Christianity

[Immanuel Can]

How judgmental of you to say that about other people.

Go and look. Their own words confirm it. (So do your words, actually. Look above.)

But isn't that supposed to me my role,

Nope.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”

Jesus was master of himself. He was free of all that denies our potential for freedom. Satan offered Jesus the ability to save the world. Jesus chose to deny Satan's offer to help and serve his God instead. Why? What is so wrong about the goal of saving the world? Can so many college students indoctrinated to save the world through communism be so wrong? Aren't saving the world and serving God the same idea?

This is a very good example of a 'picture' and a 'story' through which a range of intellectual truths are conveyed. But this picture is not one of 'reality' nor of history but is a special sort of narrative that, certainly, was necessary to communicate ideas to illiterate people. You had to present the picture to make your point intelligible. Yet, people will (or perhaps they must?) take the picture, the story, as a snip from reality and history. And that leads to a peculiar form of error.

[Alexis Jacobi]

In a sense, I agree with you. Adopting a necessitarian outlook is a type of enslavement. In another sense, I think it's kind of irrelevant: none of these guys actually act as though they are enslaved, and all of them act as though they were free, which, of course, is inevitable, because we are free (but see the caveat immediately below).

For folk like BigMike, the project is very, very real, and yet oh so ironic: people must be freely convinced that they are not free. I am amenable to your view that this is evil ideation.

My whole exposition on nescience actually transcends and specific person's, say, entrapment in *it*. I also do not make separations. I think that we are all involved or captured by different levels of nescience. This does imply, naturally, that I presume there is a 'cure' or at least the beginning of a way out of nescience and toward more truthful, more accurate, knowledge.

But I certainly do not deny that it is all terribly problematic and there is so much disagreement and conflict about what is true and what is false.

I can see it both ways. On the one hand, IC's definition of and engagement with Christianity is essential: that is to say that, he takes Christianity to be - well, the teachings of Christ. I mean, what else? This is a perfectly reasonable approach.

The "other way" of seeing it though is this: we don't really know what Christ's teachings were, because most of them were written down at least decades after they were uttered. Nor does the mainstream Christian story make sense. It contains all too many contradictions and absurdities.

I disagree because I do not think religious fanaticism is a proper 'answer'. If at the end of every exchange I were to say to you:

"You don't see it my way, eh? You know that in a very short time you will be in a hell-realm because of this, right"

I can only suppose that you would begin to suspect a power-dynamic was being used against you. My contention is that Immanuel, without knowing or caring, drives many people away from the real level of understanding needed to understand the essential metaphysical principles that operate in the best religious traditions. (His Christianity, and modern Evangelical Christianity generally, dovetails into certain forms of Jewish imperialism. The Evangelical Christian unquestioning *support* of Israel and Zionism is one notable area where manipulation can be located).

Christianity, certainly Evangelical Christianity, is presently infused with a tremendously ugly spirit. It takes possession of people. And when possessed they lose all capacity to see what has happened to them. Once one sees them, one must turn away from the wares they are selling. And this is what Immanuel provokes in people. He loves to be rejected. It solidifies his belief that he is, indeed, a 'real Christian'. He provokes rejection in order to bolster his assertion that he is 'saved' and those who do not accept him are 'lost'.

It is a tremendously sick position to have and to work in. But you understand, I hope, that I am hardly concerned about Immanuel as a person (whoever and wherever he may be). I am concerned about the ideas he has and which 'possess' him. (Hello there Immanuel, you li'l devil!)

[attofishpi]

AJ. You once told me you have gnosis -- not that necessarily means to are Gnostic -- but I did ask you to explain a little of this gnosis, would you mind doing so now?

There are descriptions, stories as I call them, that represent what I might call diagrams that explain the sort of reality we are in. The diagram, the story, is represented pictorially. A picture is needed, especially when communicating with people who do not have much intellectual background or intellectual strength, and would not be able to understand a straight communication of an intellectually expressed concept. The Gospel stories are in my view such pictures. They are not *reality* and they are not histories, they are a peculiar sort of narrative the purpose of which is to communicate a set of ideas that are completely intellectual in character. (When I use the word intellect and intelligence I always refer to the Christian/Catholic notion of intellectus).

In order to communicate difficult ideas to the great mass of people you must employ pictures and stories. This was certainly true in pre-literate times. So, we all seem to be pretty aware that within our culture (but certainly in all cultures) the religious lore of a given culture always deals with the communication of these ideas through pictorial forms. When one examines the major religious stories -- and they are always presented through pictorials -- it is quite possible to see through them and to see into the *cores* where the essential ideas are expressed.

