Selected Correspondence Peter

The Metaphysical

‘The major force in resisting human change and progress has always been the shamans, priests and Popes, God-men and Gurus. Always they look backwards for the answers, desperately clinging to the musty trite and dogma of a long distant past. Always cleverly trying to be seen to move with the times, adapting their message, window dressing it to current fashion and demand. Thus we see the Western religions adopting trendy Eastern concepts and all religions adopting the Earth-as-God religion of the Environmentalists, the modern day worshippers of earth spirits. The foundation and driving force of all religious belief is fear – fear of death is transformed into a passionate belief in an after-life and fear of inevitable approaching death is transformed into a doomsday outlook and a desperate fear of the future and change. Consequently, any human progress in leisure, pleasure, comfort and safety have been fearfully resisted throughout history and any attempts at finding a genuine, actual freedom have been met by the sacred ceiling of spiritual and religious beliefs.’

And the article from Brittanica.com –

Kabbalah Goes to Hollywood

When Kabbalah ceases to be Jewish, does it become more or less than it was before

A Talmudic story tells of four rabbis who attempted to glean mystical understanding through certain esoteric practices. It didn’t turn out too well. One, we are told, went mad, another died, the third became a heretic. But the fourth, ‘entered in peace and left in peace.’ This story bears a warning: Unless you know yourself to be Akiba’s equal in wisdom, righteousness, and learning, stick to your formal religious routines. If you insist, others have amended, wait until you are 45, married, and steeped in the precepts of Judaism. Today the four have become thousands, and as for the other advice, suffice it to say the suggested qualifications are going West, as more and more Jews and non-Jews alike seek the answers to their spiritual longings in the Jewish mystical tradition known as Kabbalah. From ancient secret knowledge to a recent Hollywood trend, Kabbalah is not just for mystics anymore. Kabbalah, Hebrew for ‘tradition’, is the name given to the entire Jewish mystical tradition. To speak of Kabbalah as a structure is not easy, given the numerous texts and schools of thought that characterized it over the centuries.

Broadly speaking, Kabbalistic writings (such as the 13th -century Zohar) were meant to be a special kind of commentary on the Torah. Kabbalah teaches that certain formulas and rituals will open up secret meanings in the holy scriptures which in turn will allow the adept to experience a mystical, if not ecstatic, union with the divine.

According to Lurianic Kabbalah (named Rabbi Isaac Luria, a 16th century mystic), the light of God’s creative power was too much to bear for creation itself and it is now the responsibility of human beings to repair the damage done by ‘the breaking of the vessels.’ This responsibility consists of a mystical reading of the Torah which leads to devekut, the cleaving of the soul to God. The mystic’s practice of devekut, begins to return creation to proper alignment with the creator. Over the years these texts have become separated from their original intent. For some such a separation is intolerable, for others it seems more like liberation. For adherents to Reform Judaism in particular, the idea of tikkun (to heal or restore) addresses the need to be both spiritually and socially responsible and allows them to feel connected to Judaism in a way that yearly visits to the synagogue on Yom Kippur does not. For these Jews tikkun olam is a call to social action and the healing of political ruptures. By repairing the world we are helping to bring about the harmony God originally intended. For Jews looking to create and teach Jewish values without the hard edge of Jewish legal language, performing a duty to the world born out of mystical teachings can be a perfect marriage of the religious and the secular.

Rabbi Lawrence Kushner is the forerunner of this new tradition of Jewish mysticism. With books like Honey from the Rock: An Introduction to Jewish Mysticism Kabbalah: The Way of Light, he provides spiritual answers to those who might be disenchanted or alienated by Jewish orthodoxy and its tendency toward conservative political and social ideologies. Jewish feminists, meanwhile, have used concepts such as shekhinah the feminine aspect of the divine, to help Jewish women create new and intense mythic and practical relationships to their tradition. Kabbalah has also gone a long way in bringing together those Jews whose tendencies lean toward more non-Jewish spiritual practices, such as Eastern religions, herbalism, and meditation. A slight re-interpretation of kabbalistic ideas allows seemingly incomprehensible subjects to become quite familiar. Transmigration of souls, known as gilgul, can seem a lot like reincarnation. There are Hasidic tales of rabbis who perform what looks a lot like astral projection. From ‘thou shall not’ to ‘become a vessel of light’ is a very appealing way to remain within the context of Judaism for the religiously apprehensive. At the extreme end of the Jewish interest are organizations like the Society of Souls , which teaches ‘Integrated Kabbalistic Healing,’ and The Kabbalah Centre , an organization based in Los Angeles with centers all over the world. This center is gaining incredible popularity and boasts such members such as Madonna and Roseanne Barr. It teaches kabbalistic doctrine in order to ‘encourage spiritual change and growth and thereby reveal the Light of the Creator which will ultimately achieve fulfillment for all.’ Like many groups the center offers a pre-packaged Kabbalah, connecting it to everything from DNA to the Big Bang. The teachings retain a certain amount of Jewish language and sources, but are presented in a way that absolves the customer even of the need to be Jewish.

