"Seijo, the Chinese girl," observed Goso, "had two souls, one always sick at home and the other in the city, a married woman with two children. Which was the true soul?" [...]
The clouds and moon are the same.
The mountains and valleys are different.
Each is blessed in its own way.
One is. Two are.
(Wumen Huikai, The Gateless Gate XXXV. The case is adapted by Paul Reps and Nyogen Senzaki, while the verse is adapted by myself.)
ἡδὺ δὲ καὶ τὸ πυθέσθαι, ὅσα θνητοῖσιν ἔνειμαν
ἀθάνατοι, δειλῶν τε καὶ ἐσθλῶν τέμαρ ἐναργές
and it is sweet too to learn the clear distinguishing mark
of bad and good things that the immortals have assigned to mortals
(Hesiod, Melampodia, as quoted by Clement of Alexandria, and as translated by Glenn W. Most.)
I remember reading somewhere, I think in a book discussing past life regression with hypnotism, of a psychologist who was trying to understand why some people turn out virtuous and others don't. He had heard of a pair of twin brothers, one of whom was a respected doctor, the other of whom was in prison, and this intrigued him, since, at least in theory, they should have been raised similarly. So he went to interview them. He first interviewed the brother who was a doctor, and asked him, "How did you become so successful?" The doctor told him, "Well, my father was always in and out of prison, all through my childhood. So with a father like that, how could I have done otherwise?" The psychologist next went to interview the brother who was a criminal, and asked him the same question. The criminal told him, "Well, my father was always in and out of prison, all through my childhood. So with a father like that, how could I have done otherwise?"
So to Hesiod's point, the real sweetness is when one finally learns that the distinguishing mark is on the mortal and not on the circumstances...
Ζῆνα δέ τις προφρόνως ἐπινίκια κλάζων
τεύξεται φρενῶν τὸ πᾶν,
τὸν φρονεῖν βροτοὺς ὁδώ-
σαντα, τὸν πάθει μάθος
θέντα κυρίως ἔχειν.
στάζει δ᾽ ἔν θ᾽ ὕπνῳ πρὸ καρδίας
μνησιπήμων πόνος: καὶ παρ᾽ ἄ-
κοντας ἦλθε σωφρονεῖν.
δαιμόνων δέ που χάρις βίαιος
σέλμα σεμνὸν ἡμένων.
But whoever willingly sings a victory-song for Zeus, he shall gain wisdom altogether—Zeus, who sets mortals on the path to understanding; Zeus, who has established a fixed law that "wisdom comes by suffering." But even as trouble, bringing memory of pain, drops over the mind in sleep, so wisdom comes to men, whether they want it or not. Harsh, it seems to me, is the grace of gods enthroned upon their awful seats.
(The chorus of Argive elders speaking. Aiskhulos, Agamemnon 174–83, as translated by Herbert Weir Smyth.)
ἐχθρὰ δέ μοι τοῦ δῶρα, τίω δέ μιν ἐν καρὸς αἴσῃ. [...]
οὐδ' εἴ μοι τόσα δοίη ὅσα ψάμαθός τε κόνις τε,
οὐδέ κεν ὧς ἔτι θυμὸν ἐμὸν πείσει' Ἀγαμέμνων
πρίν γ' ἀπὸ πᾶσαν ἐμοὶ δόμεναι θυμαλγέα λώβην.
I hate his gifts, and I've no respect for the man himself. [...]
Not even if he gave me as many gifts as there is sand or dust,
not even so would Agamemnon yet appease my anger
until he has paid me for his bitter outrage in full.
(Akhilles ranting. Homer, Iliad IX 378, 385–7, as translated—hopefully not too badly!—by yours truly.)
I often tell people that half the battle is to identify which myth you're in. Sometimes you're the little billy goat gruff, and the solution is to foist the troll off on your older brother; other times, you're the youngest prince, and the solution is to be brave and follow the advice of the troll's captive princess; other times, you're the youngest princess, and the solution is to sing the troll to sleep and make good your escape. Knowing which littlest-of-three you are tells you what approach you should take.
