When Heaven Touches Earth
Glenda Green
Smashwords.com Edition Published by Fideli Publishing Inc.
© Copyright 2012, Glenda Green
Revised second edition February 2012
Original Copyright © 2008 by Glenda Green
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Cover painting: When Heaven Touches Earth © Glenda Green, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-60414-536-6
First edition, first printing November 2008
Spiritis
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Other books by Glenda Green
To the little bit of Heaven in us all
Table of Contents
Appendix 1: Documents and photos pertaining to the miracle
Appendix 2: Who’s Who in the history of mysticism
~ Introduction ~
In many ways, this book is a companion to my first book, entitled “Love Without End, Jesus Speaks.” In fact, four chapters in this new book were once Part I in the first edition of “Love Without End.” Those chapters were removed two years ago from the “World Edition of “Love Without End” for three important reasons, the most practical being that I needed to make room for eighty-eight new text pages about Jesus without driving the cost up for my world-wide distribution team. It was simply a choice I had to make about relative value. The second reason is that “Love Without End” had become an international best seller, translated into seven languages. It was reaching cultures and people of diverse beliefs who were deeply interested in the teachings of Jesus, but had less interest in my personal anecdotes or the particulars of how I came to be the messenger of this contemporary missive. However, the most important reason is that there was much more substance behind my experience, which if expanded could shed more light on our mystical nature as human beings.
The mystical roots of Christianity (and the obscure history of those who kept it alive) are more relevant than ever to our contemporary search for spiritual direction and meaning. People all over the world are turning away from their orthodox roots, in all religions, and looking for a more personal direct experience with the Divine. This is almost inevitable as religious dogma loses some credibility against the expanded horizon of modern knowledge, research, and discovery. Religious atrocities of the past can no longer be justified or denied, nor the fallibility of clergy who abused their positions of trust. Yet, we must also not forget that all of our great movements toward freedom were preceded by periods of enlightenment in which our faith in man's higher nature was regenerated.
In most cases this elevation of consciousness came through our religious and spiritual venues. It would be a great mistake to forfeit the great treasures of our faith. It is as important to remember that in our spiritual quest, as much as in any other, the more valuable anything is to us, the more likely it will be exploited by villains and tyrants for their own dark ends.
When we react to something bad, it is often not to the thing itself, which we can strive to eliminate with intent and reason. What causes our reaction is that bad elements have appeared in something we need and value. Thus, our clear resolve is inhibited.
We are presented with choices and discernment even in our sacred pathways. Jesus was tempted many times in his mission on earth. Such challenges are presented in every age and context. However, at this time in history we have more power of choice than ever before. It has never been more important that all the choices be laid clearly before us.
I hope to show in this book how many wise men and women in the past faced a similar challenge to choose between dogma and a higher pathway of spiritual truth. Wisdom in every religious tradition has always come with a price and the requirement of mindful dedication to higher principles more than just ceremony, protocol, and conformity. Our imperative is to be discerning stewards of both our spiritual lives and collective potential.
A few days ago I made a new acquaintance who asked me what I was doing with my time. I answered that I was writing a book about the mystical nature of Christianity. Her reply was, “Isn't that an oxymoron?” After a little bit of inquiry I found that she had been raised in a family steeped in religious dogma and her spiritual growth was stifled until she later found a better source of inspiration. She was amazed to learn that Christianity had its roots in mysticism, and originally advocated direct experience with God, rather than formal doctrine offered by intercessors of the Church. In fact there was little need for theological conformity until Christianity was adopted by Rome in 425 as part of its culture. One thing my new friend and I agreed on is that man is essentially a spiritual being and will naturally seek or attain some kind of mystical experience if not conditioned to avoid it.
What you are about to read is a compilation of stories about Jesus' appearances to me, a short report of our conversations, and my personal evolution, from artist to mystic, with all the challenges of bringing those realizations into a modern way of life with no easy model for doing so. I have added my own research on the subject of mysticism. Most especially this book pays tribute to those who have lived and triumphed throughout history to demonstrate that this power is not only natural to us; but, it may well be the leading edge of our consciousness, appearing in countless ways beyond the more defined protocols of religious doctrine.
Personally, I believe that Jesus was referring to our innate and profoundly spiritual capacity to receive direct revelations from God, when he said: “These things I do, you shall do and greater...” (John 14:12) In our wishful hearts we might prefer to believe he was referring in that statement to charitable acts and moral behavior. However, in my decades of observation about human nature, I have come to see that, while love is innate to our nature, a higher encompassing love that leads to enlightenment is not. That comes only after much ego surrender, years of service to life and others, and dedication to the higher principles of humanity. Compassion is the fruit of our devotion to something greater than our self, not the starting point of that devotion. Despite the fact that Jeshua offered his life as an ultimate sacrifice, he never required sacrifice from others, only decency toward one’s fellow man and reunion with God. That was the pathway to fulfillment. In fact, mandates of sacrifice not chosen by one’s own higher nature could be stunting to spiritual growth. Awakening of consciousness and its vast potential—acknowledging our spiritual nature—that is the starting point.
