theurgy: how to become god
part fOUR
(new thought)
New Thought
“New Thought is an ever-evolving understanding that all of life happens through us, never to us. It uses the term or word consciousness to further explain the process, often quoting Emmet Fox’s statement, ‘Life is consciousness,’ that leads one to the ever-unfolding idea that in order to affect a change in our life, the realm of mind called consciousness must first change.”
Every point in space is filled with the total presence of the Divine. An elephant is not more alive than a mouse!
Right thinking has always been a hallmark of Gnosis. Achieving unity with truth is an essential part of the path of enlightenment. Alignment and integrity is how we achieve unity with this thing we call Life. We are Infinite Consciousness. We are connected to one another and we are connected to Source!
Quantum science calls each of these points in the universe which contain the whole of the Divine: "fields". For example, quantum science teaches that everywhere in the universe there is a field called the electron field. A physical electron isn’t the field, but rather a localized vibration in the field. In fact, every electron in the universe is a similar localized vibration of that single field.
Sri Ramakrishna expressed this scientific theory in spiritual terms:
“The love of the devotee freezes this formless God (Spirit) into the form of his or her desire!”
Ernest Holmes taught us to say and know the following words: “There is one life, that life is perfect, that life is God, that life is my life now.”
Universal Presence is not just limited to Jesus or to one religion. Jesus Christ was not the great exception. He was the great example! If we are awake we may hear the voice that reminds us, “No place is empty of Me.”
In New Thought, the practitioner does not force anything to happen. The practitioner realizes that if his or her environment, or “world”, is causing him or her suffering, it is because at some level of his or her consciousness exists the thought that the practitioner cannot live a life of filled with good and happiness.
The New Thought practitioner does not believe in duality, in other words, in good and evil forces struggling against each other in the universe. The Divine cannot be divided against Itself or It would not be the Ultimate Reality. God can only know that which is God. The Divine must be consistent, coherent, and integral.
Thus, in New Thought, the practitioner turns his or her mind to the awareness that “God is good”. It is not just a matter of saying a few affirmations or listening to a few self-help recordings. The practitioner must absolutely and completely transform his or her mind to see beyond the superficiality of reality (the lies of the Demiurge) and look deeply into the foundation of existence, the One Source, which is forever beneficent and loving toward the practitioner. This often takes much work.
One needs to deeply explore the contents of one’s unconscious mind, routing out the weeds and false conceptions inserted into the mind by society, religion, parents, governments, and so forth. The mind will fight the practitioner when he or she begins to believe that “God is good.”
The mind will come up with thousands of examples of times when things did not turn out as one had hoped. The mind will offer images of war, of horrible conflicts with other persons, and on and on. However, this is because our society is firmly based on the concept of “God vs. the Devil” or the “Good Guys vs. the Bad Guys”. As long as we have this belief in our minds, the mirror of the universe is going to obey us (since we are Creative Gods) and produce a universe in which we see the forces of Light and Dark fighting against each other. A mirror never asks questions. It always truthfully reflects whatever is present before it.
An excellent description of New Thought awakening occurs in the Gnostic text “The Hymn of the Pearl”. Here is a short example:
“My letter had been sealed by the King with his right hand
to keep it from the wicked ones, the children of Babel,
and from the save demons of Sarbug.
It flew in the form of an eagle, the king of birds
it flew and alighted besides me, and became speech.
As its voice and the sound of its rustling wings,
I started, and rose up from my sleep.
I took it and kissed it I broke its seal and I read,
and I realized that the words on the letter for me to read
were the words written in my heart.
I remembered that I was a son of Kings,
and my freedom longed for its own nature.
I remembered the Pearl for which I had been sent to Egypt.
I began to charm the terrible serpent
By chanting the names of my parents over him
I hushed him to sleep and lulled him into slumber.
I seized the Pearl,
and turned to carry it back to my parents’ house.”
