Anniversary 2

Continuing a tradition of regarding Pentecost as the anniversary date of this website, I would like to take a moment to reflect on the last year with regards to this site and the research program that has been reported via the essays given here.

Band of Brothers 2

The departure of Ken Fuqua for better pastures at South Texas Project, while certainly was a blessing for him and his family, proved a bit more trying for me.  It is often the case that it is only after losing someone or something that you realize how important they were to you.  Our weekly discussions and daily encouragement at work did more for me than I suspected, so when those ceased, I recognized the need for God to bring someone else into my life to share what He was showing me, as well as serve as a check for those inevitable excesses of hubris that need to be stamped out the moment they raise their heads.  Happily, Ken had shared some of his experiences, along with the address of this website, with a mutual work acquaintance, Glenn Davies, who saw the potential of it.  We eventually realized God had been working to get us together, so now we are meeting once a week at lunch for an hour.   There are not as many opportunities for us to meet in the halls to briefly encourage each other, since Glenn is the main engineering training instructor, and thus has a rather fluid schedule that doesn't alway permit meeting on the same day.  He always rolls his eyes when I mention him as a co-researcher, but I'm still glad to have him as a sounding board, a brother in Christ, as well as a growing friend. 

State of The Great Work

"The Great Work" is a phrase that comes from the Medeval Alchemists, and refers to the project of fabricating the Philosopher's Stone, the fragments of which could be used to turn lead into gold.  What is not commonly known about The Great Work was that the Alchemists viewed the long and tedious process involved to create the Stone as being necessary to transform the soul and character of the alchemist so that, when the Stone was finally formed, the alchemist's character would have been transformed by that time into one worthy and able to use it properly.

As I have been living this lifestyle, watching the changes in me, my attitudes, my way of thinking, and in my physical person, I believe even more that calling what I am doing here "The Great Work" is entirely justified. 

For instance, during year 2, I came to the realization that the work in Suppression is essentially complete.  Justifying this opinion are reliable reports of men becoming acquainted with the core ideas of Symbiotic Suppression, applying them, and meeting with great (albeit not perfect) success as the Spirit moved within them.  Never far from my mind is the need to write a book that simplifies and puts in a logical order the concepts of Symbiotic Christianity: reproducing these essays in paper form would be a bit much to expect!  However, it is very encouraging to consider that what would theoretically take up about a quarter of that putative book is the subject of multiple entire books already existing, and selling, on bookstore shelves!  I refer to books dedicated to single issues like pornography compulsions, anger management, peace of mind, and forgiveness.  I had joked in "The Symbiotic Refinery" about writing a weight-loss book that "backed into" Symbiotic Christianity as a side-effect, and was being prevented by being (still yet) unable to reach my weight goals.  However, writing an analogous book to deal with Pornography that could also "back into" the subject matter does not suffer from a lack of results, both personal and independently verified.  It is an option I am considering, with the obvious guidance of the Holy Spirit.

As a result of the above, I came to feel confident that Suppression was "nailed down" securely enough to start writing the essays on Illumination, and as usual, the surprises kept coming in when unexpected.  For instance, I did not expect my internal mental climate to be so radically improved during the course of writing "Illumination and Wisdom" to the point of seeing how to evangelize an entire subculture of Western youth (the "emos") using Suppression/Manipulation!  And the writing of "The Scripture Comunications Protocol" was quite pivotal in that it records the process by which I conduct this research in a way that allows it to be continued by others.

However, most encouraging of all is that, in trying to flesh out some conjectures about Manipulation with regard to ending drug addiction that I was eventually led to the work of John Crowder and Benjamin Dunn, and I had the opportunity to attend two series of meetings where I was able to hear, and briefly talk with, John Crowder.  Mr. Crowder enjoys freedom from alcohol dependency through what he calls a mystical union with Jesus Christ, through which he senses the glory of God as a form of divine drunkenness which he calls "drunken glory".  While some may question why I should visit and listen to what amounts to Evangelical Christianity as heresy or dangerous excess, I point out that Evangelical Christianity is very definitely wrong about Charismatics and Pentecostals, so their opposition, to me, amounted to waving a flag and yelling "Take a look at THIS!"  It turns out that Mr. Crowder traces his spiritual lineage to the Jesus People, the only sub-culture of the Hippie movement of the 60's for which I felt respect, and not a little bit of envy.   I justify my investigation of their work by pointing out that asperin was discovered by western drug researchers taking seriously the claims of the african natives who chewed the plants in which it was discovered. 

If there is any problem with the delay in writing these essays, you may thank (or blame!) Mr. Crowder and Mr. Dunn for provoking me into a deeper look at, and eventual appreciation, for the concepts behind Unification.  Initially, I had proposed Unification to solve what I saw as a "permissions" problem when Ken Fuqua reported the Spirit leading him in how to improve his communications skills with regard to his family, and which I included as one of the four 'stages" (now capabilities) with the same sort of mental reservation that the ancient greeks did when they added air to what they thought were the fundamental elements of earth, water, and fire.  Seems that I was very very wrong in that assessment, leading me to insights that led to the rewrite of "In Christ" and "Only a Metaphor?", and corrected some misinformation about the nature of the Human Heart that will result in some minor revision of some of the Suppression essays.  As usual, I justify these changes as analogous to being revisions of earlier research papers as later research leads to a deeper understanding of the phenomena being examined. 

Suffice it to say, Unification is the "hottest" research topic I am pursuing at this time, and it is out of an interest to avoid later rewrites that the production of essays has slowed down.  Hopefully, the quality of the result will justify any waits. 

Conclusion

I write this on May 23, 2010, Pentecost Sunday.  Yesterday, my youngest son graduated from Vidalia High School, and today I will be helping him move to Armstrong Atlantic State University, where both of my sons will be pursuing engineering degrees through the Summer session.  Earlier this morning, my older son came in to ask a question about military operations in Afghanistan.  As is usual for me, the subject began getting wider and wider, and I was somehow led to cast myself back in time to his age, and I reflected on the rather vain attempts I made to harness "psychic" powers that were all the rage at the time, and which (Thanks to John Crowder's book, "The New Mystics") were actually a way to "explain away" the success of the incredible (but quite fallible) healing evangelists of the preceeding 1950s.  My attempts were an effort to "recover" the power of the ancient Church. 

After some reflection, I thanked God for showing me the "more accurate way" of the Indwelling Spirit, which certainly is proving more effective, and biblical, than the ways of the devil disguised as the ways of the world!  It is my hope that you find the teachings of this research to be equally beneficial and more than easily exceed the capabilities of anything presented by the world as an "answer" to any problems you have!