Christian apology by a non-Christian

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

I'm curious as to what you mean by '(perhaps) incomplete'. Could you elaborate?

Perhaps...



The 'faith stories' are located within a 'believer-system', and the believer-system could be almost anything at all. There are all manner of different religious, spiritual, spiritualist, magical, shamanic and other belief-systems and their believers 'operate' the systems. They are familiar with its make-up and can put it to use. It is also possible to have disciples and to teach them how to operate the system. The ones that you referred to were Roman Catholic, weren't they?

We never can really get to the bottom of a specific 'metaphysic', right? There are as many metaphysics floating around as there are cultures and historical periods. What we seem to have, fairly constantly, is ourselves in these embodied structures. You could put 10 'believers' of 10 radically different metaphysical systems in the same room and each one could 'work their magic' but whatever it would be about would be only about I and thou, here and now. If it weren't, I suggest, we'd likely think them loopy or misguided.

With the advent of the Freudian model, and certainly Jung, we have access to a conceptual model that allows for 'interaction' with the internal, with the symbol and with the potency (the god, the goddess, the spirit, the demon), and a way to remain in time and in body without strange metaphysical backward flips. If it isn't about I and thou in a here and now, really, what value can it be said to have?

[Harry Baird]

I think I get you. I think what you're saying is: the effectiveness (even if "miraculously", "supernaturally" or "paranormally") of the "operation" of a belief system has no bearing on the truth of the metaphysic which underlies that belief system. Am I understanding you correctly? (And I'm not sure whether Kenneth McAll is or was at time of writing a Roman Catholic - all I know is that he writes in the introduction that he comes from a family of Congregational missionaries)

And yes, it does confuse me that different religious/spiritual systems all seem to "work" simultaneously, all seem to have some sort of claim to (sometimes apparently contradictory) truth based on miraculous occurrences. I've said in the past that it's almost as though reality "wants" all belief systems to be true at the same time. It's pretty peculiar.

And so you suggest what - that we ought to ignore metaphysics? That we ought to focus on simplicity and results?

I mean, there must be a correct metaphysic. I don't like the thought of having to give up on the search for it, yet it seems to be what you're suggesting.

And from where, would you suggest, do these belief systems and the potencies within them derive? How is the power "instilled" in them in the first place? And why have their originators seen fit to describe a metaphysic if that metaphysic is not strictly "correct"? Why not describe the correct metaphysic? I know, I know, I ask a lot of questions. It's to give you something to choose from.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

I think I get you. I think what you're saying is: the effectiveness (even if "miraculously", "supernaturally" or "paranormally") of the "operation" of a belief system has no bearing on the truth of the metaphysic which underlies that belief system.

And yes, it does confuse me that different religious/spiritual systems all seem to "work" simultaneously, all seem to have some sort of claim to (sometimes apparently contradictory) truth based on miraculous occurrences. I've said in the past that it's almost as though reality "wants" all belief systems to be true at the same time. It's pretty peculiar.

I mean, there must be a correct metaphysic. I don't like the thought of having to give up on the search for it, yet it seems to be what you're suggesting.

I hope it is not too tiresome to wax psychological and, oy vey iz mir, Jungian. But since everything we are speaking about in this thread has to do with 'conceptions' and how things conceived are to be dealt with, I see no way around establishing some definitions, a base from which to proceed. From the psychological perspective we must start from the point of recognizing an 'ego', and this ego seems to have 'two different bases'. The somatic and the psychic.

Our 'ego' has its existence within a biological form connected to the 'outside' through the range of senses. The issue here seems to be 'ego-consciousness'. An animal is conscious of its environment in ever increasing degrees the more 'sophisticated' it is. Its sense of its 'locality' increases as its awareness increases. The same is true with a man: we have an essential and unchanging existence within a bodily frame. We have no idea how it all came about, and it is oddly useless to speculate because 'here we are', encapsulated in this 'flesh-reality'. It is said that some portion of our sense-perception (awareness of 'endosomatic stimuli' in high faulting psychological lingo) is conscious, i.e. that we are aware in some degree through our senses. But it is also proposed that 'a considerable proportion of these stimuli occur unconsciously, that is, subliminally'. It is a strange meditation indeed, from any angle of view, to recognize and to *feel* what it really *means* to be 'incarnated'.

But one would not be able to know anything about this unless there were an established ego, and one that had 'consciousness'. And this is where the notion of 'psyche' enters the picture. An animal, fairly obviously, has a limited psyche but an obvious being. So, within this flesh existence, in an egoic structure, man 'has' (or really 'is') a psyche. We know something, at least when we think on it, of our 'somatic self' because simply by turning our attention to it we *feel* our locality in this body, and we also understand, however limitedly, we are 'bound' in flesh vehicles. But our whole relationship is mediated by another instrument, and for want of a better term we might call it psyche.

So, when we turn our physical 'eyes' (our senses generally) backwards we understand our locality within a very physical frame: we feel our heart beating, we feel our breath, we feel our warmth and our weight. But on quite another level we have another possibility of 'inner movement' yet who can say what it is, or even in some sense *where* it is? It is housed, it would seem, in the somatic territory, perhaps imprisoned if one is pessimistic (though it is also possible to interpret it as an 'opportunity') but in any case we only seem to have relationship to life, being and awareness through this territory. (The other alternative is death of the vehicle or preexistence, whatever that may mean: the state before or after life). So, this psyche is an almost indescribably weird 'thing', tool, eventuality, outcome, creation or fact. It is really beyond description, or, to describe 'it' is to begin to engage in symbolic language. The sense of 'self', the sense of value, the sense of connection, the sense of understanding locality, of speculation, and of course of dreams, visions, and all use of imagination, of memory. This is what we are, this is where we are.

But it is only in a 'psychic' sense, unless it could be defined exclusively sensually which is unlikely, that we have relationship to a greater, surrounding being. What stands in relationship to what? When we have established this kind of perceptual base we have to ask certain questions about 'metaphysics' and also about the 'transcendental'. These certainly 'exist' but it becomes immediately apparent that they occur within an 'imagined space', that is, the space of imagination, that is, the psyche. Which is located, it would seem, somatically and biologically but also in another, more difficult to describe manner: psychically.

