The Jesus Prayer has been part of my practice for a number of years now, and recently it has taken a deeper dive into the body with the introduction of Gurdjieff’s Lord have Mercy exercise. The practice moves into sensing “an echo” of the words “Lord have Mercy” in each of the limbs, coursing through the body and building in both sensation and feeling. Yesterday when the meditation ended, I gently opened my eyes and experienced the Lord have Mercy echoing, not only from within, but from every corner of the room, each object, from the barn outside the window, the field, the sheep, to the sky itself. It was a glimpse into the Lord have Mercy speaking through the weave of all life, all matter, animate and inanimate.

I have a few Advent prayers, and this exercise is one. I am fortunate to have a little group that practices it together weekly, augmenting my own personal practice of it. It invites me to listen to how Lord have Mercy sings through the body, and now, allows a glimpse of how it resounds through the whole of creation. It is a door to a beautiful Whole ...

I know that a number of you, in growing awareness of the of the blind spots and shadow elements in the mental structure of consciousness, have been casting a fond glance toward indigenous cultures, which seem to offer counterbalancing strengths in precisely the areas where the mental structure is weakest: a deeper connection to the natural world, a more organic sense of belonging, and a greater awareness of the evocative power of ritual and the numinous. Your intuition is fundamentally correct, for part of the tragic hubris of the mental structure is its disdain for structures “less evolved” than its own and its conviction that it has “transcended and included” all previous developmental stages, bearing uniquely on its own shoulders “the axis and the arrow of evolution.”

Still, one must proceed cautiously with this mythic turn. It has been tried twice already during the past century, and both times it has arrived at a dead end.

The first attempt got underway between the two world wars and gave birth to the movement known as Traditionalism. Under the guiding inspiration of the brilliant French metaphysician Rene Guenon (1886-1951), it immediately attracted some of the brighter minds of the early ...

Structures of consciousness have their own life cycles. When a new structure bursts definitively onto the stage of history, it is typically at its most vital and creative, filled with powerful constellating energy and psychic force. It will quickly establish itself as the new culturally dominant structure. When the structure enters its deficient mode (typically toward the end of its era of cultural hegemony), it tends to become stale and increasingly rigid, fixated around its own worse habits.

In Gebser’s analysis, the turbulent social upheavals that erupted full force in the early twentieth century and have continued more or less unbroken right into our own times can be attributed in large part to the phase of the cycle now playing out: the mental structure of consciousness in its deficient mode. The good news is that this turmoil is in fact a birth canal, and the contractions we are collectively anguishing through are indeed the birth pangs of the rising aperspectival structure making its presence powerfully known. The bad news is that labor is bloody hell.

When the mental structure becomes deficient, it displays two signature—seemingly contrary—tendencies: it totalizes, then it splinters.

We started to explore Gebser’s understanding ...

All structures of consciousness have at their center of gravity, a core value or “moral mainspring” around which all else is ordered. Often unstated and even unrecognized, it nonetheless establishes the yardstick by which value is measured and priorities are assigned within that structure.

In the mental structure of consciousness the skew is definitely toward The Individual.

This orientation should come as no surprise; it is essentially built right into the hardwiring of this structure of perception itself. Perspectival consciousness comes into being part and parcel with the establishment of a perceiver, the artist who stands outside of his or her canvas and orchestrates the entire artifice from a perch slightly beyond it. It bursts upon the world stage joined at the hip with the capacity for self-reflective consciousness, the ability to stand outside of oneself and look back upon oneself and upon the world as if in third person. This slightly removed viewing platform is the ego, the crowning achievement of the mental structure of consciousness, and Western Civilization has ridden to glory on its back.

By “ego” I am not referring here to what religious folks are all too quick to demonize as “sinful self-will ...

Dear Friends of Northeast Wisdom / and the new! Wisdom Waypoints,

We want to express our heart-felt thanks to each of you who has contributed to our annual fundraising campaign. Your support means the world to us, and we appreciate whatever amount you have been able to give.

We got off to an earlier start with our annual fundraising campaign this year, and it is going well. If you haven’t had a chance yet to make your gift, please consider doing it now. Every contribution, in any amount, further serves the Wisdom Community.

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If you missed the messages below from Cynthia, Marcella and Matthew, take a look now. We are grateful for your generosity, and honor our partnership in Wisdom together.

As we step into the season of Advent we wish you all deep peace in the stillness and the quiet promise of what is gestating within.

Dear Wisdom Friends,

Once again it’s that time of the year when I have the privilege of inviting you to renew your ...