"I wanted to see if ecstasy could be a permanent state or whether it comes and goes."

"I don't think it can be permanent in our regular human life. You get a shot of it here and there."

"But it is a part of our being in reality. We reflect God and He's bliss absolute, as my yoga teacher says. So we are too."

"When we get to that state, we'll ascend."

"Mrs. Eddy mentions ecstatic moments as giving rise to a higher experience and better life."

"Yes, if spiritual sense always guides. What do you suppose self-abnegation and purity mean today?"

"Probably that we should cut the narcissism and then practice real scientific seeing — you know, seeing the man in Science."

"I wouldn't even know how to start cutting the narcissism. Our society is built on me-first and egocentrism."

"Meister Ekhart said we filter everything through images tainted by passion, self-will, vanity and pride. We might confront those traits. If we don't get a handle on them, how could we possibly know God or even other people?"

"Or ourselves? I like what Mrs. Laird recommends: just drop opinions, theories and images. It's like being a virgin."

"Can anyone remember how that felt?"

"A member who couldn't be here said he's pursuing ecstasy by getting beyond the physical into the metaphysical. He wants to live the whole human experience divinely."

"That's my sense of Jesus's transfiguration. Before it happens he speaks of taking up the cross and losing one's mortal belief in life. Then afterwards, he goes right into healing the boy with a deaf and dumb spirit. It's the seamless practice of divine humanhood."

"I've just started reading Joel Goldsmith. His emphasis is on living the one I or Ego, and working out from there."

"If we could get that clear and maintain it, we'd have lots of instantaneous healings. My teacher said a practitioner should get up there and stay up there. When calls come through, they'd be handled — boom!"

"Goldsmith says we should not blame the patient if there's no healing. It's entirely up to the practitioner."

"I guess if you're at-one with divine Mind you reflect all power, and that overwhelms any puny dualities the patient seems to be harboring."

"Well just to drag us back to the topic, I'd say we're talking about a powerful ecstatic state or expression of bliss that heals. By the way I searched the archives for any earlier work on ecstasy. We've never had it as a topic, but we did once look at [#topic=20031204#]."

"Has anyone had an ecstatic moment this week?"

"You remember last week I was concerned about a problem I was having with some sensations in my face and jaw. A doctor told me it might be Bell's palsy and I had a lot of fear. I asked you all to pray for me. I woke up Friday morning with just a hint of the problem and It faded completely in a day or two. Last week's Lesson, particularly when they read it at church, helped to drive out the fear."

"Here's what's going on with me. Last meeting I told you I got a weekend job as a busboy in an uptown bar. They say I'm a hard worker and they're training me as a bar back, working with a bartender. I'm also sending out resumes and having interviews for other positions. I'm feeling a little harried."

"May I suggest a quote from Science and Health that might give you a boost? Here it is: 'God rests in action. Imparting has not impoverished, can never impoverish, the divine Mind. No exhaustion follows the action of this Mind, according to the apprehension of divine Science. The highest and sweetest rest, even from a human standpoint, is in holy work.' (pg. 519:25)"

"I read a review of some new translations of the works of Gaston Bachelard. He felt every thought and action could be peered into deeply to find its essence. I thought, Why not take that idea into Science and find the absolute underlying Principle of the universe in every particle of existence? Take your bar: it's really the structure of Truth and Love. The customers are divine ideas. Imbibing spirits is, bottom line, about being Spirit."

"Thanks guys. I also may be moving into a new apartment with only one roommate, instead of two."

"I know that would make you very happy."

"Yes indeed. But this afternoon I was upset when a friend at The Big Cup blew me off. To handle the hurt, I got involved in a creative project — designing a mother ship for a story I'm writing."

"Good for you! I never go out to places like The Big Cup. I'm terrified of places where Gay men congregate."

"That's so weird. Here you've had many demonstrations of harmony in the face of dire street attacks and medical emergencies and Gay men frighten you."

"It's silly I know but..."

"Why not apply whatever you saw in those dangerous circumstances on your next venture into a Gay stomping ground?"

"Hey, thanks. I already feel the terror draining away."

"Can we talk about what happened at brunch Sunday?"

"Sure."

"Well, it was pretty awful. The waiter didn't help, by threatening to charge us for extra cups of coffee and then leaving us to flounder when we didn't realize the tip was included on the bill."

