The center is divine Love, Truth, and Soul reflected in man and humanity
universally - a great challenge!
The scientific acknowledgement of divine Love appears to be an important factor in metaphysical healing. It equalizes the right and left columns. The spiritual fact by itself doesn't change anything on the human scene, because Truth or reality is already an established platform. Acknowledging the spiritual fact, however, changes the human experience. Of course the underlying science needs to be understood in order for the spiritual fact to be acknowledged.
The scientific fact is that God is good and gives all in divine reflection. If this fact alone were sufficient to establish harmony on earth, Christ Jesus' work would never have been required. But Christ Jesus' work was required. It was required to awaken the understanding in man, which would enable man to accept the reality of the spiritual fact. Christ Jesus never changed one iota of reality, but he opened the door to the conscious acceptance of divine Love in which reality comes to light.
The acknowledgement of divine Love also has another facet. It is linked to the way in which we regard the concept of Father, or Mother. Humanly these terms are established at birth. In divine Science, however, man is defined as never born and never dying. The term 'father' has no meaning in this context, even when referring to God. A new meaning for the terms Father and Mother unfolds when a connection is drawn to divine Love. In this case the terms refer to caring.
Divine Love is not isolated in divine Science into an abstract without direct relevance, but is a thing of life that reflects the ideal of Father and Mother in terms of caring for the unfolding divine idea on the human scene and in its natural reflection in our caring for one another. If the elements of divine Love are missing, the structure of humanity falls apart.
If divine Love isn't expressed humanly and the Principle of Universal Love is rejected as an impossible ideal, then the reality of divine Love is rejected as an impossible ideal as well, and the Lord's Prayer concept of, 'Our Father, Mother God,' becomes trashed with cynicism, which otherwise would be embraced as being rich with meaning.
The phrase, "Our Father, Mother God," opens the door to acknowledging the reality of divine Love. It opens the gate to the Principle of Universal Love, which comes to light as an infinite subject all in itself. That began to become apparent at the height of the Cold War when I set out to write a novel, centered on the Principle of Universal Love. The novel was an exploration that placed the almost abstract divine Principle of Universal Love into the social domain where the idea of universal love is most deeply rejected. I chose the form of a novel to enable a Platonic type dialog for the exploration. Little did I realize what worlds upon worlds the Principle of Universal Love encompasses. The end result became a sequence of nine novels, grouped together under the original title,
"The Lodging for the Rose." So widely does the subject of universal love come to light if one dares to look beneath the surface.
The phrase, "Our Father Mother God," is Mary Baker Eddy's response to the first stanza of the Lord's prayer. It is a highly important one to be recognized. Without this response, prayer can become a denial of divine Love.
If prayer is made into a petition for the improvement of material conditions, such prayer would close the door on divine Love. But if prayer is a scientific longing to gain a greater appreciation for the reality of divine Love and its resources in Truth and in Life, the process of 'prayer' is focused on extending one's awareness of good. It becomes then a process of acknowledging in divine Science the infinite good that is already an ever-present reality. God is good. The principles of the universe including of life and man, which all reflect divine Principle, work together for good, without which the universe and life and mankind would not exist. In the scientific sense, divine Love is the foundation of the universe, and every divine idea unfolds within that all-embracing sphere of Love that truly is the universe. If one were to take away the harmony of the universal principles that are reflected, the universe would collapse into nothing. In like manner, if society banishes the Principle of Universal Love from its human world, civilization disintegrates into nothing.
The equalization of the columns must happen in the human view, before the divine essence, the Principle of Universal Love, Universal Soul, and universal Truth, can be reflected in human experiences. In the divine view the equality between the columns already exist as a fact of Truth that is reflecting the divine design, the design that IS reality, that IS the zero-distance relationship between God and man, with every aspect, every manifest, every principle standing side by side.
In order for the necessary equality of the columns to be realized in human terms, the scientific connection between the right and left columns must be recognized and be maintained in consciousness. The all-inclusive universal Truth that God sees reflected in Christianity must be fully matched by the scientific perception of man as exemplified by the woman of the Apocalypse 'clothed with the sun.' This image must be regarded as the universal image of mankind, including that of the people that we deal with on a daily basis. No inequality must be allowed to exist that would invite domination, counseling, influencing, thus opening the door to fascism, tyranny, and slavery.
What this means in practical terms is profound. It means that society must recognize itself spiritually - as possessing all the qualities that are ascribed to God, and as possessing no other qualities - which includes recognizing these qualities as inherent in all humanity. With the recognition of these qualities, which are inherently spiritual, come rights that include all the rights due to a spiritual idea of God that is reflected in every avenue of daily existence in life and in love.
This is a tall standard to love up to, isn't it? Nevertheless, God's standard is Love. It takes more than mere faith and noble intentions to comply with this scientific necessity that comes to light through the design of the pedagogical structure for the Key of David, to live up to the divine standard. Indeed, the Principle of Universal Love unfolds in its native light only in the "complex domain" - as Gauss called the sphere of perception where the physical senses fail to provide an accurate view of reality - where we begin to discern with the mind's eye what remains otherwise hidden.
What Karl Friedrich Gauss called the "complex domain" isn't complex because it is difficult to grasp, as is generally assumed. It is complex, because it involves a wider vision, and is therefore actually less difficult to work in. It enables perceptions that are normally impossible to attain. It is his breakthrough into the complex domain that made Karl Friedrich Gauss famous as a mathematician. Back in 1629 the Flemish mathematician Albert Girard had put forward a postulate that was later called the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra, which he knew was right, but couldn't proof it. No one had been able to prove it for 170 years. Then Gauss came along, barely past his teens, and delivered the proof as an entrance thesis to get into the university.