With all the horrors going on in the world, people keep wondering why my stance is that positive evil doesn't exist, and I think it comes back to identifying what myth we're in: when I look at the CIAs and CEOs of the world, I don't see great and powerful demons working towards cosmic Chaos, I see spoiled and petulant children who can't even tell right from wrong. The solution isn't to defeat them in battle—indeed, to do so is to play to their strengths and our weaknesses!—it is to educate them in their folly.
And, oftentimes, the simplest way to educate them is to let them see the consequences of their actions first-hand.
δοιοὶ γάρ τε πίθοι κατακείαται ἐν Διὸς οὔδει
δώρων οἷα δίδωσι κακῶν, ἕτερος δὲ ἑάων:
ᾧ μέν κ' ἀμμίξας δώῃ Ζεὺς τερπικέραυνος,
ἄλλοτε μέν τε κακῷ ὅ γε κύρεται, ἄλλοτε δ' ἐσθλῷ:
ᾧ δέ κε τῶν λυγρῶν δώῃ, λωβητὸν ἔθηκε,
καί ἑ κακὴ βούβρωστις ἐπὶ χθόνα δῖαν ἐλαύνει,
φοιτᾷ δ' οὔτε θεοῖσι τετιμένος οὔτε βροτοῖσιν.
For two jars sit on the floor of Zeus's house,
one full of curses, the other blessings.
To the man Thunder-Loving Zeus gives of them mixed,
his luck changes with the times—here good, there bad;
but to the man he gives only of the bad, abuse is his lot:
evil misery harries him over the divine earth,
and he wanders respected by neither gods nor men.
(Akhilles speaking. Homer, Iliad XXIV 527–33, as translated—hopefully not too badly!—by yours truly.)
But Zeus never gives of his jars unmixed—if it seems so, it is only because of the temporal mist on our eyes; so if there is only trauma here, there must be some recompense for it, either in the past or in the future; so either karma is your fate, or blessings are your destiny. The inability to see this is, I presume, why Akhilles's shade sat in Hades, still bemoaning his lot long after.
I have this vague idea that every civilization, unless it is somehow terminated early (by war or famine or whatever), develops to the same level of sophistication in understanding the universe before it fails. For example, the Egyptians somehow knew how to measure the distances to stars (the Nabta Playa complex allegedly does so to great accuracy) and, of course, were capable of engineering feats that leave us in awe even today; while Greeks knew about such things as special relativity and chaos theory (Plotinus discusses both); but neither got much further than that before they failed. Obviously, I suspect our fate will be similar.
But what is especially interesting to me is that each civilization uses different tools to do so, and it seems that all the other things we think of as central to that culture stem from this. The Egyptians may have well used magic, the Greeks used dialectic, and we use science. By this I assume that the Egyptians had a Saturnine angel; the Greeks, a Solar angel; and we, of course, have a Mercurial angel. But consider the ramifications: the Egyptians took a very long time to get there, but had tremendous cultural longevity (and their solid-as-a-rock monuments persist even today); the Greeks got there very efficiently, needing little resources to do it (and produced remarkable beauty which is still imitated today); we have produced little cultural value of our own, rather favoring to steal from others (and have needed a massive population, massive industrial base, and massive communication and travel in order to accomplish what we have).
Thus, I do not think that the destruction of the environment and the ransacking of the world's peoples is an accident: it is the necessary byproduct of the designs of the Western cultural angel. One must suppose that there is a good (and a Good) reason for it, and trust in Providence.
I too am now one of these, an exile from the gods and a wanderer, trusting in mad strife.
[Empedocles, fr. 115 (DK), as translated by Brad Inwood]
Know the male,
yet keep to the female:
receive the world in your arms.
If you receive the world,
the Tao will never leave you
and you will be like a little child.
