LSP9: The Cosmic Web of non-Materialism

Those who reject the idea of a loving, personal God because of the "irrational beliefs" of religion are often shocked to learn that all major world religions in the world today are founded on Materialist science.

Materialism is a belief system about the world -- a major root system -- that throws all its eggs into one basket: the Law of Cause and Effect. In the Materialist world view (whether it's the belief system of a classical physicist, such as Isaac Newton, or the belief system of a Christian theologian, such as Thomas Aquinas) the universe is understood to be built upon a series of unbreakable laws. Break one of these carefully documented laws and the consequences will be swift and harsh.

The philosophy of Karma, which underlies Buddhism and much of Hinduism, is a pure Materialist belief system. Within Christianity and Judaism, the belief in Covenant -- reliance on any sort of "revealed" contract between God and human beings -- is also a pure Materialist belief system.  You can dress up these Cause and Effect beliefs all you want (with Christian grace being a particularly successful form of tree decoration), but, in the end, what you have in all these cases is a philosophy that starts with the assumption that God is stupid.

God is not stupid. And God is not just a bunch of semi-conglomerated universal laws floating around as a big cloud of nothingness, waiting desperately for you -- frail human being that you are -- to figure out how to escape the Materialist laws of Planet Earth and return to your true place as a  . . . as a . . . no-self who is pure Mind. Or pure Truth. Or pure something, anyway, except for the one thing everyone agrees you won't be allowed to be once you're reunited with the Absolute Reality -- which is yourself.

Because you (and I say this facetiously, of course), you, who are a child of God, could not possibly be good enough for God. Because God is so stupid that God only brings inferior, corrupt souls into existence who must struggle and suffer and sin and err and be full of repentance and humility and worship before at last seeing that they themselves are "pure nothing" and only God "IS." So enjoy your suffering while you're here on Planet Earth, because at least you're "you" while you're here! Don't expect to be "you" once you're outta here, 'cause that's a belief system for the weak and stupid who haven't achieved enlightenment!

There's another way of looking at the universe, of course -- one that's much less depressing.

Let's start, for argument's sake, with the theory that God is really smart (in addition to being really loving). Let's start with the theory that God is probably operating at a speed of thought, love, and action that's on the same scale as Planck's Constant, which is rounded off at h=6.626 X 10-34 J.s (a very, very tiny number). And let's assume that God has also probably noticed that, hmmmm, ohhhh, that non-locality (instantaneous communication between two paired particles) is an operative, verifiable force in the universe. And that God realizes only 4 to 5% of the energy in the universe is the stuff we can easily see and touch and measure (i.e. "baryonic matter").  And that God was probably working within the "cosmic web" of dark matter reported this month long, long before we even noticed it was there. 

Is it too much to ask that we trust in the theory of a God who is much, much smarter than we are? Is it too much to believe that a God who lives in a non-Materialist universe probably operates according to non-Materialist principles of science?

As the Greek myth of Daedalus and Icarus reminds us, it's never a good idea to think you're smarter than God. "Daedalus and Icarus" by Anthony van Dyck, from around 1620, is on display at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Photo credit JAT 2018.

 

 

 

The lives we live as human beings on Planet Earth are only one small part of a very big picture. Let's start with the truth about non-Materialism as one part of the root system for the Tree of Peace we want to grow while we're here. Let's allow the science -- the very vastness of the science -- to show us more about who God really is.

It's in knowing more about who God really is that we grow closer to God. It doesn't matter to God that we can't understand all the science. God knows we have human limitations!  All that matters is that we give God some credit for their incredible brilliance and that we trust they know what they're doing!

Thanks be to our very smart and loving God!


For Further Reflection:

It can be a real struggle for us to let go of our human ideas about justice and punishment and revenge. But learning to see justice through a non-Materialist lens is an important pathway for learning more about God.

We often don't realize how much time we devote to questions of justice. But if you think about the issues that preoccupy you -- and upset you -- you'll see they frequently relate not just to morality but to justice. We wrestle with it constantly. We fill our newspapers and our religious sermons and our websites and our storybooks and our dinnertime conversations with debates about justice. When we believe the legal system has failed us, we turn ourselves into saviours and warriors of justice. When we believe God has failed us, we turn to other systems of belief, such as atheism or scientism or non-theistic philosophies, to justify our actions and reactions.

The authors of the sacred texts that guide all major world religions have always known this, so at the core of all religions you'll find a body of doctrines that speak authoritatively about justice -- how to decide what's right and what's wrong, how to punish the perpetrators of injustice. While these doctrines often look good on paper, it can often be much harder in real life to navigate the complexities of justice.

The Eastern theory of Karma, a theory which has attracted much interest in the West since philosophers reintroduced it here in the late 19th century, has taken the messy guesswork out of justice by preaching a Materialist doctrine of universal cause and effect. Such a doctrine satisfies the all-too-human desire to see people get their just deserts, if not now then in a future lifetime, when they no longer have access to any of the memories of the harm they created. What could be more delicious than knowing your greatest enemy will one day be punished and won't even know exactly why?

The Materialist model of cause-and-effect justice endorsed by countless human beings bears no resemblance to the understanding of justice held by God or God's angels.

If you asked your angels how they would describe justice, they would reply that justice is a process of learning how to use your own free will wisely (i.e. with love and forgiveness) and learning how to fix (or at least help fix) the mistakes you made before you learned how to use your own free will wisely. In other words, angelic justice is akin to what we humans call "personal responsibility."

