CLICK HERE for a link to a talk I gave to the Florence Unitarian Universalist congregation on the Sunday following the November 2024 election of Donald Trump as president. Most of the people in the room were in distress because of what they believed the election of this man, and this platform, means for the future of Americans.










And if you need another voice saying very much the same thing, here's a longtime student of intuition and prophecy, with his take on what's happening now:  https://youtu.be/-qB9AO2JJAc?si=0uBq3zQdoW0Uinsb

I received an email the other day from yet another person really concerned about the polarization that's happening, not just in our politics (globally as well as nationally) but in our social interactions. 
The issue that triggered the email was the wide variation in what people consider facts, these days:
"... the problem with the rampant ignorance portraying itself as knowledge is that it can not be corrected, in any way that I can see. It serves itself entirely, like Frank Herbert (or was it Robert Heinlein) said of the Angry Mind, exists only for itself. These proclamations of absurd and impossible things are very disturbing more for that reason than for what they actually say. Data without any possible corrective feedback."

My response to this email, which is one of many expressing concerns about the issue was:

So... how about this: the world of negative/distressing polarity is pulling further and further away from the world of positive/loving polarity, and you're just observing it. How's that for an explanation? No need to try to change it, simply to hold to the love and trust that most of the folk who can feel it will come along, while those who can't will move in into their very different world. 
Like the cover of the original Make the World Go Away:

After several years of speaking almost every Sunday, as well as teaching monthly and weekly classes and recording a weekly radio show, I decided to take a break. I had agreed to speak at, and offer books at, the International New Thought Alliance conference in July, so I put together a road trip that included visits with family and clients across the western U.S. 

You can follow my journey by clicking on the links below:
    Summer Sabbatical 1: Oregon to New Mexico with Several Stops
    Summer Sabbatical 2: Across the Great Plains, INTA, and More
​    Summer Sabbatical 3: Back-roading through the great Southwest
​    Summer Sabbatical 4: A Different Kind of Retreat

What is the distinction between traditional Christian Science and the teachings of Emma Curtis Hopkins and Emilie Cady?
Basically, Emilie Cady didn't go there at all. She found her path through her training as a holistic physician, attendance at revival meetings, participating in study groups around Emma Curtis Hopkins' teachings, and her own reading of the Bible. Her ideas became the foundation of Unity teachings precisely because they were so clearly NOT Christian Science but were so clearly expressed that all could understand and practice them.
 
Emma, on the other hand, studied with Mary Baker Eddy and worked for her for a while, called her own teachings Christian Science until MBE made it clear that no one outside her organization would be permitted to do so, and actually taught and published lessons that were very similar to MBE's for the first couple of years. We have published books based on her notes for 1887 and 1888 that are virtually indistinguishable from MBE's CS. 
 
Emma's initial move away was to include references to what she called "other mystical writers" and to accept what is now called NeoPlatonism: the existence of everything in an ideal form ready for us to attune ourselves to experience it. In Lesson 2 of Scientific Christian Mental Practice she goes further away when she contradicts MBE's teachings on 2 points:
    1, That there is no intelligence in matter; Emma argues that if God is omnipresent and God is Intelligence then Intelligence must be omnipresent and that includes all forms of matter. She also says that matter, as such, is not Real, but transitory. That is, eternal spiritual Substance is taking a form for the moment that meets a consciousness and will change as that consciousness changes. 
   2, The denial of sensation; Emma states that if all sensation were delightful then no one would argue against its existence, that the issue is with our perception, not with the object being sensed; if God is Good and God is omnipresent, then all that is Good is omnipresent and therefore what we sense must be Good.  
 
 
What’s the difference between praise and gratitude?
Gratitude is a heart opening brought about by deep appreciation in the moment, and may be triggered by contemplation of the past or the present or potential futures. Gratitude opens the way for more opportunities to experience gratitude.
 
Praise is any and all descriptions of what is. Emma says, literally, that "all description is praise". Praise opens the way for more of what is being described., which is why we're careful about what we describe. Praises may also arise from a state of gratitude, as reflected in the Psalms and many hymns, where words can't describe the depth of our appreciation for what we're experiencing, but still we try.

