Inspiration of Super Evolved Conscii

The inspiration for this idea of super-evolved conscii being what we call God is not any humanistic philosopher but the “It’s all evolution” comments of my sister whenever I suggest something remotely religious. She utterly rejects any discussion of the possibility of God, holding agnostically to the fact that we cannot know It. Even if she is right, evolution has to account for everyone else’s experience with God. Read the accounts, listen to the testimonies, watch or experience a miracle, and then resolve what in evolution could possibly allow their experience.

A single living event in the entire potential history of the entire universe could have, I propose, by the mechanics of quanta entanglement informed the entire universe FROM THE SINGULARITY of the now inherent potential of life. Thus a life event written even at the end of the universe, with no life possibility written into the universe's makeup until that time, would have caused the potential for life to be written into the beginning of the universe, effectively canceling the former! That is wild. And hey, don’t blame me - this is SCIENCE talking. The beneficence of former self-canceling life event at the end would be the causative God of the later, the life forms now possible from the beginning.*

The upshot of all this is that if it is in any way true, we are transitioning - evolving - to being purely conscious beings orchestrating, "godding" the world we find there, er, here (the latter in submission to the former). The former was extravagantly beneficent, giving Its life for us (this would be Jethro, "His Excellence"). There is our image to follow! If we take on the life of consciousness (see Matthew 11:28-29), things become pretty gravy for us. If we reject the life of consciousness and keep ourselves in ignorance, life gets pretty sucky (see Matthew 23:13-39). PLEASE CONSIDER AT LEAST EXPERIMENTING WITH CONSCIOUSNESS AS "GOD." Would it really hurt you to pray at least open to it?

*It would be like having a heavy tome and going page by page through countless thousands of pages until coming onto a single meaningful word on a page, and then finding the entire book populated with a meaningful story. As Einstein said, “Spooky action at a distance.” Interestingly, Einstein rejected these quantum mechanics, and has been proven to have been wrong! IF indeed it is all evolution, it must have happened! If it is evolution, "God" must have evolved, for there is God. And if it is evolution, God IS our evolution!

Now Eternal Conscii as Ahiyeh Ashur Hiyeh

I am working on an idea of God being a team of innumerable highly evolved consciousnesses — “conscii” — who are involved with our evolution to a higher state. In my last post I noted that if so, the Hebrew 'ehyeh 'asher 'ehyeh, “I AM THAT ‘I AM,’” must not refer to God being our “I AM,” but to their (the conscii) being the Original Life-force’s “I AM.” This would appear to be their philosophy and religion.

According to Victor N. Alexander, in the ancient Aramaic Exodus 3:14 Allaha says to Moses (regarding, I believe, Jethro, “His Excellence), “Ahiyeh Ashur hiyeh.” I have attempted to translate this phrase into English a number of ways. Ahiyeh and hiyeh carry the idea of transition, of becoming. The Bible starts this way: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, and the earth was without form, and void.” Bullinger notes in the Companion Bible that the word ‘was’ is the Hebrew hayah - became. Originally, the world was not without form and void, but then it became that way. It devolved to ignorance. Could evolution be what the ancient Aramaic text of Exodus 3:14 is saying, also?

Ashur is the Creator God of ancient Assyria, where Abraham came from. I hold that Ashur is imagination, consciousness. You can find Ashur’s pictograph in relief, a Son working with authority in the sun disc, the Source of Life, with flames of glory spread out from him like the wings and tail feathers of an eagle. Ahiyeh Ashur hiyeh would mean, then, “I am the evolution of consciousness — His evolution.” Tell the children of Israel, your thoughts, that Evolution has come calling.
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Christians protest evolution based on there being no transition forms in the fossil record. If we are evolving to a higher, spiritual state, we are transition forms of evolution. It won't show up in the bones!

The "I AM" of the Conscii and an Immediate "Well Done!"

As I said in my last post, if you know of a better word than 'conscii' for individual consciousnesses from the Original Consciousness -- "God," please wire it to me right away. imagicworldview@aol.com Thanks.

I keep running through my mind how this proposal, of quantum mechanics in a once-in-the-history-of-the-universe event of consciousness evolving from matter informing the entire space-time continuum to the potential of life, now diffused in a union of countless highly developed conscii, might not be "God." I keep coming up blank. Whatever can be said of God can be said of them. It seems that they, if they exist, have an issue with ignorance, the "Devil," and with lack of honor, respect, and gratitude to the Original Consciousness, the Father of us all. Original Consciousness would be the awareness of the first living cell that informed the universe of the potential of life we all now enjoy. We could not live, nor could ever evolve to a pure conscience state, if It had not first lived. Its beginning was eclipsed by the life it spread. Not your basic Christian doctrine.*

Anyway, I was entertaining the idea that these innumerable conscii might be the orchestrating force behind the Kingdom of God which sweetens, by their beneficence, the lives of believers. They, by their imagining us healed, cause us to be healed, and teach us to do the same. Which reminded me to take a look at Curry Blake's John G. Lake Ministry Divine Healing Technician Training Course. About which I want to say two things:

1) We have our own awareness of being, our own "I am." I have been interpreting Exodus 3:14's "I AM THAT 'I AM'" as God saying that he is our awareness of being: "I AM YOUR 'I AM.'" If God is these conscii identifying themselves as the first consciousness' awareness of being, it would go the other way: "I AM THAT CONSCIOUSNESS' "I AM'"!! Humble, honoring, respectful, grateful, and effective.

2) I began to listen to Curry Blake's John G. Lakes Divine Healing lessons, and heard Curry teaching that this, healing, is warfare. That irked me, because it suggests the war is not already over. It has already been won, which Blake knows full well. I guess this sensitized me to time consciousness. For then he noted that God says, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant," to the one he finds SO DOING when he returns. Well, yes and no. You see, according to Robert Young in his introduction to Young's Literal Translation of the Bible, there was no future tense in the ancient Hebrew text. God does not say, "Well done thou good and faithful servant" in the future, he says it NOW. His "return" is the healing. The healing is his saying, "Well done!" Which suggests to me that we ought to get crackin' in SO DOING.

*But it happens all the time. I heard many years ago that all around the world, chemists would be trying to get various compounds to crystalize. Apparently, it wasn't easy. But when anyone succeeded in getting their compound to crystalize, it immediately became easier for everyone else working on that specific compound to get theirs to crystalize, too. Once the "impossible" happens anywhere, it is no longer impossible everywhere.

God as a Team of Highly-Evolved Conscii - a Group Effort in Recognition of the One Consciousness Who Began Life: Another Interpretation

I sure picked myself a dilly of an avocation: theologian - one who works in the science of what is known about God. Or at least thinks he (or she) does. Have never made a dime in it. Not on my list of books for Maria (previous post) was Dr. Robert A. Morey's The Trinity: Evidence and Issues (1996; Iowa Falls, IA: World Bible Publishers). It is a dilly of a systematic theology, one of the best, which looks at all the issues concerning the understanding of God. I felt it too confusing, as Morey is a strict traditional Trinitarian who rejects modalism, the oneness I advocate. He carefully and thoroughly dissects this "heresy," portraying as misguided villains those I read as heroes. As he excoriates them, I say, "Hey, these are teaching points!" Good material either way, depending on how you read it.

I do not lessen the value of systematic theologies like Morey's in understanding God, it's just that they should be WITHIN the understanding of God's oneness. There. is. only. one. It says so. An Ineffable Manifesting by Its Mind. THAT, right there, is the Trinity.

We have to learn systematic theologies to understand biblical theology. They constrain each other, but they both must understood by manifest reality. They must be Biblical AND real. Systematic theology is certainly biblical, but the constraints we apply to it's expression go far beyond the Bible's theology and stop far short of God’s reality: (i.e., I think we do not go far enough in reconciling theological contradictions with their corresponding realities). God to us is a paradox: It is e'had, pieces as one (Deuteronomy 6:4). This is irrational to us, but it is God's reality. Should we go with it? We don't really have a choice - it's Its reality we are in. Don't diminish anything.

Which brings me to an uncomfortable possibility, that the one God might actually be a team of conscii united not only by their purpose, but by their shared recognition of essence -- that they are of the Consciousness in which all conscii are united as one (if you have a better term than conscii for individual consciousnesses, please share it with me). Not only that, this opens the door to the possibility that God, yes, the Father Creator God, evolved from matter. I gasped, too. Don't blame me: blame quantum mechanics.