In the case of someone like Dr. Alexander, who didn't ask to have a near death experience but was swept into one anyway, his angels would have conferred with God the Mother and God the Father about his life choices. Together they would have decided to show him he hadn't been using his free will wisely and could do better.

The last part -- "and could do better" -- is very important. To an angel, a person who's not trying to be his or her best self, who's not using his or her soul talents in the wisest way possible, who's not listening to his or her own soul, is perpetrating an injustice. So it's time for a learning experience, a chance for this person to take greater personal responsibility for his or her own choices.

But each person is unique. Each person has unique strengths and absences-of-strengths, so the definition of what you can do as a human (i.e. what you can take personal responsibility for) and what you can't do as a human (i.e. what you can't take personal responsibility for) is unique to you. This is what sets Divine justice apart from Materialist justice. Divine justice is based on who you really are as a soul.

Your angels will never ask you to do something you can't actually do. It may feel at times as if they've given you more than you can handle, but that's only because they have more faith in you than you do.

LSP8: It's the Roots, Not the Fruits, That Matter

The key to finding your reconnection to God is to understand how your brain-soul nexus actually works. 

I'm not a big believer in the idea that you can get closer to God by following a lot of fixed rules or rituals. On the other hand, I know that getting closer to God isn't a free-for-all where you can take any path you want and expect to get where you want to go. In fact, despite all the talk from spiritual teachers (including myself) about journeys and pathways, what matters most is not where your feet and hands go, but whether you can grow eyes and ears on your feet and hands.

This is another way of saying that the brain-soul nexus is a strange yet beautiful synthesis of Heart and Mind, Body and Talent, eyes that can hear, ears that can see, and pathways that travel long distances without your ever leaving home.

In this way of understanding your relationship with God, the metaphor of a garden is easiest to understand.You take seeds of knowledge and truth, you plant them this way and that in the little patch of Creation that belongs to you and you alone (your 3D body and brain), and you make choices about which plants to nourish and which plants to discard from your own garden. Eventually, your choices grow from tentative saplings into sturdy trees that control the environment of your garden. This is the years-long process we call "growing up."

The trees you grow in your inner garden depend on your fixed assumptions about life. Everybody has their own set of fixed assumptions. We aren't always consciously aware that we have these fixed assumptions. But we all have them. Our human brains couldn't function otherwise. 

   In your inner garden, you have more control than you realize over the kind of tree you're growing. But as in any beautiful garden, it takes time and hard work and commitment to keep your garden healthy. Don't listen to any spiritual teachers who promise instant fixes. A pine tree worth remembering doesn't grow from a pine cone overnight. Photo credit JAT.

 

From your sets of fixed assumptions grow related thoughts, beliefs, and actions. So these sets look a lot like a tree. The roots of the tree are your fixed starting assumptions, the beliefs you simply won't budge on. The trunk and all the branches grow outward from the unchanging roots. Mostly what you see when you look at the tree are the upward-reaching branches with their bounty of leaves and blossoms and fruits. But without the roots, there would be no branches, no fruits. The root is what matters. To know what kind of tree you're growing, you have to look at the roots.

The metaphor of the tree doesn't apply just to individuals. It also applies to major belief systems, major ideologies. Every religion and every spiritual tradition on Planet Earth is like a tree. Each religion has its own particular set of roots--the core beliefs it won't budge on. From each set of roots, a distinctive tree grows. The tree grown from Pauline Christian roots is not the same as the tree grown from Mahayana Buddhist roots or the tree grown from Native Canadian Algonkian beliefs. These are different trees. They're NOT, as so many people would like to believe today, different branches of the same tree. They are different trees. They're different because they have vastly different roots, vastly differently starting assumptions.

Albert Einstein really hit the nail on the head when he said, "It is the theory which decides what we can observe." This is such an important statement--such an important truth--that it's on my short list of fixed starting assumptions, the beliefs I won't budge on. Einstein's brilliant observation is one of the roots of the tree I'm trying to describe here.

I see in most of the world's religions some lovely leaves and branches (for example, customs related to community healing and life passages) but in trying to reverse-engineer the process of reconnecting to God, I've looked only at the roots of major religious traditions. What I've seen is that major theories about God have been holding people back in their attempts to know God. It's the theories which have decided what they can observe.

All major world religions start with the assumption that your brain and soul are NOT intimately intertwined with each other in a GOOD way. So people spend their whole lives trying to escape from either their "bad" bodies or their "bad" souls or both.

This is exhausting and frustrating and leads to intense disillusionment, and it's no wonder that many people simply give up on the idea of a loving God.   

The honest truth is that if you insist on trying to find God by climbing trees that are covered in the horrible thorns of distrust in God, you're going to get stabbed and cut and covered in painful scars.

Would it surprise you to know that you have the seeds for a strong and vital connection with God--the seeds for a tree of completeness and wellness--right inside your own biology?

It's there because God is a lot smarter than you've been led to believe.


Addendum September 5, 2018: On August 29, 2018, the Pew Research Center (an American think-tank that carries out public polling and analysis on a wide variety of contemporary topics, including religion) published a new analysis that examines religious beliefs and behaviours. The Religious Typology: A New Way to Categorize Americans by Religion finds seven major religious categories from highly religious to non-religious. What distinguishes the seven groups from each other is their root beliefs--their fixed starting assumptions about God, sacred texts, and the afterlife, as well as morality and spiritual practices. The Pew analysis also reveals the links between these root beliefs and such cultural and social choices as political affiliation. For the record, I would place myself in Pew's "Diversely Devout" category.


