Home (theory of the ego death and rebirth experience)
2 Races, Nations, or Groups: Dualist Metaphor
Contents
The core problem wrong with
religion is *literalism*. Mystic
Metaphorical Meaning of Race
Entheogenic pure allegorists alone
are the elite chosen race
Sacrificial Son of Man and the 2
races
Chosen one for what?; Degree of
chosenness
Elite higher initiation controversy
>Literalist
friends getting you down? Here's an
eye-opener:
>http://christianitysucks.com/
>Looks
to me like ex-xians getting revenge on the whole idea, but the site has some
interesting points to make. Check it
out if you like.
>Frank
The root
problem causing such trouble in religion is Literalism. I'm evaluating the books of Michael A.
Hoffman II. He is a Christian
Literalist, a right-wing (Literalist) critic of right-wing (Literalist) Jewish
religion. He complains because some
Jews are racists (actually these are *Literalist* racists, if anything) who
adhere to the idea (taken literally) of the Jews as the chosen people of God,
the superior race.
Book:
Judaism's Strange Gods
Michael
A. Hoffman II
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0970378408
Actually,
the predetermined enlightened people metaphorically described as a race is a
coherent, valuable, interesting mythic/mystic idea, but when taken literally by
religionists of whatever religion, it becomes mere vulgar racism.
I am a
mystically experienced determinist, and therefore consider myself part of the
gnostic elect, which are like a race, which are a race in a certain metaphorical
clever sense, but this is certainly *not* a matter of literal genetic or
cultural race, but specifically, *mystic* "race" or gnostic race:
those who are predestined to experience and believe in determinism.
Hoffman's
book against Jewish mysticism -- _Judaism's Strange Gods_ -- looks like an
interesting case study in literalism run amok.
He condemns modern Jews with an emphasis on those awful evil Jewish
mystics who (gasp) hold the Tanakh and Kabbalah as even higher than our dear
holy Bible -- conceived by Hoffman in a literalist way, taking Jesus'
historicity for granted, for example.
Frank
wrote:
>Michael
A Hoffman II's book was also giving Ebay migranes about 7 or 8 months ago when
the "nationalist-anarchist" Bill White of Overthrow.com was listing
it as a bidding item. I understand that
many protests were lodged but Ebay evidently allowed the auction of
"Judaism's Strange Gods" to go through. Unfortunately for Mr. White Paypal was less forgiving and White's
account was frozen, or perhaps that's another tall tale out there in neonazi
land, who knows?
>However,
I DO recall the oddness of seeing that particular book being bid on along with
Elvis records and antique dolls...
If some
literalist Christians fear Jewish mysticism, it should be for the same reason
as fearing all mysticism. Mysticism
threatens to reveal that religion is really and has really been all about
*metaphorical* description, of the mystic altered state, thus revealing all
literalist religion to be deeply in error and lacking authority and
legitimacy. Jewish mystics, with all
mystics, are the main threat, the most direct and right way in which all
legitimacy and authority is removed from literalist religion.
>He is
a shrieking anti-Khazar. I've read most of his site http://www.hoffman-info.com
.I love his passion and well written style. That makes at least two beloved
Hoffmans in my book.
One must
study the writings of mixed-up authors, to discover interesting insights and
truths. All authors are deeply
mixed-up; they are all a very mixed bag, which is why Acharya S seems less than
scholarly in using simplistic high-school black & white thinking to say
"I thought you were my ally, then I thought you were attacking
me." Heck yes I'm attacking her
views, and everyone else's, and affirming the good aspects -- what the heck do
you think scholarship *is*?
Is Hoffman
II worth reading? Does he
contribute? How so? How not?
It is clear that for one reason or another, Hoffman II should be read,
like chronology revisionist books. By
*only* describing him as an "anti-semite", that carries too many
implied assertions that I do not, at least not at the moment, mean to
assert. Is he worth reading? I don't know. What of the accusation of antisemitism? I don't know.
I'm only
at this point saying that I am not Hoffman II, and that his accusation of the
Jews being racists is founded on a literalist mode of reading the metaphorical
idea of determinist mystics as a "race". The elect of God are actually a *metaphysical* "race"
or category or relationship, rather than a cultural or genetic race. I'm accused of being a metaphysical racist:
enlightened people are superior to unenlightened people. What do people think of such metaphysical
racism? Are enlightened people *not*
better than unenlightened people, as though enlightenment is worthless?