Now some immediately raise their hackles when they hear of such talk and derivisely call this method “New Age”, as if those words were a proper insult.
The methods I am presenting in these articles are profound and substantive. In their book “New Thought: A Practical American Spirituality,” C. Alan Anderson and Deborah G. Whitehouse write,
“New Thought, as we have seen, teaches that there is only one Presence and Power and that that Power is Good. And unlike Hinduism or Christian Science, it does not see evil as maya, illusion. If you don't believe it, kick the next flat tire you see. Evil is good that is immature or misdirected. It has no power of its own it has only the power that our minds give to it. It doesn't have to be destroyed or fought, any more than when you come into a darkened room and turn on the light, you have to chase the darkness away. It is dealt with by thinking about and working to bring about the good that you want in its place.”
To go even deeper into the teachings of New Thought, we must consider the creativity of humanity. Precisely, we have the power to create because we are gods.
Gods are creators and we humans love to create stories. We have been telling stories to one another since time immemorial. At one time, humans were capable of reciting great epics by memory, as well as remembering and reciting the stories of the ancestors going back countless generations. Unfortunately, today, most people know little more than the name of their Great-Grandfather and Great-Grandmother, let alone their challenges, triumphs, adventures, and so forth. We love re-imaging in our minds the stories of other people. We do this all the time when we read books.
The images and worlds we create in our minds can either be accurate images (in the case of a non-fiction biography for example) or imaginary (as in the case of a fictional fantasy novel). Nevertheless, we delight in creating as well as experiencing the creations of other human beings. Movie theaters are packed each weekend with people going to see images projected onto screens that do not have any reality of their own (they are just the play of light on a movie screen). The same principle applies to when we are watching our favorite “soap opera” or “television series” on our LCD-HD-TV. The characters in the show we are watching may be experiencing triumphs or great disasters, however it is all the same to the screen, and as much as we become involved in the show, in the back of our minds we know that we are only watching a “show”. We enjoy a good story whether it be told by our neighbor or by a great playwright. The events that happen in a fictional novel, play, film, opera, etc., are not real. The evil that happens to the people in these artistic works does not exist in reality.
Now we are living in the time of artificial reality and artificial intelligence. We are wondering if we are living in a computer simulation. And at the same time, we are creating “real life” simulations on our home computers, with computer games that allow us to create entire societies. New Thought teaches us that we are gods. If we create horror stories in which evil things happen to imaginary people, we are in effect “playing” at being devils. We can do this because we have the creative power within us. Now, this is the most important point: while authors write their stories on paper or a word processing program, all human beings are constantly creating in our minds (because we are gods) and projecting that story onto the “screen” of the world-fabric. We live in a web that responds to our most subtle and our most gross thoughts. If we believe we are poor and stupid, the world-fabric will project back to us exactly those facts. In other words, we will experience in our daily lives, countless examples of how we are poor and stupid. Just like the movie screen or LED television screen, the screen does not care what is projected upon it, it only automatically reflects back to us what we project upon the screen. There are newer forms of “screens”, for example we can create holograms using fine sprays of water or a light smoke fog. Nevertheless, the basic principle remains the same, a kind of reality can be created that involves us and which we find entertaining. The question cannot be whether or not the Ultimate Reality is good or evil. The question only can be: what are we choosing to create with our infinite creative power?
Lastly, and I cannot claim credit for this insight, but it is worth mentioning. The Ultimate Reality could have produced a universe in which people had no power to make “evil” decisions. In short, the Source could have generated a world in which human beings were robots. Or the Source could have generated a universe in which human beings could act in an “evil” or a “good” manner. Now the interesting insight is that fundamentally speaking, a universe filled with beings unable to act with free will can never be considered to be superior to a universe filled with beings who are free to act as they see fit.
Therefore, the Source is Good, as It created the only possible universe a Good God could create, one in which the human beings could act freely according to their wills.
© 2017 - 2019 Laurence Galian