Now, if we establish some elaborate metaphysic which is really to say speculations about things that we simply cannot know but intuit or induce, it seems pretty obvious that we will be doing this odd activity in that 'imagined space' or the 'space of imagination'. But there is a large complicating factor: that there is a whole 'area' that is not possessed by ego-consciousness but more 'floats within'. We are a small island within a larger sea. Hence the Freudian notion of 'the unconscious'. Certainly a 'somatic unconscious', since it is not possible to be aware of all somatic stimuli, or how a somatic memory might function. In this sense, a physical sense, we exist on the threshold of 'trauma' insofar as we are 'cast into' this bizarre world, in a flesh vehicle, through no will of our own and really by force absolutely outside of our control. But with Jung there came into focus another and deeper conception of this unconscious: an 'inner' and psychic 'world' of both the 'personal unconscious' and the 'collective unconscious'.

The 'Jungian manoeuvre' is a strange one: it is it would seem a way of conceptualizing being within a flesh frame, knowing this and understanding it in a unique---and modern---way, while allowing for a wide roaming through inner space. Or, it is a way of dealing with all sorts of conceptual stories about 'reality' or myth or metaphysic while holding to the notion that 'all this' is occurring within ourself. 'All this' being the vast 'projections' of psychic content onto the screen of the outer world. Jungian psychology is a branch of Platonic philosophy in this sense. It is a way of relating to Being but it is internally focussed.

Still, it does not necessarily do away with greater metaphysics as possibility. And it can certainly entertain the 'transcendent' as a possibility within our 'incarnated existence' (which we can hardly be said to 'understand' and in fact will likely never 'understand'). But it is a tool of awareness for getting clear about what is immediately before us: which is just ourself within a flesh body in this bizarre, incomprehensible world. That is enough of a task in itself. On another level it allows a 'coming back into the body', into time, into the present which is both exciting and depressing since we so love our abstractions and our delirious hallucinations. In this sense, then, man is truly homo deliro. An emerging consciousness within a traumatized frame trying to 'get well'.

It seems to me a sane platform to begin any speculations about 'spirituality' or 'metaphysics' and of the transcendent: you and me, here and now. It also provides a---perhaps unwelcome?---opportunity to reinterpret our world as the spiritual world. We are in our spiritual world and it is one that is utterly inconceivable. To conceive it is an act of confronting terror and all that 'incarnated existence' connotes.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

As the highest value and supreme dominant in the psychic hierarchy, the God-image is immediately related to, or identical with, the self, and everything that happens to the God-image has an effect on the latter. An uncertainty about the God-image causes a profound uneasiness in the self, for which reason the question is generally ignored because of its painfulness. But that does not mean that it remains unmasked in the unconscious. What is more, it is answered by views and beliefs like materialism, atheism, and similar substitutes, which spread like epidemics. They crop up wherever and whenever one waits in vain for the legitimate answer. The ersatz product represses the real question into the unconscious and destroys the continuity of historical tradition which is the hallmark of civilization. The result is bewilderment and confusion. Christianity has insisted on God's goodness as a loving Father and has done its best to rob evil of its substance. The early Christian prophecy concerning the Antichrist, and certain ideas in late Jewish theology, could have suggested to us that the Christian answer to the problem of Job omits to mention the corollary, the sinister reality of which is now being demonstrated before our eyes by the splitting of our world: the destruction of the God-image is followed by annulment of the human personality. Materialistic atheism with its utopian chimeras forms the religion of all those rationalistic movements which delegate the freedom of personality to the masses and thereby extinguish it. The advocates of Christianity squander their energies in a mere preservation of what has come down to them, with no thought of building on to their house and making it roomier. Stagnation in these matters is threatened in the long run with a lethal end.

"Anyone, convince me that the 'philosophy of religion' is anything more than systematically listing the logical fallacies of creationists and spiritualists."

"Once we can figure out what philosophy, religion, and personal faith might and might not be, we might be able to make some sense of this topic."

There is no doubt in my mind that the topic broached in the present thread is deeply contended. I decided to reread Aion, since I had suggested it earlier as a way to understand this thing called 'Christianity' in the context of Mediterranean and European culture and everything that has occurred within that history, which---to be true to Jungianism---includes all of the darkest and most horrible, and condemnable, elements.

Just as in each of our lives when we reach a point of actually being able to see it and to take responsibility for it, our knowledge of it is never simple and never really easy: the lives we lead are twisted up with all sorts of errors and ambivalences; with our potential for what we understand as 'good' and what actually is expressed which is always a difficult and confusing admixture. Yet it really does seem to me that---to make a rather universalizing statement---we don't really know how to relate to the 'darker' side of our own personality and our self in this world, and as in the above-quoted sense "the question is generally ignored because of its painfulness". In a corresponding sense we do not know how to relate to the 'history of the self in the world', which is to say man as the creator---or possibly victim---of his own historical creations.

I am somewhat chary of the potential for reductionism or over-simplification in Jung's formulations, but it really does seem to me that as we lose or 'jettison' our link to God-images, the result of this does appear to be traces of the 'annulment of the personality'. Certainly Jung was speaking from a base in his medical/psychiatric context and making a broad application to the world (both a strength and a downfall of Jungianism). Yet it is something I personally notice, or believe I notice, in the world around me.

I am particularly interested in this idea in this context:

• "The advocates of Christianity squander their energies in a mere preservation of what has come down to them, with no thought of building on to their house and making it roomier. Stagnation in these matters is threatened in the long run with a lethal end."

