Where Angels and Demons All Belong
By Adrian Pyle
Director of Mission Participation Resource Unit
Uniting Church in Australia
Vic / Tas Synod
I have been musing over the levels of consciousness apparent in the Hebrew scripture as I have been writing some pieces about stages of life in faith communities. Philosopher Rene Girard wrote that in Hebrew scriptures (and in the Christian scriptures) there is a constant movement amongst the three levels of consciousness (the law, the prophetic voice and wisdom) as people grasp wisdom and then lose it. Girard hence referred to the Bible as a “text in travail” because of this “getting and losing.” And of course those of us who have adopted these scriptures as a narrative for our lives recognize the same pattern of “getting and losing” in our own lives. So in writing about these three levels of consciousness for our individual lives and for our life in community I am writing about the need to keep them in healthy relationship or in a constant dance in which all levels of consciousness participate.
‘Law consciousness’ is of course an attempt to raise consciousness through prescription. In this level of consciousness we develop definitive human understandings of what and who is to acceptable based on our experience (and what and who is not acceptable). It is a necessary level of consciousness in order to create a sense of safety in which basic psychological growth might occur and in which a basic sense of enterprise might develop. It is often understood as the preferred level of consciousness for childhood where the safety of rigidity is needed for basic development.
‘Prophetic voice consciousness’ arises when we begin to realize that the very act of defining the rules of ‘law consciousness’ – of making some people safe – excludes others. This is the understanding in Catholic theology whereby angels (that is, the law set up to create a protective environment) fall down to become demons (that is, the law begins to demonise particular people). Some people begin to realize that their exclusion of others is not indeed based on any “direction from God” but is an arbitrary understanding based on particular experiences at the time. Acts of advocacy begin to move consciousness beyond law to something more relational.
The shadow side of ‘prophetic voice consciousness’ arises when our attempts to advocate for “the others” takes us out of relationship with “our own.” We make “our own” into an enemy and create a mind definition again of who is in and who is out. In this way “the last shall be first” becomes a strategy to get the last where the first use to be, and vice-versa, rather than an invitation to transcend definitions of first and last. Einstein’s point that a problem cannot be solved by the same consciousness that created it becomes the operative principle here. You can’t fix exclusion by moving back to exclusion.
‘Wisdom consciousness’ is the place at which we transcend the understanding of “them and us” and hold a place for everything. This doesn’t mean we mindlessly accept actions of exclusion – the prophetic voice still exists here as a way of participating in the World. What also exists here however is an even deeper faith. Thus our attempts at advocacy may not completely stop the life denying forces of exclusion. But we still have faith that the very presence of life-denying exclusion is generating an opposite life-creating force of greater intensity – even if we can’t see it yet! We use our prophetic voice here as strongly as we can but we never let it become an act of retaliatory exclusion. That would be unfaithful.
As I work within and around faith communities, my goal is to have all three levels of consciousness present in their lives. That requires constant coaxing. The move to wisdom consciousness is the Good News of our Christian scriptures but it doesn’t always look like good news. As Jesus is recorded as saying in the Gospel of Thomas:
“Seek and you shall find, but your finding shall lead to confusion….” – the confusion of moving beyond the safety of the law.
The coaxing then is to encourage communities to hear the remainder of the saying “…and from your confusion shall come wonder.” - the wonder of a world where there is room for everything to belong!