How I view Jesus

I still consider myself a follower of Jesus of Nazareth. He is much more than the savior from sin. In fact, I believe that he was only that to first century Jews who needed to understand that they were already acceptable sons and daughters of God. This whole narrative about Jesus is tainted by the Orthodox understanding of sin and salvation. It was further turned into an unnecessary source of shame and self-deprivation by Augustine, Luther, Calvin, and the other reformers. It along with Puritanism has been the source much trauma and error. However, I believe it is mostly from misunderstanding his real message of love and freedom.

You can say, but he taught about hell and mentioned that it was where worms would never die. Well, in my view, that is part of the misinterpretation of his message. If one believes that he was really a historical figure, and that he really taught prior to the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem, and I do, then he was actually quoting Isaiah 66 in a passage that I think foreshadows the destruction of the temple. He was informing them, by them, I mean first century Jews that the temple and city would be destroyed by Messianic fever and fervor.

You can also say that he taught about Gehenna and suggested it was eternal. To that I reply that he was using hyperbole against a first century Pharisaic teaching that Gehinnom was a fiery punishment where souls went for a year to pay a penalty for their sinful ways. He actually used a lot of hyperbole in his teaching. He suggested that they gouge out their eyes and cut off their hands. He also said that lust was really adultery. I don’t think it was to make the mosaic law tougher. It was hyperbole to show that concern and love for others was a better road to follow.

This brings me to the first narrative that Jesus taught that was profitable for everyone and would be great to follow and would make this planet a better place to live and would help us all become more humane. Notice the idea of humane comes from the word human and is linked directly to humanity. The idea was to love the other and not persecute them. This love should extend past the norm of the day to one’s enemy.

He was likewise a proponent of what today we call social justice. He taught that the highest ideal for humanity was to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, give shelter to the homeless and visit the sick and those in prison. He taught that if one really wanted to follow him, they would do those works as a natural way of living. It would be these works that would separate a true follower from one that was false.

In a more spiritual vane, he taught that the realm of God was already among humanity. Its source was the indwelling Logos or the divine spark. God was creative mind and was the parent of all humanity. The Logos was actually incarnate in humanity. He taught that he was indeed the incarnation of the divine Logos, but he did not stop there. He went on to teach that we all are the divine Logos incarnate.

When it was said that he was the Christ, the Messiah, it was actually saying that he was the divine Logos in flesh and blood. He was, if you allow- the anointing of the Logos. Again, he did not stop there. He went on to teach that we too are the anointing of the Logos as well. While he was willing to be a mediator between humanity and creative consciousness, he also taught that we too could be a mediator for ourselves.

Orthodoxy got it twisted but so did Gnosticism and the other expressions of Christianity in the first three centuries. There was much about Gnosticism that was correct, but where it went awry of his teaching was in not understanding that Jesus was one of the most egalitarian teachers and mystics of all time. The gospel that the realm of God was available to all and currently among humanity was unique to him. And, that is the reason that I choose to follow his teaching as best as I am able.

Is Pseudoscience a Pejorative Term?

Pseudoscience is a favorite term to throw out against anything that suggests consciousness is foundational to reality. I am not saying that there is not pseudoscience at all. Rather, academic science uses pseudoscience as a pejorative to dismiss and ridicule aspects of paranormal phenomena that could be studied with at least a modicum of scientific rigor.

The materialist, physicalist paradigm and its accompanying dogma has discouraged and, in many cases, eliminated ideas that were important in times past. Much of humanity has been completely cut off from spirituality, and the aspect of being human which is a product of consciousness. This has been all because of not accepting things that cannot be falsified.

I am referring to phenomena such as near-death experiences, visitations of departed relatives, UFO encounters, especially human contact and abductions. I am also referring to shamanism and all mystical experiences. What kind of scientific examination could be used you may ask? Well, for one, self-reporting could be encouraged and not stigmatized.

Each of these phenomena lends themselves to providing data that could be analyzed by computers to find recuring similarities. They could be categorized in ways that statistical data could be used to identify the similarities. The problem is that there are not enough groups interested to take on this work, and it is in my view mostly because of scorn. I am quite certain that ancient civilizations that were philosophically advanced would take advantage of the opportunity to do the analysis made possible by technology.

I think that the current attitude is much more a reaction to religious dogma than anything else. Admittedly, especially in the western world, Orthodox Christianity has been controlling. In the United States Puritanical values have added to the rejection of anything spiritual. In Europe, the control of the Roman Church has had a similar effect.

In spite of this, spiritual and paranormal phenomena have been ubiquitous across all nations and cultures across the globe. The problem is that there have been too few attempts at understanding it and little if any innovation in developing methods of study. Further, all of the people who undertake study are ridiculed and called false science. That is what pseudoscience means.

Yet, within the ranks of theoretical physics, there is a plethora of hypotheses and theories that are many times hotly contested by others within the discipline. That seems to be okay but the minute that someone tries to link the strangeness of quantum mechanics to consciousness and spirituality they are ridiculed and accused of woo.

A glaring example of this is that the author Whitley Streiber has collected a group of stories in his book “The Communion Letters.” They are a few of the almost 200,000 letters he received after writing his book “Communion.” Once it was published, thousands of people from all over the world sent letters reporting similar experiences to the ones he included in the Communion book. According to Streiber the similarities were striking in a lot of accounts. It would take a lot of human power to examine all of the letters he received. His wife did a heroic job but was still only one person. Those personal stories could be analyzed in much more depth if there were more human and technological resources available.

A similar story was just recently published. It was a book entitled “The UFO of God” by Chris Bledsoe. Both he and Streiber report having contact with a non-human other-worldly female that presented esoteric information. Additionally, you have the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) that has collected and investigated thousands of stories over the years. It would be great if all of these stories could be collected and examined by a computer program that would identify similarities and present the data in a statistical format.

This represents merely one aspect of the many paranormal phenomena that are reported by individuals. More resources could be applied to near death experiences, NDE’s as well. Computer programs could be written that would categorize and correlate the information. While there are many doing this already, the number is too small in my view and more people should be interested in the investigation and the results.

Likewise, there are many cases of past life remembrances that need similar investigation. Some of these have been traced to events that can be verified. While I realize that it would be impossible to determine if someone was Napoleon or George Washington in a past life, there are many reports of more mundane lives that offer detail that could be analyzed and correlated to historical events.

We have used quantum mechanics to advance technology so much over the last one hundred and fifty years that it is a shame that we do not invest more time and resources into investigating these phenomena that have been reported throughout history. It could certainly make our lives richer, and to admit that there is a world of spirituality and consciousness that we do not understand does not mean that one has to believe in past religious dogma.

I believe that consciousness is fundamental and foundational and if that is true, the more we explore that aspect of reality, the better we as the human race will adjust to the dimension that we currently occupy, and the more positively we will affect our individual lives.

 

Miracles; Why some experience them and others do not

Have you ever wondered why some people who believe in spiritual and supernatural healing get healed and others do not? Or, why the law of attraction seems to work for some and not for others? Have you ever pondered the fact that if God, creative consciousness heals one person and not another what that suggests about God? Is the creative spiritual source merely arbitrary and capricious? Have you ever entertained any of these questions? Well, many have. I know I have.

What is the answer to these questions? Is it all merely a matter of chance?  Or, is there something deeper at play? My answer is there is something far deeper at play.

Over the last two years, I have been influenced in my thinking by Dr. Bernardo Kastrup and Dr. Donald Hoffman. Kastrup has a PhD in computer science, is knowledgeable in psychology, and is in his own right a philosopher. Hoffman is a cognitive scientist at the University of California at Irvine and is doing research into consciousness using evolutionary game theory. He has written a book entitled “The Case Against Reality.”

Both believe that consciousness is foundational to reality and that the creative source of the universe is mentation. They agree in a lot of areas, and they have used similar metaphors to explain their idea of reality. Kastrup is promoting a philosophy he calls analytical idealism which is a variation of the idealism of Plato but with a twenty-first century understanding of science. I will try to briefly explain his ideas first. He begins with the idea that we do not really see reality and instead see and interface that he likens to a dashboard of dials. Hoffman’s metaphor is a virtual reality headset or a computer screen. Neither of the metaphors shows the underlying reality they represent. Both are designed to eliminate the overwhelming data in reality.

Kastrup also sees each of us individual conscious agents, (a phrase that Hoffman coined) as dissociative personalities of the one universal mind. He points out that there are documented cases of dissociative personalities within individuals where one personality is blind and the other has sight, and that the blind one actually cannot physically see because of a change in the brain. It should also be pointed out that some personalities are actually aware of the existence of the others. This enriches the metaphor.

