Accurately Defining the Christ

The term Christ came from the Greek word Christos. The meaning of that word was anointing or the rubbing on of oil or ointment. The Hebrew word for Messiah, mashiyach was translated into Greek as Christos. The word messiah was associated with the King of Israel or the anointed one. So, when Jesus asked in Matthew 16:13-20, who do people say I am, Peter’s answer was you are the Messiah the Son of God. The same question can be found in Mark 8:27-29, and Luke 9:18-20.

However, I believe that orthodox dogma has erroneously conflated these passages in the synoptic gospels with “the Christ” as it was developed in John’s gospel, and the writings of the Apostle Paul. The writings of John and Paul greatly expanded the term Christ and connected it with the Logos or the Word. There is not a one-to-one correlation between Jesus of Nazareth and the Logos/word. This is where the term Christ comes into play.

When one is anointed with oil, the oil soaks into the skin. One could say that the oil indwells the skin. It becomes part of the skin. Therefore, the Christ as it was used in early Christian literature described the indwelling of the Logos. The Logos is the creative consciousness aspect of the divine parent. The Logos is the creative power that thinks and speaks reality into existence. Jesus knew that he was indwelt by the Logos and was therefore the son of God. However, he went on to teach that we too are indwelt by the Logos and are children of God.

Being created in the image of God is being created with the indwelling Logos. It is safe to say that the Logos and consciousness are synonymous. The word Logos is Greek and it means word or reason. It is a spoken word or a thought, in essence it is consciousness. The Greek philosophers especially the stoics saw the Logos as the creative source of the universe. However, it was the Jewish Hellenistic philosopher Philo of Alexandria that expanded on the word.

Philo was born between 15 and 10 BCE and died between 45 and 50 CE. He was contemporary with Jesus of Nazareth. He wrote that the Logos was the creator and the firstborn son of God. Since he was dead before the writing of John’s gospel, and he wrote in his work, “The Confusion of Tongues” that the Logos was a mediator between God and humanity and that the Logos was the “firstborn” son of God. It is important to note that the concept was not in any way unique to the gospel of John.

What is unique about John’s gospel is that it states that Jesus was indwelt by the Logos or in other words the Logos incarnate. However, Jesus went on to teach according to both John and Paul that we are also indwelt by the Logos. John stated that as Jesus was in the world that is true of humanity as well. Jesus said that he was in the Father and the Father was in him and both were in humanity.

The point of this is that to correctly speak of the Christ, one must understand that it is the Christ of the Logos or the anointing of the Logos. This makes the trinity then, the Father/Parent, the Logos, and humanity. All three are aspects of the divine. This is more clearly stated in some of the Gnostic texts found in the Nag Hammadi Library, but we know that Orthodoxy squashed Gnosticism in the late second and third centuries. However, the canon was not settled until late in the fourth century. One of the early Gnostic gospels was the Valentinian “Gospel of Truth.” It was from no later than the middle of the second century. The Valentinians are thought to be followers of Paul and the gospel of truth teaches that we forgot our divinity upon our incarnation into this world. In other words, we forgot that we were indwelt by the Logos, or had the Christ of the Logos. We were anointed with the Logos and did not realize it. Helping us remember who we really were was the mission and ministry of Jesus.

Sin is missing the mark and the mark missed was remembering our divinity. You can see this in John 1:1-14. In John 1:10 we’re told that the Logos was in the world but not recognized or known. It says that some knew the Logos, but most did not. The ones who recognized the Logos knew that they were the sons and daughters of God. It is finally in verse 14 that we are told that the Logos became flesh. The Logos was in the world before Jesus was born.

You may be asking who were the ones who received the Logos? The answer is the mystics and prophets and anyone who realized they were divine. Jesus then explained that humanity was anointed, indwelt by divinity. That should have been understood from Genesis. That was a fact from creation. Humanity was image bearers, and that meant they were indwelt with consciousness.

In the wrap up it is important to realize that the term Christ is anointing, and as it is used it is the anointing or the indwelling of the Logos. Therefore when we speak of or refer to the Christ, to be precise it should be the “Christ of the Logos.”

