Cognition. On the scientific and mystical ways of knowing reality

The desire for knowledge is a fundamental spiritual trait of man. Truth, writes Berdyaev, is the path and the life. The desire for knowledge is the desire to comprehend God as the unity of the world, to overcome the tragic division between Him and man.

Preliminary remarks

Natural science European ideas of the XVIII-XIX centuries. extremely damaged the art of knowledge. The idea arose and began to dominate that knowledge is a set of true information, knowledge is the process of separating truth from error (that is, dividing all statements into true and false), learning is the transfer of such formalized information from teacher to student. This idea corresponds to a certain level of social consciousness, but with its growth it is replaced by a somewhat different one.

Knowledge is, first of all, a sense of the world, way of interpretation visible phenomena of reality. The purpose of knowledge is not to establish the laws of Being, but to learn correctly perceive Being (and God) and formal models are only a possible, but not the only (see below) means of this.

Knowledge of a fragment of reality is not only and not so much knowledge of the laws (that is, the construction of a formal model), but rather bringing our perception of this fragment to such a state that we can answer any questions regarding this fragment - this is, so to speak, an operational definition ( hence, by the way, the requirement for the visibility of the model; it is pointless to build a model that is not able to give answers to specific questions). This means that after a question is asked, we have in our mind (by itself, spontaneously) an answer to it, or a feeling that the question is difficult, along with an indication of the direction in which it should be solved.

The fact that it is meaningless to talk about the truth or falsity of a formal model has already become commonplace. The model has a way in and of the world and as such is, of course, incomplete and distorted, that is, not true; but not false either, since the world still reflects. Accordingly, teaching (that is, transferring the experience of cognition) should not be facts, but ways to improve perception, in particular, with regard to science, ways to build formal models and, most importantly, the subsequent study of the refraction of the world in them. Cognition, in particular, a formal model, changes our worldview and attitude in general, makes the world more harmonious and coherent for us.

Therefore, the value of each idea is different for different people and eras. The phenomenon of the appearance of an idea at a time when the public consciousness is not ready for its perception is well known. Then it is safely forgotten and reinvented later, when it is already successfully included in the public consciousness. Such a fate of an idea is due to the fact that at the moment of its first appearance, being “correct”, “true” from the point of view of later social consciousness (making its perception of the world more harmonious), it does not fit into the attitude of an earlier era, reduces its integrity and therefore is rejected.

In our time, the fetishization of science has led to the fact that many traditionally informal types of knowledge (literary criticism, history) are trying, at least outwardly, to formalize and adapt to modeling. This may be somewhat useful, but in general the trend is rather the opposite.

The ancient Greeks did not just determine to be responsible for the history of a special muse - Clio. The inclusion of history in the worldview, an attempt to understand, and most importantly - feel the meaning of history is one of the most important spiritual tasks for a person. (Berdyaev writes that the meaning of the world is hidden in the meaning of history.) Here any attempts at formalization suffer a cruel failure (and, perhaps, for fundamental reasons: it is possible that history is a substance too subtle, so that thought in this case is an instrument too crude to obtain satisfactory accuracy.) However, the enthusiasm with which many people (and often non-professionals) spend time on a long and difficult study of vast factual material with an insignificant subsequent output of mental products shows that a different goal is actually pursued: alien epochs and peoples begin, in the words of L. Gumilyov, to burn in the heart of a historian. This is the sign true knowledge. And sometimes amazing things happen: for example, in the historical novels of Y. Tynyanov, some facts of the biography of heroes, invented by the author were true.

scientific knowledge

The newborn perceives the whole world. According to psychologists, his brain and sense organs hardly distinguish individual objects and sounds; this he gradually learns in the first few years of his life. His first concepts are extremely abstract: "ba" at the age of one and a half means not only this domestic cat Barsik, but also any cat in general, as well as any animal that at least looks like a cat (raccoon, fox), and much more, which can only be guessed at. Then the child begins to develop ideas about the relationships in the world, that is, about the connections of objects. Each such connection is in itself a failed attempt to describe the unity of the world. To introduce a formal system of concepts describing the world, and a system of connections between these concepts, describing the unity of the world, is the task of science. Thus, the difference between a scientist and a child lies in the degree of detail in and denia, formalization and richness of the system of relations (connections) between concepts.

At the first stages of acquaintance with science, it seems to a person that science can do everything, that is, describe the world and its unity. As you study, it turns out that the detailing of the world is so high that private laws suspiciously multiply in number, not sticking together into meaningful general ones. The formalization of the world is underway, but the formalization of its unity is suffering. Gradually, the idea is being formed that science does not give a true picture of the world, but a set of models, that is, in various distorted ways in and Denia. These models are nothing but metaphors in philosophy and parables in religion. Essentially, this is an admission that there is no necessary language to describe the world. T about that formal language, that is, the language of mathematics, is ill-suited to describe the world, is intuitively felt by many; however, on t about there are indications within mathematics itself, for example, the impossibility of an accurate construction of its foundations (the contradictions of set theory in combination with Gödel's theorem). The true reason for the impossibility of scientific modeling of the world as a whole is that the introduction of connections does not compensate for the isolation of objects from the world. Objects, although related to each other, are still different from each other (this is where set theory begins), they are individual, while in order to truly comprehend the world, one must take (at another level) a step into reverse side, to the perception of the baby, and to see that everything is one, that is, to see God in everything. This, however, already applies to mystical knowledge.

From the limitations of scientific knowledge does not follow its meaninglessness for the spiritual life. At present, the path of science is common and for some the only possible one. In this case, it should be passed (maybe not in one incarnation) and feel the insufficiency of science before discarding this path and moving on to other paths of knowledge. A person cannot leave his path of knowledge by an effort of will: this will turn into hypocrisy, which is characteristic of many modern intellectuals who have not outlived the scientific path of knowledge and are trying to convert to Christianity or another faith after a certain number of personal failures and disappointment in their abilities for great science, and not due to a deep spiritual impulse.

Philosophical knowledge

Philosophy is an attempt to describe the structure of the world by unsuitable means. The main means of the language of philosophy is a metaphor, that is, the recognition of one's own impotence to explain properly, directly. "An ostrich is such a goose," a mother explains to an inquisitive child. And a quick-witted child somehow understands this monstrous explanation and sometimes even recognizes the aforementioned ostrich afterwards.

The reasoning of philosophy is no less terrible. When a philosopher begins to actually reason, that is, to use the connectives "if ..., then", "and since ..., then", "and therefore", etc., then there is a feeling of elementary fraud. The logic of a philosopher is worse than that of a woman, she arbitrary in other words, it simply does not exist. It is much more honest to say directly: this text is the result of revelation, which Berdyaev and many mystics claim.

But then a natural question arises: why, in fact, should we believe the author of this revelation? Maybe this is crazy nonsense? Before answering this question, let us first discuss the problem of truth and its representability by a text.

The world is unknowable to the human mind. This is not due to the fact that the human mind is weak, but because it is too strong, coarse, material. The mind coarsens, blurs the details. But he can do it differently depending on which side we look at the world from. Truth is not a fact, but a view of the world, that is, a certain direction of the attention of the mind to an object. Directing our attention to some object from the point of view of this truth, we get a coarsened cast of the object. Therefore, it makes no sense to talk about the falsity of any theory, concept, etc.: they all produce a coarsening of the object, but each of them has its own.

Cognition of this truth is the adjustment of consciousness in the appropriate direction. The criterion of knowledge is the ability of a person to issue texts of revelations (that is, the spontaneous emergence of his thoughts) about any question regarding the object illuminated by this truth. It should be emphasized that the same truth in different people gives different casts of the object, although possibly similar.

A set of casts of an object from the point of view of different truths is a picture of the world in the mind of a person. The more these casts are consistent with each other, the more integral it is. Each new truth gives a new cast and thus somehow changes the integrity of the picture of the world. It is unpleasant for a person when a truth new to him reduces the integrity of his picture of the world, since the desire to comprehend the unity of the world is the most fundamental spiritual aspiration. Therefore, he is inclined to reject such a truth, declaring it false, that is, ignoring the corresponding cast. However, having accumulated in the subconscious a whole system of such ignored truths, at some moment of enlightenment he can include them all in his conscious picture of the world, which at the same time will increase its integrity. But waiting for this to happen spontaneously can be a very long time, and at a certain level of consciousness, a person tries to keep the mind open, not ignoring any concepts. The answer to this question can be given by meditation on the most ridiculous theory.

