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I've been thinking about the Emerald Tablet a lot lately.  The first couple of lines go:

True, without falsehood, certain and most true,
That which is above is as that which is below,
And that which is below is as that which is above.

Of course, "As above, so below. As below, so above," is a well known sentiment, and people interpret that statement in a wide variety of ways. 

One way is in relation to the structure of consciousness.  It is common to think of super-consciousness as "above" self-consciousness and self-consciousness as "above" sub-consciousness.  There is a certain amount of give and take between these structures.  How much, I wonder?

How much does super-consciousness (God?) respond to and conform to my self-conscious awareness?  How much does my personal subconsciousness conform to my self-conscious awareness vs. reflect it?

Lot's of questions.  I don't know what the answers are, but it pondering those questions sure does seem to help me understand my own mind.  It's dark up in there.  There's a lot of mystery up in my head.  I don't know that I'll ever map it out, but it sure is interesting to look around.

The Divine

What is the Divine in the context of Rational Faith? Consider the Axioms. "Reality is rooted in consciousness." "Reality is a continuous whole."

Consciousness is a slippery beast. Consider your own mind (and not the beast of a brain it rides upon). Your world is made known to you through your senses. Every path of your senses runs through the landscape of your mind out into the wilderness of an undiscovered country.

The things you see, the things you touch, or smell or taste.... More to the point, the sensation of sight, the sensation of touch, the sensations of smell and taste and touch, they all exist within the your individual consciousness. Within that landscape, however, you have walls to distinguish that which is you and that which is not you.

Consider the experience of viewing a flower. Everything about that experience happens within your own personal consciousness: the image of the flower, the image of your body, the feeling of your breathing, the space between the image of your body and the image of the flower. They all exist solely within your personal consciousness.

So, within the continuous whole of your personal consciousness, you have created boundaries and spaces and "things that are not me" for the purpose of representing your world to your personal self.

The Divine is also a structure of consciousness. The Divine can be thought of as the Universal Mind (though this, like any other label, misses some of its essence). Within the continuous consciousness of the Universal Mind, there are apparent boundaries so that the Universal Self can represent its own nature to its own Self. These apparent boundaries result in the manifestation of every aspect of Reality: you, me, flowers, buildings, worlds, stars.

Just as an experienced meditator is able to trace out the image of the flower within his or her own consciousness, transcending the apparent boundaries of the personal consciousness, so is there an aspect of the Divine Mind which transcends all of the apparent boundaries within its own Universal Consciousness.

The Divine Presence

This Divinity, this structure of consciousness within the Universal Mind which transcends and includes all aspects and sub-divisions therein, must be present, in some mysterious manner, within every aspect and every facet and every body and every experience that composes Reality itself. Over the course of human history, prophets and priests, sages and adepts have all tried to point towards this Divinity. They seem to agree that words are insufficient to define the Divine, and we will not presume to dispute that claim here.

It is enough to say that it is possible to experience the Divine Presence. It is enough to say that men and women throughout history have had this mysterious (mystical) experience of the presence of that which transcends and includes the All. Their words and experiences have gone forth to create and shape religion.

The sages assure us that this Divine is always, at all times and in all circumstances, present. We grow closer to the Divine, or we enter into the Divine Presence, as our personal consciousness becomes more aware of that presence. It is always, however, available, whether we know it or not.

Preamble

This is the fundamental document of Rational Faith. It is not divinely inspired. It was arrived at through human means. This document is intentionally vague. The details should be left to the discovery of the individual.

Axioms of Rational Faith

Axioms are fundamental assumptions. They are the dogma of the faith. Every effort should be made to keep the set of Axioms small. Simplicity is paramount.

1. The appearance of Reality is always less than its substance.

2. Reality is never supernatural.

3. Reality is rooted in consciousness.

4. Reality is a continuous whole.

Corollaries

The Corollaries derive directly from the Axioms. If the Axioms are accepted then the Corollaries must logically follow.

