“As far as I know,it is perfectly possible that the entire outer world,
everything that I perceive, including my own body, could be an
hallucination or a delusion generated by some diabolical creator.”
Renè Descares.
Well, isn`t that special – as the Church Lady in Dana Carvey`s guise would say in glee. As far as I know also, this is a good run away from the absentism discussed by the Deists; closer to the claustrophobic metaphysics of Matrix and other pop-cultural phenomena. Not that I am going to drag the rather idealistic (with regards to thinking and the inspection of naval-lent, sorry, introspection and analysis of epistemological, ontological and cognitive phenomenon which Descartes, as well as most of his critics, represented) philosopher involuntarily, and probably kicking and screaming, into such company… just observe how this bit of suggestion from Descartes fits in both in the conspiracy ruckus and how worse it fits with the entire “holotropic” theorem which is based in conjecture that anything which can be thought, imagined or in any way construed by the mind or the senses – must be real and must necessarely exist; that is to say – the psychoanalytical tail to this quotation is how such existence, if delusional, is directly associated with a diabolical creator. To a certain type of conservative thinker you can`t get more at odds with the values which apparently our entire civilization for the last three centuries has been sustained to preserve – and hence could well prove as yet another example of the “infection” of Gnosticism into Modernity.
And here I waste my time and your time and probably generated hits for both Conservative, Gnosticism and Modernity by mentioning them in the same paragraph… my point being that if you just attend classes for the Examen Philosophicum (my particular class was thaught by Jostein Gaarder.. I was sidetracked enough and at 18 I was trying to “multitask” thought-processes which would provoke migraine in adepts.. oh well) you get exposed to these thoughts and get the sense that there are a pattern in education, in literature, history, public debate and “inner” personal orientation.
Incredibly, the two questions “What is real?” and “how do I know anything is real?”- on one hand, attracts certain types of young persons, such as myself, to both philosophy and fantastical literature (science-fiction etc.) – and on the other hand it repulses, almost violently, another type, usually older and more experienced. The former lacks skills in critical and deductive thinking, which they may _repair_ from such experiences and experiments presented to them in the form of ever expanding and far reaching riddles and challenges; the latter appears to be somewhat condition by fear for the self-same.
It`s difficult to anyone who haven`t had one – to understand what is involved with an hallucination. If you have experienced hallucinations, however, even without sophisticated language, you can maneuvre yourself through an inquiry concerning the reality of reality, the illusionary nature of illusionary things (…) and mental, emotional and cognitive projections/imagining.
Moreover, Descartes touches the touchy area of the outer and inner – in discussing the outer, as the phenomenal world; the physical world, that world in which we are at leisure to pull everything and anything apart – suggested, for a jest, that it is plausible that it (the entire outer world, including _my_ body) is all the production of the inner; to wit, the diabolical creator, having a delusion or suffering a hallucination. That is not a flattering treatment of either the creation nor the creator, I know – but it also demonstrates that the same reasoning which appears to be somewhat valid in conventional Christian theology and thinking, at least from Augustine and later the Thomists onwards – could and was put into use by such as did not subscribe to the same diagnosis of the situation; with the world, with the mind, with the phenomenal and mental/psychological universe of objects and subjects – or with the hidden or revealed source of it all.
Author Archives: Terje
Last Day on the Job
I am now in the progress of packing up and leaving the Zoological Museum in Oslo. Its been a pleasant, interesting stay. A lot of work, a lot of research; a lot of hours in front of a monitor… I am onto better things, I suppose.
1st Anniversary of my Ordination
I was ordained Deacon for the ministry of the Church of Gnosis (Ecclesia Gnostica) by Most Revd. Bishop Stephan A.Hoeller (Tau Stephanus) on Saturday the 2nd August 2003, which coincided with the Eglise Gnostique Apostolique`s Comemoration of the death of the French Mystic and healer Nizier Anthelme Philippe (1849-1905), called Maistre Philippe of Lyons by friends, admirers and for posterity- and the Anglo-Catholic celebration of Lammas.