I would say that at the point that one begins to see in this way -- and seeing can become (and should become) broad and encompassing -- one has begun to acquire gnosis. I could say simply 'knowledge' but the Greek word has different connotation. The way I understand intellectual gnosis is through a reference to Plato's Seventh Epistle:

But thus much I can certainly declare concerning all these writers, or prospective writers, who claim to know the subjects which I seriously study, whether as hearers of mine or of other teachers, or from their own discoveries; it is impossible, in my judgement at least, that these men should understand anything about this subject. There does not exist, nor will there ever exist, any treatise of mine dealing therewith. For it does not at all admit of verbal expression like other studies, but, as a result of continued application to the subject itself and communion therewith, it is brought to birth in the soul on a sudden, as light that is kindled by a leaping spark, and thereafter it nourishes itself.

So I think there are levels. On a superficial level, for example, one reads the Gospels and the story (by design) leads to to a discovery of a core truth. That would be a first step. One 'believes' in the truth that one has discovered or has been discovered to one. But there is not a great deal that is sustaining in that level of perceptual understanding. So all religious traditions recommend different 'spiritual practices' that (are said to) have the function of opening one to *understanding*. Now, an average person might not have the capability or even the desire to proceed deeply into matters of spiritual concern. Those people exist and carry on on a periphery. So their level of grasp of the full dimension of the message (the core contained and purveyed through the picture and the story) remains necessarily superficial.

Obviously, there are people who for various reasons are capable and interested in going further. It is always the case that they *engage* at a deeper level. But that means, really, that they have entered into a domain of experience, for example through prayer or meditation. But there is another dimension here too and that is the dimension of 'spiritual magic'. I would say that CG Jung, in significant ways, describes a path of spiritual magic: meaning that he cultivates a relationship with the internal world (the psychic inner world), and the external world, where what he has called *synchronicity* ("an acausal connecting principle" according to his lexicon) is 'worked with'. So the person himself becomes the arena in which the learning and experience process takes place.

What is this "acausal connecting principle"? You can throw dozens of terms at it in an attempt to get one definition to stick. But it seems to me fair to say that if something like *God* exists that God must have a means of communication with the individual. What is that means of communication? I know enough about you (from reading what you write and your relating of your various experiences and realizations) to believe that I doubt you do not understand what I am referring to. So what interests me here is that there seem to be certain types that are more inclined than others to the experience of *synchronicity*, which is a pseudo-scientific terms for 'the magic of experience'.

Now it has to be said that there is an entire order of person (I have verified this) who when they are asked Have you ever experienced the *synchronicity* Jung referred to (and indeed lived by) will answer "No, never". It seems to be an order of experience, or a relationship to reality (?) that is closed to them. Should such an 'order of experience' be opened to them? Could it? I do not have any idea.

There are other levels to 'spiritual magic' that I could refer to but they would appear bizarre and primitive to us. Some of the African pagan religions (the Yoruba for example) have quite sophisticated 'systems' through which individuals experience 'things spiritual'. It is always very practical: how to cure a spate of bad luck for example and any number of different generally mundane problems that individuals confront. And since I read a good deal about these practices one of them stood out for me. There are some people who fall into periods of 'bad luck'. Everything that they do fails. Or they are prone to accidents. Or they lose things. Or their marital life is threatened. They fal into despondency. So (and here I am speaking of tribal Africa) they resolve to go see a tribal elder who is expert in their won pagan spiritual traditions.

The first thing the tribal elder does is to *divinate* using a divination system in order to get some indications about what is wrong and why it is wrong. This would correspond (for the sake of my larger presentation) with going to see Dr Jung and, as a result of the encounter, beginning to dream dreams which reflect back *answers* to the question of neurosis.

But the next order of action is what interested me. In order to *cure* the patient of this malady of infection or infestation of 'bad luck' it was the head of that individual that had to be cured through purification. The *head* in this sense would correspond to what Mercury represents within Greek mythology: Mercury as the vehicle of transmission between *the gods* and man. Now, I also have to stake, but I can't fill it out here, that Christian doctrine, especially in John, is deeply infused with Greek metaphysical ideas pertaining to Hermes (Mercury). But to continue: it is the head that is the seat of 'clear sight' and the possibility to guide oneself properly through life. If the head is clouded, or even especially if the head is possessed by cloudiness or even something foreign-entity-like, that person's decisions will be contaminated. I cannot tell you how many people I have met that seemed to me to have 'cloudy heads'. (There was a time I worked on the street with troubled and delinquent youths and I specially noticed it there).