The fact is that stepping into the complex domain makes a lot of things easier, where we begin to discern with the mind's eye the 'geometry' of higher universal principles. Mary Baker Eddy demonstrated the efficiently of this process in a most profound manner. She put on record the healing power of divine Principle when these come to light in human perception in the complex domain where we begin to see with the mind's eye what is hidden to the senses, namely the zero-distance relationship between God and man. While man is not God, God is the reality of man's being and its infinite source, quality, and boundless potential. Mary Baker Eddy established with her breakthrough into the complex domain, which opens the horizon to divine inspiration, the discernment of divine Principle in Divine Science, the healing postulate of Christian Science. And more than that, she gave us a far reaching pedagogical structure that invites us likewise to work in the complex domain, the wide world of universal principles that are so tragically hidden from the physical senses. In fact, the ability to operate in the complex domain is what defines us as human beings. That is what sets us apart from any other manifest of life that we know of or has ever been found on earth. The breakthrough discovery of that ability appears to have been made in the distant ages at the dawn of man in the unfolding process of the divine Principle manifest in the principles of life.
Christ Jesus was fully aware of the divine source of what he was demonstrating, and of the unbounded nature of its unfolding. He told his disciples in so many ways: Fellows, you haven't seen anything yet. I would venture to suspect that the disciples would have been astonished if they could have seen what has been accomplished in Christian Science healing. The higher, spiritual sense of humanity that Mary Baker Eddy put onto the plate of humanity to demonstrate more universally, has changed the world. A breakthrough of this magnitude causes a phase shift in the self-perception of humanity that will never be reversed. It may be buried for a season under black blanket of the kind of general cultural warfare that presently drags society unwittingly into the sewers of the fascism of greed, hate, and small-minded thinking, but the great phase shift that has been achieved, can never be eradicated. The advent of Christian Science has put God on the map as divine Love, Soul, Truth. Mankind's perception of God can never fall below that leading edge threshold, while Mary Baker Eddy's contribution to Divine Science is raising this threshold to ever-greater height of relevance as in the unfolding sense of the universal relevance of the divine Principle of Universal Love, and the divine Principle of Universal Soul, and the divine Principle of Universal Truth.
Let me point out how Mary Baker Eddy has translated this fundamental sense of universal Principle of Love, Soul, and Truth into a By-Law that she documented in the Church Manual. She writes: "The Mother Church of Christ, Scientist, shall assume no general official control over other churches, and it shall be controlled by none other. Each Church of Christ, Scientist, shall have its own form of government."*182
No one before her has ever raised the status of the individual of humanity to such height that the individual person is fully acknowledged as the Supreme Being in the universe as the full representation of God, of all that God is, in quality, capacity, and perfection.
This requirement is enormous. It represents a pioneering step in human government that affords great dignity to humanity and engenders a great responsibility for the individual to live up to that standard.
While society is far from living up to this standard, some movements are in progress, movements of taking individual responsibility of uplifting all mankind into the sphere of the Principle of Universal Love. Even while wars are raging on, astonishing efforts are being made to raise mankind out of that sewer.
Mary Baker Eddy's organization of her church disallows any form of official control by her organization over its field, or one individual over another, not to mention one nation over another, or private empires over humanity, which presently control the world with their private financial might, ideological dominance, mental control through cultural degeneration, dissolution of science, and the general looting of society of its economic resources.
No other organization apart from Mary Baker Eddy's church operates under a structure of Law raises the status of the human being to such divine height that any notion of controlling one-another is an affront to God whose image is reflected in man? Mary Baker Eddy's organizational Law acknowledges the spiritual fact that each individual is totally spiritual in nature and is the complete reflected image of God, manifest in life as love, - a reflected reality that no one can supersede, nor anyone truly regress from. It indicates that the controlling power must rest with the development of universal principles into practical ideas. That's a tall order indeed, but it is also a necessary platform for the advance and the protection of civilization.
In a very real way this process is the only process that generates productive results. Anything less is inherently an aspect of oligarchism that, by its very design, breaks the zero-distance environment. The By-Law that Mary Baker Eddy presented in her Church Manual is therefore not a dictatorial demand, but a scientific statement of discovered principle. She presents in a By-Law form what will ultimately happen when the Science of the Christ reigns among men.
Actually, the divine Principle of Universal Love, as a governing principle, has already been slowly unfolding for centuries before Mary Baker Eddy's time. That unfolding began already in the 14th and 15th Century with the unfolding of the Golden Renaissance. From this time on the supreme majesty of the imperial world was loosing its luster and the power of empire was loosing its grip on humanity. The Thirty Years War was an attempt to restore and protect that power. While this war destroyed half the population of Europe in the process, the attempt to restore the rule of empire failed. In fact it caused the rise of another singularity of divine Principle that further weakened the illegitimate structure of the notion of empire. That newly unfolding singularity was the renaissance type Principle of the Advantage of the Other. That principle, which powered the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, changed the face of civilization.
Every unfolding of another principle of universal divine Love introduces another profound singularity into the human sphere that gradually displaces the Dark-Age notion of empire and its self-proclaimed legitimacy.
In the distant Dark Age world the empire was the center and circumference of everything, unchallenged by ideas of love, humanity, and scientific progress. Financial and military power and fascist force roled everything. Society was deemed a sacrificial resource for the needs of the empires, and was treated that way. The vast majority of mankind lived as serves and slaves and underlings. But with each unfolding facet of the universal Principle of divine Love a new singularity emerged in the human sphere that became its own center with its own circumference of expression, which not only challenged the notion of empire that has no principle, and the imperial center, but also severely complicated the imperial operation.
