Saturday, October 29, 2005
MORPHING THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY INTO SOPHIA
The website of Spiral Goddess presents in pictures and short captions the change in spirituality that is gaining prominence in the world. It describes in quick and easy to read terms what Ian Begg, Margaret Starbird, and China Galland, among others, are convinced is the nature of spiritual reality. Here you can read that the Blessed Virgin Mary represents the Divine Feminine, that when the Church suppressed the goddess, the people resurrected her in the form of the Mother of Jesus, "the Christian version of the GreenMan."
The website talks about visions of the Virgin Mary and Black Madonnas, and claims that the title "Queen of Heaven" and "Queen of Angels" is really a designation of her divinity. It claims that images of the BVM and Jesus are merely a variety of Isis and Her Son Horus, Demeter and Her daughter Kore and other goddesses of ancient history, including the Earth Mother Goddess.
They throw Mary Magdalene into the mix as the wife of Jesus. At the end the website notes that the Catholics want to name the Blessed Virgin as Co-Redeemer. I think it is significant that the proposition of Co-Redeemer is placed under a picture of a Blessed Virgin statue and a red rose. Rosicrucianism's use of the rose comes through in that picture.
Next take a look at the website of the Sophia Foundation, a creation of Robert Powell, who is the translator of Valentin Tomberg's MEDITATIONS ON THE TAROT. Look specifically at the webpage that describes Sophia. Here you can read about Sophiology from the viewpoint of one of the more prominent contemporary Sophiologists.
The power of devotion to Sophia, preeminently in the Orthodox Christian Church, is the inspiration of the Russian School of "Sophiology" that began in the late nineteenth century and continues to this day. Sophiology is closely connected to the life work of Vladimir Soloviev (1853 - 1900), one of Russia's greatest philosophers. Soloviev had three mystical experiences of Sophia, and these determined the central impulse and motivation for his entire life's work. Inspired by Soloviev, Pavel Florensky (1882 - 1937) and Sergei Bulgakov (1871 - 1944), both of whom were priests in the Russian Orthodox Church, developed Sophiology further in a systematic sense, drawing primarily upon the biblical Books of Wisdom and the Orthodox tradition of devotion to Sophia. It was their concern to elaborate a theology of Sophia that, while signifying an extension of Orthodox theology, would not conflict with it.
In the meantime, in the West, interest in Sophia is growing. This accords with Soloviev's prophetic vision of the approaching descent of Sophia. He expresses this vision in one of his poems:
Let it be known: today the Eternal Feminine
In an incorruptible body is descending to Earth.
In the unfading light of the new Goddess
Heaven has become one with the depths.
Here we have returned full circle to Goethe's words concerning the Eternal Feminine. In Goethe's vision, the Eternal Feminine, personified as the Queen of Heaven - essentially the Virgin Mary after her assumption into heaven, as the Mater Gloriosa (Glorious Mother) - bade Faust, 'Come, rise to seek the higher sphere." But unlike Soloviev, Goethe does not refer to the Eternal Feminine as Sophia. Yet, in view of the deep relationship between Sophia and the Virgin Mary, a central theme for some Sophiologists, Goethe's reference to the Eternal Feminine can be interpreted in relation to Sophia. Seen in this light, a veiled image of Sophia was communicated by Goethe in the West, and a few decades later a more explicit vision of Sophia was brought forward by Soloviev in the East. However, whereas Soloviev indicated a descent of Sophia, Goethe refers to "the Eternal Feminine lead [ing] us above."
Soloviev is frequently mentioned in connection with Sophiology. John Paul II referred several times to Soloviev, and according to George Weigel studied the Russian philosophers:
As Pope, Karol Wojtyla nurtured his interest in Russia and the Russians through numerous channels. He read deeply in the writings of Vladimir Soloviev, the late nineteenth-century Russian philosopher and theologian, a prophet of the reconciliation of Eastern and Western Christianity with a marked millennial strain in his thoughts. John Paul also 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 ctastrophe: 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. [WITNESS TO HOPE, pp 568-569]
Was John Paul II convinced by the arguments for Sophiology? We can't exactly ask him. It must be recognized that his devotion to the Blessed Virgin, while being truly Catholic, will also fit nicely into some of the doctrines of Sophiology.
Powell also mentions Goethe in that quote above. Rudolf Steiner was an acknowledged expert in the writings of Goethe, and it is those writings that formed the basis of his Anthroposophy, a cosmology developed out of Madame Blavatsky's Theosophy. Steiner was the founder of the German Theosophical Society and chaired it until he broke with Blavatsky over the inclusion of Christ in the doctrines. He was a Rosicrucian.
At the Sophia Foundation website you can see the red rose and cross at the top of the website, the symbol of the Rosicrucian Order. Rosicrucian teachings are contained in some of the upper degrees of Masonic systems. Knight of the Rose Croix is the 18th degree of Scottish Rite, for instance. The world headquarters of Anthroposophy, which Steiner designed, is called the Goetheanum.
Catholics and Sophiologists meet in MEDITATIONS ON THE TAROT. Fr. Basil Pennington and Fr. Thomas Keaton, both of whom are principal figures in Monastic Interriligious Dialogue and the centering prayer movement, have endorsed the book. Hans Urs von Balthasar wrote the Foreword, giving the book high praise.
Yet there is no way to introduce Sophiology into Roman Catholicism without seriously distorting our doctrine. And it must be remembered that Sophiology comes out of visionary experiences, at least in the case of Vladimir Soloviev who was reading Kabbalah in a British museum the second time Sophia appeared to him.
Clearly there is a push for a world church. Clearly the Roman hierarchy is also pushing for some sort of world understanding of religion through interreligious dialogue. Those two facts cannot be denied. Are both systems attempting the same thing? Attempting two opposing systems? There is no way to know right now, but this organization of Archbishop John, with its links to Canada and the U.S. and it's home in the Medjugorje movement would tend to hint at a combined system that will incorporate Gnosticism into Roman Catholicism. The Charismatic movement can hardly be overlooked in connection with this, and it must also be remembered that meditation plays a large role in Catholic and Gnostic systems, as well as it does in the work of the monks, some of whom are Catholic and some of whom are not, but all of whom seem to be coming together under one spiritual umbrella.
Post-denominationalism replacing Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, and Gnostic schools of thought? It certainly looks as though that is the cutting edge of religious thinking today...all in the name of peace. How will Jesus Christ emerge from this? Will He be replaced by a woman co-redeemer, or be said to share the redemption stage with her?
The question we all must answer is "Who do you say that I am?" The answer Christ found acceptable, "You are the Christ, Son of the Living God," seems to be falling out of favor on the earthly religious landscape.
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!
