I've always had an interest in what you might call "mere spirituality" - a kind of lowest common denominator of the spiritual - elements that might find resonance with most people who consider themselves spiritual. Stephan Hoeller (one of Jung's students) makes an interesting and suggestive list of intersections between Gnosticism and Jungian Psychology.
1) "A...spiritual...element is an organic part of the human psyche." The Gnostics divided the soul into Hyle (material body), Psyche (mind, personality) and Pneuma (spirit). Jung found in the unconscious that could only be called spiritual, elements that transcended individual and cultural limitations.
2) "This spiritual element carries on an active dialogue with the personal element of our selfhood through the use of symbols." For Jung this would include dreams, visions, altered states and even miraculous coincidences.
3) "symbols...reveal a path of spiritual...development...which can be traced...forward to a goal in the future." In Jungian terms the goal is "wholeness."
4) "the human soul is dominated by many blind and foolish powers" that our spiritual growth begins to free us from.
5) As we deal with our issues and obstacles our path lies "not out, but through."
6) "The goal of spiritual growth is expressed by images of completion in a whole"
7) "the wholeness...is characterized by all the qualities such as power, value, holiness which religious systems have always attributed to God."
Saturday, June 25, 2016
Friday, June 17, 2016
Why the Ancients? - 2
Reading a book called The Gnostic Jung.
Jung reached back to the Gnostics and the Alchemists. The neo-Jungians of different stripes reach back the gods and goddesses of ancient mythology. The men's movement reaches back to folk tales. Thomas Moore reaches back to the magicians of the Renaissance. For decades the West has been digging about in the ancient wisdom of the East. The whole New Age movement reaches back eclectically to just about any shiny object from the past that looks interesting. All an effort to "reanimate" the lifeless mechanical image of Modernism - to give it a soul (anima).
Jung reached back to the Gnostics and the Alchemists. The neo-Jungians of different stripes reach back the gods and goddesses of ancient mythology. The men's movement reaches back to folk tales. Thomas Moore reaches back to the magicians of the Renaissance. For decades the West has been digging about in the ancient wisdom of the East. The whole New Age movement reaches back eclectically to just about any shiny object from the past that looks interesting. All an effort to "reanimate" the lifeless mechanical image of Modernism - to give it a soul (anima).
Qui habet tempus, habet vitam
"Who has time, has life."
It's been a crazy week at work. Not sure I have a life....
:)
It's been a crazy week at work. Not sure I have a life....
:)
Tuesday, June 14, 2016
Tao Te Ching - 67
一 yī one
The following passage from 67 reminds me a bit of 1 Corinthians 13 -
I have three treasures -
the first is love,
the second is frugality,
the third humility.
Love makes me fearless.
Frugality makes me prosperous.
Humility makes me first.
Thus I reach my full potential.
To be fearless
without love,
to be prosperous,
without frugality,
to be first
without humility
is certain doom.
Love conquers all.
Love is impregnable.
Whom heaven wishes to protect
it surrounds with love.
The following passage from 67 reminds me a bit of 1 Corinthians 13 -
I have three treasures -
the first is love,
the second is frugality,
the third humility.
Love makes me fearless.
Frugality makes me prosperous.
Humility makes me first.
Thus I reach my full potential.
To be fearless
without love,
to be prosperous,
without frugality,
to be first
without humility
is certain doom.
Love conquers all.
Love is impregnable.
Whom heaven wishes to protect
it surrounds with love.
Sunday, June 12, 2016
Why the ancients?
You can study the ancients, you can learn every fact
You can follow the cycles that leave and come back
Bob Seger
I stopped an old man along the way
Hoping to find some long forgotten words or ancient melodies
Toto
I picked up Hugh Nibley's (and Michael Rhodes's) One Eternal Round. The whole fascination with the Ancient Egyptians arose within me from my childhood - my personal manifestation of the strange obsession the West has had with them since at least the Romantic Movement. Why the ancients? Why study dead languages? Why pour over musty manuscripts from long millennia ago? Why the related romantic turn to the middle ages and the volkerwanderung that lies before it? (The genre of fantasy is the mask it wears today).