[Tao Te Ching XXVIII, as translated by Stephen Mitchell]
In an interesting thread in yesterday's Magic Monday, ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ecosophia noted, "The Hopi had a prophecy, going back a very long ways, that someday white people would come to their land, bearing one of two sacred symbols. If they brought the circle, everything would be fine, but if they brought the cross, that meant horrible events and ultimately the end of the Fifth World. As I see it, there was a struggle on the physical and spiritual levels alike to determine which way things would go. We know who won."
My angel had told me something similar, noting that while destruction has been baked into the cake for centuries, the angels have waited a long time and been very patient with humanity, in order to allow time for them to, perhaps, come to their senses and pull back from the abyss, but they have not. As of a moment "very recently"—I got the sense that "very recently" was sometime in the 2010–2020 decade—it was too late to save humanity from its folly. My angel never mentioned the form in which this destruction would take, though I have assumed it to involve violence. I have made mention of blessed Mars coming to cleanse the world, and perhaps this comes across as cruel, but it is meant from a loving place of chastisement for misdeeds: humanity is stuck in a very wicked place, and we are in need of His peculiar powers to loose those bonds, learn our lesson, and try again. Nonetheless, it must be understood that I haven't held to this too tightly, because—as with all divine revelation—it must be treated as suspect until it can be verified somehow, and I considered this message to be unverifiable.
So ecosophia's little note threw me for something of a loop, since here is some measure of potential verification. (Or, at least, it may move the needle on my Bayesian prior a little!) I spent a while yesterday and today researching the Hopi prophecy. Perhaps due to it's nature as being orally transmitted, there is no one central source for or interpretation of the prophecy, and I've had to piece what I can of it together from disparate sources, many of which are squirreled away on little corners of the Internet Archive. (That said, perhaps the most comprehensive sources I found were From the Beginning of Life to the Day of Purification and The Voice of the Great Spirit.) Here is a brief summary of what I think I've understood, though please understand that I'm a foreigner, may easily misunderstand, and anyway there is no One True Interpretation™ of such a prophecy, so please verify all of this for yourself before taking my word for it.
The Hopi, like the Pythagoreans and the Chinese, consider the cosmos to have a single governing principle (like the One or the Tao) that proceed through two sub-principles (like Love/Strife or Yin/Yang): "this sacred writing [...] could mean the mysterious life seed with two principles of tomorrow, indicating one, inside of which is two." One sub-principle is represented by the meha symbol, "which refers to a plant that has a long root, milky sap, grows back when cut off, and has a flower shaped like a swastika, symbolizing the four great forces of nature in motion," and which is representative of materiality. The other sub-principle is represented by the Sun symbol, shaped like a circle, which is representative of wholeness or divinity ("our Father Sun, the Great Spirit"). The overarching principle is represented by the red symbol, which is drawn as the two superimposed into a sun cross or medicine wheel, representing "setting the four forces of nature in motion for the benefit of the Sun," or cosmic order.
The idea is that when the Great Spirit dispersed men to the four corners of the world, it distributed them this third symbol, but foretold that each people would be corrupted in time. (The Hopi were to remain at the center of the world and were set aside to retain the pure teaching in a wasteland, which would prevent them from becoming greedy.) At the end of the age, the men would return from the four corners of the world bearing sophisticated technology and a corrupted symbol: if it was the Sun circle, then it would indicate that they had become spiritual and would use their technology to renew the world, but if it was the meha cross, then it would indicate that they had become materialistic and would use their technology to destroy the world. (How ironic that white men came literally bearing a cross! And, materialistic indeed they were: the first European contact with the Hopi was by Francisco Vázquez de Coronado's men as they searched for the fabled Seven Cities of Gold.)
This destruction would proceed through three events, symbolized by the meha, Sun, and red symbols, respectively, which the Hopi elders associate with three world wars. (These symbols supposedly represent the initiators of those wars, from the perspective of the Hopi: the meha representing Germany, which bore the Iron Cross in WW1 and the swastika in WW2; the Sun representing Japan, which bore a solar emblem in WW2; and the red symbol to represent an as-yet-unknown nation.) The third of these wars is to be fought with nuclear weapons—called "gourds of ashes falling from the sky"—and would usher in a period of great calamity, after which the now-purified world "will bloom again and all people will unite to peace and harmony for a long time to come." The Hopi believed that, after the first two events, there would be an opportunity to return to spirituality and prevent the the third event, but that after a certain point there was no turning back, which is why, after the Second World War, they began to desperately try to communicate their prophecy through any venue they could.
