Why Sacrifice?

Why do literalist religions always require a sacrifice of some sort? Where does this come from? I don't have have so many answers here as much as some thinking points I've compiled. If you can add to it then please leave a comment and we'll keep this a work-in-progress. The whole thing has confused me since I was a child and if anyone has any wisdom to share on this issue I'd be grateful.

Before we get started just a bit of a note about where this whole blog post got started. Being in the middle(literally- wrist deep in fur) of shaving my Siamese cat(Little Big Mouth, 20 years old) to help her deal with the heat, pleroma blurted out something which made me pause.

"I am willing to sacrifice my past but not my future."

Shaving a cat naturally made me think of animal sacrifice, something I'm sure Big Mouth did not appreciate. But after I got done royally pissing her off(she likes be shaved, it's the bathing part afterwards she doesn't like) I sat down and wrote this list. These are all the ways literalist religions ask us to sacrifice in order to receive special knowledge or simple acknowledgement as a sane and humble human being so that you should not be sent down to roast in a fiery place when you die:

1. The practice of sacrificing one of your children to the church in service. Even the old royal families still did this up until the middle of last century. One child would go into the military and the other would be given to the church. My guess is that since the church always held such power that the royal family was essentially giving their 'tithe' in this manner while also having a set of eyes and ears inside the church which were related to them.
2. The Old Testament says that Yahweh wanted a sacrifice of a child(but sike! It was really just a test) to see if the father would do it.  Moab really did do it, though; although this time God said that he didn't have to do it. Why the change of heart?
3. Eating and drinking the Host and his blood. He 'sacrificed' his body for you to partake of it. "Do this in remembrance of me" takes on a decidedly cannibalistic theme when you put it in a certain light. This is hylic/psychic magic, coincidentally. The Church has no gnosis. They're big on ritual and low on content.
4. Martyr your body for 'the cause' meanwhile hopefully killing a lot of other people. Because you know, it's all about spreading the word. Nothing spreads like wildfire faster than news of 1) someone cheating on someone 2) an insane fundamentalist killing themselves and a lot of other people or damaging valuable property.  "My religion is better than yours so I am going to kill/hurt you!!!" This loony-toon declaration of love for a deity is just asinine. "Martyrdom was identified early in Church history as "baptism by blood", enabling martyrs who had not been baptized by water to be saved." Wikipedia search: baptism. So because you've been killed for the faith then your own blood acts as a baptismal font? (Why would you have to be baptized in the first place?) This is sickening on many levels, the most appalling one being of course that a person can do many atrocious things in their life and only with their last act be declared a martyr as long as they died "for the faith." I'm all for appreciating a good deed but the crown of 'martyr' is disgusting when taken in that context, especially when it supposedly gets you a lofty place up in Heaven beside the Big Guy with or without dozens of virgins. Being with him again should be it's own reward, not the chance to be known as a martyr.
5. Jesus, or rather God sacrificing his 'first born' son to... himself? Why would God need to go through the physical act of sacrifice? Gnostics generally all have varying belief in this act. We tend not to discuss it too much. But even if you do take the act seriously, why would one person's(divine or not) material body sacrifice placate God enough to then save every person who asked for it afterward? A million people crying for salvation before Christ lived isn't enough but one man's is? Personally, I think that's kinda conceited. The majority of gnostic texts exonerate Jesus' act by saying it wasn't 'what you think it is,' and that is a topic for another blog post.
6. Animal sacrifice. Why would God need a dead animal? And why oh why would he delight in sniffing the wafting aroma of it's burnt carcass? Peace offerings and guilt offerings... what is the point? Why can't you just say you're sorry instead of butchering some poor innocent animal or giving up grain which could be used to feed your belly. Is this what they call 'paying the piper'? Is God the piper to be paid? ... and doesn't that make him a spiritual extortionist? "Give me dead offerings or I'll roast you in Hell." Yep. That's extortion.

After completing my list of horrifying sacrifices deemed necessary for literalist religious acceptance I compiled a list for what I would be willing to sacrifice for my belief in the All/the totality of salvation/pleroma/the Good God, and many other names which I am sure you have heard me use.

1. I am willing to sacrifice untold hours in my day/night to study anything worthy he sends my way, no matter how mundane, silly, bizarre, or mentally/spiritually challenging.
2. I am willing to sacrifice the resentment, anger, sadness, embarrassment, and shame I felt in the past and move on, trusting him to guide me. 
3. I am willing to sacrifice my sleep so that he may tell me ridiculous jokes at 4am, hug me, and send me dreams showing me just how much I am loved or remind me of things I have forgotten, both good and bad.
4. I am willing to sacrifice financial security in the present and future to make sure I'm not partaking in any business ventures which are morally questionable. 
5. I am willing to sacrifice my personal safety in order to stand up and speak up for what is right when not doing so would be easier and safer. 

Forcing Gnosis

A friend has expressed for some time now frustration in trying to keep to a certain practice to find enlightenment. To force gnosis is like trying to force a brick through the eye of a needle. I don't think we're hardwired to accept the daily grind on top of a completely open connection to the divine 24/7. We're too distracted by our responsibilities, family and friends... FOOD! Our body needs sustenance and by gosh we have to work for a living.

Keeping a spiritual calendar seems to inhibit some people's growth. Mandatory time set aside or scheduled ...eh. It's not very organic feeling after a while. And so we find excuse after excuse and emergency after emergency to delay or reschedule our 'practice.' How do you practice for life, exactly? In my experience gnosis comes in fits and starts, droughts-a-plenty when everyday responsibilities have to be taken care of, and a torrential flood has to be harnessed when we are calm and open to possibilities.

