“People who deny the existence of dragons are often eaten by dragons. From within.” ~ Ursula K. Le Guin, The Wave in the Mind “Most of us were conditioned to be nice rather than real, accommodating rather than authentic, and adaptive rather than assertive.” ~ James Hollis, Jungian analyst It breaks my heart that wars rage in Ukraine, in Gaza, and in sub-Saharan Africa. It breaks my heart that hatred, racism, sexism, and religious persecution are on the increase across the so-called developed nations of the west. It breaks my heart that so many of my friends and fellow Americans seem to be ..read more

This final post in the series continues our exploration of the seven core beliefs from my book SACRED THINKING: Awakening Your Inner Power (LINK), this post looks at beliefs 5 & 6. The first post (LINK) looked at Beliefs 1 & 2; The second post (LINK) looked at Beliefs 3 & 4; The third post (LINK) looked at beliefs 5 & 6. BELIEF SEVEN: Within each human being is the potential to fully experience the connection with the One Spirit. A number of great spiritual teachers have set examples as to how this can be done. The collective human consciousness is, it seems, poised on the verg ..read more

Continuing our exploration of the seven core beliefs from my book SACRED THINKING: Awakening Your Inner Power (LINK), this post looks at beliefs 5 & 6. The first post (LINK) looked at Beliefs 1 & 2; The second post (LINK) looked at Beliefs 3 & 4. BELIEF FIVE: As a human being, you are an individualized (not individual, which means separate) expression of the One Spirit, as are all other human beings and everything else in creation. You can never be separate from Spirit, nor can you ever truly be separate from anything else in creation. Your connection to everything is invisible, co ..read more

Continuing our exploration of the seven core beliefs from my book SACRED THINKING: Awakening Your Inner Power (LINK), this post looks at beliefs 3 & 4. The first post (LINK) looked at Beliefs 1 & 2. BELIEF THREE: The Universe is constantly changing, moving toward greater and greater complexity. This is done through a process called evolution, which has been going on at least since the Big Bang – our name for the origin of the universe. Evolution appears to be a process through which Spirit manifests increasing degrees of complexity and intelligence in Its creation ..read more

My first spiritual book, SACRED THINKING: Awakening to Your Own Power (LINK), was published in 2010. I am revisiting the book for a new writing project and I thought it would be helpful to blog about the 7 basic beliefs from the Introduction to that book. Over the next weeks, I will blog about these basic beliefs, and we will see where that leads us – to different beliefs, revised beliefs, more beliefs, or fewer? We shall see. BELIEF ONE: There is ONE Infinite Spirit. This One Spirit created the universe out of Itself, out of Its own infinite nature. It is the ground of all being and ..read more

“Never deny the authenticity of your own experience.” ~ Bishop Yvette Flunder I was fortunate. The holiday season, from Thanksgiving through New Year’s Day, was generally positive in my home and among my extended family, the usual minor disputes aside. The major losses of family members occurred at other times of the year. When I became a police officer, I was exposed to people with different experiences of the holidays. Families who had experienced deep trauma or significant losses during that time of year (or any time), who were unable to celebrate the season and often created additional d ..read more

“. . . for all tomorrow’s good May rest today upon your gratitude, For he who gives thanks before the wine Is pressed from grapes still clinging to the vine Has shown a faith above, beyond the present hour And his thanksgiving holds the future flower.” ~ from “The Voice Celestial” by Ernest and Fenwicke Holmes Ernest Holmes, the developer of The Science of Mind (LINK) philosophy and the founder of Religious Science/Centers for Spiritual Living, was largely a synthesizer of ancient wisdom and modern psychology. He did not originate most of what he wrote and spoke about but put things together ..read more

“I am unmoved by appearances, therefore appearances move.” ~ Florence Shovel Shin “Who you gonna believe, me – or your Lyin’ Eyes?” ~ Groucho Marx We are in an age where two major developments are occurring and becoming intertwined. One is the capacity to make false information look very real; the other is a concerted movement to stop social progress and regress to a time where the world seemed more controllable. Using artificial intelligence to create “deep fake” images and videos (LINK) (images and videos which appear real but are not – like the image of the Pope in the Balenciaga coat ab ..read more

“A religion is as much a progressive unlearning of false ideas concerning God as it is the learning of the true ideas concerning God.” ~ Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan “The Supreme Truth exists both internally and externally, in the moving and the nonmoving. It is beyond the power of the material senses to see or know. Although far away, it is also near to all.” ~ The Bhagavad Gita, 13.16 In this final part of the series, I will address how we begin to integrate a new definition of God* into the New Thought culture. Just as New Thought students need to “unlearn” the limiting ideas of God learned in ..read more

‎”I have treated many hundreds of patients. Among those in the second half of life – that is to say, over 35 – there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a spiritual outlook on life.” ~ C.G. Jung Jungian psychology holds a key to understanding the metaphysics of New Thought Teachings. As noted in Part 1 (LINK) and Part 2 (LINK) of this series, it is understood that our psychological systems – mind, thoughts, feelings, ego, shadow, etc. – are our means of connecting to the Divine within. It is at the Modernist-Orange stage of development that we begin ..read more