JR60: The Utoeya Tragedy in Norway

A: Well, big guy, when you're right you're right. On Tuesday (July 19, 2011) you talked honestly but in general terms about the mindset of psychopaths. You talked about a psychopath who props himself up with ideology and believes he's a nice person.

Three days later, on Friday, July 22, 2011, Norwegian police arrested a 32 year old Norwegian man Anders Behring Breivik on charges of setting off a car bomb in Oslo and later mowing down at least 84 young people at a summer camp northwest of Oslo -- on the island of Utoeya. The report I read in Saturday's Globe and Mail ("Death toll reaches 91 in Norway attacks" by Walter Gibbs and Anna Ringstrom (Reuters)) gives some background information about Breivik. Early accounts referred to the gunman's Facebook and Twitter accounts. (Since then, his Facebook page has been blocked.) His Facebook page apparently listed interests in bodybuilding, conservative politics, and freemasonry. He described himself as "a Christian, leaning toward right-wing Christianity." He may also have been a a gun club member.

The real kicker is this: The Reuters account says, "Norwegian media said he had set up a Twitter account a few days ago and posted a single message on July 17 saying: 'One person with a belief is equal to the force of 100,000 who have only interests.'"

This is a horrible real-life example of exactly what you've been talking about for months now on this site. It's almost exactly word for word what you've been saying. An ideologue -- a psychopath who's got his teeth sunk deep into a Big Idea -- is capable of the most vicious crimes.

Sadness. Photo credit JAT 2014.

J: People from all quadrants, especially the conservative Christian quadrant, will be rushing in to offer their breathless analysis of "what went wrong." They'll speculate and cluck their tongues on the question of why a man who had so much, a man who appeared to be so capable and logical and well-organized, went so badly off the rails. Many people will shrug and say, "It's just life. Humanity's a pile of shit anyway, so who should be surprised?" Pious religious folk, including devout orthodox Christians, will invoke the Devil, as they usually do when they don't want to look at themselves and their own contribution to man-made evils such as the Utoeya tragedy. They'll say, "Satan possessed him and took his soul," and similar bullshit. Not many people will be looking at this man and his ongoing choices and saying, "This man turned himself into a psychopath. On purpose. Because he liked the high of hurting other people." But that's the only appropriate response.

This is the response the angels around me are having to this crisis. God's angels know what this man did this to himself. We forgive him, as we always forgive our brothers-and-sisters-in-temporary-human-form. But we can see this man's brain, and this man's brain is a seriously fucked-up mess. It also happens to be a fucked-up mess is a highly predictable and observable fashion. There's a pattern to his behaviour. A definite, clear, observable pattern. Brain scans would show this pattern. Nobody has to take my word for it. Prove it to yourselves through more research. Please!

A: Don't blame the Devil. Blame the brain.

J: Yes. You have to place the responsibility where it lies: squarely on the brain of this man Breivik. He made the choices and he made the plan. It's his responsibility. Years ago he stopped listening to his own soul. But he's still in charge of the rest of his brain and the rest of his choices, and he's still responsible -- legally and morally responsible -- for his choice to use his logic and planning skills to carry out an intentional crime against humanity. He's not a nice person, and he needs to be held to account during his human lifetime for the suffering he's chosen to create.

A: Is it actually possible for a person who's just mowed down 84 teenagers with a gun to still believe he's a nice person? How could he possibly think that? It's beyond belief! (Note: As of July 30, 2011, the number of dead at Utoeya is reported at 69, with the number of injured at almost 100.)

J: It's beyond belief to you because you're not a psychopath. You have a conscience and a connection to your heart and soul. Brievik has no such connections. He decided years ago to cut them off inside his own brain.

A: But . . . how is that possible? How can a human being actually sever connections inside their own brains? Aren't there fail-safes for that? Aren't there Darwinian imperatives to prevent that from happening?

J: The human brain is an extremely complex series of organs. Way more complex than any other system in the biological body.

A: This month's issue of Scientific American says essentially the same thing on the Forum page. ("A Dearth of New Meds: Drugs to treat neuropsychiatric disorders have become too risky for big pharma" by Kenneth I. Kaitin and Christopher P. Milne, Scientific American, August 2011, p. 16.)

J: I can't emphasize enough the stupidity of treating the human brain as if it's a single organ like the heart, and the insanity of pretending that human beings don't have information from their souls hardwired into their DNA. And when I say "souls" I mean only good souls. I have no time or patience for patently abusive religious doctrines such as original sin. I will not tolerate any Christian saying to me, "Oh, yes, of course we believe in the scientific reality of original sin being hardwired into our human DNA! Why, anybody can see he was born evil!" This is NOT what I mean.

Our man Breivik wasn't born evil. He wasn't born in a state of original sin. His biology has been gradually changed and altered over many years because of conscious choices he's been making. It's taken years for him to become a psychopath. Years. But the signs have been there. The signs of his status addiction and his obsessive compulsive dysfunction are clear from his Facebook page and other reports. He was fixated on bodybuilding, conservative politics, guns, freemasonry, right-wing Christianity, and the Big Idea of "us versus them" (i.e. Dualism). This is a package deal, folks. An observable package, an observable pattern of choices followed by an observable pattern of behaviour. Why would Breivik's soul, his true self, like any of these things? Why would his true loving self enjoy obsessive bodybuilding that damages the physical body over time? Why would his true loving self choose conservative politics that take away the sense of balance in a community between the rights of an individual and the rights of the group? Why would his true loving self think it's fun to shoot other people for the heck of it? Why would his true loving self accept the myths of Hierarchy and Dualism?

Why would he choose any of these things if he were in a state of balance and wholeness? He wouldn't. He just wouldn't do it. It would feel wrong to him. But he can't feel that wrongness because he opted years ago to start listening only to the stupid parts of his own brain -- the parts of the brain that are supposed to help people look after aspects of their human lives that are purely 3D, purely temporary. Necessary but temporary because life on Planet Earth is temporary.

A: In the past you've called these parts of the brain the Darwinian circuit.

J: Yes. There are parts of the brain devoted to human physiological needs and human safety needs. These can be thought of in a general way as the Darwinian circuitry. There are also parts of the brain that specialize in the soul's need for love and belonging, along with the soul's need for self esteem. These latter two parts can be thought of as the Soul circuitry. All these parts have to be working together in order for a person to feel balanced and whole and sane and safe. Self-actualized, as Abraham Maslow called it. All these parts are needed for the experience of faith -- genuine soul-based faith. It should go without saying that our man Breivik has the Big Idea but absolutely no faith. He calls himself a Christian, but he has no faith. All he has is the Big Idea.

A: You talked on Tuesday about score cards. You said a psychopath has a score card inside him instead of a heart.

J: The great dilemma for the psychopath -- the person who's dissociated from his own empathy and his own ability to love and trust -- is how to get through the day. How to fill up all the looooooong, boooooooring hours between waking and sleeping.

A: Seriously?

J: Oh, yeah. Tell a psychopath he has to sit under a tree and be still and quiet for 8 hours and he'll want to pull his hair out.

A: Really? I could sit under a tree for 8 hours and have a wonderful time.

J: Yes, but you don't feel empty inside. You don't feel purposeless and hopeless and restless and bored all the time.

A: Sometimes I feel restless.

J: How often?

A: I don't know. Maybe a couple of times each week.

