The Mortal Sin

“The LORD God will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.” –Ex 34: 7

The esoteric interpretation of this verse from Exodus is that the children, grandchildren, and future generations refer to future incarnations of an individual spirit. The “father” is one’s current life. The “sins of the father” are “punished” by having to be rectified in later incarnations, meaning one has not completed their personal cycle of birth and death by way of, as Preston Harold says, obtaining “matter of his own.” This matter is spiritual matter, a “quantum of light’s radiant energy.” Before each of us can obtain “matter of our own,” we must go through the trials of life. One of the greatest trials we can go through is committing a mortal sin. But as Preston Harold asked at the end of our last installment, “what is the mortal sin?”

In the view of this study, Jesus recognized that there will be one blaspheming of life itself which a man will be unable to forgive himself – this is the mortal sin. [Jesus] did not name this sin, because unto each is his own expression of it – it might be no more than kicking his dog: the sin as such has no name. In the great majority of cases, he is unable to forgive himself, because the sin is quickly repressed and forgotten; if not, he “spends his life” in remorse and dies still unable to forgive himself what he has done. Thus, in one way or the other Homo sapiens bears this unforgiven sin into the “world to come” which develops as his ego-group develops. Because man never recovers from infant amnesia, the newly stated ego-group does not and cannot know the name and nature of the sin he bears into the world at birth – thus, the sin cannot be forgiven in this life. For this reason, each man is committed to pay the wage of this nameless sin, each pays the wage that Judas paid – in one way or another he destroys himself: “O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself…”

So here we see that no one can define a mortal sin except for the individual who commits it. No other person or institution can tell another human being exactly what a mortal sin is. Each person harbors it themselves in their own heart and mind. We can also glimpse from Harold’s words here the impetus for the doctrine of original sin. We all bear with us into this life something that needs to be rectified from our own previous life, or “Adam.”

As one’s work in this world draws to completion, Authority-Ego places upon the Judas-factor the burden of unknown sin. Through death the unknown sin is forgiven and the Judas-factor is redeemed. But as a person dies, he takes into the world to come another nameless, unknown sin that will command the price of death which the Authority-Ego and the Judas-factor will pay to redeem this evil. Because each person comes bearing his unknown, unforgiven sin, death is already stated in his being. Will man be forever in bondage to this wheel, to a nameless sin, to death?

Only with the resurrection body does original sin end.

Scripture says: “O death I will be thy plagues; O grave I will be thy destruction.” If this scripture be true, man will not forever lay down his consciousness in the grave. This study concludes that as long as man commits sins he cannot in consciousness and good conscience forgive himself, death alone can reduce to dust his psychic “cities” of sin and his corrupted flesh. But death returns him to life to try again to learn how to live without corrupting himself and others. In each life experience, man can and does have done with error as his lust is recast into empathy. In death an iota of his evil purchases a bit of pure matter. Thus in time he will regenerate himself – will don incorruptible flesh born of incorruptible consciousness guided in life by empathy. Man will be free of the grave, but he will not be absolutely free of death – which is to say, death will be in his life as sleeping and waking is to his present consciousness, or as inhaling and exhaling is to his present body.

Until next time, peace.

The Resurrection of Damnation

When one hears and thinks of the word “resurrection,” one’s mind tends to immediately think of other concepts that surround and reinforce it; eternal life, God’s victory over death, glory, celebration. All of these thoughts usually congeal around a positive attitude. But what happens if we actually view the concept resurrection not just through Easter, but through the eyes, mind, and teaching of Jesus?

Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming in which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice and shall come forth; they that have done good unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation. –John 5:28-29

From this statement of Jesus we can surmise that for some or many, resurrection may not be all it’s cut out to be. But who among us really believes that they will be part of the resurrection of “damnation?” We automatically assume that we are part of the “life” camp. Preston Harold may give us pause to question our certainties on this issue. He begins by giving us an excellent theology of inevitable sins within the context of life:

There is that in every person’s life that he knows to be damnable, knows to be corrupting… But all his sinning is not so easily bedamned, so wantonly forgot – nor can it be ceased, for there is not the will in him to have done with it at the time; even when what might be called “an episode of sin” is over, he cannot truly regret it – the experience has raised the level of his understanding and he would not possess less.  He can say of such sin only this: “I did it knowing it was wrong, but I cannot regret that I did it; I know now, however, that I could not bring myself to do this again because I know its cost to me and to others.” Such experience represents, in truth, a lesson learned.

