Month: November 2021

Great  Article

I came across this article that makes some great points that reinforce comments I have made in recent posts. I thought it was very well done. Since it didn’t have a copyright  notice I am taking the  liberty of republishing it here.

Natural Resources

Part 1: Doomsday or Utopia – The Record of the Past

A hundred and seventy years ago there was a major natural resources crisis. The oil that was used to light houses, factories and public buildings; the oil that was used for lubrication, making soap, varnishes and paint; the oil that was used for finishing leather and woolen products; that all purpose oil was getting more and more scarce and more and more expensive.

Also getting scarce and more expensive was the natural material people used then for many of the same uses we today have for plastics. With so many critically important natural resources running out, many experts predicted doom in the near future.

It didn’t happen that way.

The oil was whale oil, and the natural plastic material was whale bone.

Today in the final decades of the twentieth century many experts are predicting the same doom for the future as we seem to be running out of oil and gas, of minerals and soil-while our world population continues to soar. Let’s see what perspective we can gain on our natural resource problems today by looking at the history of natural resource problems in the past.

One of the first natural resource crises for life on earth happened two or three billion years ago. In the ancient primordial ocean the world’s first living organisms had been gobbling up the rich amino acid soup that had been made by lightning, volcanic action and other nonliving sources over many millions of years. When the soup began to get too thin to support such a large population of living organisms, many died from starvation. Some organisms, however, had developed an ability to use direct sunlight as a source of energy and they prospered. The world of plants was born. And with them many new possibilities for life on this small planet.

Passing through that crisis must have taken a long time. The living world, of course, passed through many other energy and raw material crises over the next three to four billion years. For our purposes let’s leap forward to the first human natural resource crisis.

It probably happened many places in the ancient world five to ten thousand years ago. At that time it is estimated that the population of human beings on the earth was on the order of one or two million. One or two million people scattered sparsely and unevenly over five continents and thousands of fertile islands. Much less than one person per square mile.

As always happens in natural ecosystems, there was a rough balance of resources to populations. Humans lived by hunting, fishing and by gathering wild foodstuffs. The average life expectancy was around twenty-five years, just long enough to reproduce and to nurture new human beings before they had to manage the same for their offspring. Since food and living space (in suitable caves and other natural shelters) were always scarce, populations were kept steady as the high birth rate was equal to the high death rate.

Then, no one knows for certain how or why, in certain parts of the world, humans learned how to make better use of natural resources. They learned how to multiply natural resources. They learned how to grow crops instead of just find and collect them. They learned how to herd and husband animals instead of just hunt them.

In the fertile crescent around the Mediterranean Sea, in the rich river valleys of China, Africa, South America and India, the agricultural revolution led to the first examples of human civilization, as we would come to call it in later years.

Note that the earth itself had not changed. There was still the same air, earth and water. Still the same elements as there had been millions, billions of years before. What had changed, though, were the natural resources available to human beings. Suddenly there was a substantial increase in resources like food, animal derived clothing and building materials. And new energy in the form of animal-harnessed muscle power.

Population increased dramatically, multiplying by ten and then a hundred times in just a few centuries. Life expectancy also increased to over thirty years. And though most people were peasants, laborers, serfs or even slaves, they did have a more secure and resource-rich life than their hunting-and-gathering ancestors.

When the sailing ship was invented to tap the energy of the wind for transportation, population and resources took another surge forward. Humans could now transport materials much more easily permitting one area to specialize in food production, another in metal smelting and a third in ship-building. And all could now trade, gaining what they had not, selling what they had too much of.

Still more important-and critical to our story humans could travel more and learn more, one from one another. The high civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, China, Southeast Asia, Africa, Greece and Rome were born.

In China especially, remarkable progress was made in technology and science. The wheelbarrow, the compass, the printing press, gunpowder, the first scientific instruments to measure earthquakes-were all invented centuries before they were discovered in the West.

In the West, in Middle Age Europe, increases in natural resources came from new technology. The supply of food and energy increased as people learned to make new kinds of wind and water machines, new methods of soil cultivation, crop rotation and better plows and horse collars. All these led to a gradual betterment of human life as continent Europe was slowly transformed from a primeval wilderness into a human-molded landscape.

Unfortunately, disease acted as a constant brake on human progress during these times. The population of Europe was cut by a third more than once by a plague called the Black Death. In spite of this, however, life expectancy did slowly increase. The population in Europe in 1500 was double the population in 600 when the Roman Empire was in its dying days.

Throughout these precarious days, as well as all the way back through ancient civilizations, certain ideas about wealth were widespread and deeply ingrained. One of the most influential of these ideas-and one that has lasted right on down to our own times-was that the most important, secure and real form of wealth was gold.

It was understandable. Change was slow. Society, indeed the universe itself, was looked on as a closed, static system. Everyone and everything had its place. If one person was to gain wealth, another must lose wealth. In later times this would be called a zero-sum economy.

In such an economy one would be wise to gather and hold onto the most solid kind of wealth. The kind that did not change and was easy to guard and preserve. Of all the natural resources, gold met those tests better than any other.

In the next three centuries the scientific and industrial revolutions burst upon the western world and changed forever this equation. Suddenly there was tremendous reshuffling and recreation of natural resources. And a new idea came into the world. The idea of an open society, an open universe. To get wealth you did not have to take it from someone else. You could make it from scratch! People began to have a new vision of progress!

Wealth need no longer be held by the tiny one percent of the population while the other ninety-nine percent were condemned to life-long poverty. It was no longer a zero-sum game. All could have enough. All could someday be as wealthy as the privileged few were today.

One particular resource in the ground, coal, and one particular resource of human invention, the steam engine, are given much of the credit for the early industrial revolution. Coal had been known from ancient times, but only sparingly used. With the invention of the steam engine, however, this black rock suddenly became a very valuable natural resource. And the way was open for a vast increase in human wealth.

After coal came the internal combustion engine and oil and gas as a power source. This was followed by electricity, nuclear energy, computers, much more efficient transportation and communication systems, all the technology that powers and supports our modem twentieth century world.

Just as important as the science and technology were new ideas about the economy and the political organization of society. Liberal democracy and free market capitalism in particular, were opening the eyes of people in Europe and North America to vast new potentials for change, for growth, for progress toward new wealth, power and knowledge.

And change there was. Since our own country was founded in 1776, the population of the world has leaped from three hundred million to close to five billion. Life expectancy has also increased from thirty-two to fifty-five years for the world as a whole. To seventy-four years for the industrialized western world.

The average worker in 1700 could produce $250 worth of goods a year. By 1984 the figure for the industrialized world had increased to $5000.

The average farm family in 1700 could feed itself and half a person more. The average farm family in 1984 could feed itself and fifty people more.

Put still another way, in our day every person in our country has the energy equivalent of over one hundred slaves at his or her command.

If the natural earth has not changed, where has all this new wealth come from?

Answer. From the human hand and mind. From learning how to do more with less.

For remember, the earth is still the same. Or is it?

Now we come to the disputes. Yesterday and today. Have we, in the process of industrializing and multiplying our wealth and populations, robbed the earth of her natural wealth? Are we laying the foundations for a terrible catastrophe in the future? One that our children and grandchildren will never forgive us for?

Have we of the wealthy nations gained our wealth by stealing it from the poor nations?

Experts disagree about these questions. And so do citizens.

Back in the last century, some of the first serious attempts were made to study the problems of natural resource depletion. Despite the statistically improving life spans and personal incomes, people could see the reality of urban poverty, of child labor, or increasing sanitation and pollution problems. Then, as now, there were pessimists and optimists.

The pessimists took much of their gloomy arguments from an English thinker, Thomas Malthus. Malthus (whose father ironically enough was a famous optimist) wrote an “Essay on Population” in 1798 that became very influential. His argument was simple and apparently irrefutable. Population, said Malthus, always had and always would tend to grow geometrically. While food supply (and all the other raw materials needed for human life) could only be expanded arithmetically. In other words, people multiply, while resources grow only by addition.

The result, said Malthus, was misery. The only ways food and population could be kept in balance were war, disease, and famine. Later he admitted that controlling births might also work, but he doubted this could ever be done.

Darwin later used the arguments of Malthus as key points in his own theory of evolution by natural selection.

In the middle of the nineteenth century men like Henry David Thoreau, John Burroughs and John James Audubon tried to alert the public to the alarming speed at which wilderness was disappearing in this country. To the growing scarcity of species like the passenger pigeon, the buffalo, and mountain lion. Presidents like Theodore Roosevelt led conservation movements that established our first national parks and forests.

In this same nineteenth century, we also had the coming of the lumbermen and miners, the whaling ships and cowboys. All intent on exploiting for human gain the natural resources of a vast continent. On the whole these pioneers tended to be optimists. It was our Manifest Destiny to conquer and civilize the North American continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

Wilderness was often seen as the enemy. It could never be depleted. The frontier was open, opportunities were unlimited, the way was clear for such progress that the kingdom of heaven itself would soon be founded on this glorious continent.

Both points of view have survived and developed since that last century. On the one hand we have expanded the frontier as the optimists predicted, though not quite in the way they imagined.

