Category Archives: archetypes

Of Miracles & Natural Order

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One of the great questions of philosophy is, can a miracle truly occur? For some, it depends on how the term is defined. If a miracle is merely an unlikely occurrence, then the answer is easy. Yes. We all witness rare occurrences from time to time. From a sports team coming from far behind to win a championship no one thought them capable of, to accidents where someone narrowly escapes death. We often call these “miracles”, when perhaps they are more closely identified with chance occurrences with low probability.

More often we associate a true miracle when the laws of nature are broken. For instance, Jesus turning water into wine, walking on water, curing the sick, and his own resurrection from the dead. The Buddha was said to have the power of teleportation, the ability to duplicate himself, and manipulate the elements. The Prophet Muhammad was purported to manifest water, heal the sick and also had power over the elements. Today we also hear of modern day miracles which defy nature, such as shrines where people go to be healed or people claiming to see visions of God, saints or other types of entities.

So the question remains, do miracles really exist or are they just human projections on certain events? While we do have many reports of miracles, there are no proofs of miracles occurring to date. I think that’s a powerful statement in itself. There is no proof that has ever been recorded of a real, bonafide miracle.

Many theologians and theist philosophers, including Immanuel Kant, thought miracles didn’t matter. In fact, Kant though that miracles were actually a distraction from having faith. For Kant, miracles were the exception to the rule so it was better to not count on them in your life. Looking to the message of one’s faith was preferable to signs and wonders.

Philosophers such as J. L. Mackie and Michael Martin argue that interference with the natural order from God would prove that God wasn’t perfect. Why would God need to create miracles in the world if everything is going according to plan? Why would God play favorite and help some people and not others? Why would God let some people starve to death or be horribly injured, but save others from that fate through a miracle? Martin also suggests that somethings that appear as miracles to us, may not be God but anomalies that occur in nature that we simply cannot explain yet.

In Hermeticism, when one perfectly aligns themselves (the Below) to the Source Consciousness (the Above), they can achieve the Philosopher’s Stone.

I buy this. I think when we witness synchronicity, this has something to do with consciousness and quantum entanglement. It’s part of the natural order. I do not think a miracle has occurred. In fact, when I think of how magic, astrology and tarot work, I don’t think any of that is miraculous, but more of just how the world operates. I think our individual consciousness is connected to our higher-self or a higher state of consciousness, which may be thought of as our spirit. It’s the entity which keeps sending our soul on mission in the material world. Beyond that, I believe there is a collective consciousness that is societal which we all tap into on a planetary level, and a Source Consciousness which is singular, which all things in the universe share in as well. We share an archetypal bond and this is how things like astrology and tarot work and evolve over time. When we align with our higher-self and Universal Consciousness, we begin to notice synchronicities occurring in our lives. These may appear miraculous, but it’s merely part of the natural order unfolding.

Do miracles occur where the laws of nature are broken? I don’t think so, no. I think when they occur in sacred texts they are meant as metaphors to explain deeper truths. Does the death and resurrection of Jesus mean more if Christ was killed on our behalf as a sacrifice? Or does it mean more that Jesus was the perfect example to show us how to transform ourselves? The Christ story is the path we take to die to our old selves and be reborn as Divine spirits. It’s not about a physical miracle, but rather our spiritual reality if we choose that path.

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The Mystery of Mind

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Geometry of the Soul.

Where does consciousness come from? Why do we think the things we think? Why am I blogging and bothering with any of this stuff? Most of us would like to think we do the things we do because we will ourselves to do them. I want to blog because writing helps me to organize my thoughts. There! That’s why I do it! But why do I like to organize my thoughts? Well, it helps me to think more clearly and understand why I think what I think. But why do I want to do that? I can write a litany of reasons why I blog that will eventually take me back to some time long before I even knew that the internet and pens existed. I will never get to the first cause of why I do it. At some point the reality is that the necessary conditions arose for me to write this blog and post it on this WordPress website.

I came across an article today in The Conversation by David A. Oakley and Peter Halligan that examines the question, “What If Consciousness Is Not What Drives the Human Mind?” Fair question. No one knows were consciousness arises from, it just does. The thing that likes to take credit for everything I do in life is just ego. That’s the thing I, and most people who talk to me, call Stephanie.  She likes to think she wills stuff to occur. She doesn’t, she just thinks this. I promise this the extent of me talking of myself in third person.

Consciousness studies had advanced so little in the past century that in 2012, famed philosopher of mind, Thomas Nagel, called for a new paradigm in the scientific study in his book Mind and Cosmos. He found that reductive materialism was failing to come up with anything that could explain how consciousness emerged, so something new should take its place. This was not well met by the scientific community back then. And to be fair, this would open up the scientific pursuit of understanding mind and consciousness to all sorts of nonsense. But that didn’t mean that Nagel wasn’t correct about materialism being hopelessly stuck. While I wouldn’t say the mainstream scientific community has come around now, there are more and more scientists taking this call seriously.

