Numerology, Ir. Chris Engels

 One of the people who were involved with the spiritual encounters at the Palace Het Oude Loo, and later at a Hotel Het Open Veld in the Netherlands in the 50's and early 60's, was the engineer Chris Engels. Something attracted him to what he calls the qualitative meaning of numbers - i.e. as opposed to their more prominent and manifest quantitative meaning. He describes how his interest was kindled by a chance meeting in a German POW camp in world war II, by Rudolf Steiner's work especially on the Gospel of Matthew, the well-known Dutch pediatrician Dr. G.P. van Wijnmalen, who studied the meanings of numbers for many years. Eventually he met Miss M. Hofmans, and in '76 was inspired to discover something about the numerical meaning of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.

Dr. G.P. Wijnmalen (1880-1962) was a Dutch pediatrician who studied the qualitative meanings of numbers for some 40 years, however he never published on the topic. But J.W. Kaiser cites him here and there, and I know that my psychiatrist father has consulted him a few times in situations where some how a number seemed to be key to a therapeutic situation. Numbers in this context can have symbolic meaning. And clearly those meanings have sometimes ancient origins, going back as far as Plato, and who knows before him. 

The following observations are taken from the Dutch manuscript of Ir. Engels that was published privately in the 1990s, with the title (translated) of: Peculiarities Regarding the Expressive Potential of Numbers, also in Antiquity. (An Impossible Story). And it was in three sections, so I will start with the first one, section A, which is titled "Expressions." Engels considers that the whole development of these perceived meanings stretches over 45 centuries and he calls them a hidden red thread, demonstrating the central theme of humanity, of human creativity ranging from procreation all the way to including in the spiritual sense, of transcendence to the Higher Self.  

The first number he discusses is 23, and his explorations are fascinating, including the idea that Plato concidered the dodecahedron a divine symbol of the universe and that if you connect all the internal lines between the points, you get 22 regular multi-faceted shapes, with many intersections and among them are 22-regular multi-surface shapes, resulting in 22+1 regular shaped multi-surface forms, including the initial dodecahedron itself. He connects this to a variety of antique artifacts where 23 appears to be parsed as 22+1. He explores examples in the Odyssee, and elsewhere, and calls the number 23 the Rhythm of Time and Space. And he mentions that in biorhythms, 23 the physical rhythm is. 

The second number he discusses is 42, referring first to an Attic plate with a rim motif of 7 sections of 6 spiral motives, noting that it is a representation of Persephone who alternates between the day world and the underworld, and again the surrounding decoration makes up the number 42. The mystery temple at Eleusis in Greece has 42 columns in 7 rows of 6. And another example from Thracian culture of a plate that celebrates yet another symbol of crossing over between life and death, but noting that in Thracian culture the appreciation was reversed from what we commonly think, considering a birth sad, coming to this vale of misery and a death a happy event, returning to eternal life. He notes how in Egyptian mythology Osiris has 42 servants  as the Lord of Life and Death. Next, he is on to the trek to the promised land where in the book Numbers, 42 stations are mentioned on the journey. Again from the Bible how there are 42 generations from Abraham to Jesus, something Steiner had drawn attention to. Then he gives other examples from Platonic geometry, and a Buddhist tradition that speaks of the 42 streams of the Ganges river. he mentions that in the cycle of Venus, from the time of Morning star to Evening star, and vice-versa it is approximately 2x42 weeks, another way of connecting life and death. He explores the notion of the numbers 6 (Law) and 7 (Wisdom) and explores the meaning of the Wise application of the Law. or also 21 x 2, as the Word in the pairs of opposites.

I might add that J.W. Kaiser in his magnum opus, a commentary and translation of the Gospel according to Mark, adds to this picture by observer that a time, times and half a time, adds up to 1+2=3 + 1/2, totaling 3-1/2 cycles through the zodiac (i.e "time" being one year), or 42 months, which is the 3-1/2 years of Jesus' ministry on earth, and again 42 months being comparable to the 42 "years"  of the trek through the desert in Exodus and Numbers. A journey of salvation, a journey from life in the dream (slavery) to the promised land (salvation). Suggesting this is not so much about the connection between life and death as it is between life in the dream and the time of waking up in the dream.

