My Spiritual Journey

by
Reg Reynolds, Ph.D., C.Psych. (Retired)
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Copyright © 2021 by Reg M. Reynolds

Library of Congress Control Number:

ISBN: Hardcover
Softcover:
eBook: 978-1-7776461-3-4

All rights reserved

I wish to express my appreciation to Joyce, the love of my life,

who has put up with my obsessions for more than sixty years,
to state my love for my children and grandchildren, and to
acknowledge that it is the shoemaker’s children
who go without shoes.
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Table of Contents

PART 1: THE EARLY YEARS......................................................................................................................

PART 2: SCRIPTURES OF SOME WORLD RELIGIONS (1992 TO 2021)......................................................

PART 3: SCIENCE AND SANITY (1992 TO 2021)......................................................................................

PART 4: RETURNING TO ONENESS WITH GOD......................................................................................

EPILOGUE.............................................................................................................................................

REFERENCES.........................................................................................................................................

ABOUT THE AUTHOR............................................................................................................................

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My Spiritual Journey
by Reg Reynolds

PART 1: The Early Years

The first part of this story is based on an essay written for a class in the psychology of religion,
and it describes my religious experience up until 1992, the year that I retired for the first time.

I was born in the small town of Grande Prairie, Alberta. My parents were homesteaders and, when I
was born, lived in a log cabin in the bush some fifty or so miles east of town, near the Cree Indian
reserve at Sturgeon Lake. I have few memories of the homestead, since we moved to town when I
was four years old so that my older sister could attend a larger school than was available locally, but
I do remember playing in the horse trough, searching for blueberries, and going with my parents to
the dances which were held at Sturgeon Lake.

Grande Prairie is now a thriving community of about 65,000 people. In the late 1930's, however,
it could not have numbered more than two or three thousand. Essentially, it was a farming
community. There was a main street with restaurants, a hotel, a beer parlour, and a variety of
stores. There was also a hospital and two elementary schools, one of which was Roman
Catholic. The children were divided into pup-lickers and cat-lickers and, while I attended the
public school, my best friend was a Catholic.

Sometime during my elementary school years, my classmates killed a crippled child, probably by
accident. They snowballed her on the way home from school, and she died. I remember this
incident as (1) occurring when I was not present and (2) occurring as if I were present. I
sometimes wonder if I was present but would prefer to think that I was not, although I doubt that
was the case.

My father had been raised on a farm, and I have no idea whether he had much of a religious
upbringing or not – when I first met my paternal grandparents, they were living in the country,
far from any church. My mother, on the other hand, was raised in the Reorganized Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, in which her father had been a lay minister (although, at the
time I was born, he was farming in northern Alberta and no longer active in the church).

We moved to London, Ontario when I was twelve, again for the sake of my older sister’s schooling,
I believe. My father had a grade eight education; however, my mother had been a school teacher,
and I expect that she was the driving force behind both of these for-the-sake-of-schooling moves.
She was almost certainly also the driving force behind my own quest for achievement. Although I
grew up as the second of three children, a boy sandwiched between two sisters, I learned later that
my parents' first child, also a boy, had been stillborn. Perhaps that accounts for my special status in
the family. That is, I always felt important – not that my sisters weren't, but I did feel special,
specifically in the sense of not really being at liberty to let my parents down. I don't remember ever
having had any specific guilt trips laid on me regarding either education or morality, so I expect that
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it was my mother's expectations that were the deciding factor in my life. In any event, I have no
doubt at all that my mother did her best to mould me into the kind of person she wanted me to be.

In London, I attended Trafalgar public school, where I was accelerated through Grades 7 and 8
(which put me out-of-sinc with my friends) and Sir Adam Beck collegiate. Beck was known for
its “singing auditorium.” Each week, the entire school would gather in the auditorium for a
songfest, led by the music teacher, Carl Chapman. One of my classmates, Ron Freestone, could
play the piano, and a bunch of us would emulate that songfest during many a noon hour get-
together. One of the songs that we would sing was The Whiffenpoof Song. I will return to that
later.

Beck was also my introduction to poetry. The English teacher, W.A. Langford, had
compiled/edited a book of poetry, Grass of Parnassus, and it contains many of my favorite
poems, including several by Wilson MacDonald, an itinerant Canadian poet who travelled from
school to school reciting his poetry. One of my favourites was A Song to the Valiant, and I will
return to it later as well.

In Grande Prairie, we attended the Baptist church, where my mother played the piano (and where
I was forced to sit through services that I hated). From time to time, we also attended the
Salvation Army and United churches, and even the occasional Pentecostal revival. My father was
partial to the Salvation Army, insofar as he showed any interest in church at all. In London,
however, there was a branch of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints church
– later changing its name to to the Community of Christ – and my mother took advantage of the
opportunity to introduce my sisters and me to the church in which she had been raised. During my
teens, therefore, I grew up in the “Saints” church (although I did belong to a Cub and Scout troop
which operated out of an Anglican church close to the part of town in which we lived, and I attended
church parades there from time to time).

My family didn't have much money – you can guess that my father couldn't command much of a
salary – and I always held a part time job. I loved to work and, until recently, I still did; and you
could never imagine the joy that I experienced in working like a slave, partly for the sake of
having a little pocket money but mainly just for the challenge of pitting myself against the
demands of my various jobs. I can remember, for example, staying up until midnight to kill rats
in the grocery store where I worked part-time, and pushing a bicycle laden with groceries for
miles out into the country in half a foot of snow just for the sheer fun of overcoming the
challenge that it presented. There were teenage gangs in the neighbourhood, but I never had
time to get more than peripherally involved.

When I was a teenager, my best friend was killed in an automobile accident while returning from a
night in Niagara Falls – at that time, you could drink legally in New York State a year or so younger
than you could in Ontario, and I remember walking down the street in Niagara Falls and not being
able to feel my feet, thanks to a bit of Southern Comfort. As chance would have it, I wasn't with
him when he ran his car into a bridge abutment, and I was left with virtually no close friends outside
of the church. However, our church young people's group was very active. Several of our number
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had cars, and we travelled the province to visit other church youth from Windsor to Toronto and
from Wawa to Niagara Falls. I remember one trip to Niagara Falls in which we discovered, when
we were about half way there (and travelling about eighty miles per hour) that the car was still in
second gear. It was a big V8 with overdrive.

Perhaps because of my (peripheral) involvement in the church, and perhaps because my parents
rarely ever formally forbade me to do whatever I wanted – my mother tended to rule through
expectation – and perhaps because I was pretty introverted, I almost missed my adolescent
rebellion, and would have missed it entirely if it hadn't been for sex. As it was, whatever
rebelliousness I exhibited occurred rather later than usual and didn't last for very long at all. Other
than that, I worked, attended school, read like a fiend (I even managed to get access to the adult
section of the library well before being technically old enough to do so, having exhausted the books
in the children’s section), and hung out with the young people of the church, by which I mean from
one end of the province to the other. As I recall, the church young people's group did not seem to
have any consistent adult leaders, but when we did have leaders, they were good role models. I still
remember them with affection, and I envy their devotion to their young charges.

This church which I joined as a teenager is an interesting organization. Its theology is both liberal,
perhaps even radically so, and fundamentalist. From shortly after we began to attend this church, I
knew that I had found my church home. No doubt some of the charismatic/mystical elements of
the church, such as a belief in continuing revelation, healings, and speaking in tongues, appealed to
me, but what really reached me where I live was the rationality of the church's teachings. For
example, this church teaches that children are born innocent and are seven or eight years old before
reaching the age of accountability. Many, if not most of the children who are brought up in the
church, will be ready for baptism by that stage in their lives, should they decide to do so. I was
twelve when we moved to London, so it was some time after that that I decided to join the church.
For me, it was very much of a conscious decision. In a sense, you could say that I was a convert,
and you know what converts are like.

Then there is my "patriarchal blessing." Within the Community of Christ, there is an ordinance
referred to as a patriarchal blessing, in which a Patriarch/Evangelist (a particular priesthood
office.in the church) asks God for a blessing on behalf of the petitioner and offers counsel to him
or her. In my case, I have both received and chosen to accept the counsel to "let not your
questioning become too much of doubting." I suppose that equates to something like "don't
throw out the baby with the bath water!" In truth, while I certainly question everything that I am
told – or, to be precise, I accept it as what I have been told – I don't have a great deal more faith
in my own intellect than in the one who offered the blessing and counsel.

Of course, this does not mean that I was an easy child for any church to teach and, I am sure,
drove my Sunday school teachers to distraction. But their answers must have supplied
something for which I was hungering, since something in the whole process seems to have
clicked. I don’t remember any specific crucial religious teachings from that time in my life,
other than that God continues to speak to people today, but perhaps I could illustrate the kind of
teachings to which I was exposed.
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This particular church in which I continue to be a member holds to several “Enduring

Principles,” abridged below:
 Grace and Generosity: God’s grace, especially as revealed in Jesus Christ, is generous
and unconditional; and having received God’s generous grace, we respond generously
and graciously receive the generosity of others.
 Sacredness of Creation: In the beginning, God created and called it all good; and we join
with God as stewards of care and hope for all creation.
 Continuing Revelation: God graciously reveals divine will today as in the past; and in
humility, individually and in community, we prayerfully listen to understand God’s will
for our lives, the church, and creation more completely.
 Worth of All Persons: God views all people as having inestimable and equal worth; and
we seek to uphold and restore the worth of all people individually and in community,
challenging unjust systems that diminish human worth.
 All Are Called: God graciously gives people gifts and opportunities to do good and to
share in God’s purposes; and we respond faithfully, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to
our best understanding of God’s call.
 Responsible Choices: Human choices contribute to good or evil in our lives and in the
world; and we are called to make responsible choices within the circumstances of our
lives that contribute to the purposes of God.
 Pursuit of Peace (Shalom): God wants shalom (justice, reconciliation, well-being,
wholeness, and peace) for all of creation; and led by the Holy Spirit, we work with God
and others to restore peace (shalom) to creation.
 Unity in Diversity: Community of Christ is a diverse, international family of disciples,
seekers, and congregations; and  the church embraces diversity and unity through the
power of the Holy Spirit.
 Blessings of Community: The gospel of Jesus Christ is expressed best in community life
where people become vulnerable to God’s grace and each other; and true community
upholds the worth of persons while providing a healthy alternative to self-centeredness,
isolation, and conformity.

Then there are the scriptures that this church espouses – scriptures being writings that are
regarded as sacred in a particular religion, such as the Bible in Christianity, writings that teach
about God and His relationship with His creation, writings that provide divine guidance and
inspired insight for life when responsibly interpreted and faithfully applied. Unlike other
Christian churches, but not unlike some other religions such as Hinduism, Taoism, and
Buddhism, the Community of Christ accepts more than one book as scripture. In addition to the
Bible, it accepts as scripture the Book of Mormon and an open canon of scripture, the Doctrine
and Covenants. The Bible is the central book of scripture for this church, while the Book of
Mormon and the Book of Doctrine and Covenants are thought of as additional witnesses of the
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love of God and the ministry of Christ. Although it is recognized that all translations of the
Bible can serve to enhance our understanding of the mind and will of God, one version of the
Bible accepted by the church (although no longer commonly used) is the Inspired Version, a
“translation/correction" of the King James Version of the Bible produced by Joseph Smith, the
first president and prophet of the church.

The Book of Mormon was purported to be a record of God’s dealings with several groups of
ancient inhabitants of the Americas. One of these ancient civilizations was part of the dispersal
of peoples following the Tower of Babel while the other emigrated from Jerusalem around 600
B.C.E. Supposedly their history was written on gold plates, and later discovered and
“translated” by Joseph Smith about 1830. It is now believed by historians that that was a literary
device – used by other writers as well (cf Gaston Leroux in his introduction to The Phantom of
the Opera) to give credence to its story. Nevertheless, both the Book of Mormon and the
Doctrine and Covenants contain some writing that I consider to be either exceptionally wise or
truly inspired. (as well as a lot that isn’t). Let me illustrate with a sample of verses from each of
these books:

From the Book of Mormon:

"...for there must be an opposition in all things. If not so, my first born in the wilderness,
righteousness could not be brought to pass; neither wickedness; neither holiness nor misery;
neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must be a compound in one. Wherefore, if it
should be one body, it must remain as dead, having no life, neither death nor corruption, nor
incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility. Wherefore, it must have
been created for a thing of nought; wherefore, there would have been no purpose in the end
of its creation. Wherefore, this thing must needs destroy the wisdom of God and his eternal
purposes, and also the power, and the mercy, and the justice of God. And if you shall say
there is no law, you shall also say there is no sin. And if you shall say there is no sin, you
shall also say there is no righteousness. And if there be no righteousness, there be no
happiness. And if there be no righteousness nor happiness, there be no punishment nor
misery. And if these things are not, there is no God. And if there is no God, we are not,
neither the earth, for there could have been no creation of things, neither to act nor to be
acted upon; wherefore, all things must have vanished away.