For Further Reflection:

Once upon a time, a man and woman lived in a wondrous state of completeness and wellness in a garden created on Planet Earth by God. They knew God, and God knew them. The man and the woman were humble before God, because they knew they were children of God, not incarnations of Source itself. But at the same time, the man and the woman were loved by God and trusted by God. In fact, they were loved by God and trusted by God so much that God asked them to help in the great task of caring for all the life that grew and flourished in the garden.

Something about the way in which God had shaped the bodies of the man and the woman gave these children of God a unique skill, a skill not fully granted to any other creature on Planet Earth. It allowed them to see the fruits of two very special trees that grew in the middle of the garden. One was a tree that bore the fruit of life. The other was a tree that grew the fruit of moral knowledge. Each tree had the potential to show the man and the woman one half of God's face, but only half.

After a time, the man and the woman began to notice the fruit of the tree of moral knowledge was easier to pick and easier to eat than the fruit of the tree of life. The tree of knowledge took less time to cultivate. Its fruit came more often and hung lower to the ground. It showed them many hidden things about how to use and manipulate the tools of Creation. With such knowledge and such tools, they didn't need to bother with the slow-flowering tree of life, which gave them useless things, such as tears and love and music. The man and the woman, drunk on fermented knowledge, felt powerful, like gods themselves.

In their impatience, lured by the promise of godhood through knowledge alone, the man and the woman failed to see that, beneath the garden soil, the two trees were intimately joined together through a network of roots and symbiotic spores and energy flowing back and forth along quiet, enduring pathways that wove together all of Creation. The two trees depended on each other, and, in turn, all the other trees of the garden depended on these two for help in staying strong and true no matter the winds that came their way. In this way, even the smallest of trees, anchored by the blessing of life and the blessing of moral knowledge, was able to give shelter to the creatures of earth and air and water.

The man and the woman, certain they had used their unique skill correctly, and unwilling to accept that a network of roots and symbiotic spores could be more important to the health of the garden than their own clever hands and feet, lost their ability to feel the sense of completeness and wellness that had once sustained them. Then they lost their ability to see the garden, though it still existed everywhere around them. And finally they lost their ability to see the face of God.

The unique skill of all human beings remained with them, though, and no one could escape from its double-edged truth as both blessing and curse.

Free will, it is called.

Its story lies at the root of everything we call religion and spirituality.

LSP7: God, Science, and Miracles

I'm pretty tired of reading in my theology texts that nobody can possibly know God so there's no point trying.

What these theologians and philosophers really mean is that nobody they know has successfully met with God by following the spiritual steps dictated by theologians of the past. They assume two things here: (1) the spiritual steps themselves are correct and (2) God can't be known directly by us no matter how hard we try. Too bad, so sad.

From the viewpoint of the scientific method, this approach (this methodology, if you will) falls well short of tenable. If the steps aren't working, then challenge them! Don't just stand there like a blubbering idiot and say you've followed all the steps but they're not working because you're flawed and full of sin. Challenge the steps themselves! Go back and examine the whole procedure with the keen, objective eye of a scientist whose experiment has failed again and again because he's overlooked a flaw in his starting assumptions. Don't assume your starting assumptions are right!

"Astronomy" by Luca Giordano, painted in the mid or late 17th century, not long after Galileo Galilei clashed with the Roman Catholic church about how we should understand the solar system. Galileo, building on the research of earlier scientists, dared to challenge the church's starting assumptions and paid a price for trusting that God is smarter about the laws of physics than any human being. This painting is on display at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Photo credit JAT 2018.

I can say this now with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, but I still remember how hard it was to challenge lifelong assumptions. I have great empathy for anyone trying to do this. I know how painful it can be!  Nonetheless, it has to be done whether you're taking the "hard way" or the "easy way" on the Spiral Path that slowly wends its way towards full relationship with God. Your wanting to challenge old assumptions is a necessary beginning.

Being in relationship with God isn't as difficult as you've been led to believe. Basically, it's the same as being in a full, healthy, mature relationship with anybody who's important to you--your parents, your children, your best friends (though NOT your lover). To have a mature relationship with anyone (a relationship founded on mutual understanding, love, respect, and trust) you first have to be willing to know who the other person is. Who the other person really is. Not the myth of the other person. Or the lies told about him/her. Just the honest truth about who the other person is--his/her talents, strengths, absences of strength, sense of purpose, sense of humour, past history, sources of grief, and sources of infinite joy.

To truly know another person--including God the Mother and God the Father (who are two different people)--you can't simply make stuff up. You can't invent myths and lies about them to suit yourself. You have to listen to them. You have to quietly and respectfully listen to who they really are, to what they're saying directly to you.

Western Christian orthodoxy has tried to co-opt this idea by reverently talking about God's continuing self-revelation, but they've insisted on putting a huge wall around God, and have allowed through only a tiny trickle of truth about who God really is.

One thing I can tell you about God the Mother and God the Father is that both of them love science.  Just love it. They're both big-time science geeks.

Now, I'm not saying they only "do science" and nothing else, because this wouldn't be true. (They're both polymaths, in fact, with talents in every field you can imagine). But if you really want to get to know our blessed, beloved Mother and Father, you have to allow science and faith to be on the same page at the same time. You can't reject science as a valid path to knowing God.

This means you also can't reject the validity of non-Materialism, which is the study of science as it really is, not the study of science as you've been taught.

This is a complicated way of saying that you can be a highly educated person who loves science and still have a scientific basis to believe in miracles.

Really.


