LSP45: Atheism: You Think You've Escaped the Perils of Religion . . . So Why Isn't Your Life Getting Better?

If the militant atheists are right, and the world's greatest ills can be blamed on religion, then I'm wondering why, at the close of 2015, when more people than ever are rejecting faith and religion and relationship with God for the simple logic of atheism, the world is looking less loving, not more loving?

Could it be that militant atheism, in its religiosity, pure ideology, anger, lack of empathy, and anthropocentric hubris, is simply a new manifestation of the same neurophysiological patterning that leads to fundamentalism of all stripes?

Could it be that militant atheism is a fundamentalist philosophy with characteristics no different, say, than the Middle East movement known as ISIL, which purports to be a religious movement, but is really just a haven for human beings who have damaged their brains and turned themselves into the Four Horsemen of the Dark Psychological Tetrad (Psychopathy, Narcissism, Sadism, and Machiavellianism)?

Black Beauty T. Rex at Royal Tyrrell Museum, Drumheller, Alberta.  Photo JAT 2015.  Sure, it's unrealistic and unscientific for Creationists to deny the evidence of the fossil record and claim that Planet Earth is only a few thousand years old.  No argument there. But it's also unrealistic and unscientific for militant atheists to deny the evidence of the quantum record, which speaks of weird phenomena such as non-locality, the conscious observer, bosons, fermions, and magnetism, not to mention all the dark matter and dark energy we know almost nothing about.  From my perspective, the atheist belief that "dumb luck" led to the evolution of the universe requires a much higher degree of sanctimonious denial than the Creationist position could ever muster.  Are we humans really so incredibly amazing that the entire universe evolved just so we could have consciousness with all the rights and privileges of the conscious observer effect?  Really?  We can't even manage our own bank accounts, let alone act as wise custodians of Planet Earth, so why would the universe evolve to give humankind the unique right to mess with the laws of physics?

The militant atheists I've known (and I've known quite a few) strut and preen in exactly the same harsh way as the spiritual and theological narcissists I've known.  They're certain of their rightness, certain of their objective intellect, certain they have all the facts.  They're quick to judge and even quicker to punish.  They have no empathy (though they rush to claim they live by the laws of empathy's hobbled cousins "compassion" and "mercy").  They rely almost exclusively on the brain's System 2 thinking processes (linear thinking) and pour contempt on the brain's much older and more adaptive System 1 thinking processes (creative and intuitive thinking).  They're slow to learn from their mistakes and even slower to admit they made any mistakes in the first place.

Here's something else I've noticed about militant atheists and other fundamentalist philosophers: they're really, really poor at constructing a whole and complete argument.  In fact, most of them couldn't argue their way out of a wet paper bag.  But don't say this to their face, because they'll go into a rage -- maybe even erupt in a narcissistic rage reaction -- and they'll make you pay BIG for pointing out they're not really as smart as they think they are.

I take issue with militant atheist philosophies on the following fronts:

• They use restricted data sets and then claim they're using a complete data set.  One example is an extreme reliance on Materialist cause-and-effect "Law" without regard or deference to the non-Materialist laws that govern most of the universe.  Why is it "wrong" for religious leaders to ignore the actual laws of physics but "right" for atheists to do it when it suits them?
• Another example, taken from the field of religious studies, is a tendency for atheists to conflate many different topics into a single "bugaboo" called religion.  Sure, religious fundamentalists conflate stuff all the time -- but why is it okay for atheists to fall back on conflation, over-simplification, literalism, and myth-making of their own?  
• Atheists, in my experience, rely heavily on "revelation" to an extent that rivals the worst abuses of "religious revelation" from major world religions.  Under the category of "revelation" you find "proofs" such as "Because I said so," "Because I'm smarter than you," "Because I cherry-picked one small fact from an entire body of knowledge and used it out of context to show how smart I am," and "I just know it's true."
• Atheism has its own set of gods, though it likes to pretend otherwise.  Top on the list of atheism's idols are "The Perfect Human Mind," followed closely by scientism, algorithmic solutions, and variations on the "it's not my fault I'm a scumbag because my genes made me do it" argument (which is really no different than the ancient religious argument that says "it's not my fault I'm a scumbag because my demons made me do it").
• Atheism is marked by a petulant, narcissistic refusal to examine the enormous and interconnected questions of scale, time, peripheral vision, alternating current, bonding, probability wave currents, and other non-linear, non-Materialist questions related to God and consciousness and Creation.  They use their own personal human limits as proof that God can't actually exist! (as if God has ever understood questions of scale, time, etc. in the way a human brain does!) 

How are these philosophical approaches any different, characterologically speaking, from those used by religious fundamentalists?

How can you expect to become a happier, healthier person who understands patience and love and forgiveness and calmness and flexibility and healing and scale and time and bonding and breadth of knowledge and self-directed morality when you've made the choice to turn yourself into an "iceberg thinker" who refuses to look at anything except the small percentage of data floating above the surface of your System 2 thinking?

And why do you think it's wrong for religious teachers to do this but okay for you to do exactly the same thing?

In my view, militant atheism is hypocrisy in as pure a form as one can get.

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March 2, 2016 addendum: A recent piece by Brian Bethune in Macleans highlights some interesting research by social scientists Diego Gambetta and Steffen Hertog into the unusual percentage of Islamist terrorists who have engineering degrees: http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/why-do-so-many-jihadis-have-engineering-degrees/. Bethune says: "That takes Hertog and Gambetta to the thorny question of “mindsets for extremists.” Different types of people are attracted to different kinds of extremism—engineers mostly on one side, social scientists and humanities grads on the other—and the authors went in search of traits found in both secular and jihadi extremists as well as among engineers. Three stand out among conservatives in general in recent psychological research: disgust (or the felt need to keep one’s environment pure, which can underpin everything from homophobia to xenophobia); the “need for cognitive closure” (a preference for order and certainty that can support authoritarianism); a very high in-group/out-group distinction."

LSP44: Parable of the Prodigal Son

The Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15: 11-32) is one of a series of parables Jesus wrote to teach others about forgiveness.

The main point of divergence between Jesus' theology and the theology of other religious groups in first century Palestine was Jesus' understanding of the mystical power of forgiveness.  Jesus' understanding of forgiveness is the key that unlocks the meaning of the Kingdom teachings, including the parables.

The Prodigal Son (or . . . Redemption Doesn't Happen Overnight). Photo credit JAT 2015

Jesus' teachings on matters other than forgiveness don't sound a whole lot different than the teachings of other groups.  Jesus, like the Pharisees -- and, indeed, like most religious groups of the time -- believed in the importance of ethics, moral choices, and obedience to a code of moral conduct because, well, it's the right thing to do.  So Jesus certainly didn't invent the idea of moral codes.  But he did build on the radical teachings of the Jewish author we call Job to present a minority understanding of how to be in relationship with God.  The minority understanding of Jesus (and Job before him) presented a model for relationship with God that was built on forgiveness (not mercy, not atonement, and not contract law); on agape/love (not obedience, not fear, and not contract law); on a "thinking" faith (not blind faith, not prophecy, and not revelation); on humbleness (not religious humility, not religious salvation, and not on status addiction);on radical inclusiveness (not clan chosenness, not honour-shame cultural norms, and not sectarian segregation); on courage (not fate, not predestination, and not abdication); and finally on the totally crazy idea that God is not a lone male figure (YHWH) but two distinct and separate figures, one male and one female (YHWH and his Asherah?), who together are the One God and make all decisions together based on mutual forgiveness, agape, thinking faith, humbleness, radical inclusiveness, and courage.  As above, so below.