So the tribal elder (the religious officiant) would go to work on the person's head in order to purify it and clear it of the 'cloudiness'. The Africans are very practical people and rely on nature to provide the cures -- in addition of course to prayers, to ritual, and to what we might call 'mantras'. But the head would get wrapped with cooling herbs and whatever energies had got possession of the head (and which caused the 'bad luck') would be removed through days or even weeks of special sort of work. And the end result is that the person's malady would be cured.

So as you might guess I look for 'correspondences' within these so-called *primitive* traditions and our own supposedly *sophisticated* traditions. And they are quite easy to find. The principles must (according to my understanding) be generally the same.

But back to 'the leaping spark'. What is that? What is it that ignites awareness and understanding and then self-illuminates and 'nourishes itself'? It is like asking what is the general and over-stretching or over-arching intelligence that (seems to) preside over the entire domain of the Earth, or this sphere of reality in which we exist. We exist within a sphere of reality and there really is a general intelligence that presides.

So it seems to me that gnosis can be thought of as one's own accumulation of experience in regard to what I have defined as 'inner experience' and understanding. It is different, of course, from theoretical and doctrinal understanding, since the actual color and flavor of experience is always different or perhaps I can say 'peculiar'. My own view is that if we are to refer to a Spirit (what I refer to as presiding over this entire dimension) that we are speaking essentially about an hermetic entity. Hermes is dual. Hermes presides over a catastrophic accident as well as a tremendous boon. Life will indeed present every individual with experiences that are both divine and (permit me to say) demonic. It is just a terribly weird truth that those experiences that are daemonic:

[Middle English, from Late Latin daemōn, from Latin, spirit, from Greek daimōn, divine power; see dā- in Indo-European roots.]

It is just a strange and terrible fact that it is more often than not that we learn the most when we have been overcome by misfortune and those sorts of 'dual' events over which Hermes is said to rule. Weeks or even months back I referred to Gerhart Hauptmann's novels. Take The Heretic of Soana and Phantom especially. The catastrophic event and the catastrophic experience is the door or the vehicle through which knowledge and understanding is attained. And that knowledge and understanding is rarely understood (or allowed) within conventional religion (and for certain good reasons!)

And this is why, of course, I cannot go along with a range of the standard Christian definitions and why they require, in my view, a gnosis-perspective to round them out. The fact of the matter is that life not only can be cruel but it is a terribly cruel teacher. Who or what is the author of that cruel learning and teaching?

I thank you for the insight into your conception of gnosis, it actually resonates with me. You have a lot of experience, both being well read and also well lived, and so I think, since you clearly are intelligent have a worthy insight for those that pay attention. Surely you have written book(s)?

"So as you might guess I look for 'correspondences' within these so-called *primitive* traditions and our own supposedly *sophisticated* traditions. And they are quite easy to find. The principles must (according to my understanding) be generally the same..

This is something I find fascinating about human comprehension with respect to what they are ABLE to conceive of, based on their limited understanding of their world - and this goes back in time to all the great philosophers\scientists. Will (uwot) has written some articles dealing with this in the PHN mag, and a favourite book of mine was "Light Years" - by Brian Clegg.

One of the reasons I find history entwined with peoples ideas fascinating, is now in our current time we are indeed in a time where we CAN conceive of an ALL knowing entity via technology - AI. This opens many avenues for comprehension as to God - such as IF there is a God, it is conceivable that IT has ways to know all our actions! I once said to an academic of philosophy that has left the forum some years ago (he also had IT - programming covered) that it is like our brains are databases to this God entity! In fact, it needn't witness our actions, it just interfaces - like a pointer to memory in C programming - a pointer to our brain bank - and it knows ALL.

Perhaps I digressed too much there, nevermind.

[Nick_A]

Matthew 4:

8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”

10 Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’[e]”

11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.

Jesus was master of himself. He was free of all that denies our potential for freedom. Satan offered Jesus the ability to save the world. Jesus chose to deny Satan's offer to help and serve his God instead. Why?

Oh ye of little faith.

That you think that a man referred to as SATAN had an offering of the parts of the Earth, a place of God's creation to offer - who? GOD!

