Dealing With the Modern World

Some thoughts on this sometimes tricky matter on Albion Awakening.

Man is Made in the Image of God

A running theme of the writings here, always implicit but brought out more recently, is that God is personal and not the impersonal, or even so called transpersonal, absolute of many forms of mysticism, particularly Eastern but increasingly Western too. So rather than the absolute undifferentiated oneness that these approaches to truth offer, it is the combination of oneness and individuality that is the highest state open to man and the reason for this world of creation in which everything has a value and nothing is illusion except the darkness of separative existence - though even that can become a perceived reality for us if we go too far in its direction.

God is a Person (capitalized because he is the source of all personhood, our possibility of being a person deriving from the reality of him as Person). Do you not feel a sense of relief in hearing that? It means that you are loved, and that there is a purpose behind everything that happens in this world. We are too quick to dismiss this idea as anthropomorphic and say that we have made God in our own image. That may be true for many of the pagan gods, the Thors and the Cybeles etc, but it is not true of the one living God and Creator who is the source and pattern of all the highest and best in us. Of truth, love, beauty, goodness, and of the capacity to give and to sacrifice without thought of reward. Everyone feels these qualities within themselves to some degree, however overlaid by greed, ignorance and selfishness they might be, and everyone recognizes that they are laudable and should be encouraged unless they are sunk so low in self-hatred and bitterness that they cannot rise above cynicism or pride. They are the stamp of the divine Person within us, the reflection of his qualities and, however dim and imperfect that reflection may be, it is still the image of God shining in our hearts, and we can always use it to connect ourselves to our Creator.

God is not like us. We are like him though only so in terms of our purest, best and truest selves. If he had intended us to bathe in the blissfulness of pure consciousness, as the non-dualists would have it, there would have been no need to undergo the experience of life in this world; no need to develop a true sense of values, of courage and the ability to endure suffering cheerfully. But there is the need to learn all these things because they make us actively good rather than just neutral or detached, and that is why we are here. It is why God conceals himself from us and it is why we live in a world of opposites where evil and suffering are not only possible but likely, indeed inevitable. It is only through struggle that we rise and are able to bring out the potential that exists within us all.

So, far from desiring us to deny our individuality, God wants us to develop this from the seed he has implanted within us. He does not want clones. He wants free individuals but ones who are individual not individualistic. The difference is all important. Understand that there is no contradiction between oneness and individuality. This is simply how things are in a universe in which the One is the underlying reality but the many is the expressed reality, and the reason for that is that God, the fundamental 'I AM', finds the greatest joy in always becoming more. It is his nature to give and to expand (through us) and to know both the bliss of being and the joy of becoming which latter is also the means and fulfilment of his fundamental quality of love. Those who think of the absolute as beyond and above all qualities have misunderstood the very nature of God and creation. For the highest truth is not in pure being alone but in bringing being and becoming into harmony, with each completing the other. Isn't a beautiful painting better than a blank canvas? Pure unadulterated oneness would mean that love was an illusion but it is not. It is the essence of existence and that is because God is not one but three in one, and this is reflected in nature whether that be concretely in Man, Woman and Child or abstractly in subject, object and the relationship between them.

Divine reality has been perceived by human beings in this world as sometimes impersonal and sometimes personal. Over the last 100 years or so it has become more common to think that the impersonal conception is nearer the truth, but I regard this as a sad error caused by our current intellectual focus as well as a rejection of earlier (possibly simplistic) ideas about a personal God. I believe God to be personal in his true self-nature but with an impersonal aspect though that is not him in himself but him as the one life as it exists throughout his creation. It is him as immanence. We can identify with this life aspect if that is our wish, but it is a less comprehensive state than the one of relationship with the personal God, the transcendent Creator, a relationship whose basis is love and which acknowledges creation as real. Note that there is a sort of impersonal benevolence when an individual becomes identified with the pure ground of being (manifesting as compassion), but it is not the fiery joy of true divine love which is only known when creation is accepted as fully real in itself, albeit real as an expression of God, and not regarded simply as a lesser state of illusion or dream that is dissipated in the light of the Absolute.