The parable of the prodigal son reflects Jesus' theology, Jesus' understanding of how we can be in full relationship with God during our lives as human beings.

Jesus' parables always ran counter to the Wisdom literature of his time -- what biblical scholar Michael Coogan once called "anti-Wisdom Wisdom" in his commentary on Job.  It was Wisdom literature (currents of which ran through most major world religions of the time) which taught that obedience to divinely revealed laws and cultural norms would guarantee "happiness" and eventual acceptance into the heavens (in whatever form "the heavens" were envisioned in a particular religion).  Those who willfully disobeyed God's laws (again, in whatever form they were envisioned) would surely be punished -- and rightly so.  Wisdom literature (which was already ancient by the time Jesus lived) insisted that Materialist laws of cause-and-effect governed all Creation (including God's own choices) so stability, order, safety, and happiness could be built into a society by observing Creation's laws in scientific ways and then applying reason, justice, and piety to the whole affair.

Of course, the world doesn't really work this way, and Jesus knew it.  He saw a completely different paradigm in operation in the world around him, a paradigm that blended both Materialist and non-Materialist laws of science in complex and intertwined ways.  His parables reflect the anti-Wisdom Wisdom paradigm he observed.  He didn't invent what he saw.  He simply allowed himself to see what was already there.  He allowed himself to hear what God was already saying. And then he tried to share with others the process of emotional, intellectual, spiritual, and physical change that would allow them to willingly and voluntarily enter "the kingdom of the heavens" as Jesus himself had done -- as any of us can do, according to Jesus (though it's a lot of hard work!).

The Kingdom parables are confusing, messy, non-linear, multi-layered, and filled with anti-Wisdom Wisdom because life is confusing, messy, non-linear, multi-layered, and filled with all sorts of irrational (but totally wonderful) emotions like love and gratitude and devotion and forgiveness and the courage to change.

Paul didn't agree with any of this, but that's another story.

LSP43: Discoveries: Learning to See With Your Ears

This morning I was excited to read an article in the current issue of Discover (July/August 2015) that gives a really good analogy for what I do as a cataphatic mystic and how I learned to do it.  The article is called "Sonic Vision" by Berit Brogaard and Kristian Marlow, and it's excerpted from an upcoming book called The Superhuman Mind: Free the Genius in Your Brain by these authors.  If you have a subscription to Discover, you can read the article online.  Or you can buy the current issue at the newsstand, as I did.

First, though, a quick story that sort of shows how I navigate in my life as a mystic and auditory channeller.  (Some of you may recall that I have a strong auditory connection to the soul who once lived as Jesus son of Joseph.  Again, I understand this is problematic for some readers and, again, I can't apologize for who I am and what I do.)

To find the Discover article about humans who are blind but have learned to navigate in their environment by using sophisticated echolocation skills, I could have kept checking on the Discover website until such an article appeared.  But that's not how I live my life.  There's only so much time and so much money and so much brain energy.  What I do instead of constantly checking websites or subscribing to print magazines is to patiently wait until I get a message from my angels.  (Again, I understand this is problematic for some readers, but this is a Christian site, and angels or messengers or persons-of-soul or whatever you want to call them have always been part of the Christian narrative.)

So here's how my discovery of the Discovery article went.  First, I realized I needed to go buy a birthday card for a friend.  Then it occurred to me I could walk to the plaza instead of driving (though often I drive).  And because I walked to the plaza, I passed by the window of a convenience store I hadn't visited for a long while.  And because I walked past the window, I saw their sign for inexpensive cards.  (I'm on a tight budget, so I'm always looking for good value).  And because I saw the sign, I went in.  And because I went in, I discovered the store has been turned into a good magazine shop with titles that don't normally show up in the local drugstore.  And because there was a good selection of science magazines, I was able to "feel" the quantum Post-It note that was attached to the Discover issue.

Don't laugh, but this is how I do all my shopping.  It's a process of navigation.  It's a process of following quantum threads until they lead me to the quantum Post-It attached to the thing I need.  Often the Post-It is attached to something I'd forgotten I needed, but while I'm standing there, with my hand reaching out unerringly toward the shelf, my mind (often the slowest part of me to catch on in these situations) suddenly says, "Oh, yeah, I actually need that!"

At which point I know I've been guided by my incredibly kind and incredibly thoughtful angels.

So anyway  . . . back to the article about echolocation in Discovery.  If you have a chance to read it, you'll discover an amazing story about a man named Daniel Kish who lost his sight to retinoblastomas at the age of 13 months and then figured out on his own how to use echolocation to "see with his ears."  What's really fascinating (apart from Kish's skill, dedication, and willingness to teach others how to see with their ears!) is that he and others with this skill use the visual processing area in the brain's occipital lobes to generate spatial imagery in their minds.  They suss out echoes that most of us can't hear (because we haven't practised hard enough) and these echoes are processed not in the auditory centres of the brain, but in the visual cortex (which does process some sounds).  Using comparative informative (between the sounds going out from their clicking tongues and the reflected sounds coming back from nearby objects), the brains of these individuals can construct highly detailed images of what's nearby.  It takes proper training and lots of practice and commitment, but it can be done.  Sighted people can learn how to echolocate, too, although the phenomenological experience may be different.

The process described in this article is very similar to what I do and how I do it.  I don't click with my tongue, of course, but I seem to be able to "click" with an as-yet-to-be-determined type of brainwave.  I get "quantum echoes" coming back from nearby persons-of-soul, and these are the echoes my brain processes and turns into words and imagery.

I've known since December 2004, when I had my brain scanned on three different days at the Amen Clinic in California, that the visual cortex of my brain lights up like a Christmas tree when I'm talking to Jesus, but my auditory cortex isn't really involved in the channelling process.  I've also learned after 15 years of daily experience as a cataphatic mystic that when I'm awake and channelling, I don't really "see," yet I get black-and-white visual imagery with words that come in from persons-of-soul, including Jesus.  The words always come in clear as a bell -- the same as having a conversation with somebody whom my physical eyes can see.

SPECT scan of my brain when I'm talking with Jesus (December 2004).  White areas show which brain regions are working hardest (highest oxygen uptake), red areas show the next highest oxygen uptake, and blue areas show average regions that are working but not doing the "heaviest lifting" for the task that's being captured on the scan.  SPECT scans capture the brain's function during specific tasks rather than showing simple anatomy.  On my channeling scan, some of the high-activity areas are in the cerebellum (which is normal for most people), but the rest of the high-activity areas (white and red) are in the visual cortex at the back of my head.

This is a voluntary and learned process -- just as echolocation is a voluntary and learned process.  It's a scientific process.  And I had to be trained how to do it properly, just as Kish's students have to be trained.  In a few people (such as Kish) it develops instinctively.  But most people have to be trained.

Being a cataphatic mystic is a bit different from being a non-sighted person who's learning to echolocate.  The process is more complex, and not many people are born to be full-fledged cataphatic mystics (which is as it should be -- the world only needs a few full-fledged mystics at any given time!)

But everybody is born with the brain-talent for intuition (a talent which, on rare occasions, such as during an intense emotional crisis, gets pushed more towards the mystical end of the spectrum, with actual sensory impressions coming through briefly from Spirit).  And everybody can learn how to use their intuitive circuitry better than most people do.  Some adults have so badly fried their intuitive circuitry that they can longer hear a damn thing from God/Spirit/Source/angels, though the potential is there -- just as the potential to echolocate is there for both sighted and non-sighted people.  This potential can be developed with proper training, practice, and commitment.  With the proper development of the brain's intuitive circuitry, anyone can strengthen their relationship with God (who's talking to us all the time, whether or not we consciously realize it.)

