Dear Friends, Known and Unknown,
It has not been my habit to use this space to report on personal events in my life, at least not those which are unrelated to the themes of this weblog.
Today, I make an exception. Today the weblog must pause awhile, while the computer is packed away and I leave beloved Ireland behind - not without real grief - to go to Spain.
But for reasons far beyond the scope of this site - this relocation, difficult though it is, seems right at levels, which appear profound to both myself and to Kim, wise and cherished wife, friend and compass.
Where we are headed, internet connection will not be easy to have – at least not at first. The future of this weblog would thus seem uncertain.
Nonetheless, I feel that I must find a way to continue. Thus sooner or later, these Confessions will resume.
In the meantime, some other small pieces should appear first. I have a few fragmentary pieces already written, as well as some book reviews that never quite made it to Amazon. These will be stored with my Blogger account. And although the weeks ahead will be defined by upheaval, I may well here and there have access to the internet and upload one of these previously written pieces.
Thus this space should not go completely dead – and perhaps even a post a week might be managed. Though I make no commitments to such a schedule.
The quality and consistency of these fragmentary pieces however, may be quite different from the usual pattern here. However, I hope these fragments may still be of interest to some, and thus worth posting.
After an ‘Intermission’ of such fragments, I plan to continue and conclude my series of ‘Confessions’.
I should also note that while ‘on the move’, I will likely not have opportunity to interact as I have done in the comments section. Nonetheless I greatly appreciate any comments that are left – and in time will respond.
Here is the point perhaps to underscore my appreciation of these comments.
For the truth is, not only do I seek to continue this weblog, but in time, I am considering other related activities on the web.
These might include a more informal forum or group, where perhaps people interested in these themes might interact more easily, than in simply responding to the entries I put up.
I am also considering a website for a number of my longer writings, plus those of others.
But it is hard to gauge interest for these ideas. Another thing I have failed to do is to promote this weblog in any significant way.
Yet when I can gain a good internet connection, I may be pursuing all of these goals.
In the meantime, I would appreciate any feedback at all – either in response to this weblog, or to what I have just intimated, if not proposed. I also appreciate any attempt made by anyone, to make this weblog more known or accessible.
For it seems to me – obviously – that there is some kind of call for what I am attempting here, however inadequately. An attempt which includes at least an aspiration to a Christian Hermetic understanding of world currents – which is not divorced from the Traditional Church, but which instead seeks to cherish her and guard her.
Cherish and guard her, as she works so unceasingly to cherish and guard the World in this time of real danger ...
Yes, I regret that so many of a Christian Hermetic persuasion fail to cherish and guard the Church … And I return to the ideal of the anonymous genius, who has given us Meditations on the Tarot:
“John who submitted himself voluntarily to Peter as leader or prince of the apostles did not become his successor after his death, although he outlived Peter by many years. John [is] not called upon to succeed Peter…
Hermeticism, the living Hermetic tradition guards … the life and communal soul of religion, science and art. [Hermeticists] do not have any privilege in any of these domains; saints, true scientists and artists of genius are their superiors.
But they live for the mystery of the communal heart, which beats within all religions, all philosophies, all arts and sciences – past, present and future. And inspired by the example of John the beloved disciple, they do not pretend, and never will pretend, to play a directing role in religion, science, art, in social or political life, but they are constantly attentive so as not to miss any occasion to **serve** religion, philosophy, science, art, the social and political life of humanity ….’
To GUARD and to SERVE, and thus – as I said once before at this weblog – ‘not to succumb to the currents of destruction of tradition manifest in the New Age culture, secularism, ‘political correctness’ and so on …’
And to make effort to not let the world be overwhelmed by the voracious capitalist globalism, that is predicated on the lack of values which result from the destruction of tradition.
Yes, yes … I know that there are Christian Hermeticists, who feel the age of being carried by tradition has past. But given the failure of efforts as Anthroposophy and its like; given the tendency to become ensconced in alternative tradition (eg. ‘Steiner says …’) without further reflection; given the massive DEFLECTION of Western spirituality into channels where the Mystery of Golgotha is entirely obscured, I feel we must turn to she would guards the Mystery of Christ, not as slaves or robots, but as ones affirming tradition, and seeking collectively to aid the work of deepening it.
Yes … as I stare at the horror of the world, as I feel the Sacraments deepening my communion with the Mystery that is Christ, I know that the Church is needed, now as before. To say the very least.
And if my activities in cyberspace, can play but the tiniest part, however miniscule, in guarding and serving … perhaps they need to be not only maintained – but expanded.
In this, I would welcome any response at all.
Finally for those of you who may not have noticed, and might wish further clarification of this weblog, there is a very, very long piece I have written which might be of interest while this weblog goes more quiet.
The piece is called Hermetic Catholicism: A Letter to My Friends and was originally written mainly to a number of known friends. Many of them from my past in the New Age subculture in the UK - for whom the idea that Catholicism had anything meaningful to offer the world, could often seem sublimely ridiculous.
Yes, the walls of mistrust, ignorance, prejudice are high indeed … as they once utterly obscured my own view. And a loving effort to overcome these walls seems necessary to me.
Be that as it may, this lengthy piece is now available in two places.
Either to be read off the screen in a very basic 'bare bones' format:
http://www.graphicmath.com/roger/Hermetic_Catholicism.html
Or as a pdf file in an easier to read, more attractive format, if you wish to download and print:
http://www.graphicmath.com/roger/Hermetic_Catholicism.pdf
I should also say this piece is very personal and autobiographical in parts.
Dear Friends, it will likely be more than a week before anything further appears here. But not long after, I hope irregular fragments will appear during this Intermission from my Confessions.
With heartfelt streaming of gratitude and warmth to you all.
God be with you,
Roger
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Friday, April 14, 2006
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.
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.
Thursday, April 13, 2006
Confessions XV (Sin Regarded as Illusion)
Holy Thursday
Dear Friends Known and Unknown,
Yesterday I spoke of A Course in Miracles as an immensely sophisticated text, whose influence I repeatedly encountered in many New Age venues.
Often this influence might not be particularly visible. I am thinking now, for instance, of a prominent author in the holistic milieu, who I knew and who had deeply worked with the Course, though I think that this was scarcely mentioned in his erudite writings …
Now I am not saying that A Course in Miracles is secretly at work behind the scenes in every corner of the sprawling holistic movement. I am saying I experienced it as a very popular text – and with a staying-power over the years, which other texts did not necessarily enjoy.
And even where the Course was not being studied, mention of its name frequently evoked affirmation. It would be regularly met with nods of respect.
Yes, as I look back on my New Age years, I find it easy to imagine a student of the Course being greeted with nods of respect in New Age circles everywhere.
