The Cloud upon the Sanctuary

From The Cloud Upon the Sanctuary, by Karl von Eckarthausen:

The moral law then evolves into love for one's neighbor in deed and in truth,
whereas for the natural man it is but a simple attitude of thought; and the spiritual
man, regenerated in spirit, sees all in its essence, of which the natural man has only
the forms void of thought, mere empty sounds, symbols and letters, which are all
dead images without interior spirit. The lofty aim of religion is the intimate union of
man with God; and this union is possible in this world; but it only can be by the
opening of our inner sensorium, which enables our hearts to become receptive to
God.

In an earlier post, I talked about being a slave to words. Councillor d'Eckarthausen also makes the point, that we are divided, our feet in the grave, our heads in the clouds. Again, we see the false dichotomy, but one which is used for instruction. The 'natural [hu]man' is said to hold attitudes, and see the surface, while the 'spiritual [hu]man' gets to the essence, seeing and hearing with new eyes, as we are exhorted to in many of the gospels, both canonical and Gnostic.

Philip tells us to make the two into one. Eckarthausen says the way to do that is cause the spiritual human to increase, so that the natural human can be made equal in the process. He talks about joining the one true society of the Elect, and for him it's not an elitist thing, but rather an evolution of working on your inner senses, revealing the truth of reality, rather than what we think we see with eyes darkly veiled.

It is quite true that with new senses we can acquire sense of further reality. This reality exists already, but is not known to us, because we lack the organ by which to cognize it. One must not lay the fault to the percept, but on the receptive organ. With, however, the development of the new organ we have a new perception, a sense of new reality. Without it the spiritual world cannot exist for us, because the organ rendering it objective to us is not developed. With, however, its unfoldment, the curtain is all at once raised, the impenetrable veil is torn away, the cloud before the Sanctuary lifts, a new world suddenly exists for us, scales fall from the eyes, and we are at once transported from the phenomenal world to the regions of truth.

And here, we have echoes of Philip again.

While we are in this world, it is fitting for us to acquire the resurrection...

Remember, as far as we know, Councillor d'Eckarthausen did not have access to the Gospel of Philip,

So, the increase of the spiritual senses is the way towards the resurrection. How do we increase these senses. Councillor d'Eckarthausen has a theory, which I'll talk about more, later..