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[Main Blog Post] The Open-Minded Materialist's Gentle Introduction to Spirituality
I've written my first "full" blog post of the year and posted it to my main blog here. If you have any thoughts or ways I might make it better, kindly let me know by commenting here or dropping me an email!
Re: Time May Work Both Ways
As for reincarnation, I'm currently accepting it as a good working hypothesis, but not one that I have much personal evidence for (no past life memories or the like). It keeps striking me how it keeps showing up in very different religious traditions around the world, in weird and specific enough ways to make me think there's something to it, but for now, it's more a belief I take on faith/the credibility of folks I trust. At a minimum, I'm meditating on things as if it is true and seeing what comes of that.
On Gods as collectives, also very interesting. I don't have a super well-developed view here, but my working hypothesis (heavily based on what I've gotten from JMG's writings) is that "Gods" as identified by humans are some combination of an astral vehicle/body and an animating spirit that is bigger/smarter/more wise than a human. I suspect that the astral vehicle is somewhat co-created between worshippers and the God involved (this vehicle would be the "job title"), and it is then animated by beings that for one reason or another find it suitable (personality? responsibility? shift system?). This view certainly allows for different beings to animate the same vehicle at different times, but I hadn't really considered that it might be closer to a "rotating" role like who brings snacks to the meeting rather than a sequential role, like "the King of England".
All interesting to think about and worthy of further study and meditation!
Re: Time May Work Both Ways
That I personally, who came from a loving mid-class family with plenty of breaks in life would go to Heaven while a child born into a broken poor family who ends up in a gang young and then prison for the things they had to do to survive in that life, would go to hell.
I came to the conclusion that each life, the good and the bad, are just lessons on a path to true enlightenment of what it means to be human. So the murderer is just as blessed as the saint. Doesn't mean we shouldn't strive to be better though.
What's the quote? If god allows evil when they could stop it, they are a sadist. If they can't stop evil, then they aren't omnipotent. I think evil is a feature of the system, not a bug. You can't understand being human without understanding the evilest things we do.
Once you accept that reincarnation happens you have to decide just how it works. Some say only humans reincarnate and then only as humans, but that didn't make any sense to me. Too many animals display "human" feelings and characteristics.
And it didn't make sense that if all life reincarnated, then there was some special class (the gods) that stood out from that. So since we would want someone to help us make sense of our lessons from each life, each time we died, and that the spirits and gods seemed the logical choice for that, then wouldn't they too have had the experiences?
I'm loosely pagan in that I believe in multiple gods, but I'm leaning toward not considering them "gods". I still though, visit and comment on multiple pagan and heathen groups and a recurring comment from people who have intimate encounters with the spirits is that one person may find that their god likes chocolate as an offering, while another person finds theirs doesn't. Both are the same deity. I've come to the conclusion that who they are dealing with are minor aspects of that "god" and since we have a working example of such collectives here, in the form of corporations, I think spirits have the same.
Now it may be that each collective is led by an old and learned CEO, who may be an ancestral spirit but for my practical experiences I doubt I'll end up ever meeting it.
I do think that there is a plane or state of existence above what the spirits and gods inhabit, and at that place/point, there is an Omni-godhood we will all end up at. Perhaps at that point, our essence will just get recycled back into the Wheel of Life to restart the process all over.
Re: Time May Work Both Ways
That being said, I also take seriously JMG's idea that humans just aren't that smart, and making sense to us is not a requirement for how things necessarily work in the cosmos. That's the main thing that keeps me from feeling (for now) like "yup, reincarnation is definitely how it works". But I'm still pretty early on this journey!
As for collectives and the like, I'm currently grappling with what the Dolmen Arch calls the "One Life" - the thought that all of being is a manifestation of a unified life/consciousness. It teaches that each bit (like us) is differentiated, but also fundamentally linked, and that spiritual enlightenment consists mostly of experiencing and understanding that link. If this is right, then it implies that boundaries of "individualness" might be perceived very differently by beings farther along their spiritual path.
I haven't gotten very far with this particular line of thinking, but one crude way to put it might be that if "Thor" is a job title, with a collective of spiritual beings who all fulfill its functions as a group, maybe the reason they're all doing so is that they share a certain amount of "Thorness", which is a more fundamental kind of similarity than just "have similar strengths and tendencies" the way a group of humans in a team effort would be described as sharing traits.
But again, I don't know! I'm sucking up occult philosophy a lot faster than my meditation and experiences can keep up, so I'm pretty firmly in the "let's pull out a map and speculate wildly" phase of things.
Very much appreciate the discussion, by the way.
Re: Time May Work Both Ways
As for Thor-ness, yes I feel like that is a good assumption. The spirits who take jobs as mentors do so because they have an affinity for the attitudes of that deity or spirit. I figure it's just one more experience that we all need to go thru to know what we need to ascend to the Spiritual plane and join with the collective godhood. I figure that we also do time as local spirits of place (like of a spring, lake or forest) and as protector spirits of some of the other life (like of cat, owl or bear).
BTW, I'll give you a shout once I get the shaman blog reorganized. I've got a year's worth or so of old posts, and a bunch of new ones that I want to write, to get together into a coherent narrative before I go public with it. I like to mix thought posts like this one, with practical tutorials on skills and craftwork.
I'm planning on taking Jason Miller's seven-month-long Hekate course this Summer, so I should have some interesting thoughts to share when that starts too.
Re: Time May Work Both Ways