Now, my son, I speak to you these things, for your profit and learning. For there is a God,
and he has created all things, both the heavens and the earth, and all things that are in them;
both things to act, and things to be acted upon. And to bring about his eternal purposes in
the end of man, after he had created our first parents, and the beasts of the field and the
fowls of the air, and in fine, all things which are created, there must be an opposition; even
the forbidden fruit in opposition to the tree of life; the one being sweet and the other bitter.
Wherefore, the Lord God gave to man that he should act for himself. Wherefore, man could
not act for himself save it should be that he was enticed by the one or the other. And I, Lehi,
according to the things which I have read [iitalics added], must suppose that an angel of
God, according to that which is written, had fallen from heaven; wherefore he became a
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devil, having sought that which was evil before God. Because he had fallen from heaven
and had become miserable forever, he sought also the misery of all mankind. Wherefore,
that old serpent, who is the devil, who is the father of all lies, said to Eve, 'Partake of the
forbidden fruit, and ye shall not die, but ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil.' And
after Adam and Eve had partaken of the forbidden fruit, they were driven out of the garden
of Eden, to till the earth. And they have brought forth children, even the family of all the
earth. And the days of the children of men were prolonged, according to the will of God,
that they might repent while in the flesh. Wherefore, their state became a state of probation,
and their time was lengthened, according to the commandments which the Lord God gave to
the children of men. For he gave commandment that all men must repent; for he showed to
all men that they were lost, because of the transgression of their parents.

Now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed, he would not have fallen; but he would have
remained in the garden of Eden. And all things which were created must have remained in
the same state which they were, after they were created; and they must have remained
forever, and had no end. They would have had no children; wherefore, they would have
remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for
they knew no sin. But, behold, all things have been done in the wisdom of him who knows
all things. Adam fell, that man might be; and men are, that they might have joy. And the
Messiah will come in the fullness of time, that he may redeem the children of men from the
fall. And because they are redeemed from the fall, they have become free forever, knowing
good from evil – to act for themselves, and not to be acted upon, save it be by the
punishment of the Lord, at the great and last day, according to the commandments which
God has given. Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given
them which are expedient to man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life,
through the great mediation of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the
captivity and power of the devil; for he seeks that all men might be miserable like himself."
(II Nephi, verses 80-121).

From the Doctrine and Covenants: Joseph Smith, the first president and prophet of the Latter Day
Saint movement, was killed at Carthage, Missouri by a mob in 1844, after which Brigham Young led
a group of the "Saints” west to establish the headquarters of the church in Utah. This Utah Mormon
church retained the name which the church had in 1844, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day
Saints. When the "Saints” who remained in Missouri reorganized under the leadership of Joseph
Smith III, they chose, as a name for their church, the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter
Day Saints (more recently renamed the Community of Christ). The Utah church adopted the practice
of polygamy, which was considered an abomination by the R.L.D.S. church. When I was a child,
because the names of these two churches were so similar, the R.L.D.S. church was in the midst of
defensively seeking to distance itself from the Utah Mormon church and the practice of polygamy
for which it was infamous. However, by the 1960's, the R.L.D.S. church in "[responding] to
opportunities for evangelism in several national and cultural situations," found itself in the position of
needing to decide what to do about converts, e.g., among the hill tribes in India, who were already
involved in polygamous marriages. Some among the church were insisting that anyone who
joined the church must first abandon all but one of his polygamous wives. It was within this
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context that the following message was accepted by the church's 1972 World Conference "as
embodying the word of God to the church at this time."

"Monogamy is the basic principle on which Christian married life is built. Yet, as I have
said before, there are also those who are not of this fold to whom the saving grace of the
gospel must go. When this is done the church must be willing to bear the burden of their
sin, nurturing them in the faith, accepting that degree of repentance which it is possible
for them to achieve, looking forward to the day when through patience and love they can
be free as a people from the years of their ignorance." (Section 150, verses 10a and 10b).

Although I attend a Community of Christ congregation, I experience my home congregation both as

(1) very committed to following Christ’s example but (2) as lacking in a number of ways, to some
of which I obviously contribute. Of course, most of those ways in which I experience my home
congregation as lacking can be attributed to my own desire for things that have little chance of being
found is any one Christian denomination. I miss the theological simplicity of my Baptist Sunday
school days, and of the old R.L.D.S. church before it became closer to mainstream – while it was
“the true church restored.” (And it still could have been if it weren’t for valuing truth over
tradition). I miss the down-to-earth-service-orientation of the Salvation Army. I miss the majesty
of the Anglican services that I attended as a Boy Scout. I miss the easy-going "community" of the
services which I have experienced at the synagogue attended by one of my Jewish friends. I miss
the fundamentalist fervour and the born-again-Christian bigotry of some of my friends at university.
I miss the praise singing of the Southern Baptist congregation that we lived beside during my
internship year, and even the more up-beat services available in other congregations of my own
church. I wish things were different, but I confess that I haven’t done very much to change them,
choosing instead to leave that up to those who are called to the priesthood.

From my first year in university, I have felt that it has been my calling, blessing, and curse to be a
psychologist – the most highly trained, over-regulated (compared to its competition), and poorly
paid of all professions – and, no matter how I might feel about it, that is the way that it is. And
religion has never been a very "hot item" within the psychological profession – psychology is much
too “scientific” a profession for that. “Recent studies continue to find that psychologists, as a
group, are the least religious of all groups in the academic community." (Paloutzian, 1983,
p.181). On the other hand, I am reluctant to “throw out the baby with the bathwater,” so I
continue to hang in there, at least partly to be part of a very accepting community, even though I
feel like an outsider within my own congregation, more tolerated than accepted. Of course,
psychologists are outsiders at the best of times – people tend to be afraid that we will want to
analyse them – and, as our congregations have been aging, while I have had close friends within
the church, all have now passed on.

The year that I received my B.A., I married my girlfriend, who happened to be an artist, and for
the next sixty-five years I have been lucky enough to live in an art gallery. She has even taught
me to appreciate the beauty of the weeds that grow along the highway – accompanied with
realization that I am actually living within a miracle. So now, in addition to psychology, I am
blessed with a love of music, poetry, and art.
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Currently, the Community of Christ (church) is attempting to create communities of hope, love, joy,
and peace. Perhaps I am not sufficiently integrated into this community, since I have achieved
relatively little of any of these goals. I am particularly lacking in hope. Working in treatment
programs for (1) criminals and (2) children with autism for the last fifty or so years of my career as
a civil servant, I developed a very jaundiced view of hope – we were always told “Things will get
better,” but they always got worse, the typical erosion of programs that cost money and don’t
provide politicians with immediate gain. In my experience in the church, but particularly in the
congregations that I have attended, while I have seen lots of hope, I have experienced something
less of love, joy, and peace.

The congregation with which I am affiliated is just beginning to explore a workshop called
“Building an Inclusive Church,” with its purpose of “taking time to learn more about how to deepen
and expand your faith community’s journey of inclusion, celebration, and advocacy with lesbian,
gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual (LGBTQIA+) people and their families.” –
although when we first began to consider the issue of inclusion of gays in the life of the church
many years ago (e.g., as in the ordination of gays), it was a non-issue for the youth of the church!
They were already openly accepting.

We are being taught that building the foundation of an inclusive church begins with what is called
“graceful engagement” which, among other things, seems to be about building a community of
close relationships, or what I would call friendships. I expect that there are people within our
congregation who do have close relationships with others – I remember one lady, for example,
who impressed me by knowing the names of the employees at her local Tim Horton’s, and
whose Wiccan friend offered a eulogy at her funeral – but, although I find all of our congregation
friendly, I currently have no close friends there, partly because my wife and I live many miles away
from any other members of the congregation. Perhaps that is something that might be worth
exploring.

Regarding my participation in this community, I am relatively passive, particularly in contrast to

those who make better talkers than listeners; and I have a sort of love/hate relationship with prayer,
which would benefit from at least a little hope, but hope is hard to come by – Ambrose Bierce
defines prayer as a petition that the laws of the universe be changed on behalf of the petitioner,
who is admittedly unworthy. On the other hand, I do believe that intention can modify the
trajectory of events, even remotely, particularly when ten or more are gathered in the name of love
(as I have heard is a traditional Jewish belief); and I wouldn’t mind having a little more love, joy,
and peace in my life and in the world as well.

This church sponsors yearly get-togethers called "reunions," and when I was about seventeen, I
attended one of these reunions. This particular reunion was held at a campground owned by the
church at Erie Beach, just south of Chatham, Ontario. For some reason, I was all by myself one
sleepy summer afternoon, and I wandered into the little chapel to the west of the grounds. As I sat
there, not thinking about anything in particular so far as I can remember, I experienced such a feeling
of peace. In Maslow's terms (Self-Actualization and Beyond) it was truly a peak experience. I
associate that experience with religion, and it is like a fire, albeit heavily banked, which burns within
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and provides the personal daemon that keeps me fairly close to the straight and narrow, at least as I
may choose to interpret it – like the rest of the (nominally) Christian world, I try not to be too Christ-
like. After all, who would want to get crucified?!!

In truth, this fire is probably not just derived from that one experience but, rather, a gestalt derived
from all of the religious experiences to which I have been exposed (and probably ultimately driven
by a need to please my mother – otherwise, why would I be so influenced by a simple feeling of
peace?). It doesn't seem to contain any specific doctrine; rather, it just is, a gift from God. "Blessed
be the rock of my salvation.” Having said that, I must admit that I have almost no personal
experience of God, other than as archetype – Jung (1964) defines archetype as an instinctive
tendency to form certain types of "primordial images." I have yet to meet a personal Deity face-
to-face, and hopefully won’t for a little time yet. On the other hand, while it is true that one's
personal experience is governed by the limits of conceptualization and subject to modification
through the normal processes of social reinforcement, insofar as something is experienced it is
rather hard to deny.

The problem with religions, as I see it, is that they often seek to perpetuate a belief in religious
experience in the absence of that experience being personal experience. Jesus of Nazareth had an
experience of God – whether that experience would be labelled as such by someone else or not does
not matter – and he told others about it. Many believed on his experience and many had
corroborating experience of their own. Others believed, to a greater or lesser degree, but without
any corroborating experience of their own. “Belief,” in the absence of personal experience, is rather
shaky knowledge and not always a powerful determinant of behaviour, as witness the Godfather
movies.

Personally, I am far from accepting any kind of psychological explanation for the experience that I
do have. Given that psychological knowledge is established almost entirely through social
agreement, it can define the meaning of an experience much more readily than it can establish or
disestablish the experience itself. With my own knowledge of the limitations of science, and
skepticism regarding what others may regard as the "truth" of any socially accepted patterns of
thought, my own experience is almost insurmountable as a guiding force in my own life.

Several years ago, I represented the Toronto metropolitan area at my church's World Conference
in Independence, Missouri. While there, I had the good fortune to attend a Historical Society
banquet at which the guest speaker was the president of the Utah Mormon Historical Society.
He spoke about the extent to which Joseph Smith revised the messages he received from God as
time and circumstances dictated. Many sections of the Doctrine and Covenants, for example,
were revised from month to month and year to year, as if not everything that he presented to the
church was divinely inspired. And that observation was reinforced by one from a former president
of the Community of Christ, Grant McMurray, who had also shared with the Historical Society
his observation that “the Restoration wasn’t.” Many in this church would be dismayed to learn
of these opinions. I was not, partly because the church’s motto when I was a child was “All
truth” – not unlike the theological insight of the ancient Vedic sages.
13

At one time, I set out to learn computer programming. The vehicle that I chose was conversion of
an available Tarot card program from its Texas Instrument origins into something that would run on
my PC. In doing so, I learned something about the symbolism in the Ryder-Waite Tarot cards and
“the hero’s journey” that they represent. The journey begins and ends with the first of the Tarot
trumps, The Fool:

With carefree steps, an apparently naive and innocent youth approaches a precipice, as if
oblivious to any possible danger which might lie ahead. He has a bindlestiff. In his right
hand, he carries a satchel, possibly containing his fortune; and in his left hand, he carries
a rose. A little white dog jumps playfully at his feet. Some might think him a vagabond,
a wandering minstrel or poet, or a fool.