Human beings, throughout the ages and in all cultures, have demonstrated an expanse and richness of consciousness that exceeds all other forms of life on earth. In this we have both an opportunity and a responsibility to connect all the dimensions of life as we know it. Many of those dimensions are best explored scientifically, while others can only be reached by the spirit.
Hopefully this book stands on its own as a testimony of our human spiritual nature in the midst of a technology driven modern world, which is often skeptical of anything it cannot weigh, measure, and sell. It is not necessary that you have read “Love Without End,” but if you have; and you wondered if there was more to the story, then this will answer many of your questions. If you have had a mystical experience yourself, whether an epiphany in life or a near-death experience, this may provide many insights for how you may relate those experiences to others. Most of all, if you have dreamed of how far you can pursue your own spiritual vision, and still live a lucid and socially relevant life, perhaps this will give you a model that is almost unavailable in contemporary literature, even with all the research into consciousness and spirituality.
For those of you who have discovered many fond realities in “Love Without End” and wanted to have a more tangible connection with them, the second edition of this book is enriched with color pictures of some special characters and moments as well as a special appendix of pictures and memorabilia of the events of 1992.
In his beautiful little work, “The Lost Dimension,” Hugh l'Anson Fausset wrote: “To be human is to bring the Kingdom of Light down to earth and to raise up earth to heaven.” This inspires us to think that perhaps the link we seek to a better life is actually within our own nature and being. As an artist, teacher, writer, and counselor, I have had marvelous glimpses of scalable reality that stretches further than we ever thought possible. May this book help you discover the greater portion of all that you are, as well as your own place in the link between Heaven and Earth.
~ Chapter 1 ~
Our Miraculous Universe
Have you ever been awestruck by the heavens at night, wondered what calls the butterflies into migration, or thought about the amazing power of love? If the answer is yes, then you have thought about our miraculous universe, which has not yet surrendered its mysteries to us. At such moments we are called away from our smallness and allowed to glimpse, if only for an instant, at the splendor of infinity.
Then, in a flash we lose the vision; not because the universe is jealous of what we have seen, but because we see it with different eyes. We shift and see the universe as a practical tool to assist our survival. And, so it is, the universe graciously reduces its scale that we may find comfort in what it provides for our immediate interests and needs.
Our universe is sublimely adaptable and coherent, yet its uncharted terrain is so great as to baffle our logical mind. No doubt, if all were known, we would think it quite simple. However, considering the richness and complexity of our experience it gives us, I somehow think we will never decrease our sense of awe in the face of infinity. It is probably no accident that we humans exist somewhere in the middle between giant Quasars and subatomic particles. This is no accident, because the perspective in both directions is from our own center of being!
How much of existence is united because we see it that way? How much appears to be unreal or chaotic because it exceeds the grasp of our understanding? How facile and creative is our consciousness in uniting the many venues for explaining reality? Will we try to explain the unknown with logic, or will we use creative imagery to summon a new reality?
Mankind lives an eternal paradox. We have been given the blessing of knowing that “we are”, and also the challenge of knowing we are “part of” something much greater than our self. Our interests, affections, and abilities sculpt our personal character, and yet we were given to know a larger ‘Self’ within the connections we have to one another and with nature. We are often stumped with how to explain our connection to the universe. We have explored it, researched it, written about it, speculated and dreamed about it, and often received answers of both a scientific and spiritual nature that we still do not understand.
In my mystical journey I have encountered other subtle qualities we normally do not see, which can be found in the dawn and the twilight moments of changing reality where a doorway opens that we may enter. Or, perhaps we will pass and pretend it was not there. Only in such fleeting glimpses are we able to see the whole of our own being in silhouette against the grandeur of the universe.
Regardless of the path we choose, or the reality we see, the amazing part of it all is how life coordinates, integrates, and synthesizes all of its parts into seamless harmony. Coherence, it seems, is the very goal of creation and consciousness. The universe does not require of us, or even offer to us, an understanding of all its mysteries. That is our curiosity alone. What it requires of us is an endless search and respect for coherence in all of life as we experience it and need to know it, along with our symbiotic response of bringing that coherence into our selves. In many ways, coherence is the base mechanic of what we call love. From another perspective it is the fiber and force of conscious evolution and personal responsibility.
To redeem any part of our life we only need to consider the greater whole to which we belong, and open ourselves to a greater perspective. Through an elevation of consciousness we are more able to unify and transcend the scattered parts of any challenged reality. Wholeness and healing have much in common. However, in our bodies, minds, and souls, wholeness is not the result of healing. Healing is the result of wholeness pursued with all our hearts. The power of wholeness is so intense, so unflinching, that it will draw from every level of potential, revealing possibilities we would not have thought possible. What we see, in essence, is a miracle.
The most common reluctance I find in some people to pursue a more spiritual life is the fear of “falling to pieces” or “dropping off the deep end.” This is amusing and ironic, to say the least, considering that a person without sufficient consciousness to include the spiritual is already “living in pieces.”
As we seek to know, and open ourselves to the vast “Unexpected,” our lives actually come together. We look for that great, invisible, intangible inner force that knits all parts of our self and the world into some manner of coherence. Even though many sectors of our life are far from perfect, we could not be a whole person if we did not already have within us the same force that binds and directs the universe into a symphonic masterpiece. Even when reactive thoughts or actions influence us, there is still a greater force that allows us to develop and hold some redeeming resolution.
