Visions as irruptions of dreaming consciousness into waking life

There's a theory -- I'm not sure who deserves credit for it -- that dreaming goes on all the time, but that it is imperceptible when we are awake because it is drowned out by the much "brighter" and "louder" stimuli of waking consciousness -- much as the stars are always there but only become visible when there is no sunlight. In theory, then, it should be possible to experience dreaming during waking if the "sunlight" can be tuned out.

I think that's what's happened with my two recent "vision" experiences. Both occurred while I was praying the Rosary -- a meditative-like state where the discursive mind is disengaged and external stimuli are tuned out -- and at least one of them had features that mark it as being more like a dream than like a hallucination. In the "Étude brute?" vision, I was able to move and act in the vision -- walking through a wall from one cavern into another -- while at the same time my physical body was sitting in a chair and not moving at all. I would assume that in a classic hallucination, you would sea unreal stimuli within the real world and would react to them by actually moving your physical body. Therefore, I think that what I had is probably accurately described as a "waking dream," and I have referred to it as such.

On July 9, I was reading Doctrine and Covenants Section 110 and noticed language that hadn't really stood out to me that last time I'd read it (which was more than 20 years ago):

The veil was taken from our minds, and the eyes of our understanding were opened. We saw the Lord standing upon the breastwork of the pulpit, before us; and under his feet was a paved work of pure gold, in color like amber. . . .

After this vision closed, the heavens were again opened unto us; and Moses appeared before us . . . .

After this vision had closed, another great and glorious vision burst upon us; for Elijah the prophet, who was taken to heaven without tasting death, stood before us . . .  (vv. 1-2, 11, 13).

In the past, I had always thought of this as a series of actual visitations by Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. The visionary character of the experience (indicated by the phrases I have bolded) hadn't really registered. The language about the heavens opening and closing never had any specific meaning for me before, but now I recognize it as a very natural way of describing visions like my own. There is a sense that the visual field "opens up," as if one is seeing behind a backdrop, and when I read Smith and Cowdery's language about a veil being taken away and the heavens opening, it seemed to me that they had to be describing the same kind of experience. These things are impossible to express properly in words, but the words they chose are immediately understandable to one who has had the experience, just as those who have experienced the "fire on Emmaus" know it when it is described.

So Moses and Elijah weren't actually there in the Kirtland Temple and didn't actually give Smith and Cowdery the "keys." They just had a vision that that happened, which is not the same thing at all. I'm not discounting dreams and visions, of course, but vision is not reality. I mean, I myself have had a vision of the Holy Family, but I would never presume to say that I have seen Jesus Christ with my own eyes or anything like that.

 Visions need to be clearly distinguished from actual events. Visions are symbolic.

Listening for a signal in the noise

Last night I was teaching an online English class, and one of the students twice made the mistake of referring to the time using an ordinal number -- of saying, for example, "I usually get up at seven fifteenth." The first time, I just corrected it without further comment, but after she'd made the same mistake twice I decided I'd better explain in more detail. I explained that we use ordinal numbers for the date, not for the time. "For example, we would say that today is" -- I glanced down at the corner of my screen to check -- "August twenty-sixth, but if we want to talk about the time, we'd say that it's" -- I glanced down again and saw exactly the same numbers -- "eight twenty-six."

Quite the coincidence, right? The whole point I was making was that the same series of digits would be read differently depending on whether it was a date or a time, and I just happened to make that point at a moment when the time and the date were perfectly aligned. I thought, "He's got a watch with a minute hand / Millennium hand and an eon hand / And when they meet, it's a happy land."

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This morning, I checked my email before leaving for work and found that someone had sent me this image from, apparently, Kamala Harris's Twitter.

When you want to do "Abbey Road" but don't have three friends

The email said simply, "Also saw this image & I know you’ve seen some Tarot connections. Notice any Tarot / Masonic symbolism?"

Well, yes, the Masonic symbolism rather hits you over the head -- but I wouldn't have looked at this photo and thought Tarot without some prompting from my friend. I thought of my Inauguration Day reading, identifying Harris with a woman between the two Masonic pillars Jachin and Boaz. The chessboard-tile floor does not appear on the card but is certainly implied by the context. One also sees an obvious visual allusion to the two pillars in the photo above. The angle of her legs even suggests a Masonic compass.

This photo also made me think of the AC/DC song "Highway to Hell" -- I think for no other reason than that it features the word "stride." Hey, Satan, paid my dues . . . . Another line from that song -- "Going down, party time" -- made me think of the chorus of the old Neil Sedaka song "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do" -- "Kama kama down doobie doo down down."

I visited Harris's Twitter, wondering if the image was a recent one. (Apparently it's not.)

So the photo she chooses for the header is one of her -- cackling? Also, "Momala"? Doesn't she/her realize the preferred term is "birthing personala"? Momala ties back in with "Highway to Hell":

Hey, Satan, paid my dues

Playing in a rocking band

Hey, Momma, look at me

I'm on my way to the promised land

I'm on the highway to hell

(Don't stop me)

And I'm going down, all the way down

Momala + Joe = Mamalujo. Finnegans Woke!

