a rose by any other name!?

[sleeplessinpool]

I think the greatest problem to day is we tend to focus to much on the vessel and don’t spend enough time on the content...water is water it fills the vessel according to the shape. But at the end of the day it still remains H2O, religious experience devoid of culture remains essentially the same, your experience of the divine is no different to my experience of the divine, the only thing that is different is the road we take or the language we use to surround it.

I think if we are to truly progress as individuals or even dare I say as humanity collectively I suggest that we need to stop focusing so much on the journeys but maybe more so the goal itself? I have read the life stories of a number of mystics from different faiths and discovered their experience of the Divine was not any different to mine, and, the actual fruits it’s generated exactly the same also. Would Millrepa (A Tibetan sage from 1066ce) or say any of the Buddha’s stop and argue about the shape of the cup? Would any of the great saints of any belief system stop to argue half of the points our systems hold dear or would they dismiss them as meaningless.

Maybe living on start of new millennia we need to start questioning some of our old ideas and start looking in different directions? Are the things we call important really THAT important? Or are we simply just hanging on to them for the sake of hanging them, remember a lot of conflict is caused purely because someone is unwilling to let go of something of perceived importance.

When we look round at the world outside our religious communities we find things are moving on, people are developing new ideas and ways of expressing things, there is a very real danger we are going to be left behind if we don’t start taking some rather radical steps. The average non-religious individual is starting to find us irrelevant and like it or not, is it possible that it is us that needs to change not them. The bickering between faiths is seen as a symptom of our inability to change or accept that water remains the same.

Building bridges between faiths is going to involve the dropping of some long cherished ideas or possibly admitting the other person might be right and we are wrong, or might have something we don’t, either way I think would be foolish to assume we have a solo monopoly on truth.

[Alien]

You're not going to get very far with that here!

Nice idea though. :smile:

[DBoone]

The issues of various religions are at their core unique in their respective claims. In fact none of the traditional faiths within their own cultures are very tolerant of other belief systems, and it is primarily a New Age mentality which tries to merge all of these faiths into one homogenous unit. I feel that this move is insulting to the notion of truth in general and to the various religions that one might attempt to universalize. It does a disservice to religious and philosophical thinking and waters down each and every religion it touches, weakening faith instead of strengthening it. I would prefer that one believe exclusively in an unnameable cosmic force, rather than try to drag my Lord Jesus into some confused and inpalpable stew with all the other gods of this world.

[sleeplessinpool]

(The following found its way into my in box, thought it would make an interesting ballance? Yours Sleeplessinpoole)

SYMBOLS AND REALITIES


“What is important”, said a white –bearded Hindu pilgrim as the train pulled into Benares, “is not the object worshiped, but the depth and sincerity of the worship”. And yet he was getting off at Benares, after a long and arduous trip to worship Shiva in his spiritual capital.

Two aspects of every ritual tradition are recognised in Indian thought, the Indian terms are marga meaning “path” or “way”, the path to the discovery of the universal and desi, “of the local, region, or ethnic,” the peculiar, sectarian, or historical aspect of any religion, through which it constellates a folk, a nation, or a civilization. Functioning as a “way” mythology and ritual conduce to transformation of the individual, disengaging him or her from the local, historical conditions and leading towards a direct mystical experience. The local tradition, binds the individual to his families systems of historically conditioned sentiments, activities, and beliefs, as a functioning member of a sociological organism. This antimony is fundamental to the spirit of the previous posting, and every failure to recognise it leads not only to unnecessary argument, but also to misunderstanding-one way or the other- of the force of the religious symbol itself, which is, precisely, to render an experience of the ineffable through the local and the concrete, and thus, paradoxically, to amplify the force and appeal of the local forms even while carrying the mind beyond them. We have to recognise that even where a single deity is worshipped, the varieties of religious experience represented by the worshippers may differ to such an extent that it is only from the most superficial sociological point of view that that they can be said to share the same religion. They are held together sociologically by their God, or gods, yet psychologically are on different planes. This is the crux of the recent Hindu debates observed on this sight, yes there are many degenerate practices, but only among the ignorant, the intellectually and spiritually unrefined and poorly educated in the very profound philosophical systems of Eastern thought. The same can be said of individuals through out history in all societies in all religions. Of course there are ‘new age’ diluted truths, if they can be called that, little more than clichés and truisms, but whence the notion that the underlying concept on religious universalism at a deeper level are new. The Indian position, mentioned above is thousands of years old and all nations had the same concept, recognised to a lesser or greater extent.


