Politics, Cults, and Mystery Schools: -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Since 1980 I have walked what the native Indians call the "Red Road," traveling through many spiritually based communities, seeing closely from the inside what worked and what, apparently, did not. Throughout this time I have also managed to stay reasonably conversant with what has been going on geopolitically in the world at large, though there were certainly times when I developed a rather anarchic, subversive attitude, coated with a liberal dose of just plain indifference. In particular during my communal living years I had little interest in the global situation, politics of any sort, and in general the workings of conventional society. In fact, for the most part my attitude was decidedly dismissive. ***********************
The Meaning of Spiritual Community
By P.T. Mistlberger
The Work of God will not be made manifest by cowards.
Throughout the decade of the 1980s I bothered to vote only once, in 1980 in Quebec, when the separatist Parti Quebecois was trying to drum up the groundswell support for its movement to cede the province from the rest of Canada. I remember sitting in a chemistry class in college in Sept. '76, the day Rene Levesque's and Camille Laurin's dream first materialized (when their separatist party won the provincial election and the Go west, young English Quebecois exodus first began), when there was this sudden loud bang from outside the building. The professor jumped, murmuring “what is this, P.Q., guns .... ?” I enjoyed the black humor. But I knew the only reason I voted four years later (against the separatists) was because apparently I stood to lose something.
I considered myself blessed when in later years I stumbled upon certain spiritual teachers who helped me see what I had long suspected, that the contemporary Westem democratic political system is riddled with weaknesses and hypocrisies. Like any other Westerner I had been programmed to regard anything non-capitalist, non-democratic, and non-Judeo-Christian as alien and suspect, but the conditioning did not totally blind me from considering the possibility that other systems might actually be better than ours.
But for that matter, socialism, that notorious attempt at creating an egalitarian society birthed intellectually in France in the 18th century, and pragmatically in Russia in the 19th century, has failed spectacularly, especially in its extreme form, communism. Socialism, in its pure conceptual form, presents an ideal situation, where the power-elite are supposedly prevented from controlling everything, and maintaining an absurd proportion of the planet's economic wealth. But as is virtually always the case, all political systems in the end are proven to be basically facades that cover up the usual structure, where a privileged elite control the power and resources that allegedly belong to many.
What "we" in the West have is scarcely any better, however. The so called "democratic" electoral process is pure manipulative strategy, where numbers equal power and "truth" is impersonated by promises, most of which is simply mediocre salesmanship. We get to vote for which group of egos is going to control things, and identify ourselves as liberals, conservatives, separatists, democrats, republicans, and on and on, supposedly feeling some sort of a connection with the party heads, and feeling content that we have a designation. This "designation" is on one level a simple attempt at rescuing us from our perpetual identity crisis, which in a very real sense is a crisis of spiritual poverty.
All of this seems very stupid. One has only to watch the strange gyrations of a typical political convention to be left aghast that such blatant silliness could possibly be pulling the power strings of our nations. The last time I saw something like that I was struck by how much it reminded me of high school, with overtones of some sort of evangelical crusade. On occasion as a young man I used to listen on the radio to live proceedings and “question periods” from our Canadian House of Commons in Ottawa. These proceedings were genuinely laughable, and at times I used to laugh until I actually ached.
And then there are our leaders. In truth, we know very little about the decision-making process from up high, but the corruptions of international security agencies and government military arms have been well documented. The South American drug cartels are in some ways not much different from the governmental systems of the "big 5" nuclear club (U.S., England, France, Russia, China). The banana republic military juntas are only more embarrassing because they are a little poorer and less educated, but the intention to rule by force is actually not much different in the super-power democracies.
Yes, yes, I know, I have no complaints about being Canadian, and have no doubt that I must have had some kind of meritorious “karma” to have taken birth here, and that compared to this country most everything else looks pretty bad, etc.
But the argument that is predicated on comparing our country's social system and values to those of economically poorer countries is shallow. In reality, the basic psychological dynamics of human nature have changed little over the span of recorded history. In terms of sheer destructive travesty, the 20th century has been the ugliest yet. And we are supposed to be evolving?
T'he scientific/techno-revolution is flashy and glitzy, and like all such things is extraordinarily seductive. Because we have landed on the moon, sent a space probe to Neptune, built Stealth jet fighters and laptop computers, does not mean we have advanced in consciousness. Our destructive power has just grown more sophisticated. We now have Neutron bombs that can vaporize human beings without damaging the surrounding real estate. This is not evolution.
T'he problem lies in the politics of the human mind. According to esotericism we were at this same place about twelve thousand years ago in Atlantis, when technology advanced dangerously beyond spirituality. The vast Atlantic ocean, with no Atlantis anywhere to be seen, is allegedly the end result of that situation. We may have only Plato’s words to go on there, but as a symbol Atlantis is a meaningfully ominous future option for modern civilization if it keeps going in its self-destructive fashion.