Because Kabbalah is a mystical understanding of God and ideas of creation, other traditions with their own mystical bent have looked to kabbalistic lore for new insight into their own beliefs. As early as the 1400s Christian thinkers such as Pico della Mirandola believed that kabbalistic symbolism provided insight into their own faith, including a way to work out the complexities of the Trinity. This appropriation foreshadowed the way in which non-Jewish meaning could be extracted from very Jewish sources. Various aspects of Jewish mysticism also contain what might be called theurgy, magical secrets that the mystic must learn if he is to traverse the dangerous landscape of the seven heavens--a place fraught with angry guardians and demonic tricksters. Early modern occultists such as Aleister Crowley and the Order of the Golden Dawn used kabbalistic symbols for their own devices, for example, trying to conjure spirits.

Kabbalah’s appeal for both Christians and secret societies has caused it to undergo considerable remoulding and, at times, complete disassociation from its original Jewish sources. The Church Universal and Triumphant , home to Elizabeth Clare Prophet and source of such books as Kabbalah: Key to Your Inner Power, is one such tradition: It draws on Kabbalah to support or otherwise give more depth to its own teachings. There is no need for what is particularly Jewish about Kabbalah once you have appropriated its symbolism. A twofold phenomenon has made it possible for Kabbalah to find its way into the mainstream. On the one hand Westerners have always done a good job of reworking and redefining other traditions for the sake of their own spiritual development.

On the other hand the imagery of Jewish mysticism – such as tikkun and gilgul--allow it to be understood without the ‘Jewishness’ of its roots. Almost every New Age discipline has at onetime or another attached itself to Jewish mysticism, integrating alongside it things like Hinduism, astrology, and tarot. A Web search can be revealing. Searching for the words ‘Kabbalah’ and ‘aliens’ produces more than 1,300 hits. Searching for Web pages that contain the word ‘Kabbalah’ but exclude the words ‘Judaism’ and ‘Jewish’ produces almost 15,000 pages. The new ‘multi-religionism’ has certainly done much in the way of teaching diversity. But while beneficial to those seeking spiritual sustenance, there is a danger that only the very surface of these teachings is accessible and so the original meaning may be diluted. Kabbalah, a complex tradition, is at its core a Jewish tradition. Wisdom should not be guarded like precious stones, but for these gems to retain their value they must not be played with like marbles. Peter Bebergal, special to Britannica.com.

The other bit I found relevant was

‘Jewish feminists, meanwhile, have used concepts such as shekhinah the feminine aspect of the divine, to help Jewish women create new and intense mythic and practical relationships to their tradition.’

And I had written –

‘Even more curious is the female response of current stoking the fires of feminist religion as the Goddesses arise to do battle with the male Gods.’

It’s so easy to write about the sacred ceiling because all one needs to do is present facts and then beliefs simply wilt away, a bit like when you stick a pin in a balloon.

I think nothing would silence you – as far as books go I never read them, (including Osho’s). They’re just full of other people’s ideas about how life should be and encourage people to live vicariously or adopt new belief systems which it seems is what most of you New Agers are on about.

Personally the term I like to use is New Dark Age rather than New Age.

All things metaphysical are fashionable at present as we are in the New Dark Age that is dominated by ancient, sacred, spiritual and other-worldly concepts. Ancient healings and esoteric medicines, divinations and prophecies, energies and auras, folk tales and legends, gurus and shamans, fairies and goddesses, sacred sites and cosmic planes, chakras and levels of consciousness, telepathy and spiritualism, visions and entities, ESP and UFO’s, somas and souls, mysticism and meditation, rituals and rites, reincarnations and past lives, karmas and dharmas, devils and demons ... they all testify to the vast extent of metaphysical beliefs. When one really investigates one finds that everyone believes in the metaphysical – without the hope of a ‘something else’, ‘someone else’ or ‘somewhere else’ the suffering of humanity would be unbearable.

From the little I read and the talk several years ago, I got the impression that he might have done a good job in researching on physics and biology of mind and trying to answer the question how mind works.

