Confessions XVI (The Demolition of Christianity and the Myth of ‘Holism’)

Good Friday

Dear Friends Known and Unknown,

Yesterday we further considered how the Course in Miracles serves to negate vast tracts of Christianity.

Yet the Course in Miracles in my experience, is usually embraced in groups and settings, which consider themselves ‘holistic’.

What does the word holistic mean? Clearly it means to do with honouring the whole. And in New Age contexts, this has often been to do with not surrendering to scientific reductionism, but to a healthy honouring of the whole of the person. The common New Age rubric Mind-Body-Spirit is another way this admirable aspiration to wholeness is expressed.

However, there are other New Age aspirations to honouring the whole. The New Age milieu has a commonly repeated mantram, that it seeks to embrace all religions, that it endeavours to honour then, the whole of humanity’s religious and spiritual experience - without discrimination.

At least, I encountered this aspiration repeatedly throughout my New Age years. What made the New Age different it was claimed, is that it was not sectarian or anti- other religions. In this sense, it was holistic.

Now this aspiration, I know, was sincerely believed. But I fear so many in the movement are not thinking clearly enough. They are sincere – but not sufficiently rigorous.

As I write, I recall a leading shaper of holistic culture in Britain. He writes with deep and genuine conviction that the holistic movement is constituted on warmly embracing all spiritual paths.

Yet I also heard him endorse the Course in Miracles over many years, as one of the most important documents of the new ‘dispensation’.

In my youth, I never questioned his sincere convictions. But I no longer believe that such a position holds up to scrutiny.

For one can accept the Course’s demolition of Christianity – or not. But what one cannot do, is have one’s cake and eat it too.

I speak as someone who in fact, tried to do precisely that, throughout my ‘esoteric youth’. The sublime power behind the Course in Miracles could not be false, I reasoned. It must be pointing to the same esoteric truth as that given by other esotericists – including Rudolf Steiner.

Thus I clung to the words of Bohr I often quote: ‘The opposite of a fact is surely a falsehood. But the opposite of one great truth may well be another great truth.’

Surely I felt, the universe is of such a vast, multifaceted nature, and so utterly beyond the limited human mind’s capacity to comprehend, that all the 'great teachings’ are actually in agreement at a deeper level.

And I believe many New-Agers cling to similar notions. In fact, as I write these very lines, another memory floats back of a man at Findhorn, who was a serious admirer of both the Course and Steiner ...

But eventually I had to face the fact that the two worlds were irreconcilable.

And the Course was in fact, CLEARLY pointing to this irreconcilability. It was clearly saying that other versions of Christianity – from Steiner’s to Catholicism – were wrong.

Today, it now seems to clear to me, that the Course is really a demolition course, in regards to traditional Christianity.

Truly, it is saying that so, so much of Christianity has got it WRONG.

I believe that I have intimated but a little of this in these last days. I believe there is far more to it, than what I have indicated about the Course rejecting prayers which ‘make the error real’ or the Crucifixion as only pointing to ‘the unreality of assault’ …

No, I think the Course goes much further in its efforts to dismantle the Christian Tradition.

It is now time, I think, to look at the source of authority the Course indicates for its teaching. Until now, I have not mentioned this.

But much of its apparent authority would appear to lie in nothing other than the fact the Course claims to originate from Jesus. In the Course, it is taken as the voice of Jesus, which tells us:

“I elected for your sake and *mine*, to demonstrate that the most outrageous assault, as judged by the ego, does not matter. As the world judges these things, but not as God knows them, I was betrayed, abandoned, beaten, torn and finally killed …

You are not persecuted, nor was I … I undertook to show this [truth] in an extreme case, ***merely*** because it would serve as a good teaching aid to those whose temptation to give in to anger and assault would not be so extreme. I will with God that none of his Sons should suffer…

The apostles often misunderstood [the crucifixion].

[Had they understood it they could not] have described my reactions to Judas as they did … I could not have said “Betrayest thou the Son of Man with a kiss?” unless I believed in betrayal. The ***whole*** message of the Crucifixion was simply that I did not [Emphasis mine, here and above]."

All of this appears in a section in the Course entitled 'The Message of the Crucifixion', wherein we also find:

“The crucifixion is ***nothing more*** than an extreme example [Emphasis mine] ...

The real meaning of the crucifixion lies in the ***apparent*** intensity of the assault … This, of course, is impossible … destruction itself is impossible, anything that is destructible cannot be real [Emphasis in original].”

Many a Christian may read these words and wonder how could one possibly even begin to think that this was reconcilable with Christianity, even the esoteric Christianity of Rudolf Steiner, who believed that the Mystery of the Crucifixion of Golgotha was not ‘merely … a good teaching aid’, but an unfathomable cosmic mystery, of which two thousand years of Christian tradition had only begun to scratch the surface.

Yes, Rudolf Steiner profoundly affirmed the essence of the tradition, from the earliest writings of St Paul to nearly two millennia of further inspiration and genius. (My entry for 22-12-05 may be helpful in this context).

How could I even begin to imagine reconciling such massive discrepancies?

Friends, I wish to repeat, the Course has tremendous, tremendous sophistication and power. It identifies the psychological games of ‘the ego’ with stunning acuity. Its call to forgiveness appears absolutely genuine. It is not devoid of the sublime.

