JR53: Saying 22 in the Gospel of Thomas

A: At the beginning of Stevan Davies's translation of the Gospel of Thomas, there's a Foreword written by Andrew Harvey. Harvey says this about the Gospel of Thomas: "If all the Gospel of Thomas did was relentlessly and sublimely champion the path to our transfiguration and point out its necessity, it would be one of the most important of all religious writings -- but it does even more. In saying 22, the Gospel of Thomas gives us a brilliantly concise and precise 'map' of the various stages of transformation that have be unfolded in the seeker for the 'secret' to be real in her being and active though [sic?] all her powers. Like saying 13, saying 22 has no precedent in the synoptic gospels and is, I believe, the single most important document of the spiritual life that Jesus has left us (pages xxi-xxii)."
 
Harvey then plunges into 5 pages of rapture on the ectastic meaning of Saying 22. None of which I agree with, of course. And none of which you're likely to agree with, either, if experience is any guide. But I thought maybe you and I could have a go at it.
 
J: By all means.
 
A: Okay. Here's the translation of Saying 22 as Stevan Davies's writes it:

"Jesus saw infants being suckled. He said to his disciples: These infants taking milk are like those who enter the Kingdom. His disciples asked him: If we are infants will we enter the Kingdom? Jesus responded: When you make the two into one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the upper like the lower and the lower like the upper, and thus make the male and the female the same, so that the male isn't male and the female isn't female. When you make an eye to replace an eye, and a hand to replace a hand, and a foot to replace a foot, and an image to replace an image, then you will enter the Kingdom (page xxii and 25-27)."

Harvey's interpretation of this saying speaks of an "alchemical fusion" and a "Sacred Androgyne" who "'reigns' over reality" with actual "powers that can alter natural law" because he or she has entered a transformative state of "mystical union," where "the powers available to the human being willing to undertake the full rigor of the Jesus-transformation are limitless."

I'm not making this up, though I wish I were.

J: And there I was, talking about a little ol' mustard seed . . . . It's a terrific example of the danger of using "wisdom sayings" as a teaching tool. People have a tendency to hear whatever they want to hear in a simple saying. Parables are much harder to distort. Eventually I caught on to the essential problem that's created when you choose to speak indirectly to spare other people's feelings. When you use poetry instead of blunt prose, it's much easier for other people to twist your meaning intentionally. You can see the same understanding in the Gospel of Mark. Mark is blunt. He doesn't waste time on cliches and "wisdom words." He goes straight for the truth, and leaves no wiggle room for gnostic-type interpretations.

“The disciples said to Jesus: ‘Tell us what the Kingdom of Heaven is like.’ He replied: ‘It is like a mustard seed, the smallest of all. However, when it falls into worked ground, it sends out a large stem, and it becomes a shelter for the birds of heaven'” (Gospel of Thomas 20). Mustard Seeds by David Turner 2005, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

 
A: Harvey seems to have found a whole lot of wiggle room in Saying 22.
 
J: I must admit that Harvey's "revelation" of the Sacred Androgyne makes me feel sick to my stomach.
 
A: Why?
 
J: Because it denies the very reality of male and female. It denies the reality that God the Father is male and God the Mother is female. It denies the reality that everything in Creation is built on the cherished differences between male and female. Being male isn't better than being female. And being female isn't better than being male. But they're not the same. Neither are they yin-and-yang. They're not two halves of the same coin. They're not mirror images of each other. They're not a fusion -- they're not a Oneness -- like a bowl of pure water. God the Mother and God the Father are like a bowl of minestrone soup. You can see all the big chunks of differentness floating around in there, and that's okay, because that's what gives the mixture its taste, its wonder, its passion.
 
God the Mother and God the Father aren't the same substance with opposite polarities. No way. They have individual temperaments and unique characteristics. In some ways, they're quite alike. In other ways, they're quite different from each other. Just as you'd expect in two fully functioning, mature beings. That's why it's a relationship. They work things out together so both of them are happy at the same time. It's not that hard to imagine, really. They have a sacred marriage, a marriage in which they constantly strive to lift each other up, support each other, forge common goals together, build things together, and most importantly, raise a family together. They look out for each other. They laugh together. They're intimately bound to each other in all ways. But they're still a bowl of minestrone soup. With nary a Sacred Androgyne in sight.
 
A: Okay. So if you weren't talking about "oneness" or "alchemical fusion" or the "Sacred Androgyne" in Saying 22, what were you talking about?
 
J: Well, I was talking about the mystery and wonder that can be found in a simple seed. I was talking -- as I often was -- about how to understand our relationship with God by simply looking at and listening to God's ongoing voice in the world of nature.
 
A: Oh. Are we talking about tree-hugging?
 
J: You could put it that way.
 
A: David Suzuki would love you for saying that.
 
J: I was a nature mystic, to be sure. Endogenous mystics are nature mystics. They see the image of God -- and more importantly the stories of God -- in God's own language, which is the world of Creation. The world outside the city gates has so much to say about balance and time and beginnings and endings! The world outside the city gates is a library. It's literally a library that teaches souls about cycles and physics and interconnectedness and chemistry and complexity and order and chaos all wrapped up together in a tapestry of Divine Love.
 
A: What you're saying seems like a pretty modern, liberal sort of understanding. Were you able to articulate it this way 2,000 years ago?
 
J: Not to be unkind to modern, liberal thinkers, but when was the last time a philosopher of science sat down with a mustard seed and reflected on the intrinsic meaning of it? When was the last time you heard what a humble fresh bean can teach you about the spiritual journey of all human beings?
 
A: I see your point. People in our society don't usually take the time to sit down and "smell the roses."
 
J: Geneticists and biologists and related researchers can print out all their research on the genome of a kidney bean, and can even modify this genetic code in a lab, but to a mystic the kidney bean holds more than pure science.
 
A: So we've switched from mustard seeds to kidney beans as a metaphor?
 
J: Kidney beans are bigger and easier to see without magnifying lenses, and a lot of people have begun their scientific inquiries by growing beans in a primary school classroom. So yes -- let's switch to beans.
 
A: I remember being fascinated by fresh beans and peas when I was young. If you split the bean with your thumbnail, and you didn't damage it too much when you split it, you could see the tiny little stem and leaf inside at one end, just waiting to sprout. If you planted a whole, unsplit bean in a small glass-walled container, you could watch the whole process of growth -- the bean splitting open on its own, roots starting to grow from one end, the stem and leaf popping up, the two halves of the bean gradually shrinking as their nutrients were converted into stem and root growth. Somehow the bean knew what to do. It just kept growing out of the simplest things -- dirt, sunlight, water.
 
J: The bean is a lot like the human brain. If you plant it whole in fertile ground and provide the right nutrients, it grows into a thing of wholeness and balance and wonder and mystery. On the other hand, if you try to split it open, or extract the tiny stem hidden inside, or plant it on rocks instead of good soil, or fail to give it sunshine and water, it won't thrive. It may not even root at all. You can't force the bean to grow where it isn't designed to grow. You can't force it to grow once you've forcibly split it open. You can't force it to grow on barren rock. The bean has to be whole when you plant it. The outside skin has to be intact. The different parts inside the skin have to be intact. The bean has different parts, but it needs all those different parts in order to be whole -- in order to create something new. The bean isn't a single substance. But it is holistic. It's a self-contained mini-marvel that teaches through example about cycles and physics and interconnectedness and chemistry and complexity and order and chaos. It appears simple, but in fact it's remarkably complex. Creation is like that -- it appears simple, but in fact it's remarkably complex.
 
