Actually Understanding the Bible (Pt 2)

Man in the Mandala

Click Here for Part 1

Introduction

The Bible cannot be understood properly unless we first re-learn our place within it. Far from the modern understanding of Man as something almost worthless, Man, according to the wisdom of the ancients, is a being of perennial importance. Man was actually present from the first moments of Creation, and perhaps we will talk about that someday. To begin our present discussion however, we must first begin a process of reorientation for, if you received anything resembling a “modern” education, then unfortunately you have been given a bad compass. Your maps of meaning and understanding are all confused. You have been taught from birth to believe you are one thing but I come to you and proclaim that you are in fact something else. Something very else. Something wondrous and beautiful and profound. But to make you understand that we must first go yet even more basic. Before you can understand yourself, and what you are, you must understand your home. You must understand Earth.

Fighting Galileo

We have come unseated. As a consequence my fiery arrows of rage against Galileo Galilei shall never in this life be quenched. I make war on him, that craven coward with his spyglass. War on him an his entire legacy. Until my dying breath so long as there remains one hallowed hall of education in which his name is not a byword I shall have no peace. A pox upon him. May his bones be food for worms.

Okay, maybe that’s a bit much.

But, we have come unseated. That much is true. It is also, largely, Galileo’s fault. Galileo and Copernicus and so on. They and the rest of the servants of Satan.

You may be tempted to dismiss what I’m about to say out of hand but I’d ask you to keep reading for a while to give what I’m saying a fair shake. I promise I’m not an insane person. Are you ready? Here goes.

There is actually no reason not to be a geocentrist.

I know. I know. I feel all the decades of your indoctrination to the contrary welling up in reflexive antagonism through the screen already, and I haven’t even hit “publish” yet. Calm down. Sheesh. Are you bi-polar? Relax. What’s wrong with you? You’re just reading words on a screen, there is no danger. All is well. You’re among friends. Namaste.

Now.

Here’s the truth on the matter. Since Einstein came along geocentrism has been officially placed back on the table. It’s true. Not too many people noticed mind you, but it’s an option again nonetheless.

Why didn’t they notice?

Well mostly because to do so would’ve been very unfashionable. Geocentrism? Again? After all we’ve been through? Unthinkable. I mean, it would feel like going backwards. You can’t just overturn a central dogma of scientific education and not lose a fair amount of babies in the tossing of that bath water. Admitting the full implications of Einstein’s work would be akin to a new math genius suddenly coming along and proving that pi was actually closer to 3.15. It would be anarchy. Total anarchy. Think of all the coffee mugs that would have to be trashed. Pi-day would need to be moved around on the calendar. Zebras would be wrong!

And yet, that is exactly what happened. For Einstein showed us that there is no universal reference point. An axiom that the entirety of general and special relativity relies upon. What does it mean? Well, it means there is no default space or time for the universe. There is no cosmological clock which one can look to to discover what time it really is. One person’s clock is as good as any other. Likewise there is also no universal zero point. You know, like when you were in high school math class and you had that graph paper with the x, y, and z, coordinates on it?

You know, the “Cartesian Coordinate System.”

Okay, well, for the universe, where is (0, 0, 0)? Where’s the origin point? Where is the reference point by which all motion through space and time is measured?

The answer, if the Theory of Relativity is to be believed, is nowhere. Or, alternatively, anywhere. You, the observer, the consciousness having the experience, can place zero wherever you would like. You get to decide where you’d like to put the center of the universe. This spot over here is just as good as that one over there, scientifically speaking. All points of view are equally valid and can be mathematically transposed from one to the other. So, that being the case, what’s to stop us from putting the center here, on Earth?

Well… nothing.

Nothing at all.

Now, again, I hear you rising up angrily out of your office chair in protest. “But the orbits!” you scream. “The orbits of the planets won’t work if you do that!”

Not true. Here, I will show you pictures. First, let’s look at a diagram of the planetary orbits if we decide that our zero point is the sun.