Hoffman has used evolutionary game theory to show that the chances that we see reality as it is are absolutely zero. He theorizes that there is a deeper reality than space-time and he has spring boarded off the work of physicist Nima Arkani Ha-med. He cites the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics proving that the universe is not locally real. He and his students have written papers that have been peer reviewed and published so he is not completely fringe woo. His idea is that we are all conscious agents of the one supreme consciousness. As far as determining the purpose consciousness has in creation of us, he leans on Godel’s incompleteness theorem. It basically states that mathematics is infinite and there is no end to the exploration of it. He believes that the purpose for the material world and all other dimensions is consciousness exploring itself.

As I said, I have been influenced by these two academics to a great degree over the last two years. However, my view is that science is not spiritual enough and spirituality is not scientific enough. I therefore will in turn springboard off these two theories of reality. I have concluded that consciousness is the foundational aspect of reality. I think it is synonymous with what we call spirituality. Creative consciousness and God are interchangeable terms.

Consciousness has infinite and unlimited potential knowledge. However, in the realm of consciousness, thought and knowledge there is no experience. Experience demands a dimensional reality. We then are God experiencing what it knows. The possibilities are infinite and endless.

This brings us to good and evil, pain and pleasure, joy and sorrow, prosperity and poverty and all possible examples of polarity. This is the reason that I see the Kybalion as so informative when it comes to the nature of this mental reality. It states that polarity is one of the seven basic principles of hermetic teaching.

If Dr. Bernardo Kastrup is correct, and if we are each dissociative personalities of the one great mind, and if Dr. Donald Hoffman is right in this assessment of the purpose that consciousness is exploring limitless possibilities, then we each are individual conscious agents of the one great mind and as it is without beginning and end, so are we eternal. If we are eternal, we never end. We merely change from one state to another and from one incarnation to another. As we do we keep adding to the experience of creative consciousness which I like to call the mind at larger. We also have the opportunity to rest in the mind at large or the mind of the all.

Here is where the questions mentioned at the beginning find their answer. Why do some experience miracles and others do not? The quick answer is choice. Before you get angry and shut this down, please hear me out. If we are divine, dissociative personalities of the creative source, we are eternal. Assuming the Hermetic principle of correspondence, as above so below and as below so above we can know that within the one great mind at large, we can communicate. In an egalitarian fashion, each of us individual souls or conscious agents can choose what experience we will have next.

Going further into Hermetics, if we look at the principle of polarity, we can and do experience pain and pleasure, joy and sorrow, and likewise all of the other polarities of potential experience. Both joy and sorrow, pain and pleasure are but seasonal. They all add to the experience of the one great mind at large the creative source. We all grow because of these experiences and it is toward love and peace, but the experience wouldn’t be complete without experiencing hatred and unrest.

Some people have chosen to be able to manipulate situations in miraculous fashion, and others have chosen for a specific incarnation to be locked out of the experience. It all washes out over various incarnations. It adds to the experiential knowledge of potential knowledge. It is in the mind at large that we individuals have free will. Sometimes we appear to have it in incarnations and sometimes it appears that we are locked into fatalism. There are endless dimensions and possibilities. Not all of them are the same as this arena of dimensional space time and matter. Not all experiences are material. The possibilities are truly ineffable.

We are one and we are separate. This fulfills the Hermetic principle of polarity. “All truths are but half-truths” and “All paradoxes are resolved.” This should motivate us to gain the absolute most out of every opportunity for experience. The main place to focus our attention is on the egalitarian aspect of this ongoing eternal process. We can also choose at any time to rest in the Mind of the All.

Can science and spirituality merge?

 "Not only is the universe stranger than we think, it is stranger than we can think.” Werner Heisenberg

Truly we have made momentous scientific progress in the last one hundred and fifty years. We have gone from the automobile to the information age. We have gone from the Wright Brothers to super sonic Jets. We have gone from Newtonian Physics to quantum mechanics. We have visited our moon. We have remarkable advances in medicine and medical technology. This is to say that materialist, physicalist science has an impressive sequence of accomplishments. But somehow, we have developed a scientific dogma that eliminates and scorns the spiritual. In spite of that, there is a growing trend to reincorporate spirituality into our day to day lives.

Conversely, spirituality is not without its dogmatic side. Religions are responsible for what appears to be unbridgeable divisions in human relations. It has been the cause of war and blood shed for millennia. It has been a vehicle for control, fear and psychological toxicity and trauma. One could go so far as to say that religious dogma is the cause of materialistic dogma. Physicalist and materialist dogma is a reaction to religious dogma. It exists to completely offset the problems that religious dogma created.

Neither science nor spirituality have the total picture. The strangeness of the universe points to a far more complicated reality. This has come about from the latest advancements in science, especially in the area of the role that consciousness plays. Consciousness is a mystery but it is emerging as an integral part of the nature of reality. Idealist philosophy that once lost its luster is regaining respectability. In fact, it appears to be going full circle. Platonic idealism is enjoying a rebirth, but it is tempered by scientific discovery and advancement.

This leads me to believe that science is not spiritual enough, and spirituality is not scientific enough. In my view, that too is changing. This raises the question is God and inadequate term? Is consciousness a better more descriptive term? Is it not spiritual enough? These are questions that will be answered as we move forward in both arenas.

Moving forward into specifics, let’s take a look at the things that can bring science and spirituality closer together. First, we will look at the historical, philosophical, and religious side of the equation. I want to begin with Greek Philosophy. They thought of the world in terms of the physical, mental and spiritual, I start with Greece because there is a written record. However, I want to stress the idea that Plato claimed that Pythagoras went to Egypt and received ancient wisdom that actually came from a more distant past.

While one cannot be certain, what resonates with me is this knowledge is truly ancient, before Egypt, and I think likely goes back to Atlantis and probably before that. This leads to Hermeticism or Hermetic Teaching.  Plato stated that the knowledge was truly ancient and went back to Atlantis. So, what does this have to do with science, you may ask? For instance, atomism is an excellent case in point. The idea of the atom was widespread across cultures and ancient spiritual traditions. It is present in ancient India; It is in Buddhism.

This reinforces the idea that the story of Hermes Trismegistus is likely based in some form of fact. I am not implying that he existed literally as the story is told. However, the story points to the reality that there were advanced civilizations that predate modernity. Perhaps even civilizations and individuals that had even greater knowledge than what we have today. Civilizations that rose and fell and in the falling left a fragmented story that was incorporated in the beliefs of different cultures and spiritual traditions.

As these stories were told and retold, they developed into dogmatic beliefs that in turn became religions. They show a spiral of awakening and sleeping. Awakening to new possibilities and then sleeping in dogmatic certainty. Yet, underlying it all are the basic truths of the nature of reality.

All of the ancient traditions held mentalism, what we now call consciousness, as the foundational element of reality. It is interesting that in the Kybalion, a hermetic document written in 1908 asserts that the ancients knew what we knew and more than we know about physics and psychology. This suggests that there is a common thread of thought that transcends time and culture pointing to a real knowledge that humanity as a whole holds intuitively.

Moving on to science. We, especially in the western world, were thrust into what has been called the dark ages by a controlling dogmatic religion. The burning of the Alexandrian Library alone speaks to the idea that we have gone in cycles of awakening and sleeping. However, the renaissance led to an entirely new awakening and ushered in the age of reason and in turn brought to fruition the age of scientific materialism. In many ways it was a reaction to the controlling religious dogma of the dark ages.

Newtonian physics described the world as material. Yet Sir Isaac Newton was deeply interested in Hermeticism and the Corpus Hermeticum. Ironically, Newtonian Physics led the way to a materialist, physicalist view of reality. Out of this a new dogma arose. It was the dogmatic view that only things that were material were important and worthy of examination. Spirituality was disparaged. I believe it was not least because of a reaction to religious dogma. In this you can see the Hermetic principle of rhythm. As one looks throughout history, one can see the pendulum effect. The Kybalion states that as far as the pendulum swings to the left, it then swings back to the right.

Scientifically we are now entering the return swing of the pendulum. As Newtonian Physics gave way to relativity and space time and quantum mechanics emerged in particle physics, the cutting edge of physicists, biologist, and cognitive scientists are now moving beyond space time to a deeper reality that at the very least hints of a concept of mentalism.

While there are different interpretations, the concept that information is foundational to reality is pointing toward consciousness being foundational. There are many scientists that are at the forefront of this idea. I am not saying that they all think in terms of the spiritual, but they all show that one who focuses on the spiritual nature of reality is not an ill-informed nut job.

To give an idea of what I am referring to you have Dr. Donald Hoffman, a cognitive scientist at UC Irvine that is building a case against reality. His hypothesis is that consciousness is the foundation of reality. He is spring boarding off the work of physicist Nima Arkani Hamed who has found physical realities beyond space time. With the winners of the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics, quantum entanglement is a proven fact, and the universe is not locally real. Information moves instantaneously which is well beyond the speed of light. String Theory, while not yet proven in a laboratory postulates that at the basic unit of the atom are strings of vibrating resonance that determines physicality. This can be similar to the vibration of thought.

