readoldthings

Welcome back to our ongoing occult Bible study! I've selected just a few short lines for today, because we have a lot to talk about before we can go forward, and what we say here is going to shape everything we talk about from here on out.

The Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 3, Verses 1-2

Saint John the Baptist

Let me begin by wishing you a blessed Feast of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist! Yes, it's today, and no, I didn't plan it this way-- it "just so happens" that he enters our discussion here on his Feast Day. If you follow this path for just a little while, you'll find a lot of things "just so happen."

Notice that his Feast falls on the 24th of June. This puts it at the opposite point on the Wheel of the Year from Christmas, and shows us that the two feasts, and the two figures commemorated therein, are connected. On Saint John's Day, the Summer Solstice is just past. The Light of the Sun has triumphed over the darkness, and high summer is here-- but now begins the long, slow decline that will culminate in the darkness of Midwinter.

John is, we are told, Jesus's cousin, born six months prior to him; we can therefore set the date of his birth at around 3BC. It seems worth noting that this is the High Summer and the beginning of the end of the Classical pagan civilization that will be replaced by Christendom. Jesus will later say, rather mysteriously, that John is the greatest of all the prophets, and yet the least in the Kingdom of Heaven are greater than he.

Magic Rites

Certain places are places of power, where magical works for good or ill are strengthened or particular spirits may be contacted; similarly, certain points on the calendar are times of power, when particular rites may be accomplished. These two types of power-points, geographic and temporal, are related to the two great currents of magical power. The Telluric current arises from the heart of the Earth, and governs magical places; the Solar current descends from the heart of the Sun, and governs magical times. 

Saint John's Day is a potent day for certain types of magic.

Traditionally, the herb known as Saint John's wort was gathered on this day. The flowers can be dried, blessed, and hung above doorways to protect the home from malefic magic. It was also customary to build bonfires on Saint John's Day or Saint John's Eve. The fires were blessed and piled with Saint John's Wort, and livestock were then driven through the smoke, in order to protect them from witchcraft and evil spirits. Of course, most Christians today are far too smart to do such things, because Christians today are actually atheists, and what Christians think is "paganism" is actually Christianity.

A Bit of Speculation

In the thinking of Rudolph Steiner, there are two different types of Evil, represented by the demons Lucifer and Ahriman. The evil of Ahriman is the evil of wallowing in gross matter and sensory pleasure, rejecting the life of the Spirit. In a sense, it is the evil which fueled every side of the 20th century's Cold War, as that was mainly a contest over which economic system was better at producing and distributing material goods. The Communist side was officially atheist, but the capitalist side was tacitly so, justifying itself in religious terms only to mollify certain reactionary forces in the United States.

Luciferic evil, on the other hand, is the total rejection of matter and physical existence.

Discussing Classical Pagan civilization, the civilization whose peak and decline is marked by the Birth of Christ, Steiner writes:


But why should this be the case?

Steiner tells us:

 

It was because through the millennia directly preceding Christianity, this Pagan wisdom was inspired from a place far away in Asia, inspired by a remarkable Being who had been incarnated in the distant East in the third millennium before Christ — namely, Lucifer.

To the many things we have learned about the evolution of humanity, this knowledge too must be added: that just as there was the incarnation which culminated in Golgotha, the incarnation of Christ in the man Jesus of Nazareth, there was an actual incarnation of Lucifer in far off Asia, in the third millennium B.C. And the source of inspiration for much ancient culture was what can only be described as an earthly incarnation of Lucifer in a man of flesh and blood.

The Wisdom of the Pagan World is rooted, ultimately, in an incarnation of Lucifer. This is why we see, in the High Philosophy of many pagan traditions, the total rejection of physical matter and incarnate existence.

According to Steiner, Lucifer was incarnated upon the Earth in Eastern Asia in the 3rd Millennium BC.

John tells his followers, "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven" is at hand.

I don't know about you, but for most of my life and especially during my childhood, I thought those words meant something like this:


As amusing as that interpretation is, it isn't true. The word "repent" doesn't mean "Say you're sorry and be really sad." It's much more interesting that.

"Repent" in Greek is "metanoia." "Meta" means "change." "Noia" is derived from the word "nous," which means "mind."

To repent is to change one's mind. Often one will hear this described as a "change of heart," and there is a reason for this, which we'll get to momentarily.

And John says we must do this, because the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, or "has drawn near," or "is among you." 

