“The oracle of Dodona was presided over by Jupiter, who uttered prophecies through oak trees, birds, and vases of brass. … The ‘talking’ trees stood together, forming a sacred grove. When the priests desired answers to important questions, after careful and solemn purifications they retired to the grove. When they had stated their questions, the trees spoke with the voices of human beings, revealing to the priests the desired information. …
“Most curious of the oracles of Dodona were the ‘talking’ vases, or kettles. These were made of brass and so carefully fashioned that when struck they gave off sound for hours.” ~Manly P. Hall

Talking Trees

“The trees of Dodona didn’t actually talk. What they did varies depending on who you listen to. Some say actual voices could be heard coming from the trees. Others, that the rustling leaves made sounds that could only be interpreted by the oracles. In either case, we are talking about sound coming from the trees.

Talking Kettles

“More interesting is the tale of “talking” vases or kettles made of brass. The fact that it was said they gave off sound for hours after being struck indicates that this is something different from listening to the “voices” in the trees and from the birds. This sound more like a tool used to raise the vibrations of the priests and others present during the oracular ceremony. This sounds very similar to the singing brass bowls used in Tibet and the crystal ones used elsewhere in spiritual and mystical ceremony.”

Read the complete blog post at Solar Wind.

Visit and bookmark Harold Boulette’s blog Solar Wind at:  http://spiritsun.net/

“Even in the superior phase of the Soul—that which proceeds the impressionable faculty and any sensation—how can we reconcile immunity with the indwelling of vice, false notions, ignorance? …

“If the Soul were material and had magnitude, it would be difficult, indeed quite impossible, to make it appear to be immune, unchangeable, when any of such emotions lodge in it. And even considered as an Authentic Being, devoid of magnitude and necessarily indestructible, we must be very careful how we attribute any such experiences to it or we will find ourselves unconsciously making it subject to dissolution.” ~Plotinus

The Immune Soul

The soul is immune from many things, but Plotinus is primarily telling us that it is immune to having negative emotions. It is immune in that it cannot experience for itself such emotions, or for that matter, most positive emotions. It cannot be jealous, angry, vengeful, or hateful. It cannot even be happy, sad, joyful, or friendly. All such emotions are experienced by the body and the mind, not the Soul. But there is one cautionary message that needs to go with this idea. While the soul can’t experience such emotions directly, it can be affected by them indirectly.

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“Those whose names he knew first were called last, so that one who has knowledge is one whose name the Father has pronounced. For one whose name has not been spoken is ignorant. … For whoever remains ignorant until the end is a creature of forgetfulness and will perish with it. … Hence, whoever has knowledge is from above. If called, that person hears, replies, and turns toward Him who called. That person ascends to Him and knows how he is called. Having knowledge, that person does the will of Him who called. That persons desire to please Him, finds rest, and receives a certain name. Those who thus are going to have knowledge know whence they came and whither they are going. They know it as someone who, having become intoxicated, has turned from his drunkenness and, having come to himself, has restored what is his own.” ~The Gospel of Truth

Called Last

Why should those with knowledge be called last? For the same reason that the ship’s crew and captain are the last ones to leave a sinking ship. The ones with the knowledge about life boats, life vests, and so on, must show the passengers and help them get off first. Likewise, those who gain knowledge must help teach the rest so they too can be saved.

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“When you go on an excursion choose the places well lit by the Sun. These are the southern slopes of the mountain.

“There is always more prana or vital energy in the mornings than at noon. At that time, the organism absorbs the greatest amount and the most powerful positive energies. The first rays of the Sun (at sunrise) are the most energetic; the Sun reaches the pinnacle of its action. …

“Those who have lost meaning in life must greet the Sun every morning. Get up and see the rising Sun for a month and see how you will feel then. In the springtime look at the flowers and trees in bloom.

“People today often like to speculate with sophisticated phrases about the existence of God and to ask if there is a God. I do not solve this question in a philosophical way, but I just say that God exists as the Sun is shining.” ~~Biensa Douno

Let the Sun Shine In

Whether you are traveling or staying at home doesn’t make any difference. Choose a place well lit by the sun. Also one well lit by the Sun. Notice that Douno always capitalizes the word in the text quoted. I can’t be certain that my interpretation is the same as his, but when I capitalize it, I am referring to the spiritual Sun rather than the physical sun. While the two are related just as we are related to our own spirits, it is important to recognize the difference.

This doesn’t mean that we all have to live in wide open spaces where we get a lot of sun. That would be impossible for most urban dwellers today. It does mean that when we engage in spiritual practices, we should go to an open area such as a field or a park and look upon both the physical sun and the Spiritual Sun “behind” it.

Read the complete blog post at Solar Wind.

