The Spiral Path

Wonder, Science, and Faith

Archive for the category “quantum theory”

02 Sep 2012

RS28: For Now We See in a Mirror, Brightly

A:  Okay.  To sum up so far, you rejected traditional and cultural beliefs about illness and healing, left the major urban centres, moved to a small town in Galilee — Capernaum . . .?

J:  Capernaum.

A: . . . broke countless religious rules about healing, didn’t use magic, ritual, or even prayer during your healing sessions, insisted on using observable science, insisted on building relationships of compassion with your patients, insisted on the power of faith, insisted on examining patients directly instead of using proxies, and rarely asked for anything in return.  Many patients with neurological, psychiatric, endocrine, and autoimmune disorders suddenly got better.  People thought you were a miracle worker.  You didn’t believe you were the prophesied Messiah, but many other people did.

Canadian National Parks 120

“Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but just grew worse. She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, ‘If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.’ Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, ‘Who touched my clothes?’ And his disciples said to him, ‘You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, “Who touched me?”‘ He looked all around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. He said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease'” (Mark 5:25-34). Photo credit Hemera Technologies 2001 – 2003.

From today’s perspective, you don’t look like a religious teacher or wandering philosopher sage at all.  You look like a really gifted doctor.  In fact, you look to me like a really gifted psychiatrist.  And I ought to know what a psychiatrist looks like, since I was married to one for twenty years.

J:  I don’t deny what you’re saying.  A psychiatrist’s job, after all, is to help patients examine the parts of their biology that are interfering with their ability to think, feel, and choose in balanced, holistic ways.  It’s probably the most important field of medicine, though it’s usually the specialty that receives the least respect and the least funding.

A:  You were a physician.  A pioneering spirit in the as-yet unknown discipline of psychiatry.  Yet a religious movement sprang up around you.  Why?

J:  Because I was a man of deep faith.  I wasn’t afraid to trust God, to love God as they really are.  I wasn’t afraid to open my heart to the wonder of healing.  More important, I had a radically different idea of what illness and healing meant.  For me, illness didn’t mean “lack of perfection.”  And healing didn’t mean “acquisition of perfection.”  I had an entirely different understanding of our lives as human beings, an understanding based on my observation of the natural world.  For me, pain and death were not the enemy.  Death was obviously unavoidable.  Pain was a language, a language that spoke the truth about a person’s relationships with himself, with others, with the world around him, and with God.  I saw the loss of love and trust in God as a major source of pain and suffering in the people around me.  Their souls weren’t happy with the loss of relationship with God.  Their bodies mirrored this lack of happiness, this spiritual pain.

The truth is that all souls need God.  They need relationship with God.  They need to feel that connection, that bond of love and trust.  They also need to feel the same kind of love and trust in their relationships with their families and friends and community.  They need to feel safe — emotionally, physically, intellectually, and spiritually safe.

The world I grew up in didn’t teach anyone to feel safe in their relationship with God, or, for that matter, safe within their own families.  No community can be safe when it preaches the inferiority of women and the right to own slaves.  Second Temple Judaism was no different in this regard from the Hellenistic world around us.  Women had few rights.  And seriously ill or disabled women had even fewer.

My daughter was born with Down Syndrome.  She died at age 3 of respiratory failure.  It was probably pneumonia.  But she died in terrible emotional pain, terrible emotional suffering, because her own mother believed she was a curse.  A curse!

Her body got sick and died, but the pain of her physical suffering was small in comparison to her emotional and spiritual suffering.  She was horribly abused by her mother and her mother’s family.  Not because she deserved it but because Jewish magicians said she deserved it.  And I did nothing to protect her.

After she died — and there’s no doubt her mother and her mother’s mother were complicit in her death — I had to look at myself in the mirror and be honest about what I’d done — or rather, what I hadn’t done.  I had to own up to my complete and utter lack of courage.  And I had to deal with the constant memory of her face and her trusting smile.

I have no respect for the constant preaching from Christian theologians about the lofty preeminence of my suffering and death and resurrection.  Fuck that.  My contribution wasn’t my own death.  My contribution was to see meaning and life in the face of death, to see transformation and forgiveness in the face of death, and to really mean it.  My contribution was to find the courage to remember my daughter’s trusting smile and try to do something useful with the gift of her love.  Her love — the memory and the ongoing presence of her love in my heart — was a constant source of wonder and healing for me.

Apparently my guardian angels approved of this attitude because after I spent years learning how to forgive and learning how to listen to God’s voice and learning how to follow my own inborn talent as a physician, really weird shit started to happen around me.   I mean, really weird shit.  Healings that were more than placebo effect (which I had started to get used to by then).  I mean sudden, miraculous healings that only God can do.  I was as shocked as many of my patients.  But I understood in a logical, rational way what was happening.  So I wasn’t afraid.  I was just . . .  non-plussed.

A:  Why weren’t you afraid?

J:  Because I trusted God.  Because I could hear the voice of my own guardian angels.  Because I could feel the comfort and safety of these “events” deep in my gut.  Because people around me were crying in relief and gratitude.  Because good things were happening to regular people.  Because some of the people I helped heal began to believe in a loving God instead of a cruel, vengeful God.  Because God was obviously present in small huts and green fields and all the places where God wasn’t supposed to be present.  Because the only contribution we humans needed to bring to the table of healing was our kindness — our true kindness towards ourselves, towards each other, and towards God.  Not many people then or now have been willing to show kindness towards God.

A:  Did you understand the science of the miracle healings?

J:  You mean the quantum physics of it?  Hell, no.  I’m an angel on the Other Side and I still barely grasp the quantum physics of it!  But the science of it is there.  The truthful and logical reality of the healings is there.  Just because humans — and many angels! — don’t fully understand the science doesn’t mean it’s not science.  It’s just a really, really advanced science.

A:  A science which obviously circumvents the linear “cause and effect” of classical, Newtonian physics.

J:  Divine Love and forgiveness feel like emotional gifts, but at a quantum level, they’re both related to non-locality or, as some prefer to call it today, quantum entanglement.  Love and forgiveness also tie in with the soul’s sense of time and timing.

If you have no sense of time — no personal relationship with past, present, and future — it’s impossible for you, as a human being, to give and receive either Divine Love or forgiveness.

Trying to live in the moment — in other words, living in a state of denial about your own pain or somebody else’s pain — destroys the biological brain’s ability to process pain and turn it into something else, something much deeper and more proactive in the world, like, oh, say, like courage.

A:  So you’d define courage, then, as the ability to shift pain into some form of healing action or choice.  The ability to take action and help make the world a better place, even if it’s an emotional action, like choosing to love and forgive and trust, as opposed to a physical action, like joining the Peace Corps.

J:  Yes.  Courage is the choice to help God “build an ark.”

A:  There’s no doubt about the amount of pain that exists in the world.  So if pain is the raw material — the wooden planks — that can be turned into something deeper and more proactive, that’s one helluv’an ark we’re gonna be building.

 

 

-2
Posted in healing miracles, historical Jesus, Jesus' teachings, quantum theory, Realspiritik, relationship with God, sense of time & timing, theodicy and tagged , | Leave a Comment
31 Mar 2012

TBM32: Three Spectrographs of Consciousness

The human brain is sometimes called the 3-pound universe, and for good reason. There’s a lot more going on in there than you realize.

Your brain is a one-of-a-kind creation, the one place in all Creation where you can be you, the one place where you actually get to decide what you want to think, feel, do, and create. It’s the place where you feel love. It’s the place where you feel your tears and your laughter. It’s the place where you experience your relationship with God.

But brains are more than just a bunch of uplifting words and pretty pictures. Brains are hard science. Brains are physics, chemistry, biology, and math. Brains are quantum theory — probability wave functions, conscious observer rights, non-locality, Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, and all the other forms of quantum weirdness you may have been reading about if you’re a science geek.

