"No — it's a great topic, but we've done it a lot."

"Yes — I guess I got carried away by Mrs. Eddy's description of the Holy City in the chapter on Apocalypse. It's a mandala — a symbol of the Self — it just cried out ' One Mind' to me."

"You were pretty turned on."

"I bet she was too when she wrote it. You know how you feel when you have a healing or some powerful breakthrough. That was me, at least then. But later you try to get the feeling back and all you get is words or maybe a dried out image."

"Well, you've always got access to the One Mind. It'll provide feelings appropriate for right now."

"There are some quotes from the Lesson that might help. Here:

'This scientific sense of being, forsaking matter for Spirit, by no means suggests man's absorption into Deity and the loss of his identity, but confers upon man enlarged individuality, a wider sphere of thought and action, a more expansive love, a higher and more permanent peace' (S&H 265: 10-15).

'Advancing to a higher plane of action, thought rises from the material sense to the spiritual, from the scholastic to the inspirational, and from the mortal to the immortal' (S&H 256: 2-5).

I've been studying these to help get out of a depression that hit me when my ex, who's my best friend, got into a new relationship. I even tried a prescription but it had some awful side-effects. Recovery has gotten me involved in three meet-up groups and my range of activities and new friends has expanded immensely."

"Wow! Look how Mind worked it out. It gave you the impulse to expand and leave the funk behind."

"Right! And the healing was well underway before I came across those statements in the textbook."

"Before you called, He answered."

"I want to talk about a new female Messiah a lecturer pointed out to a group of us at the Jung Foundation the other night. Her name is Bliss — she's the daughter of Eros, the god of love, and Psyche, a very human young woman. So she's the product of a divine-human coming together."

"So it's Greek mythology."

"Actually it's from a Roman story of the Second Century called the Golden Ass. I think it's important for us to look at it now, as the Jesus myth, with its attachments to the patriarchy, staggers and looks ready to fall."

"I guess it is wrapped up with a lot of war and economic craziness. And judgmentalism and discrimination. A beautiful vision turns into a pit of vipers."

"A lot of thinkers are looking for a 'return of the feminine' as they call it."

"Are they predicting a retreat to the matriarchy that prevailed before the Aryan hordes swept in?"

"I don't know but I suppose there'll be a better balance of male and female energies. It's happening already."

"Why can't Jesus just continue."

"Oh, I'm sure he'll have a place. It's a fine story and can give us many insights. But to me the really attractive feature of Bliss is that the Roman story ends suddenly with her birth. She's lain in cradled obscurity — to use Mrs. Eddy's words — for 1800 years, waiting to have her life story unfold. With Jesus we already have a life lived, with many hooks for the unscrupulous to latch on to, form opinions about, worship and base action on. All this instead of finding the Christ within and living it."

"The Light of the World used to be a particle and wave. We've measured him fully and now he's merely a deteriorating particle."

"He's still got relevance. We just need to look for the hidden aspects. Like Judas being the split-off shadow."

"We could go much deeper with all the Bible characters if we took them as mythological rather than historical. Can you feel your inner Jacob or John or Mary Magdalene...."

"Or Gadarene demoniac or healing Jesus?"

"You can do the same with Greek gods. I mean Mars is energy, sexual feelings, work. Venus is love, beauty. We could even take everyone at this table on a mythological level."

"This is fine as far as it goes but we're really getting dualistic."

"I wouldn't leave things there. If I find my you in thought and feeling, it's my version of you and it's dualistic. To be scientific I'd need to see this so called you in Science. The same with Greek gods and Jesus too! In all cases it's the Christ appearing in that guise. Dig beneath the surface duality and you'll find God with us."

"Sometimes I think all these gods of the past were the actual, practical ways of explaining and dealing with what was appearing on the physical plane. Our real religions today are physics, math, medicine. A thousand years from now people will look back at our gods and say 'How charming, how quaint'."

"Would anyone like to try seeing these in Science?"