This might seem extraneous, but as I was watching a youtube video on the expanding universe, in which the whole of our observable universe, all of that which we can detect by our eyes and with all our scientific instruments, might be only a tiny, tiny fragment of the ever expanding mass of the Big Bang, I realized that we as people are specks of dust on a speck-of-dust planet in what may be but a speck-of-dust portion of the universe -- infinitesimal beyond belief. And conscious. That's the kicker: we are conscious. Where did consciousness - "life" - come from? Furthermore, how does consciousness exist outside of matter, which is apparent from our experience of the Voice, angels, demons, miracles, etc..

It is scientifically estimated that the sun and earth are about 4.5 billion years old. And that the universe is about 13.7 billion years old. Our experience of this universe is limited to the sphere of light observable to us only because it has had time to get here in the expansion from GP Zero. The overall expansion of the universe from GP Zero is unfathomable. We can only detect a tiny fragment of it as the universe we can see.

Supposedly, all quanta (light? force?) come from the same singularity. If so, all are virtually or even actually the same quantum particle. It is argued that there hasn't been enough time, that there never would ever be enough time on earth, for a properly folded amino-acid protein to develop by random chance: 10 to the 164th power. Kudos to the commentators, and I agree with them.

Except the universe is not, like the earth, 4.5 billion years old. It is 13.7. And there are countless trillions of trillions of trillions of planets in it. And quantum particles have been demonstrated to learn (I hold that they are the Ineffable's intelligence believing it is the quanta, which the intelligence then becomes). Because in quantum mechanics, which I admittedly do not understand, split quantum particles are "entangled" and reactive to each other, the properly-folded random-chance protein only has to occur once in the entire history of the entire universe - observable and beyond - future included. 10 to any power is possible. Once it does occur, due to its entanglement the rest of the universe, the entire universe is instantly informed of life's potential, all the way back in time to the singularity. Effectively, the Big Bang then occurs - occurred - with the potential of life in its writing, and the future beginning of life is effectively erased. Don't blame me. It's quantum mechanic's fault.

Well, that is cute. This self-erasing beginning of life allows for the evolution of consciousness from matter, which, by the way, I do not believe, but hey, I wasn't there. If it wasn't the Divine's Consciousness who matriculated the first life in the universe, where did God come from? For there certainly is God, and evolution has to account for all that is here.

Let's suppose that from the singularity that Burst, life was a recognized potential in the dust which formed stars and planets billions of years before the sun and earth formed. Individual living beings, "conscii," emit their life electrically into the universal field, transmitting to and receiving information from each other. Over the course of time, some of these individual beings develop superior minds capable of independence from material hosts. This is far beyond astral projection and quantum jumping. They find blissful existence in the field, and recognize that the First Consciousness Itself, of which they are, is the Source of all existence: "God." They serve "God," the Consciousness, which they are and are of, by Godding in deference to it (see Cooper). "I AM THAT 'I AM,'" or "Ahiyeh Ashur hiyeh" (see Alexander Exodus 3:14 in many of my posts) (Good God, I've come up with another one). The consciousness of the first life in the universe informing back to the singularity would account for “he created the stars, also,” being so late in Genesis.

That "God" should be these countless superior, evolved, and united humble conscii answers the question of e'had, how the One can be many. It answers also how so many people hear the Voice, see and are served by angels, and are pushed toward their own spiritual development. Lesser-character beings also evolving to independence from physical hosts would account for demonic activity. At the end of the Season of Grace, one of these conscii upon a devoted man may have been the inspiration for the Gospels, constrained to fulfill the image of the beginning by giving his life for us as the first consciousness did. Conversely, rejection of and disinterest in these conscii as God may account for the S.O.B. syndrome: rebellious people being left to their own devices of ignorance, selfish, unsubmitted, dishonoring and disrespectful, bringing upon themselves their own poverty, calamity, and destruction by the hostile worlds they create. Our parents may be very tolerant toward our nonsense, but Father is a disciplinarian! Those who take interest in God and honor It are led to success, not because of their religion, but the Conscii's! These guys are believers. Their God? Probably the consciousness that informed the universe to the next stage of evolution for everyone.

Like I said, I do not believe in an evolved-from-matter-consciousness God. I believe "As above, so below," and this scenario might just happen to be the below - an image of the above Ineffable. The Ineffable also had to have a beginning, even if it was erased like the first consciousness in the universe (which is Its manifestation and  image). None of this, fortunately, is required as faith for salvation. We are asked to believe in the goodness of God as evidenced by Jesus, the loving kindness of YHWH. The kingdom of God, the conscii who manifest It, is the nature of the world for those who believe.

Extended Reading List for Maria

This post is not really finished, but it would have no end, anyway. I realized that I have a number of books kept for personal reference on my computer. They, and the books I have stored in my garage, along with new books discovered and others noted in bibliographies (you do check those, don't you?) make for a never ending list. Below is a list of saved books I was creating for Maria. I have to move on, but am glad to have made it. The books reviewed have inspired me. I expect to extend this list from time to time as I avail myself of my files, & etc.. So without further ado . . .

I feel bad that I cannot recall and refer my readers to hundreds of books that I have read over the years. Their reading is not at all necessary, of course. The heart is what matters, and as long as it is aligned with God, whatever is read only reinforces.

It is interesting that in this information age so much can be found and read and even downloaded for free or a small fee online. I can't find my digital copy of Alexander's Jeremiah (it's somewhere in my computer), but looking for it I stumbled upon an old download of Dr. Glenn Clark's Silver Sandals. There is in it a long passage about praying in the Silence which might interest many. The whole Silver Sandals is about the Christian ministry of prayer.

Searching for a link to Silver Sandals online led me to Camps Farthest Out (CFO) International's Literature in English Resource Page. Wow! What a goldmine. Frank C. Laubach's Letter's By A Modern Mystic and The Game With Minutes are there, too.

On page 9 of the online Letter's By A Modern Mystic is my favorite of all passages (save those in the Bible):

March 9, 1930; Boundless joy broken loose:

"I look up at this page and it is not red hot as my soul is now. It is black ink. It ought to be written with the red ribbon. You will not see the tears that are falling on this typewriter, tears of a boundless joy broken loose.

"The most wonderful discovery that has ever come to me is that I do not have to wait until some future time for the glorious hour. I need not sing, 'Oh that will be glory for me -' and wait for any grave. This hour can be heaven. Any hour for any body can be as rich as God! For do you not see that God is trying experiments with human lives. That is why there are so many of them. He has one billion seven hundred million experiments going on around the world at this moment. And His question is, 'How far will this man and that woman allow allow me to carry this hour?' This Sunday afternoon at three o'clock He was asking it of us all. I do not know what the rest of you said, but as for me, I asked, 'God, how wonderful dost Thou wish this hour alone with Thee to be?'

“'It can be as wonderful as any hour that any human being has ever lived. For I who pushed life up through the protozon and the tiny grass, and the fish and the bird and the dog and the gorilla and the man, and who am reaching out toward divine sons, I have not become satisfied yet. I am not only willing to make this hour marvelous. I am in travail to set you akindle with the Christ-thing which has no name. How fully can you surrender and not be afraid?'

"And I answered:
'Fill my mind with Thy mind to the last crevice. Catch me up in Thine arms and make this hour as terribly glorious as any human being ever lived, if Thou wilt.

“'And God, I scarce see how one could live if his heart held more than mine has had from Thee this past two hours.'

"Will they last? Ah, that is the question I must not ask. I shall just live this hour on until it is full, then step into the next hour. Neither tomorrow matters, nor yesterday. Every now is an eternity if it is full of God."
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"Akindle with the Christ-thing which has no name. How fully can you surrender and not be afraid?" Wow. What a revelation. What a heart of the man who heard it! I can't read the man without tearing up.

