Eros to Saint Teresa

Eros spoke, "May I touch your flesh,
sear your breast with a lovely dart?
You will swoon dear one,
my poison will infect your heart
and make you forget the mundane,
those who watch your eyes roll back
will surely think you insane.
This world with all her woes will disappear from sight,
you will find ecstasy
as you slip from your body, through each kiss,
soaring into the velvet calm of the ethereal night."

Teresa whispered from her sleep,
"I have never known a man,
nor will I defile the flesh,
such love will never scorch my soul,
no palm nor lip shall cross my breast;
please take your dart and fly away,
let me wake another day
to love my God and serve my Lord,
mumble my prayers and read His Word."

Eros held his arrow aloft,
tilted his head and exposed her heart,
"Dear Teresa,
do you not understand?
Your God always comes disguised as a man,"
and drove his arrow home.

end/Michael

NECESSARY DESCENT

Desire imparts the sweet gift of expansion,
drawing me to a higher ledge
while this forbidden urge and the passing

Seasons shove me over the edge,
from summer to fall
into the Realm of Persephone’s sad call,

And my thoughts like porcelain tendrils
splinter the glassy soil
until it is time to rise…

Man is made to soar, to pierce the stratum
of the impossible sky,
to leap from the garden into the sun.

Icarus is in our blood, and his plunge
was not an end, but rather
the nudge to devise inflammable wings.

end/michael

The Organ of Soulful Perception

I have been reading a book by Henri Corbin, Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth, the guy who was so influential in Hillman's Archetypal psychology, besides Jung. It has been difficult-treading, but there are nuggets that have given me a much deeper understanding of what Hillman means by Psyche. This sentence in particular was very helpful,

"Such perception through the Imagination is therefore equivalent to a "dematerialization"; it changes the physical datum impressed upon the senses in a pure mirror, a spiritual transparency; thus it is that the Earth, and the things and beings of the Earth, raised to incandescence, allow the apparition of their Angels (Messengers) to penetrate to the visionary intuition."

I translate that to mean that every material incarnation is clothing worn by Psyche, adorning the Archetypes - and there is an Organ in us, perhaps the Heart, which can dematerialize and see through the clothing into Soul, or the Anima beneath all that is.

What is Real?

I was riding the ferry from Bainbridge Island to Seattle the other day. A little boy of about four years of age ran up and jumped into the seat of one of those car driving video games; he grabbed the steering wheel and yelled over his shoulder to his dad that he wanted to ‘drive the car’. His dad said, “It’s not a real car Jason.” The little boy looked at the machine and mumbled to himself, “But it’s a real video game.”


Reality comes in many shapes.

New Thought and Suffering

“The word "good" has many meanings. For example, if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of five hundred yards, I should call him a good shot, but not necessarily a good man.”
~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

The New Thought movement originated in the latter half of the 19th century. In 1902, the American psychologist William James called it the 'Religion of Healthy Mindedness' because of its emphasis on curing disease and creating external reality through one's thoughts. At about the same time, Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung referred to it in his book, Modern Man in Search of a Soul, calling it a religion whose time has come. Jung meant that modern people were abandoning dogmatic religion and seeking scientific spiritual principles based on pragmatic results. I am an unapologetic student and follower of New Thought teachings. Several New Thought principles helped me to stop being a victim, to take personal responsibility for my life and to pay attention to my thoughts as being creative or destructive. That being said, no religious movement is complete. We are always evolving or degenerating. Thankfully, his is a reognized principle of New Thought. One area that New Thought needs to address more fully, in my opinion, is that of suffering, pain and evil. The internationally recognized sociologist of religion, Peter Berger, has noted that the success of a religous venture is always measured by the way it addresses the issue of suffering.

In the following essay I will be critical of some New Thought approaches to suffering as only a devoted follower can be. Someone recently reminded me that New Thought honors suffering, and I completely agree. However, after twenty years of grateful involvement in the movement, I have noticed some discomfort around the the subject.

Yes, New Thought does honor suffering, and each church and minister has his or her own approah. However, I have experienced a general trend which sees most if not all of our suffering as unnecessarily self inflicted. This position is blatantly stated in the runaway best seller, The Secret, which I have evaluated elsewhere. There is often a tacit if not unconscious separation between God the Good and humanly caused suffering which is not a part of the ideal Universal plan. As Holmes says, "The world is beginning to realize that it has learned all it should through suffering and pain. Surely there can be no Intelligence in the Universe that wishes man to be sick, suffer pain, be unhappy and end in oblivion. Surely if God or Universal Intelligence is imbued with goodness, then It could not ordain that man should ultimately be other than a perfect expression of Life." SOM, p.107

Most New Thought teachers place a lot of emphasis on free will as the primary if not sole cause of all suffering, essentially creating a metaphysical chasm between God's Good world and humanly caused suffering. These teachers emphasized, as did Holmes, that we suffer because of free will and conscious choice. There is clearly some truth in this as our attitudes, actions and ideas bring pain into our individual and collective experiences. But is free will the solution to all suffering, chaos and destruction?

Free will never explained the chaotic nature of the wild cosmos which began with a Big Bang, and with 125 billion galaxies filled with colliding debris fields as the means to creation, or the earthly tsunamis and myriad 'natural disasters' which kill countless millions apart from any free choice. The Universal Cosmic Intelligence appears to be filled with exploding stars, meteorite crashes into planets, dark chaos and laws which cause injury or fatalities to living beings without the free will choice of those beings. The millions of dinosaurs and other species that have gone prematurely extinct were not destroyed because they had bad thoughts.

I never could accept the metaphysical speculations that people who were killed by natural disasters made a choice before they incarnated to die this way. These disasters were occuring long before humans evolved. The free will explanations for all pain and suffering seemed nearly identical to the doctrine of original sin I was taught in the Christian seminary. The Christians blamed all problems on Adam and Eve, New Thought blames it on the ego. Where did that rascal ego come from? And were there not disasters and chaos before the human ego showed up?

A UNIVERSE WITH NECESSARY PROBLEMS

It seems to me that if the Universal Intelligence created math and science problems to be solved, problems which caused me no end of suffering in high school and college, then It could also create life problems for the same end - to be overcome with a view to achieving some soul-making purpose. This is the position of Sri Aurobindo, “The discords of the world are God's discords and it is only by accepting and proceeding through them that we can arrive at the greater concords of his supreme harmony, the summits and thrilled vastnesses of his transcendent and his cosmic Ananda (Divine Joy).” The Adventure of Consciousness, p. 163

Eckhart Tolle writes that without suffering we would “not evolve as human beings and would remain shallow, identified with the external form of things. Suffering drives you deeper. The paradox is that suffering is caused by identification with form and erodes identification with form.” A New Earth, pp. 101-102

Jesus recognized that horrific events were a necessary part of God's world of soul-making, and people would be held responsible, "Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to fall (suffer)! Such tests must come, but woe to the person through whom they come." Matthew 18:7

Buddhism begins its whole system of teaching with dukkha, or displocation, the prerequisite for getting conscious and achieving enlightenment. This sounds a lot like Carl Jung's comical obervation that we spend the first half of life growing and ego and the second half deflating it. The Buddhist might say we spend the first few lifetimes achieving 'endarkenment' that we might seek enlightenment in the next several incarnations.

NEGLECT AND DENIAL

In some of my New Thought classes, I felt there was a neglect, if not outright denial, of the necessity and normalcy of such problems. Even Jesus said that some sufferings are not the result of any human will, but that the 'work of God' might be made manifest (John 9), and he seemed to be quoting God's words to Moses in Exodus 4:11 which say that God "makes people blind and deaf as well as seeing and hearing." And I do not believe it is true just because it's in the Bible, but New Thought teachers put a lot of stock in Jesus' teachings, as do I.

I see life as a soul-making process which includes the so called positive and negative as equally normal and necessary. That does not mean that we should seek, create, remain in or glorify pain and suffering – but neither should we deny that it is a central piece of the Creative Design for soul-making. I can agree with Holmes when he writes that there 'can be no Intelligence in the Universe that wishes man to be sick, suffer pain, be unhappy and end in oblivion,' but I see two separate ideas in his statement. No Intelligence may 'wish' for humans to suffer, just as no algebra teacher may 'wish' for her math student to agonize over the algebraic formula. But it has nothing to do with the teacher's wishes or personal feelings, and everything to do with the nature of a learning course which requires some amount of struggle in order to advance to the next level.

I see Spiritual Mind Treatment as a means to remind us of our Union with God the Good even when we feel disconnected - to *affirm healing, prosperity and wholeness – and to give thanks, then to let go of the outcome as Jesus did in the garden of Gethsemane, surrendering to the perfect will of God the Good even when it meant crucifixion. Yes, the resurrection did follow - but prior to that outcome, Jesus apprehended the Good through a mind founded on faith while in the midst of unimaginable suffering. As Aurobindo says, "...it is only by accepting and proceeding through them..."

See Part II

*The word affirm is etymologically related to the Indo-European root word dharma (foundation), which morphed into adhere and eventually affirm. The idea seems to be that an affirmation is adhering, by faith, to a universal, purposeful foundation.

Soul-making is Not Learned in a Text Book

“Anyone who wants to know the human psyche will learn next to nothing from experimental psychology. He would be better advised to abandon exact science, put away his scholar's gown, bid farewell to his study, and wander with human heart through the world.