This is all very interesting to me, but as with all prophecies, take it with salt. We cannot turn divinity from Its great purpose, whatever it may be, and the way we should live today is always the same regardless of what tomorrow may bring. Do you as Porphyry says:
We do not worship [God] only by doing or thinking this or that, neither can tears or supplications turn God from His purpose, nor yet is He honored by sacrifices nor glorified by plentiful offerings; but it is the godlike mind that remains stably fixed in its place that is united to God. For like must needs approach like. The sacrifices of fools are mere food for fire, and from the offerings they bring temple-robbers get the supplies for their evil life. But do thou, as I bade, let thy temple be the mind that is within thee. This must thou tend and adorn, that it may be a fitting dwelling for God.
[Porphyry to Marcella XIX, as translated by Alice Zimmern]
I'm pretty frustrated with this week's commentary on the Ecosophia Open Post, but I recognize that many over there are not spiritual, so I'll respond over here.
We mustn't fear the acts of god, for the acts of god are beneficent!
A land once holy, most loving of divinity, by reason of her reverence the only land on earth where the gods settled, she who taught holiness and fidelity will be an example of utter (un)belief. In their weariness the people of that time will find the world nothing to wonder at or to worship. [...] People will find it oppressive and scorn it. [...] They will prefer shadows to light, and they will find death more expedient than life. No one will look up to heaven. The reverent will be thought mad, the irreverent wise; the lunatic will be thought brave, and the scoundrel will be taken for a decent person. [... T]hat soul began as immortal or else expects to attain immortality [...] will be considered not simply laughable but even illusory. [...]
How mournful when the gods withdraw from mankind! Only the baleful angels [(e.g. wicked dæmons)] remain to mingle with humans, seizing the wretches and driving them to every outrageous crime—war, looting, trickery and all that is contrary to the nature of souls. Then neither will the earth stand firm nor the sea be sailable; stars will not cross heaven nor will the course of the stars stand firm in heaven. Every divine voice will grow mute in enforced silence. The fruits of the earth will rot; the soil will no more be fertile; and the very air will droop in gloomy lethargy.
Such will be the old age of the world: irreverence, disorder, disregard for everything good. When all this comes to pass, [...] then the master and father, the god whose power is primary, governor of the first god, will look on this conduct and these willful crimes, and [...] will take his stand against the vices and the perversion in everything, righting wrongs, washing away malice in a flood or consuming it in fire or ending it by spreading pestilential disease everywhere. Then he will restore the world to its beauty of old so that the world itself will again seem deserving of worship and wonder [...].
(Asclepius XXV, as translated by Brian P. Copenhaver)
Hermes Trismegistus is speaking here of the fate of Egypt: once the land most beloved by the gods, now a sandy ruin and tomb of the ancient dead. Obviously it is pertinent to our times as well.
I have mentioned my opinion (shared by Pythagoras) that we live in Hades: a gray waste without beauty, where even the greatest delicacies taste of dust. Even those of us who hold to virtue and are desperately pious are too weary to find much purchase, here. Hard though it is to find any joy, we ought to rejoice nonetheless that the time comes when blessed Mars steps in to cleanse the world, that it may be remade anew and Beauty may reign here again, at least for a little while.
I stumbled across the following (modern) folk prayer the other day:
May the angels walk beside you always, offering wisdom in times of uncertainty, courage in the face of fear, luck in moments of opportunity, and protection in times of vulnerability.
The prayer is fine as far as it goes, even though I have a tendency to be dismissive of modern folk spirituality: my default response is to look down on such things. The reason for this, I think, is that spirituality is and must be descended from mystical experience, and it is difficult to authenticate the mystical experiences of others; lacking better tools, I favor time as a filter to separate the wheat from the chaff, and so the more archaic the belief, the more likely it is to have had merits worth preserving. However, I realized today that I am being rather unfair to this prayer in particular.