At that time I had participated in the sacramental ministry for 8 years, not actually contemplating entering the Diaconate, since while I felt privileged to assist Revd.Jan Valentin Saether at the altar, and to be able to serve in that capacity, I had some doubts about how I would be able to attend to the duties and qualifications which follows the ancient charge of the Deacon.
I do not, generally, consider myself a person whose gifts outweighs his flaws – it is not a situation I am proud of, but I must humbly admit I am making a sincere bid at doing the best I can. I have confidence in God`s mercy, his forgiveness, grace and providence – and that all such wondrous and apparently “absurd” blessings are given to men and women without any prejudice and without any qualification of their own. I also have confidence in the Apokatastasis Panthon, and that within that restauration of all beings into their origin in God lays the clearest answer we can ever get to the meaning and nature of life itself; while the former is a qualified and shared belief within the Church, the latter is a private admission of faith/confidence/orientation. I am not about to attempt to negotiate with anyone that they should subscribe to the same, but it does explain some of my reluctance at embracing the symbols and attire of sacrosanct priesthood: If I believe in the intervention and mediation of mortal men and women, on behalf of the Son, at the command of the Father, in communion with The Holy Spirit – and moreover believe as I do (I am not afraid of using that word, or any other), the question concerning the disposition and qualification of the servants suggests itself again and again. I can only act, live and interiorily pray through life – alas, that I should be worthy, or rather, equipped to participate in this Great Work.
Books im reading …9
Milorad Pavic: The Dictionary of the Khazars. Male edition. (in Norwegian)
I took this book with me on the holidays, in the Southeast of Sweden (Aamaal and Stensvik), on the hunch that I could leisurely withdraw to a few pages now and then, and by that draw some concussed wisdom from it. I have read that book before and got the impression that it was full of beautiful stories which were just a few years of life-experience away from me when I read it (at 19 years of age). Presently I can report that 12 years werent that much of a help. I am not going to slaughter Pavic’s obviously masterful and inventive work, rather I feel like apologizing for my inability to concentrate. In the introduction the author proposes a deal where he would finish his writing before his dinner, so as to suppress the obvious tendency for authors to drown his reader in exaggerated detail, circumscribing style and other literary obsessions – while his reader would read each portion after digesting his dinner, so as to be prepared to be patient and prepared for whatever remains of the selfsame in the text. The Dictionary of the Khazars is a honest fabrication, which distinguishes it, along with Umberto Eco’s parodical novel Foucault’s Pendulum – from tiring and dishonest tripe such as Dan Brown’ s DaVinci Code (which I am sure to lambast one of these days, when I feel prepared to do so).
Among the circumstances which recommends the Khazars as a chosen topic of investigation are the fact that although they have been given much attention, especially in regards to Semittic and Slavic studies, and the interrelationship between indigenous East European and Russian tribes and the important Jewish demographic in the same areas – they are indisputeably still an enigma or a mystery to the selfsame scholars and researchers. For those with little or no grasp of the aforesaid areas of the humanities, even more so. In some sense the inhabitants of Khazaria for us is as exotic as the improbable but ponderable citizens of ancient Tløn (Borges) or for that matter, the fascinating but more accessible characters of MiddleEarth(Tolkien). Having read fantastical literature from the age of 10, even such intended for an adult and educated audience, I am by now well acquianted with the methods and techniques used so as to transform a net of exasperating diversity and plurality into a spearpoint; what the dictionary lacks is some kind of concrete climax, but as its form suggests, such a climax where never promised in the first place. I decided after failing Pavic to undergo a literary penance for my boredom and neglect by reading Jorge Luis Borges short prose, I suppose I shall have to report on the progress afterwards.