From what I read and from his own words that I pasted he is re-interpreting the research in physics and biology into a philosophical- mathematical theory of consciousness that is metaphysical in nature. We tend to think of metaphysics as the domain of the mystics and shamans but modern cosmology, quantum physics, mathematics and the like are mostly concerned with metaphysics.

From Mr. Oxford –

metaphysical – 1 a Of, belonging to, or of the nature of metaphysics; such as is recognized by metaphysics. b Excessively subtle or abstract. c Not empirically verifiable. 2 Immaterial, incorporeal, supersensible; supernatural.

You will remember, Sir Roger said –

‘The position that I have been strongly arguing for is that this ideal notion of human mathematical understanding is something beyond computation’...

By ‘beyond computation’ he means unable to be computed, calculated, reckoned, worked out, demonstrated, or made sense of. Or to use Mr. Oxford’s words – not empirically verifiable.

In the previous post you said, ‘in the PCE the ‘I’ is lost and only here and now is experienced.’ Now you seem to be saying that Love is experienced.

The operative word is ‘this’, referring to Agapé. When one experiences Agapé the illusion of past and future or there, or other is no more.

The writer 2 must admit to having missed ‘this’, it completely passed the writer 2 by. Maybe it is the ‘this’ that cannot be put into words and that is why the writer 2 couldn’t see it. Is ‘this’ any relative to ‘That’ or is it different?

Vivian, Mabel, Winnifred and Florian, among others, have reported a different reality than the one you espouse about being soulless.

Never heard of these people or their reports. I am interested in anyone who has described their experiences. Can you give me some references as to where I can read of them?

These are women who have described to the writer, their existence after dying; between days and years following the event.

The writer 2 is confused again. Does the writer 1 mean that the writer 1 is channelling these women after physical death or is the writer 1 referring to their spiritual death as in Enlightenment?

But then you have probably not had any direct experience with the DIVINE yet.

Yes, I have had many experiences, a description of the strongest experience I will post below

And as was written, ‘...you have probably not had any direct experience with the DIVINE yet.’ Your description attests to this.

The writer 2 is confused again. The writer 2 guesses that it is because the writer 2 cannot channel. Thus the experiences are not DIRECT experiences and are only imaginary.

Channelling is different from the ‘direct’ or mystical experience.

From what I understand, in the ‘Ancient Times,’ channelling was the exclusive preserve of the Prophets who channelled the Word of God by some Divine transmission. The witchdoctors and shamans dealt with both good and evil spirits of the dead but not in a such a personal channelling of individual spirits as is common today. This fashion seems to have taken hold in the seances held in the parlours of Victorian England where people attempted to ‘communicate’ with dead relatives via mediums.

The New Age has taken this to the extreme of channelling Guides, Aliens, Dolphins, etc. with gay abandon. Everybody ‘channels’ at some point in their life, be it talking to dead relatives, lovers, or praying to God or dead Masters. It is a common experience of most humans and some merely take it to extremes. A woman I knew made a good living out of it for a while. So yes, I agree, channelling is different from the direct or mystical experience in that it involves some contact with another individual ‘spirit’, but the common thread is the belief in an after-life and that the experience is affective and not actual.

We have found no one who has challenged the Eastern spiritual and religious texts, let alone proposed that ... EVERYONE HAS GOT IT 180 DEGREES WRONG, EVERYONE.

Have you read any writings of Yashua ben Yosef?

No, and a web search revealed nothing.

It just goes to show you the shortcomings of technology. In the world of mystics there is much known of this adept.

Well, as you may have gathered, I am not a fan of mysticism but I’m not going to surrender so easily on this one. I’ll have a few guesses and you can let me know if I’m close – <Snip>

  • Jesus Christ in the disguise of his second (or first) father’s name Joseph.

Yes. Although that particular name was unknown to him during his lifetime. He claimed a name with the same meaning as the Latin word, Lucifer. Mr. Crowley was familiar with his real identity.

Much of what the world supposedly ‘knows’ about this adept is made up by his disciples to fit their own expectations.

Let me keep guessing ... then.

I’ll say –

and you will say –

and I’ll ask –

and you will say –

and I’ll say –

and you will say –

but Jesus Christ is in the Western monotheistic tradition of spiritualism.

‘No, that is not what the Real Yashua was on about.’

well, what was he on about then that is outside the ‘tried and true’?

‘If you Really Knew you wouldn’t have to ask?’

Look, in the interest of discussing these matters, why don’t you tell me?

‘Ah! Got you – it cannot be put into words. One either Knows or not ...’

which translated means ‘you are ignorant and a Heathen to boot!’

