Espiritu, katotohanan, kahulugan, at life-force

Welcome One!  Welcome All!

Visitors to this site originate from a diverse variety of countries, nations and cultures from throughout the world! Spirit and spirituality are pervasive throughout all the cultures and nationalities of the world, as well as being prevalent in an extraordinary diversity of ethnic, religious, spiritual, mystic, metaphysical, psychological views and beliefs. All nationalities are very welcome - especially since, ultimately, I am a descendent of immigrants. an immigrant originally myself, I have ancestral roots in Wexford County, Ireland, England, and Quebec, Canada, I warmly welcome each and every person. It is likely many visitors will find something of interest among the diverse variety of questions and issues brought to light in the essays I present.

 Perspective Gained Largely from Experiences

For perspective, I would highlight the fact that, in roughly 40 years, I have had a fair number of spiritual-psychic experiences, of which ten or so are documented. The most salient experiences would be the call I made to the Toledo, Ohio FBI office warning of the assassination attempt on Reagan in 1981, the notarized exceptionally detailed warning about the Weathermen terrorist attack on October 18, 1981, and the call I made prior to 9/11 to warn the CIA of 9/11. The most recent would be an email sent to FBI agent McElwee on 10-30-20 foreseeing the Nashville bombing. In a mini-stream of consciousness an email precognitive warning to FBI agent McElwee on 10-30-20: "terrorism - domestic - and specifically bombs." -"My senses are tingling as it were and red lights are flashing and I feel that there is something up that may turn out to be important...........Of course What a nightmare symbolizes terrorism - domestic - and specifically bombs"

<charlie.peckjr@comcast.net> To: "mvmcelwee@fbi.gov" <mvmcelwee@fbi.gov> Date: 10/30/2020 3:30 PM

 A very important fact is that of those experiences, though they occur haphazardly, almost all could all be fairly described as perceptions of threats to the group - or more simply as my personal versions of alarm calls, which ten or so precognitive dreams and perceptions are documented. Fro the record, form personal experience and from research, since making predictions to make predictions makes no sense biologically, physiologically, or spiritually, looking into a crystal ball and seeing the future is simply unrealistic and irrational, to boot. Historically, Nostradamus, Jeane Dixon, and even Edgar Cayce - when they made predictions to make predictions had an extremely high rate of failure. It is interesting that when Edgar Cayce was asked to make global predictions in  trance, he largely failed - though when he gave readings to people - such as World War II servicemen he was often right on the money and at times incredibly uncanny.   

And being that all are consistent with reasonable interpretations and in light of the Well-Known and Well-Proven (many times over) "Categorization" process in psychology as well as William James principle that "Spiritual Experiences create a Sense of Reality" demonstrated in his 1902 classic The Varieties of Religious Experiences, it is crystal clear that by psychologists own rules (which they largely choose to ignore) that my mind - and my brain are doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing.     

Bio:

Considering that Michael Faraday, an iconic scientist in scientific history, had next to no training or education , in part due to his lower class status, Faraday was unbelievably successful as a scientist. Faraday’s research on the field theory and the magnetic field was a scientific breakthrough which created the groundwork for later field theories such as Maxwell and Einstein. Faraday, also, showed that magnetism affected light. Furthermore, he discovered the principles of electromagnetic induction and diamagnetism, and the laws of electrolysis – as well as bringing concepts and terms such as "anode", "cathode", "electrode" and "ion" into use. 

Like Faraday, I am an independent scholar with a very diverse background - including psychology, social psychology, anthropology, neuroscience, ethology, primatology, theology, ancient Greek and Australian Aborigine religion. I am very passionate about spirituality, due to some profound personal precognitive spiritual-psychic experiences. in 40 years I have had perhaps 30 or so experiences, of which over ten are documented. My pivotal and exceptionally detailed once in a lifetime "mustard Seed" experience which was notarized included historically unprecedented details such as: group, fabricating bombs, money, woman, “22 were assembled”, New York, death, & weathermen manifesto. Without question my spiritual-psychic experiences have been a tremendous help in my research. I would say I knew exactly what I was looking for, so to speak. 

Although materialism has been around for centuries and has been criticized for being destructive by many famous authors such as NIH Director Francis Collins and scientist Rupert Sheldrake, after digging into materialism I discovered that as it is used today, academic materialism is based on a fallacy. As the psychologists, William R. Miller and Carl E. Thoresen, unequivocally state in their article, Spirituality, religion and health: an emerging field of research, that “A philosophical basis for this perspective is materialism, the belief that there is no is nothing to study because spirituality is intangible and beyond the senses.” The unequivocal statement spirit cannot be measured is a fallacy which I go into in depth in my Essay "Letter to a Congressman endorsed by 4-5psycholgoists: Dr Koenig, Dr. Wong, & Dr Farra." It is by the universal rules of logic the "Definist Fallacy," which Dr Wong and Dr Farra agree is wrong. Dr Farra states it is "spiritual poison." I further argue it is worse than that. I argue that the Definist Fallacy is a destructive norm - not that different - in my view - than the norm in some parts of the word for female genitalia mutilation because it produces an abstraction which is an absolute excluding - mentally - ALL Spirituality. 

Also, I synthesized "The Synthesis-Consensus" of Frankl, Jung, James, & Durkheim is that spiritual processes or "spirt" create meaning and a sense of reality. Dr. Paul Wong, an author of two anthologies & well-known psychologist observed “Your approach is new in the sense of a broad-minded integrative approach , breaking down the artificial traditional divide between science and religious, or scientific psychology versus humanistic or psychoanalytic psychology.” 

Furthermore, I advocate several "new" concepts such as the "Teachings of Religion such as compassion, righteousness, justice, duty-covenant, sacred, etc as a Social consciousness. In the five Psychology of Religion books I have, there is no mention of the 'Teachings of Religion." One book did have 6 or 7 references to "compassion" - but no mention was made of "teachings." Furthermore, there were an equal number of references to Freud. On top of that I google searched "teachings of religions" several times and found only one essay comparing Christianity to Hinduism. In my view, teaching about religion and leaving out the "teachings of religions" would be like educating people about birds and leaving out the fact that they have wings. Lastly it would incredibly clear to me that the teachings of religions are a form of social consciousness.     

Plus I advocate the concept that an important function of prophecy is to shape social-religious consciousness. So, not being bound by social convention is helpful at times. 

Declaration of Intentions

When I talk with people about spiritual and religious beliefs, quite often people react as if they are overprotective parents protecting their very precious [and innocent] daughter. I often get the feeling as if what these people are really asking is: "Are my intentions are honorable?" So, I feel I should “proclaim” my beliefs and where I am coming from. As with many people my spiritual-religious beliefs originated form some personal spiritual-psychic experiences. As both William James and Carl Jung emphatically stated: Spiritual experiences play a large role in determining peoples’ spiritual and religious beliefs. I am no different, and since my experiences are a bit peculiar, my worldview is a bit off the beaten track as well. 

For perspective, I would strongly emphasize that in 40 years I have had perhaps thirty or so spiritual or spiritual-psychic experiences. A very important fact is that of those experiences, though they occur haphazardly, almost all could all be fairly described as perceptions of threats to the group - or more simply as my personal versions of alarm calls, which ten or so precognitive dreams and perceptions are documented. The most recent would be an email sent to FBI agent McElwee on 10-30-20 foreseeing the Nashville bombing.

In a mini-stream of consciousness an email precognitive warning to FBI agent McElwee on 10-30-20: "terrorism - domestic - and specifically bombs." -"My senses are tingling as it were and red lights are flashing and I feel that there is something up that may turn out to be important...........Of course What a nightmare symbolizes terrorism - domestic - and specifically bombs" <charlie.peckjr@comcast.net> To: "mvmcelwee@fbi.gov" <mvmcelwee@fbi.gov> Date: 10/30/2020 3:30 PM Besides that, the most striking experiences would be a call to the FBI warning of the assassination attempt in 1981. A written, notarized and exceptionally detailed warning of the Weathermen terrorist attack in October of 1981. While there weren’t many details perhaps the most significant and powerful experience was the call I made to the CIA before 9/11 when I did my best to warn them of 9/11.   

Ingela Visuri in her well researched study of the spirituality of autistics highlighted the fact that some peoples’ views and understanding about spirituality took place gradually. Perhaps I set a new record for her term “gradual” because it took me over twenty years of turning the question over in my mind and struggling to understand it that I finally realized that the “Mustard Seed experience was a reflection and expression of the Holy Spirit. Everybody has their way of looking at things, and keys to their worldviews. John 4:23-24 became my “guiding light as it were!” John 4:23-24 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” To me (though I’m sure not to everybody) it just made sense. “Spirit and truth” just makes sense to me. For instance, four out of five of Clifford Geertz’s universally accepted five-part definition of religion define in a roundabout way “truth” and furthermore Geertz’s universally accepted definition left out “spirit” – which when I questioned Brain Hayden an author and anthropologist said did mean Geertz’s definition is deficient (for the record).     

What makes my view a bit off the beaten track is that my view is that since every human being has a “spirit” – in MY view, that would also mean every human being automatically has a “God” whether they acknowledge it or not. From my view, then, in a sense, religious beliefs are just the clothing people put on depending to a large part on their origins and upbringing. Yet underneath is “spirit” and when you look at spiritual beliefs of different religions, spiritual beliefs are quite similar. Because of my experiences I focus on peoples’ spirituality and my writing focuses on the nexus of spirituality and consciousness – which is quite enough to keep me busy for several lifetimes, as it were.  On top of that spirituality, in my view is a lot about connecting. Lastly I have been saying “we” have built our house on sand” – as in academic materialism which has no spirituality and largely drives the bus of mainstream psychology – so the spiritual-consciousness foundation is paramount from my point of view. It is clear, we are in the Age of Science and Free Will, and experiences largely shape peoples views and when the spirt moves people is likely when people will alter their views. Misinformation - or no information at all - has played a prominent role in shaping todays' views, so communicating about peoples' spirituality is a major focus of my writing. 

My Perspective Fruitfulness and the Irish-Gaelic Poet John O'Donohue

Preamble: Brian D Josephson, the only Welshman to win the Nobel prize [for discovering quantum tunneling], said almost exactly the same thing that Freud said long ago: “With religion, focusing on the factuality or otherwise of religious belief similarly misses the point: the significant questions in this context relate to the functions and fruitfulness of religious beliefs.” Josephson goes on to say, “Dawkins criticizes religion on the grounds of apparent conflicts between religious beliefs and scientifically established facts.” That is - as I discovered myself - large umbers of academics are fixated on the supernatural aspect of spiritual and religious beliefs. Lastly I should highlight the fact that Josephson believes that "we can 'sense' the future. We just haven't yet established the mechanism allowing it to happen." 

For perspective, I would highlight the fact that, in roughly 40 years, I have had a fair number of spiritual-psychic experiences, of which ten or so are documented. The most salient experiences would be (1) the call I made to the Toledo, Ohio FBI office warning of the assassination attempt on Reagan in 1981, (2) the notarized exceptionally detailed warning about the Weathermen terrorist attack on October 18, 1981, and (3) the call I made prior to 9/11 to warn the CIA of 9/11. The most recent would be an email sent to FBI agent McElwee on 10-30-20 foreseeing the Nashville bombing. In a mini-stream of consciousness an email precognitive warning to FBI agent McElwee on 10-30-20: "terrorism - domestic - and specifically bombs." -"My senses are tingling as it were and red lights are flashing and I feel that there is something up that may turn out to be important...........Of course What a nightmare symbolizes terrorism - domestic - and specifically bombs" <charlie.peckjr@comcast.net> To: "mvmcelwee@fbi.gov" <mvmcelwee@fbi.gov> Date: 10/30/2020 3:30 PM

From personal experience I can tell you that there are a lot of what John Bargh would call "maladaptive stereotypes" when it comes to transcendental spiritual experiences - even among "Christians." Many people equate unequivocally spirituality with the "supernatural" - which is wrong - and twisted. A lot of people immediately bring up "powers" - or that "psychics are supposed to be "perfect" - and so on. Even though my experiences were transcendental, in my experience - which others who have experiences confirm - is that the Holy Spirit - as it were - works through human consciousness. Perhaps it is the blood since I have a good amount of "Irish" in my ancestry, but my views match John O'Donohue's (and Josephson as well) remarkably well! Creativity and Awe-Wonder have been central in my view, though I would add "drive" and "Life-Force," as well.     

Link: The Irish-Gaelic Poet-Theologian John O'Donohue (contemporary), St. Patrick, St Gregory of Nyssa, Abraham Heschel, Einstein, Sagan, An Intrinsic Logic to Life - Yugen (Japanese word), Wonder-Awe:  https://www.spirittruthandmeaning.com/an-intrinsic-logic-to-life-yugen-japanese-word-wonder-awe-contemporary-irish-poet-theologian-john-o-donohue-st-patrick-st-gregory-of-nyssa-abraham-heschel-einstein-sagan

                     Atheists and Angels

Preface:

I need to preface my brief overview of some documented and undocumented precognitive spiritual and spiritual-psychic experiences by pointing out the somewhat unsettling fact that, consistently, studies report that somewhere between one third to one half of people have spiritual-psychic experiences of one sort or another - from yugen or awe-wonder experiences such as those Einstein and Sagan found profoundly inspirational to mystical epiphanies to spiritual-religious conversion or enlightenment experiences to ghosts, and so on. The existential-positive psychologists and editors, Park and Paloutzian, in the Handbook of the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, state "numerous survey studies in both the United States and Europe have demonstrated the normalcy of reports of religious experiences, including mystical experience (see Spilka, Hood, Hunsberger, & Gorsuch, 2003, pp. 307-312). Depending on the specific wording of the questions asked, anywhere from a third to a half of the populations affirm such experiences...While this correlational data does not provide evidence of that causes such reports, it does establish the normalcy of such reports and indicates social scientists have until recently ignored a common phenomenon." (p. 67)

From experience, I know only too well that large numbers of people unequivocally equate all spirituality with the “supernatural” – which most people connect with “superstitious nonsense” or worse “mental illness.” Ingela Visuri, observed in her study that the reason that autistics didn’t talk about their experiences is because: “Secularized norms are also at play and many participants describe how they carefully choose whom to talk to, to avoid being labelled irrational.” That is most people have a “sense” as to whether someone will be receptive or not! Julie S. Parker, in her article, Extraordinary Experience of The Bereaved And Adaptive Outcomes Of Grief, states that “Because individuals report experiencing the deceased through “non-ordinary” mechanisms such as mental telepathy or sensory perceptions with no known veridical origins…. Several qualitative studies report that bereaved experients oftentimes fear that they are experiencing symptoms of mental illness, and/or are resistant to disclosing their EEs because they believe that others will perceive them as “crazy,” ridicule them, and/or disbelieve them.

This fear of people who have experiences is well documented. Parker goes on to cite a very large number of studies which clearly demonstrate a pervasive fear of retribution and reprisal if they speak out: (Devers, 1988, 1997; Drewry, 2002; Hastings, 1983; Hoyt, 1980; LaGrand, 1999; Peterson, 2001; Whitney, 1992). In a nutshell, minimally there are 110 million Americans who have experiences of one sort or another but afraid to talk because way too many people - extreme materialists in particular who just get really stupid when it comes to spirituality - something I can testify to in spades and then some. In 40 years I encountered at least a dozen mainstream psychologists and psychiatrists who - in 40 years - failed to ask a single question about my documented and exceptionally detailed spiritual-psychic experiences. Yet "they" will tell you they have "All the Answers!" and for the life of me I have Never figured out how - "If you ask no questions, how one could possibly end up with all the answers!"  Stupid is as stupid does!   

  Is man merely a mistake of God's? Or God merely a mistake of man?

                             Friedrich Nietzsche

Nietzsche's statement must - one way or the other - have some truth to it! I mean, looking at the world today, it would be readily apparent that someone has something - or somethings - screwed up, for sure. So, atheists are more than welcome here - especially, since from personal experience and past history, I have an affinity for them. I was a model heretic and atheist until age 29 - when I walked into the Toledo, Ohio FBI office on October 18, 1981 - without any prior experience or documentation - with what turned out to be, by far the most exceptionally detailed precognitive warning compared to other historical documented precognitive warnings (all of which are about assassination)! The details included fabricating bombs, woman, money (twice), death, weathermen terrorist manifesto, and New York. I would say I walking proof of Jung's theory that spiritual processes - or "spirit" is a largely autonomous process - as well as proof of the existence of genetically acquired symbols and symbolism in the unconscious.

For perspective, I would strongly emphasize that in 40 years I have had perhaps thirty or so spiritual or spiritual-psychic experiences. A very important fact is that of those experiences, though they occur haphazardly, almost all could all be fairly described as perceptions of threats to the group - or more simply as my personal versions of alarm calls, which ten or so precognitive dreams and perceptions are documented. The most recent would be an email sent to FBI agent McElwee on 10-30-20 foreseeing the Nashville bombing. In a mini-stream of consciousness an email precognitive warning to FBI agent McElwee on 10-30-20: "terrorism - domestic - and specifically bombs." -"My senses are tingling as it were and red lights are flashing and I feel that there is something up that may turn out to be important...........Of course What a nightmare symbolizes terrorism - domestic - and specifically bombs"

<charlie.peckjr@comcast.net> To: "mvmcelwee@fbi.gov" <mvmcelwee@fbi.gov> Date: 10/30/2020 3:30 PM

Alarm calls - Daryl Bem's Successful Repeated Precognition Experiments (incl. 12,406 subjects) 

As a point of information I would emphatically and unequivocally point out that Daryl Bem's repeated successful precognition laboratory experiments definitely indicate that the question of telepathy and precognition are valid scientific questions. Daryl Bem, a prominent researcher and psychologist related to me that both he and researcher Dean Radin believe that instincts play a pivotal role in spiritual-psychic experiences. In 2016, an article explaining a meta-analysis of Daryl Bem's Successful Repeated Experiments states that "When Bem’s own experiments are included, the complete database comprises 90 experiments from 33 different laboratories located in 14 different countries. A total of 12,406 individuals participated in these experiments." The article goes on to say that the results showed that the experimental design focused on sex was by far outperformed the other designs. Sex without question is, of course is a very powerful instinct in the human mind. Also having the large number of 12,406 subjects who participated in the precognition experiments and still having a "significant" result is a very clear indication that precognition is a very valid question in science. (A Summary of “Feeling the Future: A Meta-analysis of 90 Experiments on the Anomalous Anticipation of Random Future Events by Bem, Tressoldi, Rabeyron & Duggan). I would conclude by stating that from a psychological viewpoint the "human" question is much, much more important than the academic abstract question - BY FAR!   

Studies of the Genetics of spiritual and religious beliefs

As Tim Spector, in the article, What Twins Reveal About The Science Of Faith (Popular Science, August 8, 2013) observes, “They [the researchers] estimated the heritability of spirituality to be around 40 to 50 percent, which is quite high considering how tricky it is to measure. Other U.S. studies using even more detailed questions in larger numbers have found similar or even stronger genetic influences. These studies demonstrate our variable but innate inherited sense of spirituality, which affects how we perceive the world, ourselves and the universe. This is independent of our formal religious beliefs and practices and, strangely, largely independent of family influence.”

Gilbert Todd Vance, in an article, Genetics of Religiosity, states that, “While it may at first appear that religiosity would not be influenced by genes, studies have shown that genetic effects contribute to individual differences in a wide array of traits and behaviors, including social attitudes, personality, vocational interests, IQ, and religiosity.” Furthermore, genetic studies of the hereditability of personality traits, including twin studies, including a large cross-cultural twin study completed in North America, Europe, and Asia by Yamagata S, Suzuki A, Ando J, Ono Y, Kijima N, Yoshimura K, Ostendorf F, Angleitner A, Riemann R, Spinath FM, Livesley WJ, et al. (2006), do strongly suggest that both heritability as well as environmental factors influence personality traits using the five-factor model of personality." I would emphasize that I am living proof that there are spiritual symbols and symbolism in the Unconscious that can be tapped into - depending on drive, personality, experience, and circumstances.

Theories of the Unconscious, and Inherited-Genetic Symbols and Symbolism

The bottom line, in light of the fact, that numerous studies demonstrate that to a large degree – not surprisingly – spiritual and religious beliefs are inherited and genetic. After tens of thousands of years of spiritual and religious beliefs dating back to our earliest human cultures that emerged tens – and tens - of thousands of years ago. It would seem rather evident that - on the face of it - That Carl Jung's theory of the Collective Unconscious in which archetypes were a pivotal concept of Carl Jung’s Theory of the Collective Unconscious was fundamentally correct as a conceptualization of human consciousness.

J. L. Henderson observes, “These themes, symbols, and motifs are all a psychic mechanism of a collective repository of our shared evolution as a species and have grown around shared and repeated exposure to dilemmas and challenges to human experience. This repeating pattern of experience is expressed in the psyche as an archetype……In other words, we are endowed at birth with an innate sense of what experiences are likely to occur during a lifetime on earth as a human and are ‘preprogrammed’ through the psyche to respond in a typical human fashion.” (J. L. Henderson) Jung often spoke of "instinctual" capacities.

Carl Jung distinguished between a personal unconscious and a Collective Unconscious. The Collective Unconscious contained the transpersonal and interpersonal psychic influences, as well as religious, spiritual, or mythic influences that were essentially extra-personal. These "collective psychic forces" were expressed and manifested as "archetypes." Archetypes are also typically described as "predispositions." A social psychology professor mentioned to me he believed that Carl Jung's theory was basically on target because of some evidence such as the fact that infants have an innate - or  genetically acquired - fear of snakes. In my view, in a sense, spirituality is not as important as it manifests in experiences but as a creative potential of energized symbols and symbolism that all people have in their unconscious which they can tap into.

V. Ingela Visuri "Distress triggers" Spiritual Seeking and Spiritual-Psychic Experiences

To paraphrase, Brian Josephson, the Nobel prize winning physicist, scientist (as well as many Christians in my opinion) become fixated on the supernatural. While I personally believe in the reality of spirit being within every person - I need to set that aside to understand some of the psychological dynamics. Similarly, scientists who are fixated on the supernatural which far too many equate unequivocally with superstitious nonsense or even mental illness - they also need to set that concept aside to also understand some of the psychological dynamics involved.   

“Distress” and Tapping into Unconscious Spiritual Processes

Ingela Visuri, as a result of her intensive study of spirituality in high functioning autistics stated that "The results also indicate that distress triggers the participants to seek out supernatural ascriptions and invisible relations." In reviewing types of spirituality "distress" appears to be a cause in many different scenarios of spirituality such as the processes of grieving, recovering addicts, depression, as well as many others very likely. Tapping into unconscious spiritual processes which most likely are deeply embedded in the human unconscious, makes a lot of sense.

A Precursory List of Types of Spirituality with an Underlying Cause of Distress

1, The spirituality of autistics (Varieties Of Supernatural Experience: The Case Of High-Functioning Autism by Ingela Visuri Ingela Visuri concludes, “A majority of the participants report unexplainable, sensory experiences that seem to occur without any input of stimuli: touch by invisible hands, visions of things that other cannot see, whispers when no one else is to at home, and sensations of invisible bodies being present. The autistic participants scored significantly higher on supernatural experiences when compared to the non-autistic sample, and the emergent literature suggests that unusual, sensory experiences are prevalent among autistic individuals.” The most salient aspect of autistic spirituality is that it would stand to reason that the consistent “peculiar” type of spirituality as in Invisible touch would necessarily appear to be a product of the “peculiar” autistic physiology.

2, The spirituality of a person grieving for a lost loved one. Spirituality in grieving is well documented and quite common – since death is a universal in human life. The authors, Gilles and Neimeyer observe that Richards (2001) emphasizes the fact that in his study, “68 out of 125 participants spoke of spiritual phenomena in their experiences.” (p.33 Loss, Grief, And the Search for Significance: Toward a Model of Meaning Reconstruction in Bereavement, James Gillies and Robert Neimeyer)

A rare study of actual experiences by the authors of the article, Spiritual Experience, Church Attendance, and Bereavement (Linda S. Stirman Kenneth W. Sewell, Ph.D. Larry W. Easterling, Th.D. Louis A. Gamino, Ph.D.) stated that “Pastoral caregivers have long suspected that those persons who simply perform religious rituals or attend church regularly do not necessarily cope better with bereavement or other personal crises. This study seems to support these long held clinical observations…. [that] individuals do seem to cope better if they can "actualize" their spiritual experiences in times of crisis. In instances of loss and bereavement, such spiritual experiences may offer not only comfort but also a contextual framework of meaning for understanding.” This would seem to suggest that spiritual experiences may have a synthesis function in that Gilles and Neimeyer focus on meaning reconstruction – which spiritual experiences appear to help. Also, J E Kennedy mentioned briefly that spiritual experiences did seem to have an antidepressant effect. 