Truth is expressed in the form of a text. The text is the result of the author's meditation in the direction of some truth. The text itself has no meaning. His understanding is the reader's meditation on a given text from a certain angle. Depending on the angle of view, that is, the direction of the reader's attention, the result of meditation will be different. In our age of objectification, texts are read as "objectively" as possible, that is, trying to abstract from the reader's point of view and from the personality of the author. However, perception is much more accurate if we perceive not only the text, but also the author behind it (this is how we read letters from loved ones).

On the low spiritual development man can perceive only one truth. The discrepancy between two different truths is so painful for him that one of them is forced out or declared categorically false (religious or scientific intolerance). At the next level, a person is able to perceive several truths, provided that he establishes a certain agreement between them, and turns a blind eye to disagreements (that is, pushes him into the subconscious; the same applies to society). However, as the consciousness expands, it becomes more and more difficult to turn a blind eye to the mismatch of truths, since the picture of the world is refined, and the limit, so to speak, of the resolving ability of the mind comes, and the inner honesty, which grows along with the spiritual level, brings the mismatch to consciousness.

The moment of realizing the insufficiency of mental cognition of the world is crucial point spiritual path individual (and society); it is usually accompanied by a deep crisis. The fact is that it is difficult for a mind, especially a developed one, to voluntarily admit defeat; he has been pleasing the ego with his accomplishments for too long. Therefore, the ego must experience a lot of grief until it is ripe for the final rejection of the pleasures of the mind. However, the path of spiritual evolution is precisely this. The world in its unity can only be known directly-sensibly, more precisely, supersensibly ( see below).

Thus, it is meaningless to talk about the correctness or incorrectness of truth, since truth is a view of the world, that is, a way of illuminating it, and in this sense it is true, since it illuminates the world, and not anything else, and false, since it distorts it. One can, however, speak of the insufficiency or redundancy of truth for man. Each truth, like a searchlight beam, has its own degree of focus and, consequently, the illumination of the object. On the other hand, each person has an individual ability to concentrate attention on an object, that is, in order to perceive an object, he needs a very certain degree of brightness of its illumination. These two values ​​must match. Otherwise, if the brightness of the illumination of the object by the truth is insufficient for a person, he says that the given truth is too primitive for him; if the brightness of the illumination of the object with truth exceeds the possibilities of his perception, his eyes are blinded, and he says: "You are digging too deep."

What has been said above concerns a relatively high level of abstract thinking, when truth is perceived as a model of reality, a system of views, etc. At a lower level of thinking, truth is perceived as a fact: the earth is spherical. However, even in this case, the main burden of truth is not on the fact itself, but on the method of and peace. The statement "the earth is spherical" essentially means the isotropy of space, that is, the absence of a direction allocated by God (from bottom to top in the case of a flat Earth). And this is precisely a view of the world, and not just a fact.

Philosophical understanding of quantum mechanics and both theories of relativity, not to mention more modern physics, is catastrophically delayed. Philosophers know mathematics too poorly for this, and physicists have no time: they deal with "meaningful" problems.

Aesthetic knowledge

The feeling of beauty in man is spontaneous; it cannot be taught or learned. It comes simultaneously with the true perception of the object, that is, at the moment when we begin to feel God in it. In parallel with this feeling, there is a feeling of unity, completeness, associated with the unity of the world, which the whole embodied in any object. As long as a person does not have a sense of the beauty and unity of an object, one can be sure that the object is not known, that a person, at best, is on the way to cognition.

When a person in his cognition of an object reaches the stage where the object seems beautiful to him, he has an impulse to express his feeling of this beauty, and he intuitively (and quite rightly) feels that his perception is different from that of all other people. Usually it is this impulse that is called creative, although in reality the concept of creativity is much broader ( see chapter 2). And a person, obeying a creative impulse, creates: he writes poetry, paintings, letters to his beloved. A person receives satisfaction from creativity insofar as in the product of creativity he manages to express the specificity of the perception of the object by his pure consciousness, that is, the higher "I". The perception of someone else's creativity is the same as any object: it seems to be the better, the more information about the true being in its unity we receive. Significant assistance in perception is provided by tuning to the higher "I" of the creator (but not information about his social personality!). So, sometimes, if the reader is tuned in to the author, mediocre poems in the usual sense can have a strong aesthetic impact. The originality of the creator is determined not by the originality of his higher "I", which is always unique, but by the thickness of the barrier of banality erected by his lazy ego.

The product of aesthetic creativity (located in the subtle world) plays the same role in aesthetic cognition as philosophical system in philosophical knowledge or model in scientific. It is an image of the world from a given point of view. Therefore, it is correct to speak not about the mediocrity of a work of art, but about its insufficient information content for this person. It is clear that the information content of a work of art for a person depends significantly on his ability to extract information; it should be remembered that any object contains information about the whole world.

Just like science, art is a dead end branch of knowledge. The tragedy of creativity is that God can be known but not expressed. However, art, perhaps to a greater extent than science, tunes a person to a direct perception of the world, which is the path leading to the knowledge of God. On the other hand, the moment when a person in his spiritual life outlives art (it becomes insufficient for him), is accompanied by a deep crisis for him, throwing from one area of ​​art to another, hard labor, a madhouse, etc. physical death inclusive.

The greatest honesty and courage are required for a person to realize that the next segment of the path has been passed, and to start over.

mystical knowledge

Mystical knowledge is the receipt of information directly from God. As the Reader may have noticed, mystical knowledge is an essential part of all the types of knowledge discussed above. Here the author will illustrate this truth by the example of knowledge in the most formalized and in this sense the simplest field of knowledge - in mathematics.

All attempts to reduce mathematics to perfectly formalized logical schemes have failed, and below it will be clear why. What does it mean to understand mathematical theory? A first-year student knows that in order to get a C on the exam, it is enough to know the definitions and formulations of theorems. For the four you need to know more ideas of proofs, for the five you need to be able to solve the simplest problems related to knowing the details of the proofs. For now, it's all about memory. A senior student understands that memory alone is not enough. In order to solve slightly more complex problems, it is necessary to isolate the main typical artificial techniques (that is, methods) of a given theory and be able to apply them in a certain sequence specific to a given problem. The graduate student must already come up with mine, a previously unknown artificial technique in the spirit of those already available and apply it to a specific problem. This is the content of the PhD thesis. However, the professor does not believe that the young candidate of science "feels" the theory. In his understanding, knowledge of the theory comes after its careful "thinking", that is, mental meditation, as a result of which the mind comes to such a state that, regarding any problem, exactly that artificial method comes to mind spontaneously, by itself (perhaps, earlier unknown), with the help of which it is solved. At the same time, the professor who "thought out" this theory almost never makes mistakes, although the idea comes to mind instantly. It is clear that the information appears in a mystical way, from God.

However, purely mystical knowledge, like others, is limited by the spiritual level of man. Without going into this area in more detail, the author will notice: the more developed the ego, the greater the fog of desires and thoughts it creates around pure consciousness, which, in fact, is the subject of knowledge, and thus does not allow it to merge with the object and thereby overcome the opposite of subject-object, which means the knowledge of the world.

Direct-sense cognition

This is the path of tantra yoga (see, for example, lectures by B. Rajneesh in Pune, on the book "Only one thing - the sky"). Our feelings are deceptive - it's common knowledge. However, in the process of cognition, there is nothing more to rely on. The most straightforward way out is agnosticism. A slightly more attentive look shows that some kind of, albeit distorted, cognition, that is, the perception of information from the outside world, is constantly happening, and our brain copes with distortions to a degree sufficient to maintain existence. Is there a way to reduce distortion? In order to understand this, it is necessary to understand their causes.

The main reasons for the distortion of reality in individual perception are our feelings and thoughts; at the same time, they are necessary to interact with it. Thoughts and feelings play the role of a buffer between individual consciousness and the outside world. Individual consciousness is not able to process all the information that comes to a person from his senses and subconsciousness, therefore it is aggregated and comes in the form of thoughts, sensations, emotions, desires, etc. Initially, when a person’s attention is directed to the outside world, these sensations are not enough certain. In order to understand them, a person needs to turn his attention inward, block himself from the outside world and process the information that has come to him for some time. When this process ends, the person again transfers attention outside, receives a new portion of information, she again transfers attention inside and begins to process it, but now through the prism of formed ideas. This is where distortion occurs.

People who live by feelings are usually contrasted with people who live by thoughts. However, in reality, both categories live in a distorted world of their own fantasies. Both need reality as a short-term impulse of information (sensual or mental) from the outside, after which they turn their attention inward for a long time, plunging into their thoughts and sensations (mental and emotional). If a person knows how to do this, he goes into deep mental or sensual meditation with a significant influx of energy from outside; however, his thoughts and feelings are illusory, they are very loosely connected with reality.