Literalist
Christians rail against "Gnostics' elitism", which is a distorted,
partial view, while failing to point out that Literalist Christians themselves
are certainly elitists in some ways: "Only we Literalist Christians will
go to Heaven. The rest are condemned to
be apart from God forever."
>>He
complains because some Jews are racists (actually these are *Literalist*
racists, if anything) who adhere to the idea (taken literally) of the Jews as
the chosen people of God, the superior race.
>I
remember reading a post in a jewish mail list that the hebrew "chosen
ones" should be better translated as "well choosing ones" or
"choosing well through sustained learning" , which is availible to
all.
>http://www.ottmall.com/mj_ht_arch/v39/mj_v39i91.html#CADK
But don't
miss the point of the mythic metaphor, whitewashing away the meaning. Beware of changing potent metaphorical
mystic ideas to bland and clueles (and unreligious) Liberal religion. Beware of explaining away myth rather than
understanding mythic meaning.
Book:
Judaism's Strange Gods
Michael
A. Hoffman II
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0970378408
>I
remember reading that Kabbalah practitioners believe that the entire Torah is
God's "name" and that if one can resite the entire thing they can
have power over the deity (or somthing to that effect)
Beware of
literalism and of missing the main points, the humor, the allusion, the
mythic-mystic center and nature. These
ideas have a variety of readings; be sure to pick the clever
mystic-altered-state meanings. Magic,
alchemy, miracles, astrology are all properly understood as clever deliberately
misleading double-entendre systems designed to baffle and shock the literalists. Jewish and Christian mystics/esotericists
know what it's all about, while the Literalists have wars based on and excused
upon misreading.
This is
why the world needs a clearer explanation of religious myth than has ever been
written before. Previous Buddhist
attempts are evidently inadequate. My
theory is far more effective and ergonomic at putting to rest such
confusions. My theory is importantly
different than all previous theories, and importantly better than them: I shall
maintain this assertion, the profound distinctness and superiority of my theory
over previous attempted systematizations such as Ken Wilber's.
Riddle: When the apocalypse arrives, with the second coming of Jesus in power and victory, the rebellious Jews will repent and Believe in Jesus, and the kingdom of God will be theirs, demonstrating for all the world God's almighty power and plan.
Decoding/solution: during the mystic altered state, timeless block- universe determinism will be comprehended by the mind that is lifted up by the Holy Spirit of loose cognitive association -- such comprehension is the uncovering or revealing of the apo- calypse. "The rebellious Jews" means minds that believe in the delusion of free will and thus their own sovereign power to create their thoughts and shape their own future stream of thoughts.
"Jesus" means the principle of determinism, including the idea that God could whirl your mind and your will this way or that, with you a helpless puppet in his hands. Understanding this is seeing the face of God and dying.
Instead of God the puppetmaster whirling your mind about and making you sacrificially transgress your illusion of self-command, the angel- messenger of God brings the sufficient *idea* of a will-less puppetlike fully obedient spiritual or symbolic creature, the sacrificial lamb provided by God, to suffer the ego-whirling, ego- overpowering "destruction" as an example or idea of what the puppetmaster full well could do to your mind, which is helpless relative to the ground of being which creates your every thought and act of will.
The true spiritual Israel, the kingdom of God, is the land of those who know they are puppets with respect to God's power. Those who know their power to be merely puppet-power are the true sons of Abraham. Abraham is the mind that realized its puppet relationship to God's power.
That mind knew it could have been made to terminate its authorship power over its own future, its future descendents. From a meta- temporal perspective, the mind at a particular point in time is helpless and is not able to author and create its own future, controlling its future thoughtstream ("thread") or progeny.
In the end, the freewill-assuming minds are all bound and forced to conclude, when looking through the holy spirit, that freewill is an illusion -- they will thus "believe in Jesus" or timeless determinism and our puppetesque impotence with respect to time and God or ground of being that is our spiritual father, authoring our every thought not in a causal chain at year 0 but rather, from perpendicular to the entire time axis.