A: Why, then, were you talking about "male and female" in Saying 22? Why did you seem to be talking about merging or fusion of male and female into an androgynous state? Or a Platonic state of mystical union?
 
J: It goes to the question of context. I was talking to people who, as a natural part of their intellectual framework, were always trying to put dualistic labels on everything in Creation. Everyday items were assigned labels of "good or evil," "pure or impure," "male or female," "living or dead." It had got to the point where a regular person might say, "I won't use that cooking pan because it has female energy, and female energy isn't pure."
 
A: I'm not sure that kind of paranoid, dualistic, magical thinking has really died out, to be honest.
 
J: There are certainly peoples and cultures who still embrace this kind of magical thinking. You get all kinds of destructive either-or belief systems. You get people saying that right-handed people and right-handed objects are favoured by God, whereas left-handed people are cursed. It's crazy talk. It's not balanced. It's not holistic. It's not trusting of God's goodness.
 
A: And you were left-handed.
 
J: Yep. My mother tried to beat it out of me, but I was a leftie till the day I died. When I was a child, I was taught to be ashamed of my left-handedness. Eventually I came to understand that I was who I was. The hand I used as an adult to hold my writing stylus was the same hand I'd been born with -- my left hand. But on my journey of healing, redemption, and forgiveness, I came to view my hand quite differently than I had in my youth. Was it a "new hand"? No. Was it a new perception of my hand. Yes. Absolutely yes.
 
A: You stopped putting judgmental labels on your eyes and your hands and your feet and your understanding of what it means to be made in the image of God.
 
J: One of the first steps in knowing what it feels like to walk in the Kingdom of the Heavens is to consider yourself "a whole bean."
 
A: Aren't there kidney beans in minestrone soup? How did we get back to the minestrone soup metaphor?
 
J: A little mustard seed in the soup pan never hurts either.
 

JR33: The Black Swans of Mysticism

A: You know what? I'm feeling pretty peeved this morning, and I have a lot of things I'd like to say about some of the mystical ideas we've been talking about this week. I think I know how the Gospel writer Mark must have felt when he first read Paul's First Corinthians. Some ticked!

(c) Hemera Technologies 2001-2003

J (smiling): I'm all ears.

A: Thank you! All this talk about apophatic mystics and anagogic mystics has brought up some issues that have been bugging the heck out of me for years. But yesterday was the last straw. Yesterday I was in the mood to do some spring cleaning, so I tackled a pile of papers that needed to be filed. There I found a church newsletter from November 2010 with a review of Karen Armstrong's book The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (Toronto: Random House-Vintage, 2004). The reviewer dutifully tried to capture the content of Armstrong's thesis about God, her discovery that "some of the most eminent Jewish, Christian, and Muslim theologians and mystics insisted that God was not an objective fact, was not another being, and not an unseen reality like the atom, whose existence could be empirically demonstrated. Some went so far as to say that it was better to say that God did not exist, because our notion of existence was too limited to apply to God." Oh yeah? thought I indignantly. The reviewer went on: "Most would agree with the Greek Orthodox that any statement about God has to have two characteristics. One is 'to remind us that God cannot be contained in a neat, coherent system of thought,' and the other, 'it should lead us to a moment of silent awe or wonder, because when speaking of the reality of God we are at the end of what words or thoughts can usefully do.'"

OH, YEAH? Really? That's the best you can do, huh? You're gonna just wimp out because intense emotions can't be explained by using pure logic? You're gonna just let yourselves off the hook that easily and give up on one of the best, most wondrous parts of the spiritual journey of redemption and transformation? You're gonna just listen to these dopey mystics? Get a life, people! And I mean that literally. Get a life, and then get back to me on the question of who God is.

And you apophatic mystics out there -- until you decide to get a whole life, a balanced life, a compassionate life, a forgiving life, I'm going to assume your biological brain circuits are seriously seized up in several crucial areas (your anterior cingulate, your amygdala, your orbitofrontal cortex, your right insular cortex, your caudate nucleus, and your hypothalamus). And if you think I'm wrong, then prove it to me. Volunteer to get your bran scanned. I've already had my brain scanned once. I'm game to go again. Show me your brain is healthy and fully functional and not damaged from psychoactive drug use. Then we'll talk.

J: As you've said -- and I totally agree -- there's no ethical mysticism without ethical scientific investigation.

A: I'm so upset about mystical claims that can't be substantiated or corroborated. I'm upset about the sloppiness of current scientific investigation into mysticism, too. I've looked at some of the criteria for different "Mysticism Scales" used by researchers. Researchers such as Hood want to know if potential mystics have had an experience of transcending themselves or losing themselves in an experience of oneness. But this is only one type of mysticism -- it's a measure of apophatic mysticism, an experience that's quite likely to be a highly dysfunctional dissociative disorder, not a true mystical state at all. There. I've said it. I think some of the highly revered mystics of the past have been severely dysfunctional. Especially the apophatic mystics -- the ones who claim to feel only a void and empty unity. There's something seriously wrong with a person's brain if all he or she can feel is an empty unity.

J: Yet this is the state of so-called transcendence that so many seekers have been taught to seek.

A: Well, it's not what I feel. And it's not what you felt. So I guess that makes you and me the Popperian "black swans" of falsifiability. And you're technically dead, which makes your soul mind pretty hard to study. So that leaves me, and others like me, as possible test subjects for a study of non-dysfunctional mysticism. Such a study can't come soon enough, as far as I'm concerned.

J: Unfortunately, such a study would only help distinguish between those whose brains are reasonably functional and those whose brains aren't. It would do nothing to identify the mystics of the past who were lying -- the ones who intentionally invented a mystical journey for their own narcissistic purposes.

A: Ah. Pseudo-Dionysius comes instantly to mind. Pseudo-Dionysius, the great 6th century CE apophatic-anagogic inventor of Christian mystical hierarchy. The inventor of Christian angelology. The inventor of mystical theology. The bolsterer of Neo-Platonic Christian thought. The bolsterer of mystical church authority for the church of the Byzantine Empire. The man who cemented the worst ideals of Platonic mysticism into a church that wanted to utterly eradicate all aspects of your own core teachings on inclusiveness, forgiveness, non-chosenness, and heart-based relationship with the Divine. You mean that kind of liar?

J: I mean that kind of liar.

A: As I said earlier, I think I know how Mark felt when he read what Paul wrote about you. If I were a cartoon character right now, I'd have steam coming out of my ears.

JR27: Paul's "Temple" versus Jesus' "Kingdom"

J: Today I'd like to talk about the starting place for understanding the many differences between what I taught and what Paul taught. 

“Jesus said: I stood in the midst of the world. I came to them in the flesh. I found all of them drunk. I found not one of them to be thirsty. My soul was saddened by the sons of men for they were mentally blind. They do not see that they have come into the world empty and they will go out of the world empty. But now they are drunk. When they sober up they will repent” (Gospel of Thomas 28). Photo of Komombo Temple, dedicated to Sobek and Horus, Aswan, Egypt. Author Dennis Jarvis. Retrieved from Wikimedia Commons.

A: Sounds good to me.
 
J: I've mentioned before that Paul and I had different motivations, different purposes behind our respective religious movements.* One of the few things we had in common was a strong sense of conviction. Paul believed in his cause, and was willing to argue for it. I believed in my cause, and was willing to argue for it. We both had strong opinions. We just didn't have the same opinions.
 
