ALBERT EINSTEIN

A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

by Rep. Ron Paul

*F*or some, patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. For others,
it means dissent against a government's abuse of the people's rights.

I have never met a politician in Washington or any American, for that
matter, who chose to be called unpatriotic. Nor have I met anyone who
did not believe he wholeheartedly supported our troops, wherever they
may be.

What I have heard all too frequently from various individuals are
sharp accusations that, because their political opponents disagree
with them on the need for foreign military entanglements, they were
unpatriotic, un-American evildoers deserving contempt.

The original American patriots were those individuals brave enough to
resist with force the oppressive power of King George. I accept the
definition of patriotism as that effort to resist oppressive state power.

The true patriot is motivated by a sense of responsibility and out of
self-interest for himself, his family, and the future of his country
to resist government abuse of power. He rejects the notion that
patriotism means obedience to the state. Resistance need not be
violent, but the civil disobedience that might be required involves
confrontation with the state and invites possible imprisonment.

Peaceful, nonviolent revolutions against tyranny have been every bit
as successful as those involving military confrontation. Mahatma
Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., achieved great political
successes by practicing nonviolence, and yet they suffered physically
at the hands of the state. But whether the resistance against
government tyrants is nonviolent or physically violent, the effort to
overthrow state oppression qualifies as true patriotism.

True patriotism today has gotten a bad name, at least from the
government and the press. Those who now challenge the unconstitutional
methods of imposing an income tax on us, or force us to use a monetary
system designed to serve the rich at the expense of the poor are
routinely condemned. These American patriots are sadly looked down
upon by many. They are never praised as champions of liberty as Gandhi
and Martin Luther King have been.

Liberals, who withhold their taxes as a protest against war, are
vilified as well, especially by conservatives. Unquestioned loyalty to
the state is especially demanded in times of war. Lack of support for
a war policy is said to be unpatriotic. Arguments against a particular
policy that endorses a war, once it is started, are always said to be
endangering the troops in the field. This, they blatantly claim, is
unpatriotic, and all dissent must stop. Yet, it is dissent from
government policies that defines the true patriot and champion of
liberty.

It is conveniently ignored that the only authentic way to best support
the troops is to keep them out of dangerous undeclared no-win wars
that are politically inspired. Sending troops off to war for reasons
that are not truly related to national security and, for that matter,
may even damage our security, is hardly a way to patriotically support
the troops.

Who are the true patriots, those who conform or those who protest
against wars without purpose? How can it be said that blind support
for a war, no matter how misdirected the policy, is the duty of a
patriot?

Randolph Bourne said that, "War is the health of the state.'' With
war, he argued, the state thrives. Those who believe in the powerful
state see war as an opportunity. Those who mistrust the people and the
market for solving problems have no trouble promoting a "war
psychology'' to justify the expansive role of the state. This includes
the role the Federal Government plays in our lives, as well as in our
economic transactions.

Certainly, the neoconservative belief that we have a moral obligation
to spread American values worldwide through force justifies the
conditions of war in order to rally support at home for the heavy hand
of government. It is through this policy, it should surprise no one,
that our liberties are undermined. The economy becomes overextended,
and our involvement worldwide becomes prohibited. Out of fear of being
labeled unpatriotic, most of the citizens become compliant and accept
the argument that some loss of liberty is required to fight the war in
order to remain safe.

This is a bad trade-off, in my estimation, especially when done in the
name of patriotism. Loyalty to the state and to autocratic leaders is
substituted for true patriotism; that is, a willingness to challenge
the state and defend the country, the people and the culture. The more
difficult the times, the stronger the admonition comes that the
leaders be not criticized.

Because the crisis atmosphere of war supports the growth of the state,
any problem invites an answer by declaring war, even on social and
economic issues. This elicits patriotism in support of various
government solutions, while enhancing the power of the state. Faith in
government coercion and a lack of understanding of how free societies
operate encourages big-government liberals and big-government
conservatives to manufacture a war psychology to demand political
loyalty for domestic policy just as is required in foreign affairs.

The long-term cost in dollars spent and liberties lost is neglected as
immediate needs are emphasized. It is for this reason that we have
multiple perpetual wars going on simultaneously. Thus, the war on
drugs, the war against gun ownership, the war against poverty, the war
against illiteracy, the war against terrorism, as well as our foreign
military entanglements are endless.

All this effort promotes the growth of statism at the expense of
liberty. A government designed for a free society should do the
opposite, prevent the growth of statism and preserve liberty.

Once a war of any sort is declared, the message is sent out not to
object or you will be declared unpatriotic. Yet, we must not forget
that the true patriot is the one who protests in spite of the
consequences. Condemnation or ostracism or even imprisonment may result.

Nonviolent protesters of the Tax Code are frequently imprisoned,
whether they are protesting the code's unconstitutionality or the war
that the tax revenues are funding. Resisters to the military draft or
even to Selective Service registration are threatened and imprisoned
for challenging this threat to liberty.

Statism depends on the idea that the government owns us and citizens
must obey. Confiscating the fruits of our labor through the income tax
is crucial to the health of the state. The draft, or even the mere
existence of the Selective Service, emphasizes that we will march off
to war at the state's pleasure.

A free society rejects all notions of involuntary servitude, whether
by draft or the confiscation of the fruits of our labor through the
personal income tax. A more sophisticated and less well-known
technique for enhancing the state is the manipulation and transfer of
wealth through the fiat monetary system operated by the secretive
Federal Reserve.

