A Perverted Arena

      When Perennialist Seer-Masters enter the arena of spiritual discord they discover that the entire field has been perverted by orthodox religious dogmas within Christianity and Islam. Tyrannical Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox Christianity adopted the absurdities of the Hebrew Religion in believing that Jehovah, the demonic Hebrew god, imposes evil civil rulers over Jews and Christians because of their infidelity.

Daniel 4: 17    "The Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the basest of men."

   Yahweh was seen as the kind of deity that operates by "using tyrants as a sword in his own hand, to punish or correct an offending people." ³

In Doing Battle Against Non-Believers and the Iniquitous, Thus Sayeth Yahweh 1 Samuel 15: 3: "Go now and put Amalek to the sword, putting to the curse all they have, without mercy: put to death every man and woman, every child and baby at the breast, every ox and sheep, camel and ass." Hosea 13: 16: "Samaria will be made waste, for she has gone against her God: they will be cut down by the sword, their little children will be broken on the rocks, their women who are with child will be cut open."

      When Jesus of Nazareth was turned into a deity by the Constantine-dominated Council of Nicea in 325 CE, he was seen as "using" evil persons to punish back-sliding Christians and non-believers.

"Although Jesus may not yet be sitting on the throne of David in Jerusalem, nevertheless, Jesus has control and a unique way of working through others, even using tyrants and terrorists at times to accomplish His purpose (cf. Romans 8:28)."  ⁴

"Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. " The Good News According to John, 3:20

Perennialists Struggle Against Evil By Turning On It the Forces of Light
   Persons working within the Perennial Tradition struggle against evil with the Forces of Light: the Light of Truth, Goodness, Beauty, and Justice. They do not adhere to the perverted concepts of Holy Wars, nor believe in Yahweh or other evil deities wreaking vengeance on enemies of a "chosen people" (whether Hebrew, Christian, or Muslim).

    The image of the light of truth banishing the darkness of error was used as the frontispiece for the first volume of the British Anti-Jacobin Review, an engraving by James Gillray entitled "A Peep into the Cave of Jacobinism." "It depicts a woman wearing a banner on which is inscribed the word 'Truth.' Holding a torch in her hand, she enters the cave in which 'Jacobinism'--a creature that is half-human and half-snake-sits surrounded by books bearing the titles 'atheism,' 'ignorances,' 'anarchy,' 'sedition,' and 'libels.' The light from Truth's torch not only frightens the creature in the cave (causing its mask to pop off, revealing the hideous face beneath); its rays also cause the equally monstrous books surrounding the creature to burst into flames. What is striking about the imagery employed in the engraving is how familiar it is. Change the name of the creature in the cave to 'Jesuitism' and alter the titles on the books to 'fanaticism,' 'enthusiasm,' and 'prejudices' and the frontispiece could have been used on any number of Enlightenment journals." ⁵

     In the war we're fighting against terrestrial demonic forces, each of us has been given certain capabilities to use in helping humankind struggle against the persistent forces of ignorance, oppression, and murder. It's our responsibility to do what we can; and we're not to consider the fruits of our labor. The success or failure of our efforts is up to a Higher Power. It would be foolish to say, "I'm not going to struggle against the capitalist cabal and its political-economic puppets because people wouldn't listen to me anyway, and anything I could do wouldn't make any difference." Your duty is to do what you can with what you're given and forego egoistic attachment to any results you might expect as a reward for your efforts.