There in the horrors of prisons, lunatic asylums and hospitals, in drab suburban pubs, in brothels and gambling-hells, in the salons of the elegant, the Stock Exchanges, socialist meetings, churches, revivalist gatherings and ecstatic sects, through love and hate, through the experience of passion in every form in his own body, he would reap richer stores of knowledge than text-books a foot thick could give him, and he will know how to doctor the sick with a real knowledge of the human soul.”
-- Carl Jung

MOVING FROM ILLUSIONIZATION TO REALIZATION

Many contemporary westerners are caught up in eastern philosophies. These folks often express a disdain for organized religion, preferring to be called spiritual. One area of fascination for these seekers is that of the eastern emphasis on the distinction between illusion and reality. They are keen on referring to the material world and mental thoughts as mere illusions. They say they are in pursuit of Reality, as if there were a clear cut demarcation between Reality and illusion. The idea seems to be that we are currently living in a world of illusion, but there exists a world of Reality to be discovered, somewhere. The goal is to meditate, find the right set of teachings, sit with an enlightened instructor and find the Realm of Reality. Etymologically the word Realm contains the root word real, implying that such an actual place of Reality literally exists. Once this elusive Reality is discovered, all worries disappear, fear subsides and one lives in perpetual peace, love and happiness. Ironically, this search for a literal Realm of Reality is little different than the traditional Christian view of a literal heaven, which most Realm seekers view with contempt. I don't think eastern religions are teaching what most westerners are seeking. I think we westerners have turned a powerful spiritual concept into a childish panacea.

It is more likely that the eastern philosophies are trying to teach that reality is an illusion, and illusion is reality. It is a soul-making idea. The ever expanding ego-self is constantly moving out of old realities and into new realities, into an infinitely expanding awareness of 'realities'. There is no literal Realm of Reality, but infinite layers of 'realities'. My current reality is the way my current ego-self sees the world around me. Soul-making suggests that old realities, like December snowmen, eventually melt into illusions under the Spring warming. Sunny new experiences always arrive to remove the old reality, bringing a different perspective to the growing ego-self. As the soul expands, former realities shift to illusions, exposing us to new realizations. Each emerging 'reality' contains the next illusion, and that illusion opens the door to a newer reality, which is destined to become the next illusion, ad infinitum. The goal is not to find the Realm of Reality, but to be present in the process of shifting from ego-self to ego-self as each new reality fades into an illusion.

I call it the move from illusionization to realization. There is no such thing as Self-Realization without Self-illusionization. There is no destination called the Realm of Reality once we shed the illusion. Those who actually think that one day they will arrive in a place called Reality will live in chronic spiritual agony, thinking that if they just try harder they will enter into the Eternal Rest Area, park their cars and relax for eternity. We are always learning, expanding, finding new 'realities' which always become illusions. The material world, human heart and mind are always shifting from event to event, person to person, thought to thought, feeling to feeling. These shifts are often tragically painful. It is difficult to see what I once thought to be secure, stable and certain fade away – moving from a reality to an illusion. Those who think they are making decisions based on yesterday's perceptions are fighting the soul-making process. There is no certainty or security from moment to moment, only the dissolution of perceived realities into the next reality.

This process is illustrated in a story told by presidential candidate Joe Biden, long time senator from Delaware, in his book Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics. Let me reproduce Biden's words about losing his wife and daughter in a car accident:

"Joe Biden was in Washington preparing to interview staff when he learned his wife Neilia and their young daughter Naomi had been killed in a car crash. Thankfully, his two sons, Beau and Hunter, who had also been in the accident, had survived. The incident was a devastating blow that plunged Biden into a depression. He understood firsthand how people could feel like ending their lives, but he knew he had no choice but to fight to stay alive for his sons. Biden didn’t believe he would be able to serve as senator, but his colleagues encouraged him to carry on. Ultimately, Biden felt he owed it to Neilia, who had worked so hard to help him get elected, to serve.

“Losing Neilia and Naomi had taken all the joy out of being a United States senator; it had taken all the joy out of life.” But Biden came to realize how lucky he was to work in a place where so many of his colleagues showed him small acts of kindness and would look out after him. There was far less partisanship back in those days and senators socialized more frequently and easily with members of the other party.

Biden tried to keep his despair at bay by keeping busy. Ultimately, however, he began to make peace with himself and God. He came to see the rage he had felt at his loss as an 'unbecoming form of egoism.' Bad things happen to people all the time, Biden realized, and it was time to get up and start living. "

Realized is a key word here. Before his realization, he had illusionized. This is a necessary step in making a soul. Biden had neither seen nor accepted the real world of soul-making which includes tragedy. His conception of reality had been an immature projection of his view of how life ought to be. The perceived reality of security, certainty and expected outcomes had to fade away. He had to fully experience the illusion of his old reality in order to move to the realization - the new reality.

I am not approaching this topic heartlessly or trivially. These deeply traumatic experiences of loss often bring thoughts of suicide, as Biden mentioned. Something in us cries out to die. But as James Hillman says in his book, Suicide and the Soul:

"A thorough crisis is a death experience; we cannot have the one without the other. From this we are led to conclude that the experience of death is requisite for psychic life. This implies that the suicidal crisis, because it is one of the ways of experiencing death, must also be considered necessary to the life of the soul…Without a dying to the world of the old order, there is no place for renewal…"

In other words, thoughts of physical suicide are not rare during such transitions through old realities into illusions, toward a new reality. The problem arises when a person mistakes the death of the external body for the death of the old internal psychic ego-self. Biden eventually awoke to see that the death he was craving was not the extermination of his physical body, but the death of his old reality. With lots of time, unimaginable agony, sleepless nights, a thousand rants at God, questions of 'what if', love from friends, and all of the normal and necessary birth pangs of soul-making, Senator Biden "came to see the rage he had felt at his loss as an 'unbecoming form of egoism.' Bad things happen to people all the time, Biden realized, and it was time to get up and start living."

Notice, he 'came to see.' In this phrase, we see the gradual emergence of the new reality. Biden's old reality of a picture-perfect family was illusionized in a car accident. Eventually, he discovered a new reality beyond the older one. Death was required, the death of the old reality. But we must remember that every reality, even the fresh new realities which emerge with supple wings from the chrysalis, will one day become a wormy illusion to make way for a newer reality and larger psychic self.

Soul-making requires disappointments, accidents and betrayals. Old realities will not become illusions containing the next reality without our 'appointments' and 'trusts' being broken. There is nothing in this world which guarantees an expected outcome. Earthly life, including all material forms and mental thoughts contain built-in obsolescence. They are innately made to dissolve and disappear.

This process of moving from illusionization to realization is retold every Easter as Jesus faces his crucifixion. He predicted that even his friends, family and followers would betray and deny him. He was not taken by surprise. People often seem puzzled when they read that Jesus predicted Judas' betrayal, Peter's denials, his arrest, trial and execution. Jesus understood the nature of life on earth. This is true positive thinking, seeing that life is rife with troubles and disappointments. The reason Jesus could go to the cross and forgive his enemies was that he knew he was primarily here to make a soul, not win friends and influence people.

Someone might read this and conclude that I am advocating some old Christian notion of forsaking wealth, health and sensual pleasure in this world. I am not. That is as much an error as saying we are here just to be healthy, wealthy and have sensual pleasure. Clearly, we are here to strive for whatever desires fill our hearts – to make money, find security, be healthy, enjoy friends and family, eat food and have sex, etc. However, these are the means to the end which is soul-making. Jesus knew that. He was accused of being a friend of drunks, went to a wedding, had an expensive seamless robe, healed people of all kinds of diseases and allowed a woman to anoint his feet with perfume that cost a years wages. He was no recluse or world hater. But he knew that every sensual moment was one blink away from dissolving into an illusion. Go live life large! Set huge goals, strive for success, marry your sweetheart, have children, become a senator – but don't forget that we are here to make souls. Never forget that a soul-making universe requires that our reality appointments be dissed (dis-appointment). Illusionization is the twin sister of Realization. Both are necessary in this world.

DOES THE RESURRECTION STORY GUARANTEE WE WILL ALWAYS LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER?

Thomas R. Yoder Neufeld, in his book Recovering Jesus, wrote, “THE GOSPEL ACCOUNTS were all written ‘on this side of Easter.’ That is to say, early followers of Jesus, including the authors of the Gospels, had the benefit of looking back on an event and seeing in it the working of God.”

This statement hit me in the face like a bucket of wet cement: ‘the benefit of looking back on an event and seeing in it the working of God.’ It is always easy to ‘get it’ when we look back. 20/20 hindsight does not do much good, however, when your hind end is in the midst of unimaginable crucifixion tragedy. Like Job we ask, “God? Where are you?”

FAITH IS NOT NEEDED AFTER THE MIRACLE

Imagine the thoughts and feelings of Jesus’ family and disciples before the resurrection miracle took place. Most of us have experienced an excruciating (a word derived from crucifixion) loss, where a few seconds felt like hours or days, our sleepless minds were wracked with despair, our emotions a tornado of loneliness, fear, grief and confusion. The only thing that sustained Jesus’ followers, and us in such times, is fellowship and the development of faith.

Faith was not needed after the resurrection. Faith was needed when the cold, bloody, decomposing corpse of Jesus was pried from the cross and laid in a tomb. When we are in the midst of such tragedies, it is nearly impossible to see the ‘working of God’.

There are two beneficial approaches to a dilemma when unspeakable tragedy arrives:

1. An instantaneous, miraculous change of external circumstances.
2. An abiding trust that somehow the devastation makes sense beyond my current agony.