In basic terms myths are truths revealed via imagery as metaphors, Common experiences, from people, leaping local fences so to speak recognise from each other core concepts and phenomenon that many practitioners and priests regard as distinct deities. Ramakrishna in the nineteenth century stressed this psychological-as opposed to ethnological-orientation when he spoke of the ultimate unity of all religions.


However the crux of our statement rests upon not belief but experience, upon ‘direct’ communication or interaction with the divine. In short a mystic experience. To some this personal religion, nakedly considered, will no doubt seem too incomplete a thing to wear the general name. It is a part of religion many will object. In one sense at least, mystic religion will prove itself more fundamental, than either theology or ecclesiasticism. Churches when once established live at second hand upon tradition; but the founders of every movement owed their power originally to the fact of their direct communion with the divine. This I would basically define as ‘the feelings, acts and experiences of individual men and women in their solitude so far as they apprehend themselves to, stand in relation to whatever they consider to be the divine’. We will not go to deeply into the nature of this mechanism as a reply such as this does not warrant the space, but one may ask by what means are such experiences translated into the ideas and images of the world’s mystics. There is a ‘field of consciousness’, the one of which we are familiar, the other vaster hidden and usually unconscious. Attention and awareness are elements contained within the psyche, elements of focus and the objects of awareness. Attention is like a light, concentrated or diffuse, strong or weak and objects of attention are held before the field of consciousness in varying numbers and degrees of lucidity. Different individuals represent constitutional differences in this matter of field variation. but in all, beyond our present awareness and easily recollected associative memories, lies a vaster, deeper aspect of the psyche. Thoughts impulses and memories that are extra-marginal, so to speak and outside of everyday consciousness altogether, are non-the-less fields of consciousness in their own right, and reveal their presence by unmistakable signs. Although the majority remain unaware of this, its pursuit reveals to us an entirely unsuspected peculiarity in the constitution of human nature, a subliminal self or consciousness, implicated in all phenomena mystical. Its manifestation is to a marked degree in some people, to some degree in all people and in a few to a very extraordinary degree. The most important consequence of having a strongly developed extra-marginal life of this kind is that ones ordinary field of consciousness is liable to incursions from it. They may take the form of unaccountable impulses to act, or inhibitions to act, of obsessive ideas or hallucinations of sight and sound. Of automatic speech and writing, the meaning of which the subject themselves may not understand. Generalising the phenomenon we could call them automatisms, sensory, motor, emotional or intellectual, the sphere of affects coming via the subliminal self. You will in fact hardly find a religious leader or mystic in whose life there is no there is no record of automatisms. We speak not merely of savage priests and prophets whose followers regard automatic utterance and action by it tantamount to inspiration, but also leaders of thought, poets, artists and subjects of intellectual experience. St Paul had his visions his ecstasies, and gift of tongues, small as was the importance he attached to them. The whole array of Christian saints and heresiachs, including the greatest, the Bernards, the Loyolas, the Luthers and Wesleys had their visions, voices, rapture conditions, guiding impressions etc. Beliefs are strengthened whenever automatisms corroborate them. Dogmatic philosophies have sought for tests of truth and point to their origin of revelation. It is clear that the origin of truth would be an admirable criteria of this sort, if only the various origins could be discriminated one from the other, but they cannot. Origin in immediate intuition, origin in pontifical authority, origin in supernatural revelation. Origin in direct possession by higher spirit(s) expressing itself in prophecy and warning. These origins have been stock warrants for the truth of one opinion after the other which we find represented in religious history. When the orthodox mind talks and writes of God the nations go asunder; the desi, the local the historical, ethnical aspect of the cult symbol is taken with absolute seriousness, whereas when the mystic talks, no matter what their desi their words in a profound sense meet. The name of Shiva, Allah, Buddha and Christ lose their historical force and come together as adequate pointers of the way that all must go who would transcend their time-bound, earthbound faculties and limitations.

[Dee Dee Warren]

Building bridges between faiths is going to involve the dropping of some long cherished ideas or possibly admitting the other person might be right and we are wrong, or might have something we don’t, either way I think would be foolish to assume we have a solo monopoly on truth.