Familiar, yes?

Pretty standard. If we decide to make the sun the center of the local cosmos then the orbits of the planets form nice almost circles. You know, sort of compacted ellipses. It’s a simple model, I’ll give it that. A model you can get your head around easily enough. Not perfect by any means because, as stated, the circles are all almost circles. They’re also all sort of almost concentric. The whole affair is passable enough for government work but every so slightly off kilter. That’s okay, I mean, you know, if that’s what you’re into.

But, we have other choices. So, what do the orbits look like if we decide to make Earth the center of the universe?

Well. They look shockingly beautiful.

The motions of the heavenly bodies as drawn with a stationary Earth.

Now, to my mind Beauty is the standard of Truth. Not simplicity. If Earth is held as the center of the cosmos, if we decide, as we are justifiably free to do from a strictly scientific framework, to put the zero point of the cosmos on ourselves, BAM! Instantly we find ourselves at the exact center of a cosmic mandala. Not in a vague, pseudo-religious metaphorical kind of way but literally. We find ourselves dead center of an actual, heavenly mandala of universal proportions more beautiful than anything ever made by monks. Moreover, in contrast to those from the heliocentric model, these orbits actually are perfect. Holding Earth as the center produces near perfect symmetry, a hallmark of Divine intent and design. Here we do not have those ugly off kilter and not quite centered ellipses that we were forced to deal with in the solar model. Here we have perfection. Here we have beauty. Here, perhaps, we have Truth.

Now I am not saying that Copernicus and Galileo were wrong, per se. As mentioned, you can perfectly well decide that the Sun is the center of the local universe if you like. Thing is though, you can also decide that Mars is the center. Or Pluto. Or the distant star Betelgeuse, or the Moon. You could choose Halley’s Comet. Of course, not all of those would produce orbital models of equal beauty or equal simplicity, but they are all equally mathematically valid and can be mathematically transposed into one another easily enough.

“But,” I hear the objection, “the sun is the largest and has the highest gravitational pull. Therefore other things orbit it and not the other way round.”

In point of fact this is not true. All objects in the night sky are pulling on all the others. Gravity is a two way street and the sun itself also turns. This is in fact how we determine if distant stars have planets or not, by watching to see if they oscillate back and forth under the pull of gravity from other nearby, less illuminating bodies. It is exactly the same with the Moon and the Earth. Who orbits whom? Are each not both spinning round the other, all the time? Giving default center status to that which is largest is nothing but a mental prejudice. Why not make the default center here, on Earth, where the concept of having a center at all exists? Did the sun invent the Cartesian Coordinate system? No? Then why does it get to be zero? Why not make the zero point that spot with the most intelligence, the most life, the most soul? How is that any less valid than choosing the zero point based on which heavenly body has the most mass? I’d argue that it isn’t. Earth is the center because here is where the story’s happening. Here is where the thoughts are happening. Here is where the art is painted and the soldiers bleed and the lovers kiss. Here is where the babies cry. Here is where the dead are mourned.

Earth.

It’s where the action is.

Seems like a fine place to call the center of the universe to me.

Can you point to another place in the cosmos that has life? Oh you can’t? Then spare me the protests. Earth is the most natural center of the heavens. After all, is not Earth home to the human brain, literally the most complex thing in the entire universe? The thing which came up with even the concept of “the universe” in the first place? Which came up with even the concept of concepts?

Right.

So, put me down as a geocentrist. I will fight the disembodied spirit of Galileo with my fists. Summon him to me oh you mediums and mystics, and I will make war on him. Raise the Idiot Italian from the pits of hell and I will fight him as surely as Dan Aykroyd battled Slimer in The Sedgewick Hotel. I will hold him down with my proton pack and force him to recant his positions on stellar parallax. He will protest and beg me strike him no more with my fists. In that moment I will smile and look upon my balled hand and say, “E pur si muove.” And yet, it moves.

