The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit

My posts are less frequent now that this blog has become mainly a vehicle for whatever spiritual observations I might make. It's far easier to post to my Mathematics or Alternative News blogs. Writing about spiritual matters is less easy. However, having recently finished E. Michael Jones's "The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit and its Effect on World History", I think it's time to put some of my reflections down in writing.

Jones wrote his book from a Catholic perspective because that's the religion that he follows. However, I firmly rejected Catholicism when I was in high school, in Grade 11. The belief in Christ's resurrection from the dead, his virgin birth, his ascension into heaven and the like suddenly seemed like ridiculous fantasies. In 1965, I embraced atheism and remained an atheist until early 1973 until I reconnected with Theosophy and eastern mysticism. Labelling myself an atheist is perhaps too strong a word as it seems to connect me to card-carrying atheists like Richard Dawkins who proselytise with religious fervour. During my time at University I'd read books about Buddhism, Hinduism, Zen and so on but spiritually there was no connection with the content. I was processing what I was reading at an intellectual level.

Figure 1: St Theresa of Avila

From 1973 to 1993, I certainly believed in planes of consciousness beyond the physical and by implication God as the pinnacle of consciousness and a goal toward which myself and the lifestream were ascending. Fortunately, I came to the light of Meher Baba is 1993 and it all became clear or at least clearer. However, I was never hostile to Catholicism, at least not the same way that the Jews had been. I had no time for the hierarchy of the Church but great respect for some of its saints such as St. Francis of Assisi, St. John of the Cross and Saint Theresa of Avila. To quote from pages 1271 and 1272 of the Online Edition of Lord Meher: 

Desmond then asked, "Are there any true saints and holy priests in Christianity?" 

"There were saints," Baba answered, "but the Christian priests are the same type as those priests in every other religion throughout the world. Out of selfishness, priests create and propagate their own customs, tenets and practices, thereby crippling religion. All these rites, rituals and ceremonies are the dry husk of the corn." 

It seems in a sense that the Jews are God's chosen people because they seem to be the ones who are the most ready to attack hierarchies that they perceive to be oppressive such as the Catholic Church around the time of the Reformation. The alternatives, such as Protestantism in the case of the Church, that they champion however, turn out to be little better than what they replace. In the case of Communism, championed as an alternative to the rich-poor divide, the results were far worse. As Jones say in his book, the atheistic Jews like Marx were the most dangerous of all because, having abandoned belief in the coming of their Messiah, they believed political ideologies, like Communism, could act as a replacement messiah and save the world. 

Figure 2: Christian Zionists

Of course, no political system or organisation will solve the world's problems because it will be run by human beings who are firmly in the grip of their egos. Catholics like E. Michael Jones are hoping that disillusionment with humanity's descent into moral chaos will lead to a resurgence of faith that will fill the now largely empty churches. I don't think that's likely. 

Catholicism seems to have dealt a mortal blow with the pedophilia revelations that keep being trumpeted gleefully by the mainstream media. Protestantism is fragmented and even linked to Messianic Judaism in the case of the Christian Zionists. Buddhism is halfway between a religion and a philosophy and there are certainly aspects of it that can be useful to a humanity that is striving to find its moral compass again. Islam remains a powerful religious force but the long-standing Shia/Sunni split is being exploited successfully by its enemies to set the one against the other. Additionally and unfortunately, the majority Sunni variant is currently going through a phase whereby it is very focused on the extrinsic (outer rituals) as opposed to an intrinsic (Sufi) orientation. As such it is an unlikely candidate to carry the flame of spirituality further into the twenty-first century.

Israel is fearful of Sunni Islam, surrounded as it is so many of its adherents, and will do everything necessary to undermine and weaken it. The last thing that it wants is to find itself opposed to the North, West and South by a Caliphate. Despite the Israeli rhetoric about how dangerous Iran is, I suspect that all is not as it seems. My feeling is that the two countries have a secret agreement whereby some engineered conflict will lead to an Iranian  invasion of Saudi Arabia and an Israel intervention. The result will be an expansion of both countries borders and many Sunni Moslems will suddenly find themselves in Shia or Israeli controlled territory. 

Figure 3: Greater Israel

On a different but related note, Israel's increasingly close ties to India (and thus Hinduism) may be part of longer term strategy. India is purchasing large amounts of Israeli military technology and the tension between Pakistan and India is perennial. Given Israeli technological prowess and the backdoors that have built into the software and hardware that they sell, it would be easy for its hackers to trigger an Indian missile launch that might lead to all out war, perhaps involving nuclear weapons. This might seriously weaken both countries and lead to a refugee crisis of staggering proportions. Israel remains far enough away so as to not be affected by fallout or refugees. Zionists have no love of Hinduism, nor any religion, that might pose an obstacle to their plans for global hegemony. Refugee crises are an ideal way of diffusing a native population and diluting the populations into which they are forced to assimilate. 

