Zhongyongdaoist

Thanks Yueya and Apech, I appreciate your both bringing up some of the issues which were at the back of my mind when I was writing my own post, but which I didn't have the time to examine, such as Christian missionary activity and Western technology. I made a special study of the early Jesuit missions to China, and in point of fact even thought about writing a novel about the period, since it was a period with a lot of dramatic potential as well as interesting intellectual aspects that I wished to develop. It should be noted for example that the Jesuit Fathers didn't arrive with any swords either, though the staggering amount of silver that they were able to spread around was the result of Spanish and Portuguese swords and the vast silver production of South America. The Chinese thought that it must be the result of Alchemy, an impression that the Jesuits, the masters of Catholic "skillful means", left in place. They also came with Western technology, which even in the Seventeenth Century was starting to inch ahead of the rest of the world. To return to the Buddhist Daoist Controversies, the issues here are, as I said previously, varied and complex, but the political aspects certainly cannot be ignored, the earliest Buddhist-Daoist debates in China were in the Sixth Century and involved the same type of considerations as moved Constantine to legalize Christianity in the Roman Empire, the choice of a possible state religion, by Emperor Wu of the Northern Zhou, who was the patron of the Xiaodao Lun, translated by Livia Kohn as Laughing at the Dao, the first major anti Daoist polemic. I should note that the early Christians, like the Buddhists, did not use any swords to gain the attention of Constantine, rather they had survived three Centuries of persecution, before rising to the combination of prominence and potential respectability, that lead them to be in consideration as the Roman State religion. A fact often neglected by those who wish to talk about Christianity as being spread by the sword. Whatever happened after Christianity became embroiled with the Politics of the Roman Empire, should not be laid at the feet of Christianity per se, but rather its politicization and corruption by Rome. In any case these political rivalries were carried on for Centuries between Buddhism and Daoism in a way that didn't make either of them look good, and it is perhaps to the credit of the Confucians and particularly to the revival of Mencian Confucianism in the Song Dynasty that we owe the attempt to limit these rivalries with "the Unity of the Three Teachings", a doctrine that would have gained traction only in a Mencian based Confucianism and not one based on Xunzi, as had dominated Chinese politics since the time of Emperor Wu of the Han. Well, so much for another hurried oversimplification, I hope that some of the resources I linked are helpful in understanding the big picture. ZYD

The whole issue is way more complex than can be dealt with in anything but a long series of posts, and since they would be interrupted by polemical posts from one side or another, there is little chance that trying to shed some light on the matter would do anything but start a fire and obscure all the issues in toxic smoke, but, put simply, the introduction of Buddhism into China was a source of enormous cultural disruption in which almost all aspects of traditional Chinese religious and spiritual practice were attacked by a basically foreign system of thought with some similarities to Daoism, which the Chinese did the best that they could do to deal with and accommodate. This was a centuries long process which resulted a peace of sorts, under the notion of "the Unity of the Three Teachings", during this process there were many attempts, some good and some bad, to work toward this "accommodation". Partisans of one or another side may view this accommodation as a betrayal of the "real truth" of their own beliefs, but to my mind a lot of interesting and profound ideas emerged from all of the dubious speculations and bad politics. Personally, after decades of study, thought and practice of Eastern and Western esotericism, I prefer Daoism in almost all of its luxuriant and rich manifestations, but remain deeply sympathetic to aspects of Buddhism, and I see both of these within a Platonic framework, best represented by Plotinus' explication of Plato, and which I find deals with some real problems with Buddhist Ontology and Metaphysics, while laying an excellent philosophical foundation for Daoism, which otherwise hangs precariously from beautiful clouds of the "self so" (Ziran, best English, "self-existent", which is good because it relates it to Western ontology and allows a better starting point for comparison).

Preferably with a good guide and a Wayback machine: Apech, thanks for your clarification and discussion of the Egyptian side of things.