Here's a great quote from the article:

"Kish's training curriculum differs from tradition by taking an immersive approach intended to activate environmental awareness.  It's a tough-love approach with very little hand-holding.  He encourages children to explore their home environment for themselves and discourages family members from interfering unless the child otherwise could be harmed."

OMG -- welcome to my life!  I almost fell off my chair laughing when I read this quote.  Tough-love is definitely the key.

All the best,
Jen

Addendum Nov. 5, 2017: Two other unusual but very real "frontiers" of neuroscience -- blindsight and tetrachromacy -- also relate to how I use my biological brain to communicate on a quantum level with God/Spirit/Source/angels. You can read more about blindsight and tetrachromacy here:

 BBC - Future - Blindsight: the strangest form of consciousness

 Human Eye Sometimes Sees the Unseeable - Scientific American

 BBC - Future - The women with superhuman vision
 

LSP42: Gordian Knots in the Faith/Science/Religion Debate

On March 1, 2015, Scientific American blogger John Horgan posted a written reply he'd received from John Lennox on the question of whether religion and science can coexist.  John Horgan (whose views are agnostic) had debated the question with John Lennox (whose views are Christian) at the Stevens Institute of Technology.  Horgan posted Lennox's follow-up letter, and readers of the blog were then free to comment.

Here is my response, posted in the comment section on April 27, 2015 (with typos now fixed):

___________________________________________________

Questions about the intersection of science, religion, and faith are deeply important to human beings and pop up everywhere on the planet. Illustration credit Hemera Technologies 2001 - 2003.

In my experience, the real question is not whether religion and science can coexist, but whether religion and faith can coexist.

@4 Paul Topping wrote, "In my mind, the main “proof” that convinces me of the atheist point of view is that people have so many different religions with such different explanations. . . . The only reasonable conclusion is that they are all wrong and that belief in religion is just something that some people have like blue eyes."

When I read a comment such as this (and there are many these days) I know the individual hasn't taken the time and trouble to use objective research tools to examine key questions about religion -- questions examined with tools such as historicity, source criticism, socio-rhetorical criticism, and cost-benefit analyses from political, economic, social, military, and legal perspectives in the contexts in which the doctrines arose. Most importantly, when superficial assessments of religion are offered, it's quickly clear that all questions about neurophysiology have been shelved.

Shelving questions about neurophysiology isn't reserved for those who claim to espouse the methodology of science. Shelving questions about how and why the human mind works in relationship with the rest of the universe is one of theology's least helpful contributions to humankind, in my opinion. I've read theological arguments so convoluted in their efforts to avoid the question of how and why the human mind works that they make a Gordian knot look like a simple twist tie.

Theology is increasingly understood today as some sort of withering branch of philosophical thought, a deservedly marginalized branch of human thought that has now been proudly replaced by the randomized, double-blind study method, etc.

Those who've studied the history of theological evolution, however, know that all early schools of theological thought (no matter what "religion" they're linked with today) arose from careful study of scientific principles followed by the application of scientific observations to questions of human character, morality, Law (nomos in Greek), justice, disease, healing, mental health, and the pursuit of happiness.

It's not possible from a scientific perspective to reasonably argue that human beings 5,000 years ago (when the roots of today's religions really took hold in the soil of technological advances) had DNA so vastly different from ours that they couldn't use their brains in ways virtually identical to the ways we do. It's not reasonable to argue that they couldn't see for themselves the destructive issues of psychopathy, narcissism, sadism, and machiavellianism without the benefit of today's research and today's DSM-V (which hasn't the courage to include psychopathy in its lauded pages).

Just as we continue to struggle today with these issues, our ancestors took steps to limit the destructive power of certain human choices that spring from Axis II issues. One of the tools each major culture developed was religious doctrine. But religious doctrine wasn't set apart from questions of politics, economics, healing, justice, legal codes, and scientific inquiry. To attack religion as if it has ever been a separate and unnecessary "entity" -- like a dead tree branch that can be lopped off -- is just plain sloppy and lazy from a methodological viewpoint.

Religious doctrines reflect the times and the cultural necessities from which they were born. This is why names and places change from religion to religion, but underlying concerns about destructive human choices don't. Such concerns are universal to the human condition because a psychopath by any other name is still a psychopath. (Members of the Greek pantheon, for instance, certainly seem to be archetypes for the human behaviours we find least desirable: narcissism, fickleness, lust, power-mongering, status addiction, and lack of empathy. Sound like any world leaders you know?)

Religious doctrines, however useful they may have been over the centuries from a political point of view, typically reflect a Materialist cause-and-effect understanding of science, which is quite useful and practical on a day-to-day basis. (Can't argue with classical physics when it comes to everyday usefulness.) The one thing major world religions don't do well, however, is to reflect the needs of FAITH -- a highly influential current of human experience (mostly expressed through System 1 thinking patterns in the brain. System 1 patterns have always paralleled -- and continue to parallel -- the more rigid, linear, Materialist thinking patterns of the human brain's newer System 2 processes).

The experience of faith is the experience of the presence of God in our daily lives. It may or may not be linked to membership in a formal religion.

For me, faith is a relationship with God that endures in the absence of sacred texts. It's an experience that can't be placed within the restrictive boxes of religious doctrinal traditions or texts -- or, for that matter, the restrictive boxes of Materialist cause-and-effect scientific traditions or theories. (Same thing, really.) It's an experience that, as far as I can tell, is rooted 100% in the most objective scientific principles the struggling human brain can master.

I won't bore you with my own experiences, but if you're interested in opening your heart and mind to what this faith experience might be, I'd recommend the awe-inspiring book Man's Search by Meaning by Dr. Viktor Frankl. Any scientific questions we have about the experience of faith, love, forgiveness, and the human search for meaning must take into account the data collected by Dr. Frankl under some of the most searing and horrendous conditions humankind has ever known: the European Holocaust.

Dr. Frankl, as both participant and scientific observer of the "best" and "worst" in human behaviour, introduced data into the faith/science/religion debate that must, at the very least, be considered from a falsifiability perspective.

It's not enough for any sort of "ism" promoter (whether scientism or religious fundamentalism -- same thing, really) to make lofty claims about the origins of evil and suffering. (Did you know, for instance, that Tertullian's late 2nd century CE doctrine of original sin -- a theory now called Traducianism -- tried to account for human evil on biological grounds?) Ideologues must also account for the data of innate goodness collected by less lofty and less voluble speakers such as the late Dr. Frankl.

Therein lies the really juicy stuff.

LSP41: 16 Reasons Why My Life Is Better with God

Dear God, although I know you didn't ask, here are 16 reasons why my life is better with you:

Photo credit JAT 2018

1. You've redefined everything for me about the meaning of success.

2. You've taught me that Love isn't weak or passive, but is incredibly strong and tough and durable.

3. You've taught me that Forgiveness is the most radical catalyst for change we can know.

4. You've shown me that Healing always follows Insight.

5. You've reminded me that when we Heal others, we also Heal ourselves.

6. You've whispered to me in a few of your many languages, and I'm so glad to listen to what you say to us through Science.

7. You inspire me with your example of patience.

8. You've freed me from the crippling disease of status addiction.

9. You've taught me how to care for my brain so I can use my small but worthy "three-pound universe" to listen, learn, and love.