A: Part of Paul's cause involved arguing against your cause.
 
J: Definitely. Paul rejected -- even feared -- my teachings on the nature of the Kingdom. He was sure my Kingdom teachings would lead to anarchy. Widespread civil and social disobedience. His fears were shared by others.
 
A: Why was he so afraid?
 
J: Well, Paul, like so many others then and now, had allowed his brain to become focussed -- riveted -- on the perfection of Divine Law. Of course, he thought it was Divine Law he was giving all his time, energy, and devotion to, but really it was human law, human authority. He didn't see it this way, though. He convinced himself that he was doing the right thing in aggressively attacking me because he was protecting Divine Law. He believed that Divine Law justified -- gave sanction to -- his actions.
 
A: Where have I heard that before?
 
J: Rigid, perfectionistic thinking is a symptom of imbalance and dysfunction in the wiring of the biological brain. It's common in bullies throughout the world.
 
A: Paul spends a lot of time in his letters telling the people of his churches that they don't need to follow Jewish laws on food and circumcision. If he believed so much in the law, why was he dissing it? It doesn't make sense.
 
J: It makes perfect sense if you understand that Paul wasn't trying to protect the "praxis" laws of regular Jewish people -- laws about "petty little daily practices," as he saw them. To him these minor practices were nothing, they were of no consequence. He wasn't interested in the small stuff, the things that matter to regular people on a day to day basis. He was after the big stuff. The End Point. The Omega. The be all and end all. He was after the Power.
 
A: What power?
 
J: The power that he and many others close to him believed was woven into the fabric of Creation. The power to command the universal Law of Cause and Effect.
 
A: That sounds seriously creepy. And not even very Jewish.
 
J: Well, as we've talked about, there were different schools of religious and philosophical thought that used the sacred Hebrew texts, and these schools fought fiercely among themselves. In the 1st century CE, there was no agreement on what it meant to be a pious Jew, just as today there's no agreement on what it means to be a pious Christian. Most people forget that there was a civil war among Jews in Judea in the 60's CE. Sure, the Romans came in eventually and torched everything in Jerusalem. But before the Romans sent in their troops, the Jews were doing a fine hatchet job on themselves. This mood of dissension among Jews was already brewing when I was teaching and healing in Galilee. It's part of the reason I left my home in Philadelphia (modern day Amman) and went to Galilee. There was a measure of religious sanity that still existed there.

 
A: The Bible claims that Paul was a Pharisee.
 
J: In Philippians Chapter 3, Paul is very clever about the claims he makes for himself. He says that according to Jewish laws of bloodline, he's a member of the tribe of Benjamin. Big deal. Lots of people could make that claim. He says that according to prevailing Jewish customs around religious authority, he's a Pharisee -- a sort of rabbi/lawyer/teacher who deserves to be treated with respect for his religious knowledge. Then comes the clincher: he says that according to "zeal" (zelos in Greek) he was an early persecutor of the church and according to "righteousness" he was blameless in his actions against the church. When Paul talks about "zeal" and "righteousness," he isn't talking about "beliefs" or "opinions." He isn't saying he was just really enthusiastic or really committed. He's saying he had "the zeal" inside of him. He's saying he had a piece of Divine Law inside of him, a spark of God inside of him that was guiding him, commanding his thoughts and actions. He's saying he was a "vessel of humility" into which God had poured the divine substance called "zeal." Zeal is a kind of love, therefore -- a love for the Law. Devotion to the Law. Obedience to the Law. Adoration, even, of the Law. It sees the Law as a quasi-divine being. Sort of an embodiment of the Divine desire for orderliness in Creation. More than just a philosophical structure. An animated, conscious entity, if you will. Wisdom -- Sophia -- was also envisioned in this way as a semi-divine female being.
 
A: Plato talked about the Laws in this kind of weird anthropomorphic way.
 
J: Yes. And so did the Essenes. The Essenes were very much a fringe cult within Judaism. They had the most highly developed mystical rituals, the most "out there" beliefs about God and Creation and occult magic. They were also highly devout, highly wealthy, and highly powerful. They were a scary bunch. And Paul was greatly influenced by Essene teachings about God, the Spirit, the indwelling Temple, and occult ritual.
 
A: Would you say that Paul was an Essene? An accepted member of the yahad?
 
J: No. He wasn't teaching pure Essene thought. But he was influenced by their thought. He also had strong links to another important school of thought that's harder to track. He blended ideas from Essene thought and Hellenistic thought to create his "new and improved" version of the Law of Cause and Effect. By the time he began his "mission to the Gentiles," he was no longer interested in mainstream Judaism, with its focus on Mosaic Law. He'd "moved up" on the spiritual ladder of ascent, on that ever so narrow and hard-to-find ladder of spiritual hierarchy. He'd found an enticing and intoxicating blend of occult magic and hidden knowledge -- the kind of hidden knowledge reserved only for a few select apostles. He was drunk on the idea that this new knowledge would lead him to power -- power over evil entities.

A: What evil entities?

J: The corrupted versions of Law and Wisdom and Life -- their "evil twins."

A: Their evil twins? This is sounding like some of the "contemporary horror" dramas that are so incredibly popular in books and movies and TV shows these days.
 
J: Same old, same old. It's just a dysfunctional, distorted version of the Law of Cause and Effect when taken to occult extremes. It goes like this: "Well, if there's a Perfect Law, a semi-divine being who brings only virtue and righteousness to people of virtue, then, logically speaking, there must be an evil twin of Perfect Law -- a powerful semi-divine being who sows vice and corruption in the world." It's a nice, neat, simple mathematical formula to explain why evil exists. Sons of Light versus Sons of Darkness, as the Essenes clearly formulated it. What could be easier to understand?
 
A: It's so easy to see what you're saying by looking at Paul's Letter to the Romans. Romans is filled with paranoid, dualistic, judgmental thinking. Paul tells people in gory detail how they can fight the evils of Law, Sin, and Death, and overcome these evil cosmic forces through the power of Christ's name.
 
J: Yes. For Paul, Mosaic Law had become the evil twin of the pure Essene Temple Law. Sin was the evil twin of Wisdom (implying by analogy to Wisdom's femaleness that Sin was also female). And Death was the evil twin of Life. Paul called this evil trinity Law, Sin, and Death.
 
A: On my God. That makes a ridiculous amount of sense. It explains how Paul could go around telling people they wouldn't die if they believed in Christ -- a promise that soon proved to be a lie, because some of Paul's followers had already died, and he had to answer for it in his letters.
 
J: It's popular these days for theologians to make excuses for this kind of apocalyptic promise, excuses based on the naive assumption that people in the 1st century CE "just didn't know any better" and "can't be blamed for believing in salvation from death." This, I'm sad to say, is hogwash. No balanced, mentally healthy individual is going to accept the idea that human beings can escape physical death and continue to live for centuries on Planet Earth the way their mystical forebears had (e.g. Methuselah). It's just goofy. It's what Paul promised his followers in the beginning of his mission, but it's goofy. In his Letter to the Romans, he has to go through huge theological contortions to try to salvage people's belief in him. It's a pretty sad way to go, if you think about it.
 
A: Promises, promises.
 