But if I imagine myself now, as a Catholic, moving through those same circles and saying that I preferred the dogmas of Catholicism to the Course, I cannot so easily imagine those same approving nods.
I imagine rather bewilderment – and indeed I have experienced such bewilderment continuously, as I have encountered folk of a holistic persuasion in recent years.
Yes, I experience my conversion to Catholicism as bewildering for such people. I have who tasted Findhorn and the New Age to now prefer Roman Catholicism …!? The mind boggles. But that is the reaction both my wife and I have frequently met since we chose the Church.
And although the New Age milieu is commonly considered as a place without doctrines, I now believe this bewildered reaction points to a set of commonly held (though often unconscious) beliefs.
Among these is a definite sense that new teachings are superior to old. For do I not realise that texts like A Course in Miracles belong to a new ‘dispensation’ and are to be preferred to Old Age ‘dogma’?
Thus even in truth, the Course in Miracles is only studied by a very small fraction of the New Age movement, I believe that this pattern of general respect I describe is true and that behind this, there lies a tale to be told …
It is a tale of respecting 'New Revelations' – or rather a certain KIND of 'New Revelations'. These are of a kind I think, which accord-more or less-to a general New Age pattern.
Now I believe that the Course does accord –again more or less – to such a pattern. And to return to a theme in these confessions, it is a pattern which tends to dismiss the notions which attend a Fall into sin, suffering,tragedy and evil.
But to illustrate this, I need to focus on the Course more deeply.
Yesterday I spoke of how the Course’s message is that no harm has ever been done to anyone – in reality.
From this same perspective then, it naturally follows that we ourselves never can or do harm anyone. Guilt and sin are thus regarded by the Course as unhealthy ideas – as indeed is the case elsewhere in New Age thought.
Thus the Course preaches against the concept of sin:
“To sin would be to violate reality and to succeed [which according to the Course’s concept of reality is impossible.]
Sin is the proclamation that attack is real and guilt is justified … Sin is the grand illusion underlying all the ego’s grandiosity [One’s true self] cannot sin. There is nothing [the true self] can do that would really change his reality in any way, nor make him really guilty”
The Course advises us to stop JUDGING AS REAL any harm at all in our actions. It describes such a judgment as ‘Making the error real’ – the 'error' that is, that we can do *real* harm, that we thus are GUILTY of *real* harm or that we can commit what a Christian would commonly call sin.
Now if one holds such a view, a vast host of Christian prayers become meaningless. ‘Forgive us our sins’ … ‘Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.‘ These are examples of what the Course calls: 'Making the Error real".
In a similar vein, I will note that, as my heart ponders the prospects of my 11 year old daughter living out her years in a burning greenhouse, I turn to another prayer, which I believe has been given by Our Lady, and which includes the following supplication:
Let the Holy Spirit live in the hearts of all nations,
That they may be preserved from degeneration, disaster and war.
(For more on this prayer, See my entry for 1-12-05)
Yet from the perspective of the Course, in reality there is no ‘degeneration, disaster and war’.
But whether I turn to the prayer of the Lady of All Nations or not, the fact remains that the Course is claiming that a vast amount of Christian prayer and inspiration is founded on false ideas.
The Course in Miracles then, is fundamentally opposed to vast aspects of Christian teaching and practice.
But this Course finds respect in a general milieu, in which these very same ideas underlying Christianity are also opposed – to one degree or another. That is, it finds widespread respect in the milieu I call New Age.
I wish to repeat 'to one degree or another'. These aspects of Christianity are not always as **radically and consistently** opposed in the New Age culture, as they are in the Course.
But still, this milieu has in my experience, a definite tendency to oppose the so-called ‘Piscean’ notions of a Fall into sin, suffering, tragedy and evil … among other Christian conceptions.
And all of this is to do with why I believe that many New Age folk can scarcely believe that I could now prefer a ‘retrograde’ Catholicism, after tasting the fruits of the New Aquarian dispensation …
Dear Friends Known and Unknown,
Yesterday I spoke of A Course in Miracles as an immensely sophisticated text, whose influence I repeatedly encountered in many New Age venues.
Often this influence might not be particularly visible. I am thinking now, for instance, of a prominent author in the holistic milieu, who I knew and who had deeply worked with the Course, though I think that this was scarcely mentioned in his erudite writings …
Now I am not saying that A Course in Miracles is secretly at work behind the scenes in every corner of the sprawling holistic movement. I am saying I experienced it as a very popular text – and with a staying-power over the years, which other texts did not necessarily enjoy.
And even where the Course was not being studied, mention of its name frequently evoked affirmation. It would be regularly met with nods of respect.
Yes, as I look back on my New Age years, I find it easy to imagine a student of the Course being greeted with nods of respect in New Age circles everywhere.
But if I imagine myself now, as a Catholic, moving through those same circles and saying that I preferred the dogmas of Catholicism to the Course, I cannot so easily imagine those same approving nods.
I imagine rather bewilderment – and indeed I have experienced such bewilderment continuously, as I have encountered folk of a holistic persuasion in recent years.
Yes, I experience my conversion to Catholicism as bewildering for such people. I have who tasted Findhorn and the New Age to now prefer Roman Catholicism …!? The mind boggles. But that is the reaction both my wife and I have frequently met since we chose the Church.
And although the New Age milieu is commonly considered as a place without doctrines, I now believe this bewildered reaction points to a set of commonly held (though often unconscious) beliefs.
Among these is a definite sense that new teachings are superior to old. For do I not realise that texts like A Course in Miracles belong to a new ‘dispensation’ and are to be preferred to Old Age ‘dogma’?
Thus even in truth, the Course in Miracles is only studied by a very small fraction of the New Age movement, I believe that this pattern of general respect I describe is true and that behind this, there lies a tale to be told …
It is a tale of respecting 'New Revelations' – or rather a certain KIND of 'New Revelations'. These are of a kind I think, which accord-more or less-to a general New Age pattern.
Now I believe that the Course does accord –again more or less – to such a pattern. And to return to a theme in these confessions, it is a pattern which tends to dismiss the notions which attend a Fall into sin, suffering,tragedy and evil.
But to illustrate this, I need to focus on the Course more deeply.
Yesterday I spoke of how the Course’s message is that no harm has ever been done to anyone – in reality.
From this same perspective then, it naturally follows that we ourselves never can or do harm anyone. Guilt and sin are thus regarded by the Course as unhealthy ideas – as indeed is the case elsewhere in New Age thought.
Thus the Course preaches against the concept of sin:
“To sin would be to violate reality and to succeed [which according to the Course’s concept of reality is impossible.]
Sin is the proclamation that attack is real and guilt is justified … Sin is the grand illusion underlying all the ego’s grandiosity [One’s true self] cannot sin. There is nothing [the true self] can do that would really change his reality in any way, nor make him really guilty”
The Course advises us to stop JUDGING AS REAL any harm at all in our actions. It describes such a judgment as ‘Making the error real’ – the 'error' that is, that we can do *real* harm, that we thus are GUILTY of *real* harm or that we can commit what a Christian would commonly call sin.
