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Oh, okay. That’s what I think too, which is the opposite of what it think Nigel is saying here:
When an artist tries playfully to crystallize a metaphysical illusion of a spiritual experience, such a work might help to trigger, in the minds of their fellows, a ping of discovery? Or of recognition?
I think he’s saying that metaphysics is what happens when an artist tries to portray his/her personal spiritual experience, or personal revelation, to other people. If that were true, the portrayals given in TUB by celestials would also be metaphysical – right? That just doesn’t sound accurate to me.
Just because an art form may seem stilted or contorted in favor of one person’s personal spiritual experience doesn’t make it metaphysical. It makes it human, and wholly relative to that person. Metaphysics is something else entirely. Actually, I don’t think metaphysics represents experiential truth at all. I think it’s a substitute for not having had it in the first place. What do you think?
Agreed….metaphysics, to me, is that part of our reality perspective that we believe or accept but is a fictional, if sometimes reasonable and plausible, construct in lieu of factual knowledge, and is often ridiculously illogical and fantastically wrong.
Sometimes, revelation, especially of the epochal variety, does deliver true and factual knowledge to add foundation and details of reality to perspective which reduces confusions and eliminates errors of metaphysics.
So yes, I agree, metaphysics is neither truth nor fact. And truth is experienced but fact simply is. There is only one reality, but truth is experientially relative.
So what do you think about TUB? Are the words in TUB an art form, and if so, how can they be an illusion? Is the quote below referring to inspired art only? We do know that TUB is not inspired, so perhaps it’s words are not an art form even though they do foreshadow a higher universe reality. Perhaps revelation foreshadows a higher universe reality by means other than illusion. I have to say that for me the Revelation has crystallized my emotions into the thoughts of eternity, so perhaps there are different levels of art, especially word-art.
(557.7) 48:7.23 21. The high mission of any art is, by its illusions, to foreshadow a higher universe reality, to crystallize the emotions of time into the thought of eternity.
I ponder this because words are so very important. They have meaning, albeit not necessarily experiential meaning. Words without experience are just that, words with intellectual meanings, mere facts. As I mentioned before, Jesus used word-art in his teaching. Heck, he himself is known as The Word. What is that all about? When and how does “the word” move from factual intellectual meaning, to philosophical meaning, and finally to actual living truth?
The information is not the art form but words that convey information may be. Consider the meter inserted and the method of causing and answering questions (anticipation created and satisfied) and the weaving of a multidimensional tapestry or the introduction of an instrument at a time to form a symphonic orchestration of fully integrated melody and harmony creating a sense of smallness but also intimacy and belonging.
Consider the artful demonstration of truth, beauty, and goodness by the Master as he delivered the gospel.
Well, perhaps the information/ideas provided by the words in TUB are more than art; perhaps they give us a glimpse of beauty as well as truth. They do say that all truth is also beautiful and that we are supposed to believe truth and admire beauty. But they also say that man attains beauty through truth. I guess a truth saturated person becomes beautiful and attractive to others. Perhaps truth saturated words are also beautiful and attractive, worth believing and admiring. Perhaps that’s the draw we all feel towards the words in TUB?
But then look at the contrast with metaphysics, which is neither true or beautiful. Words without truth, ideas without beauty. Not much to admire or believe in, and little to hold one’s attraction for very long. I think metaphysics is meant to be a temporary phenomenon until a true and beautiful revelation comes along.
So how many types of legitimate revelation do you think there are? And how do you recognize them as legitimate?
(557.7) 48:7.23 21. The high mission of any art is, by its illusions, to foreshadow a higher universe reality, to crystallize the emotions of time into the thought of eternity.
Also consider this, clipped from paper 38, talking about angels:
“They appreciate and greatly enjoy your efforts in music, art, and real humor.”
from the two quotes I focus on the words: “mission” and “efforts”.
dosent this suggest that the focus is more on intention, effort, mission, ideas, creative thought process, etc as opposed to the resulting art work itself??
“Consider the artful demonstration of truth, beauty and goodness by the Master as he delivered the gospel”
the resulting artwork was left in our hearts and minds, not on canvas.
