BOUND TO DUALISTIC CONSCIOUSNESS OR CONSCIOUS UNIFICATION WITH GOD?

As a student of both modern and classical Gnosticism, I have to comment on Tau Malachi’s book Living Gnosis. What I am drawn to are the words he uses to describe conscious unification with God or the divinity within. He doesn’t go so far to say we can achieve Godhood, for if he did, I would challenge that. That would be Luciferian Gnosis, according to Archbishop Christian Thomas Umberger. In the third chapter of Living Gnosis, Malachi accurately describes a condition of polarity which we tend to take upon ourselves. He is right. We, as he says, “identify ourselves almost exclusively with surface consciousness, finite reason, and the limited name and form of mortal being”. One would have to be totally detached from reality, or be in complete ego-illusion, rather to admit that we are not succeptable to ’surface consciousness’. Though I do not believe everything Tau Malachi teaches about Sophian Gnosticism in particular, again he is right on when he says we “exist on many other levels” also citing that “there are many other dimensions to our consciousness and being, from the physical, vital-emotional and mental levels to spiritual and supernal aspects of consciousness and being into an authentic individual, representing alignment and harmony of our true being. To recognize with God naturally and spontaneously”. Gnostic Christians call this state Messianic or Christ Consciousness and Tau Malachi refered to it also as “the Gnosis of Yeshua Messiah”.

Malachi, then says something brilliant. “Whatever might transpire in our incarnation in the material plane and physical world, the unique essence and truth of our soul of light remains unchanged. It is, was, and forever shall be the same, completely pure and pristine, radiant and glorious, ever at-one with the light of the infinite and divine being. At anytime, we can remember ourselves and the light that is in us and experience a conscious unification with God and Godhead. It is the present truth of our inmost being – our Christ self”.”

Unity with God. That is sought after by every mystic and it is the call of every human, longing to return to its source. Notice he said “conscious unification with God and Godhead”, not “becoming God”. Again, this writer does not seek that in my active formation for priesthood, and hopefully, one day to the episcopate in the Free Apostolic Communion.

PAIN BODY OR POSSESSION?

A subject that hits close to home with me and my lineage is mental illness, specifically psychosis, mood disorders, and depression. I think about the generation I have grown up in and things are certainly a lot  different in psychiatric circles than they were back in the 1950s. Drug Therapy was new then and it led to a lot of breakthroughs in the clinical field of psychiatry. My father-in-law had worked at a Veteran’s Hospital in a psychiatric unit when he was 18. That was a long time ago. He talked first hand about things I have seen in movies and in books, like electro-shock therapy and even frontal lobe lobotomies. For the sake of those who I see suffer, I am thankful for the advances in therapies and the move away from state institutions for the primary care of those afflicted with mental illnesses.

Psychiatrists of the present are filling a role that priests of the past did in terms of dealing with dangerous, volatile, evil pathology. Possession by a demonic spirit, or a wayward spirit for that matter, to many is a medieval concept now. Much  more is known about mental health, behavior and emotional problems, and psychosis. Gerald May wrote a book that compared diagnoses from the DSM-IV, listing psychopathology and states of spiritual turmoil. The book I am referring to is Care of Mind, Care of Spirit. May is also the well-known author of the book The Dark Night of the Soul. Having worked in the mental health field as a crisis counselor, I have seen first hand what emotional disturbance looks like in a stress filled or fight or flight moment.

When I was dating my wife she took a class in Psychopathology. During that time she shared with me an article she had read about Catholic priests who refused pastoral care and exorcism to mentally ill patients. So, as I mentioned, the role of psychiatrists has evolved in according to May, psychiatrists are the modern day priesthood. So much has been learned about psychosis, the brain, psychology, behavior, abnormal psychology, and “the mind”, that have led to many advancements in the treatment of chronic and organic mental disorders. When I worked as a crisis counselor, what some would call emotional disturbance or escalation of afflictive emotions, appeared like evil entities who had entered the bodies of the patients I served.

A concept that has revolutionized my thinking about psychological suffering versus the issue of possession by a spirit, is a phrase coined by spiritual thinker, Eckhart Tolle. Tolle is an enlightened teacher not affiliated with any particular religion. What he called the pain-body, has inspired Catholic priest Richard Rohr in his talks about violent behavior and spirituality. Rohr specifically talks about the biblical notion of “driving out demons” and relates it to Tolle’s ideas about the pain-body.

The key to understanding pain, is to (if mentally able) check how aware you may or may not be in the present moment. Tolle’s best selling book The Power of Now, deals directly what I have mentioned about pain and its cumulative effect on the well-being of an individual. He says that emotional pain leaves behind a residue that gets lodged in your body and mind. When you include pain you experienced as a child, from intimate relationships, family dysfunction, patterns of rejection or abandonment (my emphasis), then there is an accumulated source of pain that exists as a negative energy field. As mentioned this occupies your body and mind. When looked at as an invisible “agent” or “energy field”, it can rightfully be called the pain-body.

The pain-body can be both dormant and active. For those in whom, it lies dormant, it can be triggered by any number of things. Whether active or dormant in a person, it particularly can be triggered by anything that resonates with a pain pattern of the past. When awakened from its dormant stage, even a thought or an innocent remark made by someone close to you can activate it.

Tolle says that some pain-bodies are “obnoxious”, but “relatively harmless”, while others are “vicious and destructive monsters”, “true demons“. Some are even physically violent any many more are emotionally violent. He goes on to say that some will attack people you surround yourself with and others may attack you, as its host. Then what happens is your thoughts and feelings which you have about your life then become “deeply negative”, and “self-destructive.” This is something to take serious, because illnesses and unplanned accidents can happen as a result of this. Even worse, certain pain-bodies can corrupt a person into committing suicide.

