Connolly: Materialism

[Fulgour]

Image from "Biblia Vivida"

Ascension of Christ

 

[Sophie-David]

In her Apprentice book on page 216 (First Edition - Oct 1979) under Perform the Ritual of Solidification, Ms. Connolly says "When you receive the pack from the client, hold it firmly between the palms of your hands and press gently three times, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This act of faith unites with strength the wisdom to be received from the Divine Trinity of God."

The Son is Jesus, is he not? Strength from the Trinity would include Jesus in it, whether you call Him directly by name or not.

Yes, you are quite right. I had forgotten about this "Solidification" and thought you were referring to the Invocation. I'm not sure that this affects the conclusions I was coming to - that Elaine is liberal and esoteric, and that if the Materialist does evoke a Jesus image it is actually quite effective and consistent within the Connollys presumed frame of reference.

About the time I bought the Connolly deck - got it for $1 at a tag sale - I did search down the image because I had seen it in a book on religious art. Will do some searching because it is not an original image. If it's not a Risen Christ it is a Transfigured Christ from a church somewhere.

Well, it would be interesting to see - but I have a feeling its not on the Sistine ceiling.

 

[MoonMaiden]

The Son is Jesus, is he not?

I interpret the Son as being the Christ, and not a named figure. I believe it is interpreted that when Jesus (je suis, I AM) mentioned pray, etc. "in my name" he was referring to Christ, the office, as that's where the power lay. Besides, wasn't his name Joshua?

 

[MoonMaiden]

Sophie-David,

I have read about your majors journey, and thank you. I would most certainly like to see it posted here. Although there are many things I could think to ask, I began to wonder about one thing.

I believe that in another post I mentioned Neville Goddard. His path was one of present-time partaking of what we now think of as a future desire. Please don't think I am trivializing your work in any way, as I am sure that I don't fully understand it. It seems like I should mention this anyway, just in case it helps.

Have you meditated on what your life would be like if the Creative Beloved were already yours? Not just meditating but assimilating her and proceeding from that place. What do you anticipate that the change would bring? How are you now different? Neville's teaching was that to have a thing be part of our lives we must think FROM the new situation, not OF it. Everything we now have we interact with differently. I think it was your word "desire" that made me think of this. When you learned the tarot for her, she assimilated it through you. What is the mirror of that behaviour? How did this take place with Sophie?

I will stop here. She is yours. She is you. The only thing that makes it seem that she is separate is your own belief that she is. Perhaps this can be molded to your own thought patterns, as I am sure that you realize this already, but maybe not quite like this.

 

[Fulgour]

Why not?!

About the time I bought the Connolly deck - got it for $1 at a tag sale - I did search down the image because I had seen it in a book on religious art.

I'd seen it, but thought it looked kind of like eye candy,
until I met a girl at the County Fair doing readings with
it and saw how comfortable she was, so I bought mine.

 

[Sophie-David]

A possible model:
Sistine Chapel, Last Judgement

Yes, this is part of the complete collection that is at the Sistene Chapel site. It doesn't remind me very much of the Materialist.

Ascension of Christ

This one is a bit more like the Materialist, but I guess any man in a red cloak with his arms raised would be somewhat like the Connolly figure. This figure of the encounter of the risen Christ with Mary Magdala from this parent page also has some similarities.

I am wondering what we are trying to establish here, if it is whether the Connollys deliberately placed a Christ like figure in the role of the Materialist, I think that interpreting their motivations is going to be problematic. If it is whether it is incongruous to place Christ in the role of the Materialist that is probably a function of one's understanding of who the Christ is.

 

[Sophie-David]

I interpret the Son as being the Christ, and not a named figure. I believe it is interpreted that when Jesus (je suis, I AM) mentioned pray, etc. "in my name" he was referring to Christ, the office, as that's where the power lay. Besides, wasn't his name Joshua?

I rather like your French interpretation of the name, but I believe it is your working personal interpretation. According to my favourite name source, "Jesus" is derived from the Hebrew "Yehoshua" and means "YAHWEH is salvation", i.e. "God Saves". "Joshua" is derived from the same root.

Nonetheless, I believe at least some Gnostics would agree with you that the historical Jesus was referring to praying in the sonship of the Christ (which comes from the same root as "Messiah" and means the "annointed one"). A case can be made that all followers of the Way, whether sons or daughters, inherently have the same authority as the historical Jesus.

But I do not see any indications in Elaine Connolly's book that she herself would take a Gnostic interpretation; I suspect that when she invokes the Trinity she is doing so within the context of the mainstream Christian understanding.