– and we can waffle on endlessly like this about ‘that which cannot be spoken of’.

You must be a good poker player, you keep your cards close to your chest and you keep trumping me with those same old psittacisms. I don’t see it as trumping but more like a refusal to even begin to consider that we might even start to talk sensibly about life, the universe and what it is to be a human being.

Could it be that you are not concerned with life here on earth – hence your reference?

On other planets, with higher technological understanding, we are still quite primitive.

I would ask ‘on other planets’ do they still believe in good and evil spirits or are they still as primitive as we are?

I know, you will answer – ’the other planets’ are where the ‘Illuminati of Masters’ hold their meetings to discuss how we poor suffering humans are getting on and who has joined the Chosen Ones to book a seat on the flight out from hell to heaven!

I remember as a kid the Biggest Secret was the one where you just pretended that you had a secret – then nobody could disprove you. It went ‘I’ve got a secret and I’m not telling you about it ...’

But, of course everyone knows about it. It’s called the Truth which translates into I ‘Know’ and have Realized that there is God and an after-life’.

Humans have been, and still are, inventing fanciful adaptations of the Ancient myths ad nauseam – all in order to claim a bit of the fairy tale as their own particular Wisdom or Truth. With some, this adapting is done in order to attain some position of power or authority in the psychic world. Others are more prosaic in that they just want to make a living out of healing, curing or saving others from evil spirits or the like.

As you said ‘There is nothing new under the sun’, and this is obviously so in the spiritual world, and your reference to Yashua (Jesus Christ) is but another proof of this.

As I used to sing while strolling through the Ashram – ♫ ‘Give me that old-time Religion, give me that old time Religion ... it’s good enough for me ...’ ♪

But if one ceases to believe in the existence of a soul, then one’s connection to the psychic world of good and evil spirits eventually withers and dies, leaving one free to delight in the purity and perfection of the actual world.

Then the good and evil spirits are seen for the delusion they are – a mere illusion imposed over the already illusionary world of sorrow and malice.

One is then twice removed from the actual world.

One has given full reign to the imaginary alien entity within and imagination, psychic powers and psychic phenomena are free to roam at will and whim.

To experience the actual, free of both the illusion and delusion, one needs only to rid oneself of the source that generates these worlds within you – the alien self consisting of both ego and soul.

As I said – Everyone has got it 180 degrees wrong.

Well I couldn’t resist joining in the correspondence. I hope you don’t mind, but I have followed with fascination your attempts to defend the indefensible and attempt to re-interpret what is actual and factual into yet another meta-physical or cerebral construct. Your philosophy and Guru-ship consists of merely another hotchpotch of Ancient wisdom, some current reading of yours and a bit of Richardism that you have taken on board.

It is amazing to see you beginning to mouth and mimic the words of Richard and twist them to suit your conditioned meta-physical view of the world and attempt to hobble the lot together in a way as to present them as yet another new version of the Truth. And to know your efforts are doomed to failure. Actual freedom or actualism is of course not merely a theory or philosophy but a new, down-to-earth non-spiritual path to freedom – an actual freedom from the Human Condition of malice and sorrow. <snip>

It is a paradise not only of physical pleasure as it also offers a stillness and purity wherein one is no longer driven by the instincts, where the mind is a perfectly clear and delightful and playful thing and the usual feelings of fear and aggression are replaced by a consuming sense of well being and benignity. And loneliness disappears as one immensely enjoys ones own company. Good Hey....

So Konrad, unlike the other metaphysical and philosophical theories of freedom this one works and delivers and as such easily rebuffs charlatans and frauds. The proof is in the actual and in my experience if you can prove an end to malice and sorrow in equitable one-on-one companionship you have ‘put your money where your mouth is’. There is no greater test of fire than sexual freedom and equity, than for man and woman to live together in utter peace and harmony – not in theory but in practice.

The Gurus have failed to deliver, they have had their day. The old ancient, long dead ones have eschewed morals and ethical precepts for their followers who have fought horrendous wars as to the Rightness of their masters or own particular God’s vision. And as for the modern Gurus, I know them well to be pretenders. I have seen the despair that ravages their private lives and those around them. The chaos and duplicity of their personal lives, their sexuality, their treatment of women, the psychic powers and the entrapment, surrender and eventual total emotional dependency and enslavement of their disciples is but a sad useless re-run of all that has gone before. No wonder the spiritual or religious pursuits require bucket-loads of faith, trust and hope – it is needed in the face of its continual failure to produce the goods – peace on earth.

Peter’s Text © The Actual Freedom Trust