My Dream on May 31, 2009…

I had a dream this morning that I was in a graduate level class and the teacher, an angry, old Asian man, asked the class the mathematical formula for all existence. Mathematicians of every stripe tried to explain things, including Philosophers, but no one could answer his question. So right as everyone was starting to grab their coats and prepare to leave, I took the podium. I said that I would be brief, but to allow me to add something. The people graciously sat back down (with a slight grumble in the process, as I was the only Black person in the class and they seemed to tolerate me as some strange, exotic character that didn’t belong with them). I started to write on the board several symbols and explained what I meant by them, while qualifying to them that I was not a mathematician, but a Humanities scholar.

Part A: I wrote that what the teacher was calling “existence” I qualified as “Infinity,” and Infinity was comprised of dimension (length, width, height, depth), matter (fire, air, earth, water), and Ashe or “I and I” (the spiritual quotient in the formula suggesting the blessed presence of the divine spark in everyone).

Part B: I then explained that the inclusion of numerology (not necessarily numbers in any ordered sense) was also a part of the equation. I explained that instead of the number one, you only needed to include the number “one-ness,” or the essence of the number one, as well as the other numbers between 1 and seven (I’m not sure why I stopped at seven when we could’ve continued to thirteen, but I did…). Here, one meant Unity, the wholeness of all things that is the mysterious essence of all math. All things are related. Two meant duality, suggesting that all things on the lower planes of being had a light side and a shadow side. Three referred to the trintiarian process—or cycle of all life (creation, preservation, destruction—emphasizing that energy can never be destroyed, only changed, and that creation and destruction were secretly linked in such a fashion that one must always be witnessed in relation to the other); four referred to the base elements of fire, air, earth, and water, and how they comprised the vehicle to all things physical in this dimension; five referred to our senses and the manifested plane of being. Six referred to the quality of Completion in life, or, the notion that a process was completed while moving toward another. Seven referred to the quality of Perfection, referring to the seven levels of being within us all: one—the material being, two—the etheric, energetic aspect of ourselves, three—the emotional being, four—the mind aspect concerned with materiality, power, and gain. It is concerned with what can be literally described, controlled, and predicted. This is followed by the fifth—the aspect of mind that is concerned with spiritual truths that weave together opposing forces rather than separate. Six—the intuitional aspect of the self that quiets the “noise” of the lower planes of being and allows you to hear what’s always there, the ever-consistent “music” of an ever-present truth (in a song by rapper Bahamadia and poet Ursula Rucker entitled “Path to Rhythm,” a bonus track on Bahamadia’s first album Kollage, they refer to this as the ever-present rhythm of life that one must always struggle to remember and listen to…). And finally the seventh—the art of becoming one with the Cosmic Will. Here, you are submerged within the ocean of the All and function as a being of pure focused, illuminated energy. Contrary to popular assumptions, you don’t lose you personality, but it does “vibrate” at a higher frequency..

Part C: I then wrote that you must add the notion of Love and Grace to the formula, quotients that could not easily be perceived (although ever-present all throughout). Unconditional Love was the bonding agent that linked all elements of the formula together while Grace gave the formula the quality of never being predictable, in a sense, making it always correct despite having an infinite number of different answers to the same question. The two comprised the divine sex between mind, being, and essence, signifying the difference between the “quick fuck” of religious dialogue and the long love making of spiritual intimacy–you know, when the very notion of time becomes irrelevant (hey, it all made sense in the dream because people were taking maaaad notes!).

I then concluded with the formula “Part A x Part B + Part C = Self.” I said that our relationship to the formula was more important than the formula itself. This was because to understand it required that we disavow ourselves of our comfort with the predictability of mathematical computation (I think we also assume that purchasing products we see on TV will somehow make life more controllable and predictable too). “Divine Math,” as it were, computed the fluidity of truth, not just mathematically contrived answers. Anyway, the teacher was pleased, but took notes feverishly (I found out later that he asked the class not necessarily for our benefit, but because he was stuck and really wanted to know the answer for himself, and was only angered that the class would not say anything beyond trying to pander to his ego to get a good grade). Either way, at that moment I realized that I didn’t need the class anymore and left.