J: A psychopath feels like this all the time. He lives constantly for the next brief high, the next brief hit of status or cocaine or sex. It's all he's got to get him through the day. There's only such much cocaine he can do each day, only so many times he can get an erection each day. So the mainstay for him is status points. He'll do anything to get status points for his internal scorecard. He'll keep his cell phone on 24 hours each day so he can get a "hit" from the fact that he's needed by somebody at 4:00 in the morning. He'll check his Facebook status 20 or 30 times each day. He'll play computer or video games that rack up big points. He'll gamble. He'll gossip. He'll focus fanatically on professional sports. Or, if he goes in a religious direction instead of a secular direction to find his daily supply of status points, he'll become a man of the Book. A pious, obedient follower of the Law. An obsessive compulsive religious devotee.

A: But not a nice person. Not a person of empathy and patience and humbleness.

J: He has to choose between being an addict and being a nice person. He can't be both at the same time.

A: Yet he's certain he can be. He's certain he's a nice person who's not an addict.

J: What's the greatest obstacle to healing for those who suffer from addiction?

A: Denial.

J: Our Norwegian man, Mr. Breivik, is in a serious state of denial about his addiction to status. He'll have no chance of recovery as a human being until somebody is honest with him about the nature of his addiction. Unfortunately for him, the doctrines of orthodox Christianity will only excuse his behaviour rather than force him to confront it. Pauline Christianity is, in essence, an anti-Twelve-Step Program.

This isn't exactly the sort of helpful Church teaching God's angels have in mind.

JR58: The "My Fellow American" Interfaith Initiative

A: I was contacted this week by a person who's working with the Unity Productions Foundation on an interfaith initiative called My Fellow American. The goal of the initiative is to encourage Americans to think of their fellow Americans who happen to be Muslim as fellow Americans. There's a 2 minute film produced by Unity, and there are also uploaded videos and stories from various supporters of the idea that all Americans are equally American, regardless of religion. What do you think of this project?

J (grinning): I think you should post the address.

A: Oh yeah. Good thinking. The address is http://myfellowamerican.us/

I discovered when I went to watch the film how truly outdated my computer really is. Computer updates are not my thing. Good thing the computer at work has more juice in it.

The person who contacted me also wondered if I could maybe Tweet about the project if I checked it out and liked it. I don't know how to tell her this, but I don't even own a cell phone. So the Tweeting is pretty much out.

J: Everybody has their own way of communicating with others.

A: Anyway, I certainly can't argue with the basic principle of treating all your neighbours with dignity and respect and compassion and kindness regardless of religion. This is what makes a society internally strong.

J: The one thing people have to remember is that all human beings are children of God. A Muslim woman is just as a much a child of God as the saints of Christian history. To deny a woman dignity and respect simply because she's Muslim is to withhold divine love from your neighbour. It's as simple as that.

A: I think some people are afraid that if they love and accept the woman with an open heart they'll be required to love and accept all the religious teachings that are part of her tradition. At least that's how they view it.

"For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them yet existed. How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! I try to count them -- they are more than the sand; I awake -- I am still with you" (Psalm 139:13-18). Psalm 139, apart from a rather unloving interpolation in verses 19-22, is a deeply personal and humble reflection on the unique relationship each human being has with God. There are no Chosen People. God sees us only as individuals making difficult decisions about faith, hope, and love. Pictured here is a dahlia with its welcome visitors: Creation feeding Life, Life preserving Creation. Photo credit JAT 2025.

 
J: Religious teachings are very much a human thing. Divine love, on the other hand, is a soul thing. Divine love always trumps religious teachings. Every religion on the face of Planet Earth today has problems -- problems with abusive doctrines, problems with gender issues, problems with "law," and problems with balance. Every religion. Islam is no different from Christianity in this regard. Sure, Islam has some problems. But so does orthodox Western Christianity. This is no excuse for failing to love your neighbour and failing to believe in his or her best self. Everybody's struggling. People of all religions have to hold each other up. People have to work together. It's the only way to find healing.

A: The 10-year anniversary of 9/11 is coming up. Some people haven't got over the shock. They're still looking for someone to blame.

J: If they're looking for someone to blame, then they should be looking at the unassailable laws of neurophysiology, not at religion. Only a seriously, seriously dysfunctional individual thinks it's okay to blow up buildings "in the name of God." This applies across the board to all religions and all cultures. Christianity has had its fair share of psychopaths in martyrs' clothing, too. Psychopathy is a social, medical, and educational issue. Psychopathy is about as far from genuine relationship with God as it's possible to get.

The vast majority of Muslims and Christians and those of other faiths are doing their best to get closer to God -- not farther away from God and faith -- even though they make mistakes along the way. People of all faiths are constantly learning, changing, growing. Traditions change. Religious teachings change. The one core truth that doesn't change is the reality of the good soul, and the potential of all human beings to help each other understand this reality. If you allow yourself to be open to this truth, amazing things can happen in your community. Whatever community you happen to live in.

A: There are some psychopaths in positions of religious authority.

J: Yes. But there are also psychopaths in positions of political and economic and educational authority. Psychopathy is an entirely separate issue from the question of faith. Inherent to the definition of psychopathy is a total lack of conscience and empathy -- in other words, a disconnection from all that enables true faith, true relationship with God. A psychopath seeks status, not faith, when he or she chooses to blow up buildings. It's entirely a question of status addiction. Can we say this status addiction is true of "all Muslims"? Well, OF COURSE NOT. This would be the same as saying that every person who lives in Boston must be a status-addicted psychopath simply because he or she happens to live in Boston. It isn't right or fair to make such a claim.

A: Claims such as this have been fairly common over the course of history, though.

J: True. These claims fall under the umbrella of the HDM Myths that you posted about on Concinnate Christianity. (http://concinnatechristianity.blogspot.com/2010/11/it-takes-village-non-hdm-village-that.html ). Group myths of Hierarchy, Dualism, and Monism. Again, these are human myths, human choices, that have nothing to do with the faith of the soul. Challenge the myths and heal the soul, remembering always that the soul is not the aspect of the self that's perpetuating these myths. It's certain parts of the biological brain that have gone off the rails, so to speak, and now enjoy the addictive high of schadenfreude. For a person suffering from status addiction, there's just nothing better than a good hit of mental revenge and religious hatred to get you through the day. It's cheaper than buying whiskey and cigarettes.

A: That's a pretty tough statement.

J: Addiction is a pretty tough reality. Addiction destroys lives. Better to be honest about its effects.

A: Because, as you often say, healing follows insight.

J: My hat's off to the My Fellow American participants because they're doing their best to help others in their community be their best selves. And they're working together as a team to teach and share and communicate in relationship with each other. As an angel, I can't ask for more than that.

_______________________________________________

Addendum, October 16, 2023: It's been 12 years since I wrote this post with the soul who lived as Jesus.

The world has changed greatly during this time. One of the unfortunate changes has been an ideological shift towards monism within many educational institutions and humanitarian organizations in Western nations. This shift has taken society further away from the idea that people hold individual responsibility for their own choices. In place of the long-held Judeo-Christian value system built on free will, personal responsibility, and accountability to your own inner wisdom (what we call "conscience"), there has been a push to impose a value system based on "group banners" behind which individuals can hide.

No one can be his or her best self if "group banners" (especially religious "group banners") are used as an excuse for hanging onto harmful traditions, hateful actions, or justification for revenge.