Is THAT true?

[FirstSunday33ad]

“What is important”, said a white –bearded Hindu pilgrim as the train pulled into Benares, “is not the object worshiped, but the depth and sincerity of the worship”.

If the Hindu really believes this, then let him abandon Hinduism and become a Christian, since if he is right, it will not matter as long as he worships with depth and sincerity, but if he is wrong, he will be worshiping the true God.

[Bob Jenkins]

From FirstSunday33ad -


If the Hindu really believes this, then let him abandon Hinduism and become a Christian, since if he is right, it will not matter as long as he worships with depth and sincerity, but if he is wrong, he will be worshiping the true God.


Ah, but the Hindu may be a product of Eastern culture and would not recognize relationship with God as a form of sprituality. But he just might take the mysteries and myths of the Bible and be fully satisfied spirtualy. He would strive to become God through contemplation of the Bible and Christians, of course, would never try that.

[DBoone]

Sleeplessinpool said

"The local tradition, binds the individual to his families systems of historically conditioned sentiments, activities, and beliefs, as a functioning member of a sociological organism.

This antimony is fundamental to the spirit of the previous posting, and every failure to recognise it leads not only to unnecessary argument,

but also to misunderstanding-one way or the other- of the force of the religious symbol itself, which is, precisely, to render an experience of the ineffable through the local and the concrete, and thus, paradoxically, to amplify the force and appeal of the local forms even while carrying the mind beyond them.

We have to recognise that even where a single deity is worshipped, the varieties of religious experience represented by the worshippers may differ to such an extent that it is only from the most superficial sociological point of view that that they can be said to share the same religion. They are held together sociologically by their God, or gods, yet psychologically are on different planes. "

Do you have any reason to think that this statement is true, other than just wanting it to be so?

According to your logic, if I wanted to communicate with God by having faith in Him, I could just as easily reach Him by worshipping Satan. Jesus had a few things to say about that on His 40 days in the wilderness.

At least in this discussion, we don't have to deal with whether or not the spiritual universe even exists. But you seem to be saying that since we cannot properly discern the many voices all proclaiming "truth!" that we must therefore accept all the voices. This is precisely what happens when we as a society abandon the Truth as a universal concept and trivialize various avenues of seeking Truth by saying "it's all relative". No, the real benefits in any society are found when one puts "their truth" to the test. Question, investigate, compare and contrast, as so get at The Truth. Which religion or metaphysical theory or philosophy works best, cross-culturally, and then you'll be closer to getting to something that effectively speaks to the heart of Mankind. Until then, ghettoizing truth based on personal preference and then raising it on a platform and calling it universal is only a cheap suit on a gorilla.

[Passant]

You're not going to get very far with that here!

Nice idea though.

He tried to warn you!

[sleeplessinpool]

In answer to some previous points and DD Warrens question and make some clarifications even more candles were burnt in my office an my wife estranged as I poured over my books, at this point before you read I would like to give my thanks to Alien and Passent for inadvertently encouraging me to put this lot down.

Essentially what we are talking about is a redefinition of what we hold to be central in light of new ideas, historically it would not be the first time that Christianity has had to change what it sees as central to its believe system when faced with new world views.
A sterling example of this can be seen in the way Christianity reacted and changed its worldview with the findings of such great minds as Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1573). Copernicus with the aid of what can only be described as primitive tools began to study the sun, stars and heavens in a new way ie outside of the ridged confines of the church. He came to some very startling conclusions that forever changed the way we think about the skies and the God who till them had presumably inhabited them. Through some strange quirk of history the findings of our old friend Copernicus went largely unnoticed until a student of his named Galileo Galilie (1564-1642) building on those insights of his master began to revise and in a very public way the general perception of the universe and the position the earth held within that universe. Of course the rest is all consigned to history and we know the church was left not only with the proverbial egg on its face but also having to change its views on what was previously thought to be a core doctrine. But it is at this point things get really interesting especially when you recall my closing paragraph of “a rose by any other name”. It meant that the earth could no longer be seen as being at the centre of the universe and thus that God “might” (Note I say “Might”) not be quite as involved in the day to day affairs of humanity as previously thought. Of course such notions were to send shivers down the spines of the ecclesiastical powers of the time, whose assumptions had previously been never questioned. As we all know Galileo was sentenced to death as a heretic, in order to save his own life he was given the opportunity to recant his beliefs an opportunity he rather wisely chose to accept. However, nothing changed, his recantation was not able to close the box of new ideas about our place in the universe, the ancient worldview against which the Christian story had been set had been dealt a heavy blow, in short Christianity had to change its views.


