Chapter 7. Jesus, 'The Searchers' and Spiritual Energy (Divine Energy: God Beyond Us, Within Us, Among Us) (Dorr, Donal)

In the previous chapter I suggested that it is important for Christians to engage in a 'dialogue of life' with those whom I call 'the searchers'. By way of background to this dialogue it is helpful to take account of the remarkable similarity between the time of the early Church and the period in which we now live. Then, as now, was an era in which a Western imperial power dominated the 'known world' and affected even the most remote villages. In Roman times the empire was that of one nation. Nowadays we have an 'empire' of a capitalist system which is primarily Western in character even though it now flourishes also in Japan and other Asian countries on 'the Pacific rim'.

At present, as in Roman times, the dominant system finds itself under threat, not so much from external enemies but from within-from a growing moral decadence. Central to this ethical failure, now as in the time of the first Christians, is the ever widening gap between the powerful and the powerless. For the poor, this creates a crisis of sheer survival and for the rich it leads to all the problems of consumerism and affluence. The moral decay is linked to what we may call 'structural hypocrisy'. By this I mean that today, as in the Roman Empire, the exploitation of the weak is intrinsic to the survival of the system; but it is disguised because it is sanctioned by law and justified by the dominant ideology. The Romans made a wonderful advance when they recognized the rights of the citizen; but their pride in this moral achievement blinded them to the fact that it was corrupted in practice by the limiting of these rights to the minority who could claim citizenship (cf. Acts 22:25-28). Similarly today the Westemphasises the truly noble concept of 'fundamental human rights'; but pride in this advance blinds the people of the West to the reality that, in practice, the present economic world order deprives vast numbers of people of these rights.

As in Roman times, the West today exercises a cultural ascendancy which affects the religious consciousness of people on a global scale. We live in a world where old religious certainties are under pressure-partly from the sheer materialism of the dominant system and partly from the exposure of people to a wide variety of religious systems. Some groups and individuals seek to recover old certainties by becoming fundamentalists of one kind or another-Christian, Islamic, Jewish or Hindu. Those who reject the fundamentalist option find themselves pulled in two directions-on the one hand towards a practical idolatry of the existing power system and on the other hand towards a search for some alternative which meets their deeper spiritual hunger.

In our world today there is a widespread practical worship of capitalism. This corresponds quite closely to the official worship in ancient times of the Roman emperor as the symbol of the imperial system. And in our world, as in Roman times, this glorification of power and 'mammon' is so obviously materialistic and idolatrous that it leaves people with a sense of spiritual emptiness. In the gentile world in which the early Christians lived, this gap was met mainly by the blossoming of mystery cults or religions. These cults offered their adherents a deeply-felt religious experience. Towards the end of the first century the religious need was met not merely by these cults but also by a rapid expansion of gnosticism; this was a philosophical type of religion which promised its followers a secret life-giving wisdom. In today's world there is a similar flourishing of a great variety of cults and religious or quasi-religious practices and belief-systems. Some of them are concerned with religious or spiritual experence, so they have much in common with the mystery religions of the past. In the case of others, the focus is on a secret knowledge or wisdom, so they are more like the gnosticism of the past.

The various cults and spiritualities have a good deal in common with each other and some aspects of them are complementary to each other. But there is also an element of competition between them. Interested people tend to 'shop around', moving from one to the other in a search for what they feel satisfies their deep spiritual needs. One feature which is common to almost all of these religious trends or belief-systems, in the present as in the past, is that they are concerned mainly with the 'private' sphere and with our relationship to Nature, rather than with the public world of economic and political life.

Early Christianity flourished in the Roman Empire, spreading rapidly from the Jews to the Gentiles. It had certain elements in common with the cults and 'wisdoms' of the time while in other ways it challenged them profoundly. Christians of that era embodied their faith in a way that made their doctrine and worship meaningful and attractive to religiously inclined people of their world. The Young Church engaged in a dialogue with the cults and belief-systems of the period-a dialogue not so much of words as of life. There was no conflict between that dialogue and the missionary thrust of the Young Church. In fact the Church's rapid expansion was largely due to its ability to incarnate itself within the Mediterranean world of the time.

The Christian faith had a special appeal to adherents of cults which centred on symbolic dying and rising to new life. The story of Jesus, culminating dramatically in his death and resurrection, located the myth of re-birth within recent history. Therefore it combined the power of myth with the attraction of historical truth. Furthermore, participation in the Eucharist was reserved to those who had been initiated into the Christian mystery. Immediately after the liturgy of the Word, those who had not undergone the rite of baptism were asked to leave the worshipping community. So the Eucharist was experienced as a sharing in a secret rite and wisdom available only to those who had been initiated. This gave Christianity a certain resemblance both to the mystery cults and to the gnostic movements.

