Joseph Campbell, “Masks of Oriental Gods: Symbolism of Kundalini Yoga,” inLiterature of Belief: Sacred Scripture and Religious Experience, ed. Neal E. Lambert (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1981), 109–38.
Chapter 6: Masks of Oriental Gods: Symbolism of Kundalini Yoga
Saw this video on Maddow's blog. Touches a nerve, the core of what is so frightening and blinding as we make our way through a changing world. Simply, all that stuff about human behavior Sapolsky has us explore, and a depth psychology that understands that humans live an interstitial existence between the physical body / world and the inner dialogue of dreams, wishes, imagination: the psyche. Both are what we are, the forces and complications of our most measured thinking and our knee-jerk behavior reflexes. Robertson's thinking, lacking all humility as it interprets each moment through his own demonic filter, is truly psychotic:
Think. Think metaphorically. All those dismemberment myths from Dionysus to Christ had deity falling into Time and shattering into shards, pieces, the scintilla of soul scattered to make the world, life, etc. These are myths of our own falling out of the unconscious world into the conscious (especially with the creation of language, our tool of thought). "Splitting off from nature," we framed it. Long, long ago it was sensed that we also bring that shattered Oneness back together. The cup of remembrance (Er, Mnemosyne ) from Plato, the rituals of ecstasy, the re-collection of the Mass (where priest and congregation are all part of the process... "do this in memory *with* me") -- all are symbolic rituals that draw their meaning from the process of individuation, "acting the process out" in varying degrees of consciousness. A movement, a process.
All of which gets lost in fundamentalism. In "pinning down" the ineffable, fleshing out the symbolic into "flesh".
When I speak of djinns and angels here, it's in reference to the inner dialogue, projections and transformation of the peace and drama we create from things floating around in us, both known and unknown, and the nets we cast as we draw the world inside us. Not literal, but -- like mythos and religion -- literary, poetic, sometimes deliberately psychologically protective and searching. It's playful, metaphorical, the voice of the psyche. It even hopes to be aligned with what we know about history. But I'm aware of all that. As aware as I can be. (Extra credit: McGilchrist.)
Often it's the Pat Robertsons I'm trying to speak to, because their psychosis and all it shapes is foisted on children. On adults who vote. Presently, it holds a whole nation hostage. I don't know how to make them better. I only know to try, because we live in a world that belongs and depends on the work of all of us. That it's only as whole and well as we are. What beats my heart, beats your heart. Beats everyone's heart. That's the heart I speak from, the only faith I know.
"The devil is a symptom of consciousness," Jung said. What in the hell did he mean by that? Jung, a doctor, Jung also an ancient historian.
As a species, we see ourselves as the "eyes and ears of a planet." That phrase comes from Joseph Campbell, and it's a metaphor for simple human consciousness, that thing that scripture, read poetically, which is how it was originally written, claims makes us in (an equally poetic) god's image. It speaks of the psyche of creatures who use language, beings split off from unconscious nature into consciousness. In the lysis of current Western culture, the awareness of this split goes back to a mysticism perhaps expressed best perhaps by Philo -- the deep meaning of the logos. As Jung points out, a literal consciousness distorts that meaning, thinking itself the whole shebang. We thus have that business of a mutable and evolving relationship with the unconscious, seen as the daimon in all his guises -- be it simply as the benign voice of the unconscious, or Robertson's evil tempter, or the connection back to Self -- to wholeness. These thousand names for deity project our attitude towards the unconscious, an attitude that defines an individual's conscious orientation.
Some notes on concept demon:
In the floods of life, in the storm of work, In Ebb and flow, In warp and weft, Cradle and grave, An eternal sea, A changing patchwork, A glowing life, At the whirring loom of Time I weave The living clothes of the Deity. ~Goethe, the Earth Spirit to Faust
Diabolos: "Separating coinunctios." (Coinunctio: union/conjunction) Dividing into opposite pairs -- conjugates. This is the condition of being in the field of time space, which is necessarily the field of opposites.