How I Know My Wife and I Are Soul Mates

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Many people are confident that they know their soul mate or that they and their partner are soul mates. For the most part they know it intuitively. I can say the same thing for my wife and I. However, I believe that there are other signifiers that make it more certain.

First, if you look at the ten synchronicities that are common among soul mates, we meet eight of the ten. These ten criteria were found on Chat GPT.

Meeting at the Right Time: Soul mates often seem to meet each other at just the right moment in their lives, when they are both ready to embark on a meaningful relationship.

Shared Interests and Passions: They may discover that they have numerous shared interests, hobbies, or passions, which can create a strong initial bond.

Similar Life Experiences: They may have gone through similar life experiences or challenges, which allows them to understand and support each other on a deeper level.

Mirroring Each Other: They may notice that they have complementary strengths and weaknesses, or that they mirror each other's personalities in certain ways.

Repeated Encounters: Before officially meeting, they may have encountered each other multiple times in different places or contexts, as if the universe was nudging them towards each other.

Dreams and Visions: They may have dreams or visions about each other before they meet in person, or they may feel a strong sense of déjà vu when they finally do meet.

Signs and Symbols: They may notice recurring symbols or signs in their lives that seem to point them towards each other, such as seeing the same numbers or animals.

Intuitive Knowing: They may have a strong intuitive sense that they are meant to be together, even before they have concrete evidence or reasons to support this feeling.

Divine Timing: They may find that certain events or circumstances align perfectly to bring them together, reinforcing their belief in the idea of divine timing.

Feeling of Home: Being with each other feels like coming home, providing a sense of comfort, familiarity, and belonging that they may not have experienced with anyone else.

We met at the right time, we shared interests and passions, similar life experiences, we mirror each other, there were signs and symbols, intuitive knowledge, divine timing, and we always felt at home together.

We had similar life experiences. We were both born into fundamental evangelical families and mirrored each other by complementary strengths and weaknesses. While we were both cerebral and intuitive, I was more cerebral wanting facts and knowledge, and she was far more intuitive with a knowing at the spiritual level. This is an example of the masculine and feminine energies. It is in this way that we complete each other. The synchronicity was that we both rejected the toxic aspects of evangelical dogma at an early age. But, because of life experiences we both came back to evangelicalism.

Upon our return, I was led to study theology and church history and find logical reasons for rejecting evangelical dogma. She on the other hand rejected it because of intuition and what you could call spiritual revelation. Ultimately it took the combination of the two of us to allow a comfort in rejecting evangelical dogma out of hand. I provided the intellectual study, and she provided the intuitive revelation. Here again, we both had both the intellectual and intuitive nature working within us, but the strength of her intuition and the extent of my intellectual study made it a match made in heaven.

We met at just the right time. I was born in Michigan years before her, and she was born in New York. Interestingly we both moved to the San Francisco Bay area in the same year. However, we did not meet until eleven years later. During that time, we lived in the same neighborhood without meeting but were in proximity within blocks. During this eleven-year period, I was teaching theology, studying and growing certain that evangelical dogma was incorrect. She was facing some struggles and through intuition realizing that evangelical dogma was off the mark and was receiving alternate meanings to scripture that were apropos and timely. Had we met before that our synergy would not likely have been in sync.

Our shared interest and passion was that we both had a relationship with Jesus and we both knew that the doctrine we were taught was in gross error. It was in this way that our meeting took place. I was teaching theology at a small church in Oakland CA, and two of her close friends came and were impressed with my teaching and insight. Subsequently they brought her along with them and the rest is history, however the connection was not immediate except for the theological understandings. I was able to give biblical validation to what she was intuitively receiving through personal revelation.

When we finally got together romantically as well we embarked on a life long journey of questions, answers and growth. We both gradually moved from solely Christianity to an eclectic spirituality. She was drawn to Yoga and was reading Eckhart Tolle’s work. I was exploring Hermetics, the Tao, and frontline science in consciousness. Through out this entire journey we have complimented one another and have formed a complete entity where the two have become one flesh.

 

The Divine Parent

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Lao Tzu said that the ineffable Tao was the mother of all created things. Jesus of Nazareth taught that the

creator God was a loving father. Hermetic teaching, especially from the Kybalion states that gender is in everything. So, let’s take a look at the divine parent who is both feminine and masculine. I think the most accurate way to describe it is the universal parenthood of the unified field of divine consciousness.

