{The Archetypal Christ}[10th June 1989]

[Redbook6:137][19890610:1020]{The Archetypal Christ}[10th June 1989]

19890610.1020

If St. John’s Gospel is the latest,* then it is tempting to write it off as simply unhistorical or (as some of the contributors to ‘The Myth of God Incarnate’** would have it) mythological. But I can see it as more than mythological: as the first full flowering of the inner, the archetypal Christ, Christ rooted in his own terrestrial history but by the time of St. John’s Gospel taking on a life of his own within the minds of Men. Unless such a process occur and continue, Christianity could not and cannot exist.

But the qualities of – the Quality that is – this Risen Christ[,] must always be founded in – found in – the historical Jesus, so far as we can recall him.

*[gospel]

*[‘The Myth of God Incarnate’, ed. John Hicks, SCM, 1977.]

{My mother came to stay from 22^nd to 25^th June – the first time I had seen her since October 1986. <890630>}

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{The Holy Spirit}[31st May 1989]

[Redbook6:136][19890531:2218e]{The Holy Spirit}[31st May 1989]

19890531.2218

[continued]

If I have this correctly, Jesus begins by teaching his disciples of* God their Father, and only at the end – basically, after his resurrection – shifts his emphasis to God the Spirit. This may reflect his successful raising of their degree of spiritual awareness; it may also reflect the refinement of his own.**

*[ie about]

**{& see later [ref unclear]}

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{Son of God}[31st May 1989]

[Redbook6:135-136][19890531:2218d]{Son of God}[31st May 1989]

*

19890531.2218

[continued]

Jesus underwent the same variations of spiritual experience as do (on a lesser scale) other deeply religious men: that is to say, his ‘core’ of normal awareness of God, when he spoke of God, was interrupted by occasional periods of more intense spirituality, when he spoke as God, because at these times the Spirit of God within him was so clear to his inner sense that his will and his self became as utterly subsumed within God as a Man’s can be, and he live; and these periods were balanced by moments of bleakness and despair when for a time all awareness of God seemed to have departed from him, and nothing was left but darkness and materiality:** ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’

*[See last previous entry but one]

**[sic]

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{The Resurrection of Christ}[31st May 1989]

[Redbook6:135][19890531:2218c]{The Resurrection of Christ}[31st May 1989]

19890531.2218

[continued]

As a matter of historical probability, just as I believe that the Virgin Birth is unlikely,* so I believe that the Crucifixion, death of Jesus, ** and resurrection of Christ in a spiritual body are more likely than not; but even if new evidence suggested strongly that Jesus ***survived the Cross and lived*** for some time afterwards, my belief in him would be unshaken,**** because my trust is in his teaching, his quality, and his direct awareness of God, all of which shine through the record of the Gospels.

*[See eg last previous entry]

**{cf [[Redbook6:98-99)][19890219:1218f]{Jesus}[19th February 1989],] 98}

***[physically]

****Would it? I wonder. The impact of the voluntary suffering Christ is overwhelming. At the very least, should not his survival have been unintended by him? In any case, I do not believe this [physical] survival story. <890607(6)>

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{God the Father}[31st May 1989]

[Redbook6:134-135][19890531:2218b]{God the Father}[31st May 1989]

19890531.2218

[continued]

The incarnation of God as the Son does not require a Virgin Birth or physical conception from the Spirit. Jesus’ message is that God the Father is spiritual father to all of us, and that to the extent that we know him as spiritual* Father we are capable in theory of becoming his spiritual* children – as Jesus was.**

Then, as we experience God as Father, so he experiences us, and, through us, the mental world of evil and suffering; but as we experience him, and he us, so our mental world is transformed, and in time too the physical universe around us is changed.

*[“spiritual” inserted contemporaneously, twice.]

**[& see next entry but one]

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{Evil (3)}[31st May 1989]

[Redbook6:134][19890531:2218]{Evil (3)}[31st May 1989]

19890531.2218

*The evil within us which veils the Spirit of God from our selves, veils also our selves from the Spirit of God. The Spirit separates evil, cannot clearly comprehend it: ** being Light, rejects the darkness. Thus the forgiveness of sins in Heaven and the destruction of evil in its own hell are one and the same moment: the crucial question for the individual is, in the casting away of that burden from the Spirit, will you yourself go with the Spirit, or with the burden?

----

If the Spirit cannot clearly comprehend evil, being Clear Light, the Father – being the ***manifestation of the Spirit into the Creation of differentiated qualities, in the Spiritual Kingdom – can perceive evil; and the Son, being the ****incarnation of the Spirit through the Father into the physical Universe, can experience evil.

*{[[Redbook6:126)][19890504:1655]{Evil (2)}[4th May 1989],] 126 [→]}

**How can I say such things?

***direct <890730>

****direct <890730>

{ → [[Redbook6:140-141][19890630:2308c]{Evil (4)}[30^th June 1989],] 140}

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{Trust [continued (c)]}[21st May 1989]

[Redbook6:133)][19890521:1000c]{Trust [continued (c)]}[21st May 1989]

19890521.1000

[continued]

If I find it easier to trust individuals now, it is not because I have found them more trustworthy, but because on the whole I care less about myself – I have less to lose, because there is less of importance to me which they can take from me.