I don't think that Israel will succeed in its plans for global hegemony. Historically, the Jewish Elite has always overplayed its hand and the rank and file Jews have payed dearly for it. This time around, I don't think it will any different. Jewish disillusionment with their leadership and disillusionment with messianic fantasies will encourage the majority to finally join the mainstream of humanity. Out of the turmoil of Hindus versus Sunni Moslems and Sunni Moslems versus Shia Moslems, a general disillusionment with religion (already well underway in Western countries) as a source of division will develop and deepen. The West will already have reached its spiritual nadir and looking for a way back up to the light. That's when I think that Meher Baba's teachings will begin to appeal to a bewildered humanity in search of spiritual guidance. His acceptance of all religions and his emphasis on the inner experience of the intrinsic truths of a religion rather than adherence to its outer rituals will be key. Jai Baba!

Figure 4: Mastery in Servitude

The Walled Garden of Truth

The film, The Shape of Water, that I recently watched concludes with the following dialogue:

“Unable to perceive the shape of You, I find You all around me. Your presence fills my eyes with Your love, It humbles my heart, For You are everywhere.”

As to the provenance of these lines, there is some debate. "Though he doesn’t remember exactly where the verse came from, del Toro remembers reading it in a book of Islamic poetry, found in a bookstore he’d frequent before going on set to film" ... source. Some have speculated on Reddit that it's from Rumi, another that it's taken from "Divine Eros" by Saint Symeon and yet others by a predecessor of Rumi named Hakim Sanai.

Regardless of the provenance of the lines, the investigation has led me to Sanai and Symeon for which I'm grateful. Of Sanai, the website Poetry Chaikhana: Sacred Poetry from Around the World says:

Sanai is one of the earlier Sufi poets. He was born in the province of Ghazna in southern Afghanistan in the middle of the 11th century and probably died around 1150. 

Rumi acknowledged Sanai and Attar as his two primary inspirations, saying, "Attar is the soul and Sanai its two eyes, I came after Sanai and Attar."

Sanai was originally a court poet who was engaged in writing praises for the Sultan of Ghazna. 

The story is told of how the Sultan decided to lead a military attack against neighboring India. Sanai, as a court poet, was summoned to join the expedition to record the Sultan's exploits. As Sanai was making his way to the court, he passed an enclosed garden frequented by a notorious drunk named Lai Khur.

As Sanai was passing by, he heard Lai Khur loudly proclaim a toast to the blindness of the Sultan for greedily choosing to attack India, when there was so much beauty in Ghazna. Sanai was shocked and stopped. Lai Khur then proposed a toast to the blindness of the famous young poet Sanai who, with his gifts of insight and expression, couldn't see the pointlessness of his existence as a poet praising such a foolish Sultan. 

These words were like an earthquake to Hakim Sanai. He abandoned his life as a pampered court poet, even declining marriage to the Sultan's own sister, and began to study with a Sufi master named Yusef Hamdani. 

Sanai soon went on pilgrimage to Mecca. When he returned, he composed his poetic masterpiece, Hadiqatu'l Haqiqat or The Walled Garden of Truth. There was a double meaning in this title for, in Persian, the word for a garden is the same as the word for paradise, but it was also from within a walled garden that Lai Khur uttered the harsh truths that set Hakim Sanai on the path of wisdom.

I managed to locate and download a sparse 14-page translation, in PDF format, of The Walled Garden of Truth from this website as well as a far more expansive 134-page translation, also in PDF format, and commentary from this website.

Of Symeon, I have this commentary from John McGuckin (forming part of a 21-page commentary):

The Byzantine saint and poet Symeon the New Theologian (949–1022) is one of the Christian world’s greatest mystics, if such a term can properly be used of ancient writers. It is here applied for the sake of convenience, and in order to unveil the author, as it were, who is not only a visionary of the highest order within the Eastern Orthodox tradition, but equally one of the Christian world’s most lyrical and rhapsodic writers. It is a startling fact that it is only in recent years that his works have become available in English translation, and a sadder one that his name is still largely unknown to a wider public who would otherwise undoubtedly be interested in a spirituality suffused with light and hope and one of the most profound senses of the mercy and compassion of God. 