10. You've shown me by your example that it's okay to say No when brains begin to shock us with their anger, hatred, perfectionism, and deceit.

11. You make it okay for me to smile, laugh, and enjoy all the weirdness of quantum science miracles.

12. Your faith in me helps me get up in the morning.

13. Your example of courage sustains me when the going gets really rough.

14. Your Music brings tears of joy to my Heart.

15. Your Planet (one of many!) teaches me what courage, trust, gratitude, and devotion can build when the Heart expands the limited vision of the Mind.

16. When I feel you holding my neighbour's hand, my soul smiles in peace.

Mother & Father God, you are my heroes!

LSP40: Atheism: Blindness to the Question of Scale

The National Post has been very brave in the past few days.

First, it ran a major story on the current religious beliefs of Canadians. The article, called "A God? That's complicated. Canadians hanging on to personal faith as organized religion declines: poll," was published on April 5, 2015 and was based on a new Angus Reid poll.

Second, the Post offered readers a chance to answer the question "Do You Believe in God?"  Not only did the Post print a selection of the letters it received, it allowed 966 on-line comments before finally closing the debate.

It was great to see such an enormous spectrum of thought in one place.  Comments ranged from extreme atheism to extreme fideism, with everything in between.  It was refreshing and encouraging to see an actual debate with thoughtful and cogent offerings from regular Canadians on a topic that matters to many.  The Post editors, bucking the current trend of sanitizing and pre-packaging controversial ideas so no one's feelings will be hurt, took the audacious approach of allowing breadth in the debate.  I applaud the editors for their courage.

Something that emerged for me as I reflected on the varied comments was a better understanding of the schism that exists between atheists and theists.*

One comment, written by a prolific comment writer named Life's Traveller, really drew my attention and prompted me to reply.  In part, this is what he (she?) said:

In terms of religions, I just can't accept anything that my equally (and in many cases, greatly over-achievingly) ignorant fellow humans have to say about this. When we all hear the same, clear and consistent, story, straight from god with no human mediation (prophets, etc.), with ample amounts of irrefutable direct evidence, and explanations, testable under the most rigorous conditions that the brightest among us can devise, then I'll conditionally accept it ... perhaps.

I challenged this line of reasoning a couple of times, then Life Traveller came back with this:

"The God I trust and the God who sustains me every day is the God I see everywhere around me in the world of science" [quoting my previous comment]
Please be specific, and include your reasoning as to why exactly the god that you speak of in personal terms (who you trust and who sustains you), is absolutely necessary for whatever example that you choose to produce as a valid demonstration of the presence/existence/influence of "a superhuman being or spirit worshiped as having power over nature or human fortunes; a deity" (according to Oxford).

It took me all night to figure out why this line of reasoning (a line of reasoning shared by many atheists) is so psychologically and spiritually abusive when aimed at those of us who believe in God.

It's abusive because of the implicit assumption it tries to force on me. (I'm using myself here as an example of a person of faith, but I think other people of faith feel this way, too, in the face of militant atheism).  It tries at the very outset to force me to agree to take on the "burden of proof" for someone else who is either too lazy or too narcissistic to accept the responsibility for using his or her own brain in the most balanced, holistic way possible.  It tries to force me to put on blinders (as if I can't see God in the world "out there").  It tries to force me to use only human laws and human reasoning (as if I can't see God uses universal laws, not human laws).  It tries to force me to agree with the fairy tale imaginings of human minds that worship Materialism (and worship themselves).  Then, when I balk at these unfair starting assumptions (because they're not based in scientific reality), I'll be blamed for bringing mouldy bread to the table instead of the pure goblet of "truth."  It will all be my fault, according to the atheist.  And because it's my fault, I'll deserve to be punished.  This will make it okay for the atheist to deride me, deride God, and raise himself up on a pedestal of smug superiority.

All the while, he's assuming his interpretations of the laws of physics are "right."  He's using his "right to be right" as a foundation, a starting place, and he intends to sit in his comfortable place of "rightness" and feast on the imperfections and inadequacies of humans who believe in God.  Sure, it's schadenfreude disguised as the pure goblet of truth, but if the atheist can keep me from noticing that -- if he can keep me thinking it's all my fault that he's so miserable -- then can he enjoy a lasting banquet of guilt, shame, inadequacy, and unworthiness from those of us who buy into his Materialist fairy tale.

But, you know, it's not my fault.

It's not my fault that the atheist has consciously and willingly chosen to believe that the Materialist laws of cause and effect govern everything in the universe.  It's not my fault that the atheist has chosen to deny that the laws of physics governing baryonic matter represent only a small fraction of the total number of laws of physics in the universe.  (Baryonic matter, which makes up the atoms and molecules we think of as "real" while we're on Planet Earth, represents only about 4 to 5% of the total energy of the known universe.)  It's not my fault that the atheist can't -- or won't -- see the complexity and weirdness and relationships that govern quantum interactions.

It's not my responsibility to bring to the atheist's table a "proof" based solely on Materialist laws of cause and effect.

It's especially not my responsibility that the atheist simply can't cope with the questions and complexities that arise from scale.

It isn't possible to talk about God without always bearing in mind the question of scale.  God the Mother and God the Father are very, very big.  They're also very, very smart.  To ask anyone to describe God using only their own personal experiences and their own personal scientific knowledge is not fair, not justifiable, and not even a tiny bit humble.  Each one of us can provide only a small piece of the overall portrait of God.  Each small piece is important and valid, but no one piece (and no one person) can provide everything we hope to know. 

For those of us living as human beings on Planet Earth, we can't begin to get a sense of who God is unless we're willing to approach the question of God with scale in mind.

Moon in a daylit sky.  (The moon is in this photo, but it's small and hard to see).  If you're not filled with awe and wonder when you look at sky like this, you're not paying attention to what your soul finds beautiful.  Photo JAT 2015.

To get a true snapshot of who God really is, we'd have to take a poll of all living creatures on Planet Earth and then collate all our individual experiences and insights in a vast meta-study.  It wouldn't be sufficient to poll only human beings.  Human beings represent a small portion of God's children on Planet Earth, and human experiences are necessarily narrow in scope compared to the whole picture of God's relationship with Creation.  Humans don't have all the answers.

Humans who want to know God and be in relationship with God have to get over their own human self-importance. They have to accept with humbleness and courage that about 95% of the laws of physics governing their lives are not straightforward and not predictable and not within their complete and utter control.  (Have you met any atheists who aren't controlling Type A perfectionists?  I haven't.)

You're only human, and the fact that you get to play with even 4–5% of the laws of physics while you're here is really quite something (when you think of the whole scale of Creation, that is).

But don't be thinkin' God is required to squeeze into that small little packet of baryonic reality (like the Genie in Aladdin's Lamp) so you can be spared the challenge of "thinking bigger." If you want to know God, you're going to have to go outside your comfort zone and you're going to have to accept that what you find out there won't be designed from a neat and tidy human point of view. 

As the X-files used to say, "The proof is out there."

Or maybe, more properly, in there -- where quantum reality lies.

God bless.

(* Sorry for all the editing I had to do on this piece.  Sometimes new ideas take a while to "gel" and the relevance of "scale" is new to my philosophical paradigm.  Plus I found scads of typos!  Sorry if I created any confusion.  I hope today's additions to this post have made my thoughts clearer. Jen, April 11, 2015)

LSP39: Try This Prayer Instead

First Days of Spring, (c) Jamie MacDonald 2015.  Used with permission of the artist.

