Equality - A Doctrine of Destruction

It has become almost universally accepted that feminism is about equality but there are two problems with this. The first is that it is not true, certainly not nowadays. For, whatever it once might have been, feminism has developed into a movement for the advancement of women as opposed to men, and it clearly seeks power not equality, specifically the traditionally masculine type of power which it attempts to acquire through various methods, many of which are based on deception. It employs the usual tricks of the left (of which it is an offshoot) that include the distortion of language, false assumptions stated as fundamental truths, destruction of common sense basic principles, appeals to supposed justice, political indoctrination, denigration and suppression of opposition and manipulations of ideology.

The second problem is that of equality itself. It is taken for granted that this is a reasonable objective, and that equality means everybody merits exactly the same thing. But if you look at both nature and the spiritual world, there is no such thing as equality. Actually, if equality really were a law of life there would never have been any manifested universe to begin with. Creation is based on inequality, the initial separation of heaven and earth being a rupture in oneness and the start of difference. Now, equality, if real, would have meant there could never have been any break in oneness, all would have been eternally the same, and, by the same token, difference is only possible with inequality. Inequality is at the very root of creation and the fundamental order of the universe. A complete equality would have meant that the manifested world of becoming could never have arisen. The one may be equal because it is one. The many cannot be equal because they are many. To be equal, everything would have to be the same.

Consequently, it is not hard to see that the contemporary obsession with equality, and the assumption that oneness and equality are always and inevitably good, 'spiritual' things, is actually a great metaphysical error. It is an anti-spiritual impulse and an attempt, probably initiated by the dark powers, to return creation to the state of chaos whence it arose. It is the destruction of cosmic order, necessarily based on hierarchy, and it feeds on rebellion and resentment which are first disguised and then justified by the sentimental excuse of compassion. Not that compassion itself is sentimental but if used in a sentimental way which ignores or over-rules truth, it becomes destructive. This is disordered compassion or compassion that is not really compassion but simply dons its clothing in order to achieve an end desired by the sinfully motivated self. If the devil can quote scripture for his own ends, he can surely use virtue for his own purposes too. And he does.

As for men and women and a supposed equality between them, why not look to nature? We could, of course, look to scripture too but that is rejected by most people nowadays when it conflicts with their agendas. However, we have an interesting example in nature with the phenomenon of handedness. Everyone is right or left handed. We do need both hands and so you could say that the hands are equal but one is the leader of the two and most of the time it is the right.* There is a built-in imbalance and this appears to be one of the facts of life. Complete balance or symmetry does not occur. Indeed, the Masters have said (in Towards the Mysteries), "You should create without balance. Balance is not harmony. Balance is mechanisation of the mind”. They were speaking of the arts but what they say applies to life in general too. Indeed, it is because it applies to nature and life that it should apply to the arts. But the point is that balance is equality. Equality is not a desirable thing in terms of manifestation even if it exists at the deepest spiritual level of non-manifestation or pure being, just as oneness does. But it does not exist in terms of created things and beings. Where do we see it? In the mineral kingdom, the plant kingdom, the animal kingdom, among humans? Nowhere is there a complete equality and nowhere should there be except in chaos and darkness. But light is never the same, there are always degrees of light. There are no degrees of darkness. (If you think there sometimes are, that is because that difference is created by light.)

Going back to handedness and the undeniable fact that most people are right-handed, we should note that the association of the right side with the male and the left with the female is an ancient one that exists in many cultures. The two are complementary and do (in a way) balance each other but they are not the same and one is naturally the dominant one. This is just an example taken from nature and is not intended to prove anything. But I would say that it does illustrate a general principle that is obvious to the uncorrupted (by desire or whatever) mind. It is not meant to be applied literally to the male/female complementarity but to show that nature is not interested in equality. Human beings are not hands but principles operate in a similar way throughout nature according to context. And note that if the left hand tries to dominate, the result will be a weakened state which is very probably the situation we are heading towards, our advanced technology tending to obscure that fact from us for the moment.

Modern Christians who have lost touch with the transcendent reality of their religion and look at it in largely worldly terms think that Christ preached equality. The fact he didn't is a large part of the reason Judas Iscariot turned against him. Judas could not understand that Christ's kingdom was not of this world. He saw Jesus as a political figure, completely failing to grasp the message of spiritual redemption. This is not meant as an excuse to go the other way or a justification to exploit the weak, but it shows that equality was not a concern of Christ's, except insofar as he taught all people are potentially the children of God.

No doubt if we lived in a world in which the strong did oppress the weak, in which the common humanity of all peoples was ignored or denied, and hierarchy abused (as, of course, it has been in the past), a reminder of the essential spiritual oneness of all human beings would be essential as long as that was fitted into an overall structure of how human beings are also not equal in developed potential, expression, duties, spiritual unfoldment and so on. But the huge over-emphasis on equality today without a corresponding understanding of the hierarchical nature of cosmic order is separating us more and more from spiritual truth, and for that reason must be seen as instigated by the demons who are behind so many of the deviations of modernity.

