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SAMPLE READINGS
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What happens to you when you die? In the past, and up to the present,
this age-old question has been met with speculation, philosophy and religious
doctrine! Now, it can be answered. If we were more open-minded and could
view multiple personalities more openly, we would get the answer to this
question! To be certain, the answers would not be clear because it is
difficult to explain the next reality to individuals living in this reality.
But even so, the answers are available for the taking.
Christians may be surprised to learn that the concept of "Resurrection" came from the religions of Ancient Egypt. Those religions believed that the same body that died would return to life in the afterlife. So, at death, they prepared the body so it would return. That was the purpose of mummification. However, resurrections are a poor way to reincarnate because if the body returns, it comes with all of its previous weaknesses and ailments.
Pages 3 - 4: Throughout history, our search for the soul has been a long and fruitless one. It has a long and interesting history going back even before the Ancient Romans, Greeks and Egyptians. Despite this long history, and a large collection of research data on the soul, we are no closer to understanding the soul today than we were in the time of Aristotle in Ancient Greece! The official scientific view is that the soul does not exist. Yet, our scientific research data strongly suggests that the soul exists even though our search for a definition of what constitutes life and living goes on with no resolution and none in sight! Although we can easily distinguish most living things from nonliving things, we are no closer today at defining those differences than we were thousands of years ago.
Pages 4 - 5: Around of the turn of the century from the 19th into the 20th century, Sigmund Freud became the first psychologist to be widely recognized for acknowledging that sexual matters are important to the soul. His ideas led to the development of psychoanalysis as a means of helping people resolve psychological problems! He recognized that sexual matters occupy a large amount of time and energy in our everyday existence. Even many people who aren't constantly pursuing sex spend a great deal of time in a losing, usually religious effort trying to stop others from doing so. Most of the time, mankind's attention is riveted on sex and food! And, while food tends to be of more concern to people, sex tends to take up more of our time and thought. We even try to incorporate the two by going out to eat during courtship, or "eating" various anatomical parts when in the process of sexual stimulation and petting! The only time our search for food diverts our attention from our pursuit of sex is when food becomes scarce or when we are faced with going without a meal or two. Only then does our pursuit of sex take a back seat to our pursuit for food. It turns out that our endless pursuit of sex is a quality of the soul, not an act of society or of human depravity! Despite our view that sex is the act of procreation, sex is actually the act of creating, and creating is the purpose of the soul! Procreation is only a small component of the creative process. The soul plays a role in EVERY ASPECT of the creative process! Thus, sex, that is, the creative process, is the main function of the soul!
Page 10: The power of the psyche should not be understated nor underestimated. Though ignored by psychology, it is not universally ignored in science. Some scientists have studied it and both the U.S. and former Soviet military have used it secretly for military purposes. While publicly dismissing the power of the psyche as "ridiculous", privately, the military has successfully used even the most controversial powers of the psyche for its own purposes in secret military operations. Once the awesome power of subatomic particles was known, neither the U.S. nor Soviet militaries could resist exploiting the potential powers of the ego. They are generally referred to as the "Powers of the Mind", but they are actually the combined power of the ego and the mind. The ego exerts this power and the mind manifests it. The mind acts randomly and without direction unless the ego is involved, but we are getting ahead of ourselves. Without the ego, the mind is an empty sailboat drifting aimlessly in an ocean of random thoughts.
Pages 10 - 11: Western societies also seem to have lost sight of the purpose of religion, that being to provide rituals to help harness the powers of the mind and the soul. When the ego practices the rituals of any religion, it becomes more disciplined and the discipline leads to growth. Having lost sight of this idea, many religions tend to focus on the myths and their religious "laws" as they assume that only their myths are correct and only their religious "laws" are appropriate. These religious "laws" are not true laws at all, but merely useful guidelines by which to live (although some religious "laws" are useless and even counterproductive to our existence). The difference is that guidelines can be broken with impunity. A law cannot be broken. Religions or society may punish you for breaking their guidelines, but Nature does not punish you for breaking her laws. She simply doesn't allow you to break them, so they can't be broken. Who do you know that has broken the law of gravity or the laws of thermodynamics or the laws of motion? They cannot be broken. We can utilize them to our benefit or to our detriment, but we cannot break them.
The true value of religion lies in the discipline and practice religions provide. This allows adherents to discipline the ego and tap it powers and those of the mind. The practice is like going to a gym to build muscles or taking the time daily to practice an instrument. It hones psychic skills and builds mental "grooves", called habits, in the subconscious. Practice invokes and utilizes Newton's laws of motion-inertia and momentum-to be discussed later.
Pages 13 - 14: We now know that a spiritual reality exists although we don't call it "spiritual". We use it to our advantage each and every day, even as we simultaneously dismiss its spiritual nature. Its existence has been proven even though we fail to acknowledge it to be what it is, 'spiritual'. You may not believe in its existence even as you read this, but if you are reading this at night, no doubt you have the proof in front of you. Electricity, magnetism and gravity are different forms of spirit. They are abstractions that have no physical reality. Their existence is perceived and experienced because of the physical particles with which they interact. Are you using an electrical appliance at present, or have you listened to a radio, looked at television, worked on a computer, used a light bulb or used electricity, magnetism or gravity today? If so, then you too have unknowingly used spirit today-and yesterday and the day before that-and you will use it again today, tomorrow and beyond. Even without electricity, magnetism and gravity, if you were merely to go into the sunlight, you would still be dealing with spirit. Sunlight and all light are merely electromagnetic waves-spirit! So, the existence of spirit is a proven fact. We don't call the different forms of spirit by that term, but, as the saying goes, a rose by any other name is still a rose. So, spirit by any other name is still spirit.
Pages 18 - 19: Neither the soul, nor any of its components have any physical existence, but like electricity, magnetism and gravity, the soul and each of its components interact with physical matter. Unlike electricity, magnetism and gravity, each of which interacts directly with physical matter, we shall see that the soul only interacts with electricity. Subsequently, the electricity interacts with physical matter, i.e., with living cells. Thus, the soul only interacts with the body indirectly through electricity.
The evidence for the existence of the soul separate from and independent of the body is overwhelming. The same is true of the mind and its relationship to the brain, but this relationship is always ignored and swept under the table in favor of the more generally accepted ideas of science that assume that the mind arises from the processes of the brain, a scientific assumption with absolutely no basis in fact! The assumption is merely a groundless, but cherished (and thus widely accepted) belief. This is important because the mind is part of the soul. Still, despite their abstract (i.e., nonphysical) nature, there is nothing about the existence of the soul or its components that disobey any laws of physics as we understand them today, that is inconsistent with generally accepted scientific laws or that differs from the existence of gravity, electricity or magnetism except that the soul does not interact with the body (matter) directly. Gravity, electricity and magnetism all exert their effects directly on physical particles, but they obviously continue to exist even when they are not interacting with physical particles. The soul exerts its influence over electromagnetic fields associated with the body, and the latter elicits a response in the body. Thoughts, for example, precede the electrical events in the nervous system that elicit the release of chemicals in the brain or the movement of muscles.
Page 21: Since the mid 1930s, we've been able to study the most likely candidate for the soul, but since it has gone unrecognized, we've been unable to make the correlations necessary to form a connection between this 'thing', called the "L-field", and the potential components of the soul! If we were to assume that the L-field discovered by Dr. Harold Saxton Burr really is the soul, then the next logical step would be to attempt to make a connection between the L-field and the ego, conscience, personality and mind! No such effort has been undertaken as of this writing, in part because the ego, conscience, personality and mind are poorly defined and, in part because psychologists still don't believe in the psyche (soul). However, the available data (loosely) suggests that such a correlation could exist, and the data strongly suggests a correlation between the L-field and the body organs!
Pages 25 - 25: Psychology as we generally approach it today, has more or less become the study of the mind, but it is actually supposed to be the study of the soul. Psyche is taken from the Greek word for "soul", and -ology is "the study of", so "psychology" is actually the study of the soul! In their effort to gain acceptability and respect, psychologists officially dismissed the abstract concepts and terms from psychology that set that discipline apart from other disciplines. At a time when physics and chemistry were including abstract concepts from quantum mechanics and modern physics, psychologists were dismissing the very same types of abstract concepts!
Page 27: Dr. Burr recognized a phenomenon he and his associates called the "L-field". Although the soul has not been defined as the L-field, the latter has all the elements necessary to qualify as the soul. The L-field is a biological morphogenic field. Morphogenic fields are a concept from embryology and developmental biology. It goes back to the days of Aristotle and his idea of a vital force. In ancient times, philosophers believed that some force had to exist to direct the growth of the developing fetus. This force was called the "vital force". By the 18th and 19th centuries, scientists had begun to take concepts and notes from the new science of electricity and magnetism. By then, science recognized that iron filings placed in a magnetic field took on a characteristic pattern that was dictated by the magnetic field. Unable to understand the force that gave living things their characteristic forms, biologists adopted a morphogenic theory similar to that in magnetism.
Page 28: Each component of the psyche has a counterpart in the physical body. Understanding how these components relate to the body can be confusing. For example, on the surface, most individuals assume that the brain is the physical counterpart of the mind, a belief that has lead to the assumption that, "The mind only exists as a result of the processes and activity of the brain." Actually, despite a connection between the mind and the brain, the ego and the brain are counterparts. The reproductive system, the skeletal system and the muscular system are the physical counterparts to the mind. That being the case, it is highly unlikely that the mind arises from brain activity. We certainly realize that the muscles, bones and reproductive organs don't give rise to the mind, and neither psychologists nor neuroscientists assume that the brain gives rise to the ego! So, to avoid confusion, we should avoid associations between the psyche and the body until future research has refuted or more firmly established these associations.
Page 33: The mind has three levels of consciousness: the conscious mind, the subconscious mind and the superconscious mind. Although its existence has been confirmed by Western science and it has been acknowledged in the East for millennia, the superconscious is not presently known to science. Superconsciousness does not give rise to abnormal psychological states. It can act on a collective psyche level involving numerous different psyches outside the confines of a single, individual psyche or a single physical body. Dr. William McDougall accidentally discovered evidence for its existence in the late 1920s as the result of genetics experiments. We will have more to say about McDougall's experiments later in the book.
Page 39: Morphogenic theory assumes that some type of field, similar in nature to a magnetic field, causes the developing cell that arose from a fertilized egg to go through the various developmental stages from fertilization to birth, and onward throughout life until death. This field is referred to as a "morphogenic field". Morphogenic fields are field phenomena that are thought, in theory, to influence the development of an organism so as to cause it to take on the form that it eventually assumes in the same manner that a magnetic field affects and organizes iron filings placed within the field. The term morpho- means form and genesis means to generate. So, a morphogenic field would endow the form on a developing organism.
Page 40: The first solid evidence for the existence of morphogenic fields came from Dr. Harold Saxton Burr, a physician and professor at Yale who pursued these studies from the 1930s until his death in 1973. Dr. Burr and his group called these electrodynamic fields "the fields of life" or "L fields". Burr found L fields for every living thing he examined. He noticed that different kinds of living things had characteristic L fields. L fields are electrodynamic fields that exist as electric potential gradients around the body and organize the cells of the body in the same way that magnetic fields organize iron filings. A gradient is merely an uneven distribution of something. In this case, it is an uneven distribution of electric charge. Electrodynamic simply refers to a field that moves electric charges.
Pages 40 - 41: The L field organizes and maintains or preserves the form or design of the organism in the same manner as a magnetic field organizes iron filings. They are the true fields of life, and, like the magnetic field, the L-field is an abstraction. That is, L fields are real, but they do not exist physically even though they affect physical particles. In this case, the physical particles are living cells. They meet the criteria for the classical interactions of modern physics between abstract waves and physical particles, called wave-particle interactions, but they are much more complex than simple electromagnetic fields. Burr found L fields to be true organizing fields of an organism. They organize the cells of the body into arms, legs, muscle, brain tissue, etc. Since L fields organize the cells into an organism, they must exist before conception. Like all fields, L fields are immortal. So they, and thus, the essence that is you, are immortal! The evidence also suggests that L fields may account for consciousness, the mind and many other abstractions of psychology and, at the same time, answer the age-old question, "What distinguishes living things from non-living things?" In short, his research suggests that science may have finally uncovered solid evidence for the existence of the soul and provided information as to what the soul is and what it does.
Pages 41 - 42: The search for the source of the fields of the soul continues, and, like the fruitless search in physics for a universal medium called the ether, the search for the physical source of these field phenomena is doomed to failure. It is important to understand that fields are real 'things' in and of themselves. They have their own existence and so, they do not have or need a physical source or a physical existence. We now have the physics to support this statement, but we refuse to apply that physics to the abstractions of life and the living things we regularly encounter. For example, an electric generator is not the source of electricity. It is merely the point of manifestation for an electric field that exists everywhere (omnipresent). Generators harness rather than create electricity and the brain harnesses rather than creates the consciousness of the mind. If a component of the generator breaks down, the electric field does not cease to exist even though it is no longer physically expressed. The same is true of the psyche, but when a component of the body "breaks", the body malfunctions until it heals, or it dies. And, just like the electric field, the psyche does not cease to exist. The body is not the source of the psyche. The body merely harnesses spiritual energy-it harnesses the soul. If the body ceases to function (i.e., dies), the soul still exists. So, the soul exists before the body is conceived and will continue to exist after the body dies! Although we reject this idea, the point is not debatable. It is actually a requirement arising from the laws of physics!
Page 46: As we began to better understand electricity, we realized that it involves an interaction between abstract waves and physical atoms. This process, referred to as "wave-particle interactions", was first noticed in electromagnetic phenomena in the 1860s through the 1880s, and became better understood through studies of nuclear physics in the 1920s and 1930s. Sex arises as the natural outgrowth of the wave-particle properties of matter and the interactions of abstract energy with physical matter, that is, as a natural outgrowth from the interaction of force fields with matter. This point can easily go unnoticed, and usually is, until we realize the true nature of sex and how it translates for other force fields.
As we continue on, you will find an extremely strong association between spirit and sex, and therefore between sex and the soul. The psyche itself is sexless, being neither male nor female. There are no male or female souls, only male bodies and female bodies. All of the sex differences we encounter among living organisms arise from the wave-particle interactions between fields (spirit as soul) and matter. At the spiritual level, sexual intercourse for the soul (the creative process we call prayer) can and does occur without need for different sexual genders! Perhaps something similar is also true for electromagnetism and other abstract fields know to physics. We have little or no information or data that would allow us to form an opinion in either direction!
Page 47: Most people are so preoccupied with the physical pleasures of sex that they fail to realize the true value and scope of sex. Although we generally view procreation as the real purpose of sex, that role has consequences far beyond what may seem apparent. Children are only perks. People attach such importance to the pleasures of sex that they fail to realize how truly important sex is, and how central a role sex serves in all existence. Sex provides food, clothing, shelter, financial stability, jobs and more, not to mention entertainment, pleasure and offspring. While we may take issue with the extremes to which people will go for sex, when we realize how important sex is to our survival, it is understandable that Nature would endow plants and animals with such strong sexual drives.
Page 48: Once you realize that farming is a sex act, you can truly realize how important sex actually is other than for procreation! Understanding this point may even help to improve your intimate sex life because you may not take intimacy for granted. Far from merely being the means for procreation and the thing of pleasure that leads so many people to secretly pursue it, sex provides all nutrients required for health, that being FOOD! It also provides shelter (wood) and clothes (wool, silk, etc.). So, life is impossible without sex! But, sex is very different at the spiritual level from what it is at the physical level. In fact, at the spiritual level, sex as we generally think of and know it doesn't exist. Whereas sex is required for physical procreation, spiritual existence is immortal, so sex is not required for spiritual procreation of the soul! At the spiritual level where "things" are immortal, sex is necessary for creation and transformation, but once created, spiritual energy is eternal. Even so, sex still provides spiritual food. All inspiration for music, literature and art come from sex (i.e., the creative process). If you have a new idea, the sexual process created it. If you design a new building, the sexual process created it. If you create a new architectural structure or come up with any new concept or idea, it arose from the sexual process.
Page 49: Perhaps the most ironic aspect about the soul is that the religious, those who most fervently want you to avoid sex, are the very people who encourage you to have it because they encourage prayer, and prayer is a sexual act. The main function of the soul is creation. The process by which the soul initiates the creative process is called "prayer". Prayer, of course, is the thing religions encourage, but prayer is the soul's form of sexual intercourse, the sexual act. Far from being the simple process we encounter in religion, prayer is a complicated process that involves stimulating the intellect, using volition and getting the three minds to work in unison. Like other forms of sex, prayer involves foreplay, intercourse and nurturing the developing product of prayer.
Meditation is sexual foreplay for the soul. Its purpose is to focus and clear the conscious mind. The mind consists of three interacting components, only two of which have been recognized by science. Information from the subconscious mind tends to spill into the conscious mind. If you try to spend just one minute without a thought, you will realize how difficult that is. In meditation, you focus on one idea to the exclusion of all others. Then, when you are focused on that one idea, you exclude that one as well. In prayer, your intellect uses volition to eliminate all thoughts from your conscious mind through meditation and to focus on the visualized or imagined idea of the prayer, seeing it as you choose to see it. Subsequently, the subconscious, the superconscious and the creative force known as "chi" act on the idea and/or the visualized image so as to create it! So, in prayer, the intellect, volition, the conscious, subconscious, superconscious and imagination interact as one in the creative process. In this process, volition serves as the penis while the subconscious and imagination (each) serve as both the vagina and the womb.
Page 50: Perhaps the most ironic aspect about the soul is that the religious, those who most fervently want you to avoid sex, are the very people who encourage you to have it because they encourage prayer, and prayer is a sexual act. The main function of the soul is creation. The process by which the soul initiates the creative process is called "prayer". Prayer, of course, is the thing religions encourage, but prayer is the soul's form of sexual intercourse, the sexual act. Far from being the simple process we encounter in religion, prayer is a complicated process that involves stimulating the intellect, using volition and getting the three minds to work in unison. Like other forms of sex, prayer involves foreplay, intercourse and nurturing the developing product of prayer.
Meditation is sexual foreplay for the soul. Its purpose is to focus and clear the conscious mind. The mind consists of three interacting components, only two of which have been recognized by science. Information from the subconscious mind tends to spill into the conscious mind. If you try to spend just one minute without a thought, you will realize how difficult that is. In meditation, you focus on one idea to the exclusion of all others. Then, when you are focused on that one idea, you exclude that one as well. In prayer, your intellect uses volition to eliminate all thoughts from your conscious mind through meditation and to focus on the visualized or imagined idea of the prayer, seeing it as you choose to see it. Subsequently, the subconscious, the superconscious and the creative force known as "chi" act on the idea and/or the visualized image so as to create it! So, in prayer, the intellect, volition, the conscious, subconscious, superconscious and imagination interact as one in the creative process. In this process, volition serves as the penis while the subconscious and imagination (each) serve as both the vagina and the womb.
Page 52: Finally, we need to understand the general notion of sex as the creative process and that creation as the main function of the soul. If we are truly to understand this idea, we need to view the creative process in its most general form. When an artist creates a great painting or sculpture, he or she is involved in the creative process, sex. When a musician creates a fantastic song or a jazz artist engages in improvisation, he or she is involved in the creative process, sex. Likewise for scientists, engineers, teachers, writers, athletes, coaches or individuals in any and all professions. Creativity leads to excellence, and creation is the sexual process. Those who are most creative are those who delve the deepest into their soul. Even learning is a creative act because learning requires creativity! All creativity is sexual, and all creativity arises from the soul. What we view as "sex" is merely a particular form of the creative process. Once we understand this, we will have a better understanding of sex and of the soul.
Page 60: So, despite our skepticism and uncertainty about life after life, the evidence strongly suggests that spiritual life precedes physical life and continues after physical life! We may have doubts, and mainstream science may attempt to explain the data away, but science will eventually need to come to terms with this idea. Life is eternal. The body may die, but life goes on!
Pages 17 - 18: What has been said has not
been frivolous talk. Embedded in these true stories and italicized words
are lessons, what I have called "Mating Maxims," that exist
even in children, continue through adulthood, and from what studies on
sex in the elderly seem to indicate, will follow us to the grave. We may
or may not admit them to ourselves, particularly in early childhood, or
if you're a parent, particularly not about your child, or not if you're
religious, or in any one of an infinite number of situations, but they
are there all the same, even as children, and apparently in all children.
Maxims such as the UDA principles , the laws of seduction , the principles
of power , and the others that follow are apparently simple biological
principles that change in character and color from one chronological age
to the next, but always exist and never cease to exist even though we
may try to suppress them.
Pages 22 -23: Sex , love and romance are deeply spiritual "things" that are widely misunderstood in the West. Much of today's literature on sex is devoid of the true spirit of the act. Western textbooks and manuals on sex focus on techniques, displays of passion, the importance of variation in sexual techniques and little more. What is missing, even from books and manuals that cover the emotion , passion , intimacy and psychology of intercourse and relationships, is any real presentation of the truly spiritual nature of sex or of the trio of sex, love and romance. We in the West are perhaps particularly guilty of this for two reasons. First, although we profess a belief in God and religion , our society focuses upon a scientific foundation that disavows any validity to a spiritual reality . We acknowledge and admit this reality in church , then go to our homes, schools, jobs and businesses dismissing the existence of such a reality. When we actually see spiritual acts we dismiss them as fraudulent, and yet many of us are equally likely to accept fraudulent acts as real.
Pages 23 -24: Another sign of how physically rather than spiritually focused our western Judeao-Christian religions are, is evident in the abortion issue. Quite a number of anti-abortionists, and probably most pro-choice proponents too, seem to believe that the soul is destroyed with the body. Jehovah's witnesses teach that those who live as God desires will come back to physical life on this physical earth. Thus, theologians who are supposed to be spiritually focused tend to agree with physically focused scientists who dismiss spiritual "things" such as the mind . As a result, "Most scientists, though, find (the existence of an abstract, immaterial mind along with the physical brain ) untenable, principally because it implies that the mind is not a measurable phenomenon. They see the mind in terms of a single reality-the philosophical view known as monism , which is shared by many theologians. They are determined to show that it can be accounted for in material terms." (Gina Maranto , "The Mind within the Brain", DISCOVER Magazine, p. 35, May, 1984.) This theological view, of course, and similar ideas disavows any true belief in a spiritual existence. How are we ever to get a grasp on spirituality if even our theologians dismiss it! No wonder we are so down on sex, love and romance. All three are deeply spiritual things!
Page 24: These are not haphazard rules presented to evoke controversy or stimulate titillation. They are general statements that reflect natural behaviors and the laws responsible for them, in men and women from all cultures around the world. Although colored by culture, these rules do not vary from nation to nation, religion to religion or culture to culture. For example, it may be more difficult for a man to have sex with a Japanese or catholic woman early in their relationship than with an American or an atheist, but even so, in most cases it will still be true that if you "Tap her head, her legs pop open" and "A man who fails to have sex with a willing woman early in their relationship usually risks losing her." These principles, no matter how distasteful they may seem, are based on and reflect the laws and principles of nature and biology, not those of the culture, religion or national origin that colors them. I do not make the news folks. I just report it.
Page 25: THE UDA PRINCIPLES :
1. Women, not men, have the strongest sexual urges.
2. Women, not men have the strongest sex drives, that is, women are more
driven than men by sex.
3. Women, not men, have the largest sexual appetite.
4. The male sex drive is basically focused in the chase and the novelty
of the interaction. It decreases after the first few sexual encounters
and must be renewed by novelty, variety and/or abstinence from a particular
woman.
5. Gentlemen, if you don't want to have sex with a woman, don't put yourself
in situations where you'll have to accept it if offered because it will
be offered to you at times that you least expect it!
UDA is an acronym that stands for urges, drives and appetites. We are speaking of the sexual urges, drives and appetites, of course. These principles, therefore, are the ones that generally describe the sexual urges, drives and appetites of individuals. For the most part, they refer to women because the sex urges, drives and appetites are greatest in women. This is described in detail throughout the book and need not be further considered at this point.
Pages 26 -27: These are the sexual principles that empower individuals of each sex. They are not necessarily distributed equally among the sexes, so let me acknowledge to the ladies that some, perhaps most of the principles of power may appear somewhat sexist. Unfortunately, I did not make the rules, nature did! So, I cannot account for their apparently sexist nature. Furthermore, none of the rules are true for all women, or true all of the time. Actually, all the sexual maxims apply to both men and women, but none apply equally to both sexes. For example, some men prefer, indeed, require, a dominant woman who makes all or most of the decisions, and some women absolutely hate for the man to have most of the decision making roles. The Laws of Nature cannot be broken, but as for the rules of Nature, sometimes there are exceptions even to the exceptions! (There is even a rule of chemistry that has an exception to the exception! I can't remember it now, but I believe it's a rule of organic chemistry.) Nature is not an equal opportunity employer. The principles of power apply more strongly to women than to men because women are so strongly driven by their sexual urges, drives and appetite , and are therefore the ones most empowered by them, although they generally give up most of their power to the man.
Page 33: So, due to the considerable female sex drive, the male's sexual influence over her actually arises from her enjoyment of sex with him-how well he stimulates her libido- rather than the promise of obtaining sex from him. A woman will sacrifice her ego to satisfy her libido, but with a man ego, not libido, is all-important. Women can promise a man sex and entice him and, in so doing, exert considerable influence over him by feeding his ego, but women are motivated by performance rather than the promise. Good performance opens her mind to him, colors her perspective of him and alters her view of life in general and of the entire world. Thus the reason for the wording, "use their penis as a tool" in the second maxim. While men are also greatly influenced by sex, the effect on them is much more transient, it has little bearing on how well she performs (most men are more than adequately satisfied by virtually any sexual performance, not so for women) and he is basically interested in the enjoyment of the sex rather than the pleasure of the relationship, so his ongoing, overall worldview is much less affected by sex than is his ego for the moment.
Page 37: I have a childhood friend who says, if your lady comes home and catches you in the middle of doing "the wild thing", get up, put on your clothes and deny it! Just straight up and out deny it. "Nope, it wasn't me. I didn't do it. It may have been someone who looks like me or sounds like me but it wasn't me." The thing is that it has worked even when he got caught. It has failed too! It works because that's exactly what she wants to hear, so she deceives herself into believing it. A woman's self deception is particularly effective when she hasn't caught her man, but only suspects him of something. For example, one of my friends' ladies once asked him to, "Just be honest with me. No matter what you say, I can take it and won't be angry. Did you screw another woman last night?" Now, he had screwed so much he could hardly walk, so the answer was to be a clear and decisive, "Yes." He told me how he answered.
He said, "I looked her straight in the eyes, became very serious and said to her, 'All right honey. I'm going to tell you the honest to God truth. Did I screw another woman last night? No! Absolutely not!'" A big smile came over her face, she began grinning from ear to ear and gave him a big kiss exclaiming, "I knew you wouldn't do that!" Ironically, this woman was psychic. She had caught him a couple of times through her psychic sensitivity to him. Yet, in this instance she never even suspected the truth because she just didn't want to believe it. Ladies, telling a man what he wants to hear doesn't work as well because of male jealousy, but it does work since in so doing, you can stroke his ego. Stroking the ego and telling a person what they want to hear are not always the same maxim, especially because telling a woman what she wants to hear stimulates her libido rather than her ego, the latter of which she is willing to sacrifice. However, sometimes telling a man what he wants to hear and stroking his ego is exactly the same thing.
Page 39: I expect that these principles will be subject to considerable attention and scrutiny in our "monogamous" society simply because they point out that human beings are not really monogamous. Monogamy is an unnatural state for humans, other mammals and for most animals in general. In our Western, Christian society many people will have real problems with these ideas, but despite the problems, there is simply no evidence that monogamy is a natural state for humans, or that it works, but it does serve a functional purpose and have distinct advantages. In nature, most males practice polygamy by having many female mates simultaneously and most females practice polygamy by mating with many different males during the course of their life, but only one or two at a time. A quick look around will prove without question that this is really the case for 75-95% of all humans as well. Even in societies where sexual monogamy is strongly encouraged and strictly enforced, this general behavior is a good deal more common than is evident. Extramarital and extra-relational affairs follow this same pattern. That is, men generally have more affairs than women, and may have several different affairs simultaneously whereas women generally have only a few affairs, and usually (but certainly not always) have them with only one or two men at a time. Still, statistically, about the same number of men as women have affairs. This point is driven home throughout the book in that virtually all the women described are involved or have been involved in extramarital or extra-relational affairs. I'll let this point stand for now.
THE PRINCIPLE OF ENTRAPMENT : A man chases a woman until she catches him. In other words, a woman sets a trap and the man falls into it. This is often true even when he is the first one interested in a relationship.
This is another humorous maxim, the only one in this class. It is, "A man chases a woman until she catches him." All humor aside, I think that women are more aware of this than men, but whatever the case, the maxim appears to be true in many cases.
Page 40: Many ladies tend to believe that social inequalities in favor of men only exist because men control society. A survey of the animal kingdom would amply disprove this idea. These apparently social inequalities are actually biological inequalities that exist because society is a reflection of biology. Even in the animal kingdom, most tasks are not equally distributed between the sexes. Females usually do the most work and the most difficult work while the males do the least work and the least difficult tasks. In lions, for example, the male lays around "protecting the pride (group)", which usually means doing nothing, while the female hunts. When she brings back a kill, the males eat first, according to their rank, then the females, then the cubs. Many birds are likewise. Sometimes the male does the hunting and the females watch the nest or both take turns watching the nest, but in many if not most cases the female will hwatch the nest, take care of the young, hunt, etc. The male goes to find another mate. Let me say it again. Nature is not an equal opportunity employer. We must accept that and deal with it properly. If we can realize and accept that reality, perhaps then we can rid ourselves of some of the sexual inequalities that exist needlessly.
Page 43:
MAXIM OF RECIPROCITY : Even though the soul has no sexual gender, there
is an aspect of spirit that arises from sexual gender. In men it projects
ego, and in women it projects emotion. The existence of this aspect proves
that there is a reciprocal, interaction between mind and body, spiritual
and physical realities. Physical reality alters the spiritual and vice
versa. If there were not an interaction between the physical and the spiritual,
then sexual gender based behavioral differences could not exist because
the soul has no sexual gender.
This is a rather unique maxim. It doesn't fit with any of the others, and in fact probably arises from all of the others. The fact that there is so much sexual inequality in the maxims when males and females are spiritually identical gives rise to this maxim. On a physical level it appears as if men and women are different spiritually, but they aren't. At least, their souls aren't. Spiritually, there are only souls, not male souls and female souls. The appearance that souls have sexual gender arises from the interaction of spiritual reality with physical form. That is essentially the message of this maxim. In fact, other forms of spirit give the impression that spiritual opposites exist when they interact with matter, even though no such spiritual opposites exist. For example, electricity gives rise to positively and negatively charged particles when it interacts with matter, but electricity itself is not charged! Likewise, gravity becomes north polarized and south polarized, but gravity itself is not polarized!
Page 45: Women express the true power of sex in nature. Men, it seems, are expendable. Women have insatiable sex urges, sex drives and sexual appetites. As far as these three things go, "Men have harems, but women need them" just to satisfy their urges, drives and appetites. Why, then, is it the other way around? The answer seems to revolve around Darwin's concept of the continuation and survival of the species. One man can impregnate many women (as they are driven by nature to try to do), but once impregnated she must nourish the fertilized embryo, give birth to and nurse the young for some time thereafter. The man is therefore expendable. Thus, harems of females with a single male serve nature's purpose of continuing the species whereas harems of males with a single female would not. The harem of females would grow and expand rapidly whereas the harem of males would not! Today we have far too many "civilized" people on the planet, and we're rapidly getting more, so the need for harems of women and even for sex, among "civilized" peoples is relatively non-existent, but among the primitive peoples it is greater than ever and growing as they and their lifestyles and existence are becoming increasingly threatened and extinct.
Page 46: Many religions go to great lengths to deny the value and importance of sex and keep it away from the pious. Quite clearly, these religions have made a mistake in doing so rather than developing sex in a spiritual manner and turning human attention away from the trivial, physical manifestations of sex towards its much more valuable, useful and empowering spiritual ones. Like these religions, it is clear that most people today are quite unaware of the tremendous power and spiritual usefulness of sex and sexual intercourse. This ignorance is more common to the pious than the less pious or non-pious, and is most true of the religious leaders-nuns, priests, rabbis, bishops, ministers and the like-who try to hide or deny their sexual nature and desires under vows of chastity, virginity, abstinence, celibacy and similar observances because they have erroneously been taught and have generally accepted that this is as it should be, that this is what God wanted and wants.
Not so! First, God is not a Superhuman Being, nor a being of any kind, so God doesn't have wants and desires! Second, if God wanted you chaste, It (I call God It so as to recognize the dual, male-female nature of the Thing and not to personify It) would not have made the sex drive and sexual urges so strong, compelling and overwhelming.* By conceptualizing and creating this denial of sex, religions have unknowingly denied you and themselves of a great element of power and disobeyed a biblical mandate to "Be fruitful and multiply" (Genesis 1:28), not so much today in this time of severe global overpopulation (where, unfortunately, abortions are necessary, whether or not they are desirable), but certainly in the past. In other words, far from telling you to abstain, the Bible tells you to sexually indulge yourself, but we have done so unwisely, on a purely physical basis and totally neglected the considerable spiritual nature of sex and sexual things.
Sex is the creative process. It is actually a spiritual phenomenon, in its entirety, that empowers us. Sex includes, but is not restricted to procreation! The creative process leads to the creation of great (and not so great) literature, inspiring (and uninspiring) music, beautiful (and hideous) art, mediocre and innovative scientific and engineering marvels, fine and terrible cuisine, great and forgettable architecture, captivating and uninspiring dance, etc. The meaning of the word "spiritual" and the phrase "spiritual reality" or "spiritual realm" is defined in detail in chapter 4. Whenever the spiritual combines with the physical, the former invigorates and enhances the latter. A few years ago I accidentally came upon the realization that sexual intimacy and intercourse could
* - Actually, God doesn't care in the least. We tend to personify God, making It like a person rather than deifying man, making us like God, or as God says in the Bible, "Man has become as one of us" (Genesis 1:26-27). It is not a person that has likes and dislikes, wants and desires like we do. It doesn't care what we do one way or another. Our only requirement is to continue on a path of spiritual growth. As long as we do so, God helps us and provides us with whatever is needed and requested. If we veer from the path of growth, then we lose this assistance. There are no other requirements. Whichever road we choose, God doesn't care in the least, but we will because we will set our fate for ourselves, as we always do.
be a meaningful spiritual experience, a way of learning and a substantial means of growth. The greater spiritual benefits of that growth appear to require preparation which neither my past partners or I had achieved.
