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The Master instructed the group, saying: “Followers of the Way, what is important is to approach things with a true and proper understanding. Walk wherever you please in the world but don’t let yourselves be muddled or misled by that bunch of goblin spirits. The man of value is the one who has nothing to do. Don’t try to do something special, just act ordinary. You look outside yourselves, going off on side Don’t try to do something special, just act ordinary. You look outside yourselves, going off on side roads hunting for something, trying to get your hands on something. That’s a mistake. You keep trying to look for the Buddha, but Buddha is just a name, a word.

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The Attunement Ritual

Preamble

We are, each of us, a swirl of thoughts and forces.  The Attunement Ritual helps us to balance the various aspects of our being through the primal symbolism of color, sound and consumption.

Materials Needed

• Shot glass (clear, undecorated glass preferable)
• Small pitcher of drinking water
• Pitch-pipe (optional)
  

Procedure

1. Sit comfortably.
   
2. Rest for 5 minutes in quite contemplation.
   
3. Fill the shot glass with water.
4. Play the note C-natural on the pitch-pipe. (optional)
   
5. Hold the shot glass with both hands.
6. Hum the note C-natural while visualizing a sphere of red light, centered on the shot glass, with a radius that extends just past your hands.
7. Drink the shot.
8. Hum the note C-natural while visualizing a sphere of red light, centered on your heart, with a radius that just barely includes your whole body.
9. Repeat steps 3-8 for each of the following six tone / color combinations:
1. D - Orange
   
2. E - Yellow
3. F# - Green
4. G# - Blue
5. A - Indigo
6. A# - Violet
10. Rest for 5 minutes in quiet contemplation.
    

Commentary

The Attunement Ritual is built upon the primal associations we have with color and sound.  It is natural to think of yourself as composed of parts: your blood, your bones, your muscles, etc.  However you might choose to dissect the elements of your being, this ritual helps you to bring them into balance.

Water is a primal symbol in its own right.  It dissolves things and brings them into its own substance.  Moving water is known for cleaning because it carries the dirt away and dissolves the deposits of the day.  By visualizing a sphere of colored light centered around the shot glass while humming a note, we are doing several things:

• We are affirming our power to act and direct because we're including our hands in the sphere.
• We are creating a powerful symbol which represents some aspect of our primal being in distilled form.

When we drink this "charged" water, we are ingesting a "purified" representation of some aspect of our being.  This act stimulates subtle centers within our body/mind/spirit complex.

The larger sphere of light, along with the second tone, re-affirms that our body/mind/spirit complex is momentarily tuned to a particular aspect of its being.

Harmony results from doing each of the colors and sound combinations.  The end result is that all of the subtle centers of the body/mind/spirit complex are stimulated in a gentle way and attuned to the system as a whole.

Repeated practice, as part of a broader effort of self-cultivation, serves to distill and develop the various components of our body/mind/spirit complex.

So what are the seven aspects of being?  We find that it does not serve the congregation as a whole to be dogmatic on this point.  Many of us think of the Seven Planets, or the Seven Metals, or the Seven Virtues or any of the other "seven-based" models of being out there.  We find that the practice is more important than the dogma, and the more serious students among us are welcome to hold whatever theory they will.

The Rational Church of the Universal Christ

All praise to the Universal Christ: God made flesh. The ineffable given form.

Who We Are

• We are a body of worshipers who strive to experience the presence of the Universal Christ.
  
• We are Christian in that we worship the Christ.
• By Faith we set our feet upon the journey, but by Knowledge we enter through the gates.  Hence we are Gnostic.
• In that we seek the transformation offered by the Divine Presence through scientific means, we are both Hermetic and Alchemical.

What We Do

• We perform and study rituals which reflect ancient patterns of thought.
• We experiment with modern technology to elevate and transform our consciousness.
• We perform works of service to the community.
• We study texts which we believe will help guide us into the Divine Presence.
• We practice exercises which facilitate our journey.
• We strive to live Virtuous lives.
  

The Rituals We Perform

• The Attunement Ritual
• The Sacrement of the Universal Christ
• The Raising of the Temple
• Daily Confession
  

The Technology We Experiment With

• Binaural Technology
• Bio-Feedback
• Remote Viewing
• Meditation
• Visualization
• Astral Projection
• Distributed Ritual
  

The Service We Perform

• Visiting the old and infirm.
• Feeding the hungry.
• Sheltering the homeless.

The Texts We Study

• The Bible
• The Bhagavad-Gita
• The Tarot
• The Tao-Te Ching

Our Exercises

• Rolling the Tetrahedron
• Visualizing the Keys

The Seven Virtues

• Restraint
• Generosity
• Courage
• Joy
  
• Compassion
• Presence
• Wisdom
  

I've been putting a lot of effort lately into memorizing various diagrams to the point where I can reproduce them.  It seems like this is the first step towards being able to effectively use the information that a diagram is supposed to capture.  It's difficult, though.  Remembering words in other languages or abstract symbols takes some effort.  I'm certain it's worth it, but there is certainly a need for rote memory.  I feel strongly that this effort bars most people who are interested in the occult from truly gainig value from the studies.

I recently moved into a MUCH smaller space.  I've been sort of depressed about having to move my library (my pride and joy) into storage.  On the other hand, I have recently discovered the joy of building an electronic library.  I have almost 1000 texts now.  Some of them are copies.  Some of them are different electronic versions of the same text.  Almost 1G of data.  That doesn't even include all of the online resources.  God bless the Internet!!

A friend of mine read my manifesto on rational faith and pointed out that I didn't really define "love."  I probably didn't because it's really hard.  If I am going to claim that love is the basis of all manifest reality then my definition of love would have to broad enough to encompass creation and still bear some resemblance to the human emotion that we recognize as our personal experience of it.

Here goes: Love is the drive to unite with the other.

Applied universally, that definition explains why the Divine must create an image of the other within its own self nature.  Applied chemically, it places the attraction and contradefinition of fundamental particles as the foundation of material reality.  Personally it shows that the urge to merge is the basis of human experience.

I think that works. 

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.