Evolutionary is a word we hear more and more at the leading edges of the spiritual and cultural conversation. But what does it really mean? Why is it important? Who or what is an evolutionary anyway? Carter Phipps, Executive Editor of EnlightenNext magazine, will dialogue with Terry Patten about this new kind of spiritual practitioner.
Carter will explain why an evolutionary worldview creates a powerful bridge between the worlds of spirituality and social activism, and describe the distinctive qualities that he has indentified in those men and women who are pioneering this newly emerging path and practice. Don’t miss this opportunity to share some of the most inspiring and intriguing discoveries Carter made while writing his forthcoming book: Evolutionaries: The People, Passions, and Perspectives That Are Shaping a New Synthesis of Science and Spirit.
Carter Phipps’ bio:
Carter Phipps is the executive editor of EnlightenNext magazine. In his ten years with the magazine, he has been responsible for some of its most in-depth investigative features, including the “The Real Evolution Debate,” a spiritual and scientific analysis of evolutionary worldviews. Phipps has also helped to forge the magazine’s reputation as the premier popular publication espousing the ideas of integral philosophy through his feature articles on the work of Ken Wilber (“A Philosopher of Everything”) and on Steve McIntosh (“Integral Politics Comes of Age”). He regularly represents EnlightenNext magazine at conferences and leadership gatherings, including the Evolutionary Leaders Forum, the Parliament of the World’s Religions, and the 2008 Edinburgh Festival of Spirituality and Peace. Phipps has appeared on BBC Radio’s “Reporting Religion” and on New Dimensions radio, and he is a regular guest on Deepak Chopra’s Wellness Radio on Sirius. His first book, Evolutionaries, a manifesto for the emerging evolutionary spirituality, will be published by Harper Perennial in fall 2011.
HOW TO PARTICIPATE:
Thursday, Dec 16th @ 5:00pm Pacific
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We look forward to your attendance!
Sincerely,
The Beyond Awakening Team
The first century certainly had ‘lines of development’ issues.
Many followers of the Baptist didnt follow Jesus, thinking him on an ego trip and went off to become Mandaeans or stayed submerged in the Jewish culture to pop out with Kabbalah later in my opinion.
The Simonians decided everything was maya and it was necessary to experience everything on this plane before moving on—so anything goes. In heaven there is no beer, thats why we drink it here.
The Herodian friends of Paul were repulsed by the Simonians and knew it wouldnt fly in the Empire and, fearful of their very survival, constructed an allegorical false front of a Greek god man story. Meanwhile they kept a secret written tradition and a secret oral tradition as documented by Clement of Alexandria–some of which has come out in recent decades as in the discovery of ‘Secret Mark’.
The Syrians did not overtly blow the cover of their powerful neighbors but in the Gospel of Thomas pretty effectively and subtlely subverted them with genuine spiritual teaching of the feminity of the godhead and of the higher self. The Gospel of John was published to counter Thomas.
A generation or so later the Gospel of Philip came out as one last attempt by a very robust, self confidant, and mature spiritual community to convert their opponents. Its a wonderful window into lines of development issues.
By this time the Romans have forgotten their roots and Philip calls them proselytes, gentiles who have never lived, and slaves (to the Romans or to the body). For all their service work they are likened to “an ass which turns a millstone which did a hundred miles walking” and didn’t get anywhere. This was all to shock the Romans into realizing they were missing out on the sacrament known as the bridal chamber which was probably very similar to the ‘psychomantium’ in the Greek world.
Philip is careful not to be judgemental towards the personal life of the Simonians but pulls the Pauline argument about ‘knowledge that puffs up’ rather than having love–where is the love in what they are doing? Philip warns strongly about the astral plane where there are lots of sexually predatory beings and likens it to a burning house that they don’t want to escape from. In heaven there is no beer thats why we shouldn’t get addicted to it here. Being on this earth is not so bad or in the higher self but Philip expresses a horror of being stuck in the astral plane surrounded by your own thoughts or ones you have taken on that block out the light.
These are the reasons Philip restricts the bridal chamber experience to celibates–rightly or wrongly–to push past the astral plane to the higher self where its androgeny heals the soul: “In this world the slaves serve the free. In the kingdom of heaven the free will minister to the slaves: the children of the bridal chamber will minister to the children of the marriage. The children of the bridal chamber have just one name: rest. (Altogether) they need take no (other) form because they have contemplation,”.
The followers of the Baptist at least anchored in every culture they touched a transcendant sense to point people in the right direction, the spirit of the whole however slow or quick the journey up the mountain.
John