Soul Matters Volume Six: Bondage Battleground
Chapter 1

Rather than reading through the dense prose of the Hebrew Bible, Phil went surfing. It cleansed his mind, centered him in his body, and grounded him in this reality -- what he now conceded was the ‘consensus reality,’ which was just one of many realities available. In this reality, he surfed the beaches of southern California near Huntington Beach, where he lived.

As the sun began its slide into the ocean, he drove to a liquor store, picked up a half-rack of beer, and headed the few short blocks to Sandy’s house. Sandy was an old friend from high school who now operated a shop specializing in custom surfboards. He also spent years in a Jesuit seminary. Phil confided in him the nature of his strange spiritual adventures. Sandy elucidated for Phil the more arcane meanings and commentaries of biblical thought, while at the same time maintaining a cynical aloofness to Phil’s recurring troubles in the world of Spirit.

Phil knocked on the door of the one-story house Sandy inherited from his parents, and entered at Sandy’s call.

Sandy was tall, muscular -- but growing a beer belly -- with shoulder-length thick blond hair. His craggy face gave him the look of a beached Viking; although, one wearing khaki shorts and light blue tank top.

“Hey, Phil. What brings you out?” Sandy called from the kitchen.

“Manuel showed up.”

“Our friendly neighborhood archangel. What’s he up to?”

Phil hauled the beer to the kitchen table and broke open the box. He handed one to Sandy who proceeded out the back door. Phil followed.

A concrete patio sat outside the sliding door. On one side of the door was a gas grill. To the other side was a round table with a few plastic chairs. They flopped into the chairs.

“He set me to the task of figuring out the importance of Sophereth. Is it any relation to Sophia?”

“No,” Sandy answered as he flopped onto a lawn chair. “The name means ‘female scribe’.”

Phil sat and sipped his own beer. “I didn’t know women were scribes.”

“Yeah. It’s not common knowledge. You have to follow a lot of subtle clues to piece together women’s roles, other than wife/mother, back then. The big secret is alluded to with the whole thing about queens and queen-mothers. It’s highly likely they were in charge of the cult practices of Asherah. You see, in the beginning there was El, the father of the gods, and Asherah, mother of the gods. El, of course, got good press. Asherah was slowly demoted to a pagan idol. After the Babylonian exile, when most of the Books of the Hebrew Bible were reworked by the priests, she was written out of the story.”

Sandy stopped to guzzle down about half his beer. Phil took in this latest tidbit about as well as he had most of the information he received from Sandy -- and Manuel for that matter.

“You’re kidding,” was his profound comment

“Nope.”

“There was a whole separate cult-worship to fertility goddesses paralleling El-worship?”

“It seems so. The irony was Asherah didn’t like Baal either, even though in some myths he’s her son.”

“Why not?”

“She wanted one of her other sons to have Baal’s godly throne. Anyway, Asherah was all about trees. The poles next to El’s altars were her symbols. Even after Yahweh replaced El, he was paired with Asherah.”

“Wow. And this went on until the Captivity. Then what?”

“I guess, since they couldn’t completely marginalize women, they recruited them into different guilds. The female scribe guild was apparently one they added to the guilds for wise women, musicians, midwives, holy women, and professional mourners.”

Sandy finished his beer and retrieved another. The sun had fully set, and the backyard was drifting into darkness. Phil sipped his beer and considered the implications of Sandy’s words.

Women developed their spirituality along a different track than men did, even though the track was defined, or hemmed in, by the patriarchy. Hosea hadn’t given the female track any legitimacy. Then again, neither did God in his recorded abuse of Israel. But that abuse wasn’t really gender-specific. Or God was mirroring back to Israel what it was doing to itself, and Hosea’s life was an example of the deterioration. Or something like that.

Sandy was waiting, sipping his second beer. Phil focused on him finally and said, “I’m confused.”

Sandy laughed in sympathy.

Phil went on, “Manuel said Hosea’s situation was a paradox. It got resolved with the Sophereth.”

“Interesting. I’ll have to think about it. What has all this got to do with you?”

“I’m supposed to resolve the paradox in my life.”

“Even though you don’t know what it is.”

Phil returned the laugh, “It’s the way these things seem to start.”

