My differences with Tomberg are almost entirely political, but I can actually use Tomberg against Tomberg to support the principles of a mature liberalism rooted in Christian personalism. Tomberg himself had all the pieces, but couldn't quite put it together because he was too much a creature of the Old World. When Tomberg's ideas land in soul formed by this wild new world frontier we inhabit, they go beyond what Tomberg himself could perceive and a product of the Old World.
Regarding enchantment, this came up in the delightful conversation I had with Esther Meek, who also has so reservations about the term enchantment. I pointed out to her about how Tolkien's fantasy is consistently used to direct attention back to the wonder of ordinary nature. The entire point of enchantment is to to redirect the gaze back to the miraculous isness of the ordinary, the realness of the real. Before enchantment became a synonym for sorcery it meant "to sing into being." Enchantment, properly understand doesn't cast a sorcerous spell, but breaks the sorcerous illusions that keep us from being attuned to the song of Iluvatar. Enchantment, proper, allows us to sing the new song, to join the music of creation.
I tend to think Christian disunity is delusional, a denial of one of the few real boons modernity brings us—and it is a very great boon. I have at my whim access to every Christian tradition, plus many other religious and spiritual traditions. I can pray for anyone I wish to pray for. No ecclesial institution has any real practical authority over my life. Since I’m an American living near a major metropolitan area, just about every conceivable Christian denomination is physically present within a drive of an hour or two. Even in Ireland, Paul Kingsnorth manages to be a Romanian Orthodox. This is the modern reality. I don’t think most people appreciate how wildly unprecedented this situation is, and how it renders absurd the old instinct to shore up religious identity.
If you have nothing to enchant people with, all you can do is apologetics. People should want what you have. You don’t need to argue if they can see and experience it.
The refusal to plead for Christian unity—because we no longer believe the institutions even want it—is an unsettling grace. You name the ache without asking it to be healed by compromise or committee. And your call to orient ourselves to the Real rather than cling to “enchantment” strikes at the root of our modern delirium.
The Vaughan poem is luminous. And your use of it reminds me that there are still a few threads strong enough to hold soul and cosmos together—threads not owned by any “One True Church,” but perhaps still remembered in dream, in longing, in that quiet sense that something ancient and whole still waits.
Angelico's edition of Traherne's *Centuries* (with your introduction, of course) is sitting on my desk at the moment, right on top of *Christ the Eternal Tao*.
C S Lewis was an ardent atheist and disliked reading the bible until his friend JRR Tolkein asked if he was averse to reading Beowulf or Roland or Morte d’ Arthur. When Lewis said of course not, Tolkein suggested introducing oneself in that manner. It worked and one of the most influential Christian apologists was created.
I think there is much to find utterly enchanting in this life, that does not mean I am under a spell, it means my desire to give Glory to God comes perhaps from wonder, joy, gratitude, the love, for the Beloved .
The core essential method of magic - “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. And we know and rely on the love God has for us” I John 4:15-16 “this is the work of God to believe in the one he sent” Lord make us like the woman with the issue of blood, the leper, the blind man by the road, the woman with demonized daughter so we will simply go to the risen Lord and be given the Spirit of Life and have have the Father revealed. George Fox’s word on this matter. Fox was the initial leader for the Quakers.
“as I had forsaken the priests, so I left the separate preachers also, and those esteemed the most experienced people; for I saw there was none among them all that could speak to my condition. And when all my hopes in them and in all men were gone, so that I had nothing outwardly to help me, nor could tell what to do, then, oh, then, I heard a voice which said, "There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition"; and when I heard it my heart did leap for joy. Then the Lord let me see why there was none upon the earth that could speak to my condition, namely, that I might give Him all the glory; for all are concluded under sin, and shut up in unbelief as I had been, that Jesus Christ might have the pre-eminence who enlightens, and gives grace, and faith, and power. Thus when God doth work, who shall let (i. e. prevent) it? And this I knew experimentally.”
Fox also had a full blown ministry of miraculous healings.
But this simple minded Protestant must accept that many people need props and complexities - rituals, sacraments, icons, contemplative systems and Good Lord! even Meditations on the Tarot to meet God.
Liked the reference to Proverbs 4:18 in the last stanza. Tried reading Meditations on the Tarot. My response - “Valentin it’s not that complicated to know the living God!”
