The Pageless Book

Photo Above by Angela Hopper.

Jules from a UU Deist in Texas has tagged me for yet another blogging meme. I’m suppose to provide ten weird, random facts about myself. I could do much more, but I think I’ll stick with ten. Also, I don’t think it would hurt to try to stick with the theme of my blog for this one, so I’ll try to choose facts that deal with religion or spirituality.

1) I taught myself meditation when I was elementary school. One would think that such early experience with meditation would make it a life long habit. Alas, no - I have become woefully lazy in adulthood, and rarely make time for meditation.

2) I used to peruse Wiccan, pagan, and occult websites during my programming classes in high school. Suffice to say, I no longer remember how to program in BASIC, but I’m still perusing those websites.

3) For Halloween one year, the church that my mother sent us to for Sunday School asked the children to dress up as Biblical characters. They took offense when my brother an I showed up with toy six shooters and ten gallon hats. Cowboys, apparently, do not appear in the Bible.

4) Same church taught that drinking alcohol and smoking were sinful, and unrepentant drinkers and smokers were going to hell. My mother, who used to drink and smoke, took offense to that. Needless to say, my brother and I were pretty much un-churched from then forward.

5) At one point in my childhood, my parents were toying with the idea of becoming Mormons. Yes, I’m well aware of the irony.

6) My mother, my brother, and I have had extensive conversations discussing the meaning behind Marilyn Manson, Nirvana, and Nine Inch Nails lyrics - particularly within a religious and moral contexts. My mother’s thinking was that if we were mature enough understand it, we were mature enough to listen.

7) I think I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again - I knew I wanted to become minister before even knowing what religion to become a minister of. Yes, that is a very backwards way to approach religion.

When I told my mother that I felt I was no longer a Christian, she remarked that she was more afraid that I was going to tell her that I was a homosexual. No, that didn’t sit well with me, but I let it slide at the time because it meant exploring new faiths without having to hide my activities.

9) Learning about The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Aleister Crowley, Qabalah, and Gnosticism gave me a renewed respect for the Jewish God and Jesus Christ. Catholic Theologians everywhere are turning in their graves so fast that they are generating electricity!

10) Oh, and lets not forget that whole “Omnitheism” / “The Gated Emptiness” thing that this site has going for it. There is nothing stranger than an eccentric blogging about his beliefs…

I will forgo tagging others for now, seeing as I’m still getting back into the swing of things. Hopefully you’ve found this entertaining. Namaste.

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written by John \\ tags: Bible, Blogging, Christian, Meme, Occult, Religion, Spirituality

Photo Above by Richard Rutter. Photo Below by Lee Chisholm.

The Master doesn’t talk, he acts. When his work is done, the people say, “Amazing, we did it all by ourselves!” - Tao Te Ching, verse 17, Mitchell Translation.

At work, I’ve been trying to foster people-management skills within myself to further my career and in preparation to go into ministry. Too often I’ve heard that being a minister for a Unitarian Universalist Congregation is like herding cats, so I figured management-skills would be an important asset. What I’ve found interesting, though, is how much management philosophy has in common with my spiritual philosophy.

A great deal of emphasis is placed on achieving success through indirect means. For example, although managers have power and privilege above that of a normal employee, the point of those benefits is not to enjoy them for yourself, but to use them in accomplishing your job. The training material that I’ve read suggests using that power and privilege to reward employees and ensure they have the tools needed to succeed.

For those who’ve never been in a position of management before, it is quite a paradigm shift. Instead of doing something as a means to accomplishing an end, you are influencing people as a means to accomplish an end. Each manager is given the authority to make demands, force results, and discipline employees, but the power that a manager has isn’t derived from using his authority - rather it is from having the authority yet not using it that he is able to get things done. It is through mutual trust, respect, and communication that a manager achieves results.