So what is a contemplative person to do? Do we become nuns and monks? Do we throw ourselves out on the streets and live in an even more precarious place? Viktor Frankle has a few sage words in Man's Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy:

"What is called self-actualization is, and must remain, the unintended effect of self-transcendence; it is ruinous and self-defeating to make it the target of intention. And what is true of self-actualization also holds for identity and happiness. It is the very "pursuit of happiness" that obviates happiness. The more we make it a target, the more widely we miss.

It may now have become clear that a concept such as self-actualization, or self-realization, is not a sufficient ground for a motivational theory. This is mainly due to the fact that self-actualization, like power and pleasure, also belong to the class of phenomena which can only be obtained as a side effect and are thwarted precisely to the degree to which they are made a matter of direct intention. Self-actualization is a good thing; however, I maintain that man can only actualize himself to the extent to which he fulfills meaning. Then self-actualization occurs spontaneously; it is contravened when it is made an end in itself...

We have to beware of the tendency to deal with values in terms of the mere self-expression of man himself... If the meaning that is waiting to be fulfilled by man were nothing but a mere expression of self, or no more than a projection of his wishful thinking, it would immediately lose its demanding and challenging character; it could no longer call man forth or summon him.... I think the meaning of our existence is not invented by ourselves, but rather detected."

Alright, so if gnosis can't be forced and only detected then how do we go about detecting it? How do we sniff this thing out? How do we call it out from wherever we think it's hiding from us? It's not like a dog who'll come hither with a little doggy treat and a "Here boy! Here ya go! Come get some treats and a scratch behind the ears."

Gnosis is more like a sneaky feline hiding under your bed reaching out to swat your ankles every once in a while. You jump in shock, turn around, and yell at... no one? And yet you still sense the cat in the room. You know beyond the shadow of a doubt that it is there. Otherwise you wouldn't keep tip toeing past the bed, right? And in the deepest part of your soul you wouldn't be reaching out to it asking for more information. Heck, if you didn't know it was there you wouldn't be asking about it!!

Human life is rough. Most of the time we don't know which ends is up and which end is down. So what do we do about this? How do we sort out these emotions concerning what we Want and what we Need in order to lead a learning life? I say a learning life instead of a good life because  we don't become wise without stepping in a few mud puddles or even crashing head first into a few walls. We learn by making mistakes; trying things out to see how they feel to us. How do we make progress, to climb up out of the well of frustration we feel we're always in?

I believe that fear holds us back as well as ignorance. It's like being told that there are no monsters under the bed and yet we continue to watch scary movies which scare the crap out of us. I can also equate this to reading literalist holy books with the mindset of Fear(of God) leading to Redemption. And so mentally we live life in fear, huddled with our blankets covering our heads(and hearts). 'If I can't see it then it can't see me,' type mentality. Or worse yet, 'if I am scared of everything then I've got all the bases covered.' But if you're truly reaching out for something good what must you do to overcome this fear? The answer is to read, listen, and relax.

First, I got over my fear of being exposed to the pathogen of anything not accepted by a literalist faith church. (This took years. It did not happen overnight.) I actively sought out books which they condemned. My curiosity has not led me astray yet. When you read the texts which a literalist considers evil then it gives you a new perspective on the people who say that these ideas are bad. When you realize that you don't have to have faith in something unseen but that you can truly BELIEVE in something you KNOW is real(gnosis) and have daily experiences with him(the good god/pleroma/the All, etc is not silent. He's a chatterbox, actually) then the literalist argument turn to dust and you're left with the truth.

Here are a few activities I've participated in which have brought me peace and helped develop a closer relationship with the good god:

• Yoga: it forces your brain to shut up and opens your heart to possibilities. We store stress in our bodies like we store energy from the food we eat. To find peace you must find calm. Yoga is detoxifying, confidence building, and creates a calm place in your heart to retreat to when the world becomes too much. www.yogajournal.com is a wonderful resource. Their articles are fantastic. Start with baby steps and you'll really surprise yourself!
• Meditation: there are several methods. Meditation on the very cusp of sleep seems to work the best in the beginning for most. The more relaxed you are the easier it is to find that quiet spot in your mind. Make sure you keep a notebook and pen handy. Breathe naturally and slowly and don't be freaked out by the light shows and nonsensical seeming dramas going on in your head. It's simply your consciousness waking up; like jump starting a dead battery on a car. Just relax and enjoy the sound of your own heart beat. If you start with yoga and then try to meditate at a different time that day, don't be surprised if during your 'dutiful lotus position meditation' you suddenly feel the urge to get up and stretch your body into a yoga position(asana) with your eyes still closed. Go with it. You'll find that you're letting yourself dive deeper into your consciousness by the movements. Your mind will still with your body's movements. Go with your instincts. If you feel the urge to lay in Child Pose during a portion of your meditation and then some modified version of Downward Dog... go with it! There are no rules written in stone for finding a place of peace-- however you will find a great deal of success to be had by trying out some suggestions by people through the ages who have struggled with the same struggles you are. You don't have to sit still in order to meditate.
• Reading: definitely! Dig deep into philosophy, the arts, and comparative religion books. If you're truly struggling then grab a philosophy 101 book. See a person or topic of interest? Research them! Dig deeper and wander around to your heart's content.
• Painting: Color is powerful to the human psyche. Let go. Don't paint between the lines- make your OWN lines! Or better yet, don't let lines exist. Let the color flow.
• Write: keep a dream journal. Also, keep track of your process and progression by giving yourself a small writing assignment on topics as they come to mind. Some beginning topics can be "what I think about ____this____ religion or philosophy" and you can move on to other philosophies and schools of thought. Really though, any religion IS a school of thought. It has structure and confines; it is a school. You've got your mascots(crucifixes, Star of David, a moon and star, etc), your cheerleaders(clergy), and then you've got your students(parishioners). Can you stay within the confines of the school? Do you want to? What do you get out of it? Do you live in fear or do you live in love? You can also write reviews of books you've read and try to put into words your feelings about their ideas.