* Obviously I am aware of ambidexterity but it is not the norm.

Fantasy and Reality

On Albion Awakening, a piece about how these are not what they seem, at least insofar as the modern world understands them.

https://albionawakening.blogspot.com/2018/12/fantasy-and-reality.html

"What Seek Ye?"

In the Gospel of St John these are the first words Jesus speaks. He says them to the two disciples sent to him by John the Baptist who has revealed him to them as the Messiah. The original Greek is "Ti zeteite" and can be translated as "What are you looking for?" or "What do you want?".

It's extraordinary how much is contained in these two words, and it shows once again the profound wisdom that is to be found in the Gospels. For these are always the first words any spiritual teacher must ask of a would-be disciple. What do you want?  What do you want of life? What do you want of me? What is it you seek that you have not found? Clearly anyone who approaches a spiritual teacher is looking for something. By being asked this question we are thrown back on ourself. What am I looking for? On that answer depends the chance of being accepted by the teacher for a true teacher only wants honest disciples who are real seekers.

The disciples respond almost comically. It's as though they are thrown off balance by the question. Or is it because they see in Jesus something so glorious that they cannot think straight? Anyway, they ask him where he lives! But this, in a way, is the right response. Where you live in an esoteric sense is what you are. Your true home is the externalisation of your true being. So the disciples are asking who Jesus is. His reply is wonderfully simple.  "Come and see," he says. So they do, and the rest is history.

Likewise we too, as spiritual aspirants, must ask ourselves what we are looking for, and we must be absolutely honest with our response. First of all, are we serious? Is this the most important thing in our lives to the extent that we are prepared to sacrifice many other things, or even all other things, for it? You might think that is an extreme case, valid only for the saints and martyrs, but, to some extent, it must also apply to the most humble of us if we really wish to get anywhere. And then, what do we seek? God of course, one presumes, but why? Because we want to get something from the deal? Higher consciousness, bliss, spiritual power, great knowledge? Or because there is an unsatisfied longing within us like that of a lover whose beloved has disappeared? An emptiness inside that cries out to be filled, coupled with a strong desire to dedicate ourself to and serve something real?

Jesus looked at these disciples and saw that their search was true. It was not based on the desire of the ego but that of the heart. So he accepted them. He saw that, unlike the rich young man he encountered later on, they were prepared to take up the cross and follow him wherever that journey led, and that was because what they sought mattered more to them than they did themselves. They asked where he lived because they knew that was where they wanted to be. 

The Rose and the Lily

Flowers are one of the most perfect symbols of the divine. Can you imagine heaven without them? It would be like heaven without beauty. The splendour of colour points clearly to spiritual reality, and flowers (together with, perhaps, birds) are the most perfect embodiment of colour in this world. Of course, the earthbound mentality will say that the colour of flowers has just evolved to attract insects for the purpose of pollination. But if you really believe that then your spiritual senses are not functioning and you have killed something vital inside yourself. Floral colour may well have such a purpose on one level, for the angelic powers are quite capable of combining material practicality with spiritual meaning, but it is very much secondary. The spiritual always takes precedence over the material even if the material also has its own rights.

Continued on Albion Awakening.

The Return of the Gods

Over the last 50 years or so spiritual enthusiasts of various types have regularly talked about the return of the gods to human consciousness. The idea is that about 2,500 years ago contact with the numinous world of the divine gradually became closed off as a more rational, egocentric, individualised form of consciousness evolved, slowly at first but rapidly from, say, the Renaissance period onwards. This was a necessary thing from an evolutionary point of view. We had to become completely focused on the material plane in order to develop certain qualities, to do with mind principally, so that we might become more rounded, self-organised and integrated individuals. Essentially so that we might learn to think. That meant a degree of inner isolation. But now we are living in a world of complete separation from the gods and it is time to restore contact with them and their world of archetypal reality, though this time from the point of view of who we are today with our more autonomous and intellectual mental attitude.

I sympathise with this idea. We are certainly cut off from the inner worlds, much to our detriment. We desperately need to become more aware of the greater reality of the universe, and its spiritual aspects. But is a return to archaic ways the right thing to do, even with the always stressed strong proviso that this should be in the context of who we are now and not as passive as it used to be? Who or what were the gods anyway? Were they really divine or were they often beings who existed in the between worlds by which I mean the worlds between this physical one and the true spiritual worlds? No doubt some were divine, as in what Christians would think of as angels, and some were demons and there were others between the two, non-physical beings but not especially moral or benevolent. When we look at the old gods and goddesses, whether Egyptian or Greek or Indian or Norse or whatever, most of them are not particularly admirable in spiritual terms. This may reflect the limitations of the people who worshipped them but it may not. Please note that I am accepting the gods as real beings and do not just see them as objectifications of components within the human psyche though I am not disputing that they were that as well. However, in the past it was contact with the being that activated the corresponding area of the psyche. A return to the gods would mean opening the mind up to these otherworld beings.