Among other books I have gained from, I am reminded of:
All the other books by and about Dr. Frank C. Laubach
The Spiritual Guide of Michael de Molinos.
Compensation by Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Man Who Tapped the Secrets of the Universe
The Secret of Light
It Works
Reigning With Christ by F.J. Huegel
Bone of His Bone by F.J. Huegel
Born Crucified
Divine Imagining
Prove Me Now
It's As Simple As This
The One Great Subject of the Word
Any of Bullinger's writings here
Rabbi David A. Cooper mp3's
Rabbi David A. Cooper's print library
Rabbi David A. Cooper's Mystical Wisdom Teachings
What I was looking for was Copper's guided meditation on the shadow of God, Zel Shaddai.
God's Guarantee to Heal You
I am very pleased to introduce you to:
From Death to Life by Dr. Ray Shelton
From Death to Life - the Book
From Death To Life - Dr. Ray Shelton's Family's Blog
Thank you, Ray's family, for making his great work available.
There is a Miracle in Your Mouth by John Osteen
The Divine Flow by John Osteen

Galatians 5's Lust of the Flesh For Paul

I received a question from Paul Qu, which name I believe is pronounced 'chew':

Sorry for the irrelevant comment. I've been following your blog for a while, and I really hope you could give me some inspiration regarding the verses in Galatians 5, especially 5:16. How do you understand the lust of the flesh? Thanks million times in advance.
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Dear Paul,

I hope you will forgive me for fixing your question a bit (too many years an English teacher, though you wouldn't know it by my grammar). The lust of the flesh and works are interesting questions. They puzzle just about everybody. Let me begin by looking at the passage in Galatians 4 and 5 from Victor Alexander's translation from the ancient Aramaic. You will notice that chapter 5 begins with the word 'therefore,' which means what comes after is conditioned by what came before.

Galatians 4

1. I tell you then, while the heir is a child, he is indistinguishable from the rest of the servants, yet he is the lord of all.
2. Except he is even under their supervision and that of the house masters, until the season designated by his father.
3. Thus we also, while young, we were under submission to the rituals of the world.
4. Then when the age came to an end, God sent his Son, and he was born from woman and was under the Law,
5. So as he may redeem those who were under the Law, and that he may proffer the consecration for the Children.
6. And then as you are Children, God sent the Spirit of His Son to your hearts, that which calls the Creator "Our Father."
7. Hence you are not servants, except Children. And if Children, then also heirs by the hand of* Jesus Christ.
8. For when you did not know God, you worked for those who were by their nature not Godly.
9. Now that you know God and moreover that you have heard from God, you are again returning to those sick and impoverished rituals, and you want to start again being under submission to these.
10. You observe [the rituals] by day, month, season and year.
11. I am concerned that all my efforts should not end up in vain for you.*

12. Be for me as I am for you. Brethren, I pray that nothing should go remiss because of me.*
13. For you know that even through the weakness of the flesh, I have preached to you the Kingdom promised from olden* times.
14. And my past offenses of the flesh you did not hold against me, except like an angel of God you did receive me, and like Jesus Christ.
15. What happened to that generosity? For I testified that if it were possible, you would have even plucked out your eyes and given them to me.
16. Then what, have I become your enemy that I preach the truth?
17. The discrimination that your enemies sowed between you is not for your benefit,* except they wish to create havoc among you.
18. It is beautiful, however, that you are discriminating at all times and not only when I am with you alone.
19. Children,* these things that I agonize* over again from the beginning, I do so that Christ may be victorious in you,
20. For I am pleased to be with you now and speaking to you in a lower tone of voice,* because I am amazed with you.
21. Tell me, those of you who wish to be under the Law,* do you indeed heed the Law?
22. For it is written, Abraham had two sons, one from the mother and one from the emancipated.
23. Except the one who was born of the mother was of the flesh, however the one born from the emancipated was of the land.
24. These are then the two lines of the Covenant.* One that is from Mount Sinai, was born to serve, which is Haggar.
25. For Haggar is a mountain of Sinai, in Arabia, and Jerusalem [ended up following this line,] and performed this service together with its children.
26. That Jerusalem then, which we hold in high esteem, is our mother.
27. For it is written [in Scriptures,]

"I was pleased by the barren [woman,] who had not given birth,
And overjoyed by the step mother who would not go through labor pains,"
because the children of the outcast had increased more than the children of the tribeswoman.

28. We, however, brethren, are like Isaac, we are the children of the inheritance.*
29. And like the one who was born of the flesh, rejected the one who was born of the Spirit, likewise now.
30. Except what did Scriptures say?

"I shall bring out the mother and the child,
because the Son of the mother shall not inherit the same as the son of
the emancipated."

31. Therefore, brethren, we are not children of the mother, except the children of the emancipated.
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*4:7 Lit. Ar. id.: "By the power," or through.
*4:11 Lit. Ar. idiomatic construction: "I am in fear that not emptily I provided for you."
*4:12 Lit. Ar. idiomatic expression: "No foolishness should come upon you through me."
*4:13 Lit. Ar. id.: Reference to Old Testament.
*4:17 Lit. Ar. idiomatic expression: "Dividing through you was not for the beautiful."
*4:19.1 Lit. Ar. id.: "My children."
*4:19.2 Lit. Ar. idiomatic figure of speech: "[Go into] throes [over.]"
*4:20 Lit. Ar. idiomatic expression: "Change my echo."
*4:21 Lit. Ar. expression retained: "To live strictly by the Law."
*4:24 Lit. Ar. id.: "Divisions of covenance."
*4:27 Lit. Ar. id. "From the rib."
*4:28 Lit. Ar. id.: "Kingdom," "property" or "land."


Galatians 5


1. Therefore, hold on to the freedom that Christ granted us,* and do not [allow yourselves to be] under the yoke of performing [the Law.]
2. Behold, I, Paul, am telling you, that if you become circumcised, Christ does not commend you for it.
3. Again I testify to every human being who is circumcised, that he is responsible to fulfill all the Law.
4. You have relieved yourselves from Christ, those of you who have glorified yourselves* by the Law and as such dropped out of grace.
5. For we, through the spirit of faith, are strengthening the hope of sanctification.
6. For through Christ Jesus neither is being in circumcision anything, nor is being outside circumcision anything, except that faith should be perfected* through love.
7. Run the course well. Who made you heedless of the truth?
8. That heedlessness was not from the one who called you.
9. A little yeast leavens the whole dough.

10. I testify on your behalf before our Lord,* that you have no other opinion. And those who mock you, let them await the Judgment that is coming.
11. I, then, brethren, even if I were still preaching circumcision, why would I be still rejected? Why has the shape of the cross changed?* *
12. Then, let them remain among you, those who strike across your midst in mockery.*

13. You were called to His freedom, brethren, however, let not your freedom be for the sake of the flesh, except let your submission to each other be in love.
14. For all the Law is fulfilled by one manifestation, that you love your kin as yourself.
15. If, however, you grind one another down and chew each other out, see that you do not eliminate* each other.
16. I am telling you then, walk in the Spirit and never be a slave to the pleasures of the flesh.
17. For the flesh enjoys what lowers the spirit, and the spirit enjoys what lowers the flesh, and both of them are a hindrance to each other, so that you can never do what you wish.
18. If then you were fetched by the Spirit, you are not under the Law.
19. For you know the manifestation of the flesh, fornication, evil doing, dissolution,
20. The making of idols, witchcraft, hostility, destructiveness, backbiting, resentfulness, stubbornness, divisiveness, apathy,
21. Killing, murder, drunkenness, [outrageous] singing and the like. And those who devote themselves to such things, as I told you from the start, I tell you now as well, they shall not inherit the Kingdom of God.
22. The fruit of the Spirit, however, are love, joy, peace, compassion, fulfillment, grace, faith,
23. Gentleness, hope -- the Law does not consecrate these.
24. These belong to Christ, they crucified the flesh together with all its wounds and lusts.
25. To live thus is by the Spirit and in submission to the Spirit.
26. And [those that live so] are not lacking in bliss that they should torment one another and cut down each other.
__________
*5:1 Lit. Ar. idiomatic construction: "Stand therefore through freedom in that which Christ freed us."
*5:4 Lit. Ar. idiomatic figure of speech: "Sanctified."
*5:6 Lit. Ar. id.: "Developed," or nurtured.
*5:10 Lit. Ar. idiomatic construction: "I am alibi over you through our Lord."
*5:11.1 Lit. Ar. idiomatic construction: "They, why, voided is the crisscrossing of the Cross?"
*5:11 and 5:12 Drawing the parallel to the two lines of the Covenant mentioned earlier in the chapter.
*5:12 Lit. Ar. idiomatic construction: "Associate then also cutting they cut those that ridicule you."
*5:15 Lit. Ar. id.: "Sift."
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In a nutshell, Paul the Apostle is saying to have faith that what you have created imaginatively IS and NOT to try to create it physically yourself. Have faith perfected in love. Jerusalem is the mind. When we were young, we learned to do everything ourselves according to the rituals of this world. But having woken up to the fact that we are spirit and become emancipated, if indeed one IS woken up and their mind emancipated, the spirit we are lives by the Law of God's spirit. It is not that we do not do anything, but that what we do is in submission to the leadings of God.