I have spent a number of years now, in spare time, examining 'Christianity' and some part of that has been examining the various fundamentalist strains---the views and positions you might hear on Christian talk radio. I note there is something very *attractive* about fundamentalism of any sort, which obviously would include 'scientific fundamentalism' and 'scientism', or materialism, or atheism, and even especially the peculiar brand of (what I might call) 'acute secularism' which turns life and living into an on-going entertainment; a constant moving from one distraction, with varying dimensions of content, to other levels of distraction and entertainment; a movement within an essentially meaningless universe to which one has little real connection to anything, and mediated by media and entertainment enterprises in collusion with the State. Yet underneath it, though it is difficult to describe and is also subjective and non-quantifiable, there seems to operate a substantial angst; what might be called the 'unconscious underbelly', and which seems to have a corollary in *destructiveness*, but by agencies not directly connected to any given person, at least apparently. Still, something destructive occurs/is occurring: the 'annulment of the human personality'. Is this really happening? Is what I notice real or 'projected'?

There is a danger of 'reductionsim' and over-simplification in broaching these ideas, that much is clear. The 'religious impulse' is a complex thing even if it moves in 'progressive' territories. On one hand the true-believer fundamentalist is undoubtedly capable of identifying and holding to notions of Value (the common ones such as 'family values' which might only mean respect for 'the family' and respect in this sense for certain hierarchies of value, a problematic and contended subject), or certain substantial moral and ethical values which are so easily corroded and lost. Even and possibly definitely in the domain of definitions of sexual values the TB Christian has a certain advantage if only because an existent system is available, one that provides an order, that makes sense. But some part of this falls under 'preservation of what has come down to them' and not 'building on to their house and making it roomier'.

From what I have seen so far this 'Christianity' has a vast group of tools at its disposal, and by that I mean value-tools, idea-tools, forward-moving tools, energizing-tools, that are thoroughly worthy of preservation such that the evident destructiveness by ignorant persons who feel free to come onto the conflicted scene and take a shattering swipe at something that they do not understand in any degree (a free-for-all in destructiveness that, in psychological terms, represents 'unconscious upwelling of anger and resentment' both for 'good' and for 'bad' reasons---ambivalence once again!), might be labeled as 'mere destructiveness' when another attitude and stance is necessary. This is essentially my view.

I do have a strong feeling, a hunch of sorts but also more, that large groups of people in the post-war era *responded* to the necessity of broadening 'Christian' structures and potentials. Here I am speaking of my own experiences on the American scene in the Eighties and Nineties. There was no alternative, really, except to broaden 'Christianity' through incorporation of other 'models', such as Hindiusm, American Indian 'primitivism' and 'terrestrialism', shamanism, experimental psychology, body movement, alternative medicine, huge movements within human potential and also movements related simply to improving human communication (the ability to speak to one another). Obviously my 'context' is American, and America is indeed a culture utterly fused with religious strains (a nation of nutters in that sense!). As I reflect on it I have the strong sense that the core impetus that was functioning in us, when I think of those alternative times, was still within an essentially 'Christian' context because we are definite products of European civilization---'Mediterranean Christian culture'.

The issue of evil and the Devil is particularly relevant here. Increasing consciousness wherever it occurs can only become ever more aware of the fundamental conflict between 'spiritual' potential and 'material' realities; an agonizing yet creative conflict. One of Jung's interesting notions is that to become really aware of our condition, the tragedy and difficulty of life between the dual trauma of birth and death, is in one sense what the notion of the Crucified Christ is about: strung up between two 'thieves', strung between irreconcilable dualities, on a cross of awareness. His notion is that Westerners are placed in this problem in a unique sense, a more acute sense, which has produced the peculiar and notable Western intensity in all areas, but also the unresolvable tensions that such intensity/awareness produces. But according to Jung it is 'our condition' and our fate to resolve these tensions. Apparently, our consciousness is geared to make advances along these lines and in these specific areas and there is no turning back. There is effectively no way to simply disconnect from Christian history (if this is true). Hence the notion of 'Christ' as the 'ruling spirit' of the Aion (age), the prototype or archetype of potential and unfolding.

If true, this 'Christianity' is just as alive and possibly more so now than at any other time. Diarmaid MacCulloch's 'Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years' contains just in the title a statement about Christianity's presence and durability. So much hinges though on just how broad it can be made. How real and relevant it can become. I suggest it is a fallacy to believe that 'Christianity' is being wiped away or superseded. But what is eliminated from the conscious domain submerges itself in an unconscious domain and when that happens all sorts of strange things happen. The reality or truth that cannot be faced squarely becomes the external situation that arises outside of the individual.

Rationally-driven mechanisms and technological systems to control human protoplasm? In essence is this not what we see forming? These are the outcomes of our *rational* choices? Indeed? The sheer annulment of the personality and subservience to mechanism. The diabolic wears a decidedly material costume. People note that religious institutions are mechanisms of control but how shall we place these newer 'secular' systems? Or do we chose simply to ignore it?

The comment:

• "Convince me that the 'philosophy of religion' is anything more than systematically listing the logical fallacies of creationists and spiritualists"

Is one that is based, apparently, in a definite truth and so it functions in thought. I guess that---and please excuse again the reference to Jung which may and also may not be valid or even useful as a category for decision-making---we have to ask ourselves just how much of 'our life' is really and truly *rational*, because if we start from that assumption one is screwed right at the beginning, I think. Or perhaps it is more clearly stated that a life that is led in denial of man's essentially irrational nature is a life doomed to failure and disaster?

[Harry Baird]

Hello, Gustav,

Apologies for the delay, I'm travelling and have been struggling to find the spare energy to respond.

First, a response to the first of your two posts.

On the one hand, I welcome your grounding in ego predicates, because of course they are the basis from which we experience the world. On the other, I'm wary of a view that dispenses for all practical purposes with metaphysical enquiry, or at least with the possibility of metaphysical knowledge. You write of "speculations" of things we can't really "know"; of an "imagined space", yet it seems to me that these things are, at least in some cases, amenable to scientific enquiry. If, for example, a man can describe the physical characteristics of a car parked in the corner of the parking lot of the office from which he has been directed to astrally project, I think that counts as more than the mere "imaginings of psyche". If, too, the practice of a Eucharist heals a woman for whose benefit it was practised hundreds of kilometres away, I think that that, too, counts as more than "all in the mind". Granted, as I tacitly acknowledged in my earlier post, sometimes it's hard to separate necessary details (in the causal sense, as, for example, those on which a healing is predicated) from ornamental or imagined details (as, for example, those on which a healing is not actually predicated but which simply add to the "flavour" of the occasion), but it seems to me that cautious investigation could distinguish these.