But Christianity does not have the solo monopoly on changing to suit a purpose or new social political situation; its parent faith Judaism has gone through many incarnations, one of which we will now look at in some depth.

About the time of 598 BC a small nation named Judah found itself under the attack of a very powerful enemy, sweeping down from the north was the mighty army of the Babylonians commanded by a very capable leader named Nebuchadnezzar. As a reaction to the overwhelming military might that they were facing the Jews resorted to their normal reaction and sacrificed the surrounding countryside and retreated into the safety of Jerusalem. In those times Jerusalem was all but impregnable, being geographically set on a high hill, surrounded by tall thick walls that a small army could quite easily defend for no small amount of time. What made Jerusalem even easier to defend was that it has its own water supply that could not be cut off by its foes, and, in line with military practice of the time there was always a well stocked warehouse of food for times of war.

In those times warfare was a little different and maintaining an army was very difficult especially if it involved a siege. The attacking army often grew very restless especially if a quick victory was not assured. At that period a normal siege would last no more than a few months and if the defences of the city were formidable one could almost guarantee that some form of settlement could be reached that was amicable to all. Often this would mean the defeated nation would pay tribute and agree to a vassal status, the victors would accept being richer and move on leaving a client king to rule, the conquered people survived with a level of independence and the ability to keep their way of life and values intact.

When the armies of the Babylonian empire appeared on the horizons in 598 the local people must have felt rather safe, after all was this not the Royal City of David, the home of God himself, the city that had not been conquered in over four hundred years by any external armies? Remember Jerusalem was called “the city of God” and over the previous five hundred years its people had come to believe its freedom was neither due to accident or natural defence but rather via the act of God. When the news of the approaching Babylonians reached the ears of Jerusalem a heady confidence surrounded its people. This found expression in the writings of the eight-century prophet named Micah, who warned the people that such assumptions might well turn out to be false hopes.(See Micah 3:9-12) None the less the concept that Jerusalem was divinely protected came to be understood as possessing even the very authority of scripture itself.

Generally overall the people of Jerusalem rightly or wrongly had a very high regard for themselves both spiritually and militarily but despite all these expectations things this time did not go quite according to plan. The Babylonian army was nothing short of immense both numerically and in power. Jehoiachin, who was then king of Judah upon surveying the odds saw that a negotiated settlements was the best way forwards, and in the hope of gaining favourable terms he offered a surrender. However this was a cruel army the likes of which had not been seen in the ancient world, one that didn’t play by the normally accepted rules of war. And the price of surrender turned out to be the kings own capture, his removal to Babylon alongside of his princes, finest warriors, craftsmen and artisans. The Babylonians where willing to leave no one accept as the Bible says “The Poor People”, and were to set up the vassal king Zedekiah (The uncle of Jehoiachin) to rule in the stead of Jehoiachin. The Jewish nation was of course almost decimated and practically condemned to historical obscurity, yet, somehow in its pitiful state it managed to exist.

Some ten years later in 588bc getting tired of their status as a client vassal the people of Judah rebelled against their Babylonian rulers and again asserted their independence. The Babylonian army of course responded by moving into their former siege positions and old battle lines where once again drawn. But, this time the Jews had learnt their lesson, those who had retreated inside the city walls of Jerusalem were now more determined than ever to outlast their enemies no matter how long it was to take, it was to become one of the biggest tests of will in Jewish history. Gradually weeks turned into months and months into a year, in historical terms no army in history has been so persistent over such a small prize. Eventually the Jews supplies of food ran out and cannibalism was threatening to become a way of life, weapons also were starting to fall into short supply, remember arrows, spears and even rocks once thrown outside of the city cannot be retrieved so defensive measures would have been getting difficult.