For the sake of brevity, I will call it the “Divine Parent.” This is a statement that is not gender specific but is meant to be gender inclusive. I am basing this hermetic principle of gender on the principle of correspondence as found in the Kybalion. The principle states “as above so below, and as below so above.”  The idea behind it is that here in the material plane, we can extrapolate the mental and spiritual plane based on what we see here. While we cannot know for certain the above, we can surmise the above by observing the nature of the below, or the material plane. In the Kybalion it is called the physical plane. Whether material plane or physical plane it is simply two names for the same plane.

The principle of correspondence is not just found in the Kybalion. It is in the Emerald Tablet as well and therefore is more ancient than the 1908 Kybalion. While the seven hermetic principles are not explicitly mentioned in the Corpus Hermeticum, they are implied. Finally, the seven hermetic principles as presented in the Kybalion resonate with my intuitive self. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the Kybalion is one of the most accurate mystical or sacred text that has been written. It was likely written by William Walker Atkinson who was a prolific esoteric writer at the end of the 19^th century and the beginning of the 20th century.

I think that the principle of correspondence can be used effectively to show that the creative source, God, is love, and a loving parent. It likewise can be used to show that goodness is the overarching goal of material existence on the physical plane. It also shows the likelihood of reincarnation and that the world is indeed founded in mentation.

Again, the phrase “as above so below, and as below so above” is the surest way to extrapolate the nature of the mental and spiritual planes. To begin with parenthood is replete within the animal kingdom and reaches its zenith with humanity. Implicit in parenthood is gender as well. Creative generation is the result of the interaction of the male and female gender. This is true even among life forms that have both within them. So if the above is the same as the below, it is only reasonable that the creative source contains both the masculine and the feminine attributes. Therefore, one can safely assume that the creative source is a divine parent. This in and of itself demands a trinity. There is the father, the mother, and the offspring.

Within the unified field of divine consciousness, there is the masculine and feminine that is the genesis of individual conscious agents. This is a spiritual realm that creates through the mental realm and projects the creation in the physical realm. This is indeed the divine parent. When the author of the book of Genesis in the bible states that humanity was created in the image of God it must be a conscious being. There is no need to anthropomorphize the creative source. Anthropological beings are the creation, but the essence of these beings is consciousness. So, it is consciousness that makes us children of God. However, if consciousness is foundational to all reality, then, the entire physical universe is the progeny of creative consciousness or the divine parent.

The Divine Parent is Love

Once again using the principle of correspondence one can reason that the divine parent is love. Using the idea of “as below so above” we can see that among most of humanity, the preferred state is love over hate, If on the physical plane love is preferred over hate, how much more would that be the case on the spiritual plane with the divine parent. Let me remind you that the divine parent is the universal parent of the unified field of creative consciousness.

Love, joy, peace, and goodness are the default state of the unified field of divine consciousness. I put the divine in the description because the unified field of consciousness is the creative source, and it is what has historically been thought of as God or some kind of deity. We are all moving toward those traits. However, it is likewise necessary to experience the polarity of those states of being. That is the reason for the principle of polarity. Without experience the polarity of these various states of being one could never truly appreciate the goodness of the positive poles.

It should be mentioned that we, the offspring of creative consciousness, are individual conscious agents and eternal. The law of conservation of energy is a physical law that states energy cannot be created or destroyed but may be changed from one form to another. The changing from one form to another can be found in the reincarnation cycle. One can extrapolate the likelihood of reincarnation by the principle of correspondence. It can be reasoned from the as below so above standpoint. In our natural universe that comprises the physical plane one can see cycles everywhere. There are cycles of days and years. There is the water cycle. There is the cycle of birth death and renewal in plants and animals, and it is therefore necessary from the viewpoint of correspondence that there are mental and spiritual cycles as well.

This necessitates that the conscious energy of an individual conscious agent is eternal and while it can change it cannot be destroyed. Therefore, if we as individual conscious agents, previously referred to as souls, are eternal then the only eternal impact that any one incarnation has on the individual is experience and the growth of experiential knowledge. That is the purpose of the physical plane and how the three great planes interact in the expansion of experiential knowledge. The great spiritual plane is potential knowledge. The great mental plane is creative potential, and the great physical plane is the experience of the potential knowledge which results in the infinite expansion of the universe.

