Spiritual Atmosphere

 Certain places, even in today's world, retain an atmosphere that speaks of a reality beyond the everyday and the mundane. There are natural sites that have this quality and these were often adopted as sacred places in bygone days by our pagan forefathers. Springs, wells, mountains, caves and many other naturally occurring features were marked out by a sense of presence which indicated that a god or spirit of some kind was in attendance. Nowadays we might be inclined to think of this, if existing at all, as a phenomenon associated with earth energies, perhaps coming from a geological peculiarity or even mineral deposit of some sort, but our ancestors always associated sacredness with spirits. That is to say, with beings either from another world or another dimension of this one.

Some places have a sacred aura but others can acquire that aura by the action of human beings who gather there to worship and pray. I say action but contemplation might be a better word as the spiritual power engendered by contemplation can build up and imbue its environment with a special quality that is detectable to the sensitive soul. Places of worship can have this property, and they are often designed to help in its creation with their high ceilings and vaults on the one hand and enclosed sanctuaries on the other, bringing to mind the open sky on a mountain top or a deep, dark cave representing respectively the Father and Mother of Creation. These spaces can then receive and hold the power built up the worshippers. This was the genius of architects of the past that their descendants in our day have either lost or failed to understand. The atmosphere is not created by the architecture but can be supplemented by it, and it does not depend just on the ritual but the ritual and attitude of the worshippers, both together. A ritual can be designed to build up power but it will only be properly effective if the participants attend with their heart and spirit as well as their mind and body.

I suppose it is possible that a modern church can have a spiritual atmosphere, but it is unlikely due to its construction being based on secular/materialist principles and its lack of connection to the transcendent principle. Not to mention, its ugliness. I once met a monk who told me that it doesn't matter what the outer form in which you worship is like, it's the worship that counts. The silly fellow meant well but he was ignorant. In that case why did people put so much energy into building stone hymns to the Creator? Of course, a loving heart can worship anywhere but the outer affects the inner just as the inner affects the outer, and to dismiss beauty as irrelevant shows a dead spirit. The grandeur of a Gothic cathedral is not required as a pure simplicity can be just as effective in its own way, but harmonious proportions and natural materials are important if one wishes to create a holy space in which to connect to the divine. Beauty is part of God just as much as love and wisdom.

Three places come to mind for me as environments where I have felt a strong spiritual atmosphere. There are many more I could add, but these three form a good cross section, being illustrative of different types of atmosphere. I am referring to man-made places only here so leaving out examples from the natural world.

The first is the King's Chamber in the Great Pyramid of Giza. The first time I went there was 1978 and I was fortunate enough to be left on my own for a while in the dark centre of the structure. There was a slight artificial light but I shut my eyes and was absorbed by the stillness and silence around me. There was a sense of extraordinary antiquity as though one had been taken back to the beginning of things before form of any kind developed. This was the very ground of creation, but also the seat of the tiny seed of spirit at the core of the heart from which all life grows. For a moment I felt myself to be entering the originating point of mystery and returned to where all things began.

The second place was Akbar's Tomb which is the mausoleum of the Mughal emperor Akbar in Sikandra just outside Agra. When I first went there in 1979 I felt as if part of me knew this place and I had a right be there, though I am not claiming a past life as a Mughal courtier. This was just a feeling, but it was a happy one and it came over me as I walked along the path that led through the quadrangular charbagh, representing the garden of paradise, up to the mausoleum. At the southern entrance to the tomb there was the most beautifully decorated vestibule with geometrical patterns picked out in delicate blue and vivid gold and then, in stark contrast, you entered a dark passage leading to the plain, unadorned central chamber that was Akbar's cenotaph. Here in the dim light under a high vaulted ceiling an attendant sounded the Muslim call to prayer. It echoed and resounded throughout the chamber, lasting for several seconds before gradually dying away, and, in that environment, seemed like the voice of God calling all the worlds into being out of the darkness of primeval space. If the inside of the Great Pyramid was like the time before creation, this resembled a microscopic scale version of the creative moment at the beginning of time.