The difficulty of the transition to a higher level of knowledge, to a more accurate perception of the world lies in the need to switch to pure consciousness, which is associated with a constant look at the surrounding situation, as if from the outside.

Thoughts and feelings have the ability to attract attention, after which it is immediately distracted from the situation and switches inside the person. (It’s much easier this way. If you listen to even a very interesting speech, anyway, from time to time you get distracted and begin to comprehend it and at the same time rest; otherwise, there is an overload of attention.) The paradox and difficulty of the state of affairs lies in the fact that in order to adequately perceive situation, you need to not turn on: as soon as you get involved in the situation, your thoughts and feelings begin to control you, riveting your attention, and you immediately switch to them, that is, inside yourself, thereby disconnecting from the situation. Now you have to enter it again, which will take time to adjust, and the situation has already changed: you cannot enter the same river twice.

What is the way out? Tantra suggests constantly looking at the situation with pure consciousness, as if you are watching a movie, the plot of which does not interest you at all, but a detailed account of which you are expected to. Since you are still a living person, thoughts and feelings will come to you, but you must emotionally ignore them, registering, but not becoming attached to them, that is, passing through yourself, as if you are transparent to them. In other words, thoughts and feelings should not affect the direction of your attention (it should be riveted to the situation) and your actions, so that they, like the direction and switching of your attention, occur spontaneously, without thinking and feeling, and then they will be adequate. situations.

Of course, you cannot act spontaneously if you do not feel the situation. Then you need to think and sort out your feelings. But the finer the sense of the situation, than less people focused on his thoughts and feelings (a joyful state for the ego), the more accurate the thoughts that come to his mind, and the deeper his feelings. Love differs from being in love in that being in love is an emotion and love is not. Love is a radiance that illuminates an object for us and in a certain way transforms our mental and emotional attitude towards it. Love is always narcissism. How better man knows how to get involved in the situation, the more temptation for him to switch to himself, since in doing so he closes the energy-information flow going through him into the world, to himself and pleases the ego with sweet cosmic energy. But at the same time, the situation will leave his attention, and with it the possibility of spontaneous actions, as well as the depth of thoughts and feelings. In general, the depth of thoughts does not depend on the time of reflection, but on the level of attention paid to the situation.

As the ability to correctly engage in the situation increases, the following occurs. Feelings become deeper and gradually disappear, leaving the light of true love in its place. Thoughts appear less and less and more appropriate to the situation, so that you have to think less about your actions, which, in turn, can increasingly be allowed to be spontaneous. A person begins to feel that he is being led by higher forces.

Further progress along the path of knowledge leads to the merging of man with the Universe.

culture- this is all man-made, everything that is created by the mind and labor of man. It is divided into two parts:

1. material culture;

2. spiritual culture.

Science is an area of ​​spiritual culture. Spiritual culture is associated with the functioning and development of ideas and values.

Within the framework of culture, science is included in the general cognitive process. And this general cognitive process - it is an integrated whole. In addition to science, this whole (general cognitive process) includes: everyday knowledge, mythological knowledge, religious knowledge, artistic knowledge and philosophical knowledge.

Cognition (in general)- an active and purposeful reflection of reality by a person, focused on obtaining new reliable knowledge about the world. The result of all knowledge is knowledge.

knowledge (in general)- this is the relation of the real world, presented in the sign form of a natural or artificial language, fixed by a person in the form of regular connections.

Usually, two types of knowledge are opposed: the ordinary type and the scientific one.

Ordinary knowledge .Even in the early stages of human history, there was ordinary practical knowledge that provided elementary information about nature and the surrounding reality. Its basis was the experience of everyday life, which, however, has a fragmented, non-systematic character, which is a simple collection of information. Ordinary knowledge includes common sense, and signs, and edifications, and recipes, and personal experience, and traditions. Its peculiarity is that it is used by a person almost unconsciously and does not require preliminary proof systems in its application. Another feature of it is its fundamentally unwritten character.

Scientific knowledge as opposed to conventional knowledge- the result of the highest reasonable form of cognition and can only exist in the form of a systemic organization, i.e. in the form of a theory. Specificity scientific knowledge- this is the result of professional research activities to reveal the essence of a particular group of phenomena under study.

What are the features of mythological, artistic-figurative and religious knowledge?

An important role, especially at the initial stage of human history, was played by mythological knowledge. Its specificity lies in the fact that it is a fantastic reflection of reality, is an unconsciously artistic reworking of nature and society by folk fantasy. Within the framework of mythology, certain knowledge was developed about nature, the cosmos, about the people themselves, their conditions of existence, forms of communication, etc. mythological thinking is not just an unbridled fantasy game, but a kind of modeling of the world that allows you to capture and transmit the experience of generations.

Mythological thinking is characterized by its fusion with the emotional sphere, indistinct separation of the object and subject of cognition, object and sign, thing and word, origin (genesis) and essence of phenomena, etc.

Already within the framework of mythology is born figurative form of knowledge, which later received the most developed expression in art.

A specific form of assimilation of reality in art is artistic image, thinking in images, “feeling thought”. Science, on the other hand, explores the world primarily in a system of abstractions.

Art, unlike science, is a special form of social consciousness associated with the birth of artistic images.

Unlike science, which is aimed at finding a common pattern, in art, individualization and typification, which is contained in artistic images, is important.

Art, unlike science, is directed not to the rational-rational, but to the sensory-associative and emotional structure of human perception. In science, the search for patterns is important, in art - the expression of the ideal in the perception of the world.

Unlike science, which is generally significant and transpersonal, reflects the world in concepts and general patterns, in artistic knowledge, a person shows his individuality, consolidates the personal emotional vision of the world. So, the personal, emotional, artistically imaginative nature of the reflection of the world are features that also distinguish art from science.

One of the ancient forms of knowledge, genetically related to mythology, is religious knowledge. Its specificity lies in the ability to transcend (to go beyond the limits of sensually tangible reality and recognize another ("supernatural", "heavenly") world - in other words, God or gods). Features of religious knowledge determined by the fact that it is due to the direct emotional form of people's attitude to the earthly forces (natural and social) dominating them.

However Religion (like mythology) did not produce knowledge in a systematic, much less theoretical form. It has never performed and does not perform the function of producing objective knowledge. The most important concept of religion and religious knowledge is "faith". In this regard, we note that the concept of "faith" should be divided into two aspects:

a) religious belief;

b) faith as confidence (trust, conviction), i.e. what has not yet been verified is not proven at the moment, in various forms of scientific knowledge, and above all in hypotheses. As A. Einstein emphasized.

St. Jerome owns a brilliant aphorism that defines the difference between philosophy and religion: “Plato placed the soul of man in the head; Christ placed it in the heart." In fact, all the differences between philosophy, religion, mysticism, of course, are rooted in our consciousness, in the structures of our consciousness. "I" is the structure of my consciousness, holding me in the Neolithic or, on the contrary, penetrating into the distant future. The essence of idealism, formulated in a few words: my consciousness is my fortress (alas, too shaky for 99% of those who have ever lived on earth). That is why there are so many materialists in the entire history of mankind - a handful of initiated, overshadowed, enlightened ...

The biggest mistake of rationalism is an attempt to give out discursive thinking, scientific knowledge for the unique and exclusive way of the development of the mind and the evolution of knowledge. Meanwhile, even C. G. Jung in his theory of psychological types clearly demonstrated the danger of totalitarian encroachments in the most secret area of ​​the human - the psyche. There are as many types of thinking as there are psychological types, and the predominance of one of them over others is destructive to culture.

The truth of mysticism differs from the truth of science in that it cannot be acquired from without. External truth is the same for all, internal truth is revealed anew each time. Mystical truth is always individual, not universal. A Buddha can open it, but he cannot pass it on to another. The beauty and uniqueness of the inner truth is that it can be discovered countless times - always anew! And every time its opening brings bliss!

The hypertrophy of rational thinking could not but affect our occult abilities: the lack of training of any organ leads to its hypertrophy. The separation from our subconscious roots dooms us to a gray everyday life, no longer colored by the bright colors of visions. We really "stranded" consciousness.

The current civilization has involved many people in routine activities that rarely excite the will, let alone the imagination. It is not so much about the extinction of the spirit, but about the loss of spiritual ecstasy - the state in which the greatest prophets and poets worked. The result is inevitable. We are like four-engine airplanes that, after turning off three engines, are barely dragging on one engine. Our natural psychic abilities are on the verge of complete extinction.

Today we are reaping the fruits of a "rationalistic" civilization, created by a mental type whose psyche is fixed on a logical formula, the idea of ​​a fix.

