The gods, the times, and ourselves

Friday, April 15, 2022

6:20 a.m. In reading of the Greek myths so far, the only original thought I have had – original to me, I mean; it may be as old as the hills to others, for all I know – is that in portraying the gods as being just like undisciplined humans in their lives, the ancients may have been saying (consciously?) something a little different than our society assumes. It isn’t so much that they saw them as just like ordinary men and women – well, you tell it, if you would. No point in my setting out a thought that is actually only a spark, when you can do it so much more consciously.

Set your intent, then.

Okay. Focus, receptivity, clarity. Presence.

It is just as well that you handed over, because this way you will get to experience the thought as somewhat “yours” and somewhat “ours” – whatever that ownership is supposed to mean. You will take it a little more consciously, judiciously.

I will if I can focus. Having a hard time shutting down other streams of thought.

Ignore them. Let them run, unnoticed or half-noticed, as you did for most of your life.

All right.

Every culture experiences the gods differently, then conceptualizes what it has experienced, turns those concepts into narrative in one or another form, and from then on interprets what it experiences in light of that narrative. Unpack this, and we will proceed.

You said, experience comes first. It isn’t made up out of whole cloth, it isn’t invented deliberately nor filtered through conscious intent. The divine is experienced somehow. (I presume you intend to furnish examples.) After the experience, people make sense of it as best they can. Since 3D human minds are always part of the equation, our capabilities and accustomed means of perception and expression will shape the narrative, naturally, because that is what we have available to work with. English-speakers don’t express what they feel by speaking Swahili, nor do weavers naturally turn to mathematics, nor physicists to fairy tales. Every time and culture has its own natural way to communicate, and uses what it has available. Wat else could it use? But from then on, those raised in that culture are shaped by the narrative they are born into, and they interpret their own lives in that context. Fair paraphrase?

Yes. Thank you. Now, consider. We have said that “the times” have the opportunities and limitations they provide shaped by the nature of every moment of time. As we said,  astrology shows the nature of the cycles as they interact, and can show you the terrain the world is moving toward, as well as the terrain it already traversed. No moment of time has qualities exactly like that of any other moment of time. That is one sense in which to read carpe diem: not merely that “This is the only time you can act” (which is true in itself), but also “This is the only moment with just these qualities.”

Therefore, your culture is the result of the interaction of:

• “The times” in the sense of the opportunities and limitations allowed into 3D by the cosmic climate, so to speak.
• The unfinished business of the shared subjectivity – that is, the reservoir of available impulses created by past 3D experiences in thought, action, and feeling.
• What we might call the inertia, or the inheritance in 3D, created by past 3D conscious interactions. Think of this perhaps as the finished business, that is, the forces that were expressed and spent, in contradistinction to the unfinished business of the shared subjectivity that was not expressed, and therefore remains as potential.

All right, that’s very clear, at least at the moment.

So now you enter the world, always of course in media res, for the world doesn’t stop (nor start) for the sake of anyone entering. You always enter in the middle of the long-running film, or let’s say a continuing improvisation. You always inherit a culture’s way of seeing things. It’s part of your acculturation. But of course there isn’t any one consistent uncontradicted way of seeing things, and in any case, things continue to change. So your inheritance may be the majority view, or a minority view, or – as particularly in your times – a jumble of several ways of seeing things.

An age may believe in a certain concept of divinity. The quarreling gods of the Greeks and Romans, the warfare between God and Devil of the Christians, the “material forces” of the 20^th century scientists, whatever. In effect – and we mean in effect, only – the gods change their nature as a new culture emerge from its ancestors.

I don’t want us to lose sight of my initial somewhat inchoate insight.

We have not lost sight of it: This is the place for it. The Greeks and Romans recognized something that your age, passing through its materialist phase, lost sight of, and that is that passions in 3D enter the world from the “higher” realm that is non-3D. The seven deadly sins are not human creations, nor 3D-only pitfalls. The virtues to be cultivated as habits are not for the benefit of 3D existence alone (how could they be, you being 3D and non-3D creatures?), but affect non-3D indirectly.

I get it. We by our choices shape ourselves, and we, being also in non-3D, affect non-3D by what we are as a result of those choices.

That is mostly right. The passions that enliven and also bedevil your lives are not of human invention, nor are they of 3D origin. They express in a particular way because you must experience 3D reality in time-slices, but they are by nature part of reality, not merely part of 3D-reality.

We implore you, think about these things, don’t just accept or reject our word for them. If we are telling you true, consequences must ensue in your thinking. If we are giving you falsehoods, or if the story is being distorted in transmission, must not uncritical acceptance lead you astray? Think, don’t just read and shrug and move on. Your choice, of course, but this is one area where our preference is strong and clear.

So the gods of the Greeks – and what bozos they appear to have been, some of them! – and the stories of the gods, are more than coded references to natural psychic forces?

Without our expressing an opinion on the essence of divinity beyond 3D appearance, can you see that a culture shapes one’s understanding in that it makes certain ways of seeing things seem reasonable and others not? The ancient Greeks would have laughed at you – and probably would have been aghast at the same time – if they had heard that you think of Pan, say, or Athene, as merely natural energies (whatever that may mean to you) rather than actual divine persons. John Wesley would similarly have been amused and shocked to hear that you consider divinity to be manifested in various gods, rather than The One True God. A 20^th-century scientist would have a similar reaction on hearing that you were taking seriously those stories from humanity’s childhood.

I get the point. Reality is obviously the way we see it; superstition is obviously the way anybody else sees it differently.

And in your time, as at the time of the Renaissance, your view of reality is blurred, self-contradictory, unauthenticated, tentative, rapidly changing.

Yes, so it is. Today’s theme?

“The gods and the times,” or “Shaping the gods,” perhaps.

Our thanks as always.