A high-point in my readership where my appreciation for the discussion of the dream hunters, the sect inspired by the poetess Princess Ateh: the mediatory and partly salvific, partly fatal realm of dreams gave me a glimpse of a literary and contemporary, mythological application of Hurqualya as we find it described by among others the founder of the illuminist or theosophical school of Shi’i Islam Yahya Suhrawardi, or the Terra Lucida described by the Manichaeans, you find them compared in Henry Corbin’s masterful books The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism and Spiritual Earth, Celestial Body. The triangulation of the meeting of dreamers and dream-watchers also suggested to me the constellation of the guide and the guided, and the angelic presence which manifests between the two, whose name in our own Judeo-Christian culture, in the interpretation of among others Corbin himself, would be the Holy Spirit: the completion of Adam Ruhania, who by Yehudah HaLevi (an actual literate of the 12th century, who apperently actually devoted an entire work to the Khazars or Kuzari) is compared to Adam Kadmon, which to me suggested the character of esoteric Mazdeism as well as Ismailiya Islam, Salman Pak/ Gabriel of the burnt wing, a Hermetic (if we regard Zosimos of Panopolis epochal work The Book of/on Omega as contributing to the later Hermetic corpus and tradition) as well as a Cabbalistical theme: an internalizing of the Tikkun Olam, which necessarely becomes the quest and greater jehad of the Soul for a restoration, reintegration, or as the renaissance and reformation humanism has given us, regeneration – of greater Man. A similar theme was already making curious formations in my unconsciousness as I have been studying Corbin’s Imago Templi in confrontation with the Profane, a paper he delivered at the Eranos Conference in 1972, the year I was born.
Therein he discusses the four phases of the Imago Templi, whose middle distance everyone who is born into the world but fail to apprehend and understand the context and meaning of such births find themselves: namely, my friend Jan Valentin Saether’s orientational theme – Exile.
The Temple, the sanctuary and dwelling of the Divine, the extraordinary, supramental, Sacred – that which participates in the degree of perfection, the good, the light, the progressive, revelatory, beautiful in contradistinction to whatever else manifests, arbitrarily or voluntarily, in any given universe: necessarely only is represented in history, in events which is projected from and to human minds, the distance between being filled by Grace, even in calamity, catastrophe and perdition – is represented in like manner in the mythopoetic
dream in Pavic’s work.
I will return to Khazaria, or rather the conjectured Khazaria contained between the binder of Pavic’s encyclopedic novel, later. Perhaps I will try to read it in one of the suggested alternative ways rather than from first to last page.
Some impressions remain with me, but I cannot claim to have comprehended or made sense of the work. Perhaps it is intended to be more of an exercise for the reader than what usually passes for fiction. We shall see.
Some sites I have found on the topics of Milorad Pavic`s Dictionary of the Kazhars.
Milorad Pavic: A brief Autobiography, at Khazars.com.
As a Writer, I was born two hundred years ago, Interview w. Milorad Pavic, by
Thanassis Lallas (Dalkey Archive Press)
Official site for Milorad Pavic, maintained by his wife, Jasmina Mihajlovic. www.khazars.com
I’m Engaged to the most wonderful girl in the world
…obviously she is to me, or else there wouldn’t be much of a point in it, would it? I think I have broken through another barrier in my life, but now I have got company. Which is strange to me. Intimidating, tiltilating, weird. It was an ordinary Tuesday and I was lost for other words to tell her, so I stumbled in my own thoughts, reached for her, drew her near, and asked her – and she said Yes. The rest is some kind of future, which I can neither predict nor guarantee, except that I’ll be there – every step of the way.
May, which is her name – and me, have stuck together for three years now, of which two have been a state of cohabitation and partnership in every day life as well as special moments, of which there are more than I can count.
It’s typical of me to attempt to explain some simple thing with too many words, for anyone left to hear them, sort through them, shift them for meaning, a lot of patience is neccessary – May has had patience, for which I am really grateful. But I know she knows how I feel about her.
We haven’t any concrete plans about when, how and where – but we have at least come around to sharing the intention and desire to get married.
So presently that is what I have got to say about it. I hope you all have had a wonderful summer, I am sure I have, even though there has been just a few bright hot sunny days in July.
Other websites on Marguerite Poret
The Mirror of Annihilated Simple Souls, Marguerite Porete
by M.D. Coverley, University of Texas.
Actually it is an hypertext weave which uses as its departure point
the writing The Mirror of Simple Souls as a launchpad into an
examination of several issues. One of which is the persistence of the
written word, throughout the developement of new media .