The character translated here as benevolence is 仁: which is the primary virtue of the Confucian Sage, therefore even in Chapter 38, from which you quote Confucianism, would only be third down from Dao, but in Chapter 18, it is only second down. I examine the relationship between Dao and Ren in some detail in my discussion of Chapter 5, here: I am pretty much the only one here who has actually made a detailed study of Confucianism going back to 2000, and has a long familiarity with Daoism in its philosophical, meditative and ritual forms, starting in the mid Sixties. Most people here have no familiarity with Confucianism, but insist on making commenting on it anyway, and what is usually presented as Confucianism is seldom more than a primitive caricature, bearing little resemblance to its original. The whole discussion of Ren in the above mentioned thread is worth a look. A better idea of what is going on in Confucianism can be gleaned from my posts on Confucian Qigong in this thread: But this only scratches the surface of a very deep subject. Without understanding that translating Ren as benevolence, which is just Latin for Good Will, is only a good translation as it relates to its outer aspect as can be understood by worldly people, but is hardly the full meaning of Ren. I think of its higher meaning as "human potential", which represents the possibility of realizing our "Heavenly Nature" in our bodily form, and expanding our "Humanity", so that it encompasses and forms a triad of Heaven, Earth and Humanity as embodied in the Confucian Sage. This triad is then the basis by which the Sage eventually becomes a Shen. Some of the passages in Mencius and other Confucian works from which these ideas are garnered are examined in the Confucian Qi gong thread. I hope this clears some misunderstanding, and that this had opened people's minds to that idea that there is much more to Confucianism and that the usual mutually exclusive dichotomy drawn between Daoism and Confucianism is superficial at best. As far as I am concerned they are better seen as complementary, and there is more relation between them and interplay between them then most people realize. I am very busy right now and may not be able to elaborate on any of the above anytime soon. ZYD

I'll see what we can do. The original links both to the PDF and to a zip file were on the Dao Bums server as attachments to individual accounts, and may have been relocated during our upgrade this last Spring, so we may have to do some digging, or explore alternative solutions. Zhongyongdaoist, Concierge

Here is an interesting book reference that is well written, entertaining and a good introduction to the whole field: Which happens to be a very good read also. It is important to realize though, that the brain's representation of our surroundings as "sensory experience", however imperfect or fallible, is not a mere a illusion, but just that, a representation, much like a television picture is a representation, and a very useful one at that.

The section beginning with blue eyed snakes question about ME has been moved to her PPD at her request. Members can find it here: BES and ME Zhongyongdaoist, Concierge

I woke up yesterday to two unpleasant things, my computer display making reading and posting difficult, and reading Kar3n's post. I finally got my computer stabilized, but Kar3n's contribution to the smooth running of staff was so great that it will take a while to recover, and we will probably never have someone as dedicated as she has been. Unfortunately, you would have to be a mod to know all that she has done behind the scenes while keeping order on the front lines, but her dedication to the duties of her position was a powerful testimony to the truth of what she says about loving us poor Bums. Thanks Kar3n. ZYD

Admittedly not much to go on which is why I said: In other words you have just written a couple of paragraphs, not a detailed discussion, however there are somethings that look like Bi-polar in it. You are young and so you haven't had time to see if alternations in mood are part of a larger pattern, and it is certainly easy enough to see that you find the idea of a life of office work a "depressing" perspective and chalk it up to that, but if there is something else going on, then now is the time to examine it, before it ruins the rest of your life. So I am simply suggesting that it may be something to look at. Right now I am having a little trouble with my computer display, so this is all that I can say now. I hope that it clarifies my concerns somewhat. ZYD

It sounds to me that you may be somewhat Bi-polar and depending on how serous it is mere meditation and mindfulness may not help, however in my personal experience there are Chinese herbal ways to deal with this type of thing and I wish that they had been available and I that had possessed the knowledge to use them much earlier in my life. Since you say that you like intellectual challenges take on the challenge of learning Chinese Herbalism, the best place to begin is the Book Between Heaven and Earth, which aside from being a good introduction to Chinese medicine with a special slant to using herbs, also has a very comprehensive self-evaluation questionnaire which will help you get a handle on where you stand from the Chinese medical perspective and how it might tie in with your mood swings. Whatever you do, good luck. ZYD

I am glad to hear that your situation seems better to you now, and I hope that it really is better. The fact that I remember you after three years indicates that I was rather concerned about what you were saying. I still recommend that you get Between Heaven and Earth, it will give you a map to your state of health, which may seem fine to you know, but may have indications of organ imbalances that you have no idea of at this time and which could cause problems in the future. This advice is good, but only scratches the surface: The book is a good introduction to a fascinating and very worthwhile study. What Gerard said here: is also relevant, herbs as the herbs can only directly effect your post-natal jing, qi, and shen, and the most important work is that which accesses the innate "pre-birth" jing, qi, and shen and allows you to work with and unify the worlds of the the Hotu and the Loshu. Here the inner essences of the herbs become important, but you can connect with them through their bodies if your awareness has been extended to the right levels. ZYD