For Russia, whose people's mentality is alien to the thinking type, its dominance in the 20th century has become especially tragic. The world can clearly see what a terrible, destructive, long-term weapon is the domination of a certain type of people, a certain psychological type, a certain ideology, a certain worldview.

Today, rationalism is a decaying ideology, bursting at all seams. Rationalists are gradually becoming the same "last of the Mohicans" as once - pagans and fire worshipers. Holy Inquisition, transforming Christ's precepts into torture chambers; communism, which turned the fantasies of exalted lovers of milk rivers in jelly banks into the realities of the Gulag; fascism, which turned the national idea into death camps scattered around the world; international terrorism that sends killers into crowds of peaceful people in the struggle for primitive ideas, and on an even larger scale, the phenomena of masochism, necrophilia, self-destruction, the "dark night of the soul" discovered by Freud, Jung, Sacher-Masoch, etc., etc. - Isn't all this a series of blows to the rational concept of the world order? Isn't the ineradicability, "embedded" in the consciousness of huge human masses of mysticism, magic, manticism, a powerful argument against human rationalism, which, by the way, is quite prone to accepting a miracle?

We have been taught for too long to trust the mind, and this is good, but even better, trusting the mind, not to forget the superconscious, which gives us - if not the formulas of the earth, but the images of the sky; symbols of something else, as A. Bely said. Mystical knowledge is the extraction of symbols of the other, for spiritual knowledge itself is “only a symbol”, or “a symbolization of a small segment of the future path of us all”. As R. Steiner taught, cognitive activity is the sphere of inspirational and intuitive worlds: “She herself is a living image, indecomposable in terms; and therefore our words about activity are only a symbol.

By the way, Andrei Bely himself is such a symbol: all philosophers of his time recognized the poet as a special gift of foresight: “His consciousness overheard and noticed everything that happened in those eve years both in Russia and in Europe; not without reason he himself willingly called himself a seismograph” (F. A. Stepun). “The purpose of the artist: to see. Have our artists seen a new reality in our old essence? The general opinion that Blok saw. I think that Andrey Bely saw” (G. Shpet). Indeed, both Bely and Blok, following their teacher V. S. Solovyov, were not only poets, but mystics, visionaries. If you like, Belov's Emblematics of Meaning is indeed three-quarters of a mystical treatise.

The main purpose of the great mystical books to give the reader an opportunity to get acquainted with other wisdom, to restore the forgotten work of the deep layers of consciousness. The Chinese sage Mencius has a brilliant aphorism: “Those who follow the great in themselves will become great; those who follow the insignificant in themselves will become insignificant.” No one will make a person worse than himself. Cutting himself off from mystical knowledge, the pundit cuts off connections with other worlds - he will not become Newton or Einstein, who over and over again scooped from the actual infinity, tried to "grab" the world as a whole.

Great mystical works, such as the books of Kabbalah or the "I-ching", refer to the night, "lunar" knowledge and try to create a system of "other knowledge" associated with the meaning and significance of what is beyond reality, or rather, other, spiritual reality that connects life into a majestic work. It is important for us to feel that there is another kind of knowledge, different from the logical laws that govern our daily existence, knowledge about the amazing realities behind the walls that surround us. Art, music, philosophy, mysticism escape the narrowness of everyday reality; but they all require great conscious effort; before you reap, you must sow.

Great mystical works teach a person to concentrate on what he is looking for, open up new paths to the truth. For example, Kabbalah describes the creation of the world as a divine concentration of energy into a single beam of light. It is not surprising that many scientific discoveries owe their origin not only to the ability of their creators to overconcentrate, but also to the knowledge of the sources and methods of obtaining "lunar" knowledge, drawing from myths and occult teachings, their own deep illusionism, and awareness of the magical nature of their idea of ​​reality.

Unlike scientific experience transmitted through books, mystical experience is impossible without personal experience, without a clear and direct comprehension Ultimate Reality, which exists only for people who have known Love and Vanity... Mystical experience is inexplicable, it is given as freedom, as grace...

According to John Scotus Eriugena, “the most important and almost the only way to know the truth is to first know and love human nature”: “After all, if human nature does not know what is happening in itself, how can it know what is above it ? Even world religions are poorly rooted in people and are based on conformism, traditions and fear because genuine religiosity is impossible without mystical experiences that are alien to the church.

There are many realities, and it is high time to understand that the mystical worldview is not a figment of the imagination of people with unbridled imagination, but a special kind of knowledge inherent in a very small group of people who, nevertheless, feed most of humanity with their revelations...

Mystical providence is nothing but the human ability to penetrate into the Soul of the World. Speaking of mysticism as a way of knowing, one should be aware that in ancient times mysticism and science were not separated: our ancestors believed that the purpose and meaning of life were known higher mind Man is given the gift of guessing the divine mysteries of the origin of life and death. All ancient texts are ingenious intuitive attempts at such guessing, which continues to amaze with the accuracy of hits.

The roots of science and philosophy go back to the mystical revelations of the greatest prophets of the past - Pythagoras, Hermes, Heraclitus, Empedocles, Plato, and even sages far from mysticism sooner or later come to mystical sources of knowledge, just as Nietzsche came to the idea of ​​eternal return - " the deepest symbol, the mysterious sign above front door to his work."

The “inclusion” of a person in the world unity makes him a co-creator of the world: everything that happens is largely determined by the thoughts, feelings and faith of the inhabitants of the planet. Only by changing our own consciousness can we change what happens to us.

I am deeply convinced that the mystical unity does not oppose the human personality, but complements the human "I". Leaving one's mark does not mean dissolving into "catholicity", pouring one's own consciousness into the universal. Do not disappear, strengthen your own "I" by all available means, set yourself more and more difficult, unattainable, impossible tasks and solve them - this is the main way to mystical "fusion". It is no coincidence that all great mystics have not "dissolved", have not "disappeared".

Most of us have no idea what mental abilities disposes. In the state of "silence" of the mind and feelings, absolute concentration on a certain subject, a wide variety of "yoga effects" can be observed - from the mental teleportation of one's own image to the other end of the earth to the transmission of "peak" information to loved ones.

Visionary experiences are associated not only with psychological type or features of consciousness, but with lifestyle, nutrition, personal religious experiences and exaltations. The expansion of consciousness can be stimulated by asceticism and wilderness living (St. Anthony), a closed volume (Milarepa in a Himalayan cave), self-torture (flagellans, eunuchs), hypnotic trances, works of art, images of nature.

Alas, the majority of modern inhabitants of civilized countries do not even imagine the degree of impoverishment of spiritual life as a result of the rejection of "other worlds", from the mythological, mystical, incomprehensible, transcendental, supersensible - everything that atrophies "as unnecessary", as non-working organs atrophy. ..

We cannot imagine another world, other circumstances otherwise than in the image and likeness of the world in which we live, which has shaped our spirit and determined the basic premises of our psyche. We are strictly limited by our internal structure and our whole being, we are attached to this world of ours with all our thoughts. Mythological consciousness is able to step over all this, but scientific knowledge cannot afford it. To the mind, all this mythology is pure speculation. But for the soul it is healing, and our existence without it would become flat and pale. And there is no reason to rob yourself like that.

I affirm that mysticism is ineradicable, for a person created from mystery will always have a craving for visions, "the triumph of chance", flights in a dream and in reality. I affirm that there are more deep truths in mystical fantasies than in all the graphs and statistics of the world. In any case, no graphs and calculations have yet managed to “disarm” the champions of the impossible.

Mystical psychology distinguishes between two kinds of cognition, corresponding to the different selves of man: “Herein,” says Bremont, “is the fundamental dogma of mystical psychology—the difference between two Selves: Animus, rational knowledge, and Anima, mystical or poetic knowledge... I , which creates concepts and words and enchants itself with them, and Me, which is united with reality.

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim distinguished three types of knowledge:

Concrete, when the operating causes of the process are found directly next to this process;

Scientific-holistic, when the process is considered in relation to the entire universe, and every thing is part of the world whole;

Mystical, when, delving into itself, the spirit directly contemplates the primordial essence of the world.

Valentin Veigel called this higher knowledge “the light of grace” and the tool of the great spirit of the Universe: “When I God help fought and fought, then a wondrous light shone in my soul, which was completely alien to wild nature, and only in it did I know what God and man are, and what God cares about man.

Giordano Bruno saw in higher cognition the manifestation of the world soul to man, which resides in all things, lives and attaches them to the world whole: “The universal mind is the innermost, most active and most characteristic ability and potential part of the world soul; he is something identical, which fills everything, and illumines the universe, and teaches nature to produce the kinds of her beings, as they should be. True, in these words the spirit is not depicted as a "gaseous vertebrate animal", but still as a being similar to the human soul. “However small and insignificant a thing may be, it contains a part of spiritual substance, which, having found a suitable substrate, tends to become a plant or animal and organizes itself into any body, which is usually called animate. For the spirit is in all things, and there is not a single smallest particle that would not take such a part in itself as to revive itself in it.