 

I recently received an email from a student who was concerned that by listing the ways that good things are present or would be appreciated, we may be "placing other  gods before" the One, Infinite, Source of All that Is. Here is my response:
I get the sense that in your thinking, an object is not Source/Spirit, a person or event may or may not be Spirit, a quality may or may not be Spirit - and that is, indeed, what the culture teaches us. But what Emma Hopkins and Emilie Cady understood is that it's ALL ONE SPIRIT/SOURCE/SUBSTANCE. Every thing, person, experience, or quality we perceive is our brain-limited version of Spirit showing up for us. So, they're telling us, when we name anything, any person, any state of being, any feeling as our Good, we are naming Spirit, and by naming Spirit in that form, we are inviting Spirit to take that form in our perceptions.

When Hopkins and Cady encourage us to acknowledge the good and claim it for ourselves they are offering a way of experiencing all that we call good by identifying all that we call good and  ourselves as the same thing -- Spirit, the Source, the underlying power and intelligence of all that is. They say that we can have it without feeling required to DO anything to achieve or experience it. We identify with that experience, that physical form, that quality, and because we ARE it already (for we could not wish, desire, or imagine it if we weren't), we then begin to perceive it in our lives. We no longer seek it, because we realize we ARE it, and the form that is here and now is Spirit in expression - so it is Good. The lamp is Good, the food is Good, the body is Good, the person over there is Good, their healed body is Good...I name it Good to get out of the habit of naming things as not okay and  reinforce my understanding that all is Spirit/Source/Substance taking whatever form I call good, that all I perceive is what I have thought and felt before now, and is my very loving, cooperative Spirit Self showing up as my world for me.

It's that time again, the deep dark days of winter - and dozens of holy days to help us thru...

I received an email this week asking me about whether the body really needs to be weened off of medications "slowly and gently".  This was my reply...

Yes, in Truth, no medication is ever needed and there is no need to be limited by anything material. However, the way I think of it,

• the body is what the brain tells it to be;
• the brain has been programmed by our childhood and adult experiences and decisions;
• that programming has trained the brain to block input from the mind;
• as we learn to let the mind have more and more access to the brain, the brain gives the body new messages;
• the mind, our spirit, soul-Self, is infinite and unbounded;
• so the new messages move the body toward unlimited health, unbounded strength, and immunity to whatever is happening in the material world

For someone with training and experience in the medical world, stopping a medication will usually include "a need to wind down safely and slowly". For another (say, a guru in India) that's not an issue; nothing physical can have a deleterious effect on the body.
 
Now, as you're doing the clearing work, however, as you release and replace more and more of the brain’s programming, you will find that fewer and fewer of those old programs apply and more and more of your spirit-Self is your experience.
 
So, as you go along, if you're paying attention to what you're thinking, and that thinking is focused on the spiritual reality of you, rather than the past experiences of the physical-emotional body, AND you can trust yourself to deal with any issues that may come up, you can feel free to do whatever feels right in the moment. 

Be aware, though, that the brain's programming runs deep, so you may find there are ups and downs along the way, as you make the shift from one state of being/consciousness to another.

I got to go to New Zealand! It was an unexpected, but totally amazing experience: 2+ weeks in New Zealand in August! Click on the links below to see my travel journal...

• ARRIVING: PART ONE
• PART TWO: NORTH ISLAND (including glow-worm cave and Hobbiton!)
• PART THREE: SOUTH ISLAND (including Mt. Cook / Aoraki)

It was an amazing, totally unexpected experience, and I so appreciate all the folks who made it possible!

​For decades I've been teaching ways to align our thinking, our perceiving, and our deeper knowing of universal processes.

Initially, using the terms I was handed, I talked about the ego as the perceiver and doer/maker, and Spirit as the knower and creator. Over time I referred to the "ego" as the "small" or "child" self and the Spirit within as the "higher" or "greater" Self. 

Continuing the work, it became clear that the underlying intelligence of the universe didn't have to be talked about in spiritual or religious terms any more, but that the word Mind applies. Both theory and experiment are making clear the fact that the source, or quantum field out of which all matter and energy arise, is the Akashic field, is the one Mind, underlying and manifesting all that is--all that we generally call reality. And more, that field, that Mind, is present in and through all aspects of reality, including ourselves.