What is perhaps even more interesting is how a manager finds job satisfaction in the achievement of others. They are like engine grease; it is their job to make sure all of the parts are running smoothly and aren’t causing friction. A manager knows he has done a good job when he is no longer needed to get the job done. It requires a sense of the larger picture - a manager needs to be able to see how all the parts of the business fit together.

How are these thinks like spirituality? The same panoramic understanding of business, when applied to life, helps us see our place in the grand scheme of things. We know that we are but a small part of a whole, greater than the sum of its parts. Power is not within money or fame, but in the trust and respect of others. People are the ultimate power source; they create authority. The trick is to understand that power and authority is most effective when given back to that source of power and authority. Using the trust people place within you against the better interests of those people results in diminished respect… diminished authority.

The lessons are clear - pay attention, respect and be respected, do good unto each other. Moral teaching of the great religions have found a home within effective management philosophy. Of course, that doesn’t mean that learning how to manage people is easy. Then again, neither is religion.

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written by John \\ tags: Career, Lessons, Life, Religion, Spirituality, Work

My lovely wife is currently writing a series of blog entries on the self improvement elements of the movie Labyrinth, which you can read by clicking on the link above. While researching for this particular project, Cathy came across another interesting post about the religious elements of the movie Labyrinth. Right up my alley, yes? Not really. Emily, the author of this piece, has tried to claim that Labyrinth is a Christian morality play. I can relate to the idea that the movie can be symbolic of a spiritual journey, but Emily tries forcing metaphors where they simply do not belong.

How so? Well, lets start with our protagonist, Sarah - Emily claims that Sarah is with child and is projecting her emotional confusion over what to do with her unborn child onto her little brother. It is made pretty obvious by the, er, uh… what proof of this exists in the movie? Are we so sure that it is not Ms. Emily who is projecting?

It gets worse, though. She claims that Hoggle is a personification of Jesus Christ. Hoggle, the coward - Hoggle, the gruff loner - Hoggle, the reluctant traitor, is Jesus Christ? If Hoggle is anything, he is the voice of Sarah’s own doubts and fears, playing a foil to her outward optimism and naivete.

When we first see Hoggle, he is just outside the gates of the labyrinth killing fairies with a pesticide. According to Emily, we are suppose to infer that these fairies are instead the embodiment of the homosexual culture, which Hoggle… er, um, I mean Jesus, is seeking to eradicate. Could it simply be that they serve as a lesson for Sarah that not all things are as they seem? Nah! That apparently isn’t Christian enough, so Emily projects her homophobia into this children’s movie.

And the article continues from there, drawing the conclusion that the talking door guards are symbolic of true and false religion, the cleaners symbolic of cults, and the wise man is symbolic of Eastern Religions. In an apparent fit of racism, she calls the fire gang “blacksploitation jive turkeys,” claims that The Bog of Eternal Stench is symbolic of an abortion clinic, and claims Sir Didymus is symbolic of the fallacies of science. At this point, it behooves me to ask whether this particular article is a parody or serious. I’m not entirely sure, to be honest.

“The Christian Themes of Labyrinth” does one thing right, however unintentionally. It shows how easy it is to ignore obvious explanations in favor of rationalizing the interpretation we expect to be true. We each see what it is that we want to see. Unless we make the truth that which we most desire, we will only see the contrived metaphors of our imagination. If I may suggest, perhaps the lesson we are supposed to learn from Labyrinth is the importance of balancing the imagination of childhood against the required clarity and purpose of adulthood in order to seek truth over fantasy. Then again, it now might be me who is projecting.

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written by John \\ tags: Christian, Metaphors, Morality, Movies, Religion

Photo Above by Jarnocan. Photo Below by Ralph Hockens. Last Photo by Tracy Olson.