For instance:

Today, despite the rapid depletion of the original hardwood and pine forests, we produce more wood and forestry products than ever before by a large measure.

Today, despite the rapid depletion of early easy-to-find-and-mine iron, copper and coal resources, we produce more iron, copper and coal than ever before by a large measure. And at a lower cost in both money and human lives.

On the other side, we have also made much progress in conservation. Despite the growth of the lumber industry, for example, we have more forested land today in this country than we had a hundred years ago! Despite the depletion of the original hematite iron ranges, new technologies of taconite processing have given us more iron ore today than we had a hundred years ago! Over and over again we have learned to do more with less.

These paradoxes-the more we use, the more we have left-as well as our increasing ability to do more with less, have misled many experts in the past. As a result their predictive accuracy has not been impressive.

In 1908, for instance, the U.S. Bureau of Mines predicted a total future world supply of oil of 22.5 billion barrels. (The world has used one and a half times that much since 1908, and now has over 26 billion barrels in proven reserves!)

By 1939 officials were predicting the U.S. oil supplies could last only another thirteen years. By 1949 they saw the end of the oil supply in sight. And as recently as 1979 President Jimmy Carter declared the imminent oil shortage a national crisis of survival dimensions.

A similar story could be told of predictions of imminent food shortages and worldwide famine. In 1969 a prominent expert, Dr. Paul Ehrlich, wrote a best-selling book, The Population Bomb. In the first sentence he claims, “We have already lost the battle. No matter what crash programs are instigated at this time, they will not be enough to prevent a worldwide famine of catastrophic proportions in the next ten years. Billions of people will die.”

What actually happened? Now, twenty years later, there have been no worldwide famines. In fact, life expectancy is up all over the world. The food supply has more than kept pace with population growth even in the poorest countries. And all this has been accomplished without any crash programs. Just ordinary progress. Steady continuous application of human kind’s incredible ability to do more with less.

In 1972 a group called the Club of Rome sponsored two studies of natural resources for the future using computer simulations. Their conclusions were similar to those of past doomsday experts. The world has not much further to go before we run out of the basic raw materials we need to support our civilization.

In 1980 a U.S. government-appointed study group issued a report, Global 2000, that echoed much of the doomsday vision of the Club of Rome.

Three years later, however, another group of twenty-one experts reported to the annual convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Science a totally opposite report, The Resourceful Earth: A Response to Global 2000.

These experts claimed that, contrary to the Club of Rome and to the popular belief in recent years, the world by the year 2000 will be less crowded, less polluted, have more food per capita and more natural resources per capita than ever before

Who is right? Global 2000 or The Resourceful Earth: A Response to Global 2000?

Part 2: Utopia or Doomsday – Present and Future

You have probably heard the statement made that the United States with six percent of the world’s population uses over forty percent of the world’s resources and generates over sixty percent of its wastes.

The question is-is this something to be ashamed of or proud of?

The answer you give depends a good deal on your understanding of just what a natural resource is. Let’s consider that question first.

On the surface it looks easy enough. Oil, gas, coal, soil, air, water; minerals, wildlife, wilderness. All these and more are indeed natural resources. Just as litter, trash, smoke, toxic wastes, radioactive particles are pollutants. If you look closer, however, it gets more complicated and interesting.

Geologically speaking, coal, oil, and gas are themselves the waste products of ancient plants and animals. And closer to our time, waste paper can be a natural resource for recycled paper; radioactive wastes can be a natural resource for breeder fuel; broken bottles and discarded plastics can be natural resources for new glass and new plastic.

Then, too, there is the matter of what we know or don’t know. Coal, oil, and gas have been in the ground for hundreds of millions of years, but only very recently have they been worth digging or pumping up. Rocks from the northern shore of Lake Superior were never considered a natural resource until someone figured out there was iron in them. Cantaloupe mold was considered a pollutant until someone figured out there was penicillin in there, and it could be used to cure infections.

In other words, being a natural resource has much to do with the state of human knowledge and ingenuity at any given time. What was an important resource yesterday (whale oil, for instance, or beaver fur) is no longer considered an important natural resource today. Not because there are fewer whales or beavers, but because the same human needs are now being met more cheaply, effectively, and efficiently by petroleum and nylon.

Let’s put it this way. There are three things necessary if we are to have a natural resource.

One. There must be a human need, a demand for a particular service or commodity.

Two. There must be a physical thing that can be found or made to satisfy that need.

Three. There must be available the human knowledge and skill to do the job–transforming the physical thing of matter and energy into the human thing of value.

Take an example. (1) Humans need and want energy and power. (2) There exists in the world physical things that have the potential to provide useful energy and power. (3) Humans have figured out some ways to tap some of these sources of energy and power for their own purposes.

Notice that I said some of these sources. By no means all, nor even necessarily any high percentage of these sources. We do know of some ways to get energy from nature. Oil, gas, coal, water flowing, wind blowing, sunlight shining, atoms splitting, tides moving, rocks underground heating. Most of these ways were totally unknown two hundred years ago. Many were not known twenty years ago.

And what will we know twenty years from now? A hundred years from now? It would be a rash person to claim to know.

Consider some possibilities already on the way. Fusion power, vast untapped solar power, nuclear breeder power, vastly improved efficiencies in all our machines, power from fuels in outer space–we know not how many possible other sources, totally unsuspected at the moment.

In other words, it is highly unlikely, if the past is any judge at all, that we will ever “run out” of energy resources. Our ingenuity has already created far more choices than we can use efficiently.

So, too, with raw materials. Beaver fur is replaced by nylon. Whale bone is replaced by plastic. Copper wires are replaced by glass fibers and satellite disks.

When you consider how young we are as human beings on this earth, we have barely begun our search.

The search is the key. In the end it is not physical things that limit us. In truth the only real natural resources we need to worry about is the ultimate resource–the human hand and mind.

When we put our minds and hands to it, look what we can create.

The natural resource of hard rock is transformed into a transistor, a silicon chip, a sculpture.

The natural resources of soft wood is transformed into a pencil, a table, a book.

The natural resource of air and water is turned into fertilizer, into corn, into a gourmet meal.

People who say we are fast running out of natural resources; people who say the United States should be ashamed of itself for squandering such a large proportion of the world’s resources; people who say we are heading for a doomsday reckoning might reply…

“While all you say may have been true in the past, the situation is drastically changed today. Despite efficiency and the power of the mind and all that–the world, you see, is finite. There is only so much air, soil, and water; only so much oil, gas, and iron, and copper to go around. If we use more than our share at this late date in human history, the rest of the world, and our own children will be the poorer for it. Especially considering the way the population of the world is exploding!”

As the presidential commission Global 2000 reported in 1980, “if present trends continue, the world in 200 will be more crowded, more polluted, less stable ecologically, and more vulnerable to disruption than the world we live in now.”

Three years later, however, another group of scientists published The Resourceful Earth: A Response to Global 2000. They came to the exact opposite conclusion. “If present trends continue, the world in 2000 will be less crowded, less polluted, more stable ecologically, and less vulnerable to disruption than the world we live in.”

How could two groups of professional scientists come to such diametrically opposed conclusions?

Here is one possible answer. If you look on natural resources as simply and only physical oil in the ground, physical square miles of soil and oceans of water and air. If you view wealth as the gold buried in Fort Knox, then yes, the world is finite. More people will indeed need and use more. and what we use someone else must do without. And the more we use the more wastes we will create, and thus the world will end up more polluted, more disrupted, and less stable.

However, once you add the human mind to the equation, it changes radically. In this view, a natural resource is only a resource if human needs and ingenuity make it so. And since by far the most important part of any natural resource is this human ingenuity and skill, we have learned in the past and we can learn in the future to multiply resources faster than we multiply people.

The same soil, for instance, that once supported three people now supports three hundred. How? Because we have learned how to breed better seeds, add better fertilizer, cultivate more efficiently, and distribute the food more efficiently and equitably.

The same copper that once carried ten telephone messages now carries ten thousand because we learned how to multiply electromagnetic carriers, to pack more information into smaller spaces. And tomorrow we can send ten million messages using no copper at all, just glass fibers and satellites in space.

Let’s look at the record, say the Response to Global 2000 scientists. Population has grown by leaps and bounds in the past century, it is true. But food supply has grown even faster. Yes, even in the poor countries of the world, most of whom are now self-sufficient and even exporting food.

The same goes for life expectancy, infant mortality, health, communication, education. Much of the world is still below the standards of North America, Europe and Japan, but, despite the gloomy reports, there is and has been consistent progress over the past decades. If natural resources were fixed and limited, where did all this new growth, this new wealth, come from?

The United States with only six percent of the world’s population, has not been stealing more than its share. It has been creating more than its share!

Thankfully the rest of the world is catching on, and beginning to create more wealth for itself. For wealth is not gold. It is knowledge. Knowledge that brings power and delight.

This being so, despite temporary setbacks, there is no reason to think the process of creating wealth will not continue. Population will level off as it always has in past revolutions. We will attain a new equilibrium more desirable than any in the past.