"The first application of wisdom is to accept opposition so in its entirety, so completely, that thereafter not one speck of attention power is ever wasted on it, except for the intellectual appraisement of its strength and the planning for control of its effect. "One of the most fundamental things about all the obstructive refuse you have to contend with, is that it has released its relationship with the ultimate source of life, and is cooling off and dying of decomposition. Once you realize and understand this, thoroughly, you will never be tempted to lose hope and give in. For with this engraved on your mind, it is impossible to entertain personal antagonism: you know too well the reason for things being the way they are. And once above personal antagonism, and aware of your own free power of relationship with the source, you find the way cleared for the bringing in of the fresh, healthy, over-laying material." Stewart Edward and Betty White, Across the Unknown

      Perennialist Seer-Warriors actively fight against demonic forces. In today's world of corruption, tyranny, and oppression, cowardly persons merely wring their hands and silently complain of their plight, instead of joining in the struggle against capitalist exploitation and fascist criminality. When they see Perennialist Seer-Warriors exposing the outrages, abuses, and lies of political and economic despots, they criticize the Seer-Warriors for being too negative, critical, and partisan.

    Many people have been conditioned to assume that depicting the current world situation in stark, forthright terms must betray a hateful, unrestrained, almost deranged mind-set. On the contrary, such blunt, candid depictions can be simply descriptive and involve no hatred or feelings of rancor or revenge, as we see in the lives of such exemplary persons as Socrates, Plato, Jesus, and Boethius, all of whom in their time spoke out forcefully against demonic forces.

    In joining with Perennialist Seer-Warriors, we must realize that we're engaged in a life-or-death struggle against the collective negative energy forces; this is not some polite academic debate! Anyone who attempts to hide this reality or cloak it in euphemisms is a part of the negative force. Persons who try to dismiss such stark depiction of current reality as paranoid conspiracy theory are agents of the collective negative energy field.

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." Martin Luther King, Jr.

    We must examine our present situation in all its stark reality--no matter how disturbing the spectacle. We must not mince words and call these monsters "well-intentioned" or "fearless" leaders. We must see them in all their hideousness if we're to grasp the critical necessity to change our entire economic-political-social-philosophical substructure.


Perennialists Struggle Against Evil By Revealing the Hidden Aspects of Reality
    The Perennialist Essence, its force and energy, is available to and operative for only those who have worked to attain the capability of apprehending and comprehending it. That is, you can only be a part of the Perennialist struggle against Evil if you work assiduously to understand the hidden elements within reality which must be made evident to all persons. Much of the destructive nature of present reality is hidden through deliberate lies and obfuscations of the capitalist kleptocracy. For example, the recent, so-called tax-update legislation does NOT benefit the working class to any appreciable degree; it is a tax-cut for the upper, rich 20% of the US population.

    In emphasizing that we must work to achieve an "enhanced" perception or heightened state of consciousness in order to perceive and understand hidden aspects of reality, we are emphasizing the element of Perennialist esotericism.

"Esoteric knowledge can be given only to those who seek, only to those who have been seeking it with a certain amount of consciousness, that is, with an understanding of how it differs from ordinary knowledge and how it can be found . . . "This preliminary knowledge can be gained by ordinary means, from existing and known literature, easily accessible to all. And the acquisition of this preliminary knowledge may be regarded as the first test. Only those who pass this first test, those, that is, who acquire the necessary knowledge from the material accessible to all, may hope to take the next step, at which point direct individual help will be accorded them. A man may hope to approach esotericism if he has acquired a right understanding from ordinary knowledge, that is, if he can find his way through the labyrinth of contradictory systems, theories and hypotheses, and understanding their general meaning and general significance. This test is something like a competitive examination open to the whole human race, and the idea of a competitive examination alone explains why the esoteric circle appears reluctant to help humanity. It is not reluctant. All that is possible is done to help men, but men will not or cannot make the necessary efforts themselves. And they cannot be helped by force." Ouspensky, A New Model of the Universe, 1931

    The essence of reality is visible only to those persons who have worked to attain the capability of discerning it, as in the case of Plato's revealing the hidden essence of human life and in the case of the stereogram below. (If you cannot see the 3-D element, click on the image for an explanation of what it looks like in three-dimensional view.)

    Stereograms provide a metaphor for experiencing phenomena that possess a hidden essence. Once we discern the essence of a particular phenomenon, we can then bring its essence to the foreground. The experience of stereograms shows that we have a "normal" mode of awareness and the potential for an "enhanced" mode of awareness, which must be brought to realization through specific effort. The "enhanced" mode of awareness allows us to see the 3-D aspect of stereograms.