Whatever created the time axis created our thoughts that are frozen at all points along the time axis. The kingdom of God belongs to (is comprehended and conceptually perceived by) the minds that fully reject free will in principle. Whoever sees these principles sees the true Israel as the secret that the whole world is puppetland. The world is actually puppetland; it actually is all Israel and "belongs to" the timeless-determinists.
The lower corrupted interpretation of this is Literalist, thinking that Israel will win in a mundane military sense. The higher, inspired interpretation is that Israel is victorious timelessly; every time a mind realizes its helpless puppethood with respect to the frozen timeless predetermined block universe, Israel is again victorious.
The discovery that the world is Puppetland is destined to win out, due to the relation between time and personal control. It is only by childish or animalesque ignorance that we assume this is not Puppetland.
The true sons of Abraham are those who know that they are puppets with respect to time, ground, or God. A mind includes choice, command, and control, but these are frozen and woven into the time axis such that with respect to time, from a metaphysics perspective, the mind has no control. Being in the kingdom of God includes choice but a certain frozen kind of mental-model of, persepective on, or picture of choice.
>http://www.google.com/search?q=%22david+spess%22
>http://www.google.com/search?q=%22david+spess%22+dragon
>http://www.google.com/search?q=%22david+spess%22+nagas
>Thread
about entheogens in buddhism:
>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tientai/message/2537
>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SokaGakkaiInternational/message/17081?source=1
>or
>http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:z8zBevLLzRYJ:groups.yahoo.com/group/nichirenshoshuforum/message/55%3Fsource%3D1+%22david+spess%22+dragon&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
Rialcnis
has been busy spreading the teaching of the traditional entheogenic lightning
path among the Buddhists.
The
Literalists of all the world's religions constitute the World Council of
Religions of Peter. Against them, the
entheogenic pure allegorists who have come up through all the various religions
constitute the World Council of Religions of Mary Magdalene, which is to say,
the True Spiritual Church, and the True Jerusalem: we are the true Jewish
race.
The
Entheogenic pure allegorists are the true Jewish people, chosen by God. And they are the True Church of Christ. And they are the true worshippers of Allah
in the black cube.
Blessed
alone be the Jews, who alone are the chosen of God; Blessed alone be the saved
in Jesus Christ, who alone are the chosen of God; Blessed alone be those chosen
of Allah, who alone are the chosen of God; Blessed be these three groups which
are, as Isis Queen of Heaven knows, are one and the same group of people.
The
literalists of all religions have always maintained that their religions are
essentially different; the entheogenic allegorists of all religions have always
maintained that their religions are essentially the same, functionally
equivalent.
Race in
mystic thought is nothing but a metaphor for a certain implication of timeless
block-universe determinism. All events
are timelessly frozen in spacetime.
Therefore a person forever belongs to the set of those who are destined
for enlightenment or to the set of those who are destined to remain in
unenlightenment, experiencing and believing in the illusion of metaphysically
free will all during their life. The
mystic allegorization of the Race idea might debatably be called poor taste by
some people, but humor saves.
The
"two races" concept is isomorphic with deterministic membership or
not in the set of those destined for full experiential conversion to
no-free-will. Race as a metaphor for
membership in those destined for enlightenment is logically consistent and
coherent, on the condition that it is understood as entirely and purely allegorical,
*not* about literal genetic race; the false Jews of the world are to blame for
racism; racism against Jews is the fault of literalist thinking on the part of
the various religions and cultures.
The idea
of the Jewish race is a valid and coherent mystic-mythic allegorical idea that
becomes harmful when distorted and degenerated into a mere literal idea. People who are not destined for a deep
experience of no-free-will during their lifetime are the race hated by God,
devil worshippers and the accursed of God: this metaphysical situation and fact
is mystically harmless and true, on the condition that it is interpreted in an
entirely allegorical sense.
To destroy
racism, which is evil because it prevents enlightenment, our highest goal and
achievement, promote the profound and opposite version of racism: Gnostic
racism, mis-described as literal elitism.
Gnosticism is elitist in a particular sense: a person eternally belongs
to one group or the other: the superior, elite people are those who eternally belong
to the set of those who are destined and fated for redemption, regeneration
into full consciousness of no-free-will; enlightenment.