So, how do you recognize the pain body trying to take control of your being? Tolle advocates watching for unhappiness in one’s self. That sounds generic, but whatever form unhappiness takes, there are warning signs. Irritation. Impatience. A somber mood. A desire to hurt. Anger, rage, depression, or a need to have drama in one of your relationships. He says to recognize it the moment it awakens from its dormant state.

The pain-body’s desire is to “survive” and the only way it can do that is to get you to unconsciously identify with it. Once that happens, it can “rise up”, “take you over”, “become you”, and “live through you”. It needs to get its “food” through you and will try to feed on any experience that “resonates with its own kind of energy, anything that creates further pain in whatever form: anger, destructiveness, hatred, grief, emotional drama, violence, and even illness.”

When the pain-body has taken you over, what happens? Well, you want more pain. You become one of two things, a victim or a perpetrator. So, what drives the pain-body at this point? You/it wants to “inflict pain”, or you/it wants to “suffer pain”, or both. To continue to further describe its nature, the pain-body is the “dark shadow cast by the ego” and is afraid of the “light of your consciousness”. The pain-body has a fear. A fear of being found out. The reason it feels this way is because its entire survival depends on “your unconscious identification with it” and on your unconscious fear meeting the pain that lives in you face to face. Tolle stresses the importance of facing your pain, for if you don’t bring the light of your consciousness into the pain, “you will be forced to relive it again and again.”

The pain-body once understood in an objective way, may seem like a dangerous monster, something you can’t find the strength to look at because it is too hideous. Tolle, who understands this phenomena with great authority and tact, assures us in The Power of Now, that the pain-body is an insubstantial phantom, that cannot prevail against the power of “your presence”. A phantom? This sounds like a spirit? So, were those Catholic priests in the wrong or were they just not educated in the way Tolle is about such a reality.

Having come full circle with the description of the pain-body, a question was posed to Tolle, in the chapter titled “Consciousness: The Way Out of Pain” (from which I have been quoting. Someone wanted to know what happens to the pain-body when a person becomes conscious enough to break their identification with it. His response was such that, “unconsciousness creates it; consciousness transmutes it into itself.”  He went on to quote St. Paul, who he believed expressed “the universal principle beautifully”. St. Paul said, “Everything is shown up by being exposed to the light, and whatever is exposed to the light itself becomes light.”

In tribute to Eckhart Tolle’s phenomenal teaching that explains the nature of “being possessed”, I will publicly agree with him. He says,”Just as you cannot fight the darkness, you cannot fight the pain-body. Trying to do so would create inner conflict and thus further pain.”

In conclusion, the substance of the pain-body is trapped life-energy that “has split off from one’s total energy field and has “temporarily become autonomous through the unnatural process of ‘mind identification’. ” What happens is it turns in against itself and becomes “anti-life”.  Tolle used the analogy of an animal chasing its tail to describe this. He goes on to talk about the calamities that occur when the ego identifies with the pain-body. I think we’ve all met those self-loathing, or super critical, explosive people.

UNMEDIATED GRACE AND TONGUES OF FIRE: SPIRIT/GNOSIS FREELY GIVEN

If you are tired of hearing me talk about gnosticism, I apologize, but as I distance myself from it, I see some of the fruits of it. That is what I was trying to hint at in my last blog. No, I don’t believe that a lesser spiritual entity, something lesser than God, The most High God who I can accept as a Holy Androgyne of Father-Mother (after all, we were made in the image of God, male/female), created the universe, shaped it, gave it form, tried to breath life into it, then trapped light particles into what became known as the first man, Adam. I don’t give evil that much credit. I do believe as most Christians do, that there is a Satanic Diabolical Intelligence, or being, that influences creation negatively, but, in the end God will always overpower and defeat His Fallen Angel. Evil is clever, but not Ineffable. Satan and his minions are flawed and corrupt while God is all powerful and Imperishable.

Though evil lurks in the shadows and shows itself through things appealing to the eyes and senses, trying to gain our allegiance, we are also pursued ten fold more aggressively by God through His/Her love, grace, outpouring of light and spirit, and His/Her tactics to bring us into full Union with His/Her Fullness, what gnostics call The Pleroma. The experience that I think mainstream Christians need to adopt for the sake of full Self-Realization in God, is the experience of gnosis, or knowledge – self-knowledge and knowledge of God. The source of such experiences are Light, therefore the meaning of Illumination and Enlightenment are known. I believe that this should be an intergal part of not only spiritual formation, but an essential element of salvation (no, I’m not saying these should be the primary means, like gnosticism does; again I think that we need to judge a tree by its fruits and find a cohesion through comparitive religion, something that Jesus did do too) and well-being.

The direction of this blog depends on mentioning what I have to this point.  As a Christian and Catholic, I think we’ve inherited a bankrupt system of sin, punishment, rewards, and what A Course In Miracles calls “special love” and “special hate”. A big problem the whole of Judeo-Christian and Islamic faith systems need to examine are perhaps unconscious beliefs of being “special”, “chosen”, or “the elect” of God. Granted scribes of Holy Books may not have had the contemporary word for the Ego, the type of beliefs I just listed are qualities of an inflated ego. I’m not only pointing my fingers at these faith systems. In a past blog, I pointed out that experiences of gnosis can lead to inflation too.

Understanding that God passionately pursues us, and wants us to ”know” him intimately, in our hearts and in our entire beings, is key to the point I want to make today, one that we should fruitfully and freely adopt from gnostic theology and soteriology. Gnostics teach that the experience of gnosis or what others may call “Christ consciousness”, is an unmediated experience of grace. The idea is that priestcraft or episcopasy (bishops) should not ever stand in the way of a personal experience of God’s love, rather gnosis is not dependent upon an intermediary. As a seminarian, I need to maintain my identity as a member of the laity, from this day onwards, on the day of my ordination to the priesthood, and every day thereafter. My studies in gnosticism have humbled me. I’m not going to advocate that everyone abandon their faith practices, take up gnosticism or a perverted ascetic form of it, and become a recluse. Please don’t misunderstand what I am trying to advocate for. As a Catholic, I have integrated Buddhist interests, and ideas from spiritual teachers such as Eckhart Tolle, Gary R. Renard, Deepak Chopra, and Wayne Dyer. This doesn’t make me any less Christian. Perhaps the teachings of other spiritually advanced mentors, carry some of the yeast to make the Bread of Life rise to its potential.