A method of cognition well known to mystics is “merging” with an object, “entering” into the body of nature in a state of samadhi (enlightenment). It is known that there are human microscopes (for example, the artist D. Ostroim) who are able to see the internal "arrangement" of objects (with the magnification of electron microscopes) and reproduce the corresponding image. There are flaw detectors capable of recognizing initial stages destruction of, say, aircraft parts. Some yogis in a state of trance not only see microbes without a microscope, but are able to influence the movement of bacteria by directing their internal energy, prana, to them. Most of the techniques of magic are also associated with establishing a connection with the intended object. The influence of the sorcerer on the object begins with an imaginary merger with it, with the absorption of someone else's "I" which, in fact, must be influenced. You will never learn to "read" other people's thoughts, you will not be able to penetrate the consciousness of another person as long as there is even the slightest element of dissatisfaction with this person, an element of malice, deceit, cunning in your own consciousness. However, to maintain this condition is much easier than it might seem to someone at first glance.

Mysticism is in no way synonymous with irrationalism, since all outstanding mystics in their activities focused not on occult miracles and tricks, but solely on self-improvement, expansion of their own consciousness and higher knowledge. Dividing higher knowledge from the profane, esotericism from rhetoric, mysticism gravitates not to the supernatural, but to the highly spiritual, deep. In no serious book on mysticism you will find practical advice on the applied use of occult knowledge, alchemical instructions, astrological forecasts or magic spells, since all this goes beyond the scope of mystical philosophy, the pragmatism of which is associated not with the creation of miracles, but with the only miracle - the properties of human consciousness and their inexhaustible possibilities for self-improvement and ascent to previously undeveloped and unreached levels of spirituality.

Naturally, mystical thinking is radically different from discursive thinking, but, nevertheless, as I found out earlier in the book What is Science?, a huge number of scientific ideas were anticipated by ancient mystics, which clearly indicates the fruitfulness of archaic forms of thinking that preceded scientific and in many respects anticipating the brilliant intuitions of outstanding scientists of the 20th century. As a culturologist, I am convinced of the need to acquaint the domestic reader, who for many decades has been forcibly cut off from idealistic philosophy, mystical problems and alternative ways of cognition, with the greatest mystery of the human spirit, which made it possible, centuries and millennia before the emergence of scientific knowledge, to anticipate modern scientific understanding man and the world.

Mystical experience is not something anti-intellectual, vague or purely irrational. This is a way of visionary knowledge of reality, a clear and practical form of perception, deeply connected with a deep understanding of human existence. Like no other way of knowing, mysticism is open to all those things that are hidden from the intellect, and is wide open towards that. higher path, which the spirit seer enters.

Mystical acts, no matter how vivid they may be, are acts of holistic grasping, devoid of concreteness that crushes integrity. This is another fundamental reason for the complementarity of scientific and mystical knowledge, which is diverse in its own way. internal device". Mystical knowledge is not enough to create a rocket or an atomic bomb, just as scientific knowledge is not enough to live in the world, including with oneself. Here is what the Mahatmas say about this: “In our doctrine you will inevitably find a synthetic method; you will have to embrace the whole - that is, merge the macrocosm and the microcosm into one - before you can study the parts separately or analyze them for the benefit of your mind. Cosmology is the spiritualized physiology of the world, for the law is one.

Mysticism is a supersensible wisdom that requires not deepening into details, but passing through the steps of initiations. When all the steps have been completed... there comes an hour in the life of an adept when all the hardships he has gone through are rewarded a thousandfold. In order to acquire further knowledge, he no longer has to go through a detailed and slow examination and comparison of various subjects, but he gains an instant, unerring insight into every primary truth.

Searching for secrets, the spirit of man lived ...
(mystical revelations)

Man, as a potential being, created with the aim of collecting and accumulating the spiritual experience of generations, must live only in the material world, but also see other dimensions, because every religion contains a mystical moment and Christianity is no exception. His teaching about the soul, about the rebirth of people by the power of the spirit, the call for unity with God form the soil on which Christian mysticism grows. Mysticism is the cradle of Christianity, uniting faith and reason. The beginning of the ascent in the Spirit is the faith of the majority, but there is also the faith of the minority, this is the mystical faith.

Faith is simplified intuitive knowledge, but the mystical teaching is a higher spiritual level that preserves the metaphorical understanding of Scripture. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus Christ warns against building the edifice of faith on the shifting sands of dogmatism (Matt. 7:24). In mystical Christianity** science, religion and philosophy form Sophia or Spiritual Wisdom. The misunderstood symbolism of mystical thinking is dead in the minds of people, so it was no coincidence that St. Paul hinted at the existence of a secret dogma: “And I could not speak to you, brethren, as to spiritual ones, but as to babes in Christ” (I Corinthians 3:1). And Jesus Christ directs his disciples to such a sacrament: “I have much more to say to you, but now you are unable to receive it” (John 16:12). Eastern Orthodoxy, preserving these esoteric roots and traditions, has never drawn a sharp line between mysticism and theology. Theology and mysticism are not opposed, but support and complement each other. There is no Christian mysticism without theology, and there is no theology without mysticism. But the symbolism of mystical thought is not revealed by mere study or observation; for this it is necessary to participate with all one's being in the process of comprehension of Spiritual truth, putting worldly consciousness and thinking on the altar of sacrifice. Without Christian mysticism, one should not even try to understand the scripture and its deep secret level! The gods talk to people in a modified state of consciousness, the answers to the greatest questions often come in dreams and visions, and the apostles testify to this (Acts 11: 1-10). The most mystical of the four evangelists is John the Evangelist and mysticism in this case is regarded as the pinnacle and perfection. Mysticism in the Orthodox interpretation simultaneously implies sacrament and spirituality, and a mystic is a person who intuitively sees metaphorical images in the veil of time spiritual world which he may not even understand! Therefore, the first bishop of Athens, Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, who received initiation from the Apostle Paul (Acts 17:34), said that knowledge of divine truths can only be approached with the help of appropriate symbols. Jesus Christ, at the dawn of Christianity, was for his followers a living symbol of their potential divinity. Not salvation by Christ crucified, as the Protestants teach, but the symbolic acquisition of the consciousness of Christ, was the root of the esoteric teaching of Christianity. And the function of symbols at the same time was reduced to influencing the neural structure of a person, transforming it and opening access to those layers of consciousness that are usually closed to ordinary perception, stimulating intuitive spiritual thinking: figuratively speaking, this was a circumcision of the heart or mind (Deut. 30: 6). Comparing this grandiose ideal of esoteric Christianity with the teachings of the church, it becomes clear that Christianity has lost the keys to the esoteric understanding of the Gospel and its deep secret meaning. Esotericism, like mysticism, is built on the trinity of the universe. Which is expressed by the three gifts of the Magi, the three temptations of Christ, the three denials of Peter, the three appearances of Christ after the resurrection, as well as the three crosses of Golgotha ​​and other facts that are clearly visible in Scripture especially, such as the incarnation of the trinity (Gen. 18: 1-2) and the Jordanian epiphany (Matt. 3:16,17). It is known that in Christianity there has always been a secret church, which, while respecting the need for an official church, retained a completely different interpretation of dogma than that given to the people. Templars, Rosicrucians and Freemasons all belong to this secret Gnostic church. Their symbols can be found on individual icons, churches and in the Bible. sane person; there is no particular need to prove that Thomas "the unbeliever", capitalized three times (John 11:16; 20:24) by the Apostle John (as Gemini), by his astrological spelling of the sign Gemini, unequivocally alludes to the two pillars of Freemasonry and the dual nature of mankind.

For many, it will be a revelation to learn that Jews interpret Scripture with the help of the Talmud and Kabbalah. Kabbalah is theory and practice secret knowledge. And the word Kabbalah itself means the ability to draw on a hidden secret - the secret of the Bible. Kabbalah is a secret dogma Jewish faith. This is an ancient mystical teaching, orally transmitted from teacher to student. Its antiquity reaches the time of Abraham, and the first texts arose in connection with the transfer of the Tablets of the Covenant to Moses on Mount Sinai. Kabbalah instituted a mystical interpretation of the Bible and the development of Jewish Kabbalah was completed only in the 6th-7th century AD, and the first texts on Latin appeared in 1552 in Paris. The teachings of the occultists, esotericists and Gnostics developed from the Kabbalah. It contains its own philosophy, algebra, geometry and analytical trigonometry, which is why it is also called the mystical philosophy of the Jews. This is the doctrine of God, the Universe and the Soul, where the understanding of faith is combined with the study of the secret sciences. Kabbalah, being part of our cultural heritage, includes elements and roots of the Persian-Macedonian, Egyptian and Vedic cultural traditions. She holds the keys to the esoteric interpretation of Scripture. And Jesus the Nazarene himself was a dedicated Essenes. The Essenes were called therapists who studied the secret properties of plants, minerals and invisible spiritual entities described by the Talmud. The brotherhood of the Essenes had three stages of initiation, and the prototype of the Last Supper of the apostles is a meal from the inner cult of this brotherhood, as well as the rite of baptism.

