When you start talking about Faith, about God, about the Old stories, the Mystery and all that business - you quickly and consistently hit the objection -
"All that is just stories. About Sky-fairies and supernatural fantasies".
And I don't think that's a stupid objection.
Because no - I don't know what is historically true.
I don't know if what's described happened as written.
I have, for instance, a rather steep barrier - regarding literal interpretation - when I read the story of creation in seven days, and whether Noah really sailed with all the animals... 😅
That goes without saying.
But the factual interests me less and less.
Because the decisive question is not whether it happened.
The decisive thing is - whether what the stories attempt to communicate about the human condition happens. In us. In you. Today.
Whether the narrative - the myth - points to something that is true in us as humans. Something eternal, something recognisable, something inescapable.
Whether it strikes something that resonates in the soul like - "Yes. That… I know that."
Because the inner knowing contains a greater and more hyperreal truth than the outer world does.
It is precisely why your outer world and circumstances always form themselves after, and around, your inner deepest belief and state…
It is in that sense I take both the Bible and the great wisdom traditions' myths seriously.
The question I consistently ask is -
"Does the story orient us correctly in relation to the Truth about our human condition and reality?"
Christianity's narrative - its deep symbolism disguised in allegories and images - can be difficult for some to fully grasp. Particularly because it is also smeared with the cultural-Marxist programming that the Western world's media and entertainment surface has obscured and made suspect - especially over the last 50 years
So let's start somewhere else and simpler, easier to understand.
Let's look at a simple story about Hercules, to illustrate what I'm trying to say.
Because even though Hercules and the Snake did not necessarily take place - which we'll probably quickly agree on - the battle the two symbolise has taken place for thousands of years - and it's still happening.
In your mind. Every single day.
Allow me to explain.
Most know the story. It's printed in books, told as myth, made into film and shown on screens. But rarely is it explained what it actually concerns.
Because Hercules never fought a real snake.
There was no animal, no external beast.
The whole thing is an image. A symbol.
And it's not about him.
It's about you.
And you must look deep into yourself when you look at the motif. Because the snake represents something deeper - something far more real than a physical creature.
It symbolises the lower mind.
That part of you which is bound to the earth.
The instinctive. The desirous. The restless.
The mind that craves sex without love. Food without hunger. Stimulation without purpose. The mind that refuses to stand still in silence, because the silence reveals the inner emptiness. The hole you're trying to close with all sorts of depraved chaos, meaninglessness and quick fixes.
The snake crawls along the ground.
It is tied to the material, to that which perishes.
And that is the battle in you. Between your soul - and your body's lower nature. Between the call to the eternal - and the pull downward toward that which decays and passes.
The lower mind will constantly pull you around by the nose - and will lead you away from everything that is pure, genuine and eternal. And if you let it - it extinguishes the spirit in you with its poison.
This inner drama - most of us can spend an entire life taming our nature so it aligns with our highest and purest wish.
But the symbolism with the two - Hercules and the Snake - doesn't end here, on the contrary. The really interesting thing happens when you discover...
That the Snake sheds its skin.
And this is where we come to the core.
Because in mythology there is never just one meaning - everything has two sides.
The Snake symbolises on one hand temptation. Yes...
But it is also transformation. Transformation. The reminder - on one hand - that something (also inside) must die for something else to live. But simultaneously also that its ability to shed its old skin - on the other hand - is the reminder that nothing in you is locked!
That it simultaneously shows and indicates the most direct path to your vices and what you must transform - transcend.
And therefore - that the lower need not necessarily be fought - but can - perhaps should - be refined.
And that is what Hercules teaches us.
His battle is not against something outside him.
It is against that in him which pulls down, while something else in him wants up.
And that is the battle everyone stands in. All of us. It is the battle between the higher and the lower in man.
Between soul and flesh.
Between calling and distraction.
Between Logos and Chaos.
And that battle is not old-fashioned. Or supernatural. Or possible to explain away. It is not mythological in the sense that it belongs to a bygone time.
It's happening right now. In you. In this moment.
And then we come to what's important in all this about Faith -
If you reject the myth - the story - just because it didn't happen historically. That would be to misunderstand its entire nature.
The myth is not false because it is invented.
It is true because it keeps happening.
It unfolds in the mind, in life, in choice.
Every time you turn your back on what you know is true, you feed the Snake. And every time you rise and act on what you actually came here for - you place your hand around its throat.
That is what Hercules shows us.
That heroism is not about muscles, but about direction.
Not about conquering the world, but about conquering yourself.
To strike down the rebellion within - and transform it to serve one's higher nature. Align yourself with what you know is True.
And THEREFORE it is not just - not only - an irrelevant supernatural fairy tale.
It is a kind of spiritual manual that we clothe in mythological narrative - that speaks to both the conscious and the unconscious in us. Opens us up - so we see, sense and experience what words alone are never enough to communicate and describe clearly.
Removes the veil a little.
And if you listen - not with your ears, but with the soul - you will hear something ancient calling to you.
"Stand up. Take the fight. Shed the skin."
That is, incidentally, exactly where the Western world and civilisation stands in this period.
But that is a story for another day.
❤️🔥🪽
Enjoy the Saturday sun ☀️
