There is one theme I stress in these essays again and again, not only for the reader but for myself: that what we think is reality is only a film or thin veil covering the terrifying vastness of true reality. I was reminded of this again last week with this short Gospel verse: “He returned to the house with them and again the crowd assembled, making it impossible for them to get any food whatever. When his family heard of this they came to take charge of him, saying, ‘He is out of his mind’ ;”(Mark 3:20-21). While some of the priests who argued with him saw Jesus as a blasphemer, those who knew him from old thought he had gone absolutely bonkers. Son of God, meek shall inherit, the fulfillment of scripture…we can only imagine if, say, cousin Rob started talking like this. We would immediately think of drug abuse or schizophrenia, or the influence of some diabolical Kool-Aid dispenser. Yet we have to look at the world they were living in. The Romans had their numerous and often randy gods as well as magicians, and the Jews had this Jehovah who had talked to their ancestors directly, had parted the sea, and had brought down the walls of Jericho. Each thought the other was crazy, and both by-in-large thought Jesus was crazy.
We saw the movie “The Rite” the other night, about a skeptical young priest novitiate who is sent to Rome to learn about exorcism. There he is introduced to an old hand at it, played by Anthony Hopkins, who welcomes him into a small stint of an exorcism of a pregnant, unmarried sixteen-year-old, brought their by her aunt. She does some weird contortions and speaks of things of the novitiate’s past in good American English, but this does not convince him. Oh yes, be assured that he is going to be convinced but good later on (this is based on a real series of events, chillingly enough), but after this little debut, which would have convinced me, he remains supremely skeptical. The world, his attitude says, is a regular place where there is nothing more than what meets the eye. We live, we die, and the predictable rules of nature continue unabated and unaided. It is what we see and there is nothing more to it.
As he stood there in the cinematic yard of the exorcist, a mild smirk on his face, we cannot help but see how wrong he is. Life is not so cut-and-dry, and we all know it. We all have preconceptions of the world beyond the eye even if we don’t often think about them. These might be defined by the Catholic Church, or by UFO-ologists, or by wiccans, or by quantum physicists, but we all have this inner map of an extra-sensory world. Which of us has it right? And, to my current point, who among us is crazy?
The former of the two, which of us has it right, will be left for many future essays. But the question, “who is crazy?” is relevant, since we all are somewhat crazy from another’s point of view. Our common humanity does have ways of checking this out to a degree, however. For instance, my son has a video of a street person proclaiming with all sincerity that a plank of wood that he carries is inspirited with God. We think he is crazy right off the bat, but we do look for signs; is there anything special about that plank? Does it give the man some gifts that manifest in the real world, like healing the blind or turning five loaves into thousands? This would not convince most for long, as the life of Jesus proved, but we might then think him less a nut than an oddball with some bizarre – or maybe even satanic – power (After performing miracles in proof of who he claimed to be, Jesus was accused of being from Satan. He – Jesus - then gave his “house divided against itself cannot stand” sermon, quoted centuries later by Abraham Lincoln).
So we check to see if there is at least some co-relation between our common outward reality and the inner reality of the one in question. This does not solve our problem in any eternal way, though; for instance, the Aztecs sacrificed living humans to keep the sun rising every morning, and behold, it worked!, but it at least gives us a quick read on who we are dealing with. If the person in question deviates from the norm without any appreciable signs (of special powers), then we begin to think him a nut.
And many people are delusional. The man with the plank is probably a schizophrenic. In the past he might have been openly treated with cruelty, while now he is only treated with cruelty by those who think the cameras aren’t running. We have become at least nominally more tolerant of the “crazies,” and that is a humane thing and maybe even smart – you never know but that the crazy guy on the street might be a living saint or an angel in disguise.
