Evangelism through Peace

Ted Nottingham has been researching the Perennial Wisdom for decades.  He has studied in United States and Europe and been involved in several spiritual practices. The Holy Spirit had him working as a pastor in the Disciples of Christ church, studying G. I. Gurdjieff, living with Alphonse and Rachel Goettmann the Christian mystics who ultimately  lead him to the Orthodox path.

Along the way he has created many books and videos that document his path of spiritual study.  

This excerpt from an interview with a 4th Way Gurdjieff group gives us a very good view of Nottingham’s outlook.

“Students who reject any relationship between Fourth Way teachings and spiritual wisdom are generally focused on personal power and elitism. That is a dead end as is clearly demonstrated by the state of being of many such persons.

The Work is not for the elite (the word esoteric means inner not secret), but for anyone who has a sincere desire to reach connected with a deeper part of themselves that opens on to encounter with that which is greater than themselves. Emotional healing and purification, self-transcendence,
conscious effort, awakening from sleep are the birthright of all who "hunger and thirst" for Truth and right action in the world.”

http://www.katinkahesselink.net/sufi/ginterviewo.html

Nottingham gives us a glimpse of how he has put his inner study to practical work in the recently released video Unlocking the Door, which contains the audio portion of a sermon he delivered reveals another side of Nottingham’s powerful grasp of the Scriptures as well as perennialist vision of Christ.

     

He says that in the Gospel of John “...peace I give you and I send you…” revises The

Great Commission of Matthew to go forth and evangelize .  Your personal peace found in an inner relationship with God transforms the world. It is the  mystical “peace that no one [intellectually] understands” or which is beyond ordinary comprehension but is obtainable through spiritual work. It is then passed on by breathing or infusing your peace into others thus beginnings of new Evangelism in the end enlarging salvation to include a living illumination.

Video here:

http://tinyurl.com/y2h3pc7f

Facing the New Rome

On March 2, 2019 Richard Rohr posted this:

“Paul offers a theological and ontological foundation for human dignity and human flourishing that is inherent, universal, and indestructible by any evaluation of race, religion, gender, sexuality, nationality, class, education, or social position. He does this at a time when perhaps four out of five people were slaves, women were considered the property of men, temple prostitution was a form of worship, and oppression and wholesale injustice toward the poor and the outsider were the norm. Into this corrupt and corrupting empire Paul shouts, ‘One and the same Spirit was given to us all to drink!’ (1 Corinthians 12:13). (Then) Paul levels the playing field: ‘You, all of you, are sons and daughters of God, now clothed in Christ, where there is no distinction between male or female, Greek [Pagan] or Jew, slave or free, but all of you are one in Christ Jesus’ (Galatians 3:26-28). ‘You are the very temple of God” (1 Corinthians 3:16-17).’ “

When Rohr writes, “Into this corrupt and corrupting empire Paul shouts…”  Paul by way of our author is talking to us in our time. We are confronted with the great corruption of the Globalist world atheist order that is forcing an aggressive materialism on the nations of the world. Not unlike Ancient Rome today billionaires and oligarchs lurk in the shadows with their lurid agenda in their hands.

Read more about Fr Richard Rohr:

www.cac.org    

Creation Spirituality

Some thirty years ago when we were studying the sources of the Perennial Wisdom we found Matthew Fox a Roman Catholic author who was not very popular with the hierarchy of his faith.  He suffered expulsion from the Church over his belief in Creation Spirituality a form of the Philosophia Perennis which sees Christ in everything. He is now a Episcopalian priest and also has a foundation to study the idea of panentheism a belief also found in Richard Rohr’s work.  

In a recent post Rohn said the following, “the Apostle Paul merely took incarnationalism to its universal and logical conclusions. We see that in his bold exclamation: “There is only Christ. He is everything and he is in everything” (Colossians 3:11). If I were to write that today, people would call me a pantheist (the universe is God), whereas I am really a panentheist (God lies within all things, but also transcends them), as were both Jesus and Paul.”

