Notes on the Three Spiritual Traditions Conference at Loyola University, Chicago
I spent two wonderful days listening to teachers in three spiritual traditions--Judaism (Rabbi Howard Addison), Islam (Prof. Marcia Hermansen) and medieval Christian mysticism (Prof. Mark Johnston). After a day of the inevitable abreaction, or karmic backlash, I'm ready to share my impressions of this experience.
There were many high moments, particularly in listening to the Rabbi's accounting of his visit in Jerusalem, where he went out at dawn to listen to the devout pray, and heard the prayers of the Kabbalah spoken in an order by Sephardic Jews that that was different than what he had experienced in his Ashkenazi tradition--an order that closely matched the Enneagram. . . . thus were one of the moments in the day when we collectively engaged in the spiritual practice of comparing one spiritual system with another, and experiencing realizations and revelations as a result.
Marcia led us in meditation practices from the Sufi tradition that she follows, practices in which we utilized the breath in specific ways, to create sounds that reverberated different chakras, to create altered states within us . . . these practices gently open the level of the heart as a subtle organ of perception.
Marcia also differentiated stages in spiritual practice as levels of permanent spiritual attainment, from spiritual states--the former being, for example, fear of God, piety, perplexity and bewilderment, shattering, emptying are high stages of development. She also briefly presented the concept of different paths, or margas. Discernment is one path, learning from observing, from reading; Pakti is another path--that of love or devotion. There is also the path of good works. There is the path of doing (i.e., breath work). Sufism recognizes these different paths.
Circles of 9 with a 10th quality representing God or Essence are Aristotelian in origin.
In his discussion of Ramon Llull, Mark drew comparisons between Llull's work and that of Sandra Maitri . . . but I see some parallels with the work of Helen Palmer, not just in terms of her writing, but in terms of her life work. Llull's work was done outside the academy and outside the church, and while his work was respected during his life, it lasted for a full 600 YEARS AFTER HE DIED through the more than 300 manuscripts he wrote, schools--even a university on Majorca--that were established to present curricula through the lens of Llull's perspective and practices.
Both Gurdjieff and Ichazo have cited Llull as a source.
Rabbi Addison pointed out that the Hasidic movement in the 19th century brought in the psychologization of the Kabbalah. The Spanish Kabbalah was cosmological and focused on creation. The Rabbi also described the movement of these systems as coming from antiquity with nineness, through the Desert Fathers with Eight Frames of Mind, then to Seven Deadly Sins, then Llull goes back to nine.
More musings on this another time.
10:49:47 PM 
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