There aren't too many who hold on these days to Magick and the thought that the ancients knew something more than we did. But I think we Moderns are still driven (haunted) by the thought that we threw a baby out with that bathwater when we launched ourselves into this brave new world. If I had to venture a guess, I'd say we are looking for Spirit.
You can follow the cycles that leave and come back
Bob Seger
I stopped an old man along the way
Hoping to find some long forgotten words or ancient melodies
Toto
I picked up Hugh Nibley's (and Michael Rhodes's) One Eternal Round. The whole fascination with the Ancient Egyptians arose within me from my childhood - my personal manifestation of the strange obsession the West has had with them since at least the Romantic Movement. Why the ancients? Why study dead languages? Why pour over musty manuscripts from long millennia ago? Why the related romantic turn to the middle ages and the volkerwanderung that lies before it? (The genre of fantasy is the mask it wears today).
There aren't too many who hold on these days to Magick and the thought that the ancients knew something more than we did. But I think we Moderns are still driven (haunted) by the thought that we threw a baby out with that bathwater when we launched ourselves into this brave new world. If I had to venture a guess, I'd say we are looking for Spirit.
Proverbs 1:1-7
I've worked my way through the first seven verses of Proverbs in Hebrew (again with a lot of help from reference books of various types). Here are my results.
The proverbs of Solomon,
the son of David, king of Israel.
To know wisdom and discipline,
to understand insightful sayings.
To take hold of the discipline of intelligence-
righteousness and judgment and straightness.
To give shrewdness to the naïve,
and knowledge and discretion to youth.
The wise will hear and add learning,
the intelligent will acquire guidance.
To understand a proverb and a parable,
the words of the wise and their riddles.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,
but fools despise wisdom and correction.
The proverbs of Solomon,
the son of David, king of Israel.
To know wisdom and discipline,
to understand insightful sayings.
To take hold of the discipline of intelligence-
righteousness and judgment and straightness.
To give shrewdness to the naïve,
and knowledge and discretion to youth.
The wise will hear and add learning,
the intelligent will acquire guidance.
To understand a proverb and a parable,
the words of the wise and their riddles.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,
but fools despise wisdom and correction.
Saturday, June 4, 2016
Hesiod 2
I've finally finished lines 12 through 26 of Works and Days
Was there but one kind of strife upon the earth?
No, there are two. A man who came to know the first
would applaud; the second he would blame. They are
two souls. One fosters evil war and ceaseless fights;
Her no mortal loves, but under force and through
will of deathless gods, men honor heavy strife.
But indeed, the other one dark Night birthed first.
Heaven dwelling Zeus, who sits on high, placed her
in the roots of earth. Much better to man is she:
rousing work in all alike - the lazy too -
for a man craves work when he sees another rich -
of a truth it urges him to plow for crops,
building well his home; neighbor with neighbor strives
goading on to wealth. This strife is good for men.
Was there but one kind of strife upon the earth?
No, there are two. A man who came to know the first
would applaud; the second he would blame. They are
two souls. One fosters evil war and ceaseless fights;
Her no mortal loves, but under force and through
will of deathless gods, men honor heavy strife.
But indeed, the other one dark Night birthed first.
Heaven dwelling Zeus, who sits on high, placed her
in the roots of earth. Much better to man is she:
rousing work in all alike - the lazy too -
for a man craves work when he sees another rich -
of a truth it urges him to plow for crops,
building well his home; neighbor with neighbor strives
goading on to wealth. This strife is good for men.
A man of one book
Timeo hominem unius libri.
"I fear a man of one book."
The adage is attributed to Thomas Aquinas. It has generally been used to disparage one whose learning was so narrow that he lacks the corrective of other points of view, other perspectives. In its original use by Aquinas, however, it expressed the formidable opponent in a debate that is presented by someone who has specialized, when the debate is on his turf. He is said to have recommended the deep study of a single book as the surest method to gain a good education.
Deep versus broad - the tension inherent in every autodidact's education. For myself I like to combine both. Broad surveys of the terrain, but when I find something that seems promising, I like to let it "possess" me as an obsession for a time.