So, yes, let's emphasise the notion that we proceed from the basis of an ego "bound" in this physical space, but let's not abandon scientific enquiry into the metaphysical through that emphasis.

Re your second post. You write: "Still, something destructive occurs/is occurring: the 'annulment of the human personality'. Is this really happening? Is what I notice real or 'projected'?" Two images enter my mind here for whatever reason, and, as readily as they entered my mind, I'll share them with you. The first is the image of a woman looking wistfully into the after-hours lit shop display of a clothing store, her eyes fixed longingly on a fetching dress. The second is the image of an obese child feasting on a burger at McDonalds. I think these images really have more to do with the dichotomy between materialism and spirituality than with the annulment of the human personality, but perhaps such is the outcome when materialism runs rampant over spirituality. Whilst the second image is unequivocally negative in my mind, I'm somewhat ambivalent over the first insofar as the manufacture of a dress has no negative ethical connotations: the ability of our modern society to provide people with things that make us happy is not necessarily such a bad thing. Arguably, it augments rather than annuls the personality. Is there perhaps scope for harmony between the spiritual and the materialistic? And if I've strayed from the intent of your quote, then I'm sorry.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

Hello there. The problem with the 'old metaphysics' is that they represent 'graveyards of conception': old ways and means to describe what cannot, perhaps, be described in language, but also old, outmoded understandings whose base has been decimated by new systems of knowing. Without a desire to understand what has happened and how it has happened that the old systems have been undermined one would never take the time to move through it and so, it seems, many people stay stuck in a comfortable (or uncomfortable, depending) netherworld of understanding.

At that point we are faced with choices. One might be to abandon completely all 'metaphysics' and to chose to remain only in the tangible world of sense and science. One might abandon any belief in 'God' as it is conventionally understood, or rather as it has been historically presented. I think in the most general sense this is the current 'atheistic' position. In fact it is quite sane if you accept the notion that the 'old conceptual models' make no sense and do not combine with 'modern scientific view'.

A second choice might be to recur to revisionist lingo in regard to conceptual elements of 'the old metaphysics'. A person 'knows what they know' even if this knowledge makes no sense to others or which facts of knowing are not communicable or demonstrable to others. One holds to 'mystical' positions that require 'initiation' and one's language becomes an insider's lingo, a jargon for the 'initiated'.

A third choice is to attempt a 'coniunctio' (Jungian-alchemical term: either incomprehensible jibber-jabber or allusion to something not describable in language) between the materialistic views of science and 'the old conceptual models'. If you do this well, which means if you have the language and conceptual skill you might pull it off as Dr Jung has---and he is the Father of this sort of conceptual blending---you wind up with a symbolic system of describing the world of the here-below (the 'sublunary world') and a world even more dense (inferno) and also an 'angelic' world and a transcendental world.

If you do it badly you will end up sounding like some Jungian matron in low thread-count muumuu with a crystal around her neck with outpourings of florid language that, when you think about it, really doesn't say anything but is liguistic fluff and blather.

The attraction of the Jungian model (excuse the recent focus it is that I am rereading a few of his works at the moment) is that it provides a ways-and-means to understand the ego's relationship to the physical structure and a way to grasp or visualize the 'psyche' as epiphenomenal: the psyche as a unique and incomprehensible entirety in the world that we know. Another advantage is that, to be true to the possibility of Jungianism, it allows for projections to be withdrawn from the world. That is, the inner, psychic material that arises in man's fantasy which he 'projects' on the world. If this is done without understanding one is essentially exteriorizing hallucinations, and 'believing' in them. But when the inner dynamic is understood---that this is psychic material projected outside of us---another opportunity arises: that of taking ownership of it, and assimilating it consciously. It is a unique way of dealing with inner content.

This does not mean that one does away with all metaphysical notions. Who can ultimately decide what we are, where we are, and how we came to be here? There are now and there will always be questions about 'all this'. But it does seem, to me at least, that a great deal of 'metaphysics' is useless insofar as it is abstraction. It could be and indeed often seems to be neurotic abstraction in the strict Freudian sense. Therefor, the key seems to be: Just how grounded is a person in 'reality'? How do they relate to their own self-in-the-world? I would also addd: How do they deal with their 'human delirium' and which predicates a fairly common and basic 'madness' in the human world.

A great deal of 'all this' is a sort of dark forest into which one can enter and get lost. As I have said and keep saying because I see it as true, this is NOT suitable material for the 'average man' and certainly not the 'mass man'. The 'mass man' in this sense does not want 'truth' or freedom or knowledge but a tangible story-line that he can follow. This 'mass-man' is of course part-and-parcel of ourselves and to advance in knowledge we have to confront 'him'.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

The 'annulment of personality', in a Christian, post-Christian and also Jungian sense, is I think a far more complex and also insidious process. Again, sorry for another quote from CG Jung but it is what I am reading at the moment:

CG Jung in 'Aion': "Mater Alchimia is one of the mothers of modern science, and modern science has given us an unparalleled knowledge of the 'dark' side of matter. It has also penetrated into the secrets of physiology and evolution, and made the very roots of life itself an object of investigation. In this way the human mind has sunk deep into the sublunary world of matter [...]. The climax of this development was marked in the eighteenth century by the French Revolution, in the nineteenth by scientific materialism, and in the twentieth by political and social 'realism' which has turned the wheel of history back a full two thousand years and seen the recrudescence of the despotism, the lack of individual rights, the cruelty, indignity, and slavery of the pre-Christian world, whose 'labor problem' was solved by the 'ergastulum' (convict-camp). The 'transvaluation of all values' is being enacted before our eyes."

