The Spiritual Scoop - American Fellowship Church Newsletter Solar Summer 2014

THE CLOCK IS TICKING

Generously contributed by:
Brother Michael Brush

God knows humanity continues to wrestle with two concepts, evolution and higher
consciousness. But these are very new ideas, and so are the minds that mull them over. If
the age of this planet, 4.5 billion years, were compressed to 24 hours then the emergence of
humankind occurred a mere 4 seconds ago Discovery of the Omo fossils in Ethiopia dates
the earliest evidence of modern homo sapiens at 200,000 years, barely a blink in Earth time.

It is possible our earliest ancestors sat around campfires
contemplating consciousness, but probably not evolution since the
word didn' t exist. Language
hadn't been born at that point.
Even the biblical Adam must
have had an extremely limited
vocabulary.

But as years rolled by 195,000
times these dormant ideas developed. They cropped up
in Sumerian stories, ancient Greek dialogs, the Old and
New Testament, the Rig Veda, and folklore that flowered
around the world.

So how are we doing as a species? Are we getting any
better in terms of compassion and care for the planet?

These are not idle questions. We face threats
unprecedented in human history and the clock is ticking.
The list of threats is long and numbing. It ranges from
gl obal war mi ng t o nucl ear hol ocaust f r om
corporatocracy to internet spying from worldwide
economic collapse to impending extinction of wild tigers, orangutans and elephants among
many endangered species from devastating oil spills and deforestation to widespread
human starvation and cancers. That is just the tip of the iceberg.
1 2014 The Spiritual Scoop Newsletter - American Fellowship Church and respective authors - all rights reserved
We face threats
unprecedented in
human history and the
clock is ticking. The
list of threats is long
and numbing.
The Spiritual Scoop - American Fellowship Church Newsletter Solar Summer 2014

There are those, however, who hold out hope. A pioneer was a Canadian doctor and
metaphysicist who coined the term cosmic consciousness when he wrote a book with that
term as its title. His name is Richard Maurice Bucke, his book was published 1901 in
Philadelphia, and he was a friend of the American poet Walt Whitman.

By studying the Bible and other ancient texts Bucke became convinced that humankind is
moving toward higher consciousness inevitably, and rapidly, based on what he discovered
about our perception of colors and fragrances.

Color perception evolved recently, he contends, with red being perceived first because its
wavelengths vibrate at the highest rate on the spectrum -- "several thousand times as great
as the energy" of blue-violet rays. Bucke cites evidence that blue (as we know it today)
appears to have been unrecognized by sages who wrote the Rig Veda, the Holy Bible, the
Persian Zoroastrian Zend Avesta, the Iliad and Odyssey -- where the color of the sky was
never mentioned once.

"The omission can hardly be attributed to accident. The ten thousand lines of the Rig Veda
are largely occupied with descriptions of the sky; and all its
features -- sun, moon, stars, clouds,
lightning, sunrise and sunset -- are
mentioned hundreds of times. So also
the Zend Avesta, to the writers of
which light and fire, both terrestrial
and heavenly, are sacred objects, could hardly have omitted by
chance all mention of the blue sky. In the Bible the sky and heaven
are mentioned more than four hundred and thirty times, and still no
mention is made of the color. In no part of the world is the blue of the
sky more intense than in Greece and Asia Minor, where the Homeric
poems were composed. Is it possible to conceive that a poet (or the
poets) who saw this as we see it now could write the forty-eight long
books of the Iliad and Odyssey and never once
either mention or refer to it?"

Bucke maintains that blue and green were perceived as shades of
black as recently as 3,000 years ago, while yellow and white and all
intermediate tints were seen as shades of red. He points to our rapid
development in the perception of colors, and also fragrances, as
evidence that higher consciousness is coming on fast. Some people
had it all through the ages, as some saw colors, but more and more
people are approaching it now according to his book.

Of course Bucke was writing before World War I and II. He was writing before the atom was
split, and before major crops around the world were genetically modified to withstand
massive doses of weed-killing glyphosate and highly toxic pesticides despite documented
2 2014 The Spiritual Scoop Newsletter - American Fellowship Church and respective authors - all rights reserved
Each of us is a candle.
The light we shed on the
world comes from our
ickering faith in love. It
is up to us to keep our
individual ame
burning
Cosmic
Consciousness
-RICHARD MAURICE BUCKE M.D.
The Spiritual Scoop - American Fellowship Church Newsletter Solar Summer 2014
damage to microorganisms in the soil, to pollinators like honey bees and butterflies, and to
bodily functions of livestock fed those crops and humans who eat those animals.

Nevertheless there is room for hope. When Charles Darwin proposed his theory of evolution
the key was not survival of the fittest as commonly believed. The key was adaptation. At a
time when changes occur exponentially, so evident in this era, our success as a species will
depend on how we adapt, and react, to emerging realities that are not always easy to
swallow.

Core beliefs are crucial, so is good attitude. Compassion love thy neighbor as thyself
ranks right beside the Great Commandment love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. [Gospel of Matthew 22:37-39] Surely both
commandments can be applied to all life forms and to the planet itself. The whole
shebang is holy. The animal kingdom and the plant kingdom, the oceans and the
atmosphere, all were created by the Almighty to share and support our habitat. They
have just as much right to exist as we do to be healthy and wholesome for without
them we perish. They are begotten by nature, which comprises every particle in our
bodies including foreign harmful particles introduced by children of God, all of whom are
endowed with free will according to scriptures. And nature of course is begotten by God
a word that passeth all understanding. Man was made in the image of God, one might
say, in the imagination of God. Such supreme imagination is supernatural, beyond all
measure, beyond our grasp, at least at this stage of the game.

But if we do not love ourselves, and do not love to be alive, we cannot
love our neighbor in this ever-shrinking world. Nor can we love the Lord
our God, and everything and everyone begotten by God. Despair is a
trapdoor to darkness and doom.

Each of us is a candle. The light we shed on the world comes from our
flickering faith in love. It is up to us to keep our individual flame burning. If
our candle goes out from noxious news, calamities or other causes we
must light it again and again. This is the light of the world, magnified by
millions of candles. Maybe there are billions by now if Bucke's book is
correct about cosmic consciousness coming on fast. This is the light that triggers change for
the betterment, and for the blessing, of all creation. It is the light of truth, and the truth is
simple everything is connected.
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3 2014 The Spiritual Scoop Newsletter - American Fellowship Church and respective authors - all rights reserved