As you all surely know by now, I am very fond of my guardian angel, and so, in an effort to understand them (or as an offering to them, which I suppose is the same thing), I have been tracing the doctrines about these kinds of beings for a while. The earliest source I have found so far is Hesiod, Works and Days ll. 121–6 (tr. Hugh G. Evelyn-White):
αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ δὴ τοῦτο γένος κατὰ γαῖ᾽ ἐκάλυψε,—
τοὶ μὲν δαίμονες ἁγνοὶ ἐπιχθόνιοι καλέονται
ἐσθλοί, ἀλεξίκακοι, φύλακες θνητῶν ἀνθρώπων,
οἵ ῥα φυλάσσουσίν τε δίκας καὶ σχέτλια ἔργα
ἠέρα ἑσσάμενοι πάντη φοιτῶντες ἐπ᾽ αἶαν,
πλουτοδόται: καὶ τοῦτο γέρας βασιλήιον ἔσχον—,
[...]But after the earth had covered [the golden] generation—they are called pure spirits dwelling on the earth, and are kindly, delivering from harm, and guardians of mortal men; for they roam everywhere over the earth, clothed in mist and keep watch on judgements and cruel deeds, givers of wealth; for this royal right also they received;— [...]
Translation is treason, and Evelyn-White's is no exception, but as best as I can discern with the help of several dictionaries, Hesiod outlines here the following five tenets:
Guardian angels live on the earth with us (as contrasted with the gods in heaven, the silver generation in the underworld, etc.).
Guardian angels are morally good and guide us in right behavior.
Guardian angels protect us from spiritual harm.
Guardian angels encourage us through difficult situations.
Guardian angels dispense good fortune.
Astute readers will note that these five points are the exact same ones from the folk prayer I mentioned above, merely rearranged. One might be inclined to see Providence ensuring continuity of doctrine over the last three thousand years, and if that is so, then it makes for a good antidote to my conservative tendencies.
I suspect Hesiod's teachings go back further still, either to Egypt or Mesopotamia (though I despair of tracing it back any further than that). If anyone knows of textual references from either, I would be grateful.
He smoked, and when he offered me a cigarette, I refused politely, telling him about my lungs, and that I had to care for my health. He only laughed. "Do you really feel there is something still wrong in your chest, dear Doctor?"
Instinctively I breathed deeply, trying to find the old pain. But it was not there. I was cured? "Yes, my son," he said, "you are cured of your inner faults, so how could the physical ones resist being cured?" He read my thoughts as one reads the lines of an open book.
(Paul Sédir, as translated by Mouni Sadhu, Ways to Self-Realization XLVII)
By contrast, in Life of Plotinus II, Porphyry says that Plotinus—who Apollo Himself declared to be one cured of his inner faults—suffered from a lifelong intestinal disease (for which, in fact, he would refuse treatment). How can the statement of Sédir's guru and Plotinus' example be reconciled?
I asked my angel about this and They answered, "Sédir was cured because it benefited him. Plotinus suffered disease because it benefited him. Simple as that."
So it is with me. A number of you have kindly asked about praying for my health, and I've refused, since my angel's told me in that past that I wouldn't be healed. Well, there's why.
I mentioned Thrasymachus before, how it introduces grammatical concepts and mythology together. The section I'm presently working through jokingly references the myth of Eris in order to teach superlatives (e.g. white, whiter, whitest):
Hera: How white is my robe!
Aphrodite: But mine is whiter.
Athena: But mine is the whitest.
Aphrodite: But I am rich.
Athena: But I am richer than Aphrodite.
Hera: But I am the richest of the gods.
Athena: (She gets huffy.) But I am sitting in a lofty chair!
Hera: (She gets huffier.) Of course, but I am in a loftier one!
Aphrodite: (She gets the huffiest.) But I am in the loftiest!
Athena: (She speaks arrogantly.) But I am lovely!
