Facts, Metaphors, and Truths

We humans often use whatever metaphors we have on hand to explain the ineffable realities of spirit. The Ancients used mountains, lakes, and lightning,metaphors for what they perceived of spirit. Later we used towers, fields, and libraries, in our explanations. In the 1800’s, as electricity, and magnetism, and radio began to shape society, we started to talk more about spiritual energy and force and vibrations. Today, as digital technology redefines the fabric of our lives, the metaphors are changing yet again. Penor Rinpoche once taught about Samsara using the movie “The matrix” as his metaphor. As for me, I have said that the Akashic Library might be better understood as the code that underlies the GUI of perception than an astral library.

That’s what we do to spirit, but have you noticed that the spirits do it to us as well?

I am currently reading “Breaking Chains, The Evolution of the Black Madonna” by Nic Phillips. He does a great job of presenting Legends around the Black Madonna, Mary Magdalene, and Sarah La Kali, as well as the scholarly facts. He will point out the ways in which legends like those presented in The Golden Chain (one of the primary sources of Cyprianic and Magdalene lore alike) may not be as water-tight historically as they seem, but still move people to tremendous acts of faith and magic such as walking long pilgrimage routes like the Camino de Santiago between France and Spain.

When I teach on the Devil, I always get people who argue with me that the Devil isn’t a thing because Lucifer in scripture refers to a Babylonian King, or others who will demand that I treat Satan and Lucifer as separate beings because that’s how their favorite grimoire lists them. I tell them I don’t care. I don’t think truth is found by digging as far back in the past as possible and using whatever fraying strands of fact that remain to weave a narrative. I think that Gods and Spirits use history, culture, to weave Legends that convey a truth that is meaningful that would otherwise be un-speakable.

Is Sara La Kali a handmaiden that led the three Mary’s safely to France (despite other historians insisting they died in Ephesus)? Was she a Pagan Priestess who met them on the shores of Gaul? Was she the daughter of Christ and Mary Magdalene? I would not base a historical argument on any of these, but that doesn’t mean I can’t feel for the truth behind the facts.

Virtually nothing that modern people believe, be they Pagans, Christians, or other, is what the ancients believed. You can trace how beings combine or split. You can see how understandings change from century to century. That doesn’t mean that modern understandings are incorrect like some telephone game that gets more fucked up every year it survives. Spirits and Gods, subtle beings that they are, maymay actually take advantage of better and more improved metaphors that they now have at their disposal.

Just some food for thought.