Gnosis isn't a school of thought, though. It's a process and a path. It rips the roof off the schoolhouse of literalism and turns the walls into dust. There are so many sects of gnosticism that one would think wars would have broken out though so many millenia. No, no wars and no Crusades of any sort. Gnostics don't kill non-gnostics. 

Gnosis is inclusive, not exclusive, unlike literalist religions or the confines of philosophies. Gnostics everywhere realize that we are all in various states of awakening and that we must respect that process in one another in order to respect that in our self. To expect change is to live your life to the fullest and that is what the good god wants for us- to live and learn.

So it's vitally important that you learn about the differences between various world religions and philosophies. The more educated you are the more information will naturally flow to you from the All. Connections will be made which you couldn't have expected. You'll think you visited a library in your dreams. Guess what? You did!

No question is left unanswered, even the big ones. He wants you to learn. He wants you to not live in ignorance but instead to live in love. To live in love you have to learn about love itself. This requires study. So consider yourself a student in the school of love. This does not mean you will never cry again. This simply means that you will learn to dissect this experience we call life and not take it for granted; to live IN THE MOMENT with our heart wide open to possibilities. We have the potential to learn so much from one another but if we can't even look each other in the eye then there is a lot of learning lost and thus, a lot of love lost.  

A simple exercise in love can be resolving to look everyone you walk past today in the eye and give them an acknowledging nod and smile. Gauge their reaction. Keep a mental tally of who smiles back at you and who does not. You'll learn quite a bit about our society today with just this one simply action.

Irenaeus wrote Against Heresies trying to rein in his flock of Christians for control of an empire. He repeatedly states, "they have not examined the Gospels..." thus creating a circular argument that leads NOWHERE. No one is wiser. No one knows any more about life or death than what is supposedly in those hand selected Gospels. The clergy hold the door handle to Heaven and Jehovah help you if you don't pay your tithe or eat the sacramental bread.

The answer is so easy. You already know it. You've always known it! It's there, right there inside that bright spark you hold dear: your conscience. It speaks to us every day. But the Eternal Truth is not so easily seen or heard when we have blinders on with the so-called reality we see every day around us. So we must study, pray, and listen. And then we learn how to love.

 

The Literal Truth

I don't agree with the last 30 seconds but it's still funnier than heck from an open-minded gnostic perspective. The last round is especially funny because of the sheer number of ways the quotes contradict themselves.

Lay Gnosis, Reiki, Etc. --Chadly's Comments

In responding to a Reader(Chadly) on some much earlier blog posts I found that our discussion was getting so long and convoluted Blogger kept nagging me about the length of my return comments. *smacks Blogger* If I want to write a book, damn it, then I will!

However, in deference to technology I decided to make it a bit more coherent and move it to the front for anyone else interested.{Here is a link to the video we're talking about.}

In response to my post on Intro To Lay Gnosis Chadly wrote:

"Personally, I always understood Pleroma to be more the Gnostic version of "Heaven". When I speak of the True God, I refer to "it" more as "First Thought" or "The All", maybe even "Mother/Father", etc.

I agree much with your early statements about dogmatic religion's prayers basically not reaching. Just curious though, what are your views of the more "progressive" religions/denominations, such as the more liberal Episcopals or the United Church of Christ? Those are the two most liberal I can think of, other than Unitarian-Universalism.

About to watch the video now. So far it seems an interesting concept. It does seem similar to me to witchcraft and the spellwork I've done, and I personally speculate that witchcraft(at least, as practiced by those of us who consider ourselves Gnostic Witches and Gnostic Druids) taps into the same energy/source, both internally and externally.

Addendum: I just watched the video, and I find it very fascinating. It actually does kind of remind me of what I know of Reiki. It also reminds me of a couple of practices I used to do when I first started down the metaphysical path, when I considered myself a Christian Witch, that I haven't done in awhile and may try to resume.

The first was a grounding technique to rid yourself of negative energy built up throughout the day. You ground yourself and visualize energy black in color(or whatever color you associate with the negative). Then, using your hands, you kind of "pick off" that energy and throw it out into the cosmos, replacing it gradually into a white energy field, or whatever color you most associate with "positive".

The second was a visualization technique to help in focus of energy during spells, where you make sort of an "energy ball" in between your hands, visualizing it as varying strengths and sizes as you develop your mental skills.

The reason this reminded me of those, is because of the interesting fact of simply how I learn. In learning new skills, I'm a visual learner, learning by copying others, which is why the language I learned quickest outside of English, was American Sign Language. In learning music, I learn by ear, hearing it and mimicking. But in both of these exercises previously mentioned, I would have a difficult time visualizing the energy and the colors, and find myself noticing the *feeling*,such as noticing tingling in my hands during the energy ball visualizations. In retrospect, maybe that's one of the reasons most of my spells tend to be mentally/emotionally focused and attempting to draw things to me(such as to improve my attitude or draw opportunities to me), rather than explicitly trying to change the external, such as making it rain.