3, The spirituality of a recovering addict - which is also very real and a frequent occurrence. The twelve-step program of AA is well known as well as its pivotal concept of a Transcendental Spirit or God. While not everyone benefits form spirituality, it is a fact that some people do in fact benefit from spirituality and spiritual experiences. The conclusion of an article about a meta-analysis I is that “Clinical trials assessing the effects of RSI (Religious-Spiritual-Interventions) showed additional benefits compared with control groups, including reduction of clinical symptoms (especially levels of anxiety).” (“Religious and spiritual interventions in mental health care: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled clinical trials by J. P. B. Gonçalves, G. Lucchetti, P. R. Menezes, and H. Vallada)

4, The spirituality of awe-wonder - which has been studied tested and well proven – has been advocated by Einstein, Sagan, Heschel and many other leaders as very profound spiritual experiences which are a powerful source of inspiration as well as drive to understand and need for meaning.

5, The Spirituality of Adolescents first documented by Stanley Hall in 1882.

6, The spirituality of compassion. The compassion principle and doctrine are in every major religion: Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism (Upanishads), and Buddhism. There are 77.4 million American care-giver volunteers. Then of course, there are the "Christian" volunteers, Lutheran Dr. Sweitzer, Catholic Mother Teresa, who founded an entire network of charity hospitals.

7, The spirituality of civic activists like Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, and Tolstoy who had profound spiritual beliefs which served as inspiration for their idealism as well as drive and endurance in the face of despotic oppression of the establishment involving imprisonment and harassment at every turn.

8, Furthermore, in studying the effects of religion and spirituality on the elderly population Kraus found that (religious) social connections produced a “deeper sense of meaning in life,” improved “adoption of religious coping responses,” and better support for coping with financial strain.” (Handbook of the Psychology of Religion p.206)

9. Spirituality of NF Personalities

Brief Word for the French From my Student Exchange Experience

 Un accueil pour les Français (et le reste du monde aussi, bien sûr)

J'ai passé une année scolaire à Rennes, en Bretagne en France - en 1968-1969, lorsque les buffles erraient encore librement dans les plaines occidentales d'Amérique. L'une des leçons les plus importantes que j'ai apprises a été lorsque mes frères français, Paul et Pierre, ont annoncé qu'ils allaient sortir et gronder les communistes (c'était à l'époque de De Gaulle). J'ai eu la soudaine réalisation - une épipahnhy vraiment - que comme Dorothy l'a dit à son chien Toto, dans le Magicien d'Oz, "Toto, je crois que nous ne sommes plus au Kansas!"

C'est-à-dire que c'était la prise de conscience que les cultures ne se ressemblent pas toutes et que la culture française est très différente de la culture américaine. Malheureusement, j'ai oublié la plupart de mes textes et j'ai besoin d'aide pour traduire certains de mes essais, alors si j'en propose, beaucoup ne sont pas encore traduits.

J'ai aussi des liens ancestraux avec la France. Mon grand-père, Albert Murphy a combattu avec l'armée Canadienne à la bataille de la crête de Vimy avec  en France pendant la Première Guerre mondiale, et mon grand-oncle Allen Peck était également pilote dans l'Escadrille Lafayette pendant la Première Guerre mondiale.

           "Few people have the imagination for reality!" - Goethe

In 40 years I have had perhaps thirty or so spiritual or spiritual-psychic experiences, of which ten or so precognitive dreams and perceptions are documented. My personal, once in a lifetime, notarized, very detailed, and profoundly spiritual precognitive warning to the FBI happened back in 1981. The details included group, money, woman, fabricating bombs, New York, “22 were assembled,” death, identification of Weathermen Terrorist manifesto. I feel I should stress that many have the preconception that all spiritual experiences are "hallelujah" moments. In my situation I can honestly say that - for me - it was more like being hit by a ton of bricks.

As Goethe so profoundly observed, "Few people have the imagination for reality!" I would just add this statement to what Goethe said - "Unless circumstances force people to improvise and kick in the imagination processes. The spiritual experience – especially since it appeared to include information form a “source” outside my self – presented a challenge for my unprepared mind to grasp and understand. It was a terrible time and the cognitive processes kept turning and turning and turning – and quite literally just about drove me crazy. As Nisargadatta Maharaj observes, "The search for reality is the most dangerous undertaking for it destroys the world in which you live.” That is something I can testify to!

Looking back at the experience that happened nearly 40 years ago, I am a little more philosophical about it. The human mind must in some way do "something" with every experience that it has. MY mind went wild trying to figure out "what" exactly this alien experience was and what to do with it. I kept turning the experience over and over in my mind looking at it form every possible angle you could imagine - and likely from some angles you couldn't possibly imagine. Everybody's experience[s] are different, and and many of the minimally 110 million Americans who have spiritual-psychic experiences of one kind or another take things in stride , yet several I have met have relayed struggles very similar to mine.

I would describe "The Doubts" - at that time - as ravenous beasts that were tearing my reality limb for limb - as well as my "self and identity" such as it was. Some spiritual experiences can put a lot of emotional and psychological torque into your thoughts and mind and your - as many besides my self would testify. One day when the conflict had reached a peak intensity, I realized "I" had gone way too far and I - the way I looked at things - had gone one or more steps past anything that might be called sane! Luckily, I realized that I had to do something so I said to myself: “Enough!” "Stop!" For me, it was a personal epiphany because I realized that the “Absolute Truth" [God] - and my experience - is simply beyond my comprehension. So, I reined in the cognitive processes which were running wild - analysis without purpose!

And,...You know, God doesn't give you an instruction manual!!  

Rebecca, a still relatively young woman, who is very private about her personal very profound spiritual-psychic experiences,  as many are, spoke about the essence of spirituality in a poem about her experiences says pretty much the same thing that I do - except much more creatively and expressively! The following is an excerpt from her poem. The pivotal question is as Rebecca says: "I must believe or not believe"  I am a little more pedantic about it but I say the same thing - experiences force the mind to do something with the experiences - one way or another! What does one do when faced by one's own experience which plain and simple makes absolutely no sense at all. It is the Ultimate Chaos Question! Lastly, I can't help but mention that God doesn't give you an instruction manual,...You Know!!  When it comes down to it, "To Be or Not To Be , That is The Question!"

The Experience Ushers in the Mind Racking Question

"Believe or don't believe?"

 "To Be or Not to Be?"

"Yes - or - No?"

"Go - No Go?" 

Rebecca's Verse

The gift and curse of this sight

Colors my world in shades of blue

I must believe or not believe

Stay blind or walk the path to you

And while I surrender to the mystery

All the feelings come along too

I get fractured by this weighted sight

Flynn

Flynn, who at age nine, had a dream that his mother would die mirrors what Rebeca Says as well!

many times I have explained to my children that reality is a very important observation and that understanding it, is living in the now the present regardless of the past reality which only exists in your mind .They have started to understand and understanding it does not destroy the world you live in if you have always been kept in the loop as it is called your reality for example if i have seen the future told others of it and it happens what is the meaning of it ,I am not sure, yet It happened several times and it is my reality.

                             "Fractured by this weighted sight!"

Personally, I don't think, when it comes to some of the very intense spiritual experiences, Rebecca's brilliant insight couldn't have expressed "it" better: "Fractured by this weighted sight!"

        William James First Law of Spirituality!

William James observes: “They [abstractions (symbols) and spiritual emotions-experiences] determine our vital attitude as decisively as the vital attitude of lovers is determined by the habitual sense, …… They are convincing to those who have them as any direct sensible experiences can be, and they are, as a rule, much more convincing than results established by mere logic are……if you do have them, and have them at all strongly, the probability is that you cannot help regarding them as genuine perceptions of truth, as revelations of a kind of reality [my underlining] which no adverse argument, however unanswerable by you in words, can expel from your belief" is what William James emphasizes in his classic work, originally published in 1902, The Varieties of Religious Experiences. (P.47) William James goes on to say that religious experiences and spiritual experiences create and generate a “sense of reality” (p.48) Jung said the same thing actually - that experiences shape a person's reality (Duh!)

In my research, when I looked through the five Psychology of Religion books I have, they all brought up William James, yet not one brought up William James pivotal concept that spiritual experiences create a sense of reality. As DR Neal and the KP psychiatry observed psychiatry provides no training in peoples' spirituality. From personal experience and research the same situation exists with clinical psychologists.  In 40 years, not one asked a single question about my experiences - which is De Facto conditioning. Academic Materialism has sidelined and marginalized spirituality - big time. I can honestly say I have not yet met a psychologist or psychiatrist who knows about or understands William James first law of Spirituality.   

The Diversity - within Diversity - within Spirituality Plus Einstein's Spirituality     

As Thomas Bryson observed that "Each and everyone of us creates his or her own theistic paradigms." That is very true and basic axiom of consciousness in general and spiritual and religious beliefs in particular - especially in the Age of Science - and Free will! In that light then, in a sense, spirituality is inextricably and intimately interconnected with consciousness, so much of my writing focuses on consciousness. While it isn't possible to address the ten thousand realities - all the metaphysical, philosophical, spiritual and religious paradigms. Yet one can address some of the underlying factors, causes and processes.

Furthermore a pivotal characteristic of the human mind is that Consciousness and Spirituality cannot be separated in truth. In my view, consciousness-spirituality are the foundation for the various enlightenments such as Christ, Muhammed, Buddha, Hinduism, and so on. MY argument is that to truly understand enlightenment one needs to understand spirituality and to understand spirituality. Furthermore to understand spirituality, it would be necessary to understand peoples' spirituality and in particular spiritual or spiritual-psychic experiences.   

One of my more popular essays is The Reality of Reality - The Problem with Reality is that there is just too much of it - Embracing Chaos: "Envisioning" Michelangelo, Cayce, Carl Jung's Images & Myth Plus William James "Fusion" - The Reality of Reality - The Problem with Reality is that there is just too much of it! https://www.spirittruthandmeaning.com/the-reality-of-reality

It's popularity possible originates from people being sympathetic to the idea that reality in today's world with information overload being a real issue with social media, fake news, and all the vivid images and pumped up stereotypes in advertising these days. The essay overviews different psychologies and processes - showing for instance the huge difference between rational analysis and reason!

As the immortal artist, Michelangelo profoundly observed about art and the act of creation: “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free!” Carl Jung, William James, as Well as Viktor Frankl all emphasize symbols and "abstractions" - as William James calls them - are vital in human consciousness. What they are - in essence - are images or pictures. How we envision or picture the world, reality, and truth is important and can lead to success or failure depending how one envisions reality. Imagine how Michelangelo's angel would have turned out if his inner picture was in reality an image of the hunchback of Notre Dame. What - and how - we "envision" is pivotal, in my view, to the ability to function effectively - and with some modicum of balance. So, the awareness of pictures, symbols and symbolism in our minds would be very important.

Setting the Stage:

“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” Michelangelo

On this website there are over 200 essays, many of them about the different processes involved in spirituality such as Art, Autistic, Music, How the Parietal Cortex figures into Spiritual Experiences, the Distress Factor, as well as the Real Life Circumstances such Grieving, Depression, Recovering Addicts, Autistics, NF Personalities. Then there are topics such as The Reality of Reality: The Problem with Reality is that there is way too much of it. 

Michelangelo [di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni] (1475 – 1564), an Italian born in Republic of Florence, was, perhaps - as some insist - the archetypal “Renaissance Man” in light of his amazing artistic versatility he was a man of many talents and gifts: a sculptor; a painter; an architect; as well as a poet during the period of the High Renaissance born. Even today, Michelangelo’s artistic works are still considered to be the most famous in human history. Besides, sculpting the Pietà (picture above) and David, Michelangelo is probably best known for painting the immortal scenes from Genesis on the Sistine Chapel Ceiling in Rome, as well as The Last Judgment on the Sistine Chapel’s Altar Wall.

In a sense, it might be said, that Michelangelo invented modern day psycho-cybernetics and the Modern Law of Attraction when he observed: “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free. Of course this is a fundamental law of human nature and consciousness, which was first explained by the tremendously successful and creative and hugely productive artist Michelangelo. What better authority to learn from? 

Dr Lipton's conclusion: Becoming aware of the subconscious source of our behavior gives us an opportunity to change our lives by rewriting the programs of limitation or the things that interfere with us. If we change those programs, we are empowered; free to express the wishes and desires of the conscious mind. This is really what the whole new biology is all about. Take us away from, “You are a victim of life,” to introducing the fact that we are the creators of our life. Our consciousness is the source of the great potential of creating heaven on Earth. (Bruce Lipton, PhD: The Jump From Cell Culture to Consciousness) 

In my writing I say the same thing as Dr. Lipton except I focus and emphasize the role of symbols and symbolism associated or connected with spirituality in the human unconscious which after tens of thousands of years of spiritual and religious beliefs you know must be there though most likely buried under centuries of civilized "horse hockey" - though as Carl Jung, William James, Viktor Frankl, as well as Furlotti and Kalshed all agree are likely highly energized by spiritual emotions.

“This absolute determinability of our mind by abstractions is one of the cardinal facts in our human constitution. Polarizing and magnetizing us as they do, we turn towards them and from them, we seek them, hold them, hate them, bless them, just as if they were so many concrete beings. In his writing, William James brought the lovers' passion and unbreakable bonds to communicate the energy and vitality of emotionally charged “abstractions," symbols and archetypes, to help him express the total commitment psychologically of emotionally charged symbols or abstractions.

                The Age of Science and The Age of Free Will:

Lastly, I would emphasize that "we" are in the Age of Science and Free Will, and that the readily apparent conflict between God and science as it were can only be bridged by people - since you can study and analyze people but not the "supernatural, the Transcendent, or Enlightenment. What I find infuriating is that these studies which to a great degree have already been done but Academic Materialists are [deliberately] excluding and prohibiting mainstream psychologists from having access to.

Atheists are very welcome, especially since, at age 29, I was an utter heretic and atheist, when I had an exceptionally detailed and notarized precognitive experience. I would just say they shouldn't underestimate the capabilities of the human brain - or the highly charged spiritual symbols and symbolism inherited in the human mind - as Carl Jung emphasized. It is important to understand that although one third to one half of people - according to numerous surveys - have experiences, from experience and research I believe I can safely say the majority of mainstream psychologists, theologians, and Christian leaders know very little about spiritual experiences in truth.

That being said, way too many people unequivocally equate - totally - spirituality with the Supernatural, Powers, or an Otherworldly God-Being. While there are some extremists in spirituality, Park and Paloutzian conclude from a review of "numerous" studies of spiritual and spiritual-psychic experiences - which consistency show that somewhere between one third to half of people have spiritual-psychic experience of one sort or another - there is a "Normalcy" to spiritual-psychic experiences. In fact, almost all of the many people who have spiritual experiences that I have spoken with equate spirituality with enlightenment, a way of looking at the world, as well as viewing spirituality as Creativity and Life-Force or Drive.   

Another pivotal fact - reality - one needs to understand is that, this is the Age of Science - and Free Will - and the only thing that science and religion have in common would be "people" - who can be studied and analyzed until the end of time. Furthermore, the only way to bridge the conflict between science and religion is via the studies of peoples' spirituality. Believe it or not a large number have already been done - but are being (deliberately) exclude and restricted from mainstream psychology by the Academic Materialism (Academic Materialism deviates form scientific materialism).

             A Few of the More Popular Essays !

1. The Materialist Fallacy Letter to a Congressman [Ruppersberger] [A Critique of Materialism] Endorsed by Dr. P. Wong, Dr. Stephen Farra, Dr. H. Koenig, Stefan Schindler, and MD Professor

     a) Dr. Paul Wong, stated  "Your letter to a congressman needs to be published somewhere.!" 

     b) Dr. Harold Koenig: "makes perfect sense to me, and very nice letter right on target!"

      c) Stefan Schindler, responded question of the "methodological flaw" by stating, "Yes, correct!"

      d)Furthermore: Dr. Stephan Farra - Recently, I connected and Dr Farra stated that the                "Prove God Norm Fallacy" - or, alternatively, the [Logical] "Definist Fallacy (leading to a

       closed Materialism) is Spiritual poison, and has hurt us all!"  (my italics)

      https://www.spirittruthandmeaning.com/draft-letter

  2. Dr. Ingela Visuri: Spirituality & "The case of High functioning Autism" Neuroscience,                   Creativity, Imagination, Neuroscience, Distress, Invisible Touch, Ghosts & commentaries              from teachers & families

     Some SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION: Ingela Visuri, author of Varieties of Supernatural                Experience: The case of High functioning Autism, told me "I also wanted to thank you for your       article "Autistics and Creativity, Neuroscience, Ghosts, Distress". I am planning to borrow 

     some of the quotes on creativity in the end, they make so much sense in my ongoing project on

      autism, imagination and live action role playing games." 

      https://www.spirittruthandmeaning.com/autistics-and-creativity

  3. Spiritual-Psychic Experiences, People, the Parietal Complex and Neuroscience, & the Distress       Factor, Circumstances of Grieving, Depression, Recovering Addicts, Autistics, NF Personalities

      https://www.spirittruthandmeaning.com/a-people-approach-to-spirituality

  4. Art II - Spirituality, Creativity, Imagination, Mystery, Myth, and Meaning ...........”

       https://www.spirittruthandmeaning.com/art-ii

  5. The Body-Mind-Spirit Paradigm - Rooted in Hunter-Gatherer Spiritual Beliefs to New Age

      https://www.spirittruthandmeaning.com/body-mind-spirit-paradigm

  6. Different Ideas and Theories of the Functions of Religion

     https://www.spirittruthandmeaning.com/different-functions-of-religion

  7. A Synthesis Consensus of Viktor Frankl, Carl Jung, and William James on Meaning Creation

     https://www.spirittruthandmeaning.com/synthesis-consensus

  8. Ideologies - Instincts, Patriotism and Racism - the Most Powerful Forces in the World,.....

     https://www.spirittruthandmeaning.com/instincts-and-ideologies

 "This besotted humdrum age of spiritual blindness!"

In the epic novel, Steppenwolf, written by Hermann Hesse and first published in 1927, it would appear that some of the writing in the novel could, in truth, be considered properly prophetic - especially in regard to some of the psychological and spiritual aspects of our contemporary society and culture. Steppenwolf, the character and the central individual in the novel, decries the empty essence and of his society, when he proclaims, "Ah, but it is hard to find this track of the divine in the midst of this life that we lead, in this besotted humdrum age of spiritual blindness, its politics, its men! .... And in fact, if the world is right, if this music of cafes, these mass enjoyments and these Americanised men who are pleased with so little are right, then I am wrong. I am crazy. I am in truth the Steppenwolf that I often call myself; that beast astray who finds neither home nor joy nor nourishment in a world that is strange and incomprehensible to him." (p. 48-49) 

                   Poem of "Foresight" from my 1975 Graduation Yearbook

             Seeing Nothing

                    Seeing nothing,

                  he searched for Godot,

                  found Steppenwolf,

              and touched feet with the wall

Reflections and Explanations of “Seeing Nothing!” In retrospect, the “Seeing Nothing” poem was eerily prophetic of future events-situations in my life.

1, In the Waiting for Godot play, the author, Samuel Beckett, has the two main characters, Vladimir and Estragon, waiting around - seemingly aimlessly - for the arrival of a person named Godot. Godot never arrives! Like the characters in Beckett’s play, Waiting for Godot, after graduation I was also psychologically-spiritually waiting for an unknown something or somebody. Historically, in my life, until age 29, I was waiting for a somebody or somebody to reveal the “Answer” to life – but, of course, that never happened since. In all reality, at the time, I really didn’t have the faintest idea what I was looking for and was just middling my way through life. So, in my own life, my life at the time was metaphorically a mirror reflection of Beckett’s play, Waiting for Godot. From 1970 to 1981, I “waited for Godot, when. Then, in 1981 I had my precognitive “What a nightmare” spiritual-psychic experience – which started me on an entirely different journey and quest.

2, In the past 36 or so years I have had perhaps 30 or more spiritual-psychic experiences with ten or so being documented. The pivotal, very detailed and profoundly spiritual "What a nightmare- Mustard Seed" spiritual-psychic experience, which is Notarized with a FOIPA stamp on it, was actually preceded by a call perhaps 6 months earlier by a call I made to the FBI warning them of an assassination attempt on President Reagan. The details included: group, fabricating bombs, money, woman, 22 were assembled, New York, death, as well as the weathermen terrorist manifesto.

So, Steppenwolf, who in the novel by Herman Hesse, had a split personality between an “animal-wolf" persona - and a “human” or “higher spiritual” personality definitely "foresaw" Due to the fact that, in my upbringing, I had no awareness or education in spirituality or psychic and consciously thought them superstitious nonsense at the time, there was an intense emotional-spiritual fight going on. Essentially, then, in part due to the lack of any central purpose or meaning, for all practical purposes there were two personalities battling it out.

Parallel to Steppenwolf, in my real life situation back in 1981, one persona, as it were, was a “rationalist” or "materialist-animal" personality that regarded spirit and spirituality as "superstitious nonsense" And in conflict with that materialist personality, there was a “spiritual” personality that Unconsciously believed in “Spirit” as well as a pervasive “Spirit”, as in a universal intelligence to the universe, or God, as it were. It definitely was Not a "hallelujah spiritual experience. It was much closer - psychologically - to being hit by a ton of bricks. a number of people who have spiritual experiences have related that enlightenment" is to large extent, the painful process of  disposing of unnecessary and - actually - dysfunctional beliefs.

3, Feet Touched the Wall!

The last line of the poem states my “feet touched the wall!” In my eyes, that is a bit bizarre as far as timing, but I am not sure exactly what to make of it. There is a a bit of "historical" synchronicity in that I began writing (2015-2016) just as Trump with his “Wall” came onto the stage. I did research on the symbolism of "feet" in religious beliefs - and there actually is a symbolic undercurrent in religious literature regarding feet. It was all very interesting and enlightening, but I didn't come to any conclusions. 

Archetypes, Scripts, and Unconscious Narratives

Before beginning a brief analysis I feel I should highlight that the most bizarre apart was that the poem started with "Seeing Nothing." Since that poem was incredibly prophetic of how my life played out - in my view - it seems clear an unconscious script was playing itself out. It is true that new research into the unconscious as well as neuroscience discoveries have provided quite a bit of support to Carl Jung’s concept of a collective unconscious and archetypes and unconscious scripts or narratives. Bargh in his article The New Unconscious states that the combined research of social psychology, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience does clearly indicate that much of the unconscious is beyond the awareness of cognitive processes and that the unconscious appears form their research to be the primary engine for the processing of information, perception, motivation, as well as beliefs and worldviews.

Lastly, Bargh categorically states that in certain circumstances the unconscious can steer a course for long periods of time and be able to make substantial adjustments in order to achieve a goal. That is important to understand since the 1970 high school graduation yearbook, in retrospect outlined distinctly the stages that my life would have – actually over the course of many long decades. As an "odd" - offbeat question, I have wondered if the collective consciousness - as in chaos theory {self-correcting system] - was an influence in formatting that script, as it were? (I figured I might as well throw that in for the fun of it - to see if I could confuse people). 

 But, the truth of it is, I am without a doubt, A Cultural Dissident in a "Besotted" World dominated by the Academic Materialist Ideology of NO Spirituality, No Social Consciousness, and No Meaning. I would highlight that I am, in truth and reality a "Real Radical!" The reason is because I firmly believe that spiritual people and peoples' spirituality that there are a very diverse variety and number of spirituality types -and and studies actually bear me out on this . In general the studies show that some people do very well with spirituality, some get moderate benefits, and some get absolutely nothing at all form spirituality (something every pastor likely could have told you).Unfortunately, in today's world in which scientific skepticism went haywire and mutated into what might be called Academic Materialist Doctrine since a lot of it is based on a fallacy plus has a significant methodological flaw in is its fixation of laboratory experiments as Kay Deaux and McGilChrist observed - which excludes anything hat won't fit into a laboratory - like genocides and group related emotions.

An Axe To Grind : DOJ Civil Rights Complaint  84125FXD -Definist Fallacy

Although many psychologists and authors talk about materialism and the materialist bias which distorts the "Truth" in mainstream psychology, such as Francis Collins, author of God’s DNA and Director of NIH, the maverick scientist Rupert Sheldrake, the psychologists Baruss and Mossbridge, as well as the French philosopher Guenon - who long ago argued that materialism began with Descartes - not many are aware that materialism exists, much less that it could be a serious problem. You know Spirituality is a Serious Issue in Psychology, when you review "The Story of Psychology," which is a 700 plus page comprehensive 'History of Psychology' textbook, which was written by Morton Hall, a well-known and prolific author on the subject of psychology (Anchor Books, 2007), and, to my amazement, I did not find a single reference to either meaning, spirit, spirituality, religion, or even meaning (hard to believe – but true).

Incredible as it may sound, there is an ongoing methodology issue revolving around the Definist Fallacy which is used by Academic Materialists internally within the "Academic World" - which is very different from the real world  with its own rules, procedures and protocols - to manipulate data and information - which is used by the “science of psychology” as an internal repressive mechanism with the academic world.

In an article recently published on the Pubmed site on the NIH website discussed that very issue. The psychologists, William R. Miller and Carl E. Thoresen, unequivocally state in their article, “Spirituality, religion and health: an emerging field of research,” that “A philosophical basis for this perspective is materialism, the belief that there is no is nothing to study because spirituality is intangible and beyond the senses.” This statement of materialist ideology is just another form of the same argument above that states the academic absurd Materialist “Prove God” Maxim with the end result that spiritual and religious beliefs are worthless and have no validity because they are (defined by academics) as “intangible and beyond the senses.” It is a circular argument that states that You can’t prove “Intangible” and unmeasured because they are defined as intangible and unmeasurable (beyond the senses). 