For Further Reflection:

How do you get to know someone you've never seen with your own eyes or heard with your own ears? Our first reaction is to say it's impossible. We can't do it. We shouldn't even waste our time trying.

But one of the best parts of being human is our constant need to reach out to know more about people we've never met but whose lives have shaped our own.

We do this every time we pick up a book. Chances are we've never met the author, never seen the author with our own eyes, never heard the author's actual voice. Yet, by the time we finish the book, we have a strong sense of who the author is as a person: his or her interests, talents, quirks, assumptions, prejudices, burning passions, and so on.

We do this every time we walk through a museum or an art gallery or a building with historical roots. We experience the creations of people we've never met, and through their creations we come to know something about their hearts and minds.

We do this every time we softly rock our newborn infants to sleep with gentle cooing and sweet lullabies. We feel the deep power of love, and for the first time we understand something unexpected about our own parents, and their parents before them. We realize that all the words we used before this perfect moment fell short because love isn't words. It's relationships.

Everything around you--everything you learn as a human being on Planet Earth--holds within it multiple layers of observation and communication and memory about who God is and how the universe unfolded. The more you pay attention to the world around you--the more you open your Heart to the feelings that move in earth and sky and water--the more you'll come to know the authors and artists and scientists and parents who are our extraordinary Mother and Father.

LSP6: Why God?

Why God? Why a personal God instead of a transcendent cloud of Oneness from which all of us come and to which all of us return? 

Quite simply, knowing God makes you a better person.

We human beings are funny creatures. When we sit down long enough to notice what we're really thinking and feeling, all sorts of strange emotions bubble up inside us. We want more than anything to feel we belong and to feel we have a purpose in life. We want to feel safe--emotionally and physically safe--and when we're not, we feel frightened and anxious. We long to be surrounded by beauty and peace and kindness and honesty, and when we're forced to deal with selfishness and betrayal and corruption, we're devastated.We want to know others and we want to be known--really, really known and accepted for who we are deep inside. We desperately crave love and trust. We desperately need other people.

Is it wrong for us to feel this way? Are we to blame for our own suffering because we're too attached to certain people and ideals and creature comforts? Are we suffering because of the weight of our emotions and attachments? Or is it possible we're suffering because we haven't been paying enough attention to what we really want and need?

God's love is Beauty. Don't reject it. Rejoice in it! Photo credit JAT 2018.

For a long time now, human beings in all places and in all religious traditions have been trying to answer the problem of suffering by following one of two major paths. (Yes, more paths!) The first major path is the path of spiritual ascent that leads to holiness and perfection (in technical terms, "anagogism"). The second major path is the path of self-dissolution and blurring of boundaries for the purpose of rejoining the cloud of Oneness (called "apophasis"). Both of these paths are paths of abandonment--abandonment of yourself and abandonment of God. Neither path (not even when they're combined, as they often are, in a one-two punch) will help you become a better person--the person you want to be deep in your Heart.

What helps you become a better person is your faith and trust in the "rightness" of needing powerful emotions such as love and safety and deep acceptance in all your relationships. Families (and communities) that embrace the "rightness" of love and safety and deep acceptance are families that are healthy and happy (within the limits of our temporary human lives). Families that focus on achieving holiness and perfection (anagogism), or on beating all emotional needs out of you because emotions aren't "logical" (apophasis) are . . . well, I think you know where I'm going with this.

Knowing God the Mother and God the Father as the people they are means you have a constant source of inspiration in your life for how to be the person you want to be. A person who is patient. And kind. And grounded. And forgiving. And full of empathy for all life (not just caring about the people you know). And courageous. And balanced. And willing to do the right thing. In short, you become once again a person who's in full relationship with all of life, including all the reaches of Creation you'll never see for yourself with your own human eyes.

It all boils down to relationships. Everything that really matters in our lives depends on relationships.  We're hardwired this way. We want and need Divine Love because Divine Love is the ultimate expression of two or more consciousnesses building a relationship of beauty and truth and learning together.

There's no force I've encountered that's anything like the feeling of unconditional love flooding into your heart and mind and bones and gut. This love--which begins within the Hearts of God the Mother and God the Father and within the infinite love they share for each other--this love . . . it's gravity. It's sanity. It's safety. It's trust. It's truth--but not one single truth. It's the truth of everything. It's the truth of you and the truth of me and the truth of all of us. Countless truths, all equally valid, all founded in the reality that we are not One Truth but instead are One Big Family.

All that we most cherish, all that we view as the best expression of ourselves and our communities, depends on our having the courage to love and trust. Forgiveness and transformation and emotional healing all depend on the love and the trust. Once you allow your own heart to be open to these wondrous emotions, you won't be able to stop yourself from letting the rest of it pour in, too.

You won't be able to stop yourself from feeling the gravity of God's love.


For Further Reflection:

Have you ever paid attention to how you feel--how you really feel--when you're treated by your human family if you're just a robot who performs needed tasks? Or a person who's valued for the status you can bring to your family but not for the unique emotions that make you you? Or an invisible slave who's only important in so far as you worship and obey your hierarchical leaders? Do you enjoy being treated in these ways? Do you like being told repeatedly you're unworthy of love? Or does it feel wrong to you in every way?

Being loved by your family is a deep, rich, ongoing set of observations and conversations and memories between people who aren't carbon copies of each other yet who value each other despite their differences. This applies as much to your relationship with God as to your human family.

To seek the path of holiness and perfection is to make the claim that God is only willing to love those who meet a strict and narrow standard of what it means to be beautiful in God's eyes. Such a claim has nothing to do with the way God loves you.

