Upside Down or Ass Backwards

7/29/2019 Upside Down or Ass Backwards

1/6

I was raised Southern Baptist for the most part although for a while we attended a

Presbyterian church. My father was mostly not at home but working and my mother, by

default, was the spiritual head of the home. Later teen age years found me caught up in

the issues of the sixties, my music, and a spiritual passion for justice, although I do not

believe this was in any way associated with any religious training. The church I found

to be more a part of the problem than a solution to it.

After various sub-cultural ventures in life, including a great deal of illicit mind altering

experimentation, I came to a spiritual crossroads. Rock n Roll and drugs, alcohol and tooloose sexual encounters were getting me nowhere, mostly drugs. I had what may be a

called a religious experience. Not in church or as a result of any religious

proselytization, I had not been to church in 7 plus years and at the time was alone, just

me and my joint. At that time I was able to throw that joint away and remained bothdrug and alcohol free for the next 15-20 years. I did start to drink wine over the years but

I have abstained from illegal substances.

At the time of this religious experience I interpreted it as being an encounter with whatI knew of as the historical Jesus. It made sense at the time. I did not have a conception

at that time that religious and spiritual was not the same thing. I know to most theywould seem to be, but in factthey are not. I would define religious as the form that isadhered to, to express in cultures and society, individual or collective - sacred, pious,

thought, conceptions, feelings and emotions. This may be imposed from without or

voluntarily accepted, but is primarily external and may or may not have any relation to

spiritual reality. Spiritual is the internal subjective reality experienced. This internalexperience may or may not be perceived to connect with what may be the conventional

external religious expression. Religious expressions of the past, which may have beenfounded on internal spiritual realities and in their time served in their cultures to unite

peoples collective consciousness. As time and cultures have changed and evolved, these

older religious perceived absolute expressions lose there meaning. At the same time, in

and over time, external religious expressions as they are subjected to interpretation andreinterpretation by subsequent generations, the further removed they become from the

originator, tend to become polluted, changed, subject to manipulation, political tools of

the cunning and devious. Once this external religious form is manipulated and

consecrated as the true expression of the common faith spiritual dynamic is lost.

Society and culture evolves or probably better stated digresses, regression sets in and a

dimension of reality is lost. Regaining this lost dimension may be and has proved to be ahuman quest not to resurface and gain increasing acceptance and understanding for many

centuries.

The Library of Alexandria in Egypt was a repository of ancient learning and wisdom likeno other. Besides this there are many lofty temples, and especially one to Serapis,

which, although no words can adequately describe it, we may yet say, from its splendid

halls supported by pillars, and its beautiful statues and other embellishments, is so

superbly decorated, that next to the Capitol, of which the ever-venerable Rome boasts,the whole world has nothing worthier of admiration. In it were libraries of inestimable

value; and the concurrent testimony of ancient records affirm that 70,000 volumes, which


2/6

had been collected by the anxious care of the Ptolemies, were burnt in the Alexandrian

war when the city was sacked in the time of Caesar the Dictator Ammianus Marcellinus.

In 48 BC during the fighting between Caesar and Ptolemy XIII of Egypt Caesar was

forced to burn his own ships, which in turn set fire to the docks and then the Library,

destroying it.The Library seems to have been maintained and continued in existence

until its contents were largely lost during the taking of the city by the Emperor Aurelian(270275), who was suppressing a revolt by Queen Zenobia of Palmyra. In 391,

Christian Emperor Theodosius I ordered the destruction of all pagan temples, and the

Christian Patriarch Theophilus of Alexandria complied with this request. At thesolicitation of Theophilus, Bishop of Alexandria, the Emperor issued an order at this time

for the demolition of the heathen temples in that city; commanding also that it should be

put in execution under the direction of Theophilus. Seizing this opportunity, Theophilusexerted himself to the utmost to expose the pagan mysteries to contempt. And to begin

with, he caused the Mithreum to be cleaned out, and exhibited to public view the tokens

of its bloody mysteries. Then he destroyed the Serapeum, and the bloody rites of the

Mithreum he publicly caricatured; the Serapeum also he showed full of extravagant

superstitions, and he had the phalli of Priapus carried through the midst of the forum.Thus this disturbance having been terminated, the governor of Alexandria, and the

commander-in-chief of the troops in Egypt Socrates Scholasticus.

There is mind set that fears knowledge. Totalitarian regimes, regimes intent onmaintaining their control, fear the general spread of knowledge and information. Fear that

ideas and differing opinions will undermine their assumed absolute authority. Power

force of will, force of threat and intimidation, force of might is right, the sword, thegun, the overwhelming military superioritythese are the ethics of past and present

imperial power.

Totalitarian mind set is not just a political mind set. The same intellectual dynamic, orlack of intellectual dynamic, exist and dominates in religious sectors. Andto be fair,

although you wouldnt think it so, exists in the scientific sector. And as most can most

likely observe there probably isnt an arena in life that this is not a prevailing fact of life,the characteristic that overbearing threat and intimidation controls and rules, truth and

fact are irrelevancies.