POINT OF THE RESURRECTION STORY IS TO FIND FAITH

The point of the resurrection story is not to guarantee that a specific external solution will materialize three days after the disaster. The point of the story is to help suffering people see that we can tap into a psycho-spiritual reservoir of trust which exists in all of us. This trust or faith does not tell us HOW or WHEN the tragedy will end, but that there is a Power greater than ourselves somehow purposefully superintending the circumstances. Ancient Greek philosophers and Christian mystics used the word teleios which meant meaningful completion. The resurrection story gives no guarantee of a specific outcome at a certain time. There is, however, a guarantee of Divine Presence and some sort of completion {teleios}apart from any human understanding, strategizing or timing. To realize this kind of trust may take years, or lifetimes. Soul-making is not limited by time.

POSITIVE THINKING AND TRUE RESURRECTION PROSPERITY

Some comedian once said, “If you lined up all of the positive thinkers in the world today, that would be a really good place to leave them.” What masquerades as positive thinking today is sometimes really just magical thinking and fearful denial which seeks to avoid or postpone developing real faith and surrender. Some so called positive preachers seem to be well meaning spiritual co-dependents who are addicted to fixing people’s pain by jacking them up with anecdotal success stories and rare vignettes of hope. I once heard a positive thinking preacher say, “I was once a pimple-faced loser, women hated me, I was broke and homeless – but when I applied (Success System X), my pimples went away, I became a successful millionaire, found my ideal wife and family and now own vacation homes around the world.” I have no reason to doubt his story, but it is not the way tragedy is transformed to faith.

These relative anecdotal prosperity stories may motivate in the short term, but they do not create abiding faith and in fact often leave the hearer more despondent when it doesn’t ‘work out’ for him the same way. Just because one man experiences the healing of his body, finances or love life does not mean that everyone will. This is not the primary meaning or significance of the resurrection story.

RESURRECTION AND MEANING IN LIFE

Real positive thinking and resurrection faith can be seen in the life of Viktor Frankl. In his mid thirties, Frankl was a successful doctor and a happily married man. One day he was arrested for being a Jew and taken to a series of Nazi concentration camp where he would spend four horrific years. He was stripped naked and his head was shaved. His wife and parents were executed and he suffered indescribable heartbreak. Frankl miraculously survived and went on to remarry, write best selling ‘self-help’ books, achieve financial success and international fame. But he never forgot that over 10 million people died in those concentration camps and that he could just as easily have been one of them. Frankl could not write an anecdotal self help book promising worldly abundance and wealth if you applied his secrets to success. He wrote to teach people the same three lessons found in the resurrection story:

1. Meaning may be found in and through every situation, especially tragedies.
2. Meaning is not dependent on physical conditions or outcomes, but on faith.
3. You vastly increase your opportunities for physical survival and material success if you find meaning and have faith in the times of abject tragedy, but this does NOT guarantee such an outcome.

JESUS’ ASCENSION NEVER GAVE HIM TIME TO GET ON OPRAH

In the Gospels, the resurrected Jesus did not marry the perfect woman, make a million dollars and become a successful author and speaker. He did not hang out on earth long enough to get on Oprah or Larry King. He did not hobnob with celebrities and presidents. He did not have a gorgeous summer home on the Mediterranean or take expensive vacations around the world. Neither he nor his early disciples made a single nickel off of his Secret to Resurrection Living. Jesus almost immediately ascended into Heaven. Let’s drop our western propensity to literalism and get the symbol in this ascension image. Partly it meant that the resurrection success solution is not primarily played out on the earth stage.

The story about Jesus’ post-resurrection ascension tells us that the ‘results’ of the resurrection miracle were primarily experienced in another Realm, the Realm of Soul rather than the physical world. This is true for most of us. It is in the Realm of Soul or Spirit that we see the real fruit of a life lived by faith. It is in the ascension, or in the invisible realm of soul that we will experience the real solutions to our earthly tragedies.

I HATE IT WHEN PEOPLE SAY, ‘YOUR REWARD IS IN HEAVEN’

Of course we can and should affirm and intend to become materially successful, wealthy and healthy if that is our desire. We ought to learn spiritual principles and work hard to achieve our full potentials on this planet. We ought to write that best selling book, record that CD, find the ideal partner and raise a nice family – but the post-resurrection ascension story reminds us that God-Reality is much more concerned about the development of our character than our bank accounts. Most of us will live average lives on this planet, or maybe even below average. But resurrection faith, developed through difficulties, makes sense of the hackneyed metaphor which says, “Your reward is in heaven.” Take heart, even though you may not see it right now, God is ‘working’ in every event in your life.

THE TRAGIC LOSS OF SOUL IN AMERICA

"He who has lost his soul will be finding God anywhere, up above and down below, in here and out there, he will cling to every straw of love blown past his doorway as he stands waiting for a sign." ~James Hillman

THE MODERN LOSS OF SOUL

Humankind has lost soul, at least the western world. I don’t mean soul in the Catholic sense – as some ethereal essence which comes wrapped in a body of sin to be released at death to reside in Heaven, Purgatory or Hell. I don’t mean soul in the materialist sense – as some neural site located in human brain.

I mean soul in a sense that has been so lost that we don’t even understand it when it is being described, let alone active in us each day. Soul is so lost that it may take a miracle or the end of western civilization to rediscover it. If there is an apocalypse of the conservative or liberal variety, it will be Soul forcing the human race to see its forms and necessity.

We are so devoid of soul that we don’t even recognize that it is missing. We have substituted matter and spirit for soul, and neither of those works. Matter works well for the material part of us, and spirit fills the spiritual part of us, but neither fills the role or work of soul. Modern medicine offers us an array of pharmaceuticals and statistical manuals, and modern religion offers us an array of old and new gods and goddesses. That is why James Hillman says, “He who has lost his soul will be finding God anywhere, up above and down below, in here and out there, he will cling to every straw of love blown past his doorway as he stands waiting for a sign.”

To rediscover soul is to rediscover our darkness and depths. Soul is what leads us into the unavoidable void, tricks us into conflict, startles us through unplanned infatuations, snares us by resentments, haunts us by unsolicited thoughts of illness and death, sweeps over us with irrational jealousies, and surprises us by a hundred forms of fear, anxiety and self obsession.

Soul most often shows up when life is good and clam, whispering that something is missing or quietly asking ‘what if?’ Souls causes us to wonder and wander down paths into fantasies which sometimes shock us. Soul shows up in what we call symptoms, problems and other annoying irritants which get in the way of ‘living’. These irritants of soul remind us of Gandalf’s request to Bilbo Baggins to accompany him on an adventure. Bilbo replied, “Adventure? Nasty, uncomfortable things, make you late for dinner.” Soul makes us late for dinner, and almost every other appointment we think life owes us. A major role of soul is to disrupt, annoy, confuse and bring dis-ease. This notion of soul is antithetical to the whole western attitude toward existence which seeks to create a life free of all problems and deny suffering. Like the aggravating grain of sand in the oyster, soul inserts itself into the shell of our everyday lives in order to make pearls.

If oysters were modern Americans, and could write diagnostic manuals to assess abnormal psychological conditions for all of oyster-kind, I am sure you’d find P.T.S.I.D. listed on page one, Post Traumatic Sand Irritant Disorder. Never mind the damn pearls, oyster life would be better without the particle of sand. Similarly, we humans are largely ignorant of the necessary and normal grains of sand which will inevitably show up in our little shells called human existence. No matter how hard we try, soul will never cease doing what it does. Humans are here to make pearls, soul is here to bring the irritants.

SOUL IS NOT THOUGHT OR FEELING

Many have mistaken eternal soul for our thoughts and emotions. Soul is neither human thinking nor human feelings. Soul does incarnate in human thoughts and feelings, but it is neither of these. Soul existed before there were human bodies with brains and nerve endings - and soul will continue to exist long after the human species is extinct. Soul does not depend on human organs or emotions. A smile may incarnate on human lips, but that does not mean Joy depends on human lips for its existence. What we call ‘thoughts’ and ‘emotions’ are archetypal energy patterns that show up in many forms, thoughts and feelings being only a finite manifestation which we have turned into soul. One might as well exalt the Mona Lisa over Leonadro da Vinci. The form is not the source. The reason humans have turned soul into thoughts and feelings is to give us the illusion that we can control it. If I am the source of all my ideas and emotions, then I can control them. But I am not the source.

THE TURBULENT NATURE OF REALITY

Soul cannot be controlled, but it can sometimes be placated as long as it is recognized and heeded. As long as I think I am controlling ‘my’ thoughts and feelings, I will continue to be estranged from soul. Soul will not disappear. Soul will always master my thoughts and feelings until it is done with me. Soul will not be overcome by human programs to make life free of suffering. These programs can be extremely beneficial, but they will never trump soul. We should not ignore or acquiesce to suffering, but our best programs and pharmaceuticals will never end painful thoughts and feelings. Suffering is soul expanding human consciousness – perhaps we can use the metaphor of psychological growing pains. When we solve a particular kind of suffering, something else will replace it. Suffering, like bacteria, will always morph into new forms in order to move humans into deeper experiences of soul. Soul operates the same way in the animated material Cosmos, as a tumbling universe of tumultuous galaxies and swirling debris fields forming elaborate designs and subsequently disassembling into chaos. Recognition of this cosmic and psychic phenomenon provides an ironic relief of some sort to the turbulent nature of reality.