You and me both Taomeow, and I have to agree that as an answer to the question as asked, your answer has a lot of merit. Alcohol is a fascinating thing and one of its Western names, "Spirit of Wine", says some very important things about it. Frankly I thought the problems began with the question, and that on one level or another all the suggestions had some merit, and I am sorry, and apologize to all if I did not make that clear in my post, but I was somewhat rushed and wished to focus on the more important topic: To my mind the question that should have been asked is "Should I be taking a jing tonic?", and one important answer is "Not if you don't need one", followed by the counter question, "Why do you think you need one?", and an important consideration not even addressed is how their Liver is functioning from the TCM perspective, because especially in the case of men, if someone's Liver is overheated, you're just using your jing like radiator coolant in a car, and that is not good, because just adding jing to the mix, will not cool your Liver, and if you don't understand this, you shouldn't be fooling with jing tonics. Now I am sure you understand all this Taomeow, but the world is full of people who don't, and there is a lot of misunderstanding as people make very superficial combinations of modern Western and traditional Chinese physiology and health practices, and this goes for Western "alternative" health ideas, as much as it does for mainstream medicine. I would rather push for people to go for a deeper understanding of Chinese traditions and to apply them consistently, then a "buffet" of mix and match Chinese and Western health practices, and that was my intent in answering the way I did. ZYD

Let me give an example, drawn from my own personal experience, of what I mean here : I will try to be as brief as possible, while I started studying aspects of Chinese medicine back around 1970 this was mostly acupuncture and five element theory, there was almost nothing in English that dealt with Chinese Herbalism in a satisfactory way at the time, though I was convinced that the Chinese had to have a better knowledge of herbs than I was seeing in the books available then. This situation started to change in the late eighties with the appearance of some excellent books on Chinese Herbs and on Chinese patent medicines, as well as some excellent books on the theory. I used these to start with and had some very encouraging results with digestion and fatigue. One problem that I did have at the time is a good example of what I mean by imbalances being confused with "spiritual progress". In the early nineties I had developed what later became known as "restless leg syndrome", shaking in my legs accompanied by intense heat and feelings like electric shock going down what I already knew was the Liver Channel in both legs. A lot of people coming to the Dao Bums would have interpreted this as "progress", they would have asked something to the effect of "I have energy streaming down my legs, how to I get it into the MCO?". I had learned enough to view this as possibly being Wind Heat in the Liver Channel which might have been the result of Liver Blood Deficiency. I started taking some of the patent medicines that addressed the problems of Liver Wind and Liver Blood deficiency and within a few months the symptoms disappeared. I was lucky that this Pathogenic Wind Heat was moving down the Liver Channel and not up the Gallbladder channel, where it would could easily cause problems, including manic episodes which people can confuse with "enlightenment" breakthroughs. It is almost impossible to get people who experience this to realize that theses experiences have nothing to do with spiritual development, but are the result of imbalances, and actually an impediment to real progress. In the years since then I have managed to stave off problems that were developing or which had already developed and would have gotten worse, so that just as I am about to leave my mid sixties for my late sixties I haven't had a cold or flu type episode for over tens years, where I used to get them an average of four times a year, and from having, what has been a big relief, literally as well as figuratively, problems with urinary function which make a lot of people my age miserable and were severe enough twenty years ago to be a problem, but are not a problem anymore and haven't been since about 2010. These are just a couple of the advantages which I have gotten from learning how to use Chinese herbs, there are more. The book I have recommended, Between Heaven and Earth, appeared in 1992 as I recall, and I am certain that I bought it then. It didn't help me with these early successes, but its self-evaluation questionnaire was a real help for clearing up other things, and helped me organize my understanding better, and I certainly would have benefited from it earlier. ZYD