To close, I find it interesting that so many of the intellectual giants of the last hundred and twenty-five years have believed that consciousness or spirituality was foundational. To name a few, are Carl Jung, Werner Heisenberg, Neils Bohr, Bertrand Russell, William James, all of the transcendentalists come to mind. If the pendulum is indeed swinging back to spirituality gaining a renewed importance it is not a bad thing. It makes me wonder what the dogma that develops from this swing will do to humanity. I am optimistic. I see human history on an upward spiral and while there have always been setbacks, the trend is to continue toward higher heights.

 

Eclectic and Syncretistic Spirituality Explained

The word eclectic is normally used as a furniture style, but it is also related to thoughts and tastes etc. Syncretistic is an amalgamation of various religious traditions, cultures, and schools of thought such as philosophy. So syncretistic and eclectic spirituality is an amalgamation of beliefs. It is my belief that this approach makes by far the most sense in choosing a spiritual path and spiritual practices.

The reason for this is simple. All mystics are first and foremost human beings. This means that they are not only influenced by mystical input but also have the cultural and life experiences of their place in history, their community, and their familial and ancestorial traditions. It also includes all of the religious ideas they were exposed to by their environment. 

While this does not mean that they cannot rise above these factors, it likely means that all of the above factors will spill over into their mysticism. It is also dependent on the intellectual and technological advancements of their society and culture. Therefore, one can rest assured that all so-called sacred texts have within them a certain amount of human and cultural input. All means all and it is especially true of the bible.

This is where eclectic spirituality can be so important in one’s spiritual path. All religions have mystical revelation from the source within their teachings. Likewise, they all have human and cultural input. Our intuition is able to distinguish which is which if we but learn to trust it.

Since I was raised in evangelical Christianity, I have found that while there is mystical revelation in the bible there is likewise cultural input that is not necessarily pertinent today. However, I have also found that for me, Christianity is not complete and that I can find additional revelation in other religions and religious texts, and yes, even in science. We continually are advancing in knowledge and experience. This is true of us as individuals, and it is likewise true of us in various cultures as well as humanity as a whole.

I will give you an example of my eclectic spirituality. I draw mystical revelation from Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism, and Hermeticism. I have actually come to believe that Hermeticism is foundational to western religion and philosophy. But I also see that there is potential to reinforce mystical revelation from quantum mechanics, philosophy, cognitive science, and biology.

For me, I see reincarnation as a very likely phenomenon. So, I draw on some of eastern thought as well. However, I am not a fan of the perpetual circle of karma. This forces me to use my intuition and the mystic within me to find a better solution to the purpose of reincarnation. I have done this and have addressed it in other blog posts. There are countless other examples, but I will not pursue them here.

I mainly want to point out that we each have divinity within each of us. This divinity makes us all mystics. We are effective in mysticism to the degree that we believe we are divine, trust out intuition. I want to encourage you to make sure that you allow your intuition and your individuality to help you ascend along your spiritual path and find the perfect place of integration between your higher and lower self. Both are equally important to the human experience. Part of the lower self, or the human self is what Carl Jung called the shadow self, and we likewise need to embrace and accept it as well. That doesn't mean that we cannot improve and change the things we don’t like, but it does mean that we should embrace wholeheartedly our humanity.

 Here is another video blog. It answers the question what it means to reimagine reincarnation and should it be reimagined. It is important to remove the eternal treadmill wheel concept. Please like and subscribe to my YouTube Channel Cosmic Consciousness.

Reimagine Reincarnation

 

An Introduction to the Kybalion.; Video Blog

I am going to begin posting video blogs to go along with the written ones. I will continue with the written blogs as well. I am using an AI program called Pictory AI. Please like and subscribe, and enjoy.

Introduction to the Kybalion

Deconstructing Scientific Dogma

Having been a relatively recent pastor and theologian in evangelical Christianity, I am well aware of deconstruction. I have in fact deconstructed much of my former belief system. That is terribly painful for some but was less painful for me because I had deconstructed before, and I allowed life circumstances to bring me back, but not full circle. The things that I learned and believed from my first deconstruction, many of them, I kept locked away, but I did not voice them because I wanted to fit in and work within the evangelical framework. One of my reasons was to attempt to reform and reshape Christian dogma into a more realistic and more palatable place.

It is my belief that much of scientific dogma is a reaction to Christianity. The age of reason liberated people from the constraints of religious dogma, but the process of liberation created a dogma that was just as ridged as Christian dogma to make sure that religious dogma would not gain a strong hold again. This resulted in denying any kind of supernatural or paranormal phenomenon. More than that, scorn was placed on any in science that would investigate or give credence to anything labeled pseudo-science. This included parapsychology, extra-sensory perception, and anything that could be connected with the spiritual plane.

Not only did academic science ridicule individuals that would look investigate the paranormal, the actively damaged the careers of anyone daring to step outside of the accepted scope of materialism. They had concluded that the material world happened independently of any outside force and that even consciousness arose from materialism.

Of course, there were intellectual giants that did not give into the materialist physicalist dogma, but they were few in comparison to all those in scientific endeavors. One such giant was Carl Jung, who held that one of the most important parts of psychology was humanities relationship to the numinous. Many of the physicists that developed quantum mechanics were bold in stating that there was most definitely a supernatural aspect to reality.

Over the millennia, Greek Philosophy, especially Platonism and Neo-Platonism stated that the universe at its core foundation was mental and ideal. Over the last one hundred- and fifty-years Newtonian Classical Mechanics has given way to space time and ultimately the micro world of quantum physics. These seem incompatible to scientific theory, and yet, it is quantum physics that is responsible for so many inventions and upgrades. You often hear physicists say that they cannot explain the weirdness of the quantum world but only that it works.

Philosophers have struggled with the hard problem of consciousness. The cognitive scientists have been unable to identify how we know the difference between the taste of chocolate and vanilla within the brain. They are unable to deal with experience. There is a rise in philosophers that have a panpsychist view of the nature of reality. The biologist, Dr. Rupert Sheldrake has theorized that there are morphic fields of resonance which are responsible for mental telepathy. It is not just in humans but in the animal kingdom as well.

Dr. Donald Hoffman, a cognitive scientist from the University of California at Irvine is working on a theory that consciousness is the foundation of reality. He is making progress mathematically using evolutionary game theory. In 2022 the Nobel Prize in Physics was given to three men who have proven that the universe is not locally real. The latest in physics believes that space-time is doomed and that there is a deeper reality out of which space-time arises.

The public is led to believe that everything in science is tangible, measurable, and repeatable. And while that may be true of the basic aspects of our science, it is not true at the foundational level of reality. In that area there are theories and hypotheses and there is a wide difference of opinion. They simply agree to disagree. The quantum level works for a multitude of advancements in technology, and yet it is still a mystery.

I can understand why they stay away from what they call woo, but that is not the same thing as ridiculing woo. The fact is, they ridicule woo! The question becomes why do they ridicule woo? I think the answer is, if they give any room for the supernatural, if they give any room for consciousness to be foundational to reality, they establish religion’s role in human philosophy. I don’t think it has to be the case. They can embrace the possibility of consciousness being foundational without validating religious dogma. But the fact is, they have developed scientific dogma to eliminate the return of religious dogma and in my view it needs to be deconstructed.

Imago Dei

So far as I can tell the idea that we were created in the image of God is found only in the Abrahamic religions, that is, it is only found in Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. And too often within those religions it appears that the truth of the matter is that God was created in the image of humanity. I suppose that one could infer from the Greek pantheon that they also were created in the image of humanity. At least that is the case of the artwork and myths. However, that doesn’t mean that humanity was not created in God’s image. If there is a God, and I believe there is, then God is not corporeal or material as we understand it. God is of a substance that we cannot see or touch. For millennia, it has been called spirit, and the metaphor for God is the wind or breath. One cannot see the wind except for the way that it interacts with other things. We can see it move the trees; we can see it create waves in water, yet we cannot see it itself. However, we can feel it. We can feel gentle cooling breezes, it can exert force on us and it can be destructive. That may be where the metaphor breaks down unless we are referring to spirit. In that vane it can be beneficial, and it can be destructive.

I personally intuitively believe that the creator is conscious energy. For me the word spirit and the word consciousness are interchangeable. Likewise, the word God is synonymous with creative consciousness.

