LSP43: Intuition: 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 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. 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 "see" 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 gone into for a long time. 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 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 who's in the room or on the phone with me.

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 channelling scan, some of the high-activity areas are in the cerebellum (which is normal for most people). Other high-activity areas (white and red) are in the thalamus; basal ganglia; posterior cingulate; and the visual cortex at the back of my occipital lobe.

This is a voluntary and learned process -- just as echolocation is a voluntary and learned process. It's also 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 with the talent 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."

Welcome to my life! Tough-love is the key. This won't please anyone who goes to a weekend workshop and expects to emerge as an expert in intuition. But if you're willing to do the work, you can gradually learn how to create a map of your relationship with God.

Keep in mind, though, that intuition isn't a "divine gift" that's dropped fully formed into your head because you've asked for it in prayer. It's more like a packet of seeds you have to nurture if you want the stems to grow into a reliable support for your life. 

With practice, intuition helps you know where to walk -- and when -- so you can feel God's presence in your life. And all you need is your own 3D brain.

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):

___________________________________________________
 

Religion isn't just "one thing." Faith isn't just "one thing." The human brain (where both religion and faith are experienced) isn't just "one thing." Anyone who tries to reduce these incredibly complex questions to simple either-or explanations isn't paying attention to reality. Photo credit JAT 2026.

 

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.) Faith, far from being just a fanciful belief, is rooted 100% in the most objective scientific realities of the biological brain.

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.

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 him/herself 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.

 

In April 2024, a total solar eclipse was visible from Nova Scotia, Canada. Although I safely watched the eclipse through my approved glasses, I used the camera on my phone to photograph some of the interesting light effects. If you look closely, you'll see the camera captured a large, bubble-shaped reflection (superimposed over the trees) with a tiny "moon-bitten crescent sun" hovering in the middle of the bubble. That's a reflection of what the eclipse looked like at the time I snapped the photo. Photo credit JAT 2024.

To get a true snapshot of who God really is, we'd have to take a poll of all living creatures -- both past and present -- on Planet Earth and then collate all our individual experiences and insights into 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 get 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.

 

 

* Addendum September 11, 2026: Sadly, I fear this kind of courage would be lacking in today's polarized political climate. Along these lines, the current editorial trends of the National Post no longer align with my own centrist beliefs.

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 a 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 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, time spans, 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 -- sort of like buying a big bag of juicy autumn pears and discovering when you get home that all of the pears are rotten in the middle. Photo credit JAT 2022.

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 survive before this special time of ascension?! How did we cope without realizing we're actually God?! I mean, really, if we'd known this before, we could have had smartphones and movie streaming 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.

Do I believe there are special wonder foods that can overcome all the health problems created by living a life without balance, common sense, or intuition? No, I don't. Photo credit JAT 2021.

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 butter tart 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 -- same as my childhood years when my Mom made us 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 liqueur -- 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.

 

LSP28: The Burden of Perfection

Ever notice that any good idea, when taken to extremes, can become a bad idea?

From my perspective, the biggest problem with all theories grown from apophatic roots is the burden placed on people to be perfect.

Nobody is perfect, and nobody should be expected by their spiritual leaders to take on the level of personal responsibility required in an apophatic belief system.

Apophatic belief systems are found in every culture and in every major world religion. Strict monastic lifestyles, as cultivated within Theravada Buddhism and Roman Catholicism, are two examples of this way of life. But they're not the only examples. In fact, atheism brings to bear on its adherents the same extreme burden of perfection found within certain religious sects. This is because all apophatic belief systems (whether theistic, non-theistic, or atheistic) share one thing in common: an absolute hatred of the humbleness/courage/forgiveness paradigm preached by spiritual teachers such as the Hebrew philosopher Job (author of the Bible's Book of Job) and the Jewish philosopher Jesus (author of the Bible's Kingdom paradigm).

I don't use the word "hatred" lightly. Apophatic assumptions about consciousness, life, evolution, learning, and relationships are completely different from the assumptions made by cataphatic thinkers. Apophatics consider Kingdom teachings an affront to their intellectual authority and prowess.