To seek the path of Oneness, where all beings are said to merge into a single Intelligence or Source, is to make the claim that God isn't capable of seeing you and loving you as a unique individual. Furthermore, claims for apophatic Oneness implicitly suggest that you're somehow already a spark of God -- not a child of God, but an actual piece of God's core essence. Have you given any thought to the narcissism involved in such a claim? Have you thought about how it feels from God's perspective when you work your ass off on spiritual practices that claim to give you a godhood that was never yours to begin with?

The human Mind is easily tricked into assuming that God only sees beauty in things that are perfectly perfect.

Fortunately, the Heart that's able to love the imperfectly perfect is a Heart that knows God.

A God who loves you despite the fact that you're very normal and very human and very not God is so much easier to trust.

LSP5: Feeling Completely and Truly Well

Dr. Eben Alexander describes in his book how he knew during the early stages of his recovery that he was "completely and truly 'well' for the first time in [his] entire life" (page 123). This statement is right on the money from my point of view. Feeling your connection with God means feeling "completely and truly well."

This doesn't mean you'll never get sick. This doesn't mean you'll never die. It means you feel wholly present in your human skin and wholly accepting of the many simple truths about God and God's Creation that you've never noticed before.

People are often afraid that if they know "too much" about the mysteries of Divine Love, their sense of wonder will be diminished, and they'll be left with nothing but a bunch of facts and legal rulings, like the mundane wrappings strewn on the floor after all the Christmas presents have been opened. Fortunately, nothing could be further from the truth. The more you open your eyes and your heart to God's mysteries, the more mysteries you stumble across in the course of your everyday life. This photo, which reminds me of the feeling of Divine Love, came to me in an unexpected way. My angelic guardians, who know me so well, suggested one day that I put my camera in the trunk of my car "just in case." I didn't get around to taking any photos that day, so I left my camera in the trunk. It turned quite cold that night, and by the time I visited the nearby conservatory the next day, my camera was so cold that the lens fogged over when as I entered the warm, moist interior of the gardens. At first I was upset. But my loving guardians pointed out that I could take some misty photos before my lens warmed up. This was clearly what they had in mind for me all along. I got some lovely mystical shots that make me smile with wonder every time I look at them, but I wouldn't have got them if I'd been purely logical about how to use my camera. Photo credit JAT 2018.

This can be a hard thing to put into words, especially if you're not 100% sure yourself exactly what you're trying to express. I can see this struggle in Dr. Alexander's book. He knows he knows it, but he still isn't 100% certain of what he's trying to say. Why isn't he sure? He isn't sure because during any near death experience, your brain gets what writers call an "info-dump" -- a vast quantity of new information that can take many years to process. I estimate that, during his 7-day coma, Dr. Alexander probably received the equivalent of a few terabytes of new data.

That's a lot of new data.

Dr. Alexander is a very bright man, and, as a soul, he's also a risk taker who's willing to plunge right into the deep end and worry later about the mechanics of swimming. So for him the right approach to finding his connection with God was to jump hard and fast into the pool, hold his breath, and take in as much information as he possibly could in one big gulp.

Most souls who are here on Planet Earth are not risk takers to this degree. There are many souls who, like myself, need to know about the mechanics of swimming before they go anywhere near the deep end. They need to understand at a logical level where they're going -- and why -- so they won't be afraid.

I've spent the past few years reverse-engineering the process of going to the Core. Like Dr. Alexander, I have a hard science background (mostly chemistry). Although I'm a practising mystic, and although I see wonder and mystery and divine love in everything around me, I also need straight, simple, scientific answers to all the big questions in life.

It's not good enough for me to say, "Well, I've been to the Core and I've talked to God the Mother and God the Father and I trust in their love." I need to know how I do this. I need to what's going on inside my brain, what's normal and completely and truly well about the physiology of my brain that makes it possible for me to do this in my everyday life. Because if I can do it as a normal human being, then it's not about "otherness" or "transcendence" but instead about "wholeness" and "healing."

This opens up a realm of possibilities for others who want to know what it feels like to be "completely and truly well."

Being open to the idea that there really is a God, and being open to the idea that God is a real person (actually, two people united in love as parents to us all) is the first step in the healing process.


For Further Reflection:

You've probably heard of the placebo effect and its role in helping us heal our physical minds and bodies. Although researchers aren't entirely certain how the placebo effect works, there's no doubt our DNA comes preloaded with a mysterious healing mechanism that can help us move towards a state of wellness.

Two psychospiritual factors are especially relevant in activating the placebo effect. One is our personal desire to get better. If we secretly want to remain sick because we're getting secondary benefits, there's not much of an incentive for the body to trigger its own healing mechanisms.

The second factor is our relationship with our caregivers, including our professionally trained physicians, nurses, and the like. There's evidence that when we trust our caregivers, and believe they're acting with genuine care and concern for us (instead of acting by rote for the sole purpose of billing our insurance companies), we're much more likely to experience the positive benefits of the placebo effect. (A 2018 experiment in Britain investigated this effect.)

There's a similar spontaneous healing effect that takes place within our bodies and brains when we turn our attention in positive ways towards a loving relationship with God. Some people call this effect "faith." Whatever you call it, there's nothing quite like the experience of opening your heart to God's immense love and feeling safe in that love.

Your biology responds to relationship with God in the same way your body responds to an empathetic caregiver. You may continue to be physically sick (because not every illness can or will be cured), but inside your Heart you find the courage to believe you're still safe in God's love, despite your pain.