Protesters against this unconstitutional system of paper money are
considered unpatriotic criminals and at times are imprisoned for their
beliefs. The fact that, according to the Constitution, only gold and
silver are legal tender and paper money outlawed matters little. The
principle of patriotism is turned on its head. Whether it's with
regard to the defense of welfare spending at home, confiscatory income
tax, or an immoral monetary system or support for a war fought under
false pretense without a legal declaration, the defenders of liberty
and the Constitution are portrayed as unpatriotic, while those who
support these programs are seen as the patriots.

If there is a war going on, supporting the state's effort to win the
war is expected at all costs, no dissent. The real problem is that
those who love the state too often advocate policies that lead to
military action. At home, they are quite willing to produce a crisis
atmosphere and claim a war is needed to solve the problem. Under these
conditions, the people are more willing to bear the burden of paying
for the war and to carelessly sacrifice liberties, which they are told
is necessary.

The last 6 years have been quite beneficial to the health of the
state, which comes at the expense of personal liberty. Every enhanced
unconstitutional power of the state can only be achieved at the
expense of individual liberty. Even though in every war in which we
have been engaged civil liberties have suffered, some have been
restored after the war ended, but never completely. That has resulted
in a steady erosion of our liberties over the past 200 years. Our
government was originally designed to protect our liberties, but it
has now, instead, become the usurper of those liberties.

We currently live in the most difficult of times for guarding against
an expanding central government with a steady erosion of our freedoms.
We are continually being reminded that 9/11 has changed everything.

Unfortunately, the policy that needed most to be changed, that is, our
policy of foreign interventionism, has only been expanded. There is no
pretense any longer that a policy of humility in foreign affairs,
without being the world's policemen and engaging in nation building,
is worthy of consideration.

We now live in a post-9/11 America where our government is going to
make us safe no matter what it takes. We are expected to grin and bear
it and adjust to every loss of our liberties in the name of patriotism
and security.

Though the majority of Americans initially welcomed the declared
effort to make us safe, and we are willing to sacrifice for the cause,
more and more Americans are now becoming concerned about civil
liberties being needlessly and dangerously sacrificed.

The problem is that the Iraq war continues to drag on, and a real
danger of it spreading exists. There is no evidence that a truce will
soon be signed in Iraq or in the war on terror or the war on drugs.
Victory is not even definable. If Congress is incapable of declaring
an official war, it is impossible to know when it will end. We have
been fully forewarned that the world conflict in which we are now
engaged will last a long, long time.

The war mentality and the pervasive fear of an unidentified enemy
allows for a steady erosion of our liberties, and, with this, our
respect for self-reliance and confidence is lost. Just think of the
self-sacrifice and the humiliation we go through at the airport
screening process on a routine basis. Though there is no scientific
evidence of any likelihood of liquids and gels being mixed on an
airplane to make a bomb, billions of dollars are wasted throwing away
toothpaste and hair spray, and searching old women in wheelchairs.

Our enemies say boo, and we jump, we panic, and then we punish
ourselves. We are worse than a child being afraid of the dark. But in
a way, the fear of indefinable terrorism is based on our inability to
admit the truth about why there is a desire by a small number of angry
radical Islamists to kill Americans. It is certainly not because they
are jealous of our wealth and freedoms.

We fail to realize that the extremists, willing to sacrifice their own
lives to kill their enemies, do so out of a sense of weakness and
desperation over real and perceived attacks on their way of life,
their religion, their country, and their natural resources. Without
the conventional diplomatic or military means to retaliate against
these attacks, and an unwillingness of their own government to address
the issue, they resort to the desperation tactic of suicide terrorism.
Their anger toward their own governments, which they believe are
coconspirators with the American Government, is equal to or greater
than that directed toward us.

These errors in judgment in understanding the motive of the enemy and
the constant fear that is generated have brought us to this crisis
where our civil liberties and privacy are being steadily eroded in the
name of preserving national security.

We may be the economic and the military giant of the world, but the
effort to stop this war on our liberties here at home in the name of
patriotism is being lost.

The erosion of our personal liberties started long before 9/11, but
9/11 accelerated the process. There are many things that motivate
those who pursue this course, both well-intentioned and malevolent,
but it would not happen if the people remained vigilant, understood
the importance of individual rights, and were unpersuaded that a need
for security justifies the sacrifice for liberty, even if it is just
now and then.

The true patriot challenges the state when the state embarks on
enhancing its power at the expense of the individual. Without a better
understanding and a greater determination to rein in the state, the
rights of Americans that resulted from the revolutionary break from
the British and the writing of the Constitution will disappear.

The record since September 11th is dismal. Respect for liberty has
rapidly deteriorated. Many of the new laws passed after 9/11 had, in
fact, been proposed long before that attack. The political atmosphere
after that attack simply made it more possible to pass such
legislation. The fear generated by 9/11 became an opportunity for
those seeking to promote the power of the state domestically, just as
it served to falsely justify the long-planned invasion of Iraq.

The war mentality was generated by the Iraq war in combination with
the constant drumbeat of fear at home. Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden,
who is now likely residing in Pakistan, our supposed ally, are
ignored, as our troops fight and die in Iraq and are made easier
targets for the terrorists in their backyard. While our leaders
constantly use the mess we created to further justify the erosion of
our constitutional rights here at home, we forget about our own
borders and support the inexorable move toward global government,
hardly a good plan for America.

The accelerated attacks on liberty started quickly after 9/11. Within
weeks, the PATRIOT Act was overwhelmingly passed by Congress. Though
the final version was unavailable up to a few hours before the vote,
no Member had sufficient time to study it. Political fear of not doing
something, even something harmful, drove the Members of Congress to
not question the contents, and just voted for it. A little less
freedom for a little more perceived safety was considered a fair
trade-off, and the majority of Americans applauded.