Although I’m sure you’ll come to your own conclusions as to what the dream could’ve meant (ranging from complete non-sense to deep truth), at the very least it seemed to mean to me that as the only Black person in the class in the dream (and having been dismissed regularly), that sometimes we know more than we think we know, and that as long you can feel the truth in your own thought process, you don’t need the approval of others. And sometimes, those that we put above ourselves aren’t as far beyond us as we think, and they need to hear your own special spiritual truth so that they can learn from you!

Peace & Blessings!

Spirituality and Cartoons: Can It Be?

Recently, I spent a holiday weekend watching, quite by accident at first, the complete series of the Nickelodeon-based cartoon Avatar: The Last Airbender. I must admit I was taken aback at the degree of spiritual symbolism involved, but I truly fell out of my seat when they started to define the seven major chakras and how to perceive them! In the thirty minutes of one episode (actually about 15 minutes if you focus on the part of the story where the chakras are concerned), they describe chakras as “pools of swirling energy in the body that can be blocked by emotional ‘gunk.’” This was, of course, accompanied by a visual of a bubbling brook that flows into seven pools of water (each of which was blocked by moss, and after having them removed they flow smoothly). They then took the Avatar through an initiation where he experienced all seven sequentially.

The first chakra, earth, located in the lower spine is said to be concerned with “survival” and is blocked by fear, so “have courage.” The second, “water,” located in the lower regions, is associated with pleasure and is blocked by guilt, so “forgive yourself.” The third, “fire,” located in the stomach is concerned with willpower and is blocked by shame, so “accept yourself as you are and find balance.” The fourth, “heart,” is concerned with love and is blocked by grief, so “allow love to be, wherever/however that may be.” The fifth, “sound,” is associated with the throat and is concerned with truth and is blocked by the lies we tell ourselves, so “be truth.” The sixth is “light,” found in the forehead (or third eye), is blocked by the illusion of separation and deals with the insight that everything is connected, “know that nothing is separated from you.” The seventh, “thought,” is found in the crown of the head and deals with cosmic energy and high consciousness and is blocked by earthly attachment, so “to achieve your highest self, leave attachments behind.” At this point, the Avatar finds himself floating in space and meeting his cosmic self, a glowing shadow of light with light for eyes. But instead of doing what he’s told, he chooses his attachments and ends his initiation–forcthat moment.

15 minutes. I experienced one of the most profitnd spiritual lessons about divine consciousness in a child’s cartoon that transcended any lesson I had ever heard in any church or mosque—in 15 minutes. I sat there in my chair, in a stupor, blown away.

I found it interesting that this was something you could find in popular culture—on TV no less! I hadn’t felt this enlivened by a show since first watching The Matrix! And yet, whenever I’ve gone to church, I never felt that there. I never felt it in any religious space I’ve been in, and I thought something was wrong with me because I never felt what it seemed others felt in those spaces (I can’t help but wonder how many people’s spiritual growth has been stifled because it didn’t fit into what was considered and acceptable experience). But I felt it nevertheless, and I couldn’t put into words the weight and breadth of the truth that I experienced. This made me wonder why such experiences are not more a part of the lexicon of Black spiritual remembrances (at least in media). When I think of Black worship practices on TV, I find that the dominant modes of expression are always limited to attending a Christian church. I couldn’t help but feel that two things have happened: our representation in media does not show the wide range of practices and approaches to spirituality in Black communities, and popular culture has further reinforced that church and blackness are synonymous, and to practice anything else puts you outside of acceptable notions of what it means to be Black.

I think this is just one reason we must push beyond the familiarity of our spiritual comfortability and ask new questions; or risk continuing to produce the same types of religious alienation, route dogma, and rampant Christonormativity that exists in many African American contexts. Strangely enough, it has become synonymous with American notions of blackness that you be Christian. So much so that people often walk up and ask what church you go to…and if you’re not a Christian, many assume that you must be an atheist, because the notion that you may have a non-traditional approach is not often considered (despite that globally speaking, more people of African descent practice Islam than anything else—albeit an Islam influenced by African cultural themes). Many forget that our spiritual worldviews need not all be limited to any religious form, let alone a past colonial impositions, and that the human experience’s only limitations are the ones we impose, so there’s no reason to limit our spiritual imagination to Western and Arab structures.* Furthermore, the use of European notions of Christendom (including images of Christ) are still being used to shape aesthetic, behavioral, and imaginative practices, despite that they have nothing to do with the advent of the religion.**