The principle of correspondence can provide even more insight into the divine parent and its relationship to individual conscious agents or souls. This again is approaching it from the as below so above aspect of the principle of correspondence. The divine parent being the creative source of conscious offspring corresponds to the idea of families here in the physical plane. It is where we can get glimpses of the cosmic spiritual family that we are a part of.

It is important to look at the overall trends in the development of the family and not specific cases that deviate from the trend. They are simply examples of polarity meant to show the benefit of the majority of cases. First it can be understood by example that most parents love and protect their children. Of course, this has been progressive, mostly on an upward spiral over history.

Since loving and protecting offspring is preferred over not doing so, it is easy to theorize that at the level of the Great Spiritual Plane, love and protection is preferred and the goal of our experience on the physical plane. The goal is to grow in an upward spiral toward love and protection.

We can also see in the material family, the trend for siblings to love and protect one another, and like the parent offspring relationship there are exceptions providing polarity. This too is to provide the understanding of what is preferred, and one can then accurately theorize that the same is true on the Great Spiritual plane. The goal is for individual conscious agents, souls, to progress on an upward spiral toward love and protection of each other.

Finally, one can see in the physical family that each individual can petition the parents or the siblings for help when needed. I need not fail to mention that the overall trend is for parents and siblings to offer help to those requests and the exceptions are simply an example of polarity to establish that help is preferred. It can then be theorized that at the Great Spiritual Plane offering help for petitions is the general order.

In each one of these examples, the participants, the individual conscious agents, souls, are eternal and the outcome of any one incarnation does not have eternal implications outside of experiences gained and lessons learned. This makes room for the exceptions that present polarity to the experience.

To sum it up, one can be sure that the creative source parent is love, and that joy, peace, patience, and goodness are the highest qualities and the evolutionary goal of all conscious agents, souls, as they traverse the many incarnations of experience. We can meditate and pray, we can expect supernatural help in many cases. We can truly believe that in the long run all things do work toward the good, toward the upward advancement of the physical plane. We can likewise be assured that there is an egalitarian outcome for all conscious agents or souls. This eliminates the idea of punishment and emphasizes the idea of growth.

 

How I view Jesus

I still consider myself a follower of Jesus of Nazareth. He is much more than the savior from sin. In fact, I believe that he was only that to first century Jews who needed to understand that they were already acceptable sons and daughters of God. This whole narrative about Jesus is tainted by the Orthodox understanding of sin and salvation. It was further turned into an unnecessary source of shame and self-deprivation by Augustine, Luther, Calvin, and the other reformers. It along with Puritanism has been the source much trauma and error. However, I believe it is mostly from misunderstanding his real message of love and freedom.

You can say, but he taught about hell and mentioned that it was where worms would never die. Well, in my view, that is part of the misinterpretation of his message. If one believes that he was really a historical figure, and that he really taught prior to the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem, and I do, then he was actually quoting Isaiah 66 in a passage that I think foreshadows the destruction of the temple. He was informing them, by them, I mean first century Jews that the temple and city would be destroyed by Messianic fever and fervor.

You can also say that he taught about Gehenna and suggested it was eternal. To that I reply that he was using hyperbole against a first century Pharisaic teaching that Gehinnom was a fiery punishment where souls went for a year to pay a penalty for their sinful ways. He actually used a lot of hyperbole in his teaching. He suggested that they gouge out their eyes and cut off their hands. He also said that lust was really adultery. I don’t think it was to make the mosaic law tougher. It was hyperbole to show that concern and love for others was a better road to follow.

This brings me to the first narrative that Jesus taught that was profitable for everyone and would be great to follow and would make this planet a better place to live and would help us all become more humane. Notice the idea of humane comes from the word human and is linked directly to humanity. The idea was to love the other and not persecute them. This love should extend past the norm of the day to one’s enemy.

