Pymander Aquarian

Is it, then, possible to celebrate the union of Heaven and Earth in a religion which has consistently held that sexual love is disgusting? Not only disgusting, but profoundly sinful except between married couples for the sole purpose of reproduction. One must be careful of jumping to superficial conclusions in trying to understand Christian attitudes to sex. For there is a sense in which Christianity is the religion about sex, and in which sex plays a more important role even than in Priapism or Tantric Yoga. In any Christian milieu the subject of sex is extremely touchy; it is what embarrasses most easily, what is surrounded with the most rigid rules of conduct, and what arouses the most unintelligent emotions. This indicates not only a deep preoccupation with sex, but also the direction in which we must look for basic understanding of Christianity as a whole and the mystery that lies at its heart. On the surface, almost all forms of Christianity seem to be militantly prudish...

"Obviously, as so many Christians seem to fear, this vision of God-as-all might be used as a rationalization for indulgence in total wickedness. But fire is not untrue, or something to be abolished, because it can be used to burn people alive. What they really seem to fear is that, if God is all in all, the wicked will not get their just deserts; someone may lose the satisfaction of knowing that evildoers are going to be boiled in oil and devoured by spiders forever and ever. At this point it becomes more and more difficult to separate the wicked from the moralists who want to see them property judged. In a larger perspective these theological objections are trivial. They are like avoiding broiled salmon for fear of the bones, or living for fear of dying. It is all a colossal haggling and footling over technicalities, a metaphysical filibuster subconsciously designed to postpone the great moment of awakening. Perhaps it is like a woman being interminably difficult to woo, s...

Today the Western world is post-Christian. The Churches are huge, prosperous organizations, and, aside from expanding their memberships and building new plants, their chief concern is the preservation of family ties and sexual mores. Their influence on major problems of domestic and international politics is minimal. Outside Quaker meetings and Catholic monasteries, there is hardly the slightest concern for the inner life, for the raising of human consciousness to union with God - supposedly the main work of religion. Their politicking and lobbying is largely preoccupied with the maintenance of idiotic sumptuary laws against gambling, drinking, whoring, selling contraceptives, procuring abortions, dancing on Sundays, getting divorced or practicing homosexuality... But all this is irrelevant to the peculiar predicament of mankind in this century. Or any century. If this sounds like a prophetic tirade, it is not meant to be. Everyone is at liberty to enjoy being irrelevant to m...

Here's another take on it - Jack Parson's old " wrapped around your finger " style apprentice, Frater H, didn't think too highly of the idea of "Mysteries", one might surmise, by it's placement on the Emotional Tone Scale, as well as other deductions. Also important to point out is that Postulates "Not Know" is like the "uh-oh, what if I forget again?!" part of "coming back down" from Beingness - that's where we invent slogans and rules and ideas and images and things to help us to "link back up" and "stay connected" with what, at the time, was an Experience and will hitherto become increasing more of a Memory. So, these Postulates are good to create art from - icons, but not idols. If you find yourself constructing a golden calf to worship, for example, or a mathematical phrase: "All = 1" or "3 in 1" or "all is 3" or "all is none" and needing to set it up...

"Just occasionally, ego aligns with what Being already knows and has always known. Sometimes it even does this for what you and I know as a very long time, in fleshplace terms. This is so whether the individual in question has garnered praise or a straightjacket; or both in some sort of sequence or even at once. Then, ego can jump off of the alignment, misleading the individual and/or any others whose votes it has gained during the alignment period... Now, there are many tribes wandering around in the fleshplace. Some walk stridently forward into self-constructed mirror images of where they've been, and howl "ain't it awful" while reconstructing their mirrors to proceed with greater dudgeon to the next bang-up. The joy is that there are many tribes, and tribes within tribes. The mirrors will reflect new lies. Along with the old ones. The lies reflected by mirrors are often enough like what's ahead to be accurately confused with what's ahead, and thu...

"Yet another type of pride expresses itself in a person's desiring to be widely renowned for his outstanding qualities and for the uniqueness of his ways, to the point where it is not enough for him to be praised by all the world for the qualities he imagines himself to possess, but he desires to be praised even more for being the humblest of the humble. Such a one prides himself upon his humility and desires honor because he shows himself to flee it. He puts himself beneath those who are far inferior to him, or beneath the derelicts of society, seeking to display thereby the essence of humility. He shuns all imposing titles and refuses all dignities, his heart all the while saying within him, "There is no wiser and humbler man than I in all the land." Those who possess this type of pride, though they give the impression of humility, face no few pitfalls, for without their being aware of it, their pride will be revealed, as a flame escaping from shards. Our Sages of ...

"What we need is a new kind of theological critique - not a polemic, not a debunking, not even a 'restatement in contemporary terms.' We need a natural history of theology, wherein the development of religious ideas and practices is studied, not as something good for or bad for it, but as a form of life itself, like a particular species of flower or bird. At first sight it may seem that no approach could be more insulting than this to the true believer. For he demands above all to be taken seriously, to know whether we are with him or against him. To such a person it is subtly but devastatingly irritating to have the discussion moved to an altogether different level, as, for example, to go into the problem of why he personally wants a firm agreement or disagreement with his point of view. This is likewise the familiar psychoanalytic gambit of 'bugging' someone who wants to argue the pros and cons of two football teams, by diverting the discussion to the reason...