You simple of mind to not comprehend the TEST_AMEN_t ..satan is a nothing, and so many fundamentalist fools think that this entity has some dominion over the ALPHA to OMEGA.

IDIOT.

Belief in SATAN is a theists greatest folly.

You don't know how to read the Bible. What is the high mountain being referred to? It is a quality of consciousness. If you don't understand this, how can you be expected to understand the essential idea being expressed as to the ways of man compared to God's will especially when you've never pondered the will of god or universal necessity and confuse it with the will of man.

[attofishpi]

Jesus was master of himself. He was free of all that denies our potential for freedom. Satan offered Jesus the ability to save the world. Jesus chose to deny Satan's offer to help and serve his God instead. Why?

Oh ye of little faith.

That you think that a man referred to as SATAN had an offering of the parts of the Earth, a place of God's creation to offer - who? GOD!

You simple of mind to not comprehend the TEST_AMEN_t ..satan is a nothing, and so many fundamentalist fools think that this entity has some dominion over the ALPHA to OMEGA.

IDIOT.

Belief in SATAN is a theists greatest folly.

You don't know how to read the Bible. What is the high mountain being referred to? It is a quality of consciousness. If you don't understand this, how can you be expected to understand the essential idea being expressed as to the ways of man compared to God's will especially when you've never pondered the will of god or universal necessity and confuse it with the will of man.

Define SATAN.

[phyllo]

you've never pondered the will of god or universal necessity and confuse it with the will of man.

What is that?

Will of god?
Universal necessity?
Will of man?

[Harry Baird]

I can see it both ways. On the one hand, IC's definition of and engagement with Christianity is essential: that is to say that, he takes Christianity to be - well, the teachings of Christ. I mean, what else? This is a perfectly reasonable approach.

The "other way" of seeing it though is this: we don't really know what Christ's teachings were, because most of them were written down at least decades after they were uttered. Nor does the mainstream Christian story make sense. It contains all too many contradictions and absurdities.

I disagree because I do not think religious fanaticism is a proper 'answer'.

However, when I examine the basis of your disagreement, it seems that we don't really disagree after all, unless I'm missing something. I wrote that we don't really know what Christ's teachings were, and that what we do have in mainstream Christian belief is contradictory and absurd. I was thus in no way endorsing religious fanaticism. So, we're not really in disagreement in that sense.

I think, however, that we legitimately do disagree in the sense that you object to the essentialist definition of Christianity: that Christianity is, in essence, the body of teachings of the man after whom the religion was named. Since you don't even view that man as an authority figure, this is necessarily the case, however, as I pointed out a while back in a post the rhetorical flourishes of which you both admired and found overdone, what you do in that manoeuvre is to gut the religion. Without Christ, there is no Christianity. That seems obvious to me. You, though, seem to seek a Christless Christianity. I find that kind of bizarre.

If at the end of every exchange I were to say to you:

"You don't see it my way, eh? You know that in a very short time you will be in a hell-realm because of this, right"

I can only suppose that you would begin to suspect a power-dynamic was being used against you.

We definitely see eye to eye here.

My contention is that Immanuel, without knowing or caring, drives many people away from the real level of understanding needed to understand the essential metaphysical principles that operate in the best religious traditions.

Since you think that Christianity is the best of the best, it is really strange that you excise Christ from it. I have a sense of the metaphysical principles that you affirm absent Christ, but still, I do find this "Christless Christianity" manoeuvre that you perform to be very strange.

(His Christianity, and modern Evangelical Christianity generally, dovetails into certain forms of Jewish imperialism. The Evangelical Christian unquestioning *support* of Israel and Zionism is one notable area where manipulation can be located).

Again, we totally see eye to eye here. It is interesting, because, years back, you defended Zionism/Israel to me in personal emails. I'm glad to see that you're now rejecting the ongoing injustice committed against the Palestinians.

Christianity, certainly Evangelical Christianity, is presently infused with a tremendously ugly spirit. It takes possession of people. And when possessed they lose all capacity to see what has happened to them. Once one sees them, one must turn away from the wares they are selling. And this is what Immanuel provokes in people. He loves to be rejected. It solidifies his belief that he is, indeed, a 'real Christian'. He provokes rejection in order to bolster his assertion that he is 'saved' and those who do not accept him are 'lost'.

It is a tremendously sick position to have and to work in. But you understand, I hope, that I am hardly concerned about Immanuel as a person (whoever and wherever he may be). I am concerned about the ideas he has and which 'possess' him. (Hello there Immanuel, you li'l devil!)