Now if one holds such a view, a vast host of Christian prayers become meaningless. ‘Forgive us our sins’ … ‘Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.‘ These are examples of what the Course calls: 'Making the Error real".
In a similar vein, I will note that, as my heart ponders the prospects of my 11 year old daughter living out her years in a burning greenhouse, I turn to another prayer, which I believe has been given by Our Lady, and which includes the following supplication:
Let the Holy Spirit live in the hearts of all nations,
That they may be preserved from degeneration, disaster and war.
(For more on this prayer, See my entry for 1-12-05)
Yet from the perspective of the Course, in reality there is no ‘degeneration, disaster and war’.
But whether I turn to the prayer of the Lady of All Nations or not, the fact remains that the Course is claiming that a vast amount of Christian prayer and inspiration is founded on false ideas.
The Course in Miracles then, is fundamentally opposed to vast aspects of Christian teaching and practice.
But this Course finds respect in a general milieu, in which these very same ideas underlying Christianity are also opposed – to one degree or another. That is, it finds widespread respect in the milieu I call New Age.
I wish to repeat 'to one degree or another'. These aspects of Christianity are not always as **radically and consistently** opposed in the New Age culture, as they are in the Course.
But still, this milieu has in my experience, a definite tendency to oppose the so-called ‘Piscean’ notions of a Fall into sin, suffering, tragedy and evil … among other Christian conceptions.
And all of this is to do with why I believe that many New Age folk can scarcely believe that I could now prefer a ‘retrograde’ Catholicism, after tasting the fruits of the New Aquarian dispensation …
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Confessions XIV (Suffering Regarded As Illusion)
Dear Friends, Known and Unknown,
I have been suggesting that the New Age milieu can be characterised by a frequent tendency to either minimise suffering and tragedy or even deny it outright as illusory. Again I want to emphasise that this tendency is only 'frequent' - it is not consistent. There are significant exceptions.
But today I am going to focus on a book, which I believe exemplifies this frequent pattern – and which has gathered wide respect indeed within the holistic orbit.
The book is called A Course in Miracles – and it impossible for me to deny that it is a work of Genius. First, a word of what I mean by that term.
I recall when I first met Shakespeare. I met Shakespeare, when first I realised, what it was to stand in awe of Genius.
Stunned, I realised there was so, so, SO much in his tragedies, operating on so many levels, simultaneously. Layer upon layer of characterisation, penetrating psychological insight, spiritual wisdom, pathos, irony, social commentary and more – all woven together in a way which far surpassed any literature I had ever come across.
To top it all off, Shakespeare had managed to express his vast, complex vision in **poetry**. All was in iambic pentameter and included some of the most beautiful and memorable lines ever committed to English.
I actually feel something like that in response to A Course in Miracles.
Now one may wish to call it a towering work of ANTI-CHRISTIAN Genius, if one likes.
But I defy any thoughtful person to spend much time with this book, and not conclude that its author possesses an extroadinarily – I want to repeat EXTROADINARILY - sophisticated mind.
A vast and consistent vision of the nature of reality is presented, laden with **brilliant** insights into the dynamics of human psychology. And like Shakespeare, an immense amount of the text is in poetry – in fact, the same iambic pentameter employed by the bard. At many points, the language is very beautiful indeed.
As it happens, this is a 'channelled' text. The woman who received it, could not have possibly authored it in her normal every day consciousness.
But when it comes to the Course -unlike 99.8 % of New Age channelled texts - I must confess to feeling awe.
Now, the basic thrust of the Course’s message is that the world we see is illusory.
The Course posits two orders of perception. One order is real. The other is unreal.
At the outset, the Course itself states that its message can be "summed up very simply in this way:
Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God."
Thus, the course has definite similarities to Platonism, Gnosticism, Vedanta – and so on. All of which posit that we experience a world of shadow or Maya – illusion.
This thinking is not even completely foreign to Christianity – inasmuch as Christianity is not dualist. Unlike certain Gnostics, Christians do not propose two equal, opposed orders of darkness and light. The world of Darkness does not have the same, ultimate eternal validity as that of God …
But the implications the Course draws from its position are radical indeed.
Now I must confess that I have never studied the Course in its 1,200 page entirety. Nonetheless I have substantially engaged with it over the years – also through the writings of its leading commentators.
Although one must be wary indeed of reducing a vast system to a simple summary, for my part I truly believe the following words represent the message that the Course is giving. Friends, I have struggled, really struggled to do justice to the Course, and this is what I believe its message necessarily **entails**:
In reality – Hitler never murdered the Jews. The genocide committed by Stalin, Mao, the European conquerors of the indigenous Americans and so forth, in reality never happened.
Similarity – in reality – global warming, the ravages of poverty, third world sweatshops, child abuse … the list goes on – all of these are not happening. Threats are unreal and what is unreal does not exist.
And it is only through understanding this basic unreality behind all suffering, that forgiveness is even possible.
The Course is a call to forgiveness at every level. Forgiveness for the Course is THE means of salvation.
But forgiveness **only** becomes possible for the Course, when we realise that every wrong done - from the most minor insult to the most sadistic torture - has not been done – in reality.
‘In reality’ is the key here. Whatever is precisely meant by these two words ‘in reality’. I am struggling to do justice here, and in that spirit, I ask you to focus on these two words I am repeatedly stressing as the key …
Now, on this basis, the Course goes on to deconstruct a vast, vast amount of Christianity.
According to the Course, the ONLY meaning of the Crucifixion was ‘to demonstrate that the most outrageous assault, as judged by the ego, does not matter’ – again, because ‘in reality’ it never happened. The Course amplifies its message about the Crucifixion by saying ‘destruction itself is impossible, anything that is destructible cannot be real’.
Thus two millennia of Christian (traditional and esoteric) understandings of the Crucifixion, which stand in the most profound contrast to this idea, are repeatedly dismissed by the Course as misunderstandings.
Tomorrow, I shall continue with the Course’s deconstruction of Christianity.
But in doing so, I hope never to get too far away from my main theme – which is that of New Age teachings, which serve to efface tragedy and suffering.
For I believe the Course, which met with deep respect wherever I ventured in the New Age milieu, is but an outstandingly developed example of a general New Age tendency of thought.
I have been suggesting that the New Age milieu can be characterised by a frequent tendency to either minimise suffering and tragedy or even deny it outright as illusory. Again I want to emphasise that this tendency is only 'frequent' - it is not consistent. There are significant exceptions.
But today I am going to focus on a book, which I believe exemplifies this frequent pattern – and which has gathered wide respect indeed within the holistic orbit.