This means that to say that humanity is created in the image of God one is saying that the human is first and foremost, divine, eternal, conscious creative energy. However, when one looks a little deeper, one finds that the aboriginal people across the globe and millennia thought that we were essentially and foundationally spirit. What they meant, and what the idea in the Abrahamic Religions must mean, is that humanity is composed of eternal spirits at the core. Hinduism and Buddhism believe that the human is essentially spirit and on a cycle of samsara. This is the Hindu word for reincarnation. Taoism sees the Tao as an ineffable and unknowable spirit. The American indigenous people speak of and teach their people that there is a great spirit of which they participate in.

Likewise, the Egyptians believed in a conscious creative spirt and it was allegedly passed on to the Greeks by Pythagoras. The Greeks then developed the idea of the Logos as being the creative source and the divine seed. Plato believed and taught that there was a spiritual and ideal object for all of material reality. They likewise believed in a reincarnation of sorts.

Today, panpsychist ideals teach that consciousness is foundational to reality. There are physicists and cognitive scientists theorizing the same idea. So, to say that this concept is ubiquitous is a definite understatement of fact.

Is it possible that we can be spiritual and not religious? I think so. It should be agreed upon that the term God describes the creator, and even in polytheism, there is always one supreme creative source. Is it possible to redefine God? I believe it is. If we realize that there is one foundational source of reality, and it is consciousness, then it follows that we are describing God. Whether one calls the creator God or consciousness it is still the same concept. It is describing the same exact thing. It is through our consciousness that we participate in the divine nature. We are indeed creators, and as a scripture states it is yet unknow what we may become. I personally believe that it is unlimited. Yes indeed, we are Imago Dei, born in the image of God.

Reimagining Reincarnation

 The idea that mind or in other words consciousness is foundational to reality is as old as recorded history. Likewise, some form of reincarnation is as old as these spiritual traditions. The concept of judgment and heaven or hell related to one lifetime is not historically ancient compared to the idea of reincarnation.

And yet, the theories of the operation of reincarnation are less than optimal. The concept of being trapped in circular perpetuity, solely based on the judgment of good and evil deeds, is based on superstition. It begs the question who is judge and what qualifications do they have? However, in my opinion, the concept of some form of reincarnation is the only spiritual explanation that makes sense to me if indeed we are eternal spiritual beings. Of course, there is the possibility that we are not eternal and the one life we have is a mere matter of lottery. That certainly is not very appealing. Especially when one looks at the development of humanity in a historical sense. Very few people, in view of the myriad of individuals who have lived win the birth lottery. Most over history do not.

Further, if consciousness is foundational, and we are sentient conscious beings then we are directly related to the source of creation via our consciousness. This brings to the front the question. Is the creative source a singular entity or is it a collective? If a singular entity to what purposes does it create and if a collective how does that work practically? My answer to the first question is that it is a collective. My answer to the second question is it is a paradox. It is both singular and a collective. Which is which is decided by the point of view or perspective of the observer.

At the foundational level is appears as a collective, that is God is in all and all is in God which is a pantheistic view. However, from the viewpoint of the individual conscious agent, or if you prefer individual soul, the source is greater than and outside of the individual and while the individual is conscious and a part of consciousness it is not the whole and therefore appears to be panentheistic. Now, if you are an evangelical Christian reading this, before you blow an aorta, realize that Jesus taught pantheism. He said that he was in the father and the father was in him and subsequently that he and the father was in humanity and humanity was in he and the father.

So what’s to reimagine you ask? I will try to answer. If consciousness is the creative source, and if it is a collective in which the whole is greater than the parts it must be acknowledged that the parts are the same substance as the whole. In other words, the parts are consciousness as is the whole. This is why the metaphor in Genesis states that we were made in the image of God. God is equal to creative consciousness. As the Kybalion states the ALL is mind. The ALL is merely one of the names we give God. It is the all-mighty creator. Guess what, we are each severally and jointly an integral part of it.

Most all ideas of reincarnation have the whole in charge and the parts subservient to the whole. This is the idea behind karma. It is also the main idea with reincarnation in Jewish Kabbalah. The idea is that the soul revolves and revolves until it earns either Nirvana or Ola Ham Ba. In the Hindu expression it is called Samsara and in the Jewish view it is called Gilgul. The end goal in each of these is becoming reunited with the creative source. However, in reimagining reincarnation I believe that one is never separated from the divine source.

What then is the purpose of creation? Here is my opinion of it. For me it is the only thing that makes sense. Consciousness has knowledge. However, it does not have experience. That’s where we conscious agents come into the picture. We incarnate to gain experience of the knowledge that we have as a collective. The knowledge is eternal. The dimensions are infinite. The exploration is likewise eternal. However, we choose to incarnate, and we choose to rest in the collective. In our choices we all equally experience pain and pleasure; we participate in good and evil. Eternally we are amoral. Eternally we are love and peace. Eternally we cannot be harmed. Yes, I am thinking of an infinite myriad of experiences.

I will leave you with this thought. Dr. Bernardo Kastrup is a computer scientist, a psychologist, and a philosopher. He theorizes that we all may be dissociative personalities of the one great creative mind. For me, while not totally convinced, it is a real possibility.

Christ Awareness; The true anointing

Christ, Greek CHRISTOS, means anointed or anointing. Actually, the Greek word for anointing is CHRISMA, however, they are etymologically directly related. Thus, in my view, Christ is the awareness of the divine presence within and chrisma is the awareness of the divine presence. However, I am of the opinion that for one to be aware of the divine presences one must be a part of the divine presence. One hears in evangelical Pentecostal circles and churches the term anointing often. You will hear things like that sermon was anointed, or this or that person is anointed.

An example of anointing where it is not mentioned but inferred in Luke chapter twenty-four. Luk 24:32  They said to each other, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?" This indicates that they felt the divine presence, which is the anointing, and thus they were anointed. After all, John stated that as Jesus was in the world, so are we the same in the world. He was anointed because of the indwelling Logos and therefore we too are indwelled by the divine Logos. The indwelling divinity is our direct connection to the divine presence, the divine parent. The Gnostic “Gospel of Truth” states that we forgot who we were, and Jesus brought remembrance of the Father and our familial relationship which constitutes or true identity. We are divine. All humanity are children of the divine parent. I use Parent instead of father because divinity is androgynous. Both the divine masculine and feminine are within the Parent.

Now on to the anointing. There is the real anointing and there is the fake anointing which is really a product of emotional hype. The true anointing attends the presence of the divine source. It can be described as a burning within the heart, but it is likewise accompanied by an unfathomable peace and love. It is a feeling. It is not an emotional feeling, but a deeper feeling and it is like pleasant fire.

It is interesting because I have experienced the anointing in unlikely places. I have experienced it at Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco. Jesus or God was never mentioned. The Glide Ensemble their choir was completely anointed. The reason was they feed thousands of people every day in the San Francisco Tenderloin District. They house many more as well. They are doing the work of the divine spirit. They are feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and giving shelter to the homeless. There is an inexpressible peace at Glide Memorial. At least there was when Cecil Williams was pastor back in the 1990’s.

I experienced the anointing one evening waiting for the BART train at the Del Norte station in Richmond CA. Across the tracks on the opposite platform two obviously drunk people were arguing about whether or not the woman was a child of God. She was forcefully and coarsely demanding that she indeed was a child of God and of course she was as she too was indwelled by the divine nature. She was in the imago dei, the image of God.

I experienced the anointing in the presence of two Mormon Elders that were praying for a sick child, listless with a fever, and watched as the child came to life and was playing feverless in the middle of the floor after they anointed him with oil and prayed for him.

This causes me to reason how dare some individuals claim that they have the anointing and others do not because they believe in a certain set of facts about the divine parent? This in view of what they consider the anointing is merely emotional hype. If there is no unfathomable peace and love, there is absolutely no anointing! When one judges that another does not have the anointing, they are judging God, they are judging Jesus because he said that we are divine, the parent is in us and we are in the parent.

 

The Conscious Cosmos: A look at the Kybalion and why it is the perfect statement of Hermetic Teaching.

I was introduced to the Kybalion about four years ago by my son. Being a theologian, I was somewhat skeptical of it at first glance. It did, however, have a message that resonated with me to a degree. I was likewise skeptical of Hermes Trismegistus. Over the four-year period that has all changed. I now think that the Kybalion is one of the most accurate mystical works in existence. Since that is quite a bold statement, I will share my reasons and the process I went through to arrive at that conclusion.

The Kybalion was published in 1908 and was written most likely by William Walker Atkinson. I say that because he used the Pseudonym “The Three Initiates. This was what gave me pause, but it also started me on the path of exploring Hermetic teaching. In that pursuit, I found that there was a writing called the Corpus Hermeticum and of course I read it several times. I was still at that time skeptical of the Kybalion. I read a book by Tim Freke and Peter Gandy entitled “The Hermetica; The Lost Wisdom of the Pharaohs” and learned more about Hermes and the Hermetica. I also obtained a copy of The Corpus Hermeticum translated by G.R.S. Mead, and later the translation by Brian Copenhaver.