In the flow of 17th Century European Renaissance the American republic was created, which not only weakened the British Empire that once owned North America, but became a thorn in its sight ever since. Military campaigns were launched to destroy it, and economic campaigns, both of which failed. With the empire being on the defensive now in a big way it fought an incredibly dirty war in Europe to squash the renaissance spirit there. The Jacobin terror in France and the wars that Napoleon spread across Europe were all facets of that rage of destruction with which the empire aimed to protect its evermore-precarious existence.
But the renaissance spirit of mankind was also on the march around the world. Its voice became louder. Plans for large scale economic development, reaching from Europe across Asia to China with a transcontinental railway infrastructure, were put on the table, adding another singularity of divine Principle into the fabric of society, which would likely have ended the existence of empires forever. The empire acted swiftly to prevent that from happening, and moved to quietly squash this divine unfolding with its dark convection currents of conspiracies that eventually erupted into World War I. The world was set at war to protect the empire from the renaissance unfolding of divine Principle. Since that attempt failed as all the other attempts had failed to restore the absolute rule of empire in a renaissance free world, World War II was launched by the empire by financing Hitler into power who promised to be more brutally destructive. But that plan too, failed.
With the rule of empire now virtually eradicated by the renaissance forces, those that shut down Hitler's Nazi Empire, a new imperial attack was cooked up to perpetuate the empire dream. The notion was fielded to utilize the atomic bomb as a terror weapon to force all the nations of the world into subjection to the imperial camp. But that too, failed. Russia countered the plan when it developed the first hydrogen bomb and caused the West to reconsider its world-empire ambition. The only weapon the empire had left at this point to perpetuate its existence, was its private ownership of almost the entire central banking system of the world.
From this stronghold it unleashed a campaign of looting, economic destruction, universal impoverishment, deindustrialization, and debt-based dominance, such as the world has never seen.*183
But that campaign of destruction and looting to protect the empire is also failing, as the entire imperial world-financial system is itself collapsing to the point that the once great economic giants like Germany and USA are disintegrating from within from the disease that may be called, love-inversion. And to be sure, attempts will be made to force society to carry the cost of the empire's bankruptcy. But that too is an empty dream since society has itself been bankrupted by the empire's increasing fascist greed and inner emptiness. Even the empire's global warming campaign is becoming unglued, which has been launched to prevent mankind from creating a new renaissance, the vast kind that is necessary for mankind to prepare itself for the coming Ice Age. The devious objective of the notions underlying the concept of empire, to counter the unfolding of divine Principle in the lives if humanity, especially universal divine Love, is coming evermore to the surface.
In this environment of the inevitable unfolding of divine Principle in Divine Science, with or without the term Divine Science attached to this unfolding, the end of the age of empire is as inevitable as the end of the age of the dinosaurs when the environment changed that supported the dinosaurs.
The acknowledgement of spiritual fact is paramount in Divine Science, but it will be rejected as it must be rejected, by every institution around the world until its science is understood in society. The scientific demand is tremendous that man understand himself as the living image of God and act according to that universal truth. As I said, the Principle of Universal Love is an infinite Principle. While the process of its unfolding has barely begun, the horizon is bright with its infinite potential. The only uncertainty that remains is mankind's dedication to the principles of Divine Science - the Principle of Universal Love, Universal Soul, universal Truth - to establish their supremacy over the notions of empire. Establishing that supremacy is the vital first step to creating the Ice Age Renaissance that is needed to protect mankind in the Ice Age world that will likely be upon us 100 years from now. If we fail, everything else becomes irrelevant as the final singularity, the Ice Age, becomes paramount over everything.
It comes as a great challenge for society to accept mankind's existence as the highest manifestation of being, and to go forward from there. This forward step is nearly impossible without a scientific understanding governing our perceptions of one another as divine image, reflected in our every deed. It takes wisdom to develop one's motives and understanding towards this goal, but that is precisely what is required, and is required now, or as fast as it is humanly practical. We may be required to offer our most valued 'holy cow' at the altar of this progress in order for mankind to have a chance to survive, but there exist no other platform for doing that, and to protect mankind from the coming Ice Age, than protecting individuals and nations from the elitism, fascism, terrorism, oligarchism, that is ravishing mankind today, and from its final descent into the hell of global imperial dictatorship governance. The globalization of oligarchism involves the universal denial of the Principle of Universal Love. It involves an inversion of love. It involves a depth of denial of universal love that mankind may not survive if it is not overcome soon, especially with an Ice Age standing on the horizon.
Mankind's denial of the universal principle of good has had already far too tragic consequences throughout the ages. All of the horrendous tragedies were totally unnecessary, like World War I, World War II, or the Thirty Years War in earlier times. They could all have been avoided with a wider recognition of the principle of good, the divine Principle, drawn into full acknowledgement. The same will apply for the consequences of mankind's failure to prepare its world for the return of the Ice Age, which is presently not even on the agenda of being considered, with all the dreams of global warming circling the globe, which are largely based on political imperial objectives.
We are told that in Moses' time the corruption of society had been so deep that Moses kept the people in the wilderness until the corruption was purged. In an Ice Age environment that purging may involve the purging of 99% of mankind 100-150 years from now, in a mass starvation that might be resulting from the failure of mankind today to respond in a meaningful manner. In Moses' days the scientific resources hadn't been developed for the healing of society. At the time of the Thirty Years War, which destroyed half the population of Europe, the Principle of Universal Love had been in mankind's background only faintly, coming out of the Golden Renaissance, but that bit was enough to change the world and set a new standard for civilization. In Mary Baker Eddy's time this standard was raised even higher.
World War I and II should have been avoided. The means did exist. Mary Baker Eddy's demonstration of the Principle of Universal Love was a profound reality. It had been demonstrated in processes of healing around the world. However, it existed only in a limited sphere in the form of a specific religion rather than as a universal science. Mary Baker Eddy's pedagogical structure for universal Divine Science had remained undiscovered prior to these wars, so that Christian Science stood alone without its supporting foundation to counter these wars. Building a foundation in Divine Science appears to be essential for the healing of the nations and the practice of Christian Science itself.
