Magical Religion" like a child's Nursery Rhymes is representative of that period in our human development between the ages of 7-11. They serve as a wonderful tool, but how sad so many get stuck in these allegories and stories. They were invented long, long ago to assist by Divine Providence the movement of man's intellect from the natural to the spiritual.
Mythic Religion is marked by a perspectivism, that is not grasped in those earlier years of Magical Religion of the age of 3-7. The Mythic Christian period is like the Renaissance was to the Middle ages. One facet of this is how Art suddenly developed a new perspective. It's former two dimensional state, was suddenly developing a new dimension in Art, the third dimension, an entirely new perspective of depth was emerging. Just as the surface structure was changing in Art, so was the child's two dimensional Father/Mother picture, undergoing a "surface structure translation." That is a cognition of 'self' as independant, a third dimension extension within the family economy, just as the Son in the economy of the 'Household of God' extends the Mythic or third dimension knowledge of God into the realm of manifestation.
The grand plan is to return all back to their Source. The Cross is the Pivot of creation, just as death is. Suffering is the way of the horizontal Space[first Adam] and "NOW" if I be lifted up is the vertical, our being seated[past tense] in Christ[second Adam] in the Heavenlies.
The magical state of Christianity, is beginning to take a new perspective. [Please understand this is also applicable to all other great Religions.] Such Christians are able to see the role of Christ and the Apostles, in an objective sense, through a development of their own sense of identity. This is the period a person sees himself as having short comings, and a certain guilt for that. Especially as in the magical religious stage they were continually endowed with a sense of sin and guilt, by those authoritarian figures in a child's life. And this at a stage where the child's ego or sense of separate identity has not yet taken root.
This type of theology, transpires usually within the family structure, or for others in an adopted family such as a Church of their choice, or more likely their friends. Now just as magical nursery rhymes are organised as a teaching tool, so also are myths organised as a learning model for those older children, to prepare them for life in a world where ego is forming of a separate individual. Hence myths are invented by those who have gone before long ago, to secure the advancement of the human race and culture. Now "blind obedience" is the hall mark of Mythic Religion. So it uses also uniformity, dogma and creeds.
Fundamentalism, never allows an individual to develop their own sense of identity outside their prison house. Now Fundamentalism is set up as the norm and intertwines all speculative latitudes given to their members. There is a certain latitude given, but only within the boundaries of their myths. The myths themselves are never to be questioned. The most furious and vindictive and punitive acts are made against all those who question the fundamentals of the groups Faith. Yet Faith should never be a belief! Nor is it something that can be observed according to the inspired writer of the Book of Hebrews.
I may add the most punitive type of Fundamentalism is found in the Roman Catholic Church. Some may know of how Cardinal Ratzinger treated that inspired Catholic Mystic Mathew Fox, and stopped him from publishing any more books. This same man controls the dead sea scroll archives, and also millions of other books going back way before 1 A.D. They are carefully guarded! The present Pope controls the Society for the integrity of the Scriptures, the original Office of the Inquisition. This Rottweiler is now the German Shepherd.
Now the great tragedy here is that Truth cannot be organised, or made into a system of beliefs. It is not limited to a Book, Church or a group of persons. It has no specific or final revelation. It is beyond all beginnings and endings, and cannot be contained as a concept in any mortal mind no matter how great. Truth is eternal, universal and full revealed when "every thought is led captive to Christ." Truth is known only to that Mind...the Mind of Christ.
Yet, just as Christ is "the firstborn of every creature" so is the Mind of Christ our true and uncorrupted mind. It is the Mind we had before this corruptible body came and the one that remains after that body is gone. There is Only One Body that remains and is eternal and the original and only Spiritual Body...the "firstborn" of all of us. It is a creation that never grows old, it has no birth and consequent death. It is the New Creation of the Eternal Now. The "Now" we always delete with a false experience and a false self, that excludes the Christ. If Christ is not our firstborn, and is separate from us, of what use can He be to us. What saving can he possibly do? If we were ever separate in reality, then that must remain as reality. There is either illusion or reality.