The book is called A Course in Miracles – and it impossible for me to deny that it is a work of Genius. First, a word of what I mean by that term.
I recall when I first met Shakespeare. I met Shakespeare, when first I realised, what it was to stand in awe of Genius.
Stunned, I realised there was so, so, SO much in his tragedies, operating on so many levels, simultaneously. Layer upon layer of characterisation, penetrating psychological insight, spiritual wisdom, pathos, irony, social commentary and more – all woven together in a way which far surpassed any literature I had ever come across.
To top it all off, Shakespeare had managed to express his vast, complex vision in **poetry**. All was in iambic pentameter and included some of the most beautiful and memorable lines ever committed to English.
I actually feel something like that in response to A Course in Miracles.
Now one may wish to call it a towering work of ANTI-CHRISTIAN Genius, if one likes.
But I defy any thoughtful person to spend much time with this book, and not conclude that its author possesses an extroadinarily – I want to repeat EXTROADINARILY - sophisticated mind.
A vast and consistent vision of the nature of reality is presented, laden with **brilliant** insights into the dynamics of human psychology. And like Shakespeare, an immense amount of the text is in poetry – in fact, the same iambic pentameter employed by the bard. At many points, the language is very beautiful indeed.
As it happens, this is a 'channelled' text. The woman who received it, could not have possibly authored it in her normal every day consciousness.
But when it comes to the Course -unlike 99.8 % of New Age channelled texts - I must confess to feeling awe.
Now, the basic thrust of the Course’s message is that the world we see is illusory.
The Course posits two orders of perception. One order is real. The other is unreal.
At the outset, the Course itself states that its message can be "summed up very simply in this way:
Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God."
Thus, the course has definite similarities to Platonism, Gnosticism, Vedanta – and so on. All of which posit that we experience a world of shadow or Maya – illusion.
This thinking is not even completely foreign to Christianity – inasmuch as Christianity is not dualist. Unlike certain Gnostics, Christians do not propose two equal, opposed orders of darkness and light. The world of Darkness does not have the same, ultimate eternal validity as that of God …
But the implications the Course draws from its position are radical indeed.
Now I must confess that I have never studied the Course in its 1,200 page entirety. Nonetheless I have substantially engaged with it over the years – also through the writings of its leading commentators.
Although one must be wary indeed of reducing a vast system to a simple summary, for my part I truly believe the following words represent the message that the Course is giving. Friends, I have struggled, really struggled to do justice to the Course, and this is what I believe its message necessarily **entails**:
In reality – Hitler never murdered the Jews. The genocide committed by Stalin, Mao, the European conquerors of the indigenous Americans and so forth, in reality never happened.
Similarity – in reality – global warming, the ravages of poverty, third world sweatshops, child abuse … the list goes on – all of these are not happening. Threats are unreal and what is unreal does not exist.
And it is only through understanding this basic unreality behind all suffering, that forgiveness is even possible.
The Course is a call to forgiveness at every level. Forgiveness for the Course is THE means of salvation.
But forgiveness **only** becomes possible for the Course, when we realise that every wrong done - from the most minor insult to the most sadistic torture - has not been done – in reality.
‘In reality’ is the key here. Whatever is precisely meant by these two words ‘in reality’. I am struggling to do justice here, and in that spirit, I ask you to focus on these two words I am repeatedly stressing as the key …
Now, on this basis, the Course goes on to deconstruct a vast, vast amount of Christianity.
According to the Course, the ONLY meaning of the Crucifixion was ‘to demonstrate that the most outrageous assault, as judged by the ego, does not matter’ – again, because ‘in reality’ it never happened. The Course amplifies its message about the Crucifixion by saying ‘destruction itself is impossible, anything that is destructible cannot be real’.
Thus two millennia of Christian (traditional and esoteric) understandings of the Crucifixion, which stand in the most profound contrast to this idea, are repeatedly dismissed by the Course as misunderstandings.
Tomorrow, I shall continue with the Course’s deconstruction of Christianity.
But in doing so, I hope never to get too far away from my main theme – which is that of New Age teachings, which serve to efface tragedy and suffering.
For I believe the Course, which met with deep respect wherever I ventured in the New Age milieu, is but an outstandingly developed example of a general New Age tendency of thought.
Friday, April 07, 2006
Confessions XIII (A Jew, a Catholic and a New-Ager go to Hell...)
Dear Friends, Known and Unknown,
Two days ago, I spoke of a distinct New Age motif that ‘either suffering is illusory or it is unimportant compared to a transcendent joy at the heart of the universe.’ And I had hoped to go further into that territory by now.
But I confess that I need more time to revise and reflect.
Strange as it may seem, much of what I have for you today, is the memory of a joke. Only the memory, for I cannot even fully recall it:
A Jew, a Catholic and a New-Ager go to Hell. The intensity of the flames is searing. And they are each of them asked: ‘How do you cope with the HEAT?'
The Jew responds perhaps with a certain lamentation, but the specific form I no longer recall.
The Catholic says: ‘I’m offering it up.’
The New Ager – who is positively drenched in perspiration - replies: ‘Heat? What heat?’
Now my partial recollection of this joke may or may not bring a smile to your face.
But I feel my entire life experience of the New Age and Catholic Christianity, points to the fact there is far more here than just a silly joke.
For Catholic spirituality, suffering is not something to be denied. It is to be taken seriously, and transformed with the Grace of God. This theme powerfully informs the entire Catholic sensibility.
But after many, many years in the holistic milieu, I can testify that the New Age is often, if not always, powerfully informed by a relativising, minimising or denial of suffering and its value.
Now it needs to be said this is far from the entire picture. There are many ways in which this New Age tendency is powerfully counteracted within the movement. Among these is an often fine PRAXIS of really engaging with another human being - truly making space for and listening to her or his inner world.
But as much as I admire the real health of this **praxis**, it nonetheless remains true that I am concerned about the **thinking** imparted by so much New Age teaching.
For what we think is not without effect upon our lives. And the presence of such a powerful spiritual teaching about suffering, will not be without its practical consequences.
As I have said, I am concerned that among these is a certain weakening of the personality and nonchalance in the face of social injustice.
Now if this is true, it is not without consquence for civilisation.
For in the Protestant countries in Europe especially, the Christian Mystery is severely weakened. In places like Ireland, Italy and Poland, the picture is rather different. But in Protestant Europe, few participate in the Church.
I think it may be fair to surmise that the dominant form of spirituality in such countries is now of a New Age variety. In such places then, one’s main options may seem to consist of either the soulless materialism of secularist capitalism or the New Age culture.
Certainly, twenty-six years ago in Britain these were the only options I personally saw. And I think this is much more likely to be the case for many today.
But I fear neither secularism nor New Age spirituality are proving sufficient to meet the situation of the planet.