“The only women in your life, as far as I know, are your ex-wife Betty, the recovering coke-whore Pam, and your surfer-buddy Becky. None of them is a temple prostitute.”

“Well, Pam is an executive secretary. A female scribe. And you could call cocaine a false god.”

“Good point. Is she still staying with you?”

Phil sighed, somewhat in relief and somewhat in regret. “Not anymore. She moved in with some girls from her work. We do have a standing dinner date on Wednesdays.”

“In that case, I don’t see any parallel between you and Hosea. Do you?”

“No. I do see my blind spot: female spirituality.”

He found female or yin spirituality wasn’t his only problem. Phil read -- actually skimmed -- the passages in the Bible Manuel referenced, but he also read sociological articles about biblical times. Those accounts gave him a better context for these adventures in Spirit. He certainly couldn’t count on Manuel to provide him with context.

Before the monarchy, he found a tribal, pastoral, lineage-based community living in some harmony. However, according to sociological rules, a lineage-based system fell apart after about the sixth generation. The reason was that the original patriarch was long dead, and now there were enough elders of their own clans for conflicts to erupt on about every issue within the extended family. The period of the Judges arose at this time to deal with the confusion among the children of Abraham, especially in times of outright war between different tribes.

Eventually, first with the northern Israelite tribes, a monarchy was installed. Samuel’s vision of it was a limited monarchy with the priests (of which Samuel was a leader) retained all their power. When the first king, Saul, refused this limitation, Samuel installed David. King David united the north and south into one kingdom, and he did little to alter the pre-existing tribal and priestly arrangements. The next king, Solomon, did stratify the populace, and the poorer classes paid for all his building projects. The north revolted, and those people hoped for a return to the good old days. It was not to be. The kings of the north merely replicated the stratified society of the south. Most of the prophetic rhetoric in the Torah, railing against inequality, derived from this period. The prophets also railed against the kings’ policies to co-exist with pagan religions, which was politically expedient but morally repugnant to the prophets.

Assyria finally gobbled up the northern kingdom, never to be heard from again -- except through myths about the lost tribes of Israel. The southern kingdom held out longer, but eventually the Babylonian empire conquered it. Then the exile began.

The upper crust of Judean society was carted off at the beginning of the exile, but the lower classes were not. They stayed behind to work the land, and they experienced a return to the pastoral lifestyle the prophets had been advocating for centuries. Those in captivity did maintain their ethnic identity, unlike their northern cousins who were assimilated.

The exile began in 586 BCE, and it ended at the turn of the century. Then the exiles returned in waves, trickling into a country they thought they had a right to rule. In fact, they never ruled again without permission from the Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, and finally the Romans. Furthermore, those who escaped the exile didn’t want to be ruled by ‘foreigners’ disguised as Jews. As Manuel let slip in his conversation with God, it was a mess.

The more poignant problem was the crisis of faith the Jews endured and tried to make sense of. They could see why God might feel the need to punish them, but what about the Covenant? When would God protect them, truly free them, and return the Promised Land to them completely? History showed God never did. Still, some of the most stunning biblical poetry sprouted from this chaotic ground, but it was fully countered by the resurgence of apocalyptic predictions of that time, which, Phil noted, continued to this day.

The crisis of faith, which Phil recognized as another theme continuing today, was summed up by one author, ‘The point of departure for Christian Redemption hinges on the question of where evil comes from.’ Jewish and Christian thought necessarily collapsed good and evil within the Godhead. How that looked to humanity, though, was God’s actions became capricious and arbitrary. In short, there really was no predictability in the Covenant, so that any believer couldn’t actually rely on it. Yes, it was a mess.

Phil finished his review and felt settled enough in the facts to visit Manuel. He closed his laptop, which was sitting on the lone table in his rectangular efficiency apartment, and sat on a large leather pillow in one corner of the room. Quieting his mind, he quickly achieved a deep meditative state where a singular door awaited him. He stepped through the door to Manuel’s garden patio.

“Hey, Phil, glad you could make it. The Twins were asking about you.”

Phil walked over to the angel who was tending his flowers, which fully filled the patio.

“What’s on their minds?” he asked and fingered a blossom to admire the lacy petals.

“Don’t know. But did you know there’s a tradition claiming it was angels who provided manna for Moses and his herd of people during the exodus?”