Making Nothing Out of Man

God, we are told by the theologians, created everything out of nothing. “Creatio ex nihilo.” And yet, as all servants of The Lie do, the modern world has flipped this on its head. Instead of Man being made from nothing they make nothing out of man. The entire drive and desire to dethrone Earth from its rightful place as cosmic center has no other motivation than to unburden ourselves from the heavy weight of being God’s children. What is it the Scientists say? What will you hear from Neil deGrasse Tyson, or Carl Sagan, or Brian Cox? “Earth is nothing special.” “We are likely just one of billions of planets with life on it in the universe.” “We’re just a normal, ordinary planet floating around a middle sized star in a random portion of the cosmos of no particular importance.”

And so on.

And truly I tell you that Evolution is nothing but more of the same. “Man is just another animal.” “A primate.” “A chimpanzee which got a bit too smart for his own breeches.” My friends be wary of all such men. Be wary of all of those who would degrade and make lowly so that they may have license to sin. If man is but another animal on a random planet about a random star in a random part of the universe which doesn’t matter, then, of course, there is no sin. There is no right, there is no wrong. If such is true then you never have to feel guilty about anything ever again. And isn’t that a relief? Sure, maybe instead you have to deal with the crushing weight of nihilistic depression and a meaningless life, but that’s a small price to pay for not having any responsibility, isn’t it? For not having to try? Science, completely apart from any given experiment or study, is driven overall by a metaphysics that says Man Does Not Matter. Watch for this. Once you see it it is impossible to ignore.

But, I declare to you that it is not true. We in the “truth community” speak often of psy-ops. Short for psychological operations. Fair enough, they exist and are plentiful in our age but truly the biggest psy-op going is that you don’t matter. That you are unimportant. That you are just a collection of atoms spinning on some granite that we’d like to call a planet. To Hell with that. I strike it down. May Saint Michael spear such thoughts and all who preach them with his lance.

Saint Michael vs Carl DeGrasse Cox, a tri-partide egregore made from early 2000s Science IMAX Movies with poor voice over acting. Note the pendulous breasts. Traditional, Estonia 1537.

As we saw in part 1, to the ancients, such ideas could not have been more foreign. Man was higher than all the animals and plants, and had dominion over them. He was by the flip side of the same token, also a little lower than the angels. He was in the middle. Just like the earth was. Earth was the center of the mandala, the center of the cosmos, and Man was the head of all the creatures of the earth. The head of Earth itself.

We did not like this responsibility. Rather than be a little lower than the angels we decided we would rather be a little lower than the worms. Nobody ever blamed an earthworm for anything after all. Worms don’t have to feel guilt or sorrow or shame. The pig does not feel shame for eating its own piglet and the lion does not feel guilt for murdering competing members of its clan. Wouldn’t you like to act on all of your baser instincts for violence and greed and lust and feel as carefree about it all as a marmoset does? You know, as the great philosopher of our time once said: “Hey, you and me baby we ain’t nothing but mammals, so let’s do it like the do on the Discovery Channel.”

Indeed.

The Hub of The Wheel

The order of things created in the account of the seven days of creation in Genesis goes like this:

Day 1: Light is created.

Day 2: The Heavens and the Earth are created.

Day 3: Dry Ground is brought up out of the water and plants populate it.

Day 4: The sun, moon, and stars are made.

Day 5: Birds and the creatures of the sea are made.

Day 6: Land animals are made and then, finally, God caps off his work with the creation of Man and Woman.

Day 7: God rests.

What does this mean? To understand, let us walk it backwards. On Day 6 Man is made. Shortly before him, the animals. On the preceding day the birds and fish. On the day before that the heavenly bodies.

We are, if you will notice, walking outwards from that which is most like Man to that which is most foreign. Walking out along orders of consciousness. Nearest to us, are the animals of the land. Mostly these are other mammals, but also the lizards and so forth with which we share the surface of the earth. Next in line are those other living creatures which also share in “the breath of life,” birds and creatures of the sea. Note that neither of these categories though are “land animals.” They are “water” and “sky” animals. We are moving away from Man, in both directions. Moving “Up” and moving “Down.” This pattern will continue.