The final end was to come in 586bc, with the moral of the city at its lowest ebb the desperate defenders tried to make a nighttimes raid outside the city to find supplies, however things were not to be! They were spotted, pursued, defeated and of course captured by the Babylonian host. Then without any defensive opposition the Babylonian army were able to overwhelm the city and what few resistors there were where massacred. What followed next was appalling, the city was raised to the ground, men and woman put to the sword, and most shocking of all to the Jews the Temple itself destroyed. After destroying Gods sacred dwelling place the Babylonians next turned their wrath upon King Zedekiah, each of his sons were executed before his eyes and then they proceeded to gouge out his eyes. The last thing the king was to ever see was his own sons being murdered. The remaining balance of the citizens of Judea were ordered to ready themselves for exile, it was the second and final deportation none of them were to ever see their homeland again; it was the end of the Jewish nation. (2nd Kings 24,25)

It’s from this historical point in time some radical changes had to come about Judaism. Everything the people had valued, everything they saw as part of their self-identity had come to an end. Their nation was not more, even Jerusalem the city where God Himself lived was laid to waste, the Priesthood, sacred customs, creeds, social fabric, everything that gave order to the Jewish national identity were gone. In the seventh century b.c. some twenty or thirty years before all the above events the Deuteronomic reforms under King Josiah had centralised Jewish worship in Jerusalem. The three great Jewish festivals, Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles where from that point to be not only celebrated just in the city of Jerusalem but also to make it the liturgical centre of the faith. The God the Jews worshipped was identified by the people as being inseparable from the land of Israel their sacred history proclaimed that the very land they lived on was theirs by god given right. As a result everything that the Jews associated with their national identity was shattered, the calendar they followed for their religious year was totally tied to both the land and its capital and this was stripped from them the moment they were taken from their lands. Now the Jewish population was completely moved from one place to another an in accordance with the pacification program of the Babylonians people from different lands were imported to resettle their lands. These folks didn’t know either Torah or Yahweh; this land was no longer to be known as the “Land of the Jews”. The decedents of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were again fated to become homeless wonderers on the face of the earth. It was at this point that Judaism started to face a new dilemma, since the Jews were firmly convinced that the Torah could not be lived or obeyed in anyplace other than without Judea, and outside of it, it lost its full meaning. The festivals which required a Jerusalem setting for their observance could never be held again, the very context in which both their beliefs and their religious practices had originally emerged was now gone.

We cannot start to imagine the despair and utter sense of meaninglessness that the Jewish people must have now felt as they were forced to leave everything they knew and loved and begin the long journey to Babylon. For them there was no hope of ever returning to the land of their fathers, on one of those journeys into exile we find the book of Psalms telling us how the Babylonian soldiers attempted to get their captives to sing songs “Sing us one of the songs of Zion”, but the Jews were unable to sing. They could weep, and they could remember songs but cold they sing them? No. How could they, there song like their national identity was totally tied to their lands, “how shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” is the response. For them all hope was gone. They were again in exile.

It was in this final defeat the Jews viewed their God as being defeated; he appeared violated and laid to waste. Possibly many of those Jewish people world have assumed that their God, like their nation was laid to waste, after all a deity that was shown as too weak to protect the people was not a deity worthy of worship. Remember in the minds of folk then the deity was firmly linked to the land and now they would be forced to live in a land that belonged to another deity. It would be quite impossible in their minds to be a Jew outside of their lands. To them God was firmly rooted in national worship, his home was the Temple in Jerusalem, how could he hear the prayers of those in exile in Babylon? They would not be able to act out the demands of the Law, their Priesthood again firmly based around the Temple would be unable to interpret and make rulings upon the Law or preside over sacrifices. Also since the Law also covered not only religious demands but also civil demands then governing national principles were no more. They were now fully subjected to the customs and values of an alien God whom they didn’t know and perhaps more importantly didn’t know them. In their eyes the God they had once worshipped was no longer able to hear their prayers and cries, the faith they once knew no longer existed. It had been totally and completely destroyed by this violent act of war, defeat and dislocation.

Everything the Jews had once believed lay in tatters, the list just seems to go on and one…for example,
1. These people had once believed God fought at their side, this they no longer believed,
2. They once believed that whilst God might punish them for waywardness he would not destroy them, this they no longer believed,
3. They once believed they were a specially chosen people, this they no longer believed,
4. They once believed that God had instructed them on where to live and how to worship, this they couldn’t believe any longer.
5. They once believed that God only heard their prayers via the Temple this they could not longer believe.
6. They once believed that God alone lived in Jerusalem and ruled over all Judea, this they could no longer support.
7. They once believed that they had a destiny and a future, this they could no longer hold to.
8. They could no longer sing the Lords song again, for they were in a strange and devastating exile, and in that exile that God they had once served had lost all meaning.