I am not sure how accurate this analysis of IC really is, so I'll simply say, "Maybe so; maybe not".

[Immanuel Can]

Define SATAN.

The Hebrew term śāṭān (Hebrew: שָׂטָן) is a generic noun meaning "accuser" or "adversary",[7][8] and is derived from a verb meaning primarily "to obstruct, oppose".[9] In the earlier biblical books, e.g. 1 Samuel 29:4, it refers to human adversaries, but in the later books, especially Job 1-2 and Zechariah 3, to a supernatural entity.[8] When used without the definite article (simply satan), it can refer to any accuser,[10] but when it is used with the definite article (ha-satan), it usually refers specifically to the heavenly accuser, literally, the satan.[10]

--Source: Wikipedia.

[Immanuel Can]

I am not sure how accurate this analysis of IC really is, so I'll simply say, "Maybe so; maybe not".

Alexis is feeling angry with me, because I shot his dog.

I told him that speaking of "Christianity," while having no definition of what "Christianity" is, was futile. So he doesn't like me now.

But I can live with that. And it doesn't change any facts.

[Harry Baird]

I am not sure how accurate this analysis of IC really is, so I'll simply say, "Maybe so; maybe not".

Alexis is feeling angry with me, because I shot his dog.

I told him that speaking of "Christianity," while having no definition of what "Christianity" is, was futile. So he doesn't like me now.

But I can live with that. And it doesn't change any facts.

I personally think that AJ does have an implicit definition of "Christianity", which I suggested as an explication to him here, however, he thought that that suggested definition was not worth commenting on, so, I guess we'll never know...

[Walker]

- Bottom line question: Does Christian tolerance in fact feed idiotic responses that could fuel intolerance of Christians in general, an intolerance that could physically manifest upon some unsuspecting simulacron?

Well, Christians are certainly counselled against the indiscriminate dispersal of nacreous spheroids in porcine precincts. But we have never found that we need do anything at all to induce intolerance. It comes, even when entirely unbidden. See John 15:18-19.

As for a "simulacron," by definition, it's an unreal simulation of something. So I'm not so sure what you mean there.

The people who receive transmissions exist as figments of the transmitter’s imagination. The figments are formed from pixels on a monitor, which leaves lots of gaps in knowledge. It’s akin to hearing of God, then forming a concept of God based merely on pixels, but not piercing through the conflicts between pixels and preconceptions to experience the simplicity of God first in the stillness that permeates the interface between mind and awareness, i.e., pure consciousness uncorrupted by attachment, then in the stillness that is the ever-present root of all action, e.g., the invisible axis of the spinning top.

[Immanuel Can]

I am not sure how accurate this analysis of IC really is, so I'll simply say, "Maybe so; maybe not".

Alexis is feeling angry with me, because I shot his dog.

I told him that speaking of "Christianity," while having no definition of what "Christianity" is, was futile. So he doesn't like me now.

But I can live with that. And it doesn't change any facts.

I personally think that AJ does have an implicit definition of "Christianity", which I suggested as an explication to him here, however, he thought that that suggested definition was not worth commenting on, so, I guess we'll never know...

I think he doesn't comment on your proposed definition for a very, very simple reason...

He doesn't know.

He wouldn't know what to say in response to that, because "Christian' doesn't mean anything at all specific to him. It's just a convenient label he wants to put on a particular set of Western ideas and events that have nothing at all to do with being intrinsically "Christian."

Oh, and one more thing he hates: he hates short, clear answers. For him, your accuracy serves no purpose he likes. He wants to be able to generalize so broadly, so vaguely, and so without content, that nobody can ever question his truthfulness or the accuracy of his representations.

At least, that's how it appears, at present.

[Immanuel Can]

As for a "simulacron," by definition, it's an unreal simulation of something. So I'm not so sure what you mean there.

The people who receive transmissions exist as figments of the transmitter’s imagination.

No, that's not precisely right.

The imaginings about the receiver in the transmitter's minds may be imperfect, and may, in that sense, be "simulacra"; but something exists that does the receiving, and exists in order that the simulation of receiving also happens. And it isn't a mere simulacrum, but an actual entity. It has its own objective characteristics.

[Walker]

It has its own objective characteristics.

These characteristics are known by the witness of the other, only by inference, even if the other stands before you. I wouldn't rush past that observation, for when I discovered it, I found it to be profound.