We are enamored by modern physical science just as our forefathers were enamored by metaphysical spirit. Quantum physics is all the rage, being used even by spiritual teachers everywhere to ‘reveal the true nature of the universe,’ or to demonstrate that their New Age deities have superseded the old traditional religious gods. We have tried to turn science into religion, buying into the fantasy that science is better than religion. Science and religion, and religious science, all serve a function – but none of them is soul. The old age and new age have both neglected soul – focusing instead on spiritual or physical wholeness as the aim of existence. The old priests believed they could save our spirits, the new priests believe they can save the globe. Neither seems to recognize that these temporal vessels are just that, temporal vessels for soul making.

This may come as a shock to the religious conservatives and secular liberals, but nothing around us will be saved – prolonged possibly, but never saved. Soul is using these vessels.
Soul is in our symptoms and pathologies, in our irritations and insanities, in our addictions and dysfunctions – in the nuisances we are trying to solve and get rid of with medicinal physics and metaphysical spirit. Neither allopathic nor homeopathic medicines will stop the affects of soul. Soul will assail us no matter what we try to avoid it. These daily irritants which we dismiss with labels like fear, projection, dysfunction, death, disease, problems, etc. will never go away.

Books and seminars proliferate promising to solve our myriad problems, never stopping to look at these problems as the critical and wondrous vehicles of soul. Psyche is the ignored invisible realm in our culture. Soul has been relegated to some spiritual substance which gets released at death if you are a good Christian, or transmigrates back into another physical body to work out that horrible old karma accrued from our bad and selfish past deeds. Soul is neither spirit nor matter in any form.

People are frantic to get rid of their problems through spiritual and material solutions, frantic to relieve stress and banish all painful thoughts and feelings – and I understand it completely. Part of being human is to avoid pain and pursue pleasure. The tragic irony is that without the awareness of the role of soul, no matter what programs we use to relieve pain, the pain will not go away. Soul will not be pushed aside. If I use alcohol or enroll in meditation school, I may experience some temporary relief from my painful thoughts and feelings, but what I have really done is sublimate soul’s work. The symptoms may disappear for a time, but they will resurface, usually even more severe. Roiling molten lava can be held under the surface for only so long.

The AIDs virus is soul telling us we will never develop an ‘immune system’ at the physical or spiritual levels to fight off psychological disease. The depression and suicide epidemics reveal soul shouting to pay attention! The proliferation of eye and hearing problems in our culture are directly related to our inability to see and hear soul. Soul’s work will not be eradicated no matter how clever we get with our spiritual and so called psychological solutions. I constantly hear New Age adherents talking about the illusions of fear, or saying that Fear is false evidence appearing real (FEAR). Fear is no more an illusion than love or peace. For the human to think he can banish death, fear, resentment, illness and other unpleasant experiences to the metaphysical category of illusion is the puny ego trying to build a modern tower of Babel to reach and control the gods. We will always fail and be scattered like a ripped bag of marbles. Often, those who cry most loudly against the illusion of fear enter into the most palpable experiences of fear to see that it is no illusion, but a symptom of soul utilized to bring deeper awareness.

Some will hear me saying that we should not try to overcome pain, but that is not the point. I am saying that pain is most easily overcome when we see the normalcy and necessity of suffering. Just monitor your own life and watch soul. You will notice that when you have gotten a handle on one problem, two more pop up like the Hydra-headed serpent of Hercules. And often, the old problem which we thought we had ‘overcome’ returns twice as ugly.

There appear to be two really beneficial ways of approaching soul suffering:

1. First, we must realize that the problem or symptom will run its course, taking us as far into the rabbit hole as we need to go, and will not let go of us until it is done with us. In this case, yes, we are victims of soul. As hard as it may seem for modern Americans to see, we are not the ultimate masters of the universe. I do not completely create my reality. I may have some say in my response to what soul brings to me, but I do not control soul. We are the block of unformed marble at the mercy of the sculptor. This option does not bode well for those of us who have been taught that we create our own reality. Soul will have its way with us. Auschwitz survivor Viktor Frankl realized this as his new wife was wrenched from his arms and marched off to a Nazi death camp. Frankl waited in a line of Jewish males to be stripped of his jewelry, wallet, briefcase filled with important papers, clothing, eventuating in a shaved head and eyebrows. Lastly, he received his new identity, a number tattooed into his arm. Naked, branded, humiliated, socially and personally bankrupt, Frankl had a flash of insight that – that in order to survive, his old life had to be completely forgotten. He was now entering into a new way of living and was at the mercy of his captors. If he clung to the past and dwelt on what once was, he would lie down and die and as so many others would eventually do. To survive, he would submit to the necessity of the horrific ordeal. Soul would have its way.

I know that this approach flies in the face of our American positive thinking and can-do optimism, but it is the only solution to such situations. Let me emphasize: IF YOU CAN CHANGE THE SITUATION, FOR GODSAKE CHANGE IT! I am speaking here of those situations in life which keep bringing the same symptoms back again and again. Most of us continue to encounter the same kinds of jobs, friends and partners because soul has work to do through them. No matter what we try to do to solve this, these people and situations will arise again and again until the ‘awareness’ occurs. Once the awareness occurs, we may kick ourselves at how simple the lesson was and how we should have learned it years ago – but we didn’t. Soul does not relent.

2. The second approach is to learn to shut up, quit fighting and to listen to soul. Every addict is likely sitting face to face with soul and not stopping to listen, or even realizing that there is that option. Soul comes disguised as heroin, alcohol, Vicodin, work, food or relationships. Soul begins by whispering to us through some substance, and then shouting as the substance becomes a symptom and ends up killing us as the unheeded symptom becomes lethal. We will listen or die. Soul is not concerned about the mortal body or about social prestige or morality. Instead of listening, we often fight, hate, work against, seek solutions, ask for God to deliver us and live in anguish over our ‘unfortunate’ dilemma. We do not realize that what Jesus said to Simon Peter was soulfully insightful, “Simon, Satan has asked to sift you like wheat that you may return and be of help to the brethren.” This metaphor, Satan, is soul coming as a hellish onslaught into the routine of daily life to sift the chaff away in order to make a larger soul. To honor soul is to set the rational mind aside and simply ask, “What are you telling me?” To honor soul is to quit staring into the pond of narcicisstic feelings and ask, “What is the new myth?”

That is why Freud called his therapy a ‘talking cure’. Freud was recovering what many ancient cultures knew and we moderns lost, namely that soul has a voice and wants to make us conscious of deeply creative psychic material. The Hebrew prophets did this in their writings, but we moderns have negated the therapeutic value of soul-expression by calling it prophecy and raising it to the level of revelation from a God. When soul is turned into spirit, it ceases to be a source of consciousness raising metaphor and becomes a set of dogmatic laws to be believed. Jung called this approach ‘active listening,’ watching hundreds of clients experience psychic shifts by paying attention to soul speaking through the symptoms.


AN EPILOGUE ON SPIRIT

This essay has been about the modern neglect of soul. This soul-focus does not negate the orderly, beautiful, wholistic nature of Spirit. Spirit is what many call ‘God the Good’. Spirit calls us to health, abundance, life, hope, happiness, success, victory, peace and bliss. Spirit works in conjunction with soul as we live in a material body and world. Body, soul and spirit all work together to make the complete Human.

I include this little concluding caveat because our monotheistic culture is plagued with mono-vision. We are monogamists and monopolists. Duality drives us a little nuts and we have to integrate everything - seeking the number one football team, the number one candidate, the number one beauty contestant, the unifying principle in physics, the top song or movie of the year, etc. We usually feel there is only one interior power. We usually conflate soul into spirit because we see only one side to the interior life and it must be spiritual. Consequently we turn soul into an empirical science and label it Cognitive psychology, Behavioral psychology or handily place the psyche into some other medical category.

The Renaissance writers often called themselves spiritual monotheists and psychological polytheists, recognizing the diverse roles of soul and spirit in the complexity of the so called interior life. Making a full human includes soul and spirit, pathologies and salvations. The Roman Catholics called it the Via Negativa and the Via Positiva; the Chinese call it the Yin/Yang; the Hindu’s call it Brhama the Creator and Shiva the Destroyer.

Some will read this essay and think that I am saying life ought to be painful and problematic. I am NOT saying that it SHOULD. I am saying that it IS. I don’t care who you are or how enlightened you may be, soul will knock on your door and introduce another symptom of insanity when you least expect it. It is normal. In fact, if this essay has troubled you at all, look behind you right now - you just may see Psyche disappearing out the door with a little grin on her face.

The Function of Dysfunction

DYSFUNCTION HAS A FUNCTION

The universe into which we are born is intentionally unfinished and 'dysfunctional'. That means that dysfunction has a function. Self centered survival instincts like defensiveness, rationalization, fear, greed, war and jealousy are part and parcel of the normal human condition. It is from this base which we get to develop souls and grow character, just as a kindergartener begins her learning with math and reading problems. She has to learn the times tables and alphabet. Misspelling words and getting math sums wrong are normal and necessary for the learner. The infant must stumble before he can walk and stutter before he can talk. As one learns, awareness, choices and responsibilities increase with regard to geometry and literacy. One is enabled to take the newly acquired knowledge and choose to do harm or good.

Soul too must grow. We are always developing, whether we are conscious of it or not. We are learning the soul’s alphabet and math equations, how to spell and how to do sums. It is the purpose of existence. Humans are born with innate soul potential; internal categories or archetypal seed pods which are capable of being cultivated by the water of time, through failure, under the sunshine of Spirit and the fertilizer of life struggles. Life is a kind of kindergarten. Teachers come along every second of the day in the form of internal thoughts and feelings, and external people and situations. Often these teachers are seriously ‘dysfunctional,’ or our responses are less than ideal. Being conscious that this is the nature of life makes it much less painful and easier to care for the soul.