How often are people saying that the future isn't their concern? "What do I care what happens to people 100 years from now?" they say. However, by not caring today when the needed infrastructures for feeding the world 100 years from must be started, we are literally condemning future generations to death on a unimaginably huge scale. Obviously, that callous attitude is not a fit foundation for the practice of Christian Science, but is reflected in the loss of it, of which Mary Baker Eddy once said that strong moral are most desirable in the learner, and a keen sense of universal divine Love is essential.
If the process of creating the technologies and the infrastructures for building the Ice Age indoor farming facilities isn't started in our time, future generations won't have a chance, because it will likely take 100 years to be build the vast physical structures that are required to protect the world's food supply. How distant we are from reaching this goal is evident by the fact that fission based nuclear power development is almost at a standstill while nuclear fusion power development is proceeding at a snail's pace. And worse than that, by trashing scientific and technological progress conceptionally, as if it were a great evil, society has dragged itself into the sewer of impotence physically, educationally, morally, while it is bracing slavery on an ever larger scale; regressing deeper by the day into the fascism of greed, war, terror, financial looting, scientific and industrial devolution, technological decay; all-the-while embracing social isolation and Malthusian ideologies in which the existence of mankind itself is regarded as an evil.
The above is to name just a few of the tragedies that need to be reversed before we have a right to say that the Principle of Universal Love has any meaning for us. The inscription that one finds in most Christian Science churches around the world, proclaiming, "God is Love," stands as a sad reminder of a divine reality that could be reflected, but isn't, that remains yet to be reflected in people's attitude towards one another, universally, and towards future generations. The inscription on so many walls that "God is Love" stands as a reminder of work left undone. Who even talks about a world aglow with divine Love, reflected humanly?
We are infinitely far at the present, also from the realization of another statement that so many people treasure and have framed or painted on their walls, namely that "divine Love has met and always will meet every human need."*184 In fact the divine Principle of Universal Love is so deeply rejected that its reflection in human hearts and actions is scarcely recognizable as the human need is callously ignored.
We cannot say that God is reflected in man and apply this aspect of divine Principle to healing while we reject the same principle in the department of love. We cannot pick and choose. God is One. The Principle of Universal Love reflected in human thinking, economy, relationships, and action, is as paramount as divine Principle is reflected in the Principle of Universal Perfection that Christian Science healing is designed to demonstrate.
If the lives of humanity become aglow with the active reflection of divine Love, reflecting the Principle of Universal Love, then the human needs of society will be met, both the needs of today and the requirements for the future. If this reflection of the divine in human expression isn't actively happening the two halves the pedagogical structure are not coming to light as equal and mankind's duty to God, to reflect the divine, is being ignored.
While our failing in this duty does not alter the divine Principle that God is reflected in man as divine idea in divine reflection, we cheat ourselves out of its potential blessings by closing our eyes to the divine design. The Principle of Universal Love appears to impose a huge challenge on humanity in a world of fascist greed focused on privatized wealth that collapses civilization and thereby becomes meaningless, while in reality the Principle of Universal Love offers mankind the greatest blessings imaginable in a world of universal wealth that thereby becomes meaningful as a divine manifest.
Let us be cautioned by Mary Baker Eddy: "Those who cannot demonstrate, at least in part, the divine Principle of the teachings and practice of our Master have no part in God. If living in disobedience to Him, we ought to feel no security, although God is good."*185
If say to ourselves that the life-and death issues of our children and their children in the future return of the Ice Age are not our concern, how far removed are our hearts from the great heart of divine Love, and put out of sight so that its light no longer touches us and is reflected in us?
Is it any wonder then that our world is collapsing, as it already is, into near universal poverty, devolution, and the building of ever-more nuclear bombs as if 40,000 of them were not enough to qualify this age for the definition of insanity. Mary Baker Eddy states, that "while the heart is far from divine Truth and Love, we cannot conceal the ingratitude of barren lives."*186
If Truth is the center of all true understanding, then the most fundamental aspect of the truth about God and man must become 'aglow' in our lives in thought and deed, rather than exist as mere noble sounding words. Divine Love being reflected as our love must rule the day for its design to fulfill its promise. Universal divine Love reflected in our universal love will one day be recognized as the greatest and richest resource mankind has.
Is this what Christ Jesus meant when he said a rich man can hardly enter the kingdom of God? Isn't he perfectly right in saying that, because the privatization of society's resources, financial and otherwise, (which has become a global obsession - even the privatization of love) stands in opposition to the Principle of Universal Love and closes the door to the real riches bestowed by God?
If the Principle of Universal Love represents mankind's greatest resource, can we succeed in the process of healing without it? The healing process of divine metaphysics for bodily ills cannot be isolated from the healing of all ills. The nature of Mary Baker Eddy's design of her pedagogical structure is such that the divine manifest at the heart of the structure comes to light from all directions
. We cannot deny three of these manifests and expect the fourth one to function.
Mary Baker Eddy's presented the scientific logic of the inherent unity between the right and left columns and the upper and lower rows. Unfortunately, this self-evident logic remains yet to be translated into social, economic, political, and personal action. The failure to translate the spiritual demand of divine Principle, reflected in Divine Science, into practice, lies not with a lack of sincerity of course, or dedication, good will, or love, but with a far too shallow scientific understanding of the divine aspects that underlie spiritual reality. Indeed, the requisite scientific understanding is hardly attainable on a casual basis. It requires that one have an orderly structure for exploration, setting the stage for creative discoveries.
