But then ... I confronted yet another OCD moment generated by a dumb re-tweet:
"You shall move forwards the moment you cannot accept failure any longer, for success comes to he who accepts nothing less."
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| The Grammar and Spelling Psycho Police Squad |
See, now - THAT was "italic". But to continue: ARGH! No, no, no, no!!! The word is FORWARD! FORWARD! FORWARD! Singular, singular, singular! [BLAM! BOOM! KER-SPLAT!!] [Pause] [Blink] [panting heavily] Hey, what happened to "she"?
Back to business. I seem to have run off in a hundred different directions lately ... at the moment, I’ve just finished reading Graham Phillips’ The Marian Conspiracy, not because the topic has much to do with the direction of this blog, but more because every once in a while, a good old-fashioned "whodunit" conspiracy theory is entertaining.
Unfortunately, this wasn’t all that entertaining. Completely lacking in logic (you have no idea), filled with wild guesses, haphazard and bizarre suppositions, and historically inaccurate and ludicrous leaps of fancy passing for reason. Among the many problems with the book: he never even addresses any of the other "conspiracy theories" – such as the "ben Pantera" story, or the other Mary’s – i.e., the Joseph of Arimathea and Mary Magdalene story. In the blink of an eye, we jump over to England where he announces he has located the resting place of King Arthur, so it appears he’s trying to wrap up every myth in Western Europe.
Has anyone ever looked at a map? He’s trying to tell us that Joseph of Arimathea with Jesus’ mother Mary in tow (keep in mind the woman had to be in her 50’s or thereabouts) jumped into a small boat, rowed the entire length of the Mediterranean Sea, through the Pillars of Hercules, up the Atlantic Ocean, past all of France, Spain and Portugal, rowed past the mouth of the English Channel, up the western shores of England and sidled up to a wild, unfriendly island off the coast of a country that we now know as Wales?
WHY?? Just because Romans were unhappy with the irritating new cult of christians? Hell, christians have managed to irritate everyone (when they weren’t slaughtering them) since Day One , so if relocating to Wales was the answer, the island would have sunk into the sea by now from the population overload. What, the two of them couldn’t have moved to a village where no one knew them? (I had the same question when it was theorized that Joseph traveled all that way with Mary Magdalene. And she was relatively young.)
One fully expected the author to leap to his feet and declare that – eureka! - he had also solved the mysteries of the Loch Ness Monster, Area 51 and Mothman while he was at it. His big proof for Mary being buried in Wales? An ancient tombstone slab with the astrological sign for Virgo on it, despite the fact that ten to fifteen years after the crucifixion – an estimated time of death for her - no one on the planet gave her a moment’s thought, or thought she was a virgin at the time of his birth. This virginity thing was wholly an invention of the church, quite some time later.
Really. By the last paragraph you’re banging your head on the nearest hard surface in frustration.
So next: Sephir Yetzirah (or The Book of Formation). This text, written somewhere between the 3rd and 6th centuries, was somewhat misrepresented at first as another medieval text on the creation of the earth (much like Genesis), but is more a reflection of the creation of the Kabbalah. Maybe they’re the same thing, but this is the first text I’ve read where a Creator is actually defining the parameters of the Universe – bringing the Universe into being and setting its borders, that is - with musical sounds and letters.
Another coincidence of belief. I tend to think there is something to the musical sounds. Going back to my first mention of my dream about the Sea of Octagons – the Soul Nursery – the other thing I mentioned was the music. Thursday, December 6th:
"I’ve written the first seven sets of verses, which, in my theological world, began with a dream. Difficult to explain: an endless field of octagons, brightly lit from within, moving gently, and within each, twin souls, wrapped around each other, like a "yin" and a "yang" symbol, but not exactly. The souls were cared for, but I have no memory from that dream of anyone or anything beyond what I’ve described: a distant view of the nursery, the knowledge that I began there and the touch of my soul mate. This was my "memory" of a "soul’s nursery". I also remember the music in this dream, which could never be recreated, as it consisted also of sounds and notes which don’t exist in our world, so I can’t even describe them, other than to say that the sound was the very source of bliss."
Actually, I can describe it more accurately in words than in music. Picture a few bars from a beloved symphony on a page. Doesn’t matter which one. Now imagine that the page is transparent. The musical notes on that page don’t merely progress from left to right on a scale, there are also variations of those notes behind the notes you see on the clear page, and notes behind those notes, and on and on, to the far reaches of space. BUT – there are even more notes lifting off the page towards you (the viewer/listener), through you and past you. And – here’s the kicker – all of those infinite notes are in perfect harmony, with each other. Or at least, that was my understanding of what I was hearing, in that dream, a perfect symphony. Notes I’d never heard before; music I’d never experienced before. Blissful was the only way to describe my reaction to that music. No composer alive could recreate that sound – it vibrated all the way through you and made you whole. Now THAT I could believe (because I have never forgotten that awesome dream): that all of reality was created with the use of sound.
It seemed that perhaps the mystical arm of the Kabbalah had snuck its way into the old testament – primarily because when I started reading about the first emanation, I was reminded of, "In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God." (John 1:1) – followed by page after commentary page of (christian) nitwits annotating the sentence with the nonsense that the "word" behind the creation of the entire Universe was the "Good News of the Gospel" (riiiiiiight. Bet Buddhists and Hindus would be just thrilled to hear THAT!), which had to send everyone with a working brain up the walls, or with (jewish) nitwits insisting that anyone who interpreted the concept of evil in the kabbalah structure in any way but theirs were "heretics".
Source: www.learnkabbalah.com/evil_kabbalistic_views/
But you know me and my dead-eyed squint at the different ways people look at evil. I have very strong opinions about the sorts of things I consider to be "evil"; not everyone shares them. That doesn’t make me wrong and everyone else right, or the reverse – it means we differ on the definitions and examples of "evil"- who and what it is.
I am STILL trying to figure out what was so awful about incubi.
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