The Dawn Prayer (full version)

Gracious God,
What I long for more than anything
is to walk with you and hear the world as you do.
I long more anything for my Heart to be healed
so I may hear your song
and know your breath
and smile at the rush of your dawn-filled wings.
I feel so small
and so crushed
and I can't seem to hear you anymore.
I know this isn't what you wish for me.
Please show me the way back to your Heart
and to my Heart, too.
Please help me hear you
when you say you love me.
I know you love me.
Thank you.
Amen.

The Dawn Prayer (short version: post this where you'll see it several times per day, e.g. on refrigerator door):

Dear God, I know you love me.  Thank you.  Amen.


by Jesus and Jen, March 26, 2015

LSP38: How Prayer Practices Look to Your Angels

If you want to drive your guardian angel crazy, follow these 2014 instructions from the United Church for praying during Lent:

M&S Lenten Calendar 2014

March 5: Pray for strength for the journey of deepening faith and spiritual growth

March 6: Offer a prayer of thanks for those in your life who have been examples of faithful believers

March 7: Pray for your family and give thanks for other encouragers in your life.

March 8: Offer a prayer of thanks for God’s gift of the presence of the spirit in your life.

March 9: Pray for all those who live with spiritual hunger.

March 10: Pray for strength for someone facing a challenge.

March 11: Pray that you will put trust in God during a challenge you face.

March 12: Pray in a place that is special to you.

March 13: Pray for our leaders in the world.

March 14: Pray for those who search for justice.

March 15: Offer a prayer of thanks for spiritual comfort which God offers to all.

March 16: Pray for all those who serve the church.

March 17: Pray while walking in silence.

March 18: Pray for forgiveness for a failing of yours.

March 19: Sing a prayer today.

March 20: Pray that your decisions will be guided by the spirit.

March 21: Pray that your actions will reflect a Christian spirit.

March 22: Offer a prayer of thanks for the season.

March 23: Let the Holy Spirit guide you as you pray today.

March 24: Pray that the spirit will open your heart.

March 25: Pray that you can generously forgive others or yourself.

March 26: Pray in a new way or place or at a different time of day.

March 27: Pray for deepened trust in God and in the spirit of others.

March 28: Pray for laughter and joy in your life.

March 29: Pray that a conflict you feel will end with peace in your life.

March 30: Pray for those who face discrimination.

March 31: Pray that you will smile at everyone you meet.

April 1: Pray that today you can share the Good News.

April 2: Pray as a group or in the company of others.

April 3: Pray for deepened understanding of Christ’s message.

April 4: Pray for all who struggle with their faith.

April 5: Pray that God will walk with you.

April 6: Pray for “the luck of the Irish” in your life.

April 7: Pray for true joy in sharing the love of God.

April 8: Pray that you will see the beauty around you.

April 9: Pray in the morning and when the sun goes down.

April 10: Pray for our planet and all of God’s creation.

April 11: Pray for those in Canada who lack safe drinking water.

April 12: Pray for The United Church of Canada and its world mission.

April 13: Palm Sunday –pray for those living in the Holy Land.

April 14: Pray for our Mission partners around the world.

April 15: Pray for the children who live in poverty.

April 16: Pray five times today.

April 17: Maundy Thursday–Pray for your faith community.

April 18: Good Friday–Pray that you will meet faith challenges.

April 19: Pray for faith in yourself and those you love.

The reason you'll drive your guardian angels crazy is because your guardian angels know how your brain actually works and they know you'll feel incredibly frustrated if you pray in a way that confuses and stymies your biological brain.  Relationship with God depends on your ability to process incoming information from God and your angels, so effective spiritual practices are those that work with your brain instead of against it.  Keep it simple, keep it sane!

With prayer, as with all spiritual practices, there's the easy way and there's the hard way.  Your angels are very keen on the easy way (since being an angel-in-human-form is hard enough on the best of days).  The prayer calendar above is the hard way.

This is how the above calendar looks to your angels:

How Prayer Practices Look to Your Angels: When you use 46 different prayers over the Lenten period, your biological brain sees it as 46 different maps (instead of a single, unified map!).  After a while, your brain stops paying attention to the prayers because there's no consistency to them and therefore no chance of building strong inter-neuronal connections.  On the other hand, your brain will pay attention to one clearly written prayer repeated earnestly each day for a minimum of 6 weeks.  (Six weeks is the minimum amount of time it takes the brain to build a new neuron -- and building neurons and inter-neuronal connections is the key to long-term learning and change!)

When you use 46 different prayers over the Lenten period, your biological brain sees it as 46 different maps (instead of a single, unified map!).  After a while, your brain stops paying attention to the prayers because there's no consistency to them and therefore no chance of building strong inter-neuronal connections.  On the other hand, your brain will pay close attention to one clearly written prayer repeated earnestly each day for a minimum of 6 weeks.  (Six weeks is the minimum amount of time it takes the brain to build a new neuron -- and building neurons and inter-neuronal connections is the key to long-term learning and change!)

Next year, why not try to easy way? Pick one prayer, reflect on it in the morning and and again in the evening, and try to find small messages, synchronicities, or reminders during the course of your everyday life that relate to the one prayer you've chosen. You'll be surprised at what you notice when you're only asking your brain to follow one map at a time. It doesn't mean you're being spiritually lazy -- it means you're respecting God's wishes for you!

LSP37: The Coat of Many Colours: What Scientology Teaches Us About Gnosticism

There's only thing I like about L. Ron Hubbard's cult of Scientology, and that's the way it serves as a teaching tool about the brutal efficiency of prophetic "revelation."

This morning, on the BBC site, I found a wonderful article by Owen Gleiberman about the new Alex Gibney documentary on Scientology.  The documentary, called "Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief" has been attracting a lot of attention since its release earlier this year.  The film is in turned based on the 2013 book by Lawrence Wright called "Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Belief."

Gleiberman ends his article by saying this:

The twisted genius of L Ron Hubbard is that he figured out a way to define and exploit contemporary soul sickness. He was right about the disease. But Going Clear makes a powerful case that he came up with a cure that only made it worse.

Yes, L. Ron Hubbard was a twisted genius.  As Gleiberman notes, the film "captures how Hubbard fused reality, fantasy and the pursuit of enlightenment in a way that, according to the film's witnesses, expressed his own highly unstable and even violent nature."

This is what prophets do.

(Please note that I draw clear distinctions between the terms "prophet" and "mystic." For me, the term "prophet" is reserved for an individual of dubious mental health who uses claims of "divine revelation" to establish his or her primacy of authority over others.  By contrast, I use the term "mystic" to refer to individuals who are on the extreme end of the "intuition" spectrum, most of whom go through life as writers and philosophers without becoming consciously aware of their vocation as "mystics.")

A prophet isn't interested in teaching people how to heal their relationship with God.  A prophet is instead interested in crafting an entire "philosophy of science" (a cosmogony, if you will) for the purpose of explaining to you in ruthlessly logical ways why you should hand over your integrity; your money; your free will; your core self of worthiness and wisdom; and your relationship with God.

The coat of many colours you were born with is stripped away from you, and in its place you're given a "new and improved" garment of ash.

You're told when you put it on that you're donning the pure white garb of enlightenment.  You're told that you're abandoning the burden of emotion, replacing the heaviness of emotion with the weightlessness of pure reason.  You're told that all the proof you need lies around you in the Materialist laws of Cause and Effect.  You're told that when you see past of the illusions you've created for yourself, you'll suddenly recognize that you can transcend your lowly humanness and reclaim your rightful place in the universe as God.  Or Buddha.  Or Thetan (as Scientologists describe it).