All the preaching in the world to love one-another - without a scientific understanding of the truth that underlies reality and a deeply conscientious commitment to it - amounts to nothing more than lip-service as the words are largely built on nothing more substantial than some faint concepts which are far from being scientifically understood. That is why most religions require faith, since they lack the scientific foundation of the type that Mary Baker Eddy has created. No faith-based religion, however, has yet demonstrated the height of healing that Christian Science has demonstrated over the last century as being universally possible.
The profound achievements in healing that have been accomplished by people - in many cases by simply reading the Christian Science textbook, as we find examples documented in the textbook chapter, Fruitage - are the result of a budding perception, understanding, and acknowledgement of the details of the Divine Science that Christian Science and its textbook are a part of.
It has been said that Christian Science is so simple that a child can utilize it. That has been proven too. However, Mary Baker Eddy cautions, "A grain of Christian Science does wonders for mortals, so omnipotent is Truth, but more of Christian Science must be gained in order to continue in well doing." And so the world wars that followed, all happened and claimed over a 100 million lives, with billions more now hanging in the balance. Sure there was and is no need for those wars. The real dimension of the human being, which has been demonstrated in the small, can and could have been demonstrated universally. The minutest illustration proves the principle that applies universally. The Principle of Universal Love does not need to remain an abstract ideal if a little child can prove it to some degree. The world can be freed of war, poverty, fascism, terror, and nuclear bombs, and become the brightest place in the universe with an Ice Age Renaissance unfolding where the old saying will be true again in a new way, "Oh death (starvation and poverty) where is thy sting? Oh grave (impotence) where is thy victory?"*187
There is no malice involved in the above statements, referring to the world's presently accepted poverty and impotence, which is reflected also in the churches. To the contrary, few human organizations have devoted as much energy and consecration to the advancement of humanity than the churches have, regardless of their names or makeup. This does not alter the reality that they too are mired in the 'poverty' and 'impotence' that unfolds from deep underlying failures, even within Christianity, and even at the leading edge of it. By this poverty those failures are not easily detected, which have nevertheless dramatic results and require a deeply scientific approach to be resolved.
Evidently, the nature of Christianity is not casual but scientific. Scientific apathy has no place in humanity. The widespread failure to recognize the operation of divine Principle and to understand its dimensions, and to acknowledge them in human actions, does not set aside reality. Scientific apathy leads to calamities, even though God is good.
Physically it is but a small thing to eradicate all the nuclear bombs in the world. It is known where they are located. The physical task to disable them isn't huge. The eradication can be complete in a week. But to have the love for mankind to do it!
This love is as distant today as mankind's present love for future generations. If this love were alive, mankind would begin today to take steps to protect future generations from the coming Ice Age cooling. But that is not what we see happening, is it? Instead of society destroying its nuclear bombs as a first sign of that love, society is destroying its leading edge scientific research institutions and infrastructures. An example of this type of insanity is the recent (mid-2005) destruction of America's Fast Flux Test Facility,*188 an advanced nuclear power research facility (400mw in operating capacity). The facility was killed by drilling a hole in its reactor vessel so that it can never be used again in the future, leaving an over 2-billion dollar cleanup bill in the wake while the products, which it once produced, are now being imported from other nations or are no longer available at all.
While the shutdown of the facility is of course controversial, the type of anti-science regression that the destruction of the facility represents is going on all over the world. It is indicative of society's commitment to step away from the principle of scientific and technological progress towards increasing poverty, unemployment, slavery, and financial stealing in the name of creating privatized 'wealth' that is collapsing civilization. With its anti-science regression society is literally shooting itself into the foot while it faces the biggest race in its entire history for the survival of civilization and mankind itself.
The simple fact is that God is Love, and the Principle of Universal Love is mankind's foundation for its existence, which implies uplifting civilization, not poverty. It might be, as we find ourselves in the present sewer of decay, that the imperative imposed by the Ice Age to meet the human needs in the future will inspire the needed commitment in the present to scientific and spiritual development that has the potential to get the world out of its present trap.
It is unlikely, however, that these steps are possible without a corresponding development in Divine Science to bring the self-perception of mankind in line with the divine reality. The humanity of mankind is intact as a reality rooted in divine Principe, but its dimension needs to be discovered to become a reality in our living.
Living is a process of discovery, and to some degree society is discovering its still-existing roots in goodness. The near worldwide Tsunami relief effort in response to the December 26, 2004 disaster is an example of the still existing spark of love that society finds in itself in times of great crisis. In those cases the consequences were clear however, and dramatic, even though they mere minuscule in comparison with the far greater consequences that society is quietly closing its eyes to, such as the destruction of the population of Africa by intent under the US NSSM200 policy, a policy to curtail Third World population growth in order that these regions' raw materials can be preserved for the future needs of the western empires.
These policies are generally well hidden under antihuman ideologies, under which poverty is excused and economic development denied. The end result is the same. A great human catastrophe happens. Only in the less visible cases the catastrophe is manmade by the imposition of poverty and looting. It is also vastly more difficult to stop those policies and repair the damage that was caused, al least enough that the dying is slowed down. But that may not happen until the divine Principle of Universal Love is more fully recognized and acknowledged. It is unlikely that Africa can be rescued from the destruction that has been unleashed on it without society making major advances in Divine Science in some form. Right now the Principle of Universal Love is laughed at, and the fascism of greed is enthroned.
Poverty is one of the great scourges of humanity, and most of it is manmade. In India and China for example 70% of the population lives in wretched poverty that should have long been eliminated. But instead of the global society helping the impoverished people the western imperial world is enslaving the impoverished people as a cheap labor pool in the greatest 'slavery' operation that has ever been unleashed in the history of mankind.
In a highly developed society the economic products are not cheap, because the product price must include the cost of the infrastructures that are required for society to maintain its existence, such as housing, energy, transportation, education, culture, healthcare, clothing, food, and so on. The price of the economic product must cover all those costs. Slave labor imports dynamite this economic balancing act. They literally collapse civilization.