Oneness underlies the multiplicity of reality but it is not the whole picture by any means. It does not make creation insignificant for creation comes about specifically to make something more than simple oneness. An impersonal absolute could never create and, in fact, could never lead to anything. It would just be itself. Creation needs a mind and a mind means a person. There is no getting away from this. God is personal and that means our individuality is real. We do not 'go beyond' it. We do go beyond exclusive identification with it but we retain our unique quality and if we did not what would become of love? What would become of beauty which always needs a form, of goodness which must be expressed and of truth which requires a mind to know it? There is an aspect of pure being to the divine nature but, though this might be shocking to the non-dualist to hear, it is only a part of it. It is the ground of being, like a spiritual counterpart to the body, but it is not God and if you focus on that exclusively you are falling well short of your true destiny as a human being. Man is spirit, soul and body as in his life, his unique quality and his form, and though there is a hierarchical relationship between these parts of his being they are all fundamental aspects of the totality of what he is and can’t be separated. Like his Creator, in whose image he is made, he is three in one. 

Things Jesus Didn't Say

Here's a little game to play over on Albion Awakening.

Transhumanism and Spirituality

There's an article in the Guardian today about transhumanism. This is basically the idea that human beings can extend their lives and expand their consciousness (almost indefinitely in both cases) through technology. It is sometimes linked to spirituality either as a replacement for it or as a means to realise it. The predictions in the New Testament for a new humanity and a new Jerusalem have even been linked to it.

So it seems important to make the categorical statement that spirituality and technology are completely separate things. There is no possibility of technology ever aiding in the spiritual search. It belongs exclusively to the material world of form and quantity and has no relation, none whatsoever, with the spiritual world of consciousness and quality.

This is yet another attempt by satanic forces to tempt humanity to try to be gods on their own and without reference to a Creator. To a materialistic culture, which has made an idol of science, the idea certainly is tempting but the fact remains that proper spirituality is first and foremost a moral thing and depends entirely on love, love of the good, the beautiful and the true, all of which are effectively denied by the modern scientific mentality with its focus on technique and its rejection of anything beyond itself. Neither technique nor technology can ever bring about a genuine spiritual mindset or consciousness and to propose otherwise is, whether realised as such or not, frankly diabolical.

Technology works from the outside but this is the precise opposite of spirituality which works, or should do, from the inside since matter follows spirit not vice versa. There is no spirituality without prior purification of heart, mind, body and soul.  There is no spirituality without dedication to truth which is a transcendent thing not realisable by the rational mind. A technological enlightenment would be a nightmare because it would cut us off from the real spiritual world of love, beauty and goodness leaving us with ersatz imitations of these which, sooner or later, would become prisons.

Reject the false chimera of technological solutions to the problems of existence. Instead adopt the simple solution of remembering the Creator.

Note: This is filed under the labels of The Kali Yuga (or End Times) and The Material World because the attitude behind it is a perfect representation of our contemporary age when the hierarchical relationship between spirit and matter has been inverted.

Resurrection

Here are some thoughts for Easter on Albion Awakening.

Channelling

(Note: This post is an expansion of a comment I made in answer to a question about a particular channelled book. Here I would like to make some remarks about channelling in general.)

My peculiarity is that I am someone who has written about a channelling experience, or what would normally be called such, who basically distrusts most channelling experiences. I think the problem is twofold. First of all, in many cases the medium affects the message. The technique involved means that the process cannot be pure. If the communication is received through the medium's mind and brain, as most are, these inevitably leave their imprint on how it comes out. Wherever it may originate, it is like a light shone through a coloured glass and the glass lends its own hue to the end product. The medium's belief system, cultural background and personality will all have at least some effect on the contents, rather like an artist who expresses an inspiration according to his own nature. How much effect depends on the medium's ability to be detached from the contents of his or her own psyche, preferences, prejudices and the like, and connect to the soul or higher self, but it cannot be 100% pure since none of us are that.

