Review – Paul Tillich’s Christianity and the Encounter of the World Religions

Tillich Park - new harmony indiana: paparutzi / christina rutz

This review also appears at Earthpages.org

I just finished reading Paul Tillich’s Christianity and the Encounter of the World Religions (1963).

Although it seems Tillich is somewhat confined by his particular conceptual categories and dialectical mode of thinking when speaking of the complexities of life and spirit, I found some of his observations interesting.

Perhaps most noteworthy is his assertion that a religion must adapt and change in order to survive. It must “negate itself” (can you hear Hegel clapping?) to continue to live and breathe the Holy Spirit.

This is very much like Carl Jung’s argument, but I wasn’t too surprised to see no reference to Jung in this book (up until about 1990 it was common in the humanities and theology to ignore or discredit Jung’s thought).

Consider this quote, appearing near the end of the book:

We know today what a secular myth is. We know what a secular cult is. The totalitarian movements have provided us with both. Their great strength was that they transformed ordinary concepts, events, and persons into myths, and ordinary performances into rituals; therefore they had to be fought with other myths and rituals—religious and secular. You cannot escape them, however you demythologize and deritualize. They always return and you must always judge them again. In the fight of God against religion the fighter for God is in the paradoxical situation that he has to use religion in order to fight religion (pp. 93-94).

In The Undiscovered Self Jung said, several years before Tillich, “You can take away a man’s gods, but only to give him others in return” (1958, p. 63).

When speaking of the fight of “God against religion” Tillich is talking about movements such as Communism, Fascism and those ossified, oppressive structures that apparently no longer communicate the Holy Spirit (for Tillich, this includes the Catholic hierarchy and sacraments).

It seems he’s pointing to the idea that we cannot escape two main elements in the human adventure: Power and belief. Whether or not the powers and beliefs we encounter are truly in line with God’s will is a question that any mature person will always want to carefully examine.

And yes, it takes belief in God and God’s power to overcome elements that are not from God. On this point I fully agree with Tillich.

However, as I’ve indicated, there’s much in this work that I found limited by his personality structure, Protestant beliefs and historical position.

Of course, a similar charge could be leveled against me. And to his credit Tillich points to this concern in his discussion on dialogue vs. conversion, and the related idea of non-Christian criticisms of Christianity being positively transformed into healthy Christian self-criticism (Tillich is speaking on a group level here, but the same dynamic could be applied to individuals).

Still, I found the book’s overall approach a bit stiff and it contained not a few sweeping generalizations. At times it seems that Tillich is just playing a little philosophy game with a lot of general intellectual ideas. And then suddenly he’ll come back to being relevant and make a good point or two.

In fairness, the fact that I’m taking the time to write this indicates that I found this book far more accessible and meaningful than most of the dry bones theological works I’ve encountered.

While some readers at amazon.com see Tillich’s conclusion as a sort of syncretic cop out, I find it somewhat optimistic, if perhaps simplistic:

In the depth of every living religion there is a point at which the religion itself loses its importance, and that to which it points breaks through its particularity, elevating it to spiritual freedom and with it to a vision of the spiritual presence in other expressions of the ultimate meaning of man’s existence.

This is what Christianity must see in the present encounter of the world religions (p. 97).

I say simplistic because it seems there are many different kinds of spiritual presences, ranging from quite impure (i.e. spacey, gloomy and self-obscuring) to exceedingly pure (i.e. holy, uplifting and self-affirming), a point Jung also touches on in his discussion of numinosity (as did Rudolf Otto and others).

Now, Tillich does talk about differences concerning the idea of individuality (and problems in defining it) earlier in the book with his comparison of Christianity and Buddhism. So it’s not as if he overlooks this point completely.

But it remains unclear why in his conclusion he glosses over the central issue of different spiritual presences.

These shortcomings aside, Christianity and the Encounter of the World Religions is a good little book and certainly worth the dollar I paid for it at the used bookstore.

–MC

I just finished reading Paul Tillich’s Christianity and the Encounter of the World Religions (1963).

Although it seems Tillich is somewhat confined by his particular conceptual categories and dialectical mode of thinking when speaking of the complexities of life and spirit, I found some of his observations interesting.