Slave labor is cheap, of course, because the people that are trapped into slavery are denied the development of the needed infrastructures for living, the cost of which isn't included in the cheap slave-wage products. Thus, civilization is collapsing universally. The world of the slave labor society is collapsing as the human-support infrastructures cannot be built, which are required. In like manner is the consumer world collapsing, of the slavery-products. In this sphere the supporting infrastructures that still exist to some degree, can no longer be maintained. The entire global economic pyramid is thereby in the process of collapsing, and at the root of it is society's rejection of the divine Principle of Universal Love.
With every single 'slavery' product that society so eagerly grabs up in the big imperial slave-product stores, society reaffirms its denial of the divine Principle of Universal Love and tramples the Principle of the Universal Brotherhood of All Mankind under foot.
This march into the hell-hole of universal slavery takes us far below the standard that had once been achieved in the 17th Century when the Principle of the Advantage of the Other became the foundation for the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia that stopped the Thirty Years War and established a tall foundation for civilization. Compared to that standard, which once rescued Europe, we live in the sewer today.
Instead of pursuing what is most to the advantage of the other nations and people, such as promoting universal human development as was done as a matter of principle underlying the Treaty of Westphalia, modern society is locked into an endless cycle of 'raping' one-another financially, economically, ideologically, militarily, politically, on such a huge scale that it is making a mockery out of the very concept of civilization. Out of Argentina, for example, that is producing enough food to feed 300 million people, one hears reports come that large portions of that rather small population is starving to death, and countless many are scrounging the garbage dumps for scraps to eat. And there isn't enough garbage to go around to satisfy the need. When a mother in such a country, or in any country, is asked by a dying child in her arms, "mama, is there food in heaven?" one can be certain that the divine Principle of Universal Love has been effectively banished from the Earth.
Does anyone seriously believe that this insane platform that has been created, of society's universal self-destruction (for a few people's profit) is a fit platform for creating the required immensely huge infrastructures for putting the global agriculture into indoor facilities? If we can't find it in our hearts to stop the policies for looting that is killing humanity today, how much less will we find in our hearts to assure the survival of society in distant times when the Ice Age resumes, possibly in a 100 years?
And the Ice Age will resume. The Pleistocene Ice Age Epoch that the Earth is in has not yet ended. It is expected to last another 800,000 years. I suspect however, that mankind, like a sleeping giant, will awake to the call of the returning Ice Age and resort to Divine Science in some form and recover its humanity, because the consequences of not doing so are unthinkable.
The 50/150-year timeframe, leading up to the beginning of the next Ice Age cycle is an honest estimate that is considered credible in the scientific community which deals with historic climatic trends and long-term physical evidence, rather than ideological dreaming under imperial political objectives.*189 (See appendix: The Moral Platform and the Coming Ice Age.) The impending Ice Age shock may be sufficiently large enough to cause mankind's awakening. Mankind has endured many such shocks in the past. These shocks may well have been the driving impetus that forced mankind to discover and develop the dimensions of its humanity by which it emerged from the prior Ice Ages as the tallest manifest of life on the planet. Of course, scientific and spiritual development in Divine Science offers a much more gentle and efficient platform for the needed progress than being hit over the head with horrendous calamities. The divine Principle of Universal Love offers a virtual paradise in comparison with being forced into the right direction by the weight of tragedy, if indeed tragedy inspires such a salvation. History suggests that it doesn't.
Two trends suggest that mankind is more inclined to live with its tragedy than rouse itself to stop it. One case is AIDS in Africa. In some areas half the population is infected with it, leaving a trail of the dying in its wake. Under the NSSM200 doctrine, aimed at Third World depopulation, AIDS in Africa unfolds as a splendid success story, consequently little is done to stop it, while for mankind it has become a horrendous tragedy. The other trend is the comeback of malaria, which was once nearly eradicated with the use of DDT for controlling the carrier insects around people's homes and villages in tropical regions. DDT was banned in an orchestrated hype, as was later admitted, for purely political reasons. One of supporter of the ban lamented that DDT enables too many people to live. As a consequence malaria is back in a big way with an estimated 300 million cases, most of them children, of which one dies every 30 seconds in Africa alone. All of this adds up to a horrendous human tragedy as the malaria parasite eats away at its victim's liver causing untold agonies along the way to death. Society's love for one another as human beings has sunk so deep into the sewer that after decades of this tragedy mankind has not roused itself to lift the ban, in spite of it having been based of a political decision, but aims to make it total by 2007.*190
My point is that if society has so little respect for one another as fellow human beings (not to mention love), especially for its children, that these tragedies are perpetuated for political reasons and are even planned to be increased, what hope do we have to commit ourselves to the building of infrastructures for living that won't be needed for a hundred years but will take that long to build?
A sewer rat may regard the suggestion that such infrastructures should be built, to be the biggest joke ever. Nevertheless, the potential exists that these infrastructures will be built. This potential is somehow related to Divine Science, the science in which we discover our humanity through the kind of discovery process that has been going on for two million years already.
It may not be accidental in that the (scientific) development of mankind, which began over 2 million years ago, coincides almost exactly with the beginning of the 2-million year Pleistocene Ice Age Epoch. Ice Age epochs are relatively rare in geologic history. It is interesting to note, therefore, that the development of mankind coincided precisely with this relatively rare and inhospitable period, rather than during the more congenial times. The last major Ice Age period appears to have occurred 250 million years ago at the end of the Permian Era, which is believed to have caused the horrific Permian Extinction in which 90-95% of all life on Earth perished. In the present Quaternary Period, which is named in honor of the renewed appearance of an Ice Age, mankind appeared to have been dancing constantly at the edge of extinction, as indeed all other prior human species have become extinct. This trial by ice, at the abyss of extinction, has become the age of man. We will certainly get back to that if we don't recover our humanity, with consequences that no one can foresee.