Yesterday I wrote about the questionable policies of the Church of Scientology, in my attempt to show why I applaud Anonymous in opposing the Church of Scientology. Today, I am interesting in talking about some of the more specific acts of this organization - in particular, illegal acts. However, I find myself at a loss. When I went to research for this article, I found that I could barely scratch the surface in the 500 - 700 words I normally write. As such, I’ve decided to only detail a few of the more grievous offenses this so-called Church.

Operation Snow White is the code-name of the Scientology project to infiltrate government agencies (both U.S. and Foreign) and destroy undesirable documents related to the Church of Scientology and its founder, Ron L. Hubbard. The FBI uncovered the operation as apart of a raid on Scientology property in 1977. The documents included plans to not only steal and destroy documents, but to plant false documents, and wiretaps on the IRS. This led to the conviction of eleven of the top ranking members of the Church, including Ronnie’s wife, Mary Sue Hubbard. You can read more about Operation Snow White here.

During the same raid, the FBI uncovered another project, Operation Freak Out, which targeted the journalist and author Paulette Cooper. In the early 1970’s she had written a book on the church which was considered libel by the church. The purpose of Operation Freak Out was to incriminate Paulette Cooper in anyway possible to destroy her credibility. This first began with escalating sexual harassment including subscribing her to pornographic magazines, obscene phone calls, and letters to her neighbors with various unsavory claims about her sex life. Then they forged bomb threats on stationary they had stole from her home and mailed it to the New York Church of Scientology in such a way to make it seem like she sent them. The final phase of Operation Freak Out conspired to frame Paulette Cooper with the Federal crime of making threats on the life of the President of the United States. You can read more about Operation Freak Out here.

Thankfully, the Church of Scientology was raided before they could put this plan into action. However, what I want to point out about this is the timing; these acts of harassment all occurred after the Fair Game policy was supposedly discontinued. All evidence suggests that the Fair Game policy is still in effect. What evidence? The evidence found on Xenu.net - claims of harassment, assault, false imprisonment, extortion, and invasion of privacy backed up by court documents. These are only the people who have come forward.

Now, to be fair, these are individuals who are outside the Church. We should judge the Church of Scientology by the good it does for its members, employees, and their children. You should keep this in mind, while reading the following stories:

Adeline Dodd-Bova describes her time as a teacher in Scientology schools and writes of troubling cases of insufficient sleep and children having little or no food. Even more disturbing is her description of children whose sexual and physical abuse were not reported to Social Services.

Mary Tabayoyon’s sworn affidavit describes several instances of women coerced into having abortions under threat of severe punishment. Note that Scientology considers abortion to be a serious sin, so these women were also being coerced into committing a grave violation of their religious beliefs.

Stacy Young’s sworn declaration states that RPF (Rehabilitation Project Force) “slave labor” is used to build luxury facilities for Scientology celebrities and are paid $5 a week for 70-hour weeks.

Lisa McPherson died in the custody of Scientology in Clearwater, FL. She was treated by a Scientology doctor who was not licensed to practice in Florida. In addition, it appears that Scientology had put Lisa on the Introspection Rundown. Her family is suing Scientology for wrongful death.

The Church charge its members hundreds of thousands of dollars to be treated in this manner. Worse yet, because they have declared themselves a religion, they are not required to pay taxes. The organization known as the Church of Scientology is, in my opinion, the most corrupt cooperate enterprises in the English speaking world today. This is why Scientology deserves to be protested against. A cry for justice must not be misconstrued for religious intolerance.

Click on one link below.

written by John \\ tags: Crime, Death, Morality, Religion, Scientology

Photo Above by Bryan Gosline. Photo Below by Vincent Diamante. Last Photo by Todd “Hryckowian”.

Little more than two months ago, I first wrote about the actions of an internet group going by “Anonymous” and their war against the cult of Scientology. At that time my main question was whether or not the actions of Anonymous are religious persecution, or whether they had a valid reason to protest against Scientology. It was my opinion that Anonymous had excellent reasons why we should protest against Scientology. I was one of the first, if not the first, blogger to write about Anonymous and the brewing confrontation. For standing up and voicing my opinion, I was rewarded with a huge influx of traffic and comments to my site.