It doesn't sound like you took the advice I gave you back here: Cool thanks, I'll check that out Otherwise you wouldn't need to be asking this question. There are problems to all of the answers that you have received, though none of them is really bad in general, but they may be bad in your specific case and without an understanding of that as a starting point one can end out causing problems down the road. One of the strong points of the book that I recommend above Between Heaven and Earth, is its excellent evaluation questionnaire and further, overall it is a good introduction to basic Chinese herbalism, including an invaluable section on using Chinese herbs in cooking. Just doing jing tonics without knowing what the situation with your organs is, and how to balance them out is asking for trouble in the long term. The above book is a good place to start. There is a lot of value to it for people interested in "energy cultivation" as way of laying a good foundation for successful practice, which means practice that is conducive to health and "energy" development, not "energy" imbalances leading to ill health which in turn is confused with spiritual progress. It is so important that as I pursue the teaching project which I have envisioned here: What, me teach? Ok, sure why not . . . learning these basics will be an important part of the Chinese part of my curriculum. I haven't written much beyond the thread in which I outline my intent, but you might want to pay attention to the project as it develops. ZYD

I only just came across this thread and I don't have much time today, but here is a diagram of the Seventeenth Century by Johann Georg Gichtel: That is fairly well known. There is undoubtedly energy work done in the Western tradition, however most of it seems not to have been written down, but was inherent in the worldview of the time in which there was a strong Microcosm/Macrocosm connection which was fundamental to the Western worldview from the Hellenistic period on, modern materialism, which has generally supplanted this view, being just that modern, and largely a product of the late Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. The esoteric revival of the late Nineteenth Century produced a lot of literature developing largely out of the work of Mesmer and his theories of Animal Magnetism. I'll try to post more on this. ZYD

Since you liked the Heavenly Lord Taiyi, and rituals too, I thought I might share with you the links to some posts that I did on exorcism calling on the Heavenly Lord Taiyi a while back, they may give you some further self help in your present situation. Another part of my impressions during my ritual was that Joe came into this life with considerable spiritual power, but it was smothered by the negativity into which he was born. This was an important part of the attraction and connection between you two and why the two of you would work so well in healing work as you have posted about in the past. This spiritual power is now free and has been further empowered by the Heavenly Lord Taiyi, to paraphrase an old saying, "you may have lost a codependent husband, but you have gained a powerful spiritual guide and ally". If this impression is correct you may find it worthwhile to look at these links and see if they can help you connect and use that connection both to move on and to turn the experience into one of growth and new directions. Because of his benevolence and "ease of access" the Heavenly Lord Taiyi is an important part of the first part of the teaching which I envision here: What, me teach? Ok, sure why not . . . So I hope that he can be a further help you. ZYD

It's funny you should mention this. I was sad to hear of Joe's passing and finished a short ritual to help Joe in his transition, and help you also a little bit ago. The strongest thing that came through was that you were "the radiant Angel who had save him", and now he was going to do everything to save you. In the ritual I called on the Heavenly Lord Taiyi to accept Joe into his Eastern Paradise of Eternal Joy, and empower him to help. You can find my page to Taiyi here here: The Heavenly Lord Taiyi; Daoist God of Mercy and Salvation and you may find it useful to it and connect with Taiyi. Of course this may simply be a coincidence, but whatever it is I hope that it is a turning point for you in this difficult time. ZYD

I have studied and practiced Chinese magic and Ritual Daoism for years, and some years ago I ordered the kindle version of this, and even at $10.00 it is a total waste of money. You're not even going to find the type of material in this book that the other two posters are afraid that you would get into a lot of trouble with, that's how lame it is. ZYD What would you recommend instead? Finding another hobby. Just a little joke to begin with, but seriously, magic is not something one should just fool around with, and few people have a real calling to it, or the necessary personal qualities to pursue it. In a sense it is rather like studying medicine, in some ways a more apt analogy than it sounds on the surface, some people have a sore toe and having heard that medicine will help enroll in medical school when all they really should do is visit a doctor and have their problem taken care of by a professional. Why does this person want to buy a book subtitled "the art of getting even"? I don't know, but basically if they think that they need to get even with someone, they should probably seek out someone who is a practitioner rather than trying to do it themselves. If they are lucky they will find a true practitioner, someone who can heal the whole situation bringing a true resolution to the matter, if they are not, well, horror stories are written about what happens if they are not. If someone wants to read about Daoist magic, this site has a lot of good information: Dr. Wilson Yong, Taoist Secret and one can get a certain degree of orientation in these matters by reading it. I can tell by this material that he has a lot of background and knowledge, however, I haven't read his books, but I am assured by a person familiar with him and his work, whose judgement I greatly respect, that he is both talented and legitimate. It is also possible to learn a great deal from the work of Professor Jerry Alan Johnson, who has written extensively on the subject, but his work is not oriented to beginners and while of great value is probably not a place for someone to start on these things. As an authority on medical Qigong his work starts from the position of healing, and his works on Daoist magic are basically an extension of that, which is what real magic should be all about anyway. You can read about him here: Temple of the Celestial Cloud I have reviewed a good book for beginners on Daoist talismanic magic here: The Tao of Craft by Benebel Wen I hope this is helpful ZYD

