DB's Ecclectic Christian Heresy. Oaths added.

[Gho the Girl]

Greetings. Here I'll be setting down the tenets of my religion.
I am not greatly skilled at speaking about this, so ask questions.

UPDATE 7/23/09:
Hi, like, I had some pretty big dynamic paradigm shifts recently, so I'll be updating and fixing as needed.

UPDATE 8/17/09:
Added Oaths section, will be expanding that as time passes.

Hethenotheistic: There is God. If God is a night sky, deities such as Odin, or Zeus, or what have you, are constellations. If God is my body, Bast may be my reproductive system.

In carrying over from my old system, Mother and Father are sort of like halves of a hole. Sometimes worshipping specific parts of God, like Mother or Father or other gods can help focus my intent if I wish to work magic, but also give helpful psychodrama for daily life.

Nature of God: God is all things. God is in the world around us, in us as well. But most importantly, God is Love.

Dichotomies: There exists in the universe the Dichotomies. The opposing forces that flow through all things. This is first represented by God and Goddess, the facets of God I worship. It is the interaction of these dichotomous forces and energy that make creation possible. We can see this everywhere. Look at yourself, your physical body. While there is much life, fluidity, and change within you, there is also pattern, constant, and even death within you. Your blood is fluid, but it flows along pathways, not just all around. You are alive, but your cells are constantly dying and being replaced. You grow, but your organs still work as they always have, your heart still beats in a pattern. Even the fact that we have two arms, two legs, two eyes, our left being a sort of reflection of our right and vice versa: here we cannot deny that we are a bundle of interacting oppositions. Life can be patterned, and Death can be random. If there were no opposing forces, if there only existed one side of the Dichotomies, if Father had never mated with Mother, we would not exist. It is not through separation but though meeting of the Dichotomies that the universe is not only possible, but continues to exist.

Monistic: We are all spiritually connected. If you were to view the universe spiritually, from very far away, all spirits and souls would appear to collect into one single spiritual entity. If God is in me, and God is in you (and God is) then we are one and the same.

Animism: Everything has a soul. God is within everything. Sometimes in inanimate objects, this shard of God is rather dormant, but can be awakened if we recognise and interact with it.

Souls: Shards of God that reside within us. Souls are the stuff that bind us to all things. Our soul is an individual drop of water in a cloud, an individual snowflake in freshly fallen covering, or one thread in a tapestry. These aren't literal, but more metaphores to help you understand how we can be an individual yet also a part of creation itself. We each are single entities that also are intertwined. The majority of souls exist within vessels, whether it be a human, animal, or object. Our souls are malleable, and when we create something, we place a bit of ourselves, our soul, into that, if we care enought about it.

Nature of Souls: A soul is malleable. It can change and be affected over time. It can even be invested in things and leave residue. For instance, look at any great artwork, and you'll likely hear one say that the artist put a piece of themself into the work. This is literally true. We can invest our soul into that which we create, or the objects around us. This even extends into Thoughtforms. I include a Thoughtform in my own circle of spirits and guides. But this doesn't mean that he isn't "real." By personifying him and ascribing him a True Name and a nature, I've invested my own soulstuff into him. It's important though to realise the difference between your Thoughtforms and the spirits who exist naturally without influence from humans.

Spirits: Spirits are souls that have no corporeal vessel. They can be as complex or as simple as any soul, as the only difference being between them is they don't have a vessel. Spirits often have their own intents and purposes if they are of significant enough complexity. Those who follow this path work with spirits in the same way that we work with the people around us. Often our intents intersect, or we have a friendship and would be willing to help us due to this friendship, or a bargain is struck. Sometimes spirits will ask us for assistance, although it seems that the matters most relevant to a non-vesseled soul are either beyond the powers or capacity of a human.

The Nature of Spirits: Spirits can be just as complex as us, and often enough are more so. They have a part of God in them, as do we. They should be treated with the proper respect at all times, just as we do with those around us. Spirits aren't necessarily lesser beings than us, and they aren't mere means to an end, just as our friends are. There are many different types of spirits just as it is with people. We have good people, bad people, sexual people, reserved people, funny people, lazy people, loving people, etc. any kind and any combination.