You don’t exhibit any fruits of the Spirit. You haven't sought forgiveness, you’ve undermined the church, have been fully combative and full of false pride. You’ve only been mentioned once, off-handedly, about your sensitivity, in any of the articles I’ve read. I’m going to unfollow you because you’re self-concocting ways to move people out of Christianity and catholicism.
When we were prey, for millions of years, and on the verge of extinction from starvation, as all hominins were (fasting people perceive a different Real in all cultures and times), with diseases and other tribes after us, weather and topography shifting, but spiritual reality also being present, as it would logically have to be, having a shared consciousness or belief system, in order to move in concert, would've been selected for, and it would've been the males who needed this most to hunt or strike out to find honey or fruit, as the females were with the young. The metaphysical adversarial forces, and the political adversarial forces (sorceries) keep the threat of extinction and the threat of disease in our faces 24/7, so, particularly men (not due to toxic masculinity but due to their evolved natures that they do not comprehend) start policing the belief systems heavily as extinction seems to threaten and the parasite stress (Randy Thornhill) seems upon us, and this feels righteous and salvific to them as it was so for millions of years. "Unfollow" is sort of funny as it was probably the first hominin male w/ a bit more cognitive ability, who, before language, started humming or grunting or drawing with a chip off a stone tool in the sands of the savannah, who could create a shared map or shared plan, and everyone then followed him. The evolutionary biologists are promissory materialists, their leading edge of wild heterodoxy being thinking faith and religion and spirituality are Darwinian adaptations, at best metaphoric truths, so their insights are limiting, but even that seems the work of the Adversary, which they don't believe in, but we could leap away from the sorceries if we could somehow tame this male policing of belief systems. Not arguing for government by women (nightmare), but for men to stop this ancient mode of thought. I think of those clergy who used to spy through Julian of Norwich's hagioscope, trying to assess whether any Wycliffe ideas had gotten into her brain, and how they dug up Wycliffe's bones thirty years after his death, and burnt his bones for heresy. If the evolved masculine could cut this out, civilization might flourish again, if combine with the evolved maternal.
My differences with Tomberg are almost entirely political, but I can actually use Tomberg against Tomberg to support the principles of a mature liberalism rooted in Christian personalism. Tomberg himself had all the pieces, but couldn't quite put it together because he was too much a creature of the Old World. When Tomberg's ideas land in soul formed by this wild new world frontier we inhabit, they go beyond what Tomberg himself could perceive and a product of the Old World.
Regarding enchantment, this came up in the delightful conversation I had with Esther Meek, who also has so reservations about the term enchantment. I pointed out to her about how Tolkien's fantasy is consistently used to direct attention back to the wonder of ordinary nature. The entire point of enchantment is to to redirect the gaze back to the miraculous isness of the ordinary, the realness of the real. Before enchantment became a synonym for sorcery it meant "to sing into being." Enchantment, properly understand doesn't cast a sorcerous spell, but breaks the sorcerous illusions that keep us from being attuned to the song of Iluvatar. Enchantment, proper, allows us to sing the new song, to join the music of creation.
I tend to think Christian disunity is delusional, a denial of one of the few real boons modernity brings us—and it is a very great boon. I have at my whim access to every Christian tradition, plus many other religious and spiritual traditions. I can pray for anyone I wish to pray for. No ecclesial institution has any real practical authority over my life. Since I’m an American living near a major metropolitan area, just about every conceivable Christian denomination is physically present within a drive of an hour or two. Even in Ireland, Paul Kingsnorth manages to be a Romanian Orthodox. This is the modern reality. I don’t think most people appreciate how wildly unprecedented this situation is, and how it renders absurd the old instinct to shore up religious identity.
That's what all heretics say 😅😅😅
If you have nothing to enchant people with, all you can do is apologetics. People should want what you have. You don’t need to argue if they can see and experience it.
This pierced in all the right ways.
The refusal to plead for Christian unity—because we no longer believe the institutions even want it—is an unsettling grace. You name the ache without asking it to be healed by compromise or committee. And your call to orient ourselves to the Real rather than cling to “enchantment” strikes at the root of our modern delirium.
The Vaughan poem is luminous. And your use of it reminds me that there are still a few threads strong enough to hold soul and cosmos together—threads not owned by any “One True Church,” but perhaps still remembered in dream, in longing, in that quiet sense that something ancient and whole still waits.
Angelico's edition of Traherne's *Centuries* (with your introduction, of course) is sitting on my desk at the moment, right on top of *Christ the Eternal Tao*.