But notice that his outer garment is richly decorated with a motley display of symbols
(the most prominent of which resemble a kind of trefoil or three-part leaf surrounding a
yellow wheel with eight red spokes); his boots are yellow; in his cap, he wears a red
feather; and his inner vestment is white. The sun is at his back, at an angle of forty-five
degrees to the eastern horizon, for traditionally our traveller faces the north-west, the
direction of the unknown or of that boundless state which exists just prior to the initiation
of a creative process. It is morning, and our hero’s sun has yet to reach its zenith.

This is The Fool, the most powerful of all the Tarot trumps. We have referred to it as
masculine; but actually this particular figure embodies characteristics of both the
masculine and the feminine. It is Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. In
Chinese philosophy, it is known as Wu-Chi, the ultimate nothingness, the void which
precedes conception. Out of this void, both male and female evolve.

The Fool is pictured as a youth because it represents the beginning of a quest, not unlike
the young knight Galahad’s search for the Holy Grail. The dazzling white of his inner
vestment, representing perfect wisdom, is almost totally concealed by his black cloak of
ignorance, with its orangy-red lining of passion and material force. Yet even here, we
may be reassured by the patterns which adorn his cloak; for the eight-spoked wheel
reminds us that the only permanence is change, while the seven trefoils surrounding each
wheel remind us of the divine wisdom that guides the Fool’s steps along his way, on his
journey towards self-knowledge and self-realization.

In fact, the Fool is “The Divine Fool”, the traveller’s goal as well as the traveller himself,
the embodiment of the realization that life is a journey, not a destination. The yellow of
his boots is symbolic of the all-pervading life energy that guides his steps. The wreath of
green around his head and the feather in his cap show him to be in harmony with both the
vegetable and animal kingdoms. He is at peace with the world and at peace with himself.
He serves as a model for us to follow as we pursue life’s journey. In looking for the
answer, he shows us the Way.
14

The royal feast was done. The king

Sought some new sport to banish care
And, to his jester, cried, "Sir, Fool,
Kneel now and make for us a prayer."

The jester doft his cap-and-bells,

And stood, the mocking court before.
They did not see the bitter smile
Behind the painted grin he wore.

He bowed his head and bent his knee

Upon the monarch's silken stool.
His pleading voice arose, "Oh, Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool.

These clumsy feet, still in the mire,

Go crushing blossoms without end;
These hard, well-meaning hands we thrust
Among the heartstrings of a friend."

The unkind word we might have kept,

Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung?
The word we had not sense to say,
Who knows how grandly it had rung.

Our faults no tenderness should ask.

The chastening stripes must cleanse them all.
But for our follies, oh, in shame
Before the eyes of heaven we fall."

The room was hushed. In silence

Rose the king, and sought his gardens cool,
And walked apart, and murmured low,
"Be merciful to me, a fool."

The Fool reversed is the most desirable outcome of all. Translation: redemption.
“Whosoever will not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, shall in no wise enter
therein.”

In addition to converting the available Tarot card program, I decided to improve on its content,
which led to several months of study, knowledge of some of the doctrinal disputes that formed the
basis for many of the current common Christian beliefs, and an appreciation of the extent to which
mythology is a part of the Christian tradition (See for example, Ravenscroft, “The Cup of Destiny:
The Quest for the Grail"). Not that there is anything wrong with mythology; its stories help to
15

anchor us to something that we can believe in, if we choose to do so. And the Christ story does have
a lot to offer, both in its simplicity as well as in the mythological version that the Christian church has
taught. Yin and yang: Psychology, with its pretentions to being scientific, and Christianity with its
mystical and mythological underpinnings.

As you know, during the part of his life referred to in the Gospels, Jesus was a rabbi or teacher
with a message of love and justice. He taught us to think of God as a loving father; to “love the
Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind” and to love our
neighbours as ourselves – and to love our enemies. He authorized his disciples to continue to
spread his message after his death, which they did, with most of them suffering the same fate that
befell Jesus (If I remember correctly, almost all of them were put to death for their beliefs, just as
Jesus was).

So how did this Jewish rabbi become the centerpiece of a religion, with all the attributes that
were to become attached to him during the development of the Christian church? How did he
become divine, “the only begotten son of God”? How did he come to be a miracle worker, to
have a virgin birth, to be without sin, to be the only name through which salvation is possible?
Well, a lot of it has to do with the emperor Constantine. While Jesus’ disciples had their own
experience of Him, by the time that the Church was finally thrashing out what was to be believed
about Him, some three or four hundred years later, that thrashing out was done by an entirely
different set of people under an entirely different set of circumstances. And probably the major
factor in the Church’s ensuing set of beliefs about Jesus came about because of the emperor’s
decision to convert to Christianity. That resulted in many of his subjects becoming more-or-less
instant Christians, bringing with them the pagan beliefs they had held up until that time.

The main rival to Christianity during the centuries preceding Jesus’ birth had been Mithraism,
and Mithras was a sun god. He was often pictured with the sun behind his head, and that sun
eventually became the halo around representations of the heads of the major figures in Christian
art. He was said to have been born of a virgin, and his birth was witnessed by shepherds and by
Magi who brought gifts to his birth-cave. The birthday of the physical form of this deity was
celebrated on the twenty-fifth of December, a date that was adopted by Christians in the fourth
century C.E. as the birthday of Christ. The Mithraic festival of Epiphany, marking the arrival of
the Magi at Mithras' birthplace, was taken over by Christianity as late as 813 C.E.

Mithras was also a dying-and-being-reborn deity, and his rebirth occurred during the Easter
season. Before returning to heaven, he celebrated a last supper with his twelve disciples,
representing the twelve signs of the zodiac, in memory of which his followers partook of a
sacred meal of bread marked with a cross. This was one of seven Mithraic sacraments, which
became models for the seven Christian sacraments. It was called mizd, the English translation of
which is "mass." Like early Christianity, its priesthood consisted only of celibate men, and
women were forbidden to enter Mithraic temples.

Mithras was said to have performed the usual assortment of miracles: raising the dead, healing
the sick, making the blind see and the lame walk, casting out devils. His devotees insisted on
16

moral conduct, and emphasized abstinence and self-control. They believed in revelation, atoning
sacrifice, immortality of the soul, the last judgement, the resurrection of the body, and the fiery
destruction of the universe. They believed in baptism, confirmation, salvation through good
works, and life after death. Believers in Mithras dipped their hands in a basin of holy-water and
made the sign of the cross when they entered his temple. Now, by this time, you should be
asking yourselves, “According to whom?” Of course, I wasn’t there, so I can’t answer for the
accuracy of any of this information on the basis of my own experience, but this is what historians
say.

So why didn’t all of these new converts to Christianity just abandon their pagan beliefs and be
satisfied with Jesus’ simple teachings when they decided to espouse Christianity? Well, there
has been a great deal of advantage to the Christian Church to incorporating into its belief system
a variety of pagan beliefs represented, in this case, by Mithraism. Consider, for example, that all
of these similarities between Christianity and Mithraism had already been present in ancient
Egyptian mythology for many thousands of years. The dying and resurrected hero of Egyptian
mythology:

 was born of a virgin in a cave on December 25th

 had a star herald his birth
 had no known history between the ages of twelve and thirty
 was baptized by a god figure named Anuo the Baptizer, who was later beheaded
 was visited by wise men from the East
 turned water into wine at a wedding
 walked on water, healed the sick, cast our demons, and performed other miracles
 was betrayed for 30 pieces of silver
 was put to death on a cross
 was crucified between two thieves
 was resurrected on the third day
 died to redeem the world
 ascended into heaven and sits on the right hand of his father as the divine judge

The fact that these similarities are reported, even if not necessarily truthfully, suggests that some
of this “history” has to have been made up “out of while cloth,” as they say, to suit somebody’s
purpose. However, it also suggests that there is something archetypal about these kinds of
portrayals. For example, consider the story of the Grand Inquisitor which recounts how Jesus,
revisiting the world, appearing in Spain during the time of the Spanish Inquisition. Naturally, he
was arrested and condemned by the Grand Inquisitor because He had been offered the three
things by which men may be controlled – bread, authority and mystery – and he had turned them
down. Men, it is said, will follow one who gives them bread, obey one who rewards the
obedient and punishes the disobedient, and believe in one who is wrapped in mystery; but He
would not use these things. Men were to follow Him, obey Him, and believe in Him, out of love
and devotion or not at all. That attitude the Inquisition had had to set aside, or there would have
been very few to accept Christ as He was being portrayed by the Church. And now He had come
to repeat His great mistake and spoil the church’s work, and He was to be burnt at the stake the
17

next day. When the Grand Inquisitor had finished speaking, the Prisoner simply crossed the
prison-cell and kissed the old man on his bloodless lips. The Inquisitor opened the door and
bade Him go. He went out into the night and was never seen again. It is reported that that kiss
burned in the old man’s heart, but that he did not alter either his opinion or practice. After all, if
he had to choose between Christ’s teaching and preservation of the church to which he had
devoted his life….

I sometimes wonder if the Grand Inquisitor wasn’t right for his time and place, and maybe for
ours, since teaching works best if you begin where the students are at. And since most of us are
either motivated by rewards and punishments (“the carrot and the stick,” Kohlberg’s Stages 1
and 2 in the development of moral reasoning), social acceptance and/or pressure (Stage 3), or (at
best) responsive to commandments (Stage 4), perhaps some religious tradition, of one kind or
another, with all of its irrational beliefs and rituals is something that we need.

John Spong and Elaine Pagels have argued that many of our other favourite Bible stories are
literally beyond belief. But such stories don’t have to be taken literally. In fact, I am content
that not all of the church’s teaching, either through scripture or tradition, were even intended to
be either historically correct or taken literally. Consider, for example, the story of Balaam’s ass:

[Num 22:21] And Balaam rose up in the morning, and saddled his ass, and went with the
princes of Moab.
[Num 22:22] And God's anger was kindled because he went: and the angel of the Lord stood
in the way for an adversary against him. Now he was riding upon his ass, and his two
servants were with him.
[Num 22:23] And the ass saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way, and his sword
drawn in his hand: and the ass turned aside out of the way, and went into the field: and
Balaam smote the ass, to turn her into the way.
[Num 22:24] But the angel of the Lord stood in a path of the vineyards, a wall being on this
side, and a wall on that side.
[Num 22:25] And when the ass saw the angel of the Lord, she thrust herself unto the wall,
and crushed Balaam's foot against the wall: and he smote her again.
[Num 22:26] And the angel of the Lord went further, and stood in a narrow place, where
was no way to turn either to the right hand or to the left.
[Num 22:27] And when the ass saw the angel of the Lord, she fell down under Balaam: and
Balaam's anger was kindled, and he smote the ass with a staff.
[Num 22:28] And the Lord opened the mouth of the ass, and she said unto Balaam, What
have I done unto thee, that thou hast smitten me these three times?
[Num 22:29] And Balaam said unto the ass, because thou hast mocked me: I would there
were a sword in mine hand, for now would I kill thee.
18

[Num 22:30] And the ass said unto Balaam, Am not I thine ass, upon which thou hast ridden
ever since I was thine unto this day? was I ever wont to do so unto thee? And he said, Nay.
[Num 22:31] Then the Lord opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the Lord
standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand: and he bowed down his head, and fell
flat on his face.
Very fanciful, and what I would call a parable, a fictional narrative used to typify moral or
spiritual relations. There were other parables in the old testament, one of my favourites being
the story of Job. Although Job was almost certainly an historical person, the detailed narrative
in the Book of Job cannot possibly have been historically accurate. Of course, many Christians
believe that the Bible is the literal Word of God – that it was, in fact, dictated by God word for
word. I have even heard it said, in favour of the King James version of the Bible, that “If
Medieval English was good enough for Jesus and his disciples, it’s good enough for me.” But
that is actually contrary to what is actually written in the Bible. Jesus used many of these stories-
with-a-moral. In fact, if I remember correctly, it was his main teaching method except for the
example that he set:
[Matt 13:34-35] “All these things Jesus spoke to the multitude in parables; and without
a parable He did not speak to them, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the
prophet, saying: 'I will open My mouth in parables; I will utter things kept secret from the
foundation of the world'.”
19