Apophatic beliefs are based on the preeminence of the human mind -- on a belief in the ability of the human mind to dramatically alter the universe. Apophatic teachings, drawing on the natural authority they see in the Materialist laws of cause and effect, are highly anthropocentric. They see human beings as a group "set apart" by their special mental powers to play a supremely important role in Creation (or on plain ol' Planet Earth, if you're an atheist). It follows from this (say the apophatics) that human beings have a huge responsibility to themselves and to the planet to scrupulously follow every law they can think of. Anything short of perfection is considered a failure. It's therefore not only acceptable but completely necessary to find the flaws in everything you see around you so you can "fix" them. Inevitably, this leads to the idea that if you always exert the right effort at the right time in the right way (etc., etc.) you -- personally -- can change the whole world.

Not the world inside you, or the part of the world you're connected to, or the people you know, or the garden you're digging, or the school you're building  . . . but the whoooooole wooooooorld. And if you fall short of the ultimate goal of achieving full liberation from the cycle of rebirth dictated by the laws of Karma (with the side benefit of using your newfound universal freedom/godhead to help others on Planet Earth escape their suffering), well, then, you're just an awful, unworthy failure, aren't you? You shoulda tried harder!

So apophatic thinkers are always trying harder, always striving for perfection, always obsessively worshipping. Or working. Or counting. Always rating themselves in comparison to other people. Always judging others "who aren't trying hard enough." Always holding grudges, holding onto anger, holding onto denial. Always refusing to love. Always refusing to accept.

Meanwhile, cataphatic teachings (as represented by the Kingdom teachings of Jesus) maintain that our universe is guided by both Materialist and non-Materialist laws of science (not just Materialist laws) so it's pretty hard for the limited human mind to figure everything out by itself. We're responsible for the personal choices we make. Our inner self -- the part each of us is responsible for -- is the Kingdom Jesus refers to. But we're not responsible for the whole universe and everything in it. It's okay for us to have limits and it's okay for us to lean on others and on God. It's okay for us to trust God.

It would be easy to say the apophatic thinker sees the glass as half empty and the cataphatic thinker sees it as half full. But it's much more than that. It's more along the lines of this: the apophatic thinker sees himself as a very big glass in a very small pond, whereas the cataphatic thinker sees himself as a very small glass in a very big pond.

Perfect imperfection. Photo credit JAT 2026.

The apophatic thinker sees himself as a very big glass in a very small pond -- but he also thinks he's not yet a big enough glass. He wants to be so big and so important in the world pond that his glass will be completely full -- so full it will allow him to become "one substance" with the Oneness he calls Source (or Money or Success). He thinks he's so clever and so important in the grand scheme of things that the pond will somehow dry up if he doesn't jump right in there to save it (and everybody in it) by using his "one substance." He has a Saviour complex.

Meanwhile, the cataphatic thinker, who sees himself as a very small glass in a very big pond, looks around the pool filled with all manner of life and says, "Hey, this is a beautiful place. I see a muddy patch over there where I can hang out with my buddies and have some fun. No one will mind. It's a big pond, and there's room for everybody. I'll learn what I can from everyone else. I'll build something, create something, and share something. hen I'll pick up my garbage, go home, and be grateful for the good (but imperfect) day I've had. Cool!"

Apophatics don't do cool.

Addendum January 5, 2018:  Interesting research has just been published about the rise of three types of perfectionism among millennials: "Students are feeling more pressure than ever to be perfectionists" by reporter Vanessa Hrvati. According to the article, Dr. Thomas Curran, one of the authors of the scientific study, "described the need to be perfect as a 'hidden epidemic' that could potentially underpin many of the mental health issues students face, ranging from anxiety to depression."


For Further Reflection:

Would it help you to know that, from God's point of view, there's no such thing as a perfect human being?

When God says it's okay for you to be born as a human being on Planet Earth, it's not because God has plans for you to become more "perfect." It's because God has plans for you to know yourself better, to know your fellow angels better, and to know Mother Father God better. But "knowing" yourself is a lot different from matching yourself to a "template of perfection" for an ideal human being. In fact, knowing more about yourself is the very opposite of trying to become an ideal human being. Knowing yourself is essential to the Humbleness paradigm of boundaries and relationships. Forcing yourself to be squeezed into the teeny-tiny box of perfectionism means you're not allowing yourself to be who you really are.

Part of the problem is that although we're very different from each other as persons-of-soul (that is, as children of God), God has given all of us very similar biological bodies as human beings. So it's hard for us to accept that it's okay for us to be similar on the outside but radically different from each other on the inside -- different in terms of our temperaments, interests, abilities, learning styles, relationship styles, and so on.

