Mystic’s Pragmatism: Enemy ID

I need to get something out of the way before we get to the point of this post. When I sensed God was demanding I limit myself to prophetic ministry and nothing else, particularly in writing, I honestly thought I wouldn’t have much to say. But since that day, stuff has been crowding into my consciousness, demanding I express it on pain of going honestly insane. It’s the old “fire in my bones” thing Jeremiah expressed.

Somewhere between my intellect and the imperatives of my spirit rests a powerful sense time is short. Surely you realize I can’t explain it to anyone’s satisfaction. On a purely intellectual basis I believe we are at least going to see a dramatic change in all our lives via banking and currency issues right around September-October this year. It’s just my opinion, and I sincerely hope I’m wrong. But that thought has threads reaching across the shadows into my non-conscious mind. Not so much the timing, per se, as the sense of urgency is what keeps nagging me in those quiet moments.

So it’s as if I’m trying to deliver all the truth I can cook up in a consumable format. I sincerely hope the recipes aren’t giving you indigestion, or that it’s not rotting before you can use it. Still, it’s a lot more than I anticipated, and each of you surely have on your plate a lot already. So if you aren’t actually reading any of this output, I really would not blame you on the human level. Unfortunately, I simply can’t shut up.

One of the things which seems to me such a huge waste of time is all the massive pile of articles in the alternative news market which tries way too hard to ID who is doing this or that. Unless you intend going out and assassinating a lot of plutocrats, it’s probably not very useful information. It’s typical of activist mythology, thinking you can change anything of significance by all that yelling, screaming, agitating, protesting, etc. Let me assure you, even if you were assassinating and bombing, it wouldn’t change anything. It would require a government-sized budget bigger than that of the US. And if that’s not enough to discourage you from folly then try this: God Himself will actively oppose anything like an armed revolt.

That’s not to say you can’t defend your mission and calling, and kill according to your convictions. I admit right now: If something like mandatory subcutaneous RFID were proposed, I would probably kill people to avoid it. That’s not the same thing as a general armed insurrection, despite how the government goons might read that. And there are other issues for which I’ve already posted here over the years you can justify use of violent force. I haven’t changed my understanding on those matters.

The point is pragmatism from a mystic’s point of view.

You could curl into a ball and simply intone “Satan is doing it all!” True, but not exactly purposeful. But that’s no sillier than the extremes of campaigning suggested by all the various activist voices you can read. If God tells you go and join OccupySomething, go. But don’t assume that means He’s going to do some grand miracle and change the oppressors’ minds about it. Because for each single issue you seize upon, there are thousand others going to bite your butt before that one’s done.

This thing is too big, too far along, and there are simply too many of them riding herd on too many attacks. It’s not possible to change the overall result by stopping any number of them individually. So naming the key figurehead on each really serious problem is TMI, and withdrawing into isolation is only for total wimps. The only thing you can usefully change is what you build inside your soul. For that purpose, it’s enough to make broad sweeping generalizations about what the plutocrats are doing on a wide scale, and that they have an intelligent and dastardly intent. I don’t have to name which individual is thinking which thoughts and plotting what specific evil will be done to us; I can’t even guess intelligently most of the time. What I can do is look at the big picture and see the consistent trends, and see how it hurts people and how nobody cries but the victims and some useless, impotent idiots on the sidelines.

Prepare? How? All I have is some estimate arising from my personal experiences. I can tell you in general terms physical fitness makes everything easier, but my plan probably won’t work for you. You want some guidelines? Think back on all the things you learned from Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. We learned the US government wants to demand everyone strip naked, and chain themselves to the ground in the ready position so they can be raped at some random official’s convenience. It could have been worse, but the federal agencies weren’t that well coordinated. Next time their brutality will be more systematic.

And when things get really crazy and tense and people are about to revolt, that’s when some disaster always has to happen. If a natural disaster doesn’t show up on schedule, there’s always man made ones. Whatever you believe about 9/11, never forget how officials handled people in the aftermath. Never forget how utility workers were cut just before that nasty storm left places like Ohio without power — still! For all intents and purposes, certain non-government businesses are still going to act as bad, or worse, than government. They are all the same people.

Then I want you to remember this is what you should expect, only worse, when the next big event comes along. It doesn’t matter what or when. If your soul isn’t ready to face the most important challenges, the only ones about which you can actually do anything, then a whole warehouse of survival equipment and supplies won’t help you. Adapt, stay on mission, let all the world go to Hell and everyone you love die, because you can’t stop it. Find something to believe in, something worth looking a fool and maybe actually killing someone else.

Finally, understand the most important thing is your commitment to that mission, because in the most real and ultimate sense, that’s who you are. That’s the truth against which this whole filthy lying plane of existence cannot stand.

Admin: Update to “Hearing God”

The permanent article Hearing God has been updated with an addenda at the end. It occurred to me I could add a concrete example from common human experience regarding how we handle sudden stresses. Here is a copy of the addenda:

**********

A Practical Application

As we pursue peace with God, it’s rather like chasing after Him through a wilderness, because our civilization has done it’s best to hide the path. It’s been long neglected, and very much overgrown with false fears of spooky demons and other spirits. For anyone seeking peace with God, you’ll spend at least part of your time blazing what seems a new trail, when in reality it is merely an ancient and forgotten road of truth.

There are markers indicating we are still moving, still on the right path. They are hard to read, written in a foreign language, marks of the Spirit Realm based on an entirely alien logic. There is at least one fairly obvious example I can translate for you, providing a key to understanding other markers on the way: How do you respond during an adrenalin rush?