The PATRIOT Act, though, severely eroded the system of checks and
balances by giving the government the power to spy on law-abiding
citizens without judicial supervision. The several provisions that
undermine the liberties of all Americans include sneak-and-peek
searches, a broadened and more vague definition of domestic terrorism,
allowing the FBI access to library and bookstore records without
search warrants or probable cause, easier FBI initiation of wiretaps
and searches, as well as roving wiretaps, easier access to information
on American citizens' use of the Internet, and easier access to e-mail
and financial records of all American citizens.

The attack on privacy has not relented over the past 6 years. The
Military Commissions Act is a particularly egregious piece of
legislation and, if not repealed, will change America for the worse as
the powers unconstitutionally granted to the executive branch are used
and abused. This act grants excessive authority to use secretive
military commissions outside of places where active hostilities are
going on. The Military Commissions Act permits torture, arbitrary
detention of American citizens as unlawful enemy combatants at the
full discretion of the President and without the right of habeas
corpus, and warrantless searches by the NSA. It also gives to the
President the power to imprison individuals based on secret testimony.

Since 9/11, Presidential signing statements designating portions of
legislation that the President does not intend to follow, though not
legal under the Constitution, have enormously multiplied.
Unconstitutional Executive Orders are numerous and mischievous and
need to be curtailed.

Extraordinary rendition to secret prisons around the world have been
widely engaged in, though obviously extralegal.

A growing concern in the post-9/11 environment is the Federal
Government's list of potential terrorists based on secret evidence.
Mistakes are made, and sometimes it is virtually impossible to get
one's name removed even though the accused is totally innocent of any
wrongdoing.

A national ID card is now in the process of being implemented. It is
called the REAL ID card, and it is tied to our Social Security numbers
and our State driver's license. If REAL ID is not stopped, it will
become a national driver's license ID for all Americans. We will be
required to carry our papers.

Some of the least-noticed and least-discussed changes in the law were
the changes made to the Insurrection Act of 1807 and to posse
comitatus by the Defense Authorization Act of 2007. These changes pose
a threat to the survival of our Republic by giving the President the
power to declare martial law for as little reason as to restore public
order. The 1807 act severely restricted the President in his use of
the military within the United States borders, and the Posse Comitatus
Act of 1878 strengthened these restrictions with strict oversight by
Congress. The new law allows the President to circumvent the
restrictions of both laws. The Insurrection Act has now become the
"Enforcement of the Laws to Restore Public Order Act.'' This is hardly
a title that suggests that the authors cared about or understood the
nature of a constitutional Republic.

Now, martial law can be declared not just for insurrection, but also
for natural disasters, public health reasons, terrorist attacks or
incidents, or for the vague reason called "other conditions.'' The
President can call up the National Guard without congressional
approval or the Governors' approval, and even send these State Guard
troops into other States.

The American Republic is in remnant status. The stage is set for our
country eventually devolving into a military dictatorship, and few
seem to care. These precedent-setting changes in the law are extremely
dangerous and will change American jurisprudence forever if not
revised. The beneficial results of our revolt against the King's
abuses are about to be eliminated, and few Members of Congress and few
Americans are aware of the seriousness of the situation. Complacency
and fear drive our legislation without any serious objection by our
elected leaders. Sadly, though, those few who do object to this
self-evident trend away from personal liberty and empire-building
overseas are portrayed as unpatriotic and uncaring.

Though welfare and socialism always fails, opponents of them are said
to lack compassion. Though opposition to totally unnecessary war
should be the only moral position, the rhetoric is twisted to claim
that patriots who oppose the war are not supporting the troops. The
cliché "Support the Troops'' is incessantly used as a substitute for
the unacceptable notion of supporting the policy, no matter how flawed
it may be.

Unsound policy can never help the troops. Keeping the troops out of
harm's way and out of wars unrelated to our national security is the
only real way of protecting the troops. With this understanding, just
who can claim the title of "patriot''?

Before the war in the Middle East spreads and becomes a world conflict
for which we will be held responsible, or the liberties of all
Americans become so suppressed we can no longer resist, much has to be
done. Time is short, but our course of action should be clear.
Resistance to illegal and unconstitutional usurpation of our rights is
required. Each of us must choose which course of action we should
take: education, conventional political action, or even peaceful civil
disobedience to bring about necessary changes.

But let it not be said that we did nothing. Let not those who love the
power of the welfare/warfare state label the dissenters of
authoritarianism as unpatriotic or uncaring. Patriotism is more
closely linked to dissent than it is to conformity and a blind desire
for safety and security. Understanding the magnificent rewards of a
free society makes us unbashful in its promotion, fully realizing that
maximum wealth is created and the greatest chance for peace comes from
a society respectful of individual liberty.

The Father of Analytical Psychology

In a hospital in Switzerland in 1944, the world-renowned psychiatrist Carl G. Jung, had a heart attack and then a near-death experience. His vivid encounter with the light, plus the intensely meaningful insights led Jung to conclude that his experience came from something real and eternal. Jung's experience is unique in that he saw the earth from a vantage point of about a thousand miles above it. His incredibly accurate view of the earth from outer space was described about two decades before astronauts in space first described it. Subsequently, as he reflected on life after death, Jung recalled the meditating Hindu from his near-death experience and read it as a parable of the archetypal Higher Self, the God-image within. Carl Jung, who founded analytical psychology, centered on the archetypes of the collective unconscious. The following is an excerpt from his autobiography entitled Memories, Dreams, Reflections describing his near-death experience.