If we were to wander around one of the multitudinous ecosystems of Planet Earth, we would see at a glance an abundance of species all around us. We'd notice that no two species are exactly alike. We wouldn't question the reality that each species has unique talents and attributes, talents we cherish and are continually amazed by. (How many people have looked at a hawk and not envied its ability to ride the unseen thermals of the sky?) Further, we'd quickly observe that within each species there are many individual variations of colouring, temperament, adaptability, leadership ability, and longevity. Abundance of talent is what we expect when we look at God's creatures here on Earth. It's supposed to be that way. And we have no trouble accepting that a hawk can't be a hare. Or vice versa.

We forget this when we look at ourselves, though. Many of us just can't seem to get past the idea that our outsides are 90% of our story. We reason that if 90% of a hawk's story is in its body, and if 90% of a hare's story is in its body, then 90% of a human's story must also be in its body. This, after all, is the inevitable conclusion that derives from atheistic theories such as natural selection and non-theistic evolution.

Fundamental to atheistic cosmogonies about life on Planet Earth is the belief -- nay, the certainty -- that there is no soul, so obviously there can be no soul to shape the inner landscape of each unique human being. From this starting point flows the assumption that each human being is really just a bunch of interchangeable 3D building blocks. And from this comes the inescapable "fact" that these building blocks must be perfectible if only we can acquire the right knowledge.

Eat this food. Take this pill. Do this exercise. Obey this commandment. Be a prisoner of the DNA you were born with. Don't you dare have the temerity to believe your inner self is a whole lot bigger than your DNA says you are. Don't ask who you really are as a Soul. Lower the bar for yourself. Lower the bar for your children and your neighbours. Be the least you can be. But throw yourself on the mercy of the wise leaders who tell you how to perfect your 3D human self, and maybe - just maybe - you'll be lucky enough to have a few fleeting moments of Happiness.

When Michelangelo was lying on the scaffolding of the Sistine Chapel so he could paint its famous ceiling, I doubt very much he was thinking about his perfect pasta intake or how many steps he'd walked that day. He was just trying to be himself -- not a baker or a teacher or a soldier, but an artist.

I also doubt any other human being could have told the story Michelangelo told in the precise and lasting way he told it.

He was one of a kind, an imperfect child of God with a unique inner story and a unique way of sharing it.

As all of us are when we allow ourselves to be who we really are.

LSP17: "Why Didn't God Just Show Up in Front of Me?"

A few years ago, I had a conversation with a man I'll call Joe. Joe was very angry about the question of God and suffering (the theodicy question). Some of Joe's anger came from his experience as a gay man who was forced to deal with emotional and spiritual abuse from homophobic Christians who believe God rejects homosexuality. 

 

I continue to marvel at this carving of a heron feeding its chick. How did the artist envisage such beauty when he or she picked up a simple, 3-foot log and began to shape it into an image of abundant Life? Each time I've moved over the past couple of decades, I've lived in trepidation that one of the delicate wooden legs would snap. But sometimes it's the slenderest of connections that holds us up. Photo credit JAT 2021.

 

Joe asked questions that many other people are asking about God. He demanded to know where God had been while he was suffering. He asked why God hadn't just shown up in front of him to give him clear answers about his sexuality and faith. He asked why he had to figure everything out on his own without any help from anyone at all.

This is what I wrote in reply:

What I'm hearing is a lot of anger that God didn't just show up in front of you to tell you it was ok to be gay.

So I'm wondering . . . have you thought about what it would have been like at a practical, realistic level if God actually had shown up to talk to you? Have you thought about the fact that such a miraculous occurrence would have made your life much worse, not much better?

As a mystic, I live on a daily basis with phenomena that seem normal and very practical and scientific to me, but even for me some things would be too much. Too much for my very human, very 3D brain to process. The brain has limits. The brain expects a certain measure of consistency and predictability from the world around it. This is how the healthy brain copes with all the emotions and perceptions and memories and learning processes we cram into it.

Okay. So think about this for a minute. You're sitting in your bedroom and you're praying to God about the painful situation you're in vis-a-vis your family and your sexuality, and suddenly you look up to see an angel of God standing beside the door. You can see the angel's face and hands and wings and glowing robes. Next you hear the angel speak. The angel says, "Fear not, for you are gay. I have come to tell you that God loves you because you are gay. Now go into the world and preach what I have taught you."