If "inseeing/Stephen" is illusion then Salvation is a Reality, for my total subjectivity must be Christ. Hallelujah! "Partakers of the Divine Nature". To know the "only true God" which is "eternal Life" we must be His Son, partaking of His Divine Nature. Mythic Religion can never give us that, except as a promise, always at a future date that never comes even after two millenniums of saying "Come quickly. Lord Jesus." I am not saying mythic Religion is not valid. Mostly even a child sees through the myth after the age of ten, but has not understood the full import of what the Myth really stands for. You see celebrating the liturgical Lords' Supper celebrated with the wine and bread, is no different than celebrating after a working bee with a keg of beer and a barbecue, or a birthday party. The response to the myth of celebrating life and oneness is the same. There is only one life in reality, for Christ is the first and last Adam. Remember Paul writing to the Ephesians spoke of the Father's Secret Plan:" That the whole Cosmos, all in Heaven and Earth, be brought into Unity with the Christ." Not just the elect or the saved but the whole works, not just man, but the whole she-bang!
If we stay in Mythic Religion we become stuck in the same concrete reality we have given to these myths or allegories[see Gal.4:24 how allegories bring bondage]. We must go beyond the Letter of the Word to the Spirit to the transcendental truths encapsulated in them. Elsewise we die in our sin. As did Hagar and her son.
So the Mythic Church was Rome's answer to controlling the vast empire it had acquired. The Cross and the Blood are the great mythic symbols, greater than any sword for control. The Bible was instituted, and so was Sunday and the temporal power of the Pope. To disagree was to be put to death. Countless generations were brought up to this system of mythic religion, truly God is visiting sin to the third and fourth generation of those caught up, in this spiritual slavery of Rome.
So what I am saying here is that mythic religion is authentic religion, with a great purpose. Sure it is bizarre Jesus flying with Satan in the Wilderness. It just highlights how simple the minds of the hard working peasants were back in those days. These were humans who often died well before adulthood, having slaved to make a living with none or little education or medical help. These stories were very legitimate and served a great moral purpose. No doubt as a result this secured the borders of Rome more than a thousand Legions could ever have done.
You see even the old Anglo Saxon word for 'gospel' is "god-spell" a 'good tale'. The Bible is indeed the "Greatest story ever Told." The tragedy is that we are too busy giving reality to the Dead Letter, and do not move on to the spiritual food of a full grown adult.
"When I was a child,
I spoke as a child,
I understood as a child,
I thought as a child;
but when I became a man,
I put away childish things."
1 Cor.13:11
"Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrines of Christ
Let us go onto perfection." Hebrews 6:1
_________________
Mythic Religion is marked by a perspectivism, that is not grasped in those earlier years of Magical Religion of the age of 3-7. The Mythic Christian period is like the Renaissance was to the Middle ages. One facet of this is how Art suddenly developed a new perspective. It's former two dimensional state, was suddenly developing a new dimension in Art, the third dimension, an entirely new perspective of depth was emerging. Just as the surface structure was changing in Art, so was the child's two dimensional Father/Mother picture, undergoing a "surface structure translation." That is a cognition of 'self' as independant, a third dimension extension within the family economy, just as the Son in the economy of the 'Household of God' extends the Mythic or third dimension knowledge of God into the realm of manifestation.
The grand plan is to return all back to their Source. The Cross is the Pivot of creation, just as death is. Suffering is the way of the horizontal Space[first Adam] and "NOW" if I be lifted up is the vertical, our being seated[past tense] in Christ[second Adam] in the Heavenlies.
The magical state of Christianity, is beginning to take a new perspective. [Please understand this is also applicable to all other great Religions.] Such Christians are able to see the role of Christ and the Apostles, in an objective sense, through a development of their own sense of identity. This is the period a person sees himself as having short comings, and a certain guilt for that. Especially as in the magical religious stage they were continually endowed with a sense of sin and guilt, by those authoritarian figures in a child's life. And this at a stage where the child's ego or sense of separate identity has not yet taken root.
This type of theology, transpires usually within the family structure, or for others in an adopted family such as a Church of their choice, or more likely their friends. Now just as magical nursery rhymes are organised as a teaching tool, so also are myths organised as a learning model for those older children, to prepare them for life in a world where ego is forming of a separate individual. Hence myths are invented by those who have gone before long ago, to secure the advancement of the human race and culture. Now "blind obedience" is the hall mark of Mythic Religion. So it uses also uniformity, dogma and creeds.