The garment you've been given reeks of pure narcissism.  It reeks of the prophet's absolute refusal to accept that he's a mere child of God.  It reeks of his conviction that he himself is so omniscient and so omnipotent that he surely MUST be a god who has lost his memory of his own godhood and fallen to Earth, where he's obliged to dig his way out of Earth's heavy muck so he can stop being reincarnated here.

Have I conflated several different religious beliefs here?  On the surface, it would seem so.  But no.  What I've done here is describe a single religious paradigm that manifests again and again in humanity's many diverse cultures, not because it's right but because it so beautifully suits the psychological needs of bullies, tyrants, narcissists, and psychopaths.

What I've described here is Gnosticism.

Here's what Wikipedia has to say about Scientology's underlying cosmogony:

Scientology beliefs revolve around the thetan, the individualized expression of the cosmic source, or life force, named after the Greek letter theta (θ). The thetan is the true identity of a person – an intrinsically good, omniscient, non-material core capable of unlimited creativity. 

In the primordial past, thetans brought the material universe into being largely for their own pleasure. The universe has no independent reality, but derives its apparent reality from the fact that most thetans agree it exists. Thetans fell from grace when they began to identify with their creation, rather than their original state of spiritual purity.  Eventually they lost their memory of their true nature, along with the associated spiritual and creative powers. As a result, thetans came to think of themselves as nothing but embodied beings.

Thetans are reborn time and time again in new bodies through a process called "assumption" which is analogous to reincarnation. Like Hinduism, Scientology posits a causal relationship between the experiences of earlier incarnations and one's present life, and with each rebirth, the effects of the MEST universe (MEST here stands for matter, energy, space, and time) on the thetan become stronger.

It's easy to see the narcissism that underlies the teachings of Scientology. It's easy to see the narcissism of these teachings because this particular body of teachings is so new that most of us haven't yet overlaid the raw narcissism with layers and layers of "divine authority" derived from "ancient tradition." We're still willing to look the teachings in the eye and see them for what they really are.

What they really are is an attempt to rupture the relationship between individuals and God.

It's just so damned inconvenient, from the narcissist's point of view, to have a God who's already here and already acting for our benefit. The narcissist can't tolerate the idea that he -- a human being -- isn't the smartest, fastest, strongest being in Creation. So, to assuage his intolerably monstrous ego, he invents an entire cosmogony where he is God and he is on a brave and bold quest to reclaim his rightful power as God. Or Buddha. Or Thetan.

By looking at the origins of Scientology -- and specifically at the psychological issues that have driven the founders and chief promoters of this new cult -- we can see the pattern of narcissistic behaviours for ourselves. We can then use our observations to help us decide which aspects of our own spiritual journeys are holding us back as we try to heal our relationship with God.

In order to progress on the Spiral Path of faith, science, wonder, and relationship with God, you must start with the assumption that it's good enough for you to be a child of God, rather than try to become God the Mother and God the Father themselves.

Being a child of God entitles you to all the benefits of wearing the coat of many colours God gives to all God's children. It entitles you to be fully yourself, without judgment, abuse, or psychological violence. It entitles you to live passionately according to the needs of both the Heart and the Mind. It entitles you to view your human lifetime as a richly rewarding, positive experience instead of a punitive, degrading, sin-filled, mud-wrestling match. It entitles you to blend both Materialist laws and non-Materialist laws in your daily life. It entitles you to be honest with yourself about how much you really want and need to be in relationship with God.

Gardens are one way to experience the coat of many colours while you're here on Planet Earth.  God invites you to help with planting and watering and weeding a garden to create a place of peace, beauty, and healing for others to enjoy (including creatures great and small).  But God doesn't expect you to be in charge of the design of every living organism in the vast universe we live in.  That's God's job!  Enjoy the gardens of Earth while you're here and rejoice in the ways you can help create and sustain such beauty.  It may not be a much of a contribution as far as a spiritual narcissist is concerned, but it's important as far as God and your angels and your own soul are concerned.  Great blessings come in small packages!

It's no fun at all believing you're required to be responsible for everything in Creation. Fortunately, God doesn't expect you to be God.

If you can manage to embrace the first stanza of the Serenity Prayer and live in basic accordance with the tenets of the Twelve Step Program, you'll be doing very well as far as your angels -- and your God -- are concerned.

Best of luck to you!

LSP36: Do You Agree with the Statement that "You Are God?"

Click here to find out everything he revealed!!!!!  Yes, you too can know you are God!!!!!

So went the text of a recent promo sent to me via OMTimesMedia. I've retyped some of the relevant passages here:

In a recent message from Dr. Baskaran Pillai, who Dr. Wayne Dyer has called ‘one of the most Enlightened people on the planet’, he reiterated that you (yes you) are in fact God.

There is, however, a catch…

You must realize it. That is to say ‘real-ize’ or ‘actual-ize’ it.

However for most of us, and maybe you can relate, most of our time and energy goes into our human identity, not our spiritual one.

This is the root cause of so many of our frustrations, disappointments, and problems in life.
Dr. Pillai has shared 2 things from his recent meditations that he wants you to know:

1. You MUST defeat your image to real-ize your inherent God potential.
2. A set of divine tools and techniques that can make this process easy

“This is my New Teaching that just came from my meditation over the past few days. I barely slept. I kept up all night, and then I had visions about humanity changing, and then I was given this teaching. ‘Defeat the Image.’ Why? Then only you can put a new image in.” – Dr. Pillai

 
Dr. Pillai isn't the only one peddling this spiritual snake oil.  It's been around for millennia.  This is one of the reasons I laughed out loud when I read his self-important statement above: "This is my New Teaching that just came from my meditation over the past few days.  I barely slept.  I kept up all night, and then I had visions about humanity changing, and then I was given this teaching."

Well, you know, when you abuse your biological brain in this way, you're bound to start having biological consequences such as hallucinations.

Self-induced hallucinations, combined with personality issues such as narcissism, status addiction, and schadenfreude frequently generate what is known in theological circles as "revelation" -- in other words, a "New Teaching" given to one specially chosen prophet along with "a set of divine tools and techniques that can make this process easy."

Ah yes, the "easy fix" promised by "Enlightened Masters" today and in days long past.  Oh wait  . . . you're not supposed to bring up the topic of days long past.  You're only supposed to focus on today's message, today's very special, one-of-a-kind, never-heard-before message from today's specially chosen divine messenger, because this time it's different!  This time, after all God's failed efforts to make himself heard and understood, God has finally -- at long last and at great peril! -- managed to push his way through the terrible obstacles of the Unseen Realms (would that be verifiable science?) and speak to one specially chosen messenger!

When you take the time to study the history of religious claims about God, you start to see the same claims popping up over and over across different religions, cultures, timespans, and geographical places. Some claims are positive and helpful, like the good fruits from God's garden that keep your body, mind, and inner heart healthy. Other claims, such as the revelation that you're actually God, are a waste of your time and money, like buying a big bag of juicy fall pears and discovering when you get home that all of the pears are rotten in the middle.

O, lucky us, that we, at this unique time and place, should somehow manage to be the only ones ever in history to whom God has managed to speak the One Truth!  How did we manage to survive before this special time of ascension?!  How did we manage to survive without realizing we're actually God?!  I mean, really, if we'd known this before, we could have had smartphones and Netflix centuries ago without wasting our time on all that stupid stuff like insight, forgiveness, morality of happiness (as opposed to morality of obligation), and what it means to use our free will (and our humanity) as children of God!  We could have just jumped straight to the good stuff without all the bother and hard work of trusting God and trusting each other and trusting the science of Creation!  Who needs trust and love and respect when you can claim God potential instead?