I get this all the time in questions: If I am God, how can God want something other than what I want? We are God in spiritual nature, but how can we compare our tiny little pea-brain wisdom with the infinite wisdom of the universe? Emancipated by the realization that we are mind and not body, we submit to and cooperate with the Infinite Divine Intelligence we are OF. IF It has given us our desires according to Psalm 37, It will bring Its in us implanted desires to pass. Have faith in that. If we are not actually emancipated and are forcing our own lusts as our desires, we have to implement our "rituals": work hard, plan, save and invest, connive, take care of number one - ourselves - in all things.

THE KINGDOM OF GOD HAS A DIFFERENT WAY: THOU SHALT LOVE THE LORD THY GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, MIND, STRENGTH, AND SOUL, AND THY NEIGHBOR AS THYSELF. It is hard for us to imagine ourselves being as given over as Jesus, but as Frank C. Laubach asked, "How fully can you surrender and not be afraid?" (March 9, 1930).

I guess I could sum up the lust of the flesh as the desire to get things by doing things.

Something I just noticed in rereading this: Alexander notes on Galatians 4:28 that inheritance means kingdom, property, land. God said to Moses, “The land you stand on is holy ground.” I.e., Jethro, His Excellence, the Kingdom of God, is what Moses had entered into in his meditation. This is the real “Promised Land.”
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"Is there a price to be paid to be in the healing ministry?" one preacher asked T. L. Osborn. The young man wanted to discover how much prayer, fasting and Bible reading it would take to be successful in ministry.

"Yes! There is a very high price to be paid," Osborn responded, but immediately followed with, "But Jesus paid it all on the cross!"

A “God” Comprised of All Conscii and Their Wisdom: Could Their Intention Be the “Child” of Proverbs Chapter Eight?

Let’s revisit the idea that “God” is comprised of the electrically effused intelligence of all life that has ever been, and possibly ever will be, lived. “There is nothing new under the sun.” Some of my thoughts on that:

Dan’s Alternative View: Could God be a Them? We, and Effused Intelligence, Information, and Imagination

A Trinity of Trillions of Trillions

The Natural God Began at the End

This mass of intelligence in the universal electromagnetic field would be dominated by the wisdom of its highest-evolved big-brained contributors. Could their combined wisdom-as-they-see-it be the “Child” of Proverbs Chapter Eight, the first - primary concern - of God’s creative thoughts, an effective force in the universe? I.e., that their highest wisdom is what they like and are, er, pushing? Opposed to that consummate collective wisdom, our ignorance is as a disease. Cultivation of the person through rectification of thought and care for others would be foremost in this group's interest and concern. This makes me wonder if the Confucian Great Learning is not a manifesto of this Child, the Child - wisdom - God has put within us.

See also http://www.indiana.edu/~p374/Daxue-Zhongyong.pdf, page 11 and the top of 12. And/or http://pages.ucsd.edu/~dkjordan/chin/Koong/GreatLearninge.html

Here is an interesting thought: what if the Son of Heaven referred to is not the emperor, but the Child?

Reply to Anonymous at 1:24 on Our Being God in Ignorant Rebellion

Comment from Anonymous at 1:24 on my last post:

Thank you for taking the time to reply so thoroughly, and yes I love your blog! I should have left out the bit about the bearded sky God, because really I'm past that. I was just mentioning it because the "self-lordship rebellion" versus "what God created us for" reminded me of that dualism.

Where you wrote, "Why this is hard for anyone to figure out I haven't got a clue." I'm not having a hard time with anything you wrote up to that point, nor anything after it, except for the "Our experiential IGNORANCE OF BEING THE ONE, isolated as it is here, is a disease in the Ineffable Non-thing." Specifically the word "disease." Because God chose to make us (itself) ignoranced. But I will contemplate this further.

I think for myself, if I Am God, then I must conclude that this idea (encapsulated as) "the death of our self-lordship, of our rebellion of independence" must be a false/inaccurate notion (for me), because if I'm God then there is no separate "self" that is rebelling against Myself (God). How could there be, if there is only God in the world?
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Dear 1:24,

My sarcasm was not directed at you. We are all taught from early childhood that God is separate from us; that He is either a glorious primate watching from a distance, or a present and pervasive spirit not actually touching anything. That that separate and wholly other God made everything out of nothing and is completely divided from it is basic Christian theology spouted in every church. And in my opinion completely wrong. When I said, "Why this is hard for anyone," I meant, "Why is this hard for everyone?" I wrote the reason here, then decided to erase it.

My point about ignorance being a disease in the Ineffable is not that It created us ignorant; it is that we are ignorant. Were ignorant, and still are ignorant. Yes, in my "senseless drivel" speculation, which this all is, we existed as God's consciousness before we descended into the ignorance of amnesia in this state of death. But before we descended, we were ignorant of what we are here to discover. THAT's why we were sent. We have gone from the blind response of sunflowers to rats. Believe it or not, that is progress. The philosophical lesson to learn is that we are God. But the thing to discover is the being of the Father. Not as an opinion, but as an action. God did not choose to make us ignorant; he chose to manifest our condition. We are concentrated, refined stupidity - God, and not knowing it, because we were concentrated and refined stupidity. Not aware of the Truth. Not believing it. Not participating in it and not practicing it. Contemplate this. And if it helps, google John G. Lakes Ministry and Curry Blake. Blake presents the church's view of one-chance only get it or hell, but like I said, oh, no. I erased that.

The Ineffable is growing. Evolving. In our ignorance, we think this life is ours. In eternity past, we thought our life was ours. But we were, and are, the consciousness and imagination OF the Ineffable Non-thing, and are FOR the Ineffable Non-thing. We owe 100% of ourselves to God, for he OWNS us. Because we are him and are his. Ready to pay up? Can you come up with 100% of your life for him? Didn't think so. Redemption allows for us to pick it up from here. Thank the guy who gave his life to redeem us.

"If I'm God then there is no separate 'self' that is rebelling against Myself (God). How could there be, if there is only God in the world?" Yes, there is no separate self. That is exactly my point. But are you or anyone else aware of that reality and living it in practice? No. Then how are any of us not in rebellion? Ignorance. It wasn't our fault we were ignorant. We are forgiven for the ignorance natural to us and the redemption. Getting us to be like Him is the evolution at hand. God is healing his disease. We are God. There is only God in the world. This has to be where the healing, the evolution takes place. Take the forgiveness, receive the Holy Spirit, and participate in BEING the Ineffable. Christ is YOUR action, Father.

Dan Steele

PS: If Satan casts out Satan, his kingdom cannot stand. If God forces us to become like him, which pretty much is what is going on (and praise him for it!), his kingdom also does not stand as it was before, but IMPROVES. Onward and upward is His Excellence -- Jethro.

1:24 Rides Off In Every Direction: Hopefully, A Lasso

Hi Dan,

Anonymous 1:24 here again. Not to beat a dead horse (or overuse a metaphor ha!), but I am still trying to parse out the dualism in the supposed non-duality of this theology. Would you please reconcile the following extracts from this, your post...

This:
"The Bible, from Genesis 1:1 to the end of Revelation, is about us--it is our story; it is about our lives. And it is about God. It just so happens that we ARE God. He is a non-dual reality; the e'had that he is (Deuteronomy 6:4) is EVERYTHING."

And this:
"Each of us is a unique manifestation of the same God appearing in different men and women. He is all of us, and we are the masks he is wearing. There is only one God, and he has become everything; but what he is, well, that is what we are in truth. And that would be imagination, consciousness, the intelligence that is power."

With this:
"We have done whatever we please with no regard for what God created us for. We live as Gods unto ourselves, as though we owned ourselves. This is rebellion, rebellion as witchcraft, rebellion against the purpose God has for our existence. We belong to HIM!!"

And also with this:
"This is true: God cannot accept us if we think we are his peer, that we are 'other,' separate and divided from him and operating of our own volition. Our thorough, true submission unto God is like a good suicide; it is the death of our self-lordship, of our rebellion of independence. When we fully surrender, get all the way down with no independence left, we find acceptance and the rest of God. We are him, and we are his. We become unconditioned awareness of being: no agenda--what he wants is what we will do--it is all up to him! This is Noah. When our self-lordship is dead, then God can move."


If that, how then am "I" the "operant power"? How then do I satisfy my human/earthly desires by living in the end? And what happens to Neville's notion that all of my desires are God's desires?

This to me sounds a lot like a residual of the Seth-religion you mention - which I was raised in. Its punchline: pray all you want, but in the end it's God's will that is done. **Hence, no point in praying. Yes, prayer in that context is the pleading supplicant kind, but what does it matter the definition? Even defining it as entering the state of the wish fulfilled, it sounds like you are saying some desires are God's or "of God" and others not.