We often speak of being raised, or ruined, by a dysfunctional family. All parents did what their spiritual development allowed them to do at the time. Each of us, no matter what our chronological age, is a kindergartener of sorts. I believe that the Universe is a school of soul-making which includes dysfunction and what we have labeled abnormal behaviors. This means that the insanities of my parents, their parents, the parents of their parents and as far back as theologians or geneticists can conjecture or trace DNA, are part of the 'way it is'. Why can we accept the insane chaos and collisions throughout the physical universe as being cosmically beautiful and normal, and then turn around and call our own psychic relational collisions and life chaos abnormal and wrong? Is it because we want someone to blame in this school of soul-making? Is this the psychological equivalent of 'the dog ate my homework'?


DYSFUNCTIONAL MOM, OR SOUL-MAKING MOM?

My parents functioned at the level to which their souls had advanced when I was born and growing up with them. Since I have become an adult, I have watched them continue to grow up – to observe their souls becoming richer and deeper. A few years ago, I watched my mother die a slow, soulful death as she withered away from colon cancer. One day, with tumors filling her abdomen, she said to me, "Mike, I look back at the way we raised you kids and I am so sorry. We were obsessed with success, work and being successful. If I could go back I would…".

I don't remember all that she said at that point. I do recall seeing the kind of reflective regret that only adversity and imminent death can bring. I saw and felt her remorse and sadness coming from tearful eyes and trembling lips. I now know that I was not looking at a dysfunctional parent, but at a beautiful soul blossoming through the life she had lived, and was about to finish.

PERFECTLY IMPERFECT

It is possible to live in the tension or paradox of seeing the world perfectly imperfect, and to hold conscious human beings accountable for their actions, words and attitudes. The Chinese Tao Te Ching says that 'before one can become perfect, he must be imperfect.' Jesus said the same thing, "The first shall be last and the last shall be first."

HOW TO READ WITH THE SOUL

In our culture, we have been taught one perspective when it comes to reading – to add one line to the next and climb the stair of reason or ride the roller coaster of emotion to a conclusion. Either way, we are on a linear journey to a goal, either rational understanding or emotional reaction. We read a text book in order to learn to know or do something; we read novels and the like to have a certain kind of feeling – love, lust, excitement, fear, etc.

There is a third kind of reading that we have not learned, though we do occasionally encounter it, and that is learning to read soulfully. This is reading which appeals to the neglected Psyche; not the psyche of modern material, diagnostic and statistical psychology, but the Psyche of ancient wisdom and modern Depth Psychology. This kind of reading does not present a linear argument or straightforward narrative leading the reader into an emotional or rational cul de sac. This sort of approach to literature does not aim to find the meaning or significance of something. This type of reading is not for the mind or the emotions, but for the neglected soul. Billy Collins touches on it in his "Introduction to Poetry":

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with a rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

A book or article written soulfully need not be understood or felt in a predictible way. When we are ‘done’ reading it, we may wonder what in the world we have read. It may seem to be full of some sort of sense, but we did not absorb any of it, yet we want to go on reading. This type of encounter changes or rearranges us soulfully. It is not spiritual. Spiritual always takes us higher, “into God”. Soulful reading takes us deeper, causing us to wander and wonder as we do in a dream. In fact, we need to allow the material to read me as a dream dreams me.

Dreams are often quite pleasant and entertaining until we wake up and the ratio-emotive mind takes over. That is when we tie the dream to the chair and beat the meaning out of it. Such an approach loses soul and puts the human mind and emotions back in control, trivializing and limiting the effect of the dream encounter. Soulful reading is like looking into a kaleidoscope. At first, the mind wants to find meaning in the cylindrical tube filled with bits of broken glass seen through the twisting kaleidoscopic lens, but then we relax and realize there is nothing to make sense of - and we see only the parade of chaotic images which somehow captivate and fascinate.

The soul-filled literature is not taking us anywhere, yet in some way it is taking us everywhere. Certain phrases and ideas may cause our hearts to soar, only to be followed by a line that leaves us utterly baffled. We may finish a paragraph and wonder what we have read, then read it again feeling that some elusive meaning is right in front of us. The experience of being lost, befuddled and frustrated is the meaning, yet there is a kind of psychological knowing (gnosis) that some thing is being grasped beyond the rational and feeling levels. It might be more accurate to say that some thing is grasping us, but we are not quite sure how, where or why. I personally believe that it is at this level where most of our so called 'development' or psychic rearrangement takes place.

One such author for me is James Hillman, especially his book Re-visioning Psychology. He says, ''The call of soul convinces; it is a seduction into psychological faith, a faith in images and the thought of the heart, into an animation of the world.''

This quote from Hillman is a statement I am tempted to tie to a chair and beat with a hose, try to extract meaning and in fact I do. There is nothing wrong with chewing on and trying to ‘see the meaning’ in such writings or having a visceral response, but one will most often feel like he has ‘not quite gotten it’; again, much like a dream. That is where faith in the dynamic Psyche enters, causing us to trust that there are personifications and soulful entities in this animated cosmos which operate beyond the ego mind and emotions. We are pulled into the depths, beyond logic, feeling overwhelmed by what we do not and cannot know.

I think the ancient Christian Gospel of Thomas touched on this when Jesus said, "When you see your likeness, you are happy. But when you see your images that came into being before you and that neither die nor become visible, how much you will have to bear!" Gospel of Thomas, saying 84

It is bearable to see our likeness which can be digested by reason and emotion, but it is excruciating to encounter images which transport us beyond rational explanation and emotional categories. Another author who does this for me is Nietzsche, and Lao Tze of the Chinese Tao Te Ching. This experience may also occur in movies, music, true science, math and other mediums.

I am not talking here about literature that is just poorly written, or rotten movies and bad music. There is plenty of that around. I am speaking about that experience which draws some part of me into the depths while leaving me intellectually and emotionally baffled, frustrated, angry and feeling just a little or a lot stupid. It is that encounter that teases the ego and requires the momentary suspension of the intellect and emergence of imagination.

I encourage you to read soulfully. Find some artist or author who acts as a soulful catalyst to rearrange your psyche like the shards of colorful glass in a twisting kaleidoscope. Without this experience we become boring intellectuals, shallow emotionalists or angry ideologues.

The Four Stages of Mysticism

I often refer to the four universal stages/cycles of psycho-spiritual growth, first brought to my attention by the work of Dr. M. Scott Peck. I have found these four stages in every one of the world’s religions. This paradigm for developmental spiritual growth recognizes that humans are on this planet to grow souls. Just as nature operates by moving through stages and cycles, so does the invisible human psyche. We grow from self centered egoism to an expanded awareness of the other, and from other-centeredness to skeptical individuation, and from individuation to mystical union. Scott Peck calls the stages:

1. Chaotic-Antisocial: The world revolves around me and my pleasure.
2. Formal-Institutional: As self centeredness brings increasing suffering, I discover the ‘other’ – a person or ideology which makes me expand beyond narcissistic self obsession.
3. Skeptic-Individual: Eventually the ‘other’ no longer fills me up, and I fall into a period of disillusionment and seeking, asking ‘who am I’?
4. Mystic-Communal: After a period of seeking, sorting, wondering and wandering I come to some sense of who I am without being completely self centered or by finding my identity in the ‘other’. I surrender to a Higher Power, discovering purposeful peace of mind and a sense of mystical connection in a universal communion.

Recently, I have come to see that each of the four stages can be divided into sub-stages by the stages preceding each. For example, the Mystic-Communal stage actually has four sub-stages:

1. The Egoistic-Mystic
2. The Otheristic-Mystic
3. The Sketpical-Mystic
4. The Mystical-Mystic

Why would we not need to grow through each stage? One does not become a full blown mystic overnight! After all, we never really jettison the prior stages, we just haul them along into each successive stage slightly altered.

1. The Egoistic-Mystic has experienced a state of personal surrender to a Higher Power. This person is moving from a life of victimization by troubling external circumstances and people. I begin to realize that my mind has the ability to affect my perception of reality. I see that I have personal choice and must take responsibility for all situations in my life. However, I am still self obsessed. In this infant stage of mystical awareness, I really think that the Universe exists primarily to serve me. I begin to focus on my mental, emotional and material prosperity. Spirit exists to make me healthy, wealthy and whole, most often at the external levels.

This is a normal and necessary stage for growing an infant soul, but those of us who have been raised in consumeristic America are especially susceptible to getting stuck in this stage. The recent book and DVD, The Secret, reveals a nation of nascent baby boomer mystics who have awakened to spirituality of the egotistical mystical variety. If you have been critical of The Secret, take heart; we are seeing a host of baby mystics awaken to a Source beyond the ego alone.

2. We eventually graduate into the Otheristic-Mystic stage. In this phase we align ourselves with some mystical teacher or organization which we think is going to enlighten or save the world. Personal prosperity is subjected to a larger vision of mystical awareness. It could be Al Gore’s mission to stop Global Warming, a recovery program like Alcoholic’s Anonymous or the Pro-Life campaign to stop abortion. It could be devotion to a particular spiritual path like Buddhism or Scientology. We often find a particular teacher, minister, guru or cause with which we passionately identify. This too is normal and necessary as a phase. But it will grow old.