Fundamentalism, never allows an individual to develop their own sense of identity outside their prison house. Now Fundamentalism is set up as the norm and intertwines all speculative latitudes given to their members. There is a certain latitude given, but only within the boundaries of their myths. The myths themselves are never to be questioned. The most furious and vindictive and punitive acts are made against all those who question the fundamentals of the groups Faith. Yet Faith should never be a belief! Nor is it something that can be observed according to the inspired writer of the Book of Hebrews.
I may add the most punitive type of Fundamentalism is found in the Roman Catholic Church. Some may know of how Cardinal Ratzinger treated that inspired Catholic Mystic Mathew Fox, and stopped him from publishing any more books. This same man controls the dead sea scroll archives, and also millions of other books going back way before 1 A.D. They are carefully guarded! The present Pope controls the Society for the integrity of the Scriptures, the original Office of the Inquisition. This Rottweiler is now the German Shepherd.
Now the great tragedy here is that Truth cannot be organised, or made into a system of beliefs. It is not limited to a Book, Church or a group of persons. It has no specific or final revelation. It is beyond all beginnings and endings, and cannot be contained as a concept in any mortal mind no matter how great. Truth is eternal, universal and full revealed when "every thought is led captive to Christ." Truth is known only to that Mind...the Mind of Christ.
Yet, just as Christ is "the firstborn of every creature" so is the Mind of Christ our true and uncorrupted mind. It is the Mind we had before this corruptible body came and the one that remains after that body is gone. There is Only One Body that remains and is eternal and the original and only Spiritual Body...the "firstborn" of all of us. It is a creation that never grows old, it has no birth and consequent death. It is the New Creation of the Eternal Now. The "Now" we always delete with a false experience and a false self, that excludes the Christ. If Christ is not our firstborn, and is separate from us, of what use can He be to us. What saving can he possibly do? If we were ever separate in reality, then that must remain as reality. There is either illusion or reality.
If "inseeing/Stephen" is illusion then Salvation is a Reality, for my total subjectivity must be Christ. Hallelujah! "Partakers of the Divine Nature". To know the "only true God" which is "eternal Life" we must be His Son, partaking of His Divine Nature. Mythic Religion can never give us that, except as a promise, always at a future date that never comes even after two millenniums of saying "Come quickly. Lord Jesus." I am not saying mythic Religion is not valid. Mostly even a child sees through the myth after the age of ten, but has not understood the full import of what the Myth really stands for. You see celebrating the liturgical Lords' Supper celebrated with the wine and bread, is no different than celebrating after a working bee with a keg of beer and a barbecue, or a birthday party. The response to the myth of celebrating life and oneness is the same. There is only one life in reality, for Christ is the first and last Adam. Remember Paul writing to the Ephesians spoke of the Father's Secret Plan:" That the whole Cosmos, all in Heaven and Earth, be brought into Unity with the Christ." Not just the elect or the saved but the whole works, not just man, but the whole she-bang!
If we stay in Mythic Religion we become stuck in the same concrete reality we have given to these myths or allegories[see Gal.4:24 how allegories bring bondage]. We must go beyond the Letter of the Word to the Spirit to the transcendental truths encapsulated in them. Elsewise we die in our sin. As did Hagar and her son.
So the Mythic Church was Rome's answer to controlling the vast empire it had acquired. The Cross and the Blood are the great mythic symbols, greater than any sword for control. The Bible was instituted, and so was Sunday and the temporal power of the Pope. To disagree was to be put to death. Countless generations were brought up to this system of mythic religion, truly God is visiting sin to the third and fourth generation of those caught up, in this spiritual slavery of Rome.
So what I am saying here is that mythic religion is authentic religion, with a great purpose. Sure it is bizarre Jesus flying with Satan in the Wilderness. It just highlights how simple the minds of the hard working peasants were back in those days. These were humans who often died well before adulthood, having slaved to make a living with none or little education or medical help. These stories were very legitimate and served a great moral purpose. No doubt as a result this secured the borders of Rome more than a thousand Legions could ever have done.
You see even the old Anglo Saxon word for 'gospel' is "god-spell" a 'good tale'. The Bible is indeed the "Greatest story ever Told." The tragedy is that we are too busy giving reality to the Dead Letter, and do not move on to the spiritual food of a full grown adult.
"When I was a child,
I spoke as a child,
I understood as a child,
I thought as a child;
but when I became a man,
I put away childish things."
1 Cor.13:11
"Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrines of Christ
Let us go onto perfection." Hebrews 6:1
_________________