“No,” Phil answered, wondering what this had to do with anything.

“It has to do with our job,” Manuel snapped, obviously reading Phil’s mind. “We make manifest God’s images. We make ‘flesh’ God’s words. Manna was always a metaphor. Although manna did exist as a biological fact. It was the symbiotic result of certain insects feeding on the tamarisk tree.”

“I knew this,” Phil replied. After all, he was there in an earlier adventure and feasted on the manna. “What I’m confused about is why you’re explaining the role of angels.”

“I’m telling you, with apparently limited success against the bulwark of your stupidity, that the Twins are expressing something. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know why they need to talk to you. I do know it’s important to our project.”

Phil had no idea what was bothering the angel, and wasn't sure he wanted to know. Instead, he said, “Fine. Let’s go talk to them.”

“In a minute," Manuel said in a softer tone. "Did you read about the exile?”

“Yes. You were right. It was a mess.”

“Did you see the religious dilemma?”

“I think so. The Jews began questioning God’s promises.”

“Yes. Questions answered in the Book of Job.”

From his research, Phil knew Job was probably written during or shortly after the exile. It was also assumed the Book of Job was based on an older myth. That’s about all he knew, though, so Phil shrugged his reply to Manuel, not risking a verbal reply which might set Manuel off again.

Then he dressed himself in tan Dockers and a light brown polo shirt, hoping upscale informal dress would fit the visit with the Twins. "Shall we?"

Manuel placed his hands on Phil’s shoulders and they flew out of the patio to glide high above the space-station-looking home of the angels. A central hub and spokes radiating out was what Phil saw, and he assumed they would head to the hub. Instead they flew to the circular perimeter. Phil hadn’t been there before.

“The Twins sort of contain the angelic realm,” Manuel said. “North to south, one holds the eastern sphere, the other holds the western. They generate the gray curtain-wall enclosing our home.”

Phil didn’t catch the full meaning, but asked no questions. Not only did he not want another lecture on his stupidity, he also knew Manuel’s obtrusive comments unfolded in their own way. He did know the Twins, Irin and Qaddism, somehow stood closer to God than other angels. They consisted of the Supreme Court in judicial matters, and the mythology about them said they were tall enough to span the distance between heaven and earth. Apparently this span included or created a containment field for the world of the angels.

They flew through the circular roof of the huge tube-looking perimeter of the space station structure of the angelic realm. Inside Phil saw a vast hall. Stretching away to infinity on his right, the hall was light and airy. A pale yellow walkway, mirrored walls, torches in wall sockets, gaily decorated tables near the walls gave the hall a bright and inviting feel. To his left, the hall was somber. Subdued light, dark green floor, stark wood desks and framed pictures gave this half of the hall a serious feel.

Irin approached from the brightness; Qaddism, from the gloom.

“Welcome, Phil,” Qaddism said, his voice heavy with gravity. He was wearing a long blue cassock with a floor-length gray tunic over it. His face was boyish but set with seriousness.

The identically dressed Irin merely beamed a smile as he joined them. Qaddism continued, “Your stay with Sophia has marked you. It has not gone unnoticed. You have become a symbol in this world galvanizing many to alliances never before seen.”

Irin added, “Angels evolve as do men. You’ve catalyzed movement to the next stage. So there are those who welcome the challenges, and those who will fight for the status quo.”

Phil quickly reviewed his adventures in this world, and he recalled the many times they told him what he was doing, and the trouble he got into, was unprecedented. Had his adventures produced some cumulative effect?

“Yes,” Qaddism answered his unstated question. “All that we do, each individual thought, sets in motion cause-effect chains. These chains connect with everything and everyone. Mostly it’s unconscious and we, like humans, unconsciously adjust to our changing worlds. Sometimes the change is such we need to consciously plan our adjustments. You’ve provoked such a situation.”

“Can I fix it?” Phil wondered.

Irin smiled again, “Can one fix the assassination of Ferdinand of Austria?”

The reference puzzled Phil for a moment; then he remembered this assassination triggered World War I. He said, “That bad, huh?”

Irin nodded.

Manuel butted in, “Sorry, guys, but this is over the top. Why the massive guilt trip? Phil can’t be made responsible for our internal squabbling.”