Perhaps that's why I eventually grew lax in these exercises - I didn't think I was "doing it right" because what I expected to 'see', wasn't what happened. Perhaps now that I'm becoming more stable in my spiritual path, I'll revisit them."

I am responding back:

"Christian Witch. I like that. Yeah, I can identify with that. Makes sense. But only when you're still in that stage of development. Once you move past it then it is no longer witchcraft. There is no craft involved. It's you and Pleroma. That's it. You find all the energy coalescing into the one place it truly exists instead of separated out into various aspects like what witchcraft focuses on.

http://gnostic-unrest.blogspot.com/2009/11/celebrate-2012.html
Read the scripture quote in that entry. It helps identify somewhat the attitude of the 'hierarchy' of the totem pole I talked about. Difficult concept to wrap your brain around. It does takes time.

The All is heaven. It is the place and "person" of what created the elements our universe is made from. It is the primordial spark. First atom. The very atom which exploded into the Big Bang. Your term "First Thought" would be about right. Kudos!

Here's how I keep it straight: the All made the elements. Sophia made Yahweh and hid him, embarrassed because he was flawed. Yahweh wanted someone to play with and so he made our universe out of the elements already present. Yahweh didn't make any elements. He molded what Pleroma already created.

The more liberal Episcopalians are still reaching. And the UCC. They've got a ways to go. If they get there ... we'll see. It'll be interesting to see just how close they come to being Unitarian Universalists in a few decades. And speaking of Unitarian Universalism-- Wow. I was just thinking about writing an article on them yesterday afternoon! Sheesh. Quit picking my brain, man! I already had some literature sitting here waiting for me to compile. That's really funny.

Unitarian Universalism and Buddhism are, in their own unique ways, the absolute closest I can think of to gnosticism. Actually, I'd put (farthest to closest, top three:) Atheism, then Unitarian Universalism, and then Buddhism sitting closest to gnosticism. My explanation of Atheism is in this post. They're like... baby gnostics in cribs.

Buddhism comes closer because of the meditative practices and body/mind awareness techniques which are so essential for a lasting connection to Pleroma. UU is only one step further out because, yes, Jesus was a prophet imbued with gnosis and he wanted to pass it on to all of humanity(hence the laying on of hands and the Holy Ghost)- but we cannot prove that he was in (a literal sense) the Son of God as what literal religions would want us to belief with "faith." Gnosis has not a darn thing to do with faith. Because technically, so are you. You are the Son of God. And I am the Daughter of God. Clarification: Yahweh! And you and I are both the grand(or great grand) children of Pleroma.

The whole definition of "God" versus "Pleroma/All" is kinda nerve wrecking in the beginning. So I call Yahweh Yahweh and the All the All or Pleroma. Simplifies the whole "God" umbrella.

UU's cannon is in fact cannon-less. They are basically hippies high on gnosis. Which is what I LOVE! I've been curious how many UU churches I could find locally. I'll have to intensify my search so I can write about it. I'd really love to visit one.

Their rejection of Hell is one of the most interesting aspects of their ... creed. Even though they don't really have a creed, per say. Let's just say that it's a common enough thought pattern amongst the members that it's "Commonly Accepted and Recognized" by the UU. This rejection of Hell is a very common belief among gnostics. UU's may not call themselves gnostics but they are. The majority of their members are either on the fence about to be toppled over straight into gnosis or are already there but call themselves UU's instead of gnostics.

Nice to see that Arius managed to have a lasting legacy after being stomped on by the new formed Vatican. Poor man put up with a lot.

If you have performed Reiki then your hand is on the door handle of gnosis!! Literally. You are on the threshold about to walk through the door.

The light ball or static electricity you describe is very familiar to me. (Although when you have one dominant hand it can get a little tricky.) The life energy field we all share can be transferred and manipulated. Isn't it curious, though, how the Church refuses to acknowledge that Reiki is in fact the same action as laying-on of hands healing? They'd much rather perform an exorcism. Ya know... just in case it happens to be a demon instead of simple illness. Overkill.

I haven't explored traditional Reiki too much. But from what I've read in passing there is a "Secret Art of Inviting." Is this perhaps the touch of lay gnosis? As Steve's video shows, lay gnosis is communicable(oh my God it's catching!!! lol) and so transmittable not only by touch but by internet and sound.

Blessings to you,

~Angel

Obvious Paradoxes & Contradictions

The Sacrifice of Isaac by Caravaggio

In a discussion on the Atheist Camel's blog, an anonymous commenter made a few deductions which were so perfect I couldn't resist talking about it here.

The Atheist Camel's blog post was called Loving The One You Fear: The Peculiar Christian Dilemma. In it, Dromedary Hump points out the flawed and contradictory relationship literalist Christians have with their God. In essence, this is an abusive relationship.

Anonymous goes even deeper into the paradox saying,

"Do we love abusive parents too? I personally can't stand to read about a parent who abuses their own.

For example, would you build a playground for your kids, and than put a running chainsaw in the center?(garden of Eden).

Would you leave your toddler(s) alone in the neighborhood knowing that a drug pusher was going to try to convince your kids to do something forbidden?(Serpent in said garden).

Would you kill all your kids but one and his immediate family?(Noah).

