God Beyond Religion: Exposing a Weak Assertion of Orthodoxy

American, evangelical, fundamentalism has a great deal in common with protestants, and with orthodoxy both western and eastern orthodoxy. The flaw comes in an assumption. The assumption is that those who were closest to the first century have the most accurate knowledge of what the mission and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth was all about. Just a casual viewing of the history of the first four centuries, should cause even the intellectually limited to question orthodoxy’s assumptions and attestations.

I remember being a rebel at the onset of social media back in the “good ole days” of Yahoo Groups, anyone remember those? At that time, I was already challenging much of accepted dogma within evangelical and fundamentalist circles. Whenever I would go against the accepted dogmatic doctrine, there would always be those who would say, the early church and church fathers were much closer to the time of Jesus and therefore had the skinny on what He taught and meant. That is really an insufficient line of reasoning, and it should be painfully obvious.

When one looks at the overall history of the church beginning with the early heresy hunters, and then realize that they were sanctioned by the empire with the Christianizing event of Constantine’s mother and his subsequent acquiescence to his mothers wishes. The doctrine passed down by orthodoxy is very limited compared to the vast variety of Christianity’s that flourished during those years. Further, the history was written by the victors crowned by the empire and certainly was biased and skewed toward the findings of the councils that took place four hundred years after the Christ event.

One of the stories concerning the destruction of the Library of Alexandria accuses Theophilus who was the Patriarch of Alexandria, 385-415 CE (coincidentally corresponding with the time of the authority given the heresy hunters by the empire and church councils to enforce orthodoxy) seems very plausible considering what was done to the Gnostics by a group of the same mind set. The church has a sordid history of punishing, killing, sanctioning, and eliminating the writings of alleged heretics their revered recollection of Jesus teachings and the first century church are highly suspect which makes the assertion that due to their place in history are the most credible witnesses to what should or should not be orthodoxy and conversely, what should or should not be heresy.

I point this out because in my view one can get a very different view of what the Christian scripture means depending how one looks at it. For example, the doctrine of the Logos can be understood in a very different way simply by reading what John’s gospel actually says. The most important thing is that according to John 1:10-14 the Logos was actively in the world, was received by some before the Logos became flesh in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. It is also taught by Jesus that the same Logos that was flesh in him was also flesh in the rest of humanity. The Logos is simply creative consciousness, and it has always been in humanity though latent and unrecognized by most. While this flies in the face of the orthodox position it is far more in line with what was written in John’s gospel.

Another example is the Apostle Paul. It is obvious when one reads the bible without the lens of orthodoxy that we were given Paul was very likely a walking dichotomy. He was Paul the mystic who was carried with visions into the third heaven and given messages that he was not authorized to repeat, and he was likewise a trained Jewish rabbi that was a Pharisee. The Pharisees were a sect of first century Jews that had a very literal understanding of scripture and created much of the oral tradition that explained what the practical aspects of following the Torah was. This is a consideration that is most valuable when examining all of the writing Paul did. It appears that Paul’s stance on law and grace was very inconsistent and quite contradictory. Also, orthodoxy leaned in favor of interpreting scripture literally as opposed to a more esoteric understanding of it.

The bottom line is this. Both Jesus and Paul gave mystical revelation about source, the creative conscious source that is lost to those who have been influenced by the dogma of orthodoxy. It was carried forward even with the reformation. The reformation was far more about practices than it was about doctrine and revelation. This to me is sad because it may be that the toxic aspects of orthodoxy have so poisoned the well, that future generations will miss some of the important mystical revelation that explains that we humans have a divine nature that is the direct influence with being infused with the Logos. The more I progress in my awareness and thinking the more obvious it becomes that it is difficult to salvage the real message of first century Christianity which is Christ in you… that is “the Christ” in each of us.

God Beyond Religion: Is Prayer Effective?