But here is where the rubber hits the road. Harold goes deep:

But there are other deeds that even though they have brought new understanding, one must regret to the end of his life and in the very-depths of his being, saying of them, “god be merciful to me, a sinner,” as though to pray, “forgive me this terrible toll of life I have taken, toll of my own life and of another’s, for which I shall be bitterly sorry in every breath I draw now and forever.” Or he quickly represses and forgets the sin he cannot forgive himself – the sin that must await the resurrection of damnation.

…there are sins that blaspheme the preciousness of life itself – these are unforgivable because a man cannot bring himself to forgive himself: they sever his connection with his own Authority-Ego and still the voice of the ego-member in the world of selves, as Judas’ voice was stilled.

Jesus says…in part of a statement in itself contradictory: “I tell you, therefore, men will be forgiven any sin and blasphemy, but they will not be forgiven for blaspheming the Spirit. Whoever says a word against the Son of man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the holy Spirit will never be forgiven, neither in this world or the world to come.”

First, Jesus says man will be forgiven any sin and blasphemy. Then, any is contradicted – man is not forgiven for blaspheming the Holy Spirit. Is the holy Spirit not life itself? Who can live without in some way at some time cursing or reviling life? Is true repentance of no account? What, exactly is the mortal sin?

It is this question we explore in the next installment. Until then, peace.

Which Life?

So what did Jesus mean when he said, “He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth this life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal?” Preston Harold says:

In largest sense, Jesus spoke as symbol of Authority-Ego, and when He speaks as symbol He is speaking from a different level of being than that of the ego-group… Symbol of “I” in man cannot accept the insufficiency of Homo sapiens’ consciousness and all that ignorance and error cause to be manifest in life. If man’s growth into a larger structure of consciousness is to be insured, Authority-Ego must lead the ego-group to hate the mixture of love and lust its limited certitude expresses. An adjustment to, a reconciliation with, an acceptance of such insufficiency as is now exhibited in this world would hinder the growth of consciousness, evolution’s goal.

Different levels of life are automatically implied if we bypass the English translation and go right to the original Greek in which the gospel was written. There are 3 different words in Greek that mean “life.” The first is pneuma, which can also be translated as “spirit” and refers to the mental disposition or rational soul. The second word is psyche, which means the animal sentient principal. The third is zoe, which connotes vitality. In Jesus’ statement, both psyche and zoe are used. Here is the statement with “life” being used as it is in the Greek:

“He that loveth his psyche shall lose it; and he that hateth his psyche in this world shall keep it unto zoe eternal.”

It is important to note that in Biblical terms it is the psyche that is subject to death, and to the extent that we identify with it we identify with mere temporality which closes off our consciousness to further development. We must not identify with our lower self, for if we do we will not inherit eternal life.

But notice the paradox here. The goal is to keep the psyche unto eternal life; to make it endure in a highly vital, developed state. In consciously denying the psyche in this life, in not following it’s every whim and desire, we are intentionally subjecting it to the process of death and resurrection which it must undergo to enjoy abundant life in growth of consciousness. If we can hold this tension within ourselves, we are promised to reap an abundant harvest.  Delayed gratification, anyone?

Until next time, peace…

Love and the Authority-Ego

Through the cycle of life and death we come to know the fullness of love. Up through the “twisted tree of knowledge of good and evil” our Authority-Ego within leads the way.

In rebirth, one partakes of love’s spirit…He is reclothed in the flesh of God, virgin flesh, that he may live again to learn the cost of evil doing and through learning, be redeemed. In death the Authority-Ego divests man of his garment: it is this psychic factor that sheds one’s blood for the remission of the many sins of his ego-group; it is this factor that determines life or death…Love itself, which is his Authority-Ego, resurrects and holds inviolate in the id those of the ego-group whose own expression of love has redeemed them; and love resurrects also those that must live again unto the resurrection of damnation until their forces of good and evil are recast into a nonmaterial responsive factor that will prevent abusive exercise of power, and into the pure or purified evil that matter in itself must be seen to be; and in each rebirth love brings to life something of its whole being that has yet to partake of the tree of knowing.