More relevant perhaps is the Deb Platt`s Mysticism in the World Religions site`s
section of quotations from Marguerite Poretè`s Mirror of Simple Souls
Other Women`s Voices: Marguerite Poretè – excerpts and a brief biographical
sketch.
Also, Bonnie Duncan has 14 chapters and introduction from Ellen. L. Babinsky`s
translation of Marguerite Poretè`s Mirror of Simple Souls in its own section on her homepage.
As you may well remember, about a week ago I posted to this
blog some details about the tragedy of the heresy trial against the young
woman Marguerite Porète, whose fervour, bordering if not breaching into
fanaticism (are we in any position to know the type of character her passion
had? I doubt it.), and her endeavour to let the voice speaking to, in and from
her be heard in the minds ,and above all , hearts (she argues none of what
she wrote would be properly understood if received only within the monopoly of reasoning) – of her readers. Like Stephanus, who could not help flying in the face of the self-righteous judges, not only of him, not only of the earliest Christians, but of the entire demographic excluding their choice traditionalist elite, and being filled up with spirit, his self-criticism decreasing and vaporising at the very temperature of that presence – were bound to pay the price, for such words, apparently does not fit; it is received in one way or another, either the powers that be ignore it, pretending they did not hear it, or assured themselves it came from the lips of a madman – or else it is censured with extreme prejudice, which means the free expression of thoughts,ideas,feelings and knowledge has been evaluated to be extremely dangerous. Or with St.Paul who by no means were winning the contest of being the most popular and readily available voice within the entire of Christendom, even then. If we zoom forward we find certain men and women driven out into the desolate wilderness, not only are they fleeing the contagion of a mind and soul closing up on itself, once the Empire overshaddowed the Kingdom, devoured Christ Jesus, and spat out something or somebody else – already in the 4th century. Priscillian of Avila saw it as his lot, after finally being persuated or pressganged into the role of Bishop – to extend and make available methodical study of those scriptures which is, to us, in the 21th century, foundational in understanding the preceding generations, the primitive Christians, understanding of Holy Writ; he sent agents to the Levant and beyond, to extract from its monastic communities the contents of a tradition reduced to pastiche, parody and ignorant clichès in the west due to the arrogance of the foundlings and favourites among the ecclesiastical hierarchies. In some sense he was among the first voices of a kind of reformation, attempted during the Renaissance, then several times afterwards – however, the reward was that the world turned briefly upside down, a rather venomous developement involving trials failed, intervention from St.Martin of Tours, false testimonies given, the exchange of a pope for another pope (or Presiding vicar of Peter) at the behest of the emperor, new trials and the final burning of Saint Priscillian of Avila, along with his ecclesiastical servants (deacons and priests), and several nobles whose property (the motif for this crime) was expropriated and divided between the usurping bishops and the emperor to whom they pledged allegiance. While it also reached a tragic end, he believed, like Marguerite Poretè, that his words, his values and his ideas were worth enough to stand up for, or fall down for. Continue reading
Martyrdom of Sr. Marguerite Poréte 1.June 1310
SAINT Marguerite Porète, Martyr 1st June 1310, Paris, France.
Marguerite of Hainault, called la Porète, were in her early thirties when she suffered the rather controversial trial in Paris which ended with her being
marched out with dignitaries and soldiers to the common field of La Greve on Monday the 1st 1310, trussed to a stake, surrounded by kindlingwood, which was then ceremoniously ignited. She was burnt alive.