Hey, I’m a science geek, and proud of it. Blondes can have fun with quantum theory. Who says you have to be a white male German physicist (or theologian) to understand the real science that lies behind all Creation?

Why am I bringing up the topic of quantum physics? Because there’s one aspect of this field that has deep relevance to your everyday life as a regular person trying to walk the Spiral Path hand in hand with your guardian angels. The aspect I’m interested in is wave theory — the behaviour of probability wave functions. You need to have a basic understanding of wave theory (in a simplified form) so you can understand how your own sense of intuition works and why it sometimes seems to fail you.

Don’t worry — this isn’t going to be as scary as you think.

Take a careful look at the three diagrams below. The first is a schematic of the major kinds of choices made inside the biological brain of a typical adult Status Addict. The second shows the major kinds of choices made by an guardian angel (which would include you, as a person-of-soul, when your time on Planet Earth is complete). The third represents the major kinds of choices made by an adult Whole Brain Thinker — a person who’s relying more on input from his/her soul and less on the purely “Darwinian” kill-or-be-killed choices made by certain parts of the biological brain.


Each of the spikes on these “spectrographs of consciousness” represents two things: (1) a particular “radio channel” that your brain, operating as a wireless Blackberry-type device, can pick up, and (2) the strength of each “radio channel.” A short peak means there’s a signal you can pick up, but it’s not strong. A tall peak means there’s a signal you pick up clearly and consistently with little interference (almost as if the transmission tower is next door). The absence of a peak means your own personal Blackberry-brain can’t pick up this particular station at all, no matter how hard you try.

Compare the diagram of the Status Addict to the diagram of the Guardian Angel. The Status Addict, over time, has chosen to change his brain’s priorities so he can focus on getting more status points. This means he’s had to give up certain other choices. He’s had to give up empathy, forgiveness, and humbleness because these would interfere with his belief that he’s better than other people (i.e. his belief that he deserves more status). He’s decided to use the tools of denial, narcissism, anger, and contempt for others to prevent himself from feeling empathy, forgiveness, or humbleness. He’s practised using these destructive tools a lot. And now he’s so good at it, his biological brain has stopped generating any energy waves that would come across to other people as genuine empathy, etc. So now he can’t give empathy to others, but even importantly, for our purposes here, he can’t receive it, either. He has no channel left inside his biological brain where he can “hear” the intent of empathy. He can’t receive on this channel because he’s told his brain — repeatedly — to stop making this particular wave.

In wave theory, you see, there’s all this interesting stuff about waves being amplified and waves being quenched. If you take two tall empathy peaks and add them together, you get — surprise! — one combined peak that’s tall. If you take one tall empathy peak and add it to an equal-sized “trough” in the empathy spectrum, you get — oops! — invisibility. The trough cancels out the peak. So in the Status Addict’s brain, the trough in the empathy region of his spectrograph spells trouble for his guardian angel. His angel can send him all the empathy waves she wants, but his brain isn’t going to hear them. Because it can’t. There’s no channel there.

Meanwhile, the Whole Brain Thinker above has worked very hard to keep his empathy, forgiveness, and humbleness circuits well exercised. Sure, he still makes mistakes, and he still has some anger, narcissism, and denial to work on, but they aren’t very strong compared to his other choices. So they don’t interfere much with the incoming waves of empathy, etc., from his guardian angel. This man can “hear” his guardian angel loud and clear — NOT in the form of words, of course, because most people who are hearing actual words are suffering from hallucinations and need immediate medical care. But the Whole Brain Thinker can “hear” others (including angels) who speak the language of empathy and forgiveness and humbleness. He can both give and receive on these channels. These are the mysterious feelings of the heart.

In the case of our Status Addict above, his guardian angel doesn’t have much to work with, to be honest. I’ve shown small peaks for courage, self discipline, and service to others on the spectrograph above — as you’d see in the profile of a typical evangelical Christian who has listened to traditional Church teachings on humility. These three channels are the only channels where the guardian angel has any hope of being “heard” — and not very clearly at that. This person can go to church every day, say prayers for hours at a time, memorize the whole Bible verse by verse, and STILL not be able to feel God’s presence because he hasn’t built strong useable soul channels inside his own biological brain.

So who is responsible for this lack of useable channels? The status addict or God?

Well, the status addict is the one who holds the responsibility. Why? Because your consciousness (which includes your brain while you’re here on Planet Earth) is the only part of Creation that belongs entirely to you. It’s your own little Kingdom (as Jesus once called it). It’s your corner in God’s Spiritual Kitchen. It’s yours to cherish, yours to care for. It’s also yours to heal — with help from others, of course.

You may not want to hear this, especially if you’ve got to the point in your life where you’ve lost all control over your own thoughts, feelings, actions, and creativity (as happens to too many people, in my view). But healing follows insight. And insight follows facts. So you need to know the facts so you can figure out what to do with them.

Healing a brain that’s fallen into the destructive patterns of status addiction is no easy task. So unlike most of my theological peers, I promise no easy fixes for you if you decide to go out and look for God. Easy fixes are a favourite food for status addiction. So you can imagine what I think of faith healers’ promises! On the other hand, I can promise permanent emotional healing if you’re willing to slowly and patiently regain control of the parts of your brain that are causing you so much suffering. This may require medical intervention, but such intervention is okay with God and your guardian angels. There’s no shame in needing help. Everyone needs help! Learning to receive help with gratefulness and humbleness is a big part of the journey.

When you compare the spectrographs of the Status Addict and the Whole Brain Thinker, you may be tempted to say it’s impossible for the brain of a Status Addict to ever be transformed to the pattern of the Whole Brain Thinker. You may be tempted (as so many religious teachers have been) to claim the Status Addict was born this way, and nobody can change it, and you may as well resign yourself to it. You may be tempted to say that only a saint who’s specially chosen by God could ever manage to do all that hard stuff like . . . like . . . caring about other people every day.

Fortunately, this miraculous transformation is not restricted to saints. And it’s not restricted to those who seek help from ordained clerics. It’s open to anyone, because all of us are children of God, and all of us are equally worthy of God’s help as we struggle with the difficult challenges we endure as human beings.

Trust in the fact that inside your confused and miswired human brain is your true self — you as a soul — who already lives and breathes everything you see on the chart for the Guardian Angel. You, as a person-of-soul, DO all these cool things like empathy and forgiveness and service and humbleness and self discipline and courage. You DO! You may not remember today, and you may not remember tomorrow, but that’s okay — just hang onto this uplifting divine truth about you as a child of God.

Don’t listen to anyone who tells you otherwise. The brain science speaks far more loudly here than any religious text that’s ever been written. Science is one of God’s many languages. Don’t be afraid of it. The love and the science go together in one astounding package of wonder and mystery and awe and creativity (not to be confused with creationism, which is bizarre beyond bizarre).

What’s this? Talking about God the Mother and God the Father as if they’re brainiac scientists who know what they’re doing when they bring quantum waves and particles together in new creations that actually work?

Yeah . . . such a kookie idea.

-2
Posted in angels (i.e. persons-of-soul), brain's Darwinian Circuitry, brain's Soul Circuitry, brain-soul connection, Favourite Posts, Kingdom teachings, quantum theory, Soul, status addiction, The Blonde Mystic, Whole Brain Thinking and tagged | Leave a Comment
10 Mar 2012

TBM25: Awe and Wonder – Gifts of the Soul

There’s a long tradition in all major world religions of teaching people that life on Planet Earth is some sort of cosmic punishment. According to these theories — theories from such esteemed thinkers as Plato and the Buddha and Paul and assorted Gnostic teachers — the very fact that you’re living here on Planet Earth proves that you haven’t advanced very far in your spiritual development as a soul. These thinkers start with the assumption that life as a 3D human being totally sucks from beginning to end. So anything you can do to “escape” from the suffering proves that you’re smarter and faster and better than your “ignorant” and “unworthy” peers, who are too stupid to understand the need for escape.

