readoldthings

The Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 10, verses 24-42 reads: 


This passage synchronistically relates to something that John Michael Greer has been discussing in his blog on Eliphas Levi's Doctrine and Ritual of High Magic. As we've regularly discussed here, our minds and our spirits are not isolated from one another. We participate in the group minds of our families, towns, and countries, and our auras contain the imprint of everything that we have thought, felt and done.   Shortly after the time of Jesus, the Stoic philosopher Epictetus put it this way: "So when you have shut the doors and made a darkness within, remember never to say that you are alone; for you are not alone, but God is within, and your Guardian Spirit, and what light do they need to behold what you do?"

This isn't an easy teaching, and, taken the wrong way, it can lead to neurosis and scrupulosity, as one begins to think of God as a kind of intergalactic Stalinist, with a KGB staffed by Guardian Angels who run around reporting on all your misdeeds. This is wrong. It is the case, rather, that God is Good, and our guardian angels are tasked with uniting us to the good. Un-Godly actions, thoughts, and feelings remove our souls from the awareness of the presence of God. 

Suppose you're wandering around a grocery store thinking about how much you hate everyone in it. Maybe they're all wearing masks like a bunch of obsequious Fauci-worshiping sheep, or maybe they're all walking around without masks, because they're a bunch of selfish Trumpers who don't care about other peoples' lives. And so you wander about directing thoughts of hatred and anger in every which direction. These behaviors will have consequences-- some will be subtle, as you can expect every meal you cook with the grocires you buy that day to be tainted with hatred and anger. But the immediate consequence is that when you are in that state, you are not at all in alignment with the Divine Power that brought to life, sustains at every moment, and wills the Evolution of every human soul in the grocery store with you, no matter who they vote for. 

Fear Not Them Which Kill the Body

There are certain passages that are worth glossing over, because they've been commented on so much or because I don't have anything to say that you can't read at a thousand mainstream Christian sites. This little verse is one such, but it nevertheless seems very important to highlight it just now. Don't fear the death of your body, or that which can kill your body. Fear Hell. 

And remember what Hell is. It isn't a physical place or a lake of fire-- these are images, metaphors. To descend into wrath, into lust, into addiction is already to be in Hell. 

Yes, I'm saying you should fear Facebook more than you fear Covid. 

Hard Words

"He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." 

These are hard words, and it's hard to know what to do with them. If you have children, can you imagine loving anything more than them, and can you imagine anyone saying to you "You must love me more than your children, or you aren't worthy of me?" I can't. 

It becomes clearer when we remember that Jesus isn't a mere someone. He is divine, he is God. And what is God? God is the Good Itself. In fact we should prefer the Good and the service of the Good to our children, our parents, and all the bonds of our human society. 

This helps clarify all the passages about setting a man against his Father, and his foes coming from his own household. As we discussed yesterday, Jesus is introducing a new principle into human society. To merely participate in the inherited social order, which is rooted in our primate nature, in our fallenness, in the worship of evil spirits, and in our own passions, is not moral behavior. This will be clearer if you think, not about your own family or your children-- your family is shaped by 2,000 years of Christian teaching. Think, rather, of the sort of groups that unsupervised humans naturally form in places like prisons and playgrounds. They're little more than dog packs, organized around an alpha leader and his flunkies. Rise above this; separate yourself from this; abandon the temptation to participate in the dog pack. The top dog in every dog pack is a dog.

Karma

Every action we take has its consequences. The hairs on your head are numbered; we escape nothing. This is critical, because we so often hide our actions from others, or from ourselves, or we make excuses for our misdeeds. But none of our excuses matter in the end; we reap exactly as we sew

The Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 10, Verses 1 through 15 reads:
 



Initiation, Again

At this point, our story shifts gears. So far, our focus has been on Jesus. Now, he begins to send forth his own disciples-- even as John, who proceeded him. Notice that he gives them the words "The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." This shows us that the energy that was transmitted through John to Jesus is now being transmitted through Jesus to his followers. 

Magic, Again

The followers of Jesus receive their power from him. What does he bid them to do? Heal the sick, cleans the lepers, cast out demons, raise the dead.

To say it another way: Physical healing, spiritual healing, and restoration to life.

And he gives them the command: Take nothing with you. Provide for others-- and you will be provided for. Whatever you give returns to you; whatever energy you participate in will manifest in your own life. How many times have we learned this principle? (In my own life, I frequently find myself saying, "How many times must I learn this principle before I put it into action?")

The Power of the Group

Notice that Jesus gathers 12 disciples together. He doesn't have a single apprentice; he regularly ministers to crowds. The metaphor he uses to describe his gathered followers is "the kingdom of Heaven." Jesus does not act alone, but in a group.

Whenever human beings gather together, a kind of group-mind is formed. In Occult Philosophy we call this an egregore. It is literally a kind of shared psyche. Its members experience shared thoughts and emotions, are inspired by the same images, and frequently share what are called "psychic experiences."

My wife and I frequently utter the same sentence at the same time. More frequently, one of us says something at the exact moment the other is thinking of it. 

Now, most people experience this sort of thing in their own families-- even if they don't realize it. It's especially pronounced between husbands and wives, and between mothers and their children. But it occurs in groups of other kinds. Neighborhoods, towns, states and nations; sports teams, bowling clubs, churches and occult lodges all have egregores of their own. We participate in egregores whether we want to or not. 

I recently spoke to a friend of mine who is an occultist, a Roman Catholic, and a gamer. She told me that her gaming group has been sharing collective dreams. And so she's begun ministering to some of the members of the group who are agnostics or atheists. 

Her gaming group has become an egregore-- and, moreover, one with genuine psychic power. Note its characteristics:

1. A shared purpose;
2. Shared activity;
3. Shared imagery, (which, importantly, all the members actually enjoy);
4. Shared emotion;
5. Shared struggle. 

These qualities also properly characterize a Christian church. A particular church is a united organization with a collective psyche. That collective psyche or egregore is shaped by shared activity in the form of the mass; shared imagery, in the forms of sacred images, music, and even scents in the form of incense; the many shared emotions of the liturgical cycle and the re-enactment of the Passion at the mass; and the shared struggle against sin. 

To the extent that the modern church has abandoned these things is the extent to which it has failed in its mission, and accounts for plummeting levels of participation among Catholics. no imagery, no struggle, no community-- no egregore. 

Or perhaps it's better to say that, rather than no egregore, there is an egregore of isolation and meaninglessness. 

In earlier times, every town, region and country and even every tradesman's guild had both its own patron saint and its own guardian angel. As does every family. The invocation of the guardian angel and the patron saint is intended as a way to strengthen and bless the egregore with divine power and protection-- because without these things, an egregore can go bad.

Bad Egregores


Every family, every town, every nation has its own collective soul, and if that soul rejects God, which is to say Being, Order, and Goodness, it embraces the opposite of God, which is Evil, Chaos-- and Non-Being. "It will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrha" in such cases-- because to reject God is ultimately to reject existence itself. 

We often find ourselves caught up in egregores that have gone bad-- whether it's our family or our town, our country or our political party. Even the egregore of a hobby or a music scene can reject God and embrace chaos and nonexistence. Under those circumstances it's necessary to remove ourselves from the influence of the egregore, lest we be carried along with it to destruction. But how do we do that? Jesus is about to tell us.