Ultimately, I try to urge people to engage what the rapper Common described when he said that he “choreographed seven steps to heaven,” in the song “Respiration,” Black Star (1998). Similar to the seven chakratic stages listed above, he refers to the path to divinity. The paths are not quite as important as the destination, as anything can be used to reach it, so feel free to employ your own experiences and imagination in the service of reaching your divine state, and let no one convince you that you can’t become one with the Most High unless you follow them. BE THE DIVINE, don’t ask someone else to take you to it. Ashe.

*To be clear, I understand that appropriated structures can still have meaning, so it’s not simply that they are European and Arab-based that I suggest that people move outside of them—and I also acknowledge that tradition has value—but rather that to prevent from creating route and empty practices, new approaches to spirituality can be a refreshing means of reintroducing ourselves to the reality of spirit.

** Here, the imagination is not often considered a viable part of the spiritual experience. In fact, we often sacrifice it in an attempt to fit in and become “mature.” For example, I have a few old acquaintances that, in order to “grow up” and be seen as “respectable,” find religion within the confines of Christianity (more so than any other religion) once they hit 30. Once here, the outlook on other religions, especially newer ones, are dismissed and looked down on, suggesting that only if a religion has been around a few thousand years should it be seen as viable (but non-European practices that go back further than Christianity are also dismissed, such as in the case of Kemetic practices).

“Genuine-ness” and the Riddle of Immortality…

One of the interesting things about Ancient Mystery Systems is that they are comprised of so many different and complex areas. Interestingly, many of these sub-areas are publicly known, but have been superficially redefined to suit the popular imagination. Astrology, for example, has been redefined as a quick-hand way to assign characteristics to a wide berth of people based solely on when someone was born—and by extension, determine whether someone is good enough to say, marry. Yet, despite Dionne Warwick, the ancient focus on the Zodiac had more to do with scientifically coordinating farming practices, astronomical occurrences (the ebb and flow of the Nile River), and the great procession of the seasons. Simultaneously, it was used to describe the 12 stages for which the soul was said to progress before returning to its inherently divine ‘’source.” It is said that the soul manifests on the plane of manifestation through Aries and descends through the next five signs, only to begin the ascent through Libra and progress through Pisces to transcend back to the Celestial plane. This unending loop, best illustrated by the Kemetic (Egyptian) “Ankh” (also a symbol for birth, death, and rebirth—or a woman’s womb—symbolizing the same concept), actually signifies the “movement” of the soul through stages of experience. Each sign signified a different vibrational worldview, meaning that the influence of the energetic/gravitational influence of the solar system on human physiology produced distinct characteristics for each stage of astronomical movement:

Aries signified “I Am”
Taurus “I Have”
Gemini “I Think”
Cancer “I Feel”
Leo “I Will”
Virgo “I Serve”
Libra “I Balance”
Scorpio “I Desire”
Sagittarius “I See”
Capricorn “I Use”
Aquarius “I Know”
Pisces “I Believe”

Whether one agrees with the use of astrology or not, it is interesting to note how certain practices are addressed in popular culture in contrast to more esoteric contexts. It is in this light that I question many contemporary perceptions of ancient practices. Are they ever about the practices themselves or are they more about contemporary fetishes regarding particular “pasts?” In other words, would Black imaginings about Ancient Africanity be the same without slavery and white supremacy? I ask because if one plans to study the Mysteries, one should be genuine in their interest, forsaking historical fantasies in order to focus their attention on the present.

