Ahh, Leftovers (tm Casey Jones-TMNT)*

OK, today's contribution is a random mix of thoughts and notes and ideas that have some relation to my post yesterday. They're not unified as an essay, just a bunch of stuff that I found interesting. For what it's worth, here they are:

Until the advent of Christianity, people in general did not view the world as a place to be rejected in favor of a higher plane of existence. Indeed, life and the world was the epitome of human existence. After death, the poor spirit, stripped of it's material vehicle, was a rather pitiful remnant, a mere shadow (!) of its former self. To be a bodiless spirit was understood to be less that human, not greater.

The gods were understood to have bodies. In some belief systems gods could be killed (Balder, Orpheus). In others, it was the natural order of things for the male god to die annually, and be reborn again in order to preserve the cycle of life, crops, seasons etc. In some, the female deity descended into the underworld to rescue her beloved, and return him to worldly life. In some cases the goddess' journey symbolism suggested that she "died" as she descended, but her power as goddess allowed her to return again, without the necessity of 'being saved' by another.

Kabbalists developed the glyph know as the Tree of Life to explain God, creation and existence. The tree is made up of 10 spheres that represent the evolution of Pure Spirit into Manifestation. Picture the undifferentiated spirit flowing from the void, into the top sphere, then overflowing it into the next lower sphere, until it gets to the final sphere where spirit is manifested in actual matter.**

As they explain it, the spirit/energy pours forth from the void, into the highest sphere on the tree were it radiates light and energy and potentiality in all directions. It is unformed and unconstructed, it is diffuse and undirected. When it overflows that sphere, and pours into the first "constricting" sphere, the one considered the "Greater Mother", it is channeled and restricted, so the formless, direction-less, radiating spirit, begins to have a direction and a form.

Material beings' goal is to re-ascend the tree, shedding all matter, and to be reintegrated into our original form/home, as Pure Spirit.

It seems pretty obvious by the description of the utter uselessness of pure spirit un-channeled and un-directed, that the limitations and focusing nature of matter are required for True Being. They missed the point of course.

Alchemists, describe the three principles, represented by the three substances. They are:

• Sulphur representing the expansive, force in nature, dissolution and evaporation.
• Salt representing the constrictive, force in nature, crystallization and condensation
• Mercury, representing the integrative force in nature, interweaving and balancing salt & sulphur, circulation, dynamic equilibrium.

The description of the properties of sulphur sound very like that of Pure Spirit flowing form the void, expansive, unfocused, diffuse, unchanneled.

The description of the properties of salt sound very like that of Matter, constrictive, crystallization and condensation.

And the description of the properties of Mercury, sound very like my description of the amalgam, the partnership, mutual-dependence of Spirit/Body that comprise True Being.

Christians are particularly schizophrenic about it. They call the body the "Temple of the Holy Ghost" but have historically approved fasting, self-flagellation, and other insults to it in the name of "salvation". They insist that material life is a precious gift from God (consider their firm stance on abortion), while at the same time warning that the material world is a cesspool of temptations of the flesh, a kingdom ruled by the Devil, intended only to ensnare the body into condemning the spirit to eternal damnation.

They instinctively honor and love life and their bodies, but are religiously required to consider them "evil". What sometimes appears to be their "hypocritical behavior" is really just the result of the struggle between inner intuitive knowing and externally imposed, unnatural concepts.

They seem to fail to remember that Eden was material and 'of this earth', and that "God walked with them in the Garden". How, exactly did he do that without a body? It doesn't say the vision or the hallucination of the spirit of God walked with them in the Garden. It says God did.

Ok, it's only a translation, I don't read Hebrew. But that seems awfully clear. Why do we forget all about Eden, and God walking in the Garden, and talk only about our 'souls'? And insist God is Pure Spirit?

Islam hates itself, the world, you, me, bodies, minds, souls, art and animals. Islam believes in a vengeful, angry, arbitrary and capricious god without logic, love, rhyme or reason. Islam believes in a completely Spiritual, yet irrational God who enslaves his worshippers, yet nevertheless provides a presumably material, pornographic, sex-drenched afterlife to those who so despise his gift of life that they kill themselves as soon as possible after puberty.

I don't think there's much to be learned from this psychotic mess of a religion.

Theosophists and Ceremonial Magicians believe in a complicatedly populated universe of monads and duads and triads and tetrads and angels and demons, and elementals, and most profoundly, the goal of getting free of the prison of matter, and ascending into glory with the angels, as pure Spirit beings.

They are even more schizoid than the Christians, because they express the very idea of the necessity of body/soul without seeing it or understanding it, and careen to the very opposite idea as their final theological concept.

They understand that the Monad...the One... is a single, still, static, impotent, unmoving point of all potentiality, but non-actuality. They insist that a second point is required for creation. Their analogy is the story of Adam and Eve. This second point is Eve...proceeding from the bosom of the Monad and by doing so, becoming the object to which the Monad can send his fructifying energy. By becoming a Duad...Two...the Monad becomes potent, and creation is possible. The fruit of the union is the Third point which creates the Triad, The Sacred Three.