Oakley and Halligan haven’t quite thrown their hats in the ring, but they are questioning previous assumptions about consciousness, even if seemingly still in the materialist complex. They are asking us to consider that consciousness springs up from non-conscious things. Our environment, experiences, our body chemistry, genetics, produce certain reactions in the non-conscious part of our brain which are then relayed to the conscious part of the brain through our personal narratives (ego). The thoughts arise in us and we act on them or don’t based on our wiring. So long, free will!

I gave up on free will about 15 years ago. This was difficult, I am a hardcore existentialist. Radical freedom was my thing in my early college years. I was rabid for Sartre, Camus, Nietzsche! I’m happy to say I still am. I don’t think one needs to give up their contradictions, so long as they can resolve the paradox at the end of the day. But free will seems a fool’s quest to me now. I’ve bought into a soft determinism. There are so many variables that make each person who they are, that there remains the illusion of free will. Have you ever noticed how many things in our world turn out to be illusions?

As I was reading this study, I realized that what Oakley and Halligan were describing wasn’t new at all. It was actually proposed about two-thousand years ago by the Gnostics. Carl Jung saw the Gnostics as proto-psychologists. They certainly understood the power of symbols and metaphor! But Gnostics such as Plotinus and Monoimos clearly state that our thoughts and ideas do not come from ourselves, we don’t will them into existence. Monoimos gives direct credit to the Divine found within each of us. Plotinus argues that we are merely passive observers in this life. Our actual thoughts arise from outside of us. We’re basically just along for the ride – the very conclusion of Oakley and Halligan.  

Sophia-Achamoth

In the book Jesus and the Lost Goddess, Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy note in Ptolemy’s Gnostic tale of the Demiurge, that neither the Demiurge nor his mother Achamoth (Sophia) are responsible for their actions, both good and evil, in the end. Both are set on a path by the Creator and only think they are their own agents. Their thoughts and subsequent actions arise from a greater consciousness, that of the Creator. Freke and Gandy argue that like Achamoth and the Demiurge, our egos carry the belief that we create our own reality and drive our own destiny, but what we put in motion to design our world are actually the universal archetypes that are already in existence (the Gnostics would call them the Aeons) in Universal Consciousness (pp. 167, 285).

When we realize that we’re just along for the ride, suddenly we have found radical freedom to just fall into who and what we are without the constraints of cultural conditioning. We can allow ourselves to be the sensory units of the Universe, here to experience the wonders of life in all of its forms without fear. It’s all going to be okay, the Universe has our backs! This doesn’t mean we are free of pain and sorry and life will only be sunshine and roses. Pain and sorrow are a part of life, but how we perceive it matters in how we move through the experience.

If we can learn to observe our thoughts and actions, we can have better experiences through our perception.

While I do not believe we have free will in this life, I do believe that we choose our lives in each incarnation to either learn lessons or to have a particular experience. Our freedom exists in where we choose to reside in a particular lifetime in the material realm. But once we get here? We watch. We learn. We come to certain realizations as we encounter different experiences. That’s the point of being here. To be truly free in this life, we must accept and submit to it whatever it is until we leave the material world again.

Moon Meditation

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Luna, Roman Goddess of the Moon

I have found that when working with the Moon or a moon goddess such as Luna or Selene, it helps to set aside 10-20 minutes to meditate on the intention you are working on with her. The moon is all about the subconscious and that which is often hidden from our normal waking thoughts. When I set an intention and then clear my mind – if I can, obtain an alpha brain wave state – I find ideas and answers bubble up from the subconscious and I gain more clarity. Sometimes she speaks directly to me, but her voice is softer and more subtle than Venus, with whom I can always have direct conversations and wine parties. Venus will always hand it to me straight and hang out with me, while Luna offers up wisps of thoughts on cotton clouds. Where she ambushes me is in my dreams, and then I spend the next week deconstructing them and trying to figure out what they meant. Her messages are always potent and never to be underestimated!

Written in the Stars

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I’m an Aries sun, Taurus rising, and Scorpio moon, thanks for asking!

A friend of mine went off again on how astrology is bogus and how people need to join the 21st century. The stars and planets cannot influence our reality, after all! I agreed with her, they don’t. And that’s the thing astrology downer types don’t get because they have no idea how astrology works. They get their knowledge from people who only have a passing knowledge of it themselves or from media. It’s sounds stupid to them (because it is) so they don’t research it any further. I understand this, I used to think astrology was bogus too for the same reason.