Why do I mention all of this? I study and delve into this because this is exactly where the

church finds itself in our day and age.

I had a spiritual experience in February 1974. I attributed this as an encounter with the

only spiritual figure or absolute that I understood at the time. Jesus saved me. The

natural thing was to find others of similar spiritual understanding. Where else would you

expect to find Jesus if not in the Church? So acting in good faith, havingexperienced an internal spiritual realityI became associated with fellow charismaniacs.

Through the years and various moves and denominational experiences something, and I

couldnt always put my finger on it, but something seemed amiss in all of this religious

motion. Something in me didnt quite click with all this religious stuff. Oh I madefriends, and we shared some good times. But there was little real exchange of life in


3/6

it all. Everything was subjugated to the form and order of the business of religion, and

the form and order defined by the nature of the faith as dictated by the religious powersthat be. Something was missing.

Through these many years I have realized there are certain gifts I have and have worked

at developing these independently as I found little commonality within the church thatwasnt dominated by some religious agenda. I have been a student of the Bible. Andalthough using orthodox references, my eventual conclusions I have learned were

anythingbut orthodox. For a long time I didnt understand this and when I shared thesewith Pastors and other respected authoritative persons I was usually swept under the rug

or ignored or perceived as having stepped over the edge or out their in Never Never

Land. But NEVER would any orthodox pastor or teacher discuss these with me. Talkabout a rejection complex30 plus years and Im perceived as better gone than of anyperceived value.

Although as I was studying early on I was writing, a skill was being developed. In the

past 8-9 years things began to pour out. I have found that I am able to better expressmyself in writing than I have been allowed to do in regular discussion or public speaking.

Now I have taught publicly and sometimes if I get rolling things begin to pop. But I

dont exactly fit the religious image that is considered compatible with most churchsituations.

I have also come to realize, what church leaders either didnt understand themselves or

didnt want to deal with. My unorthodox theology was a problem because it was just

that unorthodox. And to be exact, what I was gleaning and pulling out of the Bible

were more akin to Gnostic heresies condemned by the church 1700 years ago. Now upuntil recentlyId have never known the difference. But as it turns out, my problems

with the church over the years has not been a matter of me being so ridiculously screwed

up, but I have a spiritual perception and dynamic that I have realized and equated with

Christ, that orthodox religion has little conception of, virtually no understanding of,

and has become such a naturalistic, materialistic, political machine that spiritual realityand dynamic is inconceivable except as it is negotiated in terms of absolutes initially

adopted to accommodate a secular mind set and power structure.

Since I was 13 I have been a dedicated guitar player. Truthfully, I have little in developed

skills as I have my musicianship. I have not made a living as a musician, theresponsibilities of marriage and a raising a large family precluded any idea that playingcould be pursued. But a time came a few years ago and full time employment was left to

focus on my music, my art, and more particularlyspiritual interests. By any ones

accounting the subsequent sacrifices have been great. I will not enumerate these here asI have done that elsewhere.

2007 and moving into 2008 was a hell of a year. But it has been a year of enlightening.

Now, I know the idea of enlightening means a lot of different things to a lot of differentpeoplethats Okay. A year ago if you asked me what Gnostic was or meant, Icouldnt have told you. But as I came to realize that much that I had already been


4/6

expressing was of a Gnostic nature, I began some investigations. As I was moving

mostly in ignorance and gut feeling and faith, I am thankful for the guides and friends Ihave communicated with who have been encouraging me along this journey. As I studied

and learned issues would come to mind and I would write about these. It is in responses

to these early blogs that I was becoming most encouraged. So much of what I was

learning was not what I would call new to me, but more in that way of an expandedconfirmation of what I already realized and giving me an intellectual hold and ability to

express it - that I had not the confidence in prior. And I found that as I stepped out, I

would become progressively bolder, and reason made itself available in ways I formerlymay not have considered.

I discovered that much of how we in the church perceive the first century church is in ourpresuppositional apologetica fallacy. I discovered that much of early Christianity

conceived the person of Jesus Christ quite differently than we have been taught. I

discovered that there is depth of spiritual truth that divergent conceptions of Christianity

understood and realized, but as the church became increasingly a political entity and grew

in relation to the empire, these spiritual depths and perceptions became declaredheretical. The underlying reason being the desire to control. And spiritual realities and

dimension is on a higher plane and transcends the lower physical materialistic dimensionof being. I discovered that this higher spiritual plane is an innate dimension we all are

privy too, although as we have been indoctrinated into an orthodox political conception

of life, the spiritual is often ignored and misunderstood. I discovered that there are

commonalities in these alternative conceptions of the Christian faith that hold true toother of the worlds great spiritual teachers. I discovered that our Christian rhetoric

seldom holds true to what IS, unless of course the spin doctors get to it first.