To these people, this God quite frankly could no longer be God for them, it is a traumatic thing to watch the God who had once given shape, meaning and purpose to a peoples life to be to utterly removed from that life. Two alternatives where faced, this God had to either grow or die! And as we know this God very much Grew until we see His manifestation in the NT as the Christ.


So you see its not the first time a religion has made radical changes to suit either environment or political need, one only needs to look at the way the fledgling Anglican communion was moulded away from Catholicism to see this in action, so why can it not happen today? Why can we not have a new Reformation that brings the worlds faiths closer together? Something I notice when reading the bible is the way Jesus seems not to make any mention of other faiths and practices, yes, without doubt he is the great reformer of Judaism, the Son of God and all other titles we may or may not like to ascribe to him, but is he the axe at the root of the tree of say Buddhism or Hinduism? Surely the advent of the Christ would have given God the ideal opportunity to condemn all the other faiths we find out there? Yet strangely enough we find nothing on the lips of God incarnate concerning other faiths or condemning them.


A point which is equally fascinating is the way with exception of Christianity and Islam 99% of other religions view each other as purely different manifestations of the same truths……….hum makes you think doesn’t it especially when all believe and claim the same inspiration of the divine and when all are stripped of their cultural dressing seem to produce the same effect in an individual, ie harmony with the divine manifesting in good works to their fellow humanity.

[sleeplessinpool]

A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME-AGAIN!

(This found its way into my mail box and is follow up on previous post "symbols and realities")