PART 2: Scriptures of Some World Religions (1992 to 2021)

As a church, the Community of Christ has been counselled to study the scriptures, just as our
friends in other religions do; and as mentioned above, the Community of Christ believes in an
open canon of scripture. It teaches that God continues to reveal Himself to humankind and, as a
result, it has a mechanism through with to continue to add to its scriptures. The process through
which God reveals divine will and love is called revelation. God continues to reveal today as in
the past, through scripture, the faith community, prayer, nature, and in human history.
Although this church espouses three books of scripture it does not limit the truth of God to either
(1) previous revelation, or (2) future revelation given only through the prophet of the church;
neither does it limit the truth of God to past understandings. As stated in Section 147 of Doctrine
and Covenants:
“Instruction which has been given in former years is applicable in principle to the needs of
today and should be so regarded by those who are seeking ways to accomplish the will of
their heavenly Father. But the demands of a growing church require that these principles
shall be evaluated and subjected to further interpretation. This requisite has always been
present. In meeting it under the guidance of my spirit, my servants have learned the intent of
these principles more truly.” 1
Furthermore, to the extent that its members accept the instruction given to the church and
recorded in the book of Doctrine and Covenants, they believe in finding wisdom wherever it can
be found. In Section 85 of the Doctrine and Covenants (known as “The Olive Leaf”), for
example, the church is admonished:
[Sec 85:36a] ...Call your solemn assembly, as I have commanded you; and as all have not
faith, seek ye diligently and teach one another words of wisdom; yea, seek ye out of the best
books words of wisdom; seek learning even by study, and also by faith.
In fact, to the extent that its members believe their own scriptures, they believe that God has
spoken to people throughout the ages, and not only to the Jews, the early Christian church, and
“the Church of Jesus Christ restored,” and it is probably safe to say that this church believes that
God has revealed Himself to people throughout the world throughout the ages, in ways
appropriate to their cultural development and understanding, and that He is “the one God" of
love that is responsible for the diverse manifestations of the Golden Rule. The Book of
Mormon, for example, admonishes: 
“Thou fool, that shall say, A bible, we have got a bible, and we need no more
bible. ...because that I have spoken one word, ye need not suppose that I cannot speak
another; for my work is not yet finished; neither shall it be, until the end of man....
Wherefore, because that ye have a bible, ye need not suppose that it contains all my words;
neither need ye suppose that I have not caused more to be written: For I command all men,
both in the east, and in the west, and in the north, and in the south, and in the islands of the
sea, that they shall write the words which I speak unto them: For behold, I shall speak unto
the Jews, and they shall write it; And I shall also speak unto the Nephites, and they shall
20

write it; And I shall also speak unto the other tribes of the house of Israel, which I have led
away, and they shall write it; And I shall also speak unto all nations of the earth, and they
shall write it.”
According to Wikipedia, the first of the oldest surviving religious texts, the Pyramid Texts, was
composed in Ancient Egypt somewhere around 2400 B.C.E., while the better-known Sumerian
Epic of Gilgamesh dates from about 2000 B.C.E. The earliest scriptures still in common use
come from India. The earliest of these Hindu scriptures date from some time after 1500 B.C.E.,
although they weren't written down until about 500 B.C.E. They include four Vedas, or
collections of hymns. The gods were invoked by singing hymns inviting them to attend the
sacrifices, and they were assumed to be present during them. There are 33 principle deities
praised in the Vedas. However, although the hymns of the Vedas praise all of these different
deities, the Vedic sages had already formed the idea that the various deities were all aspects of
One Supreme Power, which they called "Truth.”
The next set of Hindu scriptures to be developed were the Upanishads (named "Upa-ni-shada" or
"sitting near" because they were originally tutorials given to select pupils who sat near their
teachers to hear the sacred teachings), probably between the eighth and sixth century B.C.E., and
they are surviving in their present form since about 200 B.C.E. Important because of their
philosophical teachings, they contain the idea that there is a one-ness of all things throughout the
created universe, that the individual soul (atman) and the universal soul (Brahman), the "One
God" of Hinduism, are the same; that the visible world is an illusion (maya) but that the
universal soul, Brahman, is eternal, limitless, omnipresent, and may be male or female.
Brahman is without form, but Hindus are free to imagine this Supreme Spirit in any way that is
meaningful to them, and they have done so in terms of its various aspects: Brahma (who created
and continues to create the world), Vishnu (who looks after the world), and Shiva (who
continually destroys part of the world so that Brahma can continue his work of creation).
Prominent among the Upanishads is the great Hindu epic, the Mahabharata, which contains
many stories with a moral message. The central story of the Mahabharata is the battle between
good and evil as represented by a war between the Kuru princes and their cousins, the five sons
of King Pandu, over right of succession to the throne. The Bhagavad-Gita (or Song of the Lord)
is a philosophical text which occurs in the sixth book of the Mahabharata. It tells the story of
Arjuna, the third son of King Pandu, and his brother-in-law, Krishna, who was the king of a
neighbouring country but who had volunteered to act as Arjuna's charioteer during the great war.
On the eve of battle, Arjuna, seeing his kinsman ready to fight him, is filled with remorse at the
thought of killing his relatives to gain a kingdom, and he turns to his charioteer for advice. It is
Lord Krishna's advice concerning moral and religious values and man's relation to God that
forms the text of the Bhagavad-Gita.
At one point in their dialogue, Arjuna comes to realize that Lord Krishna is actually an avatar of
Vishnu, and he asks him how he would like to be worshipped. Lord Krishna replied that he
actually prefers that we relate to Him as a person rather than as a disembodied spirit, since it is
more compatible with human nature to do so.
21

The next three sets of guidance-for-living writings were developed in East Asia during the third
to sixth centuries B.C.E. They may be considered to be scriptures since, although probably
written as philosophical tracts, they are associated with three of the world’s great religions:
Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism.

Throughout history, it has been recognized that the human mind is capable of two kinds of
knowledge, or two ways of being conscious of the world, which have often been termed the
rational and the intuitive. In the West, the intuitive, mystical type of knowledge has often been
devalued in favour of rational, scientific knowledge, whereas the traditional Eastern attitude is,
in general, just the opposite. In ancient India, the Upanishads, for example, speaks of a higher
and a lower knowledge, and associates the lower knowledge with the various sciences, the higher
with religious experience. In ancient Chinese philosophy, on the other hand, it is the
complimentary nature of the intuitive and the rational which has been emphasized, with two
complimentary philosophical traditions. Confucianism may be thought of as having emphasized
the rational side of these two kinds of knowledge, while Taoism has emphasized the intuitive
side, teaching spontaneity and the wisdom of trusting in intuitive knowledge.

Confucius (551–479 B.C.E.) was a Chinese philosopher and politician who was traditionally
considered the paragon of Chinese sages. There are several holy books in Confucianism, with
the Analects as the most revered. It was actually written by the second generation of his students
based on his sayings, and it is said to capture what Confucianism is all about. It emphasizes
personal and governmental morality, correctness of social relationships, justice, kindness, and
sincerity, and it forms the ethical basis for the traditional Chinese inter-generational family
system with its ritual of social etiquette and obligation. It has become an integral part of the
Chinese social fabric and way of life.

Taoism is attributed to Lao Tzu (circa 500 B.C.E.). It has two main “scriptures”: the Tao Te
Ching and the Zhuangzi – the latter named for its traditional author, "Master Zhuang" – which
contain stories and anecdotes that exemplify the carefree nature of the ideal Taoist sage. Taoism
differs from Confucianism by not emphasizing rigid rituals and social order, but is similar in the
sense that it is a teaching about the various disciplines for achieving "perfection," in this case by
becoming one with the unplanned rhythms of the universe called "Tao" or "the way" – which
reminds me of that famous saying, “The great way is not difficult for those who have no
preferences.”

I have a copy of the Tao Te Ching translated and transposed into verse by Charles Mackintosh
(1926), and my favorite section of it is concerned with rulers, but let me begin with its statement
about the Tao:
The way to which mankind may hold
Is not the eternal way.
Eternal truths cannot be told
In what men write or say.

The name that may be named by man

22

Is not the eternal name

That was before the world began
Or human language came.
With that by way of introduction, here is the section on rulers:
The subjects of the truly wise
Perceive no government,
But live as though from cloudless skies
Rained order and content.

Lesser rulers are held dear,

Their subjects called them wise;
Still lesser ones, the people fear;
And lesser still, despise.

So tenderly those great ones wrought

The service of the throne;
The hundred families each thought
“We rule ourselves alone.”

When the great wisdom is denied,

Justice must take its place.
When justice in its turn has died
Prudence must meet the case.

When family chords fall out of tune,

Then filial piety comes.
Loyalty and allegiance soon
Follow the warlike drums.

Abandon all your saintliness;

Your prudence put aside;
Then you may rule and truly bless
And serve the countryside!

Winnie the Pooh has never been considered scripture, but Benjamin Hoff (The Tao of Pooh) tells
us that it is a book of profound Western Taoist wisdom:

"When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, "What's the first thing you
say to yourself?" "What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do you say, Piglet?" "I say, I
wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet. Pooh nodded thoughtfully.
"It's the same thing," he said.
23

"What's that?" the Unbeliever asked. "Wisdom from a Western Taoist," I said. "It sounds
like something from Winnie-the-Pooh," he said. "It is," I said. "That's not about Taoism,"
he said. "Oh, yes it is," I said. "No, it's not," he said. "What do you think it's about?" I said.
"It's about this dumpy little bear that wanders around asking silly questions, making up
songs, going through all kinds of adventures, without ever accumulating any amount of
intellectual knowledge or losing his simple minded sort of happiness. That's what it’s
about," he said. "Same thing," I said.

Buddhism is derived from the teachings of an Indian prince by the name of Siddhartha Gautama
who lived in India some 2500 years ago. As a child and youth, Siddhartha led a very protected
and very pampered life. Nevertheless, he became concerned about the suffering that he saw
around him, and he set out to find a solution to that suffering. His quest took him many years,
but eventually he reached his goal, after which he spent the rest of his life telling others about
what he had discovered. The freedom from suffering which Siddhartha sought was found to
flow from insight into the true nature of the world, an insight that he achieved through years of
meditation. This insightful state became known as "enlightenment" or "awakening," and
whoever attained this state was known as a buddha. Siddhartha became known as the Buddha,
or simple as Buddha.

By following the Buddha's precept and example, soon others too had attained enlightenment, just
as he had, and they also went out to spread the word. In time, they began to congregate in
monasteries, particularly during the rainy season, when it was difficult to travel.

The essence of the Buddha's message is to be found in what are called the four noble truths.

1. Life is mainly suffering.

2. Suffering is caused by desires which put us in conflict with the laws of the universe. For
example, we want such things as power, fame, beauty, undying love, or not to be
subjected to loss, sickness, pain, old age, death, and so on, all of which are either fleeting
or unattainable.
3. The way to extinguish suffering is to extinguish desire.
4. The way to extinguish desire is to follow the Eightfold Noble Path, which is composed
of:
1) right understanding - e.g., of the four noble truths.
2) right intention - e.g., to renounce fleeting or unattainable desires.
3) right speech - e.g., to try to live peacefully with the rest of the universe.
4) right behaviour - e.g., lovingkindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and
equanimity.
5) right livelihood - e.g., no dealing in intoxicants, weapons, slavery, and so on.
6) right effort - e.g., meditation to remove unwholesome, unhelpful states of mind.
7) right mindfulness - e.g., living in the present
8) right concentration - e.g., a mind as focused as a laser beam.
24

While the Buddha was still alive, and for some time afterward, his teaching didn't spread much
beyond the basin of the Ganges River. However, when the emperor of India converted to
Buddhism, the number of Buddhists grew rapidly. He also sent missionaries to southern India,
Sri Lanka, Burma, Afghanistan, Egypt and Greece. In the West, they didn't meet with much
success because the Roman Empire, following Constantine, had converted to Christianity.
However, they were more successful in the East. To the south east, Buddhism became
established in Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Kampuchea, and Laos. To the north east, it was
carried into Nepal, central Asia, China, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. And later, it was taken into
Tibet, from which it spread to Bhutan and Mongolia.