He was likewise a proponent of what today we call social justice. He taught that the highest ideal for humanity was to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, give shelter to the homeless and visit the sick and those in prison. He taught that if one really wanted to follow him, they would do those works as a natural way of living. It would be these works that would separate a true follower from one that was false.

In a more spiritual vane, he taught that the realm of God was already among humanity. Its source was the indwelling Logos or the divine spark. God was creative mind and was the parent of all humanity. The Logos was actually incarnate in humanity. He taught that he was indeed the incarnation of the divine Logos, but he did not stop there. He went on to teach that we all are the divine Logos incarnate.

When it was said that he was the Christ, the Messiah, it was actually saying that he was the divine Logos in flesh and blood. He was, if you allow- the anointing of the Logos. Again, he did not stop there. He went on to teach that we too are the anointing of the Logos as well. While he was willing to be a mediator between humanity and creative consciousness, he also taught that we too could be a mediator for ourselves.

Orthodoxy got it twisted but so did Gnosticism and the other expressions of Christianity in the first three centuries. There was much about Gnosticism that was correct, but where it went awry of his teaching was in not understanding that Jesus was one of the most egalitarian teachers and mystics of all time. The gospel that the realm of God was available to all and currently among humanity was unique to him. And, that is the reason that I choose to follow his teaching as best as I am able.

Is Pseudoscience a Pejorative Term?

Pseudoscience is a favorite term to throw out against anything that suggests consciousness is foundational to reality. I am not saying that there is not pseudoscience at all. Rather, academic science uses pseudoscience as a pejorative to dismiss and ridicule aspects of paranormal phenomena that could be studied with at least a modicum of scientific rigor.

The materialist, physicalist paradigm and its accompanying dogma has discouraged and, in many cases, eliminated ideas that were important in times past. Much of humanity has been completely cut off from spirituality, and the aspect of being human which is a product of consciousness. This has been all because of not accepting things that cannot be falsified.

I am referring to phenomena such as near-death experiences, visitations of departed relatives, UFO encounters, especially human contact and abductions. I am also referring to shamanism and all mystical experiences. What kind of scientific examination could be used you may ask? Well, for one, self-reporting could be encouraged and not stigmatized.

Each of these phenomena lends themselves to providing data that could be analyzed by computers to find recuring similarities. They could be categorized in ways that statistical data could be used to identify the similarities. The problem is that there are not enough groups interested to take on this work, and it is in my view mostly because of scorn. I am quite certain that ancient civilizations that were philosophically advanced would take advantage of the opportunity to do the analysis made possible by technology.

I think that the current attitude is much more a reaction to religious dogma than anything else. Admittedly, especially in the western world, Orthodox Christianity has been controlling. In the United States Puritanical values have added to the rejection of anything spiritual. In Europe, the control of the Roman Church has had a similar effect.

In spite of this, spiritual and paranormal phenomena have been ubiquitous across all nations and cultures across the globe. The problem is that there have been too few attempts at understanding it and little if any innovation in developing methods of study. Further, all of the people who undertake study are ridiculed and called false science. That is what pseudoscience means.

Yet, within the ranks of theoretical physics, there is a plethora of hypotheses and theories that are many times hotly contested by others within the discipline. That seems to be okay but the minute that someone tries to link the strangeness of quantum mechanics to consciousness and spirituality they are ridiculed and accused of woo.

A glaring example of this is that the author Whitley Streiber has collected a group of stories in his book “The Communion Letters.” They are a few of the almost 200,000 letters he received after writing his book “Communion.” Once it was published, thousands of people from all over the world sent letters reporting similar experiences to the ones he included in the Communion book. According to Streiber the similarities were striking in a lot of accounts. It would take a lot of human power to examine all of the letters he received. His wife did a heroic job but was still only one person. Those personal stories could be analyzed in much more depth if there were more human and technological resources available.

A similar story was just recently published. It was a book entitled “The UFO of God” by Chris Bledsoe. Both he and Streiber report having contact with a non-human other-worldly female that presented esoteric information. Additionally, you have the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) that has collected and investigated thousands of stories over the years. It would be great if all of these stories could be collected and examined by a computer program that would identify similarities and present the data in a statistical format.