Mother Father God and your angels don't care what your religious teachers say. What matters to God is how you choose to use your free will as a human being during your time on Planet Earth. If you decide it's a great idea to hate other people on the basis of their religion, that's not okay with God. The recent resurgence of anti-Semitism is therefore not okay with your own soul or your angels.

Anti-Semitism isn't the only example of extreme hatred in today's world, but right now it's a cauldron of suffering, especially for those who are doing the hating.

It's your job as a human being -- as a soul in human form -- to learn how to look past the "group banners" that breed hatred and divisiveness. Seek the best in others and stand your ground as a child of God. Treat each person you meet as an individual who is responsible for his or her own choices towards others and towards God. This probably means you'll have to reject some of the destructive religious doctrines that are causing problems in the world today. But if that's what you have to do so you can hear your own conscience, that's what you have to do.

JR41: City on the Hill: Saying 32 in Thomas

A: Okay. Back to some exegesis from the Gospel of Thomas. This morning my copy of Thomas* opened itself up to Saying 32: "Jesus said: A city built and fortified atop a tall hill cannot be taken, nor can it be hidden." 

Stevan Davies's notes on this saying, as usual, miss the point. Davies says, "This saying urges strength in defense while at the same time encouraging openness. You should not try to protect yourself by hiding your light, but at the same time you should be aware that attacks are likely. Ultimately you will be safe, above real danger, even if you expose yourself and your light to the world (pages 35-36)." 

Granted, there's not much context to go on here. This saying could be interpreted in a number of different ways. But I'm curious about your thoughts here. 

Model of the Acropolis of Athens, Royal Ontario Museum. Photo credit JAT 2017.

J: I'm wondering in what way Davies can argue that a person who shows their light is "above real danger." This is a reckless thing to say in view of the way reformers are treated in many parts of the world. Reformers need to know that attacks are likely, as you and I have discussed before. Reformers don't have a special magical cloak that's guaranteed to protect them from all harm.  

A: Obviously you didn't have such a magical cloak.  

J: No. And I didn't promise my followers one, either. It's a fallacy to suppose that a person of faith will be protected from all suffering and all harm. Shit happens. Shit happens to everyone. The question isn't how to be "above real danger." The question is how to recognize real danger and how to handle it when it arises. Davies's interpretation of saying 32 is pretty much the opposite of what I was trying to say.  

A: Davies is implying in his notes that the fortified city on the hill is a metaphor for a person who has uncovered the secret of the Kingdom. He's implying that knowledge of the Kingdom lifts a person above the fray. It kind of reminds me of the "shining city on the hill."  

J: Which tells you right off the bat it isn't something I would have said.  

A: You're not big on the idea of Temples on Sacred Mounts. 

J: No. I used metaphors from nature and peasant life to explain what the Kingdom feels like. By contrast, I used metaphors from the sphere of urban construction to explain what it feels like to be estranged from the Kingdom. Saying 32 is an attack on the people who choose to be like a fortified city on the hill. They choose to place themselves "above" other people. They choose to build walls around their hearts. Sure, everyone can see them up there, everyone can see their status. But they're walled off from their feelings, from their compassion. They're successful. They're proud of their walls. They love to be noticed for their accomplishments. But they have no heart. And they have no relationship with God. They've made themselves invulnerable to pain. And this means they've made themselves invulnerable to love. They're afraid of intense emotions, afraid of intense feelings like joy and grief and humbleness. They hide behind their walls and bemoan the cruel God who allows suffering. Meanwhile, they do nothing courageous themselves. They refuse to come out from behind their walls and engage in the task of coping in mature ways with the love and pain of living. They feel safe where they are, and they'd much rather blame God or other people for the emptiness they themselves feel inside. 

Surprising as it may seem, inner emptiness seems like the better choice -- the practical choice -- for the majority of human beings. For those who've endured years of abuse and trauma, it's often the only viable choice. They can't make it through the day if they have to think about the pain they've endured. So they try to stop thinking about it. 

 A: Yet the pain always expresses itself somehow. 

J: Yes. You can't escape the pain. When you repress it, it finds a way to reveal itself anyway. Playwrights and psychotherapists make their living from expounding this truth. The pain must be confronted and transmuted -- healed -- into something deeper and more positive. Otherwise it will ruin your life and probably the lives of the people you're closest to.  

A: This is what Viktor Frankl taught. The idea that you have to find purpose and meaning and the means to go forward despite the most traumatic experiences imaginable.  

J: A process that people need help with. If you don't have a mentor to help you struggle through the emotional complexities of loss and suffering and eventual transformation, you'll probably end up -- like so many people -- building gigantic walls around your heart. But there's a cost for doing this. The cost is your ability to love. 

A: You mean the person building the walls is no longer able to love.  

J: Right. They can't love themselves. They can't love their neighbour. They can't love their God. They can still function at a logical level, a practical level, but they wake up each morning and go to bed each night having no clear idea who they are or why they're here or why they feel so empty and miserable. Life feels like a chore to them. A duty. A punishment they must endure. They feel very sorry for themselves.  

A: I know a number of Christians who fit this bill. 

J: The real tragedy is that once a person has finished building his or her fortified city on the hilltop, he or she "cannot be taken" -- cannot let love in through the walls of logic and status. No amount of kindness or empathy or forgiveness or patience will breach the walls of intentional dissociation in another human being. You can't "fix" such a person from the outside. If they don't want to come out from behind their walls, you can't make them do it, no matter how hard you try.  

A: A lesson it took me years to understand.  

J: The person who is like the city "built and fortified atop a tall hill" is NOT "ultimately . . . safe, above real danger." Such a person IS the danger. She's a danger to herself, her neighbours, and her community.  

A: Why?  

J: Because she thinks she's in her right mind, in full control of all her thoughts and feelings and actions, but she's not. She's built a city of logic stone by stone, choice by choice, and she's happy with it. She likes being dissociated from her soul's own feelings. She chooses to live this way. But big chunks of her biological brain are miswired as a long term result of her intentional choices. She can't make balanced choices anymore. She can't because she's worked very hard not to make balanced choices. She believes she has all the tools she needs in case of emergency or real danger. But she doesn't have the brain tools she'll actually need in an unpredicted crisis. So she'll panic. She'll freeze. She'll think only of herself. Because that's what she's trained her brain to do.  

A: You're saying it doesn't have to be this way.  

J: I'm saying Darwin was dead wrong about survival of the fittest. The stupidest human beings on the planet are the ones who've made themselves into isolated cities on hilltops. And when I say "stupid" I don't mean temporarily foolish or poorly educated. I mean less functional and less able to grasp complex issues and act on them with common sense, compassion, and integrity. Including many individuals with PhDs. These are the people you don't want on your team when a genuine crisis hits. They'll stab you in the back without blinking when the going gets tough.  

A: Says the man whose own family and friends turned him over to the Romans when he made the going too tough . . .  

J: Damn straight.  

 

*For readers who haven't been following our posts about the Gospel of Thomas, I'm using a book translated and annoted by Stevan Davies. (Stevan Davies, The Gospel of Thomas (Boston & London: Shambhala, 2004.))

JR39: John, Paul, and James: The Lunatic, the Liar, and the Lord

A: By now people will have noticed that you and I aren't apologists for conservative or evangelical Christianity. I was thinking again about C.S. Lewis's "Trilemma" argument that claims to prove the divinity of Jesus -- the "lunatic, liar, or lord" argument presented in his 1952 book Mere Christianity (written at a time when the language around major mental illness hadn't progressed very far). For Lewis, and for countless other conservative Christians, you -- Jesus -- have to be lord. Why? 

“Jesus said: No prophet is accepted in his own village. No physician heals the people who know him well" (Gospel of Thomas 31). Westminster Abbey, London, UK. Photo credit JAT 2025.

 

J: Orthodox Western Christianity can't survive in its present form if there's no Saviour. The Saviour myth -- Jesus as Saviour, Jesus as Lord -- provides the perfect camouflage for all the "lunatics" and all the liars who have shaped orthodox Christianity over the centuries. This applies to both the Roman Catholic church and to mainstream Protestant denominations. Nobody wants to rattle all the "lunatic, liar, and lord" skeletons in the closet. 

A: How many skeletons are there?

J: Too many for me to list here. But I can tell you who the earliest ones were.

A: Okay.

J: The earliest "lunatic" was John -- by that I mean John the Baptist, who reinvented himself as John the chosen apostle after my death. John was seriously mentally ill, and I make no apologies for being honest about this fact. The word "lunatic" is too harsh, of course, and I wouldn't use this word in the context of mental health discussions today. There's far too much stigma around mental health issues already. But pretending that mental health issues don't exist and pretending that mental health issues don't touch all families is naive and cowardly. Mental health issues have always been a reality in human society. They've always been a reality in religious organizations. Religious organizations are never been exempt from these realities. Pious theologians hurt regular people when they go through contortions to try to "redeem" apocalyptic texts such as Revelation. The book of Revelation was written by John when he was floridly psychotic. This book hurts people. It scares people. It should come with a warning tag on it, but it doesn't.

The honest truth is that some mentally ill people end up trying to hurt others, especially if psychosis has set in. Not all mentally ill people by any means. But some mentally ill people. Mental health professionals are trained in risk assessment, and they know that only a small percentage of mentally ill individuals are at risk of harming others. This is a reasonable, responsible, and appropriate approach to mental health. The church should take this approach in reassessing the writings of its own theologians -- starting with John. They should look at what John actually said instead of pretending that John was so mystically elevated compared to his peers that regular people couldn't understand his symbolic, mystical messages. The reason they couldn't understand him is because he was having hallucinations and delusions.

A: Ever the honest fellow, aren't you?

J: Lies don't help anyone.

A: Speaking of lies . . . .

J: Nobody who's been reading this site or your Concinnate Christianity site will be surprised to learn that the earliest "liar" in the church was Paul himself. I won't go into detail on the Paul question today. If people are interested, they can check out some of our earlier posts about his motives.*

A: Okay. So what's with the "lord" thing? How does that tie in with the "lunatics and liars"?

J: Well, this brings me to my older brother, James. James and I had . . . well . . . a very complicated relationship. He didn't believe I was the Saviour as such -- not in the way Paul described me. In fact, James despised Paul, and did everything he could to confront Paul's teachings. But contrary to what scholars such as Bart Ehrman and Barrie Wilson think, my brother James was not a follower of my teachings. He taught his own version of reformed Judaism that undercut my central teachings. He liked me only slightly more than he liked Paul. Unfortunately, he and Paul had a lot more in common than either one realized.

A: In what way?

J: Quite honestly, both were pompous narcissists.

A: That's not a very nice thing to say about your brother.

J: Maybe not, but it's true. James was the eldest child and the eldest son born to an elite family of Jewish aristocrats. His maternal grandfather had at one time been a member of the Sanhedrin -- the ruling council in Jerusalem. He wasn't raised to be compassionate and trusting towards God. He was raised to be pious and fearful of God. He was considerably older than I was. He was -- like so many eldest children -- conservative, highly responsible, obedient, cautious, and "certain" of his role in life. He believed in law, and in particular in the laws of Moses. He was a devout Sadducean Jew.

A: I thought the Sadducees didn't believe in resurrection. How did James reconcile himself to the strange events that occurred around your crucifixion and "resurrection"?

J: He didn't. He tried very hard to downplay the rumours that swirled around my "death" and temporary reappearance. He, along with Peter and John, worked very hard to spread counter-rumours. It was he who came up with the idea of saying my body had been stolen from the tomb by my disciples (Matthew 27:62-66). Of course, my body hadn't been stolen because I wasn't even dead. Yet. James had more reason than anyone alive to know that I was a real human being and not a god-in-human-form who'd been resurrected from the dead. James, along with Peter and John, and with the help of my older brother Judas, were the ones who had me arrested in the first place.

A: Why?

J: For the simplest of human reasons -- pride. Pride and "family honour" and that most terrible of dysfunctional human behaviours -- the narcissistic rage reaction. I pushed all my brother's buttons, and he had a narcissistic rage reaction. If you've ever been standing in the way of such an event, you'll understand what I mean when I say the rage becomes all-consuming and self-absorbed in a way that's difficult to describe. It's like the entire universe shrinks to one spot of pure, blind, selfish hatred, and nothing else matters but revenge. There's no logic to it. Not from anyone else's point of view, anyway. But from the narcissist's point of view the logic is diamond-hard. He (or she) becomes fanatically convinced that he's right and everybody else is wrong. If he's a religious man, this is the time when he'll start saying that God is on his side and God demands revenge. Such a person is capable of the most murderous acts imaginable.

A: Including acts against one's own family.

J: Especially against one's own family. The people at greatest risk from an extreme narcissist are the people closest to him (or maybe, as I'd like to emphasize, her). Family members and group associates are the ones most likely to observe the mistakes, hypocrisies, memory failures, and lies made by a narcissist -- none of which a narcissist wants to hear about. Those who make the mistake of pointing out a narcissist's errors in judgment (including errors by proxy) may well find it's the last mistake they make. Extreme narcissists can and do kill when they feel their "honour" has been "unjustly" attacked. My brother James was such a person.

A: He convinced himself that he was doing the right thing in having you arrested.

J: Absolutely. I was attacking the cultural and religious belief systems that gave him great status. I was attacking his right to be called "lord." All along I was at greatest risk not from the Romans and not from the Jewish religious authorities in Jerusalem (where I spent very little time), but from my own family and friends. They were the ones who had the most to lose if I continued teaching my new brand of Judaism.

A: Where there are no lords.

J: And where "lunatics" are healed and liars are called to account for their lies.

A: Sounds like a place of rainbows to me.


* See http://jesusredux.blogspot.com/2011/03/materialism-pauline-thought-and-kingdom.html

JR35: Father of Lights, Mother of Breath

A: Saying 56 of the Gospel of Thomas is somewhat puzzling. Stevan Davies translates it as "Jesus said: Whoever has known the world has found a corpse; whoever has found that corpse, the world is not worthy of him." Davies suggests that this saying relates to the two Creation stories in Genesis. He says, "it seems that the animating principle of the world is the Kingdom within it that remains undiscovered by most people. They do not realize that for them the world is a corpse; when they discover that it is, they simultaneously discover the Kingdom that can animate it" (page 61). Davies's interpretation doesn't feel right to me. What were you trying to get at here?

“Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. In fulfillment of his own purpose he gave us birth by the Word of Truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures” (James 1:17-18). Photo credit JAT 2014.