As in the case of Christianity, soon there were enough Buddhists to start arguing about the right
teachings, and Buddhism split up into many factions. The first split came about 350 B.C.E.
when the Sangha (or order of monks) split into two groups, the Elders (which emphasized the
humanity of the Buddha and the importance of the monastic life) and the Great Community
(which regarded the Buddha as superhuman). The Elders soon split up into two groups,
becoming the modern Theravada school of Buddhism and a group called the Sarvastivadins, who
taught that the past and the future are just as real as the present.

As Buddhism continued to expand in India, rivalries continued and led to further divisions, and
soon there were eighteen different schools of Buddhism. From amongst the followers of these
different schools of Buddhism, there emerged a new form of Buddhism known as Mahayana, or
the Great Vehicle. Many of their views were to be found in the early Buddhist scriptures, but
they also wrote their own scriptures, in which they represented anyone who didn't agree with
them as Hinayana, or followers of the inferior vehicle. The non-Mahayana Buddhists didn't
think very much of the way in which they had been characterized, but they never came up with
another word to refer to themselves, so the name has stuck.

About this time in the development of Buddhism, some Buddhists were having visions in which
the Buddha appeared to them and gave them what they believed to be a higher-level teaching. It
was at this stage that some Buddhist teaching became both philosophical and mystical, with
bodhisattvas or Buddhas-to-be who had been reborn in heaven assuming a role analogous to that
of saints in the Roman Catholic church. One of the Mahayana scriptures tells the story of the
bodhisattva Dharmakara who, many millions of years ago, listened to the preaching of the
Buddha of that time and was so impressed that he decided to become a buddha himself.
However, Dharmakara did not want to preach the Dharma, the teachings of Buddha, in a
universe where it was so difficult for beings to make spiritual progress. So he meditated and
performed good deeds for many lifetimes, until he had accumulated enough merit that he was
able to create a pure land where all beings would find it easy to meditate and achieve nirvana.
When he became a buddha, he preached the dharma in that pure land and became known as
Amitabha, the Buddha of Infinite Light. In Japan, he became known as Amida Buddha.

In the early Buddhist scriptures, the Buddha's teaching of the four noble truths were referred to
as "the setting in motion of the wheel of dharma," dharma being cosmic law and order achieved
through attention to the Buddha’s teachings. The early Mahayana scriptures are sometimes said
25

to represent the second turning of the wheel of dharma, since they present Buddhist teaching in a
way that is quite different than that found in the early literature. Sometime around 600 C.E., a
third turning of the wheel of dharma was proclaimed. The followers of this new way called it
Mantrayana (the Vehicle of Chants) or Tantrayana (the Vehicle of Patterns).

Tantrayana is distinctive in three ways. The first is its emphasis on the individual teacher (or
guru). The second is its use of magical sounds (dharani) and chants (mantras). And the third is
the importance that it places on ritual. Whereas, in the early Buddhist scriptures, the journey
toward enlightenment was often portrayed as taking many lifetimes, the Tantric teachers set out
to help their students attain it during their present life. According to Tantric Buddhist teaching,
not until a student has been initiated by a proper teacher will he be able to practice the Tantric
rituals successfully, and the rituals were designed to liberate a person from rebirth during a
single lifetime.

When Buddhism spread from India to China, the scriptures which were translated were often
from different time periods and represented the views of the different schools of Buddhism, all
of which, however, were presented as the word of the Buddha. In response to the large number
of scriptures, some groups in China selected particular texts to follow, which they thought
represented the highest teachings of the Buddha, while other groups preferred to work out ways
of classifying the various scriptures, making sure that their own preferred texts were given the
highest place. And again, this resulted in the development of several more schools of Buddhist
thought (and I might remind you that there are estimated to be 45,000 Christian denominations,
most of which consider everyone else to be in error).

One of these new Chinese schools of Buddhist thought was the Ch'an (or Meditation) school
which, in Japan, is referred to as Zen. Ch'an or Zen Buddhism stressed the importance of
practice, as opposed to theory (which tends to do away with a lot of the "religiosity" that had
been introduced into Buddhism over the years), and that the teaching should be passed on
directly from one living person (a master) to another (a pupil). They also stressed the importance
of the spiritual family, and the importance of work, both of which were ways in which Ch'an
Buddhism adapted to the Chinese situation better than did other schools of Buddhist thought.

When Buddhism spread to Japan, two schools of thought gained prominence. A Japanese monk
by the name of Honan taught that the only way to make spiritual progress was through faith in
the power of Amida, which could be expressed by chanting "Hail Amida Buddha". This formed
the basis for the Pure Land teaching (or Jodo Shu). His disciple, Shinram, went one step further
by saying that everyone was already guaranteed a place in the Pure Land and that the only thing
that prevented people from receiving Amida's grace was their lack of faith, and this formed the
basis for what was called the True Pure Land Teaching (or Jodo Shinshu).

The second main school of Buddhist thought in Japan centred around meditation. Meditation,
like the Pure Land teaching, was only one of the teachings to be found in the various Buddhist
schools. But in the same way that Honan and others simplified Buddhism by emphasizing the
power of Amida's grace, the Japanese monks, Eisai and Dogen, sought to restore the essence of
26

Buddhism by placing (or replacing) meditation at the centre of Buddhist practice. Apparently,
Eisai came in contact with the Ch'an school of Buddhist thought through visiting China
sometime around 1202 C.E. and, when he returned to Japan, he founded the Rinzai Meditation
school, which is famous for its use of the koan. The idea behind the koan is that it poses a
question which the rational mind cannot answer, with the result that concentrating upon it forces
a cessation of thought – we would say that thought is extinguished through lack of reinforcement
– at which time the student has an opportunity to see things as they really are without their being
mediated by all of the cognitive constructions that we typically place on reality.

There is a story of a man who, in his search for enlightenment, sought out a Zen master to
instruct him. The Zen master invited him in and began by serving tea. The student held out his
cup, and the master began to pour, but instead of stopping when the student's cup was full, he
just kept pouring and pouring until the tea was running all over the floor. Eventually, the student
couldn't restrain himself any longer, and he said, "Stop. The cup is full. It won't hold any more."
At which time, the Zen master replied, "Your mind is like that cup. It is already full of your own
opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless first you empty your cup?"

The koan is designed to help you empty your cup. Remember that it poses a question which the
rational mind cannot answer, with the result that concentrating upon it confounds thought, at
which time the student has an opportunity to perceive the true nature of reality unmediated by
thought. For example, suppose that you were asked, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?"
or "Does a dog have Buddha-nature?" It is at times such as these that the rational mind is so
confounded that reality may suddenly be perceived directly and immediately.

Dogen was a student of Eisai's chief disciple. He also visited China and, when he returned,
moved into a small rural monastery to teach zazen (or sitting meditation). His school became
known as Soto Zen. Zazen serves a purpose similar to that of the koan, it allows the individual
to experience reality directly and immediately, i.e., unmediated by thought, which is what is
meant by enlightenment.

Much Buddhist teaching is through parables, often somewhat enigmatic but leading towards
enlightenment. My favourite story is the one of Nansen and the cat:
Nansen was the abbot in charge of a Zen monastery. One day he came upon the students of
the two dormitories arguing about which dormitory owned the cat. Nansen seized the cat in
one hand and his knife in the other and cried, ‘If any of you can say a true word, you can
save the cat.’ No one answered, so Nansen cut the cat in two and gave half to each of the
dormitories. That evening, Nansen's favorite student, Joshu returned from a trip, and
Nansen told him about the incident concerning the cat. Hearing this, Joshu removed his
sandals and, placing them on his head, walked out – thereby providing an appropriate
(behavioural) response to Nansen’s request. Nansen said, ‘If you had only been there, the
cat would have been saved.’

A great many of these parables are about living in the present. Joshu grew up to be a Zen master
with students of his own. One day a monk approached him and said, “I have just entered the
27

monastery. Please teach me about Zen.” Joshu answered, “Did you get here in time for lunch?”
The monk replied, “Yes, thank you, I have just eaten.” “Then,” said Joshu, “you had better wash
your bowl.” At that moment, the monk experienced his first taste of enlightenment.
Buddha told the following story:
“A man traveling across a field encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger after him. Coming to
a precipice, he caught hold of a root of a wild vine and swung himself down over the edge.
The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, the man looked down to where, far below,
another tiger was waiting to eat him. Only the vine sustained him.
Two mice, one white and one black, little by little started to gnaw away at the vine. The
man saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the
strawberry with the other . How sweet it tasted:" (Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, p.22, 23). p.22, 23).

An older student came to Otis and said, “I have been to see a great number of teachers and I have
given up a great number of pleasures. I have fasted, been celibate and stayed awake nights
seeking enlightenment. I have given up everything I was asked to give up and I have suffered,
but I have not been enlightened. What should I do?” Otis replied, “Give up suffering.”
(Benares, 1977).

So, to recap: What is Zen, and what is enlightenment? "Zen is a leap from thinking to knowing,
from second hand to direct experience." (Humphries, 1961), and enlightenment is "the
realization that the universe is not external to you." (Kapleau, 1965, 1980). This form of
Buddhism is both very simple and very profound, as may be illustrated by one Canadian
woman's description of her enlightenment experience. This is what she wrote about the
experience.

1. The world as apprehended by the senses is the least true (in the sense of complete), the
least dynamic (in the sense of eternal movement), and the least important in a vast
"geometry of existence" of unspeakable profundity, whose rate of vibration, whose intensity
and subtlety are beyond verbal description.
2. Words are cumbersome and primitive – almost useless in trying to suggest the true
multidimensional workings of an indescribably vast complex of dynamic forces, to contact
which one must abandon one's normal level of consciousness.
3. The least act, such as eating or scratching an arm, is not at all simple. It is merely a
visible moment in a network of causes and effects reaching forward into unknowingness and
back into an infinity of silence, where individual consciousness cannot even enter. There is
truly nothing to know, nothing that can be known.
4. The physical world is an infinity of movement, of time-existence. But simultaneously it
is an infinity of silence and voidness. Every object is thus transparent. Everything has its
own special character, its own karma or "life in time" but at the same time there is no place
where there is emptiness, where one object does not flow into another.
28

5. The least expression of weather variation, soft rain or a gentle breeze, touches me as a –
what can I say? – miracle of unmatched wonder, beauty and goodness. There is nothing to
do: just to be is a supremely total act.
6. Looking into faces, I see something of the long chain of their past existence, and
sometimes something of their future. The past ones recede behind the outer face like ever-
finer tissues yet are at the same time impregnated in it.
7. When I am in solitude, I can hear a song coming forth from everything. Each and every
thing has its own song: even moods, thoughts, and feelings have their finer songs. Yet
beneath this variety they intermingle in one inexpressibly vast unity.
8. I feel a love which, without object, is best called lovingness. But my old emotional
reactions still coarsely interfere with the expression of this supremely gentle and effortless
lovingness.
9. I feel that consciousness which is neither myself nor not myself, which is protecting me
or leading me into directions helpful to my proper growth and maturity, and propelling me
away from that which is against that growth. It is like a stream into which I have flowed
and, joyously, is carrying me beyond myself. (Kapleau, pp. 279, 280).

It has been suggested that Jesus spent time in India before beginning his ministry, perhaps
because of the similarity of some of his teachings to those found in Buddhism. Certainly there
doesn't seem to be any contradiction between what he taught and anything to be found in
Buddhism, either as it was first presented by Siddhartha or as it was “restored” in Zen (i.e.,
excluding all of the religious trappings that any moral philosophy tends to accumulate over
time). I have heard of a Jesuit who was also a Buddhist, and Emmett Miller tells about a Zen
Buddhist who had embraced Christianity. When Emmett asked him why he, a Buddhist who
realized that the world only exists for us as it does because that is the way we have chosen to
construct it in our own minds, had adopted Christianity, the man replies that it was because he
was so impressed by the doctrine of love for one's enemies, an idea to be found nowhere else in
the entire world.