Continuing our backwards walk, after the fish and birds we notice that on the preceding two days both the heavenly bodies and the dry ground were made. Again, we’ve gone “Up” from birds to those intelligences in the sky (yes, the ancients believed the stars were intelligent, in fact they are the angels, which I will cover in a later part of this series), and also, “Down”, again not so much physically but in consciousness, from fish to the unconscious dirt and sea which are below us. Next on our backwards walk we see The Heaven, the realm of pure conscious spirit and soul, and The Earth, the realm of pure, unconscious matter. Finally we get back to Light itself. Pure Light. That from which all other things seem to have been separated out. Light is of course the highest mode of conscious awareness, which is why holy people are said to shine with halos, and where the entire idea of “enlightenment” comes from.

So, we see from our backwards saunter that what is being presented to us in Genesis is an ordering of the cosmos by consciousness, or by soul, which is essentially the same thing. An ordering which places Man and Woman directly at the center. The middle. Just as the Earth is the center of the Mandala, on a deeper, fractal level, Man is the center of the Earth. The fullest meeting point of inert, dead matter and living, breathing, thinking spirit and soul. Man, therefore, was seen to be the hub of the wheel. The central axis about which the entire cosmos revolved. In fact, in the fullness of time it would be revealed that God himself was one of our own species, a truth which the ancients intuited several times with their insistence of demi-gods and half-gods throughout mythology.

Jesus Mandala, Lawrence Francis Sinha (Nepal).

Off Kilter Wheels

Have you ever tried to ride a bicycle where the wheel was not properly centered? Off its axis a little? It’s damn near impossible. You can struggle along, but it’s a slog. Okay. Well that’s essentially what the Creation story says happened to the cosmos. The center of the cosmos, Man and Woman, got off kilter. And therefore the entire universe is spinning out of control. We came unseated. We got misaligned from our true identity and purpose. This being the case, it was not possible that the cosmos would not fall out of alignment with us since we were its hub. In this manner, the fall of Man truly was the fall of everything that is. The entire universe fell out of alignment when we did. The Christian narrative goes so far as to say that Death Itself entered into the universe at our fall. And that, yes, truly, every cute fluffy puppy, innocent kitten, and even the very stars in the sky, die because of our us.

This is a heavy burden, no?

It’s no wonder we were eager to shrug it off in the name of Science.

But we mustn’t. Because, the corollary to “universal death by our fall” is “universal life by our redemption.” The more that Men and Women become righteous, the more they reconnect with God, the more they live into The Light, then the more in alignment they become and with them every plant and animal and star. The Kingdom of God is within you. As Jesus said. You have the power, through Christ, to manifest it. To bring God’s peace to Earth. To heal Nature, the Oceans, the Sky. You have that power and you must not relinquish it. You must not give it up for an easy life of nihilism. Christ has shown us the path. “I am the way.” He proclaimed. “And the truth and the life.” The way back to the Father has been opened to us and you my reader are the cosmic hero if you choose to walk it. This is what is actually at stake in Christianity. This is what the Bible is actually about. It’s so much more than “saving souls” or “going to heaven when we die.” It’s about setting right the very motions of the heavens and beating Death. Beating Death for everyone and for everything. From the smallest creature to the brightest star.

May we choose to pursue it, yea though it be hard.

Conclusion

In part one of this series we laid the groundwork for understanding the story of the Bible by learning about the ancient categories of Heaven and Earth, Time and Space, and Matter and Spirit, and what these natural polarities meant and represented. In part two we have discovered how Man is the center of the cosmos and therefore implicated in its fall but also responsible for its redemption. In part three we will examine the emergence of the Promethean Myth within Genesis, the co-mingling of angels with Man, and the narrative of the Great Flood and our Great Ancestor Noah, father of all living men and women.