The Apearrance of Spirits: Spirits appear to us depending upon their and our nature. One spirit who is very sexual in nature may appear to us as a v****a, or a sex worker, or as one who we know or used to know as a very sexual person, or as a naked man, or a ball of light that is purple in hue, etc. depending upon what we would view as a sexual spirit. Spirits are formless, and our mind likes forms, so naturally, when we percieve things that are formless, our mind will give them a form. This helps us to get a first impression of the spirit.

Agape: Love thy neighbor, thy self, and thy god as one. This is hard. We aren't supposed to just love our friends, our neighbors, our family, etc. Love all. Love the strangers you meet. What happens when you love your enemies? They no longer are enemies. The one universal law through which all morality flows is love. If you wonder whether something is good or bad, figure out where love comes in. Is it a loving action? Is it because of love that the action happens? Does it promote, further, or deepen love? Or is it acting against love? Does it harm, stop, lessen, or even destroy love? Or is love somewhat irrelevant to the question/action ("I think I'll wear my green socks today"). Obviously, it's not a simple yes or no kinda thing.

More to come . . .  

[Gho the Girl]

Oaths.

These are oaths which I as a knight am swearing myself to.

Oath of Agape:
I swear to do my utmost to strive towards reaching the state of Agape, and shall use it as a lense to judge and guide my actions.

Oath of Acceptance:
I swear to realise and accept that on any given day and on any given second therein, I may fail to live uphold any of these oaths.

Oath of Commitment:
I swear that no matter how much or how greatly I fail, that I shall learn from it, return my staff to my hand and continue down this path.

Oath of Humility:
I swear to accept the fact that I am not the center of life, and that I am inconsequential.

Oath of Silence:
I swear to use my voice responsibly, as my words can cut as well as any blade, and thus shall speak only when it would serve Agape.

Oath of Service:
I swear to give my life in service to Agape and God.

Oath of Obedience:
I swear to accept my own ignorance and lack of judgement, and thus shall defer to those who know better and are wiser than I in those matters.

Oath of Meekness:
I swear to accept my lack of strength and fortitude, for my weakness is my strength, my gentility is my fortitude.

Oath of Abstinence:
I swear to share the intimacy of my body only as it would serve Agape.

Oath of Passivity:
I swear to walk not the path of the warrior, to hold none in my heart as mine enemy, and to not interfere with the ways or people of war.

Oath of Love:
I swear to love myself, and my neighbor as myself, and to give this love freely to as many as who need it.

Oath of Openness:
I swear to not close myself to new ideas, thoughts, experiences, philosophies, people, things, etc. for without renewal I cannot grow.

Oath of Honesty:
I swear to speak the truth as I know it, and to not particpate in falsehood, and to follow out the entirety of this oath as lovingly as possible.

Oath of Support:
I swear to accept that I cannot protect others, and to support and aide those who can as I am able.

Oath of Comfort:
I swear to provide comfort as outlined within Agape to all who seek it from me, and shall provide the best comfort I can befitting the person.

Oath of Healing:
I swear to give healing to all who willingly accept it's offering or seek it out, except in cases where I am unable to provide the healing that is necessary whereupon I shall do my utmost to find one who can.

Oath of Sanctity:
I swear to honor that which is sacred to me and my god, as well as that which is sacred among my neighbors and their respective gods.

Oath of Chastity:
I swear to save the deepest intimacy of my heart and soul for God, and any who earn it.

Oath of Emotiveness:
I swear to not hold back on my emotions, to accept that my emotions are natural, inevitable occurences, and that to fight their existance is futile.

Oath of Reservation:
I swear to display my emotions only in ways that would best serve Agape, and to not act out on them nor use them as excuses for poor behaviour.

Oath of Evolution:
I swear, with the exception of my first and primary oath, to not treat these oaths as set in stone, and that while I view my oaths as sacred and important, they also are prone to the same flaws as any work of man, and thus, should evolve along with me as I strive towards the state of Agape.