The problem is that The Materialist “Prove God Maxim” - is a Fallacy by the universally accepted rules of logic. One definition of the Definist Fallacy explains it as defining a term used in an argument in a biased manner (e.g., using "loaded terms") One example of the Definist Fallacy cited is "Before we argue about the truth of creationism, let’s define evolution as, “Faith in a crackpot theory that is impossible to prove with certainty.” In a nutshell using a Definist Fallacy requires a person to do things that are impossible and can't be done. You don't need a degree to understand the Definist Fallacy problem.

Of course, the existence of the article demonstrates that materialism is a widespread belief and therefore that the Definist Fallacy or Prove God Norm-Fallacy. I encounter it all the time on FB Psychology/religion/social sciences FB groups. A recent study by PRRI showed that today roughly 31% of people believe that “There is no spirituality!” – which is ludicrous since a ton of studies show that the spirituality of grieving for instance is very real – and furthermore at least two studies show that spiritual-psychic experiences during grieving facilitate the healing process. On top of that there is the spirituality of autistics, the spirituality of recovering addicts, the spirituality in depression, as well as the spirituality of adolescence first studied by Stanley Hall in 1882. Of course – though there are atheists and so on – some people thrive on spirituality and there is the spirituality of enlightenment, as well as mystic epiphanies and so on.   

Commentary by Dr. Stephen Farra Columbia International University Emeritus, Psychology: “Charles, I strongly agree that the Definist Fallacy (leading to a closed Materialism) is spiritual poison, and has hurt us all! Frankl writes about how a closed Naturalism leads to a suffocating Reductionism, which leads to a mental and emotional Nihilism and the kind of Moral Corruption he experienced in Auschwitz and Dachau. We have bodies and brains, but within those bodies and brains, we develop transcendent Souls, and self-transcendent Spirits. We potentially have great freedom and flexibility. On all this, I think we agree." Dr. Paul Wong also stated unequivocally that the Definist Fallacy is wrong and destructive, as it were. 

Stupid is as Stupid Does - Fighting with Kaiser Permanente over the Definist Fallacy: Believe it or not in "our" society with its incredibly sophisticated technology and and unbelievable science I am currently fighting with one of the top medical-scientific organizations in the US (Kaiser Permanente) over a freaking Fallacy for God's sake. By default they said is is OK. I said I found it offensive and filed 4 complaints. KP REFUSED to answer despite their 3 day policy. Didn't even throw me a bone like "I can see how you would see things. They are backing up and supporting the Definist Fallacy which Dr. Farra calls "spiritual poison" I would say they proved my point that the Definist Fallacy or the Prove God Fallacy-Norm is indeed - as I have said - a powerful and destructive Norm (Duh). 

          Being Crazy is Perfectly Legal: The Unknowledge of Mainstream Psychology

In the 40 years since then, I have talked with a dozen or more psychologists-psychiatrists and in those 40 years not one of them asked me a single question about any of my spiritual-psychic experiences. IN 40 years not one said one word about my experience – not that’s interesting, not “what were you thinking?”, not “Even though I don’t agree with you, but I can understand how you see things”! Not a single word – Nothing. The last time I talked to a psychologist about 7 years ago, it was clear the psychologist was deliberately trying to redirect my attention.

What happened is that -when, in my search for a sympathetic psychologist, I came across a psychologist, who happened to be familiar with Lillydale, a city in New York, dedicated to “psychics.” In fact, John related a story he had heard about a psychic. John's story told about a psychic who told a client that his father had two funerals. After the client thought for a minute, the client responded that, "Yes, that is correct." The client's family had been so divided over a rather insignificant dispute that it had become necessary to hold two funerals. John responded, “Oh no, there are thousands of documented predictions.” I was utterly shocked - just dumfounded - because I knew from very substantial research that that was completely off the wall, and utterly ridiculous. I briefly asked him where he got his information. Rather than answer he repeated his statement. I wasn’t going to sit there and listen to a blithering idiot so I got up to walk out. John blurted out, “You should thank me. Any other psychologists would think you are crazy.” Without skipping a heartbeat, I hotly retorted, “It is perfectly legal to be crazy!” – turned on my heel and left.

The bottom line is that my experience with "professionals" obviously reflected a rather complete disregard for people and their spirituality. Dr Neal and her Kaiser Permenente psychiatrist quality manager both indicated psychiatrists have no training in peoples' spirituality. From research and personal experience it is clear that the same is true for psychologists (including Jungians to my knowledge). I should emphasize that the most critical conclusion that Park and Paloutzian reached from their analysis of the studies, is that spiritual experiences do have the characteristic of having a “normalcy” that up to now have been “ignored by social scientists.” I can testify at great length, from my 40 years of experience of dealing with psychologists and psychiatrists that social scientists have not only ignored the question of "normalcy," but some have deliberately tried to extinguish my spiritual beliefs.

Due to my perspective gained from those experiences, my view is that, form a certain perspective, it is actually people who "make" spirituality in one sense or another. Furthermore, from a certain perspective religion, to a large degree, is about people - and community. The same would be true in respect to God in that, to a large degree, God is about people - and Life!

My biggest complaint about mainstream psychology is that they are NOT scientific at all when it comes to spirituality. In a nutshell "they" refuse to understand that I - and most of the other 110 million Americans who have spiritual-psychic experiences - have a different reality - and it is perfectly "OK" - in fact most say and treat people in terms of the opposite - that spirituality is NOT OK!

                                    The Boxer

                                Such are promises

                                  All lies and jests

                      Still a man hears what he wants to hear

                             And disregards the rest

                              [ Simon and Garfunkel's Prophetic Boxer song - excerpt]

Oneness, Connectivity, Unity, and Spirituality-Consciousness

“I believe in the essential unity of all that lives. Therefore, I believe that if one person gains spiritually, the whole world gains, and that if one person falls, the whole world falls to that extent.” - Mohandas Gandhi

Pope Francis issued a proclamation emphatically stating that “In a world where various forms of modern tyranny seek to suppress religious freedom, or try to reduce it to a subculture without right to a voice in the public square, or to use religion as a pretext for hatred and brutality, it is imperative that the followers of the various religions join their voices in calling for peace, tolerance, and respect for the dignity and rights of others.”

Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu, who was an activist in the civil rights struggle in South Africa, along with Nelson Mandela, took it even further, when he stated unequivocally that, " The God who existed before any religion counts on you to make the oneness of the human family known and celebrated."

The Hindu Radhanath Swami observed: "In Sanatan Dharma, or what is commonly called Hinduism, I discovered the basic truths of all religions in a way that the oneness of God and religion is comprehensively understood." Furthermore " The Quran tells us '.. whoso gave life to one, it shall be as if he had given life to all mankind.' (5:33). A Muslim is one who surrenders to the will of Allah and is an establisher of peace (while Islam means establishment of peace, Muslim means one who establishes peace through his actions and conduct)." Islam "The Lord lives in the heart of every creature. He turns them round and round upon the wheel of Maya. Take refuge utterly in Him. By his grace you will find supreme peace, and the state which is beyond all change." Hinduism

ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, head of the Baha'i Faith, from 1892 until 1921, stared that “Religion should unite all hearts and cause wars and disputes to vanish from the face of the earth, give birth to spirituality, and bring life and light to each heart. If religion becomes a cause of dislike, hatred and division, it were better to be without it, and to withdraw from such a religion would be a truly religious act.”

The wise embrace unity
luminous without ostentation
distinguished without justifying
recognized without boasting
persevering without complaining – Lao Tzu

In the same vein, Einstein stated unequivocally: “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.”

As a Baptist woman once told me, Religion is of man! Spirit is of God. And it is a psychological fact that religions are groups and religious ideological beliefs only too often kick in the ingroup-outgroup syndrome and outgroup conflicts kick in very powerful and only too often horrific emotions generated by group related instincts. While there are differences between religious beliefs, when it comes to spirituality religions share many common beliefs and understandings of spirituality.

Dimensions and Diversity in Spirituality!

When I asked people of other faiths how they viewed “spirituality” – which is very different from “spirit” of course – I was surprised at the remarkable similarities and resemblance between them there is. While much of modern psychology when they speak of “spiritual intelligence” try to define it as a generic or universal description rather than talking about spiritual intelligences of different types. The wisdom that spirituality applies to different people in different ways and much of that depends on personal traits, habits, or talents.

Christian: Corinthians 12: 4 There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. 5 There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. 6 There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work. 7 Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. 8 To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, 10 to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy,……

Shyamala, a Christian-Hindu, with ancestral roots in Sri Lankan Tamils, has spiritual beliefs parallel to Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who said “my two primary sources of inspiration, spiritual comfort, and illumination come from the New Testament, and the Bhagavad Gita” Shyamala states that "In our Vedas teachings, we each have a Dharma...a sort of duty... There is the Dharma of an educator...there is the Dharma of an intellectual person...who will always be in the pursuit of gaining knowledge...& enlightening others about it... There is also the warrior Dharma...The merchant Dharma... The labourer Dharma... The other is the outsider Dharma... These are the people who change things... None of the dharmas are either superior or inferior.

Marwa, a Muslim woman who has had spiritual experiences of her own, and who also has a PhD in psychology said her spiritual experiences are a "Gift by Allah, giving to those who love believing in him, and give them this spiritual gift" - a "gift and will commit leading to creativity and geniuses." Being a PhD, Marwa reeled off eight or ten Muslim spiritual leaders or clerics each had different gifts of wisdom, clemency and patience. gentleness and patience, bravery, intense faith, resourcefulness, and leadership, as well as discernment and inspiration.

                       In the Beginning - the Birth of Spirituality 

Susanne Langer observes, "Every culture develops some kind of art as surely as it develops language. Some primitive cultures have no real mythology or religion, but all have some art - dance, song, design (sometimes only on tools or on the human body). Dance, above all, seems to be the oldest elaborated art..... Art is, indeed, the spearhead of human development, social and individual. What sort of thing is art, that it should play such a leading role in human development? It is not an intellectual pursuit, but is necessary to intellectual life; it is not religion, but grows up with religion, serves it, and in large measure determines it."

Brian Hayden, in Shamans Sorcerers, and Saints, asks “Why are music and dance among the most valued experiences of people in virtually all cultures, rom the nasal droning ritual charms of Australian Aborigines, to the sacred beat of North American Indian drums, to the complex polyrhythms that infuse all aspects of traditional African life? Singing and rhythmic beats are integral parts of the great feasts in New Guinea, Australia, and Africa.” (p. 33) 

That is, dancing, music, song, design, and art are distinct activities and behaviors that were all interconnected in human consciousness as spiritual activities. So, a choir member attending church would have spiritual singing and music processes engaged. Then there are religious related morals as well - which would be also likely engaged as well. the bottom line is that spiritual and religious beliefs are very complex and should not be arbitrarily oversimplified. Way too many people equate all spirituality totally and completely with the "supernatural," otherworldly, or Totally Transcendental Ultimate God. Spirituality is about people and spirituality is about creativity and life-force much much more than the supernatural. That is a pivotal point both psychologically and spiritually.

Science and Types of Spirituality

This belief that spiritual experiences-worldviews are a product of personality (i.e. NF personalities), experience, gender (numerous studies show women are more receptive to spirituality), genetic predispositions (i.e. twin studies show some people have a predisposition for experiencing spiritual-psychic experiences), gender left brain bias links to skepticism (which ordinarily doesn't access intuitive and creative processes which are right brained)– not to mention the unique type of spiritual experiences of autistics.

There is a consensus among researchers in peoples' spirituality and spiritual-psychic experiences that - currently - somewhere between one third to one half of people have spiritual-psychic experiences on of one sort or another - anywhere from awe-wonder experiences to mystical epiphanies, or spiritual enlightenment to even ghosts. One third to one half of people is A Lot of People. The existential psychologists-editors, Park and Paloutzian, in the Handbook of the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, state "numerous survey studies in both the United States and Europe have demonstrated the normalcy of reports of religious experiences, including mystical experience(see Spilka, Hood, Hunsberger, & Gorsuch, 2003, pp. 307-312) . Depending on the specific wording of the questions asked, anywhere from a third to a half of the populations affirm such experiences...While this correlational data does not provide evidence of that causes such reports, it does establish the normalcy of such reports and indicates social scientists have until recently ignored a common phenomenon." (p. 67)

There are extremes when it comes to spiritual-psychic experiences - but the vast majority of people who have experiences are shades of gray and demonstrate a "normalcy." For instance it is estimated there are roughly 2.6 million schizophrenics today. Minimally in America there are 110 million American who have spiritual experiences of one sort or another. I would say, actually that by far most spiritual people I have connected with are more level headed than a whole lot of people, to be quite honest. There is also a consensus among researchers such as Ingela Visuri, Fraser watts, and Julie S. Parker - who states Several qualitative studies report that bereaved experients oftentimes fear that they are experiencing symptoms of mental illness, and/or are resistant to disclosing their EEs because they believe that others will perceive them as “crazy,” ridicule them, and/or disbelieve them (Devers, 1988, 1997; Drewry, 2002; Hastings, 1983; Hoyt, 1980; LaGrand, 1999; Peterson, 2001; Whitney, 1992) (Julie S. Parker, EXTRAORDINARY EXPERIENCES OF THE BEREAVED AND ADAPTIVE OUTCOMES OF GRIEF*) That is, people don't talk about their spiritual-psychic experiences because some of the Strict Materialists can get pretty ignorant - to be quite blunt.   

I should mention - for perspective - that a fair amount of human consciousness-spirituality has been left out of Corinthians, to be honest - like common sense and the gift of patience, awe-wonder, and so on. On top of that our vastly transformed modern society has added a number of brand new categories such as Out of body experiences and Near death experiences. Furthermore in certain parts of the world certain specific types of spirituality exist such as in Iceland where old Irish folklore specters or visions are still reported - perhaps giving additional credence to Jung's collective consciousness. Lastly, I should add that it is now known that circumstances such as grieving, recovering addicts, depression as well as adolescents (who Stanley Hall back in the 1800's showed had a predisposition for spiritual experiences).

In fact, it seems in part due to the acceptance of materialism by establishment Christina leaders one study found some Millenials and other younger generations searching for the spirit and the divine in pagan rites such as Norse beliefs who had a fierce belief in "spirit" much like Christian spirit, as well as even witchcraft. Also there has been a resurgence in beliefs in shamanism. There has also been a resurgence in interest in crystals which of course connects with genes inherited from stone worship thousands of years ago. In fact I have spoken to at least two graduate psychology majors who specifically told me they were driven away by materialist Doctrine's barren and empty ideology and became interested in some metaphysical or spiritual beliefs far outside the Materialist tunnel vision dimension.           

Spirituality, Art, Writing, and Creativity

Not surprisingly, my personal interest as well as my passion for spirituality- consciousness is born of some profoundly spiritual precognitive experiences. According to numerous studies, minimally 110 million Americans who have spiritual-psychic experiences of every type and variety imaginable - from awe-wonder experiences, to mystical epiphanies or spiritual enlightenment, to ghosts. Numerous studies also demonstrated that people who have experiences are very careful about who they talk to - if ever - out of fear of ignorant and bigoted hardline materialists!

Personally, I consider my-self more an "artist-writer" than "psychic." I have over 200 essays on this website. Many today equate all spirituality unequivocally with transcendental or supernatural "spirit." That is wrong thinking both psychologically as well as spiritually. On the internet, a very popular "spiritual" theme in websites is spirituality as creativity. In looking back at the origins of early human culture in which spiritual and religious beliefs played a pivotal ,if not vital, role, the philosopher Susanne Langer brings to light the complex interactions in spiritual and religious beliefs between the various activities involved in the larger community of early human and prehistoric societies.

 "Spirit, to me, is literally everything! It is THE creative force! So when we as humans, create or connect or dream or heal...we tap into Spirit!" - Angel

Angel, my advisor and counselor since 2017, who has had a few of her own spiritual-psychic experiences described her personal understanding of spirit: “Spirit, to me, is literally; everything. It is the universe beyond our very small, limited existence as human in a physical world. This encompasses the view of Spirit being a creative force. It is THE creative force since it is everything. So when we as humans, create or connect or dream or heal...we tap into Spirit.” The spiritual self is life, the activity of the mental and of the physical is of the soul - and thus a soul-body. #EdgarCayce reading 3590-2). My views are very similar to when Angel states, "THE creative force since it is everything!" However, drive-purpose, inspiration, and Guidance-Ideals are also very important in my personal view of spirituality. Radhanath Swami describes an important aspect of spirituality as drive when he states that “When spirituality is the basis of your life, it gives you the strength, wisdom and courage to surmount the many storms of life that could destroy a weaker person who doesn’t have this foundation.”

Edgar Cayce - though he earned his fame as a documented psychic and was best known as the Sleeping Prophet - was really, at heart, an amazing healer and Spiritual Leader. Edgar Cayce has perhaps one of the most comprehensive statements about spirit as it relates to human consciousness when Edgar Cayce emphatically stated that "Each entity finds itself in a three-dimensional phase of existence or experience: the world without, the world within, and the mind that may span or bridge the two." [Edgar Cayce reading 1100-26] That is, the origins of all life are in the spirit, which is the creative force that brings all into existence. Then mind takes this life-force and creates meaning with it: "Mind the builder, the spirit the creator, the material [is] that created. Great truth! Keep it before you." [Edgar Cayce reading 900-374]

Passion, Creativity, Life-Force and Drive!

I am mad with love

And no one understands my plight

Only the wounded understand

The agonies of the wounded

When the fire rages in the heart

Mirabai [Hindu spiritual poet-saint] 

Instinct, Alarm Calls, Prophecy, - Bem's Proven Precognition Experiments

In the last 36 years I have had numerous precognitive dreams and perceptions, with over ten spiritual-psychic experiences documented. The most salient precognitive experiences being my warning to the FBI prior to Hinckley's assassination attempt of President Reagan, my call to the CIA, when I did my best to warn them of 9/11, and, most recently, my email to Baltimore FBI agent McElwee on 10-30-20 foreseeing the Nashville bombing. Then, of course, there is my pivotal, very detailed, and profoundly spiritual  "What a nightmare- Mustard Seed" spiritual-psychic experience which is Notarized and also, by sheer chance and coincidence, happens to have a FOIPA stamp on it.  Some of the [accurate] details are: group, fabricating bombs, money, woman, 22 were assembled, New York, death, as well as the weathermen terrorist manifesto.

That being said, I need to emphasize that, for several reasons, I do not consider myself as being a "psychic" - one being I am nothing like what most people understand as psychic. I don't have powers! I don't read minds (though every once in a while I pick up images though always in connection with perceptions of threats to the group). I can't look into a crystal ball and predict things - rather I respond to stimuli. Historically, those who tried making predictions to make predictions - which makes no sense, psychologically, biologically, or even spiritually had a very high rate of failure. In fact, my precognitive dreams and perceptions could actually be best described as my human variation of the alarm calls of animals such as Vervet monkeys who have four different distinct alarm calls for four different types of predators.

Daryl Bem, a prominent researcher and psychologist related to me that both he and researcher Dean Radin believe that instincts play a pivotal role in spiritual-psychic experiences. In 2016, an article explaining a meta-analysis of Daryl Bem's Successful Repeated Experiments states that "When Bem’s own experiments are included, the complete database comprises 90 experiments from 33 different laboratories located in 14 different countries. A total of 12,406 individuals participated in these experiments." The article goes on to say that the results showed that the experimental design focused on sex was by far outperformed the other designs. Sex without question is, of course is a very powerful instinct in the human mind. Also having the large number of 12,406 subjects who participated in the precognition experiments and still having a "significant" result is a very clear indication that precognition is a very valid question in science. (A Summary of “Feeling the Future: A Meta-analysis of 90 Experiments on the Anomalous Anticipation of Random Future Events by Bem, Tressoldi, Rabeyron & Duggan). 

My most recent "alarm call, a precognitive perception which in this case was a mini stream-of-consciousness was an email I sent to FBI agent McElwee which I quote here including the date an email address: <"My senses are tingling as it were and red lights are flashing and I feel that there is something up that may turn out to be important...........Of course What a nightmare symbolizes terrorism - domestic - and specifically bombs"<charlie.peckjr@comcast.net> To: "mvmcelwee@fbi.gov" <mvmcelwee@fbi.gov> Date: 10/30/2020 3:30 PM > For the record before 9/11 when as Dean Radin observes there were a large number of documented precognitions of 9/11 due to its high visibility in the collective consciousness as it were (I know of at least two documented precognitions of children), there were No documented precognition or predictions of terrorist events.

First, very briefly, on the subject of "predictions" and prophecies, much of the Old Testament Prophecies - from a certain perspective - could easily be described or understood in terms of "warnings" or perhaps even prophetic alarm calls. A very salient point is that though, some "Christian" leaders try to justify God and religion based almost entirely on the accuracy reflecting a theoretical divine nature of prophecy, I believe I can safely state categorically that God does not put Prophets on earth for the sole and entire purpose of making predictions. If the entire purpose of prophets is to predict the future, then  were the case, then all Jeremiah would have had to do is dictate a memo!

For the record, I am not perfect. I make mistakes just like every other psychic in history. As the theologian Tim Callahan, pointed out, when you look at Ezekiel’s actual prophecy (26:1-6) it stated that Tyre would be utterly destroyed by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar. What actually happened is that “Tyre came to terms with Nebuchadnezzar and accepted Chaldean suzerainty in 573 B.C.E.” (p.98 Callahan) It wasn't until centuries later that Alexander the Great came along that Tyre was captured and he didn't even destroy it utterly as Ezekiel’s prophecy proclaimed. For the record, I questioned an an Anglican priest who did state categorically that prophets are not perfect. In talking with Christians, a number do have the ["maladaptive" - as Bargh would say] stereotype of prophetic perfection are perfect and Ezekiel's Tyre prophecy was not only correct - but perfect! Personally, my plan is to keep on keeping on and hope to actually make a lot more mistakes before I die!

Jeremiah, Prophecy and Underlying Functions of Spirituality.

For perspective I would highlight the fact that, If one steps back and looks at prophecy in a larger sense – especially in terms of historical cycles and purposes, it seems clear that, in the end, what prophecy has often historically accomplished is to produce significant influences on the way people look at the world and clearly affected the social and spiritual consciousness of many religious people. That is, prophecy shapes human consciousness. I would argue that an analogy could be made between a horse drawing a cart with goods in it and prophecy. There are three parts or aspects that are addressed – the horse-energizer, the cart or the narrative, and the goods or the message or Word of God.

From Jeremiah’s description of the compulsion that drove him to speak the Word of God, it would seem apparent that deep seated emotions and powerful spiritual instincts were at work. So, one could conclude that foresight, and prophecy, to some extent could be viewed in terms of a group related instinct, and the Word of God seems to be an expression of a social instinct as well since it promotes the concepts of justice, the needs of the oppressed and weak, as well as righteousness. Jeremiah is the perfect illustration of how prophecy changed human consciousness.

George Barton, PhD, Disaster and sorrow compel either a soul or a nation to seek anew the foundations of life. Times of sorrow are accordingly times of religious growth. The Babylonian exile was no exception. Indeed, the influence of this exile upon the religion of Israel was enormous. This was in part due to the fact that the exile was the external event necessary to crystallize the results of prophetic influences which had been at work for a long time, but it was also in part due to the deepening and clarifying of religious perception which disaster and sorrow bring.

The influence of the Babylonian exile is discernible in three great realms of life: (i) in the apprehension of religious truth; (2) in the outward organization of the religious life; and (3) in the standards of public morals. We shall endeavor briefly to treat each of these points, but before doing so a few words are necessary with reference to the nature of the exile it." (INFLUENCE OF THE BABYLONIAN EXILE ON THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL, PROFESSOR GEORGE A. BARTON, PH.D.) So, here Barton, who echoes a number of scholars clearly and unequivocally states that Jeremiah's prophecy - combined with the suffering and pain of the Exile, did beneficially change the theology and worldview of Judaism.   

                           A Beginning - A Quest and a Journey

As with many people who have experiences, my pivotal notarized and exceptionally detailed 1981 What a nightmare experience started me on a path - a journey and a Quest for Truth and Understanding. The pivotal, very detailed "What a nightmare- Mustard Seed" spiritual-psychic experience is Notarized and also, by sheer chance and coincidence, happens to have a FOIPA stamp on it.  Some of the [accurate] details are: group, fabricating bombs, money, woman, 22 were assembled, New York, death, as well as the weathermen terrorist manifesto.

Besides these explicit details, as with much of historical prophecies, there appears to be some symbolic and metaphorical synchronicities in the "Mustard Seed" precognitive stream of consciousness. The statements, “Time is at hand! Time is at hand, Angels said.” - and - “Fight Hard, Die Well! A prophet spoke!” match the deaths of the two policemen ("Time is at hand" - twice by an angel) and the death of one Brink's guard  (“Fight Hard, Die Well” a prophet spoke). Of course angels could be said to outrank prophets same as policemen outrank Armored car guards. That kind of precise detail of identifying - albeit metaphorically - specific people or types of people who would be prominent in the event is quite literally "unheard of" in the long centuries of documented historical precognitive warnings-predictions. On top of that the "22 were assembled" clearly would refer to the shootout between the Weathermen terrorist group and the yack, New York police force - which, incredibly enough, the New York Times actually reported in their paper that the Nyack, New York police force had "22 officers" before the shootout. That kind of detail is unheard of.  