The vestibule ceiling

The cenotaph chamber

My third example of spiritual atmosphere comes from Verona in 1987. It was in one of the numerous old churches in that city though unfortunately I can't remember which. There are a few examples here. I was there as a tourist, visiting the various sites as tourists do. There is a 1st century Roman amphitheatre in an excellent state of repair and still used for opera performances, and then there is the Casa di Giulietta with its balcony that is certainly not authentic but serves as a touching homage to young love. There are also several Romanesque and Gothic churches such as the Basilica di San Zeno Maggiore and the Chiesa di Santa Anastasia which is stuffed full of extraordinary artworks. But it may have been while visiting one of the city's smaller churches that I opened a door to a little side chapel and was hit by a wave of such power that I almost fell back. It was rather like exiting the air-conditioned interior of a plane in the tropics when the outside heat suddenly crashes into you. A guide told me that monks had conducted a service there shortly before, and the after-effects of that service were certainly a testimony to the intensity of their worship. 

Although I had once encountered something similar at Quarr Abbey on the Isle of Wight I had not previously appreciated the extent to which true worship can build up an atmosphere so strong it seems almost a physical thing. If the previous experiences had brought to mind the early days of the universe this one was different in that it spoke of the reciprocal love of God and Man. It also seemed noticeably Christian and was a reminder that not all experiences called spiritual are necessarily the same thing.

Basilica of San Zeno

The Last Europeans in India

Michael and I were not the only Europeans living in Yercaud. I mentioned Sofie de Mello from Germany in a previous Indian Story post but there were a few other European residents there as well. One, an Englishman, Vic Tate by name, had been born in India around 1915. I say he was an Englishman because all his ancestors had come from England but he had only visited the country once, for a short holiday in the 1950s. Otherwise, he had lived his entire life in India, having stayed on as a coffee planter after Independence in 1947. He was an Indian citizen but thought of himself, as he was, as an Englishman. Vic was a widower when I knew him and a hale and jolly fellow with a bungalow stuffed full of Victoriana. He was more English than most English people because his Englishness was defined by the Englishness of the 1940s and was unaffected by the internationalism of the following decades. He may have lived through those decades but he remained culturally where he had been in 1947 because although he mixed with Indians on perfectly friendly terms he did not regard himself as Indian so the normal societal influences and changes a person experiences as time goes by had no impact on him.

Another resident was an Italian of about the same age as Vic. He was as Italian as Vic was English though he too had spent all his life in India.  His name was Tito Simonelli and his father had been chauffeur to the Maharajah of Mysore before Independence. Thus, Tito had grown up in India. He was an engineer and took great pride in his Alfa Romeo as well he might, given every other car in Yercaud at the time (and there weren't many) was an Ambassador, the ubiquitous Indian car of the period based on the Morris Oxford. Tito upheld the romantic reputation of his nation by having an Indian mistress over 30 years younger than him though whenever we went to his house she was presented as his housekeeper, a fiction everyone politely observed.

Both these men were Indian citizens who had been born in India and lived there throughout their entire lives, but they thought of themselves, and were regarded by everyone else, as English and Italian respectively. They knew what people nowadays seem to forget that blood and ancestry count for more than your passport and where you happen to live.

Me, Tito and Vic in front of Vic's bungalow after church

There was one other European from pre-independence days who lived in Yercaud at this time and this was a very old English lady called Connie-Mae. I forget her surname. Ostensibly, she ran the Yercaud Club, a colonial era establishment where planters gathered to drink, play cards and snooker and generally relax back in the day and still did although now they were Indian rather than British planters. Connie-Mae had been the daughter of an English planter and she had stayed on after 1947 but never married. She had come to the point at which she had had to give up her bungalow, and the club committee said she could live out her days at the club where she was given a small bedroom. For appearance's sake, she was described as the secretary but she didn't do anything. She still had a devoted servant called Walter, almost as old as she was, and he and his wife looked after her even though she couldn't pay them much. Michael and I visited Connie-Mae at the club quite regularly where she would give us a cup of tea and talk of the old days. 

At one time we had a guest in our establishment who was called Samir or Sammy for short. He was a well-spoken and apparently well-educated Muslim in his mid thirties  He said he had come up to Yercaud to convalesce after a car accident. He was witty and entertaining and as he was with us for several weeks we got to know him quite well. He would come up to our bungalow for coffee and conversation and all went normally until one week when it was time for him to pay us he said that his brother hadn't sent through his money for that week and would we mind waiting. We didn't mind but then it stretched over to the next week and he said his money had still not arrived. Could we lend him something until it did? Again, we didn't mind but when the same thing happened the following week we said no. Then his money seemingly did arrive and he paid us.