J: You know what works best in the Gospel of Mark? The fact that there are no "Cause and Effect" promises. Everything's messy. Everything's unpredictable. Shit happens, but so what? It can't take away your courage or your faith or your trust in God or your desire to help other people. Even shit can be turned into very useful fertilizer.
 
A: So your Kingdom is about turning shit into fertilizer, and Paul's Temple is about the quest to stop shitting at all?
 
J: And you say I have a way with words!


* Please see also "Materialism, Pauline Thought, and the Kingdom" and "Mark's Themes of Understanding and Strength"
 

JR25: Getting Close to God: Finding the Kingdom Within

A: Some readers are probably very surprised that a mystic and an angel are spending so much time talking about academic research and academic sources. How would you respond to that?

J: I respond the same way today as I responded 2,000 years ago. My basic attitude is a pretty tough one: you can't get close to God if you don't do the work. You can't get close to God if you separate yourself from the rest of God's Creation. You can't get close to God by snubbing everything God is saying to you in the world around you.

A: The idea that you can't get close to God if you don't do the work is a pretty universal spiritual idea. Teachers from a number of different faith traditions have said much the same thing. Various schools of Buddhism are all about teaching the correct way to do the work. But the second idea you present -- the idea that you can't get close to God if you separate yourself from the rest of God's Creation -- that's a much less common idea among spiritual teachers. Tell me more about that.

"A man said to him: Tell my brothers that they have to divide my father's possessions with me. Jesus said: Man, who made me a divider? He turned to his disciples and said to them: I am not a divider, am I" (Gospel of Thomas 72). Photo credit JAT 2014.

 J: Basically it's the idea that if you want to get close to God, you have to start with the only piece of Creation that God has given you complete control over: your own biology. Your own brain, your own body, your own body-soul nexus. This little piece of Creation is all you get. The rest belongs to other people -- to other souls and to God the Mother and God the Father. You get one little piece of Creation to command -- one little Kingdom to be in charge of -- and it's your job as a human being and as a soul to look after your little corner of Creation. It's a big job. Much bigger than most human beings realize. It takes time. It takes commitment. It takes courage. It takes knowledge. More than anything, it takes full acceptance.

A: What do you mean by "acceptance"? Do you mean people have to be resigned to their misery? Do you mean they have to accept the status quo?

J: No. I mean the exact opposite. I mean that if they want to get close to God while living here as human beings, they have to accept that God believes in them. They have to accept that they're not filled with corruption and sin. They have to accept that they're not here -- here on Planet Earth -- as some form of cosmic punishment or karmic journey. They have to stop seeing the glass as "half empty" and start seeing Creation in a positive light. This includes a commitment to seeing themselves -- their core selves, their souls -- in a positive light. They have to stop feeling so damned sorry for themselves.

A: A lot of pious people I've met -- mostly Christians, but not exclusively so -- remind me a lot of a fictional character from a science fiction/satire mini-series that ran many years ago called "The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything." [Edited at 6:15 p.m.: Oops - make that "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." "Life, the Universe, and Everything" was a sequel to Douglas Adam's later "Hitchhiker" novel]. The character was Marvin the Robot. Marvin was always going around feeling sorry for himself. "Oh, poor me!" "Woe is me!" He saw himself as a victim -- victim with a capital "V." I found it hard to like Marvin, to be honest, because all he did was whine.

J: Pauline Christianity encourages people to whine. "Oh, poor me, I'm tainted with original sin, and there's nothing I can do about it. I'm just a victim. It's not my fault. It's Adam's fault. If Adam hadn't screwed up and made God so angry, then I wouldn't have so many problems today. I'll do my best, Lord -- honest! -- but please don't expect too much of me, because, after all, I'm full of inner corruption and sin, and I'm doing the best I can -- honest! I promise to go to church every week so you can cleanse me of my sins, but as for the rest of the week . . . please remember that I'm just a frail, weak, ignorant human being who can't possibly resist temptation and can't possibly understand your mysteries! You've decided to make all life solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short, so who I am to argue with your wisdom?"

A: Thomas Hobbes.

J: Yes. Thomas Hobbes -- the pessimist's pessimist. Also one of the great Materialist philosophers who rejected outright the relevance of the soul to a functioning, non-chaotic society. He had it all backwards because of his own psychological dysfunction.

A: Progressive Christianity, as this new movement calls itself, is edging in the direction of a Materialist religion -- a religion founded on Newtonian science where the words "soul" and "miracle" are considered embarrassing and irrelevant.

J (smiling): Orthodox Western Christianity has in some ways always been a Materialist religion, despite the oxymoron-like quality of this phrase.

A: How so?

J: How often does Paul use the word psyche (soul) in his 7 known letters (8 if you count Colossians, as I do)?

A: Uh, hardly ever. When he does, he describes the soul in an eerie blend of Platonic and Jewish apocalyptic ways.

J: And how often does Paul talk about healing miracles? By that I mean the kind of healing miracles described several times in the Gospel of Mark.

A: Never. Paul doesn't talk about healing miracles. He talks about sin and salvation and eschatology and Spirit and chosenness for those who believe in Christ. But he doesn't talk about healing miracles.

J: What about the Roman Catholic Church's take on healing miracles?

A: Oh, they keep a tight, tight rein on miracles. Nothing can be called an "official miracle" unless the Vatican approves it according to very strict criteria.

J: What's one of the key criteria?

A: The healing had to take place after somebody prayed directly to a saint. Or a saint-to-be.

J: It's a closed shop. A closed system. The Vatican has control over all the definitions. It's not a true miracle unless it goes through the doors of the Church. Which doesn't happen very often. It therefore forces people to look at the world around them in non-miraculous ways. In Materialist ways.

A: Huh?

J: Think of it this way. Christian orthodoxy has insisted since the beginning that God is to be understood as transcendent -- far, far away from this earthly realm, detached from all emotion, detached from day to day concerns with human suffering, distant, serene, uninvolved with the petty concerns of the corrupt material world. This is actually Plato's idea, but the Church long ago embraced it, and it's officially part of Church doctrine, so the Church has to take responsibility for this choice. How does this translate for pious Christians? How does it make them feel about the world around them?

A: Well, on the one hand, they're told by Genesis that they're in charge of the world and can do whatever they like to it. It's supposed to be a "good Creation." On the other hand, they're told that God isn't actually "in" this good Creation, but is somewhere else -- far, far away in a transcendent realm of pure Mind. I suppose that idea makes it easy for people to make excuses for their behaviour when they mistreat the environment and mistreat other creatures. Something along the lines of "Oh, it's just a bunch of corrupt, material 'stuff' that doesn't matter to God, so it's okay for me to take what I want and leave a big mess behind." . . . Okay, I'm starting to see what you're getting at. This kind of anthropocentric religious thinking is a form of "state sanctioned Materialism."

J: Yes. Two thousand years ago, there was no distinction between the political state and the religious state. The two were totally intertwined. So it mattered what religious leaders said about the environment, about the Earth, about the world around us. It mattered that religious leaders told pious followers to ignore all the lessons, all the truths that were being conveyed to them through "the eyes of Nature," as it were. It mattered then, and it still matters today. God isn't transcendent. Never was, never will be. God does have feelings. And God feels everything that happens in Creation. Everything.

A: Materialists don't take God's feelings into account. They don't believe God has feelings (many of them don't even believe that God exists). They don't ask themselves how God is going to feel when they pour toxic sludge into the groundwaters. Pauline Christianity tells them they don't have to ask this question.