 
J: Davies's thesis that the Kingdom is an animating principle within a person and within the world outside each person is central to his interpretations of the Thomasine sayings. He's entitled to his own theories, but I don't have to agree with them.

A: So you don't agree.

J: No. Davies's interpretation -- for all that he tries to cast it in the light of Wisdom teachings instead of Gnostic teachings -- is still Gnostic. In other words, it's an occult interpretation. Occult interpretations of the world rely heavily on dualistic thinking -- everything is reduced to pairs of opposites such as "good versus evil" or "light versus darkness."

A: "Alive versus dead."

J: Yes. As soon as a person starts talking about "dead things" being animated -- literally, being brought to life -- by outside forces, then you're moving in the direction of dualistic, occult thought. What scholars call Christian Gnosticisms are really just a form of immaturity. Emotional and intellectual immaturity. Nothing in Creation can be reduced to the kind of simplistic "either-or" religious formula that's being offered in Davies's interpretation. Life just isn't like that.

A: So you don't agree that "alive versus dead" is a legitimate pair, a legitimate starting point for discussion about the nature of life?

J: You have to understand the religious context in which I lived. People had some very strange ideas about birth, life, illness, and death -- everyone did, regardless of their religion. Jews were no different. We had tons of restrictions and limitations and taboos around natural life processes. Especially around death. Taboos around some other things had loosened up when Jewish lands fell under the sway of Hellenistic thought and then Roman thought. But the taboos around death hadn't diminished. People were very frightened of dead bodies. Only certain people were allowed to touch them. No one could be buried inside the city walls. The list went on and on.

A: That doesn't sound much different from today.

J: One of religion's most important jobs is to help people deal in mature and compassionate ways with death. Few religions manage to accomplish this task with any grace or decorum. One of the few modern religions that brings death into the community in a living, natural way is Rabbinic Judaism. Christianity could learn a thing or two from Judaism on this score. However, the approach to death seen in today's synagogue was not the approach to death I grew up with. Rabbinic Judaism didn't exist in the first half of the 1st century CE. Judaism was a mess. We had so many competing philosophies and so many competing rituals that regular people were hopelessly confused.

A: Dare I say that you added to that confusion?

J: You can say that. It's true. But Judaism had some good things going for it. Even though I had studied the works of Hellenistic philosophers, looking for nuggets of spiritual wisdom, I came back in the end to the best that Judaism had to offer. In my view, the best ideas of Judaism topped everything the other religions were offering.

A: Can you give some examples?

J: The most obvious one is the image of God in the Hebrew texts. There was the strange idea in Judaism -- uncommon, though not unprecedented in the history of religion -- that there was really just one God, not a whole pantheon of gods. Of course, I didn't agree with the Platonic idea that God was a single undifferentiated "He." This idea had slowly made its way into Jewish thought, and by the 1st century CE it was widely accepted by many Jews. But not all Jews saw God as 100% male. A thinking person couldn't make sense of the natural world if it was seen solely as a "male domain." There had to be a feminine principle in there somewhere -- a feminine principle that was equal to the male principle and in full partnership with the male principle. My personal experiences as a mystic clinched that theory beyond all doubt. Once I had seen and felt the reality of God the Mother and God the Father in my own heart, I had no doubt about who God really is. God is Father and Mother together -- Abba and Ruah. Father of Lights, Mother of Breath. That's what I called them.

A: You refer to the Father of Lights in the Letter of James (James 1:17-18). You also say there that the Father of Lights gave birth to us "by the word of truth." What did you mean by this?

J: "The word of truth" -- logo aletheias in the Greek, which is not the same as Sophia (Wisdom) -- is a name I sometimes used for God the Mother. I was trying to make it clear that God the Father doesn't give birth to us by himself. It isn't a weird form of parthenogenesis (virgin birth). It's the most natural form of creation imaginable.

A: Two partners coming together in light and in truth and fulfilling our creation because they want to.

J: This image of God was considered heretical to both pious Jews and pious Gentiles. There were countless images of the Divine in many different religions. The only image of the Divine that wasn't being preached was the one I was preaching -- the God Who Is Two. One God, many children. One God, many souls. One God, many Kingdoms. This image of God as God really is did have -- and still has -- the power to free so many people from the suffering caused by prejudice and hierarchy and male dominance! This image has the power to open up the gates of meaningful relationship with God. Everything you see in the world around you makes so much more sense when you allow yourself to make room for the "crazy, heretical notion" that God is Two -- not One, and not Three. All the most meaningful experiences of life as a human -- the experiences of love, of redemption, of healing, of trust -- they all rely on relationship. On two people -- at a minimum -- coming together in mutual aid and comfort. As the song says, "one is the loneliest number". On the other hand, two is the number of change, growth, creation, balance, and divine love. The world of science and nature constantly reinforces this one simple message: it's all about Two, not One.

A: It seems very strange to me that when an individual adamantly holds to the idea that God is One, his or her thinking becomes less holistic and more dualistic -- more based on black-and-white pairs of opposites. When pious religious followers commit themselves wholly to the idea that God is One, it's like a cartoon thought bubble pops up and fills itself up with all sorts of nasty, judgmental words. Words so nasty they could singe the hair off your head. You wouldn't think the idea of God-as-One could lead to so much hatred and prejudice and racial discrimination. But we have plenty of history to prove it. I've been watching the Kennedy mini-series on the History Channel, and of course they examine the racial rioting in the U.S. South in the early 1960's. I simply can't understand or relate to that kind of vicious hatred.

J: Well, we had plenty of that kind of vicious hatred in my time. Jews against other Jews. Rich against poor. Chosen people against damned people. Blah, blah, blah. No end to the bigotry. No end to the narcissism.

A: I see you're equating bigotry with narcissism.

J: Sure. Bigotry can only grow in a garden that's growing the weeds of narcissism and bullying. Narcissism is a psychologically dysfunctional state where an individual's brain becomes addictively dependent on the myth that he or she is "special," "better than others," and entitled to better treatment than other people. Like any addict, the status addict has to receive regular fixes. To maintain a stance of bigotry towards another person on the basis of skin colour is simply proof of addiction -- addiction to status. The choice to hate somebody on the basis of race or skin colour has the same biological effect on the brain as an addiction to cocaine. Bigotry is a form of "using." It has no place in the life of a person of faith.

A: Bigotry is another form of dualistic thinking -- "us versus them."

J: It's also a clear indication of immaturity in an individual. A mature individual is able to process ambiguity, change, complexity, and "shades of grey." A mature individual is capable -- even as a frail human being -- of perceiving and appreciating the vast scope of Creation and the awe-inspiring, humbling interconnections that exist among all forms of life, both here and elsewhere in Creation. A mature individual doesn't ask "what God can do for you," but instead asks "what you can do for God."

A: That statement would be considered blasphemous by the "piety and pity" crew that insists we're all full of sin and unworthy before God.

J: Well, I rejected the "piety and pity" parade, as you can tell from everything I've been trying to say on this site.

A: I'll just call you the "trust and twofulness" guy instead.

JR34: Chaining God to the Rock

A: I'd like to return to an idea that was endorsed in Karen Armstrong's book (The Spiral Staircase), the idea that "when speaking of the reality of God we are at the end of what words or thoughts can usefully do (page 292). I find this idea self-serving and smug. I also find it very demeaning. In fact, I find most religious ideas about God to be self-serving, smug, and demeaning. Demeaning to human beings and demeaning to God. Since this is Holy Week, it seems like a good time to talk to you about your thoughts on the reality of God and what this reality can mean for our lives.