The power that draws life together (which can be summarized as love) is so vital to our being that we incrementally damage ourselves to the degree that we deny it, harm it, or misdirect it. That drive is so powerful it can place before us new possibilities, unseen by our ordinary senses, and yet sensed by some force of coherence within us. The fact that any one of us is whole in a universe bursting with random energy, on a planet with endless adaptations of bacteria competing for protein; that our body and being were ever assembled and remained protected is a miracle.
Perhaps the greatest miracle of all is that we are here and consciously aware, not only of the universe, but ourselves. How much love required that to happen? We are both the result and the cause of coherence in a continuously creative and created flux. That is cause for wonder!
Wise teachers through the ages have said that by faith, and whatever measure of consciousness we possess, all the dimensions of our reality can partake of a higher nature. There is also a higher sense of reason in this, which is more spherical and expanding than linear. When one understands the implications of a truly coherent field, valid under all conditions, then practical, scientific, and sublime realities are all connected.
Unity can be attained, and one of the greatest mysteries of the universe can be solved, namely our relationship to the Creator and our causal participation in the evolution of consciousness. This realization must happen personally through direct experience; and, our universe is designed exactly to allow that fulfillment. Such an attainment is not in any way an intellectual accomplishment. It is not reserved for those in privileged positions or available only to the learned. Often it happens to the most innocent and unprepared, but it is nonetheless an advanced encounter with Consciousness.
Pursuit of conscious evolution is innate and natural to human beings when not interfered with by tyranny and oppression, conditions which directly result in ignorance. Let there be no mistake, ignorance is as cultivated as higher education. It does not exist in the innocent, even though limitations of experience may be present. Therefore, let us begin by looking at our natural tendencies for explaining life. One of the most natural inclinations is to look for connections between cause and effect. Babies do this; animals exhibit this natural tendency; and, just as surely, plants turn their leaves toward the sun.
We seek the predictable, and at the same time we hope for the most positive response from forces outside our self. This is what Jesus was encouraging us to believe when he referred to lilies of the field and how they toiled not but wore the raiment of kings. (Matthew 6:28)
We plan for our needs with rational expectations of cause and effect, but we also dream of exceptional possibilities that break the mold of ordinary reality. We all know this can happen. Somewhere in between these two extremes we look for probabilities that might allow us to move our reasonable and manageable life a little closer to the threshold of our dreams. Instinctively we are drawn to the most rewarding perspective of all: that of unity, the basis for sustainable connection between all manifestations of reality
Orderly structure and exceptional possibility are not mutually repellant. To the contrary, none of us could exist for long without both. They are alternating forms of opportunity, one for predictable continuity, the other for change. Because all order is subject to change, unexpected opportunities can appear under any set of conditions. Thus, we are released from the tyranny of outmoded structures and presented with new opportunities to realize our highest aspirations. Anything can be reshaped through inserting a new thought, intention, feeling, impulse, or action. Each participant in life can and will generate new possibilities and ignite an unplanned expansion of reality. We all possess this power, and through being open to a greater consciousness we can directly contribute to bringing more heaven to earth.
Even though some people are reluctant to admit that miracles happen, it is amazing how much we all live our daily lives fully counting on them. If you consider how many variables and risks are involved in driving twenty miles on a four-lane freeway, it is a sheer miracle to arrive home safely. We only have to look at life with innocent perception to see how much miracles are part of ordinary experience.
The fact is, life holds together despite its frequent rearrangements. Through expansions that exceed our imagination, and through setbacks, disasters, and oppressions that exceed our tolerance, life still holds together. Sometimes unity can be maintained only by extraordinary compensations from powers normally unseen. There is a force of coherence that offers potential for unity and meaning in every situation even if we do not always realize it.
In seeing a miracle, the greatest obstacle anyone will encounter both within oneself and among others is that of judgment and restrictive beliefs. All of our limitations in life are rooted in limited perspectives about life. When I say ‘limited’ I am referring to a fixed point of view that remains essentially the same regardless of how much new experience and data may be available to it.
It is largely because of fixed ideas that we fend off the miraculous potential within reality and we recoil in skepticism toward those who do see it. We are not prepared to accept that many of the structures in which we have placed our faith are simply illusions of order and not true revelations of order. It’s quite a shock when predictable order is completely dismantled—even if it’s with the most benevolent result! I sometimes think we would prefer to suffer oppression than to have our desires fulfilled in an unpredictable way. When confronted with the fragile illusion of what we thought was real, we are shaken to the core.
Fortunately, we are at a point in history where our great spiritual luminaries and our greatest scientists concur on one important point, that all of existence is connected in a coherent and expanding way, and that it has an amazingly resilient and creative way of maintaining that coherence.
It is only our sleeping consciousness, and the way we structure its waking moments, that prevents a larger vision of reality. Once upon a time, we thought the earth was flat; and then we expanded our belief to hold that physical reality could be explained fully by a three-dimensional model of mass, energy, and space. Albert Einstein added the fourth dimension of time, yet he did so with caution that it did not mark the outer limits of what was possible. We have now gone so far beyond that edge as to be concerned with how to explain and connect multi-dimensions of existence, and layers of universes. “Coherence” is still the operative word, for that is one of the basic drives of existence and consciousness; but, how that will reduce to mechanics and mathematics in the new paradigm is yet to be seen.