SO, UNMEDIATED GRACE. PERSONAL EXPERIENCES OF GOD. EVENTS SIMILAR TO PENTECOST WHEN TONGUES OF FIRE AND THE HOLY SPIRIT POURED ITSELF OUT FREELY ON ON THE APOSTLES, without expectation or foreknowledge (other than that Yeshua the Messiah send he would send an Advocate) – this is something to savor and encourage. I need to talk out of both sides of my mouth for a minute. Adopting this belief, where you may “close the door, and meet the Father in your inner room”, don’t excuse you from being an active member of The Body of Christ. As Father Richard Rohr taught in a series about the Apostle Paul, the life of the Church is participation. He emphasized this over and over, but DID say that what we can learn from Paul’s life as well, is finding deep meaning and love in personal revelations of God to his Children.

So, if the Holy Fire descends upon you, you don’t necessarily need to talk in tongues or prophecy. You are allowed to cherish the experience and remain in God’s love. Eventually, though, like the Apostles who saw Jesus transfigured, you do have to come down off that mountain top experience and go back into the valleys and get your hands dirty, or incarnate again. I wouldn’t be responsible if I didn’t say to the everyday enlightened gnostic: “remain in that love, KNOW HIM/HER, but please, devote yourself to sharing what you learn/experience with a world desperately in need of Light workers.” Yes, you are one too.

I just want to say, in closing, that I have integrated a practice into my life that has been fruitful, intensely loving, and full of that Holy Fire. Awhile back, even before I began to study gnosticism, I felt moved by the Holy Spirit to celebrate The Eucharist or Holy Communion. No, I haven’t been formally ordained or received the laying on of hands and thereby receiving apostolic succession, but like on Pentecost, the spirit comes and it does transform the elements of bread and wine into the Spiritual Food, I like so many people savor. This isn’t a replacement for experiencing traditional sacraments ministered by a priest or a deacon. I do value clergy very highly. In a recent internet search, I found a site belonging to The Gnostic Order of Christ. They advocated for and had a Eucharistic liturgy for people who could not get to a priest.  They consider it valid and powerful. I do too. So, why become a priest? Standing in for Christ and being Christ for others is a necessary vocation. People need a shepard, and Christ calls them into service to Him and The Holy Androgyne. I am meant to do more than administer sacraments. I want to be a spiritual director, a healer, and a vehicle to inspire peace, love, justice, surrender, transformation, transcendence of the violence that keeps cultures intact, and to be a “deathwalker”, as shamans call it, helping souls transition to the realm of eternity. Wishing you peace and resolve.

HUMAN ERROR: THE INEVITABLE

After receiving The Eucharist last night, I was filled with “Holy Fire”. I began to write a blog about the three identities I (and probably my ego) would like to have in this life. I had mentioned that I would be completely satisfied if I could make a living as an actor, a priest, and a father to children. That’s not asking much. Maybe I was too filled with myself, because I lost concentration and hit a wrong button, erasing the entire blog. So, now I am going to save what I write every few minutes. I should have known to do that. Having been through college and a year of graduate school, I had my share of mishaps with computers, losing papers, and other calamities.

During my prayer after receiving the Eucharist today, I felt inclined and moved to reflect on human error. Despite growing up as a Roman Catholic and adhering to both “Tradition” and “Inspired Scripture”, and the idea that teachings of the Magisterium are preserved without error by the Holy Spirit, my views changed. If you are a subscriber to my blogs then you know that I converted to Gnostic Christianity for a while and was pursuing preisthood at a Reformed Catharist Seminary. Now I have gravitated back towards Independent Catholicism for its Liberal Nature and openness to what other faiths have to say, but carrying with me the belief in gnosis as salvific. For a very short time in my life, I read and interpreted the Bible literally, holding every word as infallible. I later realized that I was becoming what I disliked the most. A fundamentalist. This demon came out in me in conversations I had with family and friends. I was a bible beater. Looked for all my answers there, no matter what the crisis I was having. I went through an identity crisis for some time following a destructive, impure relationship with a young woman I was co-dependent on. I spent a lot of time alone after I was with her and for a long time I was ungrounded and was dabbling in teachings by Deepak Chopra and metaphysics, Quantum Physics, and esoteric spiritualities that didn’t effecitively deal with pain and the reality of sin.  Nothing was giving me solace. Not even friendships. I gave up drinking alcohol for a long time and tried to stay away from negative thinking. I became addicted to Chip Ingram, Christian pastor and teacher of the ministry Living on The Edge. To this day, I think he has a fruitful ministry and wouldn’t label him as ” right wing” or “a fundamentalist”, but my exposure to him was still during a time that I used the Bible as a crutch instead of a means towards liberation and freedom.

NOTE: I just hit the shift button again, and it took me to a search engine. Luckily I have been saving my material, for their would have been another blog lost. So, fast forwarding, I eventually found my way back to Catholicism. The progressive Catholics whose material I studied always said to take what you read in scripture and put it in its proper context. That made sense. I remember when I heard my first, what I considered accurate teaching of the Book of Revelation. It made much more sense than the “Left Behind” series did and the unbiblical idea of the “rapture”. Don’t get me wrong, Bible Christians and evangelicals are well-meaning in their teachings of rapture and tribulation. I never subscribed to it, not even when I took up membership at a Convergence Church (yes, I moved away from Catholicism again). They focused their structure on the three streams prevalent in Christianity: Evangelical, Sacramental, and Charismatic. I discerned priesthood in their communion. Ultimately, as I have said in other blogs, I could not move beyond all the violence and blood sacrifices perpetrated in the name of God or Yahweh. Nor could I reconcile the contradictions with people justifying killing after they had been given the 10 Commandments. That is to say, I could not agree with their communion’s teachings about inerrant scripture.

