Next thing you know, they will be trying to steal homoousios and perichoresis!

Koestler’s Act of Creation (1964) offers some insight into how ‘the world’ deals with the ‘problem’ of psychic phenomenon:

“One Archetype remains to be discussed, which is of special significance for the act of creation. It is variously known as the Night Journey, or the Death-and-Rebirth motif; but one might as well call it the meeting of the Tragic and Trivial Planes. It appears in many guises; its basic pattern can be roughly described as follows. Under the effect of some overwhelming experience, the hero is made to realise the shallowness of his life, the futility and frivolity of the daily pursuits of man in the trivial routines of existence. This realisation may come to him as a sudden shock caused by some catastrophic event, or as the cumulative effect of a slow inner development, or through the trigger action of some apparently banal experience which assumes an unexpected significance. The hero then suffers a crisis that involves the very foundations of his being; he embarks on the Night Journey, is suddenly transferred to the Tragic Plane– from which he emerges purified, enriched by new insight, regenerated on a higher level of integration. The symbolic expressions of this pattern are as old as humanity. The crisis or Night Journey may take the form of a visit to the underworld (Orpheus, Odysseus in mythology),; or the hero is cast to teh bottom of a well (Joseph), buried in a grave (Jesus), swallowed by a fish (Jonah);or he retires alone into the desert, as Buddha, Mahomet, Christ and other prophets and founders of religions did at the crucial turn in their lives.

I went to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me forever.

The journey always represents a plunge downward and backward to the sources and tragic undercurrents of existence, into the fluid magma, of which the Trivial Plane of everyday life is merely the thin crust. In most tribal societies, the plunge is symbolically enacted in the initiation-rites which precede the turning points in the life of the individual such as puberty and marriage. He is made to undertake a minor Night Journey; segregated from the community, he must fast, endure physical hardships and various ordeals, so that he may experience the essential solitude of man, and establish contact with the Tragic Plane. A similar purpose is served by the symbolic drowning and rebirth of baptism; the institution of periods of retreat found in most religions; in fasts and other purification rituals; in the initiation ceremonies of religious or masonic orders, even of university societies. Illumination must be proceeded by the ordeals of incubation.

(Koestler, 1989, p.p. 358-359)

Of course, Koestler equates ‘mother church’ to ‘mother earth’ or ‘mother ocean’ — the baptismal font is only a ‘womb’ the ‘immaculatus divini fontis uterus’ and the maternal aspect of the Church is only impersonated by the Virgin. He calls it the ‘craving for the womb’ for the dissolution of the self in a lost, vegitative oness.’ Mythology apparently, is full of such symbols of the collective unconscious.

What we have in Christ is far different to what Koestler is proposing. Only, I wouldn’t call it a Cosmic Christ for to do so implies that there are other Christs, offshore and false, and this is in fact, what the world would have us believe.

My response to you got tied up in comment moderation because it had a link, so you may have missed it. But I don’t see that the promise of resurrection from the dead is any less relevant or hopeful to a poor creature torn apart millions of years ago than my late grandfather who died two years ago.

Though the opinion within the Fathers is far from unanimous on your question (some said animals only have this life) there are others who think differently. Personally, and I cannot say this as the dogmatic teaching of the Church, I think nothing is lost in Christ (or cease to exist). The redemption in Christ is good news to the whole of Creation – past present and future. I don’t know how else to read the 8th chapter of Romans.

How can we forget? Never! Never!

Kyrie eleison.

Perhaps I find it difficult to understand what you mean because of the brevity of the posts. I apologize for not “getting it”.

Mt. St. Michel and the Chicago Suburbs.

I’m not Orthodox, but I certainly hope nothing that I’m saying is out of harmony with what Father Stephen and Metropolitan Kallistos Ware are saying. If I can detect anything lacking in fullness looking back over what I wrote, it would be the emphasis that such heavenly fullness is breaking in even now.