Jungy bits:
The unconscious is not a demonical monster, but a natural entity which, as far as moral sense, aesthetic taste, and intellectual judgment go, is completely neutral. It only becomes dangerous when our conscious attitude to it is hopelessly wrong. To the degree that we repress it, its danger increases. ~C.G.Jung The Practical Use Of Dream Analysis, Collected Works Vol. 16
The psychic depths are nature, and nature is creative life. Whatever values in the visible world are destroyed by modern relativism, the psyche will produce their equivalents. ~C.G.Jung, Modern Man in Search Of a Soul
In addition to technical processes of personality transformation, a natural individuation process is described as involving a spontaneous maturing of the personality. Natural transformation is evidenced in dreams symbolizing rebirth and in the intercourse between consciousness and some inner voice; this latter phenomenon, commonly described as talking to oneself, is seen as meditation in the alchemical sense. The inner voice is generally regarded as nonsense or as the voice of God; its real nature considered to be an unconscious counterpart to the ego. It is felt that if this psychic partner is recognized by the ego consciousness, the conflict between the two can have a positive effect. In alchemy, in ancient cults and in religion this inner presence is found personified as an external being such as Mercurius or Christ. ~CGJUNG, in CW v.9.1: The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious (abstract, p. 130-134). ***
Late Classical:
Macrobius (b. A.D. 360) explains the role of the Greek daemon (analogue to the Roman genius) in the process of the individual’s conception, birth, and destiny in the Saturnalia, a valuable source of information concerning pagan beliefs. Each human being, according to the Egyptians, is the product of the conjunction of Eros, Necessity or Fate, a daemon (related to the zodiacal position of the sun at the individual’s birth), and a tyche (related to the position of the moon at the individual’s birth). Macrobius etymologizes “daemon” as either “knowing of the future” or “burning, sharing”; the latter etymology links it with the sun, mens mundi, the regulator of the planets and pivot of the other eleven zodiacal signs (as it always occupies the remaining twelfth sign). When the sun passes through a particular sign of the zodiac at the time of an individual’s birth, it designates a temperament or daemon for him, and establishes, through its position in relation to the moon, his fortune or tyche. Contingent upon the season in which a man is born, i.e., a warm or cold one, indicating the extent of the sun’s warming power and its relationship to other planets and signs, his daemon or genius will be warm or cold, good or bad, jovial or saturnine. ~from The Genius Figure in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, Jane Chance Nitzsche
Late Antique thought stressed their (the demonic) ambiguous and anomalous nature. To Plutarch, writing at the beginning of our period, it was benign ambiguity: the demons were an "elegant solution" for the incongruities that arose from joining heaven and earth. In later centuries their role changed. From intermediate beings, they became an active source of falsehood and illusion in the human race. They gave dramatic intensity to doubts about how heaven and earth could be joined and made such doubts a permanent ingredient in the late Antique universe. The demons were an order far from perfect, one might even say "anomalous," beings. Their presence in the "earthly" regions introduced a constant element of indeterminacy and confusion into the clear structure that linked the rightful agents of the supernatural to their heavenly source. A few men were linked directly to the higher, stable regions of the universe; most men, however, partook of the incomplete, ambiguous quality of the demonic. Thus, with demons, Late Antique men found themselves flanked by an invisible society that shared with them all the incongruities and the tensions of their own visible world." ~Peter Brown, The Making of Late Antiquity.
Plato: Symposium (my favorite)
And now, she said, haven't I proved that you're one of the people who don't believe in the divinity of Love?
Yes, but what can he be, then? I asked her. A mortal?
Not by any means.
Well, what then?
What I told you before—halfway between mortal and immortal.
A very powerful daimon, Socrates, and daimons, you know, are halfway between god and man.