I would be lying if I said that it didn’t scare me a little. I didn’t want my site to become a strictly Anti-Scientology website. I was afraid that the popularity of that particular article threatened to limit the scope of what people expected of me as a religion and spirituality writer. So, I avoided that topic for the next two months.

Yet, now as I look back upon that article, I realized that there was an awful lot I didn’t explain. Most importantly, I hadn’t properly explained exactly what it is that the Church of Scientology has done to incur the wrath of so many people of the internet community. Sure, there is a long history overly aggressive tactics against copyright infringements and criticism, but the same can be said of the more aggressive international conglomerates.

What has the Church of Scientology done that is so reprehensible? Well let us start from the top. Scientology represents itself as a program of self improvement which relies on techniques that have not been tested in any controlled scientific manner. While the same can be said about holistic practices and new age self improvement, everyone in the holistic or new age community would be quick to say that holistic medicine should be used in conjunction with traditional medicine.

Neither The American Medical Association or American Psychological Association have endorsed Scientology and both actively discouraged treating Scientology as legitimate medicine. Because these organizations failed to acquiesce to Ron L. Hubbard’s ambitions, he declared both psychology and psychiatry to be poisonous unfounded sciences. This would be just another ironic twist if Scientology did not then strongly discourage the use of psychiatric medicine, even for those who desperately need it.

But how is that different than Christian Science, who abstain from medical treatment? It isn’t; of everything that the Church of Scientology does, this is the least of their offenses. There is also the matter of Scientology’s disconnect policy, which has ruined hundreds of families, ended marriages, and separated parents from their children. If the Church deems a particular person to be “suppressive,” that is in opposition to an individual member’s personal development within the Church, they mandate that member to sever all ties with the suppressive person. This, of course, only serves to further isolate their members from the rest of society.

Again, similar policies have been enacted by other young religions, which forces us to ask whether or not Scientology is any worse than these. It is the Church’s “Fair Game” policy that sets Scientology apart from these legitimate religions. The Fair Game policy reads that suppressive persons -

May be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist. May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed. (HCOPL 18 October 67 Issue IV, Penalties for Lower Conditions)

The next year after the Fair Game policy was put in place, the Fair Game policy was allegedly canceled. However, pay attention to how the cancellation of this policy was worded.

The practice of declaring people FAIR GAME will cease. FAIR GAME may not appear on any Ethics Order. It causes bad public relations. This P/L does not cancel any policy on the treatment or handling of an SP. (HCOPL 21 Oct 68, Cancellation of Fair Game)

This had left many people wondering if the Church of Scientology had merely canceled the term “Fair Game” and left the actual policy in tact. There is a great deal of evidence that suggests the Church is still operating under the assumption that any non-Scientologist may be deprived of property, injured, tricked, sued, lied to, or destroyed. Tomorrow, I’ll discuss the specific crimes that the Church of Scientology has allegedly committed.

Click on one link below.

written by John \\ tags: Anonymous, Cult, Morality, Religion, Scientology

Photo Above by Steve Garry. Photo Below by Braden Kowitz.

Is it so strange to want to befriend those who disagree with and challenge my beliefs rigorously? I have no real good reason why, but I like atheists. I like how they think, how they look at the world, their honesty, and straight-forwardness. The first thing I think about when I hear that someone is an atheist is the enjoyment I will have debating with that person about religion and spirituality.

Many atheists might assume that someone like myself would want to debate as a means of converting them to my way of thinking. However, I’m not interested so much in changing their mind as I am in challenging their mind and being challenged in return. If either of us learn something in the process, then so much the better. It is this contest of the minds that ultimately pleases me - not winning or losing.