Imagine two of your kids gave you a present. Would you tell one child how wonderful his present was, and tell the other what a piece of crap HIS present was?(Cain and Able)

How about this..... Your kids are having problems. So you instuct one child(Moses) to tell the other child (Pharaoh)to knock it off, or he will pay. In the mean time, you tell the other child NOT to listen to the first("and he harden the Pharaohs heart). Then, just for kicks you kill all the innocent first born in the second childs village to teach him a lesson!!! Man, that's one terrible dad!!

The last example(of many) is one of my all time favorites. You make a bet with your sworn enemy(Satan) that he can't shake the love of your best behaved child(Job). Your enemy tortures your kid to the point of death, destroys those he loves, and generally is a real terror to him. Well, your kid still loves you, and your enemy is proven wrong. But to what end? All that horror has made absolutly zero difference!! Your enemy is still your enemy, he hasn't changed, but your kid is scarred for life!! What a great parent!!!

Above all, don't forget the Xtian mantra "god gave us free will". Yeah, sure he did "love me or burn". That's not free will. Free will would be "believe in me and go to heaven", or "don't believe and go to heaven". They confuse freedom of choice with free will. Sorry, abusers don't give free will."

-- The Serpent Was Right

What are we $$paying$$ for?

Two days ago I was standing in the checkout line of Walmart and this seventy-something year old man in front of me was holding an armful of groceries. The usual. Fruit, meats, and toilet paper. He turned around to face me and said, "Honey, I'm going someplace where I won't need all this stuff. Bought and paid for."

Normally I don't engage in religious talk with people I don't know. Call me quiet, call me something of a lover of peace; I just don't think it's wise to do it very often. But I took the bait anyway. I was in a magnanimous mood and so I humored him. I replied, "Oh, you mean heaven?"

He said, "Yep! Jesus paid for it with His blood and I paid for it with accepting Jesus as my savior."

I took a deep breath and dared. Yes. I did. Maybe it was cruel of me to do so to a man who was probably on death's door anyway but I still opened my mouth. "Why would you have to pay for something that's already free?" I asked.

Naturally a quizzical look appeared on his face and after thinking a moment he said, "Because of Eve's sin. She sinned and so we've all sinned. We have to pay for that."

"Oh, I see. The sins of the parents passed down to the children and all that...." We both nodded in understanding one another. He seemed happy with that and said no more.

As I pondered this conversation further the next few days it became more and more clear to me that this was plain bullshit brainwashing of the demiurge. Come on now. Use your common sense. Why would a deity force children to pay for the sins of the parents? Isn't that cruel? It's like credit card companies calling to harass the family for payment on old debts of a deceased family member. Legally they cannot collect. But if the family wants to pay out of the generosity of their hearts it's not like the credit card companies would turn them down. Your debt is written off/washed away with your death. But not your debt to Yahweh. Eve sinned so you've got to make the sacrifice. Extract and lay down your brain at the door to dogmatic Christianity; free thinking isn't allowed.

Catholics Can't Say Yahweh Anymore?

On one hand I can understand the need to be a bit cautious about uttering the name of God-- if you believe that by uttering His name creation will be reversed, hellfire on earth, etc... etc... etc.... A name has power when you give it power, even if you're using a synonym. But this 2008 ruling of the Vatican also leaves me with an uneasy feeling of "just how PC can an organization become before slapping a "We Are PC" subtitle on their official logo?" (Besides, isn't that subtitle already taken by a certain software company?)

If the Pope did this to appease those who were appalled at uttering the name Yahweh, then shame on him. Now the freedom to say a deity's name doesn't exist any longer if you're Catholic. Congratulations, Catholics!

I'm expecting a 'leaked' report of the Vatican sending out a congratulatory letter to the Chinese any day now, for killing so many Falun Gong gnostics.

HYMNS-YAHWEH Aug-12-2008 (840 words) xxxn

No 'Yahweh' in songs, prayers at Catholic Masses, Vatican rules

By Nancy Frazier O'Brien
Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- In the not-too-distant future, songs such as "You Are Near," "I Will Bless Yahweh" and "Rise, O Yahweh" will no longer be part of the Catholic worship experience in the United States.

At the very least, the songs will be edited to remove the word "Yahweh" -- a name of God that the Vatican has ruled must not "be used or pronounced" in songs and prayers during Catholic Masses.

Bishop Arthur J. Serratelli of Paterson, N.J., chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Divine Worship, announced the new Vatican "directives on the use of 'the name of God' in the sacred liturgy" in an Aug. 8 letter to his fellow bishops.

He said the directives would not "force any changes to official liturgical texts" or to the bishops' current missal translation project but would likely have "some impact on the use of particular pieces of liturgical music in our country as well as in the composition of variable texts such as the general intercessions for the celebration of the Mass and the other sacraments."

John Limb, publisher of OCP in Portland, Ore., said the most popular hymn in the OCP repertoire that would be affected was Dan Schutte's "You Are Near," which begins, "Yahweh, I know you are near."

He estimated that only "a handful" of other OCP hymns use the word "Yahweh," although a search of the OCP Web site turned up about a dozen examples of songs that included the word.

OCP is a nonprofit publisher of liturgical music and worship resources.

Limb said the company would be contacting composers to "ask them to try to come up with alternate language" for their hymns. But he said hymnals for 2009 had already been printed, so the affected hymns would not include the new wording for at least another year.

Even when the new hymnals are out, "it may take time for people to get used to singing something different," he added in an Aug. 11 telephone interview with Catholic News Service.

At Chicago-based GIA Publications, another major Catholic publisher of hymnals, no major revisions will be necessary, because of the company's longtime editorial policy against use of the word "Yahweh."