Again, effort, intention, mission.
To your point Gene, I think I recall text that says that art is not the result but the process of expression itself. I think others may appreciate or be inspired by someone else’s art….but the experience of creating is far more meaningful and offers more value than the experience of appreciation? I think it is tied again to the actual experience and the depth of experience and whether the experience is internal only or externalized by its expression. We know faith is mere belief until it changes and motivates behavior choices. Faith is an expression, not a feeling or not only a feeling…a feeling that compels an expression perhaps? Is are a feeling that also compels an expression and then that expression may compel a response in others?
As to the types of revelation…hmmmmm….I think there are but 3….self revelation; auto/personal revelation; epochal revelation. I think we will only accept revelation or insight or fact from another person based on a reasoned and logical belief (self revelation) or by some accepted authority. Now if we accept beliefs from any mortal source (not Divine/celestial/epochal or personal) and that we cannot accept or verify by reason….then is that truly revelation at all? Or are we simply giving belief to presumed authority which may be as ignorant as we are? People still believe in the big bang theory for example? Why? It’s not true or factual or proven. It’s not particularly reasonable or logical either (what caused the bang? A cause without a cause? An effect looking for a cause…even a fictional one.)
This is metaphysics…the invention of explanation for causes and/or effects without explanation to support a perspective of reality. The more metaphysical, the less real. The more real, the less metaphysical. But not a zero sum process either. For the more of objective reality we come to factually know and understand, the more of universe reality there is for additional cause and effect observations and speculations. So as old metaphysics is replaced by fact and knowledge, new applications for metaphysics come into play. I remain a little baffled by the term “true metaphysics” to come. Perhaps our speculations get far more inspired and logical and less fantastic and ridiculous?
dosent this suggest that the focus is more on intention, effort, mission, ideas, creative thought process, etc as opposed to the resulting art work itself??
Yes, I think this quote makes that same point:
101:9.4 Art is only religious when it becomes diffused with purpose which has been derived from high spiritual motivation.
Isn’t that what we call inspiration? I think they’re talking about the “art of the beautiful” included in the Thought Adjuster’s plea to his human partner at the end of paper 111, which I think is about the art of living a beautiful life. That does boil down into intention and desire.
And in regards to the Master’s artwork, he used his life as a living Word which continues to live within us now. It’s an ongoing work of art which does speak to the art of living a beautiful life. The Spirit of Truth is also the spirit of idealistic beauty. (155:6.11)
But here’s where I’m curious: If the Master’s beautiful life, the Word made flesh with the gift of living truth, was a revelation to the universe, what about TUB? What about those words which are not living? Somehow those words have to become alive and beautiful in order to qualify as a revelation, right? Or do they qualify as a revelation locked within a book, regardless if it is ever opened and read?
But the UB is opened and read….already and more readers all the time…perhaps a whole world as an audience eventually. There’s an old philosophy question about if a tree falls in the woods but no one is around to hear it, does it make noise/sound? The same question would apply to a revelation that is unread I suppose. The answer to the first question is: Yes it does. I think also to the second.
I was recently reading Paper 23 again – The Solitary Messengers – and came across this:
23:2.24 (260.4) 7. Revelators of Truth. The Solitary Messengers regard the assignment to reveal truth as the highest trust of their order. And they function ever and anon in this capacity, from the superuniverses to the individual planets of space. They are frequently attached to commissions which are sent to enlarge the revelation of truth to the worlds and systems.
Makes me wonder if the UB is perhaps not so unusual in form as I always thought. Text books as epochal revelation may not be so unusual depending on the circumstances of each evolutionary world.
23:3.1 (260.5) The Solitary Messengers are the highest type of perfect and confidential personality available in all realms for the quick transmission of important and urgent messages when it is inexpedient to utilize either the broadcast service or the reflectivity mechanism. They serve in an endless variety of assignments, helping out the spiritual and material beings of the realms, particularly where the element of time is involved. Of all orders assigned to the services of the superuniverse domains, they are the highest and most versatile personalized beings who can come so near to defying time and space.