And that is just the first two of 19 chapters in Section A of the book, respectively 10 and 18 pages long, so I have evidently just lifted out a few interesting details out of what was this man's life's work.

The Dynamics of Waking Up

Johan Willem Kaiser uses some interesting concepts to discuss the process of waking up. 

First, he makes the same point as A Course in Miracles, that we fell asleep and that is why we are also able to wake up:

quote

It is not the Almighty who drives man from the Heart of Creation, but man leaves this Heart and justifies it in his own eyes by projecting the power and consequence of that separation and misinterpreting it as  a punishment or curse from God.

This is how man is, when he comes face to face with the consequences of his own deed.

Man throws himself into the labyrinth of time and space,  mistakes it for reality and subjects himself to hist power; there he creates the barricades of belief, hope and love, against his own true return to Paradise.

unquote

Another interesting place, particularly apropos in these times of Covid, is in the glossary to his bundle of essays, The Mysteries of Jesus in our Lives (only in Dutch), when he discusses the world Herd (my translation):

Herd:

Herd is not a loveless, arrogant word with which to reject our fellow human beings. However, all of us shortchange our inborn human dignity by living like herd animals; not waking, but lazily dreaming and staying asleep within the patterns of norms and thus downgrade the uniqueness of Life to a senseless "repetition" of what others have done already, choking off everything that could be uniquely, truly individual and alive, into "standard."

The laziness of people is evident. The search for development goes on, always farming out the hard parts. For that reason alone herd-man chooses himself a Shepherd. He can have the power, as long as he also takes the responsibility. Nobody can hand off their responsibility to someone else. Still herd-man is prepared to heavy sacrifice as long as he does not have to wake-up. He offers his wife and children, he even offers his own life, if must be, everything rather than waking up, staying awake, and doing the dirty work himself. Because the Herd is always again led to the slaughter (see as clearest illustrations the political herds under their extreme "shepherd,"  Napoleon, Hitler etc.) she experiences catastrophic disappointments, rude "awakenings." Then a small group separates from the herd, the "mass" with an "ideal" (see under Ideal), that venerates the Cross, but does not want to carry it. From it a single individual separates, who undertakes the journey through the Desert of the Prodigal Son, and carries his Cross, because it has been accomplished.    

Translated from J.W. Kaiser, The Mysteries of Jesus in our Lives, Glossary p. 155

My brother is my savior

Johan Willem Kaiser had a unique vocabulary that at times seems very idiosyncratic, and takes a while to understand. One of the expressions he uses is in Dutch "Paas-gedachte," which we would have to render in English as "Easter-thought," not because it's a word we know, but because it is equally neologistic as was his "Paasgedachte" when he wrote it.

Recently, during the Easter-time of 2017, I was thinking about this word again, and I felt inspired to write about it, finally. For the first time in about 45 years of contemplating this specific usage, I am finally read to do it. I should add that it is one of the many examples of interplay with the Course that I fnd in his work. Here is what Kaiser writes in the glossary to his book De mysteriën van Jezus in ons leven (The Mysteries of Jesus in our Life). (Note that his wording suggests that the term itself was channeled, I would assume via Ms. Hofmans):