(C) Image*After

(C) Image*After

Hey, don’t get mad at me. This is what these teachers actually taught!

See, now, I think all these teachers were completely wrong. I think these teachers never understood for a moment what it means to love. I think they saw the world from their own narrow, shrunken, unloving perspective. They failed to see the potential of all creatures on Planet Earth, the potential of all creatures to live lives of great courage and devotion and learning and teamwork. They failed to see the potential for love, which means they lived their own personal lives in a state of depression and blame and victimhood, and then they died without ever understanding why they were here and what they could have done with their human lives, but, you know, that’s their problem. You’re not responsible for their failure to see the “big picture.” You’re not responsible for their limited imagination or their limited faith in God or their limited courage. These teachers had more education and more opportunities than most people on Planet Earth have ever had, and they blew it. They chose not to learn about love. But you don’t have to follow in their footsteps. You can follow a different path — the Spiral Path of learning, love, and wonder.

Incarnating as a human being on Planet Earth, far from proving your inadequacy as a child of God, proves the very opposite. The fact that you’re here says you’re made of incredibly tough stuff — the kind of stuff that makes it possible for you to learn to juggle not only your soul’s needs but also your biological human needs. At the same time. With limited tools and limited resources. And a limited time frame. And a lot of days where you seem to spend more time UNlearning the errors of your past than anything else. And a lot of confusion and frustration. And more questions than you can answer during your life as a human being. And more ways to know your own love and courage than you ever thought possible.

It’s a friggin’ hard juggling act. But also an awe-inspiring juggling act. The people who get it figured out inspire awe and wonder in others. Not worship or blind obedience in others. (I repeat –the goal is not to try to induce worship or blind obedience in others.) It’s just a simple childlike awe and wonder towards others. The same childlike awe and wonder that we, as angels and children of God, feel towards our beloved divine parents, God the Mother and God the Father.

In other words, divine love has a large component of awe and wonder in it. You could also use the words “gratitude” and “humbleness” to describe the feelings of awe and wonder we express towards other souls in Creation, including the two souls who are God.

I often feel awe and wonder in the presence of other people when they’re choosing to bring a sense of balance into the world through their daily actions. These are the people who understand boundaries and appropriate limits, who understand when to say “yes” and when to say “no.” These are the people who know what they’re good at, and work hard to create something meaningful with the talents they have. They’re not threatened by other people’s talents. They know how to play when it’s time to play. They know how to cry when it’s time to cry. Most important, they think their highest spiritual calling is to treat other people with dignity, respect, compassion, politeness, and divine love at every opportunity each day.

Oh, and they’re not afraid to learn new things.

At the other end of the spectrum, I’m not ever inspired to a feeling of awe and wonder in the presence of status addicts. I take no inspiration from the choices of a person who is consciously seeking to climb the ladder of fame, power, or wealth. I feel no awe when I hear the contestants on American Idol trying to out-sing each other. I feel no wonder whatsoever when Donald Trump’s contestants come up with brilliant new business schemes. To be honest, the Olympics leave me cold. The cost of winning a gold medal is simply too high.

I’m all for the pursuit of excellence as long as it’s not confused (as it so often is) with the pursuit of status. I think it can be cogently argued that anyone who makes it into the Olympics has long since passed the threshold of excellence and crossed into the territory of full-blown status addiction. How else to explain the agony of defeat when the margin of loss is measured in mere hundredths of a second? There is nothing in this obsessive pursuit of perfection that I admire.

I do admire individuals who love a sport and actively participate so they can be in respectful, non-competitive relationship with others. I admire the people who use sports as an effective teaching modality. I admire the people who go outside to walk and bike and hike and camp and canoe (etc.) so they can be closer to their families and to God. I don’t have a problem with any of this. In fact, I think these activities are incredibly healthy and beneficial for both the soul and the biological body.

But don’t ask me to care which athlete has the fastest time or the best score. The soul doesn’t care about raw scores compared to other people’s scores. The soul only cares that each person raise his/her own bar as high as possible and keep working consistently to achieve the difficult goal of finding holistic balance between the soul’s 4D needs and the body’s 3D needs.

Please don’t assume from the previous sentence that I make a dualistic distinction between the soul’s 4D needs and the body’s 3D needs. These aren’t simple little boxes (despite what the Materialist philosophers would have you believe.) The three dimensional universe and the four dimensional universe are intertwined within each other — enfolded within the implicate order, as physicist David Bohm described it (or tried to describe it, since it’s so hard to conceptualize our complex reality by using our 3D pea-brains (no offense intended)).

Dimensions don’t have clear-cut dividing lines between them with perimeter signs that say, “Warning, you are now entering 4D Space! All shoes purchased with your credit card must be surrendered at the border!”

The thing is, when you die, you can’t take with you the actual pair of ruby slippers you loved during your human lifetime, but you can take with you the memory and the feeling and the love of your favourite ruby slippers, and strangely, in the mysterious way of this vast Creation we live in, you’ll one day find again a tiny bit of Creation that feels exactly the same way to you. And you’ll love your “4D shoes” just as much then as you love your 3D shoes today.

Such is the wonder of divine love. Spirals within spirals. Love within love. Ever entwined. Ever enfolded. And ever filled with wonder and awe.

Thank you, blessed Mother and Father, for the gift of your amazing love! We love you!

 

Addendum February 7, 2018: Recent research into positive emotions is showing how the emotional experience of awe may help lower the body’s levels of interleukin 6, a cytokine molecule which is a marker for inflammation in the body. Cytokines are important proteins in the immune system, but research has shown an association between high, sustained levels of cytokines and a number of diseases such as type-2 diabetes, major depression, and possibly Alzheimer’s disease. Of the positive emotions included in the study — amusement, awe, compassion, contentment, joy, love, and pride — it was awe that showed the most statistically significant association with lower levels of interleukin 6.

 

-3
Posted in "4 S's", "Escape", boundary issues, brain-soul connection, Buddhism, Divine Love, Gnosticism, gratitude, humbleness, life and death, Mother and Father God, quantum theory, Soul, status addiction, The Blonde Mystic and tagged | Leave a Comment
13 Sep 2011

RS7: More of a Skeptic Than James Randi

Great Blue Heron at Sydenham1 - June 2014James Randi is one the of the world’s best known skeptics. He’s an experienced, talented magician who can spot a trick, gimmick, or fake at 20 paces (metaphorically speaking). He’s made it his mission to “out” all the paranormal tricksters who are stealing people’s money and trust through clever use of misdirection. I have no quarrel with him in this regard.

For several years he was offering one million dollars to anyone who could prove he/she had a paranormal ability. (He was quite confident he’d never have to pony up.) Later he changed the conditions of the “test.” He said he would only test somebody who has a media presence (I assume he means somebody like Sylvia Browne). I haven’t checked lately to see whether the prize is still being offered. I don’t know what he’d do with somebody like me.

James Randi also writes a column for Skeptic Magazine. This month he takes aim, once again, at psychic Sylvia Browne. Apparently she has a new book out (Afterlives of the Rich and Famous). I’ll take his word for it. I have little interest in anything Ms. Browne says. I own only one of her books, which is plenty enough for me to see the intent that lies behind her writings. I’m in agreement with Mr. Randi about the fatuous nature of her book material.

Mr. Randi is a trained magician, and he objects to Sylvia Browne’s writings because he’s suspicious of her motives and methods. I’m a trained mystic/channeller and I also object to Sylvia Browne’s motives and methods. But probably not for the same reasons that Mr. Randi objects.

Mr. Randi doesn’t seem to believe (if I’ve been reading him correctly) that anything atypical can occur in the Newtonian world we live in. In his view, if anything “weird” happens, there must be a simple, logical, Newtonian explanation for it. Either there’s a scientific phenomenon that hasn’t been fully explored yet, or the person who reported the “weird event” is lying or is being duped by a clever manipulator.