"Jesus said: If they ask you, 'Where are you from?' reply to them, 'We have come from the place where light is produced from itself. It came and revealed itself in their image.' If they ask you, 'Are you it?' reply to them, 'We are his children. We are the first fruits of the living Father.' If they ask you, 'What is the sign within you of your Father?' reply to them, 'It is movement. It is rest.' (Gospel of Thomas 50 a-c)." Photo credit JAT 2021.

J: I see you're still upset about the way people are talking about God.

A: I'm upset about the fact that theologians and mystics are not being honest with themselves and with others. I'm upset about their "closed-shop" attitude. I'm upset about their tiny, closed, pessimistic view of God and Creation. I'm upset about their narcissistic refusal to open wide the doors of theological inquiry. I'm upset about the pettiness. I'm upset about the way religion teaches people to be in relationship with God. I'm especially upset about the religious rituals that get in the way of the relationships.

J: The crucial problem here is worship.

A: Worship?

J: People of faith all over the world are trying to be in relationship with God. Their souls long to know God, to feel the Presence of God in their daily lives. They long for the comfort, the solace of that love. But among those millions of people, how many of them do you think have actually felt that Presence?

A: Not many. You can tell by the look in a person's eye when you put the words "trust" and "God" in the same sentence. People of faith are disillusioned and very, very hurt.

J: There are three great obstacles to the experience of relationship with God in the daily life of regular human beings. The first obstacle we've talked about a fair bit -- the role of status addiction in creating suffering and abuse in the lives of humans and other creatures on Planet Earth. Status addiction is deeply imbedded in all major world religions, even the non-theistic ones. Status addiction in a religious setting becomes a self-reinforcing cycle that ruins lives.* The toxic effects of status addiction have not yet been recognized. Indeed, it's hard to imagine how the Vatican could continue to uphold its teachings on sin, separation from God, sacraments, and salvation in the absence of status addiction. Status addiction is one of the three main glues that hold together the Vatican house of cards.

A: Being named Pope is quite the status symbol. Right now the History Channel is showing "The Borgias," the mini-series about the corrupt family that owned the Papacy at the turn of the 16th century.

J: The second of the three glues holding orthodoxy together is a tenacious belief in the Law of Cause and Effect -- the Materialist philosophy you and I have been discussing. What's astonishing about this belief system is its arrogance. It's completely oriented towards the supremacy of human beings. The term "anthropocentric" hardly begins to capture it. The Law of Cause and Effect, whatever its particular religious manifestation, teaches people that the Law is more important, more effective, and more divine than God. They say the Law is merely a manifestation of God's wishes, but what they really mean is that God is utterly bound by all the provisions of the contract law -- sort of like Prometheus chained to the rock. This is the source of human religious authority, the foundation on which they claim all their status, power, money, fame, and sexual gratification. This is also the source of human psychological authority -- the need to assuage one's own suffering by claiming there really isn't a personal God who intervenes in people's lives. The need for narcissists to obtain psychological authority has never been adequately examined or addressed in the church. The last thing a status-addicted narcissist wants to hear about is a personal God who isn't chained at a safe distance and who can generate consequences for the narcissist's smug self-idolization. Today.

A: Okay. What's the third glue of orthodoxy?

J: The third is worship. I'm defining worship as any spiritual practice that centres around the goal of escape.

A: I've never heard that definition of worship before. I tend to think of "liturgy" and "worship" as being more or less the same thing. You go to "worship" on Sundays, and the exact form of this worship is the liturgy -- the specific prayers and hymns and sermon content for that particular day.

J: There's the source of the confusion right there. There's nothing wrong with liturgy. There's nothing wrong at all with the idea of people getting together once a week to say some prayers and sing some hymns and hear an uplifting, encouraging, inspiring sermon and maybe even sit together in safe, companionable silence. It's a healthy practice, one I totally endorse. The idea of setting aside one day per week -- the Sabbath -- for mutual uplifting and compassionate spiritual reflection is crucial to the health of all human beings. There are lots of different ways to express your love and trust in God on the Sabbath. You can go to church or synagogue. You can visit someone who's sick in hospital. You and a friend can go outside with a garbage bag and clean up your local parks and streets. You can have a family games afternoon -- playing old fashioned board games like Monopoly or Scrabble. The single uniting factor in all these expressions of spirituality is relationship. You're building positive relationships. You're connecting to other people and to Nature. In creating these connections, you're also creating a stronger connection with God the Mother and God the Father. You're saying "yes" to life, love, service, and laughter. The last thing you're trying to do is escape.

A: You're trying to fully engage with life.

J: Yes. I taught engagement, not escape. This is why you see me in the Gospel of Mark as a man who doesn't retreat into the wilderness, who rarely prays, who never worships in the Jerusalem Temple, and has no use for righteousness in the Law.

A: Yet Mark shows you living a life filled with faith, forgiveness, healing, and redemption. A life filled with relationships. Messy, complicated, frustrating relationships. But that's what it means to be human, eh?

J: Worship and liturgy are two completely different things. Worship and faith are two completely different things. Worship is the "work" of pious people. Worship is the set of actions they undertake to achieve their long-term goal of escape. Orthodox Western Christians call this escape "salvation." Buddhists call this escape "nirvana." Atheists call this escape "saving lives." At the core of these belief systems lies the intersection of status addiction, Materialism, and worship -- the complete abandonment of God by human beings. I want to make it clear that I don't mean God is doing the abandoning. I mean that human beings are doing the abandoning. I mean that every time a pious Christian devotes an hour or more each day to intercessory prayer, he or she is abandoning God. The more time a person spends in worshipful prayer each day, the farther he or she is getting from God. God doesn't need your prayers or anyone else's prayers in order to act. God is not bound by bizarre religious claims about Cause and Effect. God the Mother and God the Father have free will. They're not chained to the rock. This means that you, as a human being, aren't that important prayer-wise in the grand cosmological scheme of things. Contrary to the claims of many religious leaders, the sky will not fall down if the "chosen" nuns, monks, and mystics stop praying the Divine Office each day. (The theory here is that God needs to hear the recitation of the Mass and the Divine Office every day to help empower God in his great battle against the Devil to save human souls). Prayers of worship tell the God you're trying to connect with that you don't trust God. It's like shooting yourself in the foot over and over again and then demanding to know why you're lame.

A: Our prayers of worship may not be needed, but I know one thing for sure -- our ability to love and forgive is sure needed.

J (nodding and smiling): God the Mother and God the Father don't need or want our prayers of worship. AT ALL. On the other hand, they very much need our love. They want and need to be in relationship with us. We're their children, and they're just heartbroken, to be honest, when their own beloved children turn away from their divine family -- their divine parents and their divine brothers and sisters. It's very painful for God when human beings choose logic over love, mind over heart, and law over miracles and forgiveness. Some logic is needed, some mind is needed, and some law is needed. This should go without saying. But there has to be balance. And there has to be trust -- trust in a loving, forgiving, amazingly brilliant but very humble God. This is what I was trying to teach.