Feeling "completely and truly well" is an emotional and spiritual state, not a physical or cognitive state. Once you decide the feeling of psychospiritual wholeness is worth the trouble, you and your angels will understand each other much better.

LSP4: Second Chances

Do you worry there's only one right way to find the doorway to God's help? Are you afraid that if you pick the wrong path, you'll be punished by God?

Most of the recent writers talking about God, the soul, and the afterlife are describing the early stages of the faith journey. They start with their observations about how messed up our human lives are. Then they offer their insights about how you can get onto the Spiral Path. This is fine. In fact, this is what you find at the heart of the world's great religions: the yearning to step onto the Spiral Path and stumble your way toward reconnection with God.

For many people, this is the longest part of the human journey, the part that fills up the bulk of their lives. Often people only find what they've been looking for as they draw near the end of their allotted time on Planet Earth. So they don't have a lot of time to "start again," so to speak -- to start again on the faith journey by asking all the questions they didn't think to ask the first time.

Each person's journey on the Spiral Path is unique. Like this rune stone that tells the story of a Viking expedition to the Far East that didn't go well, the narrative of our lives is filled with unexpected plot twists. Shit happens on the Spiral Path. Shown here is a reproduction of a Viking rune stone that was part of a special exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum. Photo credit JAT 2018.

The difference for me is that I've had plenty of time -- many years, in fact -- to come full circle on the Spiral Path and start again near the beginning with fresh eyes, fresh questions, and a healed heart. This is a chance not many people get.

I view myself as a spiritual muckraker, someone who's not afraid to challenge old ways of religious thinking that are holding people back as they try to reconnect with God. To be good at this, I had to draw a deep breath and accept a costly twist in the path: a return to university when I was forty-nine. Theological studies helped me examine religious thought patterns from the inside and compare what I was reading to what I'd been experiencing as a heretical Christian mystic.

I began my academic studies after I'd already come full circle on the Spiral Path -- after I'd already learned what it means to forgive, what it means to receive God's love, what it means to find redemption as a human being. I'll be very honest with you and say that a lot of the church's traditional teachings look like a pile of mouldy baloney once you've talked to God the Mother and God the Father about the soul's journey in Creation.

Nonetheless, I still self-identify with Christianity -- that is, with the teachings of Jesus son of Joseph. If you've read my other blogs, you know how little sympathy I have for the teachings of Paul. (I filled three books with thoughts about the contrasts between Jesus and Paul, so you know I take the subject seriously!) Having complained at length about orthodox Western Christianity, I still maintain there's good stuff hidden within Christianity (especially the idea of a personal God and a soul that's inherently good); so, if you need to know where I'm starting from, I'd reply that I'm starting from the same place as that well known heretical Jewish man who came full circle on the Spiral Path and restarted his relationship with God after he (the man) realized that questions are the doorway.

If you wholeheartedly believe in the Church's teachings on sin, separation, sacraments, and salvation ("the 4 S's"), you're not going to like my posts. If, on the other hand, you're open to the idea that God has never stopped talking to you, and never will, and that you're totally worthy of God's unconditional love, you may find something helpful in my thoughts.

God bless,

Jen

For Further Reflection:

Because God is always with you, and because God's angels are always with you, too, there is no limit to the number of times you can have a second chance. Right up until the day you die, God is presenting you with new opportunities for change, growth, learning, and asking logical questions. No matter how often you turn away from Divine Love, God will forgive you and find exasperating ways to challenge you to be your best self.

You know that saying about new chances? The saying that wisely reminds us,"When one door closes, another door opens"? It's true. I don't know who first came up with this maxim, but I know it's a timeless truth for anyone who wants to get closer to God the Mother and God the Father.

As humans, most of us have some pretty bad habits. We like to cling to things we know, things we're comfortable with, things we believe are right (even when they're totally wrong). So God and God's angels frequently close certain doors you're clinging to in order to shake you up and give you a chance to let go of bad habits.

Dr. Alexander's book, when looked at through the light of this maxim, is the story of how God firmly slammed the door on one man's narcissism and opened up a different door (previously hidden beneath layers of anger and status addiction) that showed this same man he's worthy of God's love.

It's important to keep in mind as you pursue your own journey of relationship with God that Dr. Alexander never asked for the journey he got. He never prayed for it. He never used any rituals to get it. He didn't, in fact, even know he was on a journey. Nevertheless, he got the journey God decided was best for him and for those around him.

Dr. Alexander wasn't unique or specially chosen in this regard. Everyone gets the journey and the doorways that are best suited to them.

Keep your eyes and ears open for the doorways God is showing you all the time. Keeping your eyes and ears open is a huge part of learning how to be in full relationship with God.

LSP3: An Angel Feast

"An angel feast." This is what I wrote at the top of page 100 in Proof of Heaven. (I'm always making notes as I read, which is why I buy books rather than borrowing them from the library or studying them in digital format.)

Dr. Alexander's story about visiting Heaven isn't just about himself. It's also about his family and friends, all of whom were changed by his unique journey. You could say, in a way, that Dr. Alexander was a pilgrim who took an unexpected trip to a land few visit during their human lifetimes. When he returned, he brought with him Divine seeds that were sort of like pilgrimage souvenirs. These seeds of knowledge and truth became freely available to others to plant within their own Hearts if they so chose.

So in Proof of Heaven, page 100 describes events that were unfolding for Dr. Alexander's family and friends. They had spent five frightening days at the hospital as they tried to care for him and each other. Everyone's nerves were frayed, and three people (first Phyllis, then Sylvia and Peggy) decided to go back to Dr. Alexander's family home for a rest. At this point, Sylvia discovered that someone had left the freezer door open in the basement, and food had started to thaw. A puddle of melt water had already formed on the floor.