23:3.8 (261.6) In the seven superuniverses, ordinarily—but not always—everything which tends to increase any creature’s liberation from the handicaps of time and space proportionately diminishes personality prerogatives. Solitary Messengers are an exception to this general law. They are in their activities all but unrestricted in the utilization of any and all of the limitless avenues of spiritual expression, divine service, personal ministry, and cosmic communication. If you could view these extraordinary beings in the light of my experience in universe administration, you would comprehend how difficult it would be to co-ordinate superuniverse affairs were it not for their versatile co-operation.
As to the types of revelation…hmmmmm….I think there are but 3….self revelation; auto/personal revelation; epochal revelation.
I was reading the other day and came across another kind: racial. I’m not sure what they mean by that. Do you think they mean the entire human race (epochal), or each individual race?
101:3.17 We know, then, by three phenomena, that man has a divine spirit or spirits dwelling within him: first, by personal experience-religious faith; second, by revelation-personal and racial; and third, by the amazing exhibition of such extraordinary and unnatural reactions to his material environment as are illustrated by the foregoing recital of twelve spiritlike performances in the presence of the actual and trying situations of real human existence.And there are still others.
I think we will only accept revelation or insight or fact from another person based on a reasoned and logical belief (self revelation) or by some accepted authority.
Interesting question. First I would have to ask, what is an “accepted authority”? Do you think some TUB readers accept the Revelation because it is written by celestials with authority they trust? I think there are some folks out there who can’t or won’t accept their authority and I can’t blame them for that. But there’s an even higher authority and the celestial authors tell us point blank that they’re relying on it to help us. Jesus did say, “The authority of truth is the very spirit that indwells its living manifestations . . . “(159:4.7)
Bradly wrote: Now if we accept beliefs from any mortal source (not Divine/celestial/epochal or personal) and that we cannot accept or verify by reason….then is that truly revelation at all?
Another interesting question. Jesus had the ability to recognize truth regardless of its source (126:3.8), and if we are utilizing the mind of Jesus as we have been told, then we too should be able to do that. But I agree, if truth is always a revelation, and if revelation is always liberating, then revelation should also always be reasonable and logical because both reason and logic lead the way to truth (part of that gateway thing). Revelation can’t be liberating if it doesn’t work in real life and real life depends on reason and logic to a certain extent, at least here on terra firma. What makes it liberating is that it works, it can be lived out and applied in everyday circumstances with positive results. It’s stable and reliable, inconcussible even. If something isn’t working – it’s uh – broken, kaput, trash, right? The harder you have to work to fix it, the less likely it’s salvageable in the long run. I think you just have to walk away from that kinda thing.
101:6.7 Revelation teaches mortal man that, to start such a magnificent and intriguing adventure through space by means of the progression of time, he should begin by the organization of knowledge into idea-decisions; next, mandate wisdom to labor unremittingly at its noble task of transforming self-possessed ideas into increasingly practical but nonetheless supernal ideals, even those concepts which are so reasonable as ideas and so logical as ideals that the Adjuster dares so to combine and spiritize them as to render them available for such association in the finite mind as will constitute them the actual human complement thus made ready for the action of the Truth Spirit of the Sons, the time-space manifestations of Paradise truth—universal truth. The co-ordination of idea-decisions, logical ideals, and divine truth constitutes the possession of a righteous character, the prerequisite for mortal admission to the ever-expanding and increasingly spiritual realities of the morontia worlds.
People still believe in the big bang theory for example? Why? It’s not true or factual or proven. It’s not particularly reasonable or logical either (what caused the bang? A cause without a cause? An effect looking for a cause…even a fictional one.)
Kinda like man-made global warming. Talk about metaphysics on steroids. You got everything in that messed up philosophy. Guilt, fear, punishment, self-righteousness, messiah complexes, floods, armageddon, god/goddess-appeasement, sacrifices, nature worship . . . it’s like the culmination of every metaphysical myth that ever was. Maybe when this pimple pops mankind might be finally rid of these menacing superstitions. We live in hope.
But the UB is opened and read….already and more readers all the time…perhaps a whole world as an audience eventually. There’s an old philosophy question about if a tree falls in the woods but no one is around to hear it, does it make noise/sound? The same question would apply to a revelation that is unread I suppose. The answer to the first question is: Yes it does. I think also to the second.
