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.

Jesus the Biochemist, Pt. 1

Preston Harold sees Jesus’ life as a parable of two scientific concepts: biochemistry and light. We will look at how Jesus’ story reveals the scientific theories of light later in the The Shining Stranger but for now we will explore how His story uncovers biochemistry.

As symbol of primordial life, giving voice to that which all things were made, Jesus’ strange words appear to enfold what is today called biochemical information – and from this point of view, the whole story of the Son of man as Jesus depicted it may be seen as a parable revealing the life of the cell. To reveal life’s deepest secrets is incumbent upon truth bearer:

“That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world.” –Matt 13:35

In other words, Jesus’ parables run DEEP, going much further than what we may have even imagined or been able to understand of them up to this point. Many excellent and enlightening volumes have been written on Jesus’ parables, but none have ever gone, or even considered going, down to the microscopic levels of biological life. But why not? As Harold says, truth resides at ALL levels of our lived experience. Why then leave out biochemistry or any of the sciences for that matter?

The psychic operation between Father, Son, and the world of man as Jesus described and depicted it parallels the biochemists’ description of DNA and messenger-RNA operating in a cell. The biochemical operation may reflect the psychic operation and vice versa… One may see the cell’s DNA as Father, and the cell’s messenger-RNA as Son of man, which has partaken of the “life” of the Father, DNA, and is sent into the world of the cytoplasm to reveal the Father’s, or DNA’s, message.

Very good. Now Harold will tell us how the world of the cytoplasm mirrors the subconscious, ego-group, and superego:

This world is a complex system containing thousands of small bodies of various sizes, shapes, and functions; these bodies are called Mitochondria and are the “powerhouses” of the cell; they may be compared to the ego-group, “Israel.” But these ‘bodies” are not the ones messenger-RNA must impress with the Father’s, DNA’s, doctrine if the cell is to have life or the know-how to produce the substance it must have. In the cell, there are smaller “particulates” containing RNA; these are called Microsomes and they are the protein factories; they may be likened to the subconscious. In addition, there are tiny particles densely distributed on the network of membranes associated with the microsomal fraction in the cell; they are known as Ribosomes and may be likened to the superego or the disciples because they contain just about all of the RNA, which may be likened to “truth.”But the ribosomal-RNA does not carry the genetic code; ribosomal-RNA is something like a “key-blank” which can be ground to fit any lock. Upon this “key-blank” the messenger-RNA, sometimes called template-RNA, impress DNA’s message, giving ribosomal-RNA the “keys,” the secrets, of the “kingdom within,” the nucleus, seat of DNA, Father.

We will continue with this line of thought in our next post, Until then, 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.

The Tower of Babel and the Mystery of Language: Part II

What is the reason that the Tower of Babel cannot be finished? What is the legend trying to tell us?

Consider that each man speaks a language of his own begot of his understanding of any word. Where his understanding stops, or veers off in tangent, the babble of words falling upon his inner or outer ear serve only to confuse the issue and disperse the force of those who strive to control his thinking. Thus, he can be conditioned so far and no further – no utopian dream can permanently adjust him to Homo sapiens’ insufficient lot in life: the tower cannot be finished because man, himself, is not finished. Man is only partially conscious, his body is an expression of mind power only partially in use; and powerful as it is, the subconscious is not the end of his being.

The subconscious is constantly trying to make itself the distinctive, identifying factor of the human being, attempting to “reach heaven” on its own while overriding the Authority-Ego’s proper administration.

Dr. Rolf Alexander likens the subconscious to a factory that needs an over-all understanding to direct and coordinate the know-how of each laborer. But he sees that the “factory” does not identify the man: “Search as we will, we can never find the reality we all hunger for in the conditioned illusions of our subconscious, nor in our intellects which are oriented to these illusions….we must return to the task of developing the instrument of conscious perception abandoned by us in childhood – the true personality.” This echoes Jesus: one must become as a child to receive his name, to enter the kingdom of God within him.

But even though the subconscious is trying to override its proper jurisdiction, it is still a necessary part of the picture; life is impossible without it:

If one accepts the teaching of Jesus as revelation of the Authority-Ego in man operating from the unconscious domain, then one accepts the concept that the over-all understanding to direct and coordinate the subconscious is there; and that the yoke of the subconscious mind has been assumed by Self in order to enter life through nature’s avenues, for nature appears to operate the animal kingdom through a subconscious, mechanistic process – that is, through converting experience into instinctive, conditioned responses.

Jesus indicates that the Authority-Ego has willingly taken this yoke upon Self because through the subconscious mind’s working, the burden of accumulated knowledge is carried easily; because of it man learns rapidly; and it relieves him of the operation of his mechanistic body. As symbol of Authority-Ego, Jesus
says to the ego-group: 

Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me…

For my yoke is easy and my burden is light…

These words and the Babel legend indicate that man need not fear the hold his subconscious mind has upon consciousness, for man cannot be confined within its limitations or be enslaved by its mechanics – he is more than the “computer” that operates for him.