It seemed to me that I was high up in space. Far below I saw the globe of the earth, bathed in a gloriously blue light. I saw the deep blue sea and the continents. Far below my feet lay Ceylon, and in the distance ahead of me the subcontinent of India. My field of vision did not include the whole earth, but its global shape was plainly distinguishable and its outlines shone with a silvery gleam through that wonderful blue light. In many places the globe seemed colored, or spotted dark green like oxidized silver. Far away to the left lay a broad expanse - the reddish-yellow desert of Arabia; it was as though the silver of the earth had there assumed a reddish-gold hue. Then came the Red Sea, and far, far back - as if in the upper left of a map - I could just make out a bit of the Mediterranean.

My gaze was directed chiefly toward that. Everything else appeared indistinct. I could also see the snow-covered Himalayas, but in that direction it was foggy or cloudy. I did not look to the right at all. I knew that I was on the point of departing from the earth.

Later I discovered how high in space one would have to be to have so extensive a view - approximately a thousand miles! The sight of the earth from this height was the most glorious thing I had ever seen.

After contemplating it for a while, I turned around. I had been standing with my back to the Indian Ocean, as it were, and my face to the north. Then it seemed to me that I made a turn to the south. Something new entered my field of vision. A short distance away I saw in space a tremendous dark block of stone, like a meteorite. It was about the size of my house, or even bigger. It was floating in space, and I myself was floating in space.

I had seen similar stones on the coast of the Gulf of Bengal. They were blocks of tawny granite, and some of them had been hollowed out into temples. My stone was one such gigantic dark block. An entrance led into a small antechamber. To the right of the entrance, a black Hindu sat silently in lotus posture upon a stone bench. He wore a white gown, and I knew that he expected me. Two steps led up to this antechamber, and inside, on the left, was the gate to the temple. Innumerable tiny niches, each with a saucer-like concavity filled with coconut oil and small burning wicks, surrounded the door with a wreath of bright flames. I had once actually seen this when I visited the Temple of the Holy Tooth at Kandy in Ceylon; the gate had been framed by several rows of burning oil lamps of this sort.

As I approached the steps leading up to the entrance into the rock, a strange thing happened: I had the feeling that everything was being sloughed away; everything I aimed at or wished for or thought, the whole phantasmagoria of earthly existence, fell away or was stripped from me - an extremely painful process. Nevertheless something remained; it was as if I now carried along with me everything I had ever experienced or done, everything that had happened around me. I might also say: it was with me, and I was it. I consisted of all that, so to speak. I consisted of my own history and I felt with great certainty: this is what I am. I am this bundle of what has been and what has been accomplished.

This experience gave me a feeling of extreme poverty, but at the same time of great fullness. There was no longer anything I wanted or desired. I existed in an objective form; I was what I had been and lived. At first the sense of annihilation predominated, of having been stripped or pillaged; but suddenly that became of no consequence.

Everything seemed to be past; what remained was a "fait accompli", without any reference back to what had been. There was no longer any regret that something had dropped away or been taken away. On the contrary: I had everything that I was, and that was everything.

Something else engaged my attention: as I approached the temple I had the certainty that I was about to enter an illuminated room and would meet there all those people to whom I belong in reality. There I would at last understand - this too was a certainty - what historical nexus I or my life fitted into. I would know what had been before me, why I had come into being, and where my life was flowing. My life as I lived it had often seemed to me like a story that has no beginning and end. I had the feeling that I was a historical fragment, an excerpt for which the preceding and succeeding text was missing. My life seemed to have been snipped out of a long chain of events, and many questions had remained unanswered. Why had it taken this course? Why had I brought these particular assumptions with me? What had I made of them? What will follow? I felt sure that I would receive an answer to all the questions as soon as I entered the rock temple. There I would meet the people who knew the answer to my question about what had been before and what would come after.

While I was thinking over these matters, something happened that caught my attention. From below, from the direction of Europe, an image floated up. It was my doctor, or rather, his likeness - framed by a golden chain or a golden laurel wreath. I knew at once: 'Aha, this is my doctor, of course, the one who has been treating me. But now he is coming in his primal form. In life he was an avatar of the temporal embodiment of the primal form, which has existed from the beginning. Now he is appearing in that primal form.'

Presumably I too was in my primal form, though this was something I did not observe but simply took for granted. As he stood before me, a mute exchange of thought took place between us. The doctor had been delegated by the earth to deliver a message to me, to tell me that there was a protest against my going away. I had no right to leave the earth and must return. The moment I heard that, the vision ceased.

I was profoundly disappointed, for now it all seemed to have been for nothing. The painful process of defoliation had been in vain, and I was not to be allowed to enter the temple, to join the people in whose company I belonged.

In reality, a good three weeks were still to pass before I could truly make up my mind to live again. I could not eat because all food repelled me. The view of city and mountains from my sickbed seemed to me like a painted curtain with black holes in it, or a tattered sheet of newspaper full of photographs that meant nothing. Disappointed, I thought, "Now I must return to the "box system" again." For it seemed to me as if behind the horizon of the cosmos a three-dimensional world had been artificially built up, in which each person sat by himself in a little box. And now I should have to convince myself all over again that this was important! Life and the whole world struck me as a prison, and it bothered me beyond measure that I should again be finding all that quite in order. I had been so glad to shed it all, and now it had come about that I - along with everyone else - would again be hung up in a box by a thread.