This study convinced me that The Hermetica was indeed ancient wisdom, and that Greek philosophy was built on it. I still, however, did not give the Kybalion the respect that it deserves. By this time in my journey, I was becoming familiar with Hermetics and the works of William Walker Atkinson. I also read his works entitled the Arcane Teaching and the Arcane Formulas. They are an excellent companion to the Kybalion and are very helpful in understanding and implementing the law of attraction.

Now for my view of the Kybalion; I now see that the Kybalion expresses the nature of consciousness as the creator without religious trappings, and presents an explanation that is compatible with current scientific understandings of quantum physics. It presents ideas that are compatible with panpsychist and idealist philosophy. It states that we are in the All and the All is in us, and while it agrees with various religious doctrines about the nature of reality, it does so without the superstitious and judgmental aspects that accompany religion.

And yet it offers an assurance of the benevolence of the All and how it relates to us and how we can rest in the knowledge. The following quote is more assuring than any of the promises found in the bible. It does so without claiming that any souls will receive punishment from deity. And more than any other thing it does not anthropomorphize the creative source. Here is the quote I find so assuring: “So, do not feel insecure or afraid — we are all HELD FIRMLY IN THE INFINITE MIND OF THE ALL, and there is naught to hurt us or for us to fear. There is no Power outside of THE ALL to affect us. So we may rest calm and secure. There is a world of comfort and security in this realization when once attained. Then "calm and peaceful do we sleep, rocked in the Cradle of the Deep" — resting safely on the bosom of the Ocean of Infinite Mind, which is THE ALL. In THE ALL, indeed, do "we live and move and have our being." ~The Three Initiates. The Kybalion: A Study of The Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece (Illustrated) (p. 31). The Kybalion Resource Page. Kindle Edition.

It also gives a better definition of what we have called demons in the past. It is an encouraging message as even those that may be considered demons will not always have to remain in that state. Here again is the quote: The legends of the Fallen Angels have a basis in actual facts, as all advanced occultists know. The striving for selfish power on the Spiritual Planes inevitably results in the selfish soul losing its spiritual balance and falling back as far as it had previously risen. But to even such a soul, the opportunity of a return is given — and such souls make the return journey, paying the terrible penalty according to the invariable Law. ~The Three Initiates. The Kybalion: A Study of The Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece (Illustrated) (p. 52). The Kybalion Resource Page. Kindle Edition.

You see in the above quote that even the demons have a chance to rehabilitate.

The seven principles of the Kybalion explain all of the aspects of material and spiritual reality and Atkinson gives important insight into how to use the law within the ALL to transmute circumstances by using law against law. Using the higher law against the lower law.

While it explains and elucidates the divine, it does so without moral judgment. That is not to say that it ignores morality but that it provides the understanding to motivate moral behavior in a non-religious way. It presents these ideals in a spiritual way. The one who reads the Kybalion and begins to understand its teachings will move higher on the plane of vibration toward unification with the ALL. It shows that it is a process that happens over various incarnations into a variety of planes and dimensions of existence. In fact, it teaches that the planes of existence are infinite, existing within the ineffable ALL.

The quote, “When the student is ready the teacher will appear” is a reality for me. When I was ready for understanding, I was introduced to the Kybalion. To anyone who is a panpsychist or a philosophical idealist, one who believes that consciousness is foundational to reality, I cannot recommend more highly any work than the Kybalion.

 

The Conscious Cosmos: Why I believe in the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth

There are many scholars who doubt the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth. However, I am quite certain that he was indeed a historical figure and that he was a mystic and master as well. Was his message misunderstood and coopted? Most definitely! I come to that conclusion based on all of the writings from the first three centuries CE. This includes some of the orthodox canon and the writings of the Nag Hammadi library. Was he sent from God? Well, that depends on your definition and understanding of God. If you see God anthropomorphically as a sky parent who had a literal son, then you have missed the mark. However, if you see God as the creative source of the universe, if you see God as creative consciousness, and you see the son of God as a metaphor for individual conscious agents that are an integral part of the divine, having a divine nature, then yes, indeed he was sent by God.

It is his message, that for me proves that he was a historical mystical figure, a miracle worker that was misunderstood because of the audience he came to, and the belief system they held about the creator and the nature of reality. If what I am writing scares you as heresy, my hope is that you get over it. If you think I am trying to evangelize the world to this idea, you are wrong. Could humanity benefit from what I believe Jesus real message was? Yes indeed! It actually adds mystical understanding to all of the messages and explanations that have gone on before it. This is why I believe that it should be a part of eclectic and syncretistic spirituality. Yes, I use the word spirituality and I use it without shame or hesitation. If consciousness is fundamental to reality, then it is ineffable, and spirituality is as good a descriptor as any.

Moving on to the reasons I believe that Jesus of Nazareth is a historical figure and a mystical master. It includes the Gospel of John, parts of Paul’s epistles, the Gospel of Truth, and other writings from the same time period. This theory does not include orthodox teaching, anything evangelical, or fundamentalist. Yet it does include parts of orthodox Christian scripture. It likewise includes Hermeticism, Platonic, and Neo-Platonic philosophy. One could add Taoism into the mix as well.  All of those traditions involve a “parent and an offspring” metaphor to the creation of reality. It is in that area that the message of Jesus advances the metaphor. Further, the advancement of that metaphor is dependent on a mystical message, most likely from an individual. That is how it has worked over the course of millennia and so there is no reason to doubt it in this instance.

The unique message in which Jesus advanced spiritual understanding was that the parent offspring metaphor includes all of humanity. This can be gleaned by looking at a universal coherent message that permeates all of western civilization across millennia, beginning with Egypt and Sumer, Hermeticism, Greek and Platonic Philosophy, the Stoics and culminating with two revelations that Jesus made that were not explicit before his ministry. He also taught that God was the parent, but additionally, a loving parent, and that all of humanity was God’s offspring and an active participant in the divine nature. All other claims prior to that had God at a distance, apart from the creation. There was no familial reference. Today, there are many who refer to the concept of being a child of God without realizing that it is known largely by the teaching of Jesus.

This revelation went on to be mystically revealed to Paul. Rom 8:38-39  “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,  (39)  nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God.” It was Jesus that introduced this concept in his teaching.

Many may ask, “didn’t Jesus also teach about hell?” That requires that one be able to clearly see the Jew-Gentile distinction that is in the pages of the New Testament. Jesus was a Jewish prophetic mystic and miracle worker. He did his work within the context and culture of first century Judaism. It was first century Jewish Pharisaic teaching that taught about hell (Gehinnom.) His references were a hyperbolic reaction to that teaching. Paul never mentions hell. Why? Because his mystical revelation was to bring the message to both Jew and Gentile and to present it as a spiritual reality. One can see the Jew-Gentile distinction everywhere in the New Testament and Paul taught that the wall of separation was torn down by the ministry of Jesus. So then, Jesus’ ministry was twofold. First, it was to call the Jewish nation to change their mind about their relationship with deity. Second, it was to inform both Jew and Gentile that God, the creative source was a loving parent.

In the Gospel of Truth, accredited to Valentinus by Irenaeus, the mission and message of Jesus was to overcome the forgetfulness that humanity has and remember its true nature which is divine. God the Father is a loving parent and upon incarnation humans no longer remember the fact. Jesus’ message was to restore that knowledge. Valentinus was a student of Pauline Christianity and founded a group of believers that were called Valentinians after him. They were considered heretics by the early church fathers, and their works were destroyed. It was the serendipitous find of Nag Hammadi in 1945 that gave us many of their writings. I am not saying that they had all and exclusive truth. I am saying that they had an important part of the Jesus message, and it would be beneficial today. Not that it is necessary for us to carry on as the offspring of the creator or to gain some kind of eternal nature. We are that already. But it would help us to realize that we are divine and that the divine is love and love is out natural state of being if we but remember who we really are.

Jesus realized that he was anointed with the divine Logos or the mind of God. This made him God’s son and he went on to teach that the same thing is true of each and everyone of us. I will close this with Paul’s words. This is from a letter that is credited to Paul by most all scholars.

Php 2:5-8  “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,  (6)  who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited,  (7)  but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form,  (8)  he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.”

We all do this when we incarnate. We become obedient even to the point of death. It does not have to be a cross. In our emptying process, we forget our divinity and Jesus restored that. That message is so unique that I believe there really was such a person that delivered it.

  

 

The Conscious Cosmos: Unified Field of Consciousness

This is an explanation of my theory of panpsychism. Assuming that consciousness is the foundational element of reality then it seems to follow that consciousness and energy are interchangeable. As the words of the poem, the primal dream flowed into my mind in 1974, I wrote “energy and thought, inseparable conceived the primal dream.” The above illustration is in the shape of the current graphic representation of the universe. Everything within the universe consists primarily of waves. The waves have particle potential and can result in matter. The original creative observer is consciousness itself which historically has been called the Logos, by Greek philosophy, Hermeticism, and Christianity.

