Foreward

THE OLD XIBALBA BIBLE

by

An Orange Priest, in the Order of Melquizedek

UCB/ECAI NEPSIS FOUNDATION and Art Catalog

Or, www.nepsis.com

 8[6] Dragon Womb

Oil on Canvas 6′ x 2.5′ 1974

UCB/ECAI Frost Art Catalog

Or, wp.nepsis.com

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“A NEW THEOLOGY”

(Different in any case…)

THE XIBALBA BIBLE mimics Cycle II and III of

THE NEPSIS FOUNDATION AND THE ORACLE OF XIBALBA

At www.nepsis.com (wp.nepsis.com)[1], but is radically shorter-

 

Modern day Styliti, we take refuge on four pillars:

Visual Arts and

Poems,

Prose [Non-fiction Narratives, long and short Fiction, Essays] and

Metaphysical Exercise (described in the Letter to a Bishop, Cycle

One of The Nepsis Foundation).

All of these attend upon a complex of phenomena by which we know being- Religion or Science, Shamanic Vision- As you prefer- through the refracted lights of human perception. Ample warnings are issued about unusual style and grammar- abuse of hyphens, shifty gerunds, swishy tense formulations- even allegory.  The paintings are more straight-forward and the Poems… Well, see for yourself as we reconsider Art, Religion, Devotion, Myth/Fiction and the Critical Method- as well as why unusual styles and forms were determined necessary! Here we begin to grind a lens to see, to inculcate, this vision as it ignites in light and color.

 

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

PREAMBLE

FOREWORD 5

 

CHAPTER ONE:  Jack Hartley 11

CHAPTER TWO:  Dear Bishop, 18

CHAPTER THREE:  The Tot ‘T’  or ‘Formation of a Mystic’ 28

CHAPTER FOUR:  Simon? 47

CHAPTER FIVE:  Jack and Simon 52

CHAPTER SIX:  Georgia 90

CHAPTER SEVEN:  Resolution 95

 

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FOREWORD

 

 

Five Postulates the following story might illustrate:

  1. DREAMS:This is an example of sensibilities lost, (MIGHT BE REGAINED) -at least lessened to the point of atrophy in Modernity and why that substantially decreases one’s satisfaction with life.  The very spiritual and psychic organs we have as humans and that are the basis of any cohesive religious sensibility have atrophied.  I’ll give you an example:

One of my books is sub-titled: “How to Control One’s Dreams…” It’s a concept derived from the “Six Yogas of Naropa,” the famous Tibetan Buddhist text(s). Psychology has explored this area extensively.  My dreams are usually rich and positive- ‘telling,’ as an expression of an active inner life.  The significance of powerful dreaming, e.g. Aboriginal ‘dreamtime,’ is one of the treasures of an Animist worldview long ceded by much of Modernity to the muddy rills of primitive obscurity.  A mistake?  Such is one of the real signs of thwarted satisfaction in our contemporary scene.

…But I had a terrible dream recently.  It started by imagining what it was like for one’s lungs to fill with water as I slipped into a dream state.  I experienced real fear, even terror, as breathing ceased.  This was the opposite of my usual dreaming. Can’t remember another such instance as an adult.  I thought it was because I’ve come close, recently, to defeat by a derisive chorus of critics.  Or, maybe it’s the severe apnea I’m blessed with.  That can feel like drowning.  Maybe both.  It really disturbed me.  I was saved by a couple of friends to whom I related the dream and my disturbed reaction.  One said, “Your dreams are probably the result of a bad hamburger and fries (in Mesquite, Nevada-” where I was traveling just then).   Actually, the hamburger I ate there was very good.  But, there was something about this dismissal of the significance of the dream and a similar response from another friend that saved me from what seemed at the time psychic destruction, at least defeat.  By this strong, typical, Western skepticism about such metaphysics, I was freed and returned to my usual sense of delight in animate union, as part of a whole, creation and spirit, the Divine Body- A nearly lost art.