**(side note: I remember as a child - and as an adult - arguing with all of the "if it's God's will" 'prayer warriors' that, if it's all down to God's will, then.. the Vietnam War, the Holocaust, human trafficking, child abuse, cancer... all must be God's will [Deuteronomy 32:39].... "Oh no, no, no. That's all the Devil." Really? God must be some wimp huh?)... D U A L I S M

Likewise, saying that there is some part of being human that can abdicate/overthrow God's will is a dualistic paradigm. We see it everywhere. Orthodox religion: Devil and Sinful Nature vs God's will. Course in Miracles: Ego Thought System vs God. Etc etc.

Add to that:
"We must abdicate our position, quit, and cast it out of ourselves. And if we happen to fall flat on our face when we do relinquish self-control, what is that to us? He is powerful to catch us, if he so wills!"

Brings me right back to the distrust of the bearded sky God who would break my fall... if he felt like it. Why should I trust a God like that? That doesn't sound like a loving father to me. It can't be to let me "fall on my face" to learn some cosmic lesson. What lesson would I need to learn if the premise is true that I am God? If I am, I've already got the answer key to the test.

Am I God or not?

By Anonymous Anonymous 1:24, at 12:00 PM
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Dear Anonymous at 1:24,

Yes, you are.

You are God in the process of realizing that. There is no "other." There is no lesson. There is nothing to learn. As far as parsing out dualism and non-dualism, I am not sure the horse has more to give (but thanks for reading so much of my blog).

There is Consciousness, capital 'c'. I believe It to be the consciousness of an Ineffable Non-thing. The Ineffable Non-thing and Its Consciousness (Mind, Thought, Imagination, Force, Kingdom, or whatever you want to call It) are one "thing," two facets of the "Trinity." I believe that the intelligence of the Ineffable Non-thing in Its Consciousness (Imagination, or "God" to us) has the power, or rather is the power to become whatever It believes Itself to be. I mean this on the quantum level, that the Intelligence of the Ineffable Non-thing became the stuff the universe is made out of for the purpose of facilitating everything the Consciousness of the Ineffable Non-thing imagines Itself to experience. But do not think this matter to be dead; it is as alive as anything can be. It forms whatever the Ineffable wills: we are healed by the Holy Spirit, this Intelligence, who testifies, "You are God." Thinking we are not is blasphemy.

Stir that around a little bit and you can detect three things: The Ineffable Non-thing; Its Consciousness, which is Mind, Imagination, "God," or Whatever; and Its Intelligence, which becomes whatever is "concretely" manifest: the Trinity. Beyond this there is nothing. Within this there is everything. It is one monstrously huge, unfathomable Non-thing-and-all-Things. Everything, everyone, and yet only one. Why this is hard for anyone to figure out I haven't got a clue.

Everything is this One-thing, but we distinguish every shape, size, color and relationship in It and name them individually. This distinguishing and naming of individual pieces creates the conceptual illusion of their independence, of the separateness of individuals from all the other individuals. This is why Neville's vision of the sunflowers with human faces in "Unless I Go Away" is so interesting to me. Each sunflower, I imagine, saw itself as an individual independent the Whole: "I was free." THAT is the rabbit hole we all have gone down to this life, er, death of ignorance. If the sunflowers are God's Imagination, we are that Imagination made ignorant -- isolated and "ignoranced" -- to get over that ignorance. What ignorance? That we are independent, separate from the one; that God is something else; that there is anything other than the One Ineffable Non-thing Who is All Things. The Ineffable is the original package deal.

And the Big Guy likes Truth, capital 't'. That every thing is the One is Truth. Any thing thinking it isn't is a fault in Him. He doesn't like faults, and is compelled to fix them. What is the fix? The fix is for the thing to come to the awareness that it is the One. This needs to be discovery, an awakening, not a philosophical lesson learnt. There is nothing to learn. Miracles are among the flags that slap us upside along the head saying, "WAKE UP, DUMMY!" "Obviously," we think to ourselves when we see or experience one, "there is something else going on." Promulgation of the Gospel, the broadcasting miracles accomplish, is the Ineffable fixing It's problem.

I hope that you can catch this: my language is faulty - everyone's language is faulty - in that we speak of God as another, when It isn't. This is why I sometimes tout advaita: "not one, but not two." You list above, "the Vietnam War, the Holocaust, human trafficking, child abuse, cancer... all must be God's will [Deuteronomy 32:39].... 'Oh no, no, no. That's all the Devil.' (Really? God must be some wimp huh?)... D U A L I S M." No, it is not dualism. We are the bearded sky God. "Why don't you do something about it, God?" we in ignorance cry. "I DID," He answers. "I allowed YOU to make it, O bearded sky God. YOU are operant power. The ball is in YOUR court." Our experiential IGNORANCE OF BEING THE ONE, isolated as it is here, is a disease in the Ineffable Non-thing. This death, the sphere of our existence, is QUARANTINE. Haven't you heard, Satan - ignorance - is the cause of disease? We participate in the Ineffable Non-thing in casting Satan out and bringing deliverance and healing. THERE ISN'T ANOTHER GOD OUT THERE.

The Big Guy wants us to buy into discovery. Our desires in this ignoranced state nevertheless coming to pass flag the reality of our godhood, of our being the Big Guy, to us. It doesn't matter if you want a nice fish sandwich or lasagna, the Big Guy's desire is that we come to the discovery that we are Him. THAT is what we are destined to: "memory returns."

Not knowing that we are the One does not make us two. Creation is part of the organic Whole that is the Ineffable, eh, Expanded. We have a Manifestation now. Creation is not a remotely controlled existence apart from God. We are manifestation of a terrible disease in God which must be being healed. That will be when Satan - ignorance - and this death it causes are totally vanquished. Capisce?

Which brings us to the end of the Season of Grace. From Isaiah to Jeremiah to Daniel to Cyrus, there was announcement of an ILLUSTRATIVE ANOINTING UPON ISRAEL. That anointing culminated in YHWH being seen in a man who gave his life in a conviction he was the destined Messiah. Was he there, or is he you?

A Good God To Be Dissatisfied With

Jesus is YHWH saving us; it is YHWH's goodness and grace. Its mother is Miriam, which means dissatisfaction, a sea of bitterness. There is that with which the Ineffable is dissatisfied, our not being like It. Our not being like the Ineffable is the sea of bitterness It is dissatisfied with.

YHWH is the Ineffable's action, which is limited to imagination (there is nothing else for the No-thing to move). The word Jesus, as you know from any word study, starts with Yah, short for YHWH, God, but then there is also a shin, a tooth or fire for consumption. Consumption is the destruction and removal of that which is dissatisfactory, which is our not being like the Ineffable.

The shin is followed by an ayin, an eye or fountain. Jesus' father is Joseph, which means (to me, at least) provider, an increaser. Abraham offered up Isaac, a sacrifice of submission, and it was said, "in the mount, Jehovah Jireh"; i.e., "in the mount, YHWH sees." I.e., God sees to provide what is needed (hence the translation, "Jehovah will provide"). In that provision by YHWH, YHWH IS SEEN!

Dissatisfied with your sea-of-bitterness sucky life? Sacrifice praise in submission to the Seer who provides, the fount saving us to life.

The Natural God Began at the End

I believe God had a beginning. A beginning which was erased. If this world and universe are images and manifestation of an ineffable being, what happened there has to happen here. Life had a beginning here.

Quantum physics are quite interesting. There are protests against life evolving from primordial goo in a short few billion years, and protests against life being seeded here from distant sources. But quantum realities seem to allow for life to begin at any time in any place, even the future, then informing the past. Life would spread, then, not laterally in space between planets but longitudinally through time to the singularity and the future, thus erasing life’s beginning. God - consciousness - would be in all time and all space from before the beginning through beyond the end.

This reminds me of daoist healing treatments, which target not the diseased organ directly but the meridian it is on: fix the meridian, and the whole is healed.

Pretty trippy.

What is the Energy, and What is the Director?

The above are pretty straightforward questions. On the one hand, we have the Law of Attraction-based vibration, prayer-based faith, meditation, staying loyal to our dreams, assumption, theta-based evening and morning “havings,” repetition of habit for the subconscious.

On the other hand, we have concrete manifestations of voices and appearances, immediate healings and responses, divine intervention and deliverance, unexpected protection and provision.

Short lists, but I hope you get the point. The first is gradual, cultivation, impersonal. The second is immediate, independent, personal. Is one our doing and the other His?