This represents merely one aspect of the many paranormal phenomena that are reported by individuals. More resources could be applied to near death experiences, NDE’s as well. Computer programs could be written that would categorize and correlate the information. While there are many doing this already, the number is too small in my view and more people should be interested in the investigation and the results.

Likewise, there are many cases of past life remembrances that need similar investigation. Some of these have been traced to events that can be verified. While I realize that it would be impossible to determine if someone was Napoleon or George Washington in a past life, there are many reports of more mundane lives that offer detail that could be analyzed and correlated to historical events.

We have used quantum mechanics to advance technology so much over the last one hundred and fifty years that it is a shame that we do not invest more time and resources into investigating these phenomena that have been reported throughout history. It could certainly make our lives richer, and to admit that there is a world of spirituality and consciousness that we do not understand does not mean that one has to believe in past religious dogma.

I believe that consciousness is fundamental and foundational and if that is true, the more we explore that aspect of reality, the better we as the human race will adjust to the dimension that we currently occupy, and the more positively we will affect our individual lives.

 

Miracles; Why some experience them and others do not

Have you ever wondered why some people who believe in spiritual and supernatural healing get healed and others do not? Or, why the law of attraction seems to work for some and not for others? Have you ever pondered the fact that if God, creative consciousness heals one person and not another what that suggests about God? Is the creative spiritual source merely arbitrary and capricious? Have you ever entertained any of these questions? Well, many have. I know I have.

What is the answer to these questions? Is it all merely a matter of chance?  Or, is there something deeper at play? My answer is there is something far deeper at play.

Over the last two years, I have been influenced in my thinking by Dr. Bernardo Kastrup and Dr. Donald Hoffman. Kastrup has a PhD in computer science, is knowledgeable in psychology, and is in his own right a philosopher. Hoffman is a cognitive scientist at the University of California at Irvine and is doing research into consciousness using evolutionary game theory. He has written a book entitled “The Case Against Reality.”

Both believe that consciousness is foundational to reality and that the creative source of the universe is mentation. They agree in a lot of areas, and they have used similar metaphors to explain their idea of reality. Kastrup is promoting a philosophy he calls analytical idealism which is a variation of the idealism of Plato but with a twenty-first century understanding of science. I will try to briefly explain his ideas first. He begins with the idea that we do not really see reality and instead see and interface that he likens to a dashboard of dials. Hoffman’s metaphor is a virtual reality headset or a computer screen. Neither of the metaphors shows the underlying reality they represent. Both are designed to eliminate the overwhelming data in reality.

Kastrup also sees each of us individual conscious agents, (a phrase that Hoffman coined) as dissociative personalities of the one universal mind. He points out that there are documented cases of dissociative personalities within individuals where one personality is blind and the other has sight, and that the blind one actually cannot physically see because of a change in the brain. It should also be pointed out that some personalities are actually aware of the existence of the others. This enriches the metaphor.

Hoffman has used evolutionary game theory to show that the chances that we see reality as it is are absolutely zero. He theorizes that there is a deeper reality than space-time and he has spring boarded off the work of physicist Nima Arkani Ha-med. He cites the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics proving that the universe is not locally real. He and his students have written papers that have been peer reviewed and published so he is not completely fringe woo. His idea is that we are all conscious agents of the one supreme consciousness. As far as determining the purpose consciousness has in creation of us, he leans on Godel’s incompleteness theorem. It basically states that mathematics is infinite and there is no end to the exploration of it. He believes that the purpose for the material world and all other dimensions is consciousness exploring itself.

As I said, I have been influenced by these two academics to a great degree over the last two years. However, my view is that science is not spiritual enough and spirituality is not scientific enough. I therefore will in turn springboard off these two theories of reality. I have concluded that consciousness is the foundational aspect of reality. I think it is synonymous with what we call spirituality. Creative consciousness and God are interchangeable terms.

Consciousness has infinite and unlimited potential knowledge. However, in the realm of consciousness, thought and knowledge there is no experience. Experience demands a dimensional reality. We then are God experiencing what it knows. The possibilities are infinite and endless.

This brings us to good and evil, pain and pleasure, joy and sorrow, prosperity and poverty and all possible examples of polarity. This is the reason that I see the Kybalion as so informative when it comes to the nature of this mental reality. It states that polarity is one of the seven basic principles of hermetic teaching.