I might even make a better soldier now; but there* I always did better in tasks done on my own, where I had to make my own decisions for myself alone and put them into effect. I think I still do.

*[ie in the volunteer reserve forces]

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{Trust [continued]}[21st May 1989]

[Redbook6:132-133)][19890521:1000b]{Trust [continued]}[21st May 1989]

19890521.1000

[continued]

I think my own lack of trust probably stems from various childhood factors in relation to the rather sensitive child that I was: I can dimly recall being quite happy and well-adjusted with other children at the age of about four, at kindergarten (or “governess” as we rather snobbily called Miss [A]),* and perhaps at the beginning of my time at pre-[boarding] school, which I started when I was six.** But somewhere along the line my parents began to go into social retreat in [C] during the school holidays, and I with them; and the combination of this with an ultimately barbaric [boarding] school from 8 to 13 seems to have finished the job.

It took me almost the whole of my time at [secondary-level boarding school] to construct at least the outward appearance of trust sufficient for social interaction. By the end of that cycle, although I had a great and genuine love for people en masse, I still did not trust individuals – except, on the whole, my own immediate family, and particularly my parents.***

*[An elderly teacher shared between a dozen or so parents at the house of one of them]

**[& left at 8]

***[This is ironic (although not ironically written) in view of earlier journal entries (re property &c); and particularly given that the writer’s father’s authoritarian behaviour towards his children (he was described by one of his closer personal friends, who was also one of the writer’s godfathers, as a ‘Victorian paterfamilias’), frequently uncontrolled temper and occasional violence seem likely to have played a significant part in the writer’s lack of trust.]

[continues]

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{Trust}[21st May 1989]

[Redbook6:131-133)][19890521:1000]{Trust}[21st May 1989]

19890521.1000

Briefly watching a rather unfortunate Army competition on television yesterday evening, it occurred to me that one of the reasons why I was never able to participate fully in T[erritorial] A[rmy]* life – or, now I come to think of it, in any institution – is that in the Army (as to some extent in any institution) it is vitally necessary that you trust your fellow men: your colleagues, your bosses, and through them the institution itself. Without such trust you are paralysed to [sic] work with and within the institution, and are therefore useless to it.

In employment you have to trust them with your livelihood: in the Army, even in the peacetime T[erritorial] A[rmy],* with your life. Those who do not trust, are not trusted, and the whole process becomes a vicious spiral: I once heard a [...] C[ommanding] O[fficer] of the T[erritorial] A[rmy]* say that there were some soldiers who, if hostilities broke out, would die in the first hail of bullets from their own side, so dangerous where they considered to be by their own mates.

**

*[Volunteer Reserve]

**[But see next entry but one]

[continues]

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{A Dream: The Spiritual Knights Capitalist [continued]}[20th May 1989]

[Redbook6:131)][19890520:1632c]{A Dream: The Spiritual Knights Capitalist [continued]}[20th May 1989]

19890520.1632

[continued]

I have quite specifically looked to dreams over these last few weeks, and have found at least once that I awoke thinking that I had not dreamt, only to find on reflection that recollection of the dream came to mind.

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{A Dream: The Spiritual Knights Capitalist}[20th May 1989]

[Redbook6:129-131)][19890520:1632b]{A Dream: The Spiritual Knights Capitalist}[20th May 1989]

19890520.1632

[continued]

This morning I dreamt that I was back in an Army-type environment, although not necessarily uniformed; there were hundreds of men. I got up from a meal and thereby lost my place. After wandering about (other things may have happened which I have forgotten) pretending to be busy, and after an address by an officer commanding a unit in which he made a joke out of calling the (their?) Drop Zone a Killing Ground, I found myself walking along[,] with an older man following me and making pointing gestures towards me to attract the attention of others who were active in fields sloping down to the road. I dropped back beside him, and told him that I had seen what he was doing by watching his shadow (Although this was correct, I think that the dream may have shown me this scene both from my personal point of view and from an editorial* perspective).

He did not reply to this; but a short while later he verbally attacked me. It is very unfortunate that I cannot recall exactly what we said.** His attack was, I think, about the kind of person I was; but I launched back with surprising confidence. I then asked him whether he was so-&-so, the boxer, and he confirmed, with another disparaging remark, that he was.

He then took me to an even older man and made us both stand with our arms straight ahead and fists clenched so that we just did not touch each other’s faces.*** When I asked what this was all about, he explained that I had to throw my punch and block my opponent’s faster than my opponent. Instantly I blocked his first punch and apologised for not throwing my own, as my opponent’s left arm was still down; but he maintained that I had in fact thrown my punch, presumably so instinctively fast that I was unaware of it. I then threw another and blocked his again.****

The game then broke off with my first acquaintance saying to my sparring partner something along the lines of: ‘You’re too good for them, Eve’.