The Pentateuch of Moses in the first century before the birth of Christ was not accessible to the understanding of the majority of Levites (priests) due to the loss of elements of oral initiation. This era gave birth to two warring camps. A literal understanding of the text was supported by the majority of the Jews and the Sadducees sect. The Pharisees opposed them, recognizing the Spirit, the resurrection, and angels (Acts 23:8), reaching arbitrary fantasies in their attempts at allegorical interpretation. Among these currents, the Essenes, the true experts of Scripture, kept the faith. When Dmitri from Faler was getting a translation of the Bible into the Greek alphabet, he turned to the Essenes, as experts in the law, who conveyed the literal meaning without opening the veil of esotericism. Therefore, Jesus warned against the leaven of the Sadducees and the Pharisees, calling them blind, and the apostles salt, as true experts in the Scriptures.

Theosophists, criticizing church prejudices, do not say anything bad about Orthodoxy, since only it has preserved esoteric roots and traditions, although this is a book with seven seals (Rev. 5:1). It is no coincidence that Orthodoxy has seven sacraments. Those who do not accept mystical Orthodoxy involuntarily deny the prophets, including Moses, because they are all mystics, and denying esotericism is likened to a donkey carrying Christ to Jerusalem. On the esoteric plane, the name of (God) Jehovah is read as: "Being that was, is and will be" as well as the title of the first book of Moses. And the name of Jesus Joshua means not only God the Savior, but also the Son of Genesis.

As a development of transcendental thinking, four levels of information perception should be mentioned. There is a literal, verbatim, semantic and secret interpretation of writings and knowledge. Many have heard the expression: "Repent, for the apocalypse is coming." The meaning of this phrase becomes clear at the philological level. The Greek word for "repent" means to change your mind. Another Greek word for apocalypse is the discovery and its use is associated with the desire to emphasize the appearance of the second bodily coming of Christ. In connection with the expectation of this coming, three Greek words are used: apocalypse (opening), epiphany (manifestation) and parosia - literally a personal presence.

It is no coincidence that the Synoptic Gospels are written in the language of pagan Greek and Jewish symbology. The Gospel of John is purely Gnostic (hidden knowledge), while Revelation is written in the language of the Egyptian-Chaldean Mysteries. The symbols preserve all the esotericism of the writings, corrupted by numerous editions and translators. The letters of the Hebrew alphabet are intertwined with the metrology of the Old Testament and have the ability to express numbers, geometric shapes, patterns and symbols, the hidden meaning of which is explained by parables and their passages. Symbols are built on the basis of metaphors (comparisons). There are two types of metaphors: the first builds allegories or allegories, where the hidden object is clearly revealed; the second - allows for different understandings, connects several meanings, builds symbols and is designed for non-literal perception, makes thought work, and requires spiritual effort. An example is the word "vessel", which symbolizes man (as the bearer of the Spirit) in the New Testament (Acts 9:15) and the people of Israel (as the doer of the will of God (Jer. 27:16)) in Old Testament. I think worthy of attention is another allegorical allegory; in my opinion, the Sons of God (Job 38:7) are the vessels of heaven (the peoples of Heaven) in the Biblical Scripture (Job 38:37).

It is always difficult and difficult to interpret esoteric teachings, gnostic doctrines and mystical revelations. Try to interpret the names of the three geniuses (deans) of the Aquarius constellation (Oraezoer, Astiro, Tenizatoras), and you will understand what kind of work it is. As the earth enters the Age of Aquarius, it must be said that this sign is the patron of the school of intuitive philosophers, and points to the stellar stream of the Eridanus River, which carries rewards and punishments according to the deeds committed. The sign of Aquarius is the ruler of Russia, it determines the vector of the country's spiritual development and its influence on world processes. AT holy book The Zohar says that the secrets, treasures and knowledge that many generations struggled with will be unraveled in the Age of Aquarius. The era of Aquarius is the era of Russia, the era of changing dates and replacing blind faith with the faith of discoveries, knowledge and insights. For the truth came into our world not in a naked form, but in the garb of images and the garb of symbols. And Revelation says: buy fire gold (spiritual values), white clothes and rub your eyes to see (Rev. 3:18). Therefore, the constellation Aquarius is always depicted with a vessel from which (alternately) flows fire and water, signifying two stages of spiritual development. Water signifies the truth known by the mind, and fire is the baptism of the Spirit of this truth.

The second millennium, all restless creative people are excited about the book of the New Testament "The Revelation of St. John". Many have tried to decipher the symbolism of John's visions based on Western mentality and theology, omitting Eastern mysticism, esoteric teachings and doctrines, and the light comes from the East. In the East, the sun rises every day and illuminates our lives with a ray of hope. From the east, our savior will metaphorically return, the opener of paths, the interpreter of Scripture. Jesus Christ said: "For as lightning comes from the east and is visible to the west, so will be the coming of the son of man ... coming in the clouds." (Matt. 24:27-30). In Scripture, clouds are an allegory of the mysteries of the spirit, and lightning is a symbol of illumination. The son of man points to the revealed secret. Yes, and the expression Holy Rus', appeared as a result of waiting new era and the sacraments of the coming of the Comforter (John 14:26) or the meeting in the Spirit and in the air (1 Thess. 4:17).

In the light of what has been said, after analyzing the dogmatic teaching, it will not be difficult for a thinking person to take the keys that reveal the secrets of Being, because the Jews made them from Satan and the devil or the number 666.

Our idea that the devil rules in hell is not of biblical origin, it comes from Milton, cultural traditions (Dante, Rodin, Michelangelo) and misunderstanding, as well as "the descent of Christ into hell", which is not described by any gospel. In the Bible, the words "hell" and "hell" are synonymous, so they cannot be taken literally! (Jonah 2:1-3).

There are three words expressing the meaning of hell and the underworld. The Greek word Hades is the invisible world: the Hebrew word Sheol is an unsearchable place and the Hebrew word Geena is a fiery abyss.

Conclusion: Sheol and Hades are the place of residence of the soul, and Gehenna is the dump of Jerusalem, where the Israelites used to sacrifice their children to Moloch (burning them on fire). Later, King Josiah banned this custom as idolatry (IV Kings 23:10). The expression that the souls of the unrighteous will burn in the lake of fire and brimstone (Rev. 21:8) cannot be taken literally, it has a metaphorical meaning. The allegories and symbols denoting the Antichrist, Demons, Demons, Lucifer, Satan and the Devil are not well understood.

Antichrist is the antipode of Christ, a man of sin, lies and hypocrisy, a servant of darkness and ignorance. Demons and Demons are numerous nature spirits (Matt. 7:22 approx.). And it is generally impossible to understand the parable of the radiant Lucifer without knowledge of the cosmological concept of the Rosicrucians and the Eastern teachings on reincarnation! So Lucifer, who sat down in the assembly of the Gods at the edge of the North (Isaiah 14:12-16), was metaphorically cast into hell, or, in our understanding, matter and earth. In esoteric teachings, the stages of development of the earth and man are divided into periods and epochs: Polar, Hyperboric, Lemurian, Atlantean and Aryan. The man of the Northern (Polar) era was ethereal and gaseous, like the earth, which had not yet had time to solidify. Therefore, in the Bible, man is called Adam and it is said that he was made of earth. The word Adam is compound and is composed of two bases: "Hell" is the earth in the teachings of the occultists (or taken from the earth) and "am" - water, the basis of the earth. According to some esoteric sources, the word Adam is composed of the capital letters of the names of the cardinal directions in the Latin alphabet Anatole (east), Dysis (west), Arctos (north), Mesembria (south) ADAM, or taken from the ends of the earth, as is said in Isaiah (Is 41:9). The ancient Egyptians believed that man and the earth were created from primordial nebula and vapor, and this is consistent with the Bible (Gen. 2:5-7). The secret meaning of the word Adam in Hebrew is translated as "red" and symbolizes the ancient Lemurian race. I think the foregoing allows us to conclude that religious research and analysis require accuracy, attention and intellectual knowledge. Intuition and the ability to synthesize the four types of thinking (scientific, religious, humanitarian and philosophical) usually lead to Sophia or wisdom. And when love for wisdom dominates in you, it purifies your consciousness, elevating you above the ordinary, vanity, dogmatism and delusions. The state of detachment and trance awakens the spark of God in a person and makes it possible to see with inner spiritual vision. This modified state of consciousness allows you to separate the wheat from the chaff and reap the spiritual harvest (Matt. 13:24). And if for you there is no authority higher than the Bible, then do not think that it contains in its expanded form the secret esoteric knowledge about the creation of the earth, man and the universe; this book is sealed. Only when the analyzed information from various dogmatic sources is collected by you into a rational system, will God say: "Take these words and give them to scientists." Therefore, the knowledge of the invisible world is not available to everyone, and it is somewhat reminiscent of the study of the chemical processes of the lymphatic system. The same perception of organic matter, controlled by a psychic hydrogen atom (conducting ethereal vibrations of the spirit), allows thinking people to find answers to many questions of the Bible.