For the moment, what this larger vision offers to the evolution of our consciousness and our spiritual understanding is immense. Scientists, philosophers, and a new generation of mystics are modeling a revolutionary view of the universe as expanding spherically and infinitely, potentially unified from any point within the whole.
The ancient Greek philosophers saw the need for expanded explanations of life, but they could only develop their thoughts in two directions. They thought about how creation began, and then explained how subsequent progressions resulted from it. This was the coordinated explanation of Logos and logic. The word Logos has often been used in reference to the prime and moving Force…the Source of All…The Truth! Logic, on the other hand, is a system of thinking we use to explain cause and effect. Logic is the language of science and reason.
For the Greek philosophers, Logos was the primal postulated truth that provides an explanation for beginnings, and also provides a “constant,” or framework, in which logic unfolds, as well as the character of what has been created. For thousands of years there has been a debate over the basis of order in the universe. Is it Logos (God) or logic (scientific and pragmatic progressions of cause and effect)? Both schools of thought had their advocates and each had its own convincing argument as to why it should outrank the other. However, there is now good reason to believe that Logos and logic are fully reconcilable into a new, more comprehensive, explanation.
Albert Einstein was confronted with the limited framework of classical philosophy as he studied the nature of light. He realized the limits of Newtonian physics. He also believed that light was a dynamic constant for all time and space. In order to demonstrate this, he first had to present a new idea of infinity based logic, which we now call relativity. The universe was no longer viewed through the analogy of polar opposites, but from a common source or constant which contained no mass. For the first time in science, Logos and logic had been connected through the constancy of light. Interestingly, light behaves both as a linear wave form and also as a spontaneous particle. The holistic result is our understanding of a universe fully integrated and similar from particle systems to cosmic systems.
According to the Greeks, one of the most remarkable attributes of Logos is the way it guides our actions through faith and logic, often without revealing itself or the true nature of our actions until we are well into the creative process. Then somewhere in the middle of the process, comes the great ‘ah ha’! At that point the greater reason appears, the pieces fall into place, and the holistic nature of what we are doing takes over. I sometimes think what we call a miracle is just the visible emergence of Logos (the greater reason) which was there all along, but which we didn’t see until some unexpected window presented the greater view. This is as true as it ever was.
Classical logic also continues to be true and relevant wherever linear progressions and comparative extremes matter. For example, we can measure white more accurately against a backdrop of black; and, any perception of one extreme carries with it a subtle reminder of the other. As an extension of logic there are progressions (time) and boundaries (space). Logic is basically the study of what comes from what, and in what context. It’s the study of progressions and derivatives: how something came to be what it is. At the level of derivatives, all of life is just an effect becoming another effect. In this complex network of associated meanings, we use polar opposites to sort out the confusion and make sense of life. In a moral context, we use explanations of good and evil to discern constructive and destructive possibilities. However, logic cannot circumscribe the holistic nature of life, which is the true basis of morality.
Logic also cannot explain or embrace the origins of the universe, or a human soul, or even an idea. As a matter of fact, it cannot explain origins at all. Beginnings, by definition, are not derivative. The nature of beginnings can range from presumed states of absolute origin to spontaneous or serendipitous mutations within some kind of ‘mother’ context.
Important as their contributions were to the history of Western thought (migrating into much of the world) the Greek philosophers held a prejudice against any exploration of consciousness that could not be accountable to theology, science, or visibly reveal some order of progression. Other dimensions of awareness, and sudden eruptions of spontaneous potential, were always regarded suspiciously. In Greece, Rome, and all their descendant cultures, there was no place for consciousness that could not be controlled and adjusted either to fit logic or the moral values determined by theocratic leaders. That is the main reason we do not associate mysticism with Western thought, yet find it so richly part of every other culture.
There is such lack of intellectual support in the West for mysticism that many students of early Christianity, especially regarding Gnostic ideas, just assumed these strange new beliefs migrated from Eastern culture and then lost their fire as Christianity was Romanized. What they missed is that Jesus was a true mystic, regardless of where he may have traveled or studied. Mysticism, by its very nature, is not so much the result of influence as it is personal disposition and breadth of awareness. Mystical perceptions are often the harbinger of rapid evolutions of consciousness that has no pre-existing model for explaining it. Some perception or experience has transcended the prevailing and limited ideas about how things are supposed to be. Consciousness takes care of the revelation; we simply have to be open to it.
One of the most fascinating attributes of consciousness is the way it correlates our inner and outer reality, revealing these connections only as they are lived. This is the mystical “extra measure” of life—the one that cannot be predicted or explained by dogmatic beliefs of any kind, theological or scientific.
Ironically, our best explanation of this phenomenon has been advanced by David Boehm, the renowned quantum physicist. In his theory of “implicate and explicate order” he has actually proposed a new cosmology that views universal order in a radically different way from anything that has come before. Ordinary forms, including time, space, and energy, even abstractions about them, he considers to be the explicate manifestations of enfolded (implicate) order of everything that ever could exist.