If the Kingdom of Heaven means anything, it is the sovereignty of God. But what sort of kingdom is it? The message we will see over and over in the Gospels is that it is not, and cannot be, a political kingdom. Heaven is not Earth, and Divine Power is, as we saw last time, not human political power. 

The Kingdom of Heaven is the reign of God within the human soul.

God, remember, is the Most High God, the Spirit who rules the Universe; and is identical to the One, which is also called goodness itself or The Good; and is that power by which we accomplish the Great Work, become that which we are meant to become, and gain mastery over our souls and our futures.

"Heaven" is the proper home of God, and since Heaven is, contra the '90s song, neither a place, nor on the Earth, it is not a location at all. Rather, it is a condition, and that condition must be the condition of the presence of God-- since Heaven is where God lives. Therefore, whenever we are in the presence of God, we are in Heaven. 

We attain the Kingdom of God by changing our minds-- or, rather, our nous. And so we'll have to talk about what that means.

More on the Kingdom of Heaven

On the magical worldview, the spiritual world is not separate from the material. Matter is only the last and most tenuous extension of spirit. Have you ever been to the sort of place-- perhaps a majestic cathedral, perhaps a natural setting like the ancient Redwood forests in the Pacific Northwest-- that filled you with a sense of awe, reverence and serenity all at once?

Those are places that border on Heaven, in which Heaven is made manifest.

On the other hand, have you ever driven through the kind of neighborhood that filled you with a sense of dread and foreboding, the kind of place that seemed marked by rage, violence and addiction?

That was a mouth of Hell. 

Lately, I've found that the sort of outwardly pleasant suburban neighborhoods where every person still goes about in a facemask, with a suspicious look in their eye, and the tension in the air is so thick you're afraid to breathe too heavilyand most of the lawns have signs that say 

IN THIS HOUSE, WE BELIEVE
BLACK LIVES MATTER
WOMEN'S RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS
NO HUMAN IS ILLEGAL
SCIENCE IS REAL
LOVE IS LOVE
KINDNESS IS EVERYTHING

Those are hellmouths, too.

One doesn't have to travel as far as a cathedral or a redwood forest to find Heaven on Earth. In the old story, a samurai approaches a Zen master and says "Teach me about Heaven and Hell."

The Zen master replies, "It's a real shame that they're letting dumbasses like you become samurai these days."

Enraged, the samurai draws his sword and prepares to cut the Zen master's head off.

"This is Hell," says Zen master.

The Samurai understands. In an instant, his heart is changed: He sheaths his sword and bows in gratitude.

"And this is Heaven," Zen master says.

Heaven is never far away, and neither is Hell. 

An Anatomy of the Soul

In the Republic, Plato tells us that the soul consists of three parts:

Nous
Thymos
Epithymia

Now "nous" is often translated into English as "reason," but that is incorrect. Reason, which is dianoia in Greek, is part of nous, but nous isn't limited to reason. Proclus tells us that nous also has three parts: the lowest is opinion (in Greek, doxa). Above this is dianoia, and above dianoia, nous proper, which is sometimes translated as "Intellection."

Intellection is not a familiar concept to most modern people. In the modern, scientific worldview, the highest capacity of the mind is reason; intellection does not exist. That is the literal meaning of the word "rationalism." In that way, we can see that Rationalism itself is already a debasement. In Intellection, the nous is functioning on its own, proper level-- the level of pure being which is above manifested, material reality. On this level, it is able to grasp the objects of knowledge immediately and entirely, without any intermediary thought process. This is very hard to describe in English. 

In Christian literature, the nous is sometimes called "the eye of the soul," and Intellection is the process through which the soul interacts directly with God and spiritual beings. Bear this in mind as we continue.

Thymos is another word which doesn't have an exact translation in English. It's often rendered "spirit," but what's meant by "spirit" in this case isn't the eternal soul, but, rather, what we mean when we say that someone is "in good spirits," or that a horse is "high-spirited." Sometimes it is rendered "anger," but that isn't exactly it, either. The Thymos is the inner strength or energy.

The best English translation of thymos is probably "heart," as that word is used by high school athletics coaches. Traditionally, the Thymos was seen as located in the heart, while the Nous is in the head and Epithymia, which means "appetite" and refers to all of those desires that we share with the lower animals, is in the abdomen. It is worth noting that this arrangement of powers in the human body corresponds exactly to the three dan tiens of Chinese Taoist inner alchemy. 

It is the failure of the Thymos in modern man that C.S. Lewis discussed in his essay, "Men Without Chests," in The Abolition of Man. Drawing directly on Plato, Lewis describes the proper relationship between the three parts of the soul: