I have had dealings with a lot of Priests and quite a few Pastors throughout my adult life. They are ordinary people, mostly. Some I have liked and some I thoroughly disliked but none of them are remarkable and few are scholarly. This fact ought to ring alarm bells for the enquiring Christian. Why do the men who are shepherding the lost, know so little about the book which their whole lives are based on? Everything they know about the Bible; they have learned from other unremarkable men.  

Perhaps I am being unfair but to me there is nothing more important than the discovery of the purpose of life and these men often stand as gatekeepers, hindering the progress of the seeker, with petty nonsense. It is genuinely sad for me to see so many “Christians” bound and gagged by the absurd rituals and dogma imposed on them by so-called churches. One of accusations I was faced with when I briefly attended a “Bible believing” church was of being a mystic, a damnable heresy if ever there was one. So, what is it that churches hate so much about mysticism? 

The message that they preach is dependent on them having more knowledge than you. Churches are organisations and while they may very well have charitable status, they are there specifically to generate an income. They do not exist to lead you to God, they are selling salvation. The Bible is the product, and you are the customer. They put on a ritual, once or twice a week and you are expected to attend, take part, and pay for it. The Bible itself says that this will not get you to heaven but, for some reason Christians persist with it. 

The Apostle Paul said to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12). This statement infers that you yourself must take responsibility for your salvation. Forget this business of everything was done for you, it was not. The debt for your sin was paid. I would be very put out if I were to pay off a debt for someone, only for them to continue with the same behaviour as before. How is it helpful to keep throwing money at someone who spends more than they have? Christ paid for your sin, not for you to keep on sinning, but to enable you to stop. 

The churches have invented a christ of their own, one who is not a lord in the true sense of the word, he is a lord who serves men. He forgives sins endlessly, he gives men a free place in the afterlife, he answers your prayers, and you do not need to do a thing for him. Just say you accept him as lord and you are good to go, he wants you to be happy so do what you did before, while remembering your sins are forgiven. 

The churches will not tell you how to work out your salvation because your salvation has got nothing to do with them. Jesus told you what to do, He told you how to behave. He told the rich man to give away everything he owned; He told the Apostles to love one another. How many wealthy people are there in any given church? Oh, was that metaphorical? Does it mean you can have wealth and be saved? What about loving everyone? You cannot love everyone; some people are just evil. Churches take the bits they want, and they leave the rest.  

Matthew 7:7 says that if you ask, it will be given to you. How many times have you asked and not received? Ask any Christian that question and they will waffle on about only being given things if they are beneficial. That is not what Jesus said. He said, “ask and it will be given to you”. There are no preconditions. Why then are prayers not answered? Because you have not understood the Bible. 

Truth is hidden sometimes because it is dangerous. This is why the secret societies use symbols and have hierarchies, and knowledge is revealed one step at a time. When Christ died on the cross, the veil was torn from top to bottom. This means that any Christian can go before God at any time and speak with Him and if you ask Him for something it will be given to you. Evil people cannot go before God and ask Him for things. The Bible is clear about what is acceptable to God and what is not. To be able to speak with God, you must rid yourself of evil. 

Marcus Aurelius said: When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil. 

Christ said: Forgive them Father for they know not what they do.  

Suppose that I had an ignorant neighbour, or a colleague who, through circumstances beyond my control, I had to spend time with most days. Suppose that this person, through their ignorance, annoyed me or made me angry and refused to change their ways. By becoming annoyed or angry, I would be allowing the ignorant colleague full control of whether I would be happy or angry on any given day. 

There are only two types of people; those with self-control and those without it. Those with no self-control can be used and manipulated by evil. The ignorant colleague does not know good from evil, or he would change his ways. Once a person truly understands what evil is, they are compelled to change. Unfortunately, many go through life moving from one pleasure to the next, never counting the cost to either themselves or others. 

In Matthew 7 Christ gives instructions and says that anyone who follows those instructions, He will liken to a wise man who built his house on a rock. The sayings of Jesus are the foundation on which you must build your salvation. Once you begin to live with self-control, your perception of the world will change. You will begin to see how evil people are to one another. You will see evil in yourself and will want to change and you will not know how. This is what much of the so-called mysticism has been written for. 

All of the secret societies shroud their teachings in mystery. There are many books you can read or websites you can go to, which claim to shed light on the mysteries, but they do not. There are whistleblowers who profess to have worked their way up to a position of trust who publish documents showing the meaning of the rituals, but they do not. Unless you have built your house on rock, you will not understand the teachings. It can be compared to trying to read a book without learning the alphabet. 

Salvation is a process that starts at the beginning, you cannot begin halfway through. In the same way that you can ask God for anything, but by the time you reach God, you will not want to ask for something stupid. It is a narrow path that only those with self-control, who have left the physical desires behind, can walk. To control yourself, you must first know yourself. Who and what are you? 