3. It is not uncommon for a person to eventually burn out in this phase and become a Skeptical-Mystic. The fizzle is often related to being let down by the cause or teacher. Sometimes we feel it's 'just not working.' The ex Beatle, John Lennon, wrote the song Sexy Sadie about the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi when Lennon heard a rumor that the Indian guru was a flirting with a female devotee. Disillusioned and cynical, Lennon left the ashram and wrote the song. He later found out that the rumor was unfounded. The point is that we must lose our mystical ‘other’ and learn to trust completely in Spirit. Jesus pointed out that none is good but God. In this phase, one can never really abandon the original blissful mystical experience, but one can become a very cynical, miserable and bitter sage. But it need not end here.


4. Finally, there is the Mystical-Mystic stage. This is when one is really surrendered to a Higher Power. Peace of mind does not depend on divine physical healing, a huge bank account, the ideal relationship, an enlightened teacher or set of teachings. We come to see the mind, emotions and body as necessary but temporal instruments of soul-making. We are at peace with the fact that everything on this planet is designed with flaws and built in obsolescence so we can learn to let go. Like Jesus, one can face his death, no matter how horrible and painful, with tranquility and forgiveness toward all who have harmed him.

Remember, these are normal and necessary stages. There is no skipping over them, however, there does seem to be the possibility of getting stuck in one. We must pay attention to the progressive nature of soul-making. Take stock. If we have been in a stage which no longer serves, it may be time to get on our knees and ask God to help us move forward.

The Mind of the Bible Believer

The following article on the psychology of biblicism is by Robert M. Price. I (Michael) have added some personal observations bracketed in blue. These are not the opinions of Mr. Price.

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The Psychology of Biblicism

by Robert M. Price

THE EMOTIONAL NEED FOR THE BIBLE

For many years I have studied the theology underlying biblicism, the fundamentalist belief in the absolute authority of the Bible in every aspect of life, only to conclude that it is not theological in nature at all, but rather entirely psychological. That is, biblicism is not, as its adherents claim and think, an implication of a set of beliefs about the Bible but rather the outgrowth of a particular frame of mind. I am not impatient with theological claims; I just do not think they are the real source or motivation of biblicism, and this becomes evident once we discover certain inconsistencies in biblicism which make nonsense of its theological claims, but are quite consistent with the psychological function of biblicism. If it were a matter of theology, surely biblicists would notice the problems. But since biblicism does the job biblicists want it to do, they simply never notice the problems.

Biblicism, again, is the term for that stance toward the Bible whereby a believer intends to obey whatever the text tells him to do, and to believe whatever the text asserts. If occasionally the commands of the Bible seem just too outrageous (for example, to give away all one’s possessions), biblicists may rationalize them away, but even this does not mean they are not taking them seriously; a non-biblicist would say he rejects the command of the Bible and leave it at that. There are more liberal Christian theologies which do not entail biblicism, managing, as Reinhold Niebuhr said, to take the text seriously even if not literally.

[This is my approach and it puzzles the hell out of my biblicist friends and acquaintances. They are conditioned to divide the world up into those who are for the Bible and those who are against the Bible. Emotionally, they are incapable of holding any kind of tension, whether theologically, morally or politically. They see the world like immature children, as black and white: boys are good, girls are bad, my dad is stronger, my mom is prettier, etc. Most biblicists are emotionally frozen in childhood or adolescence, and sadly, their biblicism gives them divine justification for never growing up emotionally.

They don't know what to do with those of us who take the Bible very seriously but don't see it as God's absolute and final thoughts inscribed on a page. Their emotional security is so wrapped up in having a non-ambiguous text right from the mouth of God that they can't afford to allow the Bible to be a great and inspired book. They can't afford to view the Bible as a means to spiritual maturity rather than a how to manual for children. They do not want to move out of the spiritual nursery and to find truth. Psychologically, they can allow the Bible to be God's only perfect word or a book of without errors. It causes them panic and confusion to even consider for one moment that the various works collected in the Bible are works written by men and women just like me and you, each in his or her process of spiritual awareness. They are incapable yet of seeing that the Bible contains some truth and some error, and that meeting God in the struggle is the purpose of biblical study.]

So what is it that attracts many people to biblicism?

Faith as Skepticism

First I think we may identify the fundamentalist’s, the biblicist’s, desperate felt need for “a sure word from God.” Why do we need God to break the silence of the ages with a revealed word, an inspired book of infallible information? Perhaps paradoxically, this need stems from a kind of [unconscious] skepticism, a lack of confidence in the ability of the human mind to discover necessary truth by reason alone. This is a very different stance from that of the old Deists who believed in a divine Creator but who did not believe in the inspiration of the Bible. Not only did the Bible appear to them a poor candidate for an inspired book, but they believed the Creator had written the only revelation book human beings needed in the world itself, nature, not scripture. And he had given us reason as the only spectacles needful to read and understand it.

The biblicist, however, is flustered by over-choice, the condition of being faced with too many options, each with plausible arguments and spokespersons. How is he to decide between them? Suddenly, a religious claim that God has tossed confused humanity a life-preserver called the Bible sounds pretty good. The problem, of course, is that there are just as many competing revelation claims [from other religions] vying for our faith, and one is left without a clue as to deciding between them!

But whence the urgency of arriving at true and sure beliefs about all ethical and theological questions? Why not emulate the ancient Skeptics? Like fundamentalist Fideists today, the Skeptics viewed the conflict of dogmas from the sidelines and despaired of joining any particular team with confidence. But their conclusion was that such answers, such knowledge, must not be either available or necessary, and that one can live perfectly well in this life on the basis of common sense and mere probabilities. Why does our biblicist not adopt the same attitude?
I think it is because he holds an unexamined assumption, perhaps a vestige of childhood catechism, a picture of God as some sort of punitive theology professor who stands ready to flunk you if you write the wrong answers on your theology exam.

[It may also be partly due to our modern educational system which indoctrinates children into seeing a particular text with the right answers to be written on tests; being "true to the text" the basis of thirteen years of training. Passing the text-based tests determines his graduation or humiliation of being held back.]

You die and appear at the Pearly Gates, and God hands you the blue book. You do your best on the Theology and Metaphysics final exam, but if you make enough mistakes, the floor is going to open beneath your feet, as it did beneath old Korah’s, and you are going to slide down the shaft to Hell. This is a God who does not excuse honest mistakes. Again, I can understand this obnoxious God-concept only as a matter of psychology, not as the implication of any orthodox theology. What element of theology implies that God should be unfair, even peevish? To think him so is to project a childish fear of retribution which can only stifle intellectual growth. Surely it is a legacy of retrograde education, whether religious or secular.

ABORTION AS AN EXAMPLE

A prime example of this fearful skepticism that needs God’s word to settle issues too important for mere human minds to decide would be abortion. It is a difficult matter precisely because of the ambiguities of the issue. Strong cases may be made on various sides of the issue. That fact alone inclines many of us toward a pro-choice position. But some fundamentalists feel the stakes are high enough that those on the wrong side of the issue, especially abortion doctors, may be justifiably murdered. How can they be so sure they are right? Because God has told them so in the Bible. And this despite the fact that the question of abortion never even comes up in the Bible. The need for the Bible to adjudicate the subject produces the optical illusion that it does.

[In other words, rather than wrestle with God as Jacob did, the fundamentalist wants a quick and easy solution to all of life's hard problems. True spiritual growth which produces depth of character and solid convictions is replaced by lazy religious authoritarianism. I personally view abortion as more immoral than moral, but not because the Bible says so. Honestly, I could just as easily defend abortion from the Bible. My position is from struggling with the issue, researching, examining my conscience, personal experiences and coming before my God with an open mind which has earned my conviction. Biblical study played a small role in my decision, but I do not hold it because I think God wants me to as He speaks through the Bible.]

A CONVENIENT TRUTH

The need for a sure word from God may simply stem from the kind of intellectual laziness posited by Ludwig Feuerbach. We feel we need to know certain things but are too lazy or impatient to try to figure them out, and the belief in a divine revelation is all too convenient. Convenient both for the lazy one who wants to be spoon-fed, and for the authorities who view themselves as far more capable of finding truth than the laity. But in any case, whether it is a matter of fear or of laziness, I think we may chalk up the desire for “a sure word from God” to a low tolerance for ambiguity.

[This is graphically apparent in the modern resurgence and renaissance of Islamic fundamentalism across the world. The encroachment of modern, western ideas, moral confusion and terrifying technologies is more easily dealt with by declaring that "The Book of God" has all of the answers. Lazy, childish and fear-filled people prefer this approach rather than practicing the rigorous endeavors of thinking, prayer, fasting, reason and discussion with others.
I think the biblicist uses his pat answer book in order to avoid prayer, meditation and deep connection to the Higher Source in us all. Who needs to get on his knees and pray, introspect and reflect when he assumes that God has given him a simple moral recipe book to be followed? There is no deeply earned conviction, just mindless repetition of heartless laws and formulaic morality. Jesus lauded the Prodigal son and other sinners for discovering through failure and moral degradation that they didn't want a life of adultery, alcoholism, gossip, gluttony and the like. William Blake said, "The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom." If Blake had been a biblicist, he might have said, "The road of legal obedience leads to the palace of lazy certainties."]
This is clearly seen in the advice given to pastors and students for studying the Bible. Suppose one is reading the text, seeking divine guidance for one’s own life or scriptural grounding for one’s beliefs (predestination or free will? Pre- or Post-Tribulation Rapture?). One will shortly discover ambiguity, individual passages that seem to point in one direction or another, or where things are just not so clear. One must then make one’s best exegetical judgment call, and then go forward confident that one has achieved the truth. The biblicist awards himself a license for dogmatism, heedless of the necessary tentativeness of one’s results. One intends to be dogmatic about whatever conclusions one will wind up embracing. It is just a question of which dogma one will promote.