People who
are logical and highly mystically experienced conditionally have the privilege
of counting themselves as members of the elite chosen race, beloved of God,
rather than the evil, hated, devil-worshipping race condemned in everlasting
enmity and separation from God, on the condition that they understand this
"elite" and "chosen race" status to be entirely allegorical
regarding one's fatedness to mystically experience timeless frozen
block-universe determinism -- ego death, no-free-will/no-separate-self.
Whether
this mystic experience resulting in full comprehension of no-free-will is
induced via willed meditation, via visionary plants, or via brain chemicals
triggered for no discernable reason, the essential important ideas here remain
the same.
Rational
explanation of the substitute sacrificial Son of Man and the 2 races of the
sons of darkness and the sons of light
Son of
Man, a title for Jesus, is the God-provided or the saving angel-provided
symbolic-only substitute for our own deliberate self- destruction of
self-control.
The Son of
Man, the model of self that is based on the animalistic/childish freewill
assumption, has "nowhere to lay his head" because he exists only as a
virtual agent, a delusion which eventually becomes an illusion understood as
such.
It's an
interesting coincidence that the "son" as our own ego is only a
virtual agent, and that likewise the "son" we thought we knew in the
supposed Historical Jesus also turns out to be a culturally reified mass
delusion.
Doctrine
may have long insisted that the mystery-religion of Jesus was unique because
Jesus, unlike Dionysus, existed as a real human at a point in time. That is a profound distinction, but
ultimately we need to see the Jesus event as being *virtually* historical, in
addition to being *mystically* incarnate in our own minds during initiation
experience.
And of
course the Jesus idea has concretely affected really-real history. The entheogenic molecule provides another
essential way in which the divine humbled himself and took on flesh.
During
mystery-initiation experiencing, this self-destruction, to disprove to
ourselves that we are in control, is the esoteric meaning of "The
Law" and "what the Law commands". The Law is The Law of Necessity, and What Necessity Commands. Proof of conscious allegiance to Divine
Necessity is theoretically done through the sacrifice of oneself as sovereign,
self-controlling king.
The king
must *voluntarily*, *willingly*, methodically, and devotionally self-sacrifice
his controllership, to prove he is purified of the delusion of
self-command. (Similarly the sacrificial
goat or other domestic animal must "willingly" be led to its
sacrifice.) However, in the
"religion of Abraham", the angel-thought of compassion intervenes
against an extremist or physicalist interpretation of such proof.
The
mystery child, son, or daughter that is mystically sacrificed is one's lower
self. Everyone knows that much -- but
what is this lower self? It is the
prideful but deluded assumption of freewillist self- command, and the worldview
the mind constructs around that assumption.
The Law
commands that self-control kills itself to acknowledge Necessity or Ground of
Being or God as the true controller of my thoughts; compassion accepts a
substitute or accepts just the *idea* of such self-transgressing
control-sacrifice as being "perfectly sufficient and complete" so
that by merely understanding and conceding the idea of radical
control-sacrifice, rather than by acting out that idea, we can attain to
perfection in our transcendent understanding of self-control cybernetics.
The
Hellenistic world (Philo) read the books "of Moses", including the
story of Abraham's sacrifice of his "child" through lamb
substitution, as a mystery religion allegory for the mystic altered- state
discovery of Fatedness, a discovery that "demands" the self-
sacrifice of self-control if one wants to attain and "prove" perfect
understanding of the falsity of egoic, freewillist control agency.
This is
the testimony of things shown by the Holy Spirit.
God or
Ground could perfectly well make me self-destruct, and I am tempted or drawn to
this completion, perfection, and proof.
As one drawn to express truth about the power relation of ego and
Ground, I need and want a way to demonstrate my full comprehension of my
metaphysical powerlessness and nullity of freewillist moral power.
In the
Kingdom of God, which is the full consciousness of timeless or frozen-time
Necessity, we all live in the protective shadow of the lamb, the sufficient
symbolic sacrifice. In terms of
universally valid cybernetic self-control principles, we must find a way to be
fully conscious of our noncontrol with respect to frozen time, a way to prove
that we respect and fully acknowledge absolute timeless Necessity, without
harmful self-destruction.
The
warrior-savior volunteers his life in battle, giving up his life to release his
fellow citizens. The term
"savior" was applied to military heroes who gave their life to
purchase freedom and victory for their fellow citizens; these heroes were
believed to ascend to their reward in heaven.