On the other hand, in our new-found humanity we should probably be more careful of the people who we are trying to mainstream. One kind of crazy is often not the same as the other. The guy with the plank is so off-the-wall that he is harmless, but what if he had sanctified something a little less crazy than a plank? What if he had created a series of writings that showed that we are secretly part of a battle between civilizations on other planets, and that we should put on sneakers and kill our bodies to ride off on the tail of a passing comet? Or, a little more level-headed, what if we are told that we should adjust our lives to suit one of the factions in this proclaimed interplanetary war? What if we are told that we should give all of our money and our will to that somebody who claims that to be the Appointed One of the Planet Zebulon, and has the confidence and gift of gab to convince us? But what, then, if everything that comes from this scheme eventually brings not light but darkness to ourselves and to others around us?
In the Bible, they use what is called the proof of the fruit of the tree; that is, that an inner reality should be tested by the effects it has on ourselves and on society. In the long run – say, over a generation or two – we must ask if these beliefs have made the people happier. We must ask if the chaos of life has been lessened, and if the overall view has given us a coherent and uplifting meaning to life. We must also ask if the body of these beliefs work with the outer, common reality in such a way as to deepen our understanding of both the outer and our inner reality.
This obviously applies to religions, but it also applies to any inner world-model that is being actualized in the material world. In the more progressive nations, we now have an inner model that can loosely be labeled as “cultural and personal relativism,” something I studied ad-nauseum in graduate school, way back when it was still only another intellectual plaything. While the idea has been around for a while, it has never been practiced by a culture- at- large until very recently, and so we can’t quite see its fruits yet. Although some elements of this new inner world might be admirable – more tolerance for the mentally disabled or for quirky differences in other culture areas – I believe I can venture to say that, by-in-large, the fruits of this brave new system will be bitter as all get-out. The easiest and most fun way to underscore this is to point out the surprising rise of the idea that such hard-wired things as gender are only passing personal whims. This does not pass the “fruit” test in almost any way, from its application to the material world to its use to promote social stability and happiness. This notion, in fact, only (and only temporarily) helps a few who are desperately trying to be normalized by de-normalizing everyone else.
Yes, this is too easy, but it leads us to the underlying idea behind social relativism. It is a license, as Satanist Allister Crowley said, to “Do what thy wilt.” That is, it is an elaborate excuse to follow one’s current personal desires regardless of how it might affect others both in particular and in general. The ill effect of one’s bizarre or unorthodox inclinations, then, are placed on others, or on the “old” society. If one’s personal desires lead to disruption, then those who are disrupted have to change. It is their fault for being so intolerant. Like the obvious gender issue, even obvious and negative effects – let us say, as from careless reproduction practices that deny a stable family – must be ignored or alleviated by a change in social policy to accommodate the formerly discouraged practice. Personal fault now becomes society’s fault, which then must double down on remedies that further encourage the formerly discouraged behavior.
This discussion has gotten more political than I like, but it points to the real effects that our inner reality has on the outer world. Our inner reality really matters. It is not something that should be treated as a wisp of intellectual smoke that can be blown away and reformed on a whim. It is also something that cannot be made up from basic intellectual cloth. Rather, it should complement physical reality, uplift the personal and the social and stabilize our emotional world. It should do all these things while bringing us in touch with an internal progressivism, that which helps in the growth of that kind of knowledge that is called “spiritual.” It should do all these things to deserve a shared presence in our heads. Such an internal reality can only come about through generations of testing and practice, as well as from contributions from the greatest masters of our inner depths.
All this is nothing new, and should cause no “eureka” moments to the reader. And yet, what is happening now? What is passing for wisdom and a good, efficient social contract today? In the West, virtually all the religious groups are up in alarm. It is not simply Chicken Little who is crying, but millions of the more profound and thoughtful people among us. But it is not the sky that is falling, for there would be nothing to do about the sky. Rather, it is our inner world that is being dismantled and refashioned on the whim of whoever has the loudest microphone at the moment. We then have a clear solution – to not let them dismantle that inner world; to not let the moment take us from the harmony and clarity of an inner world that is based upon generations of experience and deep, grace-given insight.
Certainly, there is always room (and the necessity) for growth and improvement, but we must be sure that the basis for change is rooted in the wisdom of a tested and true world, or at least that the new insight(s) comes from the depths of true wisdom. For the depths are truly great, and more terrifying than we are often willing to admit. To set sail on them without a good ship, and without a good compass and an experienced captain, then, is the very definition of folly.
