Jehovah and Cult-psychology

Your friend John sounds like a lovely, sincere man. Please do feel free to share my emailaddress with him, if he is interested. Please also inform him that I have written a book called Jehovah, Good-bye: The "New Theism" of Love. This book has as its major premise the desperate need of our societies to replace the ancient wargod of the Israelis with a higher vision. We in the twenty-first century need to return to the image established by Jesus and other great masters-- that God is Love plus nothing. This Love is not contaminated with fear, hatred, judgment, or any other contaminant. It is only purest Love.

The second part of this book is about the "new theism" that sees and understands God as pure Love. The only job of this God is to forgive, as a part of Love. (This book can also be accessed, free, on, and downloaded from, the website loveministries.org)

Your friend John indirectly confirms what I've heard from so many gays-- that the tendency is inherent. I also believe that being gay is genebased, as it has been observed in a number of species. I believe that this "cross-over" occurs when a Soul has incarnated many times in a female body, and then, to learn what male-lives are like, decides to incarnate as a male. Or vice-versa, with lesbians. But still, inside, the feelings/attractions remain the same.

Re the Bible: I never use the Hebrew Scriptures ("Old Testament"). On the surface, they contain very little of mystical interest or value, unless understood metaphorically. I am not a Jew, have never been a Jew in this life, and have no plans of becoming a Jew. Why, then, should I ever even consider being bound to the socioreligious or sociocultural rules of that particular religion/genetic grouping?

I am not antisemitic! Not at all. But I consider myself as a free being to be as free from the laws of ancient Judaism as from those of ancient Greece, ancient Peru, or any other ancient culture.

Just because the grumpy old men-- murderers, thieves, and liars-- who compiled the present Bible were foolish and biased enough to jam the Hebrew Scriptures together with the Christian, pretending, in effect, that the writings were one, solid, indivisible "Holy Bible," this proves nothing. A study of history shows that they were wrong.

This is why "Christianity" and "Judaism" are, and were, two completely separate religions. They teach differing ideas, have separate histories, separate Bibles, separate teachers, and separate gods. They are completely separate. Not only is Jesus absent from Hebrew religion, but so is grace (universal forgiveness), and even the idea that others are equal before God. The entire Epistle to the Galatians is about how free people are not bound to law, or "the Law"-- in this case, meaning the
Hebrew Scriptures.

The Hebrew Scriptures-- as a respected Jewish man reminded me recently--are allegorical. (I prefer "Hebrew Scriptures" to "Old Testament," because the latter represents a Christian bias that is unfair, presenting the texts as only a prelude to the "New Testament.") Those ancient writings are symbolic or metaphorical. This is how the Enlightenment Tradition among the Hebrew people (called Kabbalah) always regarded the ancient texts. For these Jews believed in a God of Love, and had to reject the historical Jehovah-- as indeed, all spiritual people must, sooner or later. So, I do not believe that a literal guy named Lot offered his literal daughters to a crowd of sex-perverts to do them harm, nor do I believe that "Lot's wife" was turned into a pillar of literal salt.

David, whose murders of "bad guys" were celebrated as history for centuries, is a little more problematic. (Let's just say that I do not regard him as a pinnacle or paragon of virtues.) But as a human being, he was a lousy moral example, not only because of his mass-murders, but also because of his despicable behavior with Bath-Sheba. Allegory or not, the story of David leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Whatever he was, he was clearly NOT a "man of God." (This is just a personal belief,
but his conscience later could have driven him quite mad; and while not a historical fact, this can be inferred from many of the Psalms attributed to him.)

Re the "Ark of the Covenant": This large box also might well be allegory. But if, as some say, the Ark was a kind of battery, the poor fellow who tried to catch it was electrocuted, and the wargod Jehovah was not even involved in this wasteful destruction (although I'm the last to defend him).

I find your friend John's characterization of Jehovah's mental development refreshingly realistic. I have made a similar decision, but consider Jehovah, with all his temper-tantrums, to have the emotional abilities of a four-year-old! (This is in the book.) Those ancient Middle Eastern wargods were all emotionally arrested and regressive. They were a collection of maniacs, barbarians, and idiots! Today we would diagnose all of them as psychotics. They had only one function: Being wargods, they were designed to scare the hell out of their enemies. So, they were all presented as brutal monsters. This was simply to intimidate the enemy. Mercy and Love in their gods would have been fatal weaknesses for states surrounded by vicious enemies.

Although both John and you might have drifted from the cultdogma for different reasons, that is the very best thing that could have happened to either of you. To reject the cult, with its most anti-human teaching of the slaughter and massacre of the entire human race, in the name of Love, is particularly sweet!

Please tell John that he deserves much better than this little microcult. There are giant spiritual traditions, such as the intercultural one called the "Way of Love" (mysticism or the Enlightenment Tradition) in which he can think. He can grow. He can thrive. He can find real and true friends. (Those he will never find in the cult; they do not know how to love their friends, and will betray them in a second if commanded to do so.) The world is filled with a splendid smorgasbord of delicious, freeing, ecstatic, joyful spiritual paths. The cult taught that all other religions contained only garbage and hypocrisy. Actually, it is a delight to see, with experience and history, that every path contains so much beauty, nobility, goodness, and, yes, truth! So, please also encourage him to open his mind without fear. If he begins to study other faiths, no "evil spirits" are going to jump down his throat!:)

No one could ever have believed in the Organization more than I. But I was forced to resign because of integrity and a dawning higher vision. Btw, if John has resigned, he need not be "disfellowshipped" (excommunicated from the cult) at all. For he is in exactly the same status to the elders and to those still stuck. (If his mother ever even speaks to him, it is next to a miracle!) I also began to use other translations of the Bible, in the sales work of the cult. Finally, I stopped carrying my sales-briefcase altogether, and carried only a hand-sized KJ Bible, and shared the good news straight from the Bible! How the elders sizzled at this act of "rebellion"! Tell John that he should be proud of his independence! Independent thinking, far from being a "sin," is one of the greatest gifts that God has given us!:) Just ask any normal person!:)

Tell John to try, please, to realize that mistrust of all outside the cult is a clear mark of group-paranoia-- and any good psychologist will confirm this. All groups that feel that they are on very shaky ground do not want the members talking to nonmenbers or exmembers. As John why, if they are so sure that they have the truth, they, like nazis, burn books of exmembers? Why do they, like mormons or the Hare Krishna people, not want members freely to discuss religion with others? And why, finally, do they avoid and evade public debates with exmembers-- which has happened dozens of times in the U.S?

When you attend the discussion-group tomorrow, please convey my very best wishes and most sincere blessings. Please also share my email address with the whole group.