The God market

Peddling promises of self-divinity

By Carl Teichrib

The following essay is a selection taken from my book, Game of Gods: The Temple of Man in the Age of Re-Enchantment. In chapter 9, entitled “Circles of Gods,” I begin with my attendance at the Spiritual Unity of Nations conference in 1999. Then, drawing from that event’s central message, we explore the Biblical narrative of Genesis 3 before exploring a range of “god-claims” in the marketplace of self-divinity.

What I witnessed at the SUN conference… are but small tastes of our declared human deification. Chapter six – indeed, most of this book – is a reflection of the Genesis 3 predicament. In considering the following examples, it will become obvious how pervasive and similar the desire for human-divine Oneness is.

New Age Movement:

As mentioned in chapter six, the New Age movement is an eclectic classification of spirituality and self-awareness, incorporating elements from Eastern religions, Perennial Philosophy, channeled teachings, and human potential psychology. Regardless of the Movement’s diversity, a common thread runs through it. SUN’s John Davis gives us the common vision: “One Humanity, One world, One true expression of divinity, One within the Christos… One Center of Consciousness… Oneness in all things.”[1] 

American songwriter and New Age icon, John Denver, said it this way: “We hear in the cry of our hearts expressing connectedness and wholeness and the recognition that we are One.”[2]

Using Biblical language, albeit with a now familiar twist, Barbara Marx Hubbard conveyed the same message: “We become Alpha and Omega. We are the beginning and the end. We are the whole… There is no death, only every-higher order, consciousness, and union with God…”[3]

Writing of techniques to unlock the inner light of divine consciousness, actor Dennis Weaver tells us: “We, according to the Masters, being made in the image of God, have latent within us the power to become one with God’s consciousness. In reality, our human consciousness is an individualized piece of God’s consciousness.”[4]

“We have to experience God, feel God,” explained Weaver, “and then give ourselves over to that feeling.”[5]

The New Age movement is a modern extension of Genesis 3: same message, same “angel of light,” and the same dreams of grandeur. 

“Nothing can touch me but the direct action of God and God is my Omnipotent Self,” screamed the text of John Randolph Price. “I can do all things through the Strength of the Christ I AM. I AM STRENGTH!”[6]

Rosicrucianism:

Rosicrucianism, also known as the Rosy Cross, is an esoteric school of thought dating back to the 17th century and the legendary figure of German mystic, Christian Rosenkreuz. Over the centuries, various orders and societies inspired by the Rosy Cross – or with claimed Rosicrucian credentials – arose and folded in England, Germany, France and the United States. Some still exist, and new orders have formed in recent years. Nevertheless, the Rosicrucian meme has influenced modern occultism and Western mysticism.

One organization with a professed Rosicrucian pedigree is the Ancient and Mystical Order Rosæ Crucis (AMORC), which was constituted in June 1915 and is headquartered in San Jose, California. Utilizing home study courses, rituals and convocations, this body of mystical travelers partakes in “Spiritual Alchemy” as they journey toward cosmic consciousness. God, it is taught, can be seen as the “Creative Universal Force.”[7] An AMORC Master Monograph tells us: “To find God, we must see Him in all things at once.”[8]

The AMORC Glossary explains: “It [Divine Mind] is not only the mind of God but also the consciousness and mind of all living beings on the earth plane.”[9] Hence, “God” must be ever changing, reacting to the great flow of human thought and consciousnesses. AMORC teaches this very thing,

“The God of today, in our comprehension and consciousness, will not be the God of next year, for God will evolve as the consciousness of the soul evolves. This evolution will continue until man becomes fully conscious of the consciousness of the Cosmic.”[10]

Man thus becomes the spiritual measure of all things. AMORC’s Imperator, Christian Bernard, put it this way,

“The Temple of the Universe, the Temple of the Earth and the Temple of Life are only one in the Temple of Man. This is why the time has come to work towards rebuilding it, for the Messianic Light must emanate from the Heavenly Jerusalem which vibrates within us.”[11]

Mormonism:

Becoming God is the point of Mormonism. Because the religion’s history starts with Joseph Smith and his visitations from an angelic messenger, I will simply quote Smith’s teachings from his famous King Follett discourse,

God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! …Here, then, is eternal life – to know the only wise and true God; and you have got to learn how to be gods yourselves, and to be kings and priests to God, the same as all gods have done before you, namely, by going from one small degree to another, and from a small capacity to a great one; from grace to grace, from exaltation to exaltation…[12] 

In addressing his conception of Godhood, Joseph Smith said the following,

What is it? To inherit the same power, the same glory and the same exaltation, until you arrive at the station of a god, and ascend the throne of eternal power, the same as those who have gone before.[13]

Freemasonry:

My personal starting point in researching global spiritual movements and ideologies started with Freemasonry. I never joined the Lodge, but due to certain encounters I was compelled to study the Craft.