So, as a result of my healthy obsession with atheists, I often find myself writing about non-theistic thinking, browsing the atheist blogosphere, and chuckling at humorous jabs made about religion. I embrace their criticism, even though I don’t always agree with it, and try to keep the lines of communication open. Unfortunately, not everyone sees attempts of fellowship between their camps desirable.

That actually saddens me a great deal. I don’t think we need more harsh rhetoric between the religious and the non-religious - it betrays an insecurity on the part of both. Regardless of what an individual believes, if they take themselves too seriously, they come off as being fools or, worse still, tyrants. I don’t think I should have to suffer the mind of a tyrant, nor should anyone.

In contrast, it makes me very happy to see websites such as Friendly Atheist.com and Friendly Christian.com share banter and refer to each other’s articles on a regular basis. I want to see more of this, yet I’m not always entirely sure how to initiate it on my own site. I have the feeling that I might come off a little too eccentric to be taken seriously… although, to be honest, that hasn’t stopped me before.

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written by John \\ tags: Atheism, Debate, Humor, Reason, Religion

Photo Above by Justin Henry. Photo Below by Wendy.

“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in your reading have been like the blast of triumph out of Shakespeare, Seneca, Moses, John and Paul.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803 - 1882.

What exactly makes a text holy? Some would tell you it is the inherent truth of the text, the authority endowed upon the book’s author by a divine source, and the traditions surrounding the text. That is basically that person’s way of telling you which books he or she believes you should accept as holy. Seeing as each person’s interpretation of the truth, acceptance of authority, and version of tradition is a matter of opinion and personal taste, we cannot use these as objective means of deciding which writings are holy. Or can we?

Consider the possibility that holiness is not endowed upon the text by the writer, but instead by the reader. What if that which makes a book sacred is the divinity within the person who reads it? How would that change religion and spirituality? We would become more tolerant and open minded towards other religions and traditions. As individuals, our relationship with the text would be much different; we would be more willing to question our own point of view and accept another’s point of view as equally valid. Would we be so bold as to become prophets ourselves and write our own holy texts? Well, as you’ve probably already surmised, I am quite comfortable with the idea that we each could be prophets if we choose.

I can understand if the idea of prophecy rubs some of my readers the wrong way. It is, after all, the prophets that declare their own writings as the final true word of God. No one wants to be seen as being a raving zealot or, worse yet, dangerously insane. Let me see if I can ease your concerns. Prayer is a commonly accepted practice, used to purposely communicate your thoughts and feelings to the Divine Source. Meditation is a commonly accepted practice of silencing the mind, the result of which opens the heart and mind to listen for answers from that same Divine Source. Billions of people, all over the world and from all religions, use both means of communing with the Divine every day. The difference between them and so-called prophets is that the prophets have the sense to write down what they hear and then become famous for teaching the wisdom of the text - or rather, the wisdom inherent in the reader.

There is a down side to all this, though; you would be forced to think for yourself. Not everyone is reassured by their own judgment in what is true for them. These people would rather be told what to think rather then think for themselves. Doubt, for some, is a downward spiral rather then a purifier of faith. They see it as such, because doubt forces them to question the pillars which they believe their faith is dependent on. Like a child who believes that the trees hold up the sky, every question of doubt in one of these false pillars of faith seem to threaten to bring eternal night. This is truly sad, because you cannot have free will without doubt, and without free will, faith within holy writings is meaningless.

To write your own Bible is to reclaim that free will and reclaim your right to commune with the divine as you see fit. Religion was never meant to be a static list of beliefs and creeds, but rather an on-going conversation between man and the Divine. I look forward to reading some of your own conversations with the Divine and continuing to share my conversations with you.
Originally Posted October 5th, 2007.

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written by John \\ tags: Bible, Holy Text, Mysticism, Prophecy, Religion, Spirituality

Photo Above by Ngader. Photo Below by Aldo Cauchi Savona. Final Photo by Robert Jagger.