I felt violent resistance to my doctor because he had brought me back to life. At the same time, I was worried about him. "His life is in danger, for heaven's sake! He has appeared to me in his primal form! When anybody attains this form it means he is going to die, for already he belongs to the "greater company." Suddenly the terrifying thought came to me that the doctor would have to die in my stead. I tried my best to talk to him about it, but he did not understand me. Then I became angry with him.

In actual fact I was his last patient. On April 4, 1944 - I still remember the exact date I was allowed to sit up on the edge of my bed for the first time since the beginning of my illness, and on this same day the doctor took to his bed and did not leave it again. I heard that he was having intermittent attacks of fever. Soon afterward he died of septicernia. He was a good doctor; there was something of the genius about him. Otherwise he would not have appeared to me as an avatar of the temporal embodiment of the primal form.


"The unconscious psyche believes in life after death" - Carl Jung MD

The Religions Paradox

The Master walked with Chester in the contemplation garden. Chester was looking for a good debate and the Master just wanted to walk in peace.

Chester tried to start something. "If a true religion is a path to God, why not just one religion, why do we need 6 or 7 or more?"

The Master replied, "There are 9 religions but only two paths."

Chester hated having to probe. So he attacked. "That makes no sense. Explain it."

The Master smiled, "You make everything so complicated. You need long logical explanations when things just are. It just is."

Chester found that the Master was difficult to debate with. Master never gave him anything to resist or counter. He had never met anyone who seemed to just glide through life, serene and unconcerned. Finally, he resorted to begging.

"Please, you have to give me more details than 9 religions but only two paths."

The Master walked silently for a while and finally asked, "You want things categorized and labeled like scientist do? Would that help?"

Chester shrugged and said, "How else would you communicate it."

The Two Paths

The Master said, "I will do my best. I need to sit and talk. It is hard to talk like a scientist. I need to focus." The Master walked over to a large tree with lots of shade and sat with his legs crossed. Chester joined him. It was much cooler under the tree.

The Master began. "There have always been two paths.

One path is the path of Absolute Awareness achieved through meditation, and this is the path Buddha took.

The other path is a path of Faith, achieved through prayer, which is the path Christ showed us.

One path is with the Tao and the other is with the Father.

Another way to look at it is this. One path experiences God as pure Awareness, called Nirvana. The other path experiences God as having a human like personality such as Allah, Krishna or the Father."

Chester tried to soak it in. It seemed to make sense. "But which is better?".

The Master continued. "I'll try to be logical for you. Lets assume the statement that, God created everything, to be true. That means for Eternity, God was before Creation.

This means the original Eternity contained only God. The best way to put it in words is to say God was Eternal Infinite Awareness in perfect Balance. During the original eternity God had no personality because a personality is used to interact with other persons. God only manifested a personality after God had a creation to interact with."

Chester was stunned into silence. So far the Master seemed right on! Chester softly requested, "Go on."

The Master laughed softly then continued.

"The God Awareness path explains Tao, Buddhism and Zen.

The Personal God path is contained in the story of Krishna and Christ."

Chester loved to find flaws in logic. He pounced. "That is only four religions! You can't count Zen and Buddhism twice!"

The Master paused and closed his eyes. After about 30 seconds his eyes fluttered open and said, "The three three's. The Mystery of the three three's will explain it." He shifted deeper into the grass growing under the tree.

"Three primary religions teach reincarnation, they are Hinduism, Taoism and Buddhism.

Three primary religions teach of a resurrection, they are Judaism, Christianity and Sufism.

And three more religions are a blend of one of the two mentioned. You can call them blended religions. Zen is a blend of Buddhism and Taoism, The Sihks are a blend of Hinduism and Sufism and there is one more blended religion, a blend of Judaism and Christianity called Sabbath Christians or Messianic Jews."

Chester challenged, "But that doesn't explain why you have three religions teaching reincarnation and three others teaching resurrection."

The Master smiled, "It begins with the Plan of God."

THE THREE VERY DIFFERENT TYPES
OF SUBJECTIVE LIGHT

P.M.H.Atwater, L.H.D., Ph.D. (Hon.) P. O. Box 7691 Charlottesville, VA 22906-7691

© 1998 P.M.H.Atwater, L.H.D., Ph.D. (Hon.)

As a researcher of near-death states, I can assure you that any type
of near-death experience can be life changing.

But as an experiencer, I can positively affirm that being bathed in
The Light on the other side of death is more than life changing. That
light is the very essence, the heart and soul, the all-consuming consumma-
tion of ecstatic ecstasy. It is a million suns of compressed love dissol-
ving everything unto itself, annihilating thought and cell, vaporizing hu-
manness and history, into the one great brilliance of all that is and all
that ever was and all that ever will be.

You know it's God.

No one has to tell you.

You know.

You can no longer believe in God, for belief implies doubt. There is
no more doubt. None. You now know God. And you know that you know. And
you're never the same again.

And you know who you are. . . a child of God, a cell in The Greater
Body, an extension of The One Force, an expression from The One Mind. No
more can you forget your identity, or deny or ignore or pretend it away.

There is One, and you are of The One.

One.

The Light does this to you.

It cradles your soul in the heart of its pulsebeat and fills you with
loveshine. And you melt away as the "you" you think you are, reforming as
the "YOU" you really are, and you are reborn because at last you "remem-
ber."

Although not everyone speaks of God when they return from death's door
as I have here, the majority do. And almost to a person they begin to make
references to oneness, allness, isness, beingness, the directive presence
behind and within and beyond all things.