All this shows how well the early Church had adapted itself to the mentality of the religious 'searchers' of its time. Its mission was exercised not just through the outreach of preachers like Paul who spoke to the poor in the market-place and to sophisticated would-be philosophers in the Areopagus of Athens (Acts 17:17-31). It was also exercised through its power to draw people to it-its appeal both as a way of life and as a religious cult.{1}

Christian worship services met the need of individuals and families to 'escape' for a while from an oppressive and disordered society into a 'religious' world where they could find some spiritual peace. But the Christian faith also met a very different need which was experienced by the people of the Roman empire. Alongside the need of individuals to 'escape' for a time to experience inner peace there was a widely-felt moral need for an alternative system of beliefs and values in the public sphere of economic, social, political and cultural life. The Christian faith was such a belief�and-value-system, which profoundly challenged the Roman empire.

As I pointed out in chapter 4 above, the teaching of Jesus and the values and lifestyle of his movement represented a rejection of every system of domination. As the years passed, some of the more radical aspects of his teaching became 'watered down'. For instance, the patriarchal system soon gained ascendency in the authority structures of the young Churches. But the discordance between the Christian faith and the Roman imperial system remained very strong until the time of Constantine. The story of Jesus, set in the context of Jewish salvation history, called into question the public values of the Roman empire. It offered a serious challenge even to the official history of imperial Rome and to its self-understanding and its conception of its role in history. It is not surprising that Rome soon came to see Christianity as a major threat.

It is clear that Christians today are faced with a situation quite like that which faced the early Church. On the one hand, there is a pressing need felt by many people of our time to 'escape' for a time from our oppressive and materialistic society into a deeply personal religious experience where they can have peace of spirit. On the other hand, there is an equally urgent need, experienced by the same or different people, to find an alternative system of meaning and values which challenges the dominant system in the public sphere of economics, politics and culture.

Christianity has the potential to meet these needs. But it can do so only if it meets four conditions. First, it must be animated by a living faith; a purely institutional Church will not meet the personal religious needs of our time. Second, it must be embodied in a way that provides an effective public challenge to the dominant economic, social, political and cultural systems of today's world. This does not mean that it should offer a fully worked out blueprint for an alternative society; but it must propose fundamental beliefs and values as criteria for judging what would constitute a more humane world.{2} Third, it should provide inspiration and energy for those who take on the challenge of constructing such an alternative domination-free world. Fourth, the Church must present its beliefs and values in an idiom which is appropriate to modern culture; this means that it must express itself in thought-patterns and modes of experience which are meaningful to the 'searchers' of our world.

The institutional Churches today are not responding as effectively as the early Christians did to the spiritual hunger of their times. That is evident to anybody who looks in the 'religious corner' of any bookshop. One finds there a couple of Bibles (with ornate binding showing that they are intended more for presentation than for reading) and, perhaps, a book about Medjugorje or about 'The Nun Who Works Miracles'. But all the rest of these shelves are stocked with dozens or hundreds of books which are put in the 'New Age' category. The popularity of these books shows clearly that many people today find a spiritual vacuum in their lives and are searching for a spirituality to fill it. Yet in spite of this obvious religious hunger and the unmistakable appeal of these writings, the majority of Church leaders and theologians show little interest in such material. On the other hand, a vociferous minority of Christian leaders have become obsessed with the dangers of the

New Age trend; and they devote themselves to issuing dire warnings about Satanism and 'far-out' cults which they lump together with the 'New Age'.

Surely the time has come to follow the example of the early Christians by engaging in a serious dialogue with today's 'searchers'? As in the past, it will have to be more a dialogue of life than of words. For they have no single coherent theology-just as the cults and gnostic movements of two thousand years ago did not adhere to a unified system of theology. In this situation a dialogue which focuses on words and ideas is inadequate and can be quite misleading. Christians who confine themselves to an academic and purely intellectual study of the New Age writings can easily miss the genuine thirst for meaning, enlightenment, wisdom, spiritual growth and peace which are at the heart of the spiritual search today. Only those who have grasped that inner spirit, and have a profound respect for it, are capable of clothing the Christian faith in language, ritual, and forms of experience which are meaningful and interesting to the religious 'searchers' of today's world.

To engage in this dialogue of life is a task for all, but it is of particular concern to those who work on the frontier where the Christian faith meets other religions and philosophies. There is general agreement that religious dialogue is a vital aspect of mission today; this is acknowledged, for instance, in Pope John Paul's encyclical on mission (R.M. 55-7). And there is no reason why missionaries should concentrate on dialogue with Buddhists or Muslims to the neglect of dialogue with modern spiritual movements and trends. In fact, John Paul refers specifically to the need for missionaries to reach out to people who are seeking a religious meaning in life (R.M. 38).