FEAR OF AMBIGUITY: Limit the Options to Calm the Mind

A fear of ambiguity is the chief reason any definitive biblical canon was ever stipulated in the first place: to limit the options for textual divination. God’s word and will must be sought only within certain limits. Similarly, this is why the Roman Catholic authorities sought to limit access to the Bible to properly catechized priests who could be trusted to read the text through the spectacles of church tradition. Protestants believed all Christians should be welcomed to read the Bible, over-optimistic that the central gospel truth would be clear to all readers. It wasn’t immediately clear at all, and Protestant groups had to frame their own creeds to regulate how the Bible might be read and understood. The trend continues today as various Evangelical seminaries and denominations draft statements of how the Bible may and may not legitimately be interpreted. The goal is to get everyone to agree with the traditional interpretation of the sponsoring group. “Heresy,” after all, simply means “choice,” the idea being that it is effrontery to choose one’s own beliefs rather than submit meekly to spoon-feeding.

[The ancient Rabbinic scholars called it 'placing a law around the Law.' In an effort to reduce ambiguity, worry, fear and discomfort in people, the Jewish teachers set up an assumed set of pre-conditions for interpreting the text. These assumptions became so much a part of the system, that soon the students were hardly aware that these assumptions were psychological rather than theological. These conditions made reading and interpreting the text easier. That is what all doctrinal statements are - psychological guard rails to keep the mind from tumbling down the metaphysical stairs into a terrifyingly dark cellar of theological abstractions. This is what Soren Kierkegaard attacked, declaring that the religious mind which seeks to domesticate God will never be sufficiently terrified and humbled to experience Him directly. The Evangelical movement is filled with many sincere God-seekers who are incapable of having an experience with the Infinite Source because their systems have made Him a concept rather than a Living Presence. Most humans, like the Hebrews at the foot of Mount Sinai, prefer to have another tell them what God is like, or read from written tablets, rather than stand before the quaking, rumbling Voice itself:

"When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance and said to Moses, "Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die." Exodus 20:18-19

That is the same reason most people go to the zoo to see the caged lion rather than travel to the African Veldt where they might get devoured. Rather than making the student struggle with hard metaphysical issues, Evangelicals are told they must believe in the Trinity, the established canon, original sin, penal substitutionary atonement, eternal conscious punishment for unbelievers, etc. With these commandments, or 'law around the Law,' they have enough metaphysical certainty and mental security to study their Bibles without having to meet God in His terrifying and exciting ambiguity.

This terror of ambiguity gradually gave rise to certain biblical sayings meant to make people think that any teacher or teaching other than that of the right teacher or group of teachers was to be shunned:

1. "See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ." Colossians 2:8

2. "As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. These promote controversies rather than God's work—which is by faith. The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Some have wandered away from these and turned to meaningless talk. They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm." I Timothy 1:3-7

3. "I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.' Revelation 22:18-19

4. "I wrote to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to be first, will have nothing to do with us. So if I come, I will call attention to what he is doing, gossiping maliciously about us. Not satisfied with that, he refuses to welcome the brothers. He also stops those who want to do so and puts them out of the church." III John 9-10
5. "For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord. Though you already know all this, I want to remind you that the Lord delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe." Jude 1:4-5

[These textual warnings are common in all cults which attempt to alleviate the confusions their adherents are doubtless going through as they process their elitist teachings in a world with many confusing ideas about morality, God and such problematic issues. This is doubly troubling when one's internal personal moral desires and mental doubts are raging against the teachings which they are receiving from the true believers.]

What a Tangled Web We Weave When We Practice to Believe

I mentioned above that there are liberal theologies of biblical authority that do not entail biblicism. Such theologies often accommodate the possibility that the Bible writers may have contradicted each other. A more liberal theologian might observe that Paul and James disagree over whether faith is sufficient to save one’s soul, or whether faith must be realized through works. Such a theologian would consider neither Paul nor James mouthpieces of revelation, yet both as possible sources of religious wisdom. The theologian’s task would be not to submit to either Paul’s or James’ teaching, but to draw upon both in the process of forming his own (tentative) beliefs [as he wrestles with God for his personal blessing].

The fundamentalist theologian, by contrast, dismisses the liberal’s form of faith as mere [subjective] speculation, worthless in the face of the ultimate question of salvation. With one’s eternal destiny at stake, one must know. And thus one needs revelation, not mere [subjective] speculations, whether ancient (James’ and Paul’s) or modern (one’s own). Since he wants revelation, that is what he is determined to find in the ancient text.

[To admit for one moment that Paul and James may be ordinary men
struggling for spiritual understanding creates a psychological tension that causes terror and uncertainty of cosmic proportions. Thus, the evangelical's frantic adherence to biblical inspiration are not theologically based, but psychologically based. They are usually so unconscious of this distinction, that they will laugh and jump to find textual defenses, proving that it's a theological issue rather than an emotional certainty issue.]

The fundamentalist cannot even recognize that Paul and James contradict one another, since if he did, this would disqualify either or both as mouthpieces of revelation. One might be accepted as a true prophet, the other rejected as a counterfeit, but then who is to decide, and how? Martin Luther had no hesitation in relegating James to the status of a mere appendix to scripture, but most are not so bold. A statement is authoritative for the fundamentalist simply because it appears somewhere in the canon of scripture, all canonical texts being equally authoritative. This is what the slogan “plenary inspiration” means. Unlike in liberal theology, no parts of the Bible are deemed superior or inferior to others. The biblicist, remember, wants to be able just to open the Bible and find his answer. If it is up to him and his meager human abilities to weigh and choose, he is back to square one. He does not want to have to make decisions like this! That’s the whole point!

[This quick and easy solution to the tough metaphysical problems is akin to the psychological immaturity and emotional instability found in those addicted to chemicals like alcohol and cocaine. Their minds are incapable of facing tough problems and growing up. They are frozen in a psychological adolescence, believing that just one more drink, one more line of coke or one more Bible verse will give them that sense of ease and comfort they think they must have or die. This is a mentality that wants instant gratification. Ambiguity, patient struggling and periods of despairing uncertainty must be avoided at all costs. This is one reason it is so common for addicts to readily embrace the doctrines of fundamentalist cults and religions. They often exchange their immediate chemical fix for an immediate metaphysical fix. Sadly, these people have often had a genuine spiritual experience with God, and then end up being told by their Fundamentalist religious teachers that the various cult doctrines must be accepted as part of the genuine spiritual experience. The end result is almost always a diminishing spiritual experience accompanied by a rise in theological indoctrination. Pure spiritual power is gradually and ingeniously replaced by peer approval. After a year or two, the new believer is perturbed that his close connection with Spirit has all but disappeared, but takes comfort in the support of the cult's fellowship. He knows that the deep spiritual experience has vanished, but accolades for Bible study and recruiting others through 'witnessing for Christ' provides a kind of spirituality generated by group acceptance. This is the real meaning of 'antichrist,' or the replacement of the Living God with human recognition and religious training. Such situations almost always end with the indoctrinated believer secretly or publicly returning to his old addictions or adopting new addictions while living a lie. That is why sex scandals, alcoholism, drug abuse and such behaviors are rife amongst evangelical and cultic clergy and laity. They have lost their conscious contact with God, substituting orthodox religious beliefs in an approving community.]
But he cannot escape the horns of dilemmas like this. Fundamentalists follow Martin Luther in wanting to interpret the text of scripture literally, or according to the “plain sense,” what it apparently means by straightforward exegesis, such as one would apply to any ancient text.
The Bible is inspired, but this only means that its message, once determined by exegesis, must be heeded. Inspiration does not entitle us to read the Bible in some esoteric way, as medieval Catholics did, discerning all manner of secret meanings between the lines. If the Bible may be taken to mean just about anything, then the Bible becomes a Rorschach blot. Again, as a literalist, the biblicist wants to banish ambiguity. Reading the text in a careful and “literal” way, however, sooner or later discloses “apparent contradictions” like those between Paul and James. And at this point the biblicist abandons literalism, falling back to a less-than-literal reading. Suddenly one may and must read between the lines after all. An exception to the straightforward reading is allowed when otherwise the two texts would negate each other’s authority and inspiration, a collapse that would take the whole canon with it!
But the cure is worse than the disease! Whatever a “real contradiction” might be, “apparent contradictions” are quite sufficient to vitiate a doctrine of biblical authority that is based on the supposedly “apparent” reading of the text. And it is not just a technicality. For the poor biblicist finds himself situated like the proverbial donkey between the two haystacks: he must decide whether it is Paul or James who is to be taken literally, and which is to be read in a looser way as if he agreed with the other. Though the phrase used is that one must “interpret the less clear texts by the more clear texts,” the biblicist is really interpreting the text he doesn’t like as if it said the same thing as the one he does like. In short, he is in precisely the same position as the liberal theologian, choosing between biblical voices; he just doesn’t realize it.
[Or more accurately, the mind which requires metaphysical certainty will not see it.]

