pinwheel

I just realized I can put pictures on my blog. :)

I made this a minute ago.

If I cannot trust experience then what?

   I have had numerous spiritual experiences in my life. All unique, subjective encounters with something. These experiences are thrown into doubt now, what I have learned is that I lack discernment. Discernment is a critical skill for Christians to know truth from falsehood, good from evil, and the Holy Spirit from other spirits.
   Over the last two years or so I have been studying Jungian psychology. It interprets mental experiences such as dreams, visions, and synchronicity as personal events with their own internal logic. I was open to this idea as it gave some sense to the mild psychosis I was recovering from. With further study of dream interpretation, and symbolism, I continued to have mystical experiences from time to time. I was slowly suckered into a dabbling with astrology, which is clearly forbidden in the Bible.
   Recent events have shown me that my judgement has been lacking, and I have not been using discernment in the light of God's Word. The scriptures are very clear about the use of divination as idolatrous, being forbidden and useless. (Isaiah 47:13-14, Zechariah 10:2, Micah 3:5-8)
   Jungian Psychoanalysis teaches us to interpret all dream and symbolic material in reference to ourselves, thus making us blind to outside forces. This is especially significant for one such as myself who has had a psychosis, and have an archetype of the "anima" that has taken on a life of its own.

   "It is universally confessed," says Swedenborg, " that the Word is from God, is divinely inspired, and of consequence holy ; but still it has remained a secret to this day in what part of the Word its divinity resides, inasmuch as in the letter it appears like a common writing, composed in a strange style, neither so sublime, nor so elegant, nor so lucid as that which distinguishes the best secular compositions. Hence it is, that whosoever worships nature instead of God, or in preference to God, and in consequence of such worship makes himself and his own proprium [or selfhood] the centre and fountain of his thoughts, instead of deriving them out of heaven from the Lord, may easily fall into error concerning the Word, or into contempt for it, and say within himself, as he reads it, What is the meaning of this passage ? What is the meaning of that ? Is it possible this should be divine ?"
   - Swedenborg, S. S. 1-4 (emphasis added)

   It is clear from scripture that the foundation of all reality is given by the Lord. Therefore

Psalm 139:

" Search me, O God, and know my heart;

Try me and know my anxious thoughts;

And see if there be any hurtful way in me,

And lead me in the everlasting way."

   I have much to learn, but one thing is clear. Though I may doubt my heart, my thoughts, and my experiences; I need never doubt the love of God.