This makes life very neat and tidy. But not very real.

The honest truth is that we don’t live in a Newtonian world. We live in a quantum world, a quantum world we barely understand at all with our somewhat limited human thinking capacity. I say “limited” because the human brain, while complex and sophisticated and quite a marvel when it’s working well, can only go so far in grasping the nature of quarks and bosons and probability wave functions and gamma rays and dark energy and dark matter and on and on and on. I think it’s important for us to continue to develop our scientific understanding of these phenomena. At the same time, I think it’s important for us to be humble about our own abilities. It’s important for us to remember that we actually don’t know everything (though we’re often tempted to think we do). It’s important for us to remain both open-minded and open-hearted.

Each human brain and central nervous system (hereafter the brain), as Jesus and I have said before, is its own mini-universe, its own small kingdom of the soul that exists separately from but contiguous with other kingdoms-of-the-soul (i.e. other people). Within any particular human brain, the principles of quantum physics apply — including the principles of the conscious observer (in each case, the conscious observer is the person who “owns” that particular brain) plus Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. When consciousness is understood from this point of view (instead of from the Materialist point of view), it’s a lot easier for us to accept the challenges that are part and parcel of “being human.” We have a better starting place for understanding why we do the strange things we do — for the simple reason that we’re not expecting easy cookie-cutter solutions. We’re not expecting easy Newtonian instruction booklets that can guide us through the complex quantum realities of our own brains.

Psychic-medium Sylvia Browne is doing some strange things, to be sure, but I doubt very much she has the level of intentionality James Randi ascribes to her.

She has her very own kingdom of the soul — her brain — and she’s using her brain as the primary tool for her “psychic work.” Regardless of what she says about her sources of information, at the end of the day all the information she “receives” goes through the circuits of her own brain. She can’t detach herself from this scientific reality. Her brain is the processing centre, the combination of hardware and software that determines how data is perceived, analyzed, stored, and transmitted. She’s responsible for maintaining her own hardware and software. All of it. This is what it means to be the master/mistress of your own Kingdom.

It’s her own brain that decides what information she’ll pass along to other people. She’s responsible for what she decides to tell other people. It isn’t her angel’s responsibility to decide, and it isn’t God’s responsibility to decide. It’s her own responsibility. Her brain belongs entirely to her, not to some cosmic force that’s guiding her or taking over part of her brain as an “indwelling spirit.” (Believe it or not, this is a frequent claim among mystics, psychics, and prophets in all religions.) Whatever Sylvia Browne chooses to put on paper is her responsibility — not God’s — just as whatever I choose to put on paper is my responsibility. Sylvia Browne is choosing to try to write about the quantum universe without knowing a darned thing about the quantum universe. (If you’re looking for hard science in her books, you’ll be looking in vain.) I would love to see what her brain looks like on a SPECT scan while she’s talking to her spirit guide, Francine. If she’s certain of her ability, she has no cause for concern.

The International Olympic Committee requires that all athletes who win medals at an Olympic event be tested for banned drugs. I would suggest that anyone claiming to be a mystic or channeller or psychic or prophet or whatever be required to undergo rigorous medical assessment and have his or her brain scanned by an objective third-party professional. This would immediately root out the psychopaths and the seriously mentally ill, such as the woman I tried to learn from in the early years of my spiritual journey.

Grace had a personal history of mental illness, a family history of serious mental illness, and a history of being horribly abused as a child. She was a binge drinker, had a probable eating disorder (she weighed about 250 pounds when I last saw her), took antidepressants and Andriol for a mood disorder, and was easily triggered by rage. (Her own rage, that is.) She was also manipulative, cunning, and adept at “cutting and pasting” other people’s ideas into “new and divinely revealed tapestries of spiritual truth.”

Yet never once did she come up with an original insight. She couldn’t. Her brain was too damaged to do anything except copy. She could barely learn any new facts from the newspaper let alone learn new facts from her guardian angel.

She said she was a channeller. She very much wanted to be a channeller. But she couldn’t pass the very first test of ethical mysticism, which is the ability to feel empathy for others. (Schadenfreude was one of her favourite ways to brighten up the day. Even better than a few shots of vodka, thought she. And cheaper, too.)

I hope she’s been receiving the professional medical care she needs. She went through a lot of horrible things during childhood, and I hope she’s been able to find some healing and forgiveness.

God bless you, Grace.

P.S. The brain’s hardware is very sensitive to alcohol. If you meet a mystic or channeller who abuses alcohol, run for the hills. This person has damaged his or her brain and is in need of healing. Chances that he or she is a bona fide mystic are pretty close to zero. People who can’t or won’t look after their own brains are in no position to give you advice about how to look after yours (though your compassion for their suffering is always important.) Spiritual connection with God depends on the brain. Look after your brain and you’ll be surprised at how much inner common sense you actually have!

 

-4
Posted in ethical mysticism, Kingdom teachings, Materialism, mysticism, quantum theory, Realspiritik and tagged , , | Leave a Comment
20 Aug 2011

RS2: The Importance of Ethical Mysticism

A: The universe has a sense of humour. Two days ago, on Thursday morning, you and I decided this blog site would try to focus on the question of science and faith. Thursday afternoon I went into work, and there on the lunchroom table was a newspaper article by Tom Harpur entitled “Where science meets the Divine.” Interesting timing.

(c) Hemera Technologies 2001-2003

(c) Hemera Technologies 2001-2003

J: As I remember it, you weren’t too happy when you read Mr. Harpur’s article.

A: No. As readers of the Concinnate Christianity site will know, I’m not too fond of Harpur’s neo-Gnosticism. He and I don’t agree on much. He seems to be yearning for mystery, but when he’s presented with an actual mystery — one that confounds his belief system about God — he rejects it without first carefully examining it. At least that’s what he did with me, when I wrote to him in May and June of 2005, and he responded in writing that he didn’t accept my experience of mystical conversation (i.e. channelling). Hey, I understand people’s suspicion, and I support the idea that a mystic should have to prove he or she isn’t floridly psychotic, etc., etc. There’s no ethical mysticism without ethical scientific investigation. But for a spiritual writer and researcher to not take the time to ask a few thoughtful questions of a modern-day practising mystic . . . to my way of thinking that’s just sloppy and a waste of information that could turn out to be quite useful.

J: Your problem is that you told Mr. Harpur in the beginning you’re channelling me, and he doesn’t believe there ever was a me. So he wouldn’t find it useful to learn that he’s been incorrect about me.

A: After you’ve published a book like The Pagan Christ, it’s pretty hard to back down from the position that the historical Jesus never existed. So I can understand that from his point of view it would’ve been much more convenient if I’d never written to him.

J: There’s those Popperian black swans again. Showing up to bug the hell out of both theologians and scientists.

A: I find it interesting that in this week’s article Harpur wants to make the point that religion and science need each other and are both part of a cosmos that is an “infinitely vast, interconnected unity in which every aspect of every facet and particle is knit from all the others.” He’s certainly very poetic. But unless I’ve missed something about his academic training, he is not and never has been a scientist — that is, a person standing in a lab mixing solvents and solutes and running analytical tests on the products. He’s a philosopher, writer, theologian, and former professor. Which is great. Except he’s not a scientist, and he doesn’t think like a scientist, so he has to rely on what other people say about the intersection of science and the divine. He can’t decide for himself about the scientific merit of certain arguments because he doesn’t work with primary sources in science. He doesn’t read that particular language. Philosophy of science — which is Harpur’s area of interest here — isn’t the same as science itself. Plato was a philosopher of science. Aristotle was a philosopher of science. But these guys weren’t and aren’t scientists.