Visit and bookmark Harold Boulette’s blog Solar Wind at:  http://spiritsun.net/

“We find nowadays many silly men who would be so interior and so detached, that they will not be active or helpful in any way of which their neighbors are in need. Know such men are neither hidden friends, nor true servants of God. …
“If thou dost desire to unfold in thyself the Contemplative Life, thou must enter within, beyond the sense life; and, on that apex of thy being, … look unto God with gratitude and love and continual reverence. Thou must keep thy thoughts bare, and stripped of every sensible image, thine understanding open and lifted up to the Eternal Truth, and thy spirit spread out in the sight of God s a living mirror to receive His everlasting likeness. Behold, therein appears a light of the understanding, which neither sense, reason, nature, nor the clearest logic can apprehend, but which gives us freedom and confidence toward God. It is nobler and higher than all that God has created in nature; for it is the perfection of nature, and transcends nature, and is the clear-shining intermediary between ourselves and God.” ~Ruysbroeck

Too Interior

Even though the two paragraphs I quoted from seem to be on different subjects, they are related in one important way. In the second one, Ruysbroeck advises us to turn within for enlightenment, to achieve higher states of consciousness. But this should not lead you to believe that all answers are withing, and all spiritual growth occurs when looking within. The first paragraph helps clear that up when he tells us that we must not be so interior as to be inactive in the physical world and unwilling or unable to help other who need our help (especially, I might add, those who need help finding their way to the Path of Light, the Path of Enlightenment).

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Visit and bookmark Harold Boulette’s blog Solar Wind at:  http://spiritsun.net/

“Now therefore we say (as the Scripture informs us) that God dwells in Heaven, and it is the Truth. Now mark, Moses writes that God created the heaven out of the Midst of the Waters, and the Scripture says, God dwells in Heaven; therefore we may now observe. That the Water has its origin from the longing of the eternal Nature after the eternal Light of Good.; but the eternal Nature is made manifest by the longing after the Light of God, as is mentioned before; and the Light of God is present everywhere, and yet remains hidden to Nature. …
“Therefore, O noble Man, let not Antichrist and the devil before you, who tells you that the Deity is far off from you, and directs you to a Heaven that is situated far above you; whereas there is nothing nearer to you than Heaven is. You only stand before the Door of Heaven, you stand in the Gate” ~Jacob Boehme

God in Heaven

It is a variation of the old “Which came first, the chicken pr the egg?” question. If God dwells in Heaven than log would dictate that Heaven existed before God. If that were the case, who created heaven, and why? On the other hand, if God came first, then created Heaven, where was God before Heaven existed? These question are a dilemma, a paradox, at least to the logical brain-mind.

Here is where you go astray with this; you can’t think of God, Heaven, or anything spiritual, and relate it to time. The entire concept of time doesn’t exist there. It has no relevance. God didn’t exist before Heaven and heaven didn’t exist before God because the use of the idea “before” implies time, and specifically linear time, in a realm where time does not exist at all. Since time doesn’t exist in spiritual worlds, a time-based dilemma cannot exist there either. The paradox exists only in your brain-mind, not in the reality of Heaven and God.

Read the complete blog post at Solar Wind.

Visit and bookmark Harold Boulette’s blog Solar Wind at:  http://spiritsun.net/

“Let whoso thirsts to see his God cleanse his mirror, purge his spirit; and when thus he has cleansed his mirror, and long and diligently gazed in it, a certain brightness of divine light begins to shine through upon him, and a certain immense ray of unwonted vision to appear before his eyes. … From the beholding of this light, which it sees within itself with amazement, the mind is mightily set on fire, and lifted up to behold that Light which is above itself.” ~Richard of St. Victor

“… All his relations with the given world of sense, the sphere of becoming, have been purified and adjusted. Now the expansive and educative influence of the Divine Light is able to penetrate nearer to the heart of his personality; is brought to bear upon those interior qualities which he hardly knows himself to possess, and which govern his relation with the spiritual world of Being.” ~Evelyn Underhill

Cleanse Your Mirror

Hopefully, you all realize that these spiritual teachers are not advising you to grab a bottle of Windex and head for the bathroom to clean the mirror found there. This is allegorical, and can have several meanings. Cleansing our mirror can mean changing how we see ourselves, both on the conscious and subconscious levels. It can also mean changing how we look at the world around us, because what we see is, in effect, a mirror of what we thing and what we believe. The farmer and the hotel builder see something very different when looking out over an empty meadow, neither is seeing it as it truly is.

Read the complete blog post at Solar Wind.

Visit and bookmark Harold Boulette’s blog Solar Wind at:  http://spiritsun.net/

“When the sun rises in the morning, it rises for all, because it loves all. It is considerate to all beings—from the lowest to the highest ones—and that is why all eyes turn to it. But does the sun say to us that we have to enter it? It tells us only to make use of the benefits it is giving. And just as it illuminates the world, so should we shed light and enlighten those around us.
“The greeting of the sun is good for both the physical and spiritual life of man. The flow of solar energy is most powerful and invigorating at sunrise. … The sun represents the Divine life that rises continually in the human Soul.” ~Beinsa Doumo

Sunrise

The sun does rise for all. It’s light nourishes the weeds as much as the corn and wheat, the dandelions as much as the roses. It doesn’t pick and choose who to shine upon, it shines on all. There is a difference, though. The physical sun may shine on all, and all physical beings may benefits from it’s light and energy, though some may actually be harmed by it. On the other hand, the spiritual sun shines it’s higher frequency light on all as well, but only those who have raised their frequencies through spiritual practices can absorb its Light. For all others, that spiritual Light just passes right through them like water through a strainer.