Bohm and other scientists of the last thirty years have created landmarks of liberty for how we think about life. Even though their objectives have been scientific, they have given a wider berth to consciousness, which cannot be bridled by limiting conventions. Their theories provide the most likely answers so far as to why our human consciousness reaches the limit of any linear direction and must reconnect with a larger whole in order to continue its growth.
In Boehm’s conception of order, the undivided whole and the implicate order inherent within it, is primary rather than any part of it such as particles, quantum states, or time and space. For Boehm, The Whole encompasses all things, structures, abstractions and processes, including processes that result in stable structures as well as those that involve metamorphosis of things. His description of this idea is amazingly spiritual and poetic: “The new form of insight can perhaps best be called Undivided Wholeness in Flowing Movement. This view implies that flow is, in some sense, prior to that of the ‘things’ that can be seen to form and dissolve in this flow.” Thus, according to Boehm’s view, the whole is in continuous flux, and hence is referred to as the “holomovement”—movement of the whole.
This is what mystics have reported since time immemorial. We are moved by life into our greater realizations about it, and these revelations offered to our personal consciousness have sprung from a deeper order that has its own patterns, ways, and timing. These moments of heightened consciousness, where our smaller world ends and the greater one begins, cannot be estimated through linear time and space nor constrained by theological dogma. As individuals we are very small, and yet we partake of a vast potential that defies our definition of it.
Knowing this brings liberty. It allows for the expression of free will and for integrating various realities in a positive and tolerant way. There is an enduring state of dynamic equilibrium that sustains the patterns of cause and effect and yet allows for unpredictable and transcendent events. Within it all there is the power of Consciousness, expanding always beyond any lesser forces that would attempt to restrict it. If we would behold a miracle, we must first behold the miracle of reality—that its unity is seamless—that it can provide a different experience for each of us, and yet be consistent for all. This is indeed an amazing universe. When we shift from linear predictability to spherical and expanding unity we find whole new possibilities. From this perspective all manner of new realizations are possible and we are set free to explore life without having to know what is around every bend of the road. We will discover our destiny as we live it.
~ Chapter 2 ~
Precognitions
In the best of all possible worlds it seems we would easily be able to find our way on whatever journey we embarked. And yet, in the best of all possible worlds we would wish intensely for so many possibilities as to never tire from exploration. Perhaps God has answered both prayers by giving us a universe that is reliably practical, infinitely open to miracles, and yet mysterious enough to challenge our conscious evolution. Through countless dimensions of reality and possibility, the dialog between Heaven and Earth never ends. We see it in the eternal connection between thought and manifest reality; and, in the inspirations and visions that impel extraordinary quests. We see it in the playful dance of predictability and surprise. Stretching from science and philosophy to the dreams of our heart, we seek to discover the quivering gossamer edge of existence where Heaven touches Earth.
Within the infinite stream of time, there are points where our stories begin to take shape. But, rarely are they all revealed at once. The larger forces that shape our lives are quite clever in the way they dart through the trees and wrap their golden threads around a forest too large and dense for us to see beyond. Perhaps these forces need to gestate in the womb of life until the right convergence of factors brings them to light. Perhaps they are so deeply rooted in our own nature we have no objectivity on them. One thing is for certain: they are much easier to see in hindsight.
By a strange set of ironies, in the fall of 1967 I found myself beginning a Masters Degree in art history at Tulane University. I was supposed to be working on a Masters of Fine Art degree in painting, at the University of Indiana, or Columbia University, both of which had accepted my applications. However, God had other plans. My application for scholarships, which were essential for my continued study, were lost or delayed by forces out of my control. Instead, a wild card application to study art history at Tulane's Newcomb College had not only been accepted but had been awarded one of the largest fellowship grants in the United States.
There was always next year to try again for painting, and rather than waste the gift, I decided that it would not hurt my professional range to have a full historical understanding of art as well as a creative one. I had visions of studying the great Renaissance masters, or the beautiful richness of Impressionism, all of which would only expand my appreciation and technical understanding for later creations of my own. What was there to lose?
This would be a pleasant diversion, with minimum challenge, or so I thought. However, by a turn of events I could not have anticipated, my free will in all of this was intercepted once again. One of the stipulations for the Kress Fellowship was that I studied with the senior professor of the faculty, who just happened to be a specialist in Early Christian and Medieval art history. She was a brilliant person who had joined the Tulane faculty from a high standing rank at the University of Cologne. Most definitely, it was an honor to study with her, but where would be the creative stimulus for the painting career I planned to later resume? On meeting her, I was impressed by her impeccable mind and charmed by her heavy German accent, although it was hard to follow her lectures, and her bibliography for study was mostly in European languages, with some even in ancient languages.
