“Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” ~Carl Jung

The problem of evil is not out there. It is here. In my view it is the work we avoid, the kings and queens we cling to, the identities we defend like fortresses. Until we face that, our divisions will keep putting on new masks and selling us the same show.

Times have shifted. It is exciting and a little uncertain. Women and men, keep your head up. Know your value. Know the value of the souls around you, the people you pause on in your feed, the neighbor you are tempted to label and scapegoat. It does not have to be either or. Logic and reason are not satisfied by easy binaries anyway. Yes, there are real issues and real conversations to be had. We need everyone at the table.

To do that, we need a common tongue. We need to speak and listen in ways that let a shared life even be possible. If we can understand that the Way, whether you call it Zen or Alchemy or Jesus, cuts inward and guides each person toward authentic inner and outer wholeness, we have a chance. Divine exposure and acceptance. Personal freedom and responsibility. My Scriptures look to a time when humans bear the divine image completely, when Law and Spirit are within our hearts, when sons and daughters prophesy like small talk because intimacy with God is not rare anymore.

However, the path inward always leads us to ourselves. And for the alchemist, the shaman, the Christian, or the witch, the Way makes us confront not just our beliefs, but our assumptions and even our relationships to those beliefs. Transformation always asks for the same offering. Ego death, and the work of God, as we understand the Holy and, more importantly, as the Holy understands us. This is the descent every egoic soul must ascend.

If you want a test for whether your spirituality is working, try this. Are you listening more deeply than you argue? Are you more curious than defensive? Are you less interested in king-making and more interested in god-work? Do you see the image of God in a cubicle, in a feed, under a bridge, at your kitchen table? Are you becoming more human? If not, then whatever crown you are chasing, drop it. The crown is the problem.

I am not asking us to like this. I am asking us to be honest. I am asking us to try a different kind of strength. Let some of our issues die. Pick up the ones that are bound up with our identity, and let them be healed. It will feel like losing. It will feel like you are the one who has to go first. That is because you do and you are.

We want a world that is less cruel, less absurd, less performative. The way there will not be through a better king. It will be through better humans. People who have done the god- work. People who have died to self and can listen. People who can hold the opposites without needing to kill the other side to feel whole. People who can see Lilith without worshiping or burning her, and can see Adam without excusing him. People who can say “Abba” and “Pater in their own words.

It’s possible because others have done it before us. My book is one long attempt to say it out loud without hiding. As I see it, the Son of Man is not a conquering king waiting to save us from ourselves, or a divine Father waiting to punish us. The Son of Man is an archetype of awakened humanity, the call to become a people mature enough to let go of our kings and our kingdoms and to risk being human together.

All it takes is a little faith, some ego death, and telling the truth in love. Against such things, there is no law. Wherever you are, go for it. God is right there.

Excerpted from The Son of Man & Its Mystical Awakening: Reclaiming Eschatology & Atonement During a Convergence of Globalization, Nihilism, Science, & Spirituality by Paule W. Patterson III

Images are albumen silver prints by Edward J. Woolsey (1803–1872)