Harpur’s thesis about the unity of the cosmos sounds no different to me than Plato’s anogogic and apophatic mysticism from Phaedrus and Timaeus. For God’s sake, can’t we hear something new about the relationship between science and faith? Can’t we be honest about the fact that faith and religion have as little in common as science and religion? Do we have to live in the hamster wheel that Plato devised 2,400 years ago? Do we have to cling to the mystical teachings of Paul and the Gnostics? These people were barking up the wrong tree before. Why do we suddenly imagine that quantum physics is going to prove that Plato’s tree was the right tree after all?

J (chuckling): Don’t forget the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden. Christian fundamentalists and evangelicals would like those trees to be real, too.

A: Harpur has an interesting quote. He says, “What is most striking about the complete revolution in physics that has taken place over the last century is that the old materialist philosophy of the past has been given the axe.” I find this ironic, since Pauline thought and Gnostic thought are both forms of Materialist philosophy, and Harpur is nothing if not a keen fan of Gnosticism.

J: Materialism still reigns in almost all spheres of human thought and human activity. Certainly most physicists would rather cut off both legs and both arms than admit to the audacious idea that non-locality exists as a verifiable force within the universe. They’re trying very hard these days to redefine non-locality and lessen the overall message it conveys.

A: What message is that?

J: The overall message of weirdness in the universe. Of instantaneous communication between consciousnesses. Of a very annoying measure of unpredictability in the way things work. The quest for a Grand Unified Theory is an example of scientists’ desperation to avoid the non-materialist implications of non-locality.

A: I’m not a physicist, and I’m not up to date on the mathematics of current quantum theory (not that there’s any agreement on current quantum theory), but I know one thing for sure: Einstein was wrong about non-locality. He was wrong to reject its existence. Every day my experiences as a mystic teach me that Einstein couldn’t have been more wrong.

J: Yes. Theologians who want to unite science and religion find a lot of support in Einstein’s theories. The problem is that Einstein was wrong about a number of things, so his theories are of limited use for a theologian who wants to talk about Divine Science. Flawed scientific doctrines are no more useful for helping people of faith than flawed theological doctrines. There has to be constant reexamination of both scientific and theological doctrines as people of faith move forward in the third millennium.

A: The operative word being “forward.” Not “backward,” as in looking to Plato for answers.

J: A strange thing sometimes happens to highly educated, highly intelligent physicists and theologians. For years they operate on the assumption — the absolute conviction — that the universe obeys strict Materialist laws of Cause and Effect. They shape all their research, all their “observations,” all their conclusions on this assumption. They’re certain of their rightness.

One day, they have what might be called an epiphany. They have a sudden awareness deep in the gut that maybe there is a God, that maybe there are more levels of connection in the universe than they once dreamed of. This insight is good. It means the biological brain has finally got the message the soul has been whispering for years. But they tend to stop right here, right at this point. They stop at the very beginning of the journey. They think the awareness of interconnection is the end of the journey. In fact, it’s the very first step. They haven’t begun to ask the questions about relationship and learning and growth and change. Let alone the questions about redemption and forgiveness and the mystery of divine love. They stop dead in their tracks at the idea of “Oneness.” Of unio mystica. Of unified field theory. They don’t continue along the Spiral Path to find out what it really means. They never learn that the universe only works — only holds together — precisely because it is NOT a Oneness. It is, instead, a relationship. A relationship of mutual respect. A relationship where boundaries are everything, because without boundaries there could be no individual consciousnesses, no individual souls, no individual children of God, and no God.

A: Without clear boundaries there could be no God?

J: God isn’t a force field. God is two people. Two actual consciousnesses. Very big and very old compared to us, their children, but still people. They have bodies (just as we have bodies). They have minds (just as we have minds). They have talents (just as we have talents). And they have a heart — a big, mysterious, blended place of shared love and learning and tears and laughter that we call the heart. It’s God’s choice to create the sacred shared place of the heart that allows all souls to exist as separate but interconnected children of God. If you try to speak of God as Divine Mind while ignoring the other aspects of God — body and talent and heart — you’re not really speaking about God. You’re speaking about human narcissism, the kind of narcissism that imagines logic and reason and the Materialist laws of Cause of Effect form the core essence of the cosmos. These thinkers never speak about the chaotic and unpredictable nature of divine love. Thus, they never speak of miracles. In their view, miracles are impossible. Miracles can’t exist.

A: Yet miracles happen all the time.

J: Miracles take place because God and God’s angels choose for them to take place. This is where non-locality comes in. This is where classical physics goes out the window. It’s all very messy. It’s too messy for people who’ve chosen to be Non-Whole Brain Thinkers. There’s too much emotion involved. Too much trust. And too great a sense of personal responsibility.

A: A Non-Whole Brain thinker would rather try to “escape” into unio mystica than deal with difficult emotions such as love and trust.

J: And the sacred religious texts Mr. Harpur is so keen to preserve make it very easy for people to try to escape.

A: In his recent article, Harpur says, “Sacred books on the other hand deal with the spiritual and psychological verities behind and beneath the human search for meaning and purpose. They speak a different language, one of myth, parable, poetry and symbolism because life’s deepest core can only be explored that way [emphasis added].”

I disagree vehemently. Myth, poetry, and symbolism are the languages of religion and traditional mysticism, and even more frequently they’re the languages of successful psychopaths and political ideologues and purveyors of the HDM Myths. How can God’s ongoing communications with us be clearly identified, remembered, understood, and acted upon if symbols and myths are given more credence than identifiable scientific facts? Seems to me that Harpur’s promoting a foundation of moral quicksand.

J: He is.

A: I don’t think that’s very ethical.

J: It’s not. But anogogic and apophatic mysticism have never been about ethics. They’ve always been about “escape” — escape from the hard work of healing and transforming the self. The hard work of learning to trust God.

A: Trust. You mean trust without the theatrics and wailing and chest-beating and false humility and self-pity and chosenness of orthodox Western Christianity.

J: I think you’ve just described Paul’s themes of salvation and escape quite nicely.

-1
Posted in "4 S's", "Escape", Cause & Effect, ethical mysticism, Gnosticism, historical Jesus, miracles, Mother and Father God, mysticism, Paul, Plato, quantum theory, Realspiritik, Whole Brain Thinking and tagged , | Leave a Comment
23 Mar 2011

JR26: Materialism, Pauline Thought, and the Kingdom

A:* For the last couple of days, ever since you introduced the idea that Pauline Christianity has always been in some ways a Materialist religion, my head has been spinning, and I’ve been trying to figure out exactly what you mean. I can feel that it’s right in the part of my self that’s intuitive, but the rest of my head hasn’t caught up to my intuition yet. So can we take it from the top?

J:* No problem.

A: How ’bout we start with some definitions? And by the way, I’d just like to comment once again on the fact that you’re a true philosophy geek, you know that? Your face lights up like a Christmas tree every time you get to talk about a juicy philosophical dilemma. I can sure see how you ended up being a radical theologian in your time.

J: I was a much more successful philosopher than I was a carpenter. Honest to God, although I had to work as a tradesman to pay for my room and board, I’m pretty sure some of my handiwork could have ended up on “Galilean DIY Disaster.”

A: Measure once, cut twice?

J: I’m not a natural when it comes to tools. I think like a designer, not like an engineer. I would flunk out of civil engineering, I’m sure of it. But redesigning the layout of a home so it supports a person’s soul needs — that I can do.

A: My father, the retired engineer and all-round handyman, would think you’re a wuss. But you’re so much like most of the other male physicians I know — great with healing, great with academic study, not so good with the toolkit. (For the record, my ex is a physician, and we socialized with other people who were in medicine. So I know — or rather, knew — a lot of the male physicians around here.) Anyway, back to the philosophizing.