A Taste of Bede Griffiths for Maria

I found this after some hunting, a bit of the story Griffiths' told of the effects of his stroke, being overwhelmed with love, and, unfortunately missing, adavita -- the oneness.

Edit: I watched this again and must respond to Jesus’ words on the cross. Supposedly, God has left Jesus, and entering death Jesus experiences this hitherto covered up love. Victor N. Alexander’s ancient Aramaic text has different words. Jesus cries out to Eil, i.e., God, “My God, my God, unto this I was destined” (stated as "For this you destined me" in his Story of Jesus). Unto this love he was destined? That is, overwhelmed by God’s love within him, he lays down his life for us?

The Magic Ingredient to Magic

I received a letter from "Raj" regarding, I suppose, "manifestation":

Hi,
Read your blog. I've read and listened to Neville. Lindell is amazing. But I need help in really getting things done. It's hard to see things going otherwise when you were very clear about what you wanted. And in some cases the time is what is the actual trouble. Say when you want a certain sum of money and you can't say how much time it will actually take till you have it in hand. I'm in a place where I don't really want to desire anything more, but I cannot let go of what I know. Something is missing that I feel will put me back in life. If there is some material or any help you could provide, I would be grateful.

Regards,
Raj
________________________________

Dear Raj,

Thank you for writing. The truth is there is something or someone Almighty and All-powerful, invisible, omniscient, and omnipresent who is benevolent toward us. Enough to have died for us and loved us when we did not deserve it. There is an incredible awkwardness in our relationship with this invisible being. It became us, and we are It, It loves us and wants the best for us, which is our becoming It. We want what we think is best for ourselves, and It has a higher wisdom and greater aims for us, so It wants better things. We do not recognize the better things It wants for us as being better. The awkwardness is in our expecting It to jump through hoops for us and do tricks giving us what we think is best, while It OWNS us.

Advaita Vedanta should not be a foreign idea to you. Its truths humble us and put us in a mind that is grateful and dependent. Neville said, “Prayer is praise; it is thanksgiving.” When you desire, you must also enter the feeling of having RECEIVED what you desired. As you have received it, you are thankful and praise God happily for it. This goes with SURRENDER to God for His doing it any which way he chooses to do it. Time is His constraint, not yours. Once you know Him, you trust Him, and rejoice continuously. I know Him as Jesus, YHWH’s involvement among people. However you know Him, submit and rejoice with praise and thanksgiving, because It, or He, is real.

Sincerely,
Dan Steele
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Hi Dan,
Thanks for writing back. I agree to everything you have explained. I am from a biblical background too, so these ideas are not hard for me to accept. I'm happy all the more. The power that praise has and the confidence and conviction that comes through gratitude or being thankful is undeniable. I have experienced it more than once.

But when you put it the way you put it about our relationship with God, Who is us, Yet to get into the awakening of the fact. What we desire and what God desires for us could be different, or need not be. I find myself not able to accept that God would have a different desire for us. But rather it is God giving us the desire that we have. So we could be confident about it without having to worry if we are in the right path. I want to push forward in the knowing.

Raj
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Raj,

Here is a link to a post of links. I think we need to cut our confidence in God intending and working all things together for our good loose from the fulfillment of our desires. As (we are) His, things do not necessarily go our way. That we are known of Him is enough.

Dan
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Raj,

I should have reminded you earlier that “you can have anything you want as long as you don’t want it.” Desiring what you don’t have creates exactly that. You have to fool blind Isaac into believing you HAVE/ARE what you are not . . . yet. After wrestling with imagination and holding onto the font of life, you meet your flesh as the face of God. Or so the Bible seems to say.

Dan Steele
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Dan,
That is so profound, I have to read it so many times till it gets in me. I am happy for the wisdom to be able to put it in words again like that. Thank You!! I still couldn't fully get the whole part into my system. But that is what I am after. So if it takes time for it, it is worth the time. I was reminded of this verse again as I read your mail. As Neville explains it too.

"Your words were found, and I ate them, And Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart; For I am called by Your name, O Lord God of hosts." - Jeremiah 15:16.

Thank you and best regards,
Raj

A Reading List for Maria

Maria asked if there was an existing list of books I have recommended. I have posted lists, but I am not sure they would help anyone get into their head what I have in my head. Not that they would want to. As I mentioned to Maria, I might get from an author a particular insight that is meaningful to me, which insight you might not get at all, even if you knew exactly what the author said that I gained insight from.

Many of the books foundational to me I barely remember, as they have either long been given away to friends or ministries or sold to buy new books. I give the authors credit if I happen recall them when I use their information. Other books meaningful to me are long out of print, were privately published, or of generations passed. I am primarily interested in theology, not Christian fluff stuff. To make up a list, I am not going to go through the boxes I have stored in the garage; just the books I keep in the house handy to refer to. Don't worry, though. God is fully capable to form in you exactly what he wants you to get from whatever resources you are led to. He really is a very capable teacher.

I am putting links onto a number of these books simply for reference sake: publisher info, cost, etc.. I get nothing from Bezos. I am sorry some of the books are no longer available in hardcover, and some of my most-loved videos have been taken down for copyright.

For me, it all started well before I had become a Christian Christian. Things happened in my last year of high school that made me even more of an introspective loner. I knew there was spiritual stuff out there: reports of ghosts and visitations, Edgar Cayce, Jean Dixon, Ruth Montgomery, Carlos Castaneda, Yoga, Transcendental Meditation, out of body experiences, Bob Dylan lyrics -- there was a whole world of stuff, spiritual stuff, going on. I virtually absorbed the Whole Earth Catalog in my hippie days.

Probably the most significant book for me in those days was The Teachers of Gurdjieff by Rafael Lefort. Possibly it was the idea that actual experience in the spiritual realm could be attained. I got on my horse and rode off in all directions.

I eventually wound up living in a pickup truck in the Ala Wai harbor in Honolulu (I didn't know living in a vehicle was illegal when I shipped my truck there), reading mystical and metaphysical books at night at the Ilikai and Hilton Hawaiian resorts, and practicing meditation during the days. During a meditation class at the metaphysical bookstore, I encountered what I thought to be a demon. My aunt at the Hilton Hawaiian Village (see, I had a reason to be there) at the same time had an encounter with Jesus. She told me, and I went with her. After Jesus literally, audibly spoke into my brain, I figured he must have also spoken to much bigger, better, more important men who must have written down what he has said. I set off to find more of his words.

God is a lot more economical in what he says than men are. I created many outlines and book reports in seminary, and almost invariably the book's verbiage could be boiled down to one or two God-given ideas simply stated. I've got hundreds of books kept for those one or two ideas from God remembered. And the papers I researched! I can recommend that you learn everything you can of the Christian doctrine of recapitulation from the Ante-Nicene Fathers and other works, but few people really want to read Irenaeus' arguments against heresies. It is really tough stuff to wrestle through. Yet recapitulation is everything Christianity IS. It is everything everything is. Maybe I ought to publish my term paper on it. Limited to three pages, it was the hardest paper I ever had to write, but by it I learned how to wrestle.

Of course you have Strong's Exhaustive Concordance, Complete and Unabridged with dictionaries of Hebrew and Greek words. I recommend the Compact Edition (paperback), as it doesn't need its own desk. Mine is a 1981 reprint from Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Make sure you get the one with the dictionaries. Vic Alexander told me that he finds the dictionaries almost useless. They might be good for getting the “color” of words, their "drift"-- general feel or intention, rather than locked-in exactness. See Douglas-Klotz, below.

In seminary, I much appreciated Ken Scott Latourette’s A History of the Christian Church, Vol. 1. It showed me how the church quickly moved away from Mark's and James' Mosaic Christianity. That might be all that you need to know. So also A History of Christian Thought, Vol. 1 by Justo L. González. These are pretty dry reading unless you are really into church history (I was) and the devolution of theology (I am). Especially interesting was my study of Gnosticism, which I think was more the cause of Christianity than the result of it. I am a theologian: I enjoy digging into this stuff.

Soon after beginning Melodyland School of Theology, I found Open Windows, Swinging Doors by Dr. Frank C. Laubach (1955, Glendale, CA: Regal Books Division, G/L Publications; see alternately Letters By A Modern Mystic, 1937/58, Westwood, NJ: Fleming H. Revell, which covers much of the same material). About that time, a pastor happened to read a passage from Laubach's Channels of Spiritual Power (1954, Fleming H. Revell) in one of his sermons, which set me off searching seven years (!) to find a copy for myself. Laubach’s Channels of Spiritual Power and You Are My Friends are among my most-prized possessions. I have ever since considered Frank C. Laubach to be my real pastor (hint: he and his friend Glenn Clark prayed and meditated in the Silence). I have just about everything written by and about Frank Laubach, and a good bit by Clark.

