Tag: Emanuel Swedenborg

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson – A review

Gilead

This novel is one of President Obama’s favourite books. It is widely acclaimed as a book of meditative calm and spiritual intensity. Despite its success with a secular audience it unusually has a lot of openly religious content. Revd. John Ames is a Congregational minister and the chief character and narrator. He had experienced great sorrow for a long time in his life after the death of his wife and daughter. Many years later when 69 years of age however he meets and marries his second wife, Lila, who is much younger than him. The book has a quiet gentle almost mystical feeling of peaceful old age – a letting go of the things of life. John remembers grief but never without comfort, loneliness but never without peace.

School discipline – how should it operate?

There are probably several complex factors that can throw light on the causes of the riots. Examples are the culture of consumerism and acquisition as well as the possible effects on
moral values of permissive parenting. This is the third of four articles trying to understand what is going wrong from a spiritual dimension.

One view expressed in The Times newspaper is that “these disgraceful scenes were perpetuated by people who have not experienced any meaningful consequences for misbehaviour at school ” And so one spotlight is falling on social discipline in the education system.

Confidence – How to find it?

Do you lack confidence when it comes to certain situations? It could be anything: dancing, playing sport, chatting with strangers, doing your job, making love. Yet, even confident people can get unstuck somewhere along the line. Calamities oblige us to reconsider the bigger picture. So when it comes down to it, in what can we place our confidence? In our own abilities? In the ideas of others? Or in something beyond all of us? One example of the last of these three possibilities is to do with what the psychologist Abraham Maslow called `the whole of Being’.

Multiculturalism — good or bad?

Anders Behring Breivik murdered dozens of people in cold blood in Norway as a horrendous way of protesting about Islamic immigration. How should we respond? By reiterating democratic liberal values in favour of multiculturalism? Or seeing a warning sign about a society’s limits to tolerance of what is alien?

Unwanted thoughts – How to be rid of them?

I must wash my hands repeatedly. Such an idea or mental picture may pop into your head unasked. Such ideas are unwanted if they are repetitive, unpleasant or difficult to resist. In addition to compulsive acts, they can exacerbate jealousy, temptation, or unreasonable guilt. Swedenborg’s account of unconscious inflow from a spirit realm can give the sufferer some confidence that unwanted thoughts can be ignored and got rid of.

Tell the future – Is this possible?

To want to know the future is a perfectly natural desire. We pick up our ears when we hear of foretold events. Who would not want a few days foreknowledge of the stock market for example? A few incidents in the life of Emanuel Swedenborg suggest he had precognition.

Cats Don’t Get It!

Lucy seeks and shows affection in the way she nuzzles up to me. But she has her faults like clawing the soft furnishings. I haven’t seen any signs of what I would call a social conscience in her makeup. No public prosecutor would take an animal to court on a criminal charge. It’s otherwise with human beings. We also have a will but is ours not one based on rational understanding? For unlike animals have we not a higher degree of mind that can see beyond the things of the senses?

Gay Pride and Straight Talk.

Whether to allow gay bishops is currently a hot issue in the Church of England. Many people feel puzzled by this reluctance to embrace homosexuality by strands of organised religion. And some feel angry and want to promote the idea that gay people should be proud of their sexual orientation feeling this is their natural inclination. From a spiritual perspective, we might ask whether a gay partnership has the same potential for human happiness as that of a heterosexual one. So what does Swedenborg have to say about it?

Go with the flow – But what does this mean?

Do you feel things could run more smoothly with less frustration to tire you out? Like mislaying the garden tools or the favourite recipe book for that special meal, not to mention difficulty finding a satisfying job, loving partner, comfortable home? When you seem to be swimming against the current of life, then don’t you feel dispirited and drained?

Animals in their natural habitats don’t have these difficulties. They seem to be in harmony with the flow of nature. Call it instinct but they have less trouble finding food to eat, building their shelter, finding their mate, caring for their young and all this without having any instruction or money.

So how does one go with the flow?

Ancient Knowledge: Lost & Found?

Ancient people had knowledge that was lost and this is fairly obvious to most people. We only need to look at the Egyptian pyramids, Mayan pyramids, Stonehenge etc. to become aware of this. If you have an open mind in my view you can easily find out how this knowledge has been rediscovered and recorded…