DREAM: SACRED AUTHORITY AND HIGH TECH... July13, 2010

1.The image is a highly ornamental ancient throne chair made of green stone, I suppose jade. Very striking, ancient and oriental.

2. I was told the following image represents an aspect of myself. The image looks like a rather complicated satellite orbiting the earth. Everything is quiet and still. Close by the satellite is some kind of electronic piece or chip. It seems to be awaiting the moment it is to be inserted into the proper slot on the satellite.

Totem Type Face Near My Home

REFLECTION: Each of these images reminds me immediately of early images and dreams I had. The first was a dream image I had in Alabama  in July 1985. This was while staying at my brother's home.  I was having Jungian  therapy in B'ham twice a week and was doing manual labor for another brother in our hometown. The dream was  the kind that one never forgets. It came with unquestionable and direct authority for me. It was audible words coming from a green jade totem face. It simply said,

'There is nothing comparable.' I was not certain what it referred to but I think even then I intuited that it had to do with the unusual and frightening personal path I now found myself on. This path was not one that any of the social or religious consensus in my personal world could encourage or support. But the dream struck me as the Sacred placing a very high value on it. That gave me hope for the months and years ahead. A totem  face expression is disconcerting. It does not say what its underlying emotion actually is. It is a kind of 'stone face' that seems very serious but does not reveal  clearly whether it brings good or bad news. It's voice to me claimed neither 'good or bad', 'happy or sad' but it claimed 'authenticity and uniqueness'.  That kind of authority appealed to my sense of truth and reality. It claimed  something as 'incomparable' and implied  it was thus of very high value, worth my every effort to persevere or to at least cooperate. It struck me as nothing less than a 'voice of God.'  That is one of the 'big dreams' that have  been pivoting  points for my attitude ever since. Such images stay true and alive for a person no matter how negative, sad or hopeless life might turn.  From then on I had a reason to stay loyal to my life and to whatever seemed to be attempting to unfold.

The medieval Christian legends of the Holy Grail  had a strong influence on the formation of Christian/secular concepts in the West. Some say it was the greatest influence on Christendom next to the founding story of Jesus and his apostles. In the Grail story Knights were to learn to follow something that was beyond ordinary daily life 

Holy Grail Vision Painting...189

concerns or what could be perceived by the rational ego alone. This was described as the 'third' in any holy relationship which is also considered to be  the Holy Spirit. To the extent that a Knight put 'following' this Sacred central,  he would be 'given' important adventures that would lead him to the Holy Grail.

Psychologically/spiritually these stories are describing the process of human spiritual development or of Jung's 'individuation.' Lancelot is described as the most successful Knight and called simply the 'good night' for he was able to live in the mean between this 'third' which is the spiritual and the 'ordinary world' of flesh and blood. The story shows that both these worlds are pressing toward a unity, a whole.This process was the primary movement of human cultural/religious development during the past 1000 years. It now seeks further  completion in our day. This would be an example of Jung's stress that the goal of the human psyche, and the 'Self' or Sacred, is the uniting of these, and many other, opposites.

All this to say  I was feeling, when this dream of the 'speaking totem' came, that I was well into the adventures I would from then on be drawn into. Each day my question was , 'What will happen now?' It is the farthest one can get from planning ones own life. There is nothing one can do but to take one moment at a time while sensing a guiding by the 'Self,' the 'larger than conscious ego' center of  the personality. There is the continuous experience that you are being led by the 'third' , by the Sacred. It was frightening but also exhilarating. It was living in the world but being led by that which is greater than the world, both in needed knowledge and plan. I took the dream to be saying there is 'nothing to compare' to this state of being that I was, at least for awhile, experiencing. After the 'visions' that came in mid August of 1985 I came to interpret this statement that it is really only 'love'(experienced as Agape, Phileo and Eros) that is the 'incomparable'. This is in harmony with the statement regarding the highest value- love described in  I Cor. 13.