What might this “nonmaterial responsive factor that will prevent abuse of power” be? Preston Harold will ultimately turn once again to William Wordsworth for a poetic description:

Thus, into a new world of being, the Authority-Ego brings its love of life, the ego-group restated: “he was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.” In time, as consciousness comes to the ego-group, the voice of worldly experience is heard: conscience sounds its note from one’s subconscious depths. And then, the superego is formed of that element in the id that is responsive to truth and can carry a word of it into the world, as the Authority-Ego “elects” them, giving to these the “keys” to the kingdom within. Through the superego, love speaks, and makes its presence felt in:

…that blessed mood

In which the burden of the mystery,

In which the heavy and the weary weight

Of all this unintelligible world,

Is lightened: -that serene and blessed mood,

In which the affections gently lead us on,-

Until, the breath of this corporeal frame

And even the motion of our human blood

Almost suspended, we are laid asleep

In body, and become a living soul…

Here Wordsworth describes an “out of body” experience, a body-free state of rapture; a “nonmaterial responsive factor.” As we become a living soul, there is no need for abuse of power, no need to flaunt ourselves, just increasing knowledge and assurance of blessedness. But why does this knowledge have to be hard earned? Why can’t God simply and totally reveal Himself and our full human nature to us? Let’s ponder this in our next installment. Until then, peace.

Lucifer Rising

“Lucifer Rising” by Elvinia DC

Why must evil be resurrected along with righteousness? What purpose does it serve?

…Lucifer, the devil, means “light-bringer,” and light is primordial energy – but Lucifer is not himself the light he brings. It must be that if “your father, the devil” is resurrected in man causing him to express evil, this expression brings in its wake a necessary enlightenment. If man’s evil is wed to his very being, his good, life must be recasting his evil into a measure of “something” indispensable to him, and this “something” must be flesh over which consciousness has full dominion: flesh man can in truth call his own and keep. To have it, man must have knowledge of evil, of matter itself, and he must have dominion over evil. That is, he must learn to live without corrupting his flesh and abusing life itself in evil doing; he must complete the task begun in Eden, which is to acquire knowledge of good and evil.

Ah, a necessary enlightenment! Many people, including great philosophers and theologians throughout the ages have looked into and considered the possibility of redemption not just for human beings, but for Old Scratch himself. Origen said that nothing is beyond being healed by its maker.  Rudolf Steiner postulates that through resisting and balancing the extreme forces of spirit (Lucifer) and matter (Satan) we redeem evil. In his early lectures on the Bible, Valentin Tomberg says that Lucifer experienced an inner metamorphosis through the Mystery of Golgotha, and that at the crucifixion he recognized the nature of the sacrifice of Christ. Gregory of Nyssa said that the originator of evil WILL be healed. At the heart of these interpretations seems to be a deep intuition that there is a reason for the existence of evil, that it is serving a greater purpose which could not be accomplished without it’s resistance. Preston Harold would say that reason is “flesh man can in truth call his own and keep.”

One here must also consider here the role that Judas played in Christ’s drama. In his “Cipher of Genesis,” Carlo Suares reminds us that the Gospel of John has Judas following Jesus’ instructions to the letter.

I speak not of you all: I know whom I have chosen: but that the scripture may be fulfulled. He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me. Now I tell you before it comes that when it is come to pass ye may believe that I am he. Verily, verily I say unto you: He that receiveth whomsoever I send receiveth me, and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me… Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall HAND ME OVER (OR, DELIVER ME)…He it is, to whom I shall give a sop, when I have dipped it. And when he had dipped the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon. And after the sop Satan entered into him. Then said Jesus unto him, That thou doest, do quickly.

So Satan enters Judas, Jesus then sends Judas. In essence, Jesus has sent Satan. So it must follow, according to Jesus’ own words, that he who receives Satan receives Jesus, therefore in the process receiving God. Once again we must ask ourselves, “Does this offend us?”

The lesson in all of this? Suares tells us:

In terms of gnosis it is the statement of a simple fact: there is only One energy, only One life, only One movement. All is one and one is in all. The One is the one game of life and existence, of energy as energy and of energy as its own physical support, which is its own resistance to itself, without which nothing would be.

Until next time, Peace.

Error, Forgiveness, and Resurrection

“The hour is coming in which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation.” John 5:28

Preston Harold tells us that the “end of the world” is subjective and comes for each person at the moment of his or her death. But there are many “small deaths” that occur before that:

…the conscious domain [is] peopled with countless images of oneself and others, images born of one’s experience with them. Thus, within this domain man lives a world of lives, and each day that passes leaves a grave in the subconscious, a self-of-himself has expired.

