SUPERSTITION MOUNTAINS

A V A T A R I N T e r n a t i o n a l. o r g A V A T A R I N T e r n a t i o n a l. o r g



CLASHES IN CONSCIOUSNESS


SUPERSTITION MOUNTAINS


It is important to try and see into the minds of those of our past, else we cannot understand what motivates them. We will not know how they were affected, and from there how the world was changed. This series deals primarily with the consciousness and spiritual understanding in the historical age of Jesus’ ministry, a time of superstition and the study of signs and portents, occult practices were common.

If we were to provide an example of the superstitious mind we could find none better than use of the number four. The number four was said to have powerful qualities. After all, there were four distinct seasons. Four same length sides makes a perfect square. There are four basic directions, and that a crossroads is essentially a plus sign within a square. While standing within the plus sign, the crossroads, you must make a choice of which of four ways to go. Furthermore, the plus sign fits perfectly within a square to form four interior squares which are also perfect. One could go on making such divisions, and thence end up with perfect four by fours each time.

If we take into account that the number four encompasses a totality, a completeness, we soon move into symbologies relating to redemption. This in turn relates to perfection or spiritual wholeness. It deals with the idea of a complete cycle much in the same way that other societies embraced the circle. The number four therefore relates to infinity, for it can be equally divided into infinitude, and even with the smallest divided portion remaining that portion is still connected to the whole.

Realize people actually lived within the physical world in the manner above described. They understood getting lost, and then being found again once they enjoined the right road. They lived in this four-square world filled with various abstract mysticism, symbols, superstitions and the like. So the number four began to take on mystic qualities of its own-- that the number itself contained power. Probably numerology started in some such fashion. Man remained tied to these various symbologies because he had not progressed far enough in legitimate spiritual discovery.

Furthermore, this was the understanding which was passed down. Breakthroughs in science were not an everyday occurrence. No one had much in the way of expectation of some new knowledge discovered about the earth or the weather, for instance. So what they passed from generation to generation was pretty much what they had, and it did not change. This leads the mind into finding “secrets” that they believe tried and true for want of real knowledge.

If in later years we visit with Irenaeus we find his personal determination to give credence to only four gospels. At least this became part of the final resolution for him. Irenaeus represents a mind limited in man’s search for structure, the seeking for some way to “get a handle” on truth, a mind attempting confirmation of the new within an old structure. Perhaps this does not represent the new state of consciousness, Christianity, and how Christianity would need to be presented. It was a search for order in a world seemingly not ordered and not well understood, and in that way still reflected mankind’s old mentalities.

The larger point is that when little information or real workable knowledge is available the mind begins to fill these gaps with whatever seems reasonable at first take. Herein we see these roots of superstition. No longer is the practical study of “what do we do” when we reach this crossroads in life, which might be considered a legitimate study in wisdom, but now we have an offshoot teaching that explains the plus inside the square in terms of its own occult qualities. Today we might look at symbology within context. It then becomes a fair enough study as far as it goes. However, back in the day this was considered the highest of studies within the arcane sciences-- numerology, astrology, signs, symbols and portents. Whole lives were changed by the seership of the numerologist, such were the commitments made to this form of consciousness and its attendant philosophies.

The backdrop of the superstitious mind still maintained itself as an underlayment in how man related to God. By reason of His magnificence there was also a reverence, but for what He could do to us, or allow to happen to us God became a fearsome prospect to say the least. Thus the need to “make magic”, the spawn of ritual and ritual behavior, the need to follow all the rules just right. The ritual, even though filled with superstition, could provide bonding within the group, and would command respect and reverence. The problem arrives when the reverence for the ritual is placed ahead of God Himself, and that this ritual will lend itself to power directly to and from God. In fact, it might be said that following the rules and fear of punishment was the only thing keeping man “inline” up to that time.

If we come forward in history we see a belief system that lends itself to the god of the Old Testament, and His power to be feared. Here there is little in the way of mitigating factor. Jews of their day could see that bad things happened, but in no way could understand why. Thence the questioning of whether God causes evil, or allows evil or does neither. These were fervent questions argued often, for the evil Romans one could readily see. Even in the midst of some surety with God there remained this fear of what God could do if he wanted, or that He would allow to happen. He could call down lightening from the sky and destroy you. Did not Old Testament calamity amply illustrate?

There is another important slant in the mentality of the times, and that was the clash between Roman political rule and what was previously only Jewish religious rule. For the Jew all of the order of his universe came from religious principles that then turned into law or social practice. Their society was organized around being religious, and thence for them order emerges from religion. The Roman consciousness was quite different. They did not have religious rule, they had military or direct physical rule. Order was established after a trial and error period in Roman history that then became the practical way to administer conquered lands. There was no order from a god above, unless a Caeser took that role for himself. There were no set rules as such. In fact, the senate and the various dictators set the rules, and those rules might change.

