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Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox 

10/17/2024

PLEASE NOTE: 

With the days ticking down to 11/5, learn the deeper stakes in this year's election. Get your copy of Trump & the MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election today! Choose your format in the book block below. 

In our book, Natural Grace: dialogues on creation, darkness, and the soul in spirituality and science, Rupert and I talked, among other things, about fields being the new word for soul.

In our discussion about soul, I talked about ritual, and the need for grieving rituals in our time when we all are carrying so much grief over climate change and so much else that is threatening us. 

Rupert Sheldrake describes the process of morphic resonance: past forms and behaviors of organisms influencing organisms today by connections across time and space. PrimeMinds5530

And how deeply people respond and appreciate our Cosmic Mass wherein we always undergo a powerful group grief ritual.

Rupert responded in a way that I think sheds needed light on the present presidential election, and on my book on the archetype of the antichrist being played out by Trump and MAGA at this trying moment in American history.

Rupert said: I like the idea of these rituals. Anger and resentment, like other patterns of emotional response, are not merely personal; they have a generic, habitual quality. For example, if you get into a resentful state of mind, simply by being in that state of mind you tune in by morphic resonance with countless people who have been resentful in the past including yourself.

Matthew Fox reflects on Rupert Sheldrake’s writings on ritual bringing forth ancestral wisdom.

So you are actually influenced by your own past resentments and the resentments many other people have felt. You tune in to a generalized sense of resentment.

These things are transpersonal in the sense that they possess us. Good habits can 

also possess us. We’re not usually very original. Most of the feelings, habits, states of mind we get into, many other people have had in the past. When we get into them, we’re linking ourselves to all the people who have been in similar states before us. 

If we’re in a state of grace, then we’re part of what, in a Christian context, we call the Communion of Saints. We’re linked with all those who’ve been in a similar state. But if we’re in a state of resentment, we link with those who’ve been in a state of resentment. 

He points out that Jungians such as James Hillman treat archetypes not just as existing in the collective unconscious, but as beings that possess us. I would say that we turn into them.

Our souls are influenced by the souls of others and by the collective psyches of our families, our nations, our religious traditions. They are already habitual in nature. But they are also open to creativity.

I read a very solid book about Hitler a few years ago and the author concluded 

2017 LGBT Solidarity Rally in front of the Stonewall Inn in solidarity with every immigrant, asylum seeker, refugee and person impacted by Donald Trump’s policies. Wikimedia Commons.

that Hitler’s principal presence on the historic stage was incarnating Resentment. He created a thorough Politics of Resentment that became wildly successful to the German people during the depression and following on the Treaty of Versailles and that included making scapegoats of others. 

Is Resentment a being that possesses us? Has Resentment become a mainstay of a political leader and movement in our time too?

Adapted from Matthew Fox and Rupert Sheldrake, Natural Grace: dialogues on creation, darkness, and the soul in spirituality and science, pp. 98f.

See Matthew Fox, Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election.

And Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society, pp. 288-90, 362f., 389-398.

Banner Image: “Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.” Mural portrait by David Hollier, made up of quotes by Nelson Mandela, diffusing into the spirit of the South African people. Photo by Linh Nguyen on Flickr.

Statement of Solidarity with Israel/Palestine.

Responses are welcomed. To add your comment, or read other comments and enter into dialog, please click HERE to go to our website and scroll down to the Comments field.

Queries for Contemplation

Do you recognize Resentment playing an important role in this year’s presidential race? And scapegoating? How do you rid yourself of resentment? How can a country do the same? Do you recognize grace as a liberation from resentment?

Recommended Reading

Natural Grace: Dialogues on Creation, Darkness, and the Soul in Spirituality and Science 
by Matthew Fox and Rupert Sheldrake

Natural Grace, a 208 page inspired dialogue between theologian Matthew Fox and scientist Rupert Sheldrake, unites wisdom and knowledge from unconventional angles. Considering themselves heretics in their own fields, Matthew and Rupert engage the conversation from postmodern and post-postmodern perspectives, deconstructing both religion and science—while setting the foundation for a new emerging worldview. Having outgrown the paradigms in which they were raised, both Fox and Sheldrake see it as part of their life missions to share the natural synthesis of spirituality and science rooted in a paradigm of evolutionary cosmology.

Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election

Matthew Fox tells us that he had always shied away from using the term “Anti-Christ” because it was so often used to spread control and fear. However, given today’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables in this book employing the archetype for the cause of justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.

For immediate access to Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE. 

To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white images, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE. 

To receive a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.

Order the audiobook HERE for immediate download.

Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society

Visionary theologian and best-selling author Matthew Fox offers a new theology of evil that fundamentally changes the traditional perception of good and evil and points the way to a more enlightened treatment of ourselves, one another, and all of nature. In comparing the Eastern tradition of the 7 chakras to the Western tradition of the 7 capital sins, Fox allows us to think creatively about our capacity for personal and institutional evil and what we can do about them. 
“A scholarly masterpiece embodying a better vision and depth of perception far beyond the grasp of any one single science.  A breath-taking analysis.” — Diarmuid O’Murchu, author of Quantum Theology: Spiritual Implications of the New Physics

The Return of Father Sky: A Cosmic Mystery for Kids of All Ages

The second book in the Father Fox’s Fantastical Fables series, The Return of Father Sky helps boys and girls to celebrate a new relationship with the masculine by way of Father Sky, whose return excites joy and wonder and possibility that enlarge the soul to welcome others and all creation. Written in a rhyming Dr. Seuss-like style, this full-color, beautifully illustrated book, written by world- renowned theologian Matthew Fox weaves together modern science and classic spirituality in a whimsical, entertaining format to illustrate important truths to readers aged 4 and up. With artwork curated from illustrators around the world, this book expresses the joy and wonder of all peoples and cultures, planting seeds of respect, cooperation and hope to work together for the healing of our planet.

UPCOMING EVENTS

See Matthew Fox's full calendar HERE

MONTHLY: Join Matthew Fox, Mariko Middleton, and Skylar Wilson of the Order of the Sacred Earth in a free virtual meeting for connection and networking with other mystic warriors. Last Tuesday of every month, 4:00-5:00pm PT. 
Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88665302478  
Meeting ID: 886 6530 2478

Learn more at www.orderofthesacredearth.org

Namaste Village hosts Matthew Fox & James Twyman in conversation on Matthew’s new book, Trump & the MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election. With days ticking down to 11/5, discover the AntiChrist archetype as a searing device for understanding the deeper stakes in the #2024election. Thurs 10/17, 11 AM ET
Register HERE for lifetime access; Pin 12345

Creation Spirituality Conversations

Bannon, former Trump advisor and former Executive Chairman at Breitbart News. He explains how Cardinal Burke and other neofascists in the Catholic Church opposed the Second Vatican Council, which sought to update the Catholic Church. He then explains how both Leonard Leo (co-chairman of the Federalist Society board of directors, who drew up lists of potential conservative judges who were then appointed to the Supreme Court) and Kevin Roberts from the Heritage Foundation, share a right-wing Catholic ideology.

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