When Haunted I'm Home

 Our hand is held by love without body

 we laugh together with only my voice

this ghost will remain til the end of the age

when haunted I'm home, a hearth cleared of ash

Synchronicity leaves a lasting impression

no other mark makes such a distinction

a plot woven tightly around our perception

this story to turn is truly completion

a fragment

Beautiful clear eyes

azure bands blended with emerald

flecks of gold and storm clouds

perceiving unto the event horizon

wonders and terrors

above and below

as summer begins to fall

I feel the stir of my broken body

drawing the shadow long with running

 I was once pursued by it

now I make chase, going where I'm led

looking back up you smile from the moon

showing a path through the murky moor

The Source Family

   I just viewed a documentary about the Source Family. They were a spiritual commune in the late 60's - 1975. Kids discovering mysticism for the first time, swept up in the spirit of new-age optimism. They were also a cult.
   Jim Baker, their leader, was a charismatic man; cut from the archetypal cloth of all cult leaders. He was like Santa Claus and Donald Sutherland smushed into a white robe. He was the father figure that his "children" wanted, the dad they never had.
   The evolution of their mystic practices were directly tied to Jim Baker's own self-concept. Early on He had a recognition of his own limited understanding. His humility and rigorous self discipline allowed him to lead a growing following in his footsteps. Gradually his ego began to inflate.               Supported by the adoration of his followers and occult influences, He began to refer to himself as God. He then changed his name to 'Yod' and later 'Yahowha'.
   The turning point for the group seems to be when he changed his policy on monogamy, which heretofore had been observed. Much like Mohammad, He instituted polygamy, and became the chief polygamist of the group with 13 wives. This divided the group and many left. Jim Baker continued his pursuit of mystical knowledge and power, their rituals and ceremonies becoming stranger and darker. They began to practice sexual magic, particularly influenced by the Order of the Golden Dawn.
    Eventually they group moved to Hawaii, it was there that Jim's ego deflated rapidly. The morning of his death, he gathered his followers and took a walk. He told them he was not God, he was only a man. Jim took a hang glider out in a high wind with no training, crashed, and died 9 hours later.
   What struck me most profoundly about this story is that one cannot entirely dismiss the group because of the moral failure of its leader. They were trying to fulfill a very real longing for a spiritual father, Jim Baker tried to be that father. He wasn't merely playing God, he was sincerely trying to take on that role, and his failure came from being unable to bear such a burden. We all have a longing for a spiritual father and mother, it outlives our relationship with our natural-born parents.
   The motivation of this mystical group was not an unnatural one, and it hits close to home. The mistake they made was in confusing their heavenly father with an earthly one. The man died, but our heavenly father remains, alive and available.

B.C. - A.D.

   It is now customary to use the notation B.C.E and C.E. in dating systems to distinguish between  the era before a certain event and the era after it. The term "Before the Common Era" has replaced "Before Christ" and "Common Era" has replaced "Anno Domini" (after Christ).
   This was done in order to pacify those who reject Jesus as Christ, or those who simply would not like His name mentioned. I will not get into a monologue about this, but merely remind the reader that changing the term to common era does not alter the beginning of the calendar.
   This brings me to a completely new thought. The calendar that the western world has used these 2,015 years began when Jesus of Nazareth was BORN. What day do we celebrate that? Christmas. What day do we celebrate the new calendar year? New Years Day. Why?
   Wouldn't it make sense to celebrate the anniversary of the event that prompted the calendar year to begin on the same day that we celebrate the beginning of the calendar year?
   Celebrating Christmas on New Year's Day would be the most logical thing to do.

Form and Substance

   Form and substance are a duality with many names. They may be called truth and good, wisdom and love, or light and heat. I was thinking of how one could describe form and substance.
   There are many easy analogies, one can think of blueprints to a house. the design precedes the building, it outlines and gives form to a use. the blueprints give specific form to a specific concept of shelter. The form may be simplistic like a child's box drawing, or as complex as . A form separate from any substance could only describe geometric shapes, but never make art.
   Substance is like the lumber waiting to be built. it is potential energy, or perhaps like the flame of fire. Substance can be as mild and calm as a breath, a flicker, or as powerful as a volcanic eruption. A substance separate from any form could only describe raw elements like fire/water/air/earth but never give them function.
   Form is never completely isolated from substance anywhere but in the mind. All of physical reality is the final product of the cohabitation of form and substance. Light the principle example of this duality. In science it is called a wave/particle duality. Light illuminates form for the eye to see, and warms substance for the body to live.
   In a spiritual way form and substance may be expressed as wisdom and love. But Mr. Swedenborg expresses the idea better than I do so I'll just quote him here:

DIVINE LOVE AND DIVINE WISDOM ARE SUBSTANCE AND ARE FORM. The idea of men in general about love and about wisdom is that they are like something hovering and floating in thin air or ether or like what exhales from something of this kind. Scarcely any one believes that they are really and actually substance and form. Even those who recognize that they are substance and form still think of the love and the wisdom as outside the subject and as issuing from it. For they call substance and form that which they think of as outside the subject and as issuing from it, even though it be something hovering and floating; not knowing that love and wisdom are the subject itself, and that what is perceived outside of it and as hovering and floating is nothing but an appearance of the state of the subject in itself. There are several reasons why this has not hitherto been seen, one of which is, that appearances are the first things out of which the human mind forms its understanding, and these appearances the mind can shake off only by the exploration of the cause; and if the cause lies deeply hidden, the mind can explore it only by keeping the understanding for a long time in spiritual light; and this it cannot do by reason of the natural light which continually withdraws it. The truth is, however, that love and wisdom are the real and actual substance and form that constitute the subject itself. [DLW 40]