What powers have they, then? I asked
They are the envoys and interpreters that ply between heaven and earth, flying upward with our worship and our prayers, and descending with the heavenly answers and commandments, and since they are between the two estates they weld both sides together and merge them into one great whole. They form the medium of the prophetic arts, of the priestly rites of sacrifice, initiation, and incantation, of divination and of sorcery, for the divine will not mingle directly with the human, and it is only through the mediation of the spirit world that man can have any intercourse, whether waking or sleeping, with the gods. And the man who is versed in such matters is said to have spiritual powers, as opposed to the mechanical powers of the man who is expert in the more mundane arts. There are many daimons, and many kinds of daimons, too, and Love is one of them. (I assume the trans is Ben Jowett, same one Osacr Wilde would have read)
Saw this video on Maddow's blog. Touches a nerve, the core of what is so frightening and blinding as we make our way through a changing world. Simply, all that stuff about human behavior Sapolsky has us explore, and a depth psychology that understands that humans live an interstitial existence between the physical body / world and the inner dialogue of dreams, wishes, imagination: the psyche. Both are what we are, the forces and complications of our most measured thinking and our knee-jerk behavior reflexes. Robertson's thinking, lacking all humility as it interprets each moment through his own demonic filter, is truly psychotic:
Think. Think metaphorically. All those dismemberment myths from Dionysus to Christ had deity falling into Time and shattering into shards, pieces, the scintilla of soul scattered to make the world, life, etc. These are myths of our own falling out of the unconscious world into the conscious (especially with the creation of language, our tool of thought). "Splitting off from nature," we framed it. Long, long ago it was sensed that we also bring that shattered Oneness back together. The cup of remembrance (Er, Mnemosyne ) from Plato, the rituals of ecstasy, the re-collection of the Mass (where priest and congregation are all part of the process... "do this in memory *with* me") -- all are symbolic rituals that draw their meaning from the process of individuation, "acting the process out" in varying degrees of consciousness. A movement, a process.
All of which gets lost in fundamentalism. In "pinning down" the ineffable, fleshing out the symbolic into "flesh".
When I speak of djinns and angels here, it's in reference to the inner dialogue, projections and transformation of the peace and drama we create from things floating around in us, both known and unknown, and the nets we cast as we draw the world inside us. Not literal, but -- like mythos and religion -- literary, poetic, sometimes deliberately psychologically protective and searching. It's playful, metaphorical, the voice of the psyche. It even hopes to be aligned with what we know about history. But I'm aware of all that. As aware as I can be. (Extra credit: McGilchrist.)
Often it's the Pat Robertsons I'm trying to speak to, because their psychosis and all it shapes is foisted on children. On adults who vote. Presently, it holds a whole nation hostage. I don't know how to make them better. I only know to try, because we live in a world that belongs and depends on the work of all of us. That it's only as whole and well as we are. What beats my heart, beats your heart. Beats everyone's heart. That's the heart I speak from, the only faith I know.
"The devil is a symptom of consciousness," Jung said. What in the hell did he mean by that? Jung, a doctor, Jung also an ancient historian.
As a species, we see ourselves as the "eyes and ears of a planet." That phrase comes from Joseph Campbell, and it's a metaphor for simple human consciousness, that thing that scripture, read poetically, which is how it was originally written, claims makes us in (an equally poetic) god's image. It speaks of the psyche of creatures who use language, beings split off from unconscious nature into consciousness. In the lysis of current Western culture, the awareness of this split goes back to a mysticism perhaps expressed best perhaps by Philo -- the deep meaning of the logos. As Jung points out, a literal consciousness distorts that meaning, thinking itself the whole shebang. We thus have that business of a mutable and evolving relationship with the unconscious, seen as the daimon in all his guises -- be it simply as the benign voice of the unconscious, or Robertson's evil tempter, or the connection back to Self -- to wholeness. These thousand names for deity project our attitude towards the unconscious, an attitude that defines an individual's conscious orientation.
