[The Touch of God in the Material World][4th August 1989]

[Redbook6:199-200][19890804:1547][The Touch of God in the Material World][4th August 1989]

.1508

The touch of God* may be detected also* in the external World – because it is to this touch that I attribute those curious workings of Providence in apparently unrelated events of the material World, which so often work out to one’s higher advantage – or to someone else’s: and which sometimes do, but at other times may or may not, seem to reflect the patterns of the circle [sic]. 

When it is people whose co-incidental actions and statements work out to such advantage, I am inclined to attribute this to the workings of the Spirit; but this is all supposition: both types of happenstance are aspects of the Divine Providence.

*[[Redbook6:196-197][19890804:0000d]{The Father}[4th August 1989]]

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{(Within the [O]}[4th August 1989]

[Redbook6:199][19890804:1508b]{(Within the [O]}[4th August 1989]

.1508

[continued]

(I notice, too, that whereas I used typically to envision the [O] passing overhead; now, more often than not, I see out from inside, through huge expanses of glass, bright and subtle shifting colours of the macro-cosmos, usually red or blue prevailing, as if from the flight-deck of some science-fiction spacecraft.)*

*{cf earlier (Vol?) []}

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{The Father [continued (4)]}[4th August 1989]

[Redbook6:199][19890804:0000g]{The Father [continued (4)]}[4th August 1989]

19890804

[continued]

My sense of complication and depression* gave rise to the unexpected result of humour – God’s humour. Complication and depression are characteristics of U~-A~;** humour, of R~. I wonder whether Man’s outer circle attributes give rise to diametrically opposite (ie balancing) circle attibutes from God? – both on an individual and a collective scale. So when the Israelites become wilful (M~) God in due course reacts with revolutionary destruction (G~); but when they have been broken down (G~) he restores them with law and order (M~).*** This is fairly tentative speculation.

.1508

Even if this were correct, I should expect something different on the Inner Circle: perhaps, as Love is returned by God, so all the other Inner Circle qualities are returned by God.***

*[See last previous entry but one]

**[Complication centred on U~, but depression centred on M~? – see elsewhere []]

***Similarly, societies based on materialism (A~) are sent crisis figures (C); but religious societies (C) tend to fall into the temptations of wealth (A~). These conditions lead into and through one another, of course, according to the Outer Circle pattern.

[These responses don’t actually appear to require God, only the Circle pattern and the subconscious]

[See fn# to last previous entry]

****in the Light of the Spirit.

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{The Father [continued (3)]}[4th August 1989]

[Redbook6:198][19890804:0000f]{The Father [continued (3)]}[4th August 1989]

19890804

[continued]

I do not suggest that this* necessarily is God – how could I? – but it is the touch of God;** and there is a mind*** behind it which, although it is not fully revealed to me, reminds me strongly of Einstein’s description of God as ‘The Old One’.

It is perfectly possible for Men, not so much to distort the Father (as they do distort their perception of the Spirit), as to imagine him, reconstructing their own god on a flimsy basis of religious knowledge; such gods tend to reflect their human [sic] creators’ characteristics, although in fact they may be lower archetypes mistaken for gods.

Biblical evidence suggests that the Human quality which is directly returned by the Father is Love for him, leading ultimately to Union with God. When Humans are (or believe themselves to be) inspired by God to make laws, the laws are directed downwards towards subject Men, of course, and not upwards to God. Since there is then**** no real exchange there between God and Man, the danger of an unrealised loss of contact is considerable: Man goes on making laws, but is no longer inspired by God.# In order to remain in contact with God, Man must not only listen to God, but speak to God – even if only to ask him questions.