When I left that church, I did it on good terms, and remained loving in my attitude towards those I was in fellowship with for several months. It was then that I was enticed and gravitated towards the radical teachings of Gnostic Christianity. The Archbishop I studied with in The Reformed Catharist Seminary shared the teaching that scripture was in fact NOT INERRANT, rather it did have errors in it, even Gnostic Scriptures. The Archbishop Christian Thomas Umberger wrote a wonderful blog about the subject of written language and how it becomes corrupted. But what I did like in his reflections was he did say that there was a “Golden Thread” of truth that runs throughout writings in history, in particular, inspired scripture.

It only makes sense that what was finally scribed in the scriptures I am familiar with, the Old Testament, The New Testament, and gnostic literature and gospels, did not contain the exact verbatim teachings of either Hebrew, Christian, or gnostic nature. We are humans. Not God. Not that God didn’t have the power to preserve scripture from error, it’s just inevitable that Error in the Bible did occur.  I could never go back to believing in sola scriptura or infallible scriptures. Not with the violence and blood shed that God supposedly ordered. Thank God for the prophets and for the incarnate Jesus, who came to set things straight and institute the new covenant between mankind and its maker.

Yeah, I bet some of you are saying, how can this writer dare to study for priesthood, in a Catholic Church no less? I have used my conscience to decipher what truth is and isn’t and what I must devote myself to and what I must dismiss as maybe the projections of ego or evil, even the doing or influencing of the archetypal Satan.  I think about some of the gnostic ontology, or the study of entities or beings, and I don’t necessarily object to what gnostic creation myths teach about the Father of Light, or the Holy Androgyne of Father-Mother, Aeons, Holy Eideas, or Emanations of that High God who is in what is called The Pleroma, or the fullness of God. In fact, I think it is a rich way of looking at Divinity and its Radiance. That being said, there is something to take from all religions, with the exception of those that exclude, persecute, or deify human beings, rather try to urge followers to “become God”.  Just for the sake of distinction, Jesus’ teachings according to Gnosticism say that we all must become Christ’s, and share in the anointing of the Christos. That is different than saying we must become God.

In conclusion, until someone figures out how to get past the blasphemy of just believing they are God and actually become Him/Her through misguided intent, human error will always exist.

JUDGE A TREE BY ITS FRUITS

I’ve been having a hard time dismissing the creation myths/stories/origins of the universe according to gnostic sources. One reason is that created nature has so much chaos and violence in it and gnostic teachings attribute that to a cosmic tradegy of miscreation involving corrupt matter that take the responsibility off of the shoulders of Adam and Eve. I guess what I was never able to understand is how nature and the cosmos went into “disorder” following the Fall of Adam and Eve. Whether I continue as an Independent Catholic or not, I still believe that scapegoating Adam and Eve for the mass chaotic cosmic tragedy is unthinkable because the chaos and violence that exists in the many kingdoms of this world, even in space is hard to wrap your mind around. This all relates to the “forbidden fruit” and who actually forbid Adam and Eve in the first place. Sources I have read said that early first and second century gnostics wrote scriptures to fit their beliefs. Gnosticism predated Christianity and took shape in Jewish Mysticism and actually stems from Greek roots. What I want to say today is that if Sophia, an emanation of God, did fail in her attempts to be like God and create without his consent and gave birth to Ialdaboath, who gnostics believe was Yaweh and Jehovah in the Old Testament, then it was this “jealous lesser god”, who fashioned Adam in his image and placed him in the garden. When the old fabled snake came along he was offerring Adam the knowledge that the high God the Father was the real God and that Ialdaboath (Jehovah) was actually evil. This fruit was the fruit of gnosis, or knowledge. In this instance, the man and woman could become enlightened about why there was duality of Good and Evil. One reason I bought into some of this thinking is because I never believed that the Incorruptible God would feel jealousy even if we were made in his image. Gnostics say that Ialdaboath was a jealous god and didn’t want Adam and Eve to know about the Father-Mother God syzygie, existing as perfect Light, in an imperishable unending way.So, the fruit, whether it was an apple, or a fig, as most people believe, meant two different things for the Judeo-Christians and gnostic Christians. Not to reiterate what most of us know, but it’s important to make the distinction that the reason God was able to say to Adam and Eve that there was the duality of Good and Evil, was because of Satan’s fall from Heaven. That made evil a reality. According to gnostics, the Satanic Demiurge Ialdaboath had the power to create using pre-existing dead defiled matter that came into existence from the Big Bang. The traditional Satan is not given that power in Judeo-Christian teaching. In actuality, the Garden of Eden story stemmed from a Sumerian myth and Genesis wasn’t actually written until many years after the other books of Moses. Anyway, in one cosmology, the serpent is Satan, and in the gnostic view, he is an instructor. Many gnostics would quote Jesus as having said “Be as wise as serpents and innocent as doves” as well as highlight the bronze serpent that Moses raised to cure those who had been bitten by snakes. In both cases Adam and Eve were forbidden. And they did fall victim to Pride. The esoteric teachings in A Course in Miracles supposedly channeled by Jesus in 1965, says that it was Adam and Eve’s sense of LACK, that drove them to eat what was forbidden. Just for fun then, which fruit bore more fruit for the two very different Christian beleivers? Well, we know that gnostics were labeled heretics and many of their gospels were burnt by the Roman Catholics and copies were not found until the Nag Hammadi discovery in Egypt back in 1945. Thus, there has been an emergence of gnostic belief in many forms, most of which are distorted and tainted by new age, neo-gnostics who have been accused of writing new books, despite the discovery. In the Judeo-Christian history, original sin entered the human families DNA and blood. It wouldn’t be until innocent blood of a sinless God-man, the Christ, beat death that the stain of original sin could be washed away. In Judeo-Christian heritage, Jesus became the prophesied “suffering servant”, who was the third part of the trinity. In gnostic christology, Jesus was the pre-existent Logos, an emanation of God, sent to earth. Not until His baptism by John at the Jordan did the Christos descend upon Jesus, in the view of Gnostic Christian views. Looking back the two worldviews saw the birth of Jesus very differently, the two teachings perhaps can be a topic for later blogs. The topic of knowing a tree by it’s fruits was a teaching of Jesus that both gnostics and Judeo-Christians would believe. I’m on the fence about whether Adam and Eve did the right thing to try and achieve gnosis, or the truth about their origin and the false god’s role in it. Oh, and for those who don’t care to study the origins of creation according to gnosticism, Adam and Eve had divine sparks within them and received spirit (which became trapped int matter) from Sophia (which means wisdom), again, an aspect of God that emanated out and down towards the material world. The Gnostic Jesus was seen as a Teacher, Master, and an Equal. Though he bore the annointing of the Christos, his role as savior differed from the way mainstream Christians saw him. He taught that everyone could become a Christ and attain Enlightenment, gnosis, illumination, and self-realization. The only real sin seen by gnostics is that of ignorance, thus the kind of knowledge Adam and Eve sought was to discover their true nature in God, from God, though they did so somewhat unconscious of the actual result. In the Christianity that had Jewish roots, original sin led to both a separated reality from God, and to a whole slew of crimes of body and mind.Maybe there is truth in both creation stories and in the both portrayals of Christ. Christology and Soteriology (the study of salvation) in both forms, however, clearly illustrates marked differences in the aim of Christ. In the more publicly accepted way, he bore the sins of all mankind, shed blood to remit people of their sins (atonement), and died and resurrected, opening back up the door to eternal life to humanity. In the other Jesus taught that the kingdom of God was within and true salvation had nothing to do with the shedding of blood. He was a Master Teacher who tried to lead others to their divine nature to be experienced by gnosis or Enlightenment. One formed as a mainstream Christian might say that surely there are more sins humans are subject to than just plain ignorance. But, you know, someone can be in a state of grace or completely sinless and half one foot in hell, likewise someone could have had an experience of illumination and self-realization of their Christ nature and be trapped in matter, subject to another incarnation if they don’t use their enlightenment experience to love.So, the real fruit or fruits we should be looking for, is are ones that lead us into a deeper experience of Love of One’s self, God, and the whole of humanity. Be fruitful.