The Chronicler William of Nangis describes the trial and execution
thusly:
“Around the feast of Pentecost it happened at Paris that a certain pseudo-woman from Hainault, named Marguerite and called “la Porete,” produced a certain book in which, according to the judgment of all the theologians who examined it diligently, many errors and heresies were contained; among which errors [were the beliefs], that the soul can be annihilated in love of the Creator without censure of conscience or remorse and that it ought to yield to whatever by nature it strives for and desires. This [belief] manifestly rings forth as heresy. Moreover, she did not want to renounce this little book or the errors that are contained in it, and indeed she even made light of the sentence of excommunication laid on her by the inquisitor of heretical depravity, [who had laid this sentence] because she, although having been lawfully summoned before the bishop, did not want to appear and held out in her hardened malice for a year and more with an obstinate soul. In the end her ideas were exposed in the common field of La Greve through the deliberation of learned men; this was done before the clergy and people who had been gathered specially for this purpose, and she was handed over to the secular court. Firmly receiving her into his power, the provost of Paris had her executed on the next day by fire. She displayed many signs of penitence, both noble and pious, in her death. For this reason the faces of many of those who witnessed it were affectionately moved to compassion for her; indeed, the eyes of many were filled with tears.” excerpt from Richard Barton, Assistant Professor of History University of North Carolina at Greensboro
translation from Latin sources which you can find at his website which has a lot more information on the time period and Marguerite Poretè.
Some commemorations missed
A mixed bunch of comemmorations which I feel is pertinent to the Gnosis,
since I didnt share my thoughts with you about these on time, when they
were immediate events, they will remain for me to explicate:
16th March 1244where the 760th anniversary of the surrender of the Montesegur
fortress and the consequent burning of some 200 parfaits, faidits and
believers on the mountains outside of it. For many this marks the dramatic
end of the Albigensian/Catharist movement: a heresy entirely erradicated
from the face of the earth, for reasons we today have problems with believing.
What else is new, my brothers and sisters? I will return my attention to the Cathars later; their teachings have been consistently misrepresented both by self-appointed enemies – especially conservative Roman Catholics, and by self-appointed supporters, much of their history is legendary – which means, it has been forgotten and then re-membered after a fashion. They did leave a heritage, they did inspire an undercurrent within our very culture – in fact, their influence lingers where you would never expect it to appear, still it does.
18th March 1314– 690 years ago Jacques de Molay, the last formal Grand Master of the Templar Knights, where put to the pyre after a long imprisonment on charges of sorcery,heresy,buggery and above all treason against the Church and the Empire. Much has been said of the Templars, there are even Templar revivals, I have addressed the Larmenius/Fabre-Palaprat lineage in an earlier post to this very blog.
The original constitution of the order was really quite plain: a pilgrimage, spawned by troubled times in the Christian West, were progressing steadily
towards the East and Holy Lands there, with it followed industry,trade and the exchange of other commodities – of symbolic,intellectual,societal and economical value to the Christian West, it was still quite volnurable for the onslaught of enemies, raiders, brigands and so forth.. so a chivalry which were attuned to all the concerns of this activity, and its participants were created with a sacred duty towards the protection of the symbols of Christian and Jewish heritage (sic!); The Poor Knights of the Temple of Jerusalem was founded and were the first chivalric order to adopt mendicant (which is to say, Monastic but not monestary-bound) vows and discipline. No chivalric order has gained such an exotic and eccentric following in Modern Age; I am uncertain if it has been continued, or if it was revived. And also, what portion of it has been, if it was revived. Consider the Premiss: The GodTemplars on one end and the Ordo Templi Orientis on the other…
18th March 1944 – a rather humble artiste was born somewhere in Norway, around Oslo, who I was fortunate to befriend the Autumn of 1995, Jan Valentin Saether – has survived another decade within the talons of the watchers of this world; interiorily and visibly transfiguring and dissolving shadow images and impressions deep in our psychic soil – through his work as an artist; always re-inventing himself in the process (speaking of artistic expression, I dare not comment on anything else). He had his 60th anniversary some time ago, and is now preparing an exhibition of over 35 years vocation as painter, sculptor etc. In addition to his vocation as painter and teacher, Jan has also functioned over 17 years as a Gnostic priest in Ecclesia Gnostica, it was this occasion and our shared interest in Gnosticism and related traditions, which
caused the two of us to meet, and through our meeting together on subsequent
sundays, the formation of the Oslo Parish of Ecclesia Gnostica. 9 years coming up on my part as participant in this ministry. Time presently prohibits me from elucidating more on this. But I`ll be sure to revisit it.
