I have begun reading the Gospel of Mark lately (in preparation for a Bible Study group I’m hoping to start), and I have been doing it out-loud, which is how I understand that ancient monks apparently did it. I have to say that it is a radically different experience. I have also been trying to adapt some of the techniques of Lectio Divina as well, but have not been following them in any kind of strict format. I have more just been reading one chapter out loud at a time, and while I am reading I maintain a kind of receptivity, waiting for and noting lines which jump out at me, and then when I am finished reading the chapter, I come back and read that line or lines several times out loud and then meditate with no particular agenda in mind, just quiet receptivity.
One of the interesting things I have been discovering, which I hear is unique to Mark (though I haven’t gone through the other Evangelists yet) is that there are certain words which Jesus utters which are not translated from the original Syriac or Aramaic, but which are immediately afterwards translated into English. It seems a very peculiar thing within the text. The two examples I have come across so far are when Jesus heals the sick/dead girl who is the daughter of Jairus by uttering the words, “Talitha Cumi” (which means, “Little maiden, arise!”). I must admit, that the first time I read those words, they struck me with an eerie kind of familiarity. And I have been experiencing this increasingly gnawing feeling that I heard those words somewhere when I was a very young child - or perhaps before.
The same thing happened when I read Jesus utter the word “Ephphatha” over the man who was deaf and dumb, which means, “Be opened.” It rang with some kind of strange familiarity to me, and I dwelt on it and repeated it to myself during meditation.
And I know this will be a difficult leap for various of my readers to follow me across, but after spending a week fasting and purifying myself, meditating and reading the Bible, I have increasingly come to adopt the perspective that was put forward in the comments to a previous post on this site by a reader, that the Bible “is actually magical.” To put it into the simplest terms possible, the book seems to draw you inside of it. Don’t know how else to describe it, and I do certainly recognize how that is going to sound to people who are operating under a very materialist, “scientific”, rationalist paradigm.
So for the purposes of illustration, let me share a couple other odd occurrences related to this. A couple of days ago, an interview with me was published at an occult blog in which I related a story where Jesus told me a parable about my life’s mission in a dream. The actual dream occurred some time ago, and I tend not to talk about it for fear of people thinking I am over the edge (I know that’s a silly fear at this point, of course!). I wrote in that interview:
In the dream I was laying at night in an ancient city square in the Middle East somewhere. Around me lay beggars and poor people on blankets and mats. We were gathered there because we knew Jesus would be coming through that way. We were hoping to see him, touch him, be healed by him. He approached the place where I lay. My brother’s cat was with me, and Jesus appeared to the cat first as another larger cat. They licked each other and purred. Then he came over to me and appeared as a person, roughly similar to the way he is classically picture - with a beard and flowing hair, etc. Except that his eyes were orange and his face somehow looked like the face of all people at once. And he told me a parable that explained my lifes mission. It had to do with people who went to the doctor to be healed, but were only made more sick. I understood that my mission then had to do with enabling those people to heal themselves.
And then, the very next day, in the Gospel of Mark, I discovered that the parable Jesus told me is actually right there in the bible, chapter 5, verse 26 in particular jumps out as an almost word for word parallel, but I’ll paste in the whole thing:
25 And a certain woman, which had an issue of blood twelve years,
26 And had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse,
27 When she had heard of Jesus, came in the press behind, and touched his garment.
28 For she said, If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole.
29 And straightway the fountain of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of that plague.
30 And Jesus, immediately knowing in himself that virtue had gone out of him, turned him about in the press, and said, Who touched my clothes?
31 And his disciples said unto him, Thou seest the multitude thronging thee, and sayest thou, Who touched me?
32 And he looked round about to see her that had done this thing.
33 But the woman fearing and trembling, knowing what was done in her, came and fell down before him, and told him all the truth.
34 And he said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague.
Skeptics will certainly call this “confirmation bias.” And it’s totally natural to want to wrap strange experiences in a linear linguistic container. But fortunately, you can try this stuff out for yourself, simply by reading the Bible and seeing if strange parallels start happening to you as well. Then come back and tell me how crazy I am!
