Thursday, June 23, 2005
SPIRITUAL SCIENCE
"Spiritual Science" is Steiner's terminology. It is used by Ratzinger/Benedict as well, as noted in a recent post. Tomberg, a former Anthroposophist, would be familiar with it. Anthroposophy promotes clairvoyant contact with the Akashic Record.
Daniil Andreev talks of synthesizing "natural sciences, social utopias, and religious inspirations" into a world-transforming "occult super-knowledge that claims the power to transform the world." In his ROSE OF THE WORLD, he likens the new global religion to the petals of a rose, each religion represented by a petal.
The Sophia Foundation of North America, founded by Tomberg's translator Robert Powell has the symbol of the Rose Cross on its website. That symbol must represent the same Rose of the World that Andreev writes about. I make that claim because of this page in the website. There you can read about Andreev.
Often the question is asked: Why is there so much evil in the world?There are many possible responses to this question. From an evolutionary standpoint it can be said that the "mission" of evil is TO CALL FORTH THE GOOD.The more darkness and evil prevails in the outer world, the more Sophia – if we open ourselves to Her – is with us as LIGHT and GOODNESS, and the more She may be experienced in our thoughts and prayers, in our hearts, as a real presence in daily life.
While it is certainly true that God brings good out of evil for those who love Him, and thus it would seem that in times of great evil there is also great goodness coming out of it, it is also true that we may not tempt God. According to the CCC No. 2119, "Tempting God consists in putting his goodness and almighty power to the test by word or deed. Thus Satan tried to induce Jesus to throw himself down from the Temple and, by this gesture, force God to act."
Thus we cannot "call forth the good" by perpetrating evil. That was one of the errors of the Jewish Sabbtians, who according to one of them, his "force having been stimulated by the visions of the angels and the blessed souls" locked himself "in holiness and purity in a separate room and completed the morning prayer under many tears, the spirit came over" him and his "hair stood on end" and his "knees shook" and he saw the Throne of God known as the Merkabah. "I was vouchsafed true prophecy like any other prophet, as the voice spoke to me and began with the words: 'Thus speaks the Lord.' (Gershom Scholem, MAJOR TRENDS IN JEWISH MYSTICISM, p. 294-295) Sabbatianism is a Jewish heresy. Zevi regarded himself as the Messiah.
The following words quoted from the Russian spiritual seer Daniel Andreev lead from the prophecy concerning the coming of Antichrist to the creation of the new world culture through Divine Sophia outlined in his book The Rose of the World. The Sophia culture of the future is one of peace and brotherhood. It is the answer – on the scales of spiritual evolution – to the evil of our time. Thus, for many, it is the Rose of the World that serves to set our goals and chart our courses for what is to come.
If Andreev is promoting evil actions to force God's hand, it is much more likely that Satan will appear.
Yet, where is the difference between such a suggestion that man can use evil to generate a new peace and brotherhood, and the monastic interreligious dialogue that attempts to create peace by placing all religions on an equal playing field at the interreligious dialogue table? That table, by necessity, reduces Jesus to just another god. Cdl. Ratzinger admits this in his book TRUTH OR TOLERANCE, calling it the "epitome of the relativist credo." (p. 120) How is it that it has the encouragement of our current and last Popes?
Andreev, the spiritualist who channeled the "voice" while in prison, is promoting a one-world religion. The John Main Seminars are promoting a one-world religion using meditation decoupled from doctrine as the source of unity. And meanwhile the Catholics join with the Pentecostals to arrange for spirit baptism and other occult manifestations.
Am I checking into the lunatic fringe again? You tell me after looking at Fr. OLaoire's homily...
A "Sophia" homily (scroll down) from Irish Catholic priest Fr. Sean OLaoire is presented at the Sophia Foundation website. Fr. OLaoire discusses Valentin Tomberg, calling him an "extraordinary genius". He refers to God as "Itself" in the homily. I found Fr. OLaoire online. Here. He is the "spiritual director" for a group of Catholics in San Francisco called "Companions on the Journey." He is also a faculty member of The Global Medicine Education Foundation.
I found a reference to "Companions on the Journey" at the Sophia Center at Holy Name University. One class uses the phrase in the title:
261. Companions on the Journey: Spiritual Directions from a Cosmological/Ecological Perspective (Kovats) This special intensive will focus on incorporating an informed awareness of cosmological and ecological perspectives within the practice of Christian spiritual direction. Insights from the writings of Christian mystics, scientific evolutionary cosmology and ecology will be explored. The practical implications of these themes for spiritual direction will be highlighted throughout. Poetry, stories and chants will be part of our time together.
If this is what passes for rationality, than perhaps I have become a lunatic. Look at the courses being offered along with #261. If that is rationality, my lunacy looks much more Catholic.
The Sophia Foundation website includes passages from Anne Katherine Emmerich as well, who was the source for "The Passion of the Christ". In the footnotes you will find a listing of "Western Sophiologists" which includes Jacob Boehme and Louis Claude de Saint-Martin, both well-known occultists. You will find "Russian Sophiologists" Soloviev, Florensky, Bulgakov. According to George Weigel's book WITNESS TO HOPE:
(p. 568-569)John Paul...became familiar with the work of Russian religious thinkers, once convinced Marxists, who had abandoned Marxism between the 1905 and 1917 revolutions while warning both the government and the Russian Orthodox Church about the impending catastrophe: Nicolai Berdyaev, Sergei Bulgakov, and Simon Frank. These thinkers, and the work of theologians like Pavel Florensky and Georges Florovsky, whom he read in French or Polish translations, familiarized the Pope with the religious core of Russian culture and convinced him that Russia had much to give the world.
Russia does have something important to give the world--an example we should never repeat. Is this what John Paul referred to? One would certainly hope so! Yet there is a nagging question that his support of the charismatic renewal movement is somehow tied to his enthusiasm for these Russian thinkers and Sophiology. And we have an Afterword written for MEDITATIONS ON THE TAROT by a theologian whom the Pope raised to a cardinal shortly before his death. We had a Pope who did not act decisively in the sexual abuse crisis. We had a Pope who did not act decisively to address the perversion of doctrine in the Church. We had a Pope who failed at governance. He was the same Pope who gave us the bishops who have plunged us into a grave crisis.
This is the Pope who created the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue on June 28, 1988. (Weigel, p. 564) Andreev and Tomberg were both published in the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Their books has previously been banned. Coincidental?
Weigel says of John Paul:
Hans Urs von Balthasar, the great Swiss theologian who was an important influence on John Paul's thinking and arguably the most creative Catholic theological mind of the century...(p. 565)
Creative indeed! He stretched Catholicism to encompass Tarot and Anthroposophy, something clearly condemned in the CCC. And no one called him on it. In fact no one is calling him on it now.
Occultism and Catholicism are being blended together right before our eyes, and no one seems to care.
If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...
Our Lady of Fatima, intercede for our rescue!
