![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
readoldthingsThe Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 4, Verses 18-25
Fishers of Men
Jesus now begins to gather his group of Initiates. He starts with four fishermen.
Remember that nothing is accidental. He didn't just pick fishermen because the Teamsters were on strike that day.
In one of Plato's dialogs-- I forget which one, can anyone help me out?-- Socrates suggests that, because the dwellers in Heaven are so much less dense than we are, the atmosphere of the Earth is like Water rather than Air, and we are like fish, swimming around in darkness. In the Republic, Plato tells us that the Philosopher Kings should study astronomy, but that it isn't enough to just study the physical movements of the planets-- to do so is to stand above them and look down on them; our real concern should be with spiritual things.
The World Turned Inside-Out
When you read ancient writings, you see that their experience of the world is very different from ours. It's as if they live in a world that is inside-out. In the works of Hesiod, for example, the Gods include natural phenomena like Night and Darkness; social phenomena like the taking of Oaths (Oath was literally a deity who turned up and held you to your word); psychological processes like Love; and abstract phenomena like Fate or Violent Death. In other words, the entire range of events and experiences that a human being can encounter are themselves intelligent beings, and there are no borders between nature, culture, and psyche. Night is the mother of the Fates and of Age and of Sleep, and all these things are beings-- that is, centers of conscious experience who act in the world, rather than mechanical processes.
When the ancients wish to talk about the spiritual world, they picture it either in the Sky or below the Earth. And it's not that these are metaphors, or, rather, they aren't just metaphors. It's as if all of reality, down to the smallest details, consists of living beings interacting with each other. Some of those beings appear to the human mind as men or animals, others as love or hate, others as oceans or winds.
And so the spiritual realm is in Heaven, and to the dwellers in Heaven, the bright air of the Earth is like dark water. Jesus is going to make his disciples Fishers of Men. In other words, they will Initiate others by drawing them up, out of the dark water, into the heavenly light.
The Exorcist
Jesus then begins his ministry, which consists, at this point, of miraculous healings and of exorcisms.
There are a few things to take away from this.
The first is simply that Jesus is doing magic.
For our purposes, here is the definition of magic:
This is the definition that the great 20th century adept Dion Fortune used. From this perspective, Jesus is doing magic, and nothing but magic. A demon is a disembodied consciousness. To drive it from a body back into its habitation in the astral realm, or into another body, is to cause a change in consciousness. A disease, too, is an element of consciousness. The consciousness of the individual is the representation of the world that he inhabits-- including his body. His disease is his consciousness of disease; his health is his consciousness of health-- or lack thereof, as part of health includes not having to be aware of the body (there is a lesson in this.)
The 20th century definition of magic was not the definition of magic in Jesus's time. The various practices that go into what we now call magic all fall under different headings then-- mageia, the science of the Persian magi; pharmakeia, the use of drugs and poisons, goetia, the invocation of demons-- what we now call "magic" could mean any of these, along with the legitimate divinations of augurs, prophecies of oracles, initiatory work of the various mystery schools, and the ritual theurgy of priests. Moreover, today the word "magic" has connotations of wonder and delight that it did not have at that time. This is important, because from our perspective, what Jesus is doing is magic, plain and simple. In earlier times, things were less clearcut.
The debate in Jesus's time and after was not over whether he performed miracles or "really existed," but how he performed his miracles. Was he a goes, a type of evil and dishonest magician who performed miracles through the aid of demons? Or did he perform his miracles through his own power as the Son of God, or as the son of a god? Sons of gods were not unknown. The followers of Pythagoras believed him to have been a son of Apollo, even if they interpreted the meaning of this symbolically; Apollonius of Tyana, a famous magus during Jesus's time, was another son of Apollo, whose work fell under the same scrutiny that Jesus's did. If we are interested in learning magic-- as we now understand "magic"-- from Jesus, we don't need to subscribe to a particular theology. He may have been a goes or magus; he may have been a human Initiate, who was adopted as a son by YHVH following his baptism by John; he may be the Second Person of the Holy Trinity.
It either doesn't matter-- or, it only matters if, by understanding Jesus in a particular way, we may form a relationship with Him that we would not be able to otherwise.