Perhaps most noteworthy is his assertion that a religion must adapt and change in order to survive. It must “negate itself” (can you hear Hegel clapping?) to continue to live and breathe the Holy Spirit.

This is very much like Carl Jung’s argument, but I wasn’t too surprised to see no reference to Jung in this book (up until about 1990 it was common in the humanities and theology to ignore or discredit Jung’s thought).

Consider this quote, appearing near the end of the book:

We know today what a secular myth is. We know what a secular cult is. The totalitarian movements have provided us with both. Their great strength was that they transformed ordinary concepts, events, and persons into myths, and ordinary performances into rituals; therefore they had to be fought with other myths and rituals—religious and secular. You cannot escape them, however you demythologize and deritualize. They always return and you must always judge them again. In the fight of God against religion the fighter for God is in the paradoxical situation that he has to use religion in order to fight religion (pp. 93-94).

In The Undiscovered Self Jung said, several years before Tillich, “You can take away a man’s gods, but only to give him others in return” (1958, p. 63).

When speaking of the fight of “God against religion” Tillich is talking about movements such as Communism, Fascism and those ossified, ultimately oppressive structures that apparently no longer communicate the Holy Spirit (for Tillich, the Catholic hierarchy and sacraments).

It seems he’s pointing to the idea that we cannot escape two main elements in the human adventure: Power and belief. Whether or not the powers and beliefs we encounter are truly in line with God’s will is a question that any mature person will always want to carefully examine.

And yes, it takes belief in God and God’s power to overcome elements that are not from God. On this point I fully agree with Tillich.

However, as I’ve indicated, there’s much in this work that I found limited by his personality structure, Protestant beliefs and historical position.

Of course, the same charge could be leveled against me. And to his credit Tillich points to this concern in his discussion on dialogue vs. conversion, and the related idea of non-Christian criticisms of Christianity being positively transformed into healthy Christian self-criticism (Tillich is speaking on a group level here, but the same dynamic could be applied to individuals).

Still, I found the book’s overall approach a bit stiff and it contained not a few sweeping generalizations. At times it seems that Tillich is just playing a little philosophy game with a lot of general intellectual ideas. And then suddenly he’ll come back to being relevant and make a good point or two.

In fairness, the fact that I’m taking the time to write this indicates that I found this book far more accessible and meaningful than most of the dry bones theological works I’ve encountered.

While some readers at amazon.com see Tillich’s conclusion as a sort of syncretic cop out, I find it somewhat optimistic, if perhaps simplistic:

In the depth of every living religion there is a point at which the religion itself loses its importance, and that to which it points breaks through its particularity, elevating it to spiritual freedom and with it to a vision of the spiritual presence in other expressions of the ultimate meaning of man’s existence.

This is what Christianity must see in the present encounter of the world religions (p. 97).

I say simplistic because it seems there are many different kinds of spiritual presences, ranging from quite impure (i.e. spacey, gloomy and self-obscuring) to exceedingly pure (i.e. holy, uplifting and self-affirming), a point Jung also touches on in his discussion of numinosity (as did Rudolf Otto and others).

Now, Tillich does talk about differences concerning the idea of individuality (and problems in defining it) earlier in the book with his comparison of Christianity and Buddhism. So it’s not as if he overlooks this point completely.

But it remains unclear why in his conclusion he glosses over the central issue of different spiritual presences.

These shortcomings aside, Christianity and the Encounter of the World Religions is a good little book and certainly worth the dollar I paid for it at the used bookstore.

–MC

Review – The Philadelphia Experiment: Invisibility, Time Travel and Mind Control (DVD)

Reality Films

This review also appears at Earthpages.org

Is time travel possible?

Saints, seers and mystics often talk about transversing the corridors of time. Sometimes they claim to enter into eternity and other times they speak of encountering far away places, past and future.

Some authors, musicians and artists also hint at the idea of the psyche transcending our everyday sense of reality. One only has to think of H. G. Wells, Ravi Shankar and Salvador Dali for three good examples.

