An Ancient Mystery Revealed

I'm old enough to remember the 1984 Wendy's commercial that featured the three little old ladies and the stick-in-your-head catch phrase, "Where's the beef?" Sure, the commercial was meant to sell Wendy's bigger hamburger patties. But the catch phrase went deeper than that. It quickly became a cultural metaphor for something that was "all talk, no action." Something without real substance. 

Many spiritual teachers are interested in selling you books about how to "raise your consciousness" and "seek wisdom" and be "one with all Creation." These books are full of platitudes and cliches, and they remind me a lot of the big fluffy bun that was being parodied in the Wendy's commercial. The bun looks impressive on the outside, but when you bite into it, you discover there's precious little substance inside. There's just the same old mystery teachings that have been taught by cult leaders for . . . oh . . . for at least five thousand years now. 

We are all One. Blah, blah, blah. Your soul is a spark of the Divine. Blah, blah, blah. Your physical body and your physical mind are drenched in evil and must be transcended. Blah, blah, blah. Specially chosen spiritual leaders have consented to descend into this corrupt world to lead the forces of light against the forces of evil. Blah, blah, blah. You can help in this great battle. Blah, blah, blah. The time is at hand when human beings will rise to a new, never before seen level of consciousness and enlightenment. Blah, blah, blah. In order to reach this new level, you must surrender yourself, let go of yourself, live in the moment, let go of attachments, let go of illusion. Blah, blah, blah. Only then can you know the bliss, peace, and joy of oneness with the Divine.  

At the beginning of Eckhart Tolle's bestselling 1997 book The Power of Now (Vancouver: Namaste Publishing, 1997), he describes an episode of spiritual awakening that took place after a "dark night of the soul" when he was 29. For five months, he "lived in a state of uninterrupted deep peace and bliss" (page 2). He then "spent almost two years sitting on park benches in a state of the most intense joy. But even the most beautiful experiences come and go."  

Really? They come and go? Because that hasn't been my experience. My experience has been that if you understand why you're doing what you're doing on the Spiral Path, and if you ground your spiritual journey in reality instead of in ancient mystical gobbledygook, you can get up every morning and go to bed at night and live every moment of your ordinary, ho-hum day in a state of profound trust and companionship with God.  

This makes every ho-hum day anything but ho-hum.  

If you see what I'm getting at here.  

Eckhart Tolle and his mystical predecessors are always talking about escape -- escape from the body, escape from suffering, escape from illusion, escape from evil forces, and (in the most extreme form) escape from death. They're missing the point. The Spiral Path has never been about escape. The Spiral Path has always been about forgiveness, healing, and redemption.* 

This amphora, found in Etruria and dated 540-535 BCE, depicts Herakles killing the Nemean lion - the first of the twelve labours of Herakles. The spiritual journey shouldn't make you feel as if you're reinventing Herakles' terrible struggles. (Amphora on display at Royal Ontario Museum. Photo credit JAT 2017.)

If you want to feel deep peace and joy every day (and this is possible, believe it or not), your ongoing goal is to HEAL yourself, not escape yourself. 

In order to heal yourself (and perhaps others, too), you need to understand at a conscious level what's going on inside your biological body as you struggle to make sense of your spiritual journey. In order to do this, you need more than ancient myths to guide you. You need science.  

There are no exceptions to this general statement. Every mystic in every faith tradition in every country of the world needs science. There is no ethical mysticism without ethical scientific exploration.  

There is no science in The Power of Now. There's a great deal of mystical speculation, but there's no science. Put plain and simple, I don't trust any spiritual teacher who's afraid to look science in the eye.  

There is no need to postulate, as Tolle does, the existence of a "negative energy field" (called an emotional "pain-body") whose job it is to control your thoughts and your mind like some sort of "invisible entity" (page 29). This sounds little different than demon-possession as it was formerly understood. It's an irresponsible and scientifically insupportable claim. It confuses and frightens people. 