The nature of the Divine is probably the most debated issue in human history. This question has been the subject of more books, wars, and conversation than any other issue. Debate of what God is and what the Divine represents has divided families, nations, and humanity as a whole since the dawn of time. Only ignorance or arrogance would lead someone to believe that their understanding can somehow end the debate; I’d like to think that I’m neither ignorant or arrogant…

The Gated Emptiness offers a few passages on the nature of God spoken in the first person, as if the Divine itself was trying to explain its nature to us. I’ve come to adapt this perspective on the Divine as my own. To me, it seems the most logical explanation of the nature of God - but then again, I’m bias.

The passage reads:
There is nothing that separates you and me; we are one and we are falling to gather continuously.

The idea that God is one with everything and every one is not new - Eastern religions have been saying this for centuries. Yet there is this strange turn of phrase at the end of the passage - “falling to gather continuously” - which is in itself a paradox, as well contradicting our unity with God. My first impulse upon seeing this phrase is to read “together” rather than “to gather,” if only because is seems to be nothing more than an extraneous pun. But it isn’t a mere pun.

Falling together with God would indicate that there wasn’t a choice to be had regarding our oneness with God. Gathering with the Divine would suggest that it was a choice. Yet how the passage is phrased would seem to argue that both scenarios are somehow intertwine. We are one with God, but choosing to recognize that oneness over our own individuality is our choice. It is as if we are fish aspiring to be one with the ocean.

The Gated Emptiness continues:
This is my nature. I am so simple you can’t conceive of me, and I am there. You see me not, you feel me not, and you hear me not. I would blind you, numb you and deafen you if would perceive me completely, so I give you pieces. Your wine shall be my blood, your bread shall be my flesh, and your incense shall be my bone. I am the only ecstasy.

Ever wonder why Jesus compares the Kingdom of Heaven to a mustard seed? Here is my take on that parable; he is indicating the size of Heaven in relationship to the size of God. If our earth is a mustard seed compared to the Kingdom of Heaven (or even just the expanse of the universe), what does that say about our relationship with God? It’s all very figurative, of course; size is merely a human means of relating to a thing and may not actually matter on a spiritual level. However, it does allow us to understand the magnitude of God in relationship to our own existence. It is more than the human mind can handle.

Still, we try to understand the totality of existence through our sciences and reasoning. I’d say we get pretty far in this endeavor. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if the average scientist agreed that the questions we don’t know the answer to still vastly out number the questions for which we do have answers. All we have are merely pieces of the puzzle, and often times the pieces that we have don’t always fit together. It is from this perspective that we should relate to the Divine.

The next passage reads:
I am one in many, many in one, of many, of one and not at all. I am like a voice; you may attempt to describe, but one must hear it for their self. Hear you will, but impressions in the sands of the mind fade so swift that you will dismiss it for an illusion. You will doubt, and I will speak again.

Here, The Gated Emptiness gives us another clue as to the nature of God. The Divine’s existence is “one in many, many in one, of many, of one, and not at all…” It is almost like this passage is saying that polytheism, pantheism, monotheism, and atheism all are valid and are equally incomplete views of the nature of God. Which is, of course, the main message I keep honing in on with my articles on spirituality.

Comparing our understanding of God to a voice of someone we heard once is a fitting metaphor. I attempt here to describe God, but to no avail. I could try to describe my voice as being high bass/low baritone, soft and nasally, but until you hear it for yourself, you can only guess as to what I mean. If you heard my voice only once and were asked to recall how it sounded a week later, you would no doubt have some difficulty.

God is like this, in that our experiences with the Divine are hard to put into words. When we do finally put our experience into words, we begin to remember those words better than the experience itself. Ultimately our description of the experience proves to be untrue as those words were just an approximation. We then begin to doubt we had that experience at all. Yet if we seek that experience again, we will inevitably encounter the Divine again.

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written by John \\ tags: God, Mysticism, Religion, Spirituality, Theology

Photo Above by ButterflySha. Photo Below by Steve Evans.

