Darkness, Light and Human Consciousness

by Rev. Alice Miller

In the beginning, God/dess created the heaven and the Earth . . . without form, void, dark–an unknown potential. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light . . . And God saw that it was good.

Consciousness begins with light, light that shines in the dark places to reveal the innate (Divinely created) goodness of all that is.

And God/dess said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over . . . all the Earth.”

So God/dess created man in Its own image–to mirror and reflect who It is. We may then conclude that if our God/dess is the all-seeing, all-knowing Original Being of Christianity, then we mirror those qualities. Adding in one more element we read: male and female created It them . . . If dual genders reflect God/dess, it must be both male and female, both passive in creation and active in consciousness. And so begins duality. Why that?

If, as Genesis states, God/dess created humanity as a mirror in which to see Itself, then Humans had to be structured in such a way that they could develop self-awareness. Divine self-awareness must come through human self-awareness. Imagine an infinite Being in an absolute state. Anything absolute is unchanging, immobile, completely static. Now imagine that this Absolute Being dreams of becoming more, of learning, growing, becoming. Somewhere within Absolute Existence the seeds of that dream are quickened and Life begins to gestate.

Now the dream adds detail, and a Universe is created, then a very specific kind of world in which the children of a God/dess can be born in human form. Eden is the model of that dream. Adam(s) and Eve(s) are the prototypes of the progeny that will take title to it.

These beings may appear magically–or be an end product of animate evolution. It matters not. Next comes the eighth day of Genesis two.

And God/dess formed humans out of the dust of the ground (out of earth elements) and breathed into their nostrils the breath of life, and they became living souls.

At this point, human consciousness is formed from the very breath of God/dess. Here began the long process of learning to recognize and identify with the Divine half of our genetics, for we are half animate-half divine. It will take many lifetimes and mistakes will be made, but the cycle of Human Life begins here. Shortly, Adam is given the task of naming all of life.

True human consciousness begins with names. The beginning of thought and speech is learning the names of things. If you have reared children, you know that this is true. The little one begins by pointing and naming. Then after a period of innocence, in the Garden, comes the legend of the Snake and his temptation.

For students of esoteric and spiritual studies, the snake is the symbol of consciousness rising through the spinal column, into the chakras. How interesting that the Edenic snake of rising consciousness, tempted Eve to taste of Good-and-Evil. We interpret this as the origin of logical process. Logic is a method of thought, based on contrast and comparison: right-left, dark-light, up-down, inner-outer, and most critical of all, good-evil. Here came the first error in judgment, as humanity began to think in columns with the words GOOD and EVIL at the head. Under good went light, under evil went dark, right was good, left was evil/not-good . . . and so on.

What is Evil?

It is our thesis that the division of the world into good and evil classifications was the original sin. Keep in mind that sin is an old Greek archery term which simply means that we missed the mark, the bulls-eye. So then the term original sin is merely intended to point to the initial error in judgment that named a significant part of our World, our lives, evil.

Please note that E-V-I-L is LIVE spelled backward. The only true evil is that which is anti-life, that which drains energy from other lives, destroys hope, betrays love, or makes lives less than they could be.

And, if we must consider a Lord of Evil (this is borrowed from Zoroastrianism–and not correctly), consider this: De-EVIL. This suggests a personified anti-life being–one whose goal is to maim and/or destroy life.


Dark and Light

Darkness is the absence of light. Light can overcome the dark, but Dark cannot affect light. When someone is “in the dark” s/he is being kept unaware of something, denied knowledge of some secret.

In horoscopes three areas deal with dark. One area (Cancer, 4th House) refers to the lack of knowledge due to immaturity, especially that period before we have full use of language. Another area refers to forbidden knowledge (Scorpio, 8th House), those subjects kept secret from children (sex, death, taxes), and the family taboos. (We don’t talk about Grandpa’s drinking. Don’t tell anyone that I hit you.) The third area is traditionally called unconscious(Pisces, 12th House). It contains both sub- and super-consciousness, along with whatever we have forgotten for whatever reasons. This will include our past lives. This third area is largely inaccessible without the use of some hypno-technique or divination tool (tarot, astrology, numerology, pendulum, etc.), although it sometimes calls to us in dreams or visions.

There is nothing particularly negative about the dark. The probable origin of this belief may be the general tendency to fear the unknown. For the true symbolic meaning of dark is simply the unknown. Consider this: All life begins in the dark . . . of the womb or the soil.

In metaphysical terms that which is in the light is merely that which we can see. Grasping a new idea or concept, we say “the light dawned,” and we say, “I see.” To be enlightened is to have seen more than before, maybe more than others. To be “the light of the world”is to be one who spreads/shares knowledge, a disseminator of information.

Again, three areas deal with light. One deals with the spark of light (Aries, 1st House), the light that goes out into the unknown, the pioneers who bring the first sparks of light into a previously unknown place–in form or in consciousness, and the spark that quickens life within the dark of a womb or the depths of the soil. These may light candles and lamps for others.