Consciousness created individual conscious agents through sacred geometry. These conscious agents are integral to all of the dimensions and yet, the sum of conscious agents is greater than the individual parts. When I speak of conscious agents, I think of them similarly to Dr. Donald Hoffman in his book “A Case Against Reality.” This leads to the paradox of pantheism and panentheism. Both are true, as the Kybalion states in the principle of polarity. “All truths are half-truths; all paradoxes may be reconciled.” The way it is resolved is in the truth that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts which is pantheism, and the individual conscious agents are a part of the whole, cocreators and that is panentheism.

To what purpose you may ask? I like a variation of how Dr. Hoffman answers the question what is consciousness up to? It is answered in a YouTube video. A Donald Hoffman Quote from his YouTube lecture on the Weekend University Channel entitled “Is Reality an Illusion?” It begins at roughly 1:13:38 into the video.

Quote:

“If we start with consciousness being fundamental then there is an interesting question; that is what is consciousness up to and why? What is consciousness doing right? And when we think about consciousness inside space and time we often think about it in terms of evolutionary theory and we say maybe consciousness helps you to survive somehow, maybe its an accident, but now we can think differently. Space and time are not fundamental. Evolutionary theory is not fundamental. Consciousness itself is fundamental.

So, what is consciousness up to? I don’t know, but I have only found one idea that is deep enough so far to take the idea seriously. I’m not saying it is right but it’s at least deep enough to be interesting and to take seriously. Kurt Godel, around 1930 proved what are called incompleteness theorems. What Godel discovered was that effectively, the exploration of mathematical truths is unending. There is no way to be omniscient about mathematical truths and what’s interesting about that idea then, is that if consciousness is fundamental and consciousness is all there is then mathematics, consciousness and that endless exploration of mathematics is endless, then that means that exploration of the possible varieties endless and is exploring, it’s a theorem that will never stop. And so maybe that is what consciousness is up to. It is constantly exploring itself!

So what’s happening right now, where we go, we talk, we have questions, we have lectures and so forth. This is just consciousness in space using space time as a virtual reality exploring one of many, many different possibilities, worlds in which there are attended spaces. Dimensions of space is irrelevant there is no dimension.”

I am not a mathematician, and if you want to accuse me of trying to turn science into “woo” go ahead. What I am writing here is intuitive. However, it resonates deeply with me, and I believe that it is correct. So let me explain the above quote in more spiritual and mystical terms. I do not think this explanation is incompatible with Hoffman’s far more scientific explanation.

Consciousness is knowledge. The ancient Greeks called it Gnosis. However, knowledge lacks something. What you may ask? It lacks experience. Knowledge is awareness of all the potential. It is aware of possibility. Experience completes knowledge. One cannot truly understand love without experience. Nor, can one know pain without experience. One can know it exists but only through experience does it become complete knowledge. We participate in the divine nature in order to complete knowledge with our experience. The possibilities are endless and infinite. One could say that we are God experiencing creation.

This is not limited to one life in one plane. Quite the contrary. However, we are also able to rest at will. I do not see reincarnation as a karmic hamster wheel that one is trapped on. It is not a punitive alternative to purgatory or hell. We all, in an egalitarian fashion, based upon our choosing experience joy and pain, good and evil. The unified field of consciousness, the All, God if you prefer, is the eternal present. As Eckhart Tolle states it is the Now. Energy cannot be destroyed it can only be changed. I think that the best illustration of what I am saying is that it is similar to a video game. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. You can get tired, even exasperated so that you put the game down only to become refreshed, perhaps bored, and you pick the game up and try again.

Experiential knowledge is ever increasing as we alternate between being whole consciousness to conscious agents and back and forth.

The Conscious Cosmos: Skinwalker Ranch and the Skeptics

I am inserting a large portion of text from Frank Salisbury’s book the “Utah UFO Display.” It will be presented later on after a more detailed explanation. I think it points to the fact that what we currently see going on with the UAP/UFO phenomenon is not straight forward but purposefully has a highly nuanced narrative. It is suggested in my view by the recent theories and proofs in physics and cognitive science. They are so recent that they are not naturally considered in any discussions about the phenomenon or for that matter material science in general. Three things are important in this idea. First is the recent Nobel Prize in Physics given to three men who proved that the universe is not locally real. Second and equally important is the work of Dr. Donald Hoffman and his students from the University of California that shows that it is quite likely that space-time and the material universe arise out of consciousness. Third and not least, are many philosophers that have put forth very thoughtful explanations of panpsychism.

I have long had an interest in a panpsychist, panentheistic view of reality. The works of Aldous Huxley such as the “Doors of Perception,” Abraham Maslow’s “Religions, Values, and Peak Experiences,” and Fritjof Capra’s “The Tao of Physics” have influenced my thinking along with what would be best characterized as mystical experiences. It is only recently that what was once considered woo-woo has become more respected by some scientists. So while that is my bias up until recently I was skeptical of the UFO phenomenon. The thing that changed that for me was the first three seasons of the History Channel’s docuseries “The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch.” Now as the fourth season emerges, the skeptics are growing stronger. I think that may in part be because they do not seem to have a scientific voice that influences their editing.

I am confident in the veracity of the team and the owner of the Ranch Brandon Fugal. I am somewhat skeptical of how the History Channel has presented them so far. I believe that they are on the frontier of scientific investigation. However, it is important to emphasize that they are dealing with something that can be material and can be mental or conscious based. That fact should be emphasized in the docuseries. If then the critics continue to be skeptical so be it. I believe they will shortly be shown wrong as current science unfolds in the areas mentioned above. However, to emphasize the science as strictly physicalist is a mistake. Let me repeat, given the new advancement mentioned in the first paragraph, I would like to share a portion of Salisbury’s book that demonstrates a world-wide ubiquitous examination of the phenomenon. Not just on Skinwalker Ranch, but across the globe and not just recently but for the last seventy years. The inserted quote speaks for itself.

“In 1977, at the First International UFO Congress in Chicago, J. Allan Hynek presented his thoughts in a speech “What I really believe about UFOs.” (See Hynek, 1980.) “I do believe,” he said, “that the UFO phenomenon as a whole is real, but I do not mean necessarily that it’s just one thing. We must ask whether the diversity of observed UFOs… all spring from the same basic source, as do weather phenomena, which all originate in the atmosphere” or whether they differ “as a rain shower differs from a meteor, which in turn differs from a cosmic-ray shower.” We must not ask, Hynek said, what hypothesis can explain the most facts, but we must ask, which hypothesis can explain the most puzzling facts. “There is sufficient evidence to defend both the ETI and the EDI hypothesis,” Hynek continued. As evidence for the ETI (extraterrestrial intelligence) hypothesis he mentioned, as examples, the radar cases as good evidence of something solid, and the physical-trace cases. Then he turned to defending the EDI (extradimensional intelligence) hypothesis. Besides the aspect of materialization and dematerialization, he cited the “poltergeist” phenomena experienced by some people after a close encounter; the photographs of UFOs, sometimes on only one frame, not seen by the witnesses; the ability of some UFOs to change form right before the witnesses’ eyes; the puzzling question of telepathic communication; the fact that in close encounters of the third kind, the creatures seem to be at home in earth’s gravity and atmosphere; the sudden stillness in the presence of the craft; levitation of cars or persons; the fact that some witnesses develop psychic abilities after an encounter.

“Do we have two aspects of one phenomenon or two different sets of phenomena?” Hynek asked. Finally he introduced a third hypothesis. I hold it entirely possible that a technology exists that encompasses both the physical and the psychic, the material and the mental. There are stars that are millions of years older than the sun. There may be a civilization that is millions of years more advanced than man’s. We have gone from Kitty Hawk to the moon in some seventy years, but it’s possible that a million-year-old civilization may know something that we don’t…. I hypothesize an “M&M” technology encompassing the mental and material realms. The psychic realms, so mysterious to us today, may be an ordinary part of an advanced technology.”

Salisbury, Frank B.. The Utah UFO Display: A Scientist Brings Reason and Logic to over 400 Sightings in Utah's Uintah Basin . Cedar Fort, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

The Conscious Cosmos: Conquering the Cosmos

John 16:33  “I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. You will have suffering in this world. Be courageous! I have conquered the world.”

According to the author of the gospel of John, Jesus said what is written above. This is a bold claim but I believe it is accurate with regard to our relationship to material and corporeal reality. According to Jesus teaching and claims, how did he overcome the world? This is a question that I hope to answer and also, what did he overcome or conquer? Let’s look at some of the Greek words that make up this claim.