Furthermore, it relies entirely on the author's own authority as mystic and prophet. It starts with Tolle's personal assumptions about the interface between mind, body, soul, and brain. From there, he builds a pyramid of guesswork. My question in response to his thesis is . . . where's the beef? Where's the science combined with the heart? Don't talk to me about a corrupting "pain-body." Talk to me -- scholar to scholar -- about neurotransmitters and glial cells and underactive sections of the brain and seizure disorders and over-activation of the pain-pleasure circuitry (to barely scratch the surface of the neurophysiology that's involved). I don't mind if you use some analogies and even some mythical archetypes to explain brain chemistry to a lay audience, but if you yourself don't understand your spiritual journey in scientific terms, then you're not saying anything different than Plato said to a vulnerable audience 2,400 years ago. It's pure myth. And it's pure crap. 

I'm sorry, but it's just not true that human beings can somehow separate the spiritual journey or the spiritual brain from the everyday science of everyday life. You cannot find God by sitting on park benches for two long years. (You'll find something on those park benches, but it won't be enlightenment.) You can only find God in a lasting way by making lasting choices in your life -- choices that will slowly heal your biological brain and your biological body, and allow you to live each day as an angel-in-human-form. Your spiritual task is not to become less yourself. It's to become more yourself -- more and more like the soul you really are.  

This depends, of course, on a belief in the soul. If you don't believe you were born with a soul -- a pure, amazing, unique soul that always is and always will be a pure, amazing, unique soul -- then you and I have no common ground for discussion. Everything I've learned from God the Mother and God the Father, and everything I've learned from the angel who once lived as Jesus, begins with the core integrity of the soul. Everything I've learned about healing and redemption revolves around the full integration of your immortal soul with your very mortal human body. 

Everything I've learned about healing and redemption revolves around the balance of body, mind, soul, and heart. Around the balance (NOT the pyramidal, step-wise hierarchy) of Maslow's physiological needs, safety needs, love and belonging needs, and self esteem needs. Around the balance of physical joy, mental joy, spiritual joy, and emotional joy. Around the balance of work, play, extroverted relationships, and introverted downtime. Around using the whole brain, not just parts of the brain. 

Whole Brain Thinking is the only way to find the Spiral Path, understand the Spiral Path, and persevere on the Spiral Path.  

There. That's the Ancient Mystery in a nutshell: you have to use your whole brain -- your whole central nervous system -- in a consistently balanced, healthy, emotionally mature way. When you do, you can more easily hear God's voice, because God's voice is as balanced and emotionally mature as can be.  

And guess what? You don't have to take my word for it! You can research all the ways to have a happy, healthy, fully functioning brain, and you'll come up with essentially the same ideas I've presented here!  

Science and spirituality together on the same page. Now we're cooking with gas.  

 

* On the last text page of The Power of Now, Tolle reveals that "the whole concept of forgiveness then becomes unnecessary (page 193)." Needless to say, Tolle and I couldn't disagree more.

More on Harpur's "Pagan Christ"

I'm still feeling grumpy about Tom Harpur's suggestions for Christians who want to find "the only way ahead," so I'm going to talk some more about that.

Early on in my writings on this blog, I stated -- in bold letters, no less -- that I am NOT a Gnostic (March 6, 2010: Some Reference Books I Read & Recommend). Even though I'm a practising mystic, and even though I believe in a number of things that can't be seen by the human eye (so sue me -- even radio waves can't be seen by the human eye), this doesn't make me a Gnostic. It's only sloppy thinkers who haven't done their homework on Gnosticisms would insist on calling me a Gnostic. (Note here that I've used the plural form of Gnosticism because careful researchers know there's no such thing as one single historical form of Gnosticism any more than there's one single historical form of Christianity or one single historical form of Judaism.)

According to Gnostics of all traditions, this is what you look like: old, ugly, stained, and walled off eternally from God unless you accept the cult teachings that will grant you "escape." Naturally, for the price of your human obedience, worship, and financial contributions, Gnostics will be happy to sell you the secret knowledge that blasts open the door to ascendance. Photo credit JAT 2021.

