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<\/a>(c) After*Image<\/p><\/div>\n
A:\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0 I’ve had an awful time at work since the beginning of May.\u00a0 The current financial climate is affecting people’s brains in unusual ways.\u00a0 The owners of the business where I work aren’t willing to take responsibility for mistakes they’ve made over the past few years, and now those mistakes are coming back to haunt them.\u00a0 Only they don’t want to blame themselves.\u00a0 So they’ve been blaming their long-time staff members — the same staff members whose suggestions they ignored when it would have done some good!\u00a0 Is this normal?\u00a0 Is it normal for business owners to shoot themselves in the foot — and the head — this way?<\/p>\n
J:\u00a0 Unfortunately, it’s extremely common.\u00a0 But it’s not new.\u00a0 It’s not a new problem.\u00a0 And it’s not limited to businesses that deal in ordinary goods and services.\u00a0 Religious businesses fall prey to the same issues of narcissism and lack of accountability.<\/p>\n
A:\u00a0 You mean . . . churches?\u00a0 That kind of religious business?<\/p>\n
J:\u00a0 Could be.\u00a0 But religion is a huge business world-wide.\u00a0 Always has been.\u00a0 So the same “boom or bust” cycles that are evident in world financial markets today have always existed in the profitable world of religious marketing.\u00a0 Religious marketing is a business like any other.\u00a0 It’s not “separate” or “sacred” simply because the item being bought and sold is God.<\/p>\n
A:\u00a0 Ouch.\u00a0 That makes God sound like a shampoo brand.<\/p>\n
J (shrugging):\u00a0 In the early church founded by the apostle Paul, God is<\/em> a shampoo brand.\u00a0 I’m the conditioner that smoothes out the tangles.\u00a0 Paul is the famous face who rakes in a few extra bucks by hawking the brand to a credulous audience.<\/p>\n A:\u00a0 But a shampoo brand?\u00a0 Isn’t that a bit . . . crass?<\/p>\n J:\u00a0 As a metaphor, it’s not very dignified or sacred, is it?<\/p>\n A:\u00a0 No.<\/p>\n J:\u00a0 Nonetheless, when you strip away all the lies and circular arguments and cliches, and look at Paul’s claims about God — and me — in the cold, hard light of reality, you’re left with the fact that Paul is selling soap.\u00a0 A very fancy form of soap, to be sure, but soap nonetheless.\u00a0 “Buy this soap so you’ll be clean enough to escape Hell and pass inspection at the entrance to Heaven.”\u00a0 This is what Paul is selling.<\/p>\n A:\u00a0 But . . . I can see the link between Paul’s sin — “being dirty” — and Paul’s salvation — “getting clean.”\u00a0 But how is God the soap, the shampoo?\u00a0 How can a person buy God the way a person buys a bar of soap?<\/p>\n J:\u00a0 Ah.\u00a0 Well, that’s the important part.\u00a0 In Paul’s theology, and in the theology of the Essenes who highly influenced Paul’s beliefs, God is the powerful Creator of Heaven and Earth, but God himself isn’t the highest authority.\u00a0 God is subject to an even higher force: the power of Cosmic Law.\u00a0 Paul calls this Cosmic Law by a name that’s now interpreted in a way that makes his original meaning hard to see.\u00a0 Paul calls the Law “Spirit.”<\/p>\n A:\u00a0 What?<\/p>\n J:\u00a0 Paul’s theology pays tribute to God, and tries to insert a brand-friendly Saviour into the mix (Jesus Christ), but the primary focus is always Spirit.\u00a0 In Greek, pneuma<\/em>.\u00a0 For Paul, Spirit is an anthropomorphic cloud of knowing that is literally the breath — the life — of all Creation.\u00a0 The in-and-out breath of pure energy, pure life force, pure power that can be trapped and used if properly understood. \u00a0 Pneuma<\/em> is a higher force than John’s Logos<\/em> (Word).\u00a0 It’s a higher force than God himself.\u00a0 God is pure Mind.\u00a0 God is pure Mind and Jesus is pure Word.\u00a0 Both are sacred mystical forces, and both are worthy of attention, in Paul’s estimation.\u00a0 But neither Mind nor Word is the ultimate source of cleansing and purity and salvation.\u00a0 The ultimate source of power is Cosmic Law — Spirit — to which even God and Jesus Christ must bow.\u00a0 He who knows the Law in its purest form knows how to force God and Jesus Christ to obey his wishes.\u00a0 He who knows the Law can “buy” God like a bar of soap and force God to cleanse him and let him into Heaven.\u00a0 It’s simply a matter of being smart enough to make the Law work to your benefit.<\/p>\n A:\u00a0 That’s so grasping, so greedy, so arrogant and narcissistic.\u00a0 That’s not faith — that’s human greed at its worst.<\/p>\n J:\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 It’s impossible to overstate the interconnection between narcissism and belief in occult magic.<\/p>\n A:\u00a0 How did we get onto the topic of occult magic?