Category Archives: A
Atlantis
Image source: Athanasius Kircher's Map of Atlantis (c.1669)
Atlantis is an ancient and possibly legendary civilization whose military capabilities apparently posed a threat to Europe and Africa before it finally disappeared into the sea.
The Greek statesman Solon learned from an Egyptian priest at Sykes about ancient temple records telling of Atlantis. Dating back over 9,000 years, the records said a massive destruction periodically befalls the earth forcing mankind “to begin again like children with no memory of what went before.”
The destruction of Atlantis is variously attributed to an earthquake, volcano or high-tech weapons.
The grandfather of the Greek philosopher Plato heard the story of Atlantis from Solon. Plato duly writes about Atlantis as a kind of utopia in his dialogues Timeus and Critias.
Subsequent variations of the story say the Atlantians possessed high-tech death-rays, hot and cold running water and miraculous cures.
But some archaeological paintings allegedly depicting Atlantis include boats propelled by men with primitive poles, which doesn’t quite add up: Why so primitive a means of propulsion if Atlantis boasted incredibly high tech resources?
Recent scientific and archaeological expeditions are trying to uncover hard evidence for Atlantis. Some researchers hope that orbiting electronic instruments will discover Atlantis’ true location. Others are using Google Earth to try to discern the location.
Said to be a paradise before its destruction, Atlantis apparently had a temple of Poseidon at its center. And after its destruction, some survivors are said to have been scattered across the globe by sea.
Some believe this accounts for the seemingly paranormal feats of architecture found around the world–from Stonehenge to the massive sandstone etchings in Peru, and the similarly styled pyramids of Egypt and Aztec Central America.
Parallel tales about a lost civilization destroyed by catastrophe have been simultaneously recorded by an Egyptian scribe and a Mayan stone cutter.
True or false?
Apparently the Greek government prohibited exploration of an underwater area researchers believe would definitively prove the existence of Atlantis.
Aristotle seemed to believe that Plato was mythologizing about Atlantis in an attempt to symbolically warn against “overweening ambition,” as Shakespeare would much later caution through his character Macbeth.
Paula Byerly Croxon adds that Plato’s myth about Atlantis was “underscored by the visions of Madame Blavatsky and Edgar Cayce” (The Piatkus Dictionary of Mind, Body & Spirit, London: Piatkus, 2003 p. 24).
While it is easy to be skeptical about the historicity of Atlantis, it should be kept in mind that the ancient city of Troy was widely thought to be mythical until an uncovered archaeological site proved its existence in the 1870′s.
Whatever the truth may be, the myth goes on with an American-Canadian science fiction TV program called Stargate Atlantis that appeared in 2006, a spin-off from the very popular Stargate SG-1 series.
Auroville
Auroville: Under Construction by Premasagar
Auroville
The community founded by Sri Aurobindo and The Mother (Mirra Alfassa) lying just outside of Pondicherry, India, which seems to be a curious hybrid of the old and the new.
Young Indian artists migrate there to pursue careers in film and video production, while international seekers use it as a retreat center for meditation and alternative community living.
Lonely Planet’s TV host Justine Shapiro visited Auroville and seemed to imply that it was a haven for foreigners seeking enlightenment while exploiting local laborers. Whether or not this is a fair assessment remains unclear.
On the Web:
- “Scenes from the documentary Journey To The City of Dawn based in Auroville, India produced by Paul Kakert of edpvideo.com and Storytellers International. Visit the film’s website at http://www.cityofdawn.com.”;
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à Kempis, Thomas
à Kempis, Thomas (1379-1471) Also known as Thomas Hemerken, à Kempis was a German who entered an Augustinian convent in 1400.
In 1413 he was ordained. He spent the rest of his life as a religious, becoming superior of the convent.
He wrote several spiritual works but the most popular is the devotional classic Imitatio Christi (The Imitation of Christ).
This work became so influential that it rivaled the Bible in sales after Johann Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press in the mid-1400′s.
Reading The Imitation today, one cannot help but notice its medieval outlook. While clearly a milestone, times have changed. The pace of technological and psychological development during the last century has been faster than ever before in human history.
As with the Bible on which it is based, the sincere spiritual aspirant of the 21st century might find some of the advice in The Imitation a bit outdated and inappropriate to the conditions and demands of contemporary society.