Down through the ages this kind of knowledge has been termed enlight-
enment - literally a waking up to light, an illumination of light, a reuni-
fication with The Light. And there are groups, isms and schisms, that de-
cree how one can reach such a state of enlightened knowingness. The rules
are many, the pathways numerous, yet the goal is always the same. . . re-
union with the source of your being, God.

I John 1:5 in the Christian Bible says: "This then is the message
which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in
him is no darkness at all."

The July 20, 1998 issue of Newsweek Magazine, and specifically the ar-
ticle "SCIENCE FINDS GOD" by Sharon Begley, continues this line of thought
and then makes a surprising statement (found on page 51 of Newsweek):

"Take the difficult Christian concept of Jesus as both
fully divine and fully human. It turns out that this duality
has a parallel in quantum physics. In the early years of this
century, physicists discovered that entities thought of as
particles, like electrons, can also act as waves. And light,
considered a wave, can in some experiments act like a barrage
of particles. The orthodox interpretation of this strange
situation is that light is, simultaneously, wave and particle.
Electrons are simultaneously waves and particles. Which as
-pect of light one sees, which face an electron turns to a hu-
man observer, varies with the circumstances."

Light, then, as science has discovered, is both a wave and a particle.
What form or type of light is seen alters relative to the situation.

I have found that subjective light (present in meditation, otherworld
journeys, near-death experiences, and visions), behaves in a fashion simi-
lar to that of physical light. While cross-checking my original work with
child experiencers of near-death states for the book "CHILDREN OF THE NEW
MILLENNIUM" [1], I also re-examined the presence of light internal to us.

Maybe subjective experiences are not "light" experiences after all.

I've see this before with adult experiencers, but it is more pronounc-
ed with kids, and that is. . . experiencers can have dark episodes as well
as bright ones. They can sometimes be bathed in "dark light" as opposed to
brilliant light. And the kids who had the dark experiences spoke of "The
Darkness That Knows" with the same love and affection as they talked about
Home, their real Home, Homey-Home, the place where God is, where they were
before they had a body and where they will return once their body falls
away. Dark to these youngsters is safety; it is love.

Many of the young in my research project gave details of being cradled
in a womb-like darkness so purple-black that it shimmered, so silent that
it knew all things, so peaceful and wonderful and bliss-filled and perfect
that we adults would have named it "heaven" - yet it was devoid of light.

And, the most compelling, evidential cases of genius that I found,
those without genetic markers which could explain the phenomenon, came from
child experiencers between birth and the age of fifteen months who had
near-death states that involved THE DARKNESS THAT KNOWS. Overall, of the
277 cases in my study (age range: birth to fifteen years; two-third of
them under the age of seven), the children most apt to display high IQs af-
terward were the ones who either snuggled into the depths of darkness during
their episode, or who were enveloped by a "dark light," rather than any
degree of brightness [2].

Of the four kinds of near-death states I have identified (Initial, Un-
pleasant and/or Hell-like, Pleasant and/or Heaven-like, and Transcendent
explained in "BEYOND THE LIGHT" [3]), seventy-six percent of the child ex-
periencers in my study had the Initial-type of episode. Briefly, the Ini-
tial near-death experience covers only about one to three elements - things
like: the loving nothingness, the living dark, a friendly voice, a short
visitation of some kind, or perhaps a quick out-of-body experience. Twenty
percent of the 3,000 plus adults I have interviewed also had this kind of
scenario. Those who experienced "the living dark," be they child or adult,
described it as "safe haven," a comfortable place that was peaceful, lov-
ing; a state of goodness and expectancy. The only experiencers, regardless
of age, who reacted negatively to any darkness they faced were those who
went on to describe the fearful or hellish scenarios of unpleasant, dis-
tressing near-death episodes. Thus, the majority of the ones I have inves-
tigated respond to "darkness" and "dark light" in a positive manner.

When I reconsidered all of the work I have done since 1978 as concerns
near-death studies, I came to this conclusion: there are clearly three
very different types of subjective light near-death experiencers describe
regardless of how old they were when their episode occurred. How I would
classify these inner manifestations of light and light imagery is addressed
in this chart:

THE THREE TYPES OF SUBJECTIVE LIGHT
___________________________________________________________________________
Type Color Function
___________________________________________________________________________

Primary Light Colorless A pulsating presence or luminosity
usually perceived as frighteningly
awesome, a piercing power, raw
essence; the origin of all origins.

Dark Light Pure black A shimmering peaceful depth
yet often with usually perceived as "The Darkness
velvety tinges That Knows," a source of strength
of dark purple and knowing, sanctuary ;
the womb of creation.

Bright Light The range of A brilliant radiance usually
yellow-gold perceived as an almost blinding
white glow that emanates unconditional
love, a warm inviting intelligence,
union; the activity of Truth.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Each of these three lights is consistently referred to, regardless of
the individual, as more real than the physical light on earth and more
powerful than any source humankind could harness - including the sun's rays
and "zero-point" energy (the "stuff" of the universe; untapped
electromagnetic energy).
__________________________________________________________________________________

Joe Ann Van Gelder, one of the subjects in my study, had nine near
death experiences as a child, the first occurred when she was fifteen
months old and because of a drowning. She had eight more by the time she
was ten, precipitated by such conditions as malaria, automobile accidents,
burst appendix, electrical shock, surgeries, polio, and additional bouts
with drowning. It was the first one, though, that impacted her the most.
It involved "the living dark." She displayed an unusually high intelli-
gence immediately after, which surprised everyone including her parents.

