky (so long as the person wasn't overrun by mind parasites).

Become as children. Interesting word, become. It means to come into being. You wouldn't say be a child, much less regress to childhood. To become implies bringing something new into existence, not reverting to a previous stage. A child is a person to whom one gives birth.

Back to scripture. Again, it is impossible to believe that anyone -- and certainly no committee! -- could be creative enough to pull it off. Indeed, it reminds me of dreaming, which we all surely do, but which none of us can consciously produce. Sure, we can be creative, but imagine being able to close your eyes and enter a world as vivid and seemingly real as dreams are. Can't do it. Although I do wonder about someone like Shakespeare, or someone like Mozart vis-a-vis musical worlds.

At any rate, Voegelin agrees that this business of scripture can't simply be "dismissed as clever invention," because no one is that clever. Indeed think of someone like L. Ron Hubbard, who thought he was clever enough to invent a religion. The best he can manage is bad but very expensive science fiction.

Nor could a manmade invention "remain historically effective for two thousand years," much less "mobilize the experience of the comprehensive, prepersonal reality breaking forth into self-illuminating truth." Who can do that? I would say that truly great works of art do something similar, but only by way of pale analogy.

Note the fundamental difference between Judaism and Christianity. The former revolves around laws which are disclosed to the collective. The collective attempts to discern and comport with the law in order to become "divinized," so to speak. In other words, by following God's will, the group will manifest some of the sanctity and holiness that emanate from the divine reality.

With Christianity the accent shifts to the individual, or in my opinion to an individuality that could only have been incubated in the prior Judaic matrix (which means womb). It is fair to say that subsequent to the appearance of Christ, the Church stands for both the Virgin and for Israel, as a kind of saint-making -- or sanctity enabling -- thingummy. A womb, as it were... So yes, do vote with your lady parts.

What I mean is that the earthly measure of a revelation and tradition is its saint-making capacity. With reference again to L. Ron, we know Scientology isn't a real religion because it never has and never will product a saint, and the only sanctity in it is transparently phony. It's a womb alright -- for idiots and psychopaths.

So with the appearance of Christ we have this new insight of "the universal presence of divine reality as the source of illumination in every man." In other words, the shift is from law to light, and collective to individual. (And of course, the same shift may be seen in esoteric Judaism, i.e., Kabbalah, if I am not mishuggen.)

Recall what was said above about the divinization of the community. In Christ we have the full instantiation, the maximal presence, of divinity in the individual, in a way that man can never achieve on his own, irrespective of how much effort he puts into it, or how hard he pulls on his own buddhastraps. So the appearance of Christ is good news / bad news.

The bad news? He has muscles in places you don't have places.

The good news? "by responding to this maximal fullness through faith," men may "achieve the fullness of their own existence" (Voegelin).

Out of time. As always, I apologize in advance to our Jewish friends for misunderstanding / misrepresenting / misconscrewing up anything. I'm just winging it, in case no one's noticed.