Oath of Penitence:
I swear to do what I can to right that which I have wronged, and if nothing can be done to accomplish this, to partake in appropriate grieving.

Oath of Forgiveness:
I swear to turn my cheek and love them still.  

[Gho the Girl]

Symbols:
Lightning, a symbol of natural power, discharge, release, or anger, destruction.


---
Swirling DichotomyThe Dichotomy is what caused creation, when Nothing met Allthing through the union of Father God and Mother Goddess. It continues to run through the universe, us included, but it is not static, it is fluid, and constantly moving. It is this motion of dichotomies in and around, among, and sometimes through eachother, that we see in the Swirling Dichotomy.


Thanks to Ashley the Bee for fixing it heart  

[Gho the Girl]

Scrutiny Section:
Here is where I put something from the main post that I realise may have elements of or be entirely comprised of fluff.

If you don't feel like reading the whole Opening post, you can still participate in this section, and I frankly urge any and all to please do so.

Thank you.

Scrutinised passage:

True Name: All souls have a True Name. This is the name of the soul's identity itself. It is sort of a spiritual Social Security Number. And like with an SSN, we shouldn't hand it out arbitrarily. The sharing of one's True Name is part oath, part gift, part power exchange. This act creates a bond, is a boon to both if used well, and can benefit both parties. But it can just as easily be abused. Many spirits won't give you their true name right off the bat. It's dangerous. We are not allowed to share the True Name of spirits we work with with others unless explicitly permitted by the spirit, which would be nothing if not under very abnormal circumstances. In this, we enter into a mutual state of trust. This will come into play later when rituals become covered.

Problem with passage:

I don't actually remember being taught this by anyone. Indeed, it seems more like I may have just made this part up on the spot, aside from a symbol or other things. It makes a certain amount of sense, but I don't know why I believe this. This is a recent addition to my practice. What think you?  

[Gho the Girl]

Book List:
Note that some of the reading I read oh so long ago on my beginning of my Journey turned out to be, well, fluffy cotton candy.

Be that as it may, Yasmine Galenorn's book "Totem Magic" is a definite recomendation. While she mainly interacts with what she calls "Totems" the way she interacts with them, and regards them, is not all that dissimilar from how I view and work with spirits. It is from her that I first realised that spirits aren't just ethereal characters, they have a mind of their own, which really at the time blew my mind. I haven't read it in some time, and I've been a little too pre-occupied with a job search to read it now, but she's a good author, and seems to be in an honest effort to discover and share Truth, so pick up a copy if you can.

Galenorn, Yasmine: "Totem Magic: Dance of the Shapeshifter" 2004. The Crossing Press

"The Gospel of Thomas"

"The Gospel of Mary Magdelene"

Chopra, Deepak: "The Third Jesus" Three Rivers Press

Tsunetomo, Yamamoto: "Hagakure"  

[Gho the Girl]

Update list:
3/22/09: Added Update section and Scrutiny section.
7/23/09: Wow, so much change and revelation. Started update of entire theology.  

[RubyLight]

I found it rather interesting. Very poetic. 3nodding
I'll check in from time to time. I'm curious about the book references and the stories of your belief system. (I tend to lurk though, unless I have a specific comment or question. ninja )  

[Violet Song jat Shariff]

Sorry, this is something better off being asked here...

In the Dance thread, you said that snow was from Father...how do you determine what is attributed to each deity?  

[Gho the Girl]

Violet Song jat Shariff

Sorry, this is something better off being asked here...

In the Dance thread, you said that snow was from Father...how do you determine what is attributed to each deity?

Winter is the time when the grasses die, and life is hidden under a white blanket. Father God revealed himself to me in the form of a Polar Bear. Which is not to say that he is a Polar Bear, but that this is how I saw him. I'll get more into how our personal perceptions affect the forms that spirits take.

