Mixed Media: A quest beyond conditioned mind
December 2004 | Maggie Lee | Resurgence Magazine

During the last decade, the Marion Institute in Massachusetts in the USA, through conferences and workshops, has fostered exploration into the ways nature and spirit can empower the lives of individuals and communities. With interest in reaching a wider audience worldwide, in 2002, the Institute created and sponsored the Metahistory Quest website. Five members comprise the core team: Michael Baldwin, John Lash, Joanna Harcourt-Smith, Ian Baldwin and Philip Baldwin. Each offers their talents and experiences to this collaborative dialogue enriching its open forum with a resonant value of their participation.

Metahistory looks beyond history. The principal author of this site, John Lash, refers us to its twofold aim: “To surpass the limits of historical perspective and to introduce new views of human potential, represented in new versions of our story...each one of us has a life-story, conditioned by family, race, sex, nation and religion; the core of our personal narrative carries a pure strand of belief-about oneself, society, humanity, God and all that lies beyond—and it is this strand that determines how we choose to live our lives. The essence of the Metahistorical Quest is a quest beyond the conditioning of our histories, to redirect the course of our lives through applied insight that fosters changed behavior.”

This rich, diverse site delivers! Scanning the navigation panel to the site map displays its signature. We find Sharing Beliefs; Themes: The Arch of Metahistory as Sacred Nature,  Eternal Conflict, Origins, Moral Design and Technology; the Gaian Mythos, Bibliography and Book Reviews and Interviews; together with John’s views expressed in the Gnostic Connection, Socrates in the Last Days, Panorama of Myths, Defusing Belief, Role of Syntax. In the Lexicon (we are told)”some words take on a completely novel spin...we are growing a language to describe humanity in the Gaian perspective and to foster co-evolutionary vision, and a comic break here and there, reminds us humor plays as always, a crucial role in demasking pretences and defusing illusions.” 

This site is unique and memorable for the questions it poses about our personal beliefs, behavior, experiences and shared realities. John  advises, “the best way to assess a belief is by looking at the behavior it produces...we behave as we believe.”   He continues, “If we can experience something directly, evidentially, we are free from having to hold beliefs about it. If our capacity for experience is diminished, our behavior may be affected in a negative way. This capacity for experience has been superceded by the willingness to believe without the evidence of direct experiencing.”

A central theme of Metahistory is how we can nurture the blossoming of our innate gifts. Many of the best resources of the ‘human potential movement’ are presented, including a book review of the ‘Biology of Transcendence by Joseph Chilton Pearce. Pearce states, “each new neural structure we have inherited evolved to correct shortcomings in our problems brought about by nature’s former achievements.” [p3]  John distills...”the correction that turns us back to the true trajectory of transcendence is a full-body knowledge centered in the neural functions of the heart. This is a corrective discovery from the emergent science of neurocardiology [new medical field exploring the brain in the heart].”

The core of Metahistory can be embraced through two words...Gaia-Sophia, the indwelling divinity of the Earth which teaches us about the on-going miracle of beauty, symbiosis and balance. Sophia, a Greek word, translates to “wisdom, divine intelligence.” In the Gaian Factor, John relates, “Linked with Gaia, this word presents an open definition of what makes us human: the wisdom [Sophia] innate to our species, endowed in us by the divine intelligence that plays through Nature, our habitat [Gaia]. The total nexus, reaching from cosmic source to human heart, may be called the Sophianic vision of humanity.” 

Also included in the Gaian Factor, ”Wilhelm Reich argued that our wisdom potential/endowment is one with our biological potential, our somatic make-up.  D. H. Lawrence like Reich, maintained that the basis for moral and ethical behavior was somatic; grounded in Gaia.”

As truth seeking beings, capable of self-direction and self-correction, we are free to choose to trust the compassionate intelligence of Nature as Gaia-Sophia to teach us what we need to know, for there is a reciprocal connection bonding human nature to Gaian nurture.

In  The Mystique of Magdalen, John informs, “ She belongs to the older and deeper roots of our story.  As the human reflection of the Divine Sophia, she represents the grounding of the cosmic wisdom connection in our heart.” She attends and nurtures, growing the confidence in our inner wisdom and appreciation for the Beauty and Pleasures around and in us, while inspiring a loving interest in the discoveries and experiences of Life.

 John reminds, “Time will tell if the power of collective imagination is stronger than the opinions of scholars.  What is extraordinary in the current debate over the Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown is that the fictional treatment of the Magdalen material is taking the discussion about Her to places where the best scholarship has yet failed or dared to go. With the re-emergence of Magdalen, the mythical Lovers return and a timeless archetype is revived and re-embodied.  The impact of this revival, registered in the mythic dimension, but lived out in cultural and personal terms, is likely to generate the most enduring and far-reaching repercussions of the debate around the Da Vinci Code.”

Whether spanning a vast panorama with comprehensive acuity or expressing a tender intimacy, Metahistory.org offers with finesse and authenticity, practical insights...new attainable paradigms that contain refreshing, syncretic perspectives, supportive and beneficial to contemporary personal and social transformation. Personally, the experience affords a deeper, more open respiration and heartsease.

“... as long as what is within your mind is harmonious, your bodies are luminous. As long as your hearts are dark, the luminosity you anticipate will escape you…” [Dialogue of the Savior, fragmentary text, 2-34].