An intermediary is a
‘go-between’ - someone who acts as a messenger between two … generally people
or groups. Often the intermediary does more than simply directly assist with
communication, the word often implies someone who helps the two separate people
or groups to come to some sort of common understanding - or even and agreement.
Monday, 12 May 2014
initiation
An initiation is a
mark of having moved from one situation or status to another. Often, this word
is interpreted as a ritual marking acceptance into membership of an
organisation. A number of Wiccan and other pagan traditions have grades in
their memberships, and may conduct an elaborate ceremony, including a formal
oath taking, to mark the changes of grade of membership.
In what are often
termed ‘Mystery Schools’ (‘secret orders’
or ‘secret societies’, if you prefer), and the more formal or serious
spiritual (which includes “Wiccan and
other pagan traditions”) / psychic / metaphysical initiations, there may be
an actual or implied threat of dire consequences should the oath be broken.
Most of these are
theatrical baloney.
Some, however, are
more serious, owing to the nature of the commitment. For instance, if you swear
to – to choose a ridiculous example – stop a sword falling on someone, and then
pause to scratch yourself or go watch a TV, the sword will fall, the someone
will be injured or killed, and you’ll have all sorts of consequences as a
result of the combination of a stupid oath and a gross dereliction of duties.
Genuinely spiritual
initiations, in my view, accept our human frailties and the possibility of
failure, taking a mature – rather than a primary school yard – approach. There
will be consequences, but most of those will be borne by you as a simple result
of your failure, much as failing to get out of the way of a speeding car will
result in death or injury.
The primary school
yard type approach (“If you tell, we’ll
steal your lunch money/not talk to you/kill you and yours unto the 7th
generation” – select as appropriate to the ridiculous situation being
considered / encountered) is, in my experience, most often found with those
who are, basically, up themselves and trying to lord (or lady!) it over others. There will be a formal, solemn
aspect and ‘flavour’ to a genuine ceremonial initiation, but it will be
recognisably different to the schoolyard rubbish.
Now, I have used the
word ceremonial quite a bit in the preceding paragraphs of this definition.
Initiations may actually be experienced completely without any formal ceremony
at all, simply by living one’s life. (Some
are also experienced on the astral and other nonphysical levels, but that is
yet another aspect to this topic.) These are recognisable by the extreme
testing that may happen beforehand – the real version of what many ceremonies
are trying to recreate. (As, in my
opinion, should be the case: I don’t know ANYONE who is capable of a safe and
effective recreation of such testing in a ceremonial setting.)
As of the time this
definition was written, I’ve touched on this idea in the following posts:
incredulous
Incredulous means not
able to be believed. Someone who is being incredulous is someone who is being
extremely sceptical.
Golden Rule
Put simply, the
Golden Rule is a phrase worded along the lines of the following:
Do unto others as you would be done by
I’ve heard quite a
few people attribute this to Christ, but it goes back further in Christianity,
and, I understand, pops up a wide range of religions – as an example, consider the
Wiccan Rede.
Critics like to point
out the flaws in this guide (thereby
being guilty of extremism, inappropriate argument or ‘throwing the baby out
with bathwater’, in many cases – in my view), and, whilst it is by no means
perfect, it’s not a bad starting point for working out a code of ethics that
covers most - or at least many -
situations in life. Also, the “Global
Ethic” movement has connections to the concept of ‘the Golden Rule’ - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Towards_a_Global_Ethic:_An_Initial_Declaration,
http://www.religioustolerance.org/parliame.htm
and http://www.weltethos.org/index-en.php.
As of the time this
definition was written, I’ve touched on this idea in the following posts:
frequency
Lots of things
vibrate. If we look at an atom (which,
incidentally, is named that because the Ancient Greek philosophers
philosophised that there might be something which is so small it cannot be
divided any further, and they called it ‘an atom’ … and scientists in the last
few centuries then used that term too early), apart from the whole
electrons whirling round the central nucleus, a bit like a very small solar
system (although quantum physics disputes
the rotation bit … and maybe a few other things as well), atoms tend to get
together in molecules (which are the
basis of substances like oxygen, nitrogen, salt, etc) and vibrate. That
vibration is registered by us as things like temperature (the faster they vibrate, the warmer the temperature; if there is no
vibration, they’re at absolute zero temperature, which is QUITE a bit colder
than the temperature of freezing water or alcohol), or, when the molecules
are a gas, pressure … although that, really, is more the collisions from the
molecules bumping into each other – but the faster they vibrate, the more they
bump into each other, and the higher the pressure.
So … everything physical vibrates. On a larger scale,
some people have heard of bridges being shaken to pieces by soldiers marching
across them. That actually has happened a few times – the Broughton
Suspension Bridge, on 12th April, 1831, the Angers Bridge in
France on 16th April, 1850, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythBusters_%282004_season%29#Breakstep_Bridge - although that one may be more faulty design
than actually what is called ‘mechanical resonance’ (I won’t define that one –try something like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_resonance). There was a bridge in the USA which
collapsed because of the dynamic effects created by wind (the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, nicknamed “Galloping Gertie”, which
collapsed due to “aeroelastic
flutter”, and changed
engineering design), and during the rebuilding of Lisbon, Portugal
after the 1755
earthquake and tsunami, potential designs were apparently tested for their
earthquake resistance by having
soldiers march round them. In my day job, I’ve encountered a floating
structure that fell to pieces because of resonance, so I’ve a little
familiarity with the whole resonance issue,
which is a function of materials, shape and design details.
More than this,
however, the whole of our physical reality is considered – according to
metaphysics, not science to have a
fundamental rate of vibration, or ‘frequency’.
Other levels of
reality, including the energies associated with them, such as the etheric and
astral, are considered to have a fundamental rate of vibration, or ‘frequency’,
which is higher – that is, their energy and basic vibrations are occurring at a
higher rate. This leads to the term ‘higher (or
lower) frequency’ – it is not directly inferring a greater or lesser moral
worthiness, although many tend to ascribe that meaning to it,
but, rather, it is a reference to the basic nature of reality.
For what it is worth,
I consider this explanation too simplistic, and I consider the differences
between levels of reality to be more akin to the differences between AM and FM
radio, or digital and analogue transmissions (maybe science’s ‘string
theory’ has something to say of use here?), but the concept is
extremely useful in learning about psychic matters – particularly when trying
to ‘tune in’.
Oh, and there’s
always that film with Dennis Quaid in it, Frequency, if
you want to see this sort of
demonstrated … actually, that’s really different concepts, but the title is a
great tie-in, and it is a god film J
As of the time this
definition was written, I’ve touched on this idea in the following posts:
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