There is a
sophisticated conceptual pun, that is, a clever meaning- shifting, between
heaven as conceived as moral reward for an ego- driven creature, and heaven as
being a full awareness of cosmic determinism.
The meaning of "good" shifts from "conventional egoic moralistic
good actions", to "knowledge of the truth about moral agency, which
is that it is a delusion fit for animals and children".
Origin of
Christianity: the experiential discovery of fate/necessity in the Hellenistic
mystery religions was combined with the Jewish insistence on separation between
God's power and earthly kingship, against the claims of the emperor cult that
claimed that since the emperor was proven fated to rule, divine necessity
justifies his oppression of people.
Christianity
was a version of the fate-revealing, experiential, entheogenic sacramental
mystery religions (Hellenistic/Essene) that *also* served political rebellion
against the divine claims of Caesar.
The
mystical and political origins explain Christianity so well and completely, a
single historical Jesus becomes a superfluous and unnecessarily complicating
hypothesis. The figure of Jesus was virtually real, not literally real.
The story
of betrayal, arrest, trial, scourging, crucifixion, burial, resurrection,
ascension, and co-kingship with God (that which controls destiny) describes
allegorically the mystic altered state experiences resulting from considering
personal sovereign agency from within the state of loose cognition.
This
mystery-religion allegory, while revealing cosmic determinism as opposed to
egoic power, also expresses political rebellion against the emperial claim that
the oppressive status quo was fated therefore divinely approved.
All moral
guilt reverts to the mythic and mystical figure of Jesus as an avataric symbol
representing the only, fully responsible agent: God, the sovereign determiner
or controller of destiny.
The
uninitiated/initiated distinction of the Hellenistic mystery religion, which
was expressed by a variety of equivalent cults, was taken to a certain extreme
in Christianity, with an expressly designed intricate lower level of literalism
as well as the usual higher level revelation of fatedness.
Part of
the shift from this full-fledged version of the 'uninitiated' layer of this
mystery cult to the higher is the clever remapping of concepts about
sin/righteousness and heaven/hell.
Lower
thinking assumes freewillist guilt or innocence; higher thinking sees all
thoughts and acts as eternally predestined and even pre-existent, so that 'sin'
is now understood not as real egoic moralistic guilt, but as the delusion that
agents could be culpable as freewillist responsible agents.
The elect
are those predestined to comprehend predestination and see through the delusion
of lower, egoic, moralistic thinking; the damned are now understood as those
who are not predestined to discover that Necessity/fate/determinism. Thus as
the Essenes held, there are two races, the children of light and the children
of darkness.
The son of
Man, son of God, son of Abraham, daughter of Demeter, the Devil, and
sacrificial animal, are all allegories for the lower, animalistic, freewillist
way of thinking and the lower deluded moralistic thinking associated with it.
The Ground
is the hidden originator and thus controller, father, or creator of every one
of the mind's thoughts and actions. The
lower way of thinking conceives of oneself as a sovereign self-controlling
agent; one assumes one rules over the Ground of Being. The higher way of thinking can be a
co-kingship.
The mind
now becomes *conscious* of its control-impotence with respect to time and the
Ground of Being; in practice, the initiate says "I control, yet the Ground
controls me; effectively you could say that I am co-commander with the
Ground."
Thinking
from an post-initiation, post-revelation, experiential point of view, I now
live as a co-commander or a fully Ground-controlled controller. Like the ancient initiate-kings, I rule but
I know that God, or the Ground, rules and creates my every thought.
The king
was periodically humiliated to deny that his ego is sovereign originator of his
thoughts and affirm that his sovereignty is only of a secondary nature.
The
ancient king (an entheogenic initiate) considered himself to be sovereign with
respect to the political realm he commands, but a puppet or slave with respect
to Divine Necessity or a postulated personal God who is the true determiner
(controller) of Divine Necessity."
Every real
bodhisattva must strive to be the best bodhisattva -- the most chosen one, as
measured by extent of awakening people to the true nature of personal control
agency.
According
to my own value system, I strive to be made the most effective teacher and
modeller of the true nature of personal moral control agency -- in this
value-dependent, debatable sense, I want to be the most chosen one (where
"degree of chosenness" is measured the way I advocate), more
effective than Plato could be because we today are not bound by the taboo and
legal restriction against "revealing and profaning the mysteries", so
it's not a fair contest.