I continually am asked the question, well if you no longer believe in the evangelical and orthodox dogma and doctrine, what about prayer? This is a great question and here is my best attempt at an answer. If the creative source is a field of divine creative consciousness; if we are conscious agents and points of consciousness within the collective consciousness, then I recommend the following points: 1) Engage in focused intention. 2) Move on to focused attention. 3) Thent move to focused action. 4) Finally release it to the collective conscious field.

Focused Intention:

Intention is to aim at or plan something. This makes it the first step in effective prayer. One should focus on what they desire to be accomplished by the unified field of divine consciousness.

Focused Attention:

The way to focus intention is to focus attention to the intention. It could be by writing it down on a piece of paper to make it a tangible expression of the Logos/Word within you. Another form of expression would be to speak it out loud. While I am sure that one could actually just think it, my sense is writing or speaking it aloud would be more effective for most and writing it down is what resonates the most with me. However, it may be more emergent, and it is not practical to write it. Speaking it or thinking it would be the next alternative with speaking it out loud being my preference.

Focused Action:

Focused action can be material or mental depending on how you can act. For example, if the focused intention is getting a job then applying and preparing would be an important part of focused action. If it is something out of your material control such as healing or a positive outcome, then focusing positive thoughts toward it is all the action that is necessary.

Release It:

Finally, and this may be the most difficult thing to do with respect to self-discipline. Release it to the collective consciousness as though it is accomplished and do not pick it up again.

It is my belief that when one has had answered prayer, even within the framework of organized religion these steps were done whether consciously or subconsciously.

God Beyond Religion: Panpsychism, Religion and Science

There is a full circle from ancient mystery religions to cognitive and quantum science. The connection is panpsychism. At the basis of Panpsychism is the idea that consciousness is the basic element of the universe. Here is a definition from the Britannica Online Encyclopedia. “panpsychism, (from Greek pan, “all”; psychē, “soul”), a philosophical theory asserting that a plurality of separate and distinct psychic beings or minds constitute reality. Panpsychism is distinguished from hylozoism (all matter is living) and pantheism (everything is God).

For Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, the 17th-century German philosopher and a typical panpsychist, the world is composed of atoms of energy that are psychic. These monads have different levels of consciousness: in inorganic reality they are sleeping, in animals they are dreaming, in human beings they are waking; God is the fully conscious monad.

In 19th-century Germany, Arthur Schopenhauer asserted that the inner nature of all things is will—a panpsychistic thesis. And Gustav Theodor Fechner, the founder of experimental psychology and an ardent defender of panpsychism, contended that even trees are sentient and conscious.” In the United States, Josiah Royce, an absolute idealist, not only followed Fechner in affirming that heavenly bodies have souls but also adopted a unique theory that each species of animal is a single conscious individual—incorporating into itself the individual souls of each of its members

While panpsychism is not a religion, it is adopted by various religions including pantheism and panentheism. There is also a close relationship between panpsychism and animism. Animism is a religion that believes that the cosmos is a living entity. It is common among indigenous beliefs such as the Native America shamanic religions. It sees conscious entities beyond human beings and animals. The mountains, the forest, the sun and moon all are conscious entities. The bottom line is that these beliefs hold consciousness as a top down causation rather than as some material panpsychists see the consciousness at the molecular level and believe that it evolves into greater and greater awareness in a bottom up fashion.

Since I was born into western civilization and thereby into western thought that has been my focus in study. I certainly believe in the recycling of souls or conscious agents, and since I believe that each conscious agent is a mini creative conscious in the likeness of the source, then I believe that free will demands that we are instrumental in choosing our life path in incarnations. I realize that this is not popular with those who have experienced a lot of trauma, and I do not want to victim blame, but at the end of the matter, in my view, this is the least undesirable of all the other possibilities. While someone in the midst of a traumatic life path may find little solace in the reality that he or she is eternal, and that nothing lasts forever except our conscious soul, it remains for me the most logical fact.