Living in Red States, I've learned how deeply the Fundi mind-meld reaches. I think the Republicans and their marriage to the Birchers, Falwells, Robertsons, and {your favorite righteous cult here} is so dangerous that even they have an awareness of the powder keg they've created. That would explain the money being thrown at Newt: keep him running, and Romney rather that Rick collects the delegates. Romney is pathetic, but Rick is Ollie Cromwell in destroying angel mode. Catholic, Protestant, forget the sides -- who can follow alliances based on (variously) self-fulfilling, magical, Rorschachian, effervescent, mutating (but almost always) literal readings of (defined by whom? on the basis of what?) scripture? -- this is old British Civil War dregs resurrected in Zombie form.
Doing research on McDonnell, I couldn't avoid the comparisons:
From the wikipedia: Soli Deo Gloria
Soli Deo gloria is one of the five solas propounded to summarize the Reformers' basic beliefs during the Protestant Reformation; it is a Latin term for Glory to God alone. The doctrine states essentially that everything that is done is for God's glory to the exclusion of humankind's self-glorification and pride. Christians are to be motivated and inspired by God's glory and not their own.
Bob McDonnell, my state's governor and current vice presidential hopeful, is a product of (Soli Deo Gloria!) Pat Robertson's Regent University, and he told us all who he is and what he serves in his master's thesis: God guides him. God as defined by his interpretation of God's inerrant scripture. When he was running for office, the Washington Post asked him about what he'd written in his thesis, and he replied that he no longer held those beliefs. But actions speak louder than words, the old saw says. His record in Virginia has been one incessant push to enact those very beliefs.
From the Regent University webpage:
Regent University: Christian Leadership to Change the World Regent University is an institution of higher learning that exists to bring glory to God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit. Our mission is to serve as a leading center of Christian thought and action providing an excellent education from a biblical perspective and global context in pivotal professions to equip Christian leaders to change the world. Our vision, through our graduates and other scholarly activities, is to provide Christian leadership in transforming society by affirming and teaching principles of truth, justice and love as described in the Holy Scriptures, embodied in the person of Jesus Christ and enabled through the power of the Holy Spirit. Soli Deo Gloria. From the Regent University Pathways Plan 2006-2011: Underlying the university's vision, mission and goals are the foundational commitments that must occur if we are to achieve our mission. They are a combination of our accreditation principles and our own cultural distinctives (sic).
When McD was running for Governor in Virginia, I wrote:
In the recent gubernatorial debate with Bob McDonnell, Creigh Deeds noted, "[McDonnell's thesis] contains a provision that says people don't want this kind of leadership, they're not ready for this kind of leadership, and you can't tell them what you're gonna do until you're elected." This reminds me of Christian reconstructionist Gary North telling his fellow spiritual leaders in the '70s to give different political speeches to different groups. North lamented that it wouldn't work forever. But still, it was lament. McDonnell's thesis defines the pro-working family Democratic position -- health care reform, minimum wage, etc. -- as negative, using quotations around the word family when the family in question doesn't fit his definition. He also uses the term "deviant." What becomes clear is that he sincerely believes his version of the Republican position is God-given. (Other positions are not. I suppose they are deviant.) Which is to say McDonnell is willing to speak for God. That is the classic definition of irreverence. Deeming man basically bad, McDonnell draws the conclusion that government, being man-made, should not be trusted. Why, I cannot help but wonder, would a man holding such beliefs seek to be governor?
And now Vice President.
Our task, the one I mentioned? Listen to Santorum, and McDonnell, the very voices of inflation, and understand they represent the opposite of everything America stands for -- our very foundation stone -- when they castigate another's religion, calling it phony because it isn't based on what they believe. Make this a teach-in on a national level -- the what and why of religious freedom.
The value of studying History isn't that it has some magical proclivity to repeat itself, but that it teaches us something about the origins of our own prejudices, all that stuff Cicero said about not knowing one's self is to remain a child. Time to grow up fast, America.