 

  1.   ‘GOD,’ or ‘Gods,’ Elohim, Trinity, is of a different vale entirely from our dimension of being- Lk 16:15.  They don’t ‘exist.’  But remain influential!  ‘The Kingdom of God is at hand.’  There is something about Nature that is inhabited by the ‘Divine Milieu.’  All the rest of the New Testament refers symbolically to this reality witnessed by the Christ. Do pierce though…

 

  1.    SEX:Though the drama of “spirituality” is the topic-  Sex, any graphic sex is used here to explore the biosphere of human experience as it relates to ultimate reality.  The magnificence of Tibetan Buddhist Iconography is salient in this.  Sexual intercourse is used in such icons as a metaphor of resolution for the desperate duality in life.  This might be male and female, or hot and cold, or matter and spirit- heaven and earth- is but the surface of a profound worldview.  Though Buddhists might be more comfortable discussing the path to Enlightenment rather than ‘spirituality,’ we meet in the processes of the human body and mind- the ineffability of self, Spirit, and the Glorified Body.  A neo-Victorian prudery that seemed to influence American culture in the 1990s and since is disconcerting. Abstinence is also a sexual practice. The point is to get states of consciousness wherein adulterous emotions do not even arise, wherein lust is replaced by freedom.    (Freedom to do what’s right and to love, to ‘know’ God …) On just about every level is the increase of greater honesty and courage.  Though, less exhibitionism and grandstanding are always helpful.  Getting there is what this book is about.

My particular interest evolves from several poignant moments.   One is that on my first day as an ordained Roman Catholic cleric, a teenager in my new parish blew his brains out with a family gun.  It was said that this resulted from problems in sexual maturation- trouble with his girl friend among others.  It was my task to wait, as the blood and gore was cleaned in the upstairs bathroom, to tell his mother and grandmother the news when they returned from shopping.

A couple of years later, a priest friend in that same parish, whom I admired as a popular, very helpful, generally excellent minister, was accused of child molestation involving some teenage boys.

Though of general interest- sex is always popular- these events encouraged me to search out the problem here.  Or, at least, to find a way of viewing such issues from a different perspective, including the subsequent hysteria in the media, politics, courts and ecclesial bank accounts from the molestation cases.  As well, there are far more hetero-molesters than homo…

Sex is primary in any biological consideration. Certainly, it is important here, but not just any kind.  Christian moral physiology might be re-considered in terms of Asian mystical physiology, chi, prana, et al- as well as Scientific or Critical theory and the impact of commercial/military technology.

 

  1. Homoerotic Phenomena: We are long past the point in Western civilization wherein we might better appreciate homosexuality. Especially this is true in the Church.  The Church has often protected many from vitriolic bigotry about this issue.  But as well it has embraced the more popular aspects of human life and often led in the condemnation of something quite natural, even supernatural.  Only recently, it begins to be openly popular again.  A very good thing for human rights and dignity- truthfulness generally.

In the life of Christ, where is it that heterosexual couples are the primary format for stable human life in society.  It’s a cultural norm not a religious requirement.  Marriage has all sorts of benefits.  But Jesus Christ was not married.  He was celibate.  As was the Lord Buddha.  No one knows their sexual preferences beyond that…  He was above that, one believes, not necessarily against the usual options.  He did not comment except to advise against betrayal, lies and hypocritical judgments.  His ‘special friendship’ with St. John leaves the question open- as does David’s with Jonathan, not to speak of Heracles and Hylas, Achilles and Protroclus, Plato et al- examples of love rather than lust. (Soma rather than Sarx in New Testament Greek.)

Biological, psychological and emotional maturation, circumstances and cultural initiation are too varied for a black and white, factory process in such issues. The history of Mysticism contains different resolutions.[1] 

 

  1. A NEW INNOCENCE:

 

“Who Told You You Were Naked?” ‘Theopoeisis’ A New Innocence! An icon of ritual intent, follows #105[93] consecrated at the 1985 Easter Vigil for that church with spiritual root in Cuernavaca drawings (and Mexico City earthquake!) that leads, 7 paintings of the same theme and 15 years later, to this image- A consideration of the possibility, the ‘indwelling’ of the Holy Spirit- The Holy Land within. Thus, the pilgrim way of the Holy Lander!

165b. [94b.] Detail

“Who Told You You Were Naked?”

Theopoeisis

A New Innocence

 

When Adam and Eve are found hiding from God in the Garden of Eden, God replies to Adam’s complaint about being naked with the above query. “Who told you you were naked?” Before the Resurrection and after the Creation, this question might be the most important moment described in the Bible. How do we lose our innocence, i.e. our intimate relationship, of ‘vaulting splendor,’ with the divine spirit… and everything else? This painting in combination with #[93], #[43], (and #[84-88]), comments upon the ‘answer’ to the problem of the Fall in Genesis–The Christos, or our christic identity—or as Panikkar would have it, a “New Innocence.” ‘The old innocence is lost. It cannot be reclaimed by modernity.’ But there is the possibility of a “new” state that comes from the influence all the “wisdom traditions” of the past and the altruistic intentions of our own secular age.