Those who work among non-Western peoples should not imagine that the New Age is of little relevance to them. For, just as the cults spread throughout the Empire in Roman times, so too�and largely for the same reasons-New Age ideas and practices have had an influence all over the world; and the eclectic religious 'searcher' is no longer a purely Western phenomenon. Modern 'searchers' draw their inspiration and techniques from an extraordinary variety of cultures and religions. They have adopted some of the beliefs and rituals of the ancient Celts, of the Tibetans and of the Australian Aborigines; they invoke Hindu traditions and those of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. It is not surprising, then, that the 'searcher' spirituality appeals to people of a wide range of cultures. Indeed, it has a particular attraction for people in troubled regions of Africa, Latin America and Asia-people whose traditional religions are often seriously undermined by the cultural invasion of the Western way of life. In these non-Western regions it often takes on new forms, combining elements of Western language (and jargon) with deeply rooted indigenous traditional religious beliefs and practices.

The approach to life adopted by today's 'searchers' tends to be profoundly incarnational. By this I mean that it begins and ends with the assumption that 'the spiritual' is something which can be experienced in our bodies and affects our consciousness. For this reason I think that the way to begin a deeper dialogue with it is by exploring more deeply the mystery that lies at the heart of the Christian faith-the belief in the doctrine of the Incarnation.

In chapter 4 above I stressed the importance of appreciating the deep human energy of Jesus as a power which attracted and influenced people, which drew out the innate healing power from within others, and which put him in touch with the rhythm of Nature. In chapter 5, I proposed a way of understanding the redemptive work of Jesus in terms of a flow of energy from him to humankind. This opens up an important area for dialogue between Christians and the 'searchers'. For a central feature of their spirituality (especially of those who have been most influenced by New Age ideas) is a highlighting of spiritual energy. This emphasis is a useful reminder to Christians that they are called to be in touch with, and make use of, the same kind of spiritual energy as Jesus used. It helps to correct the most common mistake which Christians have made over the centuries, namely, exalting Jesus into a superhuman figure rather than the fully human one who leads the way to the glory of an authentically human life�and to the oe he called 'Abba'.

In writing about Jesus I deliberately made use of the kind of religious and psychological language and thought-categories which are current in our time, especially among religious 'searchers'. I believe it is more convincing today to talk about the energy of Jesus than to speak about him paying a ransom for us, or being a blood sacrifice, or making reparation of honour, or meriting our redemption. I do not presume to claim that an account of the saving work of Jesus in terms of energy will necessarily be appropriate for people of future times and other cultures. No single set of thought-patterns is adequate to express the mystery of the Incarnation and Redemption. The most�and the least-we can do is to seek to understand and articulate these mysteries in ways that are intelligible to the people of our own time. And there can be no doubt that, in our world, many people are deeply attracted to anybody who speaks to them about spiritual energy and even offers them the opportunity to get in touch with such energywithin themselves.

Christian apologists frequently accuse New Age people and other 'searchers' of being pantheistic. They say that the way they speak about the presence of divine energy in our world indicates a failure to make a clear distinction between God and creation. This is a serious criticism. But a deep theology of Jesus can provide the basis for an answer to it�and for a real convergence between Christians and modern 'searchers' on this point.

Karl Rahner, who is one of the deepest and most influential writers on Christology, puts forward an 'evolutionary' understanding of the role of Jesus in our world. For him, God 'is not merely the cause but the actual reality of the world's perfect fulfillment'; this takes place through God's 'self-communication in grace and glory'; it involves a 'divinization' which, however, 'does not mean a pantheistic identification with God'. In Jesus this fulfillment takes place as an historical event. But the incarnation of God in Jesus is not to be seen in isolation but rather as 'the centre and irreversible manifestation of the divinization of the created (material) spirit as such'.{3}

Rahner's position can perhaps be expressed in more simple language by saying that Jesus, the fully human one, lived out the deepest dimension of human life which is to be open to, and to share in, the divine life; furthermore, his life revealed that the highest fulfillment for us, too, is to share in the divine life; and Jesus not merely revealed this but made it possible for us to live this divine life. Rahner offers a modern theological justification for the teaching of the great Greek 'Fathers' that the Christian is given the gift of divinization. A new element which Rahner adds to this ancient tradition is that if this is true of the Christian then it can also be true of other people of good will.