Read the complete blog post at Solar Wind.

Visit and bookmark Harold Boulette’s blog Solar Wind at:  http://spiritsun.net/

“Now the expression of vision, of reality, of beauty, at an artist’s hands—the creation of new life in all forms—has two factors: the living molding creative spirit, and the material in which it works. Between these two there is inevitably a difference of tension. The material is at best inert, and merely patient of the informing idea; at worst, directly recalcitrant to it. Hence, according to the balance of these two factors, the amount of resistance offered by stuff to tool, a greater or lesser energy must be expended. … You, accepting the wide deep universe of the mystic, and the responsibilities that go with it, have by this act taken sides once and for all with creative spirit: with the higher tension, the unrelaxed effort, the passion for a better, intenser, and more significant life. The adoration to which you are vowed is not an affair of red hassocks and authorized hymn books; but a burning and consuming fire.” ~Evelyn Underhill

The Task of the Artist

I find it curious that many people seem to thin that the life of the artist is one of leisure, barely working at all, hardly exerting himself. As one who has dappled in art at various times throughout my life (oil painting, soapstone carving, wood burning, etc.) I know there is considerable work involved in making art.

The task of the artist is to take raw material of some sort, and turn it into something else. Often, the goal is to make something beautiful out of something plain or ordinary, though it can also be to make a social or philosophical comment.

The Task of the Teacher

If you think about it, you can see that the task of the teacher, especially the spiritual teacher, is very similar to the task of the artist. The teacher takes someone raw, untrained, uncouth, and tries to improve him or her. In some cases, the teacher is only teaching a very limited subject, so the student isn’t exactly transformed by the process, but is still changed in some way, hopefully for the better.

Read the complete blog post at Solar Wind.

Visit and bookmark Harold Boulette’s blog Solar Wind at:  http://spiritsun.net/

“A fact well known to the ancient mystical orders, but less commonly realized among the general public today, is that the eyes not only receive light rays and relay them to the brain, but also transmit energy beams. You can conduct a simple experiment to demonstrate this, by staring at a person some distance from you who is not looking in your direction, even when you are not facing one another. More than fifty percent of the time they will turn to look directly back at you. The more fixed your gaze, the greater the success. Planet Earth is basically a big electro-magnet, and the very substance of the material world we live in is itself a conductive medium. The human is the only mammal whose eye has the sclera, or white of the eye, which is probably an indicator that we are the only mammal capable of transmitting as well as receiving light energy.

“Back in the 1930s, Dr. Paul Brunton coined the term ‘Ocular Radiation’ for this phenomenon but, unfortunately, should you do an on-line search for this phrase today, it will most likely yield information about medical radiation treatment. A more apt title would be ‘Ocular Transmission.’ One way you can hone your skills in this practice is by focused contemplation. I first experienced the awareness of eye-gazing at a focused meditation conducted by the Brahma Kumaris at Ubud, Bali, in 2002. A group of about twenty people sat in a darkened room and focused on a pin-point of light on a neutral coloured wall in hour-long sessions. The Hindu Yogis called this gazing meditation ‘Trataka.’ The effect is to awaken the knowledge that the beams of energy travel in two directions, both in and out of the eyes. That the eyes are ‘the gateway’ or ‘window to the soul’ (Psyche) is an expression variously attributed to Shakespeare, The Gospel of Matthew, Herman Melville and Edgar Allen Poe.

“Recognizing that the human eye is not only a passive receiver, but also an active transmitter of radiation, is of great assistance in utilising our creative energy, by sharpening the focus of our willpower. It is said that this radiation consists of electricity and magnetism, the latter, of course, being the instrument of attraction. There is much information out there these days on the popular topic of ‘The Law of Attraction (LOA),’ and Ocular Transmission enables one to cultivate and achieve fixed attention, while the pineal receptor works in drawing the object of desire to oneself. It is advisable to first activate the line from the Intelligible or Solar Heart to the eyes before establishing your needs and wants, firstly because the Psyche, seated in the solar centre, is the best judge for what is right for us and, secondly, our aims have more chance of success if we believe in them ‘with all our heart.’ The reason why so many LOA practitioners fail in their attempts is they accept the validity of what their brain-based ego-self thinks it wants, when all the while there is a conflict going on at the subconscious level between the head and the heart. Passionate beliefs of the heart will usually trump the capricious fancies of the brain.”

Read the full article on Paul’s blog at his web site SolarAncestors.com.

This article was first published in New Dawn Magazine, Issue #159 November/December 2016.