I haven't yet located a copy of Symeon's Hymns of Divine Eros but this is what McGuckin says of the hymns:

There are a total of 58 Hymns in the authentic corpus, amounting almost to 11,000 verses. They are all written in liturgical style (probably with perfor- mance in mind not merely private reading) in a strongly pulsed rhythm that uses the metrical devices of either eight, twelve, or fifteen syllables to the line. Sometimes end rhymes and half-rhyme are used. Several have the poetic pulse that is comparable to Longfellow’s epic Hiawatha, and they run into similar problems (for most are long) in sustaining the drive of the sense over against the soporific beat of the line: though in some cases the juxtaposition of the startling contents (visions, revelations, denunciations of enemies, and lurid confessions of sins), are exactly balanced by the mantra-like beat. No existing translation has attempted to render this either exactly or impressionistically so far.

The Prevailing Manichaean World View

While looking for a word to describe a dualistic way of viewing things, I remembered the word manichaean and thought I'd investigate the origin of the term. I was surprised to learn that it was a syncretic religion and had once been a rival to Christianity. This is a quote from Wikipedia:

Manichaeism was a major religious movement that was founded by the Iranian prophet Mani c. 216–276 AD) in the Sasanian Empire.

Manichaeism taught an elaborate dualistic cosmology describing the struggle between a good, spiritual world of light, and an evil, material world of darkness. Through an ongoing process that takes place in human history, light is gradually removed from the world of matter and returned to the world of light, whence it came. Its beliefs were based on local Mesopotamian gnostic and religious movements. 

Manichaeism was quickly successful and spread far through the Aramaic-Syriac speaking regions. It thrived between the 3rd and 7th centuries, and at its height was one of the most widespread religions in the world. Manichaean churches and scriptures existed as far east as China and as far west as the Roman Empire. It was briefly the main rival to Christianity in the competition to replace classical paganism. Manichaeism survived longer in the east than in the west, and it appears to have finally faded away after the 14th century in southern China, contemporary to the decline in China of the Church of the East during the Ming Dynasty. While most of Manichaeism's original writings have been lost, numerous translations and fragmentary texts have survived. 

An adherent of Manichaeism is called, especially in older sources, a Manichee, or more recently Manichaean.

it's interesting that St. Augustine was a Manichaean for nine years before he converted to Christianity. Here is a brief article about Augustine and Manichaeism:

AUGUSTINE AND MANICHAEISM

(by Gillian Clark, from the introduction to her Cambridge Latin edition of Confessions, Books I-IV)

Augustine encountered Manichaean teaching soon after the impact of the Hortensius, and remained an adherent for nine years. His subsequent attacks on Manichaeism are a major source of information, but of course they are polemic against the system, not exposition of it. In the Confessions he is concerned with the effect of Manichaeism on his own relationship with God. Instead of explaining what he believed as a Manichaean and why, he denounces the aspects of his belief which, in the light of Platonist philosophy and the preaching of Ambrose, he had come to see as its major confusions. But it is now possible to give a general account of western Manichaeism which does not depend chiefly on Christian polemic. 

Several Manichaean texts have been discovered this century: the Coptic texts from Medinet Medi in the Fayyum include a book of psalms, and the Greek Mani codex, a tiny papyrus volume, is an anthology on the birth and early life of Mani. Mani, born in 216 in southern Mesopotamia, was brought up in an ascetic Judaeo-Christian sect which he left in his mid-twenties. He believed himself to be the Paraclete, the Advocate who, as Jesus promised to his followers (John 14:26), would lead them into all truth. Revelations from his divine twin taught him the doctrines and the organisation of Manichaeism, and instructed him to travel and preach. His teaching spread eastward and westward, adapting to existing religious beliefs and practices: some of the most important Manichaean texts, written in various Central Asian languages, were found at Turfan in China. 

In the Roman empire, Manichaeism was regarded by Christians as heretical and by the state as a dangerous import from the rival power, Persia (Iran). In Persia there was religious toleration until the death of Shapur I (c. 272), but under his successor Zoroastrianism became the most influential religion, and Mani was imprisoned and died after torture. His death was commemorated in the festival of the Bema, which western Manichaeans celebrated rather than Easter. 

Mani's claim to a new revelation was not a new phenomenon in the west. Jesus had told his followers (John 16:12-13): "I still have many things to tell you, but you cannot handle them now. But when the spirit of truth comes, he will lead you into all truth." He had said that the Paraclete was "the spirit of truth which the world cannot receive, because it neither sees nor knows it; but you know it, because it remains with you and is in you" (John 14:17). Several religious leaders had convinced their followers that they had the truth, the gnosis (knowledge), which most people could not see. 