So you go downstairs and you tell your family what you saw and heard, and they call a psychiatrist friend of theirs and have you involuntarily assessed, and the psychiatrist gives you a tentative diagnosis of schizophrenia.

So far, you're not better off.

This isn't the worst part, though. The worst part is the self-doubt generated within your own brain about your experience. You start ruminating on it. You go over and over the experience. Did you really see an angel? Who was he? Or was "he" a "she"? Why didn't the angel stay longer? Why didn't he say more? What did he mean when he said you should go out and preach what he taught you? What did he actually teach you?

Did you really just imagine it? Did you have an hallucination? A psychotic break? (Maybe you did!!! -- omigosh, you've gone crazy, and now you'll never have a life or a partner or a job ever again!!!) Can you trust yourself now? Can you trust anyone now?

The loving God who is with you always is not going to set you up for a tragedy like this -- a tragedy that would make your life much worse.

Joe, you ask, "Why did I have to figure out everything on my own?" (Though I confess I'm surprised you show no gratitude towards the on-line friends and the non-Christians and the books you referred to, who've helped you on your journey according to your own testimony).

You had to figure it out for yourself so the knowledge would be yours. So the insight would be yours. So nobody could take it away from you ever again.

This is an honest, truthful, fair path to understanding and transformation. It requires that you "raise the bar" for yourself by taking personal responsibility for your own thoughts, feelings, and self-knowledge rather than relying exclusively on the authority of others. It requires that you use the resources of your own 3-pound universe (that is, your brain). It requires that you look at Creation in new ways you never thought possible.

And it doesn't ask you to learn within a framework of occult magic, as Pauline Christianity and its predecessors have long expected you to do.

So maybe you might want to consider cutting God some slack.

(I know you say you don't believe in a theistic God, but methinks thou dost protest too much.)

Love Jen

Just for the record . . . I personally believe that a person's core sexuality, whether homosexual or heterosexual, is hardwired into his/her DNA as a permanent, natural, and healthy aspect of his/her core identity. It's a non-negotiable part of who we are. To treat another person badly on the basis of DNA-based sex or core sexual orientation is about as far from loving as it's possible to get. I reject all religious teachings that claim "divine justification" for discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

The path of knowing yourself (including knowing and trusting your heart-based sexuality) is a commitment to opening your eyes and your heart to the many everyday clues that surround you all the time. Part of this commitment is a willingness to ask what your fellow human beings can teach you about yourself and about God. Books can teach you. Art can teach you. Scientists can teach you. Families can teach you. Your task is to be part of Creation -- to immerse yourself in all its many narratives -- so you can begin to recognize the colours and shapes and movements and sounds that resonate deep within your heart. A painting that resonates with you is important because you're responding to images your soul finds familiar and comforting. A painting that speaks to you is doing just that -- speaking to you about who you really are. And listening to a painting is a lot less stressful for you and your family than listening to an angel who suddenly pops into your room. This room at the Art Gallery of Ontario features late nineteenth and early twentieth century Canadian artwork. Photo credit JAT 2018.

 

For Further Reflection:

After you begin to master the practice of spiritual gratitude (contemplation and thanks for the positive experiences in life) comes the difficult part of your journey: learning to how to wrestle with the question of suffering and then, after a lot of mistakes, come out smelling like roses.

Nobody wants to do this part. It's just so hard. It's so darned hard that all major world religions have shied away from the question by offering you various escape mechanisms (e.g. salvation; Judgment Day and hell; nirvana; energy balancing; scientism) that sound really good -- and really easy -- by comparison. In Christianity, the apostle Paul thought Jesus' teachings on the theodicy question were so ridiculous and so impossible for regular people to invest in that he (Paul) grafted a Saviour religion onto the root of Jesus' teachings. Paul thought this was a good idea because he didn't share Jesus' faith in the power of individuals to venture into the heart of suffering to seek the Tree of Life.

The Tree of Life, so different from the Tree of Moral Knowledge, is a tree that's covered in all sorts of unwieldy branches and painful sticky patches and bunches of ugly-looking fruits that ripen at puzzling times. It's unpredictable. It can't be harnessed or controlled. It leans away from you when you try to capture it; then, when you've given up in frustration and stop focusing on it, it suddenly drops sweet seeds straight into your heart. There is a paradoxical blend of beauty and terror in this experience.