Qaddism’s ponderous voice asserted, “There’s no other explanation. Phil has set in motion something we haven’t seen since the Axial Age. For us, he is the symbol of the clash happening on Earth and mirrored in Heaven.”

“What clash?” Phil asked, risking the stupidity lecture.

Qaddism answered, exhibiting more patience than Manuel usually did, “Three worldviews are colliding. The traditional, the modern, and the post-modern are at war, each with the others. From this will come one of two outcomes. You destroy yourselves and devolve to barbarism. You push through to the next evolutionary level and give each competing worldview its legitimate place.”

Phil recalled discussions about this from before. Those discussions were background to the needs of the moment. Today, it seemed, this clash had become center stage.

Irin nodded, apparently reading Phil’s mind, and smiled, “You cannot, perhaps, play a major role in heaven’s affairs. We must restructure ourselves to be of use to humans in either outcome. Nor are you anyone important on Earth. Even so, you are a catalyst. Maybe it’s karmic destiny; maybe it’s God’s idea of a joke. We don’t know. What we do know is you must be supported in the human quest for Enlightenment.”

Qaddism added, “And opposed as well. Ha-satan guards each level. For you, however, special attention will be given. Your tests will be more difficult than any who have come before you.”

“Great,” Phil muttered. Then his remaining self-pity took over. “Can’t I just go to the desert and refuse to turn rocks into bread?”

Irin laughed, “Sorry. Besides, remember how Jesus’ story ended. His real test was on the cross. He called out, ‘Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?’ Before this is over, you’ll be wailing the same way.”

Phil steeled himself and asked, “What do I need to do?”

“Manuel has already set you on the road. You must replace answers to Job’s questions.”

Phil allowed a smile to emerge, “It will probably be easier than figuring out female spirituality.”

Qaddism interrupted, “No. Female spirituality is the precondition.”

“Great.” Phil muttered again as the smile slunk away from his face. “What happens if I just refuse?”

“Stupid, Phil,” Manuel said. “Refusal is its own choice -- a choice to stay stuck in the Flesh.”

“And ha-satan wins,” Phil sighed. “But why me?”

“Why not?” Irin laughed. “Do you remember what YHWH means?”

“Yes. God described himself to Moses as, ‘I will be what I will be.’ The I-Am-Who-Am translation wasn’t very accurate.”

Irin continued to grin, “In the slang of your people, Phil, there’s an even better translation. God’s true name is, Whatever.”

It was slow to start, but Phil couldn’t hide from the humor of it. Phil began laughing with Irin, and Manuel joined in. Only Qaddism remained stone-faced.

When the laughter subsided, Phil felt comfortable enough to voice a nagging question. He ventured, “We’ve been going on and on about balance. Balance mythos and logos, eros and pathos, yin and yang. I really don’t get why the whole thing about balance is so important.”

Manuel sighed in an exasperated way, probably embarrassed at Phil’s stupid question. The Twins didn’t blink, though, and Qaddism answered.

“There are many ways to look at balance, because there are many things we must keep in balance.”

“Like what?”

“In the beginning Sophia filled space with life. All of it was one organism -- vast and overgrown. Saturn came to set limits on it, make individual pieces of it. Limitless growth was countered by separation and death. That was the first balance to be maintained.”

Phil shrugged, as he already knew this history, “Okay.”

“Then the sun’s nuclear furnace turned on and the explosion of vegetation began. Diversity grew out of Saturn’s limitations. So did competition and survival of the fittest. This constitutes another category of balance.”

“How so?”

“Survival and extinction.”

“Okay.”

“Then Aphrodite brought Eros, and the animal age began. She also brought the antidote to desire in the symbol of the mirror -- self-reflection.”

“Another category of balance,” Phil said. "Desire and self-restraint."

“Yet the others are still active. Saturn’s agents, in Greek mythology, were the Titans. They were eaters of consciousness. Zeus defeated them to bring self-consciousness to men. In Freud's terms, the Id and the Super-ego.”

Somewhat chagrined, Phil said in response, “It would be difficult to track all this.”

Qaddism kept going, “But soon matter became too dense, and the greater spirits could no longer squeeze into the material world. Only lesser spirits, demons, demi-gods, hungry ghosts, pretas, bhuts, pisachas and gandharvas could materialize. An initiate of the Mystery schools ran a gauntlet of these to replace his way to greater spirits.”