That’s not my point though. The unread text, or the text read without the aid of the Spirit of Truth may not qualify as revelation because it hasn’t become an actual part of human experience. I think revelation and truth work the same way. The written word may contain the seeds of revelation, but those seeds must produce something real if they are to qualify as actual revelation, I think. This quote says it better:
101:2.1 The fact of religion consists wholly in the religious experience of rational and average human beings. And this is the only sense in which religion can ever be regarded as scientific or even psychological. The proof that revelation is revelation is this same fact of human experience: the fact that revelation does synthesize the apparently divergent sciences of nature and the theology of religion into a consistent and logical universe philosophy, a co-ordinated and unbroken explanation of both science and religion, thus creating a harmony of mind and satisfaction of spirit which answers in human experience those questionings of the mortal mind which craves to know how the Infinite works out his will and plans in matter, with minds, and on spirit.
Then there’s this one:
101:2.8 Reason is the proof of science, faith the proof of religion, logic the proof of philosophy, but revelation is validated only by human experience.
Do the words in TUB qualify as revelation without human experience? Perhaps they do in theory, but maybe not in reality. Doesn’t revelation follow the same rules as truth; that truth is only revealed in the soul of man where it is integrated, where all its interrelationships are recognized and identified with? I think TUB calls that emerging morontia reality. One thing we know, metaphysics doesn’t participate on this level, if it did, it would be called revelation, or true metaphysics.
101:3.17 We know, then, by three phenomena, that man has a divine spirit or spirits dwelling within him: first, by personal experience-religious faith; second, by revelation-personal and racial; and third, by the amazing exhibition of such extraordinary and unnatural reactions to his material environment as are illustrated by the foregoing recital of twelve spiritlike performances in the presence of the actual and trying situations of real human existence.And there are still others.
I think the author means epochal by the use of racial here – as in planetary to the human race, not as if to any race of humans as determined by color. We know of the God’s spirit within either by personal revelatory experience or because of the UB as epochal revelation or by one of the other two phenomena listed.
Bonita writes above: “Interesting question. First I would have to ask, what is an “accepted authority”? Do you think some TUB readers accept the Revelation because it is written by celestials with authority they trust? I think there are some folks out there who can’t or won’t accept their authority and I can’t blame them for that. But there’s an even higher authority and the celestial authors tell us point blank that they’re relying on it to help us. Jesus did say, “The authority of truth is the very spirit that indwells its living manifestations . . . “(159:4.7)
I was thinking of the priesthood or authority of doctrine when I wrote that but the point is some people believe what they’re told without needing or requiring any logic or reason. Children believe everything their parents tell them until they begin to question and challenge everything instead (sometime after the Santa Claus cat is out of the bag!). I certainly did not personally accept the authority claimed by the UB’s authors without significant time and prayer and reason…finally did I conclude the only thing more unbelievable than the claims themselves was any other alternative! Which I think is what you mean about the “authority of truth”.
As to the value of metaphysics, let me say that the UB challenged mine in so many ways of confirmation and reasonable, logical context and connections…which proves to me that metaphysics is not always so fictional, it is just unverified and unsubstantiated. But if one truly applies logic and reason to the evidence at hand, then the inventions of that which provides our context might be imagined and inspired sufficiently to not be so surprising or so inaccurate after all. I found the UB to feel believable long before I accepted its claims…it all made too much sense as I read it the first time. It’s authorship claims notwithstanding, it’s believability overcame all suspicion and skepticism over time.
It made too much sense logically to be fiction, according to my own metaphysical constructs, beliefs, and preconceptions…so many of which were developed once I had rejected the metaphysics of authority handed to me by the process of superstition and evolutionary religion’s remnants of myth based reality memory from long, long ago. Not that many of us, I have come to discover, truly take the time and do the work of constructing our own metaphysical reality…far too many simply believe what they are told by someone with sufficient authority to merely adopt that version of reality.