World is translated from the Greek word kosmos. The Greek word kosmos describes and defines the known universe and all of material and corporeal reality. Suffering, tribulation, trouble is from the Greek word thilipsis. It means all of the above meanings. Finally the Greek word nikaho means conquered or overcome. So, I believe that Jesus is actually saying that he has conquered material reality and all of the trouble it presents.

How then did he conquer it? He conquered it with knowledge and faith. In other words, he had faith in his intuitive knowledge. His intuitive knowledge told him that he was the eternal offspring of the creator. He took that intuitive knowledge and applied trust to it. It was a fact in his mind that he relied on. He saw creative consciousness as the parent. While he called it father it was both feminine and masculine. If one believes in as above so below and as below so above then it is only reasonable that the divine parent is both genders. We see in the material world that it is the combining of the two genders that produce offspring. Therefore, the divine parent is the perfect description of creative consciousness that many call God. Thus, Jesus intuitively realized his divinity and went on to explain that it is true of ALL humanity!

That is the good news and it is truly good news. Being an eternal expression of creative divinity is good news we can use. He goes on to explain that by the very nature of the material world, the kosmos, the universe there is the likelihood of trouble, suffering, tribulation etc. However, there is likewise the opportunity for pleasure, peace and love. There is the possibility of experiencing the knowledge of the parent and thereby expanding that knowledge.

Eternity is now. It is always now. It has no future, and it has no past. Therefore, the knowledge that one is eternal and eternally part of the creator and creation, is what overcomes or conquers the kosmos, the material universe. This is the perspective that embraces faith in the eternal conscious creator. It is also the source of theodicy.

Both spiritual and material wickedness is a thought form linked to the material universe. While it has real effects, it does not have eternal effects. Therefore, the nature of creative consciousness which is love and peace conquers the material universe always. Putting trust in that knowledge lets each of us individual conscious agents, offspring of the parent conquer as well. Be of good cheer and have peace!

  

The Conscious Cosmos: Skinwalker Ranch an Alternative Perspective

I think it is important to begin this article with a fact about the most recent Nobel Prize in Physics. It was awarded to Alain Aspect, John Clauser, and Anton Zeilinger. These three essentially proved that the universe is not locally real. This means that matter is dependent on the observer and implies that consciousness is foundational to reality. Why do I bring this into the discussion about an overview of Skinwalker ranch? Well, it is to demonstrate that current physics may not be the answer to discovering what is going on at this location in the Uintah Basin of northeastern Utah.

According to Frank Salisbury and Joseph Junior Hicks, high strangeness has been ubiquitous in the Uintah Basin for at least eighty years. Then, there is the book “Skinwalkers at the Pentagon” and most recently the docuseries on the History Channel, “The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch.” I mention these three specifics because they are all interrelated and they paint a unified picture of the fact that consciousness is at work in this area in an anomalous and paranormal way. Of  course it is not just the above three that have led me to this conclusion but they provide the framework that needs to be fleshed out.

Since the 1960’s and going back hundreds if not thousands of years there are reports of UAP’s, Poltergeists, Orbs, Cryptids, and all-around strange happenings with the area. That would be very difficult to believe if reality is indeed material. However, if the universe is not locally real, if it needs an observer to collapse the wave function into a particle of matter, then all of those supposed anomalies and paranormal experiences would be possible. It can even account for how two individuals see the same event or object differently. It is in a non-locally real universe that all of the anomalies can easily exist. This brings us to the Uintah Basin and Skinwalker Ranch.

Current physicalist, materialist science asserts that the UAP phenomenon has to be nuts and bolts and the product of a further advanced civilization capable of unknown physics. But, if one looks at the universe in terms of the latest advancements in quantum mechanics there emerges a plausible way that what we call and consider the paranormal could in fact be normal, or at least feasible, just not normal with our current understanding. And, if it is not locally real it could even seem like it was spiritual and not natural or material.

This brings me to the book “Skinwalkers at the Pentagon.” It is a book that details the AAWSAP program and the experiences that happened on Skinwalker Ranch and how they affected the lives of some of the participants even away from the ranch. As it turns out, much of the anomalous phenomena was of a nature that could be considered spiritual, or consciousness generated. AAWSAP was a program financed by the Department of Defense that financed a scientific investigation of UAP’s and other high strangeness associated with the ranch. The contractor that received the contract for AAWSAP was Robert Bigelow and his BAASS organization. BAASS stands for the Bigelow Advanced Aviation and Space Studies.

AAWSAP was headed up by James Lacatski of the DoD and also involved an intelligence analyst, Jay Stratton (called Jonathan Axelrod in the book Skinwalkers at the Pentagon.) There has been a lot of scorn thrown at the program, especially by Steven Greenstreet of the New York Post. He has done a video series that ridicules the program and throws shade on all those associated with it.

BAASS had among many employees Colm Kelleher who headed the program and others like Hal Puthoff who were involved with remote viewing. There are photos that show Kelleher and Puthoff along with Jacques Vallee’ and Robert Bigelow from an earlier association. These are all individuals that were convinced by experience of the strangeness of the phenomenon. This fact adds to the ridicule that the venture gets from those firmly ensconced in a materialist physicalist dogmatic approach to science.

During this time, Robert Bigelow owned Skinwalker Ranch. The AAWSAP program lasted through 2012 when it ended. Four years later Bigelow sold the ranch to Brandon Fugal, a wealthy real estate businessman from Salt Lake City Utah. This ultimately led to the scientific investigation of the ranch that has culminated in the docuseries on the History Channel, The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch. This four-season series continues to document and study all of the anomalous phenomena on Skinwalker Ranch.

Moving back to the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2022, I find a question for perhaps a different or alternative perspective of Skinwalker Ranch. What if all of the materialist, physicalist scientists are wrong about the phenomena? What if consciousness is fundamental and the material universe with space and time and matter arises out of consciousness? That would make James Lacatski, Colm Kelleher, and Hal Puthoff et. al. not ridiculous but scientific pioneers. That would mean that all of the strange experiences reported in the book “Skinwalkers at the Pentagon” were actually true.

So now, the Brandon Fugal team, and the History Channel docuseries, are drawing in some circles, the same ridicule, skepticism, and accusations that are connected with the former program and the entire phenomenon in the Uintah Basin. In this perspective it is important that the current team and their effort continue as designed and let the critics be damned. It is possible that the scientific investigation will lead a path closer to understanding the strange universe we live in.

The Conscious Cosmos: Skinwalker Ranch, My Analysis Part One

Consciousness does not arise from physics. Physics arises from consciousness.

I am not a scientist, so this is not a scientific analysis. I am more of a philosopher and am deeply interested in the nature of reality. This analysis is more philosophical, psychological, and sociological than scientific, especially if you do not view the former three hard sciences. I hold to some kind of idealistic panpsychist view of reality. It is in this that my interest in Skinwalker Ranch and the docuseries arises. Skinwalker Ranch is a veritable laboratory for consciousness.

Sometimes the obvious is obscured. Historically we have had at the most two-hundred and fifty years of materialist physicalist science. On the other hand, we have had thousands of years of philosophy with humanity trying to answer the basic questions of the nature of reality. Too many people have lost sight of that history and have smugly settled for the more recent history of science. That has been to the peril of advancement in my view. Not to technological advancement. But, it has to philosophical advancement in understanding the nature of reality. Every physicalist theory has always been replaced as incomplete and just a portion of the larger story. From Copernicus to Galileo to Newton to Einstein, to all of the many physicists the understanding of the nature of reality has evolved and each theory has been replaced by the next generation. Those theories were good so far as they went but were simply incomplete. It is time for physicalists to exchange their hubris for humility!

So, this brings me to Skinwalker ranch and the Uintah Basin. There is a remarkable history of personal anecdotal stories about the anomalous and paranormal activities of that area. One of the areas that sociology takes into consideration is people’s stories and experiences. They are very important. Testimony has been revered for centuries in the legal area. We have given people the death penalty and locked people up for life based on testimony. The fact is that the more similar testimonies that exist, the more reliable they are. It should be noted that experiences and observations are a product of consciousness. It mystifies me as to why people are so incredulous for people’s stories about the anomalous and the paranormal. Especially when these stories of experience have been told over thousands of years by a multitude of experiencers.

The overview of the Skinwalker Ranch and its surrounding area shows that a multitude of people have experienced all kinds of anomalous phenomena. It ranges from orbs, to lights, to unusual entities, to unusual energies, to poltergeist activity, and it seems to me like a playground for consciousness. It seems obvious to me that it is consciousness that causes all of the phenomena and that it is for some reason messing with perception. Therefore, investigation and documentation is very important. That is what the docuseries is doing. In addition, the investigation team is openly offering themselves to public scrutiny by their many appearances on YouTube, and at conferences. The Insider’s Website is also giving unprecedented access to the ranch and its environs.