A turning point in my life is well remembered.

The year was 1991, and the setting was a near-empty restaurant in a sleepy prairie town with two respected community members sitting across the table. I knew what they wanted: my involvement in the Masonic Lodge, for I had been approached numerous times about joining. As an energetic young man involved in my community, I was the type of person they were looking for.

Similar to other conversations it was evident my dinner hosts were trying to explain something without telling me anything. Nudge-nudge, wink-wink, but never getting to the point. It was a sales pitch cloaked in ambiguity. 

It would be beneficial for you to join, I was told. We make good men better, I was promised. They waxed on about a legacy, doing good work and having a sense of camaraderie, and the importance of regular meetings.

More meetings? Between family, church, and a host of activities attached to my workplace, my life was busy enough without adding more. Yet these men, board members I answered to in my place of employment and individuals I had a good relationship with, truly believed it was important for me to become a Freemason. So I listened as they attempted to convince me with repetitious non-explanations. It was all very awkward.

“Are you political?” I asked, knowing the answer from previous chats. No.

“Religious?” No.

“Ok, then what is the Lodge about?” My query was an open door.

Chairs shifted, they glanced at each other; the silence was palpable. Then the hammer dropped: “We’re not Satanists.” 

It was said so matter-of-factly, as if it were a normal response when at a loss for something to say. A lightening bolt from the blue could not have been more surprising. Where had this come from? I had not suggested anything to elicit such a bizarre statement. The thought had never entered my mind and there was nothing I could correlate this to. I was stunned. Our meal quickly ended and I went home, pondering and perplexed.

In retrospect, my dinner colleagues were probably trying to dispel rumors or alleviate fears. Why else would something so outrageous be said? As this was before the public introduction of the internet, and as television documentaries on Freemasonry were nonexistent, any potential misgivings a person would have had, probably would have been viewed as coming from a church context. This was the only thing that made sense.

I could certainly see this being the case if someone examined my home church, a congregation with a constitutional provision stating you cannot be part of a secretive society and a member of the local assembly. Even though this provision was in place, the irony was that Freemasonry had never – as far as I was aware – been mentioned from my church’s pulpit.

But now I was compelled to learn about the Lodge, for something had elicited this unusual response. Feeling uncomfortable asking my board members for information, I determined to obtain their own writings and materials. I started collecting their rituals, commentaries, and works of philosophy.

Soon I discovered that there is an interpretation of the Craft which is spiritual in nature, advancing an esoteric worldview.[14]

The Sovereign Grand Commander of the Scottish Rite branch, Henry C. Clausen, offered a glimpse in his 1981 text,

…science and religion will be welded into a unified exponent of an overriding spiritual power… The theme in essence is that the revelations of Eastern mysticism and the discoveries of modern science support the Masonic and Scottish Rite beliefs and teachings.[15]

The following readings from Masonic thinkers sounds like so many other repeats of Genesis 3,

Man is a god in the making, and as in the mystic myths of Egypt, on the potter’s wheel he is being molded. When his light shines out to lift and preserve all things, he receives the triple crown of godhood, and joins that throng of Master Masons who, in their robes of Blue and Gold, are seeking to dispel the darkness of night with the triple light of the Masonic Lodge. – Manly P. Hall.[16]

MAN IS IMPELLED TOWARD PERFECTION! There is that within man – his innermost divinity – which informs him of the possibility of attaining completeness of being and urges him on to strive for that attainment. – George H. Steinmetz.[17]

This – the evolution of man into superman – was always the purpose of the ancient Mysteries, and the real purpose behind modern Masonry is, not the social and charitable purpose to which so much attention is paid, but the expediting of the spiritual evolution of those who aspire to perfect their own nature and transform it into a more god-like quality. – W.L. Wilmshurst.[18] 

Masonry, therefore, is not only a system of morality, inculcating the highest ethics through which result, if followed, the conscious unfolding of divinity, but it is also a great dramatic presentation of regeneration. It portrays the recovery of man’s hidden divinity and its bringing forth into the light… – Foster Bailey.[19]

Henry C. Clausen encouraged Scottish Rite members to find mastery within,

   The Scottish Rite teaches its members how to spell ‘God’ with the right blocks… We teach our initiates there are available for the mind of man vast spiritual forces, vital spiritual powers.