All this revolves primarily around our relationship to power. The heart of darkness of our primeval roots tells us that physical power is essential for physical survival (the weak are eaten or forgotten). In our so-called civilized era, the same tenet applies, it is just more subtle. Ego-power ensures the survival of ego. And the ego has the same fierce will to survive that the body (under normal conditions) has. Hence the lust for power, whether this power is obvious and controlling, or passive and victirn-based, or knowledge oriented, or sociopathic, or what have you.
The immanence of death has always struck me, rendering absurd all ambition to build enormous things, as the one certainty in dimensional reality is that everything will ultimately fall apart, like a house of cards. Yet in spite of this we manage to continue launching extraordinary endeavors, fighting for survival, dominance, power-over, attention, sex, money, recognition, etc. -- or we have a perverse investment in beating ourselves up through unnecessary suffering and hardship.
T'his is because we believe so deeply in the reality of our life-drama. In short, we are identified with it. We are, for the most part, lost in the dream, hopelessly ensconced in the terrors, defeats, exultant victories, and emotional roller-coasting of the typical life. Denying all this, becoming desensitized, like a monochromatic couch-potato, and in general withdrawing from the theatre of life does not work either, and is as equally neurotic as over-identification. Both sides make up the kingdom of the ego, which in its fear of disappearing would have us forget this primal fear either through over-indulgence in life, or escape from it.
Because of this condition, this terror of being nothing, humanity through the ages has banded together in co-operatives, in infinitely varying sizes, for the purpose of developing a semblance of group-identity. All such communities, whether tribal villages or full-scale countries, have been based on a hierarchical power structure of some sort, generally where the elders have ministered their wisdom to the younger, and where experience has conferred certain rights and powers in the community context.
It is here, of course, where such power has been misused time and again. That is largely because of the ego-based maxim that the "other" is a threat, and the more unknown they are, the greater the threat they represent. And thus, aggression and attack are born, the ego's chief weapons for dealing with problematic "others" who appear not to sustain or support us. This principle is basic to the origins of ego-based, separative existence. It is the will to triumph over others, and lies at the heart of our planetary political process. Even the United States, the so called greatest democratic power on earth, the global policeman and force for justice, was birthed through a violent revolution, and, upon deeper examination, functions in the global picture upon a simple "might is right" modus operandi. As a country, it is not just the village cop; it is also the village bully.
And yet, all this is basically unavoidable. Create a collection of people, keep them together for a while, and sooner or later someone is going to take charge. That is not so much because that person's ego-aggression is stronger than all the others, but more because we as a group want someone to assume leadership. Essentially, we create our leaders, whether they be benevolent, like the Buddhist king Asoka or the Dalai Lama, or monsters like Tamerlane and Hitler. These people are largely the by-products of a collectively unconscious agreement we have with each other. This agreement states that in order to mute the terror of separative existence in a flesh and blood body, and to dull the fear of assuming responsibility for our lives, we must be told what to do, have direction and even meaning grafted on to us from the outside. Because of this, we are, naturally, highly susceptible to being controlled.
As somewhat purified spirits incarnating on Earth we come in with a degree of innocence and awe, but not long after birth discover (once again) that nothing much has changed here (though granted the difficult conditions on this planet may indeed be exactly what we as souls require for our most pronounced development). From the relative freedom of the prenatal realms and early infanthood we are quickly enmeshed in a world of low-density frequency where egoic separation reigns supreme, and power essentially overrules love. The options we may have foreseen prior to birth evaporate rapidly once here, and by the time we reach adulthood we are, for the most part, living in a world where the vast bulk of the energy of economic abundance is controlled by an elite few. Then there is this strange creature called the “media” that filters our view of the world around us, seducing us into a dark vision that does not support individual empowerment. Top that off with the cult of the nuclear family, which in a clever, unconscious conspiracy with organized religion and the state would have us exist in utter dependency on these controlling forces, espousing the doctrine of false identification (I'm a Smith, Jones, Canadian, Chinese, Catholic, Jew, etc.), all of which keeps us from realizing our deeper, divine aspects.
Again, let me hasten to add that these conditions are excellent for inner work, which is what we all came here for anyway. However, that does not mean that a blind eye should be turned on the world around us, or that we should become ostriches, burying our heads in the sands of metaphysics, personal growth, and Pollyanna-ish pink paint. Rather, if we are going to attempt to live in a true community we must find and sustain the balance between blaming the world for our problems, and denying that the greater political structure around us has no effect on us whatsoever, that we are somehow impervious to control.