J: Okay. Well, the philosophy of Materialism is based on the theory that matter — by that I mean baryonic matter — is the only thing that exists. It’s a WYSIWYG understanding of reality — what you see is what you get. What you see is atoms and molecules and measurable substances and Newtonian laws. Therefore, according to this theory, all things in Nature — including mind, thought, consciousness, even love — can be explained solely by looking at the small little parts that make up the whole. It’s the idea that macroscopic reality — the daily reality that human beings live and work and breathe in — is just a bigger version of the microscopic reality of atoms and molecules and gravitational forces, etc. Of course, as researchers in various scientific disciplines now know, there are huge gaps between the “macro” theories and the “micro” theories. At the subatomic or quantum level, the universe is a weird, weird place. At the other end of the scale — the cosmological or grand universal scale — the universe is also a weird, weird place. Only at the immediate level of reality, if I can call it that — the level where human beings happen to live a fairly safe and predictable Newtonian kind of life — only here is a Materialist philosophy even remotely justified.

A: How does Materialism understand God?

J: A person who embraces Materialist belief in the natural laws of “cause and effect” may or may not believe in the existence of God. Many, if not most, Materialists are atheists. Atheists, of course, believe that existence can be explained entirely on the basis of scientific research. No God is required. However, it’s entirely possible to be a religious Materialist, a Materialist who believes in God. Deism is a good example of this.

A: Deism is a belief system that says there’s a God, one God who created the universe, but that this God later stepped away from his Creation and doesn’t participate in an active way in our lives or our suffering. God is the Great Clockmaker who made a perfect timepiece and now lets it run without interference. However, there’s still an acceptance of the idea that God will reward virtue and punish vice in the afterlife. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson were all Deists . . . Tell me again why Deism isn’t the same as Pauline Christianity and Platonism?

J: It is Pauline/Platonic Christianity. Deism is what you get when you strip away later church doctrines about ritual and sacraments and prayer to saints (intercession) and belief in Marianism and belief in holy relics and belief in holy Crusade and belief in papal infallibility. Deism is Pauline thought in its purest form — a belief in the inviolability and perfection of Divine Law. Divine Law that governs “cause and effect” in the material world.

A: But Paul goes on and on in Romans about the inherent peril of “the law,” how knowledge of the law led him into sin.

J: Paul isn’t attacking all Law. He’s attacking the laws he no longer agrees with. Paul spends all his time in his letters talking about the “new and improved” Law — the Law that he himself is teaching. The New Covenant. It’s easy to forget that Covenant is Law — nomos in the Greek. Nomos was a complex idea that included both human authority and divine authority. When Paul talks about the “new covenant,” he’s talking about a new version of Divine Law. A new version of the Law of Cause and Effect. “If you do this (believe in Christ), then according to the inviolable Law of Creation, you must receive this (salvation plus a reserved parking spot in Heaven).” It’s a reductionist philosophy. Just as Materialism is a reductionist philosophy. Everything is reduced to a simple “cause and effect” formula.

“They asked him: When is the Kingdom coming?He replied: It is not coming in an easily observable manner. People will not be saying,’Look, it’s over here’ or ‘Look, it’s over there.’ Rather, the Kingdom of the Father is already spread out on the earth, and people aren’t aware of it” (Gospel of Thomas 113). Each autumn, this walnut tree yields its harvest to those among God’s creatures who need it most. They receive these gifts without any reliance on human prayers or covenants. There’s wonderful freedom in trusting God to do what God does best when you don’t take on the burden of believing you’re somehow responsible for maintaining the laws of Creation. Photo credit JAT 2014.

A: Just as Wisdom teachings in the Ancient Near East were a “cause and effect” formula: if you obey the instructions on the “virtue lists” and disavow the behaviours on the “vice lists,” God is required to reward you because the Law says so.

J: Paul, clever manipulator that he was, observed that there was a “niche market” of people who’d become disillusioned with the certainty of Wisdom teachings. Obviously there was something missing from the formula if slaves were still slaves and women were still being punished for being women. The Hellenistic cities of the Roman Empire were filled to bursting with resentful slaves and restless, intelligent women. Who better to target if you’re planning to launch a new religious movement? Slaves with money and women with money. You don’t need to slog through the trenches and carry out years and years of missionary work — you just need to get yourself some patrons with deep pockets. Paul doesn’t even deny his reliance on patrons.

A: One staggering fact that jumps out in the Gospel of Mark is the fact that you have no patron. Nor do you seem to want one. This would have shocked readers in 1st century CE Roman-held regions.

J: Part of my objective was to refuse to “play by the rules.”

A: In the end, so many of these religious debates and religious conflicts boil down to “the rules” — the law, the covenant, the nomos. But all these rules . . . they’re external. They come from outside the inner self. They pretend to be objective. They pretend to be based on observable realities from nature. Yet enforcement of them relies on brute force, on rote memory, and on loyalty to patrons or other important religious/political leaders . . . at least I think that’s right. Is that right?

J: Yes. The one thing Paul doesn’t want is for people to know how to tap into their own inner wisdom, their own inner guidance. He doesn’t want them to know how to hear God’s quiet voice in the still, clear night. He doesn’t want his “community of fellowship” to find actual freedom. He only wants them to believe they have freedom (exousia) through the proper use of conscience (suneidesis). He wants them to be willing slaves. Slaves who won’t rock the boat of authority.

A: This is really sick, you know that?

J: Of course it is. There’s a reason these teachings have spontaneously led to generation after generation of abuses — abuses against the poor, the environment, against other Christians, not to mention countless non-Christians. Also abuses against God. These abuses are the “weeds” that have grown from the “seeds” that Paul intentionally planted.

A: Is this why Paul never mentions healing miracles in the letters he himself wrote?

J: Yes. Paul can’t afford to have his community of hagiasmos and koinonia (holiness and fellowship) distracted by the idea that God is deeply committed to ongoing healing, communication, and relationship with all people through the Kingdom within. The Kingdom within, of course, is the core self — the soul. The good soul. That’s how God connects with all God’s children — through the good soul that everybody is. God can and does communicate by other means, too, but the one connection that can never be taken away is the soul connection. You can cut out somebody’s eyes so they can’t see any more signs (and, unfortunately, this has been done). You can cut out somebody’s ears so they can’t hear any more external messages. You can cut out somebody’s tongue so they can no longer speak the prayers they long to sing aloud. All these abuses have been perpetrated “in the name of God” at one time or another. But nobody can cut out the connection to the soul. You’d have to carve out the entire brain and central nervous system of a person in order to fully quench the soul connection, the body-soul nexus. Obviously this would lead to death.

A: Hey! It’s another thing to add to the Jesus’ Seminar’s pot for the question of “Why Jesus Pissed People Off So Much That He Got Himself Crucified.”

J: Paul works very hard to ensure that his followers believe in a Kingdom that’s on the outside — “out there” in the Materialist world of cause and effect. “Out there” where they have no control over any of it themselves. Even more brilliant, Paul insists the Kingdom of God isn’t here yet. It belongs to some maybe-not-so-distant Day of Judgment. So not only is the Kingdom a materialistic reality outside the self, but it hasn’t even “arrived” yet. [1 Corinthians 15]. This prompts regular people to be thinking about the future instead of the present. This encourages them to shift their focus, their attention, and even their relationships to the future. To the future “effects” of today’s “causes.” People are so busy worrying about the future that they can’t hear God’s voice today.

A: Therefore they can’t hear the guidance they long for.

J: The guidance they want and need.

A: I like your version of the Kingdom teachings much better.

* If you’re new to this site, A=Author and J=Jesus

-1
Posted in apocalyptic prophecy, Cause & Effect, Gospel of Mark, Jesus Redux, Kingdom teachings, Law (Nomos), Materialism, Paul vs Jesus, Paul's teachings, quantum theory, slavery, Soul and tagged , | Leave a Comment
14 Mar 2011

JR22: Why You Need To Know Yourself (Mystical Commentary on Saying 67)

A: Can you please explain as simply as possible WHY it matters that each person has a unique soul blueprint and WHY it’s important for each person on a spiritual journey to uncover the specific details of his or her own unique blueprint?