C S Lewis was an ardent atheist and disliked reading the bible until his friend JRR Tolkein asked if he was averse to reading Beowulf or Roland or Morte d’ Arthur. When Lewis said of course not, Tolkein suggested introducing oneself in that manner. It worked and one of the most influential Christian apologists was created.
I had my awakening to The Drama reading Arthur and Grail stuff. I've read many versions and related.
It was Steinbeck's that did it...
Walter Bosley suggested a reading schedule with The Odyssey to trigger it, but I've already been there.
Maybe Beowulf or something else OLDER...
I think there is much to find utterly enchanting in this life, that does not mean I am under a spell, it means my desire to give Glory to God comes perhaps from wonder, joy, gratitude, the love, for the Beloved .
I think what you're calling “enchanting” I call the Real.
The core essential method of magic - “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. And we know and rely on the love God has for us” I John 4:15-16 “this is the work of God to believe in the one he sent” Lord make us like the woman with the issue of blood, the leper, the blind man by the road, the woman with demonized daughter so we will simply go to the risen Lord and be given the Spirit of Life and have have the Father revealed. George Fox’s word on this matter. Fox was the initial leader for the Quakers.
“as I had forsaken the priests, so I left the separate preachers also, and those esteemed the most experienced people; for I saw there was none among them all that could speak to my condition. And when all my hopes in them and in all men were gone, so that I had nothing outwardly to help me, nor could tell what to do, then, oh, then, I heard a voice which said, "There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition"; and when I heard it my heart did leap for joy. Then the Lord let me see why there was none upon the earth that could speak to my condition, namely, that I might give Him all the glory; for all are concluded under sin, and shut up in unbelief as I had been, that Jesus Christ might have the pre-eminence who enlightens, and gives grace, and faith, and power. Thus when God doth work, who shall let (i. e. prevent) it? And this I knew experimentally.”
Fox also had a full blown ministry of miraculous healings.
But this simple minded Protestant must accept that many people need props and complexities - rituals, sacraments, icons, contemplative systems and Good Lord! even Meditations on the Tarot to meet God.
Liked the reference to Proverbs 4:18 in the last stanza. Tried reading Meditations on the Tarot. My response - “Valentin it’s not that complicated to know the living God!”
Church unity is not something to be achieved, but something to be realized.
You don’t exhibit any fruits of the Spirit. You haven't sought forgiveness, you’ve undermined the church, have been fully combative and full of false pride. You’ve only been mentioned once, off-handedly, about your sensitivity, in any of the articles I’ve read. I’m going to unfollow you because you’re self-concocting ways to move people out of Christianity and catholicism.
works for me
When we were prey, for millions of years, and on the verge of extinction from starvation, as all hominins were (fasting people perceive a different Real in all cultures and times), with diseases and other tribes after us, weather and topography shifting, but spiritual reality also being present, as it would logically have to be, having a shared consciousness or belief system, in order to move in concert, would've been selected for, and it would've been the males who needed this most to hunt or strike out to find honey or fruit, as the females were with the young. The metaphysical adversarial forces, and the political adversarial forces (sorceries) keep the threat of extinction and the threat of disease in our faces 24/7, so, particularly men (not due to toxic masculinity but due to their evolved natures that they do not comprehend) start policing the belief systems heavily as extinction seems to threaten and the parasite stress (Randy Thornhill) seems upon us, and this feels righteous and salvific to them as it was so for millions of years. "Unfollow" is sort of funny as it was probably the first hominin male w/ a bit more cognitive ability, who, before language, started humming or grunting or drawing with a chip off a stone tool in the sands of the savannah, who could create a shared map or shared plan, and everyone then followed him. The evolutionary biologists are promissory materialists, their leading edge of wild heterodoxy being thinking faith and religion and spirituality are Darwinian adaptations, at best metaphoric truths, so their insights are limiting, but even that seems the work of the Adversary, which they don't believe in, but we could leap away from the sorceries if we could somehow tame this male policing of belief systems. Not arguing for government by women (nightmare), but for men to stop this ancient mode of thought. I think of those clergy who used to spy through Julian of Norwich's hagioscope, trying to assess whether any Wycliffe ideas had gotten into her brain, and how they dug up Wycliffe's bones thirty years after his death, and burnt his bones for heresy. If the evolved masculine could cut this out, civilization might flourish again, if combine with the evolved maternal.
You a James McMurtry fan or was that just me?
I had to look up who that is. I need to check him out. Any recommended tracks?
“Childish Things”