I then became aware of a board on which books were displayed for sale; one of them, before it was covered, bore the title: ‘The Spiritual Knights Capitalist’ (or just possibly ‘The Spiritual Capitalist Knights’ – the only word I am unsure of is ‘Knights’). It is because of this title – which this morning was embedded in my mind, together with the conversation leading up to it – that I recount this dream in such detail.

*[ie, presumably, third-person narrative]

**I could this morning; but [W] and I are both suffering from a disgusting recurrent tummy-bug, apparently caught from a sick orphan lamb which we were given by our neighbour, [FN], a man in whom, as [W] said yesterday, the borderline between ignorance and malice is often hard to define.)

***[with each others’ fists, presumably]

****[The writer first boxed at his primary level school, without the option.]

[continues]

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{Gospel Miracles [continued]}[20th May 1989]

[Redbook6:129)][19890520:1632]{Gospel Miracles [continued]}[20th May 1989]

19890520.1632

Another way of putting it* is that none of them** involved visible physical reconstruction. Such feats would be placed in the area of magic, whether believed or not: the restraint shown in the range of Jesus’ healing miracles allows them to be considered as a part of that still current phenomenon, faith-healing: ‘Your faith has made you whole’ – which all but the most hardened sceptic must occasionally have doubts about the impossibility of.***

*[See last previous entry]

**[The Gospel miracles – see last previous entry]

***[But cf last previous entry, fn#]

****[sic!]

[cf placebo effect]

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{Gospel Miracles}[18th May 1989]

[Redbook6:128-129)][19890518:1657]{Gospel Miracles}[18th May 1989]

.1657

It is interesting that all, or almost all, of the Gospel healing miracles were to do with defects of control rather than visibly lost limbs: Rise, take up your bed and walk; but not: Your faith has restored your severed foot. I suppose that leprosy is a borderline case;* the woman bleeding internally** would hardly have been a visible miracle. I suppose what I am driving at is that they all – even blindness, even a skin disease like leprosy, even Lazarus?*** – were or might have been nervous diseases**** or diseases responsive to nervous conditions. No broken bones, if I recall correctly, were instantly set and fused: no flesh wounds instantly healed. Did no one ask? Or did the people know the rules?#

*as is the withered hand? <890712>

**menstrually, I assume

***[Who according to St John’s Gospel (Chapter 11) was raised from the dead – four days after death.]

****[Probably meant in the sense: diseases of or caused by the nervous system, which would in current understanding probably include auto-immune and other immune system malfunctions, and functional neurological disorders. <20190826>]

#In fact there are 4 categories:

(1) Faith healing: Your faith has made you whole.#*

(2) ?Medical cures: spittle on blind eyes and dumb tongue, finger is death ears, etc.

(3) Psychological treatment: Driving out devils (by commandment [sic]).

(4) Psychiatric conditions: the epileptic, who could only be cured by prayer (which is not what Jesus did, so he may not have been cured). ([Gospel of ]M[ar]k9:47)

<890713>

#*[But cf next entry]

{But see later [Possibly [Redbook6:157-159][19890717:2354]{The Gospels}[17th July 1989]?]}

[continues]

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{Dream: Brides of Christ}[18th May 1989]

[Redbook6:128)][19890518:1351]{Dream: Brides of Christ}[18th May 1989]

19890518.1351

The night before last, I think, I dreamed an episode clearly based on parts of the late John Betjeman’s tour of Metroland, which I had been watching on television with the children. [In the television programme,] Betjeman came across a house built by a priest who had been declared Christ by his followers; Betjeman described, inter alia, how some of his female followers were invited to become ‘Brides of Christ’, and how the house itself retained a sense of evil, brooding and watchful.

In my dream I was pointing out this house to [W] – she could not see it at first – and describing things more-or-less exactly as Betjeman had described them, point by point; the only significant differences that I recall were that I asked [W] whether she could recall the name of the Priest, as I could not;* and that the house had a short tower or spire, black against the sky, surmounted by a black cross.

*(Was it (in my dream) [Hunter] something??? – I hope not.)

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{[Two Dreams: ][(2)] … & Of the Church and money}[15th May 1989]

[Redbook6:127)][19890515:2243b]{[Two Dreams: ][(2)] … & Of the Church and money}[15th May 1989]

19890515.

.2243

[continued]

Last night’s [dream]* involved an attempt by me to reach a Church service punctually, in order to impress the Vicar, frustrated, for which I blamed [W], but in fact witnessed (or became involved in) a street financial transaction in which one of the two parties was peeling the last few notes out of the mud. At this stage Canon [XQ]** was found to be with us after all.

The message*** seems fairly clear: the chief impediment is my concern with money.****

*[See last previous entry]

**[See [Redbook6:125-126)][19890504:1300b]{An Invitation to the Church}[4th May 1989], esp fn***]

***[From the 2 dreams (in this and the last previous ts entries), presumably]

****{Not quite so simple.}

(Apparently when [X[Q]] came to the Parishes the Parishes were persuaded to increase the incumbent’s expenses in order to get him.}

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