We had introduced Sammy to Connie-Mae and he became a regular visitor at her club, the two of them apparently getting on well. But then Sammy vanished, owing us a couple of weeks' rent. It was a disappointment but not too serious. However, the next time we went to Connie-Mae and told her of Sammy's disappearance she began to look alarmed and then burst into tears. It turned out that she too had lent Sammy money and not just some money but the entirety of her remaining savings. He had charmed the lot out of her and what in a way was worse she had even borrowed a large sum from her servant's savings to lend to him. Such was his devotion he had given it to her without question. We had actually warned Connie-Mae to be careful of Sammy after our earlier experience but she had ignored us because of his smooth reassurances that his brother was just about to send the money. 

A couple of weeks after this Michael and I were down in Salem, the town in the plains about 20 miles from Yercaud where we did occasional shopping for luxury goods such as tinned cheese. We had gone there because Muthu our gardener had fallen down and broken his leg while drunk on bootleg arrack laced with battery acid and strychnine, apparently added because in low doses they are stimulants. There was no proper hospital in Yercaud so he had been taken down to Salem. We were in an auto rickshaw on our way to the hospital to visit him when suddenly we saw Sammy walking along the roadside. We shouted at the driver to stop and jumped out. Michael grabbed Sammy by the arm and told him to turn out his pockets. He protested and said he didn't have much but Michael took his wallet and emptied it. It wasn't much. We then told him we would call the police unless he gave us some more money at which he said he had some back at his hotel. So we marched him back there and went up to his room where he had a briefcase with some money in it. A reasonable sum but nowhere near the amount he had stolen from Connie-Mae. We took it and he swore he was going to pay Connie-Mae back but we knew he was lying. So we left and did report him to the police but by the time they got to the hotel which was a few days later, of course, he had absconded as we knew he would.  Michael gave the money to Connie-Mae and she gave it to her servant though it wasn't enough to reimburse him fully but it was something. I still feel angry when I think of this. To steal an old woman's entire life savings, which may not have been much but was all she had, and then get her to borrow from an old and trusting servant with seemingly not a twinge of conscience is inexplicable. He wasn't starving. He dressed well and was quite chubby as in well-fed chubby. He was simply bad. 

The only good thing to come out of this was that the club members made up the deficit to Connie-Mae's servant and told her that she could live there, board and lodging free, for the rest of her life. She was still alive when we left Yercaud, but I heard that she died shortly afterwards. 

I call these three people, Vic, Tito and Connie-Mae, the last Europeans because they were among the final generation of people born in India, probably in the 1910s, who were too settled to leave at Independence in 1947 and had stayed on. There were never that many British people in India. Even at the height of the Raj they only numbered around 150,000, civil and military, for the whole country, present day India, Pakistan and Bangladesh included. Most of them left in 1947 or shortly afterwards. But a few remained, people who had been born in India and made their lives there. By 1980 when I arrived in Yercaud the great majority of these people had died and with them a human type and way of life that was unique. They were not especially imaginative and it's easy for the modern sophisticate to make fun of them, but they were honest, decent people who believed in doing the right thing.

Wars and Rumours of Wars

 There have always been wars so the end times prediction of wars and rumours of wars should not seem especially relevant now, and yet it does. Perhaps because wars usually have some kind of sense to them, territorial, tribal, monetary and the like. But recent wars seem to be without any sense at all and simply war for the sake of war. There undoubtedly is a reason for the current entry in the list of wars but it's hard to see why the main protagonist is acting as it is because the net benefit to that country is minimal if there is one at all. It is for this reason that we need to look beyond ordinary politics for an explanation.

The world is breaking down. When that happens the structures of civilisation develop cracks and start to fail after which the normal forces of entropy and decay take over and do the rest. Recent wars are the result of a loss of centre. The centre is the spiritual focus of a society, what it is grounded in and what sustains it. When that no longer holds then things do fly apart, as the poet says. We have had no centre for a long time in the West which is why we have pitiful replacements such as human rights and democracy but these have no real substance to them. They are feeble ideological substitutes for what we have lost or rejected and they don't really inspire anybody for long.

