Saving a Soul

Comment by Jim G on November 30, 2009 at 12:14am

Here is my take home final exam from the Religious Science first class. I thought it might be food for thought, as Ernest Holmes did quite a bit of thinking. It gives you a good idea of what RS is all about as well. I am not sure if I got all the answers right but I think I did. According to Holmes, spirit is equivalent to thought / cause, which soul then is a servant of, soul being known as a creative medium. And form is effect. Soul obediently turns thoughts into things. There is obviously a lot of good things in RS. With some peculiarities which I guess all religions (thus far anyways) have.

A. Core Concepts

1. (Abundance Concept) As is explained in the movie The Secret, it is our responsibility to visualize, embody, and accept / believe in our share in the infinite bounty since we are all children of God.

2. (Triune Nature) God has a Triune (threefold) nature at the macro level, and we are made in the image of God so we have a Triune nature as well, at the micro level. In the beginning was the Word, which is the Devine Idea, Spirit, Presence, Love, and Mind of God.

The Devine Creative Process: Everything that has been created starts as such an "Idea," then the Idea gets delegated to the Creative Medium, an intermediary stage, which carries out the idea and manifests all Form. Spirit is cause, and Form is Effect, while Soul is the servant of Spirit. This occurs within us as well on the micro level -- our thinking creates our experience. Starting with the Devine Idea within us, delegating to our Soul which then provides the form of our body health or healing (If we have an idea of health or healing.) The Triune Natures are intermeshed also. Our mind is intermeshed with God's mind, and so we can get help at the macro level as well as our micro level when we think.

3. Metaphysical Chart:

Top Layer -- The Presence, Spirit, Devine Ideas, Conscience, Mind, Love, Volition, First Cause
Middle Layer -- Soul, Subjective Mind, Creative Medium, Law, The Principle
Bottom Layer -- Body, Visible Results, Form, Effect, Manifestation, Things, Experience, Affairs

B. Vocabulary

Metaphysics -- beyond physics
Principle -- Law
Cosmology -- Structure to the Universe
Microcosm -- small scale
Macrocosm -- large scale
My Essence -- My incarnation of God's Spirit (This is also our "Kingdom Within")
Inseparable oneness of all life -- God is all and all is God.

C. Basic Tools

1. Affirmations, Treatments, and Meditation
a. Affirmations and Treatments are "positive thinking," they utilize the Triune
Nature, and they are more powerful when we meditate first.
B. Meditation gets us in touch with our Essence -- with God's Presence (Spirit,)
and usually meditation is more of an emptying of our mind than a focus on ideas,
unless we are using visualization when meditating.

2. An Affirmation: "I am financially independent."

D. Spiritual Mind Treatment

1. Recognition, Unification, Realization, Thanksgiving, and Release.
The first two are like meditation. Realization is like an affirmation.

2. Faith and Conviction are the two essential ingredients of Spiritual Mind Treatment.
A faith in "abundance," and a conviction to reveal "abundance" where it is not present.

3. Treatment: Purpose: To have a completely healthy body.

1. Recognition: I Recognize that God is all there is.

2. Unification: I am at One with God.

3. Realization: I realize a completely healthy body now and always, since abundant health has been mine forever and is mine now and will be mine forever.

4. Thanksgiving: I give thanks for God's abundant nature on the macrocosm level, and for my abundance on the microcosm level. I am thankful for having a completely healthy body. I am thankful for the manifestation of my word.

5. Release: I release my treatment to Law now, knowing in full confidence that it will manifest.

E. General

The Science of Mind is a philosophy, science, and religion. "Mind" is the conscious Mind of God, of which our minds are intermeshed, since we are all made in God's image. We possess the same Triune Nature of God -- Spirit, Soul, and Body, on a microcosm level. Our thoughts create our experience using metaphysical Laws.

Comment by Jim G on November 30, 2009 at 12:25am

My Essence -- My incarnation of God's Spirit (This is also our "Kingdom Within")

That part is what I might have talked about if my memory was in better shape, with my post regarding the "I Statement" tool. As if spirit is thought (and all those other things Holmes mentions,) then the "What would God say" tool would just be a tool to help one incarnate God's spirit. Interesting that I've linked this to Jesus' Kingdom Within also. I had forgotten about that -- although I think that one might have come from only me, not from Holmes. I can't remember. At any rate, if Jesus said "The Kingdom is Within, and it is Without," (recalling from my memory -- not sure if accurate,) well, by role playing God when we make "I" statements, that is sort of like putting God's kingdom within you. Or could be one interpretation anyways. I bet Jesus was teaching this "I Am" stuff as well in the gospel of Thomas. Kind of makes sense doesn't it? If the Kingdom is within and without, that means God is within and without. Macrocosm and microcosm. So I don't see why some people would cry foul at this sort of thing. Well I do see why but I don't agree with the crying foul. I hope it is OK if I post this comment also in my "I Statement" blog.