    In a similar way, we come to understand that we possess normal perception of political-economic-social-philosophical reality and the potential for "enhanced" perception and the attainment of a heightened state of consciousness, both of which must be attained through specific effort. "Enhanced" perception and heightened consciousness allow us to see the hidden aspects of reality, as in the case of Plato's allegory of the cave.

We are able to attain awareness of hidden aspects of reality when we come to understand that the Perennialist Essence has a discriminating intelligence of its own.     The Perennialist essence is a force of an extra-ordinary nature. It can emanate between two persons working within the Perennialist Tradition.

   By working to make contact with the Perennial Essence--including ordinary information from Perennialist sources--we can also see through the false facade of specific entities (persons, objects, and events) to the essence. In this time of peril, when the capitalist class is hoodwinking, looting, and murdering the working class, it's absolutely essential that we "see through" the facade to the reality.

Click on images

   Perennialists expose the truth about evil and malicious events and persons. At times, the Perrenialist struggle against evil takes the form of revealing in stark terms how a partially positive element (person, object, or event) has been perverted by malevolent forces. This is the case with the American revolution--a predominantly progressive operation--which was turned into a reactionary substitution of British oligarchical rulers for American oligarchical tyrants such as John Adams and Alexander Hamilton.

   Perennialists also do battle against the forces of evil by revealing the supernal radiance of eternal Forms: Goodness, Understanding, Commonwealth, Dialectic, and Truth.

    One of the truly amazing features of the Perennialist Essence is that it can act on a part or the entirety of an entity (person, object, or event) and can therefore be evinced in part or in whole. This means that you can discover specific persons or groups or part of a person or group that possesses a definite, discernibly extraordinary ⁶ quality--often in the most unlikely of places.

    In my own experience, I was surprised and pleased to meet and work with several extraordinary persons when I served as chairman of the Artificial Intelligence Department at the U.S. Army War College from 1993 to 1995. I had expected to meet persons of high competence and skill, but I was more than gratified to discover several brilliant persons, outstanding in terms of understanding all facets of the complex situation of the Army War College and exceptional in terms of moral integrity.

    I experienced the courage of one of these extraordinary persons when a misdeed was about to be done to me and this Army officer went up against his fellow officers to right this wrong.

    This aspect of the Perrenialist Essence means that in the Perennialist struggle against agents and operations of evil we can discover unexpected allies and colleagues who are joined with us in our warfare.

"There exists in you, indefinitely developable, an engine of power, dynamically creative, capable of impressing and molding your material world according as you give out from your inner being in creative force." Stewart Edward White and Betty White, Across the Unknown

Notes:

¹ The Perennial Tradition is the secret legacy, the single stream of initiatory teaching flowing through all the great schools of genuine mysticism and true philosophy The Perennial Tradition is the hidden secret of human re-birth through initiation which has been transmitted through all the world's authentic mystical systems. Teachers such as Hermes, Plato, Jesus, Rumi, Francis of Assisi, and Shakespeare reformulated and reintroduced this single stream of esoteric wisdom in succeeding generations. This unitary line of teaching is adapted to the specific needs of the people of each historic era.

² When we look about us, there are so many diverse groups of persons perpetrating evil--capitalists; orthodox Christian, Jewish, and Muslim groups; Wall Street barricudas; royalty; politicians; and many others--that we must identify evil as coming from all these sources.

³ "The law and the testimony concerning slavery," American Reform Tract and Book Society, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1889

⁴ Elmer L. Towns, The Names of Jesus

⁵ Hans Blumenberg

⁶ Extraordinary: brilliant, outstanding, well above average, exceptional, deviating widely from a norm, positive, moving forward or in a direction of increase or progress, desirable, admirable, beneficial, optimistic, constructive