True empowerment lies in courageous expression. This expression is not irresponsible, nor is it destructive. Hostility and destructive aggression never work, because of the universal boomerang law (though endless numbers of souls seem to take forever to get this lesson). Our task has more to do with learning the art of powerful expression from the heart. Simple words, but to master this is no small feat. It is too easy to drift into righteousness (especially for the intellectually clever), elitism (for the spiritualized egos), or foolish aggression (for the emotionally damaged).
In a sense it seems that in the long run nothing ever really works (both personally and collectively), and thus all attempts at creation or reform seem futile. But this sort of thinking is itself part of the problem. It is the goal-oriented approach, absent of consciousness, that is always doomed to failure, because its very "success" is predicated on competition, and someone or something else losing. Even so-called "win-win" ventures, be they business or political, are innately self-centered, having no interest in anything outside of their scope. They are almost always globally ignorant. The bigger context is anathema to ego-driven success and power.
Because of this seemingly hopeless entanglement of controlling superstructures that basically run our planet, certain sensitive souls down through the centuries have attempted to create and exist within micro-communities, small, usually spiritually motivated collectives that attempted to live by certain agreements. Fundamental to this was some sort of sadhana (spiritual practice) undertaken by all community adults. Those communities that were able to sustain this inner work, and were blessed with sufficiently mature leadership, could be called "Mystery Schools," a term which does not denote deliberate obfuscation and irrationality, but rather refers to the essential mystery and unknowableness (via conventional reason) of the Divine Source, or One Being that animates the universe. Such a recognition, in theory, creates a profound intelligence that prevents egotism from assuming control and eventually destroying (as it always must) the collective fire of a community.
In part due to media sensationalism there is much paranoia current in modern society concerning "cultically" oriented communities. Obviously, there have been communes led by individuals who failed to do their "inner homework," essentially got lazy, fed like a parasitic host off the power being fed to them, and ultimately (and predictably) misused that power, sometimes in grotesque ways. All such cases involved individuals of mediocre intelligence who simply lacked proper training. Spiritually, they were immature incompetents, similar to a neurotic first year medical student attempting advanced neurosurgery. In part these were the fiascos of Jonestown, Guyana; Waco, Texas; Aum Shinryi Kyo of Japan; the RoseCross fire and brimstone sect of Switzerland/Quebec, etc. These cases made excellent copy for the media, containing all the elements of larger than life drama not found in the average dreary, non-participatory life.
But all this is very superficial. A deeper look at the issue of cultic patterns will reveal a firmly established tradition of such cultism amongst our oldest institutions. Organizations such as white supremacists, militia groups, and even the military itself are firmly rooted in cultic principles of fanatic devotion to the cause before the individual. This is always the programming that motivates soldiers to go to war. The notion of an individual connection to a deep, spiritual source is not only dangerous to the health of such institutions, it is actually carefully obliterated.
A true Mystery School is founded on the inner growth of the individual. This is exhalted above all else. That does not mean that the collective is ignored. On the contrary, if the individuals are growing in alignment with the "Cosmic Will," then the community necessarily grows as well, in the fashion that is appropriately commensurate with the evolution of the individuals.
Membership in a bona fide Mystery School, and its living community, is not for the faint of heart. We do not belong to such a group in order to flee the world, somehow avoiding responsibility by attaching ourselves to the maternal nipple of a community (and its leader). And yet, in a very real sense a spiritual community is an oasis, a greenhouse where the deeper, vulnerable parts of us, that we have been so used to hiding for so long, may finally be allowed some sunlight, and be watered with the elixir of authentic love. "Authentic love" is not always sweet and gentle; indeed, often it is fiery, fueled by the flame of truly honest communication. Sustaining such a community then becomes like weaving a delicate tapestry with the thread of open and truthful communication. And in this delicate blossoming is found the balance between blindly following the leader(s) (submissive dependence), and engaging in parental-projective power struggles (resentful independence). This balance yields the authentic trust of true interdependence, based on the right combination of love and discerning intelligence.
Typically, any community fails because the leader(s) misuse power, and the community members, in a deep subconscious contract, allow (and even invite and openly participate in) such misuse. This is why sadhana (spiritual practice) must always be the foundation of any such community. Sadhana generates true intelligence within, where intellect works in tandem with heart. Intelligence is wakeful consciousness seated in the heart, and capable of authentic compassion as well as discerning wisdom. This kind of intelligence is real maturity. Such maturity is essential for the lasting spiritual prosperity of community, where members assume responsibility for their choice to be there, gradually learning the art of true creative co-operation.
Copyright 1995, by P.T. Mistlberger, All Rights Reserved
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