Although apparently not yet available here in the Sates, Beyond the Burning Times (Lion Hudson, 2008) is now out. The few reviews I have seen, both Pagan and Christian, suggest our book is living up to our hopes: to initiate a dialogue that practitioners of both traditions believe fairly presents their own position in an atmosphere of mutual respect and openness. In this respect I am very happy.
But I am also intrigued how at crucial places some Christian reviewers appear to have misunderstood my meaning. The problem may be that I am not theologically trained, coming to this discussion rather late, after encountering deity in a Pagan context, and so being self-taught. Perhaps also it is that Christian readers read through their own filters, as we all do, and so do not grasp what seems obvious to people wearing a different set of filters. Perhaps it is due to my own inadequacies as a writer. Likely all are involved.
Whatever the reasons, I have found myself in the position of many writers, wondering “How can He have read Me as saying That?”
Given that our effort is to promote dialogue, I will use this space to carry it a step farther. I will keep comments open till they are smothered with porn spam. By that time hopefully another post on these topics will have appeared.
The nature of the Sacred is hard to discuss for several reasons. First, it is superhuman and we are not. Second, many who have had what they took to be experiences of such a Power report it is beyond words, particularly in its most ultimate manifestations. I agree. Third, I think reports by those who have never experienced such phenomena can be set aside as rooted in theories that attempt to identify what is most fundamental based on purely human categories.
I would not ever try and discuss this topic except that I had one such experience.
In an otherwise perceptive review, Gerald McDermott, professor of religion at Roanoke College, refers to the long discussed distinction between a personal and an impersonal God in criticizing my perspective. He writes for example,
It seems to have been in harmony with the analysis given by the Roman Pagan Plotinus.
I do not think my mystical experience of the Highest was the ultimate such experience possible. As I have read descriptions of encounters with NonDual awareness, one can go farther until the very distinction between self and non-self disappears completely, rather than as in my case, being blurred. This kind of encounter is reported in many religious traditions, including the Christian. These accounts also report that as the sense of self disappears (or all become Self), so also does any ability to describe it adequately to others. This also seems in harmony with the views of Plotinus. Western philosophers might find this vexing, but since when can we be sure the world exists for the edification of Western philosophers?
When I first encountered the Wiccan Goddess, I experienced the same quality of love, but made more particular. The same quality of love manifested in a Buddhist setting, but through an otherwise quite different entity. Trying to make sense of these experiences, it seems to me the love is foundational compared to a being’s manifesting in gendered terms. By love I mean a caring, understanding and delighted regard in the existence and value of another.
For love to be real, it must be love of something. So I tentatively assume mine was a mystical experience that still preserved an element of duality, and so it was possible for me to at least try and describe to others. Even so, I can only do so from the context of my own experience and time.
For love to be perfect it must include perfect understanding of the beloved. All the way down. This is love of a person, of a unique manifestation within the world. If delight in particularity is not involved, whatever it may be it is not love. But the love need not be by a person in the sense the word holds any coherence for me.
A person has identifiable interests, we call them self-interest, and because that self does not encompass other selves, it can be selfish. Even a perfectly loving deity seems to manifest within itself certain aspects of reality more than others. She was feminine. The Buddhist one was masculine. But what do we make of pure love for everything without distinction?
Perhaps the beginning of duality is also the beginning of love. Past that point love has no meaning. McDermott is right. This is why I also think those traditions and philosophies that focus on the NonDual as the goal rather then the origin of all that is are one sided, focusing on the root but not the flower, so to speak..
Sorry Dr. McDermott. There is no incoherence here. If you can convince me there is, I think it will lie in my ability to describe, not in the experience itself.
This also sets to rest another misunderstanding Dr. McDermott evidences. I did say the Divine is feminine. But I also said it was masculine. Given what I just wrote, it WOULD be incoherent for me to say deity was feminine only. There are various nits to pick if we really wanted to get into nit picking, but this issue of the nature of the Highest seems to me foundational for a coherent Pagan position. It gives us universality and personality. It gives us a good path without in the process denigrating anyone else’s.
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