Quotes and Excerpts

"New Light" and other labels for today's mysticism

 Emphasis added

 

Leonard Sweet: Quantum Spirituality (e-book at http://www.leonardsweet.com/Quantum/quantum-ebook.pdf):

"A quantum spirituality challenges the church to bear its past and to dare its future by sticking its big TOE into the time and place of the present. ... Then, and only then, will a New Light movement of 'world-making' faith have helped to create the world that is to, and may yet, be. Then, and only then, will earthlings have uncovered the meaning... of the last words poet/activist/contemplative/bridge between East and West Thomas Merton uttered: 'We are already one. But we imagine that we are not. And what we have to recover is our original unity.'" (p.10)

 

"As a cosmion incarnating the cells of a new body, New Lights will function as transitional vessels through which transforming energy can renew the divine image in the world, moving postmoderns from one state of embodiment to another." (p. 38)

 

"Postmodern culture is hungry for the intimacy of psychospiritual transformations. It wants a 'reenchantment of nature.” It’s aware of its ecstasy deprivation. It wants to know God 'by heart.' [not by His Word] It wants to light an inner fire, the circulating force of divine energies flowing in and flowing out. The primal scream of postmodern spirituality is for primal experiences of God." (p. 56)

"Mysticism, once cast to the sidelines of the Christian tradition, is now situated in postmodernist culture near the center. In pram, the physics of David Bohm and Fritjof Capra are ways of responding to culture's having pushed it there. In the words of one of the greatest theologians of the twentieth century, Jesuit philosopher of religion/dogmatist Karl Rahner, 'The Christian of tomorrow will be a mystic, one who has experienced something, or he will be nothing.'... Mysticism... is metaphysics arrived at through mind body experiences. Mysticism, begins in experience; it ends in theology." (p. 76)

"A surprisingly central feature of all the world’s religions is the language of light in communicating the divine and symbolizing the union of the human with the divine: Muhammed’s light-filled cave, Moses’ burning bush, Paul’s blinding light, Fox’s 'inner light,' Krishna’s Lord of Light, Böhme’s light-filled cobbler shop, Plotinus’ fire experiences, Bodhisattvas with the flow of Kundalini’s fire... Light is the common thread that ties together near-death experiences as they occur in various cultures." (p. 146)

 

"Spirituality refers first of all to the universal gift of aliveness that exists within all religions and outside of religions.... 'In-spire' means to breathe in. 'Con-spire' means to breathe together.... The New Light movement begins as a fresh air conspiracy of 'aliveness.'" (p. 253) "Destructive, negative, constricting states of consciousness are caught as readily as creative, positive, expanding states of consciousness. All energy states are contagious." (p. 62)

 


The Higher Self Gets Down To Business

"Both intuition and visualization were central in the evolution of consciousness that [Willis] Harman envisioned. Gathering the philosophical, scientific, and paranormal wisdom of the ages, Harman developed a metaphysical vision of the planet in which business, as the emerging dominant power, would play a central role..... This ultimate destiny, in both New Business and New Age thought, requires a shift from rational thought to intuition. Cultivating this intuitive 'inner wisdom' means doing away with 'the belief in the limited extent of one's own ability to create what one wants,' as Harman wrote."


Looking for God in Harry Potter by John Granger (Tyndale House, 2004)

"Understanding the Harry Potter books as alchemical writing in the tradition of the English 'Greats' will explain otherwise bizarre events, plot turns, and names in the novels....

    "The alchemist, like all traditional or non-modern people, understood man to be essentially spirit (as man is created by the Spirit), then soul, then physical body.... His personhood or humanity he knew to be a joining of soul and body without seam—and his tragedy was that he was fallen, i.e., that he had lost his spiritual capacity or intellectus, by means of which Adam walked and talked with God in the garden. Alchemy was the means, in conjunction with the mysteries of the Church, by which he could regain this lost capacity. The substance changing from lead to gold was his soul, and the riches he would glean were spiritual riches—holiness and immortality.
     "It is essentially a super-conscious or spiritual work that happens through correspondence with archetypes that are above, not below, individual consciousness.
     "So what was alchemy? It was a traditional or sacred science, supporting the work of the revealed tradition and its means of grace, for the purification and perfection of the alchemist’s soul in correspondence with the metallurgical perfection of a base metal into gold....
     "Rowling clearly understands both 'alchemy in literature' and the 'alchemy of literature.' Her books satisfy the need in us, born in a profane culture without heroes or avenues of transcendent experience....

     "We get this experience in our identification with Harry, and we are better, more human even, for having been at least for a while in the alembic vessel, changing from spiritual lead to gold, dying and rising from the dead. In brief, Rowling’s novels are so popular because her works transform the human person via imaginative identification, catharsis, and resurrection." [Emphasis added]


New Thought, Swedenborg & Science of Mind

"Freemasonry -- 'more ancient than any of the world's living religions' according to Albert Pike -- continued the chain of the sacred Mysteries. Through an understanding of spiritual Reality and a dedication to Wisdom, Love and Service, the Master Masons attained 'supernatural' powers.... The race mind was beginning to feel the effect of this new Light of Understanding.


"By the 1800's esoteric philosophy and practical mysticism were moving across Europe and America like a tidal wave. The Transcendental Movement led by Ralph Waldo Emerson began in New England; the Metaphysical Movement was ushered in by Phineas Quimby; H. P. Blavatsky and Henry Olcott founded the Theosophical Society... the New Thought Movement blossomed through the work and teachings of Charles and Myrtle Fillmore (Unity "church").... Alice Bailey established the Arcane School; Rudolph Steiner formed the Anthroposophical Society; Paramahansa Yogananda founded the Self-Realization Fellowship; and out of the wealth of material in the Edgar Cayce files grew the Association for Research and Enlightenment -- to name but a few contributors to the New Age of spiritual unfoldment.

 

"It is now estimated that at least 25 percent of the population America is involved in some measure with what is considered Esoteric Philosophy or New Thought Religion....

 

"The Truth and the Law.... Your outer world of form and experience is a reflection of your inner world of thoughts and feelings. As above, so below. As within, so without. That is the Law."


Assemblies of God: Committed to Spiritual Formation, Contemplation and Emerging

"The first of these five untheorized observations is that New Light embodiment means to be "in connection" and 'in-formation' with other Christians. Deeper feeling and higher relating go together. The church is fundamentally one being, one person, a communion whose cells are connected to one another within the information network called the Christ consciousness.'" —Quantum Spirituality, p. 122

He [Leonard Sweet] goes on:

"Energy-fire experiences take us into ourselves only that we might reach outside of ourselves. Metanoia is a de-centering experience of connectedness and community. It is not an exercise in reciting what Jesus has done for me lately.

"Energy-fire ecstasy, more a buzz than a binge, takes us out of ourselves, literally. That is the meaning of the word 'ecstatic.'" Quantum Spirituality, P. 93

"This ecstasy Sweet speaks refers to the New Age ecstasy that occurs in an altered state of consciousness."


See also Universal Forums of Culture | Don't Be Deceived!

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