The scriptures with which most Christians are familiar is the Bible. The first five books of the
Bible were probably compiled between the sixth and fifth centuries B.C.E., followed by those
books known as the Prophets and the Writings, making up what Christians refer to as the Old
Testament. Authorship of the first five books of the Bible, the Torah (or the Law) is credited to
Moses, although modern study has revealed variations in style, and repetitions and
contradictions, that make it unlikely that this body of literature was the work of a single author.
For the Jewish people, the “people of the book” as Mohammad referred to them, these books
form the basis of their religion. They contain their covenant with God, “the Master of the
Universe,” and may not be changed. It is only their meaning that may be debated, as Jewish
scholars have done since time immemorial.

The books known as the “Prophets” include Joshua, Judges, I and II Samuel, I and II Kings,
Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the twelve minor prophets (which are treated as one book). The
“Writings” include Psalms, Proverbs, Job, the Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes,
Esther, Daniel, Nehemiah, and Chronicles.
29

In addition to the written scriptures, there is in Judaism what is known as “Oral Law.” Orthodox
Jews teach that G-d taught the oral law to Moses, who passed it down through successive
generations to the present day. This tradition was maintained only in oral form until about the
second century C.E., when the oral law was compiled and written down in a document called the
Mishnah. The Mishnah is divided into six sedarim, and each seder contains one or more sections
known, in English, as tractates (63 tractates in all). Ever since the Mishnah was published, it has
been studied exhaustively by generation after generation of rabbis.  

Discussions by rabbis in Babylon and Israel, concerning the written scriptures and how to
interpret or understand them and apply the Law, were written down in a series of books that
became known as the Gemara, which when combined with the Mishnah (the written compilation
of the oral law) constituted the Talmud. Thus, while the Torah is held to be inviolable, there
have been centuries of debate regarding its interpretation and application – the Jewish people
have wanted to understand the Law that God has given them and have gone to great lengths to do
so.

Which brings us to scriptures originating in the Common Era (C.E., or as it was previously
known, A.D, for Anno Domini). The first with which I am at all familiar is the latter part of the
Bible known as the New Testament. The twenty-seven books that make up the New Testament
were written many years after Jesus’ life and ministry and accepted into the canon many years
after that. The earliest known complete list of these twenty-seven books is found in a letter
written by Athanasius, a 4th-century bishop of Alexandria, dated to 367 C.E. and formally
accepted as scripture some years after that. That canon gradually gained wider and wider
recognition until it was accepted at the Third Council of Carthage in 397 and 419. Nevertheless,
full dogmatic articulations of the canon were not made until the Canon of Trent of 1546 for
Roman Catholicism, the Thirty-Nine Articles of 1563 for the Church of England, the
Westminster Confession of Faith of 1647 for Calvinism, and the Synod of Jerusalem of 1672 for
the Greek Orthodox.

Jesus was a Jew and, like other Jewish boys his age, he was expected to learn the Torah,
probably from about the age of six onwards. According to Rob Bell, author of “Velvet Elvis,”
this began with a period of instruction known as Bet Sefer, most likely by the local rabbi, which
lasted until about the age of ten. At that time, students who had distinguished themselves would
proceed on to a second period of instruction known as Bet Talmud, in which they would
memorize the rest of the Hebrew scriptures as well as learn to question what they were taught
and the oral tradition surrounding the text. About the age of fourteen or fifteen, only the best of
the best were still studying, and those remaining would apply to a well-known rabbi to become
one of his disciples. If accepted, the student would “take on that rabbi’s yoke,” i.e., accept his
understanding of God and the scriptures, and try to learn to emulate him. This final period of
study, known as Bet Midrash, during which the rabbi’s disciples would follow him wherever he
went, might last until about the age of thirty, when the student himself might become a rabbi – a
teacher in his own right – and able to accept disciples of his own.
30

As I mentioned previously, during the major part of his life referred to in the Gospels, Jesus was
a rabbi or teacher with a message of love and justice. He taught us to think of God as a loving
father; to “love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind”
and to love our neighbours as ourselves – and to love our enemies. He authorized his disciples to
continue to spread his message after his death, which they did – with most of them suffering a
fate similar to that which befell Jesus.

Muhammad ibn ‘Abdullah, who has brought to us the Koran (or Qur’an), another of the world’s
more important scriptures, was born in 570 C.E. For Muslims, the Koran stands as the definitive
book of divine guidance. Unfortunately, I have not read it, so it has only contributed indirectly
to my spiritual journey. In fact, my religious learning has been within a fairly confined culture
perspective, i.e., within the Community of Christ within a predominantly Christian community
within North America, and within the profession of psychology. Being a psychologist for more
than sixty years has exposed me to many good books, and some of them have contributed to my
spiritual journey.
31

PART 3: Science and Sanity (1992 to 2021)

In 1933, Adolph Hitler was appointed Chancellor, and Germany withdrew from the League of
Nations. Freud, who was seventy-seven at the time, suffered a heart attack. And a displaced
Polish scholar by the name of Alfred Korzybski published the first edition of his magnum opus,
Science and Sanity, which introduced the general public to the term "General Semantics" and the
non-Aristotelian system of logic underlying it.
As you may know, newborn infants appear to be in what might be called an objectless state, in
which they make no distinction between themselves and the rest of the world. In fact, it is only
through the mother's interactions with her infant, in her “mothering” of it, that there is
established in the infant an awareness, first of all, of its own body as a reality separate and
distinct from the rest of the world. This differentiation of self from the rest of the world occurs
mainly between the second and eight months of life, a stage of development which is known as
normal symbiosis.
The term symbiosis in this context, of course, is a metaphor. Unlike the biological concept of
symbiosis, it does not describe what actually happens in a mutually beneficial relationship
between two separate individuals of different species. Rather, it describes a stage in which the
infant is becoming increasingly aware of the existence of his mother, but has not yet had enough
experience with the world to be able to differentiate himself from her, and the infant behaves and
functions as though he and his mother were a dual-unity with one common boundary. Within
this symbiotic context, the child is developing memories of “good” or pleasurable experiences,
first of all with the mother's breast (and later with an ever widening world of experience), and
memories of “bad” or unpleasant experiences such as being hungry or cold or wet. And by
establishing memories of his interactions with his mother, he is incorporating those good and bad
experiences which form the basis of his perception of the world.
Eventually, the growing child learns not only to classify some of his experiences as “good” and
some as “bad,” but also to think of one of the adults in his environment as “mother” and another
one as “father,” to drink “milk” or “water,” to eat “breakfast” or “lunch” or “supper;” to lie on a
“bed” and sit on a “chair;” and in this way he (or she) is able to make at least a limited amount of
sense of the “blooming, buzzing confusion” into which he was born. The child's ability to form
these concepts – Korzybski calls this “time binding” – gives him an advantage over the rest of
Nature in that it facilitates his adaptation to changes in his environment, giving first intellectual
and then physical control over the things that go on around him. In effect, it enables him to
break Newton's second law of physics, the progression of the universe towards greater entropy.
This inborn tendency of mankind to try to bring organization out of chaos is a very powerful one.
However, the particular way in which we in Western society organize our experiences is based
on the Aristotelian system of logic that characterizes most of the thinking of the English-
speaking nations. In classical Aristotelian logic, it is taken for granted that all judgements about
what goes on in the world can be broken up into simple statements in which something (a
predicate) is asserted about something else (a subject). Examples are “water is wet,” “grass is
orange,” and so on. It is assumed that such statements are either “true” or “false.” Water is wet
32

is a true proposition; grass is orange is usually a false one. In this system of viewing the world,
things are either black or white, good or bad, people or not people, and so on.
Our classification system seems to require a division of the world. As soon as there is a class,
there has to be what is inside of it and what is outside it. The separation between what is inside a
class and what is outside of it seems to be as clear cut as that between a solid and a space, a
figure and its background. And the separation, the difference, is what we notice, at least partly
because it fits into our language system. We tend to ignore, on the other hand, and therefore to
be ignorant about, aspects of our world which do not fit nicely into the way in which we
ordinarily think and talk. Our language encourages us to think in terms of subject and predicate,
actor and action, objects and their attributes; and it encourages us to read into nature fictional
acting entities, simply because our verbs have to have some object in front of them. We have to
say, for example, “it flashed,” or “a light flashed,” setting up an actor, a light, to perform what
we call the action “to flash,” because that is the way our language is constructed.
Unfortunately, this way of thinking has many disadvantages. Modern physics, chemistry and
biology, for example, have had to discard our language in favour of the language of mathematics
in order to continue to develop their ideas about the world, and we cannot even understand the
world as they see it because we do not even speak the same language. This is not true of all
world languages. The Hopi Indian, for example, is a better physicist than we are when he says
“flash” – one word for the whole performance, no subject, no predicate, no time element – than
we are when we say “the light flashed.” And the same is true of other languages such as Apache,
Mayan, and Chinese.
Perhaps an even greater disadvantage, however, is that we come to be at the mercy of the
language which is the medium of expression in our particular society (Whorf,1956). For
example, around the storage of what are called “gasoline drums,” behaviour will tend to be of a
certain type. That is, great care will be exercised. While around the storage of what are called
“empty gasoline drums,” it will tend to be different: careless, with little repression of smoking or
of tossing cigarette butts about. Yet the "empty drums" are actually more dangerous since they
contain explosive gasoline vapour. Physically, the situation is hazardous, but the descriptions
that we use must employ the word "empty" which inevitably suggests lack of hazard.
During the last hundred years, however, there has been such a profound revolution in the way in
which both science and philosophy have come to view the world that we can no longer afford to
remain ignorant of the meaning that these recent changes may have for our understanding and
experience of reality. The essence of these recent discoveries is that whether it is describing
chemical changes or biological forms, nuclear structures or human behaviour, the language
system employed is more productive if it is concerned with changing patterns of relationship
rather than separate fictional acting entities.
It may seem, at first, that it is an affront to common sense to describe the world as patterns of
relationship without needing to ask what “stuff” these patterns are “made of.” But modern
science affirms that the sensation of stuff arises only when we are confronted with patterns so
confused or so closely knit that we cannot make them out. Take an orange, for example. It
appears solid enough, but if you were to expand that orange to the size of the whole Earth, the
33

atoms in that orange would still be only the size of grapes. And if you were then to expand those
grape-sized atoms to the size of Toronto’s Skydome, the nucleus would still be no larger than a
grain of salt. And all the rest of that space would be filled with nothing more than the probability
of occurrence of an electrical charge, from time to time.

Now, modern psychiatry has not been totally oblivious to the field of general semantics and has
begun to take advantage of some of this knowledge in its treatment of psychiatric patients.
Psychiatrists, for example, have begun to think of the patient as the representative or emissary
sent out by a family for treatment. Man can no longer realistically be thought of as a detached
ego which merely acts upon the world. Rather, emphasis is beginning to be placed upon man as
"being in the world," with emphasis on the dynamic, process character of being and on the fact
that being is necessarily in relation to the world. In this pattern, every push from within is at the
same time a pull from without, arising mutually and simultaneously, so that it is always
impossible to say which side of a boundary any movement begins on.

That is, the individual no more acts upon the world than the world acts upon the individual; and
when an individual acts in a particular way, it is never demonstrable that he or she could have
acted differently. Only by ignoring the full context of an action can it be said either that I did it
freely or that I couldn't help doing it. I can try the same action again, and if it comes out
differently, I can say that I could have done otherwise, but if the same, that I could not. In the
meantime, however, the context has, of course, changed. Thus, in a family, one starts out by
blaming some identified individual for his behaviour, but then discovers that these symptoms are
a response to, or an effect of, the relations between the members of the family, and that these
relationships are a function of an infinite regression of causes stretching back to the beginning of
time. With this realization, we will no longer blame either the parents or children for their “bad
behaviour” but will instead think in terms of how family or other social relationships can be
changed, in order to change the behaviour of the individuals involved – which should go a long
way towards alleviating many of our social ills. In terms of the potential offered by this new
conception of the rule of language, however, even such a radical change as this is but a first
faltering step.
The next big step is what I would call the Second Gift of the Magi, for it is indeed magical,
because following our previous line of thought to its logical conclusion, we realize that any
classification system provides us only with units of description, perhaps useful to us in
organizing our experience but not natural entities and not necessarily the best way in which to
conceptualize events, and that all of the ideas that we have of the world and of ourselves are
merely social conventions that have no universal validity and should not be confused with
reality. In effect and in addition, science has concluded that:
(1) ideas are recognized to be nothing more than ideas, i.e., concepts are recognized to be
(no more than) constructs,

(2) there can be no truth independent of the person who constructed it (a very Buddhist idea,
by the way),
34

(3) everything that we tell ourselves needs to be treated as a hypothesis, and the telling of it
a story, and

(4) such stories are never either true or false, but only more or less useful.
35

PART 4: Returning to Oneness with God

Karen Armstrong, in her introduction to A History of God: The 4,000- Year Quest of Judaism,
Christianity and Islam, observes that:

...human beings are spiritual animals. ... Men and women started to worship gods as soon as
they became recognizably human; they created religions at the same time as they created
works of art. This was not simply because they wanted to propitiate powerful forces; these
early faiths expressed the wonder and mystery that seemed always to have been an essential
component of the human experience of this beautiful yet terrifying world. Like art, religion
has been an attempt to find meaning and value in life, despite the suffering that flesh is heir
to.

