Techniques of Prayer

Guest Post at Gornahoor

Prayer....

With the initial disclaimer that (in the Christian religion) one must beware of “over-systematizing” the grace of God into specific techniques, the following is shared for the possible benefit of readers who are interested in esoteric Christianity.

Boris Mouravieff claims that there is a collection of “scripts” called the Golden Book in Orthodoxy, which is the oral tradition (or parallel to it, or a key, or fragments of it), which contain detailed teachings and instructions in the “secrets” of Christianity. I have been unable to locate references to it on the Internet, other than in Gnosis. This was the “teaching of Christ to the inner disciples”.

As I was reading Unseen Warfare by Scupoli, a Venetian priest who had his book adopted into Orthodoxy and added to by Theophan the recluse, I came across some advice to follow during prayer. Keep in mind that no prayer life will likely be effective without other ascetic practices (eg., one can’t neglect fasting and expect prayer to come swiftly and easily). That said, and other advice followed (such as maintaining “a spirit of prayer” at all times), Theophan/Scupoli advise the following:

1.Pray in short prayers; these are lightning bolts which move swiftly to heaven, before the mental apparatus can intervene and subordinate the prayer to its own machinations.

2.Learn them by heart. This, contrary to popular belief, does the exact opposite of what opponents claim it does – it protects it from the vain repetitions of the discursive intellect, which stem from the gray matter, and not the body or the heart centers.

3. Focus attention on both the left nipple (the heart) and the throat chakra. This may seem odd, but perhaps some insight from Western alchemy can help here (and others may have more to add from the East):

According to Sri Aurobindo, the throat center is associated with the externalization of mental forces, and the link between the higher and lower mental spheres. Like in some color scales of kabbalah, grey is associated with this center. In Serpent of Fire: A Modern View of Kundalini, Darrel Irving points out that the Vissudha chakra is presided over by the dual deities of Shakini and Shiva. Each is five faced, representing the five Elements, and three eyes, showing physical and psychic perception, or knowledge. Shakini is seen as Light itself, and Shiva, like the Hermetic ideal, is androgynous, half white and half gold. The center is associated with the purification of intelligence, the psychic substratum or ether (akasha), and hearing. The color given is smoky-purple. As with Sri Aurobindo’s color, purple is also sometimes given as associated with the throat center in modern kabbalistic works. Along with the remaining upper two psychic centers, these three constitute the only centers whereby direct psychic perception is possible. In the West, the Throat center is less well defined, although it shares in all of the above named characteristics. In Kabbalah of the Golden Dawn, Pat Zalewski states that the throat center is associated with the thyroid gland and controls respiration. As with yoga, each of the preceding centers is associated with an Elements, starting with Earth, Water, Fire, and Air. While not stated, it might be presumed that the Throat center is then the first center to be associated with Spirit, or Quintessence, as in yoga.

Since Christianity focuses upon “the Son” at the heart of the worlds, it is appropriate that the tradition of prayer associated with it would focus upon the two “linking chakras” between the lower and higher worlds. This is something Tomberg points out in Meditations.

Julian Lee, who is a “heretic” outside the Church, nonetheless has some very interesting considerations about prayer, Churches, and how Christianity is bhakti-yoga exotericized into a religion for the Western peoples.

Why did my ancestors build their churches this way? Because men and women who think about God a lot get instincts about God’s nature. Thus my grandfathers and grandmothers of Europe designed their Sacred Places (churches) to evoke the thought of infinite space. They may not have done it consciously always, but they did it because they received instinctive knowledge of God through thinking of God. The White Europeans thought about the Transcendental Principle a great deal. They even had a special day reserved — every 7th day — for the thought of God alone. (What an amazing and cosmic-minded people our grandfathers and grandmothers were!) It was natural then that their churches evolved to evoke Akasa, one of the Creator-God’s first evolutes. Just as it was natural for them to build tall steeples representing the rectitude and straightness of the spine when aspiring for God, and the sublimated sexual energy made sacred by placing it in sacred limits (procreation and family), with the rest sublimated in aspiration for God.