To understand what is referred to here requires a basic grasp of the 'Medieval world view'. The 'sublunary' is the world of physical manifestation but other levels of 'world' (existence, being) are predicated along with it. According to this view, as we move toward an ever-concretized 'materialism', and as we simultaneously 'cut the strings' to those 'worlds' that might exist supralunarily (and what is referred to here is the 'angelic world' or the world above physical manifestation), we become 'stuck' in the only 'world' that we can define.

In this view so much if not everything that we call 'human' is bound up with our transcendental, spiritual, angelical understanding of ourselves that when we cut ourselves off from it we become merely protoplasmic, biological robots in a world of machines who control and feed this 'protoplasm'. This seems to be the goal to which our present governmental systems are rapidly advancing, and we understand this through, for example, science fiction projections. We also have affirmations when we hear of monitoring systems by government which we understand---'intuitively'---as omens of levels of control rapidly taking form.

This view of a dark material reality is actually a restatement of alchemical view and it corresponds in a sense to your dark "Manichean' projection-fantasy-perception-paranoia: an old wine in a newer skin.

And since one of the finest 'creations' of our human history, certainly in the West, is the creation and empowerment of the individual person---the eye that sees, that sharp and clear eye of Athena that Camille Paglia writes about in Sexual Personae and which is the quintessence of Western definition of self---the encroaching and ever-more-powerful materialistic machine that oversees human protoplasm seems by nature to be opposed to 'human personality' and is annulling it. (The 'psychological/paranoid view would be AI machines who take control of human biological being).

And when I use the term 'personality' I mean of course a high and conscious notion of self. The 'self' of the mass man---the creation and offspring of materilistic mechanics---is little more than an appetite or a programmable slate.

One thing I have tried to communicate in this thread or at least to allude to the possibility of what we are losing as we destroy our links to 'Christianity' (what does this term really mean?) We have to ask the question: Who is doing this? What aspect of self? And what is resulting and will result from it? I am also interested in the notion of what it means to be struck in fundamentalism. Because there is a hideous and violently destructive aspect in Christian fundamentalism. But this fundamentalistic spirit just seems to switch conceptual systems and is equally housed in materialistic and atheistic conceptions. I find this very curious.

We have to take this material to another level. But who is capable even of seeing this? By trying to bring out the problem and talk about it one immediately encounters opposition which shuts down conversation. That has been my experience.

[bobevenson]

I have spent a number of years now, in spare time, examining 'Christianity' and some part of that has been examining the various fundamentalist strains.

How about the Ouzo strain?

[Godfree]

I have spent a number of years now, in spare time, examining 'Christianity' and some part of that has been examining the various fundamentalist strains.

How about the Ouzo strain?

Gustav ,,,,you describe yourself as a non-christian ,
well I'm a non-christian to , but I get the feeling you and I are quite different ,
for starters I try and say as much as possible with as little as possible ,,phew ,!!!
I'm an Atheist ,,,what are you ,? ,
would you like to start a new religion , ? , re-invent religion ,?
how about get rid of the piece of crap ,,???

[Harry Baird]

Well, Gustav, it seems you've totally ignored my argument that metaphysics are amenable at least in some instances to scientific investigation, and that metaphysical phenomena can sometimes be proved to be more than the mere "imaginings of psyche", so I'm not really sure how to proceed. You write of the superseding of the "old metaphysics", and this we agree on to some extent, but I disagree that we should abandon all literal elements of them, in particular the notion of spirit entities (angelic and demonic), apparently engaged in a literal battle. I understand that you see these things in symbolic terms only, and that without personal evidence for them, you are unlikely to change your mind; on the other hand, because I have personal evidence confirmed by the reports of others, it is all but impossible for you to change my mind. Certainly, I am open to clarifications as to the exact nature of these beings, why they do what they do, where they come from, what the consequences of their battle are, etc, but as to the brute fact of their existence: that is beyond dispute in my mind.

If accepted as fact, would this change the way we (would) deal with "the sublunary" and "the supralunary"? Would it have any practical relevance for the way we approach "therapy"? I don't know, not being familiar with the Jungian approach, but it's possible that the mechanics of the process would remain the same, only the understanding of why it works would change.

Re your second post: I think I understand a little better now what you mean by the annulment of human personality: the reduction of the human being to a mere cog in a machine, the programming of that machine cog by "overseers", the elimination of the freedom of will which allows for personality in the first place. And, as you imply, yes, my view is that the worrying trends towards "levels of control rapidly taking form" are aided and abetted by spiritual forces with an interest in seeing a world in bondage. I understand that to many modern ears, this will seem like fundamentalism; nevertheless I believe it to be true based on experience and extrapolation.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

You write of the superseding of the "old metaphysics", and this we agree on to some extent, but I disagree that we should abandon all literal elements of them, in particular the notion of spirit entities (angelic and demonic), apparently engaged in a literal battle. I understand that you see these things in symbolic terms only, and that without personal evidence for them, you are unlikely to change your mind; on the other hand, because I have personal evidence confirmed by the reports of others, it is all but impossible for you to change my mind. Certainly, I am open to clarifications as to the exact nature of these beings, why they do what they do, where they come from, what the consequences of their battle are, etc, but as to the brute fact of their existence: that is beyond dispute in my mind.

Here is what you can do then: write in precise terms about these either 'angelic' or 'demonic' beings. Where exactly are they? What are they doing for you or to you? Are there chemical agents that you use to keep them at bay? Or do you have some 'spiritual' method, i.e. prayer, magical circles, or sheer will that causes them to retreat? Is there any force or power that has dominion over them?

In psychological lingo, the eruption of the unconscious into consciousness is called 'psychosis'. Any and all persons who are alive and of course necessarily conscious will necessarily experience, at one time or another, under one pressure or another, extreme psychic tensions that, at times, flow up and over the 'barriers', erupting into conscious perception. It is an upwelling of 'material' that is like a current and like a flood of water rushes over conscious life. There seems to be an understructure in all of us that is 'oceanic' in this sense, and our 'ego structure' is a vessel of sorts that we fabricate to get through our incarnated life.