What Rahner's profound theology means in practice is that not only is spiritual energy flowing in our world and available to us but that it is theologically respectable for a Christian to see this as divine energy. This may help to reassure theologians who felt uneasy about the approach I adopted in chapter 3 above. In that chapter I suggested that the divine Spirit is at work in our world in a variety of ways-in the personal and group unconscious, in the well-springs of a people's culture, in the Earth itself, etc. This approach can now be seen to converge with Rahner's views on Christology, which in turn can be seen as an articulation of the ancient Christian belief that the Word of God has been at work in creation from the very beginning.

All this has very interesting implications for a theology of the Trinity. It suggests that creation itself involves a certain presence of God within the world and that this divine presence may manifest itself in two ways. Firstly, there is a presence of the Word-to be seen, perhaps, as a deeper symbolic significance latent in the meaning of created realities. Secondly, there is a presence of the Spirit, to be identified, perhaps, as the deep energy that moves at the heart of creation in various ways (as indicated in chapter 3 above). I do not propose here to go into the issues that this raises for trinitarian theology; for instance, the question of whether the 'external' action of God ought to be attributed to a particular member of the Trinity, and whether, or to what extent, the presence and action of God in our world as Word is distinct from the divine energy as Spirit moving within our world.{4}

In the light of this Christian theology about the presence of divine life and energy in our world it seems inappropriate-or at least premature-for Christians to accuse the 'searchers' of pantheism when they say more-or-less the same thing. It is true, of course, that they lack the complex theological terminology developed by Rahner to ensure that his theology avoids pantheism. The absence of such sophisticated theological distinctions means that the position of the 'searchers' has to be judged in the light of their overall spirituality rather than simply in terms of the words they use.

A crucial test of whether their spirituality is pantheistic is whether or not it conceives of God in personal terms. It is quite common for New Age people and other 'searchers' to refer to 'transpersonal experiences' or to 'being in touch with the transpersonal'. As I understand it, 'transpersonal' (in their usage) is by no means the same as 'impersonal'. Rather, they are using the word 'transpersonal' to refer to a reality which is grasped in an experience which is in some degree mystical; so the word is roughly equivalent to 'all-pervasive'. In this sense it is a term which is not merely orthodox but is a valuable corrective to imaginative or anthropomorphic conceptions of God. It reminds us that it is a serious mistake to relate to God in the way we relate to humans. I must add, however, that it would be an even more serious mistake to envisage God as some kind of impersonal power which inspires awe, and might perhaps be used, but which does not in any sense know us and care for us.

For me, the word 'transpersonal' means 'more than personal'. By this I mean that God knows me, loves me, forgives me, communicates with me, listens to me-but all in a way that is far beyond, and far more intimate than, any such relationship I may have with the inhabitants of this world. I doubt if it is possible to make any generalization about whether modern 'searchers' understand God in this way. I imagine that the position varies from person to person: some have a real sense of being in the hands of a caring providence with whom they can communicate in personal or quasi-personal terms. Others have a genuine sense of reverence and awe in the presence of the divine life and mystery but seldom or never engage in an interpersonal dialogue with it; but many of this latter group do have dialogue with angels whom they see as sharing in the divine life.

It is salutary to remember that we are likely to find a similar wide range of attitudes to God among Christians. Whatever about their official theology, the approach of Christians in practice ranges from the near-magical to the mystical and from the almost-agnostic to the naively interpersonal or anthropomorphic. Some Christians hardly ever venture to make a prayer of petition; others have no hesitation in putting the most trivial requests before God; still others prefer to come to God through 'the Madonna', or through their guardian angel, or a patron saint. The ideal is that a Christian should have no hesitation in turning to God in a personal way with childlike trust. But this has to be balanced with a mystical sense of awe, and with the incomprehension which strikes one dumb and may at times leave one feeling totally abandoned in a 'dark night of the soul'. There is no guarantee that the Christian will find the balance more effectively or more frequently than a 'searcher' who does not belong to any Church However, Christians have many supports: the Scriptures, which encapsulate a wealth of divine revelation; the long tradition of the Church, which helps them find their way and avoid the many side-tracks which could lead them astray on their spiritual journey; Jesus, the one who has 'gone before' to show the way and who remains with people through his Spirit; and a belief in the Spirit guiding from within, moving and energizing people to pray, and praying with and in them.

I have been using the word 'energy' to describe the extraordinary quality of the life of Jesus-a quality that his followers are called to share in some degree. This energy is quite different from power in the conventional sense. Strictly speaking it is not power over others, not a coercive power (though it can at times be misused by unscrupulous people to manipulate or dominate others). It is a life-energy which attracts people, which can fascinate them and even at times leave them with a sense of awe. It is an energy which is deeply personal but which is also relational: it flows from one person to another. It tends to activate the same kind of life-energy in the other person and thus leads to a two-way movement. When it is released in a group situation it stimulates a circulation of energy, a rising tide which touches all and to which all contribute.