KNOWLEDGE: GIFT AND SIN, BLESSING AND CURSE

This entry was originally posted in the blog Holy Fire by Brother Bryan in August 2009.

The topic I am going to address today is one that has a great deal of significance in the grand scheme of things for the whole of human race and history, but the matter that I am going to target the hardest and with the most conviction is the meaning of gnosis, the search it implies for an individual, and its mistaken notion that gnostics equate with “salvation” or “karma”.

I have been called to be a priest. I have known for sometime. After a long and diligent search, I am seeking ordination in an Independent Catholic Church that will be open to teachings of gnosis. Because of restrictions that the Roman Catholic Church puts on individuals who are eligible or feel called, I searched elsewhere. After spending time in discernment and applying for Holy Orders in a Convergence Church, consisting of 3 specific natures, Evangelical, Sacramental, and Charismatic, and after in depth studies of the Old Testament, I came to see discrepencies, inconsistencies, and just plain evil done, said, and carried out in the name of God, Jehovah, or Yahweh. I remember when I wrote my first song that was critical of Temple Sacrifices of Jewish Priests. The song was called Burning Butchers. I felt inspired by the Holy Spirit to share this song publicly, that reduced the priesthood of that time to bloody butchers. I rejected any and all proclamation that such instructions for this kind of behavior could have come from God. Other areas that fueled a passion of disent in me was mass genocide by “The Lord”, and the instructions about capital punishment that supposedly came from Him, and was spoken to Moses, instructions that contradicted the 10 Commandments. I talked with the Deacon of the Convergence Church at length about my feelings and objections to parts of the Old Testament. I felt very strongly about some of the points I just mentioned and still do.

Shortly after meeting with the Bishop from that diocese, I found a Holy Orders program in an Esoteric Gnostic Christian Church. They shared their beliefs about the Old Testament that triggered instant satisfaction in me. Finally, truth was being revealed about the horrid history of a mistaken wrathful, blood thirsty God. A few of my other blogs explain that there was a heirarchy of Divine beings according to gnostic cosmology and ontology. In a nut shell, a lesser god underneath God the Father and Mother, who was referred to as Yaweh and Jehovah also was given names like Ialdaboath, the abortion of darkness, and Samael (Meaning the blind god), was responsible for the massive blood sacrifices and demands of killing innocent animals and humans in cases where they committed certain sins. The more I read the Gnostic creation myths, the more alive, alert, and enlightened I felt. I even began to feel privileged.

The crux of the gnostic idiom is found in the meaning of the greek translation, it being “knowledge”. Gnostics stress the importance of having experiences of gnosis, or knowledge of God, One’s Self, rather self-realization. What I am speaking of is also known as Enlightenment or Illumination. Experiencing these realities is emphasized by gnostics as the fruits of salvation and the eradication of the only sin they believe in which is ignorance.

I didn’t have a problem with this, nor many of the ideas gnostics had about Jesus, what his role was in salvation history, when the Christos annointing descended upon him, extraordinary stories about his infancy and childhood, along with references He Himself made in The Gospel Of The Holy Twelve about being given second changes to become enlightened through reincarnation. I don’t think believing in reincarnation should be a problem for Christians in general, but they are so attached to their visions of hell, punishment, and damnation that it would be hard to shake them from those ingrained beliefs.