In order for a person to be included under the umbrella term of Gnosticism, he or she has to hold certain beliefs about the nature of humanity's relationship with God. Central to all Gnosticisms is the idea that the soul is a tiny piece of God's essence that is trying to find its way back to God. Immortal souls end up in mortal bodies, but this isn't really a good thing, according to Gnostics, because our physical bodies drag the soul down into a "prison" of matter. The spiritual task for Gnostics is to recognize the spark of God/Christ/Divine that exists within, and to set about freeing that spark by raising their consciousness to a higher level. The goal is to seek "wisdom" and hidden knowledge (gnosis in Greek). This knowledge leads to transcendence.

If this sounds a lot like Plato's teachings about the soul's journey, it's because Plato's teachings and later Gnostic teachings have a lot in common. Most orthodox Western Christian scholars don't want to admit it, but these teachings also strongly influenced the apostle Paul. The famous passage about life after death in Chapter 15 of First Corinthians is a fascinating blend of Jewish apocalyptic thought (future resurrection) and Platonic thought (incorruptibility of the divine): "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed." (Cue Handel's Messiah.)

Tom Harpur is quite up-front about the fact that he admires Gnostic thinking. On page 175 of The Pagan Christ, he says, "What's really important is that Paul's spiritual view of Christ (his Christology) and Gnostic Christianity held the early Christian movement up to a truly high standard of intellectual and philosophical excellence."

Bear in mind that Harpur himself doesn't believe there ever was an actual man named Jesus Christ who lived in1st century CE Palestine. He believes the gospel stories about Jesus should be read typologically, not literally. He believes the story of Jesus is pure symbol. An important symbol, but a symbol nonetheless. A myth, not a fact.

In fact, Harpur believes that all Scripture should only be read symbolically, not literally or historically. For Harpur, "the enigma of the Bible has been largely solved. Dark passages, cryptic narratives or events -- all have been shot through with a new, though long-lost, light because of this awareness that the key to all Scripture is to be found in the doctrine of Incarnation (page 181)."*

And what is the long-lost light that Harpur sees in this symbolic reading of Scripture? Why, it's the ancient wisdom of the Egyptian mystery cults!

Here's where I have a really big problem with Harpur's thesis. He recommends without reservation that Christianity of the third millennium reclaim "the wisdom expounded by the Egyptians, the Orphics, the Pythagoreans and Plato, as well as by St. Paul, the Gnostics, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and a host of others . . . (page 191)." (Can't argue with the historical links that existed among these groups, although I would have added Manicheans and Albigensians.) He thinks the choice to reclaim this long-lost light will arm us "with the moral and intellectual courage to live our lives to the fullest for the advancement of all . . . (page 193)."

Me, I think such a course of action will demolish whatever moral and intellectual courage Christians have.

Why do I think this? I think this because I've lived through the devastating effects of ancient mystery teachings on the human brain, and although I've fully recovered from the effects of my Big Fat Idiot Stage, I'm alarmed when I see reputable scholars using their positions of authority to urge dangerous spiritual practices on vulnerable, less well educated people.

It's irresponsible, and there's no excuse for it.

Harpur is advocating a return to what is indisputably a cult psychology based on status addiction. He's kidding himself if he thinks the leaders of these ancient cults were nice people who truly found divine wisdom and willingly shared it with all people. Pythagoras (of whom Harpur seems fond) founded a sectarian cult with strict rules where only a small group of chosen disciples were initiated into the secret knowledge and rituals. (That's status addiction!) Hellenistic mystery cults such as the Orphic mysteries and the Eleusinian mysteries engaged in bizarre, ritualistic, occult practices that most people would find abhorrent today. Addiction issues and sexual misconduct were rampant in these cults. Later, especially in the Eastern Roman Empire, Christian monks, nuns, contemplatives, and mystics separated themselves from regular communities and engaged in self-harming ascetic practices so they could "imitate Christ" and be "closer to God." (Again, status addiction.) Needless to say, addiction issues, sexual misconduct, and other forms of abuse continued to take place in monastic communities and continued to be blamed on evil forces such as demons, incubi, and the devil.