Hera: (She speaks more arrogantly.) But I am lovelier than Athena!
Aphrodite: (She speaks the most arrogantly.) But I am the loveliest of the gods!
"The loveliest," of course, being "καλλίστη," which was written on the golden apple. (Well, almost, there's a case difference, but whatever.)
Of course, one cannot get their theology from a grammar textbook, but the way I was raised, this would be considered blasphemous in the extreme—how dare one make light of the gods for being so petty! But, I was thinking about it, and rather than being blasphemous, I actually think that it makes a lovely little offering to Them. It made me laugh, and does not laughter honor Aphrodite? It is helping me to learn, and does not learning honor Athena? It made my wife glad to see me enjoying something (a rare occurrence, frankly), and does that not honor Hera?
I think blasphemy, then, is perhaps a misguided concept. By living (even living badly, if that is all we are capable of), we participate in the gods. By participating in them, we honor them.
Some things, though right, were considered wrong for generations. Since the value of righteousness may be recognized after centuries, there is no need to crave immediate appreciation.
(Nyogen Senzaki, 101 Zen Stories LXXVII)
Let us suppose all influences flow down to us from divinity. Let us further suppose that all influences below the level of divinity are subject to time. Then, to be "ahead of the curve" implies that one receives those influences before others, and in turn that one is closer to divinity than others (at least along the path of those influences).
For example, I've had severe autoimmune problems for a couple decades. Now, it seems everyone has them. I was subject to those influences first, and therefore it may be surmised that I am closer to the source of that influence than others are.
It is worthy to consider what good such an apparently-negative influence may carry with it from divinity; but even ignoring that, there is good it can bring even here in isolation in the sensible world: since I have a lot of experience with autoimmunity, I can teach those who are new to it how to bear it. Thus, one who is ahead of the curve is the teacher of those who are behind.
Laozi says (Tao Te Ching XXVII), "What is a good man but a bad man's teacher? What is a bad man but a good man's job?" As divinity teaches mankind, so too does an experienced person teach an inexperienced one. And this is just what I mean when I say that being "ahead of the curve" is to be closer to divinity.
So if one is out of step with the times, they should not be concerned. Do your work and don't worry what others think. Help where you can.
Once upon a time, Zeus was walking among the oak trees, and they said to Him, "O Zeus, father and progenitor of us all, we are much beset by the farmer and the woodcutter. If we exist only to be chopped down, why did you beget us in the first place?"
Zeus smiled with pity and answered, "But my children, why do you blame me for this? You yourselves are the cause of your misfortune: if you did not supply the farmer and woodcutter with handles, they would not have axes!"
(Babrius, Fables CXLII)
"Hear the word of Lachesis, the daughter of Necessity: mortal souls, behold a new cycle of life and mortality! Your dæmon will not be allotted to you, but you will choose your dæmon; and let him who draws the first lot have the first choice, and the life which he chooses shall be his destiny. Virtue is free, and as a man honors or dishonors her he will have more or less of her. The responsibility is with the chooser—God is blameless."
(The Prophet of Fate, as quoted by Er, as quoted by Socrates, as quoted by Plato, Republic X, as translated by Thomas Taylor, with minor adaptations by yours truly)
So then the soul, though it is divine and comes from above, enters into the body and, though it is a god of the lowest rank, comes to this world by a spontaneous inclination, its own power and the setting in order of what comes after it being the cause of its descent. If it escapes quickly it takes no harm by acquiring a knowledge of evil and coming to know the nature of wickedness, and manifesting its powers, making apparent works and activities which if they had remained quiescent in the spiritual world would have been of no use because they would never have come into actuality; and the soul itself would not have known the powers it had if they had not come out and been revealed. Actuality everywhere reveals completely hidden potency, in a way obliterated and non-existent because it does not yet truly exist. As things are, everyone wonders at what is within because of the varied splendor of the outside and admires what the doer is because it does these fine things.