The Quest, Another Stage: A Divine Insight: Mustard Seed Parable

What "Makes" the Mustard Seed - What a Nightmare experience was actually the very last line which highlights the Mustard Seed [Parable] - which turned out to be perfect for my particular situation. The Mustard Seed Parable is perhaps the most simple and straightforward of Christ's many parables. Christ's Mustard Seed Parable: Mark 4:30–32:  "How will we liken the Kingdom of God? Or with what parable will we illustrate it? It's like a grain of mustard seed, which, when it is sown in the earth, though it is less than all the seeds that are on the earth, yet when it is sown, grows up, and becomes greater than all the herbs, and puts out great branches, so that the birds of the sky can lodge under its shadow."  

I didn't really grasp the significance and meaning of the Mustard Seed Parable until recently - decades later. In my research into psychology, an important discovery for me is the Synthesis-Consensus of Viktor Frankl, Carl Jung, William James, and Emile Durkheim. Carl Jung, perhaps, stated the synthesis-consensus best, when he stated that "spirit [spiritual processes] give meaning to [his] life!" So, what makes the Mustard Seed parable particularly illuminating insight is that it dovetails perfectly with the synthesis-consensus statement "spirit creates meaning and a sense of reality." Of course, that also dovetails with Christ's statement that "Spirit is Truth" in John 5:6.  Of course this would also tie into Luke 17:21, “The Kingdom of God is within you.” - Which brings into focus Christ's pivotal point about spirit, “The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing." (John 6:63).

My understanding is that the Mustard Seed Spiritual experience is an expression and reflection of the Holy Spirit. I would add, that everybody has their "thing" - their way of looking at things - whether it be philosophical, metaphysical, mystical, spiritual or religious. My personal guiding light would be John 4: 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” That fits well with the view I have - that in my view every person - whether they know it or not has a spirit [or minimally unconscious highly energized spiritual symbols and symbolism which can prove very creative and innovative at times] and that in that God is Spirit. So, dealing with the spirt of each person is my way of looking at things - which, of course, may not work for everyone.

So, I look at things much like The Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu, who was an activist in the civil rights struggle in South Africa along with Nelson Mandela, when he stated unequivocally , "The God who existed before any religion counts on you to make the oneness of the human family known and celebrated." Along those same lines, Einstein stated unequivocally: “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.” I see spirituality which is an underlying bridge between religions as a way to connect and unify. John 4: 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

Spirit Within!

Islamic religion, which is rooted in Judaism and the Old Testament-Talmud, recognizes the legitimacy of Jesus Christ. Some of their beliefs remarkably mirror some of Christ's insights. For instance, Muhammad Baqir Majlisi from al-Durr al-Manthur observes on the question of the creation of Adam: "God created Adam as He wills...He created his flesh and blood, his bones, hair, and his body from soil and water; this is the beginning of the creation of Adam. Then He put the soul into his body. Then by the soul man can stand and sit, listen and see, learn and know what animals can know and beware of dangers. Then God put the spirit into the body. By the spirit Adam knows right from wrong and guidance from error and he camouflages and learns and manages all of his affairs."

That mirrors almost word for word (i.e "Guidance" from error) what Christ said in Luke 2:.27 that the [Simeon] was guided by the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, there is the statement in John 5:6 that "Spirit is Truth!" IN John 15:26 Christ refers to the Advocate sent by the Father as the "Spirit of truth!" Scholars emphasize that the Hebrew ideas of truth and knowledge were more "up close and personal" than modern concepts of truth and knowledge - and so would match more readily the statement by the Islamic leader Majlisis that "spirit" [of Adam] gives the knowledge of "right from wrong." In a wider sense Christ states in John 3: 6 that "Being born of the Holy Spirit makes us a spiritual being!" The bottom line is that there is "spirit within" which is reflected in Christ's statement in John 14:17 "Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you."

 Atheists and Angels!

In light of the fact that I have had over thirty precognitive spiritual-psychic experiences over-all, some might be surprised that I have no problem with atheists. Not everybody is cut out for spirituality but there is no excuse intolerance or ignorance that only too often some Dogmatic Academic Materialists can express at times. In general, I feel that "how people think" is their business. In fact, at one time, I was the perfect atheist, in a sense. When I was twenty nine years old, I didn't believe in psychic, prophecy, spirituality of any sort, God, miracles or Christ. Yet on October 18, 1981, I managed to produce the notarized "Mustard Seed -What a nightmare" spiritual precognitive experience. I would emphasize that, in my writing all I do is lay out the "pieces of the puzzle" and highlight underlying processes and potential! 

Of my ten or so documented precognitive dreams or perceptions, the What a nightmare-Mustard Seed spiritual experience is by far my most exceptionally detailed and profoundly spiritual precognitive experience-warning - which in documented history is unprecedented and unrivaled - by far in detail. Some [accurate] details are: group, fabricating bombs, money, woman, 22 were assembled, New York, death, as well as the weathermen terrorist manifesto. The fact of the matter is that when I walked into the FBI office on October 18, 1981 with a notarized, written, very detailed precognitive-spiritual warning-prediction, consciously my views were actually very antagonistic to spiritual-psychic experiences. If you think about it - the miracle of the "What a nightmare-Mustard Seed" warning is that I walked into the FBI office and walked out without a net being thrown over me and being hauled off to the looney-bin. 

I mean - think about it! I walked into an FBI office with no real prior experience with absolutely nothing in writing and having a stream of consciousness that at first glance (and second glance as well) appears like the utter ravings of a madman. It was a stream of consciousness and some of the lines were "monkey screams," "snake hiss," "exorcism," "Fight Hard Die Well!" When I asked the agent when I got to the line of "New York" or "Miami," the FBI agent who was seated across from me in one of the cubicles at the Toledo, Ohio FBI office, snapped angrily, "How The Hell Should I Know? It is your dream!" The FBI agent clearly didn't believe in psychic - but he played the part of a FBI agent and asked several questions - like about the timing. 

Anyway, even though I consciously did not believe in psychic, spirt, prophecy or anything remotely spiritual at the time, there I was - sitting down and pointing out the only three lines In the "What a nightmare" that made any sense, to the FBI agent. I went over it calmly with the FBI agent - walking out without them throwing a net over you - and then it turns out to be the longest written-documented warning-prediction in history (written documents are like hens teeth - Nostradamus only had 4 line quatrains) stream of consciousness, and the only one at the time (prior to 9/11) about terrorism. For the record, in documented history, there are only 7 or 8 documented warnings about assassination. 

On top of that, the apparent perfect synchronicity of the Mustard Seed Parable (in the last line) would seem extraordinary in that the Mustard Seed Parable with its simple story of growth and creation would match the very relevant and meaningful Synthesis-Consensus of Viktor Frankl, Carl Jung, and William James that spiritual processes - or spirit - creates a sense of meaning and with as well as a sense of reality. What makes the situation a complete Enigma is, at the time, that I had absolutely no idea whether it would come true or not. One factor I think that resulted in the exceptional detail is that at that particular time I had reached the point where I didn't care one way or the other which way it turned out. Many artists will tell you if you think about what you are painting it will never turn out right.

Evidence of Inherited-Genetic Traits or Predispositions for spirituality.   

I would reinforce my statement that everyone has the same spiritual symbols and symbolism in their unconscious by highlighting the genetic research that consistently reveals inherited genetic traits of spirituality and religiosity. Tim Spector, in the article, What Twins Reveal About the Science of Faith (Popular Science, August 8, 2013) states, “They [the researchers] estimated the heritability of spirituality to be around 40 to 50 percent, which is quite high considering how tricky it is to measure. Other U.S. studies using even more detailed questions in larger numbers have found similar or even stronger genetic influences. These studies demonstrate our variable but innate inherited sense of spirituality, which affects how we perceive the world, ourselves and the universe. This is independent of our formal religious beliefs and practices and, strangely, largely independent of family influence.” 

Unconscious and Spiritual Symbolism

Brief Review of Unconscious Processes from the article "The Unbearable Automaticity of Being," John A Bargh & Tanya L. Chartrand - p. 462 July 1999 American Psychologist)

"Three major forms of automatic self-regulation are identified: an automatic effect of perception on action, automatic goal pursuit, and a continual automatic evaluation of one’s experience. From the accumulating evidence, the authors conclude that these various nonconscious mental systems perform the lion’s share of the self-regulatory burden, beneficially keeping the individual grounded in his or her current environment. (P.462)"

"The idea that social perception is a largely automated psychological phenomenon is now widely accepted. Many years of research have demonstrated the variety of ways in which behaviors are encoded spontaneously and without intention in terms of relevant trait concepts (e.g., Bargh & Thein, 1985; Winter & Uleman, 1984; Carlston & Skowronski, 1994; Uleman, Newman, & Moskowitz, 1996), how contextual priming of trait concepts changes the perceiver's interpretation of an identical behavior (through temporarily increasing their accessibility or readiness to be used; see Bargh, 1989; Higgins, 1989,1996; Wyer & Srull, 1989, for reviews), and how stereotypes of social groups become activated automatically on the mere perception of the distinguishing features of a group member (e.g., Bargh, 1994, 1999; Brewer, 1988; Devine, 1989). Perceptual interpretations of behavior, as well as assumptions about an individual's behavior based on identified group membership, become automated like any other representation if they are frequently and consistently made in the presence of the behavioral or group membership features."

“Imagine for a moment that you are a psychology professor who does experiments on conscious awareness. You keep finding that your subtle manipulations of people’s judgments and even behavior are successful –causing your experimental participants to like someone or to dislike that same person, to feel happy or sad, to behave rudely or with infinite patience. However, none of your participants have a clue as to what caused them to feel or behave.”  The Unbearable Automaticity of Being, John A Bargh & Tanya L. Chartrand - p. 462 July 1999 American Psychologist)" 

Conclusions:

It is crystal clear to me, from my experience, since I consciously had no beliefs whatsoever in psychic or spirituality at the time - yet walked into the FBI office with no experience or any written back-up, and produced an exceptionally detailed and written document (which are like hen's teeth) - that the spiritual processes are largely unconscious.

From research as well as from personal experience it is readily apparent that Unconscious Processes play a dominant role not only in everyday processes and behavior but Unconscious Processes are especially prevalent and influential in spiritual symbols and symbolism. I would assume that other people would be roughly similar to my self as far as spiritual symbols and symbolism in the Unconscious unconscious or Collective Unconscious (as Jung theorized). Though personality, life experience as well as upbringing would influence a person those same common symbols and symbolism would also be similarly highly energized by emotions - as William James, Carl Jung, Kalshed, and Furlotti all argue.

Generally, I don't tell people what they should believe. However, in this case, I would just say to people that the highly energized spiritual symbols and symbolism in the unconscious is a potential that anybody with will, purpose and focus can tap into for creativity, imagination, and - even – on occasion “enlightenment” (of any and every type imaginable too). As John Bargh, a researcher into the Unconscious Processes, puts it, there is a solid consensus among researchers from the various schools of thought in psychology researching Unconscious Processes that not only is the unconscious the work horse of human consciousness but also that there is a vast amount of information, intentions, motives, and, as Bargh argues, "planning!" 

As a quick Point of Order I feel it is justified and Necessary to emphatically point out that - to the best of my understanding and research, that the DOJ-FBI appears to have decided - in their ultimate wisdom - to exclude the "What a nightmare" notarized warning from the FBI "central indexes" - and, apparently, squash the exceptionally detailed precognitive What a nightmare - Mustard Seed' warning. Furthermore, I emphasize that the "What a nightmare" document is Notarized, an - by sheer "chance and coincidence" - does happen to have a FOPIA stamp on it and also has been publicized on this website for almost 5 years now. Lastly, as another point of information I would point out that the reason for 
 

External Forces and Angels!

It is interesting that when I related the Mustard Seed experience to a psychology professor, who is somewhat of skeptic and his work focused on will agreed with my conclusion that there was a force at work beyond my ego-will in the "Mustard Seed" spiritual-psychic experience - and he agreed. I should mention that I've been told by several people I have angels (plural) looking out for me - something I agree with actually, though I am not really into angels and actually I wouldn't doubt that the angles put in some overtime as well. Of course, I had actually called the Toledo, Ohio, office prior to the assassination attempt of Reagan - and it has crossed my mind that might have been the same FBI agent I talked to in my call warning about the attack on President Reagan.  Here is a link to the "Mustard Seed" Experience which has at the very bottom [the hard to read] the hand written and notarized stream of consciousness with a FOIPA stamp on it.

https://www.spirittruthandmeaning.com/mustard-seed

My Guardian Angel by Robert William Service

When looking back I dimly see
The trails my feet have trod,
Some hand divine, it seems to me,
Has pulled the strings with God;
Some angel form has lifeward leaned
When hope for me was past;
Some love sublime has intervened
To save me at the last.

For look you! I was born a fool,
Damnation was my fate;
My lot to drivel and to drool,
Egregious and frutrate.
But in the deep of my despair,
When dark my doom was writ,
Some saving hand was always there
to pull me from the Pit.

A Guardian Angel - how absurd!
I scoff at Power Divine.
And yet . . . a someone spoke the word
That willed me from the swine.
And yet, despite my scorn of prayer,
My lack of love or friend,
I know a Presence will be there,
To save me at the end.

Before I get into the details and issues involved in spiritual-psychic experiences I feel it necessary to set the stage on certain issues to establish a proper perspective.

Where I Break From the Crowd

This is the Age of Science! An extremely large number of people agree that the conflict between science and spirituality-religion is a very serious social and cultural problem. I can't tell you what The Answer is. Writing a book will not solve the problem because there are too many problems that run too deep and the issues are fraught with nightmarish questions of destiny, divine, and every other sort of entangled type of consciousness. However, I can tell you how to get the answer. The only way to bridge the gap between science and religion or God is through the common denominator - People. You can't prove or disprove Spirit or God - of course. However in a very real psychological and, even, spiritual sense what makes spirituality real is people. You can study people and their spiritual beliefs from now until the end of time. What is crazy about the situation is that a lot of the studies and work has been done - but those studies have been deliberately excluded from mainstream psychology. And it is the "Prove God Norm-Fallacy" an academic abstract fabrication that is used to restrict and exclude those studies. From my analysis and research the conclusion that I come to is that - in the end - for all practical purposes, Western Civilization has made an academic abstraction - generated by the Materialist doctrine - more important and more significant than - by far - than human beings who have spiritual or spiritual-psychic experiences! That is a FACT!  

When an Academic Abstraction is More Important than a Human Being

"Don't you have a church to go to?? Spirituality has no place in science!"

What does this question center on? In a Religion FB group a member stated bluntly: "Don't you have a church to go to?? Spirituality has no place in science at all!" What that individual was saying is that my spiritual beliefs are so worthless - such superstitious nonsense - they are not even worthy of scientific inquiry. How did this come about? I need to state categorically that this question has absolutely Nothing to do with belief - it is a question of true or false and right or wrong - simple as that.

The methodological question posed by "Academic Materialist Doctrine" in their maxim that one need “Prove God” before one can have valid spiritual beliefs is currently an ongoing problem and an extremely salient question - as an article recently published on the Pubmed site on the NIH website clearly demonstrates. The psychologists, William R. Miller and Carl E. Thoresen, unequivocally state in their article, Spirituality, religion and health: an emerging field of research, that “A philosophical basis for this perspective is materialism, the belief that there is nothing to study because spirituality is intangible and beyond the senses.”

One of my strongest assets is that I will go out into hostile environments and engage others – partly in an effort to come to grips with the problem.  What I discovered is that the idea that “spirituality is intangible and beyond the senses.” is a core argument of the Academic Materialist Doctrine, which I encountered only far too often in posting on psychology, religion, and neuroscience FB groups. However what I keyed into was the form it took. Time after time, I was told I can’t talk about spirt or spirituality until I prove the existence of “spirit” or “God!” Due to my personal spiritual-psychic experiences, when I came across that, my reaction was: "You can't be serious! Prove God? That is a preposterous idea and a really stupid question - to be blunt!"

Furthermore, after consideration and having the prove God fallacy thrown into my face I realized that it was just plain “stupid” and not scientific or rational in any way. Even a precursory overview of the statement “nothing to study because spirituality is intangible and beyond the senses” would clearly indicate that that statement is a fallacy on the face of it because what they mandate is simply Not Possible – at all.  Secondly as a logical statement it is a [Definist] fallacy because it takes the same form as “You need to “Prove God to talk about religious beliefs [that is, for your religious beliefs to be valid] – and of course no one can prove God so it is an impossible request and therefore a Definist Fallacy (which I illustrate below).

So, I researched it and discovered, not all that surprisingly, that that particular approach of Academic Materialism - which deviates from scientific materialism - is a Fallacy by the universally accepted rules of logic. One definition of the Definist Fallacy explains it as defining a term used in an argument in a biased manner (e.g., using "loaded terms") One example cited is "Before we argue about the truth of creationism, let’s define evolution as, “Faith in a crackpot theory that is impossible to prove with certainty.”  In a nutshell using a Definist Fallacy requires a person to do things that are impossible and can't be done. I would repeat that, You Don't Need a Degree to understand the problem and grasp the Definist Fallacy! In fact, it seems to help not having one.

So, yeah millions and millions of academic scientists believe in a complete fallacy – How can that be?

As a point of order, this question has nothing at all to do with "God"! And it has Nothing to do with beliefs, either. The question is solely and entirely about scientific methodology. The question is about how a blatant Fallacy like that could exist in "science" - especially since that maladaptive norm as Bargh would say, conveys the message that spiritual beliefs are inherently worthless!

Post script:

My position:

First off, to me "Truth" is very important. Secondly what psychology and the social sciences teaches young people is critical. Third the "Prove God Norm-Fallacy" is - for all practical purposes - an "academic swindle" - literally. That academic abstraction which is a fallacy, and not worth the it is printed on, allows the materialists to artificially and arbitrarily completely exclude and severely repress evidence and information important to understanding spirituality. That is, the "Prove God Fallacy is destructive and harmful. - And it is all smoke and mirrors - utter horse-hockey - lies and bulls**t. And what possible "reasonable" reason could these wonderfully enlightened psychologists have for excluding studies which would help people understand peoples' spirituality. What excuse could there be for keeping information about the spirituality of gr9eing, or the spirituality of autistics, or the spirituality of awe-wonder from people and psychologists? What is absolutely infuriating is that many theologians, Christian leaders, and many Jungians are being led around by their noses by materialists who are using a fallacy - a swindle - to push them around. And it is like pulling teeth to get a yes or no - or a true or false for a simple straightforward and impel question - the equivalent of asking what is 2+2.

 Definist Fallacy is Spiritual Poison - Dr Stephen Farra

I did get a response from Dr Stephen Farra, (but he is the exception.)   

Columbia International University Emeritus, Psychology

Dr. Wong sent me an email stating the "Prove God Norm-Fallacy" is wrong as well!

"Charles, I strongly agree that the Definist Fallacy (leading to a closed Materialism) is spiritual poison, and has hurt us all! Frankl writes about how a closed Naturalism leads to a suffocating Reductionism, which leads to a mental and emotional Nihilism and the kind of Moral Corruption he experienced in Auschwitz and Dachau. We have bodies and brains, but within those bodies and brains, we develop transcendent Souls, and self-transcendent Spirits. We potentially have great freedom and flexibility. On all this, I think we agree."

Dr Farra goes on to say, clarifying his point, "Where we may not agree is that that I believe we all need some structure and accountability to become our best selves (souls, spirits), and have an enduring sense of Meaning in our lives - thus my book Accountability Psychology. I say that Accountability Psychology is the psychology deeply embedded in the pages of Scripture (both the Old and New Testaments). I accept that there are other ways to achieve a measure of structure, accountability, and ongoing meaning in our lives - Buddhism, Daoism, some secular disciplines. We both fight against the spiritually empty Materialism that Auguste Comte and his Progressive followers have jammed down all of our throats!” [actually I pretty much agree with DR Farra on that as well].

Clearly we are in the Age of Science and unfortunately materialist Doctrine  - which is much, much different from two thousand years ago when Christ lived. And a large number of people say the conflict between science and religion is problematic, to say the least. To my knowledge there is only One thing common to both science and religion - and that is people. Studies of people have been done but the "Prove God norm-fallacy is an artificial academic roadblock that works only too well within academia and has effectively excluded all the studies from mainstream psychology under the guise of separation of church and state. Keeping information and studies from the public and which would help people understand spiritual people does not fall under the heading of separation of church and state.

Here are some notes from an academia-edu discussion

Thank you again You said - "my spirituality would be defined differently than yours." - I agree completely.! However, scientifically people - thought their experiences without question would be entirely unique - would in most cases fall into categories - for instance as Ingela Visuri's thoroughly researched and well thought out paper demonstrated Autistics who have spiritual-psychic experiences (not all do) have similar characteristics - such as invisible physical touch. Also people grieving who have experiences) often (not always) have visions of their departed loved ones.  Ingela Visuri observed that distress appeared to initiate spiritual-psychic experiences in many circumstances, experiences. Similarly, Jean MacPhail argues stress is an underlying cause.

Up Close and Personal:

When an Academic Abstraction is More Important than a Human Being

My Personal Story - Ultra Brief Summary

In Psychology when it comes to Spirituality it should be I'm OK! You are OK

When you get to the bottom of the barrel - in terms of psychology and human truth, the ultimate question is whether there is tolerance or not! That is the question. I have over ten documented precognitive dream and perceptions with reasonable interpretations. In light of the well-proven "categorization process my brain is doing exactly what it is supposed to. The reason I include this is because I believe  mainstream  psychology which has plenty of problems including Methodological problems needs to rethink their approach.

An ultra brief overview of 36 years of conditioning and abuse by mainstream psychology-psychiatry. The latest stupidity over a fallacy is outrageous. If mainstream psychology wants to fight of over a stupid and ignorant academic norm-fallacy - then, so be it. Works for me. 

Preamble - My situation in a nutshell: In my situation spirituality is very, very relevant - and I am Not the one who made this an issue. KP, Dr. Neal, and my "Lutheran" wife have made this an issue. KP thinks they can force me to acknowledge and submit to the "Prove God Norm-Fallacy" - which my 94 year old mother realized right away is utter nonsense - but KP and Dr Neal accept and condone. I complained twice to Kaiser Permenente. The first time the psychiatry manager stated that Dr. N could have said something more suitable. I improved my arguments and sent them again.

All Dr. N and KP had to see, is "I can see how you would look at things!" The psychiatry manger called up and tried to ram their sick ignorant Prove God Norm - which as the NIH article points out is "real" and is a "norm" and it is a vile sick degrading norm that conveys that spiritual and religious beliefs are so worthless and such ignorant nonsense that they don't even merit scientific investigation. In 36 years not one psychologist or psychiatrist asked one single question about my experience nor made any comments when I did bring it up! THAT is De Facto conditioning (which is why I stopped talking to them years ago - Dr N. is medication only). Not once did any professional say, "I don't agree with you, but I can see how you would look at it!" In 36 years not one kind word. Not even a glimmer from the authorities that I am OK - always negative comments - even at times what I would call gaslighting.   

Preamble - My situation in a nutshell: In my situation spirituality is very, very relevant - and I am Not the one who made this an issue. KP, Dr. Neal, and my "Lutheran" wife have made this an issue. KP thinks they can force me to acknowledge and submit to the "Prove God Norm-Fallacy" - which my 94 year old mother realized right away is utter nonsense - but KP and Dr Neal accept and condone. 

Stories have values in themselves because there is always a message of sorts in the story. This story is exceptional since it highlights the fat that in todays' society an academic abstraction is literally More Important than a Human Being -so that makes this story significant.  To re-emphasize my situation I would like to reiterate the "Don't you have a church to go to" story. In a Religion FB group a member stated bluntly: "Don't you have a church to go to?? Spirituality has no place in science at all!" What that individual was saying is that my spiritual beliefs are so worthless - such superstitious nonsense - they are not even worthy of scientific inquiry. How did this come about? It came about from the "Prove God Norm-Fallacy" which is alluded to in an article on the NIH Pub-Med site. Before proceeding, I need to state categorically that this question has absolutely Nothing to do with belief - it is a question of true or false and right or wrong - simple as that.

This is the question: Is the Requirement by Materialists - as illustrated by an article in NIH - that one "Prove God" in order for your spiritual and religious to be valid" a fallacy or not? My psychiatrist REFUSED to answer. It is a simple question. My 94 year old mother knew the right answer. I complained to Kaiser Permenente - they REFUSED to Answer. It is a simple question about logic and the rules of logic. Also it is a question of right and wrong. Now my psychiatrist knows that spirituality is a core issue with me, so her answer of "I have no opinion" was an insult and horrifically offensive to me. It was a scientific question posed to scientists. So, are you saying it is OK for scientists to be unscientific? That scientists aren't required to have ethics - not to mention compassion? I believe an apt analogy would be as if I asked a mathematician the question "What is 2 plus 2. To many scientists. spirituality is nothing but some sort of mind game. My 94-year-old mother can answer the question but psychologists and psychiatrists are going to play their sick little mind games? In 36 years not one mainstream psychologist or psychiatrist asked a single question about my documented precognitive experiences. That is very clear evidence of what their "true" intentions are. They have no intention of understanding spirituality - or supporting spirituality in any way. To me that is just a FACT.