Understanding that, it became clear that each of us--all our cells and all the energy fields around those cells--is part of that Mind, along with everything else that exists. So we can tap into that Mind, that underlying source of all that is. It must be the same thing as the "unconscious" mind that early researchers defined.

For most of my work in this field, I've used Jung's and Freud's framework of 3 aspects of mind: one in which we are aware, one of which we aren't usually aware that governs our body activities and reactions, and one of which we aren't usually aware that accesses the ideals and archetypal images of our culture, of humanity (and possibly even more). 

Within that framework, the subconscious mind keeps the body working, the superconscious mind accesses ideals and potentials in the larger mind, and our personal awareness, ego, or conscious mind, is the realm of perceptions, thoughts that link those perceptions, and emotions arising from those perceptions. 

So the separation between self and Spirt is dissolved. God, Spirit, is Mind--constantly creating all that is and everywhere present throughout all that is. That means there is one mind and my mind must be part of the whole Mind that is constantly creating all that is. (The "son of God" therefore is all aspects of reality emanating from and sustained by that Mind--which includes all beings, everywhere.)

And that means I'm simply shifting the scope of my personal awareness as I enter different states of consciousness. As I access other aspects of my mind I can access the universal Mind.

Our normal range of personal awareness is delineated by our perceptions: what is entering our sensory system, what our brain has been trained to pay attention to, and what connections our brain has made through repetitions of sensory input. Our emotions are a function of those connections: neurons send impulses to glands that release "molecules of emotion" to cells in the body and we feel happy, mad, sad, glad, hungry, or tired in response to what our brain has said is going on around and within our bodies.

Because our Western Materialist culture teaches us to focus on external sensory inputs and analyse them with the left frontal cortex, we identify with bodies and material objects--we don't know about anything else! In other cultures, children are encouraged to develop their right brain abilities, as well. They learn to sense what is happening in their bodies, and to be aware of their dreams and deeper "feeling" states, which have been called our "inner senses". Their personal awareness, therefore, includes more of the subconscious and superconscious aspects of mind than folks in our culture usually experience.

Still, many individuals in our culture have, over the centuries, been able to demonstrate the power and effectiveness of using "inner awareness" disciplines and practices. 

That means that each of us can extend our personal awareness into the subconscious mind and observe and modify the body's processes, including fear responses, heart rate, temperature, and more. It means we can extend our personal awareness into the superconscious mind to observe the nonsensory aspects of our experience, as well. We can remember and interpret dreams, see the relationship between our sensory experiences and our thoughts and feelings, and we can appreciate the non-material aspects of the world around us.

In short, what used to be called "spiritual disciplines" no longer have to be limited to religious practice. They are life practices that make it possible for us to access information and make more useful choices about our whole selves--not just what our physical senses have told us and our previous experiences have led the brain to react to. And what have been called "supernatural experiences" or even miracles, are available to anyone who shifts their personal awareness into the subconscious or superconscious aspects of their own mind and acts accordingly. 

So my language about all this has changed. It is no longer the "ego" or "small self" that must be brought into alignment with "Spirit." Instead, we need to retrain, even "rewire" our brains so that we can choose which "programs" it uses in response to sensory input and so we can use the right hemisphere more fully to access the nonmaterial aspects of all-that-is, both within the body and around it. (This is the primary work of Joe Dispenza.)

On May 5, the day I left home for the journey described in my last post, I received notice that my latest book had been published. 
  This one is co-authored with Kaz Gozdz, a remarkable being who discovered, by working as a midlevel manager, that developing people is essential to developing profits, so went off to study with such luminaries as community-development leader Scott Peck, Stanford Business professor Michael Ray, Systems and Learning Organization leader Peter Senge, and more, to learn how to do so. In the process he picked up a doctorate in Transpersonal Psychology and began to define a new metaphysics.
  So the ideas this book is based on are dear to my heart, and what Kaz has achieved is wonderful to behold. 
  The book is written for academics and is entitled Developing Third-Generation Learning Organizations, a Heuristic Discovery Process. But, even though there are hundreds of footnotes, I think we managed to make it readable. In it, we not only outline Kaz' process (and mine) for transforming leadership processes in organizations, but we also lay out some of the fundamentals of systems thinking, culture dynamics, and the role metaphysics plays in our experience.  
   Here's a snippet:

That's from the conclusions... and in some ways it's just the beginning!  :)