J: Let’s use an imaginary person as an example to make this simpler. I’m going to call this imaginary person Jane Tamaguchi.

A: Okay.

J: Like all human beings, Jane is a soul. She doesn’t have a soul. She is a soul. She’s an angel — a child of God. Like all angels, she was born as a soul long before she decided to incarnate as a human being. Soul energy isn’t visible in the third dimension — the dimension that human beings live in during their temporary lives as incarnated souls — but soul energy can be felt in the third dimension.

A: Can you give some examples of “feelable” soul energy? (I think I just invented a new word.)

J: Yes. When you feel a deep sense of connection with another person, that’s soul energy. When you feel empathy for other creatures, that’s soul energy. When you feel committed, romantic, monogamous love, that’s soul energy. When you give or receive forgiveness, that’s soul energy. When you’re willing to trust in a loving and compassionate God, that’s soul energy.

Thomas 67: One who knows everything else but who does not know himself knows nothing. (Photo credit JAT 2015)

Thomas 67: “One who knows everything else but who does not know himself knows nothing.” (Translation by Stevan Davies, photo credit JAT 2015)

 A: Those are all emotions. Positive emotions. Uplifting emotions.

J: Yes. All souls are intensely emotional in positive, uplifting, creative, intuitive, loving ways.

A: So much for Christian angelology, that says angels have no emotions of their own and are simply instruments of God’s work and God’s will.

J: Yes. That’s another Christian doctrine that should go the way of the 8-track recording system.

A: But angels also have minds, as you’ve said previously. They have minds plus emotional hearts.

J: Yes. Christians have long believed — based largely on theories of the soul put forward by Plato, Aristotle, Tertullian, Augustine, and others — that the soul itself consists of a single indivisible substance. Arguments raged as to the exact nature of this substance. But the basic idea was that the soul was made of just one thing because — as the theory went — the soul couldn’t really be a soul if it could be “divided” into two or more substances. It should go without saying that this is a ridiculous supposition. There are no analogies anywhere in nature or in the quantum world for a complex lifeform made of a single element such as pure hydrogen or pure gold. All lifeforms, whether they exist in the third dimension or in higher dimensions, are extremely complex. A soul is a quantum being whose “biology” is far more complex than that of any 3D creature — which is pretty much what you’d expect for children of God who were born in the fourth dimension, and who will spend most of their eternal existence in parts of the “implicate order” that can’t be seen or measured by human beings in the third dimension.

A: So people just have to take it on trust? On blind faith?

J: I wouldn’t say that. Individuals who want to take the time to do intensive research into quantum physics and quantum biology will soon discover that the universe being studied by today’s scientists is extremely complex. This isn’t the cosmology of Plato or Thomas Aquinas. It’s breathtakingly complicated and interconnected. There’s plenty of room in there for a modern doctrine of the soul that doesn’t in any way violate the laws of quantum biology.

A: Okay. So tell me about Jane. Who is she as a soul?

J: Jane is a female angel, and for the purposes of this discussion she’s heterosexual.

A: I know what this means for human beings. But what does this mean for angels?

J: It means exactly what it sounds like. All angels are one of two sexes: male or female. Just as with human beings. There are no “in-between” sexes or alien sexes. All angels are either male (the same sex as God the Father) or female (the same sex as God the Mother). This is pretty much what you’d expect by looking at life on Planet Earth.

A: Some creatures on Earth are able to reproduce without a sexual partner. Komodo Dragons, for instance.

J: There are different modes of reproduction for creatures that live on Planet Earth. Reproduction is part of the 3D biological package. It isn’t part of the 4D soul package. We’ll come back to that at a later time.

A: But sexual orientation is part of the 4D soul package. Why is sexual orientation necessary for angels?

J: Because each angel has a soulmate. One true eternal love partner. A divine spouse. The one partner in all of Creation who’s a perfect match in every way, including intimate, private ways. Each angel in God’s Creation is paired with his or her perfect eternal partner. For many angelic couples, the perfect partner is of the same sex. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with that.

A: So God the Father and God the Mother are not a same-sex couple themselves, but it’s okay with God if their children choose a same-sex partner to share eternity with.

J: Yes. God’s children are not carbon copies of their divine parents. God’s children come in every size and shape and colour imaginable. Yet every soul couple is blissfully happy, blissfully complete. This is what God the Mother and God the Father want for their children — bliss. Everybody’s different. Yet everybody’s happy. It’s the perfect divine family when you think about it.

A: So Jane has a specific sex — female — and a specific sexual orientation — heterosexual. What else does she have?

J: She has a soul body. Her soul body has a unique size and shape that’s perfect for her. Her soul body probably doesn’t look too much like her current human body, but that’s okay. She’s very happy with the soul body she has.

A: What else?

J: She has a soul mind. As a soul, she’s pure consciousness — by that I mean she has full awareness at all times of her own thoughts and her own feelings and her own choices and her own needs and wishes. Part of her unique mind lies in the way she thinks, the way she learns, the way she remembers, the way she expresses herself. These attributes lie within the soul mind. Jane doesn’t “know” everything. Nor does she want to. She has certain interests that are hard-wired at the very core of her consciousness, and these are the things she learns fastest and remembers best.

A: Can you give an example of what Jane might be interested in as a soul, as an angel?

J: Okay. Let’s say for argument’s sake that Jane is a gifted musician.

A: There are some angels who are more musically gifted than other angels?

J: All angels enjoy music to some extent. But not all angels want to spend most of the day in classes devoted to advanced musical performance and interpretation skills. As with all things in Creation, it’s a continuum. All angels appreciate music. But some angels want to devote most of their time to it. Which means they can’t be devoting their time to other interests, other skills. There’s only so much time in a day, even for an angel.

A: What other interests does our imaginary Jane possess as a soul?

J: Jane likes to be around a lot of other angels. She gets very lonely if she can’t hear other angels singing. She’s happiest when she’s with a big group of noisy, laughing angels.

A: Are there any angels who are more quiet in temperament, who wouldn’t feel comfortable in large groups?

J: Yes, lots. And that’s okay, too. These angels are quiet, but not in any way unfriendly or unloving. They just need more quiet than other angels do. Nothing wrong with that.

A: Let’s give Jane a third unique attribute. What would you suggest.

J: She doesn’t like the colour red.

A: Huh?

J: All angels appreciate the fact that everything in Creation is beautiful and deserving of respect. So Jane respects the colour red, and she’s happy for her friends who love all things red. But angels have their own taste, their own “likes” and “dislikes.” And Jane herself is under no divine obligation to like red. It happens that she doesn’t. God the Mother and God the Father respect the fact that Jane just doesn’t happen to like red. On the other hand, she can’t get enough black. She’s crazy for black.

A (grinning): I know a certain male angel who happens to love black! And a particular shade of charcoal grey.

J: Yeah, I do like those colours. Can’t deny it.

A: Okay. So we have our angel Jane, who’s passionate about music, loves to be around large groups of people, isn’t fond of the colour red, but likes black. Jane decided a while back to incarnate as a human being on Planet Earth (her choice), and right now she’s 35 years old, is working as a nurse, is taking night school courses so she can apply to law school, and lives with a female partner who has painted the bedroom red. Tell me about Jane’s current brain health.

J: All the things we talked about — Jane’s true soul interests — are hardwired into her human DNA. That’s the junk DNA that geneticists are puzzled by. Her soul’s blueprint is hardwired into her brain and central nervous system. Her brain stem, cerebellum, hypothalamus, thalamus, basal ganglia, and glial cells contain coding that’s unique to her, unique to her true soul personality. If Jane were to make conscious choices that “matched” or “lined up with” her core blueprint, her biological brain would function smoothly. It would function the way it’s supposed to. Her mood would remain stable. Her thinking would be logical and coherent. Her memory would be pretty good, especially around music and musical interpretation! She would have excellent social functioning. All in all, she’d be pretty happy, healthy, and well adjusted.