But then there is the question of the origin of the message. Where does it come from? And practically always it comes from discarnate beings on the inner planes, as one may call the non -physical worlds, who are still separate from God. So they may have more apparent knowledge of these worlds but it is still refracted through the prism of their own limited understanding. That is assuming the communicators are not demonic which they clearly sometimes are. In many non-demonic cases my impression is that the communicating beings are talking from the mental plane which (using conventional occult terminology) is above the astral or psychic plane but below that of real spiritual union which is the location of the soul when it is one with God. So they were still talking from the level of their own thoughts and experiences rather than genuine spiritual insight such as possessed by the hierarchy of saints.
 So in Christian terms they are in purgatory, even if it is a higher and possibly blissful form of purgatory, rather than heaven, and I think this is the case for the great majority of the beings who talk through channellings.

So we can posit various forms of channelling. These exclude all fakes and frauds which probably account for a large number. But when the phenomenon is real the sources might come from:

1.     The recently dead such as are contacted in spiritualistic seances. These rarely have much of real interest to communicate since they are ordinary souls with little spiritual experience or insight. The messages are usually also confused and inconclusive because of the difficulties of communication.

2.     Demons that come through deliberately to mislead and/or to absorb energy from those that fall prey to their machinations. Orthodox religion would put all in this category and point to various Biblical prohibitions but when spiritual visitations and phenomena happen in the lives of the saints it is more forgiving so I think we can learn to exercise discrimination and in this way develop our spiritual antennae. Having said that, no doubt a number of communications truly are demonic in origin so we should not go to the other extreme of gullible naivety with regard to such things.

3.     Souls that have made some progress up through the spiritual planes. Bear in mind that after death we have the opportunity to rise through the spiritual worlds as we throw off attachments pertaining to lower levels and identify more with aspects of our being that relate to higher ones. Lower and higher here describing, on the one hand, primary attunements to physical, emotional, mental and spiritual states, and, on the other, degrees of closeness to God. From our perspective in this material world souls might appear to have great wisdom because they are speaking with knowledge of higher planes of existence and awareness of the wholeness of life and the reality of God. And yet they might still be on the outside looking in from the even higher perspective of a soul that has become one with God and fully realised its Christ nature. 

4.  Souls that have realised their Christ nature in its fullness. In these souls the light of Christ has been born and grown and now completely illuminates their entire being. They have died with Christ and risen with him. They have become men made perfect and thus transcended the purely human kingdom to become members of the kingdom of heaven. In them the process of theosis has reached its culmination. Their minds are irradiated with the wisdom of God and their hearts afire with his love. They are fully individual but one with all life having consciously united in themselves both matter and spirit to become a new creation. This is the goal for all of us and, incidentally, why spiritual paths that deny matter or this world as opposed to subjecting it to the light of spirit are incomplete. The goal of existence is not to return to what we were before we were born but to become this new and higher creation in which aspects of God that relate to him in his essence and those that relate to him as he is in expression are combined and integrated. The divine pattern for this, of course, is Christ.

Practically all channelling comes from sources 1-3. But to confuse matters many claim to come from source 4, whether because of deliberate deception or because some souls that have achieved a certain amount of post mortem spiritual awakening genuinely believe themselves to have attained a fuller state of understanding than they actually have. That happens in this world and souls that have a tendency to over-estimate themselves and their spiritual status will probably continue to do so after death until they learn better. I do believe that there are some communications from source 4 but they are few and far between. You must judge these things by their fruits and by the 'tone' of the communication, how it strikes the heart and how it elevates and purifies the mind. Souls from source 4 certainly do try to communicate with their disciples in this world but they chiefly do so by spiritual means, that is to say by means of the intuition. Their aim is to bring their pupils up to where they themselves are which is why, for the most part, they work on the level of the soul. 

That's it really. Channelling is a very old phenomenon but it chiefly relates to lower levels of spirituality. Given my history it would be strange for me to dismiss it out of hand and I certainly don't do that because there have been valuable and inspiring messages transmitted in this way. But it is not wise to become too attached to outer things, especially as the field is full of illusion and half truths. The best advice remains that provided in the epistle of St John. "Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God." And remember that just because some parts of a message might be true does not mean that all are. After all, one of the devil's oldest tricks is to disguise the bitterness of a lie with the sweetness of truth.