Getting back to the idea of this “supreme” form of knowledge, I was guided by the Holy Spirit in my ongoing discernment and preparation for a paper I was to write where I was supposed to defend the gnostic faith having an understanding of how mainstream Christianity erred in their teachings and spreading of the Church. I haven’t written the paper yet, but when I say I was guided, I was led to open up a book I haven’t looked at in quite some time. Many conservatives will be shocked or appalled that I dare to mention any spiritual value of the book I am referring to, The Enneagram: From A Christian Perspective, co-authored by Richard Rohr and Andreas Ebert. I have heard a great deal of teaching about the Enneagram on tapes and MP3s and was instructed about it while in spiritual direction. A gift of the Sufi Mystics, Desert Fathers integrated it into their formation, for the tool itself dares and challenges each person who encounters it, to examine their ego and almost literally learn how to stand naked before God and humanity, to be stripped of any and all illusions, compulsive behavior, or sin that separates them from certain gifts, fruits of the spirit, a mature, transformed soul, and from God.

In essence, there are 9 energy types and we all assume one that our ego most identifies with, also possessing “wing” energies that are on the right and left side of our number which exists on a circle with overlapping triangles inside it. Anyway, my number, I came to learn, know, confirm, and accept was a four. The type 5 is one of my wings and when I learned about it, it was a blueprint for many of my mishaps, blind spots, failure, and pain. On the flip side, however (which the Enneagram stresses) is the idea that your greatest “sin” is your “greatest gift”. Having a type five for a wing (or any type for that matter) didn’t mean I was damned or anything like that. But it was a starting point. The goal of using the Enneagram is to mature and turn your shadows into gold so to speak. Though type fives are known for being religious mystics, great counselors, and intellectuals, their biggest danger is the temptation that unconsciously tells them that knowledge is power. According to Richard Rohr, “Immature FIVES think they can secure their lives by being informed about everything in as much detail as possible.” Though that statement and a great deal of teaching about type FIVES refers more to intellectual knowledge, that still, as I have found in my experiences with my current Archbishop who I am trying to break ties with, as well as in reading gnostic literature in addition to his, plays a role in keeping fives ungrounded, out of touch and somehow askew from most of society and culture, and in a small, privatized little compartments where they very often distance themselves from the incarnation. Fives hate human contact and touch and find it very easy to be at a distance from the world, having an “immunizational attitude” towards the world of the flesh.

You don’t have to be a type five to be a gnostic, and you aren’t necessarily a type five if you are indeed gnostic. Revelations in recent days have reminded me that the spiritual life that Jesus exemplified was a balance between Action and Contemplation, Asceticism and Participation in the life and history of the world and one’s community. I just know myself and my patterns too well. I would be too tempted to eat of the real forbidden fruit, trying to understand and gain knowledge of the mind of God. An impossible feat.

I would like to expound upon this more. I have come to the conclusions that further pursuing Holy Orders in the Reformed Catharist Seminary, would further disconnect me with the whole of creation, whether disordered, chaotic, or beautiful. Jesus said follow me, not just think about me or know me. In actuality, I don’t put down the idea of gnosis. Just the traps that seeking knowledge without being an active member of the Body of Christ. That is dangerous. And that is not following Jesus.

ENLIGHTENMENT AND ILLUMINATION

This entry was originally posted in the blog Holy Fire by Brother Bryan in August 2009.