I refuse to supply a link for the above "spiritual infomercial."  You're welcome to search for it if you insist.  But I have free will and I don't believe that all religious teachings are equally healing and equally helpful in our lives as human beings.  I tend to believe the evidence of my own eyes, which suggests that some religious teachings -- far from showing people how to be loving and respectful -- actually turn people into spoiled, narcissistic brats incapable of making moral decisions.

The "You Are God" teachings turn people into spoiled, narcissistic brats.

Use them at your own risk.

But if you use them, ask this question: Why isn't it enough for you to be you -- a child of God who is fully cherished and respected as an equal member of God's wondrous family precisely BECAUSE you aren't God?

Why would you want to be somebody you're not? 

LSP35: Big Fat Frauds and Other Cautionary Tales from Science and Religion

About a month ago, I first read an article by Peter Whoriskey entitled "Top U.S. nutrition advisory panel poised to withdraw longstanding warnings about cholesterol in diet" (Washington Post, February 10, 2015).  I was reminded of this article when I read Margaret Wente's recent commentary on the power of fads in the health and nutrition industries.

Ms. Wente has this to say: "Just about everything we thought we knew about the evils of cholesterol and fats has turned out to be wrong.  The doctors, the nutritionists, the dieticians, the heart societies, the experts at Health Canada, the food pyramid that hung on the wall in school -- the entire health and medical establishment, in fact, have been perpetuating a big fat fraud."

Ah, yes.  The power of "the Big Fat Fraud."  You'd think by now we'd be more conscious of the power of the Big Fat Fraud to control our thinking and our decision-making.  You'd think that, because we now have the tools of advanced science at our disposal, we'd be immune to the Big Fat Frauds that have controlled our religions, economics, politics, and wars for millennia.

You might think we'd be immune, but you'd be wrong.

Living as I do (with angels who pop in to chat with me about the science of the human brain and other angels who like to talk with me about quantum physics as it actually exists), I've gradually developed an extremely sensitive "nose" for Big Fat Frauds.  This is why I've been eating high fat dairy foods -- and plenty of them -- since 2003.

That's the year my guardian angel, Zak, finally persuaded me that all religious teachings on asceticism are pure crap.

If you were to open up my fridge, you'd see the high fat, high salt foods I eat each day because my practice as an endogenous nature mystic (i.e. a cataphatic mystic) places very high energy demands on my biological brain.  Far from starving my brain to get closer to God (as taught by idiotic apophatic mystics around the world), I give my brain all the biological nutrients it needs to constantly build new neurons and glial cells, constantly build new connections, and constantly do the "housecleaning" of sweeping away connections that are no longer needed.

For breakfast each day, I really pack in the calories.  I do this intentionally.  I do this because I like to boost my blood sugar levels for the physically active part of my day.  I start my day by having a glass of real orange juice, a cup of freshly brewed coffee (usually with cream and bit of sugar, but sometimes black), and a cookie for some quick fats, sugars, and salt.  This is my first breakfast.  Then, like a hobbit, I have "second breakfast."  Second breakfast comes about an hour after first breakfast.  For second breakfast, I start with a piece of fresh fruit (e.g. banana, pear, orange, or seasonal fruits).  Then I have non-fat-free yogurt -- usually Astro set style yogurt with 6% butterfat.  (Astro's new lemon, lime, and caramel flavours are really yummy!) Then I have a chunk of full-fat cheese (usually old cheddar, though sometimes mozzarella or havarti) plus a calorie-laden baked good (e.g. a piece of cake or a walnut buttertart or a piece of apple pie).  I wash all this down with a second cup of coffee.

Count the calories.  This is a ton of calories.  Any recently trained nutritionist would be absolutely horrified at what I eat for breakfast.  But I don't care.  It's what I need.

Oh yeah . . . I weigh between 125 and 130 pounds on a 5'6" frame without ever dieting. (I don't own a scale, so am guessing somewhat on my weight, but I wear a size 6 pant in brands such as Jones New York, so I'm still reasonably trim at age 56).

Me in 2014 (even after all those "second breakfasts")

Did I figure out my "perfect breakfast" by myself, through simple trial and error and careful observation, charting, and research?

Hell, no.  I had angel help every time I went to the grocery store until I finally got the hang of eating according to my body's real needs instead of the latest Big Fat Frauds pronounced by both science and religion.

And, just in case you're wondering, I sometimes have bacon and eggs and white toast with lots of butter and natural jam.  Just the way I had all those years when I was growing up with bacon, eggs, toast, and juice for breakfast.

Thanks, Mom, for having the common sense to feed our family a sensible, balanced diet with all the fats, salt, and proteins a healthy brain needs!  You got me off to a great start in life!

Addendum January 1, 2022: In this essay, something I could have mentioned is my abstinence from alcohol. Although I never drank much in my younger days -- just an occasional glass of wine or, on special occasions, a small liquor -- I stopped drinking alcohol when I realized that no amount of alcohol is really safe for the brain. I can't function in my mystical life without a really healthy brain; ergo, I don't drink. Even a rousing social event can't induce me to do something I know will hurt my brain.

Now, after many years of patiently waiting for medical science to realize they might have committed a Big Fat Fraud in telling people to drink a glass of wine every day to improve their health, along comes this article by Laura Brehaut in the National Post (Dec. 31, 2021): "It turns out a glass of wine a day likely doesn't keep the doctor away." 

Naturally, this is just one more reason for me to thoroughly dislike the sacrament of the Eucharist.

 

LSP34: Signs and Wonders and Mummified Monks

"Mummified monk in Mongolia 'not dead', say Buddhists."  This is the headline on a short article that appeared this week on the BBC news.  Other news sites carried similar stories.

To recap, a very well preserved mummified Buddhist monk was discovered in Mongolia last week.  The body is seated in the lotus position (a position that assists in entering an intentional meditative state) and the monk appears to have died while in this position.  The body (the exact age of which isn't certain) was recovered by police just before it was about to be sold on the black market.

What's extraordinary about this story is not that a mummified body was found in a cold, dry climate (which preserves body tissues quite well), but that an expert, Dr. Barry Kerzin (a Buddhist monk and physician to the Dalai Lama) has gone on record to say it's possible the monk may not be dead at all.  He may, according to Dr. Kerzin, be in a rare meditative state called "tukdam."

Dr. Kerzin apparently told the Siberian Times this:

'If the person is able to remain in this state for more than three weeks - which rarely happens - his body gradually shrinks, and in the end all that remains from the person is his hair, nails, and clothes. Usually in this case, people who live next to the monk see a rainbow that glows in the sky for several days. This means that he has found a 'rainbow body'. This is the highest state close to the state of Buddha'.

He added: 'If the meditator can continue to stay in this meditative state, he can become a Buddha. Reaching such a high spiritual level the meditator will also help others, and all the people around will feel a deep sense of joy'.

The Siberian Times article also reports that "over the last 50 years there are said to have been 40 such cases in India involving meditating Tibetan monks.

