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 r enew
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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