What had I gotten myself into? I thought I was doomed for a wash-out before mid-terms, and then an extraordinary thing happened. I surrendered to the idea of doing my best even if the defeat was inevitable. I decided to invest my ample stipend toward hiring other students to translate for me. German, French, Italian, Spanish, and Latin: That was just the beginning of what was to come. I revised my personal schedule so that I was up all night, and my early morning classes would come at the end of my work day when I was at my primed best. Then I would sleep. For a semester at least, I could forfeit daylight for a greater purpose. My dedication was total, and I completely forgot my own reservations and resistance to this new twist of fate. Even though I would not have chosen this course of study, it was so different and so challenging as to unlock doors of curiosity way beyond the veneer of casual fascination. Somehow I was plummeted into depths (or perhaps heights) of consciousness that were far beyond the structure of logical thinking. Pretty soon I was dreaming of these ancient times and speaking their languages in my dreams. Not more than six weeks passed before I was joining my translators in reading directly from the texts once completely foreign to me. Then I was on my own, reading adequately, if not proficiently, all the texts that thwarted me in the beginning.
After my first term paper was graded, Dr. Davis (my professor) added a special note that she was so glad to have a student who was this well prepared linguistically. Little did she know it had taken me four years of college Spanish, using traditional methods of study, just to speak a few words of that language.
What I could not tell anyone, because I did not understand it myself at the time, is I had stumbled on a deeply seated “Rosetta Stone” of linguistic consciousness that probably exists in all of us when we are born. This faculty may be why children are so fluid with language and can learn any language to which they are born.
The only way I can explain my personal recovery of that ability is that my depth of dedication had immersed me into some extra potential available for its consummation. Or was there a factor of destiny that overrode my normal limitations?
This later possibility began to suggest itself after the success of my first semester, when Dr. Davis summoned me to her office to hear a new proposal. It was time to decide on a research direction for my master's thesis, and she had a special topic she had been reserving until the right student came along. With my “excellence for language,” she felt it would be a natural next step to begin reading in ancient languages, which were required for the topic she was about to present. I cannot begin to tell you how many bees were swarming in my head as I collapsed into a quiet panic in the chair opposite her desk.
A native of Germany, she had the privilege of studying the great medieval cathedrals of Germany and France first hand, touching the cool stone and having lunch in the shadows of their beauty. She was also fascinated with the parallel emergence of a people's reality that showed up in the plays enacted on the porches of the great cathedrals. In earlier times, these were morality plays or enactments directly from the Bible. But as centuries rolled by, and a people's culture and language also evolved, these stories became encased in contemporary reality and romance epics. For example, the story we know today as Cinderella, was originally a parable of the beleaguered church often oppressed and put into servitude by the dark sisters of feudal wealth and power. Prince Charming was the Christ who would awaken the church's heart and restore its true place in the palace of Heaven. Parallels of meaning, such as this were the hidden message in most, if not all, of medieval theater. And most, if not all, theater was played on the great Cathedral porches. That way, as audiences were enthralled with Tristan and Isolde, the background on the tympanum (arch over the doorway) would be resplendent with carved stories from the Bible to inspire thoughts on that level.
These stories, this theater, had a potent effect on the evolution of style on French and German cathedrals, or perhaps it was a revelation of converging forces of popular power. Either way, theatrical costumes began to sway the dress in which sculpted religious figures were portrayed on the doorways. For over a thousand years of Christian art, Mary, Jesus, and all the saints had been portrayed only in Semitic dress or Roman tunics and togas (depending on the preference of those in power). Then, suddenly, around 1180 on the porch of Reims Cathedral a figure of Joseph appears dressed in the fashionable attire of a common Frenchman!
Every nuance of style on this or any cathedral was rigidly controlled by theologians. So, what had changed? Nothing, that was obvious. Nothing recorded in history books. Nevertheless, as Dr. Davis drank in the mysteries of this edifice, during her own study at the Sorbonne, she dared to ask some very provocative questions. As a student of medieval literature also, she had asked the same questions there. The languages of emerging cultures, created by both indigenous and migrating people, contained legends, wisdom, and beliefs that went far beyond the structured and enforced limitations of official theology.
To be sure, extra measures of creativity can always be found in the flow of popular culture, in any epoch. Eventually, popular ideas will affect more conservative and entrenched reality. Dr. Davis's more important speculation was that the rising popular culture of Medieval France held within it secrets of hidden theology that could no longer be suppressed, because these secrets were known and practiced by so many people whose loyalty the church was cultivating. Popular culture, considered vulgar by the church, would have provided the perfect cover and conveyance for mysteries the Church did not want to encourage. A populace illiterate of the written word found their own inspiration through theater and art. The perfect counter strategy of conservative theologians could have been to use the same popular ideals and images, and then direct them to a different end. From two directions, for complementary reasons, there was a sudden eruption of popular images in art, theater, and literature of the late Middle Ages.
This was a fascinating idea, but only special research could turn up evidence for its validity. That task she had saved for some future student who seemed ripe for the task. It would involve translating forty-two epic romance plays that had never been studied outside their original milieu. It would involve an in depth study of the lives and writings of medieval saints of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries who practiced a mystical life outside traditional theology, and in some cases were martyred for doing so. It would involve connecting this evidence to writings of the early church fathers, such as Origin and Augustine, who had alluded to different threads of practice within the faith, and to those who had formally dismissed the idea of a direct connection with God separate from the Church as an intercessor. It would also involve historical research about communities in medieval France that had been brutally persecuted for practicing mystical Christianity. And finally, it would involve a summation about how the rise of popular culture in the European late Middle Ages was the only vessel large enough to carry such a resurgent power of this ancient knowledge.