That aside, in selecting to be born into western culture, western religion, and western philosophy I can best explain what my thinking is in terms of the development of western philosophy. So, I mention panpsychism, religion, and science in the title. I also see what I would call a preponderance of evidence that consciousness is indeed at the basis of the nature of reality. It does begin with Hermes for me. I assume and I think that the evidence points to the fact that it is at least 5,000 years old and began with the mystery religions of Egypt. It was taken to Greece by Pythagoras and adopted into Greek Philosophy and Metaphysics. This was the forerunner of mathematics and modern physics. The ancients adopted the idea of the ether/aether. Looking back it was essentially a field in which all things existed. The catalyst for matter and the material, corporeal world was the Logos, in other words consciousness. Over time, this gave way to a more materialistic view of the nature of reality, however, with recent developments in cognitive science, physics, and biology we have returned back to a field similar in nature to the ether/aether.

Interestingly enough, in the twentieth century we had individuals that were stating that the universe is consciousness. For example, Aldous Huxley doing controlled experiments with hallucinogens, developed the term the mind at large. Carl Jung, a psychiatrist, developed the term collective unconsciousness. Rupert sheldrake developed the theory of fields of morphic resonance. So there is a circular phenomenon at play but it is a spiral. With an increase in technology and scientific method, what the ancients knew intuitively is being substantiated by scientific method.

I am quite sure that all of the various world belief systems have explored and developed this over arching idea. They have just used different language to express it. At this time, I do not have the study and expertise to validate it but it resonates strongly with my sense of understanding. What I am seeing is more along the lines of the nature of reality and not ethical. However, I certainly believe that ethics can fit well into this cycle that appears to be an upward spiral.

 

God Beyond Religion: The Logos, the Hermetica, and the Nag Hammadi Library

The Hermetica, or the Corpus Hermeticus is allegedly from Egypt and the Egyptian Thoht who was later named Hermes Trismegistus by the Greeks. It was reportedly brought to Greece by Pythagoras who had traveled to Egypt and Sumer and gained the esoteric and metaphysical knowledge of ancient Egypt. The Hermetica was the source of understanding that the Logos was the creative source of the universe. At the source of creation was consciousness. The Logos and consciousness are synonymous.

There are those who claim that the Hermetica is relatively recent and not ancient. They believe that it was formulated in the fifteenth century CE. This was due in large part to the French philosopher Isaac Casaubon. He was a philosophical advisor to King James. King James was bothered by the metaphysics that was sanctioned under Queen Elizabeth I who had supported and promoted Hermetic Teaching in her reign. He was all too happy to have Casaubon discredit it claiming that it was written by the Neo-Platonists. However, as Tim Freke and Peter Gandy point out in their book, once the Rosetta Stone was discovered and the code for hieroglyphics was broken it was discovered that it was ancient indeed, found in hieroglyphics found on a pyramid in Saqqara Egypt that was dated back to 3,000 BCE.

That alone should be sufficient to prove Casaubon wrong, but with the discovery of the Nag Hamadi Library in 1945 it was discovered that Gnostic Coptic Christians had copies of at least parts of the Hermetica. Thus, it is evident that the early Christians from the third and fourth centuries CE were familiar with these texts and used them as part of their sacred writings. It is obvious from this that they were well known in the first century CE.

Here is an excerpt from the translation of the “Discourse of the Eighth and Ninth.” It was translated by James Brashler, Peter A. Dirkse, and Douglas M. Parrott. The first passage that I will quote is from the Archive Notes: ”The Nag Hammadi collection includes a previously unknown and crucially important Hermetic document, The Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth. Probably dating to the third century or earlier, this text appears to be an initiation rite into visionary journey. This document provides singular evidence of the liturgical and experiential elements within Hermetic tradition. It gives witness to the existence of a ritual genera of Hermetic writings previously unknown and now lost. The ritual vowel phrases shown in the text are meditational vocalizations (perhaps similar to a mantra) based on the sacred name: IAO (They should be read with intonation.)”

Notice that the quote states that this is an unknown and crucially important Hermetic document.