Most of us understand the adrenal glands release a hormone, the effects of which we summarize as “fight or flight.” Actually, the vast majority of us are vacillating rapidly between the two under stress. Precious few of us will always do one or the other to any extreme.

We understand how it works, and with just a little training you can spot the effects of adrenalin in others. At the first instant some portion of the human awareness receives a shock, the rush of adrenalin disrupts the natural heart rhythm. We say the heart “stops” but that’s not exactly true. It’s just changing to an accelerated rhythm. So, for just an instant, the complexion is a bit ashen, colorless. Then a moment later it becomes flushed. The heart rate and blood pressure both go up suddenly. At the same time, the eyes dilate. The gaze of those eyes will be extreme. They will either stare intently, or exhibit rapid and nervous twitching, redirecting the gaze all over the place. Most people vacillate between the two extremes to some degree. The hands will begin to twitch, and exhibit confused and exaggerated movements. The speech pattern changes noticeably, a different rhythm and sings of uncertainty, a different syntax, affecting a different accent, etc. We sum it up by calling it “panic mode.”

As we draw closer to God and become better able to hear His voice through our wills, it is not so much these symptoms are reduced. Sure, it’s great if we can avoid panicking in the first place. However, the essence of a proper spiritual response is when we manage to do the right thing in spite of those symptoms. When adrenalin does not overpower the convictions of God speaking through the will, and the mind finds itself able to hear the voice of conviction, it’s because the link to the spirit is stronger than the link to the flesh. God does not speak through the flesh, in that sense.

Here’s a big useful hint: The signposts on the path of God are read most often in retrospect. The path of truth is marked more on the back side of things than on the front. You realize you have progressed spiritually in the aftermath of some stressful event. This requires prayerful contemplation.

The Peace of God

It seemed so obvious, it was hardly mentioned until much later when outsiders were pressing in, trying to claim a piece of the action. Those outsiders had virtually none of the foundation, none of the essential background to get vary far with it. The biggest single problem was getting them to shift their basic understanding of reality, because what they had was all wrong, even if in varying flavors and degrees.

Hebrew Christians in Jerusalem understood instinctively. Despite three centuries of false intellectual assumptions from all their teachers, the old ways were not entirely forgotten. Those ways had simply been relegated to a minor partisan margin on the political landscape, the old and grouchy reactionaries. It was there in their consciousness, and it wasn’t a monumental task to bring them back because they were already disenfranchised from most of the benefits of the false ways of Hellenism. When Jesus came along and His miracles screamed so loudly how everyone else was clearly wrong, it wasn’t hard to listen, even if without full comprehension.

Those He chose as His closest associates, oddly, seemed to have the most trouble with it. That is, until that defining event which set the history of Christianity on fire — spiritual birth. The presence of that Other Intelligence in their souls made the path back to truth suddenly and painfully obvious, but also possible.

And while that same transformation was wide open to those who lacked that cultural and intellectual background, the implications and necessity of taking that path to ancient mystical understanding was hardly automatically understood. So while the Gospels and Acts hardly mention any manifestation of this really massive problem, we see hints of it in Paul’s letters as he confronts a serious barrier to these new Gentile believers making the transition to the mystical life Jesus taught.

That ancient mysticism understands instinctively there can be no such thing as perfection in the rational sense. That’s because the mystical instinct is to realize no human could possibly identify perfection in the first place. It’s a myth; it never existed outside the mistaken imagination of some terribly misguided humans. Even in pursuit of God’s favor and His Laws, there can be no such thing as precision and perfection. When you see the Hebrew concepts translated into English with the word “perfection” you have to understand that is merely a symbolic approximation of the original idea.

Nothing in this life can possibly be perfect because nothing on this plane of existence can be perfected. The root nature of our fallen existence is we cannot know perfection and cannot hope to find it on our level of understanding. It’s the wrong question. Rather, under God’s revelation we should understand our best hope is “good enough” — an estimated balancing point between competing demands which allows us to find God’s blessings. He does not hold us accountable in precision, but in desire.

It’s not as if you can’t progress when you try to account for feelings of regret, of missed opportunities. But you are damned wrong if you push your analysis of such things beyond the point of real and practical application as a mystic would define it. Critical to human progress in appropriating divine wisdom is the utter necessity of looking at things with painful results, examining them in retrospect. If you don’t sense the Holy Spirit prodding you to this sort of contemplative brooding over your failures and sins, you understand nothing; you are defying the way God works. Yes, ask the Lord to show you your sins as sin, and ask Him to show you what could have been done better.

But critical to this process is the realization you won’t ever get an answer carved in stone. Your own best understanding is supposed to drift over time as your base of experience and grasp of holiness expands in size and depth. It must of necessity remain flexible, or you block out God’s Spirit and your own progress.

This whole business of idolatry is itself a manifestation of the petulant human demand for simplicity and “perfection” which cannot ever be. Investing so much of your soul in mere symbols is the path to destruction. This is why God is insulted by the likes of legalism, the use of phrases such as “plenary verbal inspiration” and “propositional truth.” Those arise from a demand God scratch on stones, instead of working in our hearts in a vivid give and take love relationship. It becomes an excuse to worship the Bronze Serpent or any other symbol of faith.

The peace we seek as humans is simply not available. God’s peace with us is the assurance we are as close to Him personally as we are likely to get at any given time, in any given context. It’s not about objective things, but something indefinable between two persons.