Notice in the gospel passage quoted above that

Jesus does not say, “shall hear MY voice.” He says, “shall hear HIS voice,” and thus He is speaking as symbol of the Son in man. His words present the concept that those of the ego-group in bondage to sin and error are returned to consciousness unto the resurrection of damnation in this domain until they spend themselves of their destructive potential and grasp truth as it works in life. Thus, the “lusts of your father ye will do.” But in the process truth disciplines – it does not destroy. In the legend God does not destroy Cain. ALL that is given man is precious – even his evil. Nothing of IT is to be lost. The resurrection of good AND evil in man presages the build up of something of value to be realized in time to come as evil’s destructive potential is spent.

Forgiveness is the key to expending the fullness of our evil:

Jesus says that the Son in man is the Self-factor that will lead him to reap in kind his sin and error. Thus, each punishes himself. But Jesus proclaims also that the power to forgive is vested in the Son, and that one’s return on the bread he casts upon life’s waters is hundred-fold. He saw that in reality a man cannot forgive a brother-being without forgiving himself a like measure of the evil he has done. As though the poet senses this, Goethe writes in Iphigenia:

Life teaches us

To be less strict with others and ourselves:

Thou’lt learn the lesson, too.

Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. Amen. Until next time, peace.

Recapping the Ego

Before we move on to the superego, we need to tidy up a few things about the ego…

In dealing with the concept of man’s ego, one finds many definitions of the word.  Philosophically, it is defined: The entire man considered as union of soul and body; the conscious and permanent subject of all experience.  Psychologically, the term is defined: The self, whether considered as an organization or system of mental states, or as the consciousness of the individual’s distinction from other selves.  In psychoanalysis, ego is seen as: The self-assertive and self-preserving tendency.  As regards ego, psychology speaks two commands: 1) lay down your ego, cast off your self-centeredness, you may identify yourself by becoming part of a group, by focusing your attention outside yourself – 2) build up your ego, be an entire man, fulfill yourself by knowing, being, expressing yourself, becoming an inner-directed and not an outer-directed person.

So, how do these definitions relate to the mission of Jesus?  Harold continues…

Jesus personified every aspect of ego, as the word is defined – and as it is defined, the two words, ego and life, are synonymous, so that ego must be seen as life to man.  Jesus used the word, life.  He said, simply, that man must lay down his life in order to pick it up again.  Conscious rebirth is implied, as well as rebirth into life.

Our esteemed author then goes on to tell us of the ego’s role in the unconscious.  If the ego = life, and Jesus = life, then ego = Jesus…

Freud admitted to a sort of continuation of life in the unconscious.  In it “are stored up vestiges of the existences led by countless former egos; and when the ego forms its superego out of the id, it may perhaps only be reviving images of egos that have passed away and be securing them a resurrection.”  Freud saw this sort of immortality as a “cumulative effect in History which gradually penetrates to “those depths of the psyche far below the ego level that actually can transmit patterns of behavior whether ‘acquired’ or not.”  Jesus posed the concept that life continues in the inner realm of the unconscious.  He says, “I have other sheep, too, which do not belong to this fold…” – this fold of consciousness known to those He addressed – “My sheep listen to my voice, and I know them and they follow me; and I give them eternal life; they shall never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.”  A flock, not of the fold of consciousness, a flock to whom eternal life is given, must refer to that which is redeemed and immortal in man.  In this passage, Jesus indicates that man’s ego is not of the herd-instinct represented by the sheep.  Ego is not motivated by the impulse to belong and follow.  Ego is shepherd: the sense of one being as self, and the differentiations of personality, the sheep, follow it – or, straying from this sense of certainty in being, are lost and must be found.

Man knows himself to be a flock of selves searching always to find the Self of selves to give direction to these composite lives.  Therefore, in this study the term, ego-group, will be used to designate the selves of the conscious domain and the term, Authority-Ego, will be used to designate the one governing factor of the ego-group, “I” in man which has its being in the unconscious.

I’ve never before entertained the idea or possibility that when Jesus is talking about His “sheep” He is discussing his own inner life!  Well I’ll be, huh?

As for the “resurrection…of countless former egos” and of man being “a flock of selves,” I will have much to say in the near future.  But for now we are ready to explore the superego and it’s role in our unconscious, which we will do in the next post.  Until then, peace…