   Similarly, we in the Scottish Rite can find in our inner selves a refuge from external distractions and evils… Put your trust in your own inherent capacities.

   Buddha attained his own enlightenment and said to his followers: ‘Be a lamp unto your own feet; do not seek outside yourself’.[20]

The above quotes fit the following selection from J.D. Buck, a proponent of spiritual Masonry from a century past. Buck’s text drips in the definitive human boast,

It is far more important that men should strive to become Christs than that they should believe that Jesus was Christ. If the Christ-state can be attained by but one human being during the whole evolution of the race, then the evolution of man is a farce and human perfection an impossibility… Jesus is no less Divine because all men may reach the same Divine perfection.[21]

Alien Encounters:

When I was at the SUN conference in 1999, I encountered people who claimed to be in contact with space-beings. The New Age movement is laced with such assertions. Like other “angelic” messengers who preach a gospel of self-deity, these “extraterrestrials” are peddling the same fruit as found in Genesis 3: We are imparting special knowledge… you are divine, you are God… you never really will die, but advance from stage to stage before absorption into the cosmos… or some variation to that effect.

In his “starseed transmissions,” channeled messages from entities posing as angels and extraterrestrials, Ken Carey conveyed the following: “You are the Presence of God. God is present on Earth because of you.”[22]

Solara, a star-being whose channeled communications started a religious movement called the Star-Borne, tells us that we too are star beings. Through “doorway rituals” we can awaken to who we really are, and together discover our destiny in a non-dual reality. Solara reminds us of our Divine Origin; that we are all star-children, Angels on Earth.

Therefore, as star-children, we must “return to the Light of Oneness,”[23]

We are called to unite together in a group initiation as One, binding the family of humanity into a collective whole. Our primary identifications with ourselves shall be with the One which we truly are – you, me, and everyone else combined.[24]

And there is a broader community within the wholeness. We must return to the Light with the other angels, specifically Lucifer, who, according to Solara, came to Earth as a beneficial volunteer – a star-seed traveling on a Golden Beam of Light – to interlock with matter.[25]

Supposedly we arise and take our rightful place in full union,

Eventually, if we achieve our chosen task on planet Earth to transmute duality into Oneness, then Lucifer, too, with his fallen Angels, must rise up into the Light to once again sit at the right hand of God as one of the brightest of the Angels. For nothing and no one is to remain separate from God. Within the Greater Reality, everything is God.[26]

Or as another alien channeled: “The Second Coming is imminent, and you may as well get ready. This is a particularly good idea because you’re it. You are the Second Coming… Become your own Messiah.”[27]

Amazingly, extraterrestrial messengers from supposedly distant galaxies, traveling billions of light years by technically manipulating complex rifts in space-and-time, do not come to cure the common cold or end cancer. No. Their task is to spread the message of Cosmic Humanism. Let me be blunt: I do not believe these entities come from a “galaxy far, far away.” They are sentient, they are intelligent, but their messages expose their identity. They are spiritual beings aligned with the “angel of light” who visited the first human couple in the Garden, and their agenda is to keep you entrapped in the act of divine identity theft.

The forbidden fruit extends into the alien abduction phenomena. Abduction researcher John E. Mack[28] explained how many UFO abductees experience a transformational state-of-mind. Re-enchantment follows, 

The altered consciousness that abduction encounters bring about resembles in some ways the trance states of shamans, and like indigenous peoples, abductees are brought closer to a natural world that is alive with spirits of all kinds and is increasingly perceived as sacred.[29]

This, accordingly, reflects what the aliens themselves portray. Mack tells us: “Abductees consistently report that the beings seem closer to the Godhead than we are, acting as messengers, guardian spirits, or angels, intermediaries between us and the Divine Source.”[30] Reconnecting to the Source – or as one client of Mack described it, “God-Goddess-All that is” – becomes the new purpose for living.[31]

Moreover, some channeled transmissions describe a coming co-evolution. Visitors From Within, a series of alien communications and interactions, describes the work of synthesis and transformation.“Zeta beings,” a supposedly alien race not too different from our own species, is destined to spiritually co-evolve with enlightened humanity,

You are, in a sense, two opposite ends of a pole, and you are coming together to form one integrated consciousness. You are learning from each other. You are growing from each other… We are speaking of species evolution on a very basic level all the way through to the spiritual level.[32]

Do I believe actual Zeta beings exist? Not at all. Do I believe spiritual entities are masquerading to sell Oneness? That is far more plausible.