However, if you wish to convince me that there 'in fact and in reality' exist a demonic pole and a divine pole, and that 'the story' of such poles is something you are compelled to take literally, I will necessarily have to take opposition to your declarations. I will say 'You are speaking from out of the framework of a narrative, a cosmological ordering, a ways and means of organizing perception that is part-and-parcel of an ancient mode of perception' (the Medieval but in this sense it is material common to humankind).

These demonic and divine poles are not 'unreal', as I understand things, but their reality has to be qualified in a new way and into a new, emergent model of description of reality. This 'new model' might be, though to be completely truthful I am not completely certain myself, the psychologics that came on the scene around the turn of the Twentieth Century. It points to the following: it is in the psyche and only in the psyche of man that angelical-demonic battles play out. These are 'real' insofar as they occur in that realm (the impossible to define 'inner' realm of the psychic epiphenomena), but they are not 'real' in the same way as a stone or a chair or the ocean is real. It is a bit of a paradox and hard of solution, I suppose. How could something be 'real' when it is not real? Well, please explain the 'psyche'!

Now, it is possible to engage with the old metaphysic up to a point. And the only thing that can be said to someone whose life is plagued and interrupted by demonic entities is: banish them. In all mystical and magical tracts, in all possessions and hauntings, the lower spirits are banished by higher spirits. Where is the 'higher spirit' that can get these demons out of your conscious ego life? That would be the evidence of 'truth' in the story-line. And though I know that you are attempting this, I also have the sense that your methods will not work, because you wish for these 'demons' to simply vanish in the air with a *poof* and for you to walk free and unencumbered by them.

The task, apparently, in our modern world, of getting out from under the grip of 'demonic entities', or compulsions, or instinct, or family patterns, or neurosis, or psychosis, is years of hard and constant work on many different levels. No problem of this sort ever seems to be solved 'neurotically', i.e. in wishful thinking or 'magical thinking'.

In basic terms, the condition you face is exactly and precisely 'the human condition'. A psychotic and delirious race of troubled, afflicted beings who cannot ever seem to get a grasp on what is ailing them, who in their delirium are immune to 'medicine' and whose medicines are delirium-producing! Those who are afflicted by neurosis or possession, if they can become and remain 'conscious', can move through their delirium in the course of life and 'bring the parts of themselves back together again'.

It is a life-long opus.

A religious wack-a-doodle might be able to do this through the 'bandaid' of a neurotic religious structure, some old relgious fantasy-projection, but it will only be a patch over a too large opening to a dark, chthonic underworld. But I guess that I suppose that a conscious man whose fate guides him in such a direction will demonstrate the inner strength and also the moral rectitude to really take responsibility for himself on all possible levels or within his means.

I understand that you see these things in symbolic terms only...

No, it is different. I see 'symbols' as giving expression or 'encasing' psychic reality, and man expresses his conceptual understanding in symbolic and dualistic 'language'. Symbols are 'real' but they are differently real as I said from a stone or a bucket or a tree. For you to grasp this, apparently, is the difficult part.

Well, Gustav, it seems you've totally ignored my argument that metaphysics are amenable at least in some instances to scientific investigation, and that metaphysical phenomena can sometimes be proved to be more than the mere "imaginings of psyche", so I'm not really sure how to proceed.

Who you gonna call?

Put another way...

[Harry Baird]

Well, Gustav, it seems you've totally ignored my argument that metaphysics are amenable at least in some instances to scientific investigation, and that metaphysical phenomena can sometimes be proved to be more than the mere "imaginings of psyche", so I'm not really sure how to proceed.

Who you gonna call?

Put another way...

I don't understand the facetious response. I thought what I wrote was pretty reasonable. Perhaps you could explain what you thought was unreasonable about it?

Here is what you can do then: write in precise terms about these either 'angelic' or 'demonic' beings.

To be fair, I have not experienced directly any angelic beings, except perhaps for having a prayer answered, which might or might not have involved them.

Where exactly are they?

I don't know. I only know from where they manifest their voices (all manner of different places, from outside my window to my stomach).

What are they doing for you or to you?

Commenting on my thoughts, and manipulating my thoughts into confusion and delusion.

Are there chemical agents that you use to keep them at bay?

Yes.

Or do you have some 'spiritual' method, i.e. prayer, magical circles, or sheer will that causes them to retreat?

No, although when I'm "on my game" I manage to recognise the thought manipulation and reject the thoughts that "they" provoke.

Is there any force or power that has dominion over them?

I don't know. I'm still searching. I haven't found one yet, not that my case is as extreme as many other people, some of whom are provoked by demonic entities to kill themselves.

However, if you wish to convince me that there 'in fact and in reality' exist a demonic pole and a divine pole, and that 'the story' of such poles is something you are compelled to take literally, I will necessarily have to take opposition to your declarations.

I don't really feel like "doing battle" with you, but yes, we are opposed on this issue.

I will say 'You are speaking from out of the framework of a narrative, a cosmological ordering, a ways and means of organizing perception that is part-and-parcel of an ancient mode of perception' (the Medieval but in this sense it is material common to humankind).

Yes, you will say that, and by it you will mean that such an "ancient mode of perception" is also a false one, but you will have no means of proving this. Conversely, I have come across material that as far as I am concerned proves that what I experience is not "all in the psyche", as you would have it. So, whatcha gonna do?

I see 'symbols' as giving expression or 'encasing' psychic reality, and man expresses his conceptual understanding in symbolic and dualistic 'language'. Symbols are 'real' but they are differently real as I said from a stone or a bucket or a tree. For you to grasp this, apparently, is the difficult part.

Perhaps you could explain, then, whether this "psychic reality" is wholly internal to a person or whether it is partly external, and by that I don't mean merely in the sense of affecting a person's external actions, but of having some sort of objective existence beyond the psyche. Because I think it is this that will really separate us, at least on the question of the existence of spirit entities.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

There is no part of your response that is unreasonable. It is only that I try never to lose an opportunity to see 'the comical aspect of life' and human problems. And too, in a sense, the theme from Ghost Busters is not a facetious comment. If there were scientific means to verify everything about which 'antiquated metaphysical systems' purport to 'exist', it would have been easily discovered, and those 'metaphysics' would be exactly the continuation of the 'physics' we know and accept as 'real'. Incredible sums of money are spent to demonstrate theories of physics and it moves into the fundamental depths of material existence, right to the very foundation. Why would it prove impossible therefor to 'locate' some non-physical intelligence, either demonic or angelic?