So what about the themes of language and communication we explored in part 1? We will return to these in our next post. Until then, peace…

Three Realms of the Unconscious: Part 2

We now look into our pre and subconsciousnesses and how they were defined by Jesus…

Preconsciousness may be readily defined: Freud conceived it to be that which is latently conscious but may be readily called to consciousness.  Jesus delineated this level: eyes that see, ears that hear.  Subconsciousness represents a state of unconsciousness that Jesus referred to as seeing and yet unseeing, as hearing and yet unhearing.  The subconscious is the lowest stratum of consciousness which…contains knowledge that has not been consciously catalogued because the knowledge has been stored automatically…  The answers it hands to consciousness incorporate everything that comes as stimuli, and everything that has been a part of environment or experience, for nothing escapes it.  

So our subconscious is a repository of all our experiences.  Even though we may not remember  a particular experience, it is lurking there, never “forgotten” by it.  It is always present and can be called or brought to consciousness when looking for an answer…

The subconscious is both as old as the man and as new as the instant, now, when the answer it gives represents a new analogued sum of existence, wherein the whole of one’s experience has been computed, and this sum prompts him to specific response.  The subconscious, then, is the seat of “my-being.”  It is “me” in terms of  the sum of “my” experience.  

What doesn’t lurk in the subconscious is anything that we have NOT experienced.  Harold explains:

But the unconscious is the seat of “I-being” which is the governing factor in one’s life because “I” has knowledge of what has been experienced and what has not been experienced, of what has been consciously catalogued and what has been unconsciously catalogued, of what has been repressed and must sooner or later be faced in consciousness.

Our “I” is aware of what we have done and what we haven’t done, as it is aware of our glorious possibilites.  But is also aware of all the hurts and failures we repress and would rather not deal with.  Just because we don’t like particular members of our ego-group doesn’t mean we can just set those aspects aside and they will disappear with no consequence.  Harold continues…

Jesus says that not all who knock shall enter Authority-Ego’s realm.  Under certain conditions the door is closed, and there shall be “weeping and gnashing of teeth” when you see “yourselves*” thrust out.  These words pose the concept that psychic disorder ensues when repressions, which are painful self-images, return to the conscious domain after gaining strength and undergoing a metamorphosis in the unconscious. Because these selves have known the unconscious and its Authority, they think themselves blameless and in good standing.  “We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets.”  They do not recognize themselves to be pain or error incarnate.  When the time comes that repressions must be faced in consciousness, the “door” to the unconscious must be shut, and this psychic act generates the anxiety, depression, and despair that accompany the individual’s awareness of Self-estrangement.

*read “yourselves” here as the repressed egos of the ego-group

I am not sure how repressions “gain strength and undergo a metamorphosis” in the unconscious, nor do I know why the door must be “shut.”  But I do understand that our repressions must be dealt with in the light of day if they are to be overcome and reintegrated healthily into our lives.  I suppose shutting the door gives no recourse for these repressions to become unconscious once again, and we are left to deal with the reality with which we are confronted.  It is the only way forward.

The last quote above finishes with the concept of Self-estrangement which we will begin exploring in the next post.  Until then, peace…

Three Realms of the Unconscious: Part 1

With all this exploration of the inner psychic structure of the human being, we now come to a vital point in our discussion.  This is the distinction between the subconscious and the unconscious…

Psychologists fail to draw a sharp distinction between the subconscious and the unconscious.  The two states are not synonymous.  Like a rainbow,, consciousness is comprised of three primary divisions: “I-consciousness” or superconsciousness, preconsciousness, and subconsciousness.  All of these levels are but colorful spans-of-knowing that may be likened to a rainbow rising up from and sinking into the horizon of the unconscious, an unknown world, the great promise in life, man’s kingdom which has not yet “come” to him.

The brilliant psychologist/poet Harold McCurdy writes, “The intensity of ‘I’-consciousness varies through an immense range but once it has arrived it becomes a point of stability in the flux of experience.”  He pointed out the reality of outside forces intruding on consciousness, sometimes taking full possession and…

…producing unwanted, irrational desires over which the “I” has no control, so that the conscious “I” is not “master in it’s own house.”  Because “I-consciousness” is not a constant as would be Lord who neither slumbers nor sleeps – because it is such a variable and is not “master” – it cannot itself be the Self that man is conscious of when he experiences “I-consciousness.”  In the view of this study, “I-consciousness” coincides with superego.  Like the disciples sleeping as Jesus agonized in the Garden, it cannot always be awake; Jesus’ foretelling that Peter would deny Him dramatizes that superego is not the psychic master in man, although Peter’s grasp of the Christ in man symbolizes the coming of “I-consciousness” to the superego-group.