But why is ”genuine-ness” relevant to the studies? There are a variety of reasons to be sure, but one reason has to do with the realization of immortality. Again, despite populate culture, immortality does not have to do with living forever in a mundane sense. Rather, it has to do with a full realization of what we can term ‘The Now.’ Realizing that you can see through the illusion of time, the transitory nature of momentary problems, the limitations of sensory perception, and the assumption of self-importance (in terms of perceiving life from the standpoint of the ego). Immortality has far more to do with the grasping of the fullness of being, as connected to all that is. It is in that state of realization that one experiences fullness…the state where time has no meaning except that which you give it; where the smallest of things is directly linked to the very fabric of all things; where one can realize both one’s incredible importance (and one’s simultaneous, self-deluded, sense of over-importance) within human existence. This realization provides an opportunity for you to realize that when you die, you rejoin (both physically and energetically), all that ever was/is/will be. Although you never truly separate from life, you still rejoin it-or at least you can now recognize it. THIS is immortality. That you are already one with the all, and in that sense you will always be.

I experienced my realization while snorkeling in Hawaii, off of the coast of Kauai. I recall stopping at a certain point, watching the sun go down and floating alone in the ocean (by this time I had strayed a good distance away from the ship) while staring at the peaks of island/mountains that extended toward the sky out of the ocean. In that moment, I wondered how many creatures lived and died in the very water I floated in. I thought about how many times the sun set over that ocean, and how easy it has been to lose the awe of nature when living in an urban environment. In that moment, I understood that one day I would die. I also realized I would “live” forever–through nature.

Genuine-ness is important in this process because it helps maintain a sense of grounded-ness in the face of such grand realizations. It is like the anchor that keeps you centered, and it is the means for fully experiencing what Dr. Alfred Ligon described as the ‘’seven-fold constitution of man.” He argued that each of us has seven vibrational characteristics. A physical, an etheric, an emotional, a lower mental, a bridge from such sensory perceptions to the more abstract aspects of our being, a higher mind, an intuitional, and a divine-cosmic being. Rather than memorizing each of these and spitting them out in discussions to sound informed, one can only realize each of these only by being genuine. Thus, it is though a realization of the various aspects of one’s self, a re-evaluation of immortality, and an appreciation for the subtle art of being genuine that one can discern between the popular and the value of what the popular distorts.

Peace.

 

Atheism & Divinity: Zeitgeist, Atheism, and Contemporary New Age Esoterism

I’ve recently begun using a series of texts in my classes to engage the ancient underpinnings of contemporary religious practices, and I’ve found that some of my students had adverse reactions: first, some were surprised that Africa was the source of much the astromythological fodder from which the world’s three major religions stem; second, much of the information we read about in a short few weeks extended beyond what they had been told growing up; and third, that after watching the film Zeitgeist (particularly the portion on religion), they felt there must be no other way to make sense of such esoteric lore but to have two extreme reactions. They either held onto their religious faiths–although now they had questions that few in their churches could answer–or dismissed religion altogether. There was little room for a third alternative.

In truth, as much as I’ve appreciated the cogent, illustrative argument of the film Zeitgeist, I was left with a conflicted feeling after each viewing. I slowly became aware that for many, esoterism had little difference from abject Atheism, especially since they both denounce literalist religious practices. Although the seeming similarity between metaphysical and atheistic arguments is not often discussed wholly, the differences could not be more polaric. But still, how do you explain such differences to students? How do you explain an experience to a class? Either way, I had to, as I noticed that some of my students seemed to leave that night feeling that they were spiritually alone. More than just alone, they felt alone in their very existence as human beings. Some even went so far as to question whether they were no more than an accidental by-product of the universe. In my capacity as a scholar and teacher, it would be unprofessional to share my beliefs with them explicitly, so instead I chose to share a variety of alternative perspectives, hoping that one would be a resource to them.

I let them know that many of the works referenced in Zeitgeist (such as works by Kersey Graves, Joseph Campbell, Gerald Massey, Archarya S, or Albert Churchward) were not all written as atheist works. In fact, many argued that the Mystery of reaching one’s full human potential could be understood through the allegorical exegesis of sacred symbolism, numerology, and astrology. In this fashion, they weren’t denying the existence of a supreme being per se, but rather challenging conventional religiosity to find “God” beyond belief.