... Throughout history, men and women have experienced a dimension of the spirit that
seems to transcend the mundane world. ... However we choose to interpret it, this human
experience of transcendence has been a fact of life. Not everybody would regard it as
divine: Buddhists … would deny that their visions and insights are derived from a
supernatural source; they see them as natural to humanity. All major religions, however,
would agree that it is impossible to describe this transcendence in normal conceptual
language. Monotheists have called this transcendence "God," ....

Christian theologians, in defining God for their adherents, have portrayed God as the eternal
Creator, the source of love, life, and truth. All things exist and have their being in God. "In the
beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Christians believe that God chooses to reveal
Himself to humankind – and by the way, we have referred to God as "Him" rather than as "Her"
for a variety of reasons, not least of which is because Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are all
patriarchal societies, and because Jesus spoke of God as a loving Father.

Throughout the ages, humankind has sought to understand this God who reveals Himself to us,
and has drawn up lists of His attributes. The Encyclopaedia of Religion (Littlefield, Adams &
Co., 1959) gives them as follows: "The prophetic-Christian conception [italics added] of
God ...represents God as a unitary, personal Being, as immutable [i.e., unchangeable], as
omnipotent, as omnipresent, as omniscient, as eternal, as the Creator and Preserver of the world,
as a morally perfect Being, as a righteous and loving Father." Hey, if you are going to create a
God to worship, you might as well go “whole hog”? Of course, if your god is wholly good, you
have to have a Devil to account for the bad. And as comedian “Flip” Wilson said (”The Devil
made me do it”), while absolving us from responsibility, keeps us in the role of children.

Perhaps it is time to grow up and accept responsibility for our actions, including accepting
responsibility of our constructs. Personally, I like the way the Bible puts it in these verses
chosen from the gospel according to St. John, rather than any more elaborate conceptualization:

[1 John 4:8] He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
36

[1 John 4:12] No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in
us, and his love is perfected in us.
[1 John 4:16] .... God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.
[John 4:24] God is spirit and those who worship him must worship Him in spirit and in
truth.

“God is love” and “God is spirit.” Nevertheless, some people have experienced God as if God
were a person, some in visions and some, such as Moses, more-or-less face-to-face. In the 12th
chapter of Numbers, for example, we read: "If there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, make
Myself known to him in a vision; I speak to him in a dream. Not so with My servant Moses; He
is faithful in all My house. I speak with him face to face." – although Moses himself never
actually claimed to have seen God, only His back or, perhaps, where He had been.

[Exo 3:1] Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law, the priest of Midian: and
he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to
Horeb.
[Exo 3:2] And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst
of a bush: and he looked, and behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not
consumed.
[Exo 3:3] And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is
not burnt.
[Exo 3:4] And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of
the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I.
[Exo 3:5] And he said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the
place whereon thou standest is holy ground.
[Exo 3:6] Moreover he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of
Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God.

Some hermits, in withdrawing from the world, claimed to have experienced God residing within
their inmost souls. Others have sought God in nature, as illustrated by Bliss Carman’s poem,
Vestigia:

I took a day to search for God

And found Him not. But as I trod
By rocky ledge, through woods untamed,
Just where one scarlet lily flamed,
I saw His footprint in the sod.

Then suddenly, all unaware,

Far off in the deep shadows, where
A solitary hermit thrush
Sang through the holy twilight hush –
I heard His voice upon the air.
37

And even as I marvelled how

God gives us Heaven here and now,
In a stir of wind that hardly shook
The poplar tree beside the brook,
His hand was light upon my brow.

At last, with evening, as I turned

Homeward, and thought what I had learned
And all that there was still to probe –
I caught the glory of His robe
Where the last fires of sunset burned.

Back to the world with quickening start

I looked and longed for any part
In making saving beauty be....
And from that kindling ecstasy,
I knew God dwelt within my heart.

Then there is Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection (a 16th Century monk who was responsible
for the little tract "The Practice of the Presence of God") who tried to live his life as if he were
actually in the presence of God – except that "as if he were" doesn't entirely capture it because,
if we believe that God is omnipresent, he was in fact in the presence of God, as we all are every
minute of our lives.

Perhaps the Christian concept of “God” is best thought of as a metaphor for that loving spirit
which permeates the universe. Pennington, the author of Centering Prayer – prayer in which the
petitioner listens rather than talks – knowing that God is everywhere, writes, "We simply seek to
be wholly present in love to God present to us...." (p.74). He might as easily have written, "We
simply seek to be wholly present to the spirit of love present in the universe." Namaste!

Returning to Moses’ encounter with God, we read:

[Ex0 3:13] And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and
say unto them, the God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me,
What is his name? What shall I say unto them?
[Exo 3: 14] And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and He said, Thus shalt thou say
unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.

In keeping with the above, John Spong credits one of his former seminary students, Kathrin
“Katie” Ford, with the observation that “God is not a person. God is not a being. God is Being
itself. ... Being itself, is not the father of life. This God is life.” Resonating with those
statements, he has added that “...we human beings cannot know God; we can only experience
God.”
38

Which brings me more-or-less full circle, back to the passage that I had quoted from the Book of
Mormon, but with one little twist:

"...for there must be an opposition in all things. If not so, my first born in the wilderness,
righteousness could not be brought to pass; neither wickedness; neither holiness nor misery;
neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must be a compound in one. Wherefore, if it
should be one body, it must remain as dead, having no life, neither death nor corruption, nor
incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility. Wherefore, it must have
been created for a thing of nought; wherefore, there would have been no purpose in the end of
its creation. Wherefore, this thing must needs destroy the wisdom of God and his eternal
purposes, and also the power, and the mercy, and the justice of God. And if you shall say there
is no law, you shall also say there is no sin. And if you shall say there is no sin, you shall also
say there is no righteousness. And if there be no righteousness, there be no happiness. And if
there be no righteousness nor happiness, there be no punishment nor misery. And if these
things are not, there is no God. And if there is no God, we are not, neither the earth, for there
could have been no creation of things, neither to act nor to be acted upon; wherefore, all things
must have vanished away.

Now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed, he would not have fallen; but he would have
remained in the garden of Eden. And all things which were created must have remained in the
same state which they were, after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and
had no end. They would have had no children; wherefore, they would have remained in a state
of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin.
But behold, all things have been done in the wisdom of him who knows all things. Adam fell,
that man might be; and men are, that they might have joy. And the Messiah will come in the
fullness of time, that he may redeem the children of men from the fall.

The twist is that “there must be an opposition in all things” was written almost two hundred years
ago, and a lot has changed since then. Jon Kabat-Zinn, the founding director of the Stress
Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, is the author of three books
(that I know of as of 2009): (1) Full Catastrophe Living, which is about (mindfulness)
meditation in the treatment of stress, (2) Wherever You Go, There You Are and, (3) more
recently, a book called Coming to Our Senses. In the latter book, he recounts that:

Einstein, who in his time saw more deeply than others into the nature of space and time,
matter and energy, light and gravitation, also saw, perhaps equally deeply, into ... how
important it is to dissolve what he called the delusion of separateness. [He wrote]:

“A human being is a part of the whole, called by us “Universe,” a part limited in space
and time. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated
from the rest – a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind
of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons
nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle
39

of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in
itself a part of the liberation, and a foundation for inner security.”

With all due respect to this quotation from Einstein, it is just as important to also be able to live
within the duality of our normal daily lives. Capps and Wright (1978), for example, have noted that
"The sacramental vision describes a capacity to perceive more than one level or dimension of reality
at a time, and to know that all levels or dimensions are available to any event or experience. Drawn
by the hunger of love and the thirst for knowledge, mystics enter so deeply into their own inner lives
that they discover a reality, as it were, ‘on the other side of themselves.' Abandoning themselves to a
transformation by the presence they discover both within and outside their own selves, they become
the voice of humankind articulating its awestruck perception of God. It is as if, finding themselves at
or near the vital centre, they begin to hear the heart's rhythmic beating, sense its pulsing life, and little
by little experience the heart as receiving its vitality from the greater heart. Here the mystic is most
profoundly alone and most intimately related to every other living being. Mystics in the West have
described this experience as the discovery of the image of God (imago Dei) within." (pp. 2-3). But
having discovered the image of God within, to be a participating part of creation, they have to share
that vision with the wider community if it is to benefit anyone other than themselves. Yin and yang;
enlightenment and everyday life.

It is a bit like the Buddhist ox herding pictures, which is another way of moving beyond this sort of
inward spiritual journey. “In the twelfth century, the Chinese master Kakuan drew the pictures of the
ten bulls, basing them on earlier Taoist bulls…. His version was pure Zen… [and] It has been a
constant source of inspiration to students ever since…. The story begins with searching for the bull
and continues through discovering the footprints (knowing there is something to be learned),
perceiving the bull (Jon Kabot-Zinn might call this “coming to our senses”), catching the bull
(struggling to master one’s mind), taming the bull (overcoming one’s delusions), riding the bull
home (the struggle is over; “Spring comes and the grass grows by itself ”), transcending the bull
(“One path of clear light travels on throughout endless time”), transcending both the bull and the self
(there is nothing to be gained), reaching the source (the river flows tranquilly on), and returning to
the marketplace (journey’s end; life is for living).

I wish that I could master Zen, but I don't experience myself as even beginning to do so, for a
number of reasons: First, I am basically a depressive type of person, and I do not feel at all confident
of my ability to survive the "Dark Night of the Soul" which Saint John of the Cross describes as part
of the (mystical) search for God. Second, I believe that I have a diminished capacity to love – I am
introverted, intellectual, rather distant, and possibly somewhat detached (although, perhaps that is no
more than a touch of autism); and I am burdened by a real reluctance to interfere in other people's
lives, beyond what they give me permission to do. Third, I feel that my calling is to be a
psychologist, and that may be as close as I am ever going to get to either other people or to God. I
don’t expect to ever be any more than a poor cousin to Abou Ben Adhem:

Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)

40

Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace

And saw, in his room, and making it rich, 
And like a lily in bloom, An angel
Writing in a book of gold: –

Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,

And to the Presence in the room, He said
“What writest thou?” –  The vision
Raised its head and with a look
Made of all sweet accord, answered
“The names of those who love the Lord.”

And is mine one? said Abou.

“Nay, not so,” replied the angel.
Abou spoke more low, but cheerily still;
And said, “I pray thee, then,
Write me as one that loves his fellow-men.”

The angel wrote and vanished.

The next night, it came again
With a great wakening light
And showed the names whom
Love of God had blessed, And lo!
Ben Adhem’s name led all the rest.

No such blessing for me – for one thing, I am not at all sure that I love my fellow men. On the other
hand, to the extent that love is a behaviour rather than a feeling, I have spent most of my life in the
service of others and wish I could continue to do so (even, recalling my stillborn brother, if it were
just to justify being allowed to continue to live). But I am not without blessings. I have been blessed
with an interesting life and a happy marriage and good children and grandchildren. And I have had
some very good friends, although I have outlived most of them.

According to Jaynes (1976), "A long time ago, in a land far away, human nature was divided into
two parts, an executive part called a God and a follower part called a man. Neither part was
conscious. The man simply lived his life without thinking about it, and the God-part spoke to him
from time to time, as one person to another, to tell him what to do. How could that be? In the dawn
of history, mankind did not have a mental language.... In fact, it wasn't until about [1200 B.C.E.] that
language had evolved to the point where man could consciously have a conversation with himself,
and the Gods began to withdraw from his company and to make their residence in heaven; and
winged beings, angels (or genii, as the Assyrians called them) began to appear as intermediaries
between the absent Gods and their forlorn followers. In addition, demons began to appear and
needed to be defended against, and a priestly caste arose. In Persia, they were known as the Magi,
or Magicians.” If, as St John of the Cross and others have suggested, God is to be found within,
perhaps the direct, unmediated experience that we call enlightenment carries with it the potential for
41

once again communing with God, just as humankind did before language began to interfere with an
inherent ability to do so.