In relationship to the “New Innocence” is the ancient Church teaching about Theopoeisis, the Rhythm of God, or the movement of the divine spirit in creation. This refers to an early, predominant teaching, or spiritual method in the Church concerning how such original innocence is rediscovered in one’s life. To live life according to the Rhythm of God, is to discover one’s true identity, and Spirit as the completion of nature.

The “horns of light”, yellow shapes around the central figure of this painting are a reference to mandala themes.

See #143-147 [84-88], or dissertation appendix, Buddhist Notes/Mandalas-

THE NEPSIS FOUNDATION under ESSAYS.

This painting is the seventh in a series of male nudes at first overtly sexual in the practice of sex magic—the most powerful and dangerous of magics. Working through issues of sexual identity, and other character issues, one comes to a NEW INNOCENCE, with sexuality a discreet mystery—even abstinent, certainly chaste.

See also: #s [48, 49. 71, 80, 93, 93c, 158.] in the

UCB/ECAI Frost Art Catalog

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This book meanders through adventures, titillations, and humor with gymnastic focus.  But finally, I present this material seriously as important to the ‘fullness’ promised by religion, such that I have gone to the trouble to create this book of adventure and fantasy, ‘fiction,’ to further illustrate its principals for a wider audience.

 

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[1] For example, some among the fiercest warriors also chose this path.  From an online source acknowledged below, a noted commentator, Edward Carpenter in, Intermediate Types among Primitive Folk, ([1914], at sacred-texts.com), remarks:

 

“For myself, I think that there are two quite possible and not unreasonable theories on the whole matter. The first and most important is that there really is a connection between the homosexual temperament and divinatory or unusual psychic powers; the second is (that there is no such particular connection, but) that the idea of sorcery or witchcraft naturally and commonly springs up round the ceremonials of an old religion or morality when that religion is being superseded by a new one. This is, of course, a well-recognized fact. The gods of one religion become the devils of its successor; the poetic rites of one age become the black magic of the next. But in the case of the primitive religions of the earth their ceremonials were, without doubt, very largely sexual, and even homosexual. Consequently, when new religious developments set in, the homosexual rites, which were most foreign to the later religionists and most disturbing to their ideas, associated themselves most strongly with the notion of sorcery and occult powers.

 

For myself I am inclined to accept both explanations, …to combine them. I think there is an organic connection between the homosexual temperament and unusual psychic or divinatory powers; but I think also that the causes mentioned in the second explanation have in many cases led to an exaggerated belief in such connection, and have given it a sorcerous or demonic aspect.

 

…that the primitive religions of the Matriarchate may have ultimately led to men-priests dressing in female attire. For when the matriarchal days were passing away, and men were beginning to assert their predominance, it still may have happened that the old religious customs lingering on may have induced men to simulate the part of women and to dress as priestesses, or at least have afforded them an excuse for so doing. In this way it seems just possible that the pendulum-swing of society from the matriarchate to the patriarchate may have been accompanied by some degree of crisis and confusion between the functions of the sexes, homosexual customs and tendencies may have come to the fore, and the connection of homosexuality with the priesthood may seem to be accounted for.

 

This explanation, however, though it certainly has a claim to be mentioned, seems to me too risky and insecure for very much stress to be laid upon it. In the first place the extent and prevalence of the matriarchal order of society is a matter still very much disputed, and to assume that at any early period of human history the same was practically universal would be unjustified. In the second place, granting the existence of the matriarchal order and its transmutation into the patriarchal, the connection of this change with the development of homosexual customs is still only a speculation and a theory, supported by little direct evidence. On the other hand, the facts to be explained–namely, the connection of homosexuality with priesthood and divination–seem to be world-wide and universal. Therefore, though we admit that the causes mentioned–namely the attribution of magical qualities to old religious rites, and the introduction of feminine inversions and disguises through the old matriarchal custom–may account in part for the facts, and in particular may in certain localities have given them a devilish or sorcerous complexion, yet I think we must look deeper for the root-explanations of the whole matter, and consider whether there may not be some fundamental causes in human nature itself.

Sacred Texts  LGBT  Online Classics  Index: Intermediate Types among Primitive Folk, by Edward Carpenter, [1914], at sacred-texts.com

Further:  See Endnotes, Chapter Three.

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[1] Also, http://ecai.org/NEPSIS/