"I fear a man of one book."
The adage is attributed to Thomas Aquinas. It has generally been used to disparage one whose learning was so narrow that he lacks the corrective of other points of view, other perspectives. In its original use by Aquinas, however, it expressed the formidable opponent in a debate that is presented by someone who has specialized, when the debate is on his turf. He is said to have recommended the deep study of a single book as the surest method to gain a good education.
Deep versus broad - the tension inherent in every autodidact's education. For myself I like to combine both. Broad surveys of the terrain, but when I find something that seems promising, I like to let it "possess" me as an obsession for a time.
Havel - Power of the Powerless 1
In Havel's classic essay, "The Power of the Powerless" he articulates the meaning, aims and basis for hope of the dissident movement in the Soviet Bloc in the years when hope seemed, well, farfetched.
Along the way he makes a statement that strikes me as a fundamental political concept that strikes at the programs of both right and left.
"A genuine, profound and lasting change for the better...can no longer result from the victory (were such a victory possible) of any particular traditional political conception, which can ultimately only be external, that is a structural or systemic conception. More than ever before, such a change will have to derive from human existence, from the fundamental reconstitution of the position of the people in the world, their relationships to themselves and to each other, and to the universe. If a better economic and political model is to be created, then perhaps more than ever before it must derive from profound existential and moral changes in society. This is not something that can be designed and introduced like a new car. If it is to be more than just a new variation of the old degeneration, it must above all be an expression of life in the process of transforming itself. A better system will not automatically ensure a better life. In fact, the opposite is true: only by creating a better life can a better system be developed."
We live in a political age. We are convinced that our solutions are political. We think in terms of making changes by elections, parties in power and laws enacted. The truth runs a little deeper. Elections and parties and laws can enforce changes that have already occurred in the nature of a people. They can't create those changes. The American Revolution worked because it was fought to protect changes THAT HAD ALREADY OCCURRED among the American people in their two hundred years of separation from the motherland. The French Revolution failed to create "equality, fraternity and liberty" because it was an attempt to CREATE A NEW SOCIETY from the top, by legislation and enforcement on a people who had neither the experience nor even necessarily the desire to live in the manner expected of them.
Alma's retreat from the Chief Judge's Seat in order to devote himself to the preaching of the word (Alma 4:15-19) seems to me to be to be based on the recognition of the priority of social change over political change. When has society reaches a certain point (and I think in the United States we may very well be approaching it) the solutions are no longer political.
Along the way he makes a statement that strikes me as a fundamental political concept that strikes at the programs of both right and left.
"A genuine, profound and lasting change for the better...can no longer result from the victory (were such a victory possible) of any particular traditional political conception, which can ultimately only be external, that is a structural or systemic conception. More than ever before, such a change will have to derive from human existence, from the fundamental reconstitution of the position of the people in the world, their relationships to themselves and to each other, and to the universe. If a better economic and political model is to be created, then perhaps more than ever before it must derive from profound existential and moral changes in society. This is not something that can be designed and introduced like a new car. If it is to be more than just a new variation of the old degeneration, it must above all be an expression of life in the process of transforming itself. A better system will not automatically ensure a better life. In fact, the opposite is true: only by creating a better life can a better system be developed."
We live in a political age. We are convinced that our solutions are political. We think in terms of making changes by elections, parties in power and laws enacted. The truth runs a little deeper. Elections and parties and laws can enforce changes that have already occurred in the nature of a people. They can't create those changes. The American Revolution worked because it was fought to protect changes THAT HAD ALREADY OCCURRED among the American people in their two hundred years of separation from the motherland. The French Revolution failed to create "equality, fraternity and liberty" because it was an attempt to CREATE A NEW SOCIETY from the top, by legislation and enforcement on a people who had neither the experience nor even necessarily the desire to live in the manner expected of them.
Alma's retreat from the Chief Judge's Seat in order to devote himself to the preaching of the word (Alma 4:15-19) seems to me to be to be based on the recognition of the priority of social change over political change. When has society reaches a certain point (and I think in the United States we may very well be approaching it) the solutions are no longer political.