And yet, the neo-pagan crowd in America (many of whom attend services each Sunday and talk a lot of God-talk) are trying to get away from the heritage of church bells, spires, folded or uplifted hands, and any kind of “weird” traditions in Christianity as fast as they can, desperately hoping to modernize and become up-to-date enough to slickly survive the end times. Even if Christianity survives what is coming, what will it look like?

I hope that some reading this can determine to hold onto the riches that God has already dumped in our laps, even at this late hour.

General Law

Post at Gornahoor. Please note that General Law properly understood (as both Hammer and Doorway) will provide the rationally minded individual with a lifetime of wisdom as they navigate a dangerous Life. In fact, Life will no longer be so dangerous.

That World, This World

After the coming of Christ, when traditions until then hermetic were partially released from secrecy, some of them were incorporated in the doctrines of schools which were attempting ro synthesize a Greco-Judaeo-Christian gnosis. A powerful movement of thought was launched by Simon Magus, a Samaritan whose personality remains shrouded in legend, A few fragments of the doctrine he elaborated with Menander's help were passed down to us by Satornil, a disciple of the latter. After an absurd and complicated account of the events which preceded Creation, he relates that the first man crawled. He said that later the Virtue from above had pity on him because he was created in His image; that He gave him a spark of Life which allowed him to stand upright and enabled him to live. This spark of Life —so Satornil taught—reascends after death towards the higher beings to whom it is related.29 This fragment, which on the whole agrees with canonical Tradition, was placed in a most fanciful framework. The error of the heretical gnostics, as we know them from criticisms by the Fathers of the Church, their adversaries — among whom we can quote Saint Irenaeus and Saint Clement of Alexandria—took the form of intellectually detaching man from the Cosmos in which he lived. The problem was thus reduced to the personal fate of the individual. On the other hand the imperfection of the phenomenal world was naively explained either by a celestial catastrophe or as an error of God or as a result of His wickedness. This error of conception has already been described in the first volume of Gnosis. We recognize here the influence of Hellenistic thought which, after the time of Homer, attributed human motives to the Gods. Neither was this tendency foreign to the Jewish mind, which went as far as making God repent of having created Man, and attributed fear ' and vengeance to him. The more important the question studied, the more it should be considered in all its aspects; otherwise synthesis, the only thing that can resolve it, becomes impossible since the value of elements analysed in isolation is always debatable — because they have then been arbitrarily detached from other elements which must be considered to obtain a complete picture. This represents them in a faulty way. The problem of man immeasurably exceeds his immediate interests here below and even in the hereafter. To understand this problem, we must turn to the source of the Tradition, to: the wisdom of Cod in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world unto our glory, wisdom, as St Paul said, which none of the princes of this world knew. This is the only way to avoid falling into heresy when studying these matters.
Gnosis II, Chapter 1

Look Truth in the Eye

"Interior collapse leads to certain consequences. Man starts to see things
in a different light. Two diametrically opposed effects can result. If man is
sufficiently strong and impartial, he will not lower his eyes before implacable
reality. He will have the courage to face things directly, and to accept
the constatations which are imposed on him, no matter how disagreeable
they are. This signifies that he has firmly started on the track which leads to
the path of Access to the Way. On the other hand, if the man is weak, this
experience will weaken him even more. The law is explicit: 'To whosoever
hath, to him shall be given. But whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even
that which he hath.'2 If man does not accept his situation and, in particular,
his inner state as it appears to him, thanks to brief illuminations from the
consciousness of the real 'I'—if he is obstinate against all evidence, justifying
his Personality by protecting himself behind logic, legitimacy and justice,
he will then turn his back on the path of Access, and thrust himself further
into the wilderness."

More Gnosis

According to Mouravieff (page 47) no possible link exists between the intellectual centre (there are three centers in man, with 6 subdivisions and 957 different permutated possible combinations between these fragmented parts of personality, which are "Legion"). The only possible way for man to be "saved" is to revivify the emotional center by rhythm and effort, for it to contact the higher emotional center (which is divine) and for THAT center to contact the higher intellectual center, which cannot even be represented in form or content by images (as can the higher emotional center). The motor center has no way "out" on its own, and the intellectual center is too slow. The emotional center (which has been moralized and legalized in our civilization, thus crippling it) has to "make the call". Furthermore, the higher emotional center is the Son (an aspect of Him) & the higher intellectual center is the Father in the consubstantial unity of the Holy Spirit.