Kelly Dobbs-Mickus, senior editor at GIA Publications, told CNS Aug. 11 that the policy, which dates to 1986, was based not on Vatican directives but on sensitivity to concerns among observant Jews about pronouncing the name of God. As an example, she cited Heinrich Schutz's "Thanks Be to Yahweh," which appears in a GIA hymnal under the title "Thanks Be to God."

Bishop Serratelli said the Vatican decision also would provide "an opportunity to offer catechesis for the faithful as an encouragement to show reverence for the name of God in daily life, emphasizing the power of language as an act of devotion and worship."

His letter to bishops came with a two-page letter from the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments, dated June 29 and addressed to episcopal conferences around the world.

"By directive of the Holy Father, in accord with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, this congregation ... deems it convenient to communicate to the bishops' conferences ... as regards the translation and the pronunciation, in a liturgical setting, of the divine name signified in the sacred Tetragrammaton," said the letter signed by Cardinal Francis Arinze and Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith, congregation prefect and secretary, respectively.

The Tetragrammaton is YHWH, the four consonants of the ancient Hebrew name for God.

"As an expression of the infinite greatness and majesty of God, it was held to be unpronounceable and hence was replaced during the reading of sacred Scripture by means of the use of an alternate name: 'Adonai,' which means 'Lord,'" the Vatican letter said. Similarly, Greek translations of the Bible used the word "Kyrios" and Latin scholars translated it to "Dominus"; both also mean Lord.

"Avoiding pronouncing the Tetragrammaton of the name of God on the part of the church has therefore its own grounds," the letter said. "Apart from a motive of a purely philological order, there is also that of remaining faithful to the church's tradition, from the beginning, that the sacred Tetragrammaton was never pronounced in the Christian context nor translated into any of the languages into which the Bible was translated."

The two Vatican officials noted that "Liturgiam Authenticam," the congregation's 2001 document on liturgical translations, stated that "the name of almighty God expressed by the Hebrew Tetragrammaton and rendered in Latin by the word 'Dominus,' is to be rendered into any given vernacular by a word equivalent in meaning."

"Notwithstanding such a clear norm, in recent years the practice has crept in of pronouncing the God of Israel's proper name," the letter said. "The practice of vocalizing it is met with both in the reading of biblical texts taken from the Lectionary as well as in prayers and hymns, and it occurs in diverse written and spoken forms," including Yahweh, Jahweh and Yehovah.

END

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From a gnostic point of view, this little tidbit written about the hypocrisy of American politics made me cringe six different ways. I could tear that former papal aid's arguments apart but honestly, I hate American politics myself. So I'd only end up spouting a history book worth of comparative instances in which the Roman Catholic Church has been just as hypocritical. Not worth it. The 'net is full of that stuff. I'd spend days copy/pasting it and I've got more enlightening things to accomplish besides retelling two thousand years of blood-spilled treachery since the beginning of the papacy.

Part 1 of Gnostic Defininitions

Aeons??! Who are they? What are they? And who the heck is Sophia? I never heard of her in my Sundays School class as a child.

When I first began to delve within gnostic texts there were so many confusing new terms to learn I thought I'd go nuts. Gnostic literature is entrenched in metaphor and pseudonyms to both distance the reader from the question of "who is the author?" and grab their attention concerning the real meaty substance of their writing. A double edged sword, really.

This rampant use of metaphor, personification, directional paradox, and other literary tools confound most beginners. They think they're reading riddles which are purposely created to drive them insane. Gnostic writing is another language and flavor of communication altogether than what modern readers are accustomed to. Equate it with elaborate poetry; something which takes time and patience in order to unravel. Think it's another language? You're right. Most terms are, coincidentally, in Greek. That is the difficult thing to consign yourself to. There is studying involved in the search for gnosis.

I'd like to put together some simplified definitions and examples of basic concepts in gnosticism. There are variations within different sects and even within time frames between gnostic text authors. Once these main ideas are learned and well thought out, real gnosis begins. So yes, you are reading words based in the Greek language. But only because that is where the written ideas began to take shape on paper.... er.. papyrus. You're reading about a completely different way of thinking. And this demands a different discipline of the mind. So relax... and get ready for your brain to be twisted into a knot. I promise it'll be worth it.

Gnosis: Knowledge. To know. To explore learning. Insight. Intuition. Intuitive reasoning. Enlightenment. Knowledge via contemplation.

Gnostic: Person who pursues gnosis. Because of the radical anti-Nicene views of gnostics this has led to quite a bit of trouble for them through the centuries. Dubbed as heretics by the Vatican and often pursued for trial, even today.

Proto(first)-Gnostics: Valentinus, Philo, Basilides, Simon Magus, Cerinthus. Menander of Antioch, Zostrianos, early Sethian leaders, Ptolemy, Heracleon, Mary Magdalen, John the Evangelist, Jesus Christ, St. Paul, Plato .... and dozens more. Too many to name. Many of them were philosophers you've seen and heard of all your life. They all have connections to one another in some way. A great many of them even wrote to one another. And as you can tell from that eclectic list several of these were martyred for their beliefs.

Later Gnostic Leaders: the prophet Mani, St. Augustine of Hippo(until he turned tail and decided he wanted to be a bishop of the Christian Church instead), and the in-hiding leaders of the Manichean, Sethian, Archontic, Basilidean, Cerdonina, and Valentinian sects. After the third century announcing you were a gnostic was akin to putting a neon Shoot Me sign on your forehead. By the fourth century all gnostic books were banned and gnostic meetings were illegal. In the Roman Empire such religious leanings were met with a death penalty. There are many other sects of gnosticism. This list is by no means complete. For example: William Blake is a known gnostic. However he was a cryptic one. A closet gnostic.