Here we see that Peter as a member of the superego/disciples/elect, is the particular outer symbol of I-consciousness, which recognizes the coming of Authority-Ego in the human being.  And this recognition of the coming of the Christ in man is what is symbolized by Peter holding the keys to the kingdom of heaven.

In Part 2 of this this post we will look into the preconscious and subconscious levels of our psyches.  Until then, peace…

THE PROBLEM, THE OBJECTIVE, THE CRUCIAL QUESTIONS – Part 3

It’s time for the last of our 3 foci, “the objective.”

To understand the objective of THE SHINING STRANGER, we will all have to become poets.  But what exactly is a poet?  Of all the definitions I’ve heard, I enjoy Dr. Cornel West’s the most:

The great (Percy) Shelly used to say that ‘poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.’ What did he mean by that?  He wasn’t talking about versifying.  To be a poet in the most profound sense is to have the courage to release your imagination and your empathy…

True poetry is full of contradictions, paradox, mystery, conundrums, and riddles.  Many people say the Bible cannot be trusted because it contains many contradictions.  Others say “if the Bible says it, it must be so,” and can’t see any meaning beyond the plain sense of the text.  Both sides are barking up the wrong tree.  Harold says…

Dr. Henry A Murray writes that an “important fact not generally acknowledged is…the Bible is poetry, in its best parts, magnificent and edifying poetry….Some devout Christians overlook the fact that the stirring and sustaining power of the Book they live by depends on the wondrous emotive language, the vivid imagery and figures of speech, with which its wisdom is transmitted….If the New Testament…had been written by a modern social scientist in the jargon of his profession, it would have died at birth.”

As does (George) Santayana, Dr. Murray sees that the playing down of the “crucial import of the Bible’s poetry,” hand in hand with the playing up of its historicity, is the greatest fallacy of Christianity, for thereby the scope of its traffic with and judgement of reality is severely limited.  Poetry does not obscure fact – it presents it in words that act as leaven in the mind to make room for it to house there.  Poetry is dazzling in its completely open and full use of words that have, as John Ciardi puts it: “…far more meanings than anyone thinks about in reading factual prose.  A word is not a meaning but a complex of meanings consisting of all its possibilities: its ability to identify something, the image it releases in making that identification, its sound, its history, its associations-in-context…” (emphases mine)

Plato equated poetry with creation: “All creation or passage of non-being into being is poetry or making.”  Poetry comes from the subconscious, and Harold sees in Jesus the universe’s Poet Laureate…

Jesus spoke poetically, but if His words are true they must be a correct, albeit poetical, description of reality.

Until a man has grasped the full implication of Jesus’ words, “the kingdom of God is within you,” he cannot begin to understand Him.  His every word is predicated upon this revelation.  It is the woking of the inner kingdom He reveals.  If the kingdom of heaven is within, there is no heavenly place of the abode for the “redeemed” to go – the realm of heaven is now an individual state of being, a potential mankind shall in time realize.  It is inward reality as opposed to the outward illusiveness of life (and of matter, which Jesus proclaimed long before the physicists discovered it).

Jesus saw life to be infinite, saw that man’s religions form one-to-one correspondences of truth, and that each man is a one-to-one correspondence with God, truth, life, and with each other man.

Jesus saw the Ten Commandments as classical psychic law.  He realized, however, that quantum psychic law underlies the classical law, and this secondary law governs the inner, real life of the individual – this is the law he enunciated.

In saying that the kingdom of God, an unknown realm, is within each person, Jesus proclaimed the existence of that psychic reality now called the unconscious – revealed its working and power.  He made of Himself a symbol of the Authority within this psychic realm: the vital Self-of-selves abstracted from consciousness for which man yearns – which is unto each his own, “the Lord, your God.”

Jesus strove to heal the breach in man’s thinking upon reality, strove to rejoin the divided physical and spiritual realms, saying, poetically, that the energy which gives life to man is, potentially, in a “stone.”  Identifying Himself and mankind with primordial energy, light, He dramatized and phrased in poetic terms the most important of the secondary laws of physics, enfolding His answer to the question of the universe in the sign positive (+)….whether by design or because he knew how to tap the fount of truth in His unconscious, He presented in drama, symbol, and poetry the underlying physical and psychic laws that are today being revealed.

From these observations Harold derives the objective of THE SHINING STRANGER:

The objective, then,  is not to present one or several new aspects, but rather a whole new concept of Jesus, for, as Albert Schweitzer points out, “What has been passing for Christianity during these nineteen centuries is merely a beginning, full of weaknesses and mistakes, not a full-grown Christianity springing from the spirit of Jesus.”

   

One here is reminded of GK Chesterton’s quote: “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.”

Although THE SHINING STRANGER is a difficult work, we will not leave it untried.  I hope we are up to the challenge ahead of us.  Until next time, peace…