I also want to quote from the actual body of the Discourse of the Eighth and Ninth: "I understand Mind, Hermes, who cannot be interpreted, because he keeps within himself. And I rejoice, my father, because I see you smiling. And the universe rejoices. Therefore, there is no creature that will lack your life. For you are the lord of the citizens in every place. Your providence protects. I call you 'father', 'aeon of the aeons', 'great divine spirit'. And by a spirit he gives rain upon everyone. What do you say to me, my father, Hermes?"… "Trismegistus, let not my soul be deprived of the great divine vision. For everything is possible for you as master of the universe."

This shows that at least a group of Coptic Gnostic Christians were invested deeply in the work of Hermes Trismegistus. Since in the book by Freke and Gandy, “The Hermetica, the lost Wisdom of the Pharaohs” You find this quote from the initiation of Hermes it sees that it is likely authentic that it was well received in the first century CE. “Suddenly everything changed before me. Reality was opened out in a moment. I saw the boundless view. All became dissolved in Light — united within one joyous Love. Yet the Light cast a shadow, grim and terrible, which, passing downwards, became like restless water, chaotically tossing forth spume like smoke. And I heard an unspeakable lament — an inarticulate cry of separation. The Light then uttered a Word, which calmed the chaotic waters.

My Guide asked: 'Do you understand the secrets of this vision? I am that Light — the Mind of God, which exists before the chaotic dark waters of potentiality. My calming Word is the Son of God — the idea of beautiful order; the harmony of all things with all things. Primal Mind is parent of the Word, just as, in your own experience, your human mind gives birth to speech. They cannot be divided, one from the other, for life is the union of Mind and Word. Now, fix your attention upon the Light, and become One with it.'

When he had said this, he looked into me, I to I, until, trembling, I saw in thought limitless power within the Light, to form an infinite yet ordered world — and I was amazed. I saw in the darkness of the deep, chaotic water without form permeated with a subtle intelligent breath of divine power. Atum's Word fell on the fertile waters making them pregnant with all forms.

Ordered by the harmony of the Word, the four elements came into being, combining to create the brood of living creatures The fiery element was articulated as the constellations of the stars, and the gods of the seven heavenly bodies, revolving forever in celestial circles. The Word then leapt up from the elements of nature and reunited with Mind the Maker, leaving mere matter devoid of intelligence. My Guide said: 'You have perceived the boundless primal idea, which is before the beginning. By Atum's will, the elements of nature were born as reflections of this primal thought in the waters of potentiality. These are the primary things; the prior things; the first principles of all in the universe. Atum's Word is the creative idea — the supreme limitless power which nurtures and provides for all the things that through it are created. (Pages 11-15)

I posited this much of the text because I wanted to show the creation story from the point of view of Hermes and the Hermetica. When one considers that the claim is that this goes back to 3,000 years BCE it should give us pause as we contemplate what science is now discovering about consciousness being the creative source of the material world.

God Beyond Religion: Panpsychism, and the Christ of the Logos

 How do we define and label our beliefs? I have had many but for at least the last thirty-five years my spiritual beliefs have been eclectic and syncretistic. At least for now, and since I am in the final quarter of my life, I can be best described as a panpsychist that is indwelt by the Christ of the Logos. This most accurately sums up my belief system as far as spirituality and the nature of reality is concerned.

So, let me define what I mean by this. A panpsychist is a person who believes that panpsychism best explains the nature of reality. Panpsychism merely is the belief that there is consciousness in all of material reality. So to a degree, and there are of course varying degrees, all matter is conscious down to the smallest known particle or division.

This leaves Christ and Logos to be defined to round out my belief system concerning the nature of reality. These next two terms are Greek and became important to me as a result of my being in and studying Christianity. However, I think that the connotation that orthodoxy has placed on the terms actually cloud their relatively simple meaning.  So let’s look at them one at a time. First, Logos is word, and as such is the expression of consciousness. For my purposes I use Logos and Consciousness interchangeably. Both for me are the creative source of material and corporeal reality. I therefore see the Logos and consciousness as energetic thought. Consciousness or the Logos is the inseparable combination of energy and thought.