So this 'throne image' of green jade reminds me that this is the voice and the Sacred reality that I was called to serve and that I still seek to serve. There is no person or image on the throne which I find comforting after the way God has been presented as a kind 'super human' in the sky throughout most of Christianity and Western civilization. We just can't get away from this classic Sunday School image. The O.T. presentation of God 

contributes most to this 'Theistic' image of God along with much classical Christian art. There are many other  God images that can be gleaned and used from the Bible but in life experience these are generally passed by and the 'grand human' god persists, even when the  Christ symbol is the claimed  God image. So now the throne with the jade totem face becomes an image of the Sacred. And the wisdom of 'following the third out of the Self and the incomparable centrality of human/divine love' become a solid foundation for human living. Such living can be viewed as the style of life humans are called to in the post-modern age. This image, along with the previous statement that something is 'incomparable', of the Sacred fits where humans now are psychologically and spiritually headed.(The reader might find of interest the blog post 'Individuality Can Embrace The World.'        http://jhibbett.blogspot.com/2011/07/individuality-can-embrace-world.html )

This second dream ,which is like a shift to another world from the first one, reminds me of a major long and detailed 'vision in the morning fog' at Bear Creek Park in West Houston. This was the day after the visions first broke into consciousness at Park Point in North West Houston. This was mid August '85. The scene was an image of outer space beings or aliens coming to earth. It was a UFO type of image. ( I had no idea that Jung had written a whole book on the psychological meaning of UFO sightings in the West.) It involved the typical slow landing of a circular space craft and its the gang plank coming down. Alien type beings walked out onto the earth. There was  then  images of 'good and evil' faces opposing each other but then gradually finding a way to shake hands. 

 The 'evil' was a Frankenstein type creature and the 'good' was a state trooper with the tall hat they wore in the 80's. After another scene showing a woman leading a weary man out of a valley to the welcoming of friends, the craft closed and ascended. It was as real to me as a Broadway production. I was careful to not let morning joggers notice my intent look into the fog. This was one of many experiences that are only approached by the words 'ecstasy' and 'miracle'.

Obviously  such experiences made me feel very connected with that which is far beyond my ego consciousness even though my outer life situation was in shambles. I felt I(and my family) was paying  a great and important price for such an experience and yet I had not been seeking it. And I knew I did not yet fully know what that full price might be. I had no awareness of such experiences being actually possible. But I  knew I needed time and perhaps competent help in reaching some tentative understanding and meaning of all this. In the years that followed this was part of the internal work I would be doing. By the end of August '85 I was teaching elementary math and Jr. High Science back in Illinois with my family. I was still deeply involved in similar but less prolonged 'visions' and dreams. I felt I barely survived each school day. Much of the tension was attempting to make sure that no one at school noticed my distractions from my active inner world. I knew that would be my demise.

The satellite image makes clear how important technology has been to my, and all people's, personal journey. Beginning with telephone and T.V and continuing on through the personal laptop computer and cell phone, so much of what we have all done in outer life has depended on our culture's technology. The dream may suggest  there is more of a living  or soul connection between technology and our humanity than we are aware of. I am very aware of how our cultural  focus on technology can diminish our humanity by taking our attention away from other persons with a focus and fascination on the technology as an end rather than a means. I am often offended by people giving  their full attention to cell phone conversation when there are actual fellow persons physically present. I find it rude and a failure to use technology as secondary to the humans who created it. It may be that our brain and nervous system are similar to and have a kind of harmony with electronic computers etc. Such questions and images are now needing to be more conscious so technology is used in a more human/spiritual way.

To the extent that I, and others, are like satellites the dream says I await for one more chip or piece to make my 'circuits' more complete, whole and functional. I find this dream image a reminder that 'all that is' in the end is connected. We and our physical environment, both natural and human created, are important and deserve our appreciation and cooperation in the process of overall evolution of our species as well as the rest of our environment. The image is anticipatory for both myself and perhaps our whole culture and world. The image of the earth from outer space has been said to be perhaps the most consciousness raising image in human history. Any image that helps us 'see ourselves' as connected to the 'whole' in greater clarity is a consciousness raising event. The dream supports the idea that 'We' are moving into an unknown future and we have a right to be excited. Being away from earth symbolically, like a satellite,  gives one a sense of no longer being contained by the everyday issues of life. Just by being separated from all the peripheral issues of life allows one to be aware there is something that is a priority above all the rest. That priority is represented in Jungian psychology as the 'Self', and in medieval Christianity  as The Holy Grail.  In all major religions it is the concept of God, of the Sacred. The Knights of Arthur were encouraged to follow that 'One' priority that is superior to all else. One may feel very close to God if in the silent place of a satellite orbiting the Earth. The 'Oneness of Wholeness' would be more readily detected and  made conscious. Such an image may make it  more sensible how to 'follow' the Holy Spirit or whatever other appropriate metaphor of God. Both Moses and Jesus say that God is 'One.' That , I think , is the central  message to me from the dream. That is the God I am to continue to learn of and  to follow. There is 'nothing comparable.'