For forty years this writer owned a bookshop that never made a profit. Profit
was never the reason for its existence. Speaking humorously, it was a front for
mysticism. It was a place where people could talk about astrology and spiritual things. In that regard, it was a success. Seekers of every stripe visited.
So, also, did the spiritually and psychologically troubled, a more painful success. In the early days, the days of the flower children, there were astrological
groupies, young women dazzled by the stars. Some of them were also dazzled
by other stars, celebrities. The bookshop was located near an arena that was
a venue for high attendance rock concerts. Once, some of the young women
with eyes on the stars, both varieties, made it back stage and connected with
some of the performing groups. So it was that a rock star, still famous to this
day, went from a coliseum seating 10,000, to a bookshop measuring 12 feet
by 20 feet. It was a difficult evening. There were no unpleasantries but it was
painfully awkward. The young women wanted the proprietor to spout clever
astrological things, which he is disinclined to do, given the circumstances.
The rock star didn’t know anything about astrology anyway. His ignorance of
the subject didn’t keep him from talking about it. He probably thought that
he had to say something to impress the groupies. He spoke in an offhand way
about astronomy, about which he didn’t know much either. After a few minutes of disjointed conversation, the star gave his address to the proprietor
and said to visit when in Los Angeles. He was actually a nice guy caught in a
star syndrome and an awkward circumstance.
One wonders why someone would pontificate on a subject in ignorance of it.
Almost everyone has done it at some time, but celebrities seem more prone
to it. It is as if in a state of inflated self-importance, there is a belief that one’s
being exceeds what it actually is. It is an illusion, but to merely state that, and
say no more, isn’t very helpful. One wants to know why it happens, so something can be done about it. We want our self-estimation to be true to reality,
which is why Rosicrucian aspirants retrospect and set aside special times for
accurate self-judgment.
After much pondering, it was concluded that this phenomenon is part of a
larger phenomenon which, in vernacular, is called a performance high. When
one is performing successfully, the audience is not only receiving, it is giving back. It is an exchange. In the exchange the audience members are pro101
jecting. They are identifying themselves and their ideals with the performer.
Even if it is only appreciation, the audience is lavishing a lot of love and other
feelings and thoughts on the performer. This has a pronounced effect on the
performer. The performer experiences self-awareness through the eyes and
projections of the audience. One sees one’s self as more than one would normally see one’s self. In the aura of love and appreciation, the performer can
do things not normally possible. One actually does exceed one’s normally,
petty personality.
When the performance is over, some of the effects of the performance high
linger on. Performers, remembering the reality of the performance high, are
prone to believe that they know more than they really do in their ordinary
consciousness. This phenomenon is a matter of consciousness, especially
self-consciousness. At present, our consciousness is not constant in either
degree or quality. Sometimes we are more conscious than we are at other
times. Some people have more tonal consciousness, others more color consciousness. We are not always highly self-conscious. When we haven’t been
highly aware, we say things like, “I forgot myself.”
Performers vary in their reactions to a performance high. Many have felt a
little bit of heaven and want to stay there. St. Peter at the Mount of Transfiguration wanted to build tabernacles and remain. Many performers take
drugs, in lieu of the performance high, thus adding another layer of illusion.
Other performers, like some artists, are more aware of themselves and of
the performance high. Among painters there is a phenomenon called, “the
painter’s eye.” It is a state of visual awareness that exceeds normal vision. It
is possible to control the experience of the painter’s eye. The French artist
Matisse, when asked if he saw a tomato with the eye of an artist when eating
it, answered: “No, when I eat a tomato, I look at it in the way anyone else
would. But when I paint a tomato, then I see it differently.”
Painting does not involve an audience, so elevated consciousness is volitional, though the intensity of elevated consciousness is not as great as the performance high experienced by the performance artist. Keeping control in a
performance high is more difficult, even when one is aware of it, especially
if the audience is large and ardently enthusiastic. A performance high is not
necessarily a bad thing. Some performers learn to play it as part of their art.
A virtuoso performance of this type is wonderful. Losing control in a
performance high is not a good thing. In a performance, the love given and received
is certainly a good thing, even in prosaic activities. When we pour love on our
children, they thrive on it and flourish. When we love someone special, the
effect is similar. Pablo Neruda may have said it best when he wrote: “I want
to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.” The love lavished on
a rock star in a concert may be tainted with desire, but that is not the main of
the problem. Imperfections in the performer are another part, but that is not
the main of it either. It is the magnitude and the intensity of the love, tainted
or not, that makes it hard to control. A large dose of intense love is likely to
magnify the creative capacity, as well as the problems, of the performer. Extreme expressions of love carelessly given with too much intensity can harm
the development of a child.
There seem to be several factors in play in a performance high and its kindred
phenomena. One factor is control, bilateral control. Control of the emotional
expression of a frenzied crowd is unheard of. The onus is on the performer.