22nd March 1944. – 4 days later, Constant Martin Chevillon, nome d`eglise Tau Harmonius, was gunned down by the partisans of the German occupants of France – 1one of the reasons for his swift assasination his involvement with
Masonry, Rosicrucianism, Martinism and the Gnostic Church (and its fraternal
allied in the cultural and political trenches of the occupation – the National
Gallician Catholic Church). I wrote a memorial a year ago about him.
23rd March 1948 – Nicolai Berdyaev, an important russian thinker and theologian, with a special place in the idealist and Sophiological current
inspired by Vladimir Solovyov, dies in exile, Paris. More about him later, I hope.
27th March 1765 – Franz Xavier Von Baader, industrialist and Theosophist, is born. Of the little I have read of Von Baader as well as what has been rephrased from him in different books I have read throughout the decades of my romance with the western mystical traditions, I feel very affiliated to him and his mentor/friend, Louis Claude de Saint-Martin.
30th March 1202 – The Prophet of the Fourth Age, The Age of the Holy Spirit – Friar Joachim of Fiore, transcended the limitations of his own age. While guilty of what I quite idly would call a tremendous heresy and a stumbling-block to be sure, his authorship and vision carries more authority and clarity for everytime I permit myself exposure, because what he
writes can be mediated by such filters as must have existed in his own mind
as well, for Friar Joachim was not a Savonarola, he was not a head-dunker, flagellant, arsonist or crusader.. however, perhaps what came later were a
little more extreme. A catalyst, if not a prophet.
24th April 1575 was the birthday of Jacob Boehme… As im re-reading his dialogues… Jacob Boehme is a rather important figure in my own spiritual developement, given time I`ll excerpt from my meditations
on his Way to Christosophia(the dialogues in question) later on.
25th April 277 was Mani`s Behma what does this mean? That he
sat down upon the Mercy Seat; He was guilty of a trespass against
the authoritarian,jealous rule of certain Magian priests in the court of the
Sassanids, being himself of noble descent, brought up in Babylon at the hands
of the Mugtashila (baptisers) in their closed-up monastic society – he contributed to Iranian culture with the invention of instruments, painting styles and metres.
Manichean religionists spread from Fujjian and Taiwan in the East to the Gaul (France) in the West, one famous ex-Manichean is Augustine, and many blame
him for introducing so-called alien teachings into Catholic Christendom such as
original sin, the low estimation of women, asceticism and dualism of body against spirit, by way of his former adherence to Manicheism. Strangely
enough, in contrast to certain traditions of the Gnostic tradition, the Manichean doctrine of matter views it as particularly necessary for Redemption itself; without the intervention/embodiment in the material
vessel, which can be broken apart and is moreover mallable and subject to
certain processes we would associate with chemistry and physics today –
the sparks of Light which had been devoured by the darkness would remain unredeemed. It is consciousness and the priority of spiritual energy within a body and its interfacing with matter without proper care that is the subject of the asceticism, at times extreme and stern, of Manicheism. Here the original Manichaean teachings are in extreme contrast with the Cathar ethics and certain of the earlier Gnostic schools; but the strongest difference between all are on superficial matters. It is a certain ethics of custodial nature; proper care, right praxis, conscience and the applying of love,compassion and Agape whilst in the world – and how to remedy what appears to be a universally recognized predicament: How man has come to forget who he is and where he is and where he is heading, and what he should do.
There`s less gristle to chew than one expects, with the Manichaeans.
On the same day, Maistre Anthelme Nizier Phillippe was born, in 1849.
An important figure in the history of Modern Martinism and the French Gnostic Church even though he personally were never directly involved with either, but rather inspired Paul Sedir, Phaneg, Papus and a few other early acolytes of this tradition.
30th April – the world comemorates the passage of the brilliant mystic Meister Johannes Eckard (Meister Eckhart), who died in 1328.
May the 3rd was the festival of the Ikon Our Lady of Czestochowa, who for a time was the emblem of the L`Eglise Gnostique Apostolique ,
and a Black Madonna. The current Roman Catholic Pope, H.H. John Paul II,himself a Polish national, is Catholic protector and patron of the tradition and Ikon of Our Lady of Czestochowa.
…