This is the sort of bold talk that lead to the expulsion of Matthew Fox.  Yet as people continue to stand up for the Cosmic Christ and his omnipresence we can move Christendom towards the New Covenant.  

Robert Rohr   www.cac.org

Matthew Fox  www.matthewfox.org

Fr Richard Rohr Perennial Christian

Since the 1980’s when we first started publishing articles about the Perennial Philosophy the topic has gained a great deal of attention.  This is a very good development.  Many people have written about the Philosophia Perennis or have referenced it in their work while others have clearly used the worldview of perennialism as a framework to write in.  

One author and religious leader is  Richard Rohr,  (born 1943),  is an American author, spiritual writer, and Franciscan friar based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He was ordained  in the Roman Catholic Church in 1970.  His Center for Action and Contemplation has many educational and spiritual activities and emails regular updates to subscribers.  His messages are Christian meditations which are decidedly perennial in nature.

Recently he made the statement, “Long before Jesus’ personal Incarnation, Christ was deeply embedded in all things—as all things!”. Of course this is the very heart of the perennialist analysis of Lord Christ as a cosmic eternal being who is timeless and was always here.  He wasn’t just a “one-off” phenomena often depicted by some of the “Bible school” adherents who insist on the Jewish Messiah theory.  

Fr Rohr’s daily readings can be accessed at:

  www.cac.org  

The Sign

                                                                                               

"Christ Appears to Mary Magdalene" by Albert Pinkham Ryder, 1847-1917

The Sacred Art of Numbers

Numbers at Play

Numbers are a special group of symbols. They were created in the Beginning as all symbols were but numbers serve a unique function.

The meaning of many symbols has become encrypted with cultural and other protocols so they are obscured to all but the initiated. Number, however, do have a more universal quality about them that allows them to cross cultural and temporal barriers.

Numbers have a special place in our history and in our spirit. The Bible contributes and entire section, The Book of Numbers, to the subject of numbers. It is filled with a plethora of Holy formulas, relationship, and accountings all expressed in numbers.

The Hebrew tradition is greatly indebted to the study and application of numbers. The Hebrew alphabet is concurrently an expression of letters and numbers that are at times used in tandem and at other times used separately.

In one form or another numbers have been used as long as we can understand the history of people. But for our purposes perhaps the greatest philosopher of numbers was the Greek scholar Pythagoras. Likely born on the island of Samos near Ionia in about 570 B.C. (the exact date is not known) he lived and taught for about 70 years. He is considered the father of number theory.

Joscelyn Godwin writes, “Pythagoras...in his emphasis on Number...revealed the secret without which modern technology would have been impossible. It is applied mathematics, after all, that has led to the so-called conquest of Nature. But at the same time, and much more importantly, Pythagoras taught the metaphysical and sacred aspect of Number as reflecting the One and its emanations.”

It is the metaphysical aspects of numbers that are the basis for numerology and cartomancy which is the study of how numbers relate to humans and their condition. This study of numbers was know in Biblical times and before. The work of Pythagoras helped us to understand the cosmic aspects of numbers as they relate to heaven and nature.

Modern man rudely uses numbers only in their counting function or as a shorthand language to express concepts. David Fideler writes of Pythagoras, “What we do know is that a metaphysical philosophy of Number lay at the heart of his thought and teaching permeating...even the domains of psychology, ethics and political philosophy.” He continues, “Pythagorean understanding of Number is quite different from the predominately quantitative understanding of today. For the Pythagorean, Number is a living, qualitative reality which must be approached in an experiential manner. Whereas the typical modern usage of number is as a sign, to denote a specific quantity or amount, the Pythagorean usage is not, in a sense, even a usage at all: Number is not something to be used; rather, its nature is to be discovered.”

These days we have stripped numbers down to their barest utilitarian elements causing these symbols to be viewed as a token that stands in for something we are counting. This minimalist “counting function” pervades the thinking of nearly everyone and deprives people of the vastly larger carrying capacity that numbers have for storing data.