Divine Healing and Exorcism
Jesus begins his ministry. His work, so far, has been characterized in a few different: He changes the nous of his followers, so that they may experience the reality of God (the "Kingdom of Heaven"); he brings Light, and thereby creates the world anew; he and his followers are fishers of men, raising men out of the darkness of the material world, into the heavenly light.
Now we have another way of looking at his work. He is a healer, and he is an exorcist. To change the nous is to heal it. If we are in darkness, unable to open the eye of the soul to see the Light of God, it isn't necessarily that we are bad-- it is that we are sick. Jesus's work is the work of a doctor, which to my mind is rather different from going around telling everyone that they'd better wise up, cause if they don't Daddy's gonna come him and kick the shit out of them.
Demons
If God is the Supreme Unity; and the Power that brings the universe into being; and is the power by which the soul comes to mastery over itself and triumphs over its bondage to its lower instincts and social pressures; and is the ultimate goal of the awakened soul--
If that's the case, then the Devil is the Supreme Division; the weakness that dissolves creation; and the weakness by which the soul sinks into the mire of social gamesmanship and its own animal instincts; and is the ultimate doom of the soul that rejects God.
"We are Legion." Hell is not a kingdom, but an anarchy; the demons are the individual points of consciousness in that anarchy. Jesus's work of exorcism is the work of driving out these consciousnesses. As they are division itself, this work has the immediate effect of moving the soul toward unity with itself and with God. The work of healing is exorcism, and the work of exorcism is healing.
Astrotheology
Jesus is born at the Winter Solstice, when the Sun enters the sign of Capricorn, the goat. In ancient times, the Jews brought two goats to the temple. One was sacrificed, to expiate the sins of the people. The other was driven into the desert, for the same purpose. In Matthew 3, Jesus is is baptized by John, the Water-Bearer. He then heads into the desert to encounter his opposite number, the scape-goat. Upon his return he gathers up the first of his disciples, Fishers of Men.
18 And Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers.
19 And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.
20 And they straightway left their nets, and followed him.
21 And going on from thence, he saw other two brethren, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in a ship with Zebedee their father, mending their nets; and he called them.
22 And they immediately left the ship and their father, and followed him.
23 And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.
24 And his fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatick, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them.
25 And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judaea, and from beyond Jordan.
Fishers of Men
Jesus now begins to gather his group of Initiates. He starts with four fishermen.
Remember that nothing is accidental. He didn't just pick fishermen because the Teamsters were on strike that day.
In one of Plato's dialogs-- I forget which one, can anyone help me out?-- Socrates suggests that, because the dwellers in Heaven are so much less dense than we are, the atmosphere of the Earth is like Water rather than Air, and we are like fish, swimming around in darkness. In the Republic, Plato tells us that the Philosopher Kings should study astronomy, but that it isn't enough to just study the physical movements of the planets-- to do so is to stand above them and look down on them; our real concern should be with spiritual things.
The World Turned Inside-Out
When you read ancient writings, you see that their experience of the world is very different from ours. It's as if they live in a world that is inside-out. In the works of Hesiod, for example, the Gods include natural phenomena like Night and Darkness; social phenomena like the taking of Oaths (Oath was literally a deity who turned up and held you to your word); psychological processes like Love; and abstract phenomena like Fate or Violent Death. In other words, the entire range of events and experiences that a human being can encounter are themselves intelligent beings, and there are no borders between nature, culture, and psyche. Night is the mother of the Fates and of Age and of Sleep, and all these things are beings-- that is, centers of conscious experience who act in the world, rather than mechanical processes.
When the ancients wish to talk about the spiritual world, they picture it either in the Sky or below the Earth. And it's not that these are metaphors, or, rather, they aren't just metaphors. It's as if all of reality, down to the smallest details, consists of living beings interacting with each other. Some of those beings appear to the human mind as men or animals, others as love or hate, others as oceans or winds.
And so the spiritual realm is in Heaven, and to the dwellers in Heaven, the bright air of the Earth is like dark water. Jesus is going to make his disciples Fishers of Men. In other words, they will Initiate others by drawing them up, out of the dark water, into the heavenly light.
The Exorcist
Jesus then begins his ministry, which consists, at this point, of miraculous healings and of exorcisms.