<\/p>\n J:\u00a0 Paul, the founder of Pauline Christianity, believed deeply in occult magic.\u00a0 He was teaching his followers how to practise his own form of occult magic, how to recognise and control the forces of nature, how to gain control over life and death, how to force Jesus Christ and God to obey the contract laws of the universe, how to secure a place on the ladder of spiritual ascent that will lead through all the levels of Heaven until mystical union with the cloud of knowing is one day accomplished.<\/p>\n A:\u00a0 Is any of this in the Bible?<\/p>\n J:\u00a0 It’s all in the Bible.\u00a0\u00a0 A detailed examination of Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians reveals a bumper crop of occult teachings that are founded on his belief in the invincibility and inviolability of contract law.<\/p>\n A:\u00a0 So there’s a connection between contract law and occult magic?<\/p>\n J:\u00a0 Absolutely.\u00a0 If there’s no contract law governing all cause and effect in the universe, then there’s no basis for occult magic.\u00a0 Occult magic is based on the clear and logical belief that “effect” consistently follows “cause.”\u00a0 If you can figure out “the cause” — that is, the hidden cosmic law that’s operating behind the scenes — then you can manipulate “the cause” to create a controlled “effect.”\u00a0 It’s straightforward classical physics.\u00a0 It’s all very logical.\u00a0 Occult magic and alchemy are both founded on highly logical principles.\u00a0 Both are also Materialist philosophies, philosophies that rely entirely on Cause and Effect principles, and may or may not include a belief in God.\u00a0 Faith in God is not required as part of a successful Materialist philosophy.\u00a0 Only confidence in humanity’s ability to understand and control the Laws of Cause and Effect is required.<\/p>\n A:\u00a0 Except the universe doesn’t actually operate according to simple Newtonian laws.<\/p>\n J:\u00a0 True.\u00a0 But don’t tell the narcissists this.\u00a0 No narcissistic wants to hear he’s not in charge.<\/p>\n A:\u00a0 So Paul believed he was in charge?\u00a0 He believed he was so clever he could actually control the forces of nature through his occult rituals?<\/p>\n J:\u00a0 That was the point of his new religion.\u00a0 The point was NOT to teach people how to be in relationship with God.\u00a0 The point was to teach people how to purify themselves so Spirit would be forced to give them “special gifts” in accordance with divine contract law.<\/p>\n A:\u00a0 You’ve said before that Paul hated and feared your teachings and wanted to undermine them.\u00a0 So if he feared you so much, why would he drag you into his new religion?\u00a0 Why would he name you as Saviour and insist his followers invoke your name to achieve salvation?<\/p>\n J:\u00a0 You’ve stumbled onto it right there.\u00a0 It’s all about name magic.<\/p>\n A:\u00a0 Name magic?<\/p>\n J:\u00a0 The deeply occult belief that if you can correctly name an entity, you can control that entity.\u00a0 It’s part of the belief in the law of cause and effect.\u00a0 In this case, there’s a belief that names have great power, that the true name spoken aloud around certain rituals can force a powerful figure to appear from the Heavens and obey the wishes of a human being.\u00a0 Paul feared me, but he also believed I had hidden knowledge about God that I could be forced to reveal to him and his followers if he correctly named me as the Christ (Messiah or Anointed One).<\/p>\n A:\u00a0 Did it work?<\/p>\n J (laughing):\u00a0 Not a chance.\u00a0\u00a0 For starters, I wasn’t the Christ, and never claimed to be.\u00a0 For another, I have free will, and nothing any Christian has ever said or done has held any power over me or any other angel.\u00a0 And for another, magical thinking and occult rituals belong within the sphere of major mental illness in human beings, so angels DO NOT RESPOND to any prayers or beliefs grounded in occult magic.<\/p>\n A:\u00a0 Including the Eucharist that Paul instituted?<\/p>\n J:\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 Communion wafers should come with a warning tag on them:\u00a0 “Belief in transubstantiation will guarantee you a seat on the slow train to redemption and healing.”\u00a0 Angels can’t abide the occult intent of Paul’s original Eucharist ritual.\u00a0 It’s a version of selling you divine soap to clean your dirty innards.\u00a0 And the soap they’re selling is the body and blood of a divine being who’s being named, then eaten, then controlled from inside your “heart” so you can get special gifts.\u00a0 How gross is that?<\/p>\n A:\u00a0 This is one reason why I’ve stopped going to church.\u00a0 I just can’t handle the abusive way God is being treated any longer.<\/p>\n 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