Living in Red States, I've learned how deeply the Fundi mind-meld reaches. I think the Republicans and their marriage to the Birchers, Falwells, Robertsons, and {your favorite righteous cult here} is so dangerous that even they have an awareness of the powder keg they've created. That would explain the money being thrown at Newt: keep him running, and Romney rather that Rick collects the delegates. Romney is pathetic, but Rick is Ollie Cromwell in destroying angel mode. Catholic, Protestant, forget the sides -- who can follow alliances based on (variously) self-fulfilling, magical, Rorschachian, effervescent, mutating (but almost always) literal readings of (defined by whom? on the basis of what?) scripture? -- this is old British Civil War dregs resurrected in Zombie form.
Doing research on McDonnell, I couldn't avoid the comparisons:
From the wikipedia: Soli Deo Gloria, Regent U's theme
Soli Deo gloria is one of the five solas propounded to summarize the Reformers' basic beliefs during the Protestant Reformation; it is a Latin term for Glory to God alone. The doctrine states essentially that everything that is done is for God's glory to the exclusion of humankind's self-glorification and pride. Christians are to be motivated and inspired by God's glory and not their own.
Bob McDonnell, my state's governor and current vice presidential hopeful, is a product of (Soli Deo Gloria!) Pat Robertson's Regent University, and he told us all who he is and what he serves in his master's thesis: God guides him. God as defined by his interpretation of God's inerrant scripture. When he was running for office, the Washington Post asked him about what he'd written in his thesis, and he replied that he no longer held those beliefs. But actions speak louder: his record in Virginia has been one incessant push to enact those very beliefs.
From the Regent University webpage:
Regent University: Christian Leadership to Change the World
Regent University is an institution of higher learning that exists to bring glory to God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit.
Our mission is to serve as a leading center of Christian thought and action providing an excellent education from a biblical perspective and global context in pivotal professions to equip Christian leaders to change the world.
Our vision, through our graduates and other scholarly activities, is to provide Christian leadership in transforming society by affirming and teaching principles of truth, justice and love as described in the Holy Scriptures, embodied in the person of Jesus Christ and enabled through the power of the Holy Spirit. Soli Deo Gloria.
From the Regent University Pathways Plan 2006-2011:
Underlying the university's vision, mission and goals are the foundational commitments that must occur if we are to achieve our mission. They are a combination of our accreditation principles and our own cultural distinctives (sic).
When McD was running for Governor in Virginia, I wrote:
In the recent gubernatorial debate with Bob McDonnell, Creigh Deeds noted, "[McDonnell's thesis] contains a provision that says people don't want this kind of leadership, they're not ready for this kind of leadership, and you can't tell them what you're gonna do until you're elected."
This reminds me of Christian reconstructionist Gary North telling his fellow spiritual leaders in the '70s to give different political speeches to different groups. North lamented that it wouldn't work forever. But still, it was lament.
McDonnell's thesis defines the pro-working family Democratic position -- health care reform, minimum wage, etc. -- as negative, using quotations around the word family when the family in question doesn't fit his definition. He also uses the term "deviant."
What becomes clear is that he sincerely believes his version of the Republican position is God-given. (Other positions are not. I suppose they are deviant.) Which is to say McDonnell is willing to speak for God. That is the classic definition of irreverence.
Deeming man basically bad, McDonnell draws the conclusion that government, being man-made, should not be trusted. Why, I cannot help but wonder, would a man holding such beliefs seek to be governor?
And now Vice President.
Our task, the one I mentioned? Listen to Santorum, and McDonnell, the very voices of inflation, and understand they represent the opposite of everything America stands for -- our very foundation stone -- when they castigate another's religion, calling it phony because it isn't based on what they believe. Make this a teach-in on a national level -- the what and why of religious freedom.
The value of studying History isn't that it has some magical proclivity to repeat itself, but that it teaches us something about the origins of our own prejudices, all that stuff about not knowing one's self is to remain a child. Time to grow up fast, America.