There are a few things to take away from this.
The first is simply that Jesus is doing magic.
For our purposes, here is the definition of magic:
The art and science of causing changes in consciousness in accordance with will.
This is the definition that the great 20th century adept Dion Fortune used. From this perspective, Jesus is doing magic, and nothing but magic. A demon is a disembodied consciousness. To drive it from a body back into its habitation in the astral realm, or into another body, is to cause a change in consciousness. A disease, too, is an element of consciousness. The consciousness of the individual is the representation of the world that he inhabits-- including his body. His disease is his consciousness of disease; his health is his consciousness of health-- or lack thereof, as part of health includes not having to be aware of the body (there is a lesson in this.)
The 20th century definition of magic was not the definition of magic in Jesus's time. The various practices that go into what we now call magic all fall under different headings then-- mageia, the science of the Persian magi; pharmakeia, the use of drugs and poisons, goetia, the invocation of demons-- what we now call "magic" could mean any of these, along with the legitimate divinations of augurs, prophecies of oracles, initiatory work of the various mystery schools, and the ritual theurgy of priests. Moreover, today the word "magic" has connotations of wonder and delight that it did not have at that time. This is important, because from our perspective, what Jesus is doing is magic, plain and simple. In earlier times, things were less clearcut.
The debate in Jesus's time and after was not over whether he performed miracles or "really existed," but how he performed his miracles. Was he a goes, a type of evil and dishonest magician who performed miracles through the aid of demons? Or did he perform his miracles through his own power as the Son of God, or as the son of a god? Sons of gods were not unknown. The followers of Pythagoras believed him to have been a son of Apollo, even if they interpreted the meaning of this symbolically; Apollonius of Tyana, a famous magus during Jesus's time, was another son of Apollo, whose work fell under the same scrutiny that Jesus's did. If we are interested in learning magic-- as we now understand "magic"-- from Jesus, we don't need to subscribe to a particular theology. He may have been a goes or magus; he may have been a human Initiate, who was adopted as a son by YHVH following his baptism by John; he may be the Second Person of the Holy Trinity.
It either doesn't matter-- or, it only matters if, by understanding Jesus in a particular way, we may form a relationship with Him that we would not be able to otherwise.
Divine Healing and Exorcism
Jesus begins his ministry. His work, so far, has been characterized in a few different: He changes the nous of his followers, so that they may experience the reality of God (the "Kingdom of Heaven"); he brings Light, and thereby creates the world anew; he and his followers are fishers of men, raising men out of the darkness of the material world, into the heavenly light.
Now we have another way of looking at his work. He is a healer, and he is an exorcist. To change the nous is to heal it. If we are in darkness, unable to open the eye of the soul to see the Light of God, it isn't necessarily that we are bad-- it is that we are sick. Jesus's work is the work of a doctor, which to my mind is rather different from going around telling everyone that they'd better wise up, cause if they don't Daddy's gonna come him and kick the shit out of them.
Demons
If God is the Supreme Unity; and the Power that brings the universe into being; and is the power by which the soul comes to mastery over itself and triumphs over its bondage to its lower instincts and social pressures; and is the ultimate goal of the awakened soul--
If that's the case, then the Devil is the Supreme Division; the weakness that dissolves creation; and the weakness by which the soul sinks into the mire of social gamesmanship and its own animal instincts; and is the ultimate doom of the soul that rejects God.
"We are Legion." Hell is not a kingdom, but an anarchy; the demons are the individual points of consciousness in that anarchy. Jesus's work of exorcism is the work of driving out these consciousnesses. As they are division itself, this work has the immediate effect of moving the soul toward unity with itself and with God. The work of healing is exorcism, and the work of exorcism is healing.
Astrotheology
Jesus is born at the Winter Solstice, when the Sun enters the sign of Capricorn, the goat. In ancient times, the Jews brought two goats to the temple. One was sacrificed, to expiate the sins of the people. The other was driven into the desert, for the same purpose. In Matthew 3, Jesus is is baptized by John, the Water-Bearer. He then heads into the desert to encounter his opposite number, the scape-goat. Upon his return he gathers up the first of his disciples, Fishers of Men.