For me, what psychology and psychiatry are doing is not an "academic" or trivial question. I have had numerous spiritual-psychic dreams and perceptions, over ten being documented. The pivotal, very detailed "What a nightmare- Mustard Seed" spiritual-psychic experience is Notarized and also happens to have a FOIPA stamp on it.  Some of the [accurate] details are: group, fabricating bombs, money, woman, 22 were assembled, New York, death, as well as the weathermen terrorist manifesto.

Due to a large degree to the maladaptive materialist stereotypes about spirituality, My children won't talk to me. I ended up debating - and outright fighting - with my "Lutheran" wife (soon to be ex-wife) about spiritual and religious issues. MY wife endlessly criticized my writing . I guess writing about the spirituality of art is just way too radical for the Lutheran leaders at St John's church, it seems. As a point of information I would point out that the Lutheran leaders at Christus Victor and St John's Lutheran churches never replied to any of my emails or requests for meetings, and did effectively blacklist me. That's the way it was - and it is still is the way it is.

In retrospect, the more I criticized psychology the more she and my children would attack me and my writing, until finally she and my children started saying that my experiences are psychosis. Now, since roughly the year 2000, I have had the same diagnosis of Mood Disorder: Dr. Neal, Dr. Schwartz, Dr. Mu, Dr. Woods (Va.), and a Johns Hopkins consultant (he actually diagnosed me bipolar). So, in my life, psychology and psychiatry has shown no consideration whatsoever for my values and inflicted serious harm and damage not only to me - but to the relationships I have with my family. At the very end before we split up, my wife got in my face and told me what a failure as a human being I was and how stupid I was to call the CIA prior to 9/11 when I did my best to warn of 9/11. It was vicious.

And psychology and psychiatry laid the groundwork for her actions. And now, in the middle of a bitter divorce, my psychiatrist tells me the "Prove God" norm-Fallacy which is wide-spread and communicates that my spiritual beliefs are worthless - no better than superstitious nonsense - is perfectly OK with her and Kaiser Permenente which is a sick and ignorant attack on my core values and beliefs!  So, yeah,....for me, this is personal. In any case, the moral of the Kaiser Permenente story is that my spiritual values were absolutely meaningless and utterly worthless to Dr. N and Kaiser Permenente - but that is pretty much the real story when it comes to society as a whole and especially mainstream psychologists and psychiatrists - though that applies to a number of medical doctors as well - including my pulmonologist at KP who turned up her nose at my questions. At the end of the day an academic abstraction was far more important than my spiritual beliefs and way far more important than any of my feelings. Am abstraction - and a fallacy at that is far more important than a human being to socials scientists today. That's the facts - nothing but the facts. 

 My Question is: How could a blatant fallacy like the “Prove God Norm-Fallacy” - which is very real as an article in the NIH Pubmed website demonstrates, and which communicates that all spiritual beliefs are worthless and superstitious nonsense - even exist at all in a civilization with such advanced technology and science. I mean “we” have Quantum Physics and Quantum Entanglement, and “we” can measure the spin of two subatomic particles separated by large distances – yet this blatant Fallacy as explained below not only exists – it thrives in the academic environment  Millions if not billions of social scientists believe this fallacy – and are perfectly fine with believing in a fallacy.

For the record - this essay is about methodology, the rules of logic, and right and wrong. The question has Nothing at All to do with either beliefs or God! - for the record. That is one reaosn I find the situation so upsetting. The Question was a question of methodology - of the rules of logicv- and Right and Wrong. Dr N and Kaiser Permenente showed a complete lack of ethics, a failure to distinguish between true and false and an utter and contemptible lack of compassion or caring for my values and my beliefs - like NO Consideration whatsoever. So, I messaged Dr N and told her I wouldn't meet with her until Kaiser Permenente adopted policies about spirituality that are not as sick, disgusting and hurtful as the ones they have adopted at the moment. 

        A Point of Order: Nine Significant Issues that social sciences-academia overlooked

No teachings of Religion (not even in psychology of religion books)

No teachings as a form of social conscious

No Social Consciousness

No categorization of types of spirituality

No spiritual-religious drive despite thousands of years

No concept of spirit in Geertz's universal  definition of religion

No Instincts

No group related emotions

Not one reference to religion in a 700 plus page social psychology Handbook - and yet the Taliban fought us to a standstill in Afghan'

The Enlightenment ideology, with its emphasis on ideals such as freedom, constitutional government and so on was a state of mind. In the same way the materialist ideology is also a state of mind. When it comes to spirituality, materialist state of mind would be similar to blinders put on racing horses' eyes to keep them form being distracted. But materialists will all tell you they have ALL the answers already - so they refuse to hear the question. As Christ said, "Seek and ye shall find"  States of minds are like filters (as Kat pointed out). As McGilChrist pointed out materialists are fixated on and "rigid adherence to physiological quantification. Since that is all they really sought they actually missed one whole hell of a lot of human consciousness, such as art, creativity, music, dancing, right and wrong - and so on. 

For the record, on this question

I have done my research

I have google searched

I have  asked authorities

Those specific issues the "science of psychology" overlooked.

People and Materialist Dogma - Smoke and Mirrors!

For the record I am writing an essay-complaint which I will file with the Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division  - for the record. Due to some precognitive dreams and perceptions of terrorism I connected with FBI agent McElwee who stated that "materialism has destabilized society (Duh). DOJ may likely be more open-minded than most of the brain dead academic materialists.

After 7 years of research I discovered all these wonderful materialist psychologists and psychiatrists actually know absolutely NOTHING about people with spiritual experiences - SQUAT. Dr Neal told me  that as a graduate of Johns Hopkins she had absolutely NO Training in peoples' spirituality or spiritual experiences. Her psychiatrist manger said eh didn't understand why psychiatrists don't have training about spirituality.

The psychologists, William R. Miller and Carl E. Thoresen, unequivocally state in their article, Spirituality, religion and health: an emerging field of research, that “A philosophical basis for this perspective is materialism, the belief that there is nothing to study because spirituality is intangible and beyond the senses.”

In this article the authors point out that materialists say "that there is nothing to study because spirituality is intangible and beyond the senses.”  I run into college graduates quite often who say the same thing - there is no spirituality because you can't measure it. So, my question is what are the studies that I cite below?? I'm telling you  materialism is all smoke and mirrors - nothing but a academic mirage of nothing but artificial and arbitrary prejudices and intolerances.  And there are a lot of other studies and experiments. Materialism is based on the make-believe academic abstraction of a spirit or God completely and totally disconnected from people. 

People have this idea of some kind of monolithic huge spirit entity something like the Blob that Ate Chicago (great movie). Once you take that out of the picture what you find are - rather incredibly - "People" - unbelievable - huh?? Spiritual people are People??? Who would have thought?

A Not So Brief summary of Types of Spirituality

 - Rough draft - a quick glance should help though

1, The spirituality of autistics (Varieties Of Supernatural Experience: The Case Of High-Functioning Autism by Ingela Visuri Ingela Visuri concludes, “A majority of the participants report unexplainable, sensory experiences that seem to occur without any input of stimuli: touch by invisible hands, visions of things that other cannot see, whispers when no one else is to at home, and sensations of invisible bodies being present. The autistic participants scored significantly higher on supernatural experiences when compared to the non-autistic sample, and the emergent literature suggests that unusual, sensory experiences are prevalent among autistic individuals.” The most salient aspect of autistic spirituality is that it would stand to reason that the consistent “peculiar” type of spirituality as in Invisible touch would necessarily appear to be a product of the “peculiar” autistic physiology.

2, Art has been intimately associated or connected with spiritual and religious beliefs since prehistoric times. Chelsea Ann Rulofson, in her thesis, Spirituality in Modern Art observed that, “Artists since the beginning of time have been closely and, most times, inseparably fused with spirituality and religion. (p.33). As Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907 – 1972), the famous Jewish theologian and Jewish philosopher, that “What would art have been without the religious sense of mystery and sovereignty, and how dreary would have been religion without the heroic venture of the artist to embody the mysterious in visible forms, to bring his vision out of the darkness of the heart, and to fill the immense absence of the Deity with the light of human genius.”(p. 118) As Jessica Frazier observes the inner vision and sight brings to life creativity in that “Art draws on emotion’s transformative, creative, generative power to shape reality as well as reveal it.”

The sociologist Carole Cusack observes, "It is a truth generally acknowledged that religions have been the earliest and perhaps the chief progenitors of cultural products in human societies. Mesopotamian urban centres developed from large temple complexes, Greek drama emerged from religious festivals dedicated to deities including Dionysos and Athena, and in more recent times Christianity has inspired musical masterpieces including the ‘St Matthew Passion’ by the Lutheran Johann Sebastian Bach (1686-1750), the motets of the Catholic William Byrd (1540-1023), and the striking paintings of the Counter-Reformation Spaniards Ribera, Zurbaran, and Murillo in the seventeenth century (Stoichita 1995). Nor can we forget the cinematic renderings of biblical story in such works as William Wyler’s epic Ben Hur (1959) starring Charlton Heston, Pier Paolo Pasolini’s (1922-1975) Il Vangelo Secondo Matteo (1964), or Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ (2004).

3, The spirituality of a person grieving for a lost loved one. Spirituality in grieving is well documented and quite common – since death is a universal in human life. The authors, Gilles and Neimeyer observe that Richards (2001) emphasizes the fact that in his study, “68 out of 125 participants spoke of spiritual phenomena in their experiences.” (p.33 Loss, Grief, And the Search for Significance: Toward a Model of Meaning Reconstruction in Bereavement, James Gillies and Robert Neimeyer)

A rare study of actual experiences by the authors of the article, Spiritual Experience, Church Attendance, and Bereavement (Linda S. Stirman Kenneth W. Sewell, Ph.D. Larry W. Easterling, Th.D. Louis A. Gamino, Ph.D.) stated that “Pastoral caregivers have long suspected that those persons who simply perform religious rituals or attend church regularly do not necessarily cope better with bereavement or other personal crises. This study seems to support these long held clinical observations….. [that] individuals do seem to cope better if they can "actualize" their spiritual experiences in times of crisis. In instances of loss and bereavement, such spiritual experiences may offer not only comfort but also a contextual framework of meaning for understanding.” This would seem to suggest that spiritual experiences may have a synthesis function in that Gilles and Neimeyer focus on meaning reconstruction – which spiritual experiences appear to help. Also, J E Kennedy mentioned briefly that spiritual experiences did seem to have an antidepressant effect.  

4, The spirituality of a recovering addict - which is also very real and a frequent occurrence. The twelve-step program of AA is well known as well as its pivotal concept of a Transcendental Spirit or God. While not everyone benefits form spirituality, it is a fact that some people do in fact benefit from spirituality and spiritual experiences. The conclusion of an article about a meta-analysis I is that “Clinical trials assessing the effects of RSI (Religious-Spiritual-Interventions) showed additional benefits compared with control groups, including reduction of clinical symptoms (especially levels of anxiety).” (“Religious and spiritual interventions in mental health care: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled clinical trials by J. P. B. Gonçalves, G. Lucchetti, P. R. Menezes, and H. Vallada)

5, The spirituality of awe-wonder - which has been studied tested and well proven – has been advocated by Einstein, Sagan, Heschel and many other leaders as very profound spiritual experiences which are a powerful source of inspiration as well as drive to understand and need for meaning.

6, The Spirituality of Adolescents first documented by Stanley Hall in 1882.

7, The spirituality of compassion. The compassion principle and doctrine are in every major religion: Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism (Upanishads), and Buddhism. There are 77.4 million American care-giver volunteers. Then of course, there are the "Christian" volunteers, Lutheran Dr. Sweitzer, Catholic Mother Teresa, who founded an entire network of charity hospitals.

8, The spirituality of civic activists like Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, and Tolstoy who had profound spiritual beliefs which served as inspiration for their idealism as well as drive and endurance in the face of despotic oppression of the establishment involving imprisonment and harassment at every turn.

9, Furthermore, in studying the effects of religion and spirituality on the elderly population Kraus found that (religious) social connections produced a “deeper sense of meaning in life,” improved “adoption of religious coping responses,” and better support for coping with financial strain.” (Handbook of the Psychology of Religion p.206)

10. Spirituality of NF Personalities: Using the Myers-Briggs personality model, “Keirsey (1998) stated that people having intuitive, feeling (NF) personality types are mystical in outlook and often explore occultism, parapsychology, and esoteric metaphysical systems.” (p. 267 J. E Kennedy PERSONALITY AND MOTIVATIONS TO BELIEVE, MISBELIEVE, AND DISBELIEVE IN PARANORMAL PHENOMENA. The significance of personality factors might best be illustrated “In a study of a technique attempting to induce a sense of contact with someone who had died, 96% of the participants with NF personality types reported after-death contact experiences, whereas 100% of the participants with ST (sensing, thinking) personality types did not have these experiences (Arcangel, 1997).” (p.267)

Spirituality: A Creative Force

I definitely do NOT identify myself as a "psychic." There are a couple of reasons. First off making predictions to make predictions just doesn't make sense, either psychologically, physiologically, or spiritually - as opposed to responding to stimuli! Historically, people who try to make predictions to make predictions have a high rate of failure (i.e. Jeane Dixon, Nostradamus, and even Edgar Cayce who did pretty well with individual readings but failed consistently when asked to make global predictions). That being said Primarily because I see my spiritual-psychic experiences as integral with "meaning seeking" and "purpose." Furthermore, to be honest, I personally have never really understood all the talk about "powers" and the "supernatural." I see spirit and spirituality as a vital force in human consciousness and life. That is, for me it has always been about meaning, creativity, drive-purpose, and problem-solving. I should emphasize I personally view reason and rational analysis as integrated with spirituality which can be highly emotional at times.  Artists have shown themselves as often being some of the most spiritual people you can find. I personally identify myself as an artist much more than a psychic.

Might Makes Right Historical Cycle

As a preface I should highlight the fact that in September of 2016, I wrote Maryland Congressman Ruppersberger and stated that Trump's nonstop hate speech and racist rhetoric would have a direct result of increasing hate crimes and extremist violence - which turned out - of course to be true. In both 2017 and 2018 hate crimes went up 17% (FBI statistics) and right wing extremist terrorism had a huge spike in 2017 and 2018. For the record I included research in the letter (which I had to scrounge and dig for) that demonstrated that police profiling of blacks is a reality and that a disproportionate number of unarmed blacks are killed by police than unarmed white s (who also get mistakenly killed by police. As a point of information, in 2016, I hand delivered Eric Holder, Obama's AG a letter (hoping at least then it might get read) requesting information about the notarized "What a nightmare warning from 1981 - which didn't get a response of course (as far as I can figure out I don't legally exist, to be honest). To cover my bases, I sent letters to the intelligence committees and relevant agencies as well in 2016.     

In mid March, 2017, I wrote the allies' embassies with an observation - "head's up" that America is in an historical cycle of  "Might makes Right"! Specifically, I stated that "Some Americans think they have all the power and all the answers. The truth of it is Americans don’t even have the right question."  Of course I did include my notarized, and exceptionally detailed precognitive What a nightmare - Mustard Seed' warning - which has a FOIPA stamp on it, as well! Some of the [accurate] details are: group, fabricating bombs, money, woman, 22 were assembled, New York, death, as well as the weathermen terrorist manifesto.

Three years later, an article on July 30, 2020 detailed Intelligence Leaks : The title of an article in the Indy 100, Independent, stated that “Trump accused of 'near-sadistic' bullying of Angela Merkel for 'vicious attacks' in private phone call” The article went on to say How Bernstein of CNN observed that Although Trump "regularly bullied and disparaged" other leaders like Emmanuel Macron, Justin Trudeau and Scott Morrison, his most "vicious attacks" were reserved for women, the report claims."

Of course the statement "Some Americans think they have all the answers fit Trump and Trump-Zombies perfectly. In a wider sense, it was dead on target in regard to the social. spiritual, religious and political leaders of western society in general, and below I will outline some very important questions which were not asked - and should have been. I should emphatically state that the "might makes Right" historical cycle applies to more than Trump. It is clear that Republicans as well as many "Christian leaders" are total Power Freaks at the moment.

At the outset of the first Impeachment trial Mitch McConnell made it perfectly clear that the trial was all about Power and that justice as well as right and wrong were being sidelined completely. No witnesses were called and it was strictly a party vote - except for Romney. The same thing happened at the second impeachment trial this time with the exception of Senator Mitt Romney joined by the Wyoming Congresswoman Liz Cheney who observed that Trump and his GOP backers are a threat to Democracy (Duh!) So, out of the entire Republican party only two Congressmen/Senators had enough courage - and moral conviction - to stand against the Trump "Mob" (which is what it is). So, Power is the dominant force in politics, much of religion - as well as many of the "objective" social scientists, in my view. I keep emphasizing that state of mind is "everything" - to paraphrase Buddha and hundreds of psychologists - and the current "Might Makes Right" historical cycle has shaped contemporary politics to a large degree. IN a Huge Power Play, Republicans in the past few months of 2021, in states across America, have introduced hundreds of bills and legislation designed to manipulate the voting rules so that minorities will become disenfranchised and lose their vote.     

Spirit and Spirituality as Drive!

When you step back and look at human history from a distance, it is abundantly clear that humanity has expended HUGE and TREMENDOUS efforts and resources into spiritual and religious beliefs - and endeavors. It is SELF-EVIDENT that one aspect of spiritual and religious beliefs would be as a motivation - as a Drive. On top of that the views of spirituality as "life-force" (drive) - is a concept nearly universal among early human societies (i.e. genesis 1:2 the Spirit of God” hovered over the waters during the Creation of life, earth, and the universe and alter God breathed life into man.

It is Blatantly and Flagrantly Self Evident that spiritual and religious beliefs are a motivation and drive. However, when I Google-Scholared Spiritual Beliefs (or religious beliefs) as Drives I got nothing. Also – for the record - Sociologists and anthropologists did not respond when I questioned them. Lastly when I briefly brought it up in an academia discussion in which a very knowledgeable (French) academic he immediately responded - 'Oh no - can't be, a famous anthropologist (whose name escapes me at the moment) already determined that spiritual beliefs in animals are all about and (totally) kinship relationships.” – Should spiritual and religious beliefs with no drive (or purpose) be allowed to stand? It is rather evident that there is an academic taboo against spirituality!

I have the hardest time convincing spiritual and religious people of a spiritual drive. But, first of all, if that drive didn't exist then how did they come across their beliefs in spirituality. Secondly, if a spiritual drive didn't exist then Christianity would never have come into being and Christianity wouldn't exist at all..

However, as Edith Weisskopf-Joelson (1910-1983), a Jewish immigrant from Austria, a psychologist, and professor who taught at Purdue, Duke and the University of Georgia, observed, “We do not tend to give much thought to the air surrounding us. Only when the access to air is reduced or completely discontinued, as it is in suffocation, do we become acutely aware of air and our need for it. In this respect there is a similarity between air and “the meaning’ of life. As long as life is meaningful, people tend to think and speak relatively little about its meaning. But as soon as there is a lack or absence of meaning, the problem of meaning plays an important role in a person’s awareness and expression.” (p. 359) On top of that I would emphatically argue that "Purpose" is critical for those who want to go in by the "narrow gate" - so taking purpose for granted can easily lose a persons' grasp of their purpose! 

                           The Teachings of Religions

If you stand back and view religions from a distance and ask - "What do religions do?" - the Teachings of religions is one aspect that appears very striking! That is religions advocate and profess teachings - which even a precursory overview reveal as being centered on relationships within the religious community - in fact they could be said to "define" religious communities. However, in all five of my personal Psychology of Religion books none had anything on the Teachings of Religion such as compassion, justice, righteousness, truth, duty-sacred relationships, and so on. In fact the most any of the psychology of religion books had as far as even compassion was one textbook which had 8 whole references to the word "compassion!" That's it! And the same book had the same amount of references to Freud - which psychology has actually abandoned long ago. As John Bargh stated, Freud has "demonized" the unconscious needs and drives. Lastly, when I google-scholared the Teachings of Religion - several times actually, I could find almost nothing. The only thing I could find is one essay about the similarity between Hindu and Christian Teachings.

If you stand back and view religions from a distance and ask - "What do religions do?" - the Teachings of religions is one aspect that appears very striking! That is religions advocate and profess teachings - which even a precursory overview reveal as being centered on relationships within the religious community - in fact they could be said to shape and form religious communities. Below is a link to an essay sketching the situation:

 Teachings of Religions a Brief Sketch Inquiry and Overview of Compassion and Truth as Two Illustrations - Formation of Relationships & Communities

 https://www.spirittruthandmeaning.com/teachings-of-religions-a-brief-sketch-inquiry-and-overview-of-compassion-and-truth-as-two-illustrations-formation-of-relationships-communities    

Where Would God Be Without People???

I have - not all that surprisingly run up against intolerance and ignorance of materialists who by the very definition of materialist doctrine regard spirituality as superstitious nonsense, and unfortunately some equally stupid religious leaders, as well as if there is one thing I am for - that would be people who have spiritual or spiritual-psychic experiences! My position is - in principle - when it comes to mainstream psychology - and theology - as well, it appears very evident that both mainstream psychology - and theology - have effectively marginalized "people" - especially people who have spiritual or spiritual-psychic experiences. I say - only partly tongue in cheek - where would God be without people??

Many scholars, including Francis Collins, Director of NIH, the French Philosopher Rene , the maverick scientist Rupert Sheldrake, psychologists Mossbridge and Baruss, Dr. Paul Wong, Dr. Stephen Farra, and many others have written about the Materialist Doctrine, at time referring to it as Rigid and Inflexible Dogma. In principle, psychology and theology - without spiritual people and people who have spiritual-psychic experiences - isn't worth all that much in my way of looking at things. However, when "The Story of Psychology" Textbook (Anchor Books, 2007), which is a 700 plus page comprehensive 'History of Psychology' textbook written by Morton Hall, a well-known and prolific author on the subject of psychology, there is not even a single reference to either spirit, spirituality, religion, or even meaning, it is blatantly evident that materialist Doctrine of No Spirituality, No Social Consciousness, and - believe it or not No Meaning (since there is No Purpose because purpose cannot be scientifically verified )

The end result of the Materialist Doctrine was that all the spiritual schools of thought such as Jungian psychology or logotherapy (based on Frankl's psychology) were marginalized and sidelined from mainstream psychology.    

The psychologists and anthology editors, Park and Paloutzian, in the Handbook of the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, state "numerous survey studies in both the United States and Europe have demonstrated the normalcy of reports of religious experiences, including mystical experience. Depending on the specific wording of the questions asked, anywhere from a third to a half of the populations affirm such experiences..., it does establish the normalcy of such reports and indicates social scientists have until recently ignored a common phenomena." (p. 67) While, the spiritual experiences in the survey-studies probably present a very diverse mix and a wide variety of experiences, however, it is clear that people who have spiritual experiences for the most part, not all that surprisingly, turn out to be, well,..."normal!" - contrary to what some people seem to think or have been led to believe. 

Perspective  

To understand the story behind the exceptionally detailed notarized Mustard Seed warning to the FBI, it is necessary to understand   the circumstances of my situation back in 1981 are extremely salient - which would include, in this case, political factors. In retrospect - the situation was a ready-made prescription for disaster. Ronald Reagan was President and H. W Bush was vice-president. My father, Ted Peck, at that time a corporate vice-president at Owens Corning Fiberglas, was a classmate of H.W. Bush who was a former CIA Director. Now, politically it wouldn't be likely to want my story to become public because I also am from Phillips Andover Academy as both Bush presidents are. On top of that the CIA Director Casey under President Reagan was, as the writer Woodward pointed out - literally, a paranoid when it came to President Reagan - so in a twisted paranoid mind - the fact that I was form Phillips Andover Academy and had foreknowledge of a presidential assassination, would mean - to them - there was some devious plot with Vice President Bush trying to come to power through the assassination of President Reagan. Of course the fact that I called to warn about the assassination would be an irrelevant point of information and fact to a paranoid. People in National Security are known to have some pretty wacky conspiracy theories from time to time.

The bottom line is that the likelihood of getting any rational or reasonable decision in those circumstances was somewhere between slim to none. In politics, even in ordinary circumstances it is not easy for organizations to reach reasonable conclusions and make rational decisions. Most veterans will tell you that the V.A. has problems. Many employees of agencies will also tell you that institutions have problems. In this situation there was as much of a chance of getting a reasonable decision as a snowball in hell. My read is that it made perfect sense to everyone to "bury" it and pretend it never happened. I believe it would be safe to say I got screwed, blued, and tattooed one hundred times over on my way to Sunday. And what was put into motion back in 1981 is still a problem for me. It would be my guess some of the hacking and other B.S. is a product of that, to be honest. 