Now the second song, The Puppet Song, is not at all a joke. The message in it is couched in a humorous tale, an ironical take on the Hero's Journey I suppose, but I think the content is germane and responsible. To say that 'Men have colored me with the colors of their mind' is to make a statement about the nature of Mind as 'projection machine'. There are many different directions one might go after having the realization that we are projecting inner content on an outer screen. It seems to me that the ancient formulators of the Vedas became aware of these truths and 'prescribed remedies'. And I suppose that I think that in a similar spirit, though in a radically different era, the modernistic psychological schools (Freud, Jung, Adler, Otto Rank, Rollo May and many others) have taken up the same problems. But I do not think it a joke when a given man---you and I---are 'puppets' of inner realities about which we do not know how to be conscious. (It is only fair to readership here to mention that you and I have conversed now at some length outside of this forum and so we know more about each other than what is apparent in these few posts).

And since this thread began as both an 'apology' and a critique of Christianity---rife with projected material and holding in its 'psychotic fingers' a whole multitude of individuals who are addicted to the projection of inner material onto an outer screen and at the same time representing the means by which (Western) men have carved out of Reality their persons and a notion of 'self' that is unique and extremely valuable and also in danger of being swamped, submerged, lost---I feel that there is nothing about us, about man, that cannot become part of the conversation. And I suppose that what I am saying, though I have said it in a dozen different ways, is that we really have no choice but to take the material of Christianity, the whole cosmological vision, the whole Story, including the polarity of good and evil, and turn inward with it. Because no matter what that 'show', the visualization even of those ancient events, is occurring only in an imagined space. And that imagined space is very specifically the domain of man's psyche. In other places in this thread I have mentioned the influence of 'the monastic' in our Western traditions and bring it up again here. The connotation should be obvious: we are dealing with an inner reality and not an outer reality. And we are dealing with an inner reality, a psychic platform of reality, with a whole different meaning and means of exploration, than the corresponding means of exploring and discovering the surrounding material universe.

I don't really feel like "doing battle" with you, but yes, we are opposed on this issue.

And I suggest that 'the whole world' is on the cusp of transition between one Eon and another Eon in this specific sense. We need to know something of the largeness and the encompassing nature of the Medieval world view. We as Westerners are the direct products of this world view where man was visualized at the center of the creation with a demonic world below and an angelic world above. A huge drama played out in this the 'sublunary' world and there are all manner of different 'knowledge systems' about how a man might deal with his reality in this sphere. One being the overarching vision of the Church and another the alchemical processes of gaining self knowledge (and understanding of the nature of this place) and different forms of European gnosticism. What I have come to see is that if we do not understand some part of this evolution of view, we are lost when it comes to understanding our own mind and spirit in our present 'real world'. Above, in one of the Jung quotes, he describes a 'social realism' and a view by which we imagine ourselves in a 'real real world'. But this is highly questionable considering our lack of understanding of all that has produced us, and of course what still very much operates in us 'unconsciously'. (Again, Jung and Freud are amenable to reductions about human life and yet it seems to me that consideration of the fact of and the effect of 'the unconscious' is totally unavoidable.)

On these levels it doesn't matter if you wish to or don't wish to 'do battle' with me personally because what we are speaking about is occurring not strictly within two persons but on a much larger scale.

Yes, you will say that, and by it you will mean that such an "ancient mode of perception" is also a false one, but you will have no means of proving this. Conversely, I have come across material that as far as I am concerned proves that what I experience is not "all in the psyche", as you would have it. So, whatcha gonna do?

Again, I did not and am not saying, not by a long shot, that any ancient mode of organizing perception is 'false'. In actual point of fact and in general on this thread I am saying something quite different. But I know, or I think that I know, that many people do not have the background nor the interest in gaining the background to understand my 'apology'. (And so, what they can only really do is assume a 'barbarous' and destructive role toward a System they do not in fact understand). And I will again point toward the 'cusp' of transition between one vast worldview in which men located themselves and another, a newer and modern worldview which is in the process of forming itself. Same people, same planet, same inescapable problems, but a radically different field in which 'perception is organized'. I feel that I express this---rather thoroughly in fact---but I am made aware that what I am communicating is not captured. This doesn't surprise me though. To understand 'our present locality' is anything but easy and to gain even some part of an understanding---a glimpse!---necessitates recurrence to 'great men' who have done this sort of work. (One such work that is a sort of 'primer' into much of this is Arthur Lovejoy's The Great Chain of Being.)

[Harry Baird]

If there were scientific means to verify everything about which 'antiquated metaphysical systems' purport to 'exist', it would have been easily discovered, and those 'metaphysics' would be exactly the continuation of the 'physics' we know and accept as 'real'.

Steady on, tiger. There are people investigating these matters, but they are swimming against the tide, and, as I'm sure you know, it's hard enough to get along when you're swimming with the tide. You might find this little essay interesting. I have not read anything else of Van Dusen's works, nor of Swedenborg's writings, but I found this helpful essay through the bibliography of a self-published author who has inspired me. As you will be able to see if you read the essay through, even certain mainstream psychiatrists are willing to entertain, explore and validate the notion of spirit entities and spirit realms.

And, though I have said that I do not wish to do battle with you, I do wish to reassert my opposition to your notion of "inner material" being "projected" onto an "outer screen", and my opposition to this notion of an "imagined space". Certainly, we all have subterranean depths to our psyches - that I do not dispute - but this is simply to ignore a whole other realm of very literal spiritual influence of which - as Van Dusen and Swedenborg appear to have discovered - "normal" people are "normally" incognisant. For the record, I strongly relate to Van Dusen's description of the "lower spiritual hierarchies", and their role in highlighting character flaws, of which, sadly, I have no shortage.