Is this what Harpur wants? Because this is what he's going to get if he naively places these ancient mystery cults on a pedestal. Where he sees a "long-lost light" in these ancient teachings, I see only a "darkness of abuse" we're well rid of.

As for Harpur's claim that he wants to help bring science and religion closer together and "highlight Nature's guiding role" in a renewed Christian faith, I just want to choke. There is no hard science in his book, but there are lots of superficial cliches and lots of references to the spiritual symbols seen in Nature. When Harpur says, "I never see the moon without being reminded of its reflecting the solar glory and its monthly telling of the story of our incarnation and ultimate resurrection (page 188)," I gotta say that don't impress me much. (Cue the Shania Twain song.)

There's tons of light and wonder and goodness and love in the natural world -- the scientific world -- that God the Mother and God the Father have created for us. But we won't find it by looking backwards to the mystery cult teachings of people who believed in a status-ridden journey of spiritual ascent, and we won't find it by pretending that all Scripture is "good" if only we understood how to read it symbolically! Christianity has been there and done that. It doesn't work.

You don't have to choose between mystery and science. Jesus understood this, as did Job before him. The back of the moon wasn't visible until the space program revealed it. But seeing the moon through the eyes of science hasn't lessened the sense of wonder and awe we feel when her silvery beauty gleams. Photo credit JAT 2021.

The only forward for the Church, as I see it, is for us to come at spirituality from a whole new angle. We have to let go of "traditional teachings" and "infallible doctrines" that don't line up with new findings in neuroscience, quantum physics, quantum biology, astronomy, and so on. Other fields of endeavour have had to let go of cherished beliefs that eventually proved false. Why should Christianity be any different?

Does it make sense to you that God would make special rules for the Church that hold us to a LOWER standard of scholarship than the standard observed by secular researchers in fields such as teaching, environmental science, or psychiatry?

Maybe it's our unwarranted sense of entitlement -- not the devil -- that's the source of our ongoing problems in the Church.

I think I'll sign off now and go read Discover magazine's latest special issue on The Brain. Although I don't always agree with the scientific conclusions I find there, there's plenty of good food for thought, and I'm grateful for that.

Happy Thanksgiving!



* In his glossary, Harpur defines "incarnation" as "the God within each of us -- the 'Light which lighteth every person coming into the world.'"

No Room in the Inn . . . or on the Spiral Path

I was reminded again today how much the spiritual journey for human beings can be likened to a spiral path.

(c) Image*After

Well, maybe less a spiral, and more a helix. Like a Slinky -- from one direction (end-on) it looks like a simple circle, yet from the side you can see it's actually a long, continuous, spiralling wire. Another good analogy is a DNA helix -- long, complex, and spiralling, with no two points exactly the same. Both the Slinky and the DNA helix capture the idea that the spiritual path can sometimes feel like a circle (as in "I seem to going round and round in circles"), yet a closer examination of your experiences from the side angle will reveal you've also made some forward progress.

But, you know, from a strictly artistic point of view it sucks to call the spiritual path "the helical path." Like, you can't even doodle a helix on a pad of paper and have it make any sense to somebody who doesn't know what a DNA helix is. But when you draw a spiral on a piece of paper, everybody can recognize the idea of going round and round in circles, while at the same time never being in precisely the same place. That's why the image of the spiral path has been used in many periods and in many places to represent the spiritual path. Don't mess with a perfectly good symbol, I say. So I'm sticking with the image of "the spiral path." But really it feels more like a Slinky.

I got on this train of thought today because I suddenly decided to revisit Tom Harpur's book The Pagan Christ: Recovering the Lost Light (Toronto: Thomas Allen, 2004). I bought this book when it was first published because I'd been reading Tom Harpur's column on religion in the Toronto Star and I was curious to know more about his theories. The book was attracting a lot of attention from Progressive Christians in Canada because it seemed to offer a way out of the dangers of dogmatic, literalistic Christianity. It didn't hurt, either, that before Harpur turned to journalism, he'd been a professor of Greek and New Testament at the University of Toronto. The guy had credentials. He had credibility.

