Hi Stephen.

        Listening to the sermon yesterday, even in the half awake state I was In for most of it, I could not help be reminded (remembering that you had indeed shared this with me 18 years ago when I first stumbled in) that we both not only “heard a voice” but heard the same words. “This is your home. You are home.” I also Remember quite clearly you telling me that plenty of others before and after you over the years had similar experiences…. 

          The implications, if we expand beyond the confines of the everyday and view it from a more empirical study perspective, seem to me to be enormous, deep, profound. I.E. what in the heck is going on there? If one leaves “religion” outside the door a few minutes to explore these supernatural events, looking for a solution, are we talking angels? Spirits? A Divine Force? The building is haunted? Something in the air that alters and confounds the participants’ mind? Some sort of psychoactive chemical…? 

          I probably lost you there. But listening to you so passionately relaying that story yesterday and hearing you speak of the exact same experience I had With the exact same words…. Boy has it had me contemplating…. From a more objective and scientific viewpoint.     

         Of course I’m also fine just chalking it up to “there’s a divine force dwelling inside that space and if you listen carefully and your heart is open, you can hear it.” 

Precisely Because it wasn’t just “the voice” that so captivated me that first day. It actually had more to do with the giant all encompassing feeling of love that swept over my physical body — I now describe it as similar to if i had taken 4-5 hits of Ecstasy (but I had Not) — accompanied by a flurry of voices whispering in both of my ears “this is God’s love. God loves you so much…” for a good 5 minutes. THAT was actually the first experience that i describe as “supernatural”. On a weekday no less. Alone in this giant though eerily quiet building.

         It would be hard to not return to the place for a service after experiencing something like that. Even if just out of scientific curiosity. 

         I am Working on an idea. I find it hard now, after hearing you share yesterday, to keep this private and just between us. We’re not just talking about “good vibes”. Nor are we speaking of any kind of standard religious dogma or indoctrination. It’s something altogether different. 

         And I’ll tell you this: if that can happen to someone like me, so thoroughly committed to intellectual purity, logic and reason and entirely not-religious, then there are many others who deserve the same experience and benefits. 

For the last 18 years I have Kept all of this very private due to how strongly people in arts letters academia and entertainment judge such things. But I’m done doing that. Hearing you relay yesterday the exact same experience that I had changed something in me. At once I suddenly Felt selfish for not speaking about it more often.

        Me doing that, withholding like that… often talking about Enlightenment and Consciousness Expansion in the public but never discussing “religious experiences”…. well it’s pretense. Out of resistance. It’s not AS genuine as one could be. I see that now. 

        It’s out of integrity in a way…. Being gifted with the knowledge of a specific power and withholding it from others out of resistance to being judged. It’s self concern with no concern for the health and well-being of others. 

That’s all I wanted to initially get across to you. 

E

        So how would i attempt to describe it? That’s the question…. If I were to attempt to communicate it to more logical rational people who normally don’t pay attention to such things….

         Something like “there appears to be another force in the universe in addition to gravity and electromagnetism and the nuclear forces. But this fifth force appears to have both consciousness and awareness, and an ability to communicate with other forms of consciousness, or at the very least with human consciousness. It can speak. And additionally it has the uncanny ability to alter consciousness through apparently subtle vibrational shifts…. 

        “Though we cannot be sure if this force is limited to just the earthly plane or if it does in fact permeate the entire universe like the other forces. 

        “For the sake of simplicity one could label it “the divine force” or “a divine force” since its primary function seems to be spiritual enlightenment of consciousness. Is it capable of other things? We don’t yet know. Can it be harnessed or put to use? Still unknown. 

         “But it is becoming extremely difficult to deny the existence of this force in the face of such blatant real world experiences of it. 

        “We need to be objectively studying this force in more Socratic and scientific methods on a more consistent and constant basis. The same way we studied gravity and the other forces. 

        “There is absolutely no reason for us to remain in the dark about this fifth force, blindly dismiss it as “beyond our grasp of understanding” and thus relegate it to the murky world of the supernatural or religious. That is a mistake in reason we are making. 

        “The sooner we recognize that the divine force can be studied scientifically just as any other force, the sooner we will have a better understanding of it and it’s possible benefits to humankind. 

        “An analogous subject would be the way astrology with all its myths and legends, false assumptions and fairy tales, slowly evolved into the more rational scientific study of astronomy. We find ourselves in a similar situation with this divine force. It is time to set the myths legends and religious ideologies aside for a more nobler pursuit of a scientific understanding of the divine.

        “Obviously the biggest obstacles to this goal have been created by how misused and abused the words “god” and “gods” have been over the last 7,000 years. So step one would be to just stop using those words in the scientific study of the divine force. All they do is confuse and muddy the subject being studied, bringing up peoples’ worst memories and fears about indoctrination and control. 

         “There is also a possibility that this fifth force may also be the grease that got the universe moving to begin with…. The awareness of awareness of all that is created matter and movement, just as awareness still does. Create both movement and matter that is. 

         “Now we’re in the domain of a priori…. But it is still a valid point all these centuries later. Awareness becomes aware of itself, becomes consciousness, and consciousness as it is always want to do begins to expand and create. First matter. Then movement. Shifting back and forth between consciousness and awareness…. It is not entirely out of realm of possibility. And in fact it’s easier to believe than the current scientific theory that “non-conscious matter just exploded out of nothing in a Big Bang and self created”. That seems a highly unlikely theory. We need both awareness and consciousness to create. We know this now.” 

Gotta go. More later.