I HAVE THE CORRECT INTERPRETATION

How can he continue in such self-deception? Simply because his choice is an automatic one, determined in advance by his particular church’s tradition of interpretation. If he were a Catholic, he would read Paul as agreeing with James. As a Protestant, he reads James as echoing Paul, once you “really understand” him. The biblicist is submitting to authority, all right, but it is not as he imagines the authority of the text but rather that of his church. And this, too, is fatal, since the first principle of the biblicist is Sola Scriptura: “Scripture alone!”

It is such gross, vitiating contradictions that reveal the origin of biblicism to be essentially non-theological. If it had been theological in origin, it would have more consistency. To call on a related field of supernaturalist belief, we might compare biblicism to astrology. A survey of horoscope readers in Britain revealed that most of them admitted the newspaper predictions proved accurate less than half the time. Why then did they continue to read the horoscope? If it were a matter of theoretical consistency, the utter failure of astrology would have been quickly evident. But it was not a matter of theory. It was a matter of psychology: the astrology believers really sought, not knowledge of the future, but rather peace of mind for the night, permission to sleep well in the confidence of being forewarned and thus forearmed for the morrow. When the morrow came and the prediction, probably forgotten, turned out not to prepare them for events, it hardly mattered. They were competent to deal with the day’s surprises, but the night before they felt they needed an edge, and reading their horoscope allowed them to imagine they had it. Even so with the biblicist. What he wants from the Bible is not so much a coherent system for divining infallible revelations, but only the permission to dogmatize, whether the goal is to quiet his own fears or to push others around.

[He has found a way to get around Jesus' teaching that we must subject our basic human instincts of prestige, power and emotional security to an encounter with God as God is, not as we make Him to be.]

A Mighty Fortress Is Our Mentality

Once one has adopted the belief that the Bible must function as the final authority in all matters, some strange results follow. Above, I gave abortion as an example of how the desire for a sure word of revelation leads some biblicists to imagine that the Bible speaks to issues of which it is in fact innocent. To do this is what I call hermeneutical ventriloquism. The biblicist may chant “The Bible said it! I believe it! That settles it!” But in practice this often amounts to “I said it! The Bible believes it! That settles it!” One does the scripture the dubious favor of attributing to it one’s own beliefs. The (psycho)logical process goes like this: “My opinion is true. The Bible teaches the truth. Therefore the Bible must teach my opinion.” One suspects that the dogmatist has simply become so accustomed to dogmatizing that appealing to the Bible is just his way of asserting the truth of his opinion, wherever he got it. Saying “The Bible says” is tantamount to saying, “Verily I say unto thee...”

[I always imagine that scene from the Wizard of Oz where the terrified little professor stands behind the curtain, pretending to be the great and terrible Oz, pulling levers and flashing lights to make him right and to keep others at a distance. Once exposed, we feel pity, because he is really just a scared little man looking for a way to protect himself from ambiguity and uncertainty. Ironically, once his ruse is revealed and he admits he is a 'terrible wizard but a very good man,' he is able to help himself and others find what they are really looking for – courage, heart, knowledge and the way home. Most evangelicals I know are very good men and women; they are just filled with fear and uncertainty. Many of them met God at one point in their early Christian experiences, but like Essau, traded their spiritual birthright for a bowl of psychological porridge. Most have given up the quest for the unpredictable Infinite Who is always revealing Himself anew, for a little package of theological certainties which allow them to hide from the True God.]

One’s imaginary possession of the word of God, or the mind of God, allows the biblicist to wield what I call the Prophetic Ramrod, an attitude of invulnerable narrow-mindedness: “Friend, there is your view, and then there is God’s view.”

Such dogmatism may even rub off onto areas where the biblicist feels no especial need to quote the Bible or knows he cannot, areas such as party politics or even selling merchandise. Whether one is “witnessing” to the glories of Christian salvation, Amway products or May Kay Cosmetics, one uses the same methods (as Southern Baptist salesman and evangelist Zig Ziglar freely admits in his book Secrets of Closing the Sale).

[These same people begin to think that their political views and candidates are God's chosen because they agree with their 'biblical' opinions. It becomes God's way versus the godless Libs. I once found such people to be despicable, but I honestly now feel deep sorrow for them. I have been where they are and remember the fear, the confusion, the hatred and the unclean feeling inside. The only thing that would erase the misery and lack of conscious contact with God was a chronic retreat to the Bible or my community of fearful biblicists. There was no fount of living water which Jesus described, no filling with the Holy Spirit that gave me love for my enemies, no power to stop from retaliating against my spouse when he/she offended me. When I was really honest with myself, I had no deep abiding awareness of God's overwhelming Presence bursting out of my chest. I had my book. I had my doctrines. I had my mental security that I was right. I had a heart filled with fear, a mind filled with resentments and a secret desire to have God like I once knew Him.]

The Sliding Scale of Biblical Inerrancy

Another anomaly resulting from the psychological, not theological, basis of biblicism is the shifting opinion of biblicists over the years as to what is the allegedly infallible teaching of the Bible is when it comes to the world of nature. There was a time when readers of the Bible could see quite well that it “taught” (or presupposed) a flat earth that floated on water, covered by a solid firmament (dome) that kept out another ocean above. The earth was orbited by the sun and supported by pillars. And every Bible reader understood this. In the name of the infallible Bible, religious authorities opposed the progress of science. Today, most fundamentalists reject evolution because it contradicts the Bible. But only a tiny minority still believe the earth is flat. A slightly larger minority believe that the sun orbits the earth. Most fundamentalists believe that the earth is round and that it orbits the sun. And they do not even realize that the biblical picture of the earth contradicts these notions. Their religious upbringing has told them that the Bible contradicts science only at the point of evolution. As for the rest, they have even been told that the ancient writers of the Bible miraculously foreknew what it took modern science centuries to learn, that the earth is round, that it orbits the sun, etc. These assertions are read into the Bible by forced and implausible readings of various passages out of context, akin to attempts to show that the Bible writers knew about flying saucers. The true teaching of the Bible on these matters, they say, could not be understood until modern science allowed us to understand the relevant texts correctly! This is very close to (but also very far from) a frank admission of the game of catch-up being played here.

But what makes the difference between whether one recognizes contradictions between the Bible and science or one pretends the Bible anticipated modern science? It is simply peer pressure, massive and permeating public opinion. Ancient biblicists lived in a peer group (a “plausibility structure,” as Peter Berger would call it) that believed in a flat earth orbited by the sun, created in a week. It would have been hard to believe anything radically different. As the plausibility structure shifted, so that most people in the culture no longer took the ancient world-picture seriously, it ceased to be an option for biblicists to retain the biblical cosmology. They couldn’t withstand the cognitive peer pressure. And today the great majority, including biblicists, believe in a round, sun-orbiting earth, but it is not so obvious to the great majority that all life forms gradually evolved from a common ancestor. One still has breathing room on that point; one can still afford to recognize what the Bible says. One can still, for the time being, reject evolution and not seem a freak. The fundamentalist dreads the time when universal belief might turn to accept evolution, and so they seek to defer that day by means of public debates, censoring biology textbooks, etc. Their effort is not to persuade the intelligentsia (scientists) of the truth of anti-evolutionism, but rather to appeal to the gallery in the manner of a political campaign,. They are looking for votes in order to retain an amenable plausibility structure. It is all psychological, not theological, since what the Bible says or does not say about the natural world is utterly beside the point. The day will eventually come when biblicists will reinterpret Genesis to teach evolution and will claim that God had revealed it to the ancient scriptural writers ages before scientists supposedly discovered it. And these new scriptural “insights” will have come not from exegesis but solely from social peer pressure.

[Again, this is psychology at work, not theology. People approach the Bible because they want personal certainty and acceptance by their peers. When the majority opinion amongst evangelicals shifts, as it did with slavery and women's equality, they will feel comfortable going to the Bible to prove that this was God's all along. They will ignore or deny that their spiritual ancestors taught just the opposite. So you see, their exegesis is not driven by a rigorous honesty and pursuit of truth, but by fear and acceptance.]

If one wishes to get anywhere reasoning with fundamentalists and biblicists, I suggest one try to determine the emotional issues that attach believers to their beliefs. The beliefs themselves are, I think, a function of certain psychological needs that would be better met in other ways. But until those psychological needs are identified and met in other ways, we will have no way of getting believers to budge from their beliefs, and we might not even have the right to do so.

[There is something almost cruel about threatening to take away a child's security blanket. The only good motive would be to see the child walk, thereby improving his chances of having a rich, full human life. I now see that Jesus was more interested in people meeting God than in being comfortable. The only genuine motive for pointing these things out to evangelicals and other cultists is a sincere desire to see them know God in a way that gives them and others a richer, fuller more human and humane life. If our hearts are not filled with the clean, overwhelming joy and presence of the Holy Spirit which Jesus talked about, I question our motives in 'attacking' or trying to take away the evangelical's psychological props. We may be doing nothing more than what they are doing, namely, assuaging our own fears and uncertainties by causing them to face their own. I have done that, and may do it again. Many an atheist put his acerbic pen to paper, not to help the theist, but to undermine his faith that he might be as miserable as the unbelieving skeptic. When Jesus cleared the temple and called the Jewish religionists a pit of snakes and spiritually dead hypocrites, he desired to point out their actual psycho-spiritual condition in order that they might have a chance of being connected to the Infinite Source of Life, Love and Power. We hear a lot about 'tough love' these days; genuine tough love is causing someone pain that they may experience healing, clarity and a deeper experience of being fully and truly human.]

Michael Bogar
www.michaelbogar.com