May, and by God it looks it! The chatter of the birds mixed with the wind chimes, tractors, and cars this morning in a discordant but happy symphony. I believe I can take off my winter sack clothe.
I will be posting the early chapters of my second novel, "Remission," soon. Also, a guest essay by Cal Roeker. I will try to get both in today [As of 3:45, these have been added]. More also, I will be closing out my discussions of religious spirituality soon, ending with a book by Mathew Fox. He is decidedly NOT a traditionalist - a protestant in the hard sense of the world, fully conversant in the New Age movement. It will be a strong departure, and then onto the next, psi developments. From there, we shall see how the spirit moves us.
For now, some speculation on something I mentioned in the last blog: what are the limits of human social consciousness? By that I mean, how different can social systems of thought be in the real world? I came across that thought while writing about the mind freed from normal inner chatter. In this, it was discovered that the human consciousness continues even after all outside stimuli are eliminated, and what then comes is truly astounding. For spiritual purposes, we look to the end of all the other "imaginings" for only in that can we find the Absolute - who is beyond all thoughts, images, and so on. It is, we are told, a place of infinite wisdom and bliss. But what of the areas in between? What of, for instance, Lilly's communication with "a civilization far beyond our own?" How far can we transcend what we think of as the "real" world? How much, that is, is the "real" world real and how much is it only socialization?
With a quick perusal of world cultures past and present, the different trappings and beliefs are vast. In archaic civilizations, the rulers were often believed to be gods in mortal clothing - and there is evidence that the rulers believed this too, in such theocracies as the Egyptian dynasties, the Aztecs, the Incas, Chinese dynasties, and perhaps some of the Roman Emperors (although these were thought to be mad). We can extend this list to include many of the Jewish leaders,who did not consider themselves god, but directly directed by god. From the outside, none of this seems unusual - we have all heard of them - but consider what it must be like to BE one of these sons of heaven. Dreams to them would be prophetic; every natural occurance would be a message from the gods; miracles would be expected; visions would come regularly. In short, the world would be alive with divine omens and intervention that would supersede any quotidian, or profane, natural law.
But, we say, natural law cannot be truly avoided; we must eat, and the sun will shine and the rain will come of its own accord. There must be, in other words, limits to lived imagination, limits that are set by the hard facts of corporeal life. But is this true? And even if it is, do we know enough about the "hard facts of life" that we would know WHEN the laws were truly superseded? Certain psi phenomena, such as telepathy, out of body experiences, and even clairvoyance, might be subsumed by quantum theory, but what of telekinesis? That is the ability to mentally affect the natural environment (spoon bending was popular with Uri Geller, but he did other things as well), and while even that might be subsumed by Quantum theory, it does cast doubt onto the limits of human consciousness via natural law. If, say, a yogi can live for hours without breathing, live on sunshine and levitate, is society really limited by its need for food and shelter? In other words, if the constraints of the natural world are far more flexible - maybe infinitely so - than we believe, wouldn't it be possible that what people could imagine could be made real? That is, could those accounts of the miraculous become a part of people's everyday reality, creating a world that would be impossibly magical to us?
So let's say that what can be imagined by a group (whenever two or more of you are gathered in my name, your prayers are heard) can become reality (this is tough. History tells us that other societies that lived in the magical world could not stave off the colonialist Europeans, who's views and material implements seemed impervious to their magic, much to the shock of the native populations. Perhaps there is something about the Euro view that is particularly powerful - that is, perhaps the materialistic view can destroy the more magical, even as both can exist separately. More below on that.) What, then, are the limits to imagination? There have been many cultures with bizarre rituals that seem like manifestations of every neurosis that Freud could come up with - foot binding, cannibalism, ritual homosexuality, virginity cults, body modifications - but these hardly test the limits of the imagination. I go back to Lilly and his "civilization far beyond our own." I can tell you, to, that many contemporary psychedelic explorers have come up with similar, or more bizarre, things. Is this civilization real? And if so, is it in another ordinarily inaccessible dimension, or does it speak of our possibilities, too? Could we, for instance, propel ourselves into a reality where our thoughts consciously extended throughout the universe (whatever that might be to such minds)? And what would the material culture of a society such as this look to us as we are now? Would we see and hear nothing unusual while in the minds of these people the drama of the cosmos was racing?
And would our view replace theirs, as it is more simple and limited? That is, is this what happened when the Euro cultures met the magical cultures? Perhaps, as I have said before, our "hard" world is made of a spiritual gravity that draws other realities, just as real, into its sphere. If that is so, I would also bet that there are some that are BEYOND the affects of that gravity. But we never see, or at least understand, these. I believe the cosmic consciousness of the saints is on this level. It also seems possible that an entire society could be at this level, beyond the gravity of our vision. In between, the possibilities seem endless, often ephemeral, but perhaps as real to those living it as our world is to us.
And our world is drawn to and destroyed by its own gravity as well; we call it Death. Perhaps that IS the gravity of our reality, that we see it as an impermeable wall.
