The Library of Congress is the largest library in the world, with millions of books, films and video, audio recordings, photographs, newspapers, maps and manuscripts in its collections. The Library is the main research arm of the U.S. Congress and the home of the U.S. Copyright Office. According to the Library of Congress, “In the 5th century B.C., Empedocles and Anaxagoras offered arguments for the spherical nature of the Earth. During a lunar eclipse, when the Earth is between the sun and the moon, they identified the shadow of the Earth on the moon. As the shadow moves across the moon it is clearly round.”
This information was not welcome.
While at the University of Padua Galileo learned of Nicolaus Copernicus’ theory (published in 1543) that the Earth and all the other planets revolved around the Sun. Soon Galileo’s observations with the newly invented telescope convinced him of the truth of Copernicus’ sun-centered, or heliocentric theory.
This information was not welcome either.
All new ideas are met with three distinct phases: First they are ridiculed. Next they are resisted. Then they are accepted as the norm.
Pondering all of this, I am reminded of the “As-if Frame” in NLP. From NLP World: “The intent of this frame is to make it easier for a person to explore possibilities and ideas internally, which would usually not be as available to them due to their limiting beliefs about themselves or others. The specific effect sought is to allow a person’s limiting beliefs to be temporarily set aside for the purpose of exploring alternate possibilities, without having to threaten or challenge their existing conceptual world-view in the process.”
Obviously there is huge benefit to suspending beliefs that are not generating wholesome outcomes — perhaps most especially our own beliefs! And, using the “As-if Frame” is an easy way to see for yourself where beliefs you are holding are holding you back.
Gary Zukav says the Universe is intimate. It is inside you, not outside.
In 1981, James W. Fowler published Stages of Faith. Here is an excerpt from a pdf I found on line:
Stage 1: This is the stage of preschool children in which fantasy and reality often get mixed together. However, during this stage, our most basic ideas about God are usually picked up from my parents and/or society.
Stage 2: When children become school-age, they start understanding the world in more logical ways. They generally accept the stories told them by their faith community but tend to understand them in very literal ways. [A few people remain in this stage through adulthood.]
Stage 3: Most people move into this stage as teenagers. At this point, their life has grown to include several different social circles and there is a need to pull it all together. When this happens, a person usually adopts some sort of all-encompassing belief system. However, at this stage, people tend to have a hard time seeing outside their box and don’t recognize that they are “inside” a believe system. At this stage, authority is usually placed in individuals or groups that represent one’s beliefs. [This is the stage in which many people remain.]
Stage 4: This is the tough stage, often begun in young adulthood, when people start seeing outside the box and realize that there are other “boxes”. They begin to critically examine their beliefs on their own and often become disillusioned with their former faith. Ironically, the Stage 3 people usually think that Stage 4 people have become “backsliders” when in reality they have actually moved forward.
Stage 5: It is rare for people to reach this stage before mid-life. This is the point when people begin to realize the limits of logic and start to except the paradoxes in life. They begin to see life as a mystery and often return to sacred stories and symbols but this time without being stuck in a theological box.
Stage 6: Few people reach the stage. Those who do live their lives to the full in service of others without any real worries or doubts.
We have come to see that many things thought about as “stages” are not linear in the way they were initially considered to be. A good example is the work around grief done by Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. You might want to look at Fowler’s stages of faith through an “As-if frame” allowing us to see even closely-held beliefs simply as having been developed.
Following a recent day of meditation on line with others around the world, I saw a green stick bug in our yard. It literally emerged from a plant and looked directly at me. It felt significant enough that I looked up the spiritual meaning, and read it’s amazing message.
Stick Bug symbolism is a reminder that life is full of illusions. Things that look like something but in reality are something entirely different. In other words, we have to see through what we perceive as fact to find the real truth hidden beneath it. Thus, it is now time to examine each of your beliefs one at a time so that you can discard anything that blinds you to reality. This process takes time. However, the Stick Bug meaning is a reminder that what you see is not necessarily what you get. This spirit animal insists that you open your eyes, ears, and mind today to discover a new truth.
Especially at this time in human history, there is a need for a willingness to recognize the limits of logic and to see life as a mystery.