(Plotinus, Enneads IV viii "The Soul's Descent into Body" §5, as translated by Arthur Hilary Armstrong)
All, then, that is present in the sense realm as Idea comes from the Supreme. But what is not present as Idea, does not. Thus of things conflicting with nature, none is There: the inartistic is not contained in the arts; lameness is not in the seed; for a lame leg is either inborn through some thwarting of the Reason-principle or is a marring of the achieved form by accident.
(Plotinus, Enneads V ix §10)
When something unusual or unnatural occurs to upset the harmony of the physical—a shock, a jolt, a broken habit, an intense un-appeased desire, sickness—in fact, anything which would cause a lack of perfect material co-ordination—there is always a jar to the astral.
(Sylvan J. Muldoon, The Projection of the Astral Body II)
Long, long have I wondered why, when so many are caught up in chasing after money, that I long only for the spiritual even when I have that which they desperately seek. Muldoon spells it out explicitly: one strives for internal unity, even if one cannot even hope to attain to that first tier of Maslow's hierarchy. To put it another way, the greater Self tries to find a agreement between the astral vehicle and the body; but if no agreement is possible, then shedding the body may be the only way for unity to exist.
I guess this ties into another point I've wondered: angels tend to appear only to the distressed. So perhaps the reason I am so often distressed is not a failing, but a cause: my angel has brought such circumstances about so that I may develop a communion with Them. This would seem to mesh with my understanding of Providence.
I'm very tired of the "demonic hypothesis" being bandied about as a means of understanding why America is becoming schizophrenic and tearing itself to pieces right now. (In fairness to JMG, he only proposed it as a tentative hypothesis and does not seem to hold to it very tightly; but at least a significant segment of the Ecosophia community seems to have taken it as gospel.) I thought I might offer an alternative.
In her book Anyone Can See the Light, Dr. Dianne Morrissey talks about her near death experience and the things she learned from it. One of the things she discusses is senility: "I learned from being in the Light that if I continued to judge others as I had been doing, I would become senile before I died again! The Light of God told me that senility was created for those who would have a hard time accepting the reality of Heaven, once they had crossed over. So they are made childlike, and thus able to accept Heaven as it is."
Plotinus says something vaguely concordant in Enneads I ix, about how arguing for suicide as a response to senility is a pointless exercise, since a philosophical life—trying to accept and embrace what is—is prophylactic against senility.
I might suggest that human societies are creatures, just as much as humans are: they exhibit various stages of life, and in the same way they are born (from parent societies, no less), so too do they grow old and die. Some civilizations, for whatever reason, are mature and philosophical and die with grace; others may get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time and are murdered before even coming to age. Ours, however, seems to me to be like the judgemental person Morrissey describes—it insists upon forcing its view of the world onto others, and is unable to accept or appreciate the world as it is. Consequently, as it ages, it seems to have grown senile and is too judgmental, too forgetful, too proud to make sense of the world around it any more. So it forgets and is confused and frustrated and flails and rattles apart as a side effect of allowing it a way to transition out of existence.
Consequently, it seems to me that climate change and the "green movement," Trump and the "Resistance," COVID and the anti-vaxxers, the divisive political climate, all are mere symptoms of a deeply flawed worldview which has been stuck in a rut for centuries. Indeed, I might suggest that the "demonic hypothesis" itself is born from that same worldview: one that assigns humans much greater agency than they in fact have, and doesn't recognize that maybe the West's great life is coming to an end exactly as it ought to.
I would urge people to look at the world in such a way that, rather than divide it into camps or try to assign blame, instead accepts that the gods are good and know what they are doing, and gracefully tries to cushion the blow as much as one reasonably can.
No god is responsible for a man’s evils, for he has chosen his lot himself.
(Porphyry to Marcella XXIV)
Two hands clap and there is a sound, but what is the sound of one hand?
(attr. Hakuin Ekaku)
Suiwo, the disciple of Hakuin, was a good teacher. During one summer seclusion period, a pupil came to him from a southern island of Japan.
Suiwo gave him the problem: "Hear the sound of one hand."
The pupil remained three years but could not pass this test. One night he came in tears to Suiwo. "I must return south in shame and embarrassment," he said, "for I cannot solve my problem."