Certain people are very sensitive to the flow of energy. In some cases this quasi-psychic ability seems to run in families. In other cases it may be linked to abuse: a child who is frequently abused may learn to disengage to some degree from the body and may compensate by becoming keenly attuned to spiritual energy. If, in later life, such a person succeeds in regaining a sense of wholeness he or she can bring back into the world of everyday interpersonal relationships a high degree of spiritual sensitivity. This is a great gift-though it may also, in times of stress, be experienced as a burden.

Sometimes a sensitive person becomes quite frightened by the surging energy in a group and reacts by trying to screen it out. This can be counter-productive. For energy which is blocked in this way tends to build up to such an extent that it puts the person under intense pressure. It is better for such sensitive people to let the energy flow past them and through them, while they breath deeply and keep themselves 'grounded'. Those who are able to allow the energy to flow in this way find themselves enlivened and exhilarated; and they can play a crucial role in helping others to move and grow. In situations where a number of people are engaged together in some intense spiritual-psychological experience-for instance, during the playing of the group version of 'The Transformation Game' -the group energy can become so palpable that almost everybody becomes aware of it to some degree and can consciously draw on it, be enriched by it, and contribute to it.

How did Jesus use the spiritual energy which was so strong in him? His approach contrasts sharply with the manipulative magical mentality of those who see spiritual power as an energy to be controlled for their own purposes, in much the same way as the power of the Niagara Falls is harnessed. Undoubtedly, Jesus was powerful; but his power was not that of raw energy. Neither was it a dominating or controlling power. The Gospel indicates that he had utter respect for the freedom of the others. For instance, it shows him putting a clear choice before the blind beggar: 'What do you want me to do for you?' (Mk 10:51; cf. Jn 5:5). Furthermore, the Gospels emphasise the point that Jesus did not exercise his power for his own benefit, as an easy way out of difficulties. For example, they show him refusing to change a stone into bread (Mt 4:3-4) and declining to ask God to rescue him from those who came to arrest him (Mt 26:53).

The Gospels make it clear that Jesus was not seduced by the sense of achievement or triumph which can accompany the exercise of spiritual power. He responded to the petition of those who pleaded to be healed. But he seemed to favour the kind of request which does not demean the one who asks for help. For instance, the Gospel presents him as impressed by the man afflicted with leprosy who said simply: 'If you will, you can make me clean' (Mt 8:2).

Jesus devoted himself entirely to bringing healing and hope to his world. For him this was what was involved in doing God's will. So he expected the wonders he worked to evoke a sense of deep gratitude to God in those who witnessed them. The Gospel describes his disappointment that only one of the ten healed lepers returned to give thanks (Lk 17:17). When Jesus himself stood in prayer before the one he called Abba, his attitude was one of being poised between 'please' and 'thanks'; and that is precisely the attitude which he sought to evoke in those who gathered around him wanting to share in his life and, eventually, in his ministry.

The Acts of the Apostles (8:9-24) gives a very interesting account of a dialogue between Peter and a magician called Simon. When Simon saw the wonders associated with the 'laying on of hands' by Peter and John, he offered to buy a share in this spiritual power. Peter saw this offer of money as a clear indication that Simon's heart was 'not right before God'. What was wrong about Simon's heart was that he wanted to have spiritual power so that he could be seen as different, as 'somebody great' as he had been seen before he became a Christian. This story shows how people of that time were tempted to misunderstand what Jesus was about.

The same temptation remains very real today. For there are a significant number of people who think of Jesus as some kind of shaman. Their interest in him springs mainly from their desire to develop the kind of mysterious spiritual power which he had. No doubt they intend to use this power for what they see as good purposes. But, unlike Jesus, they tend to become fascinated by the power and its exercise. When faced with the opportunity to use the power to impress others, or to serve their own interests, they are not as steadfast as Jesus was in resisting the temptation.

These are the kind of people who see spirituality mainly in terms of the development of 'spiritual power'; and their notion of 'spiritual power' seems to be a rather mechanistic one. It is as though it were conceived on the analogy of electricity or magnetic power. So, they attempt to focus or harness this pseudo-spiritual power by various exercises of concentration. They tend to reduce prayer to a process of visualization. They fail to grasp that the energy or 'power' used by Jesus is not at all like a highly-refined electricity. They miss the point that the way to get in touch with his energy is through the development of freedom of spirit, always sensing it as a freely-given gift from God.

