mysticism
Embracing Art As A Spiritual Resource
Art, in its many forms, continues to be a wonderful source of inspiration for my personal and spiritual growth journey. Art has the power to evoke emotion and connect us to feelings and something beyond the immediate boundaries of our lives.
Whether it is a source of divine inspiration or an expression of spiritual wisdom, art has the potential to infuse our lives with beauty and eternal wisdom. Art is a profound spiritual resource.
The deep connection between Renaissance art and spirituality has not only shaped my own artistic and spiritual journey, but has resonated deeply with countless others throughout history.
The Renaissance, which spanned the 14th through the 17th centuries, was a time marked by a thirst for knowledge and exploration. Artists, scholars, and scientists sought to understand and communicate the mysteries of the world and our place in it. As a result, art emerged as a powerful vehicle for expressing and exploring spiritual themes.
Renaissance artists, often working under the patronage of religious institutions, were masters and storytellers of symbolism. Their works, rich with hidden meanings, served as visual representations of faith and devotion. Their artistic masterpieces, including paintings, tapestries, and sculptures, became integral to devotional practices during this period.
How To Do A Tea-Leaf Reading
When I do a teacup reading, I let my mind to run free as I interpret the symbols in the tea leaves for the client. There are standard traditional guidelines as to what different shapes may symbolize, but I prefer to let my intuition do the talking.
Interpretation of the tea leaves is subjective, and there is no one right way to do it. Different readers will interpret the same patterns differently.
However, there are some common symbols one will often find in the bottom of the cup include animals, human faces, and all kinds of everyday objects. Symbols grouped together can create a theme, and sometimes the tea leaves spell out letters of the alphabet or numbers.
Tea-leaf reading is also known as tasseography, tasseomancy or tassology. Tasseography is also done by reading wine sediments and coffee grounds. This divination practice possibly originated in China, where tea was first cultivated, and may have evolved from the Chinese traditions of divining the patterns left by the dregs of wine in a cup, as well as the patterns created by the smoke from incense sticks.
Tea itself was first introduced to Europe in the 17th century and thus tea-leaf reading spread to other parts of the world. Among the first Europeans to embrace the practice were the traveling Romani people, who sometimes offered is as a door-to-door service. Tea-leaf reading also became popular in Victorian times as a parlor game.
Like Tarot reading or scrying a crystal ball, tea-leaf reading is a divination method for accessing the universal consciousness via the subconscious mind. Slowing down the rational, analytical mind allows us to focus on our intuition to receive divine guidance.
The Personal Power Of Your Life Path Number
Numerology is based on the idea that there is a mystical relationship between numbers and destiny. It originated from the ancient practice of assigning numerical values to words and names, and attributing spiritual symbolism to such numbers.
In Ancient Greece, the mystic Pythagoras further developed this concept proposing that numbers are divinely inspired creations that carry sacred codes. This led to a system of divination that is still used today, and Pythagoras is therefore considered the father of modern numerology.
There are different systems of numerology that share some common principles, such as Chaldean, Pythagorean, Kabbalistic and Chinese numerology.
Numerology, however, is not fortune-telling in the traditional sense, as it does not simply attempt to prophecy or predict the future. Instead, numerology aims to reveal information about our personality, talents and gifts, our life path and purpose, as well as our potential and destiny.
In numerology, each of us has a set of unique, individual numbers known as our core numbers. These numbers are calculated from our date of birth, letters of our name, and other personal information. By analyzing the core numbers associated with us, we can gain insight into our personality, talents, challenges, opportunities, and spiritual lessons.
Saved By A Mysterious Angel
Many people have in-person encounters with angels without ever knowing it. This is because angels do not appear to us in physical form with stereotypical accoutrements like ‘wings, harps, and halos.’ Fortunately, some people do realize when they come into contact with an angel…and live to tell the tale.
The most commonly reported modern instances are typically of strangers mysteriously showing up to save or protect drivers, passengers or pedestrians traffic incidents.