In other words, resources are not finite after all. The future, in this view, is open, unlimited, is full wish risk, challenge and potential. Because the human mind if open, is unlimited, is full with risk, challenge, and potential.

But wait, you say! Not so fast. What about pollution? What about acid rain, the greenhouse effect? What about over-population, species extinction? There have to be limits somewhere. The world is not a commodity to be processed by man alone. It is a community to which we belong as one and only one member. We must pay heed. We must strive for quality as much as for quantity. As Henry David Thoreau once wrote, “I hear they are planning to build a telegraph from Maine to Texas, but I wonder whether anyone has inquired whether Maine and Texas have anything important to say to one another.”

To which all intelligent people must respond, yes. We must pay heed. That is what being human is all about.

True, we must begin to look on ourselves as a partner in nature, not as a tyrant. True, we must consider quality as well as quantity. The quality of what we say and think and do is ever so much more important than how fast or how many things we do and say.

And there is slowly growing a new consensus among the world’s peoples. It needs nurturing the way any new crop does. But it is gaining strength all the time and will continue to do so.

This new consensus says things like:

Pollution can and will be controlled. Even more, pollution can and will be turned to the good of the whole living planet. One example: in north-central Illinois they are right now using waste sludge from Chicago’s sewage system to rehabilitate strip-mined land, turning it back into productive corn fields and orchards.

Species can and will be protected. Including all varieties of our own species, Homo sapiens.

Example: in Wisconsin, Siberian cranes and whooping cranes are being raised in captivity to help increase the population in the wild and to understand how to save the natural habitat of wild cranes. We are also learning how to preserve and expand natural wilderness areas. Even how to bring back to a natural state areas formerly polluted.

But the new consensus also demands that while we are preserving and enhancing our natural environment, at the same time we increase our worldwide ability to create new wealth so that…

100% of the world’s people eat well every day.

100% of the world’s people have good housing.

100% of the world’s people have good health care.

100% of the world’s people have the freedom to make choices, the freedom to search, the freedom to learn, the freedom to create wealth themselves and in the process to create a better life for themselves and for their children and their children’s children.

Which is, after all, what natural resources are all about. We had better get busy. Doomsday has been cancelled. Utopia is irrelevant. the future if what we make it.

Article taken from

http://www.hawkhill.com/112s.html

Published by Bill Stonebarger

Unfortunately, this site is no longer available

June 26, 2004

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Love and Illusion

The Crème supporter (hereafter called CS) writes: “and the only way to eradicate this evil is by justice; living God’s law of love. There are terrorists because there is injustice and not the reverse – it is NOT terrorists who create evil, it is a lack of love.”

To this a reader responds: “Nonsense those terrorists are responsible for their choices! They chose to perpetrate injustice on their fellow man and they will pay the consequence regardless. It is not their fellow man’s fault they chose to do evil.”

JJ: In support of the reader’s logic one might ask what made the Jews and Romans terrorize Jesus with crucifixion? Was he not showing them enough love?

It is true that when a normal person with a balanced belief system is shown love that anger can sometimes be neutralized. If we were just dealing with angry people then CS may have a point.

But what makes a terrorist or a dangerous enemy is not anger but illusion. When, because of indoctrination or merely drawing wrong philosophical conclusions, a person or group decides a certain group of people are the enemy then no amount of love will change their minds. The enemies of Jesus, is of course, are the famous example of this. They may have thought he was a nice fellow, but it did Jesus little good because their belief system was threatened. Showing more love would have done Jesus little good, but if he had convinced them that he would cease teaching then they may have left him alone.

It is interesting that Hitler admitted that many Jews were nice people but he taught the Nazis that for the “greater good” that any love toward the Jews as individuals had to be ignored and the cancer must be eliminated. Because of this illusion it made no difference how magnanimous the Jews were toward the Nazis.

Some of the 9/11 terrorists had good relationships with Americans. One I read about was even married to an American woman. Some on their last day of living went to Las Vegas and had some final fun. They liked America so much that they spent their last day, not in some Islamic pastime, but a traditional American one. They did not crash the planes in the buildings because of personal hate or because they were treated badly by Americans, but because of illusion in their belief system. Illusion in the belief system will cause a person to kill his own loved ones, his friends, his countrymen, people who love him and even his own Master as was the case with Judas.

The Dark Brotherhood works through illusion and if the illusion cannot be dispelled then the only defense is to defeat or neutralize these people to render them harmless.

Hitler’s Germany is the prime case in point. Their illusion could not be dispelled so they had to be defeated. No amount of love would change them. In fact, Hitler and many Germans loved the English and had great respect for them. England was their enemy only because illusion dictated that the “chosen” must rule.

CS: Although illusion is the root source of so-called terrorism, it is not that simple. We all have belief systems and we all have illusions but we all do not murder other people who oppose our beliefs. Illusion for Humanity will exist for a long time and it will become more potent as the race becomes more mental – which is why the birth of Christ in the cave of the heart is essential. The love we must live is a lot more than turning the other cheek – it is the love that eradicates poverty in a world of plenty. It is the love that feeds the 24,000 people who die a day from hunger. It is the love that demands every person in the world has access to clean and sanitary drinking water. It is the love that puts an end to international currency speculation.

JJ: Here you are arguing apples and oranges. You are taking something with which every civilized person agrees and using it thinking it refutes what I have said.

This refutes nothing. We all agree that if we have the spirit of love that we will seek to do all we can to ensure that the poor and hungry receive relief.

CS:  It is the love that does not spend 450 billion dollars in one year on armaments and warfare.

JJ: Armaments and warfare can be used for love or hate depending on the motive. I think we all agree that during World War II that the money the Allies spent on war and armaments was based on love and not hate for it freed the world from totalitarianism and saved the Jewish race from complete annihilation.

You are making a statement consciously designed by those above you to drive the whole human race into greater illusion.

CS: It is the love that obeys the laws of the United Nations.

JJ: Then Bush must be obeying the law of Love for enforcing UN resolutions 687 and 1441 by going to war with Iraq.

CS: It is the love that guarantees that every child on earth can read and write.

JJ: It is love if it is accomplished by free will. It is evil and breeds hate if done by forcing people to do what seems to be right. You later say you are against morphing people in our image.

CS: It is the love in action that demonstrates the oneness of Humanity.

JJ: Humanity is not ready to demonstrate this yet. When it does it will happen more through the spirit of good will than any conscious attention on someone’s definition of love.

CS: There are a few thousand Islamic extremists, religious zealots, who are devoted to their cause of violent attacks on America and a few other western nations and we call these people irrational and under illusion and animals and barbarians and a threat to national security and freedom – and we call these people evil.

JJ: I would call those evil who wish to destroy an entire race or civilization. What would you call them?

Of course, there are many good and decent Muslims, but anyone seeking destruction for destruction’s sake is not on the side of virtue.

Those who are planning and executing most of the terror are usually wealthy and well educated. All of those who executed 9/11 had plenty of money and most were well educated.

Osama Bin Laden is very wealthy and Yasser Arafat is said to be worth over a billion dollars while his people live in squalor.

CS: We do this when 3 billion people live on 2 dollars a day or less. We live in luxury compared to the one billion people who live in absolute poverty – and we are pointing fingers at “terrorists” and claiming they are perpetuating evil and injustice?

JJ: Since Yasser Arafat is one of the richest men in the world then, using your logic his people should hate him for hoarding all the money he receives – same with Osama Bin Laden who lives well while others do not.

Obviously, the answer lies deeper than the fact that some are successful and some are not. Many of the poor hate because they are manipulated by wealthy powerful people of evil design. When they are not manipulated, they do not hate any more than the rich.

The Western nations are doing a lot to help the poor, but often when food and supplies are sent, they are stolen by dictators and warlords and used for political control. Even if we had the means and sought to feed all the people of the world few would get fed because localized powerful people would prevent it.

The only permanent solution is to teach the poor to take care of themselves and supply help when it actually can be received by them.

CS: We must realize that so-called terrorism will get a lot worse if poverty continues to enthrall half the population of the world.

JJ: If we sought to feed, clothe and house all the poor living under the terrorist control little would change. They would still see us as the great Satan that must be destroyed and replaced by their ideology.

CS: I am not a fan of the materialism that engulfs the affluent western world, especially the G8 nations, but I have plenty of food in my refrigerator and cupboards.

JJ: It is not any evil materialism to work hard and have plenty of food and drink – as well as a few amenities. Materialism which is destructive comes from priorities. If the person’s attention is on the riches of the world for the benefit of self only to the exclusion of spiritual progress then we have a problem. To work hard to have the essentials of life is a virtue. To obtain abundance and then do good with it is also a virtue.

A current materialism that is of great concern are those countries and business who will profit by aiding unstable nations in obtaining nuclear and other WMD’s.

CS: But if I did not have these things, especially the essentials, can you understand why I would want to see America and her allies crumble?

JJ: If they were not indoctrinated by their wealthy authorities they would question why their leaders live in luxury rather than  far off people in other nations. Illusion turns things upside down for them.

CS: Can you understand why I would have hatred towards a country and a culture that is morphing my country and culture into Americana?

JJ: You mean like we did with Japan and Germany after WWII? I haven’t seen any hate there because they have been morphed. When people  embrace greater freedom there are no regrets.

CS: Can you understand why I would have anger when my family and I live in poverty while the American representative in suit and tie declares the freedom of his nation is under attack?

JJ: Are you working for the Taliban? If not it is difficult to understand this line of reasoning.

I have lost everything a couple times in my life and have been very broke, but not hated anyone. I have never seen myself as poor, because that is not my consciousness.

CS: The terrorists of the past few years may not have lived in poverty and al-Qaeda can be sitting under millions of dollars – but these so-called terrorists represent their nations and become heroes and celebrities.

JJ: This is where some of the illusion fits in and controls the underclass. Dispelling this illusion would do more for the poor than dumping all the food and money of the world in the lap of greedy leaders.

CS: So how and where does religion fit into this? Their religious beliefs are intertwined into the fabric of their culture and when their culture begins to be erode, their religion begins to erode. The line between culture and religion is so fine that it cannot be seen in many nations. Why would these people NOT take personal offense to the commercialization of their culture/religion?

JJ: France and other nations have complained about their people adopting American commercialization, but they do not go to war with us. Almost all the commercialization is done through free will, because people are demanding it. Those who do not want it will resent those who do as well as the suppliers. Should the majority of a country be denied abundance because a minority is offended? Change always creates disturbance. We could just let be those who are in the stone age alone and let them live on their two dollars a day, but you seem to be against this also.

CS: In the view of many people, the culture of the United States of America represents greedy materialism, the love of money and possessions and the goal of financial profit at the expense of societal values and human suffering – of course there are going to be people who will defend their country/culture/religion from this type of country/culture/religion.

JJ: Sounds like something Fidel Castro may have said. Maybe you would be happier in Cuba.

CS: Today, the United States are giving thirteen cents per hundred dollars of gross national product (GNP) to developing aid …and it’s been estimated that if she gave another thirty-five cents the UN Millennium Project goals would be achieved.

JJ: We do give that other 35 cents, but receive no credit for it. If you take the money we spend on helping illegal aliens (30-40 billion a year) it surpasses the money much of the world spends on aid.  (Note: As of 2021 the cost is around $116 billion)

I don’t think the average American sees himself as some greedy SOB the way you seem to. The average guy has all he can do just to pay his bills and does what he can to help those in need.

It sounds like your solution is through the path of self condemnation and self guilt.

There is a lot of truth in the old cliché that you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

The solution is not to give all our fish to our neighbors but to teach them to fish. JFK’s Peace Corp was a great step in this direction.

I have found in my own life that when I just give to others that they will soon demand more and often wind up hating me because I am not giving enough. Read about lottery winners getting similar results who attempt to share their prize. Overall, I have found that helping people through giving alone is very dangerous. On the other hand, when I have taught others to fish things are different. In this situation both the giver and the receiver benefit and remain friends.

Do you practice what you preach and give to the poor?

June 24, 2004

Copyright by J J Dewey

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Using Logic and Reason

Thanks for your strained reasoning on why you think Crème is right. It is amazing to me that you do not even consider that he may be wrong.

Here seems to be the crux of your argument. Mankind has increased (according to Crème’s figures) by a factor of 125 not because people come back and progress but because new and more advanced souls have been coming in during this whole 4000 year period. These advanced souls dramatically increase the average.

The only problem with this argument is that there is no evidence to support it and you have offered none. It is reasonable to suppose that there are some advanced souls coming into incarnation that have not incarnated for a very long time, but it is illogical to assume that enough of them have been born over the past 4000 years to multiply Crème’s advancement factor by 5 times from 2000 BC to 1 AD and by a factor of 125 from 2000 BC to the present.

There are four provable reasons for this.

(1) Thousands of people doing regressions reveal that most people here at present are not new souls but have incarnated several times over the past 4000 years. One rarely gets a subject that is a new advanced soul just coming on board here in this life.

(2) To create this quantum leap forward would almost require a replacement of past souls with new more advanced ones.

(3) DK tells us that the population explosion has been forcing entities to incarnate more frequently.

(4) There was a very large population during the Lemurian age. DK tells us:

“The great original sin in Lemurian times was sexual in nature, and due largely not only to inherent tendencies, but to the extraordinarily dense population of its civilization and to the close relation of the animal kingdom. The origin of the syphilitic diseases traces back to these times.” Esoteric Healing, Pg 228

Notice that he said they had an “extraordinarily dense population.” Then their population was dramatically reduced by syphilitic diseases. The term “extraordinarily dense” could mean they had a higher population then than we do today. I do not consider myself living in an “extraordinarily dense” situation even today.

Now if there were billions of entities at that time who evolved right here on the earth, and not the moon chain, then one would think that the dramatic increase of population would pull from this pool of souls as a top priority.

If this were the case (and it is most probable that it is) then there would be a current influx of lesser evolved souls and not higher ones as you assume.

When you look at average humanity and study that which motivates them you have to wonder. About half of the world today does not even believe we went to the moon.

Reader: I realize how dangerous different information is to you, because if a few pieces of your puzzle-of-thought are changed, the effects are exponential and the picture looks different from what you thought.

JJ: Not dangerous at all my friend. Bring it on.

By the way, if anyone in the group sees any logic in your posts that I have missed feel free to enlighten me.

I thought I would give a few more comments on the total number of lifetimes. DK has made another statement that I quoted yesterday saying that we live “millenia of lives,” and then in another place that we progressed through “many thousands of lives.”

Now when I came across the thought that each one of the 1000 petals in the head represents an incarnation, I felt through the soul that there was truth behind this. I didn’t sense there each person lived exactly 1000 lives before liberation, but that each petal represented a step in the progression of the human being that would take a typical lifetime to transverse. Some may make the journey in 800 lives while others may take 1200.

If this is the case then where does the “many thousands of lives” come in?

The thousand lives represents the journey of the soul as a self conscious human being with a head center of 1000 petals in this solar system. But we are eternal and have lived many other incarnations in other forms in other systems macrocosmic and microcosmic. Our total number of lifetimes in the various forms would be many indeed.

Let me tell you the difference between your relationship with Benjamin Crème and yourself and the people of this group and me.

When Crème speaks you believe without question. When he says something that does not seem logical again you do not question. Instead, you make excuses as to why that which is not logical could be true if certain improbable chain of events or circumstances were in place. You have an absolute authority – Crème – who claims to speak for Christ, which makes questioning him like questioning the Pope or God is to a Catholic.

When I give out information which does not seem logical, the people of this group challenge me. Those who are currently some of my strongest supporters such as Larry, Susan, Blayne, Glenys and others challenge me whenever I say anything that sounds fishy. I am questioned because I speak with no proclaimed authority. Readers are left to the greatest authority of all which is their own souls.

If Crème tells you that Christ will appear on a certain date in a certain way and nothing happens you do not question because this is like questioning God for you. Instead, you make excuses.

If Crème says that the Saddam Hussein captured is a double you believe even though his identity is proven by DNA and has now been definitely identified by his wife and daughters.

If Crème says that Al Quada had nothing to do with the bombing in Spain you believe him even though the evidence supporting this is now overwhelming.

If Crème says that Jesus appears as a Taxi driver you see no reason to see anything strange in this.

Your reasoning in accepting all these improbable things is similar to that of the fundamentalist Christian who believes the universe is 6000 years old because his religious authority tells him so.

You ask him – what about the dinosaurs who were here long before 6000 years?

“The devil planted those dinosaur bones to deceive us,” he replies.

Now can we say that there is a 100% probability that he is wrong? It sure seems that way to any logical thinking person, but when you consider all possibilities it is remotely possible that there are some type of sinister beings at play planting bones and having a good laugh at our expense.

Then one replies, “but there are galaxies billions of light years away and their light also took billions of years to reach us. How could this be true if the universe is only 6000 years old?”

The fundamentalist responds. “You don’t understand. The speed of light has slowed down. When the universe was created light traveled so fast that it permeated the universe quite quickly. Then it slowed down and is still slowing down. As proof we see that the first measurements of the speed of light show that it was faster than it is today.” (Of course, he fails to mention the accuracy was not as great back then either.)

Can we prove absolutely that the fundamentalist is wrong here? No. We did not have scientists here at the creation of the universe to measure the speed of light.

Then we ask him about dating with carbon 14 and other radioactive decay that can date back millions of years.

“Oh, that is flawed also,” he says. “Radioactive decay has also changed since creation.”

Is this possible? Yes, but very remotely so. Should I jump on the bandwagon and believe it just because religious authorities say it is true?

Not me.

Why?

Because the standard scientific view of the speed of light, radioactive decay and dinosaurs is much more logical and it would be silly to accept otherwise without reasonable proof.

You present Crème’s materials and then present data backing it up that could make it true if some very improbable things happened.

Yes, the average person could be 25 times more advanced than in the days of Jesus if some fanciful things have occurred, but no logical person will accept this just because some guru says a master has proclaimed it.