High on my list is Carl F. Rehnborg’s Jesus and the New Age of Faith (1955; published privately by the C. F. Rehnborg Literary Foundation, 5600 Beach Boulevard, Buena Park, California 90620). Rehnborg showed me how to see through modern "Christianity." It is his view of the kingdom of God I have adopted.

Jewish Meditation by Aryeh Kaplan. Best introductory how-to I know of. Pay attention especially to its WARNINGS.

You already know that I recommend everything from Neville Goddard -- his books, texts, and audios. I also recommend T. L. Osborn. Watch YouTube videos of T. L.’s evangelistic campaigns and crusades. Skip ahead to where he starts talking. Listen to his personal testimonies and his lectures. A big guy of faith. This is F. F. Bosworth read; this is Bosworth speaking.

Which reminds me of Smith Wigglesworth. It is worth it to just go ahead and get the biggest collection of his sermons you can find. I got all the little books, and then Roberts Liardon's collection. There are others. I also got Liardon's God's Generals, and books on Wigglesworth like The Secret of His Power. Wigglesworth and Osborn were brave men -- cast-iron eh, nerves, like the "Jesus" who gave himself according to Rehnborg's speculation. They believed, and then they did: “Only BELIEVE!” A pretty good recipe. I have books on missionaries like C. T. Studd, Goforth of China, and Hudson Taylor. Father Bede Griffiths gives us another great video. Unfortunately, they took off his best video due to copyright problem. Oh! I found this. Part of the Story I wanted you to hear.

I always push David A. Cooper's God is a Verb: Kabbalah and the practice of mystical Judaism. He gave me the idea of Ein Sof, and of That Greater Than Ein Sof. Cooper had a wonderful website with lots of stories and audios. I enjoy stories about the Baal Shem Tov. Books on Jewish mysticism are always interesting, but pretty deep if you don't understand the association between their symbols and esoteric realities.

You might notice a trend of skepticism toward Christianity in my list. Gerald Massey was among the chiefs of critics. His books and essays can be found on the Internet. He might possibly have been entirely a fraud, but he voiced what I thought were valid criticisms of the church and offered an alternative structure of Biblical interpretation.

On the other hand, Faith Strengthened, by Isaac ben Abraham Troki, presents an entirely logical Jewish criticism of "Christian" illogic and misinterpretation. I got it off the Internet. A bit massive for most people. Ben Abraham demonstrates how much of Christian doctrine is complete nonsense based on complete ignorance of Jewish thought and philosophy. It is based instead on other Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and Middle Eastern religions.

Thomas Thompson’s The Mythic Past is worth a look. It is dense, but eye-opening. We have a history presented to us in the Bible, and the archaeological evidences just don't add up. It isn't that they are missing; it is just that something else was happening. The Biblical stories are illustrative STORIES; they are PICTURES that show relationships IN US. Authors often usurped real historical characters' names and histories and presented their own stories as the other guy's. Who was to know? It was good marketing. Applied to the Gospels, the stories are literal spiritually, but not historically.

Freke and Gandy’s The Jesus Mysteries and Jesus and the Lost Goddess shed light on the people’s minds back then. These are two openly Pagan writers with an ax to grind with the church. Well, let them. As a student of their grind, I love their presentation. They suggest that Gnosticism existed well before the advent of Christianity, and that much has been lost of true Christianity due to the hostility of the church's unspiritual leaders toward it.

The best King James study bible I have found is the Companion Bible by Ethelbert Bullinger. Not that I have looked for anything else in the last twenty or thirty years. I have most of the other modern versions, too. The KJV has thousands of mistakes, BUT WE KNOW THEM ALL. As a Pentecostal, I have attended and watched and/or listened to countless preachers and lay workers cast out demons and heal the sick, and ALWAYS, invariably, it is the King James that is quoted as God's all-powerful, effectual Word. THAT is an endorsement! I often hear other versions used in preaching for clarification sake, but when it comes to "Thus sayeth the Lord!" it is always, always the KJV. It's like we can't use any other version and still feel ourselves to be serious. I do not always agree with Bullinger, especially with his ultra-dispensationalism. A product of the Reformation, he is too radical and extreme. There are dispensations, but not like he cuts them up. His is still the best KJV study bible, though, in my opinion. You start reading some little side-note, and he'll send you off looking up other references and appendixes for hours.

The English translations of the Ancient Aramaic Bible by Victor Alexander are what I read to get a better idiomatic sense of what was really said in the ANCIENT Bible. But you have to cut Vic some slack: he has put all these out by himself as a labor of love, and they are not the most polished of productions. There are typos, grammatical errors, missing notes, all sorts of imponderables, and yet things come out that just make you drop to your knees and bow to God in thanks for the revelation. His Old Testament Scriptures: From the Ancient Aramaic Language are just those he has translated, NOT the whole Old Testament. Vic has had some serious health issues, and some of the medicines affected him adversely. He is back on his feet again, but I don't think he can put his website back on the Internet or continue with his translation work unless someone can SUPPORT him. I still think he should get the Nobel Prize.

During my last year of seminary (1999 - I began in 1975 - slow learner), I found The Worship of the Dead, or the origin and nature of Pagan idolatry and its bearing upon the early history of Egypt and Babylonia by Col. J. Garnier. If you are crazy about ancient religions and history and how people and religions spread after the flood, you are going to LOVE this. I also do not agree always with Garnier, but this is a massive, massive and involved work. There is just SO MUCH to consider. It is online, as is everything nowadays, but please order, if you do, Kessinger Publishing's edition (they gave me copies when I pointed out a serious and potentially costly error they had made). Much like this book is George Stanley Farber's The Origin of Pagan Idolatry ascertained from historical testimony and circumstantial evidence (in three volumes). These old guys were amazing!

Worthy is the Lamb by Dr. Ray Summers is one of my favorite spines. It was a five-dollar closeout at a secular bookstore. The first half is dense, scholarly, theological introductory discussion. The second half is commentary on the text; still scholarly, but easier to understand. Less wrestling. Ray works out the Book of Revelation’s one point: Worthy. Is. The. Lamb.

I have recently lifted up Merlin Carother's Prison to Praise and Power In Praise. Still very highly recommended. PDF

Small but salient is The Apostolic Preaching and Its Development by C.H. Dodd. My copy is as underlined and annotated as my Jesus and the New Age of Faith. I'd recommend Dodd's The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, but you have to know enough Greek and Hebrew to understand it -- Dodd doesn't translate. In Apostolic Preaching, Dodd notes that John and Paul came to realize that salvation all happens here, now, inside. It's not a future event.

Something I picked up in a speed-reading class was Psycho-Cybernetics by Dr. Maxwell Maltz. I cannot imagine Neville not having it. It is psychological therapy. I happened to look through some of the reviews -- GET THE OLD COPY. "New and Improved" means ruined, in my opinion. I got my 1960 edition for a dollar from the used bookstore's clearance bin.

You know what I’d call having to watch A Christmas Carol 365 days in a row? A perfect year. I love the ones with Alistair Sims and Reginald Owens. And after each viewing I say, “Can I watch it again?”

They Found the Secret, by V. Raymond Edman.

God's Transmitters, and Hearing Heart, by Hannah Hurnard

I have several books by George Eldon Ladd. He is required reading in seminaries. The Gospel of the Kingdom is probably his most popular "light" study. In it, he explains how our definition of 'kingdom' is nothing like the biblical meaning of kingdom. We see an expanse of land and/or people ruled over by a sovereign. The ancients saw the qualities and attributes of the sovereign that made him king; those were his king-dom. So "Jesus Christ is returning to establish a kingdom among his saints." In the archaic sense, that means something quite different from what any modern church hears. Boy, are they in for a surprise.

The Distinctive Ideas of the Old Testament by Norman Snaith, and Synonyms of the Old Testament by Robert Girdlestone were invaluable to my formation years ago. What the ancients meant by what they said -- the ideas they had -- was so very different from what we are told they meant and thought. I have never heard THEIR thought in any church. Something to keep in mind is that the ancients' associations in a word were different than our associations. Neil Douglas-Klotz makes this clear, sort of, in The Hidden Gospel: Decoding the Spiritual Message of the Aramaic Jesus. That and Rocco A. Errico's Setting a Trap for God remind us that the breadth of what the ancients heard was not as limited and precise as the Greek theologists would have us believe. They split linguistic hairs in a field that has deep breadth of meaning and associations, and they do it imposing a language the authors knew, but did not use. Their. Experience. Was. In. Aramaic.