Page 48: It's difficult to say whether men or women waste the most sexual energy. The only thing that can be said for sure is that both sexes waste most of it and that they waste it differently. Many women commonly waste it by putting it into soap operas, romantic novels and unused fantasies or they channel it into masturbation. That so much of it is wasted in fantasies is both unfortunate and a dilemma because fantasies are the source of much creative energy, and sexual fantasies can be especially so. Men generally waste sexual energy by seeing an endless array of attractive women pass them daily and going no further with it than to think to themselves, "I sure would like to get into her panties," or something to that effect. After those thoughts, the energy is dropped, and dissipates or is channeled into masturbation. Both sexes are likely to waste sexual energy in masturbation. Everyone does it at one time or another, and much of the time masturbation is beneficial and constructive, but some of the sexual energy used for masturbation could be channeled towards other, more constructive endeavors.
This book is all about how to re-channel, refocus, redirect and use the sexual energy generated daily that would otherwise be wasted or lost. It's a problem seldom discussed in sex books and manuals, almost never discussed in this manner by sex therapists or marriage counselors, seldom if ever considered by most people, and never discussed in church where spiritual matters should be discussed, and sex is a spiritual matter. Sex therapists and marriage counselors don't discuss it because they are not trained in it and, like virtually everyone else, it seldom crosses most of their minds.
Pages 48 - 49: Sexual energy is among the most potent energies in nature. It is the creative energy of nature, the energy we always use in prayer. When you pray, if you do so properly, you are in the active state of creating. As a result, you are involved in sexual intercourse, the spiritual counterpart of the physical act-that is, planting a mental seed into the fertile creative soil of God's mind, nurturing it and watching it grow just as a man plants sperm, the male component of the human seed, into the creative soil of a woman's womb to fertilize her egg before the woman nurtures the resultant developing fetus (which is the developing fertilized seed) and watches it grow. So, when you have sexual intercourse, "There is a wider range of mental facts involved in this than mere sexual desire" (taken from PLEASURE AND INSTINCT, p. 82, by Arthur Henry Burlton Allen). You are actually in the active state of creating, not just fetuses and babies, but thoughts, dreams, emotions, desires, ideas, drives and much more, all of which can be used to bring about changes in the physical world. In fact, we shall see that sexual intercourse can both stimulate and retard prayer and physical change.
On a spiritual, mental and emotional level, sex is simply the act of creating. A new idea conceived in the mind and nurtured until manifested into physical reality is exactly like a baby conceived in a woman's womb, nurtured for nine months and then delivered into the world. In fact, when planned, a baby starts out as nothing more than an idea conceived in the mind. If the idea-any idea-is not fertilized, acted upon and nurtured, it's ultimately lost to physical reality. Adding faith, that is, strong belief and expectation fertilizes ideas. The mental spark of conception that fertilizes the idea could be anything, but many physical situations of sexual desire are potent sparks for the conception and fertilization of ideas because strong emotions such as affection, love, hate, jealousy, anger, fear, passion and compassion-all very common in sexual and romantic situations-are great sparks for generating ideas. Few aspects of existence generate more or stronger emotions than romantic situations. These emotions are creative energy that generates more energy that can be used to generate ideas, more mental energy, faith/belief or to physically act on ideas already manifested as physical objects or things.
Page 50: Love is not the crude thing we so commonly attribute to romantic situations. Sex is the creative process and love is the creative force! All love is spiritual, and all physical sex arises from a spiritual reality. It is a spiritual quality and a universal nurturing force, combined with affection and compassion, that is independent of all sexual situations but which enhances sexual situations just as it enhances all other situations in life. As the creative force, love always involves some degree of nurturing, affection and compassion, but is much more because its effects can strengthen any bond or improve any situation. When exaggerated or abused, love converts to lust and loses its beneficial qualities. It becomes selfish and degenerative rather than nurturing, affectionate and compassionate. At that point it is no longer creative love. It is destructive (still love, but less than nurturing and compassionate!)
Like virtually everything else in life, love is a spectrum, ranging from love to lust. The entire spectrum is love, but at one end of the spectrum, love is nurturing and constructive whereas as the other end of the spectrum, love transforms into its degenerative and destructive form-lust. Even so, lust can sometimes be beneficial and constructive whereas love can sometimes be degenerative and destructive, consistent with the typical paradoxes of life. As the Bible so aptly notes, there is a proper time for every activity under the sun (Ecclesiastes 3:1-12). Thus, there is even a proper time for lust, and a proper time to restrain from love! Remember, physical life only survives and goes on because of physical death. If people and living things did not die, they could not live! We eat food, bringing on death, in order to live. In cell development from conception to birth, the fertilized egg only becomes a little baby because some cells begin to die at some point long before birth! If none of the developing cells died, the whole organism would die!
Pages 51 - 52: Like virtually anything else,
sex can be a means to praise or to ignore God. After all, sex is the creative
process used by the Creative Force (which is both God and Love). Since
all love is spiritual, and romance is the combination of love and sex,
all romance is also spiritual. This automatically places romantic sex
in the realm of an expression of worship and praise to God. If each partner's
mind is sufficiently pure and sincere when they are romantically inclined,
and if their personalities are mentally bound, their union is a marriage-albeit
a mental and spiritual one-and physical sex unknowingly becomes an act
of worship and an expression of praise to God, and to the god aspect in
each individual partner. So, even if churches do not sanction it, it is
none-the-less, a true and lasting marriage in the eyes of God. That, after
all, is the only matter that counts. After intercourse, this sexual worship
of, and praise to God often continues to be expressed in each partner's
changed attitude and behavior.
Pages 53 - 54: Taking the example of the grain of corn, we find that if
love is added to the sexual act of planting the seed, the developing plant
is nurtured along. The soil is made ready before planting (foreplay) by
pulverizing it, clearing the weeds and adding fertilizer. In romantic
situations the merged minds and compatible personalities are the fertilizer
and their interaction is the foreplay. After fertilization, the seed is
planted into the ground (sexual intercourse with or without orgasm). Then,
the developing seed is nurtured by removing weeds, by watering if there
is insufficient rain, or sheltering from the sun or too much rain if the
rain should result in floods and by generally doing whatever is necessary
to produce a healthy, mature crop of corn (or a baby's birth and growth).
The love, therefore, is more like the act of nurturing although love itself
is more than mere nurturing and affection because its effects last beyond
the nurturing process itself. So, sex with love, or if viewed as just
described, fertilizing and planting a seed with nurturing, is romance.
Notice the nurturing occurs before, during and after sex (fertilizing
and planting the seed). Also notice that both the soil and the seed must
be fertilized. In romance, the soil is the mind and the seed is the idea
for romance or intercourse, so both the mind and the idea must be fertilized.
Page 54: So, you are constantly having sex,
sometimes leading to romance, at other times not. To hold a negative view
of either sex or romance, especially romance, is one of the greatest mistakes
possible. Nothing exists without them. Prayer is also an act of sex, but
only romantic prayer is successful. In prayer, you prepare the mind through
meditation and fertilize it with faith. This is foreplay. Then, you plant
a suggestion, which is the fertilized seed. This seed is also fertilized
with faith, but combined with action. The suggestion is your prayer request.
Then, the soil of the mind is fertilized with more faith and action. Other
aspects of the prayer process include visualization, breathing, relaxation
and aspects of the process discussed elsewhere in the book. Purely sexual
prayer (making a suggestion without fertilizing and nurturing the suggestion
before, during and after it is planted) is both unsuccessful and unrewarding.
Love, that is, the entire nurturing process with a measure of compassion
and affection added, is crucial to successful prayer. So now we can see
sex in another light, sex as an act of prayer, whether we're speaking
of sex between two bodies, or sex in farming or sex as in prayer suggestions,
it's all just sex.