If someone wants to convince us the universe is 6000 years old, he must do more than proclaim a religious authority or that “it could be true.”

You must do the same.

Readers must take all teachings and test them against true principles which are verified by their souls and make up their own minds.

You end your post by saying:

“And on the tide of my present endeavor, my argument has been vindicated.”

If your argument has been vindicated then you would think that one of the many members here would see it. So far I haven’t heard from one who has. This should tell you something.

“I can win an argument on any topic, against any opponent. People know this and steer clear of me at parties. Often, as a sign of their great respect, they don’t even invite me.” Dave Barry

June 15, 2004

Copyright by J J Dewey

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The Point in Evolution

Robert writes: I recently read the following questions and answers in a magazine and consider it to be fulfilling food for thought.

The question(s) – “Every human being in incarnation has a level of evolution, so there must exist an average level of evolution for humanity as a whole. What was it (1) for the year AD 2000, (2) 2,000 years ago, (3) 4,000 years ago?”

The answer(s) – “(1) 0.25 (2) 0.01 (3) 0.002.”

John C responds: In the first 2000 years (2000BC – 1 AD) the level increased 5-fold.

In the next 2000 years (1AD – 2000 AD) it increased 25-fold. So, the rate is accelerating.

Even if the rate stays constant at a 25-fold increase, over the next 2000 years, we could expect the level to be 6.25 (25 times 0.25).

JJ: Good logic John.

If we extend this logic we will see that these channeled figures are impossible and cannot be correct.

Individualized man has been here since the third root race for over 18 million years. It has taken this long to advanced to the fifth root race. We have two more root races to go which DK tells us will take millions of additional years, quite possibly another 18 million.

We can also figure that it takes around 1000 lifetimes to reach perfection which would be the fifth initiation or higher.

Since humanity is around the midway point in their evolution we could say that the average person has 4-500 lifetimes yet to go.

Now let us put this data to use.

John uses good logic here and tells us that if the next 2000 years continues at the pace of the last two thousand that the average person will be more evolved than DK, close to Christ himself at around 6.25. But we have much more than 2000 years left to complete our evolution and if we project this momentum up to just a million years in the future the average person would be at the trillion level, and, of course there is no trillionth degree in evolution. There are only seven initiations on this earth.

Also consider this. The average person incarnated today has had 3-4 lives in the last 2000 years. Those who are not initiates increase only incrementally (with some momentum) in evolution and three to four lifetimes would move the average person ahead four tenths of one percent. If we add in the momentum for the second half of evolution and a more advanced civilization, we may arrive at a maximum of one or two per cent.

Therefore, if the average entity were at a level of .01 at the time of Christ he it would be generous to say he would be at .0101 (or slightly higher) today.

Here is my take.

The average person was very near .5 at the time of Christ who appeared at the midway point in humanities evolution toward initiation. Because of the tremendous stimulation over the past 2000 years humanity has moved to about .52 at present.

It seems like individuals have evolved more than they have because the circumstances have changed but let me tell you this. If you could go back in time and bring back the average baby from 4000 years ago and raise him in the circumstances of today he would seem like the average person of today and much more advanced than the average person of his era. The truth is his point of evolution would be very similar in both surroundings, but would achieve some extra stimulation from our advanced age – but would make no quantum leap.

So, is there any truth to the common idea that evolution is proceeding at an accelerated rate?

Answer: The rate of increase for the average person is still incrementally slow by most standards, but is increasing because of the stimulation of our more advanced civilization.

However, the disciples of the world are another matter. Those who have taken initiation are beginning to increase in evolution in a geometrical progression when compared to a non initiate.

“When one door of happiness closes another opens; but we often look so long at the closed one that we do not see the one which has opened for us.” Helen Keller (1880 – 1968)

June 10, 2004

Copyright by J J Dewey

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McCall Gathering 2000, Part 16

The Magic of Symbols

JJ: We have a symbol in something that Phoebe is introducing to us. As she begins, think of the symbolism behind it. Think about the lives that may be visiting us and the lives that may be tuning into this.

Phoebe then conducts a candle-lighting ceremony to symbolize peace, sharing light and love while the group sings, “Let There be Peace on Earth.”

JJ: Wasn’t that a nice feeling as that went around? What is the symbolism behind this?

Audience: When you give love, you lose nothing.

JJ: That’s a good point. When you light someone else’s candle, you give away everything that you have. Anyone else?

Audience: I remember something in physical science that fire is the only energy that creates another form of matter. Every other energy that is used is used then gone but fire creates a left over residue.

Audience: I see it as gathering lights.

JJ: That’s a really good point.

Audience: Reflections all coming from one source.

JJ: Good. God reflects Himself. We are reflections of God. If we look on as this as one candle is lighting another, what name comes to mind?

Audience: Christ.

JJ: Why? What does the name Jesus Christ mean? It means anointed to be delivered. What does that mean? It means He will reach down His hand and pull the other person to where He is so the two of them become equal. In other words, what the Christ does, or someone who takes on the name of Christ does, is that He shares His light with another so the other has the same light. This creates equality. The great lives come to this world to share the same light with others. With that light they show us that the goal is to make the light within us the same. That is the true meaning of the name.

It says in the scriptures that the name of Jesus Christ is the greatest name under heaven. When you receive the light, take that light and share it with someone else, you take upon yourself this name. This is the will of God. It’s a presence amongst us.

When I go to Artie’s mom’s church for Christmas I’ve noticed they do this candle ceremony. It’s a nice feeling because of the symbology there. People may not understand the symbols involved but it can attract a presence. The spiritual lives look upon this like ceremony and see the name.

Audience: Did doing that attract the devas?

JJ: It may have because of attention. There are layers between us. It takes a lot of work to remove these barriers permanently but they can be removed temporarily through focused attention. Seeing Christ within a person for a few moments can do this. We can’t expect to accomplish a hundred lifetimes of preparation in a few minutes but we can get a vision of where we want to go. If a person senses the inner spirit of God within him and the door opens wide, then he gets a vision or a feeling and a concept of what that is. Then he will never forget it. It will always be on his mind and he will always want that back.

One of the problems with spirit is that it is so ephemeral when you don’t have it anymore that we can get spiritual amnesia. I’ve seen people have the spirit and feel it then they get involved with other things and their attention goes elsewhere and it’s almost as if they never had it. If we can keep our attention focused on it, we will always want that experience back again. It’s a little like the parable that Jesus gave about the sower. He sowed the seed and put attention on it.

The cares of the world that strangled the seed can be overcome by attention because when one has a spiritual experience, he thinks back on the last spiritual experience he had. Then he makes an agreement with himself that he will not forget it and will do everything in his power to follow its direction and see it through to perfection. This is all important because if you do not follow the direction you receive, you will not have another one of consequence until you follow that last thing. Sometimes a person will receive a revelation then think, “I don’t want to do that.” Then the spiritual communication is often shut off. He needs to follow that last thing, even if it takes twenty years. It doesn’t matter how long. You must follow the last thing you received. Once you consummate the spiritual experience, you’ll go on to a higher level.

I’ve received communication with the spirit a number of times. There’s no other experience comparable to it. It eclipses anything that you can think of or that the world can think of. The experience of the spirit eclipses anything else that you can imagine. There is nothing comparable to it. We’ve been going up higher since the beginning of the Keys group, for one purpose. That is to reach a point where members can feel the spirit of God. You can go up one time and never go back as long as you stay centered in the light. It’s the one experience to eclipse all other experiences. You want that association to be with you forever. It’ll be more real than anything else you have ever imagined. The direction it gives you will be the direction you know you’re responsible for. Nothing can be more real than a visitation from an angel, a Master or the spirit of God of which the spirit of all the all the Great lives are in contact.

The spirit descended upon me at this moment. I hadn’t expected to do this but it came to me. It’s pressing me to let you feel its presence so I’d like to have communion with you. We’ve got some bread and grape juice and all of us can share with the spirit. Thank you for joining me, my friends.

First posted Sept 3, 2004. The Gathering took place June, 2000.

Copyright by J J Dewey

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McCall Gathering 2000, Part 15

The Place of Magic

The question: What is a physical example of land water and air meeting where magic is wrought?

Audience: Surface tension? Concrete is heavier than water but if you make it into the right shape, it will float.

JJ: That’s due to the air pocket. What I’m thinking doesn’t include an air pocket. How can something float on water by using the power of surface tension?

Audience: The molecules are denser on top of the water. A paper clip can float on water. Water sticks together so if we could make the water stick together stronger it would work. It’s not like sand being individual particles. Water holds hands.

JJ: Someone said a paper clip can float on water. What makes a paper clip float on water?

Audience: Surface tension.

JJ: Do you think we can make this needle float on water?

(On a humorous note Artie retrieves a bowl of water and the group spends the next 15 minutes experimenting until the needle floats upon the water. JJ finally figured out that it was so difficult because Artie filled the bowl with distilled water which has less surface tension)

JJ: The fact is that a needle can float on water. What makes it float?

Audience: Surface tension. Is this surface tension the place where water, land and air meet?