This puddle on the floor was the angels' invitation to a feast.

Faced with this new problem, the three women at the house had to choose between one of two paths that constantly confront us.

The first path (the usual, heavily travelled path) is to fall into patterns of blame and shame: "Who left the freezer door open? It's all your fault! What a waste of money! We don't have time to go to the grocery store to replace all this food! This is so unfair! Why is all this happening to us? God doesn't care about us. If God cared, he wouldn't have let this happen when we're so weary and full of despair! Doesn't he know we can't take this kind of stress? Why is he letting us suffer this way? It's not fair!"

Don't try to carry the weight of the heavens on your shoulders. That's God's job! This covered cup, showing Heracles supporting the heavenly sphere, was made in about 1630--1640, probably in Germany. It's on display as part of the Kenneth Thomson collection at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Photo credit JAT 2018.

The second path (the less common and more poorly understood path) is to see the potential for healing: "We're all heartsick and worried. It's all right for us to feel this way. It's normal!  But the truth is, we can't do this alone. We all need each other. We need to be together. We need to look after each other. And we need to look after ourselves. There's no point pretending we're superheroes who can go for five days without a rest. Let's stop for a short rest. We'll cook the food that's already thawed, and we'll invite our family to be together, and we'll even go to the store and buy some fresh bread because we all need a good meal and a chance to recharge our batteries together! We trust God to look after Eben while we're here. This is the right thing to do!"

As we know, Dr. Alexander's loved ones chose the second path.

Being in daily relationship with God means learning how to think as an angel does (that is, as a person-of-soul, a term I often use for angels). It doesn't mean acting the right way according to a traditional set of Divine Laws (orthopraxy), and it doesn't mean having right faith in a traditional set of Divine Doctrines (orthodoxy). Being in daily relationship with God means you're willing to look for the invitations from God that are all around you every day. It means you're willing to see the blessing in a puddle of water on the floor.

A puddle on the floor that brings a heartbroken family together has more meaning to God and God's angels than all the "blame and shame" words of history's many prophets.

Here is what I've learned as I've walked the Spiral Path: When all you see around you is lemons, ask for help in seeing the hidden lemonade your angels can see (even when it seems impossible that such lemonade could exist). It's always there. Always.


For Further Reflection:

Think about all the religious and spiritual traditions you've learned about so far in your life. If you could boil down each set of teachings to its essential image of God, would you find examples of Path #1 (where difficult situations are seen as punishments from God or the Universe) or would you find examples of Path #2 (where trials and tribulations are seen as opportunities for change, growth, and learning)?

Most spiritual seekers have no idea that it's the image of God they have in their heads that has the greatest effect on the direction of their path.

The second greatest factor is the image people have in their heads of themselves (that is, how they view the essence of their own core self, which is the soul).

If you have a negative image of God and a negative image of yourself, you'll always see the worst in every situation, and you'll spend a heck of a lot of time on Path #1.

If you have a negative image of God and a positive image of yourself, or a positive image of God and a negative image of yourself, you're again going to have a heck of a time.

It's only when you have a positive image of both God and your own soul that you'll be able to learn how to find Path#2 in your life, and, more importantly, how to stay consistently on the path where lemons become lemonade.

Though you may assume that all major world religions and all popular spiritual teachings already profess a positive image of both God and the soul, you'll find after careful reflection that few of them do.

This is why so many people of faith in so many places have had such a difficult time reconnecting with God.

They're looking for God in all the wrong places.

LSP2: Journeying to the Core

In Dr. Alexander's book, we read about his frightening medical journey, a journey involving great pain and fear for himself, his family, his friends, and the medical staff who were desperately trying to reverse his coma. It was only while Dr. Alexander was deep in a rare form of coma that he was free enough to journey to the Core and find the wholeness and peace that come with reconnection with God.

Dr. Alexander did it the hard way.

I'm not in any way trying to deny or minimize what happened to Dr. Alexander and those who care about him. I've been a mystic long enough to know that everyone's journey on Planet Earth is unique, and no two situations are identical. God the Mother and God the Father always know what's best for each person and each family.

Having said that, I also know there's the easy way and the hard way. Dr. Alexander was conscripted into the hard way. It worked for him. It worked for many of those around him. And I've no doubt it has worked and will continue to work for many others.

But it isn't the only way.

Dr. Alexander makes this point himself near the end of his book. In Chapter 33 ("The Enigma of Consciousness"), he says, "Another aspect of the good news is that you don't have to almost die to glimpse behind the veil -- but you must do the work. Learning about that realm from books and presentations is a start -- but at the end of the day, we each have to go deep into our own consciousness, through prayer or meditation, to access these truths (pg. 157--158)."

It's right here, in this paragraph from Dr. Alexander's book, where I see (as I've often seen) the great plague that so often infects the spiritual journey. In one breath, there's the excitement and anticipation of truth and new healing possibilities. In the next breath, there's the depressing reality that people on a spiritual journey are repeatedly instructed to use only the "old toolkit" of ancient religions and to disregard at all cost any methods that might call into question the wisdom of teachers long dead.

What's with this idea that "old" is always "better" when it comes to the spiritual journey? If I were to say to you, "you're having a seizure because you're possessed by demons, and the only cure is for me to repeat this ancient incantation after you pay me a thousand dollars"  . . . would you accept that?