You are spirit, soul, and body, in that order. God is a Trinity, and you are a trinity. The spirit is light and love and the real you, the soul is the mind, and the body is darkness and desire. The things that the body wants will kill you. If you give it everything it wants, you will be dead in no time. In the mystery schools, or in Mysticism, these three states exist on different planes of existence. This is where we get the oft repeated but little understood phrase: As above so below. Whatever exists on the highest plane, also exists on the lower plane. It is followed by: As within so without. As you feel inside, so will the world become. 

Whether you imagine these planes as real or not, they exist. If I think about buying something, I can picture it, but I am not buying it. This is mental. If I imagine kissing my true love, I am not kissing her, but I may feel a profound love, this is spiritual. If I go to the pond and watch feed the ducks, this is physical. Whatever happens on one of these planes, affects the others. As above, so below. If I allow my colleague to annoy me, this affects my mental and spiritual state as well as my physical state. 

The Bible says that John 3:5 Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. Any Priest or Pastor will tell you that I am lost and beyond redemption for saying this. I am adding to the Bible, misquoting it, taking verses out of context and so on and so forth. But you must be born of the spirit, you must be ruled by the spirit, not be lost in metaphors or allegories, and not be ruled by the physical body. 

When the Alchemists spoke of turning lead into gold, they were talking about transforming one set of circumstances into another and turning one emotion into another. Taking an unpleasant experience and making it good, using it to learn. Ruling over emotions and circumstances, rather than being blown to and fro by them. 

It can be pictured as opposites being extremes of the same thing: hot and cold are both temperatures. Happy and sad are essentially the same thing. Alchemy is just a way of turning one thing into another of the same nature. Turning happiness into sadness, evil into good and they did this using the different planes of existence. It is through this process that men learned to be born of the spirit. When you are angry, ask yourself why that is. We tend to become angry when we are full of self-importance. How dare that person say this or do that, my feelings are important. No, they are not. Watching people become angry in traffic when another driver cuts into their lane is bizarre. Why are you angry? Watching important men barge into others as they make their way to their important job is bizarre. Only you feel your anger, what a sad life you have, three planes full of darkness. Feeling angry is so draining, we must learn to recognise the cause of it and refuse to feel it. 

Freeing yourself takes knowledge, time, and perseverance. It is much harder than it first appears because everything is a lie, every institution is lying to you, the world itself is trying to keep the truth from you. Your own body is fighting you: you want love, the body and the world tell you that you need sex. You want to be strong and healthy; your body and the world are telling you to eat food that will kill you. You want to relax; the world and your body are telling you that is best done with drugs and alcohol. Stop listening to the world, it has nothing that you need. 

There are laws here and there are those who know those laws and use them for personal gain and control. These are the church leaders, the top tiers of the secret societies, the Kings and Queens and the heads of worldwide corporations. These people get the best in this life, but they will not see eternal life. Choose what you want and do not look back. What good is fame once you die? In a hundred years your name will be forgotten. What use are all your goods at your funeral? The world is a lie. 

Your spirit and your body meet in your mind. Fill your mind with the light of your spirit and your body will not control you. Imagine your mind as your home, fill it with all the beautiful things you have seen and heard. Fill it with laughter and music, fill it with good and happy thoughts, always. Never speak ill of anyone, never think badly of anyone, never let darkness into your home. Every day have a phrase for the day, today it can be this: I am blessed and happy, I trust that I will have a wonderful day. Say it aloud, every time you think of it and as you say it, remember all those times when you laughed uncontrollably, remember your holidays by the sea, let yourself hear the gulls screeching and feel the breeze against your skin. 

The worst pain is felt in the mind, not in the body and not in the world. Only you feel your pain, the world does not feel it and it does not care. That pain comes mostly from bad decisions. Think before you do anything and before you say anything. Say pleasant things and pleasant things will be said to you. Do wonderful things and wonderful things will be done to you. This is a law, and it works the other way too. Nothing happens immediately and so many people think it is not a real law, but everything takes time here, everything. When terrible things come in threes people recognise the cycle but not the cause. When good things happen, people think they are fortunate, but it is a law. Whatsoever a man shall sow, the same shall he also reap. We sow in one season and reap in another, have patience, and see for yourself. 

Do things according to their purpose; eat for nutrition and health, not for pleasure. Procreate to start or build a family, not for fun. Drink for hydration, not pleasure. It is okay to take pleasure from them but do not pervert their purpose. Shame is felt in the spirit when you have allowed the body to take control and allowed it to do its will. There is no happiness to be found in excess, I have looked very carefully into the matter. The body does awful things when we do not exercise restraint because the body is awful. It has no control of its own, you are supposed to control it. 

You can transform your anger into happiness, just by thinking about it. Most anger has no basis and comes from tiredness, which comes from either a lack of nutrition or sleep, or drug/alcohol use. Look after your body and you will not feel that anger and if you do, try to be grateful for the good things and focus on them. Why would you feel sad when you can feel happy? Focus and be grateful and your life will change. Be born of the spirit and inherit eternal life.