But rarely do we hear serious talk about embodied time travel. Mystics and insightful artists normally talk about psychological or spiritual travel. They don’t usually claim to disappear and reappear in the flesh. Not very often, anyhow.

The Philadelphia Experiment: Invisibility, Time Travel and Mind Control – The Shocking Truth goes one step further. Here we find something that, for all intents and purposes, sounds like intelligent sci-fi purporting to be cold fact.

For an outside observer it’s hard to know what’s what, but this doesn’t take anything away from some of the stimulating ideas forwarded in this video.

The video kicks off with some still photos and voice-over as a sort of build up and explanation to the lengthy interview that follows. The interview itself is avowedly homemade. But whatever this film lacks in production values is more than compensated by its originality.

One doesn’t have to be a genius to follow the discussion, but at times it can be challenging. This is mostly because the nature of the discussion goes way beyond our everyday notions of time, causality and being.

It’s sort of like a Jane Roberts “Seth Book” in living color, but with real people (instead of a channeled entity) actually claiming to have time traveled.

Not only that. They also claim to have been victims of a severe kind of mind control and memory erasure that defies anything we’ve ever heard of. And perhaps the scariest thing of all—the perpetrators were not extraterrestrials but human beings, just like us.

Other fascinating aspects of the interviewees’ claims include the notion that it’s dangerous for someone to get too close to him or herself. That is, if you were to travel 10 minutes into the past and meet up with yourself, there’s a high probably you’d be destroyed.

And as the title suggests, the film claims that actual invisibility has been achieved with an entire US Navy vessel, the USS Eldridge.

Both of these ideas are sheer Star Trek (and the countless sci-fi TV shows and movies that followed) and, again, it’s hard to know what’s what in this film.

Skeptics will likely think they’re watching a sincere group delusion or, perhaps, crafty con job. Enthusiasts will probably find the conspiracy theories, metaphysics and allusions to 2012 enthralling.

Regardless of what one makes of this film, one thing’s for certain–The Philadelphia Experiment is not your run of the mill New Age fluff. These guys are smart. Whether they’re spinning tall tales or relating hard fact is something each viewer can decide for him or herself.

–MC

Trailer:

Highlights

Plato and Aristotle: originally uploaded by Image Editor

I recently expanded an entry about Plato at earthpages.ca, thanks to the Toronto Public Library’s acquisition of Oxford Art Online.

I was delighted to see this new addition to TPL’s online database, especially since I’ve been advocating that TPL subscribe to Oxford Online.

There are many other great Oxford Online reference works that I’d like to see listed at TPL’s web site but this is a great start!

Although I realize that only Toronto residents (and other subscribing cities, libraries and individuals) can enjoy this database, I hope to get some of the best of it out in simple, understandable language that anyone can understand and think about.

That’s what Earthpages is all about. Less elitism and mystification. More understanding and positive change.

Review – Walking Between Worlds Belonging to None (DVD)

Reality Films

This review also appears at Earthpages.org

Written and produced by Steve Mitchell, this film tells the story of Jason, a British man who claims to have been repeatedly taken by extraterrestrials (ETs) during childhood.

Jason says he doesn’t use the term “abducted” to describe his unusual experiences because once he got past the fear factor he simply wanted to learn from his encounters.

This attitudinal shift, he says, opened a door that enhanced his appreciation of not only ETs but of life itself.

In fact, what makes Jason’s account fascinating is his complete willingness to discuss the entire ET phenomenon in an open-minded but balanced way.

Jason offers insights and alternative opinions not found in the vast majority of ET literature, TV documentaries and DVDs.

Topics range from psi and healing abilities, the meaning of life, the variety of alleged ET species, and the possibility of top secret government UFO projects within the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defence (MOD).

To add to the overall credibility of his account, Jason’s mother is interviewed. Here we find an intelligent woman who has explored all possibilities as to her son’s remarkable experiences and abilities, coming to the conclusion that “he’s telling the truth.”

This video is a must see for anyone wishing to enrich their understanding of the mysterious yet increasingly sought after notion that we are not alone.