A: It's what I feel every day -- a comforting sense of God's loving presence, a comforting sense that I'm never alone. I get confused and upset about daily events like everyone else, but I know that at the end of each day God will be there to help me figure it out. I also know that when I screw up, God will help me recognize my mistakes, just as you'd expect mature, loving parents to do. They forgive me when I make a mistake, and they don't hold any grudges. Their forgiveness helps me find the courage to learn from my mistakes, correct my mistakes, and move forward. Their forgiveness means I'm not caught in that horrible hamster wheel of shame, blame, regret, revenge, and self-loathing that I remember all too well from my earlier years. Their forgiveness has freed me to live.

J: Who needs escape on a future day when the miracle of forgiveness can free you today?


*For an introductory discussion of the role of status addiction in the orthodox Western Church see http://concinnatechristianity.blogspot.com/2010/07/The Corruption of Free Will Through Addiction and http://concinnatechristianity.blogspot.com/2010/07/Jesus: The Anti-Status Teacher

JR20: Persecution of the Heirs of the Kingdom

A: Another important theme you included alongside the idea that the poor were "heirs of the kingdom" was the idea that the faithful would be hated, excluded, reviled, defamed, and persecuted [Luke 6:22 and Thomas 68]. Stevan Davies, in his commentary on the Gospel of Thomas, is puzzled by this. He says, "It is puzzling why so much very early Christian literature assumes that persecution is an inherent part of being a Christian. The ancient world was by no means a place where well-defined doctrinal parameters defined orthodoxy and heresy so that dissenters would regularly be persecuted for their beliefs. The violent suppression of religious ideas became characteristic of Western religions only in later centuries (p. 74)." Why did you place so much emphasis on the idea that the heirs to the kingdom would be reviled?

J: Davies makes a lot of assumptions here that need to be challenged. Like many commentators, he's making dualistic assumptions. He's assuming that I was primarily teaching about "mysticism" -- something separate from everyday realities, something elevated or special or hidden. He assumes a Gnostic interpretation of my early sayings. He assumes that persecution arose when others became envious or angry because they didn't know "my secret." But this isn't at all what I meant. I was telling people the honest truth about what would happen to them if they followed my teachings about God and status. I was telling them to be prepared to be vilified, attacked, abused, and scorned for daring to provoke the psychopaths and narcissists around them. I was telling people to be honest and realistic about other people's reactions.

A: Whoa. That's a pretty big statement you just made. That's a statement with a lot of implications. Can you explain in more detail?

J: Yes. Put bluntly, "Hell hath no fury like a narcissist scorned."

A: Ooooh. Nice image.

J: This is the psychological context that all people should be aware of, not just the people who've chosen a spiritual life. This is the psychological context that lurks behind corruption and crime and abuse. If there's one good thing I can say about TV dramas like Law & Order and Criminal Minds it's this: these TV shows are doing more to teach regular people about psychopathy and narcissism than Christianity ever has. It's a valuable public service.

A: It goes without saying that you didn't have TV shows or films to use as teaching aids.

J: True. But we had something almost as good. We had Greco-Roman mythology. We had a complete psychological "language" available to us, a complete collection of cautionary tales that graphically described all the best and all the worst choices a human being can make. There were -- are -- myths about jealousy. Myths about rape. Myths about prophecy. Myths about hubris. Myths about suffering. Myths about trickery. Myths about bravery. Myths about romance. Myths about empathy. The characters in these myths are archetypes for different psychological states. These archetypes are still quite useful for talking about psychological choices, psychological states. They're much more memorable than long-winded academic articles full of jargon.

A: And they make better action films, too. I'm thinking of the recent remake of Clash of the Titans.

J: The archetype of psychopathy that worked best for me was the image of Medusa. Not the snake chick from Clash of the Titans -- that's not the version of the myth I knew best -- but the version that described Medusa as so hideous to look upon that she had the power to turn you to stone. That's what the power of psychopaths is like -- they're so frightening, so unrepentant in their pursuit of power and status, that the people around them feel paralyzed, "turned to stone," unable to move or think, let alone react in self-defense. This is how psychopaths end up running major institutions, corporations, and countries. They just keep on turning people into stone until they get what they want.

“Jesus said, Blessed are you when they hate and persecute you. No place will be found where they persecuted you (Gospel of Thomas 68).” Statue of Perseus by Antonio Canova (Vatican City), photo by Tetraktys (from Wikimedia Commons)

A: Which is usually money, power, status, fame.

J: And sexual gratification.

A: Yuck.

J: Respectful, tender, devoted, consensual sexuality between two committed adults is not on the menu for psychopaths. They can pretend for a while, but they get bored. Eventually they go looking for "side dishes" if they think they can get away with it.

A: What happens when you confront a psychopath directly, challenge his or her actions?

J: That's when the fireworks begin. Psychopaths are often easy to get along with on a day to day basis as long as they believe they're in full control, as long as they believe they're receiving the status they "deserve." They're especially affable and agreeable at work or at home if people tell them how nice they are. One of the most misunderstood qualities of a psychopath is his or her desperate need to believe that he/she is "a nice person." It's their main coping mechanism, believe it or not.

A: Ahead of habits like lying, manipulation, substance abuse, and abusive sexuality?

J: The need to find "proof" that they're nice is the psychopath's Number One psychological defense against the truth of his or her unconscionable behaviour.

A: So Hitler believed he was "a nice person."

J: Oh, absolutely. Same with his close buddies. As a group, they told themselves comfy little lies about what nice people they were and what an important job they were doing for the German people -- the German people they loved.

A: Throwing themselves on their swords for the good of the people, eh?

J: That's how they explained it to themselves. That's how they managed to keep functioning, despite the severe damage to their biological brains.

A: Hitler had a violent temper and he made irrational military decisions that revolved around "honour." His honour.

J: That's what I meant when I said that hell hath no fury like a narcissist scorned. When you impugn the "honour" -- by that I actually mean the status -- of a psychopath or a severe narcissist, you can expect to be on the receiving end of a narcissistic rage reaction. Such a person will not rest until he or she has exacted revenge. The revenge may be physical. It may be psychological. It may be financial or social. Or some combination of these. But you can count on one thing: it'll hurt like stink, and you'll probably be deeply traumatized for a long time afterwards. Only occasionally will such person decide to "let it go" and walk away from the "deservee."

A: They want to turn you to stone, in other words.

J: This is the reality. It seemed appropriate to me to caution my students about this reality. You could say it was a question of "informed consent." Is it right to give students a new understanding of how to be in relationship with God and not warn them about the practical consequences of standing up to the bullies, the tyrants, and the religious status seekers? It didn't seem right to me not to warn them.

A: The version of the Medusa myth I liked best when I was growing up was the version where Perseus cut off Medusa's head and released the beautiful winged horse Pegasus who was trapped inside. There are other versions of the Pegasus myth, but somehow I liked the idea of the noble creature trapped inside the monster. It made sense to me. Not that I'm endorsing the Gnostic idea of good-soul-trapped-inside-evil-body. I don't mean it that way. It's just that so many people misuse their bodies and brains. They choose to ignore their true self -- their Pegasus, if you will. They choose to identify with this horrible snake-covered outer mask that enjoys hurting other people, enjoys turning other people into stone. They're in a complete state of denial about the choices they're making.

J: Part of the journey of forgiving the Hitlers of the world is the choice to trust that behind every snake-covered Medusan mask of hatred lies the true self -- the brave and beautiful Pegasus. A.k.a. the soul. The core consciousness that isn't being listened to.