*[See last previous entry]

**{cf [[Redbook6:196-197][19890804:0000d]{The Father}[4th August 1989] ] 196}

***or Soul, and purpose

****[‘then’ inserted] <890814>

#{cf [[Redbook6:255-257][19890013:0927#]{Biblical Circles (3)}[18th July 1989],] 255,

[[Redbook6:159-160][19890718:1601]{Deuteronomic Circles and Fertility Rites}[18th July 1989],] 159}

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{The Father [continued]}[4th August 1989]

[Redbook6:197][19890804:0000e]{The Father [continued]}[4th August 1989]

19890804

[continued]

For instance,* this morning I was worried by our water shortage, and about a neighbour who seems intent on encouraging our natural domestic water supply to flow his way instead of ours,** in derogation of his predecessor’s grant to our house; and I became depressed about this. To my amazement, the touch which I had taken to be the Father’s became amused at me – and not with me, as I was not amused: almost a sly amusement, if such a thing were possible, in the sense knowing and ironical (rather than cunning or hypocritical).

Can this be? – I thought – or have I passed down some byway of the mind and found a demon imitating God? – But this was too constant, too intimate, and too certain for any demon. And indeed, if we examine the God and Father of the Bible, it becomes quite clear that whatever the unchanging nature of his Spirit (and it is Men who differ in their perception of and reaction to the Spirit: the Spirit does not change), the mind of the Father-Creator-God does indeed change in his reaction to, and appearance to, the people of the Bible – even Jesus – according to their properties at the time, not his.

And indeed, as soon as I had recollected myself and determined not to bother about the water, the sense of knowing and ironical amusement disappeared, and I was and am left with a touch much more whole: without specific characteristics or qualities predominating. The light of this touch is not clear-bright, like the Spirit, nor white, like Christ, but clear-dark, containing vastness, mind-substance, and all unrealised colours.***

*[See last previous entry]

**{I was in fact wrong about this}

***{(cf the [O] in [2])}

[continues]

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{The Father}[4th August 1989]

[Redbook6:196-197][19890804:0000d]{The Father}[4th August 1989]

19890804

[continued]

But* it is really about the central aspect of the Trinity that I want to write: the Father. This is the experience about which I am least certain, because it seems to vary according to my own predominant nature at the time: not to imitate it, but in some way to complement it (ie not in any sense to follow wishful thinking, but perhaps to balance).

Whereas I experience Christ as an inner-visible archetype of qualities, teachings, and link with God – a person, therefore, with an inner-visible form – I experience the touch of the Father, which I call God, as an inner sense without form.

On the other hand, whereas I experience the Spirit as pure potential, an overwhelming power from immediately above – like a rushing wind indeed, and now occasionally like a light growing from within – I know the touch of the Father, whom I call God, as an integrated totality of all principles and qualities, potential and (in answer to the time) actual.

*[See last three previous entries]

[continues]

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{The Son}[4th August 1989]

[Redbook6:195-196][19890804:0000c]{The Son}[4th August 1989]

19890804

[continued]

*The Son, Christ, is fully realised in material form: an actual historical figure as well as an archetype, incorporating selected qualities; a person whose nature we can in theory ascertain, and can be right or wrong about, and use as an example or model as being moved to feelings by us, but not changed by us.

I experience** Christ, not as a speaker (unlike some), but as an archetype whose teachings, if they are not given historically on a particular subject, I believe that I can deduce or receive from the overall quality of his person or archetype represented or recollected within my mind. Although it is in theory possible to realise this archetype without the record of the historical Jesus, the human [sic] tendency towards inaccuracy and distortion makes such an attempt hazardous. And it is through our focussing on the archetypal Christ (and the historical Jesus) that the unrealised potential of the Spirit can be realised in a form equivalent to its own purity, instead of being distorted to a lesser or greater extent by our own separated selves.

*[See last 2 previous entries]

**[& see next entry]

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{The Spirit}[4th August 1989]

[Redbook6:195][19890804:0000b]{The Spirit}[4th August 1989]

19890804

[continued]

In this* analysis, the Spirit is undifferentiated potential, and therefore the same in God and Man: it is, in fact, the essence, the purest form, of God. This explains the effect noted in E[ncylopaedia] B[ritannica] 16 on Christianity, that the Spirit alternately brings order and revolution to the Church (cf the [O]); and the different effect on different people.