The complication with writing about esoterism is that it is, in principle, an experience of ecstasy that can only be referenced through a preponderance of signs–whether they are scripts or anthropomorphic glyphs. In other words, mystical writings refer to what must be experienced rather than what can be easily conveyed through discussion. Here, I sought to explain that God is not a separate being who can only be accessed through a set book, series of rituals, or gestures. Such a relationship is not dependent upon any denomination, church, or religion. It is the most primal relationship there is, and only requires a letting go of all pretenses rather than a piling on of any particular knowledge. More so, that because such boundaries between humanity and The Sublime are self-imposed, they are already, indeed, the Divine they seek. But to tell Black folk that they are God is to invite the fallout of a particularly devastating history of cultural, religious, political, economic, and psychological violation. Such ideas can easily be perverted, leading to a series of “Daddy Riches” (a la Richard Pryor in Car Wash) that would no doubt find new ways to exploit people. In the worst case scenario, people would lose all sense of decorum, as the loss of superstitious dependency might be jarring.

Despite the proclamations of the Nation of Gods and Earths (and by extension their progenitors The Nation of Islam), godhood is only the beginning. The difficult ground ahead for Black occultists (particularly neophytes) would be to grasp the day-to-day reality of new millennium godhood, and that is—a la the Matrix’s credo “there is no spoon…,” there is no godhood. There is no conventional God. In fact, there is no humanity either. To be clear, the binary between humanity and divinity posed by Western Christianity is illusory in itself. Such expressions are constructed to make sense of the daunting awe of existence, but in truth, they belie an esoteric truth: RULES ARE MADE TO BE BROKEN. Or more so, that rules are made to be transcended. Thus, to reach one’s full potential in body and spirit—another illusory binary since all is energy, and the only difference between matter and spirit is the rate at which each vibrates—the ego must be subdued through expanded consciousness. All popular notions of God, godhood, human potential, etc. must be re-imagined and experienced anew. Thus, to “be” god, a being that fully grasps the interrelated and ever-changing nature of existence on multiple levels of being (animal/mineral/plant, fire/air/earth/water, magnetic/atomic/nuclear, etc.), is to cease trying to be anything but the fullest expression of who you are. As Morpheus once said, “There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.”

Why Black Gnosticism?

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Since I began studying Black Gnostic practices, I have often wondered why such groups choose Gnosticism. Out of all of the things they could’ve chosen to identify with–why Gnosticism? In the latter half of the 19th century and the onset of the 20th, Gnosticism in antiquity has become a hot ticket item that has come to mean nothing coherent or consistent. Yet despite such inconsistency, it has become generally accepted that Gnosticism was an ancient set of practices stemming out of the early period of the Christian development in the Middle East and in North East Africa. Informally, during Christianity’s early stages, the differences between what Cornel West identifies as “Constantinian Christianity” and “Prophetic Christianity” were quite telling (although here, “Christianities” would be a more appropriate term). In this sense, there was very little difference between Gnostics and others because most Christians were more “Gnostic” in their orientation than not. In other words, Christianity wasn’t formally established, so experimentation was more the standard than anything else. It was primarily during the rise of Constantine and the Nicean conferences that such formalization began.

In their book The Jesus Mysteries, Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, however, describe the origins of Christianity in a uniquely different way. They argue that Gnosticism is a product of Ancient northeast African influence. More specifically, they argue that Egypt’s influence predominated religious discourses from Africa, to the Middle East, to early Europe, to east Asia’s shores. They and such historians as Gerald Massey, Kersey Graves, John Henrik Clarke, Joseph Campbell, Ben Jochanan, and filmmakers such as Peter Joseph of the famed internet film Zeitgeist generally argue that Egyptian astro-theo-mythological narratives influenced other societies, but did so in a unique fashion. They did not promote the overt worship of Ausar (Osiris) in, say, Greece, but they did influence groups to interpret their cosmology from their own contexts. Here, Attis of Greece is a representation of Heru (Horus), as is Krishna of India, Mithra of Persia, and later Jesus the Nazarene. Freke and Gandy further argue that Jesus is merely the Hebraic interpretation of what they call the “Osiris/Dionysus Godman,” or Heru, a concept they argue has been transplanted across the eastern world and used as a form of ancient theological discourse (in a sense, each “god” and “goddess” was a particular argument about the nature of existence, not a mythical figure to be taken literally). They further suggest that such reinterpretations were not only common, but provided iconic/mythic vehicles for articulating advanced ideas about Egyptian scientific, astrological, and mythological concepts. Yet a more basic question might be–why? One reason Freke and Gandy pose is that Egyptian (or Kemetian) theology provided a means for translating the potential of human development in a monotheistic context (the term theology is not wholly accurate because such divisions were not differentiated from religion, economics, and politics as they are in a western cultural context). Monotheism provided an overarching concept of the divine, but it was uniquely Egyptian that the notion of the divine would openly engage an anthropomorphic idea of the god-being. Factoring in that Egypt is said to have been produced by societies in central and even southern Africa centuries before it reach the northern edge of the Nile River in northeast Africa, it can be argued that the anthropomorphic symbolism of Egypt stems from philosophies that far exceed the timelines we’ve constructed for its development. In fact, the astrological charts that Egyptians developed and employed may suggest centuries of research, re-evaluation, and examination prior to the advent of Egypt itself!