There is one theme I stress in these essays again and again, not only for the reader but for myself: that what we think is reality is only a film or thin veil covering the terrifying vastness of true reality. I was reminded of this again last week with this short Gospel verse: “He returned to the house with them and again the crowd assembled, making it impossible for them to get any food whatever. When his family heard of this they came to take charge of him, saying, ‘He is out of his mind’ ;”(Mark 3:20-21). While some of the priests who argued with him saw Jesus as a blasphemer, those who knew him from old thought he had gone absolutely bonkers. Son of God, meek shall inherit, the fulfillment of scripture…we can only imagine if, say, cousin Rob started talking like this. We would immediately think of drug abuse or schizophrenia, or the influence of some diabolical Kool-Aid dispenser. Yet we have to look at the world they were living in. The Romans had their numerous and often randy gods as well as magicians, and the Jews had this Jehovah who had talked to their ancestors directly, had parted the sea, and had brought down the walls of Jericho. Each thought the other was crazy, and both by-in-large thought Jesus was crazy.
We saw the movie “The Rite” the other night, about a skeptical young priest novitiate who is sent to Rome to learn about exorcism. There he is introduced to an old hand at it, played by Anthony Hopkins, who welcomes him into a small stint of an exorcism of a pregnant, unmarried sixteen-year-old, brought their by her aunt. She does some weird contortions and speaks of things of the novitiate’s past in good American English, but this does not convince him. Oh yes, be assured that he is going to be convinced but good later on (this is based on a real series of events, chillingly enough), but after this little debut, which would have convinced me, he remains supremely skeptical. The world, his attitude says, is a regular place where there is nothing more than what meets the eye. We live, we die, and the predictable rules of nature continue unabated and unaided. It is what we see and there is nothing more to it.
As he stood there in the cinematic yard of the exorcist, a mild smirk on his face, we cannot help but see how wrong he is. Life is not so cut-and-dry, and we all know it. We all have preconceptions of the world beyond the eye even if we don’t often think about them. These might be defined by the Catholic Church, or by UFO-ologists, or by wiccans, or by quantum physicists, but we all have this inner map of an extra-sensory world. Which of us has it right? And, to my current point, who among us is crazy?
The former of the two, which of us has it right, will be left for many future essays. But the question, “who is crazy?” is relevant, since we all are somewhat crazy from another’s point of view. Our common humanity does have ways of checking this out to a degree, however. For instance, my son has a video of a street person proclaiming with all sincerity that a plank of wood that he carries is inspirited with God. We think he is crazy right off the bat, but we do look for signs; is there anything special about that plank? Does it give the man some gifts that manifest in the real world, like healing the blind or turning five loaves into thousands? This would not convince most for long, as the life of Jesus proved, but we might then think him less a nut than an oddball with some bizarre – or maybe even satanic – power (After performing miracles in proof of who he claimed to be, Jesus was accused of being from Satan. He – Jesus - then gave his “house divided against itself cannot stand” sermon, quoted centuries later by Abraham Lincoln).
So we check to see if there is at least some co-relation between our common outward reality and the inner reality of the one in question. This does not solve our problem in any eternal way, though; for instance, the Aztecs sacrificed living humans to keep the sun rising every morning, and behold, it worked!, but it at least gives us a quick read on who we are dealing with. If the person in question deviates from the norm without any appreciable signs (of special powers), then we begin to think him a nut.
And many people are delusional. The man with the plank is probably a schizophrenic. In the past he might have been openly treated with cruelty, while now he is only treated with cruelty by those who think the cameras aren’t running. We have become at least nominally more tolerant of the “crazies,” and that is a humane thing and maybe even smart – you never know but that the crazy guy on the street might be a living saint or an angel in disguise.