If Dr. Bernardo Kastrup is correct, and if we are each dissociative personalities of the one great mind, and if Dr. Donald Hoffman is right in this assessment of the purpose that consciousness is exploring limitless possibilities, then we each are individual conscious agents of the one great mind and as it is without beginning and end, so are we eternal. If we are eternal, we never end. We merely change from one state to another and from one incarnation to another. As we do we keep adding to the experience of creative consciousness which I like to call the mind at larger. We also have the opportunity to rest in the mind at large or the mind of the all.

Here is where the questions mentioned at the beginning find their answer. Why do some experience miracles and others do not? The quick answer is choice. Before you get angry and shut this down, please hear me out. If we are divine, dissociative personalities of the creative source, we are eternal. Assuming the Hermetic principle of correspondence, as above so below and as below so above we can know that within the one great mind at large, we can communicate. In an egalitarian fashion, each of us individual souls or conscious agents can choose what experience we will have next.

Going further into Hermetics, if we look at the principle of polarity, we can and do experience pain and pleasure, joy and sorrow, and likewise all of the other polarities of potential experience. Both joy and sorrow, pain and pleasure are but seasonal. They all add to the experience of the one great mind at large the creative source. We all grow because of these experiences and it is toward love and peace, but the experience wouldn’t be complete without experiencing hatred and unrest.

Some people have chosen to be able to manipulate situations in miraculous fashion, and others have chosen for a specific incarnation to be locked out of the experience. It all washes out over various incarnations. It adds to the experiential knowledge of potential knowledge. It is in the mind at large that we individuals have free will. Sometimes we appear to have it in incarnations and sometimes it appears that we are locked into fatalism. There are endless dimensions and possibilities. Not all of them are the same as this arena of dimensional space time and matter. Not all experiences are material. The possibilities are truly ineffable.

We are one and we are separate. This fulfills the Hermetic principle of polarity. “All truths are but half-truths” and “All paradoxes are resolved.” This should motivate us to gain the absolute most out of every opportunity for experience. The main place to focus our attention is on the egalitarian aspect of this ongoing eternal process. We can also choose at any time to rest in the Mind of the All.

Can science and spirituality merge?

 "Not only is the universe stranger than we think, it is stranger than we can think.” Werner Heisenberg

Truly we have made momentous scientific progress in the last one hundred and fifty years. We have gone from the automobile to the information age. We have gone from the Wright Brothers to super sonic Jets. We have gone from Newtonian Physics to quantum mechanics. We have visited our moon. We have remarkable advances in medicine and medical technology. This is to say that materialist, physicalist science has an impressive sequence of accomplishments. But somehow, we have developed a scientific dogma that eliminates and scorns the spiritual. In spite of that, there is a growing trend to reincorporate spirituality into our day to day lives.

Conversely, spirituality is not without its dogmatic side. Religions are responsible for what appears to be unbridgeable divisions in human relations. It has been the cause of war and blood shed for millennia. It has been a vehicle for control, fear and psychological toxicity and trauma. One could go so far as to say that religious dogma is the cause of materialistic dogma. Physicalist and materialist dogma is a reaction to religious dogma. It exists to completely offset the problems that religious dogma created.

Neither science nor spirituality have the total picture. The strangeness of the universe points to a far more complicated reality. This has come about from the latest advancements in science, especially in the area of the role that consciousness plays. Consciousness is a mystery but it is emerging as an integral part of the nature of reality. Idealist philosophy that once lost its luster is regaining respectability. In fact, it appears to be going full circle. Platonic idealism is enjoying a rebirth, but it is tempered by scientific discovery and advancement.

This leads me to believe that science is not spiritual enough, and spirituality is not scientific enough. In my view, that too is changing. This raises the question is God and inadequate term? Is consciousness a better more descriptive term? Is it not spiritual enough? These are questions that will be answered as we move forward in both arenas.

Moving forward into specifics, let’s take a look at the things that can bring science and spirituality closer together. First, we will look at the historical, philosophical, and religious side of the equation. I want to begin with Greek Philosophy. They thought of the world in terms of the physical, mental and spiritual, I start with Greece because there is a written record. However, I want to stress the idea that Plato claimed that Pythagoras went to Egypt and received ancient wisdom that actually came from a more distant past.