"Don't forget the erupting toilet."

"Ah, yes — a perfect metaphor for what was happening at the table."

"Such a drama queen that toilet. I've had trouble with her before."

"Well, I for one was glad people were erupting and not stifling their feelings. Too many Christian Scientists drift along in a fog of wan pleasantries."

"Well fine but my impression was no one was listening. Everyone was just pouncing."

"We could use those brunches to get some work done in Science. A few of us come directly from church, others from the Sunday morning talk shows. It's a perfect set-up for consecrated work and we let nonsense and trivia take over."

"I looked up a passage in Unity of Good to help us recover from that experience. Here it is: 'The Science of physical harmony, as now presented to the people in divine light, is radical enough to promote as forcible collisions of thought as the age has strength to bear. Until the heavenly law of health, according to Christian Science, is firmly grounded, even the thinkers are not prepared to answer intelligently leading questions about God and sin, and the world is far from ready to assimilate such a grand and all-absorbing verity concerning the divine nature and character as is embraced in the theory of God's blindness to error and ignorance of sin.' (Unity of Good, by Mary Baker Eddy, pg. 6:10)"

"What about sexual ecstasy? Can anyone say something about sex?"

"All I can say is I'd like to experience sex in a committed love relationship once in my life. I really enjoy sex but I'm sure anchoring it in a deep, committed relationship would take me to places I've hardly even imagined."

"Are you idealizing a bit?"

"Probably, but I know so little of what I'm talking about words fail me and I sort of blither about transcendence and ineffability."

"That reminds me of Teresa of Avila trying to describe her religious ecstasy. She at least had it but was then uncertain how to put it into words. Was it physical or mental — was she in or out of her body?"

"I'm glad you're having sex again. You're so much easier to be with. You smile more and seem relaxed."

"If you want a relationship take it strictly to God. Don't invite church-scientists, Popes, Boards, magazines and all the rest into these sacred environs."

"Speaking of Popes — does anyone have anything to say about John Paul?"

"I heard he's a devotee of the Black Madonna. If so, he couldn't be all bad."

"He had some good initiatives for world peace and the oneness of all mankind."

"His rigid views on women and Gay people were appalling. As were his prohibitions on condoms to prevent AIDS and his lack of interest in addressing the child molestation issue."

"My point about the Black Madonna is that underneath this Pope's rigidity, even if he didn't consciously know it, he was identifying with and forwarding the influence of some really interesting goddesses like Isis, Artemis and Kali. Their energies were absorbed by the Black Madonna as the old religions faded into Christianity. Also Lilith is identified with her."

"Isn't Lilith a Jewish character?"

"She's the apocryphal first wife of Adam. When she wanted to be on top sexually she was banned to make way for Eve who fulfilled patriarchal notions of the feminine."

"That sounds like the split between Mary the Virgin and Mary the Magdalen."

"Yes. And it's a big problem in everyday heterosexual relations. Men can make their female partners either a saint or a whore."

"I'm here to tell you it happens in Gay relations too."

"So there's a deep vein of darker, more human, energies just waiting in the Catholic church to be fully revealed and expressed."

"Who knows. The energies are there but it could take centuries to let them out."

"By the way, Mrs. Eddy apparently identified herself — and all healers — with Mary Magdalene in the opening pages of the chapter on 'Christian Science Practice' in Science and Health."

"We're getting short on time. Would you all like to work on something in this area for next week?"

"What area?"

"Freeing the churches and ourselves to express more of the non-conventional feminine and less reactionary bluster."

"I'm loaded with reactionary bluster."

"How about rigidity as a topic? It's not just the churches that need help — I've got some fixed positions that could use some exposure. "

"Like those four glasses of wine per week you drink — that's hilarious."

"Just pure Weight Watchers."

"I kind of wanted to work on confronting fear, but I suppose rigidity is underneath fear — like I'm holding to rigid material views, so what do I get? Fear."

"I'm unclear about rigidity. We certainly want buildings to stay standing and penises to be hard."

"Maybe the point is everything needs some give and take, some suppleness. A rigid building would crack and fall in a high wind or earthquake."

"Hard-on good, arthritis bad."

"And if an erection lasts 24 hours call a practitioner."

"Okay. Are we agreed on rigidity as the topic?"

"Yes. fine."

"I agree."