I received a letter from her not long ago where she questioned just
what that special darkness she encountered as an infant might have been.
She offered the idea that perhaps it was some formless mode of pure con
-sciousness, as no thoughts or feelings were present within it - only the
existence of awareness, the bliss of knowingness. She asked, "When death
comes near the young, do they in fact merge back into the Oneness we call
by various names God, from which they've so recently come?" Even though
Van Gelder has no explanation for the darkness that once cradled her, she
is convinced that it has something to do with a type of consciousness that
interacts with creation and created matter.

The life of Walter Russell, a famous artist, genius, and mystic, was
radically altered by numerous transcendental states, the first a near-death like
episode, where, at seven years of age, he was playing marbles with a group of
boys, suddenly got up and walked into the light. This experience prepared him
in advance for the financial disaster his family would soon suffer. By 1881,
when only ten, Russell was pulled from school and sent to work. Within a few
years he was entirely self-supporting and self-educated, earning his own way
through five years of art school. He experienced a full Transcendent type
of scenario when he succumbed to "black diphtheria" at the age of fourteen, and
claimed to have discovered the secret of healing as a result. He described what
happened to him as having entered into ¿atonementî with God. These two
experiences while still a youngster set the stage for dramatic periods of
illumination that would occur every seven years throughout the rest of his life.

Russell excelled in whatever he turned a hand to, and won lasting
friendships and lucrative art commissions. He had a studio in Carnegie
Hall in New York City, became a commissioned sculptor for President and
Mrs. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was a long-time friend of Mark Twain, and
painted and sculpted Thomas Edison. His motto was "Mediocrity is self-in
-flicted. Genius is self-bestowed."

When forty-nine, he suddenly was enveloped within the fullness of what
he called "Cosmic Consciousness." This state lasted for thirty-nine days
and nights without abating. Afterward, Russell recorded that: "My person
-al reaction to this great happening left me wholly Mind, with but slight
awareness of my electric body. During practically all of the time, I felt
that my body was not a part of me but attached to my Consciousness by elec-
tric threads of light. When I had to use my body in such acts as writing
in words the essence of God's Message, it was extremely difficult to bring
my body back under control." (His family seriously considered committing
him to a psychiatric institution because of this, as they feared he had had
a mental breakdown.)

Once he regained use of his faculties, however, Russell penned "THE
DIVINE ILIAD," the story of his illumination and the source for his book
"THE SECRET OF LIGHT." He then spent the next six years producing "THE
UNIVERSAL ONE," a text containing the drawings and revelations given to him
during his lengthy experience - about the universe and how it worked, and
covering such subjects as chemistry, physics, and electromagnetics. A cor-
respondence with Albert Einstein advanced his own theory that this is a
"thought-wave" universe created for the transmission of thought [4].

Russell had experienced the substance of the universe as mind and con
-sciousness as mind aware of itself. His illumination revealed light as
primary intelligence, all-knowing and all-powerful, and what is termed
"light" as but a mere reflection of what is primary. He saw dark light as
the manifestation of electricity's negative charge, functioning in the cre-
ative role of "mother-light;" and bright light as the presence of the posi-
tive charge that to him was directive in the sense of a "father-light." He
came to know that all things proceed from The Primary Light's reflection of
Itself in dark and bright waves of motion (manifestation's duo-nature).

What Walter Russell described so many years ago corresponds with pre-
sent-day offerings from near-death experiencers about their own encounters
on The Other Side of Death's Curtain, especially in regards to the type of
light that either engulfed them or that they witnessed - a light that to
them was totally and physically real and varied by degree of "charge."

Of intrigue are these observations I was able to make about the effect
of the three very different types of subjective light: Primary Light fos-
tered exceptionally deep mystical knowings in people afterward and seemed
to engender more radical changes in their sense of reality and life's pur-
pose than with others. Dark Light gently reassured those it touched and
left them with a sense of being nurtured and supported while at the same
time linked to larger evolutionary processes. Those who reported Bright
Light, though, displayed a broad range of visibly heightened abilities and
an unusual sensitivity to sound, sunshine, pharmaceuticals, and anything
electrically based.

In reference to the "electrical sensitivity" component, I was able to
show with a questionnaire I used in the book "BEYOND THE LIGHT" that the
presence of electrical sensitivity can be traced, not to the experiencer's
length of exposure to the brightness subjective light can produce, but spe-
cifically to the intensity of that experience. In other words, it didn't
seem to matter how much light filled an individual's scenario or what type,
or whether he or she merged with that light. What mattered was how Power-
fully and deeply it was felt, even if for but a brief period of time.

Curiously, if either adult or child experiencer challenged the angels,
God, or religious-type figures that appeared during his or her scenario,
asking "Is that what you really look like," to a person, the image would
dissolve into light or suddenly burst into a massive sun-like sphere. But,
again, irrespective of image or imagery, initial feelings or sensations,
what mattered most, what made the biggest difference afterwards was the in
-tensity of what was experienced. And, the spread of aftereffects, all of
them, can be traced to the impact of that intensity.

The aftereffects, as profiled in "BEYOND THE LIGHT," suggest that
near-death states can engender what may well be a brain shift - a structur-
al, chemical, and functionary change in the brain. I examined this possi-
bility in the research report, "Brain Shift/Spirit Shift: A Theoretical
Model Using Research on Near-Death States to Explore the Transformation of
Consciousness" (available from me personally or via my website at www.
pmhatwater.com [5]).