St John's Gospel was written much later than the others, at a time when people were perhaps in greater danger of misunderstanding or misusing the spiritual power available to the followers of Jesus. In this context we can understand the words which the evangelist put into the mouth of Jesus just before he raised Lazarus from the dead: '"I thank you, Father, that you listen to me. I know that you always listen to me ..."' (Jn 11:41-2). These words suggest that Jesus did not carry out his wonders as an exercise of personal power but always with a sense of being an instrument of God's loving action.

The attitude of openness to God's gift is summed up in the words of Jesus, 'I know that you always listen to me.' Those who follow the way of Jesus, nowadays just as much as in the early Church, must have a similar perspective. For the Christian, there should be no question of trying to control people or to manipulate one's own energy as a 'force' to affect others-even for such good purposes as healing. Instead, Christians are called to be in touch with the flow of life in themselves and to reach out to God with freedom of spirit, in gratitude and confident petition. Anchored in that relationship with God they can reach out to others in total respect.

The notion of the transformation of energy lies at the heart of authentic religion. For Christians, the Cross of Jesus is the most powerful instance in history of such a transformation. In my chapter on his death and resurrection I suggested a way in which we could use our own experience of dealing with evil to come to some understanding of how Jesus on the Cross was able to return good for evil: he allowed in the pain of the rejection and scapegoating to which he was subject and changed this energy into compassion and love.

In the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist, Christians recall this historical event and re-enact it symbolically and ritually. Many other religions also have rituals and symbols which give expression to a fundamental myth of death and rebirth. The initiation ceremonies of many primal peoples give to those who go through this 'rite of passage' a sense of being reborn. Death�and-rebirth was also central to the mystery religions which were so popular in the Roman Empire in early Christian times. The same theme is present in the ancient religion of Greece: Pluto (the god of the underworld) gives mythic expression to the power of the dark and of death; yet the other side of Pluto is rebirth to new life. And perhaps the deepest and richest motif in the spirituality of today's 'searchers' is the drawing of new life out of suffering and darkness.

This theme is so widespread and so profound that it ought to be one of the central focuses of dialogue between Christians and members of other religious or spiritual traditions or trends. In dialogue with them, Christians have two valuable contributions to make.

First, when Christians tell the story of Jesus through the Eucharist they are not just nourishing the spirit with a life-giving myth but also recounting history. For them, Jesus is the one in whom myth and history intersect. His life and death remind Christian believers that the purpose of religious rituals is to prepare them to face evil in real life, not just to give them a good feeling or even a sense of religious exaltation.

Second, the story of Jesus teaches Christians to make a vital distinction between physical and moral evil. Some modern 'searchers' (especially those with a New Age background) tend to be rather naive about moral evil and fail to take it sufficiently seriously. Jesus shows that the negative energy which humans must overcome and transform is not just pain or even death, for these are part of what it means to be human. The real enemy is twofold: it is the moral evil of hatred, suspicion, coldness, selfishness and cynicism; and it is also the corruption of the structures of society and of the mind so that they come to embody coldness, selfishness, hatred, and violence. The first effect of personal and structural evil is to poison the heart and kill the spirit of those who yield to them; and the bitter fruit of the corrupted heart is oppression, torture and murder (cf. Mk 7:19-22). This in turn gives rise to traditions and whole cultures which spread the bitter fruit to others and to succeeding generations. Jesus ave witness in his own death to his earlier teaching: 'Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; fear rather the one who can destroy both body and soul in hell' (Mt 10:28). He showed that the ultimate human struggle is not against the death of the body but against the corruption of the heart, of the spirit, of the structures of society, and even of humankind's deepest religious traditions.

The fundamental 'miracle' in the life of Jesus was his ability to draw good out of evil. The high point of this transformation of energy was on the Cross. In the light of what happened there, we can look back on the rest of his life and see the same pattern in operation from the beginning. The miracles he worked almost always involved a healing of some kind-whether physical, emotional, spiritual, inter-personal, socio-political or ecological.

Several of the Gospel accounts indicate that healings took place because Jesus activated some faith or internal healing energy in those whom he cured (e.g. Mt 13:58; Mk 8:24). This lends force to the argument that the healing miracles were in some way a product of the human power or energy of Jesus rather than an effect of his divinity (as distinct from his humanity) or the result of a divine intervention from beyond our created world.

What about the 'miraculous' draft of fishes and the nature miracles recounted in the Gospels? In my chapter on Jesus the Human One, I suggested that we ought not rush to the conclusion that these stories have to be understood in a metaphorical way rather than literally. The Gospels show us a Jesus who is in such perfect harmony with the natural world that he can predict a huge catch of fish and can even influence the weather. Does that mean that he is presented as one who has a magical power? Not necessarily. Could we not rather see these accounts as a challenge to us to rethink our assumptions about the 'normal' limits of human power?

