Yesterday, on the same day, the Christian Lent and the Islamic Ramadan began. I take this as an opportunity to philosophize a bit about the concept of the Holy Spirit.

One could argue that Christian fasting is superior to Islamic fasting because after 4 days of not eating, or 24 hours of not eating, the experience is that the spirit becomes free and hunger suddenly disappears. While Islamic fasting only concerns the daylight hours, and the practitioner naturally feels hunger again every day because the stomach can never fully shut down.

But at its core, it is not the practices that differentiate us, but the principle of experience in Christianity, which stands in contrast to the principle of obedience that is central in Islam. Experience, in turn, rests fundamentally on the experience of the Holy Spirit. And here, our fundamental concept is probably already flawed, as the Holy Spirit was defined as a person in the 4th century AD, even though Basil of Caesarea, the father of the Holy Spirit, never once used the term person for the Holy Spirit; instead, he writes pages in Contra Eunomius about the energy of God. And the only Christian church that officially recognizes divine energies in its faith is the Orthodox Church, which is the traditional denomination practiced in Russia, Ukraine, and many other Eastern European countries. It is very interesting in this context that the Orthodox Church in Ukraine has recently been banned because it is suspected of being pro-Russian.

I am now sure that we need the principles of chakra, aura, and ether at least as a supplement to the energy concept of the Holy Spirit, because at least the chakras and the aura are the organs of the subtle world with which we can receive the Holy Spirit or the divine energies.
Whether the ether of Plato, which is probably the dark matter in the universe, is already the Holy Spirit that, according to the Voyager books, is recharged every 25,000 years, thus resembling a battery. Or whether the ether is merely the substance or the dark matter that absorbs this energy and then distributes it in the universe is a question of astrophysics that I do not wish to answer.

I have had Holy Spirit experiences during my time in the charismatic renewal and can testify that a kabot experience, where a surface of water slowly descends throughout the room and fills or rests everyone in the room in the spirit, where individuals fall without injuring themselves and experience a high state that probably many drug addicts seek, is very real—only without the hangover afterward. I was present at healings; I have seen and experienced miracles. I myself was healed through the laying on of hands, although my doubts, which were very strong at the time, negated the effect in this case. A hand carried me over a rock overhang a few years later. I had already prepared myself for death, as I was not skilled in climbing, yet the hand was pressed against my back and carried me until I had overcome the overhang.

All these things are very real; I also want to mention confession, with whose help I can cleanse my chakras and my aura better than I have ever managed with any meditation, and I even developed a meditation myself in my early alternative years. It should be noted that I once confessed to a friend, and it also worked; what is important is that she or he forgives you your sins, whatever they may be. It does not have to be a priest. However, I must mention that the effect was present but not as strong as with the priest. Somewhere the Donatists must also be right; there must be a connection between one’s own life and the efficacy of the spirit within you.

Christians do not have the upper hand because they are better or holier; on the contrary, I believe that most Muslims I know live more holily than many Christians, but the development of a society does not depend on holiness. It would be bad for us if that were the case. It is the experience of the spirit that gives us the advantage. The change, the development, the ideas. That is what defines Christianity and why it continues to advance, despite all the fraud and lies, for which I can also testify, as it was the Jesuits, my teachers, who told me face to face about their contacts with extraterrestrials and time travel.

To give a little honor to the science from which I come, I would like to highlight two sources. First, Barbara Ann Brennan, who lists numerous proofs for the existence of the aura in the first 100 pages of her book, Light Work. Klaus Volkamer and his subtle extension of our worldview is a good addition to this, which already lies in the 21st century. And secondly, the compendium of the Pan-Orthodox Council of 2016, which in the only encyclical produced by this council confirms on page 40 the teaching of divine energies that were successfully defended by Gregory Palamas against Balaam of Calabria before they were included in the Orthodox Synod at the 5th Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in 1351. Unfortunately, the direct link does not work here to a PDF document, but you can copy the link below and then open it or paste it into the browser’s address bar to access it.

https://www.unifr.ch/orthodoxia/de/assets/public/Lehre/HS2023%20-%20Ostkirchen/EE_12-2_cut.pdf

This theology was mainly developed by Maximus the Confessor, who in turn builds on Basil of Caesarea. Also, the Chinese Qi is a life energy, or the Indian Prana. Not least for this reason, I am also a fan of the BRICS countries and hope that something better will emerge from there than what the Western world has produced so far, as all countries that know a spiritual energy are united here in a covenant. But that is already another topic.

PS: Liturgically speaking, Lent is the preparation for Easter; Easter, in turn, is the preparation for Pentecost, which is the feast of the Holy Spirit. This whole period lasts two times 40 and once 50 days, which totals 130 days, a little over 18 weeks or over 4 months. Fasting is the preparation; Easter is the liberation from sins, and Pentecost is the gift of the Holy Spirit.