The failures of secularism are clear to many of a Hermetic persuasion. But the failures of the so-called holistic panoply are often not so clear.
And so I hope to return to this theme on WEDNESDAY. But here I will also say that due to many pressing concerns, this weblog will either soon need to become more sporadic for awhile or take yet another hiatus.
As Passion Sunday and Holy Week approach, may Christ be ever with you, friends.
Two days ago, I spoke of a distinct New Age motif that ‘either suffering is illusory or it is unimportant compared to a transcendent joy at the heart of the universe.’ And I had hoped to go further into that territory by now.
But I confess that I need more time to revise and reflect.
Strange as it may seem, much of what I have for you today, is the memory of a joke. Only the memory, for I cannot even fully recall it:
A Jew, a Catholic and a New-Ager go to Hell. The intensity of the flames is searing. And they are each of them asked: ‘How do you cope with the HEAT?'
The Jew responds perhaps with a certain lamentation, but the specific form I no longer recall.
The Catholic says: ‘I’m offering it up.’
The New Ager – who is positively drenched in perspiration - replies: ‘Heat? What heat?’
Now my partial recollection of this joke may or may not bring a smile to your face.
But I feel my entire life experience of the New Age and Catholic Christianity, points to the fact there is far more here than just a silly joke.
For Catholic spirituality, suffering is not something to be denied. It is to be taken seriously, and transformed with the Grace of God. This theme powerfully informs the entire Catholic sensibility.
But after many, many years in the holistic milieu, I can testify that the New Age is often, if not always, powerfully informed by a relativising, minimising or denial of suffering and its value.
Now it needs to be said this is far from the entire picture. There are many ways in which this New Age tendency is powerfully counteracted within the movement. Among these is an often fine PRAXIS of really engaging with another human being - truly making space for and listening to her or his inner world.
But as much as I admire the real health of this **praxis**, it nonetheless remains true that I am concerned about the **thinking** imparted by so much New Age teaching.
For what we think is not without effect upon our lives. And the presence of such a powerful spiritual teaching about suffering, will not be without its practical consequences.
As I have said, I am concerned that among these is a certain weakening of the personality and nonchalance in the face of social injustice.
Now if this is true, it is not without consquence for civilisation.
For in the Protestant countries in Europe especially, the Christian Mystery is severely weakened. In places like Ireland, Italy and Poland, the picture is rather different. But in Protestant Europe, few participate in the Church.
I think it may be fair to surmise that the dominant form of spirituality in such countries is now of a New Age variety. In such places then, one’s main options may seem to consist of either the soulless materialism of secularist capitalism or the New Age culture.
Certainly, twenty-six years ago in Britain these were the only options I personally saw. And I think this is much more likely to be the case for many today.
But I fear neither secularism nor New Age spirituality are proving sufficient to meet the situation of the planet.
The failures of secularism are clear to many of a Hermetic persuasion. But the failures of the so-called holistic panoply are often not so clear.
And so I hope to return to this theme on WEDNESDAY. But here I will also say that due to many pressing concerns, this weblog will either soon need to become more sporadic for awhile or take yet another hiatus.
As Passion Sunday and Holy Week approach, may Christ be ever with you, friends.
Thursday, April 06, 2006
Confessions XII (Communion and Atomisation)
Dear Friends, Known and Unknown,
Yesterday I have spoken of the need for a spirituality not blind to tragedy and a spirituality which recognises that, in our broken-ness, we cannot make it by ourselves.
We need Grace – and all my experience has pointed me to the power of the Grace, which flows through the early structures and traditions of the Church (still preserved in Orthodoxy and Catholicism).
It is moreover a Grace, I believe, which emphasises communion and co-operation.
Now in time, I hope to say more on this. For now, I will only say that I believe there is a particular communitarian sensibility to Catholicism – linked to a sense of God as mediated through the community (i.e. the Church) and which many writers have remarked on.
(This subject is often addressed vis-à-vis the more individual sensibility of Protestantism, with its stress on a unique, unmediated relation with a God, who has often been emphasised as more transcendent or radically ‘other’).
Thus, the Catholic sociologist Andrew Greeley speaks of a distinct Catholic Imagination. He argues that Catholics are socialised to see reality differently – with God’s sacramental presence running like a thread through family and community. He argues that Catholics bond more tightly as a result – though not always with healthy results.
Personally I feel Greeley’s analysis depends too much on ideas such as socialisation – and not nearly enough on the Mystery of the Sacraments. I was not socialised as a child to be Catholic – but I do think the Sacraments are changing me in the precise directions he indicates. For example. very human ties become ever more precious …
Whatever the origins of the Catholic communitarian ethos however, I believe there is much else to indicate that the traditional forms of the Church promote communion. The comparatively few schisms within the two millennia of Orthodoxy and Catholicism, also point to this, for example.
Now I believe that the Protestant emphasis on the individual also has tremendous value and necessity.
But as I consider Time magazine’s simple chilling headline ‘Earth at the TIPPING point’, I fear we have tipped too far into **atomisation**. And now more than ever, human co-operation and community is needed …
Here sitting at my computer in Ireland, my heart and mind are reeling at the world situation.
Here in Ireland … which still has far and away the most amazing communitarian ethos, I ever encountered among the various countries in which I lived.
Ireland which until only recently, never spawned a true right-wing party – having rejected such for decades. Ireland, where in even small cities, one can find churches with several daily masses and astonishing numbers participating in each.
Yes, Ireland for so long you rejected the secularist capitalism of the West. You were even described in tones that shivered many a spine, as ‘the greatest Theocracy West of Tehran’.
Was all of this simply Catholic socialisation – or was the Mystery of the Sacraments also a factor?
Personally, I believe it was. And when I consider the rupture from Tradition in the last centuries and the atomising trajectory, which followed in its wake, I feel my heart crying out ever more that something fundamental has been lost.
That there is something fundamentally flawed in this trajectory. A trajectory that is, that begins in the Renaissance, with the dismantling of Tradition.
Whether it is the Rationalism of Descartes, who needs to subject everything to **doubt**, in order to start building afresh.
Or whether it is the Reformation of those noble souls sincerely indignant at the very real abuses of the Church – yes, the terrible abuses, which nonetheless did not justify casting aspersions on vast masses of Christian inspiration – simply because they are not to be found in sola scriptura (i.e. the Bible alone).
Yes more and more troubled, I confess that my heart looks to that pre-Reformation tradition, and it wonders and wonders.
O Holy Mother Church, are you holding far more than we can ever see – far, far more that is directly relevant to addressing the ravaging of people and planet?
As I enter your Sacraments ever more deeply, I feel that I see, or I begin to see, something far more vital and needed within you than I ever imagined …
Now do not mistake me, dear friend. I do not wish for one moment to suggest that the Sacraments –as powerful as I experience them to be - are the only way that Christ’s Grace is available.