Now for the word Christ which again is Greek and means to anoint as with oil. In this respect it becomes a metaphor. When one is anointed with oil it soaks in and becomes a part of the skin of the person and in this way, Christ is a metaphor for the indwelling anointing of the Logos or in other words creative conscious energy. It is our divine nature and our higher self.

It is my belief that this Christ of the Logos has always been in the world. How so you ask? In conscious agents, in humanity. In John’s gospel the writer says something very interesting. In John 1:10-13, it is stated that the Christ of the Logos was in the world but not recognized by the world. Though the Logos was the creator and came to the creation in the form of the Christ of the Logos it was not received but by a few. All of those that did receive the Christ of the Logos realized that they were the offspring of the divine. Those who did receive the Christ of the Logos were the mystics and prophets that realized they part of the divine nature. Now even more interesting, it is not until verse fourteen, after it was explained that it was in the world and not recognized by the world, that John writes that the Christ of the Logos became flesh and dwelt among humanity in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.

Jesus would then tell his followers according to John, that this same Christ of the Logos indwells all of us. That was one of the most important messages that Jesus brought. Coupled with his message about love and loving one another this is the good news. The good news is that Jesus was the firstborn of many brothers and sisters. That is simply a metaphor for him being the first one to acknowledge the Christ of the Logos in himself and then to share the idea that it was in everyone. This is a universal message of glad tidings. The Christ of the Logos indwells the Buddhist, the Taoist, the Hindu, the Muslim, the Shinto, the Shaman, and ALL of humanity.

God Beyond Religion: Polarity, Duality and Non-Duality

 4. THE PRINCIPLE OF POLARITY. "Everything is Dual; everything has poles; everything has its pair of opposites; like and unlike are the same; opposites are identical in nature, but different in degree; extremes meet; all truths are but half-truths; all paradoxes may be reconciled." — The Kybalion.

~The Three Initiates. The Kybalion: A Study of The Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece (Illustrated) (p. 8). The Kybalion Resource Page. Kindle Edition.

There is a debate that ensues over duality and non-duality, the right-hand path and the left-hand path. Are we one or are we separate? For me, the Hermetic principle of polarity solves the issue. If you believe as I do that William Walker Atkinson wrote the Kybalion as the three initiates, then his work the Arcane Formulas sheds some light on this subject. In the Arcane Formulas, he writes of the importance of Egohood in the process of mental alchemy. He sees egohood as something more than ego as it is looked at by psychologists. He sees egohood as a specific individual point of consciousness that he calls the will. It is a point of will within the will of the all and is individual to each conscious agent. It is achievable by establishing in the mind the I AM. The I AM is different than the self in Atkinson’s mind. It comes from meditation on the individual aspect of the cosmic will. This suggests that there is a duality.

The Jungian psychologist and philosopher, Bernardo Kastrup suggests that our individual consciousness is similar to a disassociated personality within an individual person. His idea is that we are a split personality of the All. I find that concept fascinating and if in fact, the material world is a construct of conscious observation, it could very well explain our individuality. So, for existence in the material plane, duality is important, and in the existence of cosmic consciousness non-duality is important. In looking at the principle of polarity duality and non-duality are polar opposites of the same thing. It is in this paradigm that the paradox is solved. In our conscious experience on the material plain duality is important and with our consciousness within the all non-duality is important, each with its own distinct purpose.

This transfers nicely to the higher self and the lower self. If one uses the words of the Apostle Paul, it is the heavenly man and the earthly man. It is the celestial and the terrestrial. So then, when considering the awakening and the advancement of our material self, this duality is important in developing our being in a path that accepts and cherishes dualism. And, in the awakening and advancement of our spiritual self it is the awareness of oneness that is important.