If you want to give it a try, I recommend the following technique:
Light some candles and incense. Turn off all music, unless its something you like to meditate with. Sit down on the floor, cross-legged or however is comfortable for you. But maintain good posture. You’ll know it when you feel it. Move around a bunch until you hit the right alignment. Spend a few minutes focusing on your breath, filling up your stomach as you inhale (expanding your diaphragm), and flattening your stomach back towards your spine on exhale. Keep this up while you pick up your Bible and begin reading. Begin with whatever book you feel interested in (read an actual book version of the Bible, not an online version). Genesis is a good place to start obviously, or one of the Four Gospels makes sense as well. Then read out loud in a clear and strong voice one chapter at a sitting. I personally recommend doing this once per day, one chapter at a time. As you read, relax and be receptive to any line or lines which jump out at you. When you’re finished reading, come back and repeat these to yourself out loud several times, and then inwardly in silence. Put the book down, close your eyes, and spend a few more minutes focusing on your breath and letting everything else that comes up go.
Combining this with any other meditative technique afterwards or before may work as well. But you’re on your own as to what happens with it. I’m still experimenting with it myself, but have had some seriously explosive patterns and connections forming in my life around the reading that I have done over the past week. It doesn’t seem to be something that unfolds all at once though, which is why I recommend reading only one chapter at a time, and allowing it all time to percolate inside of you.
Let me know what happens! Am very curious to hear about other people’s experiences of this technique - whether you “believe,” don’t believe or none of the above.
[Also see my post on my "Maranatha" experiences earlier this year, and compare this to the conversation which developed around the subject of the number 23.]
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18 Comments
If you really want to get into it, try singing or chanting the words as you read them instead of just speaking them out-loud.
The principle of this, in one sense, could be compared to the difference of experience you get when you sing along with and dance to a song as opposed to just listening to it passively…
See what happens!
What I gathered from this post:
1. Some words in the Bible have a magickal quality to them
2. Some stories in the Bible have a magickal quality to them
As for the former, couldn’t you say this for all words? Perhaps some more than others. Whether this has to do with age, prevalance, sound, or meaning I don’t know. Maybe a combination of both. Personally I think words are most magical when they are fully harmonious with themselves, as in when the sound of the word matches its meaning in some way. Not merely in terms of mimicry, but also on a deeper level of energy imprints or archetypes. The same elemental dynamic, common to multiple levels of manifestation.
In a way, the same counts for the second notion. Stories also have an archetypal level to them, a result of the characters and their choices. Whether you resonate with a story depends on your (subconscious) ability to identify with the archetypes expressed in it. Since the Bible is all about archetypes being expressed, combined, and remixed, it basically covers the whole of the human experience. An interesting query is whether you can have the same kind of resonance with a story from a different source. Especially if that source has been imprinted in your consciousness from a young age. Would a Muslim have the same experience reading the Quran in this manner?
Rushkoff created an intriguing comic (Testament) in which particular stories from the Bible are told, and simultaneously retold in a parallel reality with different characters and contexts. I haven’t read it yet, but it apparently has quite the impact on the reader. It seems to suggest that the power of these stories and characters comes from their archetypal content.
That famous woman healed by Christ developed a minor mythology of her own:
hxxp://www.ucalgary.ca/~vandersp/Courses/texts/eusebius/eusehe7.html#XVIII
and she is mentioned by several other church fathers.
I attended an unprogrammed Quaker meeting yesterday and had an insight about meditation during meditation. The story of Matthew 14:22-33 can be thought of alchemically, “the waters” representing what they always do alchemically, and Peter’s attempt to imitate Christ (who comes to meet them despite the ongoing storm) fails because he directs his attention to the waves instead of to the still point and axis, the Christ who is at that moment leading Peter to forget himself and have faith enough to come to him.
If there is magic power in any book (imo, there is no doubt!) it is because the same spirit that animated the authors of the book animates us, the symbolic narrative cause us to forget our self and turn our attention to our Self.
Thanks for the link again Tim. I wholeheartedly agree with your thesis here. I have experienced very similar things. I have also tried this out using the old testament and psalms. I found it also worked well using Gregg Braden’s Lost Mode of Prayer — The Lost Mode of Prayer, which is a great book in its own right.
Tim, you might like this if you haven’t seen it already:
http://altreligion.about.com/library/texts/bl_egyptianmagic11.htm
The magical portion nbegins here:
http://altreligion.about.com/library/texts/bl_egyptianmagic17.htm
BTW, being ‘raised’ is also part of a Masonic initiation.
This was a really great post, and one that has come at a really great time for me.