The rocky road of mankind's history through the Ice Age cycles appears to have been a road of profound spiritual unfolding against the background of challenging environments. Intelligence and love, which are both profound spiritual qualities, appear to have been the foundation for the very survival of mankind and its gradual progress. Archeological finds indicate that we are presently the eighth major human species, or group, on the pathway of the progressive creation of life in the flow of its self-directed development according to its divine Principle.
Nevertheless, we emerged from the last Ice Age cycle with a mere 5 million population after over 2 million years of history. That fact all by itself, indicates that this history was shaped by horrendous challenges for existing in an inhospitable world, that appears to have been far more challenging than we like to imagine. It appears that the unfolding of mankind was to a large degree drawn from having to face those horrendous challenges, so that we would not be where we are today without those long cycles of self-discovery and creativity learned at the precipice of defying the forces of extinction during the previous Ice Age challenges. In the light of this apparent history today's challenge to do the same with a 10-billion wold-population, and with its food supplied by technological infrastructures, may well be precariously achieved in a gigantic crash program effort. On the other hand, that type of approach may proof to be as fatal as the self-confidence of Homo erectus might have been who probably felt invincible after 1.5 million years of existence.
From a biological standpoint we are playing with fire. Should the infrastructures for an Ice Age existence not be built, on a scale that it supports the total population, the biological collapse of a 5-10 billion population will likely bring with it unknown disease vectors that will make the collapse total, rather than let it end at the 1% mark. The biological breakdown from the ravishing of World War I caused a single flu outbreak that sweep like wildfire across the northern hemisphere and killed more people in few months than the entire war itself. Historians put the death toll into the 20-50-million range. The consequences of a global biological collapse are evidently incalculable.
When I suggested earlier that the divine Principle of Universal Love is the richest resource mankind can possibly have, that may have been an understatement, given the consequences that we face without it. This night and day contrast may provide the incentive to make the much needed Ice Age Renaissance achievable. It is certainly achievable by mankind stepping more fully into the divine reality as a self-discovered spiritual species in the image of God. The Ice Age challenge that we are presently face (which we presently ignore) may therefore be the best thing that ever happened to us.
The absolute need to scientifically understand the dimensions of our humanity in Divine Science, which puts mankind on a tall foundation of spiritual existence expressed in advanced intelligence, reflecting the dimension of infinite Mind and universal divine Love, cannot be bypassed. Humanity cannot escape the result of the error of not pursuing this goal. Advanced intelligence shifts the focus from the mortal sphere to the divine; from war to the Principle of Universal Love; from material looting to the creative dimension of Spirit; from scientific, political, and social lying to the acknowledging of Truth in all respects, and so forth. The Ice Age Renaissance, therefore, if it were achieved, would prove to be the greatest blessing even in the present age. It would one again stop malaria, hunger, poverty, war, nuclear terror threats, and even end the surge of AIDS. When mankind steps away from its fascism of greed into the sphere of the Principle of Universal Love and its full manifestation, all kinds of wonders become possible.
It is generally believed that we live in a free world, in a democratic environment where we are presented with a vast array of choices to shape our attitudes, desires, motives, acts. That is not quite true. An airplane designer does not have those choices, but needs to adhere to the principles of aerodynamics. He may have a choice between, for instance, designing an airliner that seats 400 people, or designing a sail plane that seats only one, but in each case the design has to add up to a form that expresses the principles of aerodynamics. The same is true for human existence that reflects the principles and nature of God. That is what we find reflected as the central focal point of Mary Baker Eddy pedagogical structure of Divine Science. That's the bottom line: Universal Truth; Universal Soul; Universal Love. The development of universal love is evidently the greatest task in the present age, where we have the farthest distance to go. Mary Baker Eddy defined the orientation for the last column or development stream to be towards "the Golden Shore of Love and Peaceful Sea of Harmony," while defined the river for the first column as "the love of the good and beautiful, and their immortality."
It is interesting to note here, as I said earlier, that Mary Baker Eddy left those three key synonyms, of her seven synonyms for God, out of the Glossary and thereby not defined in her pedagogical structure, which left them to be defined by the whole of it in its operation.
If one were challenged to find descriptive terms that summarize the focal point that every aspect in the pedagogical structure flows towards, those three terms, Soul, Truth, and Love, come invariably to mind in which the essence of the divine is expressed in humanity. Divine Soul, then comes to light as the universal soul of all mankind, the divine 'heart' that is universally reflected in all human beings and is shared laterally by all humanity in universal union. Truth, then becomes our link to God and one-another as the reality of our being, our truth. And Love comes to light as universal love, the boundless resource for living. How else could we relate to one another as children of God than in the reflection of these divine aspects in which God comes to light (and reflected in humanity) as universal Soul, Truth, and Love. In this summary the human and the divine are one. The divine Soul is our soul, the divine Truth our truth, and divine Love is our love. In this God and humanity are one.
Saul of Tarsus gained a glimpse of this profound reality, especially the profundity of universal divine Love expressed as a human quality. This awakening of Saul began in the darkness of a night at the judicial murder of Steven, a man condemned by theology for his love for God and man. Saul was a central player in the murdering of that man. He had personally a hand in it. In fact it was he who pushed the man Steven over a cliff at the edge of town, and to his death. Since Steven didn't die, it became the other's task to stone him to death. At this point Steven proclaimed, even while he was being murdered, "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge."