I have studied and practiced Chinese magic and Ritual Daoism for years, and some years ago I ordered the kindle version of this, and even at $10.00 it is a total waste of money. You're not even going to find the type of material in this book that the other two posters are afraid that you would get into a lot of trouble with, that's how lame it is. ZYD

I posted this: If you are not familiar with this book, you may find it an interesting read, especially its discussion of information arrows, the importance of quantum physics in light perception, and quantum mechanics in consciousness. This is just a preliminary note, I have not had time to dig deeply into the site. Thank you for pointing it out. in this thread: Any info/experiences with the Online School of Chi Energy? a few years ago. While there is a lot of criticism in the thread about how much they charge and things like that, I did look at some of their posted writings, such as the one linked in my quote above and found them very interesting. Another person to whom I recommended it found it very interesting also, other Dao Bums may also find it interesting if simply as a source of information relevant to "biophotons" and qi. ZYD Edit: After posting this I tried the link in my post above, and it no longer links to an article of that name, but to page with several articles on them, I hope that they are as interesting and informative as the original which I was reading.

You're welcome for the dictionary reference Ming Jen, use it in good health. As for the problem being with English, it is not so much with English as with English speakers who don't understand the basics of Chinese, and that Chinese Characters often function not as single words, but more like, but not exactly like, syllables in English. There are some monosyllabic words in English and there are some characters in Chinese function as single words, but most of the time they are combined to form words with complex meanings that are hard to decipher, and also Chinese is very context and pronunciation sensitive, which is why something like "wu", no, negation, is not the same thing as "wu", witchcraft, sorcery, they have different characters and they have different pronunciations, so that 无, meaning no or nothing, should be printed as wú, and 巫 as witch or shaman, should be written as wū, otherwise you can't tell your wu from your wu, which is a wu-full situation. When I first started using MDBG, I would get autobahn for 道德, dào dé, because dào was street or road and dé was the abbreviation for Deutschland, Germany, and the autobahn is the most famous German road, and 气法, breathing method or technique, used to be translated as the airline, Air France, because 气, qi, was air and 法, fǎ, was the abbreviation for France, as well as method, technique or law. Fortunately things have improved over the years. So the real problem is with carrying single concepts over with Chinese characters, and also writing them without the accent markers that allow you to tell the difference. People tend to use words like jing, qi, shen, dao, etc., as if one could use geo when one means geometry, or geology, or writing as if you could leave out vowels and somehow avoid misunderstandings, and things like that. At least that is how I understand some of the problems of going back and forth between English and Chinese. Here is a fun experiment to try, copy this character 道, go to: Character dictionary - MDBG English to Chinese dictionary Which is MDBG's character dictionary, and paste it into the first box, then when the dictionary pulls up the definition of Dao, first look at the definition of Dao as "path, road, street; method, way", then click on the little box like this and choose the option that looks like this *道*, which will pull up a whole list of Chinese Character combinations that include Dao, and then see how many on the list have anything to do with how Dao is used here on the Dao Bums. You can of course do this with any character you like such as qi, 气, and see how differently qi functions in real Chinese, and then start to think about how silly it is to ask questions like what is qi? Chinese medicine and Chinese breathing exercises and, as some may have noticed, Chinese mechanical engineering all have their own specialized terminology that use "qi" as a character in it somewhere, so there is not simple answer, it all depends on the context. Now this little experiment can also be used to learn things, for example if you go through the list you can find character combinations that might be of interest to you, kind of like fishing, you may throw out the fish that don't interest you, but you may find something interesting to explore. So, happy fishing.