As I say in the the subject of this blog, Enlightenment (an inner experience of the Kingdom of God or His Ecstatic Love) and Illumination are not things that can be achieved or earned by following all the rules. Don’t get me wrong, having boundaries is a necessary part of the process of healthy development of one’s sense of self. But rigidly adhering to them, and priding one’s self for doing so, won’t get you that taste of Heaven’s Banquet any more or any quicker than the person who radiates joy, acceptance, and peace. Not even quicker than someone who acts compulsively, irrationally, or impulsively, in many cases rejecting the Love and Power of God’s grace. Father Richard Rohr, OFM has spoken about what he calls “the performance principle”. In addition to refuting the importance many people place on being part of an “in group” or the “chosen religion”, what he calls “tribal religion”, he says that people come to the experience of God’s mercy and love by doing it wrong, by a “spirituality of imperfection.” Don’t misread this; he doesn’t say sin freely and be a heathen. He just honestly admits, including himself in the reality he speaks of, that this is the pattern. Of being lost then found. The parable of the prodigal son is very significant to the pattern of behavior and complacency we have towards God the Father’s hopes for us and how he welcomes us with open arms when we go astray and choose to return.What I am driving towards, is a sort of surrendured stance, a definite kind of humility. Enlightenment and Illumination are terms that most Christians don’t use freely or regularly. Gnostic Christianity does along with other esoteric based religions. God is light in addition to all other aspects we are told about. Having experiences of light or even seeing apparitions don’t make you an Enlightened person who is automatically initiated into the Kingdom of God. Such experiences may preceed a series of mystical experiences, that I can attest to. But for me or any one else, other than maybe Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi, and Lao-Tzu if they were here on earth today, to say “I am enlightened” and to proclaim it as an absolute state of mind that they exist in apart from others, is border line heresy and a claim made by an inflated ego. I have been influenced by German spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle. He says that at the age of 29, he had an enlightening experience that changed his life. If I have heard him correctly, he never has said or written that he is in an “enlightened state” nor in a “privileged state of consciousness” that is somehow superior to the masses of ignorant people that walk the planet sleepwalking so to speak. He is grounded. He actually talks about what Jesus made clear to his those who desired to follow him, that they would have to pick up their crosses and walk the same journey as he did, maybe not to martyrdom, but to powerlessness and surrender to the Absolute Love and Will of God. Rohr and other more progressive Catholics have spoke of experiencing The Christ-Self within or the Buddha nature. In doing so, they speak of a state of Awake, Alert, Sober, Entrainment of Mind and Heart. Jesus, most radically, connected His earthly body in the experiences or encounters with God, thereby uniting the human and the divine in a way that NO OTHER SPIRITUAL TEACHER ever has. Jesus took an established pattern in nature, of life, death, and rebirth (resurrection) and turned the tables on it. In Catholic circles you hear about the Paschal Mystery, “Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again.” In defense of those who believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and to those who are curious about this reality, the experience of Illumination or Enlightenment is found in the encounter and eating of the Divine Substance, not just taking place in a corporal nature, but in a light filled mystical occurrence, whether through the gift of tears, intense, deep peace, or unspeakable ecstasy and joy. These emotions are not experienced at the expense of a Christ who is crucified over and over in a cannibalistic way, but rather through the vehicle of his risen glorified body – one that serves as a promise for us in the resurrection. In my seminary training as a student of Christian gnosticism, I was told that the “Archons” or Fallen Demonic Intelligences created as the result of a cosmic tragedy (the birth of a light being who became a lesser god, than the Ineffable, Incorruptible Father-Mother) feed off of the sacrifice of the Mass and get people who consume Christ’s Body and Blood to experience “false enlightenment” so that they will remain addicted to the sacrament and ignorant, the only sin in gnostic theology. I don’t commit myself to eating and drinking from a corpse. The sacred meal is much more than that, both a thanksgiving/remembrance of the very life Christ lived in this world and the radiance of Light he brought to those in darkness or illusion (both words I chose to substitute for sin).In summary, with the exception of Roman Catholics who exclude those not of their denomination from receiving the Eucharist, even if a person whole-heartedly believes in transubstantiation and humbly wants to receive the Elements, the gift of Christ’s Real Presence is freely given, not only through the Eucharist or Holy Communion, but in fire and spirit longing to be incarnate or impregnated in everyone. Regularly giving thanks/remembrance and partaking in the foretaste of Heaven’s Banquet will bring Divine Light to you and continually transform you, to allow God to reveal Himself/Herself to you with an Intensity no human can replicate by their own doing. Illumination can happen in every experience of the Eucharist, even if you see it as a symbol of Christ’s love and mercy (God is not limited by human restrictions or metaphors or lack of metaphors). Enlightenment, or the state of grace, or the inner condition of the Kingdom of God, I must confess comes and goes. It’s like losing it then finding it again. The minute we think we have it all, it dissipates. Don’t misunderstand me, God is not a tease. But He/She gives us just what we need as much as we need it, almost careful not to spoil the surprise granted to those who seek Him/Her in this world and the next. As an ascended master who appeared to a man who now is a well known teacher of A COURSE IN MIRACLES said, “heaven is like the perfect orgasm that never stops.” I must conclude that though I believe celibacy should be a choice, not a mandate, those who offer up their sexuality in exchange for union with God in the strictest sense can still know what that feeling is like, for there is no marrying in Heaven. This is not a commentary or a chance to provoke debate about mandatory celibacy for vowed religious. I’m just saying, if we “walk the walk” not just “talk the talk” we all are in for a truly ineffable experience. Alleluia!!!

BLOODY MARYS

This entry was originally posted in my blog Holy Fire in August 2009.

Here I go with blood again. Before you close your browser just read my story. This might appeal to you if you are one who believes and looks for signs or miracles. About two years ago, I started working on my third novel, hoping to publish it like the previous ones. I had the intent to tell a dramatic Catholic vs. Occult novel whose main character was a schizoid psychic deacon who was led to kill. As a result of his actions, his dabbling with the occult, and fall into insanity, he began to see bleeding Virgin Mary statues. These wonders acted as an external conscience for Xavier. The book was coming together “nicely” or so I thought. I was totally oblivious as to the offensive nature of the graphic violence I described in detail. As I mentioned in another blog, I have used violence and strong images and emotion to influence redemption, catharsis, or transformation for a character in desperate circumstances. It wasn’t until I began studying at the Reformed Catharist Seminary as a converted Gnostic Christian, that I had to re-examine what I expressed and how and to what extent in art. I stopped watching violent movies awhile ago, but when I started to complain and express my disgust with the violence in the Old Testament, I began to see in myself contradictions and hypocrisy. I decided not to go forth with finishing the book.

During the course of my studies in seminary, the bird bath where my Virgin Mary statue sits, had water in it that began to turn blood red. People told me this was rust. I couldn’t get the image out of my head. I couldn’t help but think of some of the miracles where the Virgin Mary statues bled or cried. I wondered what if any significance there was to this occurrence. For awhile I thought that I should submit the partially finished manuscript to one of my old publishers. It just so happened that it was approved and I was given a deadline to finish it by. I just couldn’t go through with it. Everything I was learning through study and through conversations with the Archbishop, was anti blood in every circumstance. Whereas the Archbishop tended to categorize it as terrible and evil, I saw it as a manifestation of the Holy Spirit, because after the bird bath was cleaned, the water soon thickened and turned red again. I still ask for the Blessed Mother’s intercession on many occassions, and am prompted to do so when I walk by the statue. If anything it did help initiate a transition in my thought process. Perhaps I can say, “Mission accomplished”, whether be it help from the Holy Spirit or nature teaming up with synchronicity.

BLOOD AND SPIRITUAL WARFARE

This was originally posted in August 0f 2009 on the blog Holy Fire by Brother Bryan.