1. The core of the personal experience is a transpersonal presence.

2. Reality is supermaterial.

3. Everything is alive.

Good Ideas

Axioms and, by extension, Corollaries state our best understanding of THE WAY THINGS ARE. Good Ideas, in contrast, state our best understanding of THE WAY THINGS SHOULD BE.

1. Truth is universal. Anything that cannot be apprehended, at least in theory, by anyone, regardless of culture, gender, race or education (but not necessarily intelligence), cannot be True. By extension, stories (whether factual or not) can illustrate Truth, but they cannot define Truth.

2. Religion is legitimate insofar as those people who adhere to it, are able to constantly outgrow the ego, which we define as an individuals self-definition.

In other words, religion is legitimate to the degree that it helps us to out-grow our own self-imposed limitations.

Guidance

Spiritual teachers have been with us for as long as we have existed. They have taught us some good things and some not-so-good things. Our Guidance is the distillation of the teachings of the ages which we accept as a corporate body.

1. The human experience of Love is a reflection of a universal force. This Universal Love is the foundation stone of Reality. The ground of Reality is consciousness (see Axioms), but the foundation stone of Manifest Reality is Universal Love. Through exploring, refining and expressing Love through our personal being, we grow closer to the Universal Love, and thereby we grow closer to the Divine. Note, the human experience of Love is only a reflection of Universal Love. The two should never be confused, but they almost always are.

2. The Fundamental Law of Reality reads, "Reality tends to provide experience which supports belief."

Divine Authority vs. Divine Inspiration

Humans seem to yearn for authority. In fact, as children, we seem to require authority for healthy growth. Still, history bears tragic witness to the pain which can be caused by recourse to Divine Authority.

Scriptures, moral codes, ethical codes and organizational structures are all useful within their appropriate context. But, as stated above, each has been the source of suffering when invested with a perceived Divine Authority. For this reason, we reject Divine Authority as inevitably tainted by Human Frailty.

Instead of Divine Authority, then, we embrace the concept of Divine Inspiration. We accept that there have been many teachers over the course of history who possessed clear perception into the Divine Nature. Many of these teachers made the attempt to communicate their perceptions through scripture and holy art. However, we understand that all communication is limited by the awareness of the individual who receives it. We therefore hold that any interpretation of scripture should be regarded as limited. Even the most straight-forward seeming statements in scripture can lead one astray through a faulty interprative process.

So then how do we define scripture? We admit that scripture becomes a matter of personal preference. This seems to be greatly preferrable to the endless arguments over scriptural authority, which have only served to lead people out of the Divine Presence.

What then becomes the standard for living a moral life? The art and practice of expressing the Divine Love serves as our standard. This is not an objective standard, but it is an effective one.

Religion has often been confused with civics. By denying an objective standard scripture, we hope to separate the two.

http://mormon-magus.info/?p=39

“Text and Ontology”, by Stephen Mace

This is an article by Stephen Mace that argues that the idea of “being” is an outdated concept, and instead, everything can be described by “doing.” This should hold particular interest to Latter-day Saints, because we believe in a social Trinity that is exactly described in terms of “doing.”

Here is an excerpt, but you should really read the entire article.

“But if it isn’t all Being, then what is it?

I will not say Becoming, since that implies an action too random or undirected to be consistent with our obviously well-designed circumstances. Instead I will offer Doing, presenting us with a universe of process, with all aspects of manifestation pursuing some goal, more or less distant, more or less intelligently. Doing gives us a universe that is dynamic on all levels, driven by an implied purpose, and hence an implicit intelligence, and this is surely consistent with the self-driven contrivance of physical nature.”

http://mormon-magus.info/?p=38

“The distinguishing characteristic of a person is the possession of will, the power to accept or reject, to move or to stand still, to obey or to disobey. From the very beginning the being now known as man possessed a will, and by the operation of his will has reached his present condition. Above all other things, man is a will. If that be so, the training and use of the will is man’s first concern.”