While one cannot be certain, what resonates with me is this knowledge is truly ancient, before Egypt, and I think likely goes back to Atlantis and probably before that. This leads to Hermeticism or Hermetic Teaching.  Plato stated that the knowledge was truly ancient and went back to Atlantis. So, what does this have to do with science, you may ask? For instance, atomism is an excellent case in point. The idea of the atom was widespread across cultures and ancient spiritual traditions. It is present in ancient India; It is in Buddhism.

This reinforces the idea that the story of Hermes Trismegistus is likely based in some form of fact. I am not implying that he existed literally as the story is told. However, the story points to the reality that there were advanced civilizations that predate modernity. Perhaps even civilizations and individuals that had even greater knowledge than what we have today. Civilizations that rose and fell and in the falling left a fragmented story that was incorporated in the beliefs of different cultures and spiritual traditions.

As these stories were told and retold, they developed into dogmatic beliefs that in turn became religions. They show a spiral of awakening and sleeping. Awakening to new possibilities and then sleeping in dogmatic certainty. Yet, underlying it all are the basic truths of the nature of reality.

All of the ancient traditions held mentalism, what we now call consciousness, as the foundational element of reality. It is interesting that in the Kybalion, a hermetic document written in 1908 asserts that the ancients knew what we knew and more than we know about physics and psychology. This suggests that there is a common thread of thought that transcends time and culture pointing to a real knowledge that humanity as a whole holds intuitively.

Moving on to science. We, especially in the western world, were thrust into what has been called the dark ages by a controlling dogmatic religion. The burning of the Alexandrian Library alone speaks to the idea that we have gone in cycles of awakening and sleeping. However, the renaissance led to an entirely new awakening and ushered in the age of reason and in turn brought to fruition the age of scientific materialism. In many ways it was a reaction to the controlling religious dogma of the dark ages.

Newtonian physics described the world as material. Yet Sir Isaac Newton was deeply interested in Hermeticism and the Corpus Hermeticum. Ironically, Newtonian Physics led the way to a materialist, physicalist view of reality. Out of this a new dogma arose. It was the dogmatic view that only things that were material were important and worthy of examination. Spirituality was disparaged. I believe it was not least because of a reaction to religious dogma. In this you can see the Hermetic principle of rhythm. As one looks throughout history, one can see the pendulum effect. The Kybalion states that as far as the pendulum swings to the left, it then swings back to the right.

Scientifically we are now entering the return swing of the pendulum. As Newtonian Physics gave way to relativity and space time and quantum mechanics emerged in particle physics, the cutting edge of physicists, biologist, and cognitive scientists are now moving beyond space time to a deeper reality that at the very least hints of a concept of mentalism.

While there are different interpretations, the concept that information is foundational to reality is pointing toward consciousness being foundational. There are many scientists that are at the forefront of this idea. I am not saying that they all think in terms of the spiritual, but they all show that one who focuses on the spiritual nature of reality is not an ill-informed nut job.

To give an idea of what I am referring to you have Dr. Donald Hoffman, a cognitive scientist at UC Irvine that is building a case against reality. His hypothesis is that consciousness is the foundation of reality. He is spring boarding off the work of physicist Nima Arkani Hamed who has found physical realities beyond space time. With the winners of the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics, quantum entanglement is a proven fact, and the universe is not locally real. Information moves instantaneously which is well beyond the speed of light. String Theory, while not yet proven in a laboratory postulates that at the basic unit of the atom are strings of vibrating resonance that determines physicality. This can be similar to the vibration of thought.

To close, I find it interesting that so many of the intellectual giants of the last hundred and twenty-five years have believed that consciousness or spirituality was foundational. To name a few, are Carl Jung, Werner Heisenberg, Neils Bohr, Bertrand Russell, William James, all of the transcendentalists come to mind. If the pendulum is indeed swinging back to spirituality gaining a renewed importance it is not a bad thing. It makes me wonder what the dogma that develops from this swing will do to humanity. I am optimistic. I see human history on an upward spiral and while there have always been setbacks, the trend is to continue toward higher heights.