Pleroma: Greek, meaning "the fullness." The totality of divine powers. The Divine Principal. The good god. The one who is incomparable and incomprehensible. The All. The one who made the elements that the universe is made from but not the one who made the universe itself. He did not give it form. He simply exists as The All.

Yahweh/God/Jehovah/demiurge/the arrogant one: the Judeo-Christian God described in the New Testament who said in Exodus, "for I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God." The child of Sophia and the grandchild of pleroma. The one who formed the universe from the elements pleroma made. Also known as the "half-maker" because he had taken the divine substance and fashioned out of it a world. He is the spiritual being who had become forgetful of his origins, even of the ultimate God. He thinks that he is God and there is no other God before him.

Archons: servants of the demiurge. False rulers. The angels and demons of the Old Testament. The lures and distractions of this material world.

Sophia: Greek for "wisdom." This female personality is a bit tricky to pin down. In some Eastern Orthodox Christian sects she is seen as the Virgin Mary. In some gnostic texts she is also known as Eve, in that she was duped or made a mistake which lead to the flaws and separation of man from God. In others she is described as the female child of the Divine Principal. There are correlations between these variations but some are subtle while others are more blatant. The cross over from the Christian tradition into the Gnostic tradition is that "Eve" was the first female child of a god and so was Sophia. Both gave birth. Sophia's childbirth was virginal whereas Eve's was not. So this calling Sophia "Eve" is more of a half-truth based descriptive, merely letting readers know that Sophia was The First of her kind.

The gnostic Sophia was formed out of the mind of The All. Sophia then makes a decision to do some action(text explanations vary widely) and in the process of attempting this, she creates the demiurge(God/Yahweh). Embarrassed, and fearing reprisals from The All, she hides Him away in a void all by himself. God, thinking he's all alone and the only god in existence creates the earth and heavens as well as human beings to worship Him. That's the extremely short and sweet version.

Aeons: emanations of The All. In the various systems these emanations are differently named, classified, and described, but the emanation theory itself is common to all forms of Gnosticism. They are described as existing in layers(like an onion) between human beings and The All. Complex hierarchies of Aeons are thus produced, sometimes to the number of thirty. These Aeons belong to the purely ideal, noumenal, intelligible, or supersensible world; they are immaterial, they are hypostatic ideas. Together with the source from which they emanate they form the Pleroma ("region of light"). The lowest regions of the Pleroma are closest to the darkness—that is, the physical world.

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In the Letter of Peter to Philip, Peter is relating a mystic occurrence on the Mount of Olivet in which the spirit of Jesus appeared to teach them.

On The Deficiency of the Aeons:

"To begin with, concerning the deficiency of the aeons, this is the deficiency. When the disobedience and the foolishness of the mother(Sophia) appeared, without the command and majesty of the father, she wanted to set up eternal realms. When she spoke, the arrogant one(demiurge) followed. But when she left behind a portion, the arrogant one grabbed it, and it became a deficiency. This is the deficiency of the aeons.

"When the arrogant one took a portion, he sowed it. He placed powers and authorities over it, and he confined it within the mortal realms. All the powers of the world rejoiced that they had been brought forth. But they do not know the preexistent father, since they are strangers to him. Rather, he was given power, and they served him and praised him.

"But the arrogant one grew proud because of the praise of the powers. He was jealous and wanted to make an image in place of an image and a form in place of a form. He assigned the powers within his authority to mold mortal bodies. And they came into being from a misrepresentation of the appearance."

On Fighting The Rulers, Peter relays:

The messengers worshiped again, saying, "Lord, tell us, how shall we fight against the rulers, since the rulers are over us?"

A voice called out to them from the appearance, saying, "You must fight against them like this, for the rulers fight against the inner person. You must fight against them like this: come together and teach salvation in the world with a promise. And arm yourselves with my father's power, and express your prayer, and surely the father will help you, as he helped you by sending me. Do not be afraid. I am with you forever, as I already said to you when I was in the body."

(Deficiency is also synonymous in gnostic texts with "smallness" or "pettiness.")

Tree of Life

Since I was first old enough to read and comprehend the Bible from cover to cover there has always been something which upset me in Genesis. Gnosticism answers this question for me in such a way that while it makes sense, it also gives an example of the kind of simplicity which can be used to understand(and decode) the rest of the mysterious oxymoronic whims of the Bible's writers. Especially its editors and compilers.

The Tree of Life was placed in the Garden of Eden... why?

Literal/dogmatic Christians answer this question making a grand assumption. They say, "it was placed there to tempt humans to see if they were worthy of God's love." This answer worked for oh.. the first ten years of my life. After that it began to taste a bit sour. The reason is that I couldn't believe God would want to do something so vile to his own children. It's like leaving a book of matches out for a ten year old to find. Damn straight they're going to play with them!!

Adam and Eve were simple. They lived simply. They supposedly had no desires or needs beyond eating, naming animals and plants, and playing. But when Big Daddy puts a pretty tree smack in the middle of their playground and says, "Touch it and you'll die" what do you think they did? They did what any curious child would do. They circled it. Looked at it. Touched it. Trying to discern what was so special about it that their God didn't want them to know.