Getting to know God doesn't have to be like St. George fighting the dragon to the death. But you do need to work hard to know yourself as God truly knows you. There are many ways to "do the work" of healing your own brain-soul nexus so you can feel the life-changing touch of God's unconditional love in your Heart. This beautiful carved ivory is from the Kenneth Thomson collection at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Photo credit JAT 2018.

My own connection was built slowly and in the way that was right for me. Today my connection is so strong and sure that I can request the "channel" be opened up between God and myself at any time and in any place. I've had conversations with God while I'm sitting at a red light in traffic, and while I'm trying to troubleshoot a difficult issue at work. God is so kind and generous that no issue is too small for them to share with me. I feel constantly humbled and blessed to know them and to know their love for all their children.

Journeying to the Core isn't about escaping your human self through consciousness-altering techniques. It's about healing your own brain-soul nexus. The tools for this journey are already present inside your biological body AND inside all your RELATIONSHIPS.

As Dr. Alexander discovered, this a journey no one can -- or should -- embark on alone.  It's the Heart, not the Mind, that shows us the way to the Core.


For Further Reflection:

The key to reconnecting with God is to remember at all times that you`re trying to build a relationship with God -- with God the Mother and God the Father. This may sound ridiculously obvious, but you`d be surprised how many people on the spiritual path lose sight of this crucial truth.

It`s very easy to get lost in all the excitement of ancient secrets and modern insights and exciting new techniques that may (or may not) help you expand your consciousness. What`s the end result of forgetting that relationships are the key? You usually find yourself trapped more than ever before in pure Mind where the lessons of the Heart can`t be heard and God can`t be felt.

Prayer and meditation won`t help you much unless you`re willing to start with the choice that relationship with God is the path you really, really want to know more about.

If you start with the idea that God the Mother and God the Father are phenomenally brilliant -- way smarter than you or any human being now or ever, in fact -- you`ll quickly realize there`s nothing they don`t already know about you and nothing that will stop them from doing what needs to be done. So if you want to reconnect with God, it has to be on their terms, not your terms.

Fortunately, God`s terms are founded on Divine Love and Divine Forgiveness.

LSP1: Proof of Heaven

Welcome to Lessons from the Spiral Path!

I've started this blog so I can talk specifically about questions raised for readers of Dr. Eben Alexander's bestselling book Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife.*

"Red Warrior" (detail) by J. MacDonald, (C) 2003.

I first read this book in November 2012.  Dr. Alexander's evocative tale of being in a deep coma for seven days and then waking up with intense memories of his time with angelic beings didn't surprise or shock me. I have my own long experience of daily encounters with the Divine, though I've never had a near-death experience; nor do I use any of the consciousness-altering techniques suggested by Dr. Alexander (such as binaural beats, meditation, or traditional forms of prayer). I'm simply a mystic, one who has learned through slow, dogged work what to do and what not to do if you want to feel God's presence in your everyday life.

Some of my thoughts will be in response to the Seven Postulates proposed by a working group of scientists and researchers who call themselves Eternea. Dr. Alexander is one of the founders of this organization. You can read about Eternea's Seven Postulates here.

I welcome comments and questions from anyone, including angry skeptics. Comments will be moderated. I'll delete any comments with links to sites I consider "for-profit." I also welcome e-mails at realspiritik@gmail.com if you have questions about God, the afterlife, or the soul. I'll try to get back to you as quickly as I can.

What makes the information here different from what you've read on other sites?

Good question. Well, (though I don't ask you to take this on faith) . . .

As part of my daily mystical practice, I visit the Core (as Dr. Alexander calls it) every day. I talk to God the Mother and God the Father every day. They totally rock. I love them beyond what any words can describe, and I know in the very depths of my bones how much they love all of us. Feeling their love is a life-changing experience that takes about 5 minutes. But listening to them as they carefully explain why human life is the way it is . . . that takes years. You'll find many sites that talk about the love, but you won't find many sites that tell you how to get closer to God without almost dying. You're going to die some day, of course, but in the meantime, it's possible for you to feel so much more than you realize.

When you've learned how to connect voluntarily with the Core, you discover that God isn't serene and detached and transcendent. They're very chatty and very kind and very humble and also very funny (as in having a terrific sense of humour). They, along with a few particularly canny angels, have taught me what I know about the Spiral Path.

If you'd like to know more about God and God's unconditional love, please join me on the journey! I promise the path will never be straight, but it will always bring you the laughter and tears you need.

Blessings,
Jen     
 
* Eben Alexander.  Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2012.  

Addendum November 15, 2020: I first wrote this post almost 7 years ago. Since then, my experiences with God and God's angels have deepened in ways I never thought possible. In particular, my studies have expanded more and more into the science of God's universe. As part of my recent research, I bought and read the 2017 book Proof of God, written by Ptolemy Tompkins and Bernard Haisch. As I read Proof of God, then visited Ptolemy Tompkins's website, I learned that Mr. Tompkins was the ghost-writer -- and therefore the actual author -- of the book Proof of Heaven. This was news to me. I have no objection in principle to ghost-writers, but a ghost-writer makes many decisions about what to include and what not to include in another person's story. Now that I've read Mr. Tompkins's Proof of God, I see that his lenses on the big questions about God and God's Creation are very different from my own. There's no possibility that Mr. Tompkins could have ghost-written Proof of Heaven and not allowed some of his own biases and assumptions about God to shade the depiction of Dr. Eben Alexander's unique journey. So I caution readers of Proof of Heaven and its sequel Map of Heaven (which I have not read) to bear in mind that these books were written in a collaborative way and not primarily by Dr. Alexander himself.