Hello all, recentlty I posted a blog on myspace that defended of blood as archetypal, something very powerful and symbolic of life. I still believe that, but I began to self-examine some of the art I have produced over the past few years. Before I started to engineer and record music that I had started to write a long time ago, I, like many had an inclination towards violence. Whether it was a fascination, a need, or me exorcising some demons, both of my published novels involved some forms of graphic violence. I didn’t seek to glorify violence, but show that even after a horrific act, a person could be redeemed if they were truly contrite in their heart. Any way, I began to think about the titles of some of my films: Blood Brothers, Blood and Love Mystified, then a book began writing was called Bloody Marys, the same is so for some poetry I have had published, and now my musical pseudonym. My reflections and thoughts after having written yesterday’s blog alarmed me to what I am being taught in the Epignostic seminary I am attending. According to gnostic ontology and cosmology, the evil intelligences that were created by Ialdaboath (the abortion of darkness, son of Sophia), feed off of us humans like vampires. Throughout the course of the earth’s history, they have been responsible for inspiring animal and human sacrifice. The Archons are dying out and rely on our energy, liquified in our blood, to survive. So, why my fascination with blood, even on the design of this website? Do I have violent intentions stored up inside me? Homicidal ideations? Thoughts of self-harm? Are the blood designs and titles and names projections from my unconscious, and are they saying something about the state of my mental health? All valid questions. My pondering led me into a frenzy and caused me some distress and inner division. I need to monitor my intentions and energy to see if I am being drained by psychic vampires. Regardless of whether or not I retain my gnostic views of various entities and their role in creation and degradation of the world, there still remains psychic vampires out there, in misguided spirits, fallen angels, and even in the people we love and respect. As a man who aspires to be a spiritual leader, I assure you that I am taking my reflections seriously and cautiously. If I am simply trying to say that I am or will embody the suffering servant role that Jesus did, then I think my obsession with blood implies that through wounds, sacred wounds, rather, there can be transmutation and personal transformation – even gnosis, or knowledge of God, one’s true self, and a fuller realization of that self. Blood is pain. And I have suffered a great deal in my life. Blood is and always will be life, maybe even in our glorified resurrected bodies. I pray that my wounds are transformed for the sake of the world. Peace to you.

BLOOD IS LIFE

This entry was originally posted to my other blog Holy Fire in August of 2009.

If you’ve been to my myspace music and blog page, (http://www.myspace.com/5woundsandliquidbloodlove) you may be wondering, what’s with all the blood? It’s a very complicated and strange connection I feel to blood as archetypal and full of power. Some get grossed out by it. I’ve read a lot of criticism of Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of The Christ. Many people want an anaseptic Jesus. There was a lot of irony that took place on Good Friday, which was not so good, as I sing in my song Bloody Friday. The very thing that Jesus, Yeshua the annointed Christ was trying to permanently abolish – blood sacrifices for supposed Atonement and forgiveness of sins. In the Gospel of the Holy Twelve, Jesus made it very clear that he was against the shedding of blood by any living creature to pay the price for so called sin and separation from God. In defense of the incarnation, Jesus, showed through the gross nature of his victimhood, that there was power in blood. The night before he suffered and died, he instituted perhaps the greatest living metaphor and declared that his very substance, consisting of flesh and blood would be the “new agreement” between God and mankind. After studying Gnosticism for awhile, I did begin to see how some people might interpret the institution of the Eucharist and the Real Presence of Christ in the elements as both cannibalism and a contradiction to His teachings where He said that no creature’s shedding of blood would atone for sins. Jesus blood wasn’t just some magic elixir, that Catholics, Anglicans, Eastern Orthodox Christians, and other Sacramental Churches drink to become better than the rest of the human race and the entire ancestry of humankind, rather it is the fruit of the vine shared by the masses of believers, transforming them into the eternal Body of Christ. That fruit of the vine had been long preserved for God’s children. Are we washed in Jesus blood? Some would argue yes, but anything that glorifies massive blood loss for any reason other than it was a ransom that was freely paid by the Christ or Christos is insane. An archbishop who I studied with in the Reformed Catharist Seminary, a gnostic seminary, would tell me that evil Archons (fallen angels that were created following a cosmic tragedy in which “an abortion of darkness” called Ialdaboath created the universe out of dead defiled matter along with the evil intelligences) feed and have fed off of blood, like vampires throughout the Earth’s history. The same Archons that get their life source from dead and devoured animals and in particular the massive amounts of blood they ingested from all of the Old Testament blood sacrifices by Temple Priests, are the same evil intelligences that caused the belief in transubstantiation and the partaking of Jesus’ Body and Blood in the form of a sacrament. He further instructs that the Archons get you to be addicted to the element of “blood” to keep you dependent upon it and keeping in tact a vicious cycle of crucifying Jesus over and over again. For awhile, I could see his point, and I even had some supernatural woes and terrors after eating the Eucharist one day. Gnostics reduce the elements of the Eucharist to the Logos (or unwritten word that Jesus stood for) in The Body and “Light” as His Blood. ..Just because someone is drawn to the archetypal and innate power of blood, something that is in the very fabric of our living and breathing nature, doesn’t make them a blood lusting vampire. My view of the Eucharist is that you ingest the very eternal substance and consciousness of God so that our souls, spirits, and bodies may all experience a change down to the deepest layers of our DNA blueprints and into the deepest recesses of our psyches. So, still you might ask, why all the blood? Blood is life. Blood loss is life leaving the body. Blood depicted in art and in form can be reverent if detached totally from any means or thoughts of violence or harm to oneself or others. The Son’s Blood becomes ours and gives us the gift of immortality which we lost during our fall from grace and conscious choice to reject the divinity of the Tree of Life. Again, irony, Christ, nailed to a tree, who became a fountain of eternal life, while incarnate and resurrected, became the Tree of Life himself. God is his infinite mercy and imagination used the worst thing imaginable, the crucifixion and humiliation of his begotten Son, and turned it into the best thing. Here and now, we have Heaven. Heaven on Earth. Matter and spirit. Blood and Holy Fire, burning with desire to return to our Source, our Home in Heaven. Blood is desire. Blood is the fire of divine, freely given love, pumped from our heart into our veins, feeding the Tree of Life within each of us. Again, we have the greatest gift, and because of Christ’s blood taken into our bodies, we transcend the beastial nature and become transfigured, holy, and desirable in God’s eyes as the perfect image he had in his mind when he created us. Peace and many blessings.