It is interesting to note that all the Gospel accounts of the calming of the storm (Mt 8:26, Mk 4:39-40 and Lk 8:24-5) show Jesus chiding his followers about their lack of faith. We usually take this to mean that they should have trusted God to keep them safe during the storm. But the context could suggest that what the Gospels present him as saying was: 'If you really had a strong faith it would put you so closely in touch with nature that you could be sure of riding out the storm or even, perhaps, calming it as I have just done.'

These Gospel stories invite us to reflect with more open minds about inexplicable coincidences which occur in our own lives. I find that when life is really 'flowing' for me, everything seems to fall into place through a remarkable series of coincidences. On the other hand, when I am 'out of synch' with life, many things seem to go wrong. This happens so frequently that it no longer seems reasonable to 'explain' it by saying that the difference lies entirely in my subjective attitude rather than in the objective sequence of events.

Suppose one accepts that coincidences are not always just random events but that they occur whenever a person succeeds in remaining in touch with 'the flow of life'. Such an acceptance has important implications. It opens up the prospect�and the challenge-of becoming more fully human by being deeply and consistently in tune with the natural world, and with the flow of energy between people. It means that the call to be human includes the development of an attitude and a spirituality which in some way promotes a flow of benign coincidences in life.

For me, there is one particularly strong argument for adopting this view. It is that I frequently find that, when I am experiencing a real freedom of spirit, even my simplest prayers of petition are immediately answered. I have never found it satisfactory to explain these answers to prayer as just a series of coincidences arising from blind chance. A crucial part of my Christian faith is the belief the God answers prayers of petition. As a theologian I have, for many years, accounted for this providence by recalling that the laws of science leave an openness for an infinite number of coincidences; so, in order to answer our prayers, God can exercise the divine providence through these coincidences, without having to 'intervene' in a way that breaks or bends the laws of physics.{5} Many modern theologians and religious people are reluctant to believe that God could answer prayers which call for some change in the physical world. The reason for their hesitance is that they still have an image of our universe asa gigantic clockwork system where everything is pre-determined. But in fact, as the scientist John Polkinghorne points out:

The clockwork universe is dead. The future is not just the tautologous spelling-out of what was already present in the past. Physics shows an openness to new possibility at all levels ... Here seems to be a promising location for the causal joints by which both we and God interact with the universe.{6}

Modern science, then, leaves an opening for action by God in the world in answer to our prayers. But now I am inclined to go a step further. This second step is to hold that, over and above this transcendent causality of God, there is also some worldly causality-or non-causal linkage-between prayer and its answer. In order to explain what this involves it is necessary to take account of some recent developments in science. The Bell-Aspect experiment shows beyond reasonable doubt that, at the micro level (i.e. in the quantum world), space as we imagine it simply does not exist; and there are also strong indications that the commonly accepted notion of a one-way flow of time does not apply in the quantum world.{6} Of course we are not entitled to conclude that space and time are not 'real' at the macro level, i.e. in our everyday world. But we can certainly say that modern physics utterly undermines the way we usually imagine the working of causes and effects in our world.

The present commonsense worldview is one which is fundamentally mechanistic; the world is imagined as though it were a clockwork system. Consequently, we imagine that events can be caused only by mechanical means e.g. that a ball can be moved only by being pushed by something 'solid' and that an infected wound can be healed only when the harmful bacteria are physically destroyed by chemical or biological medicines. But this kind of imaginative thinking is no longer in tune with modern physics. So the mechanistic worldview is now just as much out of date as the ancient worldview in which it was assumed that every event 'in the heavens' has its counterpart 'here below'. We need a very different worldview, one which is in tune with modern physics; but unfortunately we have not yet had time to develop such a worldview. At this point we simply do not know the new 'rules'. However, there are many indications that the new worldview which is emerging is one which no longer makes the same sharp distinction between wha is material on the one hand and what is mental or spiritual on the other.

It seems to me that a key role in the emergent worldview may well be played by the notion of 'energy'�using that word in the sense in which I have used it in this book. For energy in this sense is truly a spiritual reality; yet it is very much part of our so-called 'material' world. In chapter 4 above, on Jesus the Human One, I suggested that the wonders worked by Jesus were a result of his energy. In chapter 5 on redemption, I suggested that we can think in terms of a flow of energy in order to have some sense of how Jesus' death affected others. And in the present chapter I have tried to develop a Christian understanding of spiritual energy in contrast to one which sees it mainly as a power which can be used and manipulated. All this provides a context in which we can think about intercessory prayer as generating and focusing such spiritual energy. From the point of view of modern physics it is no longer unthinkable that human intentions or prayers could have a real effect in the real world-for instance on n infected wound.