The amalgamation of the two can be understood within the hermetic principle of rhythm:

5. THE PRINCIPLE OF RHYTHM. "Everything flows, out and in; everything has its tides; all things rise and fall; the pendulum-swing manifests in everything; the measure of the swing to the right is the measure of the swing to the left; rhythm compensates." — The Kybalion.

The Three Initiates. The Kybalion: A Study of The Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece (Illustrated) (p. 10). The Kybalion Resource Page. Kindle Edition.

In the natural swing of the pendulum there is a range from pole to pole. However, in the Arcane Formulas, Atkinson writes about the excluded middle. It is a way through meditation that one can stop the pendulum effect and find what he calls the excluded middle. It is the art of mastering opposites and neutralizing rhythm. Once a person establishes egohood they have the capability to use laws against laws thereby neutralizing the polarity.

To go back to a Judeo-Christian concept, I think of Jacob’s ladder. In Jacob’s ladder dream there was a ladder between heaven and earth. This is symbolic of the heavenly human and the earthly human uniting. It is bringing heaven to earth and earth to heaven and giving practicality to “as above so below and as below so above,” the Hermetic principle of correspondence. This in my view speaks to integrating and accepting both the heavenly and earthly as both having equal value. It is like acknowledging and working with the shadow self. It is melding the higher self with the natural or lower self. It is creating a whole from the dual and solving the paradox.

God Beyond Religion: Master and Disciple, demystifying terms

 

In 1993, I was in a Barnes and Noble Book Store in St Louis MO. At that time, I was heavily invested in my return to evangelical Christianity of sorts. I write of sorts because, I was not at all invested in hell and eternal punishment, nor was I invested in the party-line definition of sin. I saw sin and still do to a degree as human pathology. I am moving toward embracing the Jungian concept of the shadow self. During this trip to Barnes and Noble, before one could surf the internet, bookstores and libraries were my main pastime. Of course, having recently returned to evangelical Christianity I was looking in the Christian book section. I ran across a paperback that had a new age looking cover entitled “The Unvarnished New Testament.” While I was afraid that it may make me a heretic, I was inextricably drawn to it and in the end bought it against all fears.

This is one of many moments that shaped my theology and while it was purely serendipitous, it was very truly a “happy accident!” I have three copies now, two paperbacks and a Kindle addition. While so many of my theology books are boxed an in my garage, awaiting giving them away, these remain important to me in my efforts to follow Jesus as a metaphysical Christian who is venturing into eclectic spirituality. Yes, the goal of my eclectic spirituality is syncretism.

So back to the Unvarnished New Testament. Andy Gaus is a Greek scholar but not of the religious kind. He simply translates Greek into English. He was given as a present a Greek copy of the gospel of John and was surprised how it read so simply beautiful. He then set out to translate the gospels, and after that in 1991 he translated the Unvarnished New Testament. It is not lost on me that he wrote it in 1991 and I discovered it in 1993. I find that an interesting synchronicity.

As I read it, I was struck by chapter five of Matthew’s gospel and the beatitudes. He begins, “The poor in spirit are in luck, theirs is the kingdom of the skies.” That sentence resonated deeply in my spirit, and I then wanted to read on. I became aware of the fact that orthodoxy had given names to words that mystified them. Father in heaven was really “father in the skies.” Of course, that is a metaphor for an unreachable realm, but it makes it far less religious and much more like what a native American shaman would say.

The point of this trip down memory lane is to show that Christian religion has mystified and offered a super spiritual connotation to many words. One such set of words is disciple and master. In the Greek disciple is simply student, and master is simply teacher. This simply means that among other things these days, I am a student of Jesus teaching. I choose to demystify these words that were in my view stolen by orthodoxy.

I am not certain that these terms can be taken back and reinstated with their actual meaning. But I choose to try. I would be interested in knowing what you think. Can the jargon of orthodoxy be repurposed to its original meaning or is it simply a lost cause and the terms are too toxic for healthy consumption? I’m not giving up on the fact that they can be reclaimed.