Despite our unwillingness to voluntarily approach this tree, God and God's angels regularly drop us onto its branches so we'll have the chance to figure out the mystery of Divine Love and Forgiveness for ourselves. This is what happened to Dr. Alexander when God plucked him from his orderly life and showed him the Tree of Life, which is to say the family of loving angels he was introduced to during his near death experience.

The Tree of Life, like the trees we know on Planet Earth, holds within its gnarly structure rings upon rings of memory -- memories of transformation, memories of healing, and memories of love.

At the very core of the Tree of Life lie the memories from our Mother and Father's earliest times together. Here rest the memories of redemption.

It's redemption that we, as human beings, experience each time we choose to face our experiences of suffering and learn from them. We don't escape our suffering; we transform our suffering by using our whole selves -- our hearts, minds, bodies, and courage -- to take what we've learned and help others.

Redemption doesn't happen automatically. You have to want it. You have to choose it. You have to dredge up every ounce of courage you can muster to face the pain. You have to be willing to be changed by a past -- a set of memories -- you can't change. You have to learn to bend, like the Tree of Life -- to bend away from those who want you to forget who you really are. You have to learn to forgive.

None of this is easy, but regular people do it every day in every part of the world despite the lack of encouragement they get from their spiritual and religious leaders.

Redemption (unlike the promise of religious salvation) is a universal practice unbound by gender or race or sexual orientation or clan or religion or culture or history. Anyone can choose it.

Jesus knew this. It's what made him so unpopular among his religious peers.

LSP16: You Don't Have to Climb Mount Everest

"Healing and Hope for the Brain-Soul Nexus" is the tagline for one of my earlier books, and it's the central theme of my work into helping people in their search for God. It's actually a pretty simple idea, the idea that if you heal your own brain-soul nexus, you're on the "easy path" to knowing God in this lifetime. But since when do most of us want to do things the easy way?

While just about everybody else on the spiritual circuit is out there hammering away at the importance of ancient consciousness-altering tools such as prayer and meditation, me, I'm hammering away at the importance of consciousness-healing tools.

This goes back to the roots that are holding up your spiritual tree. The spiritual practices you choose to highlight in your life will depend on the starting assumptions -- the roots -- of your relationship with yourself and God. These choices matter because spiritual practices, no matter which tradition they stem from, all have a specific scientific purpose. They're all designed to do something specific to your brain chemistry.

And there you were thinkin' that spirituality is an escape from ordinary, everyday, scientific realities  . . .

Perhaps you already know that ancient spiritual practices are based on empirical observations about the science of brain function. But most people have been led to believe that spiritual practices such as prayer, meditation, fasting, hallucinogenic drugs, trance states, and energy work are somehow separate from everyday science. They've been led to believe the divine rules are different when it comes to ancient spirituality.

They're not. The rules have never been different for these practices. These practices all create specific changes in your brain architecture and function whether you want them to or not. They're very powerful tools -- more powerful in some cases than modern pharmaceuticals such as SSRIs or mood stabilizers -- and as such, they need to be understood and respected for what they can do, as well as what they can't do.

In my view, it's irresponsible and reckless for religious leaders to recommend intensive use of spiritual practices in the naive belief that science doesn't apply. In God's Good Creation, science always applies. Nobody can escape the consequences that come from overuse of spiritual practices, just as nobody can escape the consequences that come from overuse of food or medication or alcohol or anything else that affects our brain chemistry.

As many wise people over time have pointed out, moderation is the key.

What I'm trying to say is that it's not smart to sign up at the spiritual smorgasbord and pile up your plate with all the ancient goodies you've never tried before. You need to remember that some of these old practices can hurt your brain -- not because the ancient teachers didn't understand how the brain works, but because they did.

I know this is a distressing thought, but there has to be a solid, scientific reason why so many people over so many centuries tried so hard to reconnect with God, yet never felt a dammed thing except frustration and despair. Do you really think God created your brain in such a way that you'd have to climb Mount Everest so you can feel God's love? Do you really think that only the people who set themselves apart to constantly pray and meditate have the potential to feel God's love?

There are ways of communicating clearly with God that can help you heal your brain-soul nexus and feel God's love. (And no -- I'm not about to suggest anything occult!)  There are ways of talking with God and sitting quietly with God that look on the surface like ancient prayer and meditation, but are, in fact, something quite different because they use different parts of the brain than ancient practices use.

What matters here is whether you use the parts of your brain that are hardwired into your soul's own needs.

Consciousness-healing techniques (as opposed to consciousness-altering techniques) always start with an unshakable belief in the good soul that you are.