No, I am not a blind believer in anything. However, I do believe people until it is proved otherwise. One can intuitively judge people and their stories and their motives. At least I can, and I think many others can as well, and truth be told, all can if they would but trust and develop their gut awareness’s. I believe the current Skinwalker Ranch team and their stories. I believe the stories told in the book Skinwalkers at the Pentagon. I believe the stories related in the Ryan Skinner and Cheryl Carter books. I believe the stories that were collected by Junior Hicks and recorded in the book “The Utah UFO Display. There are way too many of them and they have too much in common to be all fictitious.  When you add to this all of the stories reported to MUFON and again look at the similarities the picture is overwhelming.

If consciousness is foundational and it appears that it may be; If as the latest Nobel Prize winners in physics proved that the universe is not locally real is true; Then consciousness is likely foundational and since that has been the predominant theory for thousands of years until the last two hundred years, a lot more credence should be given to exploring the experiences of the anomalies, recording them to build a database that can be analyzed by AI and begin to find predominant patterns that exist across the globe and across time.

Because of that I applaud Brandon Fugal and the History Channel for giving Skinwalker Ranch and the Uintah Basin a platform for a large audience to see.

Part 5: Basement Office Rebuttal, Skinwalker Ranch – Judgment Day

Greenstreet’s final hit piece on Skinwalker Ranch was entitled Judgment Day.  In it he was hyper critical of the docuseries and Brandon Fugal. I am presenting an alternative judgment about the docuseries and the scientific investigation taking place in the Uintah Basin in Northeastern Utah. Greenstreet caps it off with his camping over night at Homestead 2 on the ranch. However, he uses this to inject some of his most vitriolic criticism of the Brandon Fugal stewardship. But also, he unwittingly bolsters the current narrative of the ranch and I’ll get into that a little later. Like the other three episodes on the Fugal years, he was critical of the Mormons.

He shows his experience at homestead 2 but most of the time is spent with inserts suggesting that the narrative from the docuseries is fabricated or at the very least greatly embellished. The thing I find perplexing is that Brandon Fugal and the team are very sincere in their entire exchange with Greenstreet and it is a stretch for him to suggest that they are untruthful. He goes on to ask them about the more sensational things mentioned in the book “Skinwalkers at the Pentagon. He is fixated on the dino-beaver story and gets them to say they have not seen anything like that. What he does not take into consideration is that some of the experiences that accompany the ranch for some people are likely generated in consciousness. This would be very plausible if consciousness is foundational to reality and it is certainly a theory that is gaining strength.

However, there are ample examples of things happening at the ranch that are anomalous. For example, when he entered homestead two there were several loud thumps against the wall. It was not just a one time thing. There were indeed several loud thumps. They are not that different from what Dr. Travis Taylor reports about what happens to him at night in his trailer. He often hears thumps and banging on the outside walls. Greenstreet offered no plausible reason for the knocking, and if he could have, he certainly would have. That is obvious from him chasing down a bat to explain what flew in front of him in the dark. However, in the case of the thumps he came up with no answers.

Now, when he walked to the fence line of the property, based on what he had heard from a security officer from the Bigelow era, he had some additional experiences that by his admission were anomalous. When he arrived at the fence line bordering Ute property, he felt fear. He then, through what could only be called mystical means, felt the necessity to speak words assuring that he meant no harm and had now ill will, and as he spoke them it was as if they came into his mind with specific instructions. He said very slowly as if it was coming to him on the fly, “I harbor no ill will (pause) and intentions. The way he said it showed that he was receiving instructions as he thought. This was indicative of someone or something affecting his consciousness at the moment. But there was more. At that precise time his lightning detector which warns of electric energy spikes went off. Coincidence? From watching three seasons of the docuseries, I do not think so. Then, at the same moment his eyes and face began to burn. They swelled up. Why? He claims that is was an allergic reaction, but that makes no sense. The reason is that he was at that fence line earlier with Brandon and had no allergic reaction. He then went on to explain that when he left the ranch, he bought allergy medication, and it went away. But it could also have gone away because he left the ranch. So, Greenstreet actually experienced some of the high strangeness that he tries to debunk.

Another area where he corroborated Brandon Fugal was centered around Brandon being summoned to Washington D.C. to testify before governmental officials. Brandon had photos of the meeting and there were definitely people there from the Department of Defense. Greenstreet tried to get information about the meeting and instead got the run around. He finally received an answer that he thought was implausible and silly. They stated that he was requested there to provide his plans for Skinwalker Ranch. This is one place I have to agree with Greenstreet, the answer makes no sense.

So, it is my judgment that Greenstreet did a hit piece on Brandon and the ranch. It should not surprise me because he has been doing that all along. He stated that his source in the Pentagon told him that there were those there believe in UFO’s and search for them on the taxpayers `dime. Lue Elizondo has stated repeatedly that there are those in the Pentagon who do not want to acknowledge UFO’s for religious reasons. Having been a theologian at one time and affiliated with evangelical Christianity, frankly I believe Lue. It seems that there is an interest with the Department of Defense and the military in the ranch. There have been several documented cases of black ops planes and helicopters nosing around. Is Dr. Taylor right? Does Greenstreet have a nefarious motive associated with shadow entities? By shadow entities I mean black operations and not shadow people. It is possible. Quite frankly it is as likely as the conspiracy theory that Greenstreet has spun about the Brandon Fugal era.

You can find Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3  Part  4 here.

 

Part 4: Basement Office Rebuttal, Skinwalker Ranch – Signs and Wonders

It is in his next to last video, “Signs and Wonders” where Steven Greenstreet was the most guilty of the sin of omission. I use the term because he wanted to use a religious metaphor in all of his videos about current day Skinwalker Ranch, the docuseries, and the Brandon Fugal Stewardship of the ranch. I really like Brandon’s use of the word stewardship to describe his relationship to the ranch as sole owner. The fact is that we should all think of ourselves as stewards with everything we own and really all of our relationships with family, friends, spouses, pets and everything on the planet living or not. We are most definitely stewards of the material corporeal world, and being aware of that would go a long way toward improving how we act and treat our planet and its occupants.

Back to Greenstreet. I already mentioned in the introductory post that he misrepresented the way the team spoke about the foyer of the ranch house. James Lacatski saw what he saw in the kitchen from the foyer and so the team changed nothing with their anecdotes about visitors to the ranch house. This is especially true considering that consciousness is foundational to reality and there are many known power spots across the planet where many people, and I mean thousands, experience paranormal activity. A famous one that comes to mind is near Sedona Arizona. It is very plausible to believe that the foyer is one such power spot. I think it is funny because in one of his ads running up to the series, he had a photo of himself sitting in the foyer contemplating tubular bells as he said. This demonstrates that he knew that Lacatski was in the foyer when he saw them. Greenstreet certainly omitted that when he proceeded with his butcher piece.

I completely assumed that he would address things that were shown in the three seasons of the docuseries and ask questions about that but, he did not. He only showed glimpses of the medical issues and through inuendo dismissed them as either false or not caused by the ranch. He had ample opportunity to ask them about the metal found in the mesa, or the multiple UAP’s that were spotted in places and at times where they could not be Starlink satellites. He never referenced Dr. Travis Taylor’s radiation poisoning. It was almost as if he had not watched the docuseries. Throughout all of his videos connected with the visit to the ranch he continually made religious references and was overtly suggesting that the all of the team were gullible believers in UFO’s and the paranormal and he used their religious affiliation as proof that they had a different motive for the ranch investigation.

It was like he bought all of the physicalist scientific arguments against the exploration and investigation without really understanding them. Rather, he seemed to simply accept as fact all of physicalist scientific dogma oblivious to the fact that it is coming under heated scrutiny these days. He was definitely an experiencer but a non-believing skeptical experiencer denying his sighting of a UAP in Utah years before. Interestingly, he does a cameo appearance at the end of the film “A Tear in the Sky” and is supportive of it. The fact is that the film, while very good in my estimation, actually is very similar to the docuseries he is hell bent on debunking.

As I see it, Brandon Fugal, the Skinwalker Ranch team of investigators, and their docuseries is on the frontier of scientific investigation. While I do not doubt the experiences of the NIDS team and the BASS AAWSAP program, the current investigation has purposefully avoided some of the more exotic claims. Likely those claims are real experiences of a consciousness induced nature. As some form of the panpsychist view is gaining more credibility and respectability, the current investigation has more and more importance. Documenting the anomalies, energy spikes, apparitions, and UAP sightings is important. It is like the key and the kite which led to a giant leap forward for humanity technologically. Let the doubters, the debunkers, the physicalist dogmatist keep on. To insinuate there is not a scientific investigation going on at Skinwalker Ranch requires a hidden agenda.

You can find Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 here.