"Wait one week more and meditate constantly," advised Suiwo. Still no enlightenment came to the pupil. "Try for another week," said Suiwo. The pupil obeyed, but in vain.
"Still another week." Yet this was of no avail. In despair the student begged to be released, but Suiwo requested another meditation of five days. They were without result. Then he said: "Meditate for three days longer, then if you fail to attain enlightenment, you had better kill yourself."
On the second day the pupil was enlightened.
(Nyogen Senzaki, 101 Zen Stories XXV "Three Days More")
I repeatedly think that this present moment in time, when everything is on fire, is a high-risk, high-reward time for souls: so many billions choose to incarnate now, not because it is a good or fun time, but because the three days before killing oneself are the most productive of all.
So, sit. Meditate for three days longer. Hear the sound of one hand.
Summer lockdown season is always dispiriting, but Providence is still to be found. Just before being cooped up, I began to find dozen of feathers, and very pretty ones, too—like iridescent blue jay and striped hawk. Even now, when I am unable to leave the house, my angel still finds ways to deliver gifts to me: today, I find a chicken feather hidden beneath an egg in the egg carton—a very unusual occurrence in these days, when farms wash their eggs before packing them.
Also, rather than the single sunflower keeping me company last year, this year we have dozens. Nine are blooming right now.
Small things, but they help. May you find the good fortune and providence of your angels today, too.
Lady Li was the daughter of a border guard. When the duke of a neighboring state sacked her hometown and brought her to his palace, she wept until her robe was drenched in tears. But as time went on and she experienced palace life, eating fine food and sharing the duke's bed, she came to love her new life and wondered why she had ever wept.
In the same way, how do we know that loving life isn't a delusion? How do we know that by hating death we're not like someone who left home as a child and forgot the way back? What if the dead, like Lady Li, wonder why they ever longed for life?
(Zhuangzi II, as adapted by yours truly)
One day, old man Yu became ill, and his friend Ssu came to visit him, asking how he was. Yu answered, "Amazing! Look how crooked I am becoming! My back sticks out like a camel, my intestines are over my head, my chin digs into my belly, and my bottom points up to the sky!" He hobbled over to the well and, looking at his reflection, remarked, "My, how the Creator is changing my shape!"
Ssu was surprised at how at ease his friend seemed, and asked, "Are you really not upset at all?"
Yu answered, "Not a bit: what is there to be upset about? Maybe tomorrow I'll awake and my left arm will be changed into a rooster, and I'll announce the dawn; or, perhaps, the Creator will make my right arm into a crossbow and I'll go out and hunt for dinner. Maybe my buttocks will be transformed into cartwheels, and I'll climb up onto myself and go for a ride! I'll never need a carriage again!
"I was born when the time came, and I will similarly die at the appointed hour. When you fight against reality, you lose: that's just the way things have always been. So, instead, I am content with whatever life presents to me and therefore immune to both sorrow and joy. That's why I'm not upset."
(Zhuangzi VI, as adapted by yours truly)
Zhuangzi's wife died. When Huizi went to convey his condolences, he found Zhuangzi sitting with his legs sprawled out, pounding on a tub and singing. "You lived with her, she brought up your children and grew old," said Huizi. "It should be enough simply not to weep at her death. But pounding on a tub and singing—this is going too far, isn't it?"
Zhuangzi said, "You're wrong. When she first died, do you think I didn't grieve like anyone else? But I looked back to her beginning and the time before she was born. Not only the time before she was born, but the time before she had a body. Not only the time before she had a body, but the time before she had a spirit. In the midst of the jumble of wonder and mystery a change took place and she had a spirit. Another change and she had a body. Another change and she was born. Now there's been another change and she's dead. It's just like the progression of the four seasons, spring, summer, fall, winter.
"Now she's going to lie down peacefully in a vast room. If I were to follow after her bawling and sobbing, it would show that I don't understand anything about fate. So I stopped."
(Zhuangzi XVIII, as translated by Burton Watson)