J: Just as Pauline Christianity tells them they don't have to take full responsibility for the care, healing, and core integrity of their own little piece of Creation: their biological body.

A: Their Kingdom. Their own Kingdom of the Heavens.

J: Only when you fully understand and respect the core integrity and the core wonder of your own Kingdom will you be able to understand and respect the core integrity of other people, other creatures, and God. That's what empathy is -- the ability to understand that your neighbour's Kingdom is different but equal to your own. The healing of the Church must begin with a complete overturning of all doctrines that repudiate or undermine the true worth of the soul.

A: The United Church of Canada doesn't even have an official doctrine of the soul, though the Articles of Faith tell us in one breath that we're responsible for all our choices (Articles 2.3 and 2.4) and in the next breath tell us that all people are born with a sinful nature (Article 2.5). Talk about a lose-lose situation!

J: My point exactly.

JR23: The Author's Master's Research Bibliography

A: On Thursday evening I was having dinner with someone who's very dear to me, and she made the fatal mistake of asking me why I'm upset with the United Church of Canada. Boy, did she get an earful! I think I exhausted her with my exhaustive analysis of the differences between Paul and Mark. However, she kept asking for clarifications, so I kept giving them. She was very surprised at the stark differences between what Paul wrote and what Mark wrote. Many years ago she was quite involved with the Alliance Church (though she's long since given up on evangelical Christianity), and for several years in her younger days she worked in a Christian bookstore. Despite her extensive exposure to Christian teachings and easy access to books and other research materials, she had no idea that Paul's letters were written before Mark, Matthew, and Luke. Nor did she have any inkling that Mark's theology differs from Paul's on all major points. She immediately saw the significance, though. And she seemed genuinely pleased to learn that Paul's "oppression", as she called it, isn't the only option available to her as an "unchurched" person. So I thought perhaps you and I could begin to do some on-line exegesis, some on-line commentary, on the specific differences between Paul's theology and Mark's theology. Are you game?

J: Sign me up.

A: I've already done extensive research on this topic with your help, but from the point of view of academic integrity and bibliographic acknowledgement, I'll take a few minutes to list the books that have been helpful to me in my research . . . on second thought, I think I'll just cut and paste the Bibliography from my Master's cognate paper. That would be a lot faster [see below]. For any socio-historical criticism or source criticism keeners out there, I'll mention I've taken two semesters of Koine Greek -- not enough to make me fluent, but enough to help me find my way around a lexicon, a good concordance, a Greek-English interlinear, and helpful collections such as The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology and The Anchor Bible Dictionary. I also gratefully incorporate findings from archaeology (I love Biblical Archaeology Review!), neuroscience, and psychiatry into my biblical research. Anyone who wants to check a full bibliographic reference can refer back to this post as we go along.

And yes -- I had to wade through Plato's writings on my own to see what he had to say about the soul, so when you hear me complain about the negative influence of Plato on Christian thought, it's because I had to read it firsthand. There's nothing like a dose of Plato's mega-narcissism to make a person want to throw up.

St. Mary's Roman Catholic Cathedral, Halifax NS. Photo credit JAT 2025.

 


RESEARCH BIBLIOGRAPHY 2010

Armstrong, Karen. The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness. Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2004.

Atchity, Kenneth J., ed. The Classical Greek Reader. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Barnes, Timothy David. Tertullian: A Historical and Literary Study. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971.

Beauregard, Mario and Denyse O’Leary. The Spiritual Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Case for the Existence of the Soul. New York: HarperCollins–HarperOne, 2007.

Berlin, Adele and Marc Zvi Brettler, eds. The Jewish Study Bible: Jewish Publication Society TANAKH Translation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Bremmer, Jan. The Early Greek Concept of the Soul. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983.

Burkert, Walter. Greek Religion. 1977. Translated by John Raffan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985.

Clagett, Marshall. Greek Science in Antiquity. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1994.

Coakley, Sarah. "Introduction – Re-Thinking Dionysius the Areopagite." Modern Theology 24, no.4 (2008): 531-540.

Coogan. Michael D., ed. The New Oxford Annotated Bible: New Revised Standard Version with the Apocrypha, College Edition. 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Cook, Stephen L. The Apocalyptic Literature. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2003.

Doidge, Norman. The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science. New York: Penguin, 2007.

Duling, Dennis C. "Kingdom of God, Kingdom of Heaven." In The Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol. 4, edited by David Noel Freedman, 49-69. New York: Doubleday, 1992.

Dunn, Geoffrey D. "Tertullian’s Scriptural Exegesis in De Praescriptione Haereticorum." Journal of Early Christian Studies 14, no. 2 (Summer 2006): 141-155.

Ehrman, Bart D. Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We don’t Know About Them). New York: HarperCollins–HarperOne, 2009.

------. Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.

------. The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot: A New Look at Betrayer and Betrayed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.

Elbert, Jerome W. Are Souls Real? Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2000.

Esser, Hans-Helmut. "Law, Custom, Elements." In The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, vol. 2, rev. ed., edited by Colin Brown, 436-456. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1986.

Funk, Robert W. and Mahlon H. Smith. The Gospel of Mark: Red Letter Edition. The Jesus Seminar. Sonoma, CA: Polebridge Press, 1991.

Gmirkin, Russell E. Berossus and Genesis, Manetho and Exodus: Hellenistic Histories and the Date of the Pentateuch. Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies 433 and Copenhagen International Series 15. New York: T & T Clark, 2006.

Goetzmann, Jurgen. "σύνεσις." In The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, vol. 3, rev. ed., edited by Colin Brown, 130-134. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1986.

González, Justo L. From the Beginnings to the Council of Chalcedon, Vol.1 of A History of Christian Thought. Rev. ed. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1987.

Gottwald, Norman K. The Hebrew Bible: A Socio-Literary Introduction. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985.

Griffith, R. Drew. Mummy Wheat: Egyptian Influence on the Homeric View of the Afterlife and the Eleusinian Mysteries. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2008.

Hanson, K.C. and Douglas E. Oakman. Palestine in the Time of Jesus: Social Structures and Social Conflicts. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998.

Harder, Georg. "νος." In The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, vol. 3., rev. ed., edited by Colin Brown, 122-130. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1986.

------. "ψυχή." In The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, vol. 3., rev. ed., edited by Colin Brown, 676-689. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1986.

Hodges, Henry. Artifacts: An Introduction to Early Materials and Technology. Rev. ed. London: John Baker, 1976.

Holladay, William L., ed. A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament. Based upon the lexical work of Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1988.

Horsley, Richard A. Jesus and Empire: The Kingdom of God and the New World Disorder. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003.

------, ed. Paul and Empire: Religion and Power in Roman Imperial Society. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1997.

Johnson, Luke Timothy. Brother of Jesus, Friend of God: Studies in the Letter of James. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004.

Josephus. The New Complete Works of Josephus. Rev. ed. Translated by William Whiston. Commentary by Paul L. Maier. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 1999.

Kelly, John Norman Davidson. Early Christian Doctrines. 5th ed. London: Adam and Charles Black, 1977.

Kirby, Peter. "Historical Jesus Theories." Early Christian Writings, 2003, http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/theories.html (accessed 1 Feb. 2010).

Klassen, William. "Love in the New Testament and Early Jewish Literature." In The Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol. 4, edited by David Noel Freedman, 381-396. New York: Doubleday, 1992.