It is quite unfortunate that one of the negative effects of my schooling experience is an ingrainted urge to “hurry hurry hurry hurry” through whatever I read… even when it is something I’m 100% insterested in. Frequently I’ll find my eyes racing ahead with the motive of covering ground instead of taking it in. A habit, no doubt, I picked up from those nasty assigned books from English class.
The entire “out loud” idea seems to short-circuit this entirely. I love reading things outloud, memorizing movie quotes, etc. I can still rattle off the Ezekiel 25:17 from Pulp Fiction without missing a blink, a favorite passage from Pulp Fiction I internalized in high school. There defintely seems to be a majestic power in the voice that has nothing to do with superficial “information” (as understood by the rational mind) but instead delves into the depths of us all.
PS — I highly recommend Rushkoff’s “Testament” graphic novel. The Biblical parallels are of course great, though I’m suprisingly quite taken by the artist’s depiction of several stories from the Bible (especially anytime that a diety intervenes). A great preview (with the first few pages and commentary from Rushkoff) can be found here http://www.popimage.com/content/testamentpreview2005.html
Only skeptics? I’d say that anyone aproaching it with the intent of finding the truth of the situation would be adding that to the list. Right, wrong, it’s one explanation which has a fair probability of being the case and which, as a result, deserves fair consideration before writing it off. Is it really so evil to weigh all possible angles to explain an occurance that a evil skeptic strawman has to be thrown in?
As to the reading out loud, that reminds me of an urban legend about St. Augustine converting people because his ability to read the bible silently was considered almost superhuman. Myth, but a fun one.
Evil skeptic strawman? That sounds like something a skeptic would say!
this is marginally related, but have you seen the trailer for The Fountain? If you can’t get a few good posts outta this, then i don’t know…
http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/thefountain/trailer1/medium.html
I’m curious about the lure to studying the bible? I don’t mean to sound rude or negative but… what’t the point? Why choose it over any other religous text?
It is, to me, neither the most interesting, original, mystical, entertaining, enlightening or profound of religous texts.
I know this must sound awful - I am not trying to dissuade you but I am curious as to your motivation.
I feel a strange compulsion that is against my nature here - I want to support something from which postive things can come (Tim studying the bible) yet I am more inclined to badmouth Christianity than usual.
Maybe I am jealous? Or better, protective of Tim and his considerable scholarly gifts and occult inclinations?
The bible, to me, is the liberetto for the wrong opera. Or maybe a playbill for the play within the play within the play that doesn’t matter much to the actual plot but somehow got a lot of attention.
Oooo. I like that AND it’s original.
The bible is like…
Well Gary, my only recommendation is simply that you try out the exercise I describe above and see what your own reaction is! It doesn’t really matter what mine are at the end of the day. And anyway, my reasons for doing so are essentially your reasons for doing so: I had the same questions. Why should somebody do this? What would they get out of it? What’s the point?
Think of it like basketball (or whatever sport): you don’t need to believe it or “see the point” to enjoy it or to get something out of the experience. But if you approach the activity with an open mind and a commitment to discipline, then you will probably get a great deal more out of it than someone who only plays casually.
Most important points to consider if you do decide to embark on this exercise: choose one book of the Bible to read. Make sure you read it out loud. And only read one chapter a day. Try to be in a meditative state before and after you do it.
I just bought and started reading the Testament graphic novel today. And as much as I love Rushkoff, I have to say that the comic kinda sucks!
‘Talitha Cumi’ was an X-files episode, and ‘Ephphatha’ makes me think of Watership Down - though there was little sacred about ‘Efrafa’ in that novel. (If you by some strange chance haven’t read it, let’s just say it ain’t about rabbits. It’s a strange long deep rabbit-hole of a book that perhaps needs to be read in the manner you describe. There’s a couple of other secular books I can think of that really benefit from being read out loud.)
Fascinating stuff. Keep it up!
Yeah I just watched it last night. Good episode too.
in pulp fiction the character that kept quoting Ezekiel 25:17 in such an evocative way deconstructed it in the end to make it mean what he wanted it to mean and allowed him to forgive the bungling hold-up man and his girlfriend…..i guess it was his atonement for being a bad motherfucker.
the spoken word differs from the read in that it is a tribal spell. it excites the ears of those who listen and is a totally different neural process than reading, which is a passive personal trip.
Not to mention Samuel L J reads it in his own impressive voice style, with a furious look on his face…