Abstract:
Revisiting Fallenness: A Search for Meaning in the World We Live In
‘Fallen’ can very quickly feel like we have drooped or come down from a higher or better place and that our current experience is less worthy. At the same time, we have to acknowledge that we have a limited experience of reality and yearn for reconnection. What might be a positive framing of our human nature? This paper will offer insights into evolution from a spiritual understanding that compliments the natural evolutionary theories. There is a descending and ascending aspect to evolution that gives a picture of grace and opportunity. The path of human spirituality is about utilising our fallenness to fully spiritualise our world.
Drawing on mystical-analytical methods developed in my recently completed doctorate alternative opportunities arising from our fallenness will be presented.
Profile:
Martin Samson was born in Southern Africa and grew up through the melting pot of transition that led to the end of Apartheid. Many life experiences including working in the Apartheid driven Ghettos, living in a monastery, and volunteering in an organisation for socially and mentally disabled people formed his path towards metaphysics and spiritual understanding. His life has been a quest for knowing how the world works, how the spiritual and physical work in union with each other and providing opportunities for people to share in his knowledge and guidance.
Martin was a priest of The Christian Community for 25 years and has worked in Australia since 1992. He received a Masters in Theological Studies and has spent many years studying cross-cultural religion, philosophy, mythology, and cosmology. He has lectured extensively on many subjects including a global spiritual approach to the festivals in the southern hemisphere. Martin travels around Australia and other countries around the world presenting on cross-traditional culture and philosophy. He has recently moved to Sydney and is enrolled in his PhD on creating a language and grammar between the Christological ideas of Rudolf Steiner’s anthroposophy, traditional systematic Christological doctrine and excluded Gnostic traditions. He will also bridge the spiritual scientific methods of anthroposophy and mainstream theological systems of knowledge.