No, I certainly share John Paul II’s faith that this Grace comes through other religions and other paths (see my entry for 14-11-05). Personally, I become more keenly appreciative of all religious paths, which seek to honour and engage the roots of their tradition.
But the point I am stumbling towards, is that instead of a trajectory which moves ever more towards an atomised spirituality, where each of us simply does ‘our own thing’; instead of a spirituality divorced from the collective insight of a community across time (though often, it must be said, filled with fawning approbation towards the latest spiritual fad) – instead of all this, is it now more urgent than ever, that we look to what we have lost?
Is it time to realise that neither the Rationalism initiated (in a sense) by Descartes, and which underpins the secular capitalist world, nor atomised spirituality can cope with what is to come ?
O Holy Mother Church, is that what you whisper in my heart, as almost daily I join you in your Sacraments, and feel that I hear your loving, tender voice ever more vividly?
Yes I hear your voice, your Grace – and for this reason I have hope. We are not alone. Christ, Mary, the Angels and the Saints are ever with us …
Yesterday I have spoken of the need for a spirituality not blind to tragedy and a spirituality which recognises that, in our broken-ness, we cannot make it by ourselves.
We need Grace – and all my experience has pointed me to the power of the Grace, which flows through the early structures and traditions of the Church (still preserved in Orthodoxy and Catholicism).
It is moreover a Grace, I believe, which emphasises communion and co-operation.
Now in time, I hope to say more on this. For now, I will only say that I believe there is a particular communitarian sensibility to Catholicism – linked to a sense of God as mediated through the community (i.e. the Church) and which many writers have remarked on.
(This subject is often addressed vis-à-vis the more individual sensibility of Protestantism, with its stress on a unique, unmediated relation with a God, who has often been emphasised as more transcendent or radically ‘other’).
Thus, the Catholic sociologist Andrew Greeley speaks of a distinct Catholic Imagination. He argues that Catholics are socialised to see reality differently – with God’s sacramental presence running like a thread through family and community. He argues that Catholics bond more tightly as a result – though not always with healthy results.
Personally I feel Greeley’s analysis depends too much on ideas such as socialisation – and not nearly enough on the Mystery of the Sacraments. I was not socialised as a child to be Catholic – but I do think the Sacraments are changing me in the precise directions he indicates. For example. very human ties become ever more precious …
Whatever the origins of the Catholic communitarian ethos however, I believe there is much else to indicate that the traditional forms of the Church promote communion. The comparatively few schisms within the two millennia of Orthodoxy and Catholicism, also point to this, for example.
Now I believe that the Protestant emphasis on the individual also has tremendous value and necessity.
But as I consider Time magazine’s simple chilling headline ‘Earth at the TIPPING point’, I fear we have tipped too far into **atomisation**. And now more than ever, human co-operation and community is needed …
Here sitting at my computer in Ireland, my heart and mind are reeling at the world situation.
Here in Ireland … which still has far and away the most amazing communitarian ethos, I ever encountered among the various countries in which I lived.
Ireland which until only recently, never spawned a true right-wing party – having rejected such for decades. Ireland, where in even small cities, one can find churches with several daily masses and astonishing numbers participating in each.
Yes, Ireland for so long you rejected the secularist capitalism of the West. You were even described in tones that shivered many a spine, as ‘the greatest Theocracy West of Tehran’.
Was all of this simply Catholic socialisation – or was the Mystery of the Sacraments also a factor?
Personally, I believe it was. And when I consider the rupture from Tradition in the last centuries and the atomising trajectory, which followed in its wake, I feel my heart crying out ever more that something fundamental has been lost.
That there is something fundamentally flawed in this trajectory. A trajectory that is, that begins in the Renaissance, with the dismantling of Tradition.
Whether it is the Rationalism of Descartes, who needs to subject everything to **doubt**, in order to start building afresh.
Or whether it is the Reformation of those noble souls sincerely indignant at the very real abuses of the Church – yes, the terrible abuses, which nonetheless did not justify casting aspersions on vast masses of Christian inspiration – simply because they are not to be found in sola scriptura (i.e. the Bible alone).
Yes more and more troubled, I confess that my heart looks to that pre-Reformation tradition, and it wonders and wonders.
O Holy Mother Church, are you holding far more than we can ever see – far, far more that is directly relevant to addressing the ravaging of people and planet?
As I enter your Sacraments ever more deeply, I feel that I see, or I begin to see, something far more vital and needed within you than I ever imagined …
Now do not mistake me, dear friend. I do not wish for one moment to suggest that the Sacraments –as powerful as I experience them to be - are the only way that Christ’s Grace is available.
No, I certainly share John Paul II’s faith that this Grace comes through other religions and other paths (see my entry for 14-11-05). Personally, I become more keenly appreciative of all religious paths, which seek to honour and engage the roots of their tradition.
But the point I am stumbling towards, is that instead of a trajectory which moves ever more towards an atomised spirituality, where each of us simply does ‘our own thing’; instead of a spirituality divorced from the collective insight of a community across time (though often, it must be said, filled with fawning approbation towards the latest spiritual fad) – instead of all this, is it now more urgent than ever, that we look to what we have lost?
Is it time to realise that neither the Rationalism initiated (in a sense) by Descartes, and which underpins the secular capitalist world, nor atomised spirituality can cope with what is to come ?
O Holy Mother Church, is that what you whisper in my heart, as almost daily I join you in your Sacraments, and feel that I hear your loving, tender voice ever more vividly?
Yes I hear your voice, your Grace – and for this reason I have hope. We are not alone. Christ, Mary, the Angels and the Saints are ever with us …
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Confessions XI (Christian and New Age Responses to Suffering)
Dear Friends, Known and Unknown,
Today I will say more of why I now feel the New Age Model is flawed in its ability to respond to the demands of social and environmental justice.
But first, a further word on Catholicism. For again, these are my personal confessions, as I look back on my New Age past, through the lens of my Catholic Christian experience.
Now, this experience included a growing astonishment - an astonishment as to how very, very rich the Catholic tradition truly was.
I, who all my New Age life, had simply assumed it was anachronistic and largely irrelevant to the future. O monstrous presumption! The barefaced arrogance of youth to dismiss an immense tradition - of which I was almost entirely ignorant.
But enough of personal regret. What I would focus on now, is that among many other aspects of the Catholic tradition, I was slowly amazed to discover its extensive **engagement** with the suffering and social conditions of the modern world.
Now this happens **practically** through countless Catholic initiatives to render aid throughout the globe. But there is also a highly developed **theoretical** work proceeding apace – which is popularly called Catholic Social Teaching.