I think the advent of Christ changed everything. To attempt to return to a pre-Christian spiritual attitude, as so many pagans and occultists and shamans and so on do, is spiritually atavistic. These people mostly explore the so-called astral plane, a psychic world in which thoughts and feelings are things. This is pretty much the world of the gods. I say pretty much because there are exceptions but these are rare. The gods are not God even though there is often an underlying belief that each one of them can potentially offer an opening to the Absolute of which they are something like manifested aspects. But I don't go along with this. If you approach the Absolute through the gods, you will not advance beyond the level of the gods which is the level of created beings, albeit an inner level. Since Christ came, the gods are spiritually redundant and they will remain so. Whatever numinous power they may once have had has been taken up by and refocused in him and they are mostly now psychic shells which can be reactivated by desire or thought or concentration but cannot be re-spiritualised to any high degree.

We most certainly do need to open our hearts and minds up to the higher worlds, and also learn to see creation as full of soul, a living thing shot through with spirit. But to do this through the old gods, or god forms as they might better be called, or even some modern equivalent is not the way. The old ways of approach to the divine have been superseded. They cannot be updated. For one thing, they belong to a completely different moral universe. For another, the forms they took reflect the archaic consciousness, especially when they are derived from the animal kingdom. Form is much more important than some spiritual people realise. Outer and inner cannot be disassociated as much as you might think. The sort of outer through which you seek to access the inner will largely determine the sort of inner world you encounter, its quality and spiritual height, depth and truth. It's not all one and the same thing, whatever popular spirituality might say today.

If by the return of the gods you mean a reacknowledgment of the spiritual plane by materialistic people, I have no quarrel with you. But if you say that this can be effected through the agency of archaic pagan religions and god forms, then I think you are mistaken. This is more the approach of occultism than genuine spirituality, the difference being that the former seeks power or knowledge or experience while the latter is driven by love. The occultist may very well acquire all those things for himself but he will not find God. The advent of Christ really did change everything, and for all time.

Advent

Advent has a special magical quality which exists even now when we are about as far removed from any real Christmas spirit as we could be. Some thoughts on that on Albion Awakening.

Meeting the Masters article

This is an article I recently wrote for a digital magazine called The Paranormal Chronicles. It concerns the story behind the book after which this blog is named. There's nothing new here for those who have read the book but if I compare page views on this blog with book sales then it seems likely that many visitors to this site haven't done that!

Do you believe there are spiritual beings who watch over and guide us? Not in the sense of guardian angels but human souls who have perfected themselves spiritually and realised their unity with God, and who now seek to help others do the same. If you hope this might be the case, perhaps my testimony here can offer some support for the idea.

My story goes back around 40 years. At the time I was a young man dissatisfied with conventional life. I had a job that bored me, prospects of a sort but that didn't interest me and I was searching for something more to life than a mundane existence dedicated to material success which was pretty much all that was on offer. I had a limited knowledge of the spiritual movements that were beginning to coalesce into what became known as the New Age but found them fairly shallow. Religion, such as I knew it, seemed moribund and concerned with something far off. I wasn't particularly interested in what happened after death. I wanted life to have some real meaning now. 

One day I wandered into a metaphysical bookshop near where I worked in London and began to browse, looking for something that might provide answers to questions I hadn't even properly formulated yet . As I searched the shelves a man beside me spoke asking whether he might make a recommendation. He'd seen I didn't really know what I was looking for and wondered if I'd like some help. Overcoming my natural reticence in such circumstances, I agreed. We got talking and I was sufficiently interested to accept his offer of lunch during which we discussed such subjects as meditation, reincarnation and vegetarianism, none of which were quite as mainstream then as they are now.

Here is not the place to go into details but six months later the two of us were living together in Bath, running an antiques shop by day and meditating in the evening. Michael, my new spiritual accomplice, had been a Benedictine monk and also lived in India for long periods, and I had decided to throw in my lot with him, pursuing the spiritual path together. For a few weeks we led this life uneventfully but then something rather unusual happened.

We were sitting in meditation as normal when Michael began to sound the OM, the Hindu sacred sound that is supposed to symbolise ultimate truth. The sound went on and on, becoming ever louder in the process. When it eventually stopped the room had a totally different atmosphere as though it had been cleansed, its psychic state uplifted. Now the silence that replaced it seemed a real thing rather than the normal absence of noise. Then Michael began to speak. Except it was not him speaking.