In some
ways, I have not yet succeeded at being the most effective teacher of the truth
about our nature -- though I have succeeded at modelling it in modern terms, but
not yet at packaging that model.
To be
chosen by the divine is to be brought to enlightenment. Not everyone is brought to enlightenment,
not everyone is chosen. Mystically, the
true Israel is the set of all people who are brought to enlightenment, the set
of all people who are chosen by the divine -- the chosen people. In the song "Black Sabbath", Ozzy
sings "Found out I'm the chosen one, oh no," and Neo in Matrix is the
chosen one, and messiah means entheogen-anointed and thereby a chosen one.
The idea
of the chosen one connects with divine sacrificial victims including the
sacrificial king (literally sacrificed bodily, in addition to mystically
experiencing ego death). The question
I'm concerned with here is the idea of the *most* chosen one, and debate about
measuring degree of chosenness. If
someone claims to simply be "the chosen one", that is completely
ambiguous and thus meaningless -- chosen for what? If they say "I am the most chosen one", we must still
shrug and ask what measure they use, and what defense they have for that way of
measuring.
In the
Matrix movies, Neo is the most chosen one to save the human race in their
current predicament. That implies that
the most chosen one is defined and assessed as the one who most rescues, preserves,
and protects the greatest number of humans.
If you
agree to measure degree of chosenness by extent of teaching enlightenment,
degree of systematic clarity, effectiveness of method, and number of people
enlightened, it is only logical for each philosopher such as myself to aim at
being the most chosen one; it's the bodhisattva's moral duty to try to
enlighten as many people as possible -- even more than all the other
bodhisattvas, to lead more people than any other into the spiritual promised
land, which means teaching enlightenment to as many minds as possible.
Does the
Jesus figure effectively enlighten more people than any other person or mythic
figure? The Jesus figure is most
effective when explained by effective teaching and a clear, modern, systematic
model, combined with effective mystic-state triggering. Is the Jesus figure the most chosen one
compared to other mythic figures? How
many people have become enlightened, to what extent, by thinking of various
mythic figures?
That is
hard to assess, and debatable. I cannot
but strive to be the most chosen one (teacher and wayshower or shepherd of
no-free-willists into awakening) among human teachers of enlightenment -- the
most effective, bringing the most complete enlightenment, to the greatest
number of people: that is nothing more than the bodhisattva's duty, to try
their best to enlighten as many sentient beings as possible, even more than
other bodhisattvas.
All who
are enlightened are the chosen ones, in the plural. One can only be *the* chosen one with respect to a particular
task; the idea of *the* chosen one is relative to a particular task. If someone is put forward as *the* chosen
one, we must ask, "for what particular task?" Many are chosen, each for a unique
particular task. Chosenness is cheap,
widespread, an attribute of many people.
An
important particular role to be chosen for is "being the chosen one to
instruct other people about the truth about personal moral control
agency", but again, is this a single role, or relative -- that is, which
set of people is one uniquely chosen to instruct; can you simply say the whole
world, or all sentient beings in the future, or all who are destined to hear
the instruction in the future?
One might
be a better teacher of our true nature than other previous teachers on one's
planet or in one's known world, as Einstein could be considered the best
teacher of Einsteinian relativity and Newton could be Earth's chosen one -- the
ultimate messenger of Newtonian physics, but we would not idolize such an
innovator as being completely isolated and original.
We're all
chosen to play some distinctive role in the world, some contribute more in an
area than others, and some contribute the most -- more than anyone else -- in a
particular area. One person may be
ahead of all the others in one's world for being the best teacher of a
particular topic, such as the nature of personal moral control agency. For example, you could line up candidates
for "world's best teacher about personal moral control agency".
Alexander
the Great was the chosen one as world's winningest military leader, Einstein as
the chosen one for being the world's most profound physicist, Plato as being
the chosen one for being the world's most profound or innovative philosopher,
Peart as the chosen one for being the world's most inspired Rock lyricist. And we could argue about which role is the
grandest "chosen one" role -- is it about political power combined
with philosophical teaching ability?