As if that were not challenging enough, Dr. Davis presented me with the idea that the Italian Renaissance, primarily financed by the Medici family and the Church, was a kind of counter-renaissance to the real Renaissance that happened in and around Paris a century earlier—that being a people's movement and not the 15th century intellectual movement, which came about in Italy. The fact is, Italy was poor prior to it's Renaissance: poor in wealth, health, morale, and industry, with many warring city-states. The only power it had was the Vatican and a few families that had become influential throughout Europe because of trade and banking during the later Crusades. By contrast, Paris was wealthy in everything from trade and industry to innovation, banking, and the arts, not to mention rich in its typical pride. There is no question that it was the most fertile ground for the birth of a free culture, and moreover, the populace was rich with enthusiasm to create it.
That day in her office I sat in rapt amazement at what had been dished onto my plate. What a privilege to hear her ideas. But, why me? I was overwhelmed with the magnitude of research this project implied, not to mention further linguistic miracles that would be necessary. One of my fellow classmates had just graduated with a thesis on Whistler's Mother. For Heaven's sake, why couldn't I just write a summation of all the “Boating Parties” that Monet ever painted?
She made it clear that I did not have to make a decision that day, but somehow I knew that I did have to respond quickly before I was influenced by all the resistance my mind could invent. As if in a moment of sudden death, all the months flashed through my memory of how I had come to this point because of other forces choosing for me. Then in an equally sudden flash of confidence, I sat up in my chair and quietly poised myself to say, “I’ll do it.” In that instant I realized that one true choice made in full consciousness, eradicates all the past choosing that life has made for us. We do not have to choose everything. We just have to know that we can choose, and in the crucial times when it really matters, to call forth that power.
Mundane as it may seem, this was the beginning of my direct experience of God through the power of my own choosing. Only then would I be ready to study with the great teachers I would find on the pages of history.
~ Chapter 3~
Those Who Prepared the Way…
What I would discover on the pages of history, and within the hidden symbols of art and literature would change my life forever. There are many ways that Heaven touches Earth, and most of them are dismissed today with arrogant assumptions that all truth is reducible to information and logic. In the late middle ages there was a vitality of spirit that had not yet surrendered to that restrictive bridle, and the picture it paints, gives witness to spiritual heroism not often seen in the modern world. Innocence, virtue, and stunning imagination are seen in bold display against the dark suppression of medieval control, superstition, prejudice, and brutal injustice.
I found the key I was looking for. These were the catalytic forces, which ignited a change of the ages. These forces were not externally applied to the human predicament, as with economic or political manipulation, but were indigenous to what makes us human. When crushed by stagnant conditions, which endanger our life or smother creation, a greater force will rise up within us to explore or create alternate directions. That force is nothing less than the very Consciousness which unites our common survival activities with a larger evolutionary mandate. At its highest level, in all ages, this connection activates our spiritual nature and reminds us that we are both body and soul—that we walk on the earth yet reach for the stars. Within that possibility is the highest personal experience of knowing the Divine directly. This, in its purest form is mysticism. The resurgence of mysticism between 1100 and 1500 in Europe gave vital evidence of this magnificent power breaking loose to generate a new age. Nothing so radical had happened since the first three hundred years of Christianity.
Mysticism is both familiar and unfamiliar within the traditions of Christian thought. If we feel a deep comfort within our soul, and a sense of leaping for the light, when we are offered the fruits of mystical life, it is because the beginning of what we call Christianity happened within the transcendent life and consciousness of Jeshua ben Joseph, the one we call Jesus Christ, whose truth caused the seed of our being to remember its Divine origin. I’m not sure he would recognize all that has happened in his name since he walked the streets of Jerusalem. Christianity has often been driven by the pursuit of political power and enforced by the most rigid doctrine. Yet in its darkest moments, the mystics—those who sought direct union with God—were holding the light. At times these two rivers of power (the mystical and the orthodox) formed a benevolent blend as they did in the first centuries after Jeshua’s life. At other times any truth that might result in a schism was brutally suppressed by those who welded the sword of orthodoxy.
The period between AD 400 and 1400, is rightly named the dark ages. Those who held the light did so mostly sub-rosa. The fact that early Christians worshiped in secret did not really end at the legalization of Christianity in 425AD. It continued all through the middle ages and well into the modern era. The hiding places simply changed, and those they hid from wore different garments. Most of those who lived and died anonymously for their faith have remained so, although their legacy is one of immeasurable importance to our modern consciousness.
The purpose of this book is not so much to study the elements or practices of mysticism as it is to examine the mystical dimensions of our human psyche and our need to explore levels of consciousness beyond the ordinary. While mysticism has been a vital part of every culture, and can be found to varying degrees within every religion, the late Middle Ages in Europe offers a potent laboratory for studying the essential connection between mysticism and the evolution of human consciousness.