As I continued my exploration into Gnostic thought I was opened to the broader ideas

and disciplines. I was led to research the psycho-analysis of Carl Gustav Jung. C G Jung

was about twenty years junior to Sigmund Freud. Freud was an atheist. Jung realized

there is a spiritual dimension that could not be explained on a purely materialistic plane.In his investigations into the consciousness he realized that Gnostics perceived a great

deal about human spiritual and psychological nature. He considered them to be the

precursors to modern psycho-analysis. In his research he became aware of a state ofexperience that confounds conventional ideas of a closed materialistic universe governed

by cause and effect, that of synchronicity. Synchronicity is the experience of two or

more events which occur in a meaningful manner, but which are causally unrelated. Inorder to be synchronous, the events must be related to one another conceptually, and the

chance that they would occur together by random chance must be very small. Acausalconnecting principle, the supposed equivalent of a cause. Carl Jung posited

synchronicity--which he equated with the Tao--to describe meaningful but apparentlyaccidental concurrences or sequences of events. Most of us at some time seem toexperience at some time events or things or chance encounters, conformations or

circumstance that seem to relate to things in our lives, but there is absolutely NO

connection between these things, and we write these off as simply strange coincidences.In his research, and all documented in a scientific method, Jung established that these

strange coincidences really arent that strange and occur much more frequently than


5/6

is possible as a matter of pure chance. There is something apparently underlying events.

He also documented the effect of consciousness to affect outcomes that greatly surpassedthat possible as a matter of pure chance. Jung was a contemporary of early quantum

physicist Wolfgang Pauli. His association gained him a perception of quantum theory that

supported the conclusions he had been reaching and as he had been documenting what

was happening, he now realized the how it is happening could eventually be proven.

Last summer and early fall was very disturbing period. I entered a separation from my

wife and family, moved to Gettysburg PA, and was essentially an emotional bucket ofJell-Oin the process of meltdown. In the process of looking for a band, I was offered a

position to join a band in Seattle WA. I flew out there to check it out, it looked OK, and

so I came back and prepared to relocate at the end of October. I put my mobile home upfor sale ( I just bought it in July) packed my pick up and trailer and hauled everything out

the Seattle. I made a stop in Greeley CO to visit my sister. While there she and her

husband turned me on to a video What the Bleep Do We Know? This really seemed to

be drawing a lot of things together. So once I got to Seattle I ordered the extended version

as well as several books. I realize this is has been getting a lot of positive and negativecriticism. I made it my intent to consider the negative critiquing which I have done. The

only real valid criticism that I can find is that on a shoestring budget they have collected alot of expert information and are making a bundle out of it. Oh, orthodox Christians will

be quite offended, but I have found that there isnt too much that doesnt offend them if itdoesnt fit in their box. There are New Age explanations and the channeler JZ

Knight/Ramtha is featured. Although I admit some healthy skepticism, there is a greatdeal that is revealed concerning the relation of quantum theory, vector field theory,

consciousness and quantifiable evidence giving credibility to dimensions of reality that

were once only the domain of ancient masters, sages, and mystics, and taught in spiritualdisciplines either deemed heretical or otherwise spiritually anathema by orthodox

religion. I have since read two other books by respected researchers relating to fieldtheories that relate the dimensions of the material and the consciousness (spiritual).

All this, though sometimes using different names and terms, points to the same thing. We

are all connected. All creation is connected. Religion, as it has evolvedis meaningless.

Now, I did not say Jesus the Christ is meaningless, nor Buddha or any of the other

masters. But we, humankind, in our religious zeal have perverted what it was that eachof the great sages was communicating to us. Our ability to manipulate the texts of our

ancient scriptures, our mental gymnastics to prove our points and establish and justify

our perspective has twisted reality like pretzels.

There is a spiritual reality. We are more than physical animals. We are spiritual creatures.

It doesnt matter a hang whether one calls oneself an atheist, agnostic, Christian,Buddhist, Sufism, Muslim, Jew, and any of the rest. We are ALL spiritual beings. A

Christian that is ignorant of their spiritual nature and spiritual truth is exactly the sameas the atheist is ignorant. There are just as conceivably atheists who realize more spiritual

dimension than that religious demagogue ranting up a storm. Ones religion doesnt mean

diddly squat. But the spirit resides within you. And anybody can reach it. And if youdont like the word spirit, I can relate to vector field.


6/6

As I was finishing up some of my most recent reading material I was wondering, Well-

whats next? And per chance I was drawn to a contacts page she posted entitledspirituality. And damned, what was this, a summary of conclusions I had been drawing.

This has led me to more materials to explore.

I am coming to another conclusion: there must be something about the southern

hemisphere, all my regular contacts in either New Zealand or Australia seem to be able to

realize a spiritual dynamic that we in the northern hemisphere seem to struggle with.

Maybe its because the do everything upside down or ass backwards down there? Ormaybe we need to flip our global perspective of the Earth so whats happening down

there can be perceived as the up side? Maybe thats the way it actually is, but wevebeen brainwashed into looking at it from only one perspective?

Its worth considering.

Documents

Upside Down or Ass Backwards