Image Credit:
- “Poblet Gate.jpg” originally uploaded to flickr.com by Alan Bell » http://www.flickr.com/photos/37935394@N00/373278878/, Creative Commons License (see details)
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Abel
Abel In the biblical book of Genesis (4: 2-16), Abel is the second son of Adam and Eve who was killed by his brother Cain.
Cain’s motives were most likely jealousy and anger.
Abel was a shepherd and Cain a farmer. Cain and Abel had made sacrificial offerings to God but only Abel’s was acceptable to the Lord. After Cain murdered Abel the Lord cast him out of the land, placing a special mark on his forehead.
This mark protects Cain from those who might harm him out of resentment for murdering Abel.
Cain goes on to establish a city. He becomes materially prosperous but is forever alienated from God.
It seems, broadly speaking, that Cain represents the abrasive, worldly-minded person while Abel symbolizes the gentle, spiritually-minded person.
Although God punishes the murderer, Cain, with a life of alienation, he does not utterly destroy him and indeed allows him to prosper materially. Some see this as a sign of God’s inherent injustice, others, as evidence of God’s great mercy.
Since Cain and Abel are the only two children of Adam and Eve, many believe the Bible does not explain how other people came into existence.
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Abreaction
Abreaction A psychoanalytic term which refers to a discharge of emotion attached to a repressed experience.
In contemporary psychoanalysis the analysand tries to not only feel but also intellectually understand the emotion, that is, the why and how of its repression.
According to the theory, emotional experience and intellectual understanding together bring about a therapeutic result.
In the early days of psychoanalysis, however, it was not deemed important for the intellectual component to be present for successful therapeutic progress. » Catharsis, Cathexis, Freud (Sigmund)
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Abyss
Abyss (Greek, abyssos, Latin abyssus). Myths about an abyss or bottomless pit are found in most cultures.
In Judaism the abyss lies deep within the earth, a place where evil spirits of the dead are banished (Job 32:22, Psalm 6:5, 143:7).
In ancient Greece the majority of the dead retire to a gloomy underworld, an abyss of “shades” where they endure punishment for worldly sins.
The ancient Greek idea of heaven is not well developed. In fact, only a few heroes pass on to the favorable Blessed Isles. After the 5th century BCE the belief that the dead reside among the stars appears. But this still radically differs from the concept of heaven as forwarded by Jesus Christ.
In Hindu lore, a popular version of the Ramayana epic portrays the heroine Sita being consumed by a great opening in the earth.
The Druidic tradition tells of evil foes falling down into bottomless caverns.
The biblical Satan is bound by an angel and cast into a bottomless pit (Rev. 20:3).
Mircea Eliade notes that myths about “binding” evil beings are quite plentiful.
New Testament (NT) accounts of an abyss refer to a hellish region from which a wild beast emerges to temporarily destroy prophets after they have completed their mission.
The Abyss in the NT is likewise described as a prison for evil spirits (Luke 8:31; Rev 9:1-2; 11; 11:7-8).
Interestingly, Victorian Fairy imagery is replete with watery underworlds inhabited by ghoulish beings, amidst which fairies are protected from harm by dwelling, often sleepily, within a sort of magical cocoon.
In the Beowulf myth, an evil water-troll is slain in her underwater lair by use of a magical sword discovered by the hero, deep under the water’s surface.
More recently, the invention of the bathysphere and the submarine opened the door for pulp fiction and numerous Hollywood “B” movies about underwater horrors.
An underwater abyss is also found in the science fiction film, The Abyss.
Sci-fi also depicts the abyss motif in outer space. In several episodes, Star Trek Voyager’s Captain Janeway stands perilously above an almost bottomless cylinder within a Borg ship.
Likewise, Star Wars‘ Luke Skywalker perches on a ledge over an abyss in the evil Emperor’s Death Star. And the more recent Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace is replete with strange subterranean beings.
In psychoanalytic terms, Freudians see the abyss as a symbol of the mother’s womb or the tumultuous forces of the instinctual id.
Jungians tend to regard the abyss as an archetypal image of the collective unconscious.
Regardless of which school one subscribes to, in the most general sense a fear of total destruction seems to coexist with a potential for victory over, and order arising from, the dark chaos of the abyss.
As Rod Serling put it in the close of the 1961 Twilight Zone episode “The Shelter” (pictured above), in which apparently normal American neighbors go beserk during an atomic bomb scare:
For civilization to survive the human race has to remain civilized.