Moreover, while many people of a New Age persuasion turn to less demanding - yes, less intelligent -New Age channellings, some of the most dedicated, bright and reflective folk I have known, held the Course in Miracles in high regard.

Yes, the Course is a VAST teaching. And not all of the ideas I have here selected, necessarily leap out at first acquaintance.

Indeed, I admit that I am indebted to Kenneth Wapnick, for understanding how anti-Christian, the Course actually is. Wapnick, who is perhaps the Course’s leading apologist and commentator, writes:

“Many passages in the Course are subtly aimed at the sacraments and teachings found in the Roman Catholic Church.”

In support of this, Wapnick goes on to quote ‘Jesus’ speaking in a section of the channelled material, which did not make the final edited text of the Course and which Wapnick now presents for the first time. Here ‘Jesus’ deconstructs the Mass saying:

‘I do not want to share my body in communion, because this is to share nothing. Would I try to share an illusion with the most holy children of a most holy Father … would I offer you my body, you whom I love, knowing its littleness?

It is the morning of Good Friday as I write these lines. Last night I went to the Holy Mass commemorating His Last Supper. And after it was over, I felt that strange, solemn beauty descend, that I have felt descend in every Holy Week since my confirmation in the Catholic Church.

Yes I felt that strange, solemn, eternal, haunting beauty … I believe that many Christians will know whereof I speak. It is a beauty which was entirely inaccessible to me before I entered the Church.

The Course teaches us – rightly I believe - that every belief we take on, we inevitably represent to others. We cannot help but teach that belief to others.

We can teach therefore, that the principles of the Course are real. That in reality, there is no body, there is no sin, and that the Crucifixion exists solely to demonstrate such things.

Or we can teach that the world has reality, that there is sin and suffering and tragedy and that the Crucifixion is a tremendous Mystery of the Love of God in response to all of this.

And now I have made my choice and according to the Course, I am now teaching -in my words and in my actions- that which I have chosen.

I recognise the reality of the suffering of the world - a suffering we each of us contribute to by sin. And in this weblog, I am elaborating and will continue to elaborate, why I believe that to affirm otherwise has far from desirable consequences ... in terms of both personal and political consequences. A heart numbed by negation of tragedy cannot ACT ...

And I have faith that the Crucifixion is a Mystery of Unfathomable Depth, and not to do with a personal quest to prove the world unreal (underttaken by a 'Jesus' ... 'for your sake and mine').

And so I teach my affirmation of the Mystery of Christ and of his Church, which has represented it to the world for nearly two millennia.

And I know well, that if some friends from my New Age past should read these lines, they well may shake their heads in sad disbelief.

They will imagine, perhaps, that I who had such promise, have become a reactionary in my middle age, opposed to progress. That in supporting the traditional teaching, I am now working against the new revelation of the ‘Master Jesus’ …

What can I say? We must make a choice. But I counsel that we make the choice as **consciously** as we can.

If we should choose the Course, let us be conscious that we are rejecting two thousand years of Christian tradition.

We are rejecting the testimony of the apostles that Jesus himself chose.

We are rejecting the dedication and inspiration of the early Fathers of the Church.

We are rejecting as uninspired and unimportant the testimony of countless brilliant Christian theologians and philosophers.

We are rejecting the testimony of countless Christian mystics and visionaries, whose vision of Christ contradicts the teaching of the Course. And the list continues …

And if we are of an esoteric persuasion, not trusting the exoteric Church, let us also be conscious that we are rejecting the traditions of the original Rosicrucians and of Rudolf Steiner, who gave his life’s blood to preserve the Mystery of Golgotha.

Yes, we live in a universe of free will and we are free to choose. But if we choose the Course or similar Aquarian demolitions of Christianity, let us proclaim ourselves, in all honesty, as opposed to Christian tradition.

Let us be rigorous, follow through the consequences of our thinking, and not dare to call ourselves ‘holistic’.

For my part, I now choose differently. Perhaps old friends may feel I have been captured by the power of the Church.

For my part, I confess I am concerned in turn, that they may have been captured by the power of ‘Aquarian architects of demolition’.

For my part, I feel I have been caught by a truth preserved in two thousand years of tradition, wherein a Mystery is revealed.

Today I feel the solemn beauty of Good Friday in a land,which still honours this Mystery.

As in Ireland Noon approaches, how many tens, if not hundreds of thousands in this nation of four million, will be at the Stations of the Cross? How many more will kiss the Crucifix, at the three o’clock commemoration of the Mystery of Calvary?

In Ireland, a solemn beauty descends this day, among a people still honouring the Christian Mystery. A solemn beauty descends as the Mystery of the Passion becomes present once again.

And my heart, my heart is now open to this solemn beauty in a way that the New Age and the Course in Miracles never provided for. Years ago at Findhorn, I knew a psychological path of practical love – but I did not know at all the Mystery of the Word Made Flesh …

And Ireland, holy Island, I honour you for preserving the Mystery that ‘Aquarius’ would destroy …


I wish you Friends a Holy Easter. This weblog will recommence, albeit only briefly, by WEDNESDAY.