It's all a
matter of debatable values and definitions; the notion of "the chosen
one" is always relative to a background debate about the import of various
particular roles or contributions.
Lennon
pointed out that the Beatles were "bigger than Jesus", or some
such. How much did the Jesus figure
enlighten people, and how much did the Beatles enlighten people? To enlighten is to save into the kingdom of
the chosen ones who understand the nature of controllership.
According
to Christian myth-religion, Jesus is a messiah, a king chosen and anointed by
the prophet chosen by God, and Jesus is *the* chosen one -- that is, the chosen
one, of many, but chosen for a particular role that is a more important kingly
role than any of the Jewish kings; he is the greatest chosen one of all the many
chosen ones.
It's odd
to consider Jesus as mythic-only, so that the most chosen one, or greatest
chosen one, is entirely mythical -- but then, the other chosen kings are
commonly mythical as well, and actual "divinely chosen" kings or
emperors such as Caesar have a mythic quality as well.
It's much
a matter of debate, "Who is the king of kings?" or "Who is the
most chosen king/emperor?", or more open-endedly, "Who is the most
chosen one?" To flat-out talk
about someone as *the* chosen one without qualifying and specifying that
chosenness, is to imply that they are the most chosen one, that the role for
which they are chosen is greater than any other role.
Who, or
what figure, most kills the greatest number of egos? Perhaps ask "what teacher uses what figure to most kill the
greatest number of egos?" My
strategy is to use the mythic-only Jesus figure to kill more egos than any
other teacher using any other mythic figure -- but I use other mythic figures as
well. Other Hellenistic mythic figures
affixed to the physical are representative of no-free-will.
The
king-on-cross figure (which Jesus explicitly is) is arguably the clearest, most
explicit figure. This is why I choose
to focus on the Cross when explaining the entheogenic discovery of no-free-will.
Many
people have value systems that enable to think that they are the most chosen of
all. But it's a matter of debate, how
to measure absolute degree of chosenness.
The quality of chosenness is not rare; it's all about "chosen for
what?" According to Christian
myth-religion, Jesus is the only chosen one for the role of "king of God's
ultimately promised kingdom".
Think
apocalyptic end-time kingdom -- a later, Hellenistic-era mode of Jewish
thought; after the fall of the second temple, many Hellenistic Jews
relinquished the hope of a material kingdom, and accepted merely a claim to the
spiritual kingdom; they entirely (rather than just partially) spiritualized the
concept of "the kingdom given to Israel by JHVH".
A Theology
of the Holy Spirit
Bruner
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1579100945
Bruner's
book "A Theology of the Holy Spirit" discusses the problem of two
Christian initiations, and rejects the existence or necessity of a higher
initiation beyond baptism.
The
orthodox accuse the charismatics, like the Gnostics, of being elitist. There *is* a kind of elitism in the
charismatics' assertion that ordinary baptism only makes one a beginner
Christian. But it's not designed to be
a forcefully exclusive elitism.
Whenever a religion is degraded to the exoteric motions, cargo-cult
religion, naturally and necessarily a kind of elitism must be reintroduced to
retain or regain the transformative aspect of religion.
This is a
theme of Ken Wilber's idea of Boomeritis.
Popular spirituality has formed a flattened, reduced religion of
non-transformation that accuses any professed higher religion of being
"hierarchical and elitist".
Wilber retorts that yes, true transformation *is* inherently
hierarchical and elitist in some sense.
You can't have elevation or transformation without elitism in some
sense, because there is a necessary division between the elevated/transformed
and the non-elevated/non-transformed.
If we
attach the label of "enlightenment" or "religious
experiencing" to that which isn't significantly enlightening and isn't
intense religious experiencing that transforms one's thinking, then it's
necessary to re-introduce a higher enlightenment.
Bruner
argues that there can be only a single Christian initiation. The Gnostic is then forced to respond,
logically, that the official Christian baptism is no initiation at all. The Gnostic or esotericist sees that there
are just two correct ways of framing conventional baptism: it's either the
lower, preliminary initiation in a series of two initiations (water baptism and
then fire or spirit baptism), or it's no initiation whatsoever and there is
only a single actual initiation, which is the fire baptism.