On the other hand, in our new-found humanity we should probably be more careful of the people who we are trying to mainstream. One kind of crazy is often not the same as the other. The guy with the plank is so off-the-wall that he is harmless, but what if he had sanctified something a little less crazy than a plank? What if he had created a series of writings that showed that we are secretly part of a battle between civilizations on other planets, and that we should put on sneakers and kill our bodies to ride off on the tail of a passing comet? Or, a little more level-headed, what if we are told that we should adjust our lives to suit one of the factions in this proclaimed interplanetary war? What if we are told that we should give all of our money and our will to that somebody who claims that to be the Appointed One of the Planet Zebulon, and has the confidence and gift of gab to convince us? But what, then, if everything that comes from this scheme eventually brings not light but darkness to ourselves and to others around us?
In the Bible, they use what is called the proof of the fruit of the tree; that is, that an inner reality should be tested by the effects it has on ourselves and on society. In the long run – say, over a generation or two – we must ask if these beliefs have made the people happier. We must ask if the chaos of life has been lessened, and if the overall view has given us a coherent and uplifting meaning to life. We must also ask if the body of these beliefs work with the outer, common reality in such a way as to deepen our understanding of both the outer and our inner reality.
This obviously applies to religions, but it also applies to any inner world-model that is being actualized in the material world. In the more progressive nations, we now have an inner model that can loosely be labeled as “cultural and personal relativism,” something I studied ad-nauseum in graduate school, way back when it was still only another intellectual plaything. While the idea has been around for a while, it has never been practiced by a culture- at- large until very recently, and so we can’t quite see its fruits yet. Although some elements of this new inner world might be admirable – more tolerance for the mentally disabled or for quirky differences in other culture areas – I believe I can venture to say that, by-in-large, the fruits of this brave new system will be bitter as all get-out. The easiest and most fun way to underscore this is to point out the surprising rise of the idea that such hard-wired things as gender are only passing personal whims. This does not pass the “fruit” test in almost any way, from its application to the material world to its use to promote social stability and happiness. This notion, in fact, only (and only temporarily) helps a few who are desperately trying to be normalized by de-normalizing everyone else.
Yes, this is too easy, but it leads us to the underlying idea behind social relativism. It is a license, as Satanist Allister Crowley said, to “Do what thy wilt.” That is, it is an elaborate excuse to follow one’s current personal desires regardless of how it might affect others both in particular and in general. The ill effect of one’s bizarre or unorthodox inclinations, then, are placed on others, or on the “old” society. If one’s personal desires lead to disruption, then those who are disrupted have to change. It is their fault for being so intolerant. Like the obvious gender issue, even obvious and negative effects – let us say, as from careless reproduction practices that deny a stable family – must be ignored or alleviated by a change in social policy to accommodate the formerly discouraged practice. Personal fault now becomes society’s fault, which then must double down on remedies that further encourage the formerly discouraged behavior.
This discussion has gotten more political than I like, but it points to the real effects that our inner reality has on the outer world. Our inner reality really matters. It is not something that should be treated as a wisp of intellectual smoke that can be blown away and reformed on a whim. It is also something that cannot be made up from basic intellectual cloth. Rather, it should complement physical reality, uplift the personal and the social and stabilize our emotional world. It should do all these things while bringing us in touch with an internal progressivism, that which helps in the growth of that kind of knowledge that is called “spiritual.” It should do all these things to deserve a shared presence in our heads. Such an internal reality can only come about through generations of testing and practice, as well as from contributions from the greatest masters of our inner depths.
All this is nothing new, and should cause no “eureka” moments to the reader. And yet, what is happening now? What is passing for wisdom and a good, efficient social contract today? In the West, virtually all the religious groups are up in alarm. It is not simply Chicken Little who is crying, but millions of the more profound and thoughtful people among us. But it is not the sky that is falling, for there would be nothing to do about the sky. Rather, it is our inner world that is being dismantled and refashioned on the whim of whoever has the loudest microphone at the moment. We then have a clear solution – to not let them dismantle that inner world; to not let the moment take us from the harmony and clarity of an inner world that is based upon generations of experience and deep, grace-given insight.
Certainly, there is always room (and the necessity) for growth and improvement, but we must be sure that the basis for change is rooted in the wisdom of a tested and true world, or at least that the new insight(s) comes from the depths of true wisdom. For the depths are truly great, and more terrifying than we are often willing to admit. To set sail on them without a good ship, and without a good compass and an experienced captain, then, is the very definition of folly.
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