Tag: Tree of Life

The Two Deaths in Mystical Christianity

Bryce Haymond5 Comments

I think that Christianity may have conflated Jesus's mystical experience of an ego death, perhaps at the time of his baptism when the "heavens opened," in which his individual psychological self "died" and he was was "reborn" of Spirit, or "raised up" (resurrected) to his identity in Christ consciousness (a consciousness of nondual union in God/Reality), with his biological death on the cross. These two deaths seem to have been conflated at some point, resulting in a supernatural conception of the resurrection.

A Psychological and Mystical Interpretation of the Myth of Adam & Eve and the Garden of Eden

Bryce Haymond11 Comments

I think the story of Adam & Eve is a mythological allegory describing humanity's "fall" of consciousness into the dualities of self-awareness, subject/object relationships, and the opposites of existence. This is symbolized in the partaking of the "tree" of knowledge of good and evil, i.e. dualities.

What is “Eternal Life”?

Bryce HaymondLeave a comment

Eternal life is not eternal if it doesn't exist right now, because that which is eternal has no beginning or end. We either have eternal life now, or we don't have it. Because you are reading this now, you can be sure you have it, even if you don't know it for yourself.

What is the Second Coming?

Bryce Haymond2 Comments

One of the most profound realizations I've had in recent years is that the Second Coming is something that we can effect through our "repentance" (metanoia = a change of mind, or conscious perception of the world).

Annie Dillard's "First Vision" Account

Bryce HaymondLeave a comment

Annie Dillard (b. 1945) is an American author of fiction and non-fiction. She won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-fiction in 1975 for her work Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. This nonfiction book was written in the first-person detailing Dillard's exploration around her home in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains and her close observation of nature and life.

The Evolution of Ego in the Allegory of Adam & Eve

Bryce Haymond5 Comments

I think the nature of the development of the ego-self in our consciousness, both in the evolution of humanity at large, and within each of us in our childhood, is what is being symbolized in the mythology of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic story of the Garden of Eden and Adam & Eve.