Wars come about because of ambition, and that is certainly a factor with the present one. But there is something else going on which is a simple desire for destruction. When the world has no meaning, and it has none without a sense of something beyond itself, we can find a crude purpose of sorts through destruction. Destruction is easy and it's exciting. It can stimulate the jaded palate and thrill the mind that has become bored and without a deeper goal. And that is just on the human level. The nature of the end times is that certain supernatural forces that work against divine being can take advantage of the prevailing currents of dissolution and breakdown to advance their agenda. The tide that flows towards matter and away from spirit is in their favour. The more matter is separated from spirit (in appearance, of course, it never can be in reality), the less it can hold the imprint of Form and so the more it reverts to its primal condition of chaos. This is why wars are happening and wars themselves hasten the process.

Jesus said that when wars and rumours of wars come about we should not be troubled because these things must be. They must be because this is the same phenomenon we can observe when a physical body breaks down after the soul has left it. The soul has left our civilisation and this is why it is breaking down. However, we need not be a part of that. We must stand apart from it and observe but not get caught up in it. It can be hard to watch the destruction of something we love but death comes to everything in this world and while it is painful it is necessary so that life may progress in a new form. Letting go of the past is required of us at this time but that does not mean embracing the present which, as it is now, is not a new born thing but a decaying corpse. It means transferring attention to the world above where eternal verities remain in their pristine form, waiting to reinvigorate the world once the current stage of dissolution has done its work and the ground has been tilled ready for new seed.

Wars are part of this process. They are not good but they are inevitable as Jesus made clear.

Christian Polytheism

 The rivalry between Christianity and paganism seems to be reviving in the West as the secular materialism of the post-war period becomes increasingly threadbare and unsatisfactory. Once our stomachs are full and we have a roof over our heads and maybe a family of our own, many of us find there is still something lacking in our lives and we look for what might fill that lack. What is missing is meaning, of which there is none in the modern world. Meaning is only to be found in religion, though some seek it in art but even there it only exists when art looks beyond this world for inspiration.

It is the search for meaning that is behind any revival of religion. Some people turn to Christianity but often today some look to the pagan traditions which can provide an ethnic foundation to spiritual practice that Christianity does not have. A problem for would-be pagans is that the pagan religions died out centuries ago so all we have are modern simulations, based on records from the past but not living traditions. Therefore, any modern pagan is of necessity being somewhat performative when he practices his religion. It's rather like Westerners following the path of Hinduism which can never be a natural thing. There is always a cultural difference, in one case caused by space, in the other by time, and that renders the act artificial which is to say false. That doesn't mean it has no value but it will only have limited value.

Another problem is that paganism died out for a reason. It was superseded by the advent of Christ who really did make all things new. And yet some things were lost in the process, in particular a real connection to creation and a contact with the inner workings of nature as well as a proper relationship with the spirit of place. This is why the contemporary Christian needs to re-engage with paganism and even add a pagan element to his Christianity. This element should be seen in the light of Christ, in other words it must be baptised, but it provides a form of spiritual nourishment that Christianity lost as it lost touch with nature, with the earth and the land.

This is what I mean by Christian polytheism. Such a polytheism does not mean believing in many gods rather than one God. It means that under God there are many what we can justifiably call gods who carry out his work in creation. This is not too great a leap from where Christians already are, characterising them as angels, but angels are often regarded as somewhat abstract or, worse, sentimentalised. By seeing them as gods our minds can enter more deeply into the spiritual universe and the inside of creation. You could call them the inner energies of creation though with the understanding that behind these energies are beings not mere impersonal forces.

As a matter of fact, many of us have long been exposed to Christian polytheism without necessarily recognising it as such. C.S. Lewis and Tolkien were Christian polytheists, at least in their fiction, and that is a good deal of what makes their work appeal so much to the imagination. They were devout Christians but they were pagans of a sort too due to their creative absorption in the myths and legends of the past which deeply marked their literary work. Their reconciliation of pagan and Christian elements shows how each tradition can bring greater life to the other. You might see this as paganism providing soul to Christianity while in return Christianity brings spirit.

 150 years ago what had been esoteric began to be revealed until now all hidden teachings are out in the open, available for anyone interested to see. And yet the esoteric remains for there is always something more behind the scenes. How do you discover new levels of the esoteric now, ones that have the power of spiritual transformation that is largely lost when what is secret becomes externalised? You must go beyond the human mind and start to enter directly into the mind of Christ, and this you can do through love and imagination. An imaginative engagement with Christian polytheism in which the spiritual levels between the Creator and his emissaries, the gods and angels of creation, are explored will act like water on earth under the sun of Christ causing many beautiful flowers to grow.