The implications are ominous.

———————-

Endnotes:

[1] John Davis and Naomi Rice, Messiah and the Second Coming (Coptic Press, 1982), p.21.

[2] John Denver, “It’s a Possibility,” Windstar Journal, Winter 1986, p.6. Denver started the Windstar Foundation in 1976 to promote education on peace and sustainability, personal growth, and New Age spiritual development.

[3] Barbara Marx Hubbard, The Revelation: A Message of Hope for the New Millennium (Nataraj Publishing, 1995), p.162.

[4] Dennis Weaver, All the World’s a Stage (Walsch Books, 2001), p.226.

[5] Ibid., p.239, italics in original.

[6] John Randolph Price, The Planetary Commission (The Quartus Foundation, 1984), p.133, capitals in original.

[7] Christian Bernard, So Mote It Be! (Supreme Grand Lodge of AMORC, 1995), p.157.

[8] Master Monograph, Illuminati Section, Degree 12, Monograph 25 (AMORC), p.4.

[9] Rosicrucian Glossary: A Key to Word Meanings (AMORC, 1975, seventh edition), p.13.

[10] Master Monograph, Temple Section, Degree 9, Preliminary Monograph 3 (AMORC), p.5.

[11] Bernard, So Mote It Be!, pp.87-88.

[12] Joseph Smith, as printed by Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine (Bookcraft, 1979, second edition), p.321, italics in original.

[13] Ibid., p.321.

[14] Re: Interpretations. An observation I have made is that the average Mason typically disavows spiritual interpretations of the Craft. Conversely, men who have achieved significant stature within the system, such as a Sovereign Grand Commander of the Supreme Council, or who are recognized as noted philosophers or historians are quicker to admit a spiritual dimension. Moreover, I have heard it said that every Mason’s interpretation should be viewed as his own. In other words, interpretations are subjective. Compelled to accept this, I have chosen to interpret the Craft through the second group, and not the local Mason whose experience has been narrower in orientation.

[15] Henry C. Clausen, Emergence of the Mystical (Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, Southern Jurisdiction, 1981), p.xi.

[16] Manly P. Hall, The Lost Keys of Freemasonry (Macoy Publishing and Masonic Supply Company, 1954, originally published in 1923), p.92. Hall, an esoteric philosopher, became one of the most influential Masons of the Twentieth Century.

[17] George H. Steinmetz, The Royal Arch: Its Hidden Meaning (Macoy Publishing and Masonic Supply Company, 1946), p.84, capitals in original.

[18] W.L. Wilmshurst, The Meaning of Masonry (Gramercy Books, 1980), p.47.

[19] Foster Bailey, The Spirit of Masonry (Lucis Trust, 1957/1996), p.105.

[20] Clausen, Emergence of the Mystical, pp.76-77.

[21] J.D. Buck, Mystic Masonry and the Greater Mysteries of Antiquity (Regan Publishing, 1925), p.62.

[22] Ken Carey, The Starseed Transmissions (HarperSanFrancisco, 1982/1995), p.51.

[23] Solara, The Star-Borne: A Remembrance for the Awakened Ones (Star-Borne Unlimited, 1989), p.151.

[24] Ibid., p.279.

[25] Ibid., p.136.

[26] Ibid., p.138, italics in original.

[27] Zoev Jho, E.T. 101: The Cosmic Instruction Manual for Planetary Evolution (HarperSanFrancisco, 1995), pp.44-45.

[28] John Mack was socially connected to the Esalen Institute and received funding from Lawrence Rockefeller. See Marion Goldman, The American Soul Rush: Esalen and the Rise of Spiritual Privilege (New York University Press, 2012), p.144.

[29] John E. Mack, Passport to the Cosmos: Human Transformation and Alien Encounters (Crown Publishing, 1999), p.154.

[30] Ibid., p.276.

[31] Ibid., p.272.

[32] Lyssa Royal and Keith Priest, Visitors From Within (Royal Priest Research Pr., 1992), p.14.