Note: 
What I have described here concerns the form of channeling where there is a real being communicating, but many incidents are not of this kind. In the higher worlds there exist thought forms and clouds of psychic energy which the mediumistic can contact and which can give the impression of a communicating entity even though there is none. These have come about from the thoughts, dreams and imaginings of humanity and, as it were, hang around on the mental or 'astral' planes from where they may be picked up telepathically or through automatic writing or other means by those who are sensitive to such things. They may contain generalities of a spiritual or occult nature but little really illuminating. This is just one more element of the pot pourri that is the channelling phenomenon and another reason to treat the whole thing with caution and discrimination.

The World Today

It's always difficult to tell if one's impressions are purely subjective or if there is an objective element to them too, but at the moment it really does seem that the vice of materialism (pun intended) is growing ever tighter in our world.

The environment is actually becoming what it is stated to be by science. Inner quality is withdrawing and consciousness is being constricted. The world is becoming harder and more solid. Do you not feel that?

At the same time, space is contracting and time is speeding up. And distinctions are being erased. Distinctions between male and female, human and animal and even good and evil are all being diluted and broken down and though there are corresponding reactions to this, reactions are what they are. The general direction is towards a sort of uniformity. Everything is being ground down to the undifferentiated state of prime matter.

It can never get to that state, of course, because that would be extinction but it can approach it and this is what spells the end of an age. Quality is replaced by quantity and the digitalisation of information is a good example of that. This is clearly the most spiritually destructive thing there could be but it is happening and the speed at which it happens in all areas of life is increasing. What can we as individuals do about it?

More on Albion Awakening.

Some Objections to Reincarnation

Reincarnation, it hardly needs saying, is not part of orthodox Christian belief but this does not trouble me because I don't see it as conflicting with the essential message of Christ. Many Christians, though, do have objections to it, perfectly valid ones from their point of view, and I will consider some of those here.

1. It does away with the need to acquire salvation in this life now. 

If reincarnation is true do we all get chance after chance until we get it right? Is that reasonable? Doesn't it provide an excuse to sin? Why bother making spiritual efforts if everything will come good in the end anyway? 

My response to this is that perhaps we do get many chances to ‘get it right’. After all, if we are enjoined to forgive those who slight us 70 x 7 times then would we not expect God to extend the same consideration to us when we fail or fall short? It would be strange if he told us to do one thing and did another himself. Having said that, it should be understood that the way we fail or fall short will determine the circumstances of our life next time round. All belief systems which include reincarnation also have reaping what you sow at their heart. So there's no excuse to sin and wrongdoing will always bring about consequences. 

However I would add the important proviso that it is unlikely that the granting of new chances lasts forever. There may come a time when we have used up our opportunities, and if a soul wholly rejects God rather than simply fails to accept him then that rejection could be taken as decisive. So while hell, or a state analogous to it, probably does exist, it is not necessarily permanent except in the case of some who voluntarily choose spiritual extinction rather than God. And even they are given what they want.

Therefore while not discounting the real possibility of damnation for some souls who persistently defy and deny God, it seems improbable that most non-believers are bad enough to go to hell eternally. Think of people you know who don't believe in God, perhaps among them friends and family. Would you give them another chance? Then why not God? He presumably wants to bring as many of his children back to him as possible and would always incline more to mercy than justice, though the demands of justice will still have to be met. 

But there is another point. Reincarnation is not chiefly to do with the process of salvation or damnation but with that of spiritual development. Thus it concerns the theosis side of the equation. So it may be that there are two things going on when we come to this world. One, the requirement to turn away from self and towards God, and two, the learning of lessons that will eventually convert us into saints. After all, most of those who might technically be saved are still a very long way from sainthood and, while not disputing the role of purgatory in the afterlife, it seems clear that experience in the material world is also necessary for the long and slow process of transforming a standard model human being into a saint. Only here are certain temptations, tests and growth scenarios possible. Only here can certain challenges be met, and it is through overcoming these challenges that latent virtues can develop.


2. Christians also object to reincarnation on the grounds that it conflicts with the idea of the resurrection of the body. 


