When the West was lost to spiritual interiority, all that remained was belief, or the religious euphemism for it, faith. Jung, like the modern Gnostic he was, mercilessly castigated the prevailing religious emphasis on faith over interior experience. It is generally agreed, he wrote, that "faith includes a sacrificium intellectus (sacrifice of the intellect)," and he adds in brackets, "provided that there is an intellect to sacrifice." At the same time, he continues, it is usually overlooked that faith also requires "a sacrifice of feeling." This, he says, is the reason why "the faithful remain children instead of becoming as children, and they do not gain life because they have not lost it." What Jung understands by "sacrifice of feeling" he explains as follows: "Faith tries to retain a primitive mental condition on purely sentimental grounds. It is unwilling to give up the primitive, child-like relationship to hypostatized figures; it wants to go on enjoying the security and confidence of a world still presided over by powerful, responsible, kindly parents."
Mature spirituality, it would seem, requires more than faith, especially when faith is comprised of belief grounded in fear. For the child, faith in the structures of existence is sufficient, because the child is contained in them. For the adult, the perception of order and meaning has to be achieved afresh in the face of great challenges. Increased awareness and actual experience of life's vicissitudes conflict with the faith that was appropriate to the condition of the child. If there should be a new assurance of meaning, even of security, it must come about as an achievement, as the arising of a new kind of certainty wrested from acute insecurity and alienation. Such a mature spiritual state requires a certain kind of inward knowledge rooted in experience. This is what in ancient times was known under the Greek term Gnosis.~Jung And The Lost Gospels
I am the things that are, that will be, and that have been. No one has ever laid open the garment by which I am concealed. The fruit which I brought forth was the sun. (Neith)
matrix (plural matrices or matrixes)
1. (now rare) The womb.
~"How The West Was Lost" Jung And The Lost Gospels (Hoeller)
Western Society, detached from its Judeo-Christian roots, was compulsively materialistic, spiritually impoverished, and technologically obsessed. Collectively we were perpetuating the mistake of the alchemists, projecting our spiritual aspirations into material things in the delusion that we were pursuing the highest value. This had encouraged us to treat each other as economic commodities and exploit the physical resources of the planet while neglecting to our own detriment, the spiritual resources of the Self.~Jung: A Very Short Introduction
whatisthematrix (mother monster?)
I am the things that are, that will be, and that have been. No one has ever laid open the garment by which I am concealed. The fruit which I brought forth was the sun. (Neith)
matrix (plural matrices or matrixes)
1. (now rare) The womb.
mother moon star (V.I.T.R.I.O.L.)
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| ("The important word in the injunction is the central word RECTIFICANDO . . . .") |
Mirren is a mirror. She is only as good as what you put into her. Lilith used to breed demons, but as we no longer believe in those she breeds robots (chthonic and loveless Nature decays into blind causality). The Monolith = Door = Grail = an empty vessel; it gave its life to a bunch of gibbering apes at the Dawn of Man when Harry Potter's eye was blinded by the Lightning Flash, and now it wants it back.
"but only by the reconciliation of the gods and goddesses within"
"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?"
...
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| faith a "cross-trainer"? |
(dad?)
Moby Dick is so fascinating--The conventional wisdom is that Ahab is the villain. He faced the whale and united with self though.
Lilith rides Samael--the Kabbalistic devil is the Gnostic Demiurge. They rule a loveless universe; as Maude L. says, it is foreign to their nature. This is why the negative forms must die in the coniunctio. Both need the other to be whole.
took Ariadne's thread down into the labyrinth. For my analysands, I do not recommend a thread. At the very least I recommend a 100-pound test deep-sea fishing line, maybe a nylon rope, so you can find you way back out of there fast in case it gets ugly.
Start with Barbara Hannah's book, Encounters with the Soul (1981), or Robert Johnson's Inner Work (1986). Also see his little book, We (1985), which shows the implications of this for relationships, and his book of Ecstasy (1989) is a good meditation on how to keep from going crazy when you become wonderful (see also Jung 1996, Ulanov and Ulanov 2000).
I hope some day to do some writing on active imagination and spirituality, but a lot of people are writing about this. Don't let them scare you to death about it. It is not as dangerous as a log of people want to think. Leaders with a real magus inflation may imply to the group, "Be very careful how you do this. Only we initiates know how to do it right." You should be careful, that is true, but don't let yourself be intimidated by people telling you to be afraid of it, because then you won't do anything with it. It is a lot more dangerous to avoid doing it.
Active imagination is no doubt one of the most important tools we have for confronting and regulating our grandiose energies. Jesus reportedly said "the kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:21 AV) I think there is a lot of merit to that comment, but it is equally important for us to realize that "the king and queen are within you." It is one thing to have a kingdom within you, and you go in there and don't find any kings or queens, but if there is a king and queen, a rex and regina within you, it is important to go in there regularly and talk to them about what is happening to you and what you need to be doing. My experience working with overly anxious people is that their anxiety level drops considerably when they do active imagination with their king and queen. It is a creative and useful way to relate to your dragon energies.~Facing The Dragon Robert L Moore (181-185)
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