The beginning of that construct, is my forever belief on how vast is God’s creation and how BIG is God compared to the church’s earth centric beliefs and how many beings there MUST be in the universe and how organized. Next is the integration of creationism and evolution – of course both MUST be true! Then there is karma and perfecting over the eternity to come in TIME, slowly and experientially. As created by one from outside of time and space, from infinity and the never beginning….all of which is so much more reasonable than everything coming from nothing without cause or reason (imagine science OF ALL SOURCES claiming something from nothing without cause….effect but no cause….hahhahahahah, ridiculous!!) And then there is the personal nature of God and God’s relationship as parent to creation based on love.
My universe paradigm included all of that generally before the UB found me. Still did I doubt it initially regarding its claims for itself. But those claims too now only makes good logical sense for who else might have composed such an inspiring compilation of truth and integrated facts?
Remember that self revelation includes reason and logic and insight and inspiration. The mind may discover a great deal about reality merely by observing and thinking!
(imagine science OF ALL SOURCES claiming something from nothing without cause….effect but no cause….hahhahahahah, ridiculous!!)
Well, that’s because they refuse to take personality into account, particularly the personality of the Uncaused Cause. Personality is the one thing we have that has been released from the fetters of antecedent causation.
111:4.8 You cannot completely control the external world — environment. It is the creativity of the inner world that is most subject to your direction because there your personality is so largely liberated from the fetters of the laws of antecedent causation. There is associated with personality a limited sovereignty of will.
103:9.11 (1142.2) Faith leads to knowing God, not merely to a mystical feeling of the divine presence. Faith must not be overmuch influenced by its emotional consequences. True religion is an experience of believing and knowing as well as a satisfaction of feeling.
Paper 103 – The Reality of Religious Experience – has introduced and integrated many different elements of personal religion to present to us effects, or results, and not just causes or the beginnings of such experience. Faith is an act. Faith becomes a series or stream of acts which should, over time and sincere repetition, lead to experiential wisdom…a result of our discernment of and relationship with God. The attachment of the branch to the vine by faith results in that nurturing and productive relationship with the vine and the flow of nutrients that delivers the fruit of that vine of love.
Being attached to the vine will deliver feelings and high emotions of trust and satisfaction, assurance and contentment, hope and happiness, joy and sublime peace…this is the natural result of the response of mind to the urges and yearns, the hunger and thirst that the adjutants and the Adjuster deliver to our minds. The response is faith. Faith is the act based on knowing and believing…the more we act upon our believing and knowing, the more faith grows within….the more certain we become of God and our relationship to God. It works. This relationship. It has demonstrable and experiencable results. Changes to how we think and what we think about and what we see around us changes. Our perception of reality changes. Our perspective changes. Our expectations change. Results change. Reality becomes more objective to our lens of view. We gain maturity, certainty, confidence, poise, and patience. Faith and truth are transformative and not at all passive.
Religious Experience becomes far more than a mystical or warm and fuzzy feeling…it becomes terra firma, foundational and dependable. We change who we are by changing how we choose what we choose and why we choose what we choose because of our experience with faith. Religious Experience is what happens to us and the decisions we make because of our growing faith and the truth realized and the truth assurance gained as the TA succeeds in its ministry to our mind which opens to the faith experience of the adjutants like a flower to the sun for the pollination of truth…think of faith as the flower and truth as the pollen provided by the Adjuster and the fruits which come thereby are filled with the seed we sow as we walk by.
Bradly – what a perfect culmination to this study!
All these pregnant personal potentials bring us back to the question: how to share such intimately personal discoveries?
To what degree is it possible to share the experience of such pollination with someone who may be no less keen to believe, yet whose faith is just warming up for such experiential reach?
This is what I had in mind regarding the phenomenon of metaphysics, which unfolds in the mind of the non-experiencer, the one yet to be pollinated. In such cases, their minds “unfailingly postulate conclusions and invent origins” (115:1.1, 1260.2). In other words, for them, during their pre-experiential reach, the phenomenon of metaphysics serves to fill gaps until bridged by experience.
Or until they receive the sort of “revelation” that, in cultures as confused as ours, triggers all sorts of further metaphysical repercussions!!
with thanks — Nigel
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