The knowledge took the form of a deeper understanding of what is really happening in human lives. Gnostics believed that the physical world is of no value: it is the temporary, illusory stage for a struggle of spiritual powers, and all that matters is the release of the divine spirit within us from the contamination of the material body and its return to its true home. They produced complex mythologies of angels and demons to explain the workings of the universe. They refused to accept the affirmation of Genesis that God made the world, "and God saw all the things that God had made, and they were very good" (Genesis 1:31). Consequently, they also refused to accept the Incarnation, the union of God and human in a human body, and taught that Christ was a divine spirit in the appearance of a human body, and that his death on the cross was an appearance of death. 

Gnosticism recurs through the history of Christianity, but Gnostic sects tended to fragment. Mani combined impressive teaching, reinforced by hymns and splendidly produced books, with effective organisation. He taught that Good and Evil are equal powers, and both have always existed. Each has a kingdom, Good the kingdom of Light and Evil the kingdom of Darkness. Darkness invaded Light, and fragments of light are still entrapped in the darkness; this world was created in order to free them. Jesus of Light, who is pure spirit, shows humans how the light may be freed, and the Suffering Jesus is the Light which is entrapped in this world. The human soul is a fragment of Light which has fallen from its home, the kingdom of heaven, and is trapped in the body. It can escape by disciplining the body and with the help of saving powers. 

There were two kinds of Manichaeans, the Elect Saints and the Hearers. The Elect, who formed the nucleus of a Manichaean cell, were committed to a missionary life of poverty and celibacy. They were strict vegetarians, drank no wine, and were forbidden even to harvest or prepare food, because Mani had a revelation that it is a kind of murder to damage plants by harvesting. The sect survived because the Hearers incurred the sin of preparing food, and were released from sin by the prayers of the Elect who ate it: Mani taught that fragments of the divine which were trapped in plants could be released when ingested by the pure body of the Elect. The Hearers were also allowed a wife or concubine, but were taught to avoid procreation because it entraps more divine spirits in matter. Manichaean cells, like Christian churches, were kept in touch with one another by a hierarchy analogous to the Christian clergy, so when Augustine left Carthage for Rome he was able to stay with another Hearer and meet some of the Elect (5.10.18-19). 

Manichaeism offered Augustine a way to accommodate his conflicts: he could pursue his career, and retain his partner, while purging his sins through his service to the pure Elect (4.1.1); and he could blame those sins on his lower, alien nature, which like the material world had been made by the power of evil, but which his true self would eventually shed (5.10.18). Manichaeism also responded to his need, instilled by his childhood, for the name of Christ, and his initial distaste for the Christian scriptures (3.4.8-6.10). He could regard the Bible as a crude and contaminated attempt at the truth, whereas the Manichaean scriptures offered both the name of Christ and what seemed to be a profound understanding of the universe and of human life (3.6.10).

It would seem that Manichaeism influenced the Christianity of the time as the latter religion seemed obsessed with dualism: God versus Satan, Good versus Evil, Mother versus Whore, Matter versus Spirit, Heaven versus Hell and so on. There was a decided tendency to deny shades of grey. This influence persists it would seem in current views about topics as diverse as gay marriage and Adolph Hitler. The pressure is on to take a side. In the West, it wasn't so long ago that opposition to gay marriage was culturally dominant. That's now changing. Before World War 2, Hitler was lauded by many outside of Germany and the few would have shared the current, dominant cultural position that he was a despotic maniac. Nowadays, if you don't dismiss Hitler as an evil tyrant who master-minded the attempted extermination of the Jews, then you're a Fascist. There is no middle ground. Similarly with gay marriage, if you oppose it, for whatever reason, then you're likely to branded a homophobe.

The adjective manichaean has come to refer to a world view where distinct notions of good and evil prevail. Many people in many different contexts seem to adhere to such a view. Those contexts include religion (of course), politics, team sports etc. Admittedly, in some situations there seems to be no middle ground. For example, did American astronauts walk on the Moon in 1969 and in the early 70s? Even here it's preferable to simply survey the evidence and put forward the PROs and CONs. Being selective about what evidence is admitted however, can skew the decision-making process. Evidence from all known sources needs to be acknowledged and considered. Evidence can fall into both the PRO and CON category. For example, evidence suggesting that the photographs and videos of the landings were fake don't necessary mean the landings were faked. It could be that the landings took place but photographic and film equipment could not capture the events and so had to be "recreated" on Earth. It could also be that the landings never happened and the photographic and film evidence was simply faked to make it look as if they had.

Incidentally, one of the world's leading authorities on Manichaeism is Jason BeDuhn. Here is a link to his Wikipedia entry and to his entry on the University of Arizona website. Here are links to his Manichaean works:

Augustine's Manichaean Dilemma, Volume 1, Conversion and Apostasy, 373-388 C.E

Augustine's Manichaean Dilemma, Volume 2, Making a "Catholic" Self, 388-401 C.E.

The Manichaean Body: In Discipline and Ritual