Acknowledging that, as you reveal, we have communicated extensively privately, I must admit that I find it hard to imagine that with your spiritual views you will not accept this reality. From my perspective, it's as though you were a "spiritual materialist". What, if anything, is spirituality but a relationship to the immaterial, and what does the immaterial mean if not entities who are purely "spirit" and not "matter"? Why, then, will you not acknowledge these entities? You believe in a God of some description; surely He fits this bill. And if He does, then why not others? Anyhow, that's my challenge to you, to explain your apparently materialistic spirituality in this light.

Again, I did not and am not saying, not by a long shot, that any ancient mode of organizing perception is 'false'. In actual point of fact and in general on this thread I am saying something quite different.

Well good lord, man, then explain yourself, because all I'm getting from you is: ancient modes of organising perception are literally false, but (in some vague fashion) they represent an "inner reality". I asked you to elaborate on this dichotomy between internal and external in my last post, but you ignored me. I would suggest that it is in the readership's as much as your interest to follow up on that question.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

[...] explain yourself, because all I'm getting from you is: ancient modes of organising perception are literally false, but (in some vague fashion) they represent an "inner reality". I asked you to elaborate on this dichotomy between internal and external in my last post, but you ignored me.

It would be a restatement and I don't think it would get through. In this thread and in Internet conversations generally, one can only 'allude' and it is up to the reader to do their own research, if they want. My research now hovers around the Medieval naturalistic cosmological view and a unique blend of the 'ancient' with the modern-psychological. My impression is that you would benefit from a little reading about the 'psyche' according to both the Jungian and the Freudian school.

We could use a simple example to elucidate at least a little of the implications in the 'modern' view. Let us suppose that you know a man who regularly dreams of a demon who lives under the floorboards of his house. It is a recurring dream. He feels the presence of this demon and it is unsettling to him. Now, our man is having an interaction with something but he doesn't really know what it is. If he only had recourse to the 'story' he would assume it is one of Lucifer's crew and he would only need to double his spiritual efforts, or sprinkle some holy water, or perhaps have a priest banish the room. Let us suppose that he does this and let us suppose that the dreams stop. All is good.

But let us presume a situation where it doesn't let up.

And now let's consider this from another angle. Let us suppose that many years back the man suffered a trauma of which he is in denial of because it is too painful. He has pushed the awareness of the trauma down and away. Here the psyche and the soma (body) become the 'psychosomatic': something occurring in that hard to define and locate area which is the field of the psyche and really man's field. He has pushed the trauma out of his conscious field of awareness but, as psychology theorizes, this does not mean that it is not still there, unconsciously. Repressed content goes underground, as it were.

He is only trying to live his life after all, just like everyone. But this repressed knot of trauma becomes a veritable presence for him and makes demands on him insofar as it demands to be recognized. And so the knot is symbolized as a demon, a bad spirit, that lives under his floorboards. Then the issue gets even more serious. The demon 'invades consciousness' and is visible during waking hours. There is an upsurge of unconscious content that overpowers the ego.

What is happening? Is it 'real' or is it 'unreal'? (No one else, of course, can see the demon which is frustrating to our man. He seems to be on the lookout for someone, anyone, who also sees it and who will validate it, make it 'really real'...)

Now, instead of resorting to what is just another level of repression---attempting to banish the bad spirit of the dream with magical means, and remember that the demon is now visible even in daylight---he instead finds a ways and means to interact with the knot of energy, find out what is really there, how it all came about, just when the trauma occurred (likely in relation to a parent), and then to work on healing the issue through conscious work. This becomes the 'ethical imperative' which the psychological symbol demands: conscious interaction, not neurotic pushing under the rug.

This in a nutshell is the psychological model. I suppose that one could get technical and try to develop a workable scheme where in one pole there are the demonic entities and in the other the divine entities. That scheme most certainly exists as you will have seen from the most superficial glance at the schema in The Great Chain of Being. The cosmos was mapped out according to this understanding. You could recur to that model. It is there. It is already fabricated. It stands.

But it is possible that it represents an outmoded means of dealing with 'the human reality' whose symbolic and energy-content is not unreal but which requires, to become conscious, a whole other means of interaction. Obviously, I would suggest that the entire Christian model is thusly antiquated and in need of remodeling. It is not that any part or even all of the old material should be thrown away or regarded as 'unreal'---that would be stupid. But it certainly does point to the possibility that we need to reengage with it in a new way.

Those of us who have experiences 'spiritual phenomena' know that strange---very strange!---things can happen in the surrounding world when one starts to engage 'spiritually'. Much of this goes against our materialistic/mechanistic and intellectualistic conceptual models of 'how the world should be'. We have a stiff, inflexible, 'controlling' intellectual tendency to assume our understanding ('our so-hard facts painted thinly on the void') represent real 'seeing' of Reality. But the truth seems more to be that we don't really know, in the more profound senses, just what this World is all about.

It is in this sense though that you misunderstand me. Whatever occurs outside of us is psychically an extension of ourselves and no matter what requires an 'ethical engagement'. Those in the past who responded 'authentically' and as Christians were, in the best of cases, moved by higher ideals. The course of civilization is a movement within idealism and its 'impositions' on Nature and against the brute, untransformed natural man. It is infinitely more complex than just that and it is also not a pretty picture, or a rosy picture perhaps is the way to put it. But out of all that we arise. That is what we are, what we have become. It is the stuff we have to work with.

I suggest that it is not through dividing ourselves and our Reality into opposed poles that we will get anywhere. I would suggest that it is through recognizing just how it is that dark and light, good and evil, is mixed up inside us. The 'old duality' can move closer to a non-dual awareness. Man is the source of evil as well as of creative, conscious 'good'.

Anyhow, that's my challenge to you, to explain your apparently materialistic spirituality in this light.

Well, there you have my response to your 'challenge'.

Intellectually, you will likely be able to get what I am pointing to. But I am not convinced that you will be able to get it 'in your body'.