Not Thought of, or about, Easter. Rather, a condition of the soul. Being dedicated to, being Sacrificial Lamb of.
A few examples can clarify this term that was not coined by people. Nobody is ever attacked unless his is Easter-thought of being-attacked.
In this truth, recognition of which requires a certain self-conquest, rests and Insight that wipes out the illusion of "being duped," or duping. A person is never "duped," by anything or anyone. The acceptance of this, as belief, as spontaneous trust, promptly lifts us up above much bitterness, many feelings of having been short-changed.
We seeming drunks constantly feel duped by other people, by circumstance and accident. But we "believe" in God's Guidance, His Wisdom and His Love!
Well now, that Guidance, Wisdom and Love, continually place us in situations where we encounter salvation. But we see "evil" and "animosity" and we violate, based on so-called self-defense, which finds justification only in the insanity of "self-preservation." What are we to "preserve?" Our lives?" Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, because he continuously evades life. Our body? Not even a sparrow falls from the roof... Here our split-mind manifests: "Help yourself, so help you God." Surely, and the helping we do for ourselves, is nothing but: yielding to the three temptations in the desert.
To realize that nothing happens to us except that of which we are "Easter-thought," means to stop with pseudo-helping, is to become Easter-sensitive. It means to fully experience the Easter-power of what God has ordained, willing like a Lamb.

As a student of A Course in Miracles, I am used to a different vernacular these days, and I would probably use the term 'miracle potential,' for "Easter-power," but the thinking is the same as what the Course teaches, i.e. that my brother is my savior, IF (and only if) I enter my relationship under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. With our ego, we will always feel like a victim, but with the guidance of the Holy Spirit the emphasis will shift towards the miracle potential in every situation. When forgiveness can replace blame, salvation is born, and that is truly the essence of Easter.

The holiest of all the spots on earth is where an ancient hatred has become a present love. And They come quickly to the living temple, where a home for Them has been set up. There is no place in Heaven holier. And They have come to dwell within the temple offered Them, to be Their resting place as well as yours. What hatred has released to love becomes the brightest light in Heaven's radiance. And all the lights in Heaven brighter grow, in gratitude for what has been restored. (ACIM:T-26.IX.6)

and: 

I. Holy Week
This is Palm Sunday, the celebration of victory and the acceptance of the truth. Let us not spend this holy week brooding on the crucifixion of God's Son, but happily in the celebration of his release. For Easter is the sign of peace, not pain. A slain Christ has no meaning. But a risen Christ becomes the symbol of the Son of God's forgiveness on himself; the sign he looks upon himself as healed and whole.
This week begins with palms and ends with lilies, the white and holy sign the Son of God is innocent. Let no dark sign of crucifixion intervene between the journey and its purpose; between the acceptance of the truth and its expression. This week we celebrate life, not death. And we honor the perfect purity of the Son of God, and not his sins. Offer your brother the gift of lilies, not the crown of thorns; the gift of love and not the "gift" of fear. You stand beside your brother, thorns in one hand and lilies in the other, uncertain which to give. Join now with me and throw away the thorns, offering the lilies to replace them. This Easter I would have the gift of your forgiveness offered by you to me, and returned by me to you. We cannot be united in crucifixion and in death. Nor can the resurrection be complete till your forgiveness rests on Christ, along with mine.
A week is short, and yet this holy week is the symbol of the whole journey the Son of God has undertaken. He started with the sign of victory, the promise of the resurrection, already given him. Let him not wander into the temptation of crucifixion, and delay him there. Help him to go in peace beyond it, with the light of his own innocence lighting his way to his redemption and release. Hold him not back with thorns and nails when his redemption is so near. But let the whiteness of your shining gift of lilies speed him on his way to resurrection.
Easter is not the celebration of the cost of sin, but of its end. If you see glimpses of the face of Christ behind the veil, looking between the snow-white petals of the lilies you have received and given as your gift, you will behold your brother's face and recognize it. I was a stranger and you took me in, not knowing who I was. Yet for your gift of lilies you will know. In your forgiveness of this stranger, alien to you and yet your ancient Friend, lies his release and your redemption with him. The time of Easter is a time of joy, and not of mourning. Look on your risen Friend, and celebrate his holiness along with me. For Easter is the time of your salvation, along with mine. (ACIM:T-20.I)

Thus, if we truly "place the future in the hands of God," as the Course calls it, i.e. resign our commitment to the split mind which the ego fosters, and take our guidance from the Holy Spirit instead, every situation is a classroom for forgiveness, and thus is salvation born.