Kraut, Richard. "Introduction to the Study of Plato." In The Cambridge Campanion to Plato, edited by Richard Kraut, 1-50. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

Kraut, Richard, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Plato. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

MacGregor, Geddes. Images of Afterlife: Beliefs from Antiquity to Modern Times. New York: Paragon House, 1992.

Maas, Robin and Gabriel O’Donnell, eds. Spiritual Traditions for the Contemporary Church. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1990.

McGinn, Bernard, ed. The Essential Writings of Christian Mysticism. New York: Modern Library–Random House, 2006.

McGrath, Alister. Dawkins’ God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005.

Morgan, Michael L. "Plato and Greek Religion." In The Cambridge Companion to Plato, edited by Richard Kraut, 227-247. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1992.

Morrison, Clinton. An Analytical Concordance to the Revised Standard Version of the New Testament. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1979.

Neuner, J. and J. Dupuis, eds., The Christian Faith: In the Doctrinal Documents of the Catholic Church. Rev. ed. London: Collins Liturgical Publications, 1982.

Osborn, Eric. Tertullian, First Theologian of the West. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

------. "Tertullian." In The First Christian Theologians: An Introduction to Theology in the Early Church, edited by G.R. Evans, 143-149. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004.

Pagels, Elaine. Adam, Eve, and the Serpent. 1988. Reprint, New York: Vintage–Random House, 1989.

------. The Gnostic Gospels. 1979. Reprint, New York: Vintage–Random House, 1989.

Peck, M. Scott. Glimpses of the Devil: A Psychiatrist’s Personal Accounts of Possession, Exorcism, and Redemption. New York: Free Press–Simon and Schuster, 2005.

Pelikan, Jaroslav. Christianity and Classical Culture: The Metamorphosis of Natural Theology in the Christian Encounter with Hellenism. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993.

------. The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600). Vol. 1 of The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971.

------. Jesus Through the Centuries: His Place in the History of Culture. Rev. ed. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999.

Perkins, Pheme. Introduction to the Synoptic Gospels. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007.

Plato. Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo. Translated by Benjamin Jowett. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1988.

------. The Laws. Translated by A.E. Taylor. London and New York: J.M. Dent and E.P. Dutton, 1960.

------. Meno. Translated by G.M.A. Grube. 2nd ed. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1976.

------. Phaedrus. Translated by Christopher Rowe. London: Penguin–Penguin Classics, 2005.

------. The Republic. Translated by Desmond Lee. 2nd ed., 1987. Revised by Rachana Kamtekar, 2003. London: Penguin–Penguin Classics, 2003.

------. The Symposium. Translated by Walter Hamilton. Harmondsworth: Penguin–Penguin Classics, 1951.

------. Timaeus and Critias. Translated by Desmond Lee. Rev. ed., 1977. Revised by T.K. Johansen, 2008. London: Penguin–Penguin Classics, 2008.

Polkinghorne, John C. Science and Creation: The Search for Understanding. 1988. Reprint, West Conshohocken, PA: Templeton Foundation Press, 2006.

Primack, Joel R. and Nancy Ellen Abrams. The View from the Center of the Universe: Discovering Our Extraordinary Place in the Cosmos. New York: Riverhead–Penguin, 2006.

Rankin, David. Tertullian and the Church. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

Rives, James. B. Religion in the Roman Empire. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007.

Robeck, Cecil M. Prophecy in Carthage: Perpetua, Tertullian, and Cyprian. Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 1992.

Ruether, Rosemary Radford. "Eschatology and Feminism." In Lift Every Voice: Constructing Christian Theologies from the Underside, 2nd ed, edited by Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite and Mary Potter Engels, 129-142. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1998.

Sakenfeld, Katharine Door. "Love in the Old Testament." In The Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol. 4, edited by David Noel Freedman, 375-381. New York: Doubleday, 1992.

Sampley, J. Paul, ed. Paul in the Greco-Roman World: A Handbook. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International–Continuum, 2003.

Schifferdecker, Kathryn. "Creation Theology." In Dictionary of the Old Testament: Wisdom, Poetry and Writings, edited by Tremper Longman and Peter Enns, 63-71. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2008.

Shorto, Russell. Descartes’ Bones: A Skeletal History of the Conflict between Faith and Reason. New York: Doubleday, 2008.

Sider, Robert D., ed. Christian and Pagan in the Roman Empire: The Witness of Tertullian. Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 2001.

Snyder, Howard A. Models of the Kingdom. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1991.

Smoley, Richard. Forbidden Faith: The Secret History of Gnosticism. 2006. Reprint, New York: HarperCollins, 2007.

Stairs, Jean. Listening for the Soul: Pastoral Care and Spiritual Direction. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000.

Statistics Canada. "Who’s Religious?" by Warren Clark and Grant Schellenberg. In Canadian Social Trends. Statistics Canada, catalogue no. 11-008 (Summer 2006): 2-9. http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/11-008-XIE/2006001/PDF/religious_81.pdf (accessed 19 Jan. 2008).

Steenberg, M.C. "Impatience and Humanity’s Sinful State in Tertullian of Carthage." Vigiliae Christianae 62, no. 2 (2008): 107-132.

Strong, James. The Strongest Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible. Revised by John R. Kohlenberger III and James A. Swanson. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2001.

Tertullian. The Prescription Against Heretics. Translated by Peter Holmes. In Latin Christianity: Its Founder,Tertullian, American edition, edited by Philip Schaff, vol. 3 of Anti-Nicene Fathers. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, n.d. Christian Classics Ethereal Library, http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf03.html (accessed 8 Sept. 2009).

------. The Soul’s Testimony. Translated by S. Thelwall. In Latin Christianity: Its Founder, Tertullian, American edition, edited by Philip Schaff, vol. 3 of Anti-Nicene Fathers. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, n.d. Christian Classics Ethereal Library, http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf03.html (accessed 8 Sept. 2009).

------. A Treatise on the Soul. Translated by Peter Holmes. In Latin Christianity: Its Founder, Tertullian, American edition, edited by Philip Schaff, vol. 3 of Anti-Nicene Fathers. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, n.d. Christian Classics Ethereal Library, http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf03.html (accessed 8 Sept. 2009).

Tillich, Paul. A History of Christian Thought. In A Complete History of Christian Thought. Edited by Carl E. Braaten. New York and Evanston: Harper & Row, 1968.

Tsevat, Mattitiahu. "The Meaning of the Book of Job," Hebrew Union College Annual 37 (1966): 73-106.

The United Church of Canada. Voices United: The Hymn and Worship Book of The United Church of Canada. Toronto: The United Church Publishing House, 1996.

Urban, Linwood. A Short History of Christian Thought. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.

Westermann, Claus. Genesis 1-11: A Commentary. 1974. Translated by John J. Scullion. Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing, 1984.

Wilson, Barrie. How Jesus Became Christian. Toronto: Random House Canada, 2008.

Wise, Michael O. The First Messiah: Investigating the Savior Before Jesus. New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1999.

Wise, Michael, Martin Abegg Jr., and Edward Cook, trans. The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation. New York: HarperCollins–HarperSanFrancisco, 2005.

JR22: Why You Need To Know Yourself (Mystical Commentary on Saying 67)

A: Can you please explain as simply as possible WHY it matters that each person has a unique soul blueprint and WHY it's important for each person on a spiritual journey to uncover the specific details of his or her own unique blueprint?
 
J: Let's use an imaginary person as an example to make this simpler. I'm going to call this imaginary person Jane Tamaguchi.
 