Sometime ago I came across the word Therapeutae. That's its plural. I think it was in The Worship of the Dead, but maybe not. Looking into it, it opened a whole new world of Hindu and Buddhist philosophy I had little knowledge of. In my young hippie days I had read a lot about Zen Buddhism and some Hindu sects, but what was said about them had zero -- nothing -- to do with their adherents’ actual views. Through this investigation I was introduced to Swami Vivekananda and Ramakrishna, Ashoka and the missionary project which might have produced Marcus, the author of the Gospel of Mark and possibly even the Book of John. That's a mouthful. Grasp the Christian Lindtner Theory. Many suppose that Jesus in his undocumented years went to India to study Buddhism. I think not. I think it was simply a Buddhist who learned true, Mosaic Judaism and presented a Jewish-refined Buddhism as the truth he then saw, using Gautama Buddha as Judaism's anointed teacher, Jesus Christ: God manifest.

Be that as it may, Buddhism has a host of bugs in it. I am sure Marcus thanked God for getting his head straightened out beyond that of both his Jewish and Buddhist peers. He turned the world upside down! Oddly, perhaps, I get a better understanding of what Buddhists actually believe and where they probably are wrong from Yu-lan Fung's A History of Chinese Philosophy (1952; Princeton: Princeton University Press; translated by Derk Bodde). Chinese argument and apology is far superior to Western theology, for they actually discern what each group or philosopher truly MEANS by what they say, and interact with issues of reality instead of their fantasies. At 1300 pages, you have to look for what you are interested in and read what you want. It isn't light reading. Married to a Chinese for 39 years and having lived there - just got back from a visit - I find A History of Chinese Philosophy interesting and enlightening culturally and theologically.

I keep hearing "Sidlow Baxter." I wanted to list just the books I keep in the house I think have informed me in the weird mental state I am theologically. I wasn't going to include survey type books. J. Sidlow Baxter's Explore the Book is a survey of the entire Bible. I have had unnumbered survey classes and books and bible commentaries. Explore the Book is more explanatory than most, and less academic. Baxter presents outlines of THOUGHT, IMAGERY, AND VALUE, and takes nearly 1800 pages to do it. If you don't know what's in the Bible, Baxter's your guy.

A Trinity of Trillions of Trillions?

As a student of theology, I vigorously rejected the "heresy" of God being a trinity by virtue of committee agreement between the three god-persons. That is, it was proposed that three separate gods agreed a la committee in everything they individually and unitedly did. I held out for the "heresy" of modalism, that there is one ineffable being which manifests in the three modes we know as God: the Ineffable Beyond Comprehension; Its spirit or consciousness, all imagination; and the facilitating "physical" manifestation of Its intelligence (ironically considered both living energy and dead matter).

Then I have a flash of insight, possibly, that the natural, evolutionary contributions of countless trillions of trillions of conscious life forms effused into the "field" of the universe could possibly be "God" because of their united work in a natural, organic form of committee agreement: the Consciousness.

Dan’s Alternative View: Could God be a Them? We, and Effused Intelligence, Information, and Imagination

"It’s all evolution," we are sometimes told. Well, we now have instruments that can measure the stream of conscious being emitted by the body into the electromagnetic field. Every living thing constantly effuses currents of information, imagination, into the "aethers” or field. What if what we call and interact with as "God" is all that?

In Deuteronomy 6:4, God becomes shrill insisting that he is a COLLECTIVE one. Only one field, a collection of intelligence - there is no other, made out of many. What if the natural laws of physics in their natural manifestation caused (and are causing) a natural confluence of effused, transmitted consciousness, which is our “God”? God: a conglomerate field of consciousnesses effused by trillions of trillions of trillions of beings over a decade of billions of years, existing as light -- the universe's whole history of life: the intelligence which is God. Good consciousness, bad consciousness, and everything in between, all mashed up co-existent in the field, the "kingdom"/reality of God.

It would be good news to us if, in the tensions between the good-type beneficent energies contributed and bad-type negative energies contributed, the good-type energies won out. Could the contributions all say collectively as one, "I AM THAT 'I AM'"? That "I create good, and I create evil"? That we are their imagination (we are alive in the field as we live and breathe and think). Could they visit upon us as anointing and/or possession? Could "Jesus" be their demonstration?

Protest: “The dead have nothing more to do with the living.” Yes, but is that possibly the Living Field speaking of used-up physical bodies lying in the ground? Their physical matter is dead, even though it held life. What was effused into the field may exist as light and intelligence forever.

If this conglomeration is the kingdom of God, when we pray, we address specifically the good-guy contributions. They act beneficently toward us. There are bad-guy contributions in God also, who try to weasel in to corrupt things. They are invoked by bad people here with bad and/or selfish intent. “God” creates both good and evil, because ALL transmitted into him are him. He is comprised of both good and bad effused consciousness. Trust the good guys to have won; i.e., to have dominance.

Chapter VIII of Col. J. Garnier’s The Worship of the Dead or the origin of Pagan idolatry and its bearing upon the early history of Egypt and Babylonia (pp. 147-181) is about the teaching of Hermes: Magic. Magic is the result of having invoked bad-intent spirits to do one’s bidding. What is the difference, if there is any, between Pagan invoking of spirits and what Christians call prayer? Garnier goes into it. A very worthwhile read!, On page 160 he discusses dreams coming true. Page 170 discusses those able to "throw" themselves into a trance conducive to such "work." What protects us from the bad-guy spirits is the dullness of the body we are in. And the Shield of the Good-guy types -- Jesus.

Well, interesting speculation. If you buy the book from Amazon, please get the Kessinger hardbound. I've had both; the softbound was harder to open, and if you like this kind of spiritual, historical stuff, you'll be in the book a lot.

A Reply to Anonymous at 1:24

Dan,

Thank you very much for the post! (The Guy Increasing, May 30, 2019)

You lost me toward the end at: "I want such-and-such . . . what do You want? THAT I will do, praising you for what I want."

If my desires are God's and my thoughts are God's, how can I want anything separate from what God wants?

The Ineffable is exploring/expanding its limitless via the avatars "Dan Steele" and "Anonymous at 1:24" and so forth?

What do you make Neville's assertion that "creation is finished"? That would mean the Ineffable is not making this up as It goes, but there are finite parameters, or perimeter.

Anonymous at 1:24
_______________________

Dear 1:24,

You got all the way to there before getting lost? I think you did better than I would have. Good job!

I meant we should hang loosely onto what we desire and be sensitive to the leadings of the Big Holy Guy part of our consciousness, which might have better plans for us. It is a whole lot smarter. You want to jump the Grand Canyon on a rocket-powered motorcycle? Cool. But maybe there is something else you ought to do, something better. Listen before you decide. Or maybe you can do both. Do what the Big Guy wants, and if straddling a rocket still is exactly what you really desire, thank him for the bows you take as though you had done it.

Our field of vision in this bit of consciousness is ignoranced. Sorry, I just like the term. We are bits of God’s consciousness, sunflowers if you would, which have been individualized for a purpose. We are in an improvement program, becoming more like the Imaginer WE ARE PARTS OF. The Ineffable isn’t as dumb as we are EXCEPT for our being parts of It. It is not our improvement he is after; it is His. We ARE him. Separation is an illusion of our ignoranced minds.

Creation is finished because the Ineffable has already determined the end and has imagined it as finished: we in Its final state -- It MANIFESTED. You can drive all over tarnation any which way you want if the determined end is your realizing that you are out of gas. I just made that up, but I like it. Anyway, turning not to the left nor to the right has nothing to do with the road, but with OPINION.

Go back to yesterday’s post, For Success, Sign Up To Be Called (June 1, 2019). Read the verses I copied from Vic Alexander’s translation from the ancient Aramaic. God gives us a mark. This time for eternal life, or this time to the recycle bin. What is the mark? Do you accept the testimony of the Holy Spirit, that we are forgiven in and have eternal life in Jesus Christ? It is just an opinion, or at least a proclivity to an opinion. You might not have the opinion until late, but if you come to it, you were marked for the next phase of eternal life to start now. There is no actual mark except our having gotten to what tips us over. We "died" in Christ Jesus at the beginning of time, and then this, the "judgment" of having believed the testimony of the Holy Spirit unto salvation from the recycle bin.

Belief. That is our parameter. But that is just an opinion.