JJ: When water, land and air meet, it is neither wet nor dry. Around the needle where it is floating it is touching water but it is not getting wet. That’s because the surface tension creates a magic. It creates a point where land, which is the needle, water and air meet and it is neither wet nor dry. This is a physical representation of that point.

Audience: But it is dry.

JJ: It is neither wet nor dry. It’s touching water but it’s not wet nor can it be dry. When something is touching water it’s supposed to be wet. The needle is touching the water so it’s neither wet nor dry. It’s a little paradoxical. Because of the surface tension, it’s really not wet.

Audience: You said, “If we pick the needle up out of the water without breaking the surface tension, the needle would be dry.”

JJ: It’s touching the water so technically in a way it is wet but on the other hand, if you pull it out, it’s not wet. So it’s neither wet nor dry.

Audience: I find it interesting that it’s heavier than water.

JJ: Steel is definitely heavier than water so it’s being held up by magic of tension. We’ve talked in the past about the point of tension. The point of tension is what produces magic. We have three ingredients in this. Land, the needle, water and air meeting produces that point which is neither wet nor dry which is the place where magic can be wrought. You’ll see the meaning more as the years go by and we accomplish certain goals. It’s also called a point of tension. When you add sugar or salt to water like this and stir it up it disappears completely and goes into the space between the molecules. When the empty space between the molecules gets full and you keep adding sugar or salt to it, pretty soon it creates that point of tension where it begins to saturate and crystallize.

That’s also symbolic of the magic of the soul. When you put your attention on something that you want to materialize, it corresponds to the point where water and sugar appears but nothing is seen for a period of time. As you keep pouring energy in over a period of time it eventually reaches a point of saturation. Energy follows thought and as it does it brings materialization or crystallization until the thing desired will materialize.

We, as a group, even though we’re small, are like a seed group. A seed is very small but it grows into something very big. So we can look upon us as the seed of what we want to materialize and we can actually materialize something very big. All it takes is a seed which is a good seed. When you have a good seed and put attention on it you can grow something very wonderful.

A lot of people say they’ve put attention on something but it didn’t show up. A principle is that we need to keep attention on it. A beaver knows he can use great rivers but he couldn’t build a bridge. Lower life forms can’t comprehend certain things yet. We’re capable of great things if we keep our attention on them.

If the higher lives were to come down and communicate, since they are advanced, it might be hard for them to stir people up. It’s written (by DK) about the coming of Christ and the hierarchy that the hardest thing may be that we think they are too organized or boring. That’s one of the biggest handicaps they will need to deal with when the spiritual hierarchy comes to teach humanity.

Many churches are waiting for Christ to show up but many of them are doing nothing to improve the world because they think that Christ is going to show up and do it all. That’s just not the way it is. We have to do things ourselves just like in the movie with John Denver where God shows up and says, “You need to fix the world.” John Denver says, “Us? I thought you were going to fix it.” George Burns as God says, “Nope.” John Denver was beside himself. He thought God was going to do it. There’s an interesting truth in that.

The churches and many esoteric groups, organizations and initiates, in times past, for one purpose or another, have all had certain rites and ceremonies. We have coming in, the seventh ray. It’s called the seventh ray of ceremonial magic. The rays come in and out of incarnation. Right now we’re passing out of the sixth ray. The sixth ray governs the emotions and aspirations. The Age of Pisces has been ruled by the sixth ray. The sixth ray has ruled since the days of Jesus. That’s why we had the crusades and all these idealistic enterprises to convert the world to Jesus, so to speak. It’s been because of the idealism of the sixth ray energy.

But the sixth ray energy is passing out and is being overshadowed by the seventh ray. The seventh ray energy governs ceremony. It governs order. It governs organization and business. That’s why business is becoming such a potent force in our time. It’s funny how many people think business is evil when in reality in the new age it’s going to be about business. Many see business as evil, but within the past hundred years business has improved by leaps and bounds. It’s gone from the old kingdom mentality where children worked 16 hours a day in factories to now where we have profit sharing, 40 hour work weeks and lots of benefits like health care. We’re taken pretty good care of by businesses compared to a hundred years ago.

If business evolved this much in the past hundred years, imagine what’s going to take place in the next hundred years. Business could be almost a holy thing a couple hundred years from now. Shining light on this are the ads on TV. Have you ever noticed that the ads are almost like promoting a church? “We’ll change the world” or things like that which sound almost like they’re promoting a religion. The many ads for various products sound almost like the products are holy by the way they’re presented. The reason is because these advertisers are picking up the vibrations of the coming age where businesses are going to evolve into a spiritual enterprise over the next thousand years. So, two hundred years from now business will be a lot different than it is today. We’ve seen how much it’s improved from a hundred years ago.

A lot of what we see as the evils of business will disappear over the next few hundred years. This is because business is governed by the seventh ray which is coming into incarnation at this time. The seventh ray also governs the ceremonies. Many things that are done symbolically are going to be restored. The meaning behind them will be better understood. Right now, for instance, we have various ceremonies but they’re done so mindlessly they have little effect on the spirit of people.

There are two evolutions ongoing on this earth. One is the human and the other is the deva or angel kingdom. The devas exist in the etheric matter. On the physical plane we have the physical bodies plus we have our spiritual counterpart composed of etheric matter which is a little more refined. I showed you once how to see it when you put your thumbs together. Did anyone do that? How many were able to see the etheric body? It’s pretty clear, isn’t it? It’s harder to see the aura but it’s easier to show that the etheric body exists. There are many orders of these deva lives that exist in this etheric matter.

Now, these deva lives do not communicate the way that we do. Some of the higher ones may understand speech but most of them communicate through symbols. Certain ceremonies, when performed, attract these angelic lives and they actually participate. They understand the symbols behind them because that’s how they communicate, by symbols and shapes instead of speech like we do. This is why different ceremonies will be brought in and different effects will materialize. It’ll be a scientific communication with these co-existing lives.

These lives are often able to help us get more in contact with the spirit. This is why Jesus instituted ceremonies like the sacrament, or the Eucharist, and on the taking of bread and wine as symbolic of something higher. The churches, by tradition, have a number of ceremonies. Every church has its ceremonies because they were instituted by some initiate as communication with these other lives. And also because of the effect they have on your soul. Your soul also has the ability to read the symbols of anything that’s transpiring. If you are open to this communication then your soul can bring this communication through to you. Also, it can communicate with the deva lives that may be present.

Audience: If the masters speak in principles then these are not masters since they speak in symbols?

JJ: Symbols are similar to speaking principles but a little different. Symbols are a form of language.

Audience: Like the impression you get if they leave a message? It’s a feeling that includes the whole sense of it?

JJ: There are a number of symbols. To the deva lives, these types of things make sense.

Audience: These are deva lives that are contacted through symbols?

JJ: The deva lives are able to read that symbolism.

Audience: But they’re not masters?

JJ: No. The masters have passed through the human kingdom but most devas have not. At some point they will become human.

Audience: Are they parallel to humans or to masters?

JJ: Parallel to humans but they have their own hierarchy like we have our own. There is a lower level of lives called the elemental lives. They are incorporated into matter itself. They can also be contacted by certain magicians. Many of the dark magicians use the elemental lives. White magicians do sometimes but it’s more common with those on the dark path. They’re of a lower vibration and easier to manipulate. The higher deva lives can only be contacted by a person who is pure in heart and pure intent.

First posted Sept 1, 2004. The Gathering took place June, 2000.

Copyright by J J Dewey

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McCall Gathering Part 14

Trusting the Soul

Audience: As I was coming out of a religion, I gave up a lot of foundation beliefs. Then I got into some other belief systems and those turned out to not be so good, so I had the rug pulled out from under me again. Now I have soul contact with your teachings but there is no way I’m in an emotional position to let anything you tell me become a foundational belief again because somebody else could come along and pull the rug out from under me where your teachings are concerned. So, I have this fear of having any foundation beliefs.

JJ: Foundation beliefs are unavoidable. The key is that these beliefs need to represent the highest we know and to be open to having them replaced by a higher vision still.

Audience: You need reasonable foundation beliefs that can allow you to be guided by your soul.

JJ: Soul contact is the key, but do not rely 100% on your interpretation of it. I’ve received soul contact on different things that led me in the right direction but what led me in the right direction wasn’t 100% true.

Audience: That’s my fear. If I put any trust in a foundation belief then later find out I was wrong I don’t want to go through that.

JJ: If you receive soul contact on something, believe it. If your beliefs are wrong, which they can be to a degree, they’ll be corrected when greater light comes.

Let’s take an example. Let’s say we get a confirmation that Jesus is a Master, a great teacher or some confirmation about Him. We get a confirmation on that then we go along and find out new things about Him we didn’t realize earlier. We find the person we thought was Jesus was actually two people. We find that at His baptism, the Master Jesus was Joshua from a previous life and the spirit that came into His body at the baptism was Melchizedek. There were two people in one body at the same time. What you had received was true, Jesus was a Master, but now you get a new revelation about who and what He was. It changes things.

You look further and find out there are also messiahs, masters and hierarchies on other worlds besides this one. He’s not the only messiah in the universe. There are millions like Him. It adds more dimension but doesn’t take away from the original revelation that Jesus was a Master.