The irony of the situation is the "What a nightmare" warning – which, again, is notarized with a FOIPA stamp on it, was the solution – on the face of it - to everybody's problems, as it were. It was so exceptionally detailed that any true analysis would show it had to be precognitive. on October 18, 1981. My "Mustard Seed" or "What a nightmare" notarized (with a FOIPA stamp on it) is an exceptionally detailed and very spiritual precognitive transcendental experience-warning. Some of the details in the precognitive stream of consciousness which turned out to be accurate are: group, fabricating bombs, money, woman, 22 were assembled, New York, death, as well as the title "What a nightmare" matching the weathermen terrorist manifesto. The “22 were assembled for instance, clearly related to the fact that the Weathermen terrorist gang had a shootout with the Nyack police force which the New York Times reported, after two officers were killed “had” 22 officers. Since neither the police nor the leaders of the weathermen “knew” there would be a shootout with the Nyack police force which had 22 officers. 

As a salient point of information: The DOJ-FBI (agent McElwee told me all material goes through the DOJ) has been blowing smoke for years. Despite many letters and requests I can't get anything out of them. As far as I can figure my call to the FBI in 1981 as well as the "What a nightmare document is not in the central indexes. For that reason I feel it necessary to emphasize that the "What a Nightmare" document is notarized with a FOIPA stamp (by sheer chance and coincidence, of course). The "What a nightmare" document has been on display on its page since 2017. Lastly - for the record - the reason walked into the FBI with the my "What a nightmare - Mustard Seed" warning is because after calling the FBI to warn about Hinckley's assassination attempt on Reagan I was fearful of the government (no surprise there) and I wanted to make sure "they" realized it was "psychic." For the record, I connected with Baltimore FBI agent McElwee because my computer got hacked which got exposed by emails from US Senator Van Hollen's. I believe that happened two years - or so - ago. I do actually try to help the best I can, and stay on the good side of the FBI as well, so I send her forecasts or heads up - as best I can.

An Ax to Grind

I have had unbelievably serious problems with government hacking and gaslighting recently - which I believe likely stems in part from the 1981 miscarriage of justice. And if the documentation isn't enough there are several federal agents - is put to the test - I could subpoena - FBI special supervisory agent V. (1981), Secret Service agent W. from the late 1980's, Secret Service agent A from 1981, and NSA officer I. I'm sure with a decent attorney that would be enough for them to dig out the truth which would match pretty well what I say.

Agent McElwee,

First - a brief Review of hacking:

1. recently (month ago?) I had pictures removed from my FB profile - one picture of a Muslim woman who had spiritual experiences and one picture of a transgender Gnostic woman - leaving a white woman who is a dear friend from long ago. My guess that is separate from the academia BS

2. I also had two emails (both actually from academia) removed from my computer some time ago (3 or 4 months ago)

3. on FB, a post I made about Congresswoman tampered with.

4. Back in 1984 when I called the Secret Service there was a loud buzzing noise

5. On the day after I called the CIA to want about 9/11 I watched as all the emails from my screen disappear.

The reason I have 4 and 5 highlighted and underlined is because this has been going on for some time.  As the article about the Maryland Spying uncovered" Undercover Maryland State Police officers repeatedly spied on peace activists and anti-death penalty groups in recent years and entered the names of some in a law-enforcement database of people thought to be terrorists or drug traffickers, newly released documents show. BY NICK MADIGAN SUN REPORTER   

JUL 18, 2008  https://www.baltimoresun.com/maryland/bal-te.md.spy18jul18-story.html

My guess would be that not everybody in National Security are boy scouts. I didn't think about those two incidents until after 9/11 but while it seems incredulous that anyone in government would go to the extent of deliberately gaslighting an American citizen, but after intense scrutiny, I resolved that this is actually what happened and my conclusion was that whoever was orchestrating this in government was trying, in my view, to destroy the Holy Spirit - with forethought and malice. That is what I think now - and that is what I will believe on the day I die.     

A while ago I sent the Academia-edu support an email saying I couldn't load a discussion. When the problem was resolved, I sent the academia support person an email thanking her. She replied that she - nor academia - did anything and that "everything" was on my end. She went on to say that I have more problems - by far - than anyone else. Recently - today and a couple of days ago I had two more essays that wouldn't load - which I reported again

On top of that, there are still ongoing problems with academia on my "precognitive dreams" essay - out of four or five uploads I got a total of 8 views while my essay for Mere Exposure Effect got 152 views. I sent academia a copy of something like 50 entries from Wheaton North High School from N.C. in a list of essay views. The academia support personnel said she gave it to the engineer because 50 views from the same source is not in the realm of reality. That still continues and Wheaton entries are still pervasive in my analytics.

Lastly, my wife, a lifelong Lutheran - who I am in the process of filing for divorce constantly degraded my writing and beliefs - which finally resulted in my exit from an impossible situation. 

What happened is that "we" started arguing about spiritual and religious beliefs and things just kept escalating - until at the peak my wife, my daughter, and my son told me right out that my PTSD - and my experiences - are psychosis. For the record - since roughly 2000 my diagnosis has always been "mood disorder": Dr. Neal, Dr. Schwartz, Dr. Mu, Dr. Woods (Va.), and a Johns Hopkins consultant (actually bipolar diagnosis) In my view, the entire situation doesn't add up - and stinks - in my view. In any case my wife made the decision to leave for me and in retrospect I should have left long ago. Since I left, I asked my daughter how "they" could even talk about "psychosis" when I have over ten documented dreams and perceptions - with reasonable interpretations. She didn't answer.    

I don't blame my wife because she is easily influenced. I do blame the "leaders" at St John's and Christus Victor Lutheran churches.  They are supposed to be the adults and at least minimally enlightened - not ignorant and intolerant of spiritual-psychic experiences as they have shown themselves to be. Furthermore her Lutheran church deliberately refused to answer emails sent requesting meetings with the pastor and did in fact ostracize me. Now, my Mustard Seed Warning- Spiritual Experience is NOTARIZED with a FOIPA stamp on it. On top of that, it has been on my website now for 6 or 7 years. The details in the Mustard Seed Spiritual Experience have no comparison in historical documented experiences - or compared to Old Testament prophecies such as Jeremiah's "foe from the north" or the "70 year exile" prophecy. I tell you if I ever run into the bishop I will explain to him - in explicit terms how stupid, ignorant, and absolutely hateful they have been about spirituality and spiritual-psychic experiences. In the end, I lost, my wife lost, my children lost and Lutherans lost as well. The Lutherans lost me - and my writing is creative and they lost my wife as well. And all because they REFUSED to hear the question.

Problem Solving and the Spiritual Beliefs in Animal Spirits.

Some might think that "problem solving" idea connected with spirituality might appear as somewhat of a paradox or dilemma, so a brief overview of "problem-solving" in spirituality would be in order! From a different perspective - in contrast to powers, the supernatural, or even transcendental - spiritual beliefs are very down to earth! It may be somewhat of an oversimplification - but if you look at the hunter gatherer stage, the "hunter-gatherer problem" was to acquire sustenance and food via the vehicle of hunting. The "spiritual solution" was the creation of spiritual beliefs in animal spirits.

As Erica Hill observed in her article, "Animals as Agents: Hunting Ritual and Relational Ontologies in Prehistoric Alaska and Chukotka", the spiritual beliefs in animals permeated everyday behavior of ordinary people as well as pretty much the entire social structure of society. Erica Hill details numerous rituals and particular ways of thinking of animals as "agents" by ordinary people in everyday life as well as by shamans. The spiritual beliefs in animal spirts provided an extensive structure and support for the hunting activity vital to the survival of hunter-gatherers. So, it is crystal clear that the spiritual beliefs in animal spirts played a role in hunter gatherer society and performed a function in contrast to the Academic Materialist Doctrine that all spirituality is "superstitious nonsense - which is in and of itself utter "nonsense!"   

The same could be said to be true of the ancient Mesopotamian Sumerian religious beliefs. The problem for the Sumerians was that the crop that provided them sustenance required a centralized irrigation system that could only be maintained with centralized, organized labor. The pivotal concept of the Sumerian religion was the idea that man was created for the purpose of serving God, and the Sumerian religion developed into a Temple Economy which was a centralized labor-distribution center. This same synchronicity with environmental factors can be seen in many religions. From experience and research it is clear that spirituality and spiritual beliefs are incredibly complex with all sorts of processes playing into spirituality.

Gifts, Personality, Talents, and Spirituality

A common theme found in many major religions is that spirituality is not a monolithic entity, but that spirituality is seen in early Christian, Muslim, and Hindu traditions to be a function of personality or "talents" - for instance as in the "gifts" of Corinthians such as wisdom, knowledge, discernment, healing, prophecy and so on. When you look back at the early human cultures and spiritual-religious beliefs, as the philosopher Susanne Langer observes: "Every culture develops some kind of art as surely as it develops language. Some primitive cultures have no real mythology or religion, but all have some art - dance, song, design (sometimes only on tools or on the human body). Dance, above all, seems to be the oldest elaborate art." The point is that there are a whole lot things going on besides the transcendental or supernatural aspect of spiritual beliefs. That is, spirit and spirituality are vital to life and living and very relevant to everyday life much more than  spirituality is otherworldly, so to speak. 

This view of diverse processes and functions interconnected happens to dovetail into modern neuroscience. As context for this quote by neuroscientists on morals, a thought to consider would be that - partially, in a sense - morals are a subset of spiritual and religious beliefs in that morals originated as Emile Durkheim noted with religion. Funk and Gazzanigna observe that: “Moral neuroscience is an intricate and expanding field. This review summarizes the main scientific findings obtained to date. Morality is a set of complex emotional and cognitive processes that is reflected across many brain domains. Some of them are recurrently found to be indispensable in order to emit a moral judgment, but none of them is uniquely related to morality…………Some of the emotions processed are more central to morality than others, but all emotions contribute to moral judgment given specific contextual situations. (Brain Architecture of human morality, Funk and Gazzaniga)…….The neural circuits of brain regions implicated in morality overlap with those that regulate other behavioral processes, suggesting that there is probably no undiscovered neural substrate that uniquely supports moral cognition.” Brain Architecture of human morality, Funk and Gazzanigna Current opinion in Neurobiology 2009 19:678-681)  The point is that the totally and completely fixation on the supernatural transcendental or spirituality is unnatural, unrealistic , and - in my view -unhealthy! One aspect of spirituality is the very down to earth spiritual vitality, creativity and drive that invigorates and sweetens life.

 Maladaptive Stereotypes, Misconceptions, and Prejudices in "Spiritual-Psychic"

There are more misconceptions, misunderstandings and prejudices about spirituality than probably any other aspect of human consciousness. The fact of the matter is that I am nothing at all like how most people view and understand psychics. I don't look into crystal balls and make predictions. Rather, it is clear in my case, I respond to largely unconscious social signals and political stimuli (historically making predictions to make predictions results in an extremely high rate of failures  as in Jeane Dixon, Nostradamus, as well as Edgar Cayce's Earth Change predictions). Furthermore I don't read minds - though at times, I do seem to grasp political-ideological states of mind. Without doubt I do Not have Powers - If I had any powers I can tell you things would be a lot different. Lastly, - just for the record - I can't leap over tall buildings with a single bound! In case anyone was wondering, that is. I have had a neuroscientist on a FB site babble about spirituality involving "Giant Cosmic Parrots" - just saying!

I am far from perfect. I make mistakes - all the time, in fact. The truth of it is, no psychic or prophet is perfect (for the record, an Anglican priest did say unequivocally that prophets are not perfect). They all make mistakes. Tim Callahan, a theologian, pointed out that Ezekiel's prophecy about he fall of Tyre was flawed. Ezekiel prediction the Babylonians would utterly destroy Tyre. Historically, Tyre paid tribute to the Babylonians and It wasn't until Alexander the Great, hundreds of years later that Tyre was capture. For the record God does not put prophets on earth solely and entirely to make predictions. Although some "Christian leaders try to justify religious beliefs on the basis of accurate predictions (divine insight), that simply makes no sense at all. How dio accurate predictions justify religious beliefs?

In my view, Christ's "fruitfulness" is the only true measure of spiritual or religious beliefs. I fact, "Prophecy" - from a historical viewpoint would evidently be more about shaping human consciousness - since, historically, that is actually in fact what prophecy - as a general purpose - did frequently accomplish. Finally, from my Personal viewpoint, in this life, I plan to make a whole lot more mistakes before I die. For the record, statistically (whatever that is wroth), my exceptionally detailed "What a nightmare - Mustard Seed" is statistically has the odds of a Mega-mega million ticket which would be astronomical, so I could make thousands of mistakes and my experiences would still be statistically significant.

Lastly spiritual-psychic consciousness, so to speak, is limited. God may be unlimited, but human consciousness is only too limited. In documented precognitive spiritual-psychic experiences, places are very rare, timing is almost nonexistent, there is no record of anyone coming up with a name in any impersonal precognitive experience, and symbolic-historic visibility in the collective consciousness such as with 9/11 (the parapsychologist Dean Radin pointed out there are something like over a dozen documented precognitive foresights of 9/11 - and two of them I know are from children). From experience I know that it is a fact that there are some things I can do and somethings I can't . There are times I seriously and intensely wish I could give better details - but it is what it is.

Religious Beliefs: Weaknesses and Strengths  

In today's world there are a large numbers of people  who view religious beliefs as inherently destructive - and worse that spiritual beliefs and the Teachings of Christ are bad because religions have gone astray. First religious beliefs - which are only too often closely tied with group-related instincts and the ingroup-outgroup syndrome are completely separate and distinct from spiritual beliefs and processes. As a Baptist woman once told me, "Religions are made of man! Spirit is of God!" - which is basically true.  My writing focuses on spirit and the interconnections between spirituality and consciousness- something I could write about for the rest of my life and still not be done. Spirituality can be a unifying force - which the world very much needs at the moment.  

Religions, like anything else have weaknesses and strengths. The question is important in my view because from discussions with psychologists and some religious leaders, that there is an over-emphasis of psychologists as well as some spiritual and religious people shifted spirituality into being an otherworldly concept disconnected for its origins and purpose. I spoke with a few "Christian leaders" about the very salient problem that psychology (which is only too true in too many ways a teaching that has resulted in many young people believing spiritual and religious beliefs are not "relevant") as it is presents spiritual and religious beliefs are distorted . Three "Christians leaders" responded very similarly saying, "God knows this - and God will take care of it"  Being that, nowhere are there any scriptures anywhere, in any of the world religions that say religious people can sit on their butts and do absolutely nothing - and still expect God to do everything, I responded, "In that case - since God does everything, that makes you completely and utterly worthless - especially since psychology is man made and not of God to begin with.

As a brief qualifying statement about religious beliefs - to be blunt - When it comes to God it entirely depends on whose God one talk about.  It is crystal clear with the politicization of Christ's teachings, that many politicized Christian leaders - especially some Evangelical leaders are deliberately manipulating "Christians" by fixating on God as the "Ultimate Truth" - and then putting their political views of all things in God's mouth. The "fruit" of their works is the right wing Christian terrorist attack on the capital (coupled with right wing political fanatics). I got into debates with "Christians" about the Christian No Mask Madness (as a result I got thrown out of one of the Baltimore County Politics FB Group) . When you get to the bottom of the barrel these Christians used God as reason - or excuse for their irresponsible actions. "God" is likely the most mis-used and abused idea-Being - in the world, by far. Group related instincts and the ingroup-outgroup syndrome likely played a large role in their skewed thinking. In the end a Christian - or any true religious person can not use God as an excuse - or crutch - and must take responsibility of their own actions.  In ay case there is a distinct and identifiable difference between spirituality and religious beliefs - mostly centered on group-related instincts and the well-proven and very powerful ingroup-outgroup syndrome.

That is, as Carl Jung emphasizes, the critical notion of a person or Being is the idea of the individual as, “the one source of moral and spiritual progress for society”. Jung’s view of the primacy of the individual and the importance of the individuation process he puts succinctly when he says, “Resistance to the organized mass can be effected only by the man who is as well organized in his individuality as the mass itself ” (Jung CW Vol. 10 par. 540, italics Jung). Complementing that insight, Viktor Frankl stated emphatically: “We do not ask life what the meaning of life is. Life asks us, what is the meaning of your life. And life demands our answer.” That is, the "Truth" of God, for better or worse, is  the individual's understanding of God. So, it would seem evident that the "True Spirituality" of the individual (in his or her understanding of God) is critical in the final determination of "Truth."  That would be paradox in that the "Truth" of God is shaped by the "Truth" of individual's and people. Of course that brings the question: Are people part of the "Truth" in the "Spirit and Truth" from John 4:23-24?     

Ideologies and State of Mind

The Might Makes Right historical Cycle is about a "state of mind," much the same as the Ideology of the Age of Enlightenment was about a state of mind. The ideals in the Enlightenment Ideology gave birth to the American Declaration of Independence and the French Revolution. Contemporary Politics in America clearly demonstrate that is "Power" (with a capital "P") has gone to the heads of the Republican leaders.

The Fake News Impeachment Trial of Trump

In the First Impeachment Trial of Trump for illegally coerce Ukraine and other foreign countries into providing damaging narratives about Joe Biden's son for his own personal political agenda. That resulted in the US Congress passing two article of impeachment: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.  From the very outset, the Republican Senate Majority leader Mitchell McConnell Jr made perfectly clear he had no intention of conducting any hearing at all -w which is what transpired. No witnesses were called, no real consideration of the issues of right or wrong were undertaken. It was all about Power - plain and simple.  The pattern repeated itself in the Trump's second impeachment trial. In fact, at the moment the GOP is trying to unseat the one Republican, Elizabeth Lynne Cheney the U.S. Representative for Wyoming who voted her conscience (though Romney also voted his conscience). (I mean - Good God, Republicans can't have people voting their conscience and actually bringing in "morals" into political issues - right?)   

Republicans' Blatant Attempt to Roll back Civil Rights Legislation in an All Out Power Grab

Since the days of conflict over civil rights during the 1960's, America has never seen such blatant nd flagrant illegal attempts to restrict the rights of minorities. The Washington Post's article headline pretty much says it all: "How GOP-backed voting measures could create hurdles for tens of millions of voters. At least 250 new laws have been proposed in 43 states to limit mail, early in-person and Election Day voting." (Washington Post By Amy Gardner, Kate Rabinowitz and Harry Stevens, March 11, 2021)

David Graham, in the article "The Republican Party’s Irrational War on Voting Rights State-level efforts to restrict the franchise may hurt democracy—and also, the GOP’s own voters. (MARCH 20, 2021 David Graham, Staff writer at The Atlantic) explains that "Although Republicans in state capitols around the United States have sought stricter voting laws since Biden’s victory, the Arizona GOP is in a class of its own. Legislators have introduced 22 bills that would restrict voting (of minorities). The Republican Power Play regarding voting laws without question aimed at restricting the votes of minorities such as Latinos and blacks, clinches my "might Makes Right" argument.

I try to emphasize that - while many feel "we" have all the (academic) knowledge and power - there are a number of forces at work in the world which are extremely powerful. Some foreign countries forces appear to have powerful influences that echo Trump's extremism. An article in News Wire dated 5-10-21:  "French government furious over new military letter warning Macron of 'survival' of France." I have argued that the rise in immigration (Europe has been vulnerable to massive immigration due in part form the Iraq War and the civil war in Syria - thought as w all know America has been subject to an increase in waves of immigrants), the decline in religious affiliation and the rise of the Materialist Doctrine devoid of any spirituality whatsoever, social consciousness, the changes in the human environmental (especially - in this case - the rise of the LGBT - which kicks in group related instincts that extremist right wing leaders are preying on) has been origins for the rise of the conservative movement in America - as well as a spike in right wing extremism worldwide. On top of that, There is a definite correlation between religiosity and conservative political beliefs - which would seem an underlying cause as well. Lastly France has suffered horrifically from Islamic terrorism, There were 22 Islamic terrorist attacks between 2015 and 2018 which cost 249 French People their lives.

5. Historical Cycles B: As Carl Jung and William James argue, Experiences are a primary force in shaping peoples' worldviews and beliefs. Among the different religious beliefs there is an almost universal view that personality - and circumstances - determine a person's spirituality - as in wisdom, knowledge, discernment, healing, prophecy, and so on. I believe I could safely describe my "talent" as Political Intuition-Precognition. To be honest most of my perceptions relate more to intuition, a political situational sense or a sense of historical cycles. My situation is perhaps best understood in terms of an analogy to the engine of a jet fighter. The main engine would be intuition, a political situational sense, and a sense of historical cycles. The spiritual-psychic part would be the after burner of the fighter's jet engine. Several people have observed I bring up unusual questions - which I think is good. I consider being different one of my best assets.

Hegel's Tripartite Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis theory of historical cycles: "Academic Materialism" which excludes all spirituality, has social consciousness and "No Meaning" (believe it or not). Academic Materialism deviates from scientific materialism - which is based on the principle that physiological evidence as a means to measure psychological phenomena is needed - artificially excludes all spirituality with the academic "Prove God" maxim which - believe it or not - requires spiritual people to prove "spirit" in order to show spiritual beliefs are legitimate. Academic Materialism dominates academia at the moment. When a 'History of Psychology'

 textbook does not contain even a single reference to spirit or spirituality, two paragraphs on collective consciousness excluding McDougall Group Mind, of course, and no reference to meaning, you know "Academic" Materialism is real.

There would be no question in anybody's mind that Academic Materialism is the complete and utter opposite of "Christian Teachings/Theology. As such, "Academic" Materialism is clearly the Antithesis, then. Of course, Academic Materialism has been able to undermine spiritual and religious beliefs primarily through its artificial "Prove God" Maxim - which since it requires something impossible happens to be a "fallacy."  Here is a link to an explanation https://www.spirittruthandmeaning.com/jungs-mars-prophecy-extreme-escapism-academic-materialism-fallacy   

Since Academic Materialism has undermined (unfairly and unscientifically) spiritual and religious beliefs by labelling All Spirituality as "superstitious nonsense" - including the spirituality of artists, of awe-winder [which Einstein and Sagan both promoted], of grieving, of recovering addicts ,of autistics and so on) - there has been a dramatic decline in religious affiliation. Most Christian leaders talk about a post Christian era. On top of that, with the advent of the internet and social media there has been almost a diaspora in human consciousness. Anything and everything has become available. One PRRI article mentioned that "hybrid beliefs are common. That is, beliefs today are very "fragmented and diversified, as it were. It would seem rather evident that Western Society is in a deconstruction and structural disintegration, as it were. If Hegel is right, then "we" theoretically should be coming into the synthesis phase soon. But that is just "theory."In letters that I mailed to the embassies of our allies in Mid-March 2017, I stated: "I read an article which said that Trump’s envoy to the United Nations was going to “take names” and dictate terms to the nations of the world. That is an utter disgrace. When it comes down to it, at times, Americans can be downright arrogant. Some Americans think they have all the power and all the answers. The truth of it is Americans don’t even have the right question. History repeats itself and has definite cycles. I believe America is in the cycle of might-makes-right. After the Athenians defeated the Persians they rose to the leadership of the Greek world. They used their power to bully and dictate terms to their allies. The Athenians ended up massacring all the inhabitants of Lesbos on the argument that might-makes-right. Their policies ended up backfiring." I should mention, in passing, that after I sent the letters to the allies' embassies and afterwards sent copies to several Senators. For the record, I did get a letter from U.S Senator Van Hollen - and my computer also got hacked - which is how I "connected "with FBI agent McElwee (lucky me - huh?). 

Three years later, an article on July 30, 2020 detailed Intelligence Leaks : The title of an article in the Indy 100, Independent, stated that “Trump accused of 'near-sadistic' bullying of Angela Merkel for 'vicious attacks' in private phone call” The article went on to say How Bernstein of CNN observed that Although Trump "regularly bullied and disparaged" other leaders like Emmanuel Macron, Justin Trudeau and Scott Morrison, his most "vicious attacks" were reserved for women, the report claims. Bernstein quoted one of his sources as calling Trump's phone calls with Merkel and May "near-sadistic!" Some of the things he said to Angela Merkel are just unbelievable: he called her 'stupid,' and accused her of being in the pocket of the Russians. He's toughest with those he looks at as weaklings and weakest with the ones he ought to be tough with. The intelligence leak from foreign intelligence sources led to further revelations such as how Trump called May a “fool” on a phone call which was alter verified by former National Security advisor Bolton in his book. Bolton went on to say how he, former Secretary of State Tillerson, former Defense Secretary General Mattis, as well as another former top national security advisor all agreed that Trump is “delusional” – off his rocker in common parlance. So, it turned out I was right and then some in my letters to allies. degraded and vilified the leader of other allies such as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as well as French President Emmanuel Macron. 

That is Exactly Trump and McConnell's attitudes and beliefs: "Justice is nothing but the advantage of the stronger!" Convicted out of his own mouth, as the impeachment trial was getting ready to get underway at the Senate, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) stated outright that no one should "expect him to handle President Trump’s impeachment trial as an impartial juror: “I’m not an impartial juror. This is a political process,”" McConnell told reporters Tuesday while fielding questions about the upcoming trial. 