Pages 2 - 3: Many of the difficult or inconsistent ideas in the
Bible are commonly sloughed off or ignored making an accurate interpretation
of the Bible difficult at best, or impossible at worst. The following
journey is an escapade through difficult, commonly overlooked or totally
ignored terrain. There will be no attempt to overlook the Bible's inconsistencies
and contradictions, and no crime, sex or violence will be ignored just
because it may be a bit embarrassing or difficult to explain. In fact,
contradictions and inconsistencies will be eagerly sought in an attempt
to show that the authors of the Bible may have purposely included them
so as to help clarify the topic they were discussing. Thus, it may be
a grave mistake to exclude them. Many significant oversights are considered,
such as the fact that God is usually the culprit behind many acts commonly
thought of as evil, that reincarnation is a major concept taught throughout
the Bible or that the biblical idea of death is not a state in which the
soul loses consciousness nor ceases to exist. All of these points will
be considered in depth, with the aim of clarifying the contents of the
Bible.
Page 3: Few stories have caused as much
controversy as the biblical story of creation. Well-meaning, sincere individuals
often insist that the biblical creation is an accurate account of events
even though the Bible frequently uses allegory. Many elements of the biblical
creation are especially interesting and informative, and set the stage
for other allegories. As Genesis begins, "...the earth (is) without
form and void,...." This is a chaotic situation that gradually becomes
ordered, illustrating a frequently recurring change throughout the Bible,
that is, the movement of events from a disordered state to an ordered
state and back to disorder, a phenomenon called entropy. All things in
Nature undergo these cyclic changes: nothing remains the same forever.
The Bible is simply a description of the normal events in Nature.
Page 6: Creation as described in Genesis is an ordered progression of
events symbolic of the way all natural events proceed. If we observe the
phenomena of Nature we can see that all natural processes and all aspects
of life take place in progressive, intimately intertwined stages, one
series of events leading to the next. According to the Bible, both creation
and the end of creation progress, or evolve through stages. In the creative
process each series of events prepares the way for those that follow.
At the end of creation "the world shall return to its original silence
for seven days as at the beginning of creation, and no one shall be left
alive" (2 Esdras 7:30). Not only events in Genesis, but also the
events of the latter days as described in Revelation are an ordered series
of events. Progression or evolution, whichever word you may choose to
use, is an absolute requirement of God. Ezra writes, "Just as everything
that is done on earth has its beginning and end clearly marked, so it
is with the times that the Most High has determined: their beginning is
marked by portents and miracles, and their end by manifestations of power"
(2 Esdras 9:6). In other words, the evolution or progression of these
particular events moves from portents and miracles to manifestations of
power. Creation is an ongoing, never ending process.
Page 10:
"The man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil...."
Genesis 3:22
Taken together, these passages suggest that man is like God, an idea presented or implied throughout the Bible and emphasized by Christ in the New Testament. One thing that makes man like God is his knowledge of good and evil, knowledge of which the Bible gives many warnings. These repeated warnings appear to be given because any act can be either good or evil, depending on its context and the interpretation. This seems to be the whole point behind the story of Job3 and the passage in Ecclesiastes 3:1-12, both of which show that "all things prove good at their proper time" (Ecclesiasticus 39:34). These passages indicate that Adam and Eve made a drastic change as to what they thought of as good and what they thought of as evil after they ate the forbidden fruit. Before eating the fruit, it seems that only good existed. Even though both Adam and Eve were naked, it was "good". However, after eating the forbidden fruit, nakedness became "evil".
Page 11: Lust goes far beyond sex. It carries over into eating, thinking, dressing, and many other human behaviors. The previous passages quoted from Genesis illustrate that each individual must monitor and control his or her thoughts and habits before these become extreme (lust). The Bible gives many warnings about controlling one's mind, and about how people can perceive things that do not exist and miss things that exist. Eating the forbidden fruit symbolizes Adam and Eve's loss of mind and thought control and, that is to say, self-discipline. Their sudden new awareness of being naked symbolizes an increased interest in and awareness of physical reality over mental and spiritual reality. Spiritual and mental realities had become secondary to physical awareness. In becoming more physically oriented and aware, they began to concentrate more on how to act than how to think. As a result, the Bible talks a great deal about what acts are beneficial or detrimental. Anyone who has tried to diet is aware how difficult it is to control one's thoughts. It is the thoughts about food that cause people to fail in their diet. Knowing how to act is of little help, but knowing how to control your thoughts can completely stop an action. Although Genesis often speaks of spiritual existence, it deals mainly with rules for physical existence.
Page 16: The story of Noah is obviously a biblical allegory meant to suggest that the flood destroyed numerous people and animals and that only a few survived. To house this much food and these many animals, not to mention the number of people who would be required to feed the animals, maintain their living quarters or to gather so many animals in the first place, would require several aircraft carriers at least. Biblical allegories such as the flood and the creation are meant as inaccurate stories that explain real events without elaborating upon the exact details of the events. Such events are presented much as a parent might make up a partially inaccurate story to explain a real event to a child. The details appear to be less important than the message of the story itself. In the case of Noah the messages were that (1) people became evil and corrupt, (2) a great flood occurred and (3) many, but not quite all people and animals were destroyed.
Page 24: People are often afraid of things they dislike or don't understand. Frequently, those are the events that prove the most beneficial to us. There is a duality in Nature: things that seem quite distasteful and undesirable often turn out to be quite beneficial. Such transformations are a normal characteristic of Nature. Few stories in the Bible demonstrate this transformation as clearly as the story of Joseph. Although he encountered many undesirable experiences he always interpreted them as God's way of accomplishing a goal.
Pages 24-25: I cannot over-emphasize this point, and will repeat it again and again throughout the book; good and evil do not exist! All things, both good and evil, come from God. There is no such a thing as good and evil to Him. In His eyes all things are the same, and everything moves towards a final goal. Good and evil or right and wrong are your own individual value judgments. Although everything is good and right to God, that does not mean that everything is beneficial to man. Ecclesiastes and Job stress the neutrality of God and Nature. Even so, each person should remember that what is beneficial to one person can be harmful to another. The good and evil benefits lie in the interaction with you. Extremes exist in everything, as they must, but God's law calls for moderation (Ecclesiasticus 31:20 and 27).
Pages 29 - 30: No good book is complete without a good love story. The Bible has several from which to choose, such as the story of Solomon and Sheba or that of Samson and Delilah that we are about to consider. Samson was the Hebrew strongman of the Bible. He is usually remembered for his immense strength, but he was also a "judge over Israel for twenty years in the days of the Philistines" (Judges 15:20). His birth was announced to his parents by an angel, who remarked,
"...you will conceive and give birth to a son, and no razor shall
touch his head, for the boy is to be a Nazrite consecrated to God from
the day of his birth. He will strike the first blow to deliver Israel
from the power of the Philistines."
Judges 13:5
One day after he had grown up he saw a Philistine woman with whom he fell in love. Eventually she was given in marriage to another man. This made Samson very angry since she had been betroved to him, so he decided to settle his score with the Philistines. His revenge initiated a chain of vengeful acts, illustrating how every action leads to a reaction. Nature's laws also apply to the personality, although in a somewhat modified form. Whereas the physical effect of the law must conform to physical limitations the same laws are subject to freewill when expressed through consciousness. In both cases there is a reaction to the initial act, but the conscious mind has a choice as to what that reaction will be. This is the basic message that Moses presented to the Hebrews when he said,
"Today I offer you the choice of life a good, or death and evil."
Deuteronomy 30:15
Each person chooses life when they exercise their freewill in such a way as to bring harmony to nature, and they choose death when they have brought disharmony. You cannot break the laws of Mother Nature, the female aspect of God; you can only make them work for or against you.
Pages 31-32: Samson's eventual downfall and death resulted from his second romance. This was his renown romance with Delilah that, along with the story of Solomon and Sheba, is one of the two great biblical love stories (1 Kings 10-11). Samson's romance with Delilah is a particularly clear example of romantic treachery. It rather graphically illustrates how the wrong choice of a mate can lead to doom. Both Samson and Solomon appear to have been "lovers of women" (1 Kings 11:1). Samson fell in love with and married a Philistine woman (Judges 14:1-11) who was eventually killed (Judges 15:6), he associated with a prostitute (Judges 16:1) and then he "fell in love with a woman named Delilah" (Judges 16:4) according to the Bible. His choice of mates could not be thought of as wise. He seemed to have been led by passion and desire. Throughout the Bible there are warnings about the choice of mates and uncontrolled passions and desires. These are among the most important lessons to be gained from the story of Samson and Delilah. Samson seems to have broken an important rule: "Do not be enticed by a woman's beauty or set your heart on possessing her" (Ecclesiasticus 25:21). Elsewhere Ecclesiasticus says, "Do not let your passions be your guide, but restrain your desires" (Ecclesiasticus 18:30). Even though Delilah tricked Samson several times in order to find out what would rob him of his strength, and remarked "How can you say you love when you do not confide in me?", Samson never seemed to recognize Delilah's treachery. For his blindness he was seized, his eyes were gouged out and he was put in prison. Always a vengeful man, Samson asked, "Remember me, O Lord God, remember me: give me strength only this once, O God, and let me at one stroke be avenged on the Philistines for my two eyes" (Judges 16:28). With this request, "He put his arms round the two central pillars which supported the temple,...leaned forward with all his might, and the temple fell on the lords and on all the people who were in it" (Judges 16:29-31). He paid the ultimate price for his romantic passion and blindness; he paid with his life. Like the stories known as Aesop's Fables, there is a moral to this love story: Do not be led by passionate love and vain desires.