Instead of trying to climb the spiritual Mount Everest proclaimed in many ancient religious texts, try hiking up a real hill and taking in the view with all your senses. If medical or financial limitations prevent you from visiting the countryside, try sitting in the sun by your favourite window or taking a short walk in your neighbourhood if you're able. Look at the trees. Listen to the birds. Be grateful for the gifts of Creation that surround you and support you. I know this sounds ridiculously simple and not very flashy. But that's the point. God loves all of us equally and wants everyone to have a chance to feel Divine Love. So why would God set up a system that allows only the rich or the full-time ascetics or the already-enlightened to heal the brain-soul nexus? God wouldn't. So start where you are and don't be ashamed if your current circumstances are modest and maybe even a bit ramshackle. God won't care as long as you're trying each day to be a loving person! This photo was taken outside Banff, Alberta. Photo credit JAT 2015.

For Further Reflection:

There's been a lot of talk lately, even among scientific circles, about the importance of gratitude in maintaining our physical and mental health. Gratitude for the good things that come our way is one of the few spiritual practices everyone can agree on. It offends no one. It's also an effective strategy for countering the negative thoughts we all struggle with. Gratitude helps us see the glass as half full rather than half empty. So I highly recommend the practice of positive gratitude to everyone.

How does the spiritual practice of gratitude differ from an ordinary, on-the-fly expression of thanks? It differs because it's a contemplative practice instead of a social practice. If you're like most people, your brain is adept at manoeuvring through complex social interactions (saying thank you automatically) but much less comfortable with contemplative norms (saying thank you when there's no direct social benefit for you). So it will probably take you some time to develop the habit of spiritual gratitude.

Set aside some quiet time each day to reflect on the small things you're grateful for. The place and time don't really matter. You can do your contemplative work wherever you feel comfortable, which may need to be the bathtub if it's the only place where you can find some time and space for yourself in your busy day. You can write down your observations about gratitude if you want to, but, again, the process isn't rigid, so you don't have to write anything down unless it helps you.

The core of the practice is to quietly thank all the people (including God and your angels!) who brought positive encounters and experiences and everyday needs into your life. That's it. Try for three genuine blessings (big or small) that you received -- three honest daily observations about the people (especially God and your angels!) who helped you. The key is to become conscious of the help you received. Don't take it for granted.

(1) Be aware. (2) Be appreciative. (3) Say thank you. These are the three essential steps of positive gratitude.

It's important not to cheat by making blanket statements about how lucky you are and how grateful you are for just, well, everything. In order for the practice of gratitude to make a difference in your life -- for gratitude to permanently alter your brain networks in helpful ways -- you need to spend quiet time each day untangling the great big ball of blessings you've received. You need to separate and sort your blessings (as best you can) into individual threads.

Why do you have to remember the individual people and individual acts that have made a difference in your life? The answer lies in the way your brain works.

Your brain is tasked with innumerable responsibilities each day, and each task uses up precious biological resources. So in any circumstance where your brain thinks it can save energy by using macros or stereotyping or quick algorithms -- in other words, "brain apps" -- your brain will use its built-in apps unless you tell it otherwise. Like it or not, your brain (unless you tell it otherwise) has an unfortunate tendency to see other people as faceless, nameless "worker ants" whose only job is to serve you. As far as your brain is concerned, this is both logical and efficient, especially in our harried, over-stressed culture.

Naturally, if your brain is invested in forgetting who people are and what people did for you, it becomes difficult for you to see other people as unique individuals and cherished children of God. It then becomes harder to know them, to know yourself, and to know God.

The goal of contemplative gratitude, therefore, is to insist that your brain smarten up and change its priorities. You're telling your own brain that one of your important new priorities is to see other people as individuals, to appreciate their talents, to understand how important they are to the overall happiness of the whole community.

With practice, you'll know them better and you'll know yourself better. Eventually, this will help you know God better.

A wonderful side benefit to this spiritual practice is the unintentional and unavoidable growth of your own sense of Humbleness. After you've spent a year thinking about all the ways in which your neighbours have helped you, and all the ways in which their talents differ from yours, and all the ways in which they're worthy of appreciation, it's pretty hard to maintain the illusion that you're better than other people and more deserving of God's love than other people.

After all, you aren't growing and picking and sorting and packing and shipping and marketing and grinding and brewing all those coffee beans by yourself. Are you?

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.

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.