Beside exceeding their normal capacity for creative expression, some performers also lose control. Some performers plan for loss of control. One rock
star trained himself to perform outrageous acts, such as biting the heads off
bats, when he became frenzied in a performance high. Responsible parents
develop an ability to control their temper so their expressions do not overwhelm their children, who are not yet able to develop control themselves. Intent is another factor. A crowd can come together to form a temporary emotional entity with enormous intensity and a specific intent. At a rock concert
the intent of the crowd is usually celebratory. A lynch mob is a crowd out of
control with a nasty intent. Beside the collective intent, individual audience
members often project their own personal desires on the performers. Intent
can be subtle, sometimes so subtle that it is not self-consciously discerned.
Some loving parents use their love to control the behavior and development
of their children, without being completely conscious of their intent. These
factors notwithstanding, intensity remains the strongest factor in a performance high, whether for good or not good.
Each day presents us opportunities to give love. Each day presents us opportunities to receive love. If taken, the effects of these opportunities are
cumulative and mounting. It is healthy to see these opportunities and take
them, if we want to grow spiritually. Most of the factors that apply to a performance high apply to the little expressions of love in our daily lives.
Efficiency in our spiritual aspirations is at least as important as it is our mundane employment. This means that understanding factors like control and
intent, is important. We are Christian mystical aspirants. Christ is our ideal.
In our aspiration, we are learning to supersede egoism by doing things for
the Christ’s sake. Christ comes to us from the world of Life Spirit, the world
of the purest love. When we do things for the Christ’s sake, we are doing
them for love’s sake. The ways of love are often different from the ways of the
self, many times they are diametric. A self-made personality is different from
a personality built and tamed by love. We want to become people who will do
anything for the sake of love, which requires real control. It is similar with
intent. When dealing with a difficult personality, we may want to teach the
person a lesson. It doesn’t work, at least not lastingly, and it often backfires.
Christ in the Gospels tells us to love our enemies, not an easy intent to fulfill,
since vengeance is such a deep and strong emotion. St. Paul tells us that loving our enemies is like heaping coals of fire on their heads, but harm is not
our intent either. St. Paul’s statement awakens us to the efficacy of love. Love
will always have its way, and its way is always good. Learning to surrender
to the reality of love is our intent. Sometimes it seems as though living this
way is impossible, but love will eventually have its way with us if we persist.
Though we fail numerous times, we have the reminder from our Rosicrucian
Temple Service that love is patient and will never fail us.
It does not often happen in our daily lives that love is given, or received, with
the magnitude of a performance high. It does happen, but only on rare occasions that can be brought about by persistent application. We can understand how this works by turning to the Bible. In the Rosicrucian philosophy
we are told many times that the Bible is not an open book. Only with the
infallible inner eye of intuition can we see beneath its surface. Some simple
statements made in passing in the Gospels are passed over and not understood. A perfect example is the description of St. John as “the disciple whom
Jesus loved.” It is used five times in St. John’s Gospel. That is an unusually high number of incidences for a simple description. The frequency of its
statement stresses its importance. Most readers take that phrase to mean
that St. John was a favorite or a pet to Jesus, or that St. John was bragging.
What the phrase means esoterically is that St. John was initiated by Jesus. As
this writer understands it, in the Christian mystical initiation, the hierophant
applies love to the candidate generously. Love always has its way. At this
magnitude, the effect is instantaneous. It purifies the candidate by bringing
to attention as much as the candidate can bear of past experience. Some of
it is like heaping coals on one’s head. The purpose of this is to harvest the
soul power from past experience that is necessary to carry out the rest of the
initiatory work. In street language, it is like a retrospection on steroids. It
is like purgatory and first heaven combined. The section of The Rosicrucian
Cosmo-Conception that describes the life cycle can be initiatory, if read and
lived with sufficient sincerity. This writer has met such an individual who did
so, and who lives an amazing life of service. To be given the love of Christ
with that magnitude, control, and intent, exceeds a performance high. May
we all be so fortunate to have such an experience.
Chances are that most of us will not become celebrities or initiates any time
soon. That does not mean that we are barred from having a taste of the stuff
of a performance high. There are other expressions of this phenomenon,
though not usually of the same magnitude as an initiation. The love of the
Christian mystical initiation is the same love that we seek to draw on in our
healing work. To the degree that we are successful in our control, intent, and
intensity in the performance of healing prayer, we experience a performance
high as a side effect of our purpose, which is healing. An illness can be a micro initiation. Max Heindel tells us that initiation often occurs synchronously
with illness. Goethe’s life was changed radically toward spiritual things after
suffering a severe illness. The healing of an illness can also be a micro initiation. As we struggle with errant thoughts and desires, when trying to draw
on Life Spirit in our healing prayers, we undergo a micro purgatory. To the
extent that we are successful in our prayers, we become better people. Initiation is about becoming better people. In a quiet way, the person sitting next
to you might be undergoing that experience. It is a good and useful way to
approach the stuff of a performance high without all of the noise and distraction of celebrity.
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