In any case, it does appear that reality is much more flexible than we think. We will return to this point again and again. FK
I will be posting the early chapters of my second novel, "Remission," soon. Also, a guest essay by Cal Roeker. I will try to get both in today [As of 3:45, these have been added]. More also, I will be closing out my discussions of religious spirituality soon, ending with a book by Mathew Fox. He is decidedly NOT a traditionalist - a protestant in the hard sense of the world, fully conversant in the New Age movement. It will be a strong departure, and then onto the next, psi developments. From there, we shall see how the spirit moves us.
For now, some speculation on something I mentioned in the last blog: what are the limits of human social consciousness? By that I mean, how different can social systems of thought be in the real world? I came across that thought while writing about the mind freed from normal inner chatter. In this, it was discovered that the human consciousness continues even after all outside stimuli are eliminated, and what then comes is truly astounding. For spiritual purposes, we look to the end of all the other "imaginings" for only in that can we find the Absolute - who is beyond all thoughts, images, and so on. It is, we are told, a place of infinite wisdom and bliss. But what of the areas in between? What of, for instance, Lilly's communication with "a civilization far beyond our own?" How far can we transcend what we think of as the "real" world? How much, that is, is the "real" world real and how much is it only socialization?
With a quick perusal of world cultures past and present, the different trappings and beliefs are vast. In archaic civilizations, the rulers were often believed to be gods in mortal clothing - and there is evidence that the rulers believed this too, in such theocracies as the Egyptian dynasties, the Aztecs, the Incas, Chinese dynasties, and perhaps some of the Roman Emperors (although these were thought to be mad). We can extend this list to include many of the Jewish leaders,who did not consider themselves god, but directly directed by god. From the outside, none of this seems unusual - we have all heard of them - but consider what it must be like to BE one of these sons of heaven. Dreams to them would be prophetic; every natural occurance would be a message from the gods; miracles would be expected; visions would come regularly. In short, the world would be alive with divine omens and intervention that would supersede any quotidian, or profane, natural law.
But, we say, natural law cannot be truly avoided; we must eat, and the sun will shine and the rain will come of its own accord. There must be, in other words, limits to lived imagination, limits that are set by the hard facts of corporeal life. But is this true? And even if it is, do we know enough about the "hard facts of life" that we would know WHEN the laws were truly superseded? Certain psi phenomena, such as telepathy, out of body experiences, and even clairvoyance, might be subsumed by quantum theory, but what of telekinesis? That is the ability to mentally affect the natural environment (spoon bending was popular with Uri Geller, but he did other things as well), and while even that might be subsumed by Quantum theory, it does cast doubt onto the limits of human consciousness via natural law. If, say, a yogi can live for hours without breathing, live on sunshine and levitate, is society really limited by its need for food and shelter? In other words, if the constraints of the natural world are far more flexible - maybe infinitely so - than we believe, wouldn't it be possible that what people could imagine could be made real? That is, could those accounts of the miraculous become a part of people's everyday reality, creating a world that would be impossibly magical to us?
So let's say that what can be imagined by a group (whenever two or more of you are gathered in my name, your prayers are heard) can become reality (this is tough. History tells us that other societies that lived in the magical world could not stave off the colonialist Europeans, who's views and material implements seemed impervious to their magic, much to the shock of the native populations. Perhaps there is something about the Euro view that is particularly powerful - that is, perhaps the materialistic view can destroy the more magical, even as both can exist separately. More below on that.) What, then, are the limits to imagination? There have been many cultures with bizarre rituals that seem like manifestations of every neurosis that Freud could come up with - foot binding, cannibalism, ritual homosexuality, virginity cults, body modifications - but these hardly test the limits of the imagination. I go back to Lilly and his "civilization far beyond our own." I can tell you, to, that many contemporary psychedelic explorers have come up with similar, or more bizarre, things. Is this civilization real? And if so, is it in another ordinarily inaccessible dimension, or does it speak of our possibilities, too? Could we, for instance, propel ourselves into a reality where our thoughts consciously extended throughout the universe (whatever that might be to such minds)? And what would the material culture of a society such as this look to us as we are now? Would we see and hear nothing unusual while in the minds of these people the drama of the cosmos was racing?
And would our view replace theirs, as it is more simple and limited? That is, is this what happened when the Euro cultures met the magical cultures? Perhaps, as I have said before, our "hard" world is made of a spiritual gravity that draws other realities, just as real, into its sphere. If that is so, I would also bet that there are some that are BEYOND the affects of that gravity. But we never see, or at least understand, these. I believe the cosmic consciousness of the saints is on this level. It also seems possible that an entire society could be at this level, beyond the gravity of our vision. In between, the possibilities seem endless, often ephemeral, but perhaps as real to those living it as our world is to us.
And our world is drawn to and destroyed by its own gravity as well; we call it Death. Perhaps that IS the gravity of our reality, that we see it as an impermeable wall.
In any case, it does appear that reality is much more flexible than we think. We will return to this point again and again. FK
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