The Trinity. The third is equilibrium between the two points of the Duad, which were required to be opposites in order to accomplish their mission...sword/scabbard... that sort of thing.

i.e., Nature LOVES a vacuum, or she wouldn't always be running towards them. The plenum loves the void...and the void attracts the plenum. (The 19th Century gentleman's way of explaining sex.)

Anyway, the point is, this is a very good argument for understanding that matter is required for True Being. You cannot have spirit hatching life by mating with other spirits...it's positively unnatural. Birds don't give birth to bats, and pigs don't give birth to peacocks.

You can't get blood from a turnip, or from a pure spirit. He simply doesn't have the equipment.

Oh, you can say, "God can do anything!". But he doesn't as a rule, does he? He's quite logical, and reasonable. You might even say he's a little compulsive about following the rules, and generally comfortingly predictable. I honestly don't think that he made everything that happens in the entire universe the way it does—which really is pretty nifty...and an entirely different set of rules for...whatever/whomever else there is. If there are angels who can fly, it's because they have correctly aerodynamically designed wings and bodies capable of doing so...according to the laws of physics—you know, the ones God invented.

If they really just send their thoughts here and there and cause humans to see hallucinations/visions of them...no doubt they have brains that can manipulate energy to do so..all according to the normal laws of physics—like a TV broadcast...angel brains as transmitters and human brains as receivers.

Of course if there are no angels, the whole point's moot, anyway.

A note about Christianity. Some sects believe that there will be a literal "new Jerusalem" on Earth. An actual city, where actual people in actual resurrected and glorified bodies will spend eternity. On the whole, it sounds like more fun that existing in a pure spirit form in 'heaven' doing god knows what for eternity. But, honestly, after a few thousand years, unless our brains are seriously altered...as in lobotomized...when "glorified", things are gonna get seriously boring.

Challenges, overcoming obstacles and difficulties, victory, triumph and accomplishment are necessary for happiness and self-respect for humans. Without fear, risk, and danger, we would start chewing our own backsides like animals who are caged without sufficient stimulation.

Rest is blissful after one has been too busy to rest. Silence is peaceful after one has been surrounded by too much noise. Relaxation is beneficial after exertion. Safety is comforting after one has been at risk. Peace is glorious after conflict.

Having the one without the other..perpetual rest, silence, relaxation, safety, peace...is like living in a rest home.

The traditional idea of Heaven sounds like utter hell to me.

And the thing is. God made humans the way they are. So why in the world would he make a heaven that's so horrifyingly dull? Why would he take away half our equipment? Why would he treat us like tired, exhausted, diseased old folks who, after a lifetime of work, just want a little peace and quiet. Even they don't want it FOREVER! That's why they go to Atlantic City and Las Vegas! And cruise to Alaska and the Bahamas.

I think it was the wretched bastard primitive King concept that caused the whole mess: The brutal reigns of brutal kings who believed themselves to be gods...without a god's modesty...taught men before history began that the gods were lofty and cruel and demanded perfect obedience and silence and worship and servitude, and bowing and scraping and constant praise and hymns and rose petals.

But that just doesn't feel right. Maybe I'm just so anti-authority I can't even submit to God, but I just don't think anyone that could have come up with the idea of humans wants dumb silent sheep hanging around. I mean, he made sheep. Literally. He knows how they act, and what they do, and I'm sure he likes them alot. But he didn't make US like that. I have a feeling he "gets" the difference.

I don't think he wants us glorifying his name. I don't think he wants us on our knees. I don't think he wants us prostrating ourselves at his feet as meek and adoring slaves.

That's positively creepy. I'm either right, or I'm Lucifer's right hand man. And seriously fucked. Because I just don't see myself ever doing that. Not ever. Not even.

God is either cool, or he's an asshole. If he's cool, we're going to get along just fine, maybe play some pool, talk politics. If he's an asshole, I don't want to be around him anyway.

I couldn't adore any strutting, arrogant god who insisted I adore him.

Of course, if he turns out to be, you know, adorable...well, that's a different thing altogether, isn't it??

End for now.

The Gunslinger

*(TMNT = Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles)

**This final sphere is called Malkuth, or "The Kingdom", two others are known as "Power" and "Glory", which may bring to mind the final lines in the Lord's Prayer as it appears in the King James Bible: "For Thine is the kingdom, the power and glory forever." This line was absent from the translation of the Vulgate. As a Catholic, I never heard that line as part of the prayer until I attended a Protestant service as a young adult, and was surprised to find the congregation still reciting after I had said "amen", after "deliver us from evil."

The Kaballah, according to Jewish tradition, antedates Christianity by about 10 centuries. If true, this particular choice of those words certainly is interesting—not to say, significant.