In the First Impeachment Trial of Trump for illegally coerce Ukraine and other foreign countries into providing damaging narratives about Joe Biden's son for his own personal political agenda. That resulted in the US Congress passing two articles of impeachment: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. From the very outset, the Republican Senate Majority leader Mitchell McConnell Jr made perfectly clear he had no intention of conducting any hearing at all -w which is what transpired. No witnesses were called, no real consideration of the issues of right or wrong were undertaken. It was all about Power - plain and simple. The pattern repeated itself in the Trump's second impeachment trial. In fact, at the moment the GOP is trying to unseat the one Republican, Elizabeth Lynne Cheney the U.S. Representative for Wyoming who voted her conscience (though Romney also voted his conscience). (I mean - Good God, Republicans can't have people voting their conscience and actually bringing in "morals" into political issues - right?) 

Since the days of conflict over civil rights during the 1960's, America has never seen such blatant nd flagrant illegal attempts to restrict the rights of minorities. The Washington Post's article headline pretty much says it all: "How GOP-backed voting measures could create hurdles for tens of millions of voters. At least 250 new laws have been proposed in 43 states to limit mail, early in-person and Election Day voting." (Washington Post By Amy Gardner, Kate Rabinowitz and Harry Stevens, March 11, 2021)

David Graham, in the article "The Republican Party’s Irrational War on Voting Rights State-level efforts to restrict the franchise may hurt democracy—and also, the GOP’s own voters. (MARCH 20, 2021 David Graham, Staff writer at The Atlantic) explains that "Although Republicans in state capitols around the United States have sought stricter voting laws since Biden’s victory, the Arizona GOP is in a class of its own. Legislators have introduced 22 bills that would restrict voting (of minorities). The Republican Power Play regarding voting laws without question aimed at restricting the votes of minorities such as Latinos and blacks, clinches my "might Makes Right" argument. 

I try to emphasize that - while many feel "we" have all the (academic) knowledge - and thus power - there are a number of forces at work in the world which are extremely powerful. Spiritual and religious beliefs have been powerful forces in history - yet academics have largely written off spiritual and religious beliefs because the Materialist Fallacy that "All Spiritual and Religious beliefs are superstitious nonsense. I guess they forgot to tell the Taliban in Afghanistan that their beliefs are superstitious nonsense.

Currently, Some foreign countries forces appear to have powerful influences that echo Trump's extremism. An article in News Wire dated 5-10-21: "French government furious over new military letter warning Macron of 'survival' of France." I have argued that the rise in immigration (Europe has been vulnerable to massive immigration due in part from the Iraq War and the civil war in Syria - thought as w all know America has been subject to an increase in waves of immigrants), the decline in religious affiliation and the rise of the Materialist Doctrine devoid of any spirituality whatsoever, social consciousness, the changes in the human environmental (especially - in this case - the rise of the LGBT - which kicks in group related instincts that extremist right wing leaders are preying on) has been origins for the rise of the conservative movement in America - as well as a spike in right wing extremism worldwide. On top of that, There is a definite correlation between religiosity and conservative political beliefs - which would seem an underlying cause as well. Lastly France has suffered horrifically from Islamic terrorism, There were 22 Islamic terrorist attacks between 2015 and 2018 which cost 249 French People their lives.

Perspective on the Age of Science:

The world, especially considering the technological, scientific, and social-political revolution in the last two hundred years, has totally changed and altered the world about 10,000 times over again from two thousand years ago. For instance, some scholars refer to the Axial Age that preceded Jesus Christ and many other spiritual and religious leaders, as a period of great change that laid the spiritual foundations for Jesus Christ and other spiritual and religious leaders who were to follow. That is, from roughly 900–200 BCE a different worldview and way of thinking developed pretty much at the same time in China, India, the Middle east, and the Northern Mediterranean during which social unrest and political upheaval created conditions for social-religious developments and change. Now two thousand years - and more - later we are in a completely different age - the Age of Science. Science names the tune. It really isn't all that difficult to dance to the music. 

However spiritual and religious leaders, in my experience have seemed for the most part unwilling to lay aside the transcendental concepts (i.e. God), or Metaphysical concepts such as enlightenment and rely on what you can study and measure - which is people. Numerous studies have been done which show that actually in truth and reality there are very real spiritual beliefs and that some people do in fact benefit from them. An most scientists seem to be stuck in their Materialist Dogma and literally exclude all spirituality based mostly on the artificial academic "Prove God" Maxim. In the meantime materialism has polarized society as can be easily seen by the curriculum in Maryland (and other) Universities as well as a recent PRRI study whcih shows 31% of people actually believe that there is "No spirituality."

Perspective

To prove spirituality exists I only have to prove 1.5% of people in the world are really and truly spiritual!! Perspective quite often gets distorted when it comes to spiritual and religious beliefs! People, often due to "maladaptive stereotypes" generated and often encouraged by Academic Materialist  which envision "Spirit" as something huge monolithic "Supernatural Thing or Being" Even early religious beliefs always viewed spirituality as relative to personality and talents such as the spiritual gifts of wisdom, healing, discernment, knowledge, bravery, judgement, prophecy and so on. Modern science confirms this showing spiritual beliefs varies depending on personality (ie NF personalities), genetic predispositions (twin studies how certain personalities tend to have spiritual psychic experiences) gender (many studies show women tend to be more receptive to spirituality and spiritual-psychic experiences, as well as experiences as Jung and William James point out. Finally, circumstances often create the tendency of people to have experiences - such as grieving, recovering addicts, depression, autistics, spiritual or religious awakenings, and even at times dangerous situations. On top of that there are awe-wonder experiences in which both Einstein and Sagan found profound inspiration and drive. And modern history has added on Near Death Experiences, Out of Body Experiences, as well as a resurgence in beliefs in crystals. 

Now, to make a point, I would point out that autistic children  - and autism is a well recognized condition, phenomenon and reality by science - consist of only 1.5 % of the population. So to prove spirituality is real - and exists - one would only have to show that 1.5% of the population are "spiritual." Park and Paloutzian in a recent review of "numerous" studies of spiritual-psychic experiences that minimally 110 million Americans have spiritual-psychic experiences. That is, somewhere between 1/3 to 1/2 of people have spiritual-psychic experiences - compared to 1.5% of people having autism. But most scientists and many religious people think in terms fi a big humongous God or Supernatural being - which can't be proved - or disproved. So, to emphasize my point - to prove spirituality exists I only have to prove 1.5% of people in the world are really and truly spiritual!!

The Historical Cycle of Science

Since Jesus Christ lived over two thousand years ago, the world - the human environment has undergone unbelievable tumultuous and revolutionary changes. In the last two hundred years alone the human environment has undergone incredibly severe social, political, psychological, as well as spiritual and religious upheavals unprecedented in human history. Today's world is so different from the world of Christ two thousand years ago, "we" might as well be form a different planet. The most salient change for spiritual and religious beliefs has been the emergence of "Science" which originated with the emergence of philosophers as early as the 6th century BC with the Pre-Socratic philosophers.

I asked an Anglican and an Episcopalian priest "If in light of the fact that Christianity fought science tooth and nail from Galileo to evolution and Darwin, isn't it historically ironic that Christianity failed to question or challenge psychology at all?" They both responded: "Yes - that is ironic!" Theologians and Christian leaders should have questioned psychology because there are several serious flaws in psychology that has distorted the understanding of spiritual and religious beliefs. The most serious problem is, of course the Fallacy that Academic Materialism is founded on. 

The bottom line is that in the current historical cycle, in the conflict between science and religion, science is naming the tune - and spiritual leaders and religious leaders - in the end - have to dance to the music, as it were. Carl Jung perhaps 50 years ago prophesied that due to the extreme escapism of psychology, we would travel to Mars and still not have come to grips with spirituality. That is very true. From rather extensive experience, I can also say that religious leaders and theologians have the same mode of extreme escapism when it comes to psychology. Except for some "Christian" psychologists, hardly any want to talk about psychology - that I can find.        

Overview & the Exceptionally detailed precognitive "What a nightmare - Mustard Seed" Experience

In all thirty eight years or so years of ups and downs, I have perhaps had as many as thirty or so spiritual-psychic experiences (mostly verbal).Of those there are over ten documented precognitive dreams or perceptions with reasonable interpretations.  These experiences could be best described as a grab-bag of various and diverse types of precognitive dreams and perceptions. Among them are a number of abbreviated "tags" - a relatively explicit "action with one or two details, as well as six or seven detailed dreams. Lastly, I do have a "Once-in-a-Lifetime" spiritually profound precognitive experience which turned out to be exceptionally detailed unparalleled and unrivaled in documented history which - to be quite blunt is far more detailed than any other Old Testament Prophecy. For instance Jeremiah's "foe from the north" and "70" year prophecies bear no comparison as far as detail goes.  

The notarized "Mustard Seed" or "What a nightmare" spiritual-psychic precognitive experience, from October 18, 1981 is by far the most exceptionally detailed and profoundly spiritual precognitive experience-warning. Some [accurate] details are: group, fabricating bombs, money, woman, 22 were assembled, New York, death, as well as the weathermen terrorist manifesto.  I am 68, and it is late in the game, so I need to emphasize that these are facts not up for debate.

Besides these explicit details, I feel I should highlight a couple of rather exquisite and intricate symbols and symbolisms in the Mustard Seed Spiritual Question. As with much of historical prophecies, there appears to be some symbolic and metaphorical synchronicities in the "Mustard Seed" precognitive stream of consciousness. The statements, “Time is at hand! Time is at hand, Angels said.” - and - “Fight Hard, Die Well! A prophet spoke!” match the deaths of the two policemen ("Time is at hand" - twice by an angel) and the death of one Brink's guard  (“Fight Hard, Die Well” a prophet spoke). Of course angels could be said to outrank prophets same as policemen outrank Armored car guards. That kind of precise detail of identifying - albeit metaphorically - specific people or types of people who would be prominent in the event is quite literally "unheard of" in the long centuries of documented historical precognitive warnings-predictions.

Not all that surprisingly the DOJ-FBI (agent McElwee said the DOJ oversees all paperwork, as it were) has been blowing smoke about the notarized "What a nightmare" precognitive warning which does by sheer chance and coincidence - has a FOIPA stamp on it - which is why I feel it necessary to emphasize that these are facts which have been in existence for over 36 years - and if the US government hasn't said anything, then I feel they have lost their chance, as it were. 

One reason for emphasizing these details is because many believe that prophecy and acts of the Holy Spirit are long gone - and they are wrong. To be honest, I have only come across - as of yet - maybe a half dozen or so "Christian leaders" who believe in "spirit and truth" as Christ meant it - though many ordinary people of all sorts and from all faiths who believe in spirituality, spiritual-psychic experiences, and transcendental spirituality .   

Instincts, Scientific Evidence and Alarm Calls

The most striking characteristic of these experiences would be that, while they occurred haphazardly, there is a very clear consistency in that all could best be described as "perceptions of threats to the group" - parallel to the alarm calls of animals such as vervet monkeys who have four separate alarm calls for four separate predators. For the record, much of the Old Testament Prophecies could possibly be put in context of "perceptions of threats to the group" - including of course social/religious consciousness and group solidarity. 

 The parapsychologist, Daryl Bem, through successfully repeated experiments demonstrated that precognition experiments do (at least in this case), in fact, produce consistently successful results.
In 2016, an article about a meta-analysis of these experiments states that "When Bem’s own experiments are included, the complete database comprises 90 experiments from 33 different laboratories located in 14 different countries. A total of 12,406 individuals participated in these experiments." The article goes on to say that the results showed that the experimental design focused on sex was by far outperformed the other designs. (A Summary of “Feeling the Future: A Meta-analysis of 90 Experiments on the Anomalous Anticipation of Random Future Events by Bem, Tressoldi, Rabeyron & Duggan). Daryl Bem told me that both he and the parapsychologist Dean Radin both agree that much of spiritual psychic experiences originate from instinctual processes.

Odd Man Out in Spirituality

 A description of myself, as "Odd Man Out" may be a good description. As Carl Jung and William James both emphatically state experiences shape spiritual and religious beliefs, and my experience - for better row worse - is different than most. For many, God is all sweetness and light. The Mustard Seed" experience was a burden - a problem with specific facts and loaded with religious symbolism and ideas that needed to be tackled and coped with. In contrast St Augustine's description of an experience of ascent to God with his mother at Ostia from Karen Armstrong's History of God book: "Our minds were lifted up by an ardent affection towards eternal being itself. Step by step we climbed beyond all corporate objects and the heaven itself, where the sun, moon nd stars shed light on the earth. We ascended even further by internal reflection and dialogue and wonder at your works and entered into our own minds.  (p. 217 A History of God, Karen Armstrong)

In reading Karen Armstrong's book, very similar spiritual experiences. Several Christians (as well as some Sufis) explain their spiritual experiences in terms of light - and strong positive emotions. My Mustard Seed Experience involved specific pieces of information that had to be explained - it wasn't just an emotional experiences that swept over me. It literally took me twenty or more years to sort a lot of it out. And I'm still working on it. I read Jeremiah and his split feelings about God I relate to very well, to be honest. God can be quite a task master, as it were. Most think in terms of God. After years of intense doubt and questioning I finally came to the conclusion and realized that the Mustard Seed spiritual experience was an expression of the Holy Spirit.

Everyone has their own personal way of looking at things or certain symbols or ideas which are keys to them to help them grasp the world and the All. What clicked for me is 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” First I would briefly mention that Geertz's five part definition of religion went the long way around, in a sense, in defining Truth, so Christ's statement made a lot of sense to me in a practical sense as well. Because specific information was in my notarized precognitive experience which came from "outside" myself I inferred a Transcendental Intelligence [God] of one sort or another. Yet, since the "divine" information was integrated with social signals and political stimuli the only concept that made sense was the Holy spirit - integrated with the Collective Consciousness, of course. I can talk about the Holy Spirt in a limited way, but "God" I don't talk about because it is presumptuous to begin with and I would have no idea of what to say, as it were - just simply beyond my wildest imagination - to paraphrase St. Augustine.      

In the time period immediately following the profoundly spiritual and exceptionally detailed (and notarized), 1981 Mustard Seed experience, mentally it was like being hit by a train. The human mind has to "do" something with every experience, and like many other people who have experiences like Rebecca and Flynn, the experiences can be traumatic and put some tremendous torque on the internal workings of the mind. In retrospect I can see how my mind tried to fi the experience into the existing worldview framework, looking at it this way, then that way.

The cognitive processes can run wild. Rational analysis is neither good nor bad. Rational analysis can be used to design the best services, and rational analysis was also used to design the most efficient killing and extermination machines in the Nazi Holocaust. and under the merciless microscopic view of logic and rational analysis, nothing can easily withstand unrelenting and heartless scrutiny. Tolstoy in his spiritual crisis discarded all of his emotions as being ultimately unworthy. I went through somewhat of the same experience as Tolstoy. The difference is that since part of the experience involved talking with an FBI agent, and the amygdala was involved and fear generated memories are almost indestructible, the initial "spark" - the genesis - and motivation - of the quest couldn't be eliminated. 

In my situation, my cognitive processes ran wild - - like a ravenous beasts devouring all my beliefs and worldviews. Much like Tolstoy I ended up much like a nihilist, believing in nothing. I had some really bad days back then. One day in particular, I recall being mentally over the line - completely. - likely some form of psychosis. And that woke me up. I said - "Enough" - and pretty much shut down the voracious and insatiable cognitive process with the epiphany that I will never fully comprehend I read the account of a person explaining a psychotic episode which he had had and he described how he kept getting more and more wound up and getting deeper and deeper into his delusions. My experience is when cognitive processes come across experiences that are acausal and outside rational analysis, they will run forever and a day - fruitlessly - if you don't keep them on leash, as it were. The bottom line for me is that I realized as St Gregory of Nyssa, St Augustine, and many others, that the Absolute Truth and the Ultimate Physical Reality are beyond my comprehension - as well as being beyond all human comprehension completely. .It was one of the best things that happened to me, to be honest - pretty humbling though - to realize how little one knows. 

Spirituality as Creativity, Drive-Purpose, and Problem-Solving

It might surprise many that, the way I see myself is more as an artist, writer and cultural dissident-spiritual activist. Personally I think Western culture sucks, to be blunt - especially "Academic Materialism which espouses no spirituality, no social consciousness, and -believe it or not - no meaning. Personally, view spirit, spirituality, and my self as being Creative, Motivation-Drive and guidance Innovative, Imaginative, and perhaps most important as Problem Solving. In a nutshell, my view could best be expressed in the argument that God gave people "spirit" for the purpose that their spirit would be able to help them to be productive and creative, to achieve worthy goals, and also to function effectively in the world. In this current historical cycle, my perception is the transcendental (God) aspect of spirituality has gotten way out of balance with the "fruitfulness" spoken of so frequently by Jesus Christ. That is, my argument is that spirituality -even if taken solely as the genetically acquired spiritual symbols and symbolism can be tapped into to enhance creative and productive instincts. Way too many people equate spirituality with the "supernatural" to be blunt - or enlightenment, rather than "fruitfulness" as Brian Josephson points out below.    

Brian D Josephson, a Nobel-prize winning quantum physicist who also believes that precognition and telepathy are hypothetical real possibilities, in his article, Religion in Genes (Nature, Vol 362, April 15, 1993) stated unequivocally that “With religion, focusing on the factuality or otherwise of religious belief similarly misses the point: the significant questions in this context relate to the functions and fruitfulness of religious beliefs.” “Dawkins criticizes religion on the grounds of apparent conflicts between religious beliefs and scientifically established facts.” That is, scientists are fixated on the "supernatural."  While I have learned you have to take each person as they come and there is a wide variance in beliefs, without question in the social sciences which studies have shown is especially skewed in psychology after encountering large numbers of psychologists-neuroscientists, I can honestly state the fixation with the supernatural is a big problem. On top of that I would add that - unfortunately way too many theologians have the same fixation with "enlightenment" to a very large degree.

Problem Solving and Fruitfulness  

I believe the Fruitfulness aspect of spirituality is so important that I should briefly sketch out some dimensions of that "fruitfulness." I must say that, in all my research, I have yet to come across any argument or theory that spiritual and religious beliefs -and spirituality - are in part functional "problem solving" - except perhaps for Durkheim. As Emile Durkheim emphasized, spiritual and religious beliefs have played a vital role in the creation of the norms, values, morality, social ideals, and, in the end, society itself.  In the social sciences the argument that religions played a vital role in the development of morals and social norms is almost universally accepted. . If you step back from the mental fog involved in ideas about he supernatural, we find that the truth of it is that spiritual and religious beliefs, for better or worse, were pivotal social - and political - forces in creating meaning structures social institutions and society. So let's take a quick look at some historical examples of spiritual beliefs in the context of simple problem solving.

In hunter-gatherer societies - in which the survival of human beings and the human species depended almost entirely on obtaining food by hunting animals - it shouldn't surprise anyone that human consciousness developed spiritual belief in animal spirits (duh) as a motivation and ritual-social structure to support the vital hunting-activity. That is, "the problem" was to obtain food through hunting animals. The solution, which in this clearly recruited spiritual processes in this case and used the spiritual beliefs in animals spirits as a tool to accomplish ends.

In Erica Hill’s very detailed and well thought out article, Animals as Agents: Hunting Ritual and Relational Ontologies in Prehistoric Alaska and Chukotka, Erica Hill clearly highlights the fact that the issue in the spiritual beliefs in animal spirits is the question “human relationships with the natural world” is the central issue. I need to emphasize that this means that the “supernatural” is the not the central issue, but -again – the “human relationships with the natural world” – which most of science over-looked due to their fixation with the supernatural as Josephson so clearly indicated. In a discussion with an academic on the question of the spiritual beliefs in animal spirit is performing a function of providing structure – and more importantly motivation in hunter-gatherer societies, the academic specifically said that an anthropologist had already determined that the function of totemic societies was to determine kinship relationship. It is true that the spiritual beliefs in animal spirits did provide structure not only in the hunting activity but also was enlarged to include social structure as well. It would seem self-evident that Religions since they need to envelop entire communities and societies would necessarily need to fulfill a number of functions to create and maintain a community. In general that principle of understanding spirituality in terms of human relationships with the world and the environment (as opposed to fixating entirely on enlightenment, the supernatural, and God, so to speak)

In Erica Hill’s very detailed and thorough article, Animals as Agents: Hunting Ritual and Relational Ontologies in Prehistoric Alaska and Chukotka, Erica Hill clearly highlights the fact that the issue in the spiritual beliefs in animal spirits, “human relationships with the natural world” is the central issue. I need to emphasize that this means that the “supernatural” is the not the central issue, but -again – the “human relationships with the natural world” – which most of science over-looked due to their fixation with the supernatural as Josephson so clearly indicated. In a discussion with an academic on the question of the spiritual beliefs in animal spirit is performing a function of providing structure – and more importantly motivation in hunter-gatherer societies, the academic specifically said that an anthropologist had already determined that the function of totemic societies was to determine kinship relationship. It is true that the spiritual beliefs in animal spirit is did provide structure not only in the activity of hunting but also was enlarged to include social structure as well. It would seem self-evident that Religions since they need to envelop entire communities and societies would necessarily need to fulfill a number of functions to create and maintain a community.

In summarizing the extensive rituals, rules, and taboos involved in the spiritual beliefs in animal spirts and the pervasive presence of spiritual beliefs in everyday life, Erica Hill states, “First, prey animals, including bear, walrus and whale, were perceived as agential beings who interacted with humans as persons; they were sentient social equals capable of deciding whether to favour humans by allowing themselves to be taken. Human hunters engaged with prey animals on a regular, perhaps daily, basis. Hunting ritual and observance of taboos were the responsibility of the individual hunter and his family members, whose duty it was to properly approach, take, butcher and dispose of the animal and its remains. Erica Hill goes on to say, “Two forms of material culture are indicative of this Eskimo–animal relationship: hunting amulets and caches of marine mammal and later, reindeer, remains. Amulets, buried with hunters and recovered from funerary contexts at coastal sites in Alaska and Chu kotka, materialized the relationship between hunters and the inuat of prey.”

Erica Hill highlights the relatively detailed procedures and protocols that structured the “human relationships with the natural world!” Erica Hill observes that the “Relations with these persons involved sets of rules and expectations and were predicated upon mutual respect, just as one’s relations with human kin were. Breaches of conduct, misunderstandings and bad manners had negative social implications, just as they did in interactions with one’s affines, cousins or trading partners.” Again, I feel I need to emphasize that the spiritual beliefs in animal spirits were not about the supernatural but about, as Erica Hill emphasizes, the “human relationships with the natural world!” The spiritual symbolism did was to “energize” the beliefs and belief structure.  

Lastly, at the end, Erica Hill wraps up her conclusions by stating that "Prey animals were members of other-than-human societies that were perceived by hunters and their families in profoundly social terms. Some sorts of material culture — processed animal bones, hunting implements or ‘ritual objects’, for example — should thus be interpreted as social media, rather than as religious paraphernalia. Shamans could play critical roles in interpreting, mediating and improving relations between human and animal societies. However, hunters who tracked, dispatched and transported prey and women who thought about, processed and shared animals and their remains engaged in daily discourse with other-than human persons and bore primary responsibility for maintaining these relationships."

Attention, Intention, Motivation, and Drive,

For perspective, it would be helpful to step back and take a quick look at the underlying fundamentals involved in religious and spiritual beliefs.  Clifford Geertz ’s reputation as a brilliant anthropologist is well deserved. He takes complex conceptual frameworks and expresses them in easily understood comprehensive statements. A pivotal argument in his writing is that symbolism and meaning are both essential and critical for both culture and religion. As Ira Chernus emphasized Geertz’s five-part definition of religion published in the mid 1960’ has become universally accepted in the social sciences. The pivotal concept of religion as a 'realistic' "system of symbols" in which emotions and "long lasting moods and motivations" play a pivotal role is central. 

“The view of man as a symbolizing, conceptualizing, meaning-seeking animal, which has become increasingly popular both in the social sciences and in philosophy over the past several years, opens up a whole new approach not only to the analysis of religion as such, but to the understanding of the relations between religion and values. The drive to make sense out of experience, to give it form and order, is evidently as real and pressing as the more familiar biological needs. And, this being so, it seems unnecessary to continue to interpret symbolic activities --- religion, art, ideology – as nothing but thinly disguised expressions of something other than what they seem to be: attempts to provide orientation to an organism which cannot live in a world it is unable to understand.” (p.140) Geertz never explains why he used the word “orientation” as a pivotal concept in his description of religious beliefs. However, several spiritual leaders advocate the idea that there is a spiritual substrate as it were which is simply an awareness or orientation of the world and the All.

 William James in the chapter Perception of Reality in his iconic treatise Principles of Psychology “makes the still startling assertion that “Will and Belief….are two names for one and the same phenomenon.” Even more fundamental and challenging is the formula he put in the note, saying “belief and attention are the same fact.”” (P. 46 Heart of William James) The contemporary psychologist, Eric Klinger, whose expertise is in personality psychology and motivation theory, focuses on the influences of motivation and emotion on cognition. Klinger suggests a “primary function of several emotions is to direct attention to concern-related stimuli. (p.42)

Neuroscientists also focus on attention – especially in the parietal complex and emphasize the intimate interconnections between attention-Intention and motivation. I feel it important to comment that this simple and basic function of emotions explains a pivotal function of the spiritual beliefs in animal spirits during the hunter-gatherer stage – to direct attention to animals being that at that stage animals were the source of the human species sustenance at that time [an argument I haven’t yet found in google-scholar search of anthropology and sociology]!