“If the only prayer you ever say in your whole life is ‘thank you,’ that would suffice.”
- Meister Eckhart, 1260– 1328.

I don’t remember the exact time it first happened, but I do remember it was during a gathering with my in-laws. My wife was seated on my right, and her grandmother was on my left side. On one end of the table was my father-in-law, and on the other end was my mother-in-law. Across from us was my brother-in-law, his wife, and between them sat Samantha, my niece and god-child. Food, glorious sustenance, was set out before us. Before anyone could lay one hand on a roll, Samantha said, for the first time of what would become a tradition at such gatherings, “We need to say the words!” My wife and I looked at each other in mild displeasure.

Why displeasure, you may ask? What exactly was it that I have against saying grace? It is because I felt excluded. Many non-Christians feel singled out when called upon to pray in public. Think of the position we are placed in: we can either pretend to pray with everyone else, betraying our own beliefs while insulting the integrity of the beliefs of others, or we can stand there in awkward silence, feeling out of place and perhaps a little bit ostracized. That may not be the intention of the practice of public prayer, but it is often the effect.

Non-Christians often develop a negative attitude in regards to prayer in general, due to our Christian brethren’s insistence on public prayer. In all honesty, this negativity may be part of what fuels the debate on school prayer. It is this reluctance to pray that concerns me - not only my own resistance to prayer, but the lack of prayer among non-Christians in general. The problem is that prayer is so much apart of the Christian experience, than when a person leaves the Christian religion, they feel they must leave behind this deeply spiritual practice as well.

The truth is, prayer has always been a meaningful method of communing with the Divine and has existed since the dawn of civilization. No one group of people can lay claim to this practice as being exclusively their own. As people of alternative spiritual paths, we need to recognize that it is everyone’s inherited right to communicate with the Divine through prayer. We need to reclaim prayer as our own and find a meaningful way in which people of all faiths can pray together.

So how will I reintegrate prayer into my spiritual practices without alienating my Christian in-laws? By requesting a silent prayer when in public, and praying in earnest when alone. Ironically enough, that is exactly how Jesus recommended that his followers pray. In Matthew 6:5, Jesus instructs his followers saying, “And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men.”

This passage in the Bible leads me to believe that perhaps even the early Christians felt excluded because of the practice of public prayer in ancient Rome. It does no one harm to gently remind them of that possibility. Next time I am at a gathering with family, perhaps I will do just that.

Originally posted September 29th, 2007.

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written by John \\ tags: Christian, Faith, Family, Prayer, Religion, Ritual, Tradition

I’ve been reading Aryeh Kaplan’s translation of The Bahir, one of the firsts texts on Qabalah or Jewish Mysticism, and I’ve realized that I am yet to write about Qabalah in any substantial way here on my blog. When I talk about Qabalah on this website, I have this annoying habit of just assuming that my readership knows what I am talking about. Pretty arrogant of me, if I do say so myself. The problem, however, is that I’m not quite sure that my definition can do it justice.

Qabalah is at once very complicated, simple, obscure, clear, self-contradictory, and internally consistent. It has often been called the Zen Buddhism of Western Culture, and, like Zen Buddhism, is a peculiar mixture of pretentious bovine manure and profound truth. Both lie and truth may or may not lead an adherent to enlightenment. The driving force behind Qabalah and Zen Buddhism is to get the adherent to think and break beyond their preconceived notions. I am not entirely sure I am qualified to speak about either, to be honest. I don’t pretend to be any more enlightened than the average angst filled teenager - my poetry certainly isn’t any better.

Yet, I am always willing to try humbly. Being forewarned of my ineptitude, I can only ask my readers to keep an open, if discerning, mind as I move forward.