A: Okay.
 
J: Like all human beings, Jane is a soul. She doesn't have a soul. She is a soul. She's an angel -- a child of God. Like all angels, she was born as a soul long before she decided to incarnate as a human being. Soul energy isn't visible in the third dimension -- the dimension that human beings live in during their temporary lives as incarnated souls -- but soul energy can be felt in the third dimension.
 
A: Can you give some examples of "feelable" soul energy? (I think I just invented a new word.)

J: Yes. When you feel a deep sense of connection with another person, that's soul energy. When you feel empathy for other creatures, that's soul energy. When you feel committed, romantic, monogamous love, that's soul energy. When you give or receive forgiveness, that's soul energy. When you're willing to trust in a loving and compassionate God, that's soul energy.
 
A: Those are all emotions. Positive emotions. Uplifting emotions.

Thomas 67: “One who knows everything else but who does not know himself knows nothing.” (Translation by Stevan Davies.Photo credit JAT 2015.)

J: Yes. All souls are intensely emotional in a positive, uplifting, creative, intuitive, loving way.
 
A: So much for Christian angelology, which says angels have no emotions of their own and are simply instruments of God's work and God's will.
 
J: Yes. That's another Christian doctrine that should go the way of the 8-track recording system.
 
A: But angels also have minds, as you've said previously. They have minds plus emotional hearts.
 
J: Yes. Christians have long believed -- based largely on theories of the soul put forward by Plato, Aristotle, Tertullian, Augustine, and others -- that the soul itself consists of a single indivisible substance. Arguments raged as to the exact nature of this substance. But the basic idea was that the soul was made of just one thing because -- as the theory went -- the soul couldn't really be a soul if it could be "divided" into two or more substances. It should go without saying that this is a ridiculous supposition. There are no analogies anywhere in nature or in the quantum world for a complex lifeform made of a single element such as pure hydrogen or pure gold. All lifeforms, whether they exist in the third dimension or in higher dimensions, are extremely complex. A soul is a quantum being whose "biology" is far more complex than that of any 3D creature -- which is pretty much what you'd expect for children of God who were born in the fourth dimension, and who will spend most of their eternal existence in parts of the "implicate order" that can't be seen or measured by human beings in the third dimension.
 
A: So people just have to take it on trust? On blind faith?
 
J: I wouldn't say that. Individuals who want to take the time to do intensive research into quantum physics and quantum biology will soon discover that the universe being studied by today's scientists is extremely complex. This isn't the cosmology of Plato or Thomas Aquinas. It's breathtakingly complicated and interconnected. There's plenty of room in there for a modern doctrine of the soul that doesn't in any way violate the laws of quantum biology.
 
A: Okay. So tell me about Jane. Who is she as a soul?
 
J: Jane is a female angel, and for the purposes of this discussion she's heterosexual.
 
A: I know what this means for human beings. But what does this mean for angels?
 
J: It means exactly what it sounds like. All angels are one of two sexes: male or female. Just as with human beings. There are no "in-between" sexes or alien sexes. All angels are either male (the same sex as God the Father) or female (the same sex as God the Mother). This is pretty much what you'd expect by looking at life on Planet Earth.
 
A: Some creatures on Earth are able to reproduce without a sexual partner. Komodo Dragons, for instance.
 
J: There are different modes of reproduction for creatures that live on Planet Earth. Reproduction is part of the 3D biological package. It isn't part of the 4D soul package. We'll come back to that at a later time.
 
A: But sexual orientation is part of the 4D soul package. Why is sexual orientation necessary for angels?
 
J: Because each angel has a soulmate. One true eternal love partner. A divine spouse. The one partner in all of Creation who's a perfect match in every way, including intimate, private ways. Each angel in God's Creation is paired with his or her perfect eternal partner. For many angelic couples, the perfect partner is of the same sex. Ain't nothin' wrong with that.
 
A: So God the Father and God the Mother are not a same-sex couple themselves, but it's okay with God if their children choose a same-sex partner to share eternity with.
 
J: Yes. God's children are not carbon copies of their divine parents. God's children come in every size and shape and colour imaginable. Yet every soul couple is blissfully happy, blissfully complete. This is what God the Mother and God the Father want for their children -- bliss. Everybody's different. Yet everybody's happy. It's the perfect divine family when you think about it.
 
A: So Jane has a specific sex -- female -- and a specific sexual orientation -- heterosexual. What else does she have?
 
J: She has a soul body. Her soul body has a unique size and shape that's perfect for her. Her soul body probably doesn't look too much like her current human body, but that's okay. She's very happy with the soul body she has.
 
A: What else?
 
J: She has a soul mind. As a soul, she's pure consciousness -- by that I mean she has full awareness at all times of her own thoughts and her own feelings and her own choices and her own needs and wishes. Part of her unique mind lies in the way she thinks, the way she learns, the way she remembers, the way she expresses herself. These attributes lie within the soul mind. Jane doesn't "know" everything. Nor does she want to. She has certain interests that are hard-wired at the very core of her consciousness, and these are the things she learns fastest and remembers best.
 
A: Can you give an example of what Jane might be interested in as a soul, as an angel?
 
J: Okay. Let's say for argument's sake that Jane is a gifted musician.
 
A: There are some angels who are more musically gifted than other angels?
 
J: All angels enjoy music to some extent. But not all angels want to spend most of the day in classes devoted to advanced musical performance and interpretation skills. As with all things in Creation, it's a continuum. All angels appreciate music. But some angels want to devote most of their time to it. Which means they can't be devoting their time to other interests, other skills. There's only so much time in a day, even for an angel.
 
A: What other interests does our imaginary Jane possess as a soul?
 
J: Jane likes to be around a lot of other angels. She gets very lonely if she can't hear other angels singing. She's happiest when she's with a big group of noisy, laughing angels.
 
A: Are there any angels who are more quiet in temperament, who wouldn't feel comfortable in large groups?
 
J: Yes, lots. And that's okay, too. These angels are quiet, but not in any way unfriendly or unloving. They just need more quiet than other angels do. Nothing wrong with that.
 
A: Let's give Jane a third unique attribute. What would you suggest.
 
J: She doesn't like the colour red.
 
A: Huh? 
 
J: All angels appreciate the fact that everything in Creation is beautiful and deserving of respect. So Jane respects the colour red, and she's happy for her friends who love all things red. But angels have their own taste, their own "likes" and "dislikes." And Jane herself is under no divine obligation to like red. It happens that she doesn't. God the Mother and God the Father respect the fact that Jane just doesn't happen to like red. On the other hand, she can't get enough black. She's crazy for black.
 
A (grinning): I know a certain male angel who happens to love black! And a particular shade of charcoal grey.
 
J: Yeah, I do like those colours. Can't deny it.
 
A: Okay. So we have our angel Jane, who's passionate about music, loves to be around large groups of people, isn't fond of the colour red, but likes black. Jane decided a while back to incarnate as a human being on Planet Earth (her choice), and right now she's 35 years old, is working as a nurse, is taking night school courses so she can apply to law school, and lives with a female partner who has painted the bedroom red. Tell me about Jane's current brain health.
 