So, it would seem an inescapable conclusion, then, that a primary function of the spiritual beliefs in animal spirits would be to "direct attention" as Eric Klinger argues and William James observed over one hundred years earlier that "attention" and belief are intricately interconnected and - again - a major reason for the spiritual beliefs in animal spirits is to assure energy and attention is directed and focused on an activity which is prerequisite of survival - which most biologists would likely agree to be a "fruitful" pursuit." Of course I would be remiss if I failed to point out that the fruitful and down to earth goal of survival would hardly be said to be an entirely "supernatural" endeavor - though - again, very productive, creative, and - at least in my view - fruitful. I must confess though that staying alive does appear a rather worthwhile endeavor in my view (though I could possibly be highly opinionated, by some standards). John 6:63 "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”  In the Gospel of John the word "life" is mentioned 39 times, often in connection with spirt - for the record.  

Setting the Stage

There is a consensus - of course - that the conflict between science and spiritual and religious beliefs is a problem, to be quite blunt. What science and God have in common is people, so resolving that conflict by studying and analyzing spiritual people and people who have spiritual-psychic experiences - a great deal of which has already been done would not be that difficult. As Park and Paloutzian's recent review of "numerous studies show there are somewhere between 1/3 to 1/2 of people who have experiences from awe-wonder experiences, or enlightenment and spiritual experiences to ghosts. That is in America, minimally, there are 100 million Americans who have spiritual-psychic experiences - which as Park and Paloutzian state, show a "normalcy!"

What is stopping that? The "Academic" Materialist "Prove God" Maxim (which deviates from scientific materialism) which states one has to prove God before one' religious and spiritual beliefs are legitimate. It is impossible to prove God, of course, but what that created was a "norm" that "There is no spirituality" which is prevalent throughout academia and much of Western Culture to be honest. So, until the Materialist "Prove God" Norm is "removed" or pushed out, nothing will change. Almost universally, it seems, people have accepted and only too often internalized the "Prove God" norm.

The thing is I am not pushing the people issue because I "want" "People" to be the focus - it is the situation that requires studies and research into spiritual people and people who have spiritual-psychic experiences to resolve the scientific and psychological conflict over the question of spirituality. Enlightenment will Not do anything to solve the conflict and neither will miracles. The conflict needs to be resolved and from my experience and research, the Materialist norms are so deeply embedded in the the culture of academia, that it will take influence and persuasion to change the social sciences.

Materialism and Norms

Everybody today is aware of scientific skepticism, but few have a true awareness of the Academic Materialist scientific skepticism which is – quite frankly – skepticism on steroids and way over the top in their “rigid adherence” to materialism as the psychiatrist McGilChrist observed. However, when you review "The Story of Psychology," which is a 700 plus page comprehensive 'History of Psychology' textbook, written by Morton Hall, a well-known and prolific author on the subject of psychology (Anchor Books, 2007), and discover that there is not even a single reference to either spirit, spirituality, religion, or even meaning – then you know "Spirituality" is an issue and problem in psychology! Actually, a number of scholars, social scientists, and scientists, including Dr. Francis Collins, the Director of NIH, French philosopher Rene Guenon, the maverick scientist Rupert Sheldrake, the psychologists Baruss and Mossbridge, the physicist Josephson, and many, many other scholars, heavily criticize the Materialist Doctrine. For instance, In the book, Transcendent Mind, Mossbridge and Baruss briefly talk about the materialist understanding of consciousness as a “byproduct of the neurology and biochemistry of the brain” (p. 24) and how modern science has actually produced dogma, generally lacking in objectivity, which is “impervious to mere evidence.” (p. 24)

A Radical Argument? - or a Fundamental Reality Lost in the Fog of Theological Abstraction?

Spirituality is not about God - rather Spirituality is about people. 

I'm 68 and time is getting on, and I feel it is best for me to lay things out as I see them, no holds barred. What is the fruit of spirituality?? People would seem to be the self-evident answer. Think about it! Why would God give human beings spirit?? I mean God didn’t give himself spirit, He (or she) gave human beings spirit. That is, it is more-true that spirituality is not about God, but that spirituality is about people. As the physicist Brian Josephson observed most of science is hung up on the supernatural. The supernatural issue has muddied the water, to say the least. I would add that is clear to "me" that the same principle applies to only far too many Christians as well. My question is how can you understand God if you don't understand spirituality - and how can you understand spirituality if you don't understand the people? Possibly more important in the current ideological chasm between theology, religious beliefs and spirituality and psychology now driven by materialism – the only true bridge between the two would be people. That is science and god have this one thing – people in common.

Even though both psychology and religious leaders should be focused on people and the relevance of spirituality to people, as the psychiatrist Dr Neal pointed out, she has had no training on spiritual people or spiritual-psychic experiences. From experience and research that is a widespread phenomenon, with perhaps some local variations. I have a letter from U.S. Senator Van Hollen expressing interest in research into spirituality. I made serious efforts to talk to Munro the psychology chair at Towson University (MD). I finally did get a response from the psychology chair at Towson University stating that there is not one single psychology professor in his entire department that would have any interest whatsoever in any way shape or form in spirituality. So, the fact of it is that psychologists, most of whom will tell you they have all the answers, in truth have no idea whatsoever about what spiritual people are about – or what people who have spiritual-psychic experiences are like. A Kaiser Permenente psychiatrist I talked to very recently when I questioned him about training in spirituality for psychiatrists said he had no idea why psychiatrists get no training in spirituality and spiritual beliefs. I got into a discussion with a materialist who was perfectly fine with that. So, I asked, “So you are perfectly fine with 90% of psychologists being untrained, uneducated and just plain stupid? Is that right?? And it is a fact that our society is in fact paying people to be stupid! That’s a fact. Stupid is as stupid does.

Way too many, psychologists and neuroscientists I have come across - and it depends entirely on who you talk to (there are actually some spiritual neuroscientists , believe it or not)- are just plain sick, ignorant, and intolerant. I came across an extreme materialist in a religion FB group who flat out and unequivocally stated that spirituality has no place in science - and asked if I didn't have a church to go to. I replied "you may think being a spiritual person amounts to nothing, but I'll put up my creativity, my writing, and several of my innovative ideas against anything he had done. I went on to say that Frankl, Jung, and William James all had spiritual experiences and their assessments of spiritual and religious beliefs are clearly the bets in psychology, in my view. All three were known for introducing innovative and creative ideas into psychology. Christ did repeatedly state that the way to judge something is by its fruits - something emphasized and echoed by the Nobel prize winning physicist Brian Josephson. The FB person never responded. If you look through history at spiritual leaders they often are frequently very creative and productive people. So, returning tot he argument, then, the only way to judge spirituality is by its fruit - people - and Not by artificial abstract academic abstractions involving "loaded" terms like "supernatural!"        

 I should note -as a point of order - that the vast majority of religious and spiritual people I have encountered, would, in fact consider themselves to be - in truth human beings and people (at least the ones I know)! So, they may say sure, we are people, what is the problem? And that where Academic Materialist doctrine - over the top fuel injected scientific skepticism on steroids - fueled by an utter fallacy believe it or not.

 The Fallacy that Brought Christianity - and Science - to its Knees!

The Materialist “Prove God” Maxim is an artificial academic argument that “attempts” to force a spiritual or religious person to “Prove God or Spirit” – in their view to show that their spiritual beliefs or religious beliefs have any worth or validity. Of course, if you ask any Christian to prove “God” they would likely tell you flat out that it is impossible to prove God and that that argument is really pretty arrogant – and ignorant.

Incredible as it may sound, that is an ongoing methodology used by the “science of psychology.” In an article recently published on the Pubmed site on the NIH website discussed that very issue. The psychologists, William R. Miller and Carl E. Thoresen, unequivocally state in their article, “Spirituality, religion and health: an emerging field of research,” that “A philosophical basis for this perspective is materialism, the belief that there is nothing to study because spirituality is intangible and beyond the senses.” This statement of materialist ideology is just another form of the same argument above that states the academic absurd Materialist “Prove God” Maxim with the end result that spiritual and religious beliefs are worthless and have no validity because they are (defined by academics) as “intangible and beyond the senses.” You can’t prove “Intangible” and unmeasured because they are defined as intangible and unmeasurable (beyond the senses). 

The Materialist “Prove God” Maxim actually defines what should really be termed Academic Materialism - which deviates from true Scientific Materialism. The problem is that The Materialist “Prove God Maxim” - is a Fallacy by the universally accepted rules of logic. One definition of the Definist Fallacy explains it as defining a term used in an argument in a biased manner (e.g., using "loaded terms") One example of the Definist Fallacy cited is "Before we argue about the truth of creationism, let’s define evolution as, “Faith in a crackpot theory that is impossible to prove with certainty.” In a nutshell using a Definist Fallacy requires a person to do things that are impossible and can't be done. You Don't Need a Degree to understand the Definist Fallacy problem. problem and grasp the Definist Fallacy! In fact, I have to say that, at times, it seems to help not having one.

The truth of it is - actually hundreds of studies have been done on people who have spiritual beliefs or spiritual-psychic experiences – and of course are very “tangible.” The argument is an artificial and arbitrary academic abstraction which is disconnected totally and completely from the real world or any relationship at all to real people as well. How did that academic fallacy survive this long?? It became a norm – unfortunately and I have a hell of time trying to get academics to answer a simple true or false question – seriously. I have been told that right and wrong are relative and don’t apply to materialism. I have also been told that the science of materialism – and materialism does claim to be a science, is not subject to the rules of logic. Crazy, but this is a lot of feedback I get – “When” they actually do answer the question.       

This argument - believe it or not - is a core argument of the Academic Materialist Doctrine (again which deviates from scientific materialism), which I encounter quite often in posting on FB psychology, religion, and neuroscience groups. Time after time, I get told I can’t talk about spirt or spirituality until I prove the existence of “spirit” or “God!” I must say, when I first came across that, due to my personal spiritual-psychic experiences, my reaction was: "You can't be serious! Prove God? That is a preposterous idea and an incredibly stupid question!" In a sophisticated society such as with unbelievable technology and mind-boggling science including the technology to measure the spin of two subatomic particles even when separated by large distances - the Materialist "Prove God" Maxim should not exist - at all. The Prove God Maxim is an aberration that scientists "should" react with horror upon discovery. 

What is worse, is that besides being a complete and utter scientific aberration, the Academic Materialist Doctrine has been clearly responsible for - as every academic knows - sidelining and marginalizing all the spiritual schools of thought in psychology such as Jungian psychology, Frankl's Theory of the "Will to Meaning," as well as all the spiritual and meaning research done by existential and positive psychology. Jungian Psychology is taught to Jungian analysts outside the orthodox establishment in separate schools - as is logotherapy, which is psychoanalysis based on

Frankl's "Will to meaning" psychology. I write about the spirituality-consciousness connection - in a very repressive academically oriented society. I do rather aggressively engage academics and legislators! All this because of a freaking FALLACY - a LIE damn it.

When Fallacies Become Norms   

In any objective way, it would appear readily apparent that a very important and incredibly salient issue in today's world would be the chasm between science and spirituality which as you know has polarized society - and as such would be an underlying cause for several social and political issues. However, the solution for that division would seem self-evident - "people!" That is what "god" and spirituality and science have in common is people. What is stopping that fix for the conflict between science and spirituality would be the Materialist "Prove God" Norm. Everybody pretty blows it off except for Dr. Stephen Farra who agrees with me and says it is spiritual poison. 

However - functionally - the problem it is a "norm". Obviously as in Self-Determination theory "materialist and academics have internalized it and it is a powerful norm. What that creates is a mental block. So, in my experience, when I talk about spirituality with psychologists materialists respond with stonewalling - spirituality doesn't exist because it doesn't exist - because no one has proved God or spirt it cannot possibly exist. so when materialists talk to spiritual people, the mental block prevents them - literally - form seeing them as people..

I have encountered psychologists who have told me that even though they agree that the intangible spirituality of the esprit de corps of marines - unspoken bound between soldiers - is real - however that materialist stated that my documented experiences which all have reasonable interpretations are not real - though the equally intangible and unquantifiable esprit de corps are real.

Furthermore, I explained to the materialist that William James (complemented by Jung) from his groundbreaking 1902 The Varieties of Religious Experiences that spiritual experiences create a sense of reality. On top of that I went over the well-known and well-proven "categorization" process which means that any "normal" human brain would end up grasping the experiences precisely as "spiritual psychic" experiences - which means my brain is doing exactly what it is supposed to. That Materialist - or any other psychologist - should say, "Yes, while I don't agree with you, I can understand how you think. In 36 years, not one psychologist has ever said anything like that - they REFUSE to recognize spiritual peoples' beliefs as legitimate. Why? - Because when you get to the bottom of the barrel - due to the Prove God norm, which creates a mental block, psychologists, in my experience simply can't see spiritual people as "people." 

Brain Josephson, a Nobel prize winning quantum physicist stated, “Emotive attitudes to religion have, it would seem, led to the neglect of important distinctions between science and expression of opinion in writings on the subject. I strongly urge the adoption of a more objective and insightful approach.” As you hopefully can grasp form the paragraph above Josephson's statement is truly correct and factual. It is difficult to have an intelligent conversation with many psychologists due to the fact that the "Prove God" norm skews their thinking - literally. I have over ten documented precognitive dreams and perceptions with reasonable interpretations which are in fact "real" by any psychological or scientific standards. That is a fact. Lastly to emphasize Josephson's point, I came across a materialist who in response to a question about the spirituality of compassion who said - in spite of genetic probability from tens of thousands of years of spiritual and religious beliefs - state unequivocally "There must be some other explanation for compassion." Personally my estimate is that anywhere form 1/3 to 1/2 of academics actually believe that "There is no spirituality" - which is ludicrous and outrageous. When I spoke with FBI agent McElwee, she said she thought that estimate is low. y mother said the same thing. There are truly some academics who are living in some kind of academic materialist fantasyland complete with Definist Fallacy tooth fairies - and totally pout of touch with reality.     

Introduction

Where do you start in introducing spirituality? You start by looking at how spiritual leaders - and people with spiritual beliefs and people who have spiritual experiences think and feel- and how the view and understand spirituality.

I have had the very good fortune of connecting with FBI agent McElwee, two or so years ago, who is level headed and appears to readily grasp the "dispute" that I have with "society!" In a nutshell, I get crap form people day in and day out and I know damn well the crap results form what psychology is teaching. Probably in part because she understands the role of ideologies in politics, FBI agent McElwee did state that materialism has "destabilized" society (her words). Today the ideologies of right wing politics and religion are very salient much as the communist ideology was rampant 5-0 to 70 years ago. However, consider The Age of Enlightenment was a very influential intellectual and philosophical movement that dominated the world of ideas in the 17th and 18th centuries and without question shape world events such as the French and American Revolutions.   Principles centered on the primacy of reason, the evidence of the senses (beginnings of materialism) being the foundation of knowledge, as well as radical and powerful ideas and ideals such as liberty, progress, toleration, fraternity, constitutional government and lastly the separation of church and state. The point is the "Enlightenment" Ideology was a very powerful and influential Movement, and unfortunately the Materialist Doctrine is also a very powerful force in the world today - which involves very powerful "Unconscious norms and stereotypes which largely unconsciously motivate people without their knowing it.  

 A Cultural -"Spiritual" Vision of Spirituality

In contrast to obvious differences in religious beliefs, when you look at the diverse "spiritual beliefs" there are remarkable similarities between the various different cultures throughout the world.. Creativity expressed in verse and poetry happens to be one of them. Spiritual leaders throughout the world and widely scattered in human history have relied on poetic expression. Just to name a few: St. Teresa of Avila, the monk Thomas Merton, St. John the Cross, Zen Masters such as Dogen, Ryoken, Huang Po, Thich Nhat Hanh, and also Chinese spiritual leaders such as Chuang Tzu, Wu Men, Wang Wei. Rumi is probably the best known Sufi poet but other Sufi poet-seers include Ibn Arabi, and Al Hallaj. And Yes, among spiritual leaders who use the creativity of poetic expression include even Pope John Paul II, and Buddha, as well as Confucius and Lao Tzu.

I do need to very briefly insert a disclaimer -since, as a Baptist woman once told me Spirit is of God, Religion is of Man. Religious beliefs are different neuroscientifically as well as psychologically and spiritually, a major difference being religious beliefs only too often engage the often overpowering emotions connected with "group"-related instincts.

     The God who existed before any religion counts on you

     to make the oneness of the human family known and celebrated."

                              Desmond Tutu

The Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu, who was an activist in the civil rights struggle in South Africa along with Nelson Mandela, stated: “The God who existed before any religion counts on you to make the oneness of the human family known and celebrated." That, of course, would be the God of Creation and the God of Spirit as Life-Force and Creation: Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.  2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. 3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.  4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. In my perspective, that is a critical and vital ideal to follow and embrace. In my experience, as long as religious beliefs are set aside, I have found that I can talk with just about anybody from any religion because spirituality and spiritual beliefs are so remarkably similar among the different and various religions. That is, spirit and spirituality is a way to connect and a way to bridge the many religious differences - which in Bishop Tutu's perspective are actually relatively artificial barriers and obstacles.   

When you look at different religious beliefs regarding spirituality, I found that a widespread belief among religions is that spirituality depends to a large degree on the particular talents of people, as well as upbringing and experience. In Corinthians I: 12 the types of spirituality are healing, wisdom, knowledge, faith, and prophecy. When I asked Shyamal, a hybrid Christian-Hindu [studies have shown that with the access to information on the internet, many people have developed hybrid beliefs] similar to Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard and Marwa, a Muslim PhD woman who had had her own spiritual-psychic experiences, they both gave answers that paralleled Corinthians 1: 12.

Shyamala spoke about the importance of Dharma, in the sense that everybody has their own dharma - or cosmic destiny. There are the Dharma of warriors, priests, doctors, laborers, teachers, and so on. When I asked Marwa how she viewed spirituality, being a PHD she reeled off 8 or ten Muslim spiritual leaders and clerics and explaining that this person had the spirituality of discernment, that one the spirituality of bravery, or the spirituality of wisdom, and so forth. That does match recent scientific studies that show that factors of personality (i.e. NF personalities), gender (studies consistently show women are more receptive), genetic disposition (a few twin studies show there is genetic predisposition of some people who have spiritual-psychic experiences), and so on!

Way too often, it seems people get caught up in the transcendental or supernatural Spirit and lose perspective of what spirituality is really about.

The seven gifts help us to respond to the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives, to make good choices, and to serve God and others. Wisdom, Understanding, Right Judgment, or Counsel,  Courage, or Fortitude, Knowledge, Reverence, or Piety, Wonder and Awe, or Fear of the Lord.

  2. The Fruits of the Holy Spirit: The 12 fruits of the Holy Spirit are signs that the Holy Spirit is          alive within us and helping us live the Catholic faith in our daily lives. Love, Joy, Peace,                  Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Generosity, Gentleness, Faithfulness, Modesty, Self-control,         Chastity

Spirituality and Spiritual-Psychic Experiences

I should say a brief word about spiritual-psychic experiences. A recent review of "numerous" studies of people who have spiritual-psychic experiences by Park an Paloutzian reveals that somewhere between 1/3 to 1/2 of people have spiritual-psychic experiences of every type imaginable - though hardly any talk about them. Flynn, a 55-year-old well-adjusted family man, told me that when he was 9 years old, he had a dream about his mother dying, which unfortunately came true, that he had never spoken about before for fear of retribution. Several studies who that is a common fear among people who have experiences. Park and Paloutzian go on to say that the studies definitely "establish the normalcy of such reports and indicates social scientists have until recently ignored a common-phenomena." (p. 67)

The vast majority of people including psychologists don't know about this because people who have experiences are afraid to talk about them - all minimally 1010 million Americas who have experiences. As Ingela Visuri observed in her study of spirituality in autistics, “Secularized norms are also at play and many participants describe how they carefully choose whom to talk to, to avoid being labelled irrational.” The fact that people rarely talk about their spiritual-psychic experiences is also emphasized by Fraser Watts. Julie S. Parker emphasizes - in detail - some well documented fears of people who have experiences. The observation that "they carefully choose whom to talk to" is important to understand.

Clearly, the well-documented fact that people are seriously afraid to talk about their spiritual-psychic experiences due simply to fear is a powerful indictment of what some people believe to be our wonderfully enlightened society based on Judeo-Christian traditions which strongly "embrace" - on the face of it - "spirituality." A recent study revealed that millenials are seeking spirituality in crystals, pagan spirituality which has concepts of spirit - and even witchcraft. Why? Because like myself, it appears they perceive that todays' Christian leaders do not "believe" in spirit and as most people are, "they carefully choose whom to talk to." Human being have tried to touch the divine from the beginnings of time - and just because materialists "say" the divine doesn't exist, doesn't mean they will stop trying to reach for the transcendent and the divine.     

That being said, to truly understand spirituality properly, I believe one has to "go back" to the "beginnings" and look to see how spiritual and religious beliefs emerged and evolved. “Every culture develops some kind of art as surely as it develops language. Some primitive cultures have no real mythology or religion, but all have some art - dance, song, design (sometimes only on tools or on the human body). Dance, above all, seems to be the oldest elaborated art…... What sort of thing is art, that it should play such a leading role in human development?...... It fits better with the conviction held by most artists, that art is the epitome of human life, the truest record of insight and feeling, Art is, indeed, the spearhead of human development, social and individual. The growth of a new art or even a great and radically new style always bespeaks a young and vigorous mind, whether collective or single. It is not an intellectual pursuit, but is necessary to intellectual life; it is not religion, but grows up with religion, serves it, and in large measure determines it.”

“Moral neuroscience is an intricate and expanding field. This review summarizes the main scientific findings obtained to date. Morality is a set of complex emotional and cognitive processes that is reflected across many brain domains. Some of them are recurrently found to be indispensable in order to emit a moral judgment, but none of them is uniquely related to morality…………Some of the emotions processed are more central to morality than others, but all emotions contribute to moral judgment given specific contextual situations. (Brain Architecture of human morality, Funk and Gazzaniga)…….The neural circuits of brain regions implicated in morality overlap with those that regulate other behavioral processes, suggesting that there is probably no undiscovered neural substrate that uniquely supports moral cognition.” Brain Architecture of human morality, Funk and Gazzanigna Current opinion in Neurobiology 2009 19:678-681)   Spirituality - especially - in the light of the fact that morals - psychologically - would be just part of the spiritual unconscious as it were would be even more intricate and complex. For instance when a member of the choir attends church there would be "overlapping" processes involved in spirituality going on at the same time.  So, when  Carl Jung speaks of the Collective Unconscious in the sense spiritual of unconscious symbols, symbolism, and archetypes would be a pervasive and very diversified unconscious influence[s].

Cultural Heritage and Ancestral Symbols of Spirit as Life-Force

Carl Jung, who explored the characteristic of "spirit as life-force" observed: “The connection between spirit and life is one of those problems involving factors of such complexity that we have to be on our guard lest we ourselves get caught in the net of words in which we seek to ensnare these great enigmas. The problem must have begun in the grey dawn of time, when someone made the bewildering discovery that the living breath which left the body of the dying man in the last death-rattle meant more than just air in motion.”

As it turns out, in nearly all human cultures, there is a connection between the word "spirit" which has nearly universal linguistic roots in the word for "breath" throughout the early human cultures or ‘primitive-traditional’ tribes on every continent and throughout the world. This linguistic connection between the word for “spirit” and the word for “breath” appears in the languages of Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, Chinese and Japanese, Hindu, ancient Germanic, Scandinavian, Baltic, Slavic, ancient Egyptian, many Native American languages, as well as in the languages of many other early human cultures.

Needless to say, of course, the idea-symbol – or archetype- of “Spirit” as “Life-Force” appears nearly universal among all the early human cultures in the world. The Chinese refer to “life-force” energy as 'Chi' which symbolizes the vital life force energy of the Universe. Qi or chi is central to the Taoist worldview and practice or worship. The word qi means "breath," or "air" but symbolically and as an idea, qi is the "life-force" which animates the myriad forms and manifestations of the world. Furthermore, qi is the vibratory nature of phenomena taking place at the molecular, atomic and sub-atomic levels. Similarly, in Japan, "life-force' is named “ki,” and in Hinduism, life-force is “prana” or “shakti.” Ancient Egyptians called it “ka.” In some places of Africa, “life-force” is known as “ashe,” and in Hawaii it is known as “ha” or “mana.” The Buddhist understanding of "life-force" is understood as the "Life of the Universe" which is a physical reality that is considered to be "divine." In the Buddhist Pali Canon, vinnana is one of three Pali terms that refers to the mind. also, the word, Vijnana (Sanskrit) is translated as "consciousness," "life force," "mind," or "discernment." "discernment." In Hinduism, Kundalini is a form of divine energy (or shakti), which has three different forms.