The question naturally arises, why is the Bible written in the language of secret esoteric teachings? The answer is quite simple: there are teachings that describe the secrets of the structure of the earth, man and nature, explain the hidden laws and throw light on the processes, the knowledge of which gives power. It allows people to rise to the level of the Creator. This knowledge can be used in the management of natural processes and in genetic engineering, and this is quite eloquently spoken of in the Bible and myths. ancient greece. Sacred knowledge is like a razor blade and quickly turns into self-confidence, a passion to interfere in everything and command. And its use for selfish purposes by people whose intellectual development is ahead of the development of a sense of conscience, love and the Spirit, can become a threat and lead to the tragedy of the whole society. No wonder the myths of the peoples of the world speak of the fall of the "gods" (priests of Atlantis), from whom the world adopted arts, crafts, philosophy, science, religion and ... wars.

Before Atlantis sank into the waters, its spiritually enlightened people disappeared, taking with them the sacred secret doctrines. It was they who built the pyramids in Egypt, Mexico and Central America. All of the above is not only a theory, but also a fact, such knowledge was common on the sunken continent of Atlantis, which is hinted at in the VI chapter of the book of Genesis. Will revive it according to the prophecy of Nostradamus, the northern states. They will carry out the Divine Will, the religion of the sea (Atlanteans) will win, Satan will be "bound" and Mars will happily rule. In this regard, it must be said that Christianity is ruled by Mars - a symbol of blood, karma and science. And the rulers of the north in Scripture are hidden under the names of Rosh, Meshech and Tubal, which the Jewish mystics interpret as the peoples of Russia (Ezek. 38:1) (princes of ROS or ROSS).

It is no coincidence that the Bible is full of allusions to the symbolism of the twelve signs of the zodiac. In ancient times, the three stars of the belt of the constellation Orion were called three magi, and the constellation Ursa Major was called the ark, and sometimes the coffin of Lazarus. Therefore, developing the theme of esoteric symbolism, it is worth mentioning the star of Bethlehem. To understand the story of the Magi's visit to Bethlehem, we must remember that they came from the east, perhaps even from Persia or Babylon. Eastern countries in those days were true connoisseurs of the starry sky and astrology, so many stellar bodies are named after the Arab gods. According to legend, the sages and magi saw a rare combination of planets in the constellation Pisces or a conjunction of Saturn, Jupiter and Mars. These three planets made up an extraordinary "star" phenomenon in quotation marks, which is called a wandering star in the Bible (Matt. 2:1-9). In esoteric astrology, the constellation Pisces governs the existence of Judea and is called the constellation of the Messiah. Many do not know that the first symbol of Christianity was not only a lamb, but also a fish. Jesus was often called a fisherman, as were the apostles, Andrew and Peter, of whom he made fishers of men (Matt. 4:19). The word fish is an abbreviation or anagram of the initial letters of five Greek words: (Jesus Christ Son of God Savior), forming the word fish in the Greek alphabet IXY. If Mars symbolizes Christianity, then Saturn on the esoteric plane is the symbol of death, initiation and time, or the astrological personification of Satan. Jupiter is ancient symbol purposefulness, service, victory for the fortitude. Here is such a biblical astrological interpretation of the conjunction of Saturn, Jupiter and Mars in the constellation Pisces. For those who do not trust astrology, I will give as an example the calculation of its older sister astronomy. The first to perform these calculations was the great Kepler in 1604, and since then they have been repeatedly verified, diverging from the biblical chronology by no more than seven years. In the year 747 according to the Roman calendar (or seven years before the birth of Christ), the planets Saturn and Jupiter really made a conjunction in the constellation Pisces, and in the spring of 748, while they were close, the planet Mars joined them. Jesus, as Christ the Savior, was recognized by the Magi by the lines of the star in the palm of his hand. In occult philosophy, the hand is a metaphorical image of God's truth, and the star is a symbol of the transforming SPIRIT of this truth. At the same time, the wise men were instructed to remember the time of the transforming star on the forehead of a warrior of mystical knowledge. In the Eastern teachings, the five-pointed star is not only a symbol of a person, but also a tool to overcome karma. Integrating matter with spirit, it transforms the ternary structure of man into a new information system. The star as a symbol of the Savior's crown of thorns, the rose of Hermes and the Rosicrucians points to science. The number of petals of a rose (star) is 108 (this is a constant of the solar system, light travels a distance of 108 × 1010 meters in an hour). And flowers and the digital symbolism associated with them are the most important factor in esoteric teachings, they hold the keys to understanding the religious mysteries. The Mother of God is also called the heavenly rose, in iconography five red roses symbolize the five wounds of Christ, the five conditions for the immortality of consciousness (see yoga academy). The opinion is expressed that the rose and the Rosicrucianism associated with it are an occult manifestation of Protestantism and one of its activities is aimed at further reforming the church. That which is not reformed, does not meet the needs of the time, gradually degrades and dies, remember the Druids. Therefore, many religions consciously and consistently use a variety of symbols that can exhaustively express higher ideas and thoughts. The specificity of the concept of "symbol" is that it covers the components of religiously poetic speech and signs of logical and mathematical so-called esoteric constructions, because each alphabet is based on numerical codes. And this makes it possible to construct multidimensional texts with different levels of perception, both figuratively metaphorical, humanitarian, scientific and philosophical. Therefore, religious texts, with apparent simplicity, lend themselves to rational scientific interpretation and numerical mathematical processing. At the same time, the Bible is not a rhymed arithmetic, but a hermetic philosophical work that synthesizes science, religion and the art of human spiritual and metaphorical thinking!

Even a simple reflection on symbols requires from us spiritual effort, aspiration, and tunes in to intuitive thinking. Yes, and all the words we use are nothing but earthly symbols, and human language already a metaphor! As an example, we can cite the word scythe, which carries three semantic loads. These are the hair on the head of a person, a tool for mowing grass and a narrow piece of land that flows into the sea (English version: people are trees and people are plants). Therefore, it is no coincidence that the word Satan in the Hebrew alphabet means a barrier and an obstacle (Mark 8:33), and the word Devil is a synonym for temptation, testing and is used as a semantic symbol, because the temptation of Christ was in the Spirit and vision (Matt. 4:1- 3).

Perhaps it should be said that until the fourth century the devil did not even have horns. Horns in religious symbolism are the emblem of divine power, abundance and chosenness. Their presence is attributed to Amun, Bacchus, Pan, Moses, Isis, Diana and Christ in the revelation of John (Rev.5:6). culture human society quite closely intertwined with the use of all kinds of symbols, signs, semantic objects and terms. Just as the language of programmers, electronics engineers, meteorologists, signalmen, mathematicians and chemists is symbolic, so is the language, ritual actions, attributes of clerics, magicians and gnostics. The invisible universe has its own material counterpart. Spirit and matter have the same inscriptions. The Bible, keeping this secret, expounds it in the universal language of symbols and natural analogy. But knowledge of the invisible world requires enormous psychological efforts, the sacrifice of traditional thinking, and is associated with overcoming the stereotype of fear generated by the childish mind of people (Genesis 8:21). We fear what we cannot understand; the fallen angel and his ten princes on the material plane personify the harmful forces of nature, being figurative metaphors of the spiritual world, therefore they should not be understood literally and figuratively!! There is nothing terrible, "magical" or mystical in the names: morphine, hydrocyanic acid, ammonia and other technical terms or scientific expressions. The Vedas and Puranas also have chemical names for these three first-born: hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen.