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Later, on the road, I was thinking about the 826 coincidence of the night before when I noticed that string of numbers on the license plate ahead of me: MML 8268. Right next to it was another license plate that read NNJ 0315. This second plate caught my attention, because NNJ is ninja and 0315 is the Ides of March. This made me think of the Arizona audit, by a group called Cyber Ninjas, with (we hope) the ultimate result of striking down Caesar.

My recent post "Copper Queen" connected the Empress card of the Tarot with both Kamala Harris and the state of Arizona. Writing that post made me think (because of the phonetic similarity to empress) of the TMBG song "I'm Impressed," so immediately after posting it, I looked it up on YouTube. The video ends with a cartoon robot version of the assassination of Caesar on the Ides of March.

At first I didn't think much of the MML 8268 plate, except to note that it included 826. Now, though, I realize that MML is Momala, and that 268 is the gematria value of my full name. (Back in July, I posted about seeing 286 on a license plate and mistakenly thinking that was the gematria value of my name!) Oh, and the Ides of March is my birthday.

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A few days ago, on August 19, I received an email with the subject line "License Plate Synchronicity."

I was driving today and saw a car license plate that said D & C 1 38.  This drew my attention because I have seen very few references to the Old or New Testaments on license plates and don't remember seeing any other that refer to Mormon writings.  

The reference is to Doctrine and Covenants 1:38.

What I the Lord have spoken, I have spoken, and I excuse not myself; and though the heavens and the earth pass away, my word shall not pass away, but shall all be fulfilled, whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same.

On a hunch, I looked up D&C 8:2-6.

Yea, behold, I will tell you in your mind and in your heart, by the Holy Ghost, which shall come upon you and which shall dwell in your heart.

Now, behold, this is the spirit of revelation; behold, this is the spirit by which Moses brought the children of Israel through the Red Sea on dry ground.

Therefore this is thy gift; apply unto it, and blessed art thou, for it shall deliver you out of the hands of your enemies, when, if it were not so, they would slay you and bring your soul to destruction.

Oh, remember these words, and keep my commandments. Remember, this is your gift.

Now this is not all thy gift; for you have another gift, which is the gift of Aaron; behold, it has told you many things.

Instead of "the gift of Aaron," the earliest manuscript has "the gift of working with the sprout," amended by Sidney Rigdon to "rod."

This is generally taken as a reference to a divining rod, later biblicized by connecting it with Aaron's rod that budded and blossomed and yielded almonds.

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As I post this, it's still 8/26 in Arizona. Not that I'm expecting anything to happen in the next two and a half hours, but you never know.

Not my typo

Joan of Arc under the sun of Sorath

In my post "Can you just choose a patron saint?" I quote Mark Twain's preface to his book about Joan of Arc, in which he emphasizes the contrast between the perfect goodness of Joan herself and the extreme evil of the times in which she lived -- "the brutalest, the wickedest, the rottenest in history since the darkest ages."

The purest form of evil is called Sorathic, from a word created by Rudolf Steiner out of the Hebrew numerals for 666. Steiner characterizes Sorath as the "Demon of the Sun" -- an evil Sun in opposition to the good Sun which is the Christ. This theme of the good and evil Suns is something I have explored in some detail at The Magician's Table.

Today an email correspondent mentioned that he had first learned about Joan of Arc by typing "joan the maid" into a search engine. For some reason, after reading that, I was immediately moved to do the same thing myself -- and then, when the search results came up, my mouse hand sprang into action as if directed by an intelligence not my own. Click-scroll-click-scroll-click, just like that -- so fast that I didn't have time to read anything and had no conscious knowledge of what I was clicking on, as if executing a series of steps long since rendered automatic by habit -- and I found myself staring at an article about a 1926 novel by Georges Bernanos called Sous le soleil de Satan -- Under Satan's Sun.

I am not exaggerating how very quickly this happened; and happened is the correct word, since to say I did it would imply that the conscious mind played a role. Checking my browser history to retrace my steps, I find that Joan the Maid is the English name of a 1994 French historical film starring Sandrine Bonnaire in the title role, and that this same actress starred alongside Gérard Depardieu in the 1987 film version of Sous le soleil de Satan.

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What does this mean? Well, the most natural interpretation, I think, is that Joan is back because Sorath is back. She is here because she is needed. Maid of Heaven, pray for us!

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I end with a quote from Oliver Cowdery which has been on my mind recently.

Man may deceive his fellow-men, deception may follow deception, and the children of the wicked one may have power to seduce the foolish and untaught, till naught but fiction feeds the many, and the fruit of falsehood carries in its current the giddy to the grave; but one touch with the finger of his love, yes, one ray of glory from the upper world, or one word from the mouth of the Savior, from the bosom of eternity, strikes it all into insignificance, and blots it forever from the mind.