Yes, while the media would focus us on little else but Catholic positions on gender and sexuality, the Catholic Church has been quietly amassing reams of acute, penetrating social analysis -including papal, episcopal and conciliar thinking -most of which is very challenging to the kind of corporate libertarianism now devastating the world.
Though this is not the place to detail it, I simply wish to offer my view, that here is a formidable and penetrating teaching, relating to the abuses of capitalism and consumerism and oriented towards more humane systems of society.
And for me, it is a vastly more convincing effort than anything I encountered through the New Age. Yes here and there, I found New Agers with critiques of social injustice – which were sometimes moving and acute.
And many in the New Age movement also have a developed environmental awareness – at least at a level of individual or local action. Findhorn where I lived, is building an inspiring eco-village, for example. Yes when I look at Findhorn, with its wind-energy, its living sewage system (sewage purified by living organisms, not chemicals) eco-buildings and so forth – I must deeply honour its Green commitment and awareness.
Yet for a sustained critical analysis as to the causes and many of the costs of capitalist globalisation, I confess I find much more hope in Catholic Social Teaching. As also direct Catholic social action inspires me with hope.
And by contrast, it seems to me that so much of the New Age movement is all-too-accommodating to commercialist capitalism.
And I confess that I see a link between this frequent myopia to social injustice and the New Age Stripping of Tradition.
As I have said, I am concerned the New Age Stripping of Tradition can lead to losing a sense of the Fall, of Tragedy, of Evil.
But it may be that it is **precisely** these qualities which are NEEDED to awaken the heart to social justice. And which strengthen our **resolve** to address the suffering of the world.
Yes, for this reason, the traditional teaching of the Church may be more necessary than ever … to address the suffering of the world.
For as I shall come to express more fully, I am disturbed by another feature of New Age thought, which I experienced in many forms over the years.
It involves a denial of suffering. It is a denial in the affirmation that either suffering is illusory or it is unimportant, compared to a transcendent light and joy at the heart of the universe.
Now I do not deny that what is ultimately most real is God and God is love. And to love involves the profoundest of joys. But to love is also to feel the depth of compassion and to suffer in that compassion.
Thus the God of the Christian Tradition embodies profound opposites – the most Unfathomable Joy of Love and the most Unfathomable Suffering of Love. The God I believe in, is not remote, but is suffering with us.
But this God is lost in so, so much New Age teaching ...
More will be said. For now, I simply emphasise that a spirituality of excessive optimism can shade into denial. And a soul in denial is not equipped to bear or address suffering. On the contrary, this soul must inevitably become **weakened **.
Thus, when I look out on the challenges of the New Millennium, I see a need for spirituality which **strengthens** us. Yet this it seems to me, is not a spirituality of excess light, but rather one that also confronts the fact that we are fallen. We are broken and weak. The condition of the planet testifies all too painfully to our brokenness and our weakness ...
But we are not alone and and we are not unaided. And thus I also see a need for a spirituality, which acknowledges that Supernatural Grace is there to help us. There is the Grace of Christ. There is the Grace flowing through the Angelic Hierarchies and through the Communion of Saints. And there is the Grace flowing through the Sacraments …
Today I will say more of why I now feel the New Age Model is flawed in its ability to respond to the demands of social and environmental justice.
But first, a further word on Catholicism. For again, these are my personal confessions, as I look back on my New Age past, through the lens of my Catholic Christian experience.
Now, this experience included a growing astonishment - an astonishment as to how very, very rich the Catholic tradition truly was.
I, who all my New Age life, had simply assumed it was anachronistic and largely irrelevant to the future. O monstrous presumption! The barefaced arrogance of youth to dismiss an immense tradition - of which I was almost entirely ignorant.
But enough of personal regret. What I would focus on now, is that among many other aspects of the Catholic tradition, I was slowly amazed to discover its extensive **engagement** with the suffering and social conditions of the modern world.
Now this happens **practically** through countless Catholic initiatives to render aid throughout the globe. But there is also a highly developed **theoretical** work proceeding apace – which is popularly called Catholic Social Teaching.
Yes, while the media would focus us on little else but Catholic positions on gender and sexuality, the Catholic Church has been quietly amassing reams of acute, penetrating social analysis -including papal, episcopal and conciliar thinking -most of which is very challenging to the kind of corporate libertarianism now devastating the world.
Though this is not the place to detail it, I simply wish to offer my view, that here is a formidable and penetrating teaching, relating to the abuses of capitalism and consumerism and oriented towards more humane systems of society.
And for me, it is a vastly more convincing effort than anything I encountered through the New Age. Yes here and there, I found New Agers with critiques of social injustice – which were sometimes moving and acute.
And many in the New Age movement also have a developed environmental awareness – at least at a level of individual or local action. Findhorn where I lived, is building an inspiring eco-village, for example. Yes when I look at Findhorn, with its wind-energy, its living sewage system (sewage purified by living organisms, not chemicals) eco-buildings and so forth – I must deeply honour its Green commitment and awareness.
Yet for a sustained critical analysis as to the causes and many of the costs of capitalist globalisation, I confess I find much more hope in Catholic Social Teaching. As also direct Catholic social action inspires me with hope.
And by contrast, it seems to me that so much of the New Age movement is all-too-accommodating to commercialist capitalism.
And I confess that I see a link between this frequent myopia to social injustice and the New Age Stripping of Tradition.
As I have said, I am concerned the New Age Stripping of Tradition can lead to losing a sense of the Fall, of Tragedy, of Evil.
But it may be that it is **precisely** these qualities which are NEEDED to awaken the heart to social justice. And which strengthen our **resolve** to address the suffering of the world.
Yes, for this reason, the traditional teaching of the Church may be more necessary than ever … to address the suffering of the world.
For as I shall come to express more fully, I am disturbed by another feature of New Age thought, which I experienced in many forms over the years.
It involves a denial of suffering. It is a denial in the affirmation that either suffering is illusory or it is unimportant, compared to a transcendent light and joy at the heart of the universe.
Now I do not deny that what is ultimately most real is God and God is love. And to love involves the profoundest of joys. But to love is also to feel the depth of compassion and to suffer in that compassion.
Thus the God of the Christian Tradition embodies profound opposites – the most Unfathomable Joy of Love and the most Unfathomable Suffering of Love. The God I believe in, is not remote, but is suffering with us.
But this God is lost in so, so much New Age teaching ...
More will be said. For now, I simply emphasise that a spirituality of excessive optimism can shade into denial. And a soul in denial is not equipped to bear or address suffering. On the contrary, this soul must inevitably become **weakened **.
Thus, when I look out on the challenges of the New Millennium, I see a need for spirituality which **strengthens** us. Yet this it seems to me, is not a spirituality of excess light, but rather one that also confronts the fact that we are fallen. We are broken and weak. The condition of the planet testifies all too painfully to our brokenness and our weakness ...
