Recently, as those who read my blog already know, I’ve been going back through and revising the portions of Scripture I compiled for “The Practice of the Way,” but I’ve picked up and learned more since making those initial, very rough translations from the Greek texts. In particular, I’ve read and become far more familiar with Near Death Experience studies, the first century Stoic philosophers, “cross-religious” mysticism, and I’ve become more familiar with current consciousness studies, theories, and worldviews, in addition to familiarizing myself with the underlying mechanics of what would be considered more “New Age” energy work, muscle testing, and even some energy healing. Reading through Paul’s writings again in Greek and comparing these things to what he wrote has led me to some really fascinating ideas and conclusions.
I realized something when working through revising Colossians. In Stoic philosophy, as in many philosophical or even religious systems, every human being is or contains a share or a "fractal" of the Logos who Himself or Itself is identified with the God and is the firstborn of the God, and the same with the Pneuma. Similarly in New Age systems of thought, born from both an older Hindu tradition as well as modern quantum mechanics and theory, all human consciousness is in fact a part or "fractal" of the one single, overarching, “big-C” Consciousness.
I realized this morning that when Paul talks about the "Body of Christ" of which all are body parts, and instructing the Colossians to seize or grab tightly to the Head of the body, which is Christ, he is literally using virtually the same language and saying the same thing about human beings and Christ as the Stoics were saying about human beings and the Logos, and for that matter, a similar concept to what modern "New Agers" and in particular NDE experiencers report about the relationship of the human consciousness to the "Source Consciousness." That is, we are all a part of the same Consciousness with Christ, the Logos, or however you wish to name Him as the functional Head or command center of that Consciousness.
Thinking again about where it says in Romans 6, "The person who died has been made right from the malfunction," as it relates to the aftereffects experienced by people who have had Near Death Experiences or literal "Death Experiences" and have returned to life (something about which I wrote and explained more in depth in a previous blog post). That is, people who have literally died for a period of time (sometimes quite extended) with either brain death, the stopping of the heart, or both, and resuscitated (or resurrected). The thought which occurred to me is that this is literally a mechanic of death and resurrection regardless of how it happens. That is, a disengagement from one's malfunctioning responses and engagement with the Spirit is a natural and normal result of death and resurrection as is evidenced by people who have had NDEs and consistently display a greater love, joy, peace, compassion, loss of a fear of death, a greater interest in spiritual things, a greater sense of connection with God, and even paranormal or supernormal abilities regardless of the belief system they started with.
The insight I had this morning about this has to do with “energy work,” “energy healing,” sending positive or loving “vibrations” energetically to another person and so on, all of which can have observable and even measurable effects on the “target” depending on who is doing it and how it is being done. The way a sacrament is supposed to work, theologically speaking, is that it requires the express intention of both the person performing the sacrament and the person receiving it, and that it requires the belief of both parties that what is said to take place is taking place. And I can’t help but think this is very similar to the description of what happens with the energy work among New Age practitioners. Also, while in modern churches, even the Roman Catholic Church, anyone can technically baptize and the baptism considered to be valid, in the ancient church, especially the first couple of centuries, this wasn’t the case. Baptism and Eucharist were only to be done by specific people using specific rites or techniques. While today that seems divisive and outdated, what if it wasn’t meant that way? What if the reason why only certain people were permitted to do it was because these were the people who were actually properly trained and capable of doing it in such a way as to have the originally intended effect?
Paul makes it very clear in Romans that those who are baptized into Jesus Christ are joined to His death and resurrection. Throughout his letters, he uses this same language and is so adamant about the baptized person’s inclusion into the death and resurrection of Christ it forms the basis of all his other instruction and teaching, appealing to it frequently, as the proper functional source of the Christian disciple’s behavior as opposed to his own malfunctioning flesh. My thought is that this was no metaphor or mere initiation rite. The rite of baptism was initially meant to energetically put or place or entangle the person into Christ’s own death and resurrection or resuscitation experience and in so doing induce the aftereffects of an NDE within the baptized person without actually having to stop that person’s heart. In so doing, that person would experience the death of the ego, the loss of the fear of death, the experience of union with God/Source as part of the aforementioned Consciousness or Body of Christ, as well as initiating the documented paranormal abilities. And this had to be done by someone who knew how to energetically entangle that person (regardless of whether or not they understood the actual mechanics).
What if this was the whole reason Jesus Christ died on the cross and resurrected, so that those who chose to be His disciples could be freed, made right from their egos or their malfunctioning minds through grafting His death experience onto them through baptism without them having to physically die, so that they could experience those same aftereffects which are now reported by Near Death Experiencers? I've written many times before about Jesus' death not being about God being satisfied with blood in order to forgive. But this isn't that. This is about Jesus Himself as the Logos exploiting what is perhaps a mechanic of a physics we don't really understand in order to provide a solution to our human malfunction.
If this is the case, this understanding would have a great deal of explanatory power on a number of level regarding not only what Paul wrote about, but also the experiences of people within the NDE and New Age communities about a number of things.
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