Gnostics' take on the Tree of Life is simple: God couldn't control what happened or what was created in Eden because it was a reflection of himself. ("I made humans in the image of myself.") Therefore the Tree of Life was created and the only thing He could do was warn his children away from it. What, he couldn't destroy it? Why not? And why wouldn't He? Answer: Eden is a reflection of what He is and therefore the Tree reflects a certain aspect of God at that age-- flawed concerning knowledge of surroundings and Himself in the grand scheme of the universe. He can't see past his own nose.

Think about it. What did the fruit do? It opened Adam and Eve's eyes to see their bodies and surroundings in new ways. God hobbled his two children with blindness. Why? For what purpose? Why would a father do such a thing to his children? This is the reason why Gnostics call the demiurge(God/Yahweh) "the arrogant one." He made humans to be a science project. He wanted someone to worship him. Then the guinea pigs got their eyes opened and saw the cage they were in. Darn! So naturally He does what any pissed off narcissist does: he threw them out of His playground. "You don't want to play right ... so go! Leave. Scram. Get out of here!"

And from then on humans have looked toward God with more fear than love.

A lighter, more humorous way to see just how out of control the demiurge's powers of creation are: look at the platypus.


What in the world was He thinking when he made that bizarre animal? A poisonous beaver/duck whose young lick it's mother's milk off its fur instead of from a teat. And whoever said all duckies were sweet, innocent little creatures should have their head examined. True story: I had my pants pulled down by a duck when I was five years old in a park because I wasn't feeding it fast enough. Evil little bastards.

Songs of Solomon, Song 4

Make note of which words are not capitalized and also of line four, which speaks of the age of certain beings.

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Oh my god, no one can seize your holy place
nor alter it, for no one has such power.
You designed your sanctuary before you drew the world.
What is older will not be undone by the younger.
You gave your heart to your believers, O lord,
and will not stumble or be fruitless.

One hour of your faith is more precious than all days and years.
Who can feel pain by wearing your grace?
Your seal is known. Creatures know it.
Archangels are robed in it.
You gave your fellowship. Not you, but we, were in need.
Distill your dews upon us.
Open your rich fountains and let milk and honey pour out.
You hold back nothing that you promise
and know the ends and give freely
so that you might withdraw and give us again.
You know all, god, and from the beginning fix order.
And you, O lord, make all things.

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"What is older will not be undone by the younger."
So what the demiurge tries to do (persuade you away from looking deeper into yourself and instead fixating on His pointless rituals) will never sway pleroma from doing what he wishes, which is to draw you closer and teach you everything you could possibly wish. The arrogant son will not undue what the father is or has done, no matter how hard He tries to convince himself otherwise.

Want to test this out? Ask a preacher, chaplain, priest, rabbi, minister, or any other church cleric exactly why yoga or eastern meditation techniques are considered blasphemous. The answers you get will astound you. Probably make you develop a permanent eye twitch if you're especially sensitive. The resounding answer I have always gotten was, "keep your eyes on the Lord and you will not falter." Ask for clarification and they reply, "God already knows you. You don't have to look inside yourself any more." And then they generally repeat themselves, going in circles.

That's the nice version.

The not-so-nice version response is, "yoga is a path to Hell and damnation." Asking for further clarification on exactly how physical movement in certain combinations will send me to Hell I get a response of, "it opens you to the devil." And again, there is no clear answer given. Simply that I will go to Hell for doing a Downward Dog, Sun Salutation, or Balancing Stick pose. Even most modern clerics still believe that to do yoga requires you to swear faith to other gods, that Buddha is worshiped as a god, and that henna is the mark of the devil. Not true. Eastern mysticism is steeped in lore and therefore the stories are interpreted as metaphors for life and death, Buddha is simply a wise man, and henna is a purification/beautification ritual. A little bit of research would have made this all clear. But since research on such topics is taboo (lest the devil tempt you, of course) then such things will never be understood by such people. Like the Tree of Life in the garden of Eden, knowledge is EVIL!!!

Dogmatic church clerics typically have a more elaborate answer regarding why meditation is evil. "You'll be visited by demons and spirits who will try to sway you from the Lord." Then they yammer on and on about cults and their poison Kool-Aid drinking suicide pacts. My argument has always been, "If I'm looking inside myself and I see demons doesn't that mean I'm already damned? And what if I see something more beautiful than anything I've every seen anywhere else?" Frowns and then a confused blinking usually ensues. They don't get the connection. And they won't. They want to see us as sinners. It keeps them in their positions of power and influence.

Conflict

And Jesus said, "Whoever has come to understand the world has found only a corpse, and whoever has found a corpse is superior to the world." ~Gospel of Thomas, 56

I think it quite sad such a corpse exists if only to taunt us with its marvels and color. And aren't we marvels in and of ourselves? How can we not find such beauty appealing in its diversity? Donning such darkly tinted glasses to see the world for what it truly is feels suffocating at times. I know this is necessary, however. Keeping your eyes toward the Good God means looking at a different kind of beauty; this beauty is the very definition of Pleroma(fullness).

Looking at a view such as the picture above I feel a conflicted sense of awe. Is it wrong to feel thankful for such a sight? To revel in it, even if for a short while?

I suppose the only optimistic way to look at this situation is that Pleroma was capable of having a grandchild(of a sort) with such artistic abilities. And we wouldn't be here except through His shortsightedness and arrogance. If Yahweh is such a small fraction of Pleroma, then trying to envision what The All is in all it's complete capacity is beyond the scope of us mere mortals. We'd become so drunk it'd fry our brains. I can think of worse ways to meet my maker.