When I'm reading any book, no matter what the topic, I read at two levels. I pay attention with as much objectivity as I can to the flow of the factual argument -- what facts are being stated, what facts are being left out, what inconsistencies exist. But I also pay attention with my intuition, with my mystical side. Sometimes when I'm reading an alarm goes off in my intuitive circuitry, and I know there's something fundamentally wrong with the author's argument.

I may not know at a factual level what's wrong, but I've learned to trust the kernel of insight I receive from my mystical side. My task at this point is to accept the challenge of closing the gap between the factual reading and the intuitive reading -- to do more research on the factual side so I can understand in an objective, logical way why my "gut" is reacting the way it's reacting to a particular author.

It often takes me years -- years! -- to do enough academic research to get to the point where I can close the gap between the factual reading and the intuitive reading of a book.

To give a specific example, it's taken me 6 years to close the gap between my factual reading of The Pagan Christ and my intuitive reading of The Pagan Christ. It's taken me 6 years on the spiral path of spiritual (and academic) learning to figure out why I was so incensed at an intuitive level when I first read Tom Harpur's book.

The information I needed didn't appear to me in the form of a "revelation," a "vision," or a "prophecy." I had to slog through sixteen half-courses in topics such as New Testament, Old Testament, early church history, and church liturgy, plus I had to research and write a long academic research paper (also called a short thesis or a cognate) on the topic of early doctrines of the soul. I had to work my ass off.

My goal in taking those courses wasn't to challenge Harpur's book. By the time I enrolled in graduate studies, I was focussed on other questions, other challenges, that occupied my time, energy, and enthusiasm. Nonetheless, with the hallmark unpredictability of all spiritual journeys, I accidentally discovered this morning that I now have the tools to challenge Harpur's thesis. The tools didn't come to me accidentally -- but the realization of what I could do with the tools kind of snuck up on me.

Somehow the spiral path has brought me back to a book, an author, and a thesis that has been quite influential in the past few years.

Just for the record, I'm NOT going to do an about-face, and I'm NOT going to claim that upon revisiting Harpur's book I've suddenly "seen the light" (pun intended). No way, Jose. To be ultra-clear, I don't agree with Harpur's thesis AT ALL -- in fact, I'm more incensed today with the ideas in his book than I was when I first read them in 2004. The difference between then and now is that I've moved forward on my spiral path. I've added to my knowledge. I've added to my experience. I've added to my healing. I've changed, learned, grown. Most of all, I've worked hard.

God helped me at every turn (and I could never have accomplished what I've accomplished without God's loving guidance), but the knowledge base I've built has come through conventional means -- such as university courses, academic journals, and interdisciplinary research. Even though I'm a mystic, I did not acquire this new knowledge through revelation. I had to use the brain God gave me. What's more, I had to use the free will God gave me. And I had to look after my body and my brain (i.e. choose a healthy lifestyle) so I could learn effectively. Just like any other person on Planet Earth. God did not make special rules for me.

Even though I'm a mystic, I have to follow the rules of healthy living and healthy learning that God wants everybody to respect. I'm able to communicate clearly with God the Mother and God the Father BECAUSE I use my free will to respect my body, my soul, my mind, and my heart in a balanced, holistic way. This life of balance lies at the core of the teachings of the man who once lived as Jesus son of Joseph.

I can't emphasize enough how radically different this claim is when compared to the claims of traditional, ascetic, cloistered Christian mystics.

Or when compared to the claims made by Tom Harpur in his book.

Near the end of The Pagan Christ, Harpur says:

"So [Alvin Boyd] Kuhn can argue that you and I, in a profound sense, are never going to be more "dead" than we are right at this moment. He says, 'Right now our deific souls are at the very bottom of the arc of death and can never be as dead again as they are now and have been.' As we live our lives here, immersed in matter, we are gaining experience and expanding consciousness. But we are, in a deep sense, alienated from, or 'dead' to, the spiritual realm whence we originally came and to which we shall one day return (page 192)."

All I can say to this is . . . speak for yourself, buddy.