We are suggesting that in a sense none of the various appearances or mythological motifs is literally and therefore ultimately real. One reply too this line of thought said that he would rather believe in an impersonal cosmic principle, quite so I would not personify it, but communication or impression takes place via or through the human mind, and as such are clothed in the images, appearances and linguistic structures of human cultures. That is to say that the human brain and psyche ‘clothes’ such stimulation into a language shaped imagery. This language is metaphorical and dreamlike and like the dream has its objective components so does this spiritual plane. But because dreaming per se is real it does not follow that the subject matter in our dreams, the scenery the characters etc have a literally existence, but the unconscious mind that holds such imagery does. Guilt plaguing a mind may manifest in a dream as any number of scenarios, including personifications as a characture of the victim or a shadowy figure invoking feeling from the recipient of the dream. But the dream always or rather can point beyond itself in an attempt to integrate discordant elements of the psyche, so the symbols have a meaning they contain truths, but not absolute ones. For example, Handsome Lake, Seneca of the Iroquois confederation, saw his people degenerate from a powerful, proud nation into a pathetic hungry, homeless remnant, and all this within one generation. His own situation mirrored that of his tribe. In the spring of 1779 he was a hopeless bedridden drunkard, brooding over his sinfulness and loss of his family. During that year he had a series of visions that transformed his life and that of the Seneca’s. Having given up drink and recovered his health, he preached a doctrine of sobriety, industry and independence, the efforts were remarkable. The Seneca transformed themselves into a vigorous and enterprising society from a frontier slum society. None of this is evidence for a literal interpretation of the visions. What is postulated is a genuine reality or ‘core’ experience. The local and the cultural describes with language that reflects the values and cognitions of the speaker. You claim negative effects in a society that abandons universal truth, well, who is it claiming that it is universal, none of which bye the bye answers the question of how to discriminate. Individual experiences do not automatically confer ontological status upon their content. From the fact that Moses saw the lord in a burning bush, it follows culturally and in the language of the individual that the Lord exists, but psychologically it follows only that some people have visions so strong that they couch them in theological terms. Our Hindu pilgrim was intended too convey the idea that in many Eastern faiths these ideas are not considered contradictory. Throughout the orient the idea prevails that the ultimate ground of being transcends thought, imaging and definition, all anthropomorphic predications screen or mask the actual enigma. Transcendent over every finite concept and perception, it is the ultimate ground of each of us. The highest aim is not to establish as substantial any of its images, divinities and associated rites, but to render by means of these an experience that goes beyond. Prayers and chants, images, temples, Gods, sages, definitions and cosmologies are but ferries to a shore of experience beyond the categories of thought and conditioned existence. Each of us is simultaneously the beneficiary of our cultural heritage and the slave of our cultures narrowness. We can think of a culture as a group of people who, through various historical processes, have come to an agreement that certain human potentials are “good”, “Holy”, “natural” or whatever the local word is used for valuing them, for many things are relative, it need not be a ‘dirty word’. Other potentials are known to a culture as “bad”, “evil” and “unnatural”. The culture actively prohibits and inhibits the development of these potentials (not always successfully or totally) and a large number of other potentials and concepts simply remain unknown, and while some develop owing to accidental circumstances in a particulars persons life, most do not for lack of stimulation and arousal. By the time the average person reaches adulthood they have obtained a basic membership in the consensus reality of their culture, and we have a good idea of the do’s and don’ts. One of the ways in which consciousness is shaped to fit consensus reality is through the medium of language. Words by association focus a childs perception onto a specific pattern considered important by a culture. Conditioned and reinforced social approval for this kind of behaviour gives words great power to structure thought. The situation is further complicated by the superimposing of this upon personal complexes, weaving formidable dynamic structures between the conscious and unconscious mind. All this is bought to light in the mystic experience when consciousness is opened up to the unconscious realms, not all that glitters is gold. The visual and neuromuscular responses of automatisms are mediated by these conditions which reflected before the minds eye of the seer or medium may reflect transpersonal growth or fears, anxieties, hopes and prejudices. The mystic automatisms run then a whole spectrum of phenomenon. One may convey feelings of rapture, bliss and the experience of an effulgent light in which all things are one, another, claiming to be possessed by the holy ghost demonstrates convulsions, and animal noises, another finds a mission and heals while others take up the sword and call to arms. Among the visions and messages, some have always been to patently silly, among the trances and convulsive seizures some have been to fruitless for conduct and character to pass themselves off as significant, much less divine. In the history of Christian mysticism the problem how to discriminate such messages and experiences as were really divine, from others that were produced by the devil in his malice has always been a difficult one to solve. But by their fruits shall you know them, not their roots (origins). No appearances whatsoever are infallible proofs of grace, but the effects of ones actions are, perhaps. The good dispositions which a vision (or voice or impression) leaves behind are the only marks by which we may be sure that they have value. Says Saint Teresa, “all those who new me saw that I was changed, my confessor bore witness to the fact, this improvement palpable in all respects, far from being hidden was brilliantly evident to all men. As for myself it was impossible to believe that if the demon were its author he could have used in order to lose me or lead me to hell, an expedient so contrary to his own interests as that of uprooting my vices, and filling me with masculine courage and other virtues. Instead for I saw clearly that a single one of these visions was enough to enrich me with all that wealth.” (Autobiography chptxxvii). This is like Handsome Lake but in the nomenclature of a different era and culture. An individual twist is given to these experiences, in talking of divine impressions one person allies it to a feeling of presence or dependence, another to sexual feelings, one makes it a derivative of fear, others connect it to a feeling of the infinite and so on. Such different ways of conceiving it ought of themselves to cast doubt upon whether it can possibly be any one thing. This scarcely amounts to trivialising anything given our acknowledgement of the highly creative and diverse ways in which contact with a spiritual domain in expressed and interpreted, it is in the nature of the expression of an artist or poet. The ‘cup’ is necessary to hold the water and they have to be some shape, it is the water that is universal not the cups, which are decidedly not the same. None the less it could be conceived as single cup that evolves and ‘mutates’ it shape throughout history so that the vehicle itself is considered plastic or protean. The comparative study of the mythologies of the world compels us to view the cultural history of humankind as a unit; for we find such themes as the fire theft, deluge, land of the dead, virgin birth, and resurrected hero have a worldwide distribution, appearing everywhere in new combinations while remaining like the elements of a kaleidoscope, only a few and always the same. Though many who bow with closed eyes in the sanctuaries of their own tradition rationally scrutinise and disqualify the sacraments of others, an honest comparison immediately reveals that all have been built from one fund of mythological motifs, variously selected, organised, interpreted, and ritualised, according to local need, but revered by every people on Earth.