Phil said, “How would you balance that?”

“The material body and the animal spirit is held together by the soul,” Qaddism answered. “The soul is from the vegetative realm -- the ch’i field, prana, ruah, ki, the living life force of Creation. That is the fulcrum to balance men.”

“I can see that,” Phil muttered, “but it wouldn’t be the balance point for the ego.”

“No, it wouldn’t, but I think I’ve answered your question about balance. There are fulcrums for every polarity, for every paradox, and for every evolutionary plateau. We manage them all.”

“And if any one of them gets out of balance --”

“It could start a cascade effect,” Qaddism said in a matter-of-fact way. “And there would be no more Universe. Entropy would reclaim everything.”

Phil knew the principle of synchronicity would kick in as soon as he set the intention to answer Job’s questions. He also knew the resulting coincidences were never even close to what could be expected. Manuel once told him archangels were in charge of synchronicity, and Phil believed it. An odder bunch of entities didn’t exist.

The first off-the-wall clue came from Becky. Phil was teaching her what he knew about navigating the realms of Spirit. In return she was upgrading his surfing skills. Sandy had introduced them, apparently with hopes they would hook up and help each other through the tough times they were both having. They attempted sex once and realized that a sexual relationship wasn’t going to work. A different attraction bound them. Manuel said it was most likely karmic debt. Phil owed her one.

They sat on their boards as the ocean's tide was building, and the sun was burning off the morning fog. She was muscular, tanned with short sun-bleached brown hair. The blue and black shorty wetsuit she wore hid most of her, but a strong angular face was bright with expectancy as her green eyes scanned the surf behind them for the perfect wave.

“Guess what I found out,” she said in a conversational tone.

“What?”

“There were twelve women in the story of Moses. They foreshadowed the twelve tribes of Israel.”

“What?” This time his query was demanding.

“Yeah. Pretty cool, wouldn’t you say? They were his mom, two midwives, his sister, the Pharaoh’s daughter, and seven women at the well in Midian. One of those women became Moses’ wife. In fact, women were commonly woven into the biblical texts like that. Men got the glory, but women were there first.”

“Where did you hear this?”

Becky smiled and said in an off-hand way, “Oh. I’ve got this friend who wants to get ordained as a priest. She’s running into the patriarchal wall about it. She’s trying to convince them by supporting her right to ordination with Scripture.”

“You never told me about her.”

“I don’t see her often. Our moms were friends when we were kids, but we didn’t have much in common.”

Phil smiled, “Well, you do now. Shaman training puts you on a parallel track with priest training.”

“I never thought of it like that. No wonder she popped up again.”

The next wave set rolled in and they rode them to shore. Phil tried to mimic Becky’s technique and was mostly successful, although he was not as gracefully confident as she.

Phil’s part in their arrangement was to train Becky in shaman skills. Her basic training included walking an imaginary trail through the forest to a staircase leading down. At the bottom was an archway through which lay the world of Spirit. The system was from an Apache shaman tradition Manuel taught Phil. He hadn’t explored much beyond the first Spirit levels, and Manuel said there were over a dozen levels. Even so, what he did know was enough to keep him practicing for years. He wished he could leisurely do so, but this new dilemma probably meant another crash course in one of the unexplored levels.

As he reviewed Becky’s progress during lunch, Phil envied the lack of pressure she was under. Albeit the pressure she felt was strong for her. She suffered from ‘shamanic sickness,’ an ailment of the soul marked by depression, dreams, and a disconnect from reality leading to despair.

She finished her report on her shamanic practice and flashed Phil a bright smile, “I’m doing good, aren’t I?”

Phil returned the smile, “Better than I did with it.”

“Maybe you’re a better teacher.”

Phil’s smile broadened, and he gazed around the breakfast café. There were few patrons, as this was a workday. Local beach bums, high school kids who skipped school, and retired folks in their sweaters busied themselves with specialty omelets and conversation.

“My teacher has trouble relating.”

“Who was he? You never talk about him.”

“It’s better that way.”

“Come on, Phil. What’s the big secret?”

“Some other time. Do you think you could ask your friend some questions for me? I’m researching feminine spirituality.”

“Sure. What do you want to know?”

“Two topics: the temple prostitutes and the guild of female scribes.”