bread of life

o

MV: “Blake’s famous image of Jacob’s ladder, with Jacob asleep on the ground and then the staircase with the figures ascending and descending, reaching into the heavens, you make the point that Blake’s the only person to draw this as a spiral…”

IMcG: “The reason that I think that the spiral is so important is that it is the only shape that brings two things together, the fact of an open ended process and the idea of contraries. Blake said “without contraries there is no progression” … it’s that idea that I see in Heraclitus, of the tautness of a bowstring or the tautness of a lyre string, and without the tautness of pulling in opposite directions there is no power to produce a note or power to let fly the arrow. Sometimes you get this idea that things are circular – T.S. Eliot gives famous expression to the idea that we come back to the place we started from and know it for the first time – but what I think is a better idea is that we go round on a spiral and we don’t come back to where we started from, we are higher up than we were, but we come back to the place that is over the other place and now we can see what it was and what we thought then. So we are making progress…”

MV: “…anamnesis, to return to something and make it present once more … is what a ritual does. The ritual repeats at one level but it repeats constantly to draw back the Source. The manner in which we inhabit our memories is really important, and that’s often a ritual, embodied practice, in order that memory and inspiration can then come together. The memory becomes re-inspiring – it breathes something fresh into us.”

IMcG: “We need something like that actually, which is structured enough to summon whatever it is, but also loose enough to allow it to live, not to pin down and utterly specify. That’s why a ritual has to remain implicit, and once it’s made explicit, a lot of that is lost. I find it interesting that at a time of great upsurge in left hemisphere thinking, which I associate with the Reformation, there was a lot of technical dispute about what was meant by a very important ritual of the body and blood of Christ.”

Transcript from a conversation between Mark Vernon and Iain McGilchrist on William Blake: Imagination and Inspiration, Science and Soul (posted on YouTube on 1st July 2025).

1. There is no Divinity, only human fantasy and delusion.
2. There is Divinity, but no possibility of meaningful human contact with it.
3. Human intercourse with Divinity is clearly delimited and circumscribed.
4. The permeable relationship between humanity and Divinity is complex and mysterious.

It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Hebrews 10:31

Vow, and pay unto the LORD your God: let all that be round about him bring presents unto him that ought to be feared.

Psalm 76:11

Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all the earth: make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise.

Psalm 98:4

For thy desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and I contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.

Psalm 51: 16-17

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.

Proverbs 9:10

Savage God, Mystic God, God of the Faithful or God of the Philosophers…

You never know what you’ll get!

Good religion is faith without fussiness,

urgency without fanaticism;

wind, boat and harbour.

o

But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.

1 Peter 5:10

Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil.

Hebrews 6:19

Enlightenment is awareness of the presence of God.

What is God? The Great I AM Paramãtman (Exodus 3:14, Psalm 46:10, John 8:58).

This Self is behind everything, inside everything.

Awareness of the presence of God is “Paramãtman Dhyana”:

o

LORD I AM THAT.

o

But the light of perfect enlightenment shines clearest

when those words, and all words, are dropped.

(Be sure to listen out for the sound

of one hand clapping!)

o

If that doesn’t work, take the lowest room,

so that when your host comes, he will say to you,

‘Friend, go up higher.’

o

The first room is for the faithful servants (in storge),

where God is addressed as LORD.

The second room is for the secret friends (in filia),

where God is addressed as FRIEND.

The third room is for the spiritual brides (in eros),

where God is addressed as BRIDEGROOM.

The fourth room is for the hidden sons and daughters (in agape),

where God is addressed as FATHER.

The fifth room is for your very Self,

where God is addressed as I AM.

o

For God is Love

and Thou art That.

o

(But, as Dame Julian discovered, nutshells can be very capacious:)

o

Lord (Jah) I Am (Ba) That (Gaia)

Lord (Parashiva) I Am (Shiva) Zen (Shakti)

Father = Nous = Parashiva = Jah
Son = Logos = Shiva = Ba
Holy Spirit = Pneuma = Shakti = Gaia

Zen Christian Shamanism is Headlessness, Holiness, Wholeness.

Zen Christian Shamanism is Kenosis, Gnosis, Pistis.

Zen Christian Shamanism is the Way, the Truth and the Life.

o

There is a weak form and a strong form of Zen Christian Shamanism:

The weak form is a weak interaction between three common conceptions of Zen as calm mindful presence, Christianity as selfless love and Shamanism as psychedelic journeying.

The strong form is a strong interaction between Zen as satori, Christianity as christification and Shamanism as ego death and rebirth. The three things are ultimately one and the same. In the end all things point to Zen.

o

“What is Zen?

Try if you wish. But Zen comes of itself. True Zen shows in everyday living, CONSCIOUSNESS in action. More than any limited awareness, it opens every inner door to our infinite nature.

Instantly mind frees. How it frees! False Zen wracks brains as a fiction concocted by priests and salesmen to peddle their own wares.

Look at it this way, inside out and outside in: CONSCIOUSNESS everywhere, inclusive, through you. Then you can’t help living humbly, in wonder.”

Paul Reps

The wonder of existence and the joy of life get obscured and lost as we get older. Sometimes we need a reminder. Sometimes we need a wake up call.

Sometimes the only way to break the spell of existential numbness and disenchantment we call ordinary life is a healthy dose of holy inebriation.

This is wisdom. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.

The path to unforgetting and disclosure of Truth is a dramatic hero’s journey guided by the Good and validated by the Beautiful Life.

Similia similibus curantur

Paracelsus

Ingesting the same psychoactive mushroom can have diametrically opposite effects:

If taken for the purposes of self-aggrandizement and ego-enhancement, in order that, as the serpent in the garden promised Adam and Eve, you may become “as gods”, the result will be exile from paradise and even deeper immersion in Babylon.

If the aim is ego death and spiritual rebirth, in the spirit of the second Adam, Christ, the result will be reconciliation with God and entry into His kingdom.

The primal intention behind all other intentions when embarking on a high dose trip should be theosis. We accept God’s transformative grace from “above” as partakers in the divine nature. We don’t transform ourselves from “below” with Faustian magic into some kind of transhumanist homo deus superman.

Even if we are seeking personal healing or guidance, we should seek it not out of self-love, but for the glory of God.

And he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith: for whatsoever is not of faith is sin.

Romans 14: 23

Don’t worry. Have faith. Be grateful. Be humble.

Babylon – shelter

from the level

sands – and

consuming fire.

o

Who can stand

to bear the beams

of love – and

eternity in an hour?

o

The madman, the lover

and the poet – and

the saint hidden

in the heart – of Babylon.