A: Ah. But we haven't got to those teachings yet. Those are the most challenging ones of all.

J: One step at a time. That's the best anyone can do.

JR19: The Beatitudes of Luke

A: People are often confused about the meaning of your statements on wealth and poverty. There's a long history of Christians deciding to "imitate you" by giving up all their possessions and taking vows of poverty (among other vows). How do you respond to this interpretation of your teachings?  

J: It's an incorrect interpretation. 

A: In what way?  

J: Psychologically and spiritually, it's an incorrect interpretation. There's no truth to the widespread belief that asceticism is the correct path to knowing God. Asceticism, including the modified form of asceticism preached by the monastic founder Benedict, is an ancient spiritual practice, to be sure, but it's a dangerous one. It's dangerous to the human body and the human brain. Therefore it gets in the way of connection with God. I don't recommend asceticism today. I didn't recommend asceticism 2,000 years ago. 

Then he looked up at his disciples and said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in the Kingdom within; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets. But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.” (Luke 6:22-26, translation from The New Oxford Annotated NRSV, 3rd Ed.) Photo credit JAT 2022.

A: The Beatitudes and Woes in Luke (Luke 6:20-26) seem to suggest otherwise. The footnotes in the New Oxford Annotated NRSV state that "the focus [in the beatitudes] is on economic and social conditions, not spiritual states" (p. 107 NT).  

J: Commentators interpret the Lukan beatitudes this way because the commentators themselves have a dualistic understanding of humanity. There's a common belief that economic and social conditions can be separated from spiritual states. But they can't. They've always been intertwined. There's no such thing as a spiritual state that's separate and distinct from economic and social realities. It's one of the great myths of religion -- the idea that people can dissociate themselves from their own thoughts, needs, feelings, and relationships in order to get closer to God. It's pure crap. Abusive, damaging crap.  

A: Explain. 

J: The only path to connecting with God while living as a human being is to become a Whole Brain Thinker. A Whole Brain Thinker is a person who makes balanced choices, holistic choices each day. A Whole Brain Thinker engages all parts of the brain God gave him. He uses his emotions in a balanced, compassionate way. He uses his logic and memory to balance his heart. He honours and respects the needs of his physical body, neither denying himself food nor overindulging at the expense of his physical health. He incorporates his spiritual life into his regular daily life, rather than setting aside just one or two hours per week to attend religious services. He struggles each day to find the balance among all these competing aspects of his true self, but he tries his best because that's the only path open to a self-realized person. To a person who has found the Kingdom.  

A: Are there any measurable benefits to such a path? Any positive outcomes? Any source of spiritual hope?  

J: There are many measurable benefits. Too many to count, in fact. I can't give a precise list, because each person is different, each soul is different, so there's variation from person to person. But there are some overall patterns that can be described. There are overall improvements to physical health, mental health, family relationships, and community relationships that develop automatically when individuals start to take control of their own choices, their own thoughts and feelings. Thousands of researchers in hundreds of different fields would back me up on this one.  

A: I love it when scientific research backs up the Divine Truth! 

J: One area that gets very little research attention is the role of brain health in facilitating the experience of trust. One of the first emotions to get "blocked" in the angry brain, in the addicted brain, is trust. Trust is a complex soul emotion. It's interwoven with relationships in the soul and in the childhood brain. It's also interwoven with the physical body through ongoing touch -- respectful touch, appropriate touch, sentimental touch. There's a reason that folk wisdom recommends daily hugs. Hugs are important. Respectful hugs -- by that I mean non-sexualized hugs -- are hugely important to people's health. On the other hand, abusive contact, abusive touch has the opposite effect on people's biology. It damages brain cells. Stress hormones released in the body damage the brain cells of both the abuser and the abusee. A survivor of childhood abuse is likely to grow up unable to trust. Without the emotion of trust, there's no basis for mature relationship. There's no basis for mature relationship with yourself or with anybody else. It means you have no foundation for a relationship with God.  

A: Because you need to feel trust in order to feel faith. Genuine faith. 

J (nodding): Genuine faith is founded on a person's ability to trust that God actually knows what they're doing! If you aren't able to trust God, then you're always going to be second-guessing God, getting angry with God. You're always going to be judging God. People don't like to admit that they're judging God, but many Christians do it. Every single day they draw up lists of God's "crimes" of omission and commission. You wouldn't believe the number of angry prayers God gets every day. 

A: So how does all this relate to the message of the Lukan beatitudes? 

J: The issue here is the interconnection between trust and faith on the one hand, and anger and addiction on the other hand. The brain isn't wired -- nor should it be -- to allow human beings to live a life of trust and faith AND anger and addiction. People have to make a choice. They have to make a choice between living a life of trust and faith -- a life where they feel alive every day instead of dead inside, empty inside -- OR living a life of anger and addiction. It's an unfortunate fact that once people become addicted to status, physiologically addicted to the dopamine release of "status hits," they tend to want to stick with their "drug of choice." They won't give it up until they decide their addiction is causing harm. They have to stop denying the harm created by the addiction. So let me ask you . . . how many people do you know who've voluntarily given up their status for the sake of inner life, inner freedom, inner joy? 

A: I know several people who've lost their status involuntarily -- not through choice, but through circumstance. Stock market losses. Divorce. Illness. Long-term disability. That sort of thing.  

J: You know a number of people with money, status, privilege, possessions. How would you say they're doing on the "inner joy" scale?  

A: Many aren't doing well. They're getting clinically depressed. They're developing chronic health problems -- a lot of autoimmune stuff. Sleep disorders. Chronic pain. Unrelenting stress.  

J: Right. These responses to stress and status addiction aren't new. They've been around for as long as homo sapiens have been biologically susceptible to status addiction.  

A: The Lukan Woes -- Luke 6:24-26 -- look different when read in the context you've just described. The "consolation" and the "hunger" and the "mourning and weeping" sound a lot like clinical depression.  

J: Clinical depression has a genetic component, but it's also intertwined with internal stresses and external stresses. Sometimes you can't do anything about the external stresses -- things like the Dow Jones average. But the internal stresses have an effect on clinical depression, too. People can really stress themselves out by making choices that harm themselves and harm others. There's a reason that people with clinical depression respond best to a treatment course that involves both appropriate antidepressant medication AND certain kinds of effective psychotherapy. The medication helps your brain build new "wiring," which is necessary for the healing process, while the psychotherapy can help you recognize your harmful choices and learn to make more loving choices.  

A: Nothing new there as far as an empathetic psychiatrist is concerned.  

J: Exactly. And Christianity should jump onto the same page with the empathetic psychiatrists. It's not money that's the root of all evil. Money builds schools, hospitals, roads, etc., etc., etc.  

A: Whereas status addiction builds huge monuments, huge reputations, huge armies, and professional sports teams. 

J: Jared Diamond thinks that civilizations collapse when they harm their own environment and starve themselves to death. But people who are using their brains in holistic, balanced ways have too much common sense to destroy their own environment. Only serious status addicts are stupid enough to destroy their own sustenance for the sake of building a bigger, better Temple.  

A: The history of collapse in a nutshell. 

J: God won't back up status-addicted choices. God would rather bring people Home to heal them and release them from the pain of status addiction than leave them in a morass of profound abuse. And make no mistake -- religion based on status addiction is profoundly abusive. 

A: Including Pauline Christianity. Its doctrines, its teachings.  

J: If the shoe fits . . .