"I feel way too embedded in the mythology of the age to do that, but isn't every Christian Science healing a spiritual breakthrough beyond what the popular gods are promoting?"

"Back to Bliss. She's also called Voluptuous or Pleasure. And she's got her dualistic interpretations, but I don't think we have to get into these."

"Like what?"

"Oh, lust, sexual excess."

"Sounds like others have gotten hold of her before the metaphysicians and dreamed her on into a life of addiction.""Let me read a paragraph one of those at the lecture wrote. It'll give you a better view of what Bliss can mean to us. Here: ' We must devote ourselves to a growing realization of this [ divine ] girl child's existence within us. It is our task to trustingly dedicate ourselves to locating her resonating inner rhythms that are reaching out to us, like a hand asking to be held. This is how we find her; this is how we discover her presence — be it through a newfound playfulness or spontaneity or any other creative channel. Without her inclusion in our creative endeavors, we will forever fall prey to the futile agony of perfectionism with all its sharp-cutting edges'."

"Here's something from Science and Health: 'The Lamb's wife presents the unity of male and female as no longer two wedded individuals, but as two individual natures in one; and this compounded spiritual individuality reflects God as Father-Mother, not as a corporeal being. In this divinely united spiritual consciousness, there is no impediment to eternal bliss, — to the perfectibility of God's creation' (S&H 577: 4-11). We're talking Eternal Bliss!"

"Okay. let's put Eternal Bliss to work."

"What comes up?"

"Well, how about globalization? As the oneness and allness of Mind presses in on us, human experience will have to pattern itself on the divine facts.

"Yeah — but look at the good and the bad. Global trade and finance are wonderful but they help spread economic meltdown and recession. World travel enriches lives and spreads disease."

"The internet is a great symbol for infinite consciousness. It's a huge plus for civilization but leaves us vulnerable to cyber invasion and unsavory types lurking."

"Don't look at me — I stopped a month ago."

"All these manifestations on the human belief level can be regularized by seeing them as mortal mind's attempt to pattern the divine. Here's one of my favorite passages from Science and Health: 'Whatever seems to be a new creation, is but the discovery of some distant idea of Truth; else it is a new multiplication or self-division of mortal thought, as when some finite sense peers from its cloister with amazement and attempts to pattern the infinite' (S&H 263: 21-26)."

"So to stay in the metaphor we need to see Bliss as divine."

"Her mother Psyche, a mortal, was allowed to live on Olympus and I think the baby was born there. Anyway, yes — Bliss arising from divine Mind is totally good."

"Then globalization in all its aspects is healed and ordered by seeing through it to the Christ — God with us — whether you start with a Bliss or a Jesus..."

"Or both."

"There are lots of other areas that need healing — Afghanistan is among them — but we're a little short of time."

"Why can't Christian Scientists maintain peace and wellbeing for the planet? We have the tools — omnipresent God — omnipotent God — and we're the reflection. It's not a personal thing."

"Each one of us could do it if we just understood what individuality is. There aren't minds many — there's just one! What does she say about no coming together, no amalgamation, no compounds. She's very clear that each one is the full reflection of the whole. Here — let me read these quotes:

'Christian Science translates Mind, God, to mortals. It is the infinite calculus defining the line, plane, space, and fourth dimension of Spirit. It absolutely refutes the amalgamation, transmigration, absorption, or annihilation of individuality' (Mis 22: 10-14).

'The Scriptures declare Life to be the infinite I AM, - not a dweller in matter. For man to know Life as it is, namely God, the eternal good, gives him not merely a sense of existence, but an accompanying consciousness of spiritual power that subordinates matter and destroys sin, disease, and death' (Mis 189: 20-25)."

"We need to close. Are there any requests for a topic?"

"Marraige maybe?"

"Ah — the preexistent divine marriage, the holy union."

"Wonderful start!"

"How about broadening it to relationship — all types, not just romantic?"

"Great. Does everyone agree? Okay — Relationship is the topic."