Audience: So we have to have soul contact and trust?

JJ: Yes, you will trust what you believe but also you’ll be open to the possibility that when you receive more you may have a picture open to you that is different than you have now.

Audience: I got a revelation years ago that I was a gift. I knew it I was a gift but I didn’t know what the heck that meant. I thought, “Gift? Okay.” Then to add to it that I got a gift for a Master and again I’m thinking, “Okay. I still don’t know what that means.” It didn’t mean the same as the original. Now if I had interpreted that I correctly it’d be different. I thought I knew that it meant I could be a gift to a man as a wife. I was wrong. It was right but my interpretation of it was wrong.

JJ: So if your interpretation of beliefs is created through illusion, not through revelation of the spirit then you’re headed to do some rediscovering. But if you get a revelation through the soul from the spirit and you believe it, you will get more understanding about it as you progress. You’ll find out you didn’t have the whole picture.

In regards to a molecule, I wrote the book about it. Many of you have read it but we’re going to get more revelation on how a molecule works and we’ll fit more pieces of the puzzle together. A couple hundred years from now people will look at it totally differently than we see it now. That won’t make the foundation wrong. That which is given for this period is correct according to our capacity to grasp it. In all the churches of the world they have their various truths. The Mormon Church has its truths as does the Catholic Church and the others. Whenever you read or hear something and get a “Yes,” remember that. There is some truth in that message for you to understand and as the revelation unfolds it will become more and more clear.

Audience: Do you know what took me out of the LDS Church? Urantia.

JJ:

And that’s understandable. A lot of people have had that happen. According to my personal beliefs, Urantia and other books like that have a lot of illusion in them but they still accomplish good in the fact that they can take the person a little higher than he is and if the person is at that level he will see what the answer is. If he reads the answer and still wants more, it can be a stepping stone for him. (End of session)

New Session

Welcome to the Saturday night session, the last one. Before we continue, I want to remind you about the mystery we discussed earlier about the spot is neither wet nor dry must provide the standing place upon which the white magician’s feet are set. Where water, land and air meet there is a place where magic is to be wrought. Where is the point on the physical plane?

Audience: Is it a single point?

JJ: Yes and no. I’ll tell you what the magic is and you can go from there. You see these boats out here floating on water but they float because they have air in them or they’re lighter than water. The magic is that this midway place can make something heavier than water float upon the water without using air pockets or devices to make the object lighter than water. Have you seen that done or do you know how that can be done?

Audience: Pockets of air? Boats?

JJ: Boats float because of the pockets of air. A crow bar doesn’t float because it’s heavier than water. The magic we’re going to show you is how to make something heavier than water float on the water.

We’ll leave this question with the Keys members. What is a physical example of land water and air meeting where magic is wrought?

First posted Aug 30, 2004. The Gathering took place June, 2000.

Copyright by J J Dewey

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McCall Gathering Part 13

Escaping Illusion

JJ: The hurdle that often takes the most time to reach soul contact is the astral realm struggle. The astral also turns many teachings upside down. Some teachings sound really good to the emotional self but they’re really coming in, being filtered through the astral body. Because they are given in reverse, then astral body reverses them back to you, they seem right. Djwhal Khul, the Tibetan, said only about 10% of the teachings that seem to be supernatural teachings are from higher than the astral. That’s not very many. He said most of them come from people’s subconscious minds. The vast majority, even most of the channeled material, about 80% of the channeled material comes from the subconscious mind. Then there’s that 20% that actually comes from the astral entities then a small percentage that comes from pure inspiration which is people contacting the spirit at the center. If you contact your spiritual center through the soul or if you contact a Master, it is the same because the Masters speak from the soul level. If you are speaking from your soul, you’ll be speaking like a Master for there is really no difference. Objectively the disciples need to learn to speak from the soul. If you contact the words of the soul and speak the words of the soul you’ll be speaking words that are just as true as the Christ Himself or the Masters or any high being.

If you say that two plus two equals four is it any more or less true if an evil entity were to manifest here and say it or if the highest Master says it? If we have the highest Master right here and He says the same thing as Joe Cool says, which one is the most correct? Truth is true and nothing else is true. It doesn’t matter who speaks it. If truth is spoken, it is true. Now, the next part is if you’re able to bypass these three temptations and be centered in the soul. It doesn’t matter who says it, if you’re centered in the soul, you’ll recognize truth.

If you are centered in the soul and find somebody teaching three things but one is true and two are false, you’ll sense which one is true and which isn’t. You may be reading a book by an average author and you may stumble upon something and get a revelation, thinking, “This is really true!” Then you may wonder if the author even understood what he said because, based on the rest of his thoughts, he probably doesn’t even realize the import of this statement. He could have stumbled across it by accident but still your soul says, “Yes!” when you read it. When that happens, pay attention to it.

Because there is so much revelation out there that is from the astral and not everything from the astral realm or from the subconscious is true, then it’s not 100% true. It may be 50% true or 60% true or sometimes more. It’s distorted. If you take this supposed revelation as 100% authority you could be taken into illusion. We need to be centered in the soul so that when someone comes forth with a revelation we can listen to them and determine what is true and what isn’t.

The disciple needs to use discernment. The power of discernment is achieved by overcoming glamour because glamour helps the mind practice. The material that comes from different sources demands your attention and you need to learn which to pay attention to. Sometimes someone will have a fancy vocabulary that sounds good. Should you go along with the one with the best vocabulary? Some people with lots of glamour use fancy, interesting words. This can cloud the truth. It makes it sound like truth is being presented because of the nice words but when you look at what’s behind the words you’ll find there is no principle there. If there is no principle behind the fancy vocabulary word, there is glamour hiding the truth.

The third obstacle is illusion. Illusion is created by what?

Audience: Mind?

JJ: It’s created by the mind and what we call foundation beliefs. The person overcomes maya. He’s begun doing things and working through some circumstances and he’s overcome its pull. Then he overcomes his glamours, he’s humble, he wants to be a servant and to work for God, so to speak. He’s overcome his ego but even after he’s accomplished all this, he can be as sincere as possible but still be tricked by his foundation beliefs. His foundation beliefs may be wrong even though he’s the most sincere, loving individual on the face of the earth. His foundation beliefs will trick up everything down the road for him. All of his current beliefs might be distorted.

Remember when we talked about the car? When you start to steer a car you cannot set the steering accurate enough to go even a block without running off the road. The wrong foundation beliefs try to set up your course in life so accurately that you have so much faith in your beginning that you think this beginning point is going to steer you correctly but it never, ever does. The beginning point is only a part of the equation. You need to be able to make corrections as you proceed, as in driving the car. You need to include the correcting mechanism of correcting your foundation beliefs.

Foundation beliefs are very difficult to overcome because they’re so engrained in us, oftentimes from our childhood. They appear to have served us well throughout our entire lives. What we need to do is to disregard everything we know and become as a little child and just ask. Ask and you shall receive.

I read that scripture when I was in my teens and though that sounded pretty good to me. I figured I’d ask God all sorts of things. So I asked God a whole bunch of stuff and didn’t get any answers at all. So I thought, “Well, what is this? We’re supposed to get answers!” Then I was reading in the scriptures and saw that Jesus gave a parable on it. This lady was giving a party and they ran out of bread. It was midnight but she knew her next door neighbor had bread. So she decided to go knock on the door and see if they’d give her some. She knocked on the door and the guy appeared at the window telling her to go away and let him sleep. She didn’t give up. She kept knocking on the door. Again he said, “Go away. I’m trying to sleep. Leave me alone.” But she didn’t. She persisted and banged on the door again. Jesus said he finally gave her what she wanted, not because she was righteous or holy but because she wouldn’t give up. To this he sad, “even so, ask and ye shall receive.”

So not giving up is the secret. That’s what I’ve done in my life and I have found that everything I have sought, I have received. I’ve found that this principle is indeed a true principle. But a problem is that many people are in illusion or glamour and what they find is that they will ask then find then not pay attention to it because it doesn’t go along with what they’ve been taught. If it doesn’t go along with what they believe, they disregard it. Each of us must examine our foundation beliefs because they are tricky things. We may escape them for awhile then they might creep back in. They can be so subtle.

Let’s take another foundation belief. Can anyone think of another one?

Audience: The literal interpretation of the Bible?

JJ: If you believed the Bible was 100% accurate that’s a foundation belief. Believe it or not, people do believe this, including that the universe was created in literally six days. Many of us look at those people and wonder how they can literally believe every word. I’ve talked to a lot of people who believe the Bible is literally true and some of them are quite intelligent. Some are scientists, some are computer programmers. In their own field a lot of them are very intelligent people. It makes us wonder how they can take it so literally. Can’t they use their minds in this area like they do in computer programming and such? It’s amazing to talk to these people and they’re taking it literally to be true. Many things in the scriptures are literally true but many of them, if you take them literally, will lead you into greater and greater illusions if not understood correctly. How do you suppose people can have a foundation belief like that?

Audience: Fear of a painful experience?

