Natepod The weblog of Nate Cull

Theologica Germanica

A biography of John Wesley that I've just read noted some of the German Pietist influences of Wesley, which led me to Meister Eckhart and the Theologica Germanica (author unknown). Both of which I find very interesting, very modern, and hugely relevant to our times. There's a direct line in terms of theological flavour from Course in Miracles, through Mary Baker Eddy, back to Eckhart. (To list just one of the many lines of faith which criss-cross over this landscape, but the Course in Miracles one is particularly close to my heart at the moment.)

Wesley, famously impressed by the quiet mystical spirituality of Count Zinzendorf's Moravians, later broke with them because he could not accept their quietism. It seems he had similar issues with the Theologica Germanica.

Wesley accomplished many great things in setting the template for Evangelical Christianity as an active social justice force for the next three centuries -- and as a movement-builder I think he did many things right, particularly his eclecticism -- but I also think his suspicion and dismissal of contemplative Christianity was a great loss for the set of movements he started. Wesley's model led the 18th century sea-change that turned the church from an aristocracy to an enterprise, but the worst-case scenario of that model is the Wal-Mart-isation of the church. Industrial mega-churches, like suburbia, can be hubs of religious activity and yet death-traps for the soul (and for the earth). We cannot act for justice without peace in our soul; if we try we merely create more noise, and that's what a lot of church activity right now is doing. The art of contemplation is something we will need to recover in this century, and quickly.

The good news is that all this material exists - it hasn't been lost, just ignored. And now we can access it more easily than ever.

Three Wishes

1. I wish that I lived in a world where everyone could literally see and know God; where that God existed, and that the nature of that God was pure love, was no more strange or confusing than that there is a sun in the sky.

2. I wish that I lived in a world where everyone looked after each other; where our life and work and economy and industry the geometry of our cities was structured toward the goal of doing meaningful things to help each other.

3. I wish that I would live as if I lived in such a world right now.

The thing about going through the archives of old, forbidden occult tomes from places like Spiritwritings.com - or reading some of the Christian mystics - or reading accounts of Near Death Experiences - is that after a while, a picture starts to emerge of a realm where such things really do exist.

A realm where the word 'God' doesn't mean a kind of abstract, outdated philosophical concept with a slightly musty smell of ether and phlogiston, but a literal everyday presence; one that everyone there relies on as naturally as breathing. A realm where synchronicity is taken for granted, coincidences 'just happen', if you want something it's already been planned for, and everything shines (literally) with its own inner light, which is also the light of God. As if we here in this Earth-dimension were like sleeping children who after a long illness, one day wake up to a glorious sunlit day, and laugh at our fever dreams of being in dark scary places, while at the same time marvelling at how close we came to true harm, and the skill that healed us.

It is a realm where everyone you've met is there, and they remember you fondly, and people who you've never met before walk up to you with a smile and explain how they already know you. It's like there's a secret smile on everyone's face, and sometimes it bursts out loud because nobody can keep the joy in for long.

You always knew the universe was a joke, but you thought it was a cruel one. Now you get to hear the punchline.

It is a realm where the skies are not dark, the space between the stars is not a vacuum, there is life and activity and civilisation for millions of light-years, everyone speaks with a form of telepathy, you can fly if you want (though you see the scenery better if you walk), and shaping matter with a thought is no more remarkable than downloading the latest Linux build from the Net.

It's basically one of Cory Doctorow's brightest post-cyberpunk fantasies. The world runs on adhocracy, we've got instant-access data retrieval of every shape, colour and feeling from all of inhabited history, and people are making more stuff - and more space to put it in - every day. And it's all meaningful, and all the work is voluntary.

Did I mention the glowing trees? So many people talk about those. It's often the first thing that catches your eye. The plants glow. Like they're on fire. The colours are brighter than any we have here; more frequencies, less dense matter, something. It's literally indescribable. And that's just in the first tenth of a second.

The closest thing on Earth is where you walk into a city park or square at night, and there are spotlights positioned under the trees. Green fire, in your face. Wham. For a moment, you remember.

Or you're playing an '80s videogame, one of the early abstract ones, and you've hit that zen groove, mastering the pattern, and suddenly everything's made of light, and the whole world's translucent.

Or you just put on your polarised glasses for a Dolby Digital 3-D movie, and the stereoscopic vision hits you in the face and suddenly you're in the frame of the movie. And there were dimensions you never knew existed.

It's like that.

You wake up and you're living on a friggin' Dyson Sphere inside a Matrioshka Brain sitting in hyperspace around Earth orbit and there's this whole Star Trek Federation and Prime Directive setup which has been secretly doing a Second Foundation on human history. You're living in a galaxy-size sci-fi convention and A E Van Vogt was right all along.

Light bubbles in little fountains around people, like one of those retro fiber-optic sculptures. It's like an always-on mood ring and somehow it never goes out of fashion.

People pray like they breathe. A laser-beam kind of thing comes out of the sky and... the laugh behind the universe is inside your heart and... and there are no ellipses big enough.

Because, God.

He spoke to me, and whilst doing so, he leaned over me, looking into my face intently, as if he wished to impress every syllable on my memory for ever. I shall never forget his words; they are engraved on my mind, and nothing can ever eradicate them.

He said: "You are only here for a little while. Try to hold and remember all I am telling you. Do not trouble to remember the details of the scenery or anything else, beautiful as it is, but remember every word I am telling you, because time is short.

"Tell everybody-everybody that will listen -that there is this Other Life. It is a real life in a real world. It is an active, interesting world. We are happy in it. All is well with us on this plane.

"God is here.

"We are nearer Him. All the best and most hopeful ideas that Christian religion on the earth has ever held out about a future life are poor compared to this wonderful reality.

"Tell everybody. It's true."

-- Gladys Osborne Leonard, "The Last Crossing"