religion
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.
The Sacred Tradition Of Smoke Cleansing
Smoke cleansing is an ancient spiritual practice found in many faiths, cultures, and wisdom traditions all over the world. These age-old rituals, ceremonies and healing practices involve the burning of various aromatic plants, resins, and woods and have been practiced since humans first discovered fire. Traditionally ceremonies and rituals involving smoke are mostly used for energy cleansings and spiritual blessings, but the purposes, techniques and materials used vary widely among belief systems, tribes, nations, and cultures.
The burning of incense, for example, was a revered practice in ancient Egypt as part of religious ceremonies. This practice continues today in the Roman Catholic church, with the burning of incense to amplify prayers and intentions.
In both Hinduism and Buddhism, incense is burnt for ritual offerings and rites, while in ancient China incense was burned during festivals and processions to honor ancestors and household gods, and in Japan it is part of the Shintō purification ritual.
In ancient Rome cinnamon was burnt during funerals. The Assyrians burned various aromatic woods in their homes, temples, and places of healing. In traditional Chinese medicine, the burning of agarwood and sandalwood is done to promote emotional wellness and physical healing.
One of the most well-known smoke cleansing traditions, especially in the United States, is known as smudging. To ‘smudge’ means ‘to make a smoky fire’ or ‘to emit a dense smoke.’ Smudging involves various purification and healing ceremonies originally practiced by the indigenous peoples of the Americas. Certain sacred herbs are traditionally used in smudging to purify and bless people and places, of which the most commonly used today is white sage or salvia apiana, also known as bee sage or sacred sage. It is an evergreen perennial shrub native to the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico.
Lessons From Nature Bring Light To The Soul
I recently had the privilege to attend a virtual seminar on a sublime spiritual book titled Light of the Bhāgavata. The experience powerfully reminded me of the incredible wonder of nature’s divine design, and how it relates to our spiritual purpose in this lifetime. With its beautiful metaphors from nature, Light of the Bhāgavata brings light to the soul in the darkness of this age of strife and quarrel.
The book is a unique spiritual text written in 1961 for a presentation at a world conference of the Congress of Cultivating the Human Spirit, held in Japan. At the time, the author, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, was living in a small, sparsely furnished room in the humble village of Vrindavan, India, where Lord Krishna had appeared 5,000 years ago.
The swami received an invitation to participate as a speaker at the conference and thus conceived Light of the Bhagavata for this purpose. Within just a few months, he wrote an inspired manuscript based on the timeless teachings of the Srimad Bhagawatam. Written over 5,000 years ago, the original Bhagavatam is a voluminous book composed of 18,000 verses.
The swami realized that it would not be practical for him to try and share all of its teachings with the conference attendees in one presentation. He therefore decided to only focus on the tenth canto, twentieth chapter of Srimad-Bhagavatam for his presentation, drawing spiritual lessons of life from nature. The twentieth chapter is a description of the autumn season in Vrindavan, the place of Lord Krishna’s appearance. He composed 48 commentaries to accompany each of the verses of that chapter.
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.
Cleansing Rituals Are A Vital Spiritual Practice
Energy cleansing should be a key component in our regular spiritual practice. To achieve and maintain a state of higher consciousness and enhanced spiritual awareness, we must constantly aim to purify and rebalance ourselves mind, body and soul.
Purification rituals are traditionally practiced in many world religions and various spiritual traditions embrace tangible cleansing rituals as a way of communing with and manifesting the Divine energy. Water-based rituals of purification are practiced, for example, in the Baháʼí faith, Christianity, Hinduism, Indigenous American religion, traditional African spirituality, Islam, Judaism, Mandaeism, Neopaganism, Shinto, Western esotericism, and Wicca.
It is no accident that animals also clean themselves regularly by grooming their fur or feathers. Nature instinctively understands that ‘cleanliness is next to godliness.’ Mother Nature also cleanses herself throughout the year with changes in the weather and the succession of the seasons.
I’ve never been much or a ritual or ceremony person myself, but I have come to embrace the need for a regular energy cleansing routine as I have grown in my own spiritual and psychic awareness.
For many years now, one of my go-to rituals is a simple spiritual cleansing bath with Epsom salt. I find it is a wonderful practice to realign my energy flow and restore inner peace and harmony. Nothing beats a proper ‘soul detox’ every few days.
Another practice I’ve adopted of late is chakra candle work. I often use these scented candles to jumpstart a client’s cleansing process, or cleanse and rebalance my own energy. The candle for each chakra is infused with its own combination of essential oils. The heart chakra candle is my personal favorite. It’s laced with sandalwood, jasmine, and rose essential oils and really packs a punch!
Faith As A Spiritual Science
It is generally assumed that all forms of ‘faith’ is merely matter of ‘belief.’ In other words, to have faith is seen as having belief that is blind; it is a belief without reason, evidence, or experience. However, there is another kind of faith that develops through a reciprocal relationship.
According to the Vedic teachings and the practices of Krishna Bhakti (awareness of, and affection for Krishna, the Supreme Person) faith begins with hearing spiritual knowledge from a liberated soul, who is beyond the four defects of material conditioning.
Ordinary people (or conditioned souls) have four defects due to their contact with material existence. These defects are:
- The tendency to make mistakes.
- To be illusioned.
- The propensity to cheat others.
- To have imperfect senses.
At the initial phase of faith, there is an appeal to the intelligence of the conditioned soul that evokes exploration of knowledge through hearing deeper spiritual insights, which in turn appeals to their intelligence to apply it.
From the experiment of applying it, comes observable experiential results that corroborate the truth of what was initially heard from the transcendental authority (liberated soul).
This confirming experience not only yields faith in the knowledge and process applied, but it also forms an evidential knowing beyond a mere baseless, ‘blind’ belief. Therefore, developing a relationship with God through Bhakti-Yoga or Krishna Consciousness is a spiritual science.
May Our Souls Continue To Rejoice
We have indeed so much to be grateful for today. May the joys and rememberances of this post-pandemic holiday season keep our hearts alive with hope, faith and gratitude throughout the coming year.
May our souls continue to rejoice with the miracles of joy, hope, faith and love of the Christmas of the Christians; Yule of the Pagans; Candle-mas of the Celts; Hanukkah of the Hebrews; Eid ul-Fitr of Islam; Pan-African festival of Kwanzaa; and Hindu celebration of Diwali.
In the old days, before the reformers came, the Old Oak King conquered the Holly King every year around this time. Mother Earth would then sleep under a white blanket of snow, the quiet ice of still waters, everything waiting for the Summer Solstice, when the Holly King would win the battle in turn.
We face the same battles of duality in our own lives. At times we are happily progressing along our own path, expanding, learning, growing spiritually, when suddenly an impasse comes along that requires us to become still, to be patient, to wait, to rest, to contemplate, to accept. We are seldom thankful, as we would prefer to continue rushing towards our goals, our dreams, our desires. We grumble, we complain, we resist, we fight the wait, and then we wonder why we are waiting so long.
Sometimes we are meant to just take the time to rest, draw strength, find ourselves. The true lesson and miracle of this season is the wait, the peace, the rest, until we once again see our dreams more clearly.