Audience: I was one of those people who thought the year Y2K was going to be a big disaster. I was working in a computer center and working overtime. We saw it hit New Zealand, and then Australia and nothing happened. It was like a sheet of illusion over us.

JJ: I had thought about publishing something on the Keys a number of times saying that Y2K wasn’t going to be any big problem. I had an inner feeling to do that. I mentioned that we would solve any problem that would come up, but I felt like I should’ve made a powerful cleat judgment on it.

Audience: Was it a fear of being wrong that stopped you?

JJ: Yeah, it could’ve been. Sometimes you get a soul feeling about something and wonder if it’s your imagination. So many people thought it was going to be a big thing. Sometimes you’ll receive it real strong then you’ll have more faith in it. For Y2K, it was a real quiet intuition for me telling me that it was not going to be a big deal.

Audience: I didn’t think anything was going to happen but I thought, ‘what if I’m wrong,’ so I waited and got some extra groceries. Maybe JJ’s fear of not wanting to be wrong could’ve been a responsibility for not wanting to be wrong and causing harm to people if he was wrong. People would say, “JJ said it’ll be fine and nothing is going to happen.” Then if something did happen, they wouldn’t be prepared because of that.

Audience: Having that belief or illusion of upcoming disaster could’ve been planted too.

JJ: It’s also possible that some saboteurs were set it up to create mayhem. It’s possible that the hierarchy worked against them and did something to pull some strings at the last minute to make it right. I sat at home and watched the New Year’s celebrations that evening. I got the feeling as it went from time zone to time zone that there was a release of renewed faith. It was a really nice feeling as I felt this permeate society. I think it dissolved some of the long time foundation beliefs. I think some people had lost faith in their illusions.

Audience: It was interesting with Peter Jennings because a guy came into the studio wearing a ‘2001 is the real event’ hat and tee shirt. It was so fabulous to watch Peter Jennings have no reaction. He just said that most people don’t think like that. It was so well done that it was defused and became a non-thing.

JJ: Art Bell didn’t help. He had about a dozen people on the show saying it was going to be real bad. Then a guy called in who claimed to be from the future. Art Bell asked him about Y2K. He replied, “It’s going to be a big non-event.” That’s what rang true for me. That’s what I felt but I didn’t have enough faith in that feeling and myself because of all the negativity. All the other people Art Bell had on the show were saying the same thing, “It’s going to be big trouble.” When you listen to enough of that you begin to doubt yourself.

As I told you, I attended the Mormon Church when I was young. When I left the church and then spoke with others who were Mormons and told them what I’d discovered, they said, “Well, you may be right but if you’re wrong and I believe you, I could go to the lowest hell.” That fear of being wrong keeps their life the same. Mormons believe there are three kingdoms. The lowest kingdom is still really great but then there is a special one where the sons of perdition go which is a really terrible place. This is where the people go who see the light then reject the prophet. That’s why the Mormons are so afraid.

Audience: For those of us who have never heard the Mormon beliefs what are these?

JJ: These are all like heavens and everyone will end up in a pretty blissful state except for this group. These are the ones who went against the church and rejected it so they fit into this category of reigning with the devil for all eternity if they rebel.” They say this is a really terrible location so no one wants to defy the authorities and go there.

Audience: I don’t think it’s just the lowest that’s avoided; it’s anything but the highest of the high.

JJ: They want to go to the highest, that’s for sure but they really don’t want to go to outer darkness.

Audience: The middle kingdom to an LDS person is like a Catholic person going to purgatory.

JJ: They don’t want to miss the highest heaven but the church still teaches that the lower kingdom is pretty good.

Audience: And once you go there you can’t change?

JJ: Right, once you go there, you’re there for eternity – so they think. I got in trouble with the church because I wrote a paper and gave it to my nephew teaching that according to the teachings of Joseph Smith you can progress from one kingdom to another. That led to he and I getting excommunicated. It was a simple harmless thing but if you say the Prophet is wrong, you’re in trouble.

The Mormon Church is so different from the way it started. Joseph Smith chewed people out for not thinking for themselves. He said, “Darkness has fallen over your eyes, why not look upon the spirit. Don’t rely so much on me.” They never quote that statement from him. Now they say, “Follow the prophet. Once the prophet has made a decision, the thinking is done. This authority syndrome is very strong in Mormons but also, Jews and very strong in the Catholic Church. With the born-againers, the Bible itself is their prophet. For the Mormons it’s their prophet. What he says goes. For the born-againers, if the Bible says it, that’s it. Or whoever is interpreting the Bible according to their belief system.

People follow this authority, which is the beast. It’s an illusionary belief system. Many modern Mormons have a foundation belief that when the prophet speaks, he is speaking as the voice of God and we need to follow him no matter what. This is a foundation belief. Mormons believe many pleasant things but no matter how unpleasant they are, anyone that is in the church will swallow this and it keeps them tied up in illusion. A person needs to break free from that before he can get to the throne of God.

Audience: If this is true, then anybody below the prophet can’t think for himself then how do they get to that point if they’re not supposed to think. When they get elected to the highest office in the Mormon Church, all of a sudden they think?

JJ: Many other people don’t think either but they get elected to jobs. Once the prophet is elected, it isn’t a problem because he gathers his twelve apostles and asks them what to think. Then they make a committee decision. The Mormon Church operates as a committee and most of the nations do also. The committee will have a guy at the top who has the final authority. The Pope is the same. Do you think the Pope decides whatever he wants and everybody needs to listen? There was a movie about a Pope who said he never got to do what he wanted. Everyone was telling him what to do. He was supposed to be Pope and thought he’d have power but everybody was bossing him around and telling him what to do.

That’s what happens. In a position like a Pope or a priest or prophet or whatever, there will be committees around them keeping their power by controlling their leader and thinking they are the real power behind it all. Even the person who is in illusion who works himself up to the top, because he worked himself up through following this authority of power and being led by it, even when the person becomes the authority he doesn’t know how to make decisions and relies on others to help.

What does Clinton do? Whenever he needs to make a decision, he takes a poll. It’s a real good thing he follows the polls or who knows where we might be. It’s a safety mechanism that is needed unless we have a true spiritual leader.

Hitler didn’t go by polls. He wasn’t that type of guy. Fortunately most of these guys, even when they achieve the supreme authority, they’re still stuck looking for some authority, whether it be a poll or a committee or some associate telling them what to do. They still can’t be their own guy.

Audience: You were talking about the soul and knowing if we’re heading in the right direction. So, we can have soul contact and our foundation belief could still be off?

JJ: Right. You can achieve soul contact regardless of foundation beliefs. Let’s say you believe the Bible is literally true, the earth was created in six days and you want to know whether to be an engineer or a teacher. Your soul thinks you will evolve more by being an engineer so your foundation belief here doesn’t get in the way. Because your foundation belief doesn’t get in the way, you are capable of going to the soul in this area. But then when you are asked a question about reincarnation or something like that, you wouldn’t even ask about it because you don’t think it could be. So, you wouldn’t even ask, you wouldn’t even seek. Your foundation belief prevents you from doing this.

We need to examine our foundation beliefs and be open to the possibility that they are all wrong. When we re-examine our foundations we open up to possibilities. There is a possibility that the earth may be flat instead of round. We must be open to any possibility. When you’re open to any possibility then you can examine your foundation beliefs and correct them. Then as you move along the path, you’ll discover that your corrected foundation beliefs still might need more correction and you correct them again. You get farther and find your foundation still isn’t 100% correct and you adjust it again. As you correct it enough you get to the end of that portion of learning.

Audience: Is that what happens when people come to the Keys group? A lot of us went through it where we starting realizing that everything we thought was not true. I felt confused. I didn’t know what to trust anymore.

JJ: People will often say that when their foundation beliefs are shaken. “I’m so confused.” They use that word, “confused.” When they are feeling confused, it’s a sign their foundation beliefs are being shaken. They don’t have a base anymore. They feel like the rug is being pulled out from under them. The things they believed are not there anymore.

Audience: You don’t always get confused. You might get enthused. If someone already had a certain type of beliefs then got more from you it could add to it.

JJ: The foundation beliefs already were shaken then. When someone tries to pull the rug out from under you and you’re trying to hold on to the rug and get stabilized. Sometimes you’ve already been through so many things and have been feeling off balance for so long that you’re ready to accept a change.

Audience: Sometimes they get angry.

JJ: Oh yeah. When I was a kid about 6 years old my mom sat me down on my bed and said, “It’s time I told you something. There is no Santa Claus.” I said, “What?!?” I got angry. I said, “I’ve seen Santa Claus! He came in our house and gave me gifts. I’ve seen the guy! What do you mean there is no Santa Claus???”

She said it had been my brother dressed as Santa. That was one of the most mind boggling things of my life! I was angry. I felt angry for an hour or two then I was okay. Then I went around bragging to all my friends that I knew the truth about Santa Claus.

First posted Aug 28, 2004. The Gathering took place June, 2000.

Copyright by J J Dewey

Index for Original Archives

Index for Recent Posts

Easy Access to All the Writings

For Free Book go HERE and other books HERE

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