J: All the things we talked about -- Jane's true soul interests -- are hardwired into her human DNA. That's the junk DNA that geneticists are puzzled by. Her soul's blueprint is hardwired into her brain and central nervous system. Her brain stem, cerebellum, hypothalamus, thalamus, basal ganglia, and glial cells contain coding that's unique to her, unique to her true soul personality. If Jane were to make conscious choices that "matched" or "lined up with" her core blueprint, her biological brain would function smoothly. It would function the way it's supposed to. Her mood would remain stable. Her thinking would be logical and coherent. Her memory would be pretty good, especially around music and musical interpretation! She would have excellent social functioning. All in all, she'd be pretty happy, healthy, and well adjusted.
 
A: Okay. But right now Jane isn't making conscious choices that "line up with" her own soul's core identity. She's working as a nurse, not as a musician. She's around lots of people, which is good, but the people aren't singing. She's in a lesbian love relationship. And every night she has to go to sleep in a room that isn't healing or calming for her as a soul. What's happening inside her brain at this point?
 
J: There's a software conflict. On the one hand, the so-called "primitive" parts of Jane's brain are saying "I want to craft music, I want to find a loving male partner, I want to be around the colour black." Meanwhile, Jane's forcing the outer cortical layers of her brain to make different choices -- choices that seem logical to her peers or to her family, perhaps, but which make no sense to her core self.
 
A: So how's Jane doing?
 
J: Her brain is pretty messed up. There are competing signals from the different regions of her brain and central nervous system. The signals contradict each other. By now she's feeling confused and upset with her life, and she doesn't why. Things seem okay on the outside. But on the inside she's not happy. She may be having trouble with headaches or poor sleep or depression or one of the many other signs of imbalance that can emerge via human biology.
 
A: A lot of these medical issues would begin to clear up if Jane were to seek professional counselling and appropriate medical care to help her uncover the choices she's making that aren't working for her.
 
J: Yes. Jane has been making choices based on other people's priorities rather than her own core priorities -- the priorities of her soul. Over the long term, her poor choices have begun to affect her health and her happiness.
 
A: Can she force herself to "be" a nurse and "be" a lawyer if her soul isn't wired for healing or for case analysis?
 
J: No. This is what I meant when I said the soul isn't malleable in the way that clay is malleable. Jane can only be who she is. If she tries to be somebody she's not -- if she tries to be a lesbian nurse-lawyer who wears red power suits -- her biological brain will begin to sustain serious damage from the continuous push-and-pull of her internal "software conflict." She'll literally fry her own brain from the inside out.
 
A: Okay. That's pretty clear. Be yourself -- be the person God knows you to be -- so your brain and body will function the way God intended.
 
J: Simple in fact. Simple in reality. But not always easy to implement.
 
A: At least it gives people a starting place on the journey. At least it helps them understand where they're going and WHY. It helps so much to understand WHY.
 
J: Insight is one hell of an amazing miracle.

JR1: Grab a Coffee, Sit Down, and Join Us

A*: Jesus, since I've promised this blog will be a real-time discussion with you, what do you think of the idea of getting started right away? 

J*: It's 7:00 o'clock in the morning. You've only had one cup of coffee. You sure you want to begin this discussion right now? 

Jesus as the author sees him.

A: I'm a morning person. I'm good. Besides, if I know you, we're going to be continuing this discussion for a long time.  

J: I'm a bit rusty. We haven't done this whole "I talk, you type" thing in a while.  

A: I'm more worried about the typos. I always miss some typos when I'm first typing.  

J: Well, think on the bright side. You have fingers to type with. Me, not so much.  

A: Okay. Let's talk about that. That's a good place to start. Can you put into words for readers exactly where you are right now? Where are you actually located?  

J: Hmmm. That's a hard one to explain. You sure aren't starting with the easy questions!  

A: Let's try a biblical metaphor, then. Are you seated at the right hand of God? 

J (much chuckling): No! I'm not at God's right hand. Not now. Not ever. God doesn't really have a right hand. Not literally, not metaphorically. You have to remember that God's essence isn't made in humankind's image. So there's no old guy with a white beard sitting on a throne. There's an old guy, all right -- that's our beloved father, God the Father. But there's also an old gal -- God the Mother. They're our divine parents. Their essence is intertwined in and around all Creation. They were here long, long before any of the rest of us. You could say they're the Alpha and Beta of everything.  

A: Rather than the Alpha and Omega.  

J: Right. They're the first two letters of Creation's alphabet, and everything else that exists has been made possible by their love and commitment. But they're not the only beings in Creation. They're literally our parents. So there are many souls, many angels, many children in God's family. The Divine Family started with Two -- our blessed Mother and Father -- but the family has been growing and growing and growing. I don't think there's going to be an "Omega" in Creation -- a final, definitive end to things. I think the alphabet is just going to keep growing.  

A: So you're saying you're one of God's children, a child of God, not God himself, as in "God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit."  

J: That's what I'm saying. I'm not God the Father, and I'm not God the Mother. I'm me -- an angel who goes by the name of Jesus. I'm one of bajillions of sons in God's loving family. I'm not the only son.  

A: And there are also bajillions of daughters? 

J (smiling): Yes, bajillions of daughers, too.  

A: So where are all these bajillions of angelic sons and daughters? Where are they? Where are you? Why can't we see you?  

J: Well, to answer that question, I'll have to turn to science. The question can't be answered without the latest thinking in science. Not Newtonian science, of course. Quantum theory can help, but even quantum theory is in its infancy. Scientists have only begun to scratch the surface of the scientific realities that hold together all Creation. And within the vast universe we all live in, only a tiny fraction of all matter and all energy is visible to the human eye. So, without trying to be mean, I would have to say in all honesty that one of the least reliable measures for judging what's real and what's not real is the human eye. 

A: That makes me think of Plato and his rejection of the human senses as a valid way to know God.  

J: Plato rejected the human senses because he didn't want his followers to see for themselves that God the Mother and God the Father are visible everywhere in the material, practical, earthly world that human beings are living in. I'm saying the opposite of what Plato said. I'm saying that the human senses are good, but limited. Once you understand and respect those limitations, you're less troubled about the fact that some things just aren't visible within the narrow detection range of the human eye. The EMF frequencies that power wireless phones aren't less real because you can't see them. Same with the microwaves that cook your frozen dinners. Real, though not visible to the human eye.  

A: Okay. So angels are real, then, but we can't see them with the human eye because angels have an energy signature that falls outside the range of the human eye?  

J: Sort of. But it's more that angels exist as matter in the fourth dimension, whereas the human eye only draws information from matter that exists in the third dimension. But even most physicists agree the universe has more than three dimensions. That's not science fiction. That's science fact.  

A: In other words, there's nothing within our current understanding of quantum theory that absolutely prohibits the idea of angels existing "where we can't see them." 

J: That's what I'm saying. It's a darned big universe out there, and one of the biggest mistakes people can make is to insist that "what you see if what you get." Creation isn't founded on the WISIWYG principle -- as anyone born without sight will tell you.

Nature provides us with many examples of a single creature going through stages of transformation that so radically change the outer form we wouldn’t believe, without the help of science, that they’re still the same creature on the inside. The process of incarnating as a human being involves a similar repackaging of a soul’s imaginal discs into a temporary physical form. We go from butterfly form (angel) to caterpillar form (human) then back to butterfly form (angel) when we die. If you want to learn more about the imaginal discs involved in a biological caterpillar’s transformation into a gorgeous butterfly, you can check out this 2012 Scientific American post by Ferris Jabr (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/caterpillar-butterfly-metamorphosis-explainer/)

 

 

 

 * A=Author (Jennifer Thomas) and J=Jesus