The words were coming from his mouth but they were not in his voice. They were spoken without hesitation and with an authority that should have quelled doubt. But, of course, I did doubt. I was a fairly sceptical person. That was what put me off the New Age type teachers I mentioned earlier. At first I thought Michael might be putting on a show but the words, the sense of presence, never mind subsequent experiences, showed this to be impossible. Then I thought that maybe the voice was that of a genuine spirit but of the kind contacted in spiritualism, that's to say, not a very elevated being. But this wasn't possible either. The whole tone of the communication, the power, the deep sense of love and wisdom, all these showed it to be a spirit of real substance, an exemplar of deep truth.

From then on this being and others like him spoke to me through Michael on a regular basis. They would come during our period of meditation and speak for between 10 and 20 minutes. Their subject was mostly the lessons I was here to learn, and they were compassionate but exacting teachers. When I asked them who or what they were they told me to think of them as messengers from God but never gave a name though I did ask. I think this was because names would bring the experience down to a more personal level and so detract from the pure spiritual message. However, from certain things they said, I gathered that they were human beings who had progressed beyond the need for experience in the material world, and now lived in higher planes which they described in terms of light, beauty, colour and spiritual glory. They were what are known as Masters.

It is often said that Masters do not communicate through mediums, this being a practice restricted to spirits still functioning in the lower realms of non-physical reality. I agree with that statement. The goal of true teachers is to bring their pupils up to their level and so they teach through impression, on a spiritual rather than a mental level. Indeed, my instructors told me as much. But there are exceptions and this was one of them. Of course, such an assertion cannot be proved but I do think that anyone who reads their words should be able to sense something of their quality. When studying channelled messages it is important to know that spiritual teachings have two levels. The obvious one is the words and information conveyed. But there is an inner level too which is actually more important. It is the tone of the teaching, its feel. A teaching coming from a higher source will carry a deeper truth and be more potentially transformative than one from a lower, even if the words are the same. In fact, even if the words are simpler. Don't think that just because something appears profound it is true. Look behind the words to the spiritual quality of a communication.

The fact of the reality of these beings I have called Masters tells us something about the universe. It is a spiritual universe. The physical level in which we live is merely the lowest level or outermost crust of a multi-dimensional reality with the higher worlds being worlds of greater light, freedom, beauty and consciousness. We can attain these higher worlds through proper spiritual development, and we have help in this, let's be honest, difficult task. We may not be aware of this help in our conscious mind but if we seek to attune our hearts correctly, through humility, meditation and prayer, then we can render ourselves susceptible to divine influence which will prompt us along the right path. But note, this is not a passive thing. We are only ever guided. Our will is our own. The most important thing we can do is to make right choices.

The book I wrote about this experience I called Meeting the Masters. It describes the first year of the experience when the communications were at their most frequent. They actually lasted for 21 years and stopped, appropriately enough, just before the end of the last millennium. Since then I have had no outer contact with the Masters but strive to put into practice what they taught which is a constantly ongoing process. I have been fortunate enough to have had living proof of the reality of the spiritual world and would like to pass that on to anyone who might be interested.

What is the primary cause of the decline of Western civilisation?

That it is declining is obvious to anyone who looks at the question from a spiritual perspective even if, for those who think materialistically, it may seem to be riding high at the moment.

For some thoughts on the subject see Albion Awakening.

What Does Christianity Have that Buddhism Doesn't?

I wrote this as a comment in reply to a question on the Free Will and Evil post. The image popped into my head as I was writing my reply and because I think it does illustrate something important about the difference between the two religions I have rescued it from its relative obscurity there and brought into the (relative!) light of day.

I wrote as follows:

"The Buddhist position is a well-established and coherent one and is worth taking very seriously even if, as I believe, it does fall at the final hurdle.

What I mean is that it approaches consciousness by going to its roots and seeing these as primal which they may be but then that ignores that roots grow and give form to branches, flowers and fruit etc, and these can't just be dismissed. They are part of the whole thing and maybe the reason for the whole thing. In terms of creation or manifestation anyway. So, I think that is what the position you mention does (Note: the Buddhist position of liberation from all aspects of the phenomenal world).  It's a valid position but I think it misses the purpose of our being here and having these pesky selves in the first place. It essentially misses out on the truth of relationship which, when all is said and done, might be at the heart of the reason for everything that is and why there is something rather than nothing."

This is what religions and philosophies that, in whatever way, reject the reality of the created world do.  They ignore purpose and they think that the relative (as one might call it) adds nothing to the absolute. But God is creative almost above all else and what he creates is not only good but always adds more to the whole. Christ came that we might have life and have it more abundantly. Ultimately it is the life more abundant that distinguishes the Christian vision from the Buddhist.