–MC

Review – The Wildman of Kentucky: The Mystery of Panther Rock (DVD)

Reality Films

This review also appears at Earthpages.org

Is Bigfoot real?

This is the question that The Wildman of Kentucky asks, featuring on-site interviews and an investigative team’s daring romp into the night woods in search of the unknown.

Some may think that Bigfoot (aka Sasquatch) is just a North American myth, but this isn’t so.

Cultures the world over have reported sightings, recorded hairy giants in folklore and even talked about attacks on remote camps and forceful abductions. Some paranormal investigators even link the Bigfoot phenomenon with UFOs.

So where does this leave us? Is Bigfoot a lot of Big Bunk? Or is there something more to the story?

It’s easy to dismiss Bigfoot as the product of wishful thinking or an overactive imagination. I might have done so a few decades ago.

But let me tell my own true story.

While driving from Toronto to Ottawa I saw a man with his thumb out on the side of the highway. I rarely if ever pick up hitchhikers but this one seemed different and I just had to stop.

The hitchhiker and I began talking. I was a Ph.D. candidate in Religious Studies and he, for all intents and purposes, was a homeless person, a traveler–call it what you will.

From our conversation I quickly realized that he was an intelligent, God-fearing man.

When I asked why he left society for the life of a traveling man, he told me he’d seen a Sasquatch in a forest. What really “did it” for him, he said, was seeing the huge beast running straight through the trees–i.e. not around but right through them.

This resonates with the sightings reported in The Wildman of Kentucky, where a mysterious creature is said to move through dense woods at an almost incredible speed.

Critics of Bigfoot note that no live specimen has ever been produced, despite a $100,000 reward offered in 1973 by a Canadian publishing house.

The paranormal researchers John and Anne Spencer concede that some reported cases may be true but believe most are probably an “American myth” (The Encyclopedia of the World’s Greatest Unsolved Mysteries, Headline, 1995: 55).

The Spencers maintain that if Bigfoot were as widespread as many people say, we would no longer have a mystery but a well documented phenomenon with a lot of hard evidence.

However, if the account I heard from the hitchhiker was as genuine as it seemed, might Bigfoot exist somewhere between this and another world? Possibly a parallel reality?

This may sound strange. But considering we’re smack dab in the middle of a great mystery called life, it would be arrogant to debunk all Bigfoot accounts without first considering alternatives.

And considering alternatives is exactly what The Wildman does.

–MC

Review – Hamish Miller on The Parallel Community (DVD)

Reality Films

This review also appears at Earthpages.org

Shot mostly outdoors in the United Kingdom’s beautiful West Cornwall, Hamish Miller on The Parallel Community looks at Earth energy, dowsing, near-death experiences, ancient ancestors, spiritual cleansing, alternate realities and a new global movement called the Parallel Community.

Miller, himself, appears to be a happy, likable fellow very much in tune with nature.

He tells of his former life as a successful entrepreneur where conforming to the work ethic (where work is commonly understood as getting some kind of paycheck) gave him everything… but happiness.

One day while driving along in his car he came across a stunning sunset. Miller wished he had time to enjoy it and suddenly realized that he did. So he stopped his car and got out to watch the natural beauty unfold.

This and other pivotal experiences have contributed to this intriguing man’s metamorphosis from international businessman to mellow blacksmith and unofficial leader of the Parallel Community, a group of kindred spirits interested in living in harmony with the Earth.

Among his many recollections in this film, Miller’s personal account of a near-death experience is extremely convincing. Likewise, his story about a serious illness during which time he envisioned sacred beings helping to make him well again comes off utterly natural and believable.

The only reservation I have with this DVD has to do with its claims about dowsing. I’m no expert in this field but, from what I’ve seen so far, remain unconvinced.

Although the dowsing material seems a bit too easy, this shouldn’t deter one from exploring Miller’s unconventional and far-reaching ideas. Rarely if ever do I completely agree with another person’s perspective–unless perhaps he’s Jesus Christ.

This much said, Miller is an engaging, innovative figure who just might be a herald for a better future. And The Parallel Community explores ideas that definitely need exploring in a world becoming increasingly hypnotized by the dimly lit menus of iPods, BlackBerrys and other techno-gadgets.