But does it? What exactly is the body anyway? When we reincarnate we clearly do not have the same body we had before but the one we do have is the product of the earlier one. It is refined or degraded to the degree that earlier body was refined or degraded. We carry our past with us in the present and that is true for the body too which may be built on hereditary principles but also has the imprint of the soul within the limits imposed by the restrictions of karma or our destiny for that life. My belief is that eventually the atoms of our physical body will be transmuted into light and that the resurrected and ascended spiritual body is not a flesh and blood thing but a body of light. Again, the reincarnation process gradually burns away the dross in the body that prevents its transmutation, and the body we eventually acquire or build is the product of many lives of purification and refinement.


3. Another objection is that reincarnation implies an unnatural separation between body and soul, making them two wholly different things.


But they clearly are two different things. The human soul can exist without a body, certainly without a physical body though it probably always has a form of some kind. A physical body enables it to experience life in the physical world and, though I do believe it is certainly part of what we are, it is not this body that matters but 'bodyliness'. The body of the elect is not physical though there is probably something in it which corresponds to transmuted matter. Reincarnation certainly implies the pre-existence of the soul before it acquires a body but it not saying that spirit is good and matter bad as some of the Gnostics did. It merely points to the fact that we are primarily spiritual beings.


4. Why can we not remember our previous lives? 


This one is easy to answer but first I would say that if we actually could remember past lives we would hardly be able to learn anything new in this one. Memory is often a burden and prevents us living in the present moment, and that's just the memories of a single life. Imagine if we had a whole series to recollect. But, more to the point, we cannot remember our previous lives because we, as who we are now, do not have any previous lives. This is our first and only life. For it is the soul that comes and goes, not the person we are now. 

To appreciate this requires an understanding of what you might call esoteric anatomy which posits a higher self or soul that exists on its own spiritual plane and sends down a portion of itself to experience life in this world. So the mind, emotional nature and sense of personal identity are as new as the physical body though based on what has gone before. It's a crude analogy but imagine the soul on a higher plane as a sun sending down a shaft of light (its consciousness) through mental, emotional and physical levels, and clothing itself with a 'body' of each one in order to function on that level. These are all new and it is with these that we normally identify and think of as ourselves. The directing soul is, as it were, hidden except in rare moments even though it is the animating principle of the whole thing and, to an extent, defines its quality. I have mentioned before the Masters' words that "the greater part of you remains with us". The being you are in this world is only a part of the totality of what you really are though how much a part depends from individual to individual.

I have looked at a few Christian objections to reincarnation here but it may be that Christianity misunderstands the reasons for our being in this world when it focuses on salvation rather than theosis. For the governing idea behind the theory of reincarnation is that individual units of consciousness, souls, need to experience life in this world over many occasions in order to evolve their consciousness. Newly made by God as sparks from the central fire of his own being, they are intended to grow to godlike status themselves by becoming fully aware of the spiritual reality of their own being as given by God. Reincarnation with its opportunities for experience and expression is the process that brings this about. That's the theory anyway. Whether it applies to everyone in this world or is only one of various methods of spiritual growth is another matter.

Truth and Love

The gate to the kingdom of heaven has two pillars which are truth and love and you must conform yourself to both of these to a high degree before you are worthy to enter. That's a tall order as no one can be perfect, perfection coming only through the grace of God. But you must attune yourself to both these two qualities as best you can, holding them in a more or less equal balance in your mind and heart.

Continued on Albion Awakening.

More Thoughts on Reincarnation

I was recently asked a question about reincarnation and felt that I didn't explain myself very well at the time, partly because it is something I've taken for granted for so many years that I've not thought about it properly for a while.

So I welcome the chance to go into the subject a bit more here. I will start by saying that I see it as a tool of spiritual development, the means whereby an individual consciousness develops. So I don't believe that a human can regress to an animal body or, for that matter, that an animal spirit can be born in a human body. But who knows? It may be that in certain exceptional circumstances such things can happen. Even if very unlikely I would not rule it out completely. I remember once seeing a black panther in a zoo in Delhi and, when I looked into its eyes, I had the very strong impression that a human spirit was there, quite a malevolent one that had been involved in black magic and was now paying some kind of price. One part of me thought this was just superstitious nonsense but another could not shake off the feeling that there really was a human soul locked inside this animal.