Pages 36-37: As we proceed through the various aspects of the Bible, you will notice that God is the source of everything. We have already touched upon this idea several times in this chapter, but it is not an easy one to grasp nor is it readily accepted. God is not a source, but the source of everything. All things, without exception, come from God. We are so indoctrinated to the idea that good comes from God and evil from the devil that most will neither accept nor even entertain the notion that both good and evil come from God. Job states, "If we accept good from God, shall we not accept evil?" (Job 2:10). Even as the book of Job begins we find that God permitted Satan to torment Job. Notice that Satan remarks,
"'Has not Job good reason to be God-fearing? Have you not hedged
him round on every side with your protection, him and his family and all
his possessions? Whatever he does you have blessed, and his herds have
increased beyond measure. But, stretch out your hand and touch all he
has, and then he will curse you to your face.' Then the Lord said to Satan,
'So be it. All that he has is in your hands; only Job himself you must
not touch.' And Satan left the Lord's presence."
Job 1:9-11
As this passage shows, it is not Satan who has power to harm Job, but rather God who has power over both Job and Satan and who permits Satan to harm Job. Thus, it is God who "stretch(es) out (his) hand and touch(es)" Job with misfortune. At most, all Satan does is asks permission to use the power of God, which he is granted when God says, "So be it." Another author who noticed this remarked, "Neither the Satan in Job nor the spirit in Micaiah's vision can do anything of their own power (of 2 Samuel 24:1; 1 Chronicles 21:1)."5 The two passages to which he refers contain a paradox. Both passages refer to the same incident, but one states that God caused the incident whereas the other states that Satan did. Thus, compare
"Once again the Israelites felt the Lord's anger, when He incited
David against them and gave him orders that Israel and Judah should be
counted. So he instructed Joab to go round all the tribes of Israel...and
report the number to him."
2 Samuel 24:1-2
with..
"Now Satan, setting himself against Israel, incited David to count
the people. So he instructed Joab and his public officers to go out and
number Israel...and to report the number to him."
2 Chronicles 21:1-2
Thus, 2 Samuel states that God incited David's actions whereas 2 Chronicles states that Satan incited those same actions. Clearly, these passages either contradict each other or they imply that "evil" and all the acts that people generally attribute to "the devil" actually arose from God's power. The latter statement appears to be correct. The Bible clearly states that "There is a time and method for every enterprise" (Ecclesiastes 8:6) and "all things prove good at their proper time" (Ecclesiasticus 39:34). "A wise man knows in his heart the right time and method for action" (Ecclesiastes 8:5). Therefore, it is not so much true that God causes evil nor that Satan or "the devil" actually exist as it is that all things are neutral, being neither good nor evil, even though we place our own value judgements on them. After considering these two passages, one could say Satan or the devil are nothing more than word symbols for God's anger. Those things we consider as good we attribute to God and those things we think of as evil we attribute to Satan. Yet, in reality, they have all come from God. This is an extremely important point to keep in mind as we proceed. Many of God's actions will seem "evil" unless one realizes that evil does not exist except in our own minds.
Page 43: Although I certainly do not wish to be a part of this controversy, the plain fact of the matter is that many of the details in these accounts are inaccurate and contradictory. In short, many of these stories are myths. In the past historians thought that myths and fables were made up stories with absolutely no basis in fact. However, during the 1960s many historians began to use the term mythopoeic, a term meant to acknowledge that myths represent inaccurate, even fictitious stories that describe real events and which are based upon accurate facts. In other words, the details of a myth are inaccurate, and may even be totally fictitious, but the story itself revolves around an idea that is accurate. In a phrase, a myth is as follows: inaccurate facts used to explain accurate ideas.
Page 44: Christ's common practice of speaking in parables is an important example of how seldom upon which a person can rely on literal, word-for-word interpretations of the Bible for an accurate understanding of the concepts conveyed. Let us not fail to realize that there are only two or three instances where Christ spoke plainly and then only to his disciples. At all other times he spoke in parables, riddles and symbols. Indeed, Matthew remarks about this when he states, "in fact he never spoke to (crowds) without a parable" (Matthew 13:35). Even when he spoke privately among the disciples they often failed to understand what he was saying (Matthew 17:9-13; John 21:23) because he also spoke to them in parables and riddles. If Christ placed so much emphasis on parables, riddles and symbols, why should anyone insist that every word of the Bible should be interpreted literally. Such insistence cannot help but be incorrect in light of what the Bible itself says.
Page 47: The repetition found in the historical books of the Bible is unique to them, and raises questions as to the authorship of many books and passages. Second Kings, chapter 19, for example, is an identical, word-for-word quote of Isaiah chapter 37. Was Isaiah actually the author, and if not who was and why was the chapter included in both books? Numerous word-for-word quotes can be found throughout the historical books, and spill over into the Psalms and the books of prophecy, but by far the most can be found within the historical books themselves. For example, much of 1 Kings is quoted in the beginning of 2 Chronicles and much of 2 Kings is quoted in the end of 2 Chronicles. Occasionally three or more books may have nearly identical passages such as 2 Samuel 8:15-18, 2 Samuel 20:23-26, 1 Kings 4:2-6 and 1 Chronicles 18:14-17 or 2 Kings 18:13-37, Isaiah 36:1-22 and 2 Chronicles 32:1-19. Other exact quotes can occasionally be found outside of the historical books such as in Ezra 2:1-70 and Nehemiah 7:6-73. Although there must be some reason for this repetition of exact quotes, that reason is not immediately obvious, and is seldom if ever pointed out or discussed. A study of this repetition may prove extremely fruitful and revealing.
Page 55: Natural law, as used here, refers
to the absolute laws of existence. They cannot be broken. Although some
of these laws are presented in the Bible, they are masked in a shroud
of mystery and are not stressed except to be repeated over and over. Since
the natural laws are difficult to understand, the biblical prophets present
a number of guidelines that, if followed properly, automatically result
in harmony with the natural laws. Although these guidelines are referred
to as laws, they are clearly only guidelines since they may be presented
at one place in the Bible and contradicted somewhere else. For example,
Moses goes to great length to illustrate what meats can be eaten and which
ones cannot (Leviticus 11:1-7) only to have Christ declare all meats edible
(Mark 7:18-19). Unlike the biblical guidelines, which are called laws,
there are no exceptions to the actual biblical laws. We shall discuss
a few of these laws.
Page 58: A natural consequence of the law of sequence is that coming events
must make an impression as they approach and must leave an impression
after they have passed. Christ refers to the residual effects of approaching
events as birth pangs,
"With all these things the birth pangs of a new age begin."
Matthew 24:8
Likewise, the angel Uriel refers to the law of sequence while speaking
to Ezra by saying,
"Just as everything that is done on earth has its beginning and end
clearly marked, so it is with the times which the Most High has determined:
their beginning is marked by portents and miracles, their end by manifestations
of power."
2 Esdras 9:5-6
In order to predict future events it is only necessary to be able to read the signs that precede the events.
Page 61: A second biblical statement of karma and the law of cycles is related to the Sabbath. This could be called "The Law of Rest and Replenishment." The Sabbath is a universal phenomenon throughout Nature. Although much discussion has been centered around which day is actually the Sabbath day, the Sabbath does not refer to any particular day of the week. It is simply a transition or a period of rest and replenishment between cyclic events.
Page 65: We shall skip the rules for installation and hallowing of priests as they have little relation to the rest of the book, and consider the rules of purification and atonement. Even these latter rules will only be mentioned briefly now because we will have much more to say about them later in this section. These rules refer to the purification of the spirit and soul, and appear to describe field effects, which I shall discuss shortly. Once again, Moses is describing physical rituals that are meant to produce spiritual results. The use of rituals is common in religions, and serves an important function. When rituals are performed repeatedly, the repetition makes an impression on the mind. Rituals for purification and atonement are not performed repeatedly, but other rituals are, so the purpose of repetitive rituals needs to be considered. Further consideration of the rules of purification and atonement will be put off until after we have looked at "Field Effects".