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Achilles
Achilles The ancient Greek warrior and hero who, in Homer‘s Iliad, fought in the Trojan wars.
The son of Peleus and Thetis, at birth Achilles’ mother held him by the heel and dipped him in the fiery river Styx to obtain magical protection from his enemies.
Achilles’ heel remained dry, becoming his vulnerable spot.
Often savage, Achilles killed Hector and mangled his body. Achilles also offered human sacrifices.
The violent aspect of the Achilles legend brings to mind historical killers who find temporary satisfaction by expressing turbulent psychological forces.
Achilles could also be seen as a brilliant, if undisciplined, military commander.
Antonio Balestra’s (1666-1740) oil on canvass depicts Thetis dipping Achilles, head-first, into a cauldron of water, presumably drawn from the river Styx.
More recently Brad Pitt played a convincing Achilles in the film, Troy.
Achilles was eventually killed by Paris‘ poisoned arrow to the heel. » Balder, Olympus, Shadow, Wotan, Zeno
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Acropolis
Acropolis [Greek akron = point, summit + polis = city]
Initially, an acropolis was simply a fortified hill serving as a stronghold for Greek city-states.
Later, the acropolis took on a religious function. It became a sacred citadel built on high ground within or near a town.
The most famous but by no means only acropolis contains the Parthenon and the Erechtheum at Athens, connected with Athena worship.
In 447 BCE a massive statue of Athena stood within its center, the patron goddess of Athens. Although the original is gone, a reconstruction stands in Nashville, Tennessee, within a full-size replica of the Parthenon.
In the 6th century the famed Parthenon was converted into a Christian church.
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Active Imagination
Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud
Disagree on How to Treat
the Patient’s Stormtrooper Delusion
Originally uploaded by ShellyS
Active Imagination An apparently therapeutic technique developed by C. G. Jung that uses some form of self-expression, such as a fantasy-image, to represent and analyze the contents of the hypothesized collective unconscious.
Active imagination may involve artistic representation but this is secondary to its essentially internal character.
Jung says imaginary changes within active imagination should be carefully observed and noted because they indicate underlying unconscious processes.
In advanced stages of active imagination, Jung suggests a more direct engagement with imaginary contents, where one puts oneself on the stage, as it were, of the unconscious and becomes one of the players.
Here, unconscious attitudes toward a person or situation may be explored by running imaginary trials – e.g. fantasy dialogue or interactions – which Jung says contribute to an overall integration of the unconscious within consciousness.
Jung, himself, practiced active imagination deeply, going as far to say that he was guided by a “ghost guru” called Philemon. When Jung became bored with Philemon, however, he cut him off.
We cannot know whether Jung was dealing with a spiritual being or a mere product of his imagination.
Due to the hypothesized interconnectedness of all things, some depth psychologists and New Age enthusiasts believe that the internal dialogue of active imagination has real effects on other people and the visible world.
The psychologist and philosopher William James similarly wrote in The Varieties of Religious Experience about ‘thought insertion’–where the power of thought apparently influences another person at a distance.
Today the archaic idea of ‘thought insertion’ is sometimes called Remote Influence within parapsychological circles.
Jung mentioned but didn’t emphasize this possibility in his published works, perhaps to avoid negative repercussions from the skeptics and “medical materialists,” as he put it, of his time.
However, Jung did speak of belonging to an alleged “inner circle” of prominent, mystically inclined thinkers such as the novelist Herman Hesse and the Chilean diplomat Miguel Serrano.
Active imagination is similar to Shakti Gawain’s notion of creative visualization but is more about developing psychological balance instead of achieving external goals. » Channeling
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Acts of the Apostles
Acts of the Apostles The fifth book of the New Testament.
Most Catholics believe Acts was authored by St. Luke. Some biblical scholars dispute this with apparently rational arguments, which on closer inspection appear to be irrational.
The book provides historical material about the early spreading of the Gospel and disputes that arose in the process.
Acts begins at the resurrection and ascension of Christ, and focuses on the growth of the Christian Church, its expansion to Samaria and Antioch, and Paul’s missionary journeys to Asia Minor, regions of the Aegean and Rome.
Acts ends after Paul’s imprisonment of two years at Rome.
Perhaps most important, Acts unifies the four divisions of humanity (Jews, Samaritans, proselytes, Gentiles) under the banner of Christianity.
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