The Grateful Dead
| The Grateful Dead | |
|---|---|
| 130px | |
| Author | David LaCroix |
| Type of Article | Category:Blog |
| Website | http://scientolipedia.org |
- This article is about Spiritualism vs. Materialism - a Scientologist's perspective - not the famous rock and roll band. (how they came up with the name is an interesting story of its own though)[1]
the story
The legend of a grateful ghost or spirit is found in many cultures around the world. It has to do with a stranger, usually a traveler, who's act of kindness in seeing to the proper burial of someone, gets rewarded by the spirit of that person. (see Wikipedia article below)
Other than the obvious moral lesson i.e. be kind and generous to your fellow man, the story invokes the idea that the spirit lives on and is capable of sentient thought - like gratitude - and also capable of bestowing rewards. Quite an astonishing concept from our modern perspective.
The fact this "myth" is found throughout many cultures around the world in possibly the most noteworthy bit. Like many other myths or tales or legends, cultures around the entire world seem to have found a 'truth' common to them all and repeat the same basic story.
Is this confirmation that the pre-industrial world was populated by superstitious fools believing in afterlife interactions with flesh and blood humans? Or does it speak to a lost understanding man once shared universally? And how exactly, do these "myths" emerge in numerous places seemingly independent of each other?
folklore and mythology
Folklore and mythology have historically played a dominant role in cultures around the world. They were the core transmitters of knowledge, wisdom, history and morals for people, and more often than not, validated man's basic belief in himself as a spiritual being.
Today's modern materialistic world has lost much of that rich well of culture and understanding to be replaced with an over-reliance on machines, gadgets and all sorts of awe-inspiring technological wizardry. This has led to a general degradation of societies' appreciation and understanding of spiritual matters. Religion sought to replace myth, legend and lore with dogma, ritual and subservience. Then the industrial age sought to mechanize and automate everything.
Man's innate understanding of himself and his spirituality has suffered as a result.
a common misnomer
Calling the dead, "dead", is actually a falsehood. The dead are very much alive, albeit "sans le corps" (without a body), ...as alive as thee or me. This is something most people accept, at least on some level, and something one gets an ever greater "reality" on as one progresses "up the Bridge" in Scientology.
As greater and greater impediments to ones perception and understanding of our true spiritual nature decrease through auditing, ones communication with and understanding of our own and others' spiritual natures increases - which results in an increased certainty the spiritual world is very much alive and indeed, far from being dead.
Those who are too firmly entrenched in the materialistic world are often incapable of discerning these things and you will very often find them railing against, mocking and nullifying such suggestions. It has always been so. But as mentioned above, man's long-held belief in himself as a spiritual being far outweighs and outnumbers the naysayers.
There's no need to attempt to offer proof to the materialist since we all have an appointment with the final arbiter anyway.
wikipedia
summary
Pay more attention to fairy tales. ♥
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