You have two big things working against you here, one from the Chinese side and one from the English, then there are the small ones. First of all for your Chinese you are giving what looks like unaccented Pinyin and they could mean many things, second of all from the English, you are talking about concepts which in some senses do not translate well, theurgic being one of them. Here is a place where you can play around with these ideas: MDBG online Chinese-English dictionary I use it all of the time, but I usually have a better idea of what I am looking for than you seem to do. For example "wu", this is usually shamanism or witchcraft, at best sorcery, and would have nothing to do with anything theurgic. If you enter magic you get a lot of words that include the character for "mo", which can mean devil or magic, and is more used for sorcery and "black" magic than for theurgy. The Chinese "shengong" can be translated as "god cultivation", and could be used to mean "white magic" and might do as a translation for Theurgy, but the closest thing to a Theurgists in practice would be a Daoshi, or Daoist Priest, such as Daoist Master Chuang, about whom you say you are reading in your introductory post. When you mention Jen as "accumulation of Merit", it seems like you may be using the old school Cantonese for the Pinyin "Ren", usually translated as humaneness or benevolence, but "accumulation of merit" also sounds more Buddhist, and "Jen" could mean any one of several things. I am just posting to let you know that answering your question may not be easy, even for someone fluent in Chinese. Just as background, I have a long term familiarity with the theory and practice, of the Western esoteric tradition, and a fair to good knowledge of Chinese Esoteric traditions, but my Chinese language is nearly nonexistent. I don't have much time to post today which is why I haven't posted characters for any of the words I mentioned above, but if you are interested in more information about what is available in English I can give you some advice. ZYD

I didn't miss your point Jeff, I was addressing where Jesus may have gotten these "higher doctrines", and how they may have related to the Old Testament. Most people in general and especially around here have just about no idea what Greek philosophy or Plato is about and its connection with Hellenistic Spirituality and I have to say that the connection came as quit a surprise to me, as I have noted elsewhere on the Dao Bums. I had read about and studied Western Magic, Qabalah, Tibetan Buddhism, Daoism and qigong for fifteen or so years before, in an effort to understand aspects of the Western tradition, I seriously turned my attention to Plato and the Platonists, so that I read these things with different eyes than the scholars whose works I was reading. It would take too much time to recount both the reasons why I undertook this study and how much that it changed my attitude about a lot of things, but I will address at least some of how this affects the way that Hellenized Jews viewed what we not call "the Old Testament" In my discussion of Jewish adaptations of Plato I mentioned Philo of Alexandria, and he is very important as a contemporary of all of the founders of Christianity, because of the possible influence of thinking like his on their own thought and action. As moderns we tend to view the "Old Testament" in a certain way, and mostly thanks to the Protestant Reformation most of us tend to view it as something to be interpreted literally. This is not how Hellenized Jews thought of it, they had no problems with doing the same type of thing to the Torah as Greeks routinely did to their mythology, they interpreted it as allegories of higher spiritual realities and not as something to be taken literally. In short they did everything thy could to read Plato and Aristotle into the Torah to get something that they could be proud of, out of it. Here are some excerpts from the Internet Encylopedia of Philosophy's article on Philo: The one category of enlightened people is able to comprehend God through a vision beyond the physical universe. It is as though they advanced on a heavenly ladder and conjectured the existence of God through an inference (Praem. 40). The other category apprehends him through himself, as light is seen by light. For God gave man such a perception "as should prove to him that God exists, and not to show him what God is." Philo believes that even the existence of God "cannot possibly be contemplated by any other being; because, in fact, it is not possible for God to be comprehended by any being but himself " (Praem. 39-40). Philo adds, "Only men who have raised themselves upward from below, so as, through the contemplation of his works, to form a conjectural conception of the Creator by a probable train of reasoning" (Praem. 43) are holy, and are his servants. Next Philo explains how such men have an impression of God's existence as revealed by God himself, by the similitude of the sun (Mut. 4-6) a concept which he borrowed from Plato. As light is seen in consequence of its own presence so, "In the same manner God, being his own light, is perceived by himself alone, nothing and no other being co-operating with or assisting him, a being at all able to contribute to pure comprehension of his existence; But these men have arrived at the real truth, who form their ideas of God from God, of light from light" (Praem. 45-46). As Plato and Philo had done, Plotinus later used this image of the sun. Thus the Logos, eternally created (begotten), is an expression of the immanent powers of God, and at the same time, it emanates into everything in the world. (Emphasis mine, ZYD) Here we see important ideas and images that appear in both orthodox and Gnostic thought, such as the Logos, Trinity, light etc., and this is hardly an single icicle from the tip of the iceberg. I hope that these rather long excerpts are helpful. ZYD Edit: Changed paragraph spacing.