—————

“Love is the Law. Love Under Will.”

- Aleister Crowley

http://mormon-magus.info/?p=37

I’ve noticed that figures 9 through 10 aren’t included in the temple, but are included in what the world can find out.

Is this effectively a green light on modern occultism?

http://scriptures.lds.org/en/abr/fac_2

Fig. 8. Contains writings that cannot be revealed unto the world; but is to be had in the Holy Temple of God.

Fig. 9. Ought not to be revealed at the present time.

Fig. 10. Also.

Fig. 11. Also. If the world can find out these numbers, so let it be. Amen.

- Book of Abraham, Facsimile No. 2

Joseph Smith and Kabbalah: The Occult Connection
by Lance S. Owens

http://www.gnosis.org/jskabb1.htm

Excerpt:
"Through his associations with ceremonial magic as a young treasure seer, Smith contacted symbols and lore taken directly from Kabbalah. In his prophetic translation of sacred writ, his hermeneutic method was in nature Kabbalistic. With his initiation into Masonry, he entered a tradition born of the Hermetic-Kabbalistic tradition. These associations culminated in Nauvoo, the period of his most important doctrinal and ritual innovations. During these last years, he enjoyed friendship with a European Jew well-versed in the standard Kabbalistic works and possibly possessing in Nauvoo an extraordinary collection of Kabbalistic books and manuscripts. By 1844 Smith not only was cognizant of Kabbalah, but enlisted theosophic concepts taken directly from its principal text in his most important doctrinal sermon, the 'King Follett Discourse.'

Smith's concepts of God's plurality, his vision of God as anthropos, and his possession by the issue of sacred marriage, all might have been cross-fertilized by this intercourse with Kabbalistic theosophy--an occult relationship climaxing in Nauvoo. This is a complex thesis; its understanding requires exploration of an occult religious tradition spanning more that a millennium of Western history, an investigation that begins naturally with Kabbalah."

Well, this should be interesting.

A little bit about myself:
I'm active in both the LDS (Mormon) and occult communities, and I seem to have gained somewhat of a reputation in the former for my activity in the latter. I would say it's mostly positive, but I don't think most of them know quite what to do with me. As for the rest, I've made some friends with similar interests in the esoteric, and I've recently started a message board for experimenting with and mixing Mormonism with practically everything else out there. (http://unfettered-mormon.org/)

I also have a blog that's been up for a while where I muse about Mormonism and various ideas in occultism (chaos magic mostly). I haven't been posting that often, but there's already a nice backlog of posts. I have it set to automatically cross post here for future entries, but you'll have to go there to check out the old posts. (http://mormon-magus.info/)

Anyway, that's about it for now.

Default Settings:
I've set all current users to the following settings:

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These settings are being done manually until Matt can set it up as a blanket rule. Since we've only got ~130 registered users right now, it didn't take long.

If you wish to change your comment settings, click "Account Settings" at the top right in the gray bar. You will also find, at the bottom of that page, where to set your blog editor (wysiwyg by default; this can be turned off).

If you have questions or comments, leave a comment at this post.

Premier accounts

I'm considering what to grant Premier account holders who use their blogs regularly. I'm thinking, so far, that anyone with a full profile by the middle of the year 2008 who also regularly uses their blogs for six months following sign-up (posting at least once a week), will be granted 100 user icons permanently, along with any other paid account options we offer within a set period (to be determined), all free. The Premier account will only be offered to the first 500 users who meet the criteria. The terms of this offer may evolve, particularly the mid-2008 time limit if the site doesn't take off very fast.

- Sheta

I hope many of you will do more blogging here as things pick up. I've started crossposting here, pretty much everything I put in my LiveJournal, and intend to post more personal stuff here (which I'm filtering - you can find the filter controls on "Your friends" page in the "Access Controls" link) in preparation for the move. Deeply personal stuff will be on a "safe" filter, and other, less crucial material will be friends only or logged in users only.

Hope you'll join me.