Going back to the idea of the Swirling Dichotomy, which we see in the Dualism of Mother and Father, Mother is Life, Father is Death, (not to say they are just these things, but this is one of the ways that they embody the dichotomous nature of existance) Mother is the beginning of the year, spring, the beginning of the cycle of the year, and Father is the end of the year, the snow signifying the beginning of the end of the year. Snow, as it is a part of Winter, is from the Father.  

[Maze]

In your first post, you say;

Quote:

Animism: Everything has a soul. Generally, the more complex the thing, the more complex the soul. The soul of a clay pot is less complex than that of a car, or a dod, or a human. Humans have the most complex souls that I know of at least.

Below that you state that "Spirits are souls that have no corporeal vessel".

Just a little below that again, at the bit about The Nature of Spirits, you add;

Quote:

Spirits can be just as complex as us, and often enough are more so.

If spirits are souls and if spirits are often enough more complex than humans, than your statement that humans have the most complex souls that you know of seems false.

Unless I'm missing something, of course?

I look forward to reading more about the disection - as it were - between Mother-things and Father-things, too.  

[Gho the Girl]

Maze

In your first post, you say;

Quote:

Animism: Everything has a soul. Generally, the more complex the thing, the more complex the soul. The soul of a clay pot is less complex than that of a car, or a dod, or a human. Humans have the most complex souls that I know of at least.

Below that you state that "Spirits are souls that have no corporeal vessel".

Just a little below that again, at the bit about The Nature of Spirits, you add;

Quote:

Spirits can be just as complex as us, and often enough are more so.

If spirits are souls and if spirits are often enough more complex than humans, than your statement that humans have the most complex souls that you know of seems false.

I meant corporeally gonk Sorry I'll fix that.

Quote:

Unless I'm missing something, of course?

Nothing but my poor writing skills. Thank you so much for pointing that ou. 3nodding It's really hard for me to find my own errors.

Quote:

I look forward to reading more about the disection - as it were - between Mother-things and Father-things, too.

That's still a work in progress. It's sort of a half and half thing, but there's not a real way for me to give a clear concise distinction besides saying "male vs. female" which really just runs less according to my beliefs and more according to what you and your culture define those genders as, so I'm staying away from that classifcation beyond saying that they are gendered gods and they are of opposing sex.  

[Maze]

Gho the Girl

I meant corporeally gonk Sorry I'll fix that.

Aaah, okay. I thought that was a bit weird. XD

Hm. Having read both you and Fiddler's threads I can see certain resemblances. Interesting read both.

Quote:

Nothing but my poor writing skills. Thank you so much for pointing that ou. 3nodding It's really hard for me to find my own errors.

No problem. :3

Quote:

That's still a work in progress. It's sort of a half and half thing, but there's not a real way for me to give a clear concise distinction besides saying "male vs. female" which really just runs less according to my beliefs and more according to what you and your culture define those genders as, so I'm staying away from that classifcation beyond saying that they are gendered gods and they are of opposing sex.

Okay. o:

I'll just wait over here. cool  

[Gho the Girl]

Maze

Gho the Girl

I meant corporeally gonk Sorry I'll fix that.

Aaah, okay. I thought that was a bit weird. XD

Hm. Having read both you and Fiddler's threads I can see certain resemblances. Interesting read both.

I tried reading his, but it looks so vastly more intricate or historically based than mine. I'll give it another crack when I have the time.

Quote:

Quote:

Nothing but my poor writing skills. Thank you so much for pointing that ou. 3nodding It's really hard for me to find my own errors.

No problem. :3

Quote:

That's still a work in progress. It's sort of a half and half thing, but there's not a real way for me to give a clear concise distinction besides saying "male vs. female" which really just runs less according to my beliefs and more according to what you and your culture define those genders as, so I'm staying away from that classifcation beyond saying that they are gendered gods and they are of opposing sex.

Okay. o:

I'll just wait over here. cool

Made a section on the Dichotomies, as well as a "Nature of Mother and Father" section. Does it answer some of your questions?  

[Maze]

Gho the Girl

Made a section on the Dichotomies, as well as a "Nature of Mother and Father" section. Does it answer some of your questions?

?