To further complicate matters, the anthropomorphized godman, according to Freke, Gandy, and Marc Edmund Jones (Occult Philosophy), was an archetypal script for articulating complex notions the Self (and the various levels of the Self that comprise all existence), the physical realms of energy that comprised the godforce on a physical plane (magnetism, heat, light, etc.), mathematical and scientific concepts, and the potential for all beings to achieve the full expression of human possibility-godhood. In this way, each god and goddess was, in itself, an assertion about a specific vibrational level of existence. In other words, ideas about space, time, being, infinity, and manifestation are articulated in the pantheon of Kemetic divinity.

It is this tradition that has been transliterated into contemporary Christianities, despite that it is not commonly taught as such. Early Christian practices generally required the support of a master teacher or elder initiate. Yet at a critical juncture when Christian Gnostics–whom Freke and Gandy argure preceded Christian conventionalists–were often killed in an effort to use the religion as an extension of the burgeoning Catholic state of Rome, the religion was spread by the uninitiated throughout the rural areas of the Middle East. Able to articulate the narrative of Christ’s life with his disciples (a fantastic story that attracted people in droves), the esoteric aspect of the early religion was gradually buried beneath the narratives of the largely uneducated–but faithful–converts. Over time, as practitioners became clerics of Rome and no longer the persecuted converts of a deviant religion, they sought to dismiss anyone that practiced what was considered Gnostic heresy (an irony considering that the early “church” was quite non-traditional in its own right).

Yet the only consistent feature of Gnosticism was its lack of consistency. Gnosticism, and by that I mean in spite of how people have perceived Gnosticism since the late 19th century, was actually quite syncretic, and was not the antithesis to Christianity we now tend to think it was. In this sense, it is fitting that a group of spiritual theorists in the Los Angeles area would use Gnosticism as a base for interrogating new modes of perception and practice. In fact, as the potential for new ideas becomes apparent in this new age, the choice of Gnosticism as a moniker for this type of theoretical inquiry proves to be quite ingenious…

What is Black Gnosticism?

Originally posted on Saturday, February 16, 2008

I have been researching Los Angeles-based Black Gnostic communities since 1992 and have garnered some unique perspectives regarding religion, cultural worldview, and human potential, many of which have yet to be properly acknowledged in a large-scale sense. Here, you have a group of predominantly Black social and religious theorists that have been studying under two unique progenitors, Drs. Alfred and Bernice Ligon, since 1943. Influenced by esoteric practices in freemasonry, Rosicrucianism, Black Christian practices, Buddhism, astrology, Islam, Confucianism, amd Catholicism (among other influences), The Aquarian Spiritual Center employed a complex curriculum and lesson-dessemination system to define, frame, and shape the study of metaphysicality from an Africana context in Los Angeles.

In the late 1960’s and 70’s, a new generation of Black Power activists filled the small grassroots metaphysical think-tank. They pushed for a more African-centered approach to the study, and Black Gnosticism was more clearly defined. Using a combination of works by authors such as George G.M. James, Kersey Graves, Gerald Massey, Dane Rudyar, Levi Dowling, and many more, Aquarian metaphysicians attempted to define a mode of spiritual reflection void of the religious dogmatism they encountered in the churches in which they grew up.

Although the Aquarian Center no longer functions in any central location, the Aquarian community is as busy as ever. It is my hope to use this blog to study Black Gnosticism and its impact on a grassroots global scale.

Peace,
Dr. T. Hasan Johnson