If we can understand that all thing come from the One which is the unity, while Two opens up duality and conflict but the possibility of knowledge then we can begin to comprehend a larger role for numbers particularly those from 1 to 10. The data stored in number symbols is enormous. However, it takes a mind open to metaphor and allegory to peek inside and view the secrets that numbers hold.

Quotations from:

“Pythagorean Sourcebook and Library”, David Fideler editor, 1987

More about symbols: Click Here

Illustration: "Numbers at Play", 4"x4", Ink on paper, A Ann Reif, 2013

You can buy my book, The Other Road Ahead, by clicking HERE

 

 The Other Road

This road is about travel however it is not a straight line Interstate Highway where you can get somewhere very fast but not see anything interesting. Nope. It is an elliptical narrative like driving a country road with many twists, turns, side trips, and roadside attractions of hidden knowledge, ancient wisdom, and magic. It will build your spirit one daily stop at a time.

contact:   theotherroadahead@pm.me

The Symbol as Superluminal Potentia

Circles

Symbols are ubiquitous. They are the dynamic relationship between the way we organize thoughts and Creation. If there is a seen and unseen world existing together the function of symbols is to inform us about our world and mediate the interface between the two worlds.

There would be no understanding of the unseen world of Creation without the use of symbols from the seen world. This principle is elucidated by Paul in Romans 1:20 but is admittedly an older if not universal rule of the ancients.

Concurrently there would be no understanding of the seen world without the same tools, albeit, applied in different ways. Symbols can stand alone only in potentia which permits them to move seamlessly between material and non-material forms.

Symbols are the lattice work of thought-forms which give us an understanding of the material world and a glimpse into the workings of the unseen world. The “symbol” in its unpolished form is without meaning unless it is attached to (or corresponds to) some aspect of Creation.

The “symbol” then has an extremely high harmonic potential that is designed to carry meaning back and forth between the non-material world, the visible world, and the human mind. It is a malleable instrument that can be shaded to obtain the proper level of resonance for the recipient. This scalable property is what accounts for the individual understanding of similar phenomena in different ways.

Yet in the same manner the “symbol” must be filtered (or defined) and ultimately be “collapsed” by each individual in order for that person to have a usable bit of information. The filtration process is supplied by culture, memory, and history.

While a new target phenomenon may be external to the individual it will be quickly wrapped with immediate resonating symbolism until such time has elapsed when a more useful or specific set of symbols can be acquired. Ultimately this process should lead to an adequate constellation of meaning to satisfy the individual and his needs while the essential dynamic nature of the symbol remains in tact awaiting a harmonic change.

In the example of a simple circle or O we know that it implies many sets of meaning. A zero indicating “nothing”, a circle meaning the “whole”, a void, a numerical place-hold, or a round thing that rolls like a automobile tire. A symbol can carry an enormous amount of data that can be accessed and refined by the human mind into a specific meaning set.

But the transferability of meaning is nearly fantastic in nature. Not only can a symbol carry great amounts of data but it can switch meaning sets instantaneously. The symbolic circle being utilized by an individual in Nebraska as a zero can at the same time be used as a disk by a person in Azerbaijan and then switched from one to another or modified instantaneously. This superluminal property of the symbol is in continuous use and must be seen as intrinsic to consciousness.

If we view the “symbol” as a superluminal potentia capable of carrying vast amounts of data over unknown distances then the controversy over symbols as cultural construction versus psychological phenomena is eased. For instance, if this universe began with a divine movement combined with the voice of God calling energy into existence, then we are understanding these actions with symbols embedded in our consciousness that came from the beginning or before and are still carrying information now. Therefore, the interval between then and now is nil as an instantaneous transfer of data continues through the dynamic symbol set understood as Creation.

This may not completely open the door to a resolution of parallelism but I think it does crack open a portal. It may not solve certain theological issues but may be valuable in areas from theurgy to quantum computing.

Symbols as Superluminal Potentia

David S Reif
On this day of Epiphany 2013

Illustration: "Circles", ink on paper, 4"x4", A. Ann Reif

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