The second is Sunlight (Leo, 5th House), the light of day and the steady light of hearth-fires. This is a steady and steadfast light, one often taken for granted. It is the basic, elemental light, without which life on Earth would not exist. The third area of light is the infinite and eternal light of truth (Sagittarius, 9th House). It is starlight, light that comes from the far reaches of time and space. It is the Bethlehem Star, leading humanity to newborn avatars, enlightenment that appears against the dark background of space.

For many thousands of years, it took every day, all day, to provide for individuals and families, There was no time for thought, or dreams. And yet, there was always a sense of something more, something greater that affected their lives. They saw it in nature and the weather. Most tribes set aside an individual to handle the spiritual chores for the group. In turn the group supported and provided for its local Priest/tess.

Then within a few centuries came the Greek thinkers, Lao Tzu, Confucius, and Gautama Buddha. A few more centuries and one Jesus ben Joseph came to sum up the ideas and synthesize a new set of instructions for the maturation of humanity. He announced that, at the beginning of the age of Pisces, humanity was ready to begin making its own moral and political choices. It was no wonder, he was crucified, for he prophesied the end of the priesthoods and monarchies.

From that time, various kinds of strife began to flourish. Largely during the next millennium and a half, most of the monarchies disappeared. Usually through war and uprising, they various hereditary monarchies were overthrown, and most of the feudal systems went with them. Bit by bit, new forms of governance replaced the old. Today’s few remaining monarchies are more romantic figureheads than rulers.

Gradually, in the later half of the 20th century, industrialization gave humans more time to think. Education grew in importance and human minds became increasingly active. Once humans had the time and tools to think they began to question the old religions.

The great sin of the churches was that they attempted to keep religion and its Deities confined within the old definitions and man contained within moralities designed for a much younger species. Economies grew. Inventions proliferated. Intelligence and general awareness expanded by leaps and bounds. Life was evolving at an ever-increasing rate.

Meanwhile, for the most part the churches/priesthoods remained increasingly stagnant, trying to live, and to force others to live, by a moral structure designed for a tribal society. Out of this came a raging struggle for control of human souls.

I believe that it is this struggle that is responsible for most human ills today. Too many parents still believe in the adage from Proverbs to spare the rod and spoil the child. They, and the priests/ministers/pastors that promote those ideas have completely ignored the fact that Jesus ben Joseph taught a law of love. And yet, they dare to call this Christianity. Churchianity, it may be. Christianity it is not!

And with it are all those other moral rules, especially those about marriage. So few remember that when the “lifetime marriage” was mandated, an average lifetime was 45 years, and nobody ever tried to take a marriage through female menopause! And, what is the point of a mandated lifetime heterosexual marriage at a time when and over-populated world makes 100% fertile unions obsolete?

It is our belief that, at one time, it made sense to go forth and multiply. We think that this was related to a need for a certain population density before the general consciousness could rise.

This sampling of the obsolete ideas is still being promoted by many churches. We think that these beliefs are responsible for a great deal of the human pain, pain that manifests in manipulative and abusive behavior. Pain that sometimes even fosters crime and the spread of danger-courting behavior. It has become critical that we begin accepting responsibility for making our own moral choices.

Perhaps the largest horror of today is the wars being fought in the name of opposing Gods. Listen closely and you will realize that they are not even talking about different Gods. Instead, the battle is about how the One God will be worshiped. Surely that Divinity must weep, perhaps even rage, at what men of free will do with it.

We have free will. Different groups have the freedom to fight each other, enslave, abuse, and hate each other. And where does it all begin?

It begins with the dominion granted in Genesis. God/dess created by the power of the word, and when it did, all was good. It was good and very good. But then human dominion allowed the naming of half(or nearly half) the creation evil, on the theory that good and evil were equal(or almost equal).

And this is where we are today. It is why the world needs Light Bearers and Possibility People. It is the purpose carried in the hearts of the “New Kids.” It is our task to begin the renaming and redefining of Life.

There is no absolute evil, but there is a great deal of objective evil. By this we mean that whatever anyone names evil, must behave evilly until that judgment is removed. It is a large task, but there are more of us daily. And we are learning ways of overcoming our conditioning, of releasing the judgments we learned from the parents and teachers of our childhood.

Little by little we learn to find the good in all things. And when, at first, it is not evident, we learn to ask, “What is this good for?” When we do that, as we form new evaluations of life, new habits of thinking. We are lifting this world higher and higher into the Light.

Let us daily affirm that all things are good, that we are good and getting better, that we may know truth, that we may judge only with divine judgement. It may not change the world overnight, but it will change it. After all, it did not get in this condition overnight.

Trust that, when you seek the good in all things, your thinking is divinely aligned. And if God/dess be for us, with us, who can prevail against us. No one–and that is true, no matter how it may look at a given point in time. Watch a while. Wait a bit. See what good can come of even the darkest night of the soul. Once again, God/dess will speak—

Let there be light!