You can read about a recent example of this on the website of the Benchen Monastery Community.  There, they offer notice of the death of Kyabje Tenga Rinpoche, who "chose to end the state of Tukdam, which is the deep meditative composure that some realized masters enter into after the demise of their physical bodies, after three and half days."  The notice also describes the unusual weather conditions that took place on the day of Kyabje Tenga Rinpoche's 2012 death.  The unseasonal thunderstorms, followed by rainbows, were not thought to be coincidental or irrelevant, the notice strongly implies.

The point I want to make is this: Although you might like to believe that Buddhism isn't a religion, but is instead an atheistic, secular, humanist spiritual practice, it is not.

Buddhism is, and always has been, a religion.  This is especially obvious in Mahayana Buddhism and Vajrayana Buddhism (of which the Dalai Lama's school of Tibetan Buddhism is a part).

Buddha, Royal Ontario Museum. Photo credit JAT 2017.

ROM text accompanying the Buddha sculpture.

I have to smile at the similarity between the description of Kyabje Tenga Rinpoche's death and the description of Jesus' death (the whole 3-day-thing plus multiple signs and wonders).  But the similarities don't surprise me.  I've seen many signs and wonders, and I know they happen all the time.  They happen to all of us -- far more often than most people realize.

No one religious group has a right to claim a monopoly on signs and wonders -- neither Christianity nor Buddhism nor any other group.  Everyone who lives on Planet Earth is part of the same Creation.  There isn't one Creation for Christians and a different Creation for Buddhists.  We all come from the same place (God's Heart). We all live under the same roof here on Planet Earth.  We all live by the same "house rules" while we're here (which is why the need for morality is universal).  And we all return to the same place when we die (claims for apotheosis notwithstanding).

Do I think the mummified monk is still alive and in a deep state of tukdam?  No, I do not.  I think the poor man is dead.  I think he's been dead for a long, long time, and I think we should trust that and let him be instead of trying to force the mantle of Buddhahood onto his very shrivelled shoulders.  (Did you check out the photo on the BBC?)

Do I think it's possible his physical body -- what remained after his soul and his biology parted ways -- has been miraculously preserved?

I think it's theoretically possible.  I really do.  I've seen much stranger things than abnormally extended tissue preservation.  (And tissue preservation is, after all, simply a matter of knowing your chemistry, physics, and biology really, really well -- a particular talent of God.)

The real question is this: what does this news story tell you about you?  What does this story make you think about?  Do you want to laugh with contempt and call it all a hoax?  Or do you have a small itchy sense of curiosity in the very back of your head?

If you're just a little bit curious, it's a good sign.

P.S. Thank you to the persons-of-soul who made this discussion possible.  Without you, we couldn't do this!  Amen.

Postscript February 26, 2015:  Please see "Eerie remains of 1,000-year-old mummified monk inside Buddhist statue unveiled by CAT scan," which was posted this week on Canada's National Post news site.  Please see also another helpful story story posted this week by the BBC about the elaborate and beautiful Ajanta caves built for the Buddhist community of India’s Maharashtra state until the complex was abandoned in the early 6th century CE.  Again, my point is that Buddhism is a religion, not just a simple philosophy or way of life that anyone can -- and should -- incorporate into their spiritual journey.  It's up to you to decide whether the religious doctrines of Buddhism are right for you.  But please don't pretend there are no doctrines!

LSP33: Dual Process Thinking and the Soul

The new year started out for me with laughter, excitement, and awe when I stumbled on a BBC Future article about religion and the human brain that confirms much of what I've been writing about for years.

The article, by Rachel Nuwer, is called "Will religion ever disappear?"  I recall noticing the title when the article first appeared on December 19, 2014, but I was too busy to stop and take a look.  On January 2, though, I somehow ended up there -- almost 10 years to the day since the Christ Zone model of consciousness was first laid out for me in the course of my daily mystical conversations with the soul who once lived as Jesus.

In her article, Nuwer asks whether the rise of atheism around the world will inevitably lead to the death of religion and spirituality.  Her conclusion, based on research from experts in psychology, neurology, history, anthropology, and logistics, is that "religion will probably never go away."  The reason?  The reason boils down to "a god-shaped hole [that] seems to exist in our species' neuropsychology, thanks to a quirk of our evolution."

This "god-shaped hole," which we're always trying to fill with meaning and purpose, springs from the scientific reality that human brains seem to use not one but two basic and distinctive forms of thought.  Researchers from social, personality, cognitive, and clinical psychology refer to this in broad terms as "dual process theory."  Recent fMRI studies show that specific brain areas are used to process information from the first system and different brain areas are used to process information from the second.  Sometimes these two systems are in competition with each other.

The two basic forms of thought are creatively referred to by researchers as "System 1" and "System 2."  Me, I call these two processing systems the Soul Circuitry and the Darwinian Circuitry.

Researchers agree that System 1, which seems to be much older in evolutionary terms, is oriented towards intuition, morality, recognizing patterns in the world around us, and seeking meaning and relationships.  System 2, which is actually much newer, involves conscious reasoning and careful application of logic. 

I learned this week that dual process theory has been around for a long time among modern psychologists.  But somehow I missed it.  I`ve known for several years about some early theological references to the "two-part brain" -- for instance, soon after Jesus explained the Christ Zone model to me, I saw the significance of his use of the rare term "dipsychos" (double-minded) in James 1:8, and later I noted Augustine of Hippo's description of himself as a man torn by the conflicting impulses of two different minds -- but I had no idea that my painstaking efforts in the past 10 years to understand the brain-soul nexus were being paralleled in psychology research labs around the world (albeit while skirting any reference to "soul").

That's why I started to laugh.  When you`re dealing with angels on an everyday basis, timing is everything.

Successful religious architecture appeals to both System 1 and System 2 in the brain.  St. Pancras, in Widecombe-in-the-Moor, England, echoes the emotional tones and colours of the haunting hills of Dartmoor.

Even if you're an atheist, and you don't agree with me that System 1 is a 3D analogue for the unique emotional and creative needs of the soul, you still can't avoid the scientific reality that your brain is wired to WANT morality and values.  System 1 exists whether you like it or not, and it's part of a healthy brain.

It`s a scientific fact that if you don't give System 1 something useful to do, it'll give you feedback whether you like it or not.  As Nuwer says, "Similarly, many around the world who explicitly say they don`t believe in a god still harbour superstitious tendencies, like belief in ghosts, astrology, karma, telepathy or reincarnation.  'In Scandanavia, most people say they don`t believe in God, but paranormal and superstitious beliefs tend to be higher than you`d think,' [Ara Norenzayan of the University of British Columbia] says.  Additionally, non-believers often lean on what could be interpreted as religious proxies -- sports teams, yoga, professional institutions, Mother Nature and more -- to guide their values in life . . . 'People seem to have this conceptual space for religious thought, which -- if it`s not filled by religion -- bubbles up in surprising ways,' [says Justin Barrett of Fuller Theological Seminary]."

The scientific reality of System 1 is something that has to be factored into any decision you make about your personal spiritual practices.  You might like to believe you can rise above all that System 1 nonsense of intuition, morality, recognizing patterns, and seeking meaning and relationships.  You might like to believe you can replace emotion and intuition with pure reason and logic at no cost.  The cost, however, will be very high: you'll be forcing your brain to ignore the decision-making wisdom of huge hunks of your brain.

I find it easier, more logical, and a lot more fun to live my life by using my whole brain and allowing myself to trust the scientific concepts explained to me by my angels instead of relying on superstition, sports scores, entertainment news, and paranormal "reality shows" for my sense of wholeness and meaning.

God bless my angels for insisting I read the news from reputable, reliable new sources.

I wouldn`t have it any other way.