 

[MoonMaiden]

I admit that I haven't studied enough of her material to know.

I believe it is interpreted that when Jesus (je suis, I AM)

-- Definitely not just my personal opionion, but it's been so long since I remembered where it came from that it will take a bit of research . . .


BTW, found a Neville quote that is a whole lot more elegant than what I tried to describe . . .

"Everything is a state which is real, yet invisible. Not knowing this, and seeing no evidence to support your desired state, you may return to the former one. Expecting the new state to happen now, you don’t remain faithful to it. But if you will remain there until it becomes natural to think from that state, it will be born in your world. There is a period of time between your entrance into the invisible state and its visibility, and it has to come. Everything has an interval of time. The vision has its own appointed hour. If it seems long, wait. It is sure and it will not be late. A little sheep takes five months, a man nine months, a horse one year. All these are fixed intervals of time.

How long will it take for a state to become objective? As long as it takes the nature of that seed to hatch. All you are called upon to do is to go into the state and remain there psychologically. Although you will continue to physically walk the earth as one person, as you think from your desired psychological state, it takes on physical tones and becomes a fact in your world. This is how you move from state to state as you wait for the promise of God to fulfill itself."

from ELECTION AND CHANGE OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Lecture 215 Neville 02/24/1963

 

[MoonMaiden]

another btw -- isn't Connolly's name Eileen? Whole different vibration . . .

 

[Sophie-David]

Sophie-David,

I have read about your majors journey, and thank you. I would most certainly like to see it posted here. Although there are many things I could think to ask, I began to wonder about one thing.

I believe that in another post I mentioned Neville Goddard. His path was one of present-time partaking of what we now think of as a future desire. Please don't think I am trivializing your work in any way, as I am sure that I don't fully understand it. It seems like I should mention this anyway, just in case it helps.

I definitely appreciate your feedback since it helps me to question my assumptions. I am not familiar with the work of Neville Goddard - my proposed reading list seems to expand daily! But I think that it is very important to let the process take place naturally and not force it. It is the journey or process that is important, not the end in itself.

Have you meditated on what your life would be like if the Creative Beloved were already yours? Not just meditating but assimilating her and proceeding from that place. What do you anticipate that the change would bring? How are you now different? Neville's teaching was that to have a thing be part of our lives we must think FROM the new situation, not OF it. Everything we now have we interact with differently. I think it was your word "desire" that made me think of this. When you learned the tarot for her, she assimilated it through you. What is the mirror of that behaviour? How did this take place with Sophie?

What I have learned from my rather superficial study of Jung and his school, which has only reinforced what I have experienced, is that is important to treat these internal entities with the same respect as one would a person. As one would in a religion, Tarot, or other esoteric study, I proceed with faith in the model. These models are but metaphors, tools to use to develop one's understanding and growth. I would go further, and suggest that so-called "objective reality" is in itself but a model, also merely a metaphor for what lies beyond. But in a part of myself I try to remain a skeptic, so that none of these models would become a prison, but a means to an end - even if the end is also deliberately vague and tentative.

Now, I could consciously set up a meditational scenario or program a dream in which I united with or assimulated that part of myself that I am calling Eirian. This would counter Jung's guidance, to treat the entity with the same respect as I would a person. But Jungian or not, I would view this type of action as an internal rape - I think that I would be risking psychic disassociation, or at least a severe setback in growth to do so. I am guided in this conservative understanding by my dreams, by Tarot, and by my intuition in general - which in a sense means I am guided by the entities themselves. Just as in the world above, loving relationships within oneself need to be guided by sensitivity, respect and timing.

I know that there is a fair degree of integration there already, and it seems to grow bit by bit, both in Eirian and the part of Self that the ego identifies with. I mean that both these parts of the Self seem to grow more whole as they grow closer together. But I also sense that not all things are ready for the psychic union that is represented by a sexual union with the second Beloved. Other parts of the psyche need to come into balance first, particularly the complimentary masculine energy that would sustain an even more powerful expression of the feminine. Because we seem to be going off topic I will PM you.

I will stop here. She is yours. She is you. The only thing that makes it seem that she is separate is your own belief that she is. Perhaps this can be molded to your own thought patterns, as I am sure that you realize this already, but maybe not quite like this.

I think that your question actually ties back neatly to the subject of this thread, Materialism or the Devil. If the internal enemy of our growth and creativity cannot succeed by being a pessimistic conservative, hoping we will give up before we even try, then encouraging us into radical expansionism can be just as effective. BTW, I am not suggesting that you are in any way speaking for the internal Devil, MoonMaiden, just that I need to seek a path of balance.