Contrary to the modern idea that consciousness only grows in the sterile conditions of scientific control, there is much evidence that consciousness cannot grow without equal progressions of personal responsibility, and that cannot happen without extraordinary perceptions of how one’s life can make a difference in the natural order of shared existence. In no other period of history were the learned more mistrustful of man’s aspiration of higher knowledge as they were in the late middle ages. After a thousand years of oppression, the human spirit was never more willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to reach for something better than a distant promise of Heaven as their reward. These seeds of change began to sprout in the lives of saints and geniuses, and also in the voice of extremists and radical movements, in songs, poems, plays, and the optimistic enterprises of a birthing middle class.
No doubt it was divine providence that led me to study this period of art, literature, and history. By personal inclination I would have shunned the very nature of life in this period, so stripped of luxury for the common man, so full of hardship, epidemics, bitter cold winters, and many cycles of famine, which held little potential for the creation of fine art—the very subject I had intended to study. However, God has a way of taking us one step (or many) further than we anticipate. Our own estimation of what we need to discover or experience usually falls short. What I was about to see through the lives of ancient poets, sculptors, playwrights, and beloved saints was something far greater than the creation of art. It was the creation of a new world, and I was given the opportunity to witness the very elements present at its conception.
The Roman Catholic Church had been the single, largest unifying structure in medieval Europe. It touched everyone's life, no matter what their rank or class or where they lived. With the exception of a small number of Jews, everyone in Europe was a Christian during the middle ages from the richest king down to the lowest serf.
From the moment of its baptism a few days after birth, a child entered into a life of service to God and God's Church. As a child grew, it would be taught basic prayers, would go to church every week barring illness, and would learn of its responsibilities to the Church. Every person was required to live by the Church's laws and to pay heavy taxes to support the Church. In return for this, they were shown the way to everlasting life and happiness after lives that were often short and hard.
In addition to collecting taxes, the Church also accepted gifts of all kinds from individuals who wanted special favors or wanted to be certain of a place in heaven. These gifts included land, flocks, crops, and even serfs. This allowed the Church to become very powerful, and it often used this power to influence kings to do as it wanted.
As a way of life this could not hold up to the ground-swell of a modern world emerging. Theological rigidity, not to mention political alliances and privately held economy were too vested and inflexible to mid-wife the birth of a new world. It was inevitable that the coming evolution would occur through popular movements, and many extreme doctrines which disavowed Catholic supremacy. It was not without shedding of blood, and it was not without the heights of ecstasy.
Chaos is the mother of change, good and bad, and by the twelfth century, Europe was ripe with both chaos and positive potential. Beneath the formidable towers of orthodoxy and feudal control, my research began to reveal the presence of a deeper constant that had quietly persisted like an underground river evidenced only by the clear trickles of fresh water that some would catch in their cup of consciousness. That was an unshakable belief that human beings could and were responsible for their own lives, and could and do have a direct personal connection with the Divine. This was the dawning of belief in personal sovereignty as confirmed by real experience of union with God. Once tasted, this precious affirmation would not submit to lesser authority. Whether expressed in philosophical terms or through the inspiration of art, poetry, music, or ideals of personal liberty, it was a driving force of conviction which brought great courage.
The rise of national power, capitalism, banking, and the first scientific rumblings were much easier for the Church to assimilate and manipulate than the mystical convictions that were being spoken of in hushed voices and secret symbols. Nothing compared to the threat these mystical convictions posed to the Church, for those beliefs challenged the core of its power, namely that it could decide who would see Heaven and why. To claim any other route to God was heresy.
Indeed, it was very dangerous to take any sort of stand against the Catholic Church, visible or otherwise. Nevertheless, by the twelfth century, the movement toward personal freedom was so large it could not be hidden. It was a major force with which to contend, and in one instance the Church initiated a huge and bloody war against the Languedoc region of what is now southern France. It was a 20-year military campaign waged only for the suppression of free thought. This Crusade also was instrumental in the creation and institutionalization of the extremely political Dominican Order and the Inquisition they conducted.
A Crusade as violent as any fought in the Middle East, it was called the Albigensian Crusade because of the large numbers of independent religious sects in and around the city of Albi, where, in 1176, a Church Council first declared their practices heretical.
The Roman Catholic Church had always dealt vigorously with strands of Christianity it considered heretical, but before the 12th century such groups were organized in smaller numbers. In the 12th century much of what is now Southern France was converting to threatening deviations from orthodoxy.
In 1209 some thirty thousand knights and foot soldiers from northern Europe descending like a whirlwind on the Languedoc -- the mountainous northeastern foothills of the Pyrenees. This deliberate extermination lasted for over twenty years and resulted in the death of an estimated 200,000 to 1,000,000 people.
The extermination of populations, cities, and crops was so extensive as to be called the first "genocide" in modern European history. In one town, for example, fifteen thousand men, women, and children were slaughtered wholesale—many of them in the sanctuary of the church. When an officer inquired of the Pope's representative how he might distinguish heretics from true believers, the reply was, "Kill them all. God will recognize his own."
Having been called by the Pope himself, its participants wore a cross on their tunics, like crusaders in Palestine, and their rewards were dispensations from the Church, such as remission of all sins, an expiation of penances, an assured place in Heaven, and all the booty one could plunder. There has also never been a greater land seize on behalf of France.