As far as I see the matter, someone who believes there is a spiritual reality to human beings can choose between three options. Either each person is a newly created soul or we have a pre-incarnate existence or reincarnation. The first is the standard Christian belief but it doesn't make much sense to me. Certainly I never had any doubt that I personally had existed before my birth in this world. As a child I had dim memories of higher worlds (Wordsworth's clouds of glories) and, though they inevitably faded, they left an indelible mark on my consciousness. But then as I grew older certain historical periods and cultures seemed very familiar to me. That proves nothing, I know, but was personally convincing. And then when I encountered the Masters they confirmed that I had asked to come back to this world and also stated that Michael Lord (their medium) and I had been together before and (interestingly since it implies at least some knowledge of the future) would be again. All anecdotal evidence, to be sure, but ultimately each person must respond to this doctrine on an intuitive level.

Reincarnation does have the virtue of logic. The theory behind it states that each human soul, through experiencing life in the physical world, develops from a not much more advanced than animal state to a fully spiritually conscious being. It seems that certain lessons can only be learnt here, in a body, with a mind not overwhelmed by spiritual light and in a state of separation from God. In short, in a dualistic environment where we, as the subject, and the world, as object, are experienced as completely different, just as they are now. A full difference has not always been the case, even in this physical world, but now it has surely come to that point. The human being and the world are further apart than they have ever been. It is more or less complete separation which strongly implies that now is the time for the prodigal son to start his journey back home.

That's the theory. We gradually experience a full separation through many lives in order to eventually go back to union, but this time in full consciousness and with the sense of individuality fully developed. That's the path humanity as a whole seems to be on and what is true for the group would surely be true for the units within that group as well. But what is it that goes through this process and reincarnates from one life to another? I don't think that I, as William Wildblood, keep coming and going. After all, much that is WW comes from the genetic inheritance from his parents this time around. But the soul behind him, that is a different matter. It is this soul that is the true self and according to my understanding, gleaned from the Masters, not all of it does descend to the world. Possibly only as much as is necessary for the carrying out of its mission. The greater self remains on its own plane. So what we are here and what we are conscious of now is probably just the tip of an iceberg, experienced through the form given it by its genetic and cultural background, and there may even be some astrological influence thrown in, all of which combine to give us the framework that is most apt for what we have to learn and what we can contribute.

So my understanding of reincarnation is that is the method whereby an Adam becomes a Christ. That is why we encounter people at various stages of this process, though not many, it has to be said, near the end of it. The question is, does it apply to everybody in this world? At one stage I would have thought it did, but I have come to accept that there are people whose spiritual perception I respect and from whom I have learnt, Bruce Charlton for one, who do not feel drawn to this belief. And, of course, it is absent in Christianity even if some people claim hints of it are present there. It could be said that reincarnation was not intended for Christianity because to focus on it can lead to a kind of spiritual stagnation. If you think you have only one life in which to save your soul you are more likely to want to get on with it. Matters become more pressing. However most Christians do not believe in the pre-existence of the soul either, thinking it comes into being with each new life, and I consider that to be a basic metaphysical misunderstanding so perhaps the absence of reincarnation in Christianity is not such a telling point. Perhaps Judaism and the religions that derived from it were intended to emphasise certain aspects of spiritual truth which required them to be completely differentiated from other religions, most of which do believe in reincarnation.

It could be that God has more than one way of educating his children. I believe that reincarnation is his main method. Others don't and think that, if it takes place at all, it is restricted to certain individuals who may come back because of unfinished business or a particular task they have been given. What it boils down to is how much spiritual progress can take place only in this world with its peculiar environment. Are there properties of this world which are essential for the development of mind, character and indeed body, and, if there are, is one life sufficient to make use of them? I don't think it is but if we can accept that learning takes place before we come here and after we leave then I think it is only relatively insignificant detail that separates those who believe in reincarnation from those who don't. After all, reincarnation has nothing to do with spirituality per se. That remains a matter of loving God and seeking to walk the path of goodness and truth as best exemplified by the life of Christ.