"Knowledge has three degrees: opinion, science, illumination. The means or instrument of the first is sense; of the second dialectic; of the third, intuition."fooloso4 wrote: ↑Wed Jul 19, 2017 2:45 am Nick_A:
Instead of allowing the text show you how it is to be read you impose your notion of “levels of reality” on it and call this esotericism. You have not shown anything in the text to support your arbitrary reading and instead throw up a defense and claim that anyone who does not agree with you does not know how to to read the Bible. Blame it on secular intolerance but some of us expect textual support for an interpretation. Otherwise anyone can claim that the words mean whatever they say they mean and then accuse others of not knowing how to read the Bible. Your claim that you know how to read the Bible is not enough for anyone to take your interpretation seriously.This passage was not designed to appeal to literal reason.
Plotinus, (Letter to Flaccus)
The purpose of the Bible isn't to offer scientific proofs or invite arguments over opinions. its purpose is to enable and further the experience of intuition through conscious contemplation
Are you familiar with the relationship between the microcosmos and the macrocosmos?
From wiki
If you consciously perceive of what it means for the microcosmos as a reflection of world creation existing withing the macrocosmos which is also a mini universe with microcosmoses inside of it. The idea here is that Man on earth is a grouping including microcosmoses with the conscious potential to become a macrocosmos - a higher quality of being.Macrocosm and microcosm refers to a vision of cosmos where the part (microcosm) reflects the whole (macrocosm) and vice versa. It is a feature "present in all esoteric schools of thinking", according to scholar Pierre A. Riffard.[2] It is closely associated with Hermeticism and underlies practices such as astrology, alchemy, and sacred geometry with its premise of "As Above, So Below".[3]
Also from wiki
A person can experience the reality of this relationship through intuition and sacred scripture inspires intuition.Robert Fludd's illustration of man as the microcosm within the universal macrocosm. Fludd states that "Man is a whole world of its own, called microcosm for it displays a miniature pattern of all the parts of the universe. Thus the head is related to the Empyreal, the chest to the ethereal heaven and the belly to the elementary substance."[1]