*[See last previous entry]

[& see next entry but one, [Redbook6:196-197][19890804:0000d]{The Father}[4th August 1989]]

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{Trinitarian Man}[4th August 1989]

[Redbook6:195][19890804:0000]{Trinitarian Man}[4th August 1989]

19890804.

I quite like (in fact, very much like) the idea of the Trinity as being the image in which we are created:*

Spirit	Spirit
Soul	Father
Body	Son

**

*cf St Augustine?

**{(This differs from attempts in earlier Vols []})

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{Love and Law}[3rd August 1989]

[Redbook6:194][19890803:1307]{Love and Law}[3rd August 1989]

.1307

‘Christian ethics has historically stressed both the concept of law and the concept of love: in natural law ethics, for instance, love is recognised as the highest virtue; and in the Bible love for God produces obedience to his law. Emphasis on the I-Thou character of religious and interpersonal experience has given new prominence to love, producing an ethic, based on Agape, or spiritual love, which admits no other moral obligation than the prudent maximisation of love, defined in Existentialist terms as personal fulfilment through an I-Thou relationship. The result is that, instead of focussing on ethical duties (deontology), Christian morality consists of acts determined by their consequences (“act-Utilitarianism”). Traditionally, Christian ethics has traced man’s duties back to God the Creator and held man responsible to God for the consequences of his acts. Agapistic ethics, however, does not consistently develop this relationship.’*

[Text extracted from ms diagram reproduced above:]

				C
			(Spirit)	(Son)	(Father)	(In middle	at depth)
		R~	(at centre)\	→	Prudence	S~
		Simplification		|		Ordination	(=Command)
		\		←		/	(Lawyers)
			Love		Harmony
G~	(Virtues)		–	+	–			M~
		/				\
				|

(per previous attributions)

*E[ncylopaedia] B[ritannica] 16:342

[Underlining per ms, not original text. The photocopied text also includes a section/part-section on [Christian] philosophy of history]

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{Love and Sex (5) [continued (5)]}[3rd August 1989]

[Redbook6:193][19890803:0908h]{Love and Sex (5) [continued (5)]}[3rd August 1989]

19890803.0908

[continued]

Interestingly, the two [CAS] positions of sex (on circle and line)* are joined by the notorious (to me, at any rate) link-line between r~ and a~, which I may have sometimes known as the Death Line (probably incorrectly); it could be the Dancing or Dancer’s Line, but the Dragon Line is probably elsewhere (g~-u~?). These fairly arbitrary names relate to the appropriate symbols, characteristics and concepts.

But the dynamic circle brings out the fact that sex, although in one sense (if based on Love) {it} is very close to the Spiritual Highest on the Circle, has in another sense the furthest to go before it achieves the Spiritual Highest on the Circle. I think this brings out well the confusion about sex as a spiritual activity, and why different religions have (as in the case, I think, of no other practice)** taken diametrically opposed views on sex.***

*{(ie dynamic and static)}

**[but cf Human sacrifice? Perhaps this should be qualified as ‘modern’ religions]

***{→} cf [[Redbook6:212-213][19890818:1554]{Love and Sex (6)}[18th August 1989],] 212ff

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{Love and Sex (5) [continued (4)]}[3rd August 1989]

[Redbook6:193][19890803:0908g]{Love and Sex (5) [continued (4)]}[3rd August 1989]

19890803.0908

[continued]

Similar* analyses may be applied to the earlier** consideration of the relationship between sexuality and spirituality, which can be drawn along the same polarity and the same circle.

I suggest that clockwise from sex (R~)* on the {(dynamic)} Circle is the extra drive given to limbs, especially legs and feet, by the urgency of Love (for example) in time of danger to a loved one: this well-attested phenomena is of course at once more-or-less unfeelingly corporeal, totally sexless, and capable of control by a combination of intuition and command, thus bringing the circle round to unite ‘lowest’ and highest feelings.

*[See last previous entry]

**[[Redbook6:181-185][19890802:1734]{Love and Sex (4)}[2nd August 1989]ff,] p181-185

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