This was more than difficult for the Jews. Suddenly the political arm of the Jewish hierarchy was on a kind of par with the religious hierarchy. Rome would not deal in religious matters unless required. Therein, there was only one way to deal with the Romans, and that would be politically. The individual day to day experience may not have changed, still, the Jewish religious world was overseen by a powerful force, the Romans. This would diminish the Jew as a religious entity, and was a deep root of contention, even fury, that resided in the breast of most Jews. This rub had already existed beyond one generation, a true bondage considered of the most heinous sort, a bondage that could not be tolerated. The Zealots were already assassinating Jewish leaders whose dealings with the Romans they considered anathema. Other rebel groups attacked Roman patrols.

Where was our God that would set us free? How long must we wait, oh Lord, for thy deliverance?


These were the times Jesus lived in. To say it was a “time fraught with danger” would be trite. With Rome it was obey or die, and the death would not be pleasant. Those of the Maccabean revolt, and later the Zealots, were captured and crucified. How would you like to see your neighbor, or brother, hanging from a cross? Within Jewish society the impact cannot be overemphasized.

This is one reason why Jesus was confrontational to the Sanhedrin hierarchy. On the one hand they were “doing business” with the Romans both politically and socially. With the other hand they were reducing the temple to an establishment for money changers.

When one grasps the confrontations involved then the power of Jesus as a focal point later in his ministry is better understood. Jesus essentially confronted everyone on almost every level. He confronted every superstition and every ritual. He was a true revolution in consciousness, not only what he said and did, but himself even as person. He himself was the revolution.

Even so, by contrast if we view Jesus as an “advent in consciousness”, not counting his identity for the moment, we see this blazing light of godhood, this bolt of lightening thrown in the middle of Jewish and Roman circumstance. The fact that what he taught was nothing less than changing the world from a place of retribution through vengeance into a world that sees redemption through forgiveness, spirit empowered change and love, we begin to view the absolutely astounding revelation Jesus presented.

At this time in history there could not have been a more revolutionary consciousness. The scripture concerning the Roman centurion (Mt. 8: 5) is brought to mind, as it is he who comes to Jesus and asks that his soldier be healed. Jesus says he will go to the man. The centurion replied, “Just as I give orders and my men obey, so you may order and I know the act is done.’” Even a Roman centurion understood the spiritual authority of Jesus. What an incredible light must have been carried by Jesus for even a Roman centurion to respond.

This kind of spiritual authority was unheard of. When we see this kind of authority the deminishment of superstion and reliance on ritual must occur, and essentially a whole new order of consciousness and event will take its place. Thus there later emerged the many judgments against Jesus, all born out of superstition, born out of a flesh drenched in ritual, unending rules, power and power grabbing, conflict between Pharisee and Sadducee, of which Jesus threatened the authority of both. Jesus incarnated against this backdrop of mankind’s lack of development, and it is they who could not grasp. In short, what Jesus prepared was The Way to propel the mind of mankind out of superstition, out of nature worship, out of believing in talismans, out of the dark spirit of religiosity, attempting to draw man forth with a new wisdom and a performance.

This wheel that Jesus begins to turn is begun with a first time message-- love instead of suspicion, forgiveness instead of vengeance, assistance instead of casting against others. Nor was it only presented as a philosophy, which is the way the worldly mind would see it. It was a revealment of the nature of God. This revealment was backed up by action, performance within the context of a highly political environment, a volatile religious stage, and a social order which was beginning to buckle.

When we understand that the superstitious mind of man has always been one stumbling block to his spiritual evolvement, then we see that truth in any form, especially spiritual truth, will have to be proven out. The Jewish hierarchy believed in the superstition of their own control and power over others, not God’s true power. They had become lost within the ritual of themselves and all the rules and orders they had created. Jesus made this assault on superstition, to rid man of his superstitious mind and reveal the light of God. It was not only a direct spiritual revealment, it was a revealment that went right to the core of man’s beliefs, within and expressed without.

What would it take to accomplish this mission? What would be demonstrated to break this choking spirit against the Children of God? What fracture in the superstitious mind would have to be cracked so that mankind would be launched out of this spiritual miasma? Would the ministry take only a new pathway of philosophy whose efforts would be expended always trying to convince? Or, would it be a newly revealed form of god-understanding, an enlightenment that would have the power to break this mold encasing man in ignorance? It became clear that pathway, The Way as it was later known, would have to arrive with astounding consciousness and power.

*See Faith and Ritual, or continue in this series.
Copyright Avatar International, llc, 2006.


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