Be the numerous connections that can be made between the aftereffects and the intensity of what occurs in near death episodes, and what that seems to imply, I have come to regard the impact felt from such an experience as far more significant than who or what an individual meets on The Other Side of Death's Curtain.
It seems to me, based on my research, that a sudden charge of energy
or voltage current must be present. Such a "charge" mimics lightning in
the way and manner of its manifestation. The rendering that follows com-
pares "lightflashes" in the natural world with those that seem to occur
when consciousness transforms:

* In the evolution of the natural world, to equalize pressure differences
between clouds in a thunderstorm and polarity of soil in the ground,
descending bolts of electricity (from the clouds) and ascending bolts
of electricity (from the earth) meet to create a huge lightflash (ex-
ternal explosion/lightning), which stabilizes environmental integrity
while stimulating plant growth through the creation of nitrogen com-
pounds.

* In the evolution of human consciousness, to equalize pressure differ
-ences between latent spiritual potentiality and mundane personality
development, descending currents of force (possibly from the soul
level, Higher Self, God) and ascending currents of force (perhaps from
time/space ego states, lower self, personality level) meet to create a
powerful lightflash (internal implosion/illumination), which stabi-
lizes and balances individual bodymind integrity while stimulating hu-
man growth through the expansion and enhancement of consciousness.

Think about what this might mean. Whether external to us or internal
-ly, either an explosion or implosion of light occurs if opposing forms
energy suddenly converge. This releases pressure or radiation to such a
degree that some form of nourishment or growth results.
Enlightenment by its very definition means an experience of light that
imparts knowledge and information for the expansion of human consciousness
and the evolution of the human family.
What makes us think that this experience is only symbolic? Or merely
a shift of attitudes? Or a product of wishful thinking?
The Aramaic word NOOHRA means "light," "enlightenment," and "under
standing." Noohra or "light" in many passages of the Christian Bible re-
fers to God, His Word, or a true teaching. But it also connotes "innate
knowledge," as if the Old Testament prophets understood that the world of
matter was endowed from its very beginnings with the power of inner light
(a good reference for this is the book, "LET THERE BE LIGHT: THE SEVEN
KEYS," by Rocco A. Errico, D.D. [6]).

My research findings indicate that we can no longer assume that dark
experiences and the presence of darkness are always a sign of evil or un-
pleasantness, and that the imagery found in transformational states is ac-
tually secondary in importance to the intensity of the episode.

True, imagery is important: the landscape of heaven or hell, the be
-ings encountered, the indication of rewards or punishment to follow, the
messages and revelations given. Yet the real determiner of significance
for impact and aftereffects is the depth of feelings and emotions involved.

This underscores what I have been saying for twenty-plus years: the
main indicator of whether or not a person on the edge of death experiences
a near-death state is most likely the extent to which the limbic system in
the brain is either accelerated or decelerated. And what controls limbic
response? A power source we can neither isolate nor measure, because we
don't know how.

I have come to regard the "light" and "light imagery" of near-death
states and otherworld journeys as but the reflected image of a power surge
as it registers upon or imprints the consciousness of the one who experi-
ences it. In other words, what is perceived as light, regardless of what
type of light, may well be the outpicturing of the activation of evolution
-ary mechanisms that are part of our birthright as human beings. I suspect
that we are all "programmed" for such growth and we will advance in this
manner whenever and as often as needed.
___________________________________________________________________________

1. "CHILDREN OF THE NEW MILLENNIUM," P.M.H.Atwater, L.H.D., Ph.D. (Hon.) New York,
NY; Three Rivers Press, 1999 (a softcover).

2. For details about how I do research, access my website at www.cinemind.
com/atwater and read the article "An Explanation of My Research
Methodology."

3. "BEYOND THE LIGHT," P.M.H.Atwater, L.H.D., Ph.D. (Hon.) Hardcover - Birch Lane
Press, New York City, 1994; paperback - Avon Books, New York
City, 1995.

4. "THE DIVINE ILIAD," "THE SECRET OF LIGHT," and "THE UNIVERSAL ONE,"
plus many other books by Walter Russell and his one true love,
Lao, are still available from the University of Science and
Philosophy, P. O. Box 520, Waynesboro, VA 22980; 1-800-882
LOVE or (540) 942-5161; FAX 540-942-8705; website www.
philosophy.org Inquire about Glenn Clark's biography of
Walter entitled, "THE MAN WHO TAPPED THE SECRETS OF THE UNI
VERSE."

5. Phase II of the research report, "BRAIN SHIFT/SPIRIT SHIFT: A THEORET-
ICAL MODEL USING RESEARCH ON NEAR-DEATH STATES TO EXPLORE THE
TRANSFORMATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS," is available over my website
or from me personally. Refer to Footnote #2 for addresses.

6. "LET THERE BE LIGHT: THE SEVEN KEYS," Rocco A. Errico, DD Marina
del Rey, CA; Devorss Company, 1985. To further explore the
work of Errico and his mentor, George N. Lamsa (the man who
singlehandedly translated the Christian Bible from its original
sources), contact: Noohra Foundation, 720 Paularino Avenue,
Suite 210, Costa Mesa, CA 92626; (714) 754-4186.

_______________________________________________________________________________
P.M.H.Atwater, L.H.D., Ph.D. (Hon.) has been researching near-death states since 1978,
and is the author of six mainstream and five self-published books.
For details of her work, access her website at www.cinemind.com/
atwater or ask for a free brochure (enclose stamped, self-addressed
envelope). Write: YOU CAN Change Your Life, P. O. Box 7691,
Charlottesville, VA 22906-7691.
_______________________________________________________________________________

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