Mouravieff Continues

Gnosis, of true & false. An explanation of the parable of talents which will not please the materialists.

Quotes from Mouravieff's Gnosis

Gleanings from Book III, posted at Gornahoor.

Marsilio on the Celestials & Super-Celestials

Ficino's observations on those who practice the art of astrology, & how he would renovate it.

Creation, Love, Renunciation

Orthodox Tradition teaches that the Universe was created by a sacrifice of God. We shall understand this postulate better if we consider that it differentiates between the state of manifested Divinity and that of unmanifested Divinity — which is therefore limitless and free from all conditions. God’s sacrifice is Self-limitation by manifestation...To pass or cross from the non-manifested state — a monopolar one, concentrated on the unique consciousness of Self within which the Divinity remains before the Creation of the World — the first Idea which makes the Divinity come out of the state of non-manifestation to become manifest, is necessarily that of the You. This idea, conceived by the divine sacrifice of Self-limitation, has Love, a neutralizing force, or third force.

From Meditations on the Tarot, quoting Mouravieff

Also, "The Lord of Innumerable Potencies manifests himself in glory, joy, and renunciation." - The Vedas

Gnosticism and Gnosis

There is Gnosticism and then there is Gnosticism -

Essay.

As always, simplistic terminology like "reincarnation" or "Gnosticism" can be very deceiving - an attempt to re-mythologize dogmatism, based on G. Heart and Evola.

Davidic Covenant

ince it emanated from the Absolute II, the first Mosaic Decalogue was of
Christian inspiration and, in spite of evetything, it was never completely
eclipsed in the consciousness of the chosen people by the Second Decalogue.
The Second was of pagan inspiration, in the sense that it emanated from the
Absolute III. In the consciousness of the spiritual elite of the Jewish people, the
monotheism relative to Jehovah never managed to replace the true monotheism
of the consubstantial and indivisible Holy Trinity that was openly proclaimed in
historical Christian history.

This esoteric tradition was revealed from the time of Moses through the line
of the prophets, and found its highest possible expression in the Old Testament
period in the person of the prophet-king David. It is true that, as a man, King
David was not unblemished—the Bathsheba-Uriah affair is a flagrant proof of
this—but the nobility of his soul and the greatness of his work brought him not
only absolution but the sublime promise that the Messiah would be born of his
line.7 Psalm CXVIII, which summarizes the esoteric doctrine, designates him as
a prophet, and the creation of the unified State of Israel crowns his work as a
king.

Roman Persecutions

In order of succession, the Gnosis that Jesus revealed to John, James, and Peter after His resurrection reached Clement of Alexandria (about 160-215) and his direct disciples. Due to the persecutions of the third century, and the troubles that arose in the heart of Christianity after it became the State religion, it became imperative to make it ‘hermetic’ if it were to survive. Hidden like a treasure buried in the earth, it slienty made its way and, like a subterranean stream, flowed from master to disciple and from generation to generation until the present, when it rose to the surface again. Stripped of its occult character, it reappears with it original significance as an esoteric projection into the future taking the form of a New Covenant, or, in other words, a Third Testament.

The Law of the Old Testament, dictated to Moses on Mount Sinai amid thunder and lightning, took the form of a command. On the other hand the New Testament was not imposed on human beings, it came to them as Good News, and each was free to welcome or reject it. Though of great significance, this difference goes unnoticed. We will try to understand this different attitude of the divine Will in the two cases. This will enable us to penetrate more deeply the true meaning of the Third Testament, as well as its message.

~ Boris Mouravieff, Gnosis Book Three VII, IV (1)


Something I've wondered about relates to this. What did the persecutions inevitably do to the Faith? We often act as if we "won" and nothing changed, but in the real world (and the unreal world) we know this is not how things work...