In the meantime, poor benighted soul that I am, I keep searching for something more than I have
found so far. My latest guru is Zivorad Slavinski (www.spiritual-technology.com), a prolific
Yugoslavian psychologist. Two of his books are Transcendence and The Return to Oneness, in
which he describes a procedure through which to attain virtually instant enlightenment. It
involves shifting your attention back and forth between each pole of any conceptual polarity,
such as good and bad, strength and weakness, one’s self and one’s god (Atman and Brahman),
experiencing each in terms of vision, emotion, sensation, and thought until they become
indistinguishable (which usually doesn’t take very long). This does not eliminate the polarity –
there is still good and bad, etc. – but it does give you a higher perspective on what is a unified
dynamic interplay of forces, and allows you to more fully appreciate the various shades of grey,
the good in the bad and the bad in the good, the weakness in strength and the strength in
weakness, the God in one’s self and one’s self in the God that we worship, and so on.

A corollary of the above and perhaps my most important insight yet – thanks to Slavinski
(Return to Oneness, 2005) – is the realization that nothing in my universe is as I have created it
to be, except in my own mind. If there is someone to whom I harbour negative emotions, it is
because I have not fully appreciated the reality of that person. If there is someone whom I
perceive as more righteous, it is because I have created (in my own mind) that person to be more
righteous. Ah, shades of grey! The good in the bad and the bad in the good, and our tendency to
be unaware of ninety nine percent of everyone else’s life.

Actually, as in the ox-herding pictures, I have visited enlightenment once, and this current life is
my “marketplace.” And what shall I do here? Perhaps, as Lord Krishna told Arjuna (in the
Bhagavad-Gita), humankind needs to construct some representation of their spirit-god to worship
and, as the Indian sages taught, we should feel free to choose what that representation will be.
Having been raised in the Christian tradition, perhaps I should just accept that particular “Father-
in-Heaven” representation– while understanding that it is figurative rather than literal – and get
on with it, all the while recognizing that all religious stories, including the Christian story, are
mainly mythology – like theory, neither true nor false, only more or less useful (and I admit that
I do find it useful, in a comforting sense, to accept the father-in heaven image that I have been
taught as part of my religious heritage). Then it becomes an issue of sorting out what to take as
mythology and, in a post-modern sense, what to take as literally true for me. As Karen
Armstrong observed, “religion has been an attempt to find meaning and value in life, despite the
suffering that flesh is heir to,” and all of these mythologies are attempts to do that – as well as
providing (1) for Christians, a structure within which to express love and (2) employment and
power for their priesthood.

In suggesting that the Christian story is mythological, I don’t mean to disparage it in any way. As
we read in Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things
not seen,” and I have known many devout Christians who believe the Christion mythology
unquestioning, as if it were “truth.” Good people, all; and for many of whom I have had the
42

most profound respect. I would hate to shake the faith of anyone who believes that the Christ
story is literally, as opposed to figuratively, true. I am only writing about my own spiritual
journey, about what my own history has led me to believe.

That still leaves open the question of my participation in worship services. One of the
definitions of worship is “to show reverence and adoration for a deity; to honor with religious
rites.” While I understand and accept that most worship of God tends to be within the context of
some particular religious mythology, participation in a particular religion and particular
congregation also provides a sense of community and, at least theoretically, support for its
members – all of which is good, in spite of the fact that it also supports some particular religious
mythology, much of which is bunkum. For me, however, the God that I worship is becoming
more and more the I AM of Exodus rather than the Father-in-Heaven that is usually portrayed in
Christian theology, based mainly on my spiritual journey as described above and the following
passage admittedly “cherry picked” from the Bible:

[Exo 3:13] And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel,
and say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to
me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them?
[Exo 3: 14] And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou
say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.

Within that context, I am content that God is, and that my church does not require that all of its
members adhere to a uniform set of beliefs. Within that context, I feel free to continue to search
for what seems true for me – which brings me to the Muslim mystic, Rumi, who told the
following story:

A seeker knocked at the door of the beloved – God – and a voice from inside asked:
‘Who is it?' The seeker answered, ‘It is I'; and the voice said: ‘In this house there is no I
and You.' The door remained locked. Then the seeker went into solitude, fasted and
prayed. A year later, he returned and knocked at the door. Again the voice asked, ‘Who
is it?' Now the believer answered: ‘It is You.' Then the door opened.

Scary stuff! We shirk being fully Christ-like out of selfishness and for fear of being crucified.
How much more fearful it is to be responsible for creation! On the other hand, what choice do
we have? We can avoid being Christ-like, but there is no way to avoid creating the world in
which we live. We can be ignorant of our role in that process, we can deny it, we can avoid
enlightenment (the realization that the universe is not external to you), we can maintain our
delusion of separateness, and we can avoid returning to oneness with God – that which is – in
this life, but none of these ploys makes us any less responsible for creating the “reality” in which
we live.

Remembering Lord Krishna’s advice to his charioteer, as recorded in the Bhagavad-Gita (He
prefers that we relate to Him as a person rather than as a disembodied spirit, since it is more
compatible with human nature to do so), I find that I can resonate with that. I know that it would
43

certainly pain me to leave the traditional image of God behind, and I am not even sure that I can,
or that it would be desirable to do so – c'est à pleurer (it is to cry), no Father in the heavens to
look after me. Perhaps I can have both: God as Father-in-Heaven to worship and God as Being
itself. I am certainly heartened when I think of what may become my mantra (from the hymn by
S. K. Hine):

Oh Lord, my God,
When I, in awesome wonder
Consider all the worlds Thy hands have made,
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,
Thy power throughout the universe displayed,

Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee.

How great Thou art, how great Thou art.
Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee.
How great Thou art, how great Thou art.

or on a more personal note (from the hymn by I.B. Sergei):

My God and I go in the field together.

We walk and talk, as good friends should and do.
We clasp our hands, our voices ring with laughter –
My God and I walk through the meadows hue.

My God and I will go for aye together.

We’ll walk and talk and jest as good friends do.
This earth will pass, and with it common trifles –
But God and I will go unendingly.

And of course, if it appears that there is any disconnect between these two approaches, the
impersonal and the personal, it is just because they represent polarities in my journey towards
oneness with God. 

I want to emphasize that this is my spiritual journey, a work in progress. I hope that sharing it is
helpful to those who are seeking for greater spirituality in their lives and not harmful to those
who are content with what they already have. After all, not everyone has lived my life, and it is
important to meet people where they are on their own spiritual journey. In terms of finding a
religious home and spiritual path, some are attracted to preaching that emphasizes fire and
brimstone (Kohlberg’s first stage in the development of moral reasoning); some are impressed by
the promise of golden streets and choirs of angels (Kohlberg’s second stage); some are sustained
by having found a kindred community (Kohlberg’s third stage); some are focused on and may
even be inclined to obey their religion’s laws (Kohlberg’s fourth stage); and so on. Unless we
minister to their own felt spiritual needs, we are unlikely to be able to help them take whatever
may be the next step along the way.
44

Epilogue
Finally, at this point in my journey, it seems appropriate to return to one of the songs that we
would sing during our noon hour songfests at Beck:

The Whiffenpoof Song

To the tables down at Mory's,
To the place where Louis dwells,
To the dear old Temple Bar
We love so well,

Sing the Whiffenpoofs assembled

With their glasses raised on high,
And the magic of their singing casts its spell.

Yes, the magic of their singing

Of the songs we love so well:
"Shall I Wasting" and "Mavourneen" and the rest.

We will serenade our Louis

While life and voice shall last
Then we'll pass and be forgotten with the rest.

We are poor little lambs

Who have lost our way.
Baa! Baa! Baa!
We are little black sheep
Who have gone astray.
Baa! Baa! Baa!

Gentlemen songsters off on a spree

Damned from here to eternity
God have mercy on such as we.
Baa! Baa! Baa!

and my favourite Wilson MacDonald poem.

A Song to the Valiant

I'll walk on the storm-swept side of the hill

In my young days, in my strong days,
45

In the days of ardent pleasure.

I'll go where the winds are fierce and chill --
On the storm-swept side of the daring hill –
And there will I shout my song-lays
In a madly tumbling measure.

Hilloo the dusk,

And hilloo the dark!
The wind hath a tusk
And I wear its mark.
The day's last spark hath a valiant will:
Hilloo the dark on the wind-swept hill!
From the hour of pain
Two joys we gain --
The strife and the after-leisure.

When the fang of the wind is bared and white,

In the strong days, in the wild days,
In the days that laugh at sorrow,
I love to wander the hills at night --
When the gleaming fang of the wind is white --
Nor yearn a whit for the mild lays,
Or the ease of life to borrow.

Hilloo the whine

In the pungent cone
Of the dreaming pine
On the hill alone!
The bare trees moan with a dead thing's cry,
And their skeletons crawl along the sky,
Like a dinosaur
Who would live once more
In the flesh that blooms tomorrow.

I'll walk on the sheltered side of the hill

In my old days, in my cold days,
As the sap of life is waning.
I'll find a road where the trees are still --
On the sheltered side of the placid hill --
And dream a dream of the bold days
When the leash of Time was straining.

Adieu the snows,

And the fang that rips!
46

And hilloo the rose

With her velvet lips!
Where the brown bee sips with his gorgeous lust
I'll pay earth back with her borrowed dust;
Nor shall I grieve
At the clay I leave,
But joy in the gifts I'm gaining.

Lord, hear Thou the prayer of a poet's soul,

In his fire days, when his lyre plays,
And his song is swift with passion!
Give to him prowess to near the goal
While his limbs are firm and his sight is whole.
Make brief his stay in the dire days
When the paling heart is ashen.
The storm-swept sides
Of the hill belong
To the soul that rides
To the gates of song;
May his days be long where the wild winds play;
On the sheltered side let him briefly stay.
When his muse grows dumb
Let the darkness come
In the Orient's fine, swift fashion.

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About the Author

Reg M. Reynolds, Ph.D., C.Psych. (Retired)

Reg Reynolds was born in Grande Prairie, Alberta. He attended London Normal School (for
teacher training) before becoming interested in psychology and special education. He received
his B.A. and M.A, form the University of Western Ontario, and his Ph.D. from the University of
Waterloo.

He was a psychologist for almost sixty years. At various times during his career, he functioned
as a counsellor and psychotherapist for individuals, couples, and groups; as lab technician in a
reserve medical unit; as personal office in a reserve army unit; as Director of Vocational and
Recreational Services at Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital; as Chief Psychologist at the Vanier
Centre for Women, the Oakville Reception and Assessment Centre (for juveniles admitted to
training school), and the Ontario Correctional Institute; as Coordinating Psychologist for the
Central Region of the Ontario Ministry of the Solicitor General and Correctional Services; as a
consultant regarding the assessment and treatment of sex offenders; as a consultant regarding
ethical issues; as a researcher; as a college lecturer; as an intern in, clinical member of, and board
member of the Halton Centre for Childhood Sexual Abuse; as an intern, co-therapist and
therapist in the treatment of spousal abuse; as a member of the Council of the College of
Psychologists of Ontario; as a member of the Ontario Society of Clinical Hypnosis and president
of its Southern region; as a developer of biofeedback equipment and as a provider of
biofeedback; as a student of education and special education; as a student of Applied Behaviour
Analysis (ABA) and its application in the treatment of children with autism; as psychologist and
Supervising Clinician in the Ontario Government’s Intensive Behavioural Intervention program
for children with autism; as an educator of parents of children with autism; and, more recently,
as clinical supervisor of ABA-based programs for children with autism.

He is the author of An ABA Primer, An ABA Primer with Application to Teaching Children with
Autism, A Measure of Moral Development, Miscellaneous Musings, My Spiritual Journey, and
The Great Reynaldo Sees All, Blabs All; co-author with Douglas Quirk of A Simple and Effective
Cure for Criminality, Freedom from Addictions, and Creating Peace; and editor of Douglas
Quirk’s Adventures in Pragmatic Psychotherapy, Life Management by Objectives, and Large-
Group Treatment of Psychological Problems.