For example, early in 2021, Tracey and Dann Stadler were trapped in their burning car after they had been hit by a drunk driver. While desperately praying to God to not let them burn to death, they were miraculously lifted from the inferno by a mysterious man they both described afterwards as “a Heaven-sent person in angelic form.”
Later the same year, in December 2021, Candace Pimentel and her children were driving home from church, when her nine-year-old son Raylen started to choke on a piece of candy stuck in his throat. She immediately pulled off the road and tried to help her son, but was unsuccessful.
Then a mysterious man showed up at the scene in a pickup truck. He calmly stepped in and performed the Heimlich maneuver on the boy, effectively dislodging the piece of candy, enabling Raylen to breathe again.
The mysterious man then told the boy and his mother that he loved them, gave them a hug, got back in his truck, and drove off. Nobody knows who he was. Candice later said she felt that the “Heavenly Father sent an angel to help me.”
The Mystical Tale Of The Lovers Card
I have made an illuminating discovery regarding the Lovers card in the Tarot. In all the years I have been practicing cartomancy, I never realized certain aspects of this card’s mytsical symbolism and its portrayal of the healing power of divine love.
In the classic Rider-Waite rendition, it is commonly accepted the card merely depicts an archetypal Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, with a scheming serpent lurking behind Eve and the majestic figure of an angel looming overhead. Recently, I learned from a psychic colleague’s podcast that the angelic figure portrayed in the in card in fact represents the Archangel Raphael. I’ve always been fascinated by Raphael, the angelic healer of minds, bodies and souls.
Raphael is first mentioned the ancient Hebrew apocalyptic book of Enoch, as well as the deuterocanonical book of Tobit. Also known as the apocrypha, the deuterocanonical books are not traditionally included in Protestant and Jewish canonical texts, but it is recognized in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions.
The book of Tobit relays the story of a blind man named Tobit and his son Tobias, whom he sends to retrieve an investment of silver he had deposited in a town in Media in north-western Iran. With the protection and guidance of the angel Raphael, Tobias arrives along his journey in Ecbatana, the capitol of Media, where he meets a young woman named Sarah.
Sarah is in utter despair and praying for death, as she has already lost seven husbands. Each of her lovers had been murdered on their wedding night by the demon Asmodeus, who is obsessively in love with her. Angel Raphael encourages Tobias to marry Sarah and then helps him to defeat the homicidal demon.
What Is Christ Consciousness?
The mystic and clairvoyant Rudolf Steiner predicted more than a century ago that humanity is entering a time in which a new spiritual awareness or higher consciousness shall emerge. Steiner named this new awareness Christ consciousness, a transformative energy that would transcend orthodox, dogmatic religion.
Steiner explains that Jesus was able to tap into a higher level of consciousness that comes from the realm of God, Source, Spirit, the Divine. He became “christed”to show us how to accomplish the complete activation of the spiritual seed we all have within our soul. “The rest of humanity must now, in imitation of Christ, gradually develop what was present for 33 years on the Earth in one single personality,” he writes.
Jesus understood that even just a little speck of this higher energy, no larger than a mustard seed, could transform human beings into exalted beings of a higher dimension. The essence of Christ consciousness is therefore simply this: Jesus came to teach us that the blessed pathway to our inner divinity and the glorious kingdom of higher consciousness already lay charted within the heart of each one of us. All we need to do is follow it.
The concept of higher consciousness or spiritual enlightenment is found in many world religions. Christ consciousness is also known God consciousness in Protestant Christianity; Cosmic consciousness in Hinduism; and Pure consciousness in Buddhism. Renowned psychic Edgar Cayce referred to it as “the Christ pattern”. Channeler Paul Selig describes Christ consciousness as a higher energy vibration at which one realizes that “God is the frequency of every cell in your being.”
Christ consciousness is therefore an awareness of the higher self as an expression of the Universal Consciousness. It is an elevated state of spiritual awareness that one achieves through self-realization and unity with God Source, Spirit, the Divine.