A: Okay. But right now Jane isn’t making conscious choices that “line up with” her own soul’s core identity. She’s working as a nurse, not as a musician. She’s around lots of people, which is good, but the people aren’t singing. She’s in a lesbian love relationship. And every night she has to go to sleep in a room that isn’t healing or calming for her as a soul. What’s happening inside her brain at this point?

J: There’s a software conflict. On the one hand, the so-called “primitive” parts of Jane’s brain are saying “I want to craft music, I want to find a loving male partner, I want to be around the colour black.” Meanwhile, Jane’s forcing the outer cortical layers of her brain to make different choices — choices that seem logical to her peers or to her family, perhaps, but which make no sense to her core self.

A: So how’s Jane doing?

J: Her brain is pretty messed up. There are competing signals from the different regions of her brain and central nervous system. The signals contradict each other. By now she’s feeling confused and upset with her life, and she doesn’t why. Things seem okay on the outside. But on the inside she’s not happy. She may be having trouble with headaches or poor sleep or depression or one of the many other signs of imbalance that can emerge via human biology.

A: A lot of these medical issues would begin to clear up if Jane were to seek professional counselling and appropriate medical care to help her uncover the choices she’s making that aren’t working for her.

J: Yes. Jane has been making choices based on other people’s priorities rather than her own core priorities — the priorities of her soul. Over the long term, her poor choices have begun to affect her health and her happiness.

A: Can she force herself to “be” a nurse and “be” a lawyer if her soul isn’t wired for healing or for case analysis?

J: No. This is what I meant when I said the soul isn’t malleable in the way that clay is malleable. Jane can only be who she is. If she tries to be somebody she’s not — if she tries to be a lesbian nurse-lawyer who wears red power suits — her biological brain will begin to sustain serious damage from the continuous push-and-pull of her internal “software conflict.” She’ll literally fry her own brain from the inside out.

A: Okay. That’s pretty clear. Be yourself — be the person God knows you to be — so your brain and body will function the way God intended.

J: Simple in fact. Simple in reality. But not always easy to implement.

A: At least it gives people a starting place on the journey. At least it helps them understand where they’re going and WHY. It helps so much to understand WHY.

J: Insight is one hell of an amazing miracle.

0
Posted in angels (i.e. persons-of-soul), brain's Soul Circuitry, brain-soul connection, Davies (Stevan), gender and sexuality, Gospel of Thomas, insight, interoception, Jesus Redux, Mother and Father God, orthodox teachings about the soul, Plato, quantum theory, Soul, soul blueprint, soul purpose, Thomas 67 and tagged , | Leave a Comment
17 Nov 2010

JR1: Grab a Coffee, Sit Down, and Join Us

Jesus as the author sees him

Jesus as the author sees him

A*: Jesus, since I’ve promised this blog will be a real-time discussion with you, what do you think of the idea of getting started right away?

J*: It’s 7:00 o’clock in the morning. You’ve only had one cup of coffee. You sure you want to begin this discussion right now?

A: I’m a morning person. I’m good. Besides, if I know you, we’re going to be continuing this discussion for a long time.

J: I’m a bit rusty. We haven’t done this whole “I talk, you type” thing in a while.

A: I’m more worried about the typos. I always miss some typos when I’m first typing.

J: Well, think on the bright side. You have fingers to type with. Me, not so much.

A: Okay. Let’s talk about that. That’s a good place to start. Can you put into words for readers exactly where you are right now? Where are you actually located?

J: Hmmm. That’s a hard one to explain. You sure aren’t starting with the easy questions!

A: Let’s try a biblical metaphor, then. Are you seated at the right hand of God?

J (much chuckling): No! I’m not at God’s right hand. Not now. Not ever. God doesn’t really have a right hand. Not literally, not metaphorically. You have to remember that God’s essence isn’t made in humankind’s image. So there’s no old guy with a white beard sitting on a throne. There’s an old guy, all right — that’s our beloved father, God the Father. But there’s also an old gal — God the Mother. They’re our divine parents. Their essence is intertwined in and around all Creation. They were here long, long before any of the rest of us. You could say they’re the Alpha and Beta of everything.

A: Rather than the Alpha and Omega.

J: Right. They’re the first two letters of Creation’s alphabet, and everything else that exists has been made possible by their love and commitment. But they’re not the only beings in Creation. They’re literally our parents. So there are many souls, many angels, many children in God’s family. The Divine Family started with Two — our blessed Mother and Father — but the family has been growing and growing and growing. I don’t think there’s going to be an “Omega” in Creation — a final, definitive end to things. I think the alphabet is just going to keep growing.

A: So you’re saying you’re one of God’s children, a child of God, not God himself, as in “God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.”

J: That’s what I’m saying. I’m not God the Father, and I’m not God the Mother. I’m me — an angel who goes by the name of Jesus. I’m one of bajillions of sons in God’s loving family. I’m not the only son.

A: And there are also bajillions of daughters?

J (smiling): Yes, bajillions of daughers, too.

A: So where are all these bajillions of angelic sons and daughters? Where are they? Where are you? Why can’t we see you?

J: Well, to answer that question, I’ll have to turn to science. The question can’t be answered without the latest thinking in science. Not Newtonian science, of course. Quantum theory can help, but even quantum theory is in its infancy. Scientists have only begun to scratch the surface of the scientific realities that hold together all Creation. And within the vast universe we all live in, only a tiny fraction of all matter and all energy is visible to the human eye. So, without trying to be mean, I would have to say in all honesty that one of the least reliable measures for judging what’s real and what’s not real is the human eye.

A: That makes me think of Plato and his rejection of the human senses as a valid way to know God.

J: Plato rejected the human senses because he didn’t want his followers to see for themselves that God the Mother and God the Father are visible everywhere in the material, practical, earthly world that human beings are living in. I’m saying the opposite of what Plato said. I’m saying that the human senses are good, but limited. Once you understand and respect those limitations, you’re less troubled about the fact that some things just aren’t visible within the narrow detection range of the human eye. The EMF frequencies that power wireless phones aren’t less real because you can’t see them. Same with the microwaves that cook your frozen dinners. Real, though not visible to the human eye.

A: Okay. So angels are real, then, but we can’t see them with the human eye because angels have an energy signature that falls outside the range of the human eye?

J: Sort of. But it’s more that angels exist as matter in the fourth dimension, whereas the human eye only draws information from matter that exists in the third dimension. But even most physicists agree the universe has more than three dimensions. That’s not science fiction. That’s science fact.

A: In other words, there’s nothing within our current understanding of quantum theory that absolutely prohibits the idea of angels existing “where we can’t see them.”

J: That’s what I’m saying. It’s a darned big universe out there, and one of the biggest mistakes people can make is to insist that “what you see if what you get.” Creation isn’t founded on the WISIWYG principle — as anyone born without sight will tell you.

Nature provides us with many examples of a single creature going through stages of transformation that so radically change the outer form we wouldn’t believe, without the help of science, that they’re still the same creature on the inside. The process of incarnating as a human being involves a similar repackaging of a soul’s imaginal discs into a temporary physical form. We go from butterfly form (angel) to caterpillar form (human) then back to butterfly form (angel) when we die. If you want to learn more about the imaginal discs involved in a biological caterpillar’s transformation into a gorgeous butterfly, you can check out this 2012 Scientific American post by Ferris Jabr (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/caterpillar-butterfly-metamorphosis-explainer/)

* A=Author (Jennifer Thomas) and J=Jesus

-3
Posted in afterlife, angels (i.e. persons-of-soul), Divine Love, faith, historical Jesus, Jesus Redux, Mother and Father God, My Spiral Path, Plato, quantum theory, Soul and tagged , | Leave a Comment

Post Navigation