Whichever
portrayal you choose, conventional water baptism is not a transformational
initiation, but only a ritual, exoteric, cargo-cult initiation. The New Testament describes people who were
baptized but didn't receive the Holy Spirit, and dismisses that as the mere
baptism of John (the Baptist), portraying "being baptized in the name of
Jesus" as higher baptism which delivers the Holy Spirit.
But we
must beware of merely attaching the label of "the higher form" to
something that's actually the lower form.
Renaming an empty ritual of water baptism from "John" to
"Jesus" does nothing to infuse that act with the Holy Spirit, or fire
baptism -- this relabelling in the scriptures is empty sleight of hand.
In the
medieval groups that evidently elevated John over Jesus, the labels were
flipped around the other way, so that the lower, water baptism is called
baptism in Jesus' name, while higher baptism was associated with John. 'John' here was likely an umbrella term
including John the Baptist as foil against Jesus, the disciple and then apostle
John, and Mary "John" Magdalene as foil against Peter, Peter
representing the literalist empty orthodoxy.
What's
really at issue, to be explicit and specific, is the empty baptism offered by
literalist orthodoxy, versus the active, psychoactive transformative baptism
provided by the Holy Spirit fire baptism: the "sacrament of
apolytrosis" (higher transformation?), which was likely some mixed
wine. We can affix the labels "the
baptism of John" and "baptism in the name of Jesus" to one type
of baptism or flip the labels the other way around.
Swapping
the label attached to the lower doesn't make the lower higher; the lower
baptism remains the lower baptism whether it's labelled that of 'John' or of
'Jesus'.
Similarly,
we may wonder whether "Israel" is intended to mean the initiated or
the uninitiated, but it can switch, depending on the context; you always have
to consider the immediate context of the two items being compared. Given a pair "evil northern kingdom
Israel and righteous southern kingdom Judah", clearly Israel represents
the uninitiated.
Given the
pair "good Israel and the evil Gentiles", Israel is the
initiated. Given the later "the
evil Jews versus the righteous Gentile converts", Jews is being used to
represent the uninitiated. This clever
and amusing trick of relabelling can be used to great harm, ending with
everyone labelling their own group "angels" and the other group
"devils". Mystic allegorical
labelling that correctly divides those who have the higher initiation from
those who don't, can be abused to persecute anyone by distorting the real and
correct rejection: the higher mind's rejection and transcending of the lower
mind.
The
initiated mind sees the lower mind and declares it incorrect. That's the true rejection, but that act of
rejection is distorted and abused, often intentionally, by the
literalists. The transcendent mind says
the egoic mind is allegorically the accursed devil who is cast out of heaven;
the literalizers or literalists or power-mongers who simply don't care what's
true take the mystic idea of "accursed devil cast out" and gleefully
apply it to their socio-political opponents.
The
Valentinians tried to be reasonable and compromise, declaring that there are
two baptisms, lower and higher, and that the lower Christians should be
accepted by the higher Christians and should not be allegorized as
accursed. This caution is equivalent to
Ken Wilber's avoidance of dissociation from the lower when the mind jumps to a
higher level; the mind should embraced and integrate the lower, not destroy and
demolish and demonize it wholly.
The only
viable way to transcend egoic thinking is to partially affirm it and partially
reject it. Gnostic allegory enjoyed
dualistic pairs, often demonizing the lower (such as "world" or
"body") too much, whereas orthodox Christianity had a more qualified
rejection of the "world" or "body". Note that orthodox and Gnostic Christianity,
considered as equivalent allegory systems, both have the potential to hit the
target or overshoot in either direction, falling into superstition and
regression rather than transcendence:
Literalist
embrace of bodily resurrection via misapplied orthodox allegory
Correct
orthodox allegory for transcendence
Literalist
hatred of the world/body via misapplied orthodox allegory
Literalist
hedonism via misapplied Gnostic allegory
Correct
Gnostic allegory for transcendence
Literalist
hatred of the world/body via misapplied Gnostic allegory
So sin,
harmartia, missing the mark, failing to grasp the essential idea, is possible
both within the Gnostic allegory system and within the orthodox allegory
system. The correct esoteric meaning of
world/body is ego, which is egoic thinking or the egoic worldmodel. Ascetic rejection of the world and body is a
metaphor for rejecting lower thinking, which is the egoic conceptual framework.
Home (theory of the ego death and rebirth experience)