The Holy Trinity (The Triadic “Structure” of Reality)

January 29, 2015
Understanding the Trinity

No one I’ve read or talked to seems to understand the Trinity. Do you?

You can judge for yourself how deeply I understand it. But I do want to say that if I hadn’t studied and practiced Hindu Kashmir Shaivism, Tibetan Buddhist Dzogchen, and Daism, I wouldn’t understand the Trinity to the extent that I do. These spiritual traditions, like Christianity, are trinitarian, and they provided me with the mystico-philosophical insights that I needed to grasp the triadic nature of Reality.

I am a big proponent of trinitarian spirituality, which is why I am so attracted to Christian mysticism. But Christian mysticism can be difficult to deeply understand if one doesn’t consider it in the light of other great trinitarian teachings.

Here’s how I view the Christian Trinity. The Father, the Divine Being-Consciousness, is   omnipresent and omnipotent; in other words, all-pervading Presence (or radiant Space) and Power (or Spirit-energy). The Son, the disciple’s Self (or Buddha)-nature, is the same Presence as the Father’s, but the disciple cannot realize his True nature as the Son (or Christ, or Self, or Buddha) until the Father’s Power (or Spirit-energy) blesses him to the degree of full en-Light-enment.… Read the full article

The Spiritual Politics of Jesus

January 24, 2015

[Note: This is an excerpt from my book "Electric Christianity: A Revolutionary Guide to Jesus' Teachings and Spiritual Enlightenment.” It may be freely copied and posted elsewhere as long as my book is cited as the source.]

Jesus’s Politics and the Federal Reserve

Q: If Jesus were alive today, would he be political or apolitical?

A: That’s a good question, and no one knows for sure. Arguments can be made for either possibility. One could argue that he would be apolitical because his focus was not on this world, but on heaven. As Jesus himself put it: “My kingdom is not of this world.” And as the “Prince of Peace,” some of his actions seem to imply surrender to government authority. For example, when confronted with the question of whether it was lawful for Jews to pay taxes to Caesar, his response, “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21), can be construed as an enjoinder to submit to secular law.… Read the full article

Kashmir Shaivism, Muktananda Style

January 20, 2015

[Note: This is my January 19th Amazon.com book review, of “Consciousness is Everything: The Yoga of Kashmir Shaivism” by Swami Shankarananda.]

From my perspective as a long-time student and teacher of Kashmir Shaivism (KS), this is a very accessible, but less than steller, text. The author, Swami Shankarananda, has impressive academic credentials (Pullitzer scholar at Columbia, professor of English literature at Indiana), has read all the books on Kashmir Shaivism, and spent years studying and practicing Kashmir Shaivism under the direct tutelage of renowned guru Swami Muktananda (1908-1982), but still has produced a book that reveals him as Shaivism-challenged.

I have given this book four stars because it is perhaps the most accessible KS book for beginners, but if you are more than a beginner, then look elsewhere for further enlightenment on the subject. And even for studious beginners, I recommend the more challenging “The Philosophy of Sadhana” (see my five-star review) over this text.… Read the full article

The Skinnerian Robot’s Guide To Conditioned Behavior

January 14, 2015

[Note: This is a book review of Sam Harris's "Free Will," which I also posted at Amazon.com and my Facebook group page, Electrical-Hermetic Christianity.]

I used to think that Ken Wilber (see my two-star review of “The Fourth Turning” and three-star reviews of “Integral Psychology” and “A Brief History of Everything”) was the most overrated living philosopher, but I was wrong. Very wrong. Sam Harris, not Ken Wilber, is hands-down, the king of the hill in the very lucrative field of pseudo-punditry. Truly, I can’t imagine a dimmer bulb than Harris attempting to enlighten the masses about reality (see my two-star review of Harris’s “Waking Up”).

Thank God (yes, I’m not an atheist), or at least my lucky stars (yes, I’m an ex-professional astrologer), that I received this pseudo-book (which I read in about twenty minutes) for free, because it is an utterely worthless piece of philosophical pabulum that a college sophomore could write.… Read the full article

Review of Paul Case Foster’s “Esoteric Secrets of Meditation and Magic”

January 5, 2015
This is the second Paul Foster Case book I have read and reviewed (see my two-star Amazon review of “The Tarot: A Key to the Wisdom of the Ages”), and before I begin the actual review, I want to make a statement about the quality of the writing: Paul Foster Case is one of the best nonfiction writers I have read. His prose is exemplary: clear and concise, elegant and inspiring.

Case is also erudite, teeming with occult knowledge – but to my mind, some of his knowledge is faulty, and much of the information he presents is beside the point for those seeking true Wisdom.

As I see it, Case is a “victim” of his times and background. Most of his information (at least in this book, written in 1924) derives from just a few sources – the great occultist Eliphas Levy (1810-1875), the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, old Rosicrucian teachings, and Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. I’m familiar with these teachings (I learned astrology through the Rosicrucian Fellowship), and because they are all flawed or limited, so are Case’s teachings.

The book is a collection of lessons Case wrote for associate members of the Builders of the Adytum (B.O.T.A.),… Read the full article

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