Having said about mysticism (union with God), we must also mention the Gnostics, whose teaching was not understood by all the apostles. Only three of them John, who wrote the Apocalypse, his brother James (Mark 3:17) and Paul were Gnostics, which is clearly seen from the words of Paul saying: “so that we find Christ by knowledge or in Greek gnosis” (Eph 1: 17). Gnosis or hidden knowledge was in strong conflict with the Old Testament Bible and was subjected to great persecution and persecution. Gnosis is not the usual religious revelation, the vision of a mystic, but the thunderous power of the power of knowledge, clarity of thought, and blinding individual illumination like lightning (Acts 9:3-8). As Clement of Alexandria said, what comes down from heaven to become the property of a few is gnosis. The rabbis considered gnosis to be too powerful to involve the masses. Although kabbalistic numerology and astrology were publicly denounced, this was a political ruse. Yes, and the church fathers were of the same opinion, and especially about digital symbols, because in any sign systems the deep metaphysical reality of being is encoded. Perhaps that is why the life and work of Christ, until his 30th birthday, is covered with darkness of obscurity. In the teachings of the Gnostics there is the number 318, it is a symbol of Christ; it can be found in the Bible as the famous number of the 318 tested circumcised servants of Abraham (Gen. 14:14), who rescued Lot from captivity and became a type of the savior. In the New Testament, the number of Christ is hidden in 153 fish (John 21:6-11) caught by right side boats or read from right to left, minus 33 years of Christ who became the savior or "Fish" in this period (351–33=318).

At this point, we reach a critical point in exploring traditional ways of thinking (Ex. 11 fig. 1.2). To understand some figurative-mythological expressions of Scripture, the symbolism of mystical teachings is not always enough. And to move further forward, it will take significant mental effort, a heuristic method and an irrational approach. If in ancient times four types of thinking were recognized (concrete, practical, figurative and abstract) (Ex. 11 Fig. 6), two of which were used by the Old Testament people, then the Bible stores 50% of the information in images, metaphorical expressions, descriptions of dreams, acts of the prophets and their visions. Therefore, in addition to rational understanding, biblical scripture also contains irrational interpretation. This interpretation, in addition to symbolic perception, allows you to apply the method of analogy, intuition and associative-figurative thinking (ex. 11 fig. 3). This allows you to narrow the search field, choose the vector of spiritual vision, perform a semantic (contents) analysis, determine senectic connections (exegesis) and find the hidden knowledge of religious teachings. And if you are able to shift the information assembly point and accept the proposed method of irrational thinking, then you are guaranteed extremely interesting creative discoveries, spiritual knowledge and insights. As well as the ability to understand the metaphysical with the help of the physical and give a rational interpretation of metaphorical expressions. Back in 1997 in Moscow at III International Conference"Special States of Consciousness, Experimental and Theoretical Research in Parapsychology" Doctor of Technical Sciences P.I. Ulyakov made a report on the topic "Biopolarons in the energy-informational space", where the results of the study of the model of the universe as an integration of the informational spiritual and material worlds were presented. It provides a description of the dualistic model of the Universe containing a complex potential, the real part of which corresponds to the gravitational field (matter), and the imaginary informational part corresponds to the spiritual field.

How it will look on the blog:

The spirit of man lived in search of secrets ... (mystical revelations) Man, as a potential being, created with the aim of collecting and accumulating the spiritual experience of generations, must live only in the material world, but also see other dimensions, because every religion contains a mystical moment and Christianity does not is an exception

Mythological worldview represents the historically first type of worldview or a way of shaping worldview ideas and arises at the stage of formation of human society. This worldview is characteristic of the primitive communal system and early class society. During this period, which lasted tens of millennia, mythology went through a number of stages in its development, gave rise to many forms expressing various stages in the formation and development of pre-class society.

Mythology (from the Greek mythos - legend, legend and logos - word, concept, teaching) is a type of consciousness, a way of understanding the world, characteristic of the early stages of the development of society. Many myths are devoted to the origin and structure of the cosmos (cosmogonic and cosmological myths). They contain attempts to answer the question about the beginning, origin, structure of the surrounding world, about the emergence of the most important natural phenomena for a person, about world harmony, impersonal necessity, etc. The formation of the world was understood in mythology as its creation or as a gradual development from the primitive formless states, as ordering, that is, the transformation from chaos into space, as creation through overcoming destructive demonic forces. There were also myths (they are called eschatological) describing the coming death of the world, in some cases - with its subsequent revival. myth, most early form spiritual culture of mankind, expressed the worldview, worldview, worldview of the people of the era in which it was created. It acted as a universal, undifferentiated (syncretic) form of consciousness, combining in itself the rudiments of knowledge, religious beliefs, political views, different types arts, philosophy. Only later did these elements receive independent life and development. characteristic feature mythological worldview is anthropomorphism, which is manifested in the spiritualization of natural phenomena, the transfer of spiritual and even bodily properties of a person to them, and also in the fact that the method of their activity is identified with human activity. The most important feature of the mythological worldview is no edge between the sensual image of reality and reality itself, between the deity (as a spiritual principle and essence) and the natural phenomenon with which it was associated. The next most important feature of mythology is geneticism, the essence of which was to clarify the nature of the world, the origin of the genus, various natural and social phenomena. Any human community is explained only through the origin from a common ancestor, and understanding the nature of things is reduced to ideas about their genetic origin. All nature is presented in mythology as a huge tribal community inhabited by human-type creatures that are in one or another kindred relationship.

Religion was the second historical type of outlook. Religious worldview - this is a way of mastering reality through its doubling into natural, earthly, this-worldly and supernatural, heavenly, other-worldly. The religious worldview differs from the mythological one in the way of spiritual development of reality. Mythological images and representations were multifunctional: they intertwined cognitive, artistic and evaluative assimilation of reality in an as yet undeveloped form, which created a prerequisite for the emergence of not only religion, but also various types of literature and art on their basis. Religious images and representations perform only one function - evaluative-regulatory. Another feature of religious images and ideas is that irrationality is hidden in them, which is subject to perception only by faith, and not by reason. Central to any religious outlook always occupies the image or idea of ​​God. God is considered here as the origin and fundamental principle of all that exists. Moreover, this is no longer a genetic principle, as in mythology, but an initial principle - creating, creating, producing. Religion is characterized by the recognition of the primacy of the spiritual over the physical, which is not in mythology. Historical meaning religion consisted in the fact that in both slave and feudal societies it contributed to the formation and strengthening of new social relations and the formation of strong centralized states.

The separation of mental labor from physical, on the one hand, mythology and the accumulation of empirical knowledge, on the other hand, as well as the desire of man to comprehend his own essence, contributed to the emergence of a common holistic view of the world and man's place in it - philosophy.

The term "philosophy" in translation from ancient Greek means "love of wisdom" (phileo - love, Sophia - wisdom). It is generally accepted that the ancient Greek thinker Pythagoras was the first to use this term in relation to people striving for intellectual knowledge and the right way life. A fundamentally different type of worldview is emerging, which comprehends in a different way the ideas about the world and man that have developed in mythology and religion and, at the same time, develops fundamentally different ways of understanding and solving worldview problems. A feature of the philosophical worldview has become abstract-conceptual, and not sensory-figurative, as in other types of worldview, the form mastery of reality. The difference between the philosophical worldview and the mythological and religious is not in the form, but in the content of the development of reality. Those. The questions are the same, the answers are different. It already distinguishes between the natural and social world, the human mode of action and the manifestation of natural forces and phenomena. This becomes possible due to the accumulation of mathematical, physical and astronomical knowledge, the appearance of the calendar and the spread of writing. If the previous historical types worldview can be defined as a person's experience of reality and his being in it, then a philosophical worldview is a person's reflection on the existing, based on a rational argument and critical doubt. Also, the most important features of the philosophical consideration of the world are: universalism (the desire to create a single and integral picture of the world) and substantialism (the desire to comprehend a single principle, the root cause of all things).

We have the largest information base in RuNet, so you can always find similar queries

This material includes sections:

The concept and subject of the philosophy of science.

Classical positivism as a historical stage in the philosophy of science (O. Comte, D. Mill, G. Spencer).

Empirio-criticism as a historical stage in the philosophy of science (E. Mach and R. Avenarius).

Essence and features of neopositivism

Conventionalism J.A. Poincaré and P. Duhem

Phenomenology of E. Husserl

Postpositivism: a general characteristic.

Correlation of science, culture and civilization.

Types of civilizations

Values ​​of Scientific Rationality

Science and philosophy

Science and non-philosophical types of outlook (art, mythology, religion and mysticism).

The role of science in modern education and the formation of man.

Pre-science and ancient science.

Science in the Middle Ages.

Science of the Renaissance.

Science of the New Age.

Classification of sciences: traditional and modern concepts.