–MC

The belief in spiritual warfare: some complexities for 2010

Stomp: follow777 / Milan Klusacek

This article also appears at Earthpages.org

When one hears the term ’spiritual warfare’ images of uncompromising religious fundamentalists and TV preachers may come to mind.

The idea of battling demons is nothing new. Hindus have been familiar with it for centuries. As have Buddhists, Jains, Christians, Jews, Moslems, Shamans and Amerindians, among others.

However, not all persons see spiritual warfare in the same way. One historical example is found with the prominent Hindu philosopher, Sankara (c. 700 – 750 CE).

Put simply, Sankara characterizes the Buddha as an evil avatar–that is, a demon in the flesh. For Sankara all Buddhist distinctions between good and evil deities are misguided.

A similar problem arises when we compare Christian and Hindu spiritualities. For some Christians the entire pantheon of Hindu gods and goddesses are demonic; meanwhile Hinduism itself distinguishes among helpful, harmful and sort of trickster-like deities that may seem ethically ambiguous to some.

Confusing? Yeah, a little. At least, it can be if all we have to rely on is a pile of books or Wikipedia.

This kind of riddle is probably insolvable through reading alone. Arguably we have to experience how different spiritual pathways make us feel–and not just think or, even worse, uncritically adopt a politically correct position.

I’ve developed my own criteria to discern what’s right and not so right for me. It’s not a rigid checklist but an ongoing investigation, subject to change according to my experience and reflection. And perhaps everyone who cares about spirituality should develop their own criteria.

Another interesting wrinkle within the idea of spiritual warfare is found in the psychiatric perspective.

Psychiatry is a more or less unified worldview as to what’s right and wrong with people’s heads and their related behavior. The science of psychiatry has developed dramatically over the past few decades and enjoys a high degree of ideological influence, legitimacy and power, these powers differing somewhat according to local policies and laws.

Anti-psychiatry figures usually point out that homosexuality was a disorder in the 1960s and early 70s before the American Psychiatric Association (APA) declassified it as a mental disorder in 1973.

One can view this fact negatively or positively. Anti-psychiatry figures tend to uphold it as alleged evidence that psychiatry is a sham. Meanwhile, supporters of psychiatry argue that science is always changing and evolving. And the fact that the APA made this positive change is evidence of its scientific credibility.

I tend to embrace the latter view, hoping that psychiatry will continue to grow and recognize not only spiritualities linked to major, established religions but also to those prayerful wildflowers, if you will, who are healthy, beautiful and doing good works but not adhering to any major religious group.

We need pioneers of the spirit who can see through all the varnish, hoopla and hypocrisy of organized religion. Otherwise there might not be any significant spiritual evolution for mankind.

With this in mind, the other day I saw a PBS article about an alleged psychiatric emergency in India. Something about the article struck me as incomplete but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

• Psychiatric Demands Jump as India Battles Mental Illness | PBS NewsHour | Dec. 29, 2009 | PBS: http://bit.ly/8wBbKb

Read and decide for yourself if perhaps the article is a bit hegemonic about the (implied) wonders of 21st century medical science and its associated worldview.

I just wanted to spell out some of the complexities around the oft misunderstood notion of spiritual warfare. There’s no unanimous agreement. For some, gods are demons while others say those very demons are gods.

And atheists might write off the whole gamut of religious deities as some kind of man-made security blanket or possibly hallucinations to be fixed with psychotropic medication, no matter how harmful the short or long term side effects of those medications may be.

This much said, I’d like to direct the reader to the article, Spiritual Warfare Study: Truth Cries Out. Please recall that Earthapages is about dialogue. This piece represents just one perspective among many in this largely unsolved yet important area of debate.

–MC

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Inkscape – another try

Playing around with INKSCAPE

Inkscape is freeware. I stumbled upon it last nite while looking for a good program for converting bitmap to vector images. I’m not sure if Inkscape can do this yet, but I found that it’s pretty impressive with text. So here’s a Merry Christmas message after playing around for a night. I’m sure competent masters could do much better with this great program. But here’s my first attempt.