But this is like asking a random person to explain their religion to you. Most people know a couple of basics about it, but would score about 15% if you handed them a test. Many people think they know their religion, but really, they don’t. Some of the stuff they will tell you is way out in left field. I know this because I taught comparative religion for thirteen years and I had students do a research paper on their own religion to learn about it from an academic perspective. WAY too many didn’t bother to do the research part and handed me testimonials which reflected little knowledge of their faith (history, beliefs, rituals, holidays). Those who did the research were often surprised by what they learned.

This is to say, get you knowledge on a topic from and expert in the field who knows what they are talking about. And it’s also important to keep in mind that one source is not going to do it. Go to several sources, get a few opinions. Dig into a few books.

That said, I’m not an astrologer, so don’t take my words as expert knowledge. But my understanding is, no astrologer worth their salt thinks that the planets actually influence anything. They can’t. They’re just astrological bodies in space that barely affect us with their gravity, let alone control our fate.

Astrology works because the constellations and planets reflect human constructed archetypes on Earth. These archetypes are deeply rooted in the human psyche. Most humans share a connection to them. Through our history, the constellations and planets have taken on these representations encoded in our myths and stories. As the planets pass through the zodiac, they tell a story, teach lessons, hand out warnings, and so forth. Astrology is human psychology playing out. What happens in the stars isn’t their influence on us, it’s synchronicity.

Tarot works in the same way, though perhaps more personal.

I started following astrology about five years ago, but it’s only in the past three years that I started to take it more seriously. The people I pay attention to nailed 2020.  

Trip the Light Fantastique

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I hope everyone reading this is well. If you are not well or if you are caring for someone who is ill, I wish you and yours a speedy recovery.

 Sometimes, even in these uncertain times, a little sun shines down upon us. This happened for me last Tuesday evening when I conducted my Aries New Moon ceremony.  The New Moon is an eclipse after all, so the Sun plays its part and for me it was the final revelation I needed to put everything together. Everything I’ve studies over the past twenty-five years, all conversations I’ve had, the gurus I’ve listen too, the countless books, the writing I’ve done and the inward journey – it all paid off in a five minute mystical experience where it all came together simultaneously in one magnificent cosmic knowing.

Mystics often state that the experience is ineffable. It cannot be sufficiently related or described in a way that helps others understand it. They are correct. I tried to relay the experience to my partner and found it fell flat. There was just too much to translate in a linear fashion. I know I need to work on the processing portion of the experience a lot longer, but here are the major highlights:

* Each individual is a microcosm of God consciousness. We hold an entire universe in our mind. This is the first principle of Hermeticism – All is Mind. But it was the unquestionable experience of that reality that occurred for me. I know this now, it’s not theory or a quaint view. I know it.

* I attained union with my Higher Self. Through this I understood things like how my intuition works, how magick works, what it really means to be an empath, why my tarot readings have been so accurate and why they go amuck when I freak out. It was like a download of information that happened so fast, I’m still unpacking it all.

* Perhaps the most beautiful part of the experience was the sudden realization of why Venus chose to work with me over the past few month – nearly a year now. It was something I never understood because I never had an affinity toward her before that moment when she stepped forward and made herself known to me. It was out of knowhere that I heard her voice telling me she was the one who could take me the furthest. That night I had sudden and fast revelations about myself that I had never understood before. I intuitively knew I was on the right path with her. 

So, this New Moon, I finally realized that she represents the self-acceptance I was missing in my life. All the beauty and love and jealousy and envy and grace and femininity and wrathful anger and the proclivity towards getting in a snit over small things, and divine forgiveness, all these wonderous paradoxes that Venus represents that I refused to allow myself to acknowledge – that was the Great Lady simply reasserting herself in my personal pantheon. Venus is Self Love. She had long been telling me: Know Thyself.  It finally all clicked.

I could now with total awareness incorporate these earthy aspects of sexuality, sensuality, beauty, the physical – these things I was taught to be ashamed through experience and hard lessons. All those years of internalization that I was trying to deprogram, just fell away in an instant!

* And finally, your truth is yours. If it gives you energy and helps you grow, then embrace it! If it causes you pain and suffering, then let it go. It’s not as easy at it seems. So many of us hold on to destructive beliefs because we’ve been told it’s the path to salvation.  But if you aren’t thriving, you are still in pain, and you are not growing, it’s not be the right path. There is no right religion or belief.  Some are more conducive to growth than others. Some are more restrictive.  Some are downright harmful.  Find something that brings you happiness and light. But most of all, find what helps you to grow in spirit. If it shuts you down, walk away. There’s something else out there that’s better suited for you.

Anyway, that’s my peace for today.

Stay safe. Stay indoors. Be kind to each other.

~Stephanie