But we are not alone and and we are not unaided. And thus I also see a need for a spirituality, which acknowledges that Supernatural Grace is there to help us. There is the Grace of Christ. There is the Grace flowing through the Angelic Hierarchies and through the Communion of Saints. And there is the Grace flowing through the Sacraments …
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Confessions X (Global Warming, ‘Soft’ Totalitarianism and the New Age)
Dear Friends, Known and Unknown,
This last weekend I have perused the latest copy of a magazine I dislike. The magazine is Time, and the reason I dislike it, is its tone of subtle, ‘soft’ TOTALITARIANISM.
By this I mean that time and again, Time presents its readers with the image that there is no alternative available to the world, other than capitalist globalisation.
One can feel this image, for example, in Time’s attitude towards France. At least, in reading Time's 'reportage', I myself find a continuous, editorialising tone, which runs something like this – when will the elements of French culture opposed to capitalist globalisation, finally get **real**, realise there is no alternative, and ‘get with the beat’?
Get with the global capitalist beat. ‘Resistance is futile’ – to borrow the chilling words of the Borg from Star Trek … It is futile for France or anyone else to mark out a different path.
Never mind that many French feel an alien ‘Anglo-Saxon’ ideology is being imposed on them – now is the time for the French to embrace unhesitatingly the values espoused by Time magazine. Or suffer the consequences.
This is what I mean by 'soft' totalitarianism. Margaret Thatcher’s brutal devastation of Britain’s social patrimony was founded on a similar principle. A famous speech she gave in the 1980’s was nicknamed by the acronym TINA: There Is No Alternative. All of this strikes me as little other than totalitarian – subtle or not.
Be that as it may, I have spent more time with Time this weekend, because of its issue (on sale now) devoted to Global Warming. A poignant picture of a Polar Bear walking on breaking ice adorns a cover with the headlines: 'Be Worried. Be VERY Worried. … Earth at the TIPPING point'.
The magazine then offers further heart-breaking imagery of droughts, flooded communities, forest fires, endangered species and more.
But nowhere do I see much sense of any alternative to the capitalist consumerist lifestyle, that is bringing this horror and suffering. Time it seems, can only hope that capitalism will find a technological fix.
Yes cleaner energy is a necessary goal, but I fear the only REAL solution involves addressing a vast, collective addiction to materialism, lived in a hyper-individual context. We will need to live more collectively, less atomised, and more simply.
All of this may seem far removed from the theme of these confessions. But for me, it is not.
The suffering of humanity, animals and nature depicted by Time is very real. And if our problem is addiction to such an extent that the media forces which guide and shape us, cannot even *begin* to imagine another alternative, we will need to deal with that addiction.
And it seems to me that, more than ever, we will need a different spiritual framework, with which to engage it. The framework of Time, its sponsors, priests and teachers will not do.
Now hardly surprisingly, I no longer believe that the ascending, even dominant New Age spirituality is up to the task. In fact, after living nearly two decades with New Age spirituality, I suspect that there are basic flaws in its model, which may even weaken people in terms of their capacity to address the suffering of the world.
Yes, I am concerned that the practical consequences of much New Age spirituality may involve both a slumbering of the heart in certain regards, as well as a certain inability to accommodate the demands of a suffering world, and of social justice.
And why I fear this, I shall expand upon tomorrow. In time, I also hope to draw out elements of Catholicism, which seem to me, far more genuinely counter-cultural and less accommodating to secularist capitalism, than much of the New Age.
I also hope to suggest that this counter-cultural stance naturally flows from a spirituality oriented to both the tragic realities of suffering and to the **supernatural** Grace of Redemption …
This last weekend I have perused the latest copy of a magazine I dislike. The magazine is Time, and the reason I dislike it, is its tone of subtle, ‘soft’ TOTALITARIANISM.
By this I mean that time and again, Time presents its readers with the image that there is no alternative available to the world, other than capitalist globalisation.
One can feel this image, for example, in Time’s attitude towards France. At least, in reading Time's 'reportage', I myself find a continuous, editorialising tone, which runs something like this – when will the elements of French culture opposed to capitalist globalisation, finally get **real**, realise there is no alternative, and ‘get with the beat’?
Get with the global capitalist beat. ‘Resistance is futile’ – to borrow the chilling words of the Borg from Star Trek … It is futile for France or anyone else to mark out a different path.
Never mind that many French feel an alien ‘Anglo-Saxon’ ideology is being imposed on them – now is the time for the French to embrace unhesitatingly the values espoused by Time magazine. Or suffer the consequences.
This is what I mean by 'soft' totalitarianism. Margaret Thatcher’s brutal devastation of Britain’s social patrimony was founded on a similar principle. A famous speech she gave in the 1980’s was nicknamed by the acronym TINA: There Is No Alternative. All of this strikes me as little other than totalitarian – subtle or not.
Be that as it may, I have spent more time with Time this weekend, because of its issue (on sale now) devoted to Global Warming. A poignant picture of a Polar Bear walking on breaking ice adorns a cover with the headlines: 'Be Worried. Be VERY Worried. … Earth at the TIPPING point'.
The magazine then offers further heart-breaking imagery of droughts, flooded communities, forest fires, endangered species and more.
But nowhere do I see much sense of any alternative to the capitalist consumerist lifestyle, that is bringing this horror and suffering. Time it seems, can only hope that capitalism will find a technological fix.
Yes cleaner energy is a necessary goal, but I fear the only REAL solution involves addressing a vast, collective addiction to materialism, lived in a hyper-individual context. We will need to live more collectively, less atomised, and more simply.
All of this may seem far removed from the theme of these confessions. But for me, it is not.
The suffering of humanity, animals and nature depicted by Time is very real. And if our problem is addiction to such an extent that the media forces which guide and shape us, cannot even *begin* to imagine another alternative, we will need to deal with that addiction.
And it seems to me that, more than ever, we will need a different spiritual framework, with which to engage it. The framework of Time, its sponsors, priests and teachers will not do.
Now hardly surprisingly, I no longer believe that the ascending, even dominant New Age spirituality is up to the task. In fact, after living nearly two decades with New Age spirituality, I suspect that there are basic flaws in its model, which may even weaken people in terms of their capacity to address the suffering of the world.
Yes, I am concerned that the practical consequences of much New Age spirituality may involve both a slumbering of the heart in certain regards, as well as a certain inability to accommodate the demands of a suffering world, and of social justice.
And why I fear this, I shall expand upon tomorrow. In time, I also hope to draw out elements of Catholicism, which seem to me, far more genuinely counter-cultural and less accommodating to secularist capitalism, than much of the New Age.
I also hope to suggest that this counter-cultural stance naturally flows from a spirituality oriented to both the tragic realities of suffering and to the **supernatural** Grace of Redemption …
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