Isaiah 1:1-15
My long, slow working through Isaiah in Hebrew (with the help of numerous reference guides) is still progressing. Here is my translation of the first part of the "Great Arraignment" -
The vision of Isaiah, son of Amoz,
which he saw about Judah and Jerusalem
in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, kings of Judah.
Hear heavens, give ear earth, for the Lord has spoken -
Children have I taught and brought up
and they have revolted against me.
The ox has known its owner
and the donkey its master's feeding trough,
but Israel has not known,
my people have not understood.
Wo! a nation sinning, a people heavy with iniquity,
a seed doing evil, children corrupting,
they have forsaken the Lord,
despised the Holy One of Israel,
they have drawn back.
Will you be struck again?
You will increase rebellion.
The whole head is diseased,
the whole heart sick.
From the sole of the foot to the head
there is no soundness -
a wound, a bruise, an open sore,
not pressed closed, not bound up, not softened with ointment.
Your country is waste,
your cities burned by fire,
enemies consume your land before you -
Waste! as if overthrown of enemies.
The daughter of Zion is left
as a hut in a vineyard,
as a shack in a cucumber field,
as a city besieged.
If the Lord of Hosts had not left us a tiny remnant
we had been like Sodom,
we had become as Gomorrah.
Hear the word of the Lord,
leaders of Sodom,
give ear to the law of your God,
people of Gomorrah.
Why do I have a multitude of sacrifices?
asked the Lord,
I am satiated with offerings of rams,
and the fat of plump calves.
The blood of rams, and lambs and he-goats
has not pleased me.
When you will come to appear before my face,
who required this at your hands,
to walk my courts?
Do not add to the bringing of false offerings.
Incense, it is an abomination to me.
New Moons and Sabbaths and the calling of convocations -
I cannot endure iniquity and assemblies.
And when they reach forth their hands,
I will turn my eyes from them.
And when they multiply prayers,
I do not listen -
their hands are filled with blood.
The vision of Isaiah, son of Amoz,
which he saw about Judah and Jerusalem
in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, kings of Judah.
Hear heavens, give ear earth, for the Lord has spoken -
Children have I taught and brought up
and they have revolted against me.
The ox has known its owner
and the donkey its master's feeding trough,
but Israel has not known,
my people have not understood.
Wo! a nation sinning, a people heavy with iniquity,
a seed doing evil, children corrupting,
they have forsaken the Lord,
despised the Holy One of Israel,
they have drawn back.
Will you be struck again?
You will increase rebellion.
The whole head is diseased,
the whole heart sick.
From the sole of the foot to the head
there is no soundness -
a wound, a bruise, an open sore,
not pressed closed, not bound up, not softened with ointment.
Your country is waste,
your cities burned by fire,
enemies consume your land before you -
Waste! as if overthrown of enemies.
The daughter of Zion is left
as a hut in a vineyard,
as a shack in a cucumber field,
as a city besieged.
If the Lord of Hosts had not left us a tiny remnant
we had been like Sodom,
we had become as Gomorrah.
Hear the word of the Lord,
leaders of Sodom,
give ear to the law of your God,
people of Gomorrah.
Why do I have a multitude of sacrifices?
asked the Lord,
I am satiated with offerings of rams,
and the fat of plump calves.
The blood of rams, and lambs and he-goats
has not pleased me.
When you will come to appear before my face,
who required this at your hands,
to walk my courts?
Do not add to the bringing of false offerings.
Incense, it is an abomination to me.
New Moons and Sabbaths and the calling of convocations -
I cannot endure iniquity and assemblies.
And when they reach forth their hands,
I will turn my eyes from them.
And when they multiply prayers,
I do not listen -
their hands are filled with blood.
Wednesday, June 1, 2016
Two extremes
Alter frenis, alter eget calcaribus.
"One needs a bridle, while another needs the spurs."
Most of us at any given point are in need of one or the other.
"One needs a bridle, while another needs the spurs."
Most of us at any given point are in need of one or the other.
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