The word “Qabalah” means to receive. In Jewish folklore, the teachings of Qabalah were said to have been received by Adam in the Garden of Eden, and later again by Moses on Mount Sinai. The word itself has been subject to a variety of English spellings (Kabbalah, Cabala…) all of which refer to the same body of practices, although may at times be used to differentiate one school of Qabalah from another. Currently, there are four major branches of Qabalah: Jewish Qabalah, Christian Qabalah, Hermetic Qabalah, and Red String Qabalah.

Jewish Qabalah, or Orthodox Qabalah, is what I want to focus on today. However, I want to touch base on the other three as well. Christian Qabalah is, predictably, the application of the practices of Qabalah to Christian teachings. Understandably, Orthodox Qabalists see Christian Qabalah as a perversion of the truth behind Jewish Qabalah. Hermetic Qabalah is the adaptation of Qabalah as a system of symbolism by Occult Qabalists. This is the Qabalah that I know best - The Qabalah of The Golden Dawn. Both Jewish and Christian Qabalists view Hermetic Qabalah as an abomination. “Red String” Qabalah, or pop-culture Qabalah, is the Qabalah that Madonna practices, and which you are most likely to find along side copies of the “Celestine Prophecy” in New Age shops. If you guessed that Jewish, Christian, and Hermetic Qabalists all disdain Red String Qabalah with a vitriol rivaling the toxicity of battery acid, give yourself a pat on the back.

Inter-religious politics aside, Qabalah is a means of extrapolating meaning from holy texts. Every method of squeezing further meaning from a sentence, word, or letter is used. To quote The Bahir:

Why does the Torah begin with the letter Bet? In order that it begin with a blessing (Berachah). How do we know that the Torah is called a blessing? Because it is written (Deuteronomy 33:23) “The filling is God’s blessing possessing the Sea and the South” The sea is nothing other than the Torah, as it is written (Job 11:9) “It is wider than the sea.” What is the meaning of the verse “The filling is God’s blessing?” This means wherever we find the letter Bet it indicates a blessing. It is thus written (Genesis 1:1), “In the beginning (Bereshit)…”

The reasoning behind Qabalah seems simple enough; the books of the Hebrew Prophets as they are originally written is the word of God, as such every letter of those books contains nuance of meaning that can only be understood through the methods of Qabalah. From the outside it seems a bit silly to think that just because two words begin with the same letter, or have the same letters, or are the same numerical value that the meaning behind those words are related. However, Qabalah is more of a means to an end. Assuming meaningful connections between words and ideas creates verbal puzzles seated in the text and context of the Hebrew Bible. These puzzles serve to break down the presumptions, much like Zen Koans.

Unlike Zen Koans, the extrapolated knowledge serves as a basis for an even more complicated system of symbols - The Tree of Life - from which ever more complicated riddles emerge. Each successive level of complexity is declared to deliver within it some aspect of the Truth, and indeed adherents find truth in this complexity. I hesitate to call it the Seinfeld of religions, but seeing as so many people find that show funny even though it’s not funny, this works as an excellent metaphor. When they realize that this found truth is in spite of, rather than because of, that complexity, do those who plumb the depths of Qabalah begin to shake free from the habit of literal interpretation and the belief in an absolute Truth. This is where the real work towards enlightenment begins… and consequently, where I have so little experience.

Now, you might question as to why someone would want to practice Qabalah, as it seems to be little more than mental gymnastics. But it is these same mental gymnastics that allows the adherents of Qabalah to ascribe more meaning to the world around them, and see the interconnection between all things. Qabalah pushes each adherent to question the world around them, their assumptions about that world and how it works. I admit that it isn’t the only path to enlightenment, but I love it because of it’s eccentricities; it’s more like a hobby than it is a religion, which is how I like my religion.

For More About Qabalah

• http://www.kabbalah.info/
• http://www.digital-brilliance.com/kab/faq.htm
• http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/kabbalah.html
• http://www.webofqabalah.com/

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written by John \\ tags: Bible, Holy Text, Occult, Qabalah, Religion