Positive Gnosticism

[otherbrother]

Well something has to be to function ... but if you're saying that the malevolent powers lack 'mind', then you're way off kilter with regard to the kind of stuff we're talking about.

No, I think the functions are closer to mind than matter. Their being is more verb like than noun like (a being). But you are probably right that there is some there there, but not the kind of there that we associate with ordinary physical objects (or, in Quantum theory terms, “classical objects “) . From our vantage point the being is more like a movement or blur. But this is probably because of the limits that “thinking like matter” imposes on our thinking. Thinking like energy may prefer the conceptual place-holder of “function,” as in Quantum theory “wave FUNCTION.”

 

[Thomas]

... More specifically, my “Connected Self” or spirit in the dream takes the role of therapist or teacher who has keys or permission to navigate between the dream world (spiritual domain?) and the physical world (semi-lucid awareness of being there in bed and in a body while experiencing the dream drama). I would like to think my main Self is working on the enlightenment suggested in that narrative (St. John?).

LOL, there's a lot of selves here!

I think I'm right in saying there's only one 'self' in Christian metaphysics, and I think the same applies to most traditional metaphysical systems. There are states within the self, which is probably what you're referring to as 'selves', and one can, to a certain degree, move between states.

The simplest I can offer is the Pauline distinction between the 'psychical' and the 'spiritual' – a sóma psychikon (σῶμα ψυχικόν) is flesh-and-blood sarx (σάρξ) animated or given life by psyche, the soul, and thus becomes a living body sóma (σῶμα), whereas a sóma pneumatikon (σῶμα πνευματικόν) is a body sóma (σῶμα) that is constituted from and lives by the deathless spirit, pneuma.

The point here, as St Paul tries to explain, is that they are one and the same soma, one and the same self, but that self has been transformed, one might even say transfigured.

A way of speaking of the dead is to look at the cadaver of a person and say 'they are no longer there' – there is no soma, no self present, and to stretch the analogy one might say the sarx is a body, but no-one's home. A lived-in body is a self, a soma. That soma can be either a psychikon or a pneumatikon, but it's still the same, single self.

 

[Thomas]

Fallen off of God, like excrement or body part that atrophied and fell off...

Er ... I'm sorry, that makes no sense at all in respect to any classical or traditional idea of God.

 

[Thomas]

Yes. Fits with my notion of God as Formless Order. Then Son of Father God is emergent form from the Formless Order.

One way of looking at it.

Form seems destined to quantum wave function (and “coherence”?) collapse, or Thermodynamic theory of entropy.

Ah, steady! I wouldn't conflate the Divine / Platonic Ideas / Forms with material reality, that would be a miss-classification.

One might draw some kind of metaphor or analogy, but that's about as far as it goes.

For all its strangeness, the Quantum Realm is still very much in the material/physical world.

 

[Thomas]

Even seemingly incorruptible forms like triangles stand separate from (say) squares and rectangles, thus potentially corrupting Oneness or Formless Order.

I'd say they are two distinct orders.

The Forms derive from a single, for them transcendent, principle, which resides in the Formless.

It's like saying the existence of a triangle or a square as distinct geometric shapes corrupts the simple principle of geometry.

 

[Thomas]

Interesting that during my writing of a book about an imagined model, spiritually-principled, community, I conceived 5 “Virtues” that seemed to correspond with five characteristics of a healthy community. When I looked up any spiritual reference to “Virtues,” I came across a belief that the Virtues were the FIFTH rank of angels. I felt that possibly my thoughts had been guided from the other side and that my spiritual development had me at that angelic level at the time.
The original title of the book was The Marketing of Virtue, but was later changed to Allsville Emerging .

Have you researched how that particular choir corresponds to the human qualities?

 

[Thomas]

God only knows!!!!

That's not really an answer.

But I’m guessing God is powerful and smart enough to have meaningful insights that various ranks of energy constellations or angels can put to use in the Grand Reclamation Project.

I find this idea of God rather anthropomorphic ... I don't see God in that sense.

My guess is that action itself limits the power of being because it pulls one’s attention away from wholeness/Oneness.

This is what I meant by 'inventing the wheel' – often it seems to me you ignore all the traditional, classical, metaphysical discourse about the nature of God, and invent one that fits within your own imagination.

 

[Thomas]

Are thoughts bastards of Mind Itself?

It seems to me that in our dialogues you pick up on this and that without really getting to grips with what this and that is, and fit them to your own narrative – that's a very left-brain thing. You think it's right brain, I'm not convinced it is ...

 

[Thomas]

Their being is more verb like than noun like (a being).

You can't have one without the other. You can't have something happening when there's noting there. A verb requires subject and object, a verb is what happens in the between.

But you are probably right that there is some there there, but not the kind of there that we associate with ordinary physical objects (or, in Quantum theory terms, “classical objects “) . From our vantage point the being is more like a movement or blur. But this is probably because of the limits that “thinking like matter” imposes on our thinking. Thinking like energy may prefer the conceptual place-holder of “function,” as in Quantum theory “wave FUNCTION.”

Perhaps a blur because you're trying to conceive 'it' in a way that it does not exist as, or inhabit?