Page 76: Actually, there are many elements that all major religions have in common, and often, there are similarities between religions that are so close that they may even seem contrived. If we are to fully understand the message that Christ and the prophets tried to convey, we must acknowledge the common traits between different religions. For example, both the Persian Son of God, Zarathustra, also known as Zoraster, and the Christian Son of God, Christ, lived similar lives and performed similar feats. "Zarathustra healed the sick and restored the blind and deaf, by calling over the walls in the name of Father" (Book of God's Word, XXIX:6).
The common traits between religions can lead to some very confusing and unfortunate situations. The Hebrew religious tradition is a good example of this. It gave rise to three major religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam and numerous smaller ones. Judaism is based upon the teachings of Moses, a descendent of Adam, Noah and Abraham, and the hope for a promised Messiah whom the Jews believe has yet to arrive. Christianity is centered on the teachings of Christ was also a descendant of Adam, Noah and Abraham. Islam is centered on the teachings of the prophet Mohammed who, once again, was a descendent of Adam, Noah and Abraham. Many Christians and Jews are unaware that Mohammed was a descendant of Ishmael, the son of Abraham and his servant woman Hagar (Genesis 16:15). Abraham's wife Sarah could not have children, so it was customary in such cases for the husband to have offspring through a servant or concubine. Sarah was to later have a son named Isaac. Christ was a descendant of Isaac (Matthew 1:2), so Christ and Mohammed were distantly related. Christ and Mohammed were influenced by different cultures and different historical time periods. Both Christ's and Mohammed's teachings were further broken down into various Christian and Islamic sects such as the Catholic and Protestant sects in the case of Christianity and the Shiite or Sunni sects in the case of Islam.
Page 78: Each culture has had its great Teachers who have taught the Universal Laws of the One God. Many of these Teachers share traits in common. To my knowledge the two most similar ones were Christ and Zoraster, also known as Zarathustra, but several others have traits in common with these two and all have taught the same teachings. Christians portray Christ as the only person to have risen from the dead. In actual fact, several religions teach of individuals who have risen from the dead. Not only Christ, but Zarathustra, Brahma and Chine of Christianity, Persia, Hindusim and China respectively all arose from the dead according to the respective teachings about them. One could argue that these other teachings are copying the Christian religion, but such would be more or less impossible since Christianity is the most recent of these philosophies. Brahma was raised from the dead more than 2-3,000 years before Christ, or long before the birth of Moses. Chine, the founder of China, was also raised from the dead before Moses. Zarathustra was a Persian contemporary of Moses who lived and was raised from the dead at least several hundred years before Christ. Chine, Zarathustra and Brahma taught their followers for some time after their resurrection just as Christ did. As one of the opening passages of this section illustrates, "Chine walked about on earth" after his resurrection just as he did before his death, and no one could tell the difference. Zarathustra explains, "the spirit learns to attract from the air a corporeal body of its like and measure" (Book of God's Word XXIX:21). This is a result of the law of attraction taught in the Bible through the words,
"The righteous man shall reap the fruit of his own righteousness,
and the wicked man the fruit of his own wickedness."
Ezekiel 18:20
and many other similar passages.
Page 79: There are some truly amazing similarities between Christ and Zarathustra that deserve mention. These two resemble each other more than any two great religious teachers with whom I am acquainted. As I have stressed, all of the great religious teachers have taught the same principles, and at least four are said to have arisen from the dead. But some of the similarities between Christ and Zarathustra are nothing short of miraculous. Both Zarathustra and Christ were raised from the dead as has already been pointed out. One amazing similarity is how they died. Zarathustra was hanged on a cross between two thieves, as was Christ, although Zarathustra was tied to the cross rather than nailed. After Zarathustra's death there was a great earthquake, as was true for Christ. Although Zarathustra did not have a spear thrust into his side nor wear a crown of thorns, the similarity between his death and that of Christ is remarkable. Even with the differences, the similarities between these two crucifixions appear to be almost beyond coincidence, especially when you consider the two thieves that surrounded each man.9 Christians must keep in mind that Zarathustra was crucified and resurrected about 500 years before Christ was born!
Page 81: Like any fervent disciple, Buddha's disciples thought of him as the greatest person to have ever lived. In response to this praise, Buddha is once said to have remarked, "You have seen all of the Buddhas who are to come in the future" to which his disciples replied, "No." The Buddha said, "Well then, you have seen all of the Buddhas who have existed in the past" to which the disciples once again replied, "No." Finally Buddha replied, "Well then, certainly you know all the Buddhas who exist at present" to which his disciples once again replied, "No." So Buddha said, "Well then, you cannot say that I am the greatest Buddha ever to exist." Buddha's point appears to have been that many Buddhas have come and will come and that all men are equal in the eyes of God. As Christ taught, "the great must humble themselves" (Mark 10:43-45). There are many accounts of Buddha's life, and many of today's writers have pointed out the numerous similarities between Buddha's teachings and those of Christ. For those who are interested in further studies, may I recommend THE GOD OF BUDDHA, by Jamshed Fozdar and THE GOSPEL OF BUDDHA, by Paul Carus.
Pages 92 - 93: I do not mean to seem harsh towards those who label enjoyable activities as evil in their effort to persuade others to submit to God. Their interpretation and approach are quite understandable. The Bible itself uses fear to persuade people to submit to God, and there is often an association between evil and pleasurable activities, especially sex. However, anyone who thinks of the pleasurable activity as evil has missed the point. The Bible stresses that uncontrolled desires are the problem, not the activity associated with the desire.
"Do not yield to every impulse you can gratify or follow the desires
of your heart."
Ecclesiasticus 5:2
For example, sex does not upset Nature's balance, lust does! Any lust, whether it leads to sex, eating, drinking or even religion. Lust upsets the balance of Nature as is illustrated by the passage whenever a man looks upon a woman "with a lustful eye, he has committed adultery with her in his heart" (Matthew 5:28). Confusion is heightened by the fact that lust can lead to any particular activity whereas the desire for any particular activity can lead to lust, so there is a vicious circle. Ecclesiastes is virtually impossible to understand unless you realize that each desire must be controlled before it becomes excessive, i.e., before it becomes a lust.
Page 94: I do not mean to seem harsh towards those who label enjoyable activities as evil in their effort to persuade others to submit to God. Their interpretation and approach are quite understandable. The Bible itself uses fear to persuade people to submit to God, and there is often an association between evil and pleasurable activities, especially sex. However, anyone who thinks of the pleasurable activity as evil has missed the point. The Bible stresses that uncontrolled desires are the problem, not the activity associated with the desire.
"Do not yield to every impulse you can gratify or follow the desires
of your heart."
Ecclesiasticus 5:2
For example, sex does not upset Nature's balance, lust does! Any lust, whether it leads to sex, eating, drinking or even religion. Lust upsets the balance of Nature as is illustrated by the passage whenever a man looks upon a woman "with a lustful eye, he has committed adultery with her in his heart" (Matthew 5:28). Confusion is heightened by the fact that lust can lead to any particular activity whereas the desire for any particular activity can lead to lust, so there is a vicious circle. Ecclesiastes is virtually impossible to understand unless you realize that each desire must be controlled before it becomes excessive, i.e., before it becomes a lust.
Page 95: People often wonder why God refers
to himself in the plural in such passages as, "Let us make man in
our image and likeness..." (Genesis 1:26) and "Come, let us
go down there and confuse their speech,..." (Genesis 11:7). The passage
from Job clearly shows that the plural reference to God results because
he is speaking to the court of heaven, among which Satan is included.
The Book of Job is one of the very few places in the Old Testament where
the terms "devil" or "Satan" are used, and as always,
Satan seems to represent an aspect of God's dual nature as the source
of both good and evil. We can see this representation most clearly by
comparing 2 Samuel 24:1-2, which gives God credit for causing one of David's
actions, with 1 Chronicles 21:1-2, which gives the devil credit for causing
the same action. The Book of Job uses Satan more extensively than anywhere
in the Old Testament, a mere two chapters and part of a third. Yet, Satan
is used several times more frequently in Job than in the rest of the Old
Testament combined! Throughout Job, there is no pretense that Satan caused
Job's problems, nor the bitterness in Job himself. From the very beginning
these are attributed to God. As in the story of Adam and Eve (Genesis
3:1-24), and the confrontation between Moses and the Pharaoh (Exodus 10:27;
11:10; 7:3), once again we can see both good and evil arising from God
in the story of Job as we do throughout the Bible.
3 - Job is a book of the Bible. It recounts the story of a man named Job
whose interpersonal strength, faith and love for God were tested. It is
uncertain as to whether Job actually existed, or whether this is purely
a legend.
5 - Taken from TORAH AND CANON, p. 67, by James A. Sanders.
9 - Whenever a person died on a cross, any others who were around him
were criminals, although not necessarily thieves, because crucifixion
was a form of legal punishment comparable to the gas chamber or the electric
chair.
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