If prayer for a sick person really results in the person being healed, should we say that the prayer was the cause of the healing? It does not seem to be a causal relationship in any sense which can be explained by conventional science. Perhaps if the mainstream medical science of today were to break away from the assumptions of the mechanistic worldview it could investigate prayer as a true cause of healing. On the other hand, we may have to accept the notion of a real but non-causal link between apparently unconnected things and events (e.g. between Jesus and the storm or between my prayer and its answer). This is the kind of link which Jung had in mind when he spoke of 'synchronicity'.

Since prayer is a spiritual action it makes sense to think of its effects being primarily spiritual. (But we must, of course, be careful not to slip back into the old dualistic way of thinking, where spiritual and material reality are seen as totally different from each other.) If we think of it in energetic terms we can envisage it reaching out from the one who prays and touching the one who is being prayed for, whether these two people are physically near each other or are separated in body but linked in spirit. The prayer could have the effect of increasing the life-energy of a sick person and boosting the person's healing powers.

In addition to this inter-personal action of prayer we can also think of prayer having an effect at an ecological level. Since the Earth nourishes us and gives us energy, as I pointed out in chapter 3 above, surely we can also give back energy to the Earth. It is a matter of common experience that, when many people come to pray in a particular location, their prayer helps to create 'an atmosphere of prayer' in that area, turning it into a place where people find peace of mind and heart and perhaps healing for the body. If this is true of particular places it should also apply to the Earth as a whole. So it is not at all far-fetched to think of the prayer of contemplatives (and of the contemplative part of all of us) helping to heal our planet and contributing to the creation of a more peaceful world.

There is also room for prayer�and great need for it-at the political level. People often find themselves at the mercy of institutions, authority structures or even whole empires which are experienced as insensitive, oppressive, and exploitative. Each institution is not just a set of laws and traditions; it is a single whole, a Gestalt, a spiritual unity. It is an embodiment of a particular outlook, mindset and spirituality.{8} When an institution becomes oppressive this is because its traditions, its ethos and spiritual identity have become distorted and perhaps even corrupted. In this situation, prayer can have a real effect. It can bring the energy of compassion and love back into the institution.

Of course the institution may resist this; this happens when key people within it (those in authority, spiritual leaders or leaders of thought and culture) find ways to reinforce the uncaring and oppressive aspects of the institution. In that case there will be a spiritual confrontation between the institution and its leaders on the one hand and the praying individual (or community) on the other. This is a struggle carried out at an energetic level. It is rather similar to the confrontation to which I referred in chapter 5 above, between Mandela or Gandhi and the oppressive machinery of the State; but in this case the spiritual energy is focused in the form of prayer.

In some ways what I have been saying about prayer is not new, for it simply spells out the traditional Christian teaching that there is a loving Providence at work in our lives (Lk 12:22-31) and that God answers our prayers (Mt 7:9-11; Jn 16:23). But in other ways it is new; for it accounts for the operation of this aspect of Providence by looking within the world rather than beyond it. This could be a great help for the many modern Christians who find that their living faith in an active experienced Providence has been eroded by popular science.

My account of Jesus as a wonder-worker (in chapter 4 above) and of prayer (in the present chapter) offers the possibility of 'rescuing' the traditional belief in Providence. It does so while respecting the modern insight that the world is a coherent system which is not subject to intermittent and arbitrary interference ('pushing and pulling') by God. As I suggested earlier in this chapter, the wonders performed by Jesus were not simply a response by God 'from beyond the world' to a prayer of Jesus; rather they came about as a result of the human energy of Jesus. Similarly, my account of petitionary prayer sees it not just as a person asking God to 'arrange' a coincidence. It presents prayer as itself an instrument of Providence, as a source of spiritual energy and a channelling of this energy so that it has a direct effect on people, on institutions, and on the Earth.

This approach suggests that Jesus was in touch with human possibilities-energies, relationships and harmonies-of which most people are only dimly aware and which they seldom advert to. It suggests that Jesus invites us to follow him in exploring and living out of these deeper dimensions of human existence. We are called to be like him not merely in 'ordinary' activities such as caring for the sick or challenging oppressive systems, but also in the more 'extraordinary' sphere where healings and 'inexplicable' coincidences occur.

When we follow Jesus into this realm of spiritual and divine energy, we find that our lives, like his, become permeated with a prayer of 'please' and 'thanks' made in total freedom of spirit. This prayer springs from a heart that is fully in tune with the flow of energies in nature and the world. Living life to the full, we follow Jesus in expanding the definition of what it means to be human, and we become, within the world, the active conscious agents of God's loving providence.