Saul's transformation to Paul was evidently rooted in the awakening of his divine sense, roused by Steven's proclamation of universal, unconditional, divine Love. Paul's later, famous declaration in 1st Corinthians 13, of the all-embracing dimension of universal love, which is also referred to as the sacrament of Agape, might not have been possible without Steven's proclamation of universal, unconditional, divine Love. Paul's life was changed from the moment of his awakening on. It was in many ways reflective of this love expressed in the universal sacrament of Agape, or in scientific terms, the Principle of Universal Love.
The Saul to Paul transformation is possible again on the universal scale. Herein lies the possible salvation of mankind. Paul's transformation began with the question to himself: What have I done? It is not unlikely that society will ask itself the same question as it faces the ugly realization that a little child is put to death every thirty seconds, in Africa alone, on the altar of political insanity (the genocidal ban of DDT). Then the realization may take also hold that this child is only one of 50,000 that loose their life each single day on the related altar of fascist greed that sinks the world ever deeper into looting-imposed poverty.
And the realization may not stop there. The realization may take hold that probably each single minute of every day a family is loosing its income as the once gainful employment across its nation is sold to the slavery operators. This realization may take hold sooner than later as the slavery produced products themselves become too expensive for that family to buy, which lost its income, in a nation that has lost its wealth producing capacity and its soul.
A similar realization may also take hold in the financial sphere of society's devotion to inhumanity, where the greatest orgy of stealing in the history of mankind is in progress. Huge profits are demanded in this ruthless world made up of countless spheres of speculation, piracy, conspiracies, lies, and the force of sheer might, in which nothing is produced that enriches society. Indeed, huge profits are taken. However, those profits, which are taken when nothing is being produced, are thereby stolen from other investors in the flow of clever schemes. Countless masses have been robbed of their life's savings in this orgy of stealing, and in many cases of their houses and farms and businesses. Whole countries have been looted that way. One of the economic hit men at the forefront of this orgy of stealing that is collapsing the world and is killing entire continents, came to Saul's realization: What have I done? He wrote a book about it, Confessions of an Economic Hitman. The book became a bestseller almost instantly, but the orgy of clever stealing that he exposed to some degree still continues. Indeed, it will continue for as long as society continues to shy away from the Principle of Universal Love and seeks its riches by stealing from one-another.
Civilization cannot be maintained on a platform of stealing from one-another. For as long as society continues to be determined to make its money in the markets where nothing of value for society is being produced, which amounts to a commitment to steal from one another, civilization will continue to collapse. Is it any wonder in this context that governments spent tens of billions each year on subversive operations to destabilize other nations, to break their opposition to the looting quests, while society spends hardly a penny to advance the culture of universal love? Is it any wonder, against this background, that the world has become a world of war, nuclear bombs, terrorism, prison torture, fascism, cruelty, gore, and genocide? The loss of the Principle of Universal Love that people celebrate in the markets has its tragic universal effect, probably on a scale that is beyond the imaginable.
How far the 'markets' have drifted away from the Principle of Universal Love is illustrated from the following dialog, which actually took place. The discussion centered on the Asian financial crisis that resulted some years back when many a nation in Asia was severely robbed by western investors. One person of the discussion group defended the investors that walked away with a huge bundle of profit. He spoke of the investors as some kind of heroes, saying emphatically that the stronger players have every right to be successful. Another man answered him with a question. He asked if a strong man who owns a crowbar and a sledgehammer, who thereby has the means to break down his neighbor's door and steal all his belongings, has the right to do this, simply because he has the means? That question ended the discussion. It broke through the mythology of the supposed right to steal that has become fully legalized around the world under the rule of deregulation and globalization. In the world at large, that mythology of the right to steal still rules supreme, at a cost of 50,000 needless death's a day imposed on mankind, bundled together with ever-increasing agonies for the rest of mankind as civilization is collapsing.
It is not unreasonable to assume that in the above discussion session over the right to steal a few Saul to Paul transitions have occurred, bringing the rule of divine Love, which is universal love, a bit closer, which needs to be reflected humanly.
By not including the terms Soul, Truth, and Love into the Glossary, Mary Baker Eddy kept them in reserve for us to define the essence of the whole structure. Here Christ Jesus' parable comes to mind again who said that if a man comes before the altar of God bearing gifts of gratitude, but has a brother who has ought against him, he should first reconcile with his brother and then come and offer his gift.
Obviously, that counsel was required for the gift to be acceptable. It appears the Mary Baker Eddy gave us three divine concepts to judge ourselves by as a yardstick to measure our compliance, the yardstick of universal love, universal truth, and universal soul, all reflecting the divinity that is potentially reflected in each one of humanity. If one aspect is lacking in our lives, a divine aspect is missing, and according to Christ Jesus' logic, it is time to get back to the drawing board, to the pedagogical structure of Divine Science, to correct the deficiency.
In Divine Science the divine domain comes to light as a lateral domain where God and God's reflection exist laterally side by side at the same level. That reality needs to be reflected humanly in the flow of universal love (without distance), for the human scene to be a scene of peace and joy and power that reflects the lateral nature of the divine domain.
A number of indicators exist that tell us when absolute parameters govern thought. The terms soul, truth, and love, summarize the divine unfolding in man in the form of universal truthfulness, manifesting divine Principle, Truth; and in the form of universal love, manifestiting divine Love universal Principle; and in the form of the universal brotherhood of mankind, manifesting the divine Principle of universal Soul.
But how are those manifests of the principles of universal soul, truth, and love being brought to light in concrete ways?
One indicator is a little, almost obscure word. It is a word that projects a world of perceived value, which in one step combines soul, truth, and love as the all-embracing divine reflection in many that should never be ignore but acknowledged in every thought and deed. That little word is read aloud each Sunday in every Christian Science church throughout the world. Nevertheless the little word is barely noticed. It heads the correlative to the scientific statement of being. The word is from first epistle of John. It is the word, "Beloved!"