Again with all due respect Jeff, your example: Is simply a literary context, and not the type of historical context that Cheshire Cat is saying is the necessary background. The big question here is "Why didn't a group of high minded pious Jews of the period stone this demon obsessed carpenter to death as a false prophet, like the Law says they should?", who listened to him, and who took his words seriously and who would have protected him from the angry mob? Cheshire Cat has his own answers, and which are probably that Jesus was a Zealot, and that he was protected by a gang of "Apostle thugs" who would be only to happy to kill anyone in the audience who disagreed with them. My own answer is that assuming that any of this actually happened and in many ways that is a big assumption, that he had a very sympathetic audience of "God Fearers" and Hellenizing Jews who would have been only to happy to listen to some nice young itinerant preacher speaking Greek Philosophy, which the Greeks had stolen from the Jews anyway, or at least that is what they believed, in terms which had been made as Kosher sounding as they could be by a line thinkers including Aristobolus and the older and very prolific contemporary of any conceivable historical Jesus, the Apostles and Paul, Philo of Alexandria. I have posted a little bit about this milieu in my posts on the religious background of the Renaissance Neoplatonist and author on magic Cornelius Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy here: Agrippa Book One Introduction (The Relevant posts are mostly on the first and second page, but the whole thread is short and worth a read.) The upshot of which is that a tendency to synthesis Platonic and and Jewish thought existed possibly as early as the Third Century B.C.E. in Ptolemaic Egypt, and that it continues into the Patristic period starting with Justin Martyr, the first of the Church fathers, and running through such Church Fathers as Lactantius and Marius Victorinus, the teacher of St .Augustine. Finally two things, it should be remembered that Joseph and Mary were supposed to have fled to Egypt with the baby Jesus in order to avoid Herod's slaughter of the innocents and if all of this interesting stuff was going on in Alexandria, there would have been no need for Jesus to go off to India for instruction from Hindus or Buddhists would there? For those people who find the notion of Plato and the Gospels farfetched, I did post about the possible use of Plato's Gorgias in the "Sermon on the Mount" here: Plato's Gorgias in Matthew If you think finding Plato in the Gospel's is simply my own odd and eccentric hobby, you should find yourself a copy of: Plato and the Christians by Adam Fox, Philosophical Library, 1957 On the title page the author is listed as Archdeacon of Wesminster, a title of some significance in the Anglican Church. In this book he takes almost every commonplace among Christian thought that originates somewhere in the New Testament and traces it to some interesting section of Plato's dialogs. There on p. 131 you will find under the heading, "Love your Enemies", a correlation of Matthew 5.43-45 with Plato's Republic 335B-E. Finally for the sake of brevity I have had to engage in some real oversimplification, nonetheless I hope the above is helpful. ZYD Edit: Minor spelling and paragraph spacing.

With all due respect Jeff, the New Testament is not without serious problems of its own, nor can any claims of the "specialness" of the teachings of Jesus, whether canonical or extra-canonical such as Gnostic texts be given any special status outside of a full Trinitarianism, in which the "historical Jesus" is also conceived of as the incarnation of the second person of the Trinity, and thus having a truly special status which would transcend that of all other "merely human" teachers. The early Church Fathers realized that the Old Testament was the foundation upon which any "Christian" edifice had to be built, which is why it was included in the Christian Bible, in spite of some early opposition to its inclusion, and if the foundation is bad, then what is built upon it is unsound. This problem also affects any claims of Islam to be God's final word delivered through his last prophet, Mohamed, because if the first "word" is not fundamentally correct, then there can be no last word of correction, because if the Old Testament became corrupt, then it was only because "God" could not or would not protect it from such corruption, and if he could not prevent its corruption, then why should one pay attention to it or anything that claims to follow from it, as being any less corrupt, and if "God" could prevent its corruption why didn't "he", and why if he decided to correct it, why did he decide to do so, and how could he protect it after that correction and any time in the future? What happens to such notions as Divine Omnipotence and Foreknowledge under these circumstances? Now, I have only outlined some of the problems involved and I have no wish to engage in long debates about the matter, it is the subject of a voluminous literature which I have no wish to recount here. If you or anyone else wishes to claim a special historical status for the New Testament I don't really care, I have nothing personal involved in the discussion. As a final note to feminists, my references to "God" as a "he" should not be taken as my own beliefs, but only a reflection of the usage of Old and New Testament sources. Since I don't believe in the Abrahamic "God", its gender doesn't matter to me, except for its historical, social and political uses in the oppression of women, in which I of course consider it to be a bad thing.