Comment by James S Saint on November 30, 2009 at 7:13am

It is very common in Protestant explanations to conflate "spirit" and "soul" (and a number of other concepts). When reading anything involving either word, one has to consider what the author meant versus what he actually said.

The "soul" is to the spirit as the "sole" is to the shoe. The soul isn't a servant. The soul is a concept, your concept and relates to purpose. It is the foundation upon which you are formed.

The "spirit" is the action, motivation, energy, or behavior. A car has a concept but it also has a behavior. The behavior varies, the concept remains the same.

The soul is the identifying information. The spirit is that information in action.

Comment by david thurman on November 30, 2009 at 8:19am

"If your intentions, methods, and situation are preserved, then your soul is preserved fore these are the raw data of who and what you essentially are."

In context of what?

Comment by James S Saint on November 30, 2009 at 8:26am

?

Comment by Jim G on November 30, 2009 at 10:57am

Well I think the teacher of our course, also the RS minister at the small church in the mountains I was attending, thought I had it backwards -- soul / spirit -- as well. But I think she was mistaken per what Ernest Holmes says anyways. But maybe I did get it backwards. I could probably google and find out. But you are saying the same thing as Holmes James. It's just a question of who has spirit and soul in the right spot. What you say is information in action, Holmes calls "the creative medium." And what you call "idenfitying information" is what Holmes calls "thought." The resulting "science" in Religious Science is the treatment, which is a prayer. But a prayer where you insert a thought into God's thinking to get some help from above. I don't particularly like the treatments, they come across as new and improved superstition to me. Or you might say I am a simplifier, while Holmes was a complicator. I remember reading that some people are complicators and others simplifiers. I think if you incarnate God's spirit, everything else will come naturally, and there won't be as much thinking involved in terms of doing it a certain way. Abundance comes across as materialism to me as well. Although I realize the overall concept, it usually manifests within the RS churches as "put more money into the basket, please." Because if the church can't make the money it wants to make, it feels embarassed essentially that it hasn't mastered what it teaches. Whereas with Buddhism, the Buddha had monks beg for food essentially. I suppose that is another way of looking at abundance, but abundance rubs me the wrong way. I think again if you simplify it down to incarnating God's spirit, the rest will fall into place without specifically asking God or your microcosm divine-self for it.

The reason why I think our minister had soul/spirit mixed up was based on RS's metaphysical chart (which is where their logo of the V comes from, spirit manifesting downward from the heavens into results:) The Law of Attraction would fall under the middle category of soul. That is why I see it as soul is the servant of spirit, according to RS anyways. In that case, the law is serving the idea.

Top Layer -- The Presence, Spirit, Divine Ideas, Conscience, Mind, Love, Volition, First Cause
Middle Layer -- Soul, Subjective Mind, Creative Medium, Law, The Principle
Bottom Layer -- Body, Visible Results, Form, Effect, Manifestation, Things, Experience, Affairs

But yes I suppose it could be just semantics in the difference.

Comment by Jim G on November 30, 2009 at 11:01am

I should add that if I had done enough treatments and kept with the program, taking more classes and becoming a "practicioner" of RS, then perhaps it would come more naturally with less thinking. Still it seems a bit clunky. But if it actually worked I wouldn't argue against it. And that is what Holmes told people was believe it only if you can proove it. And RS has a slogan "open at the top" so it is essentially open source. It is just that they have so much stuff in place that it would seem awfully hard to change it. Like steering an oil tanker.

Comment by James S Saint on November 30, 2009 at 11:36am

The problem that new churches have is that they must face tremendously confused semantics (sometimes intentionally) yet must try to "keep it simple".

The "war" is between the Clarity and the Cloudy, the Unchanging and the Ever-changing, the Holy and the Divider, the Harmony and the Entropy. Thus semantics and language are used by both so as to further their cause. The result is a mix of both "some sense" and "some non-sense".

To get your own feet on the ground, you have to declare certain definitions (as close to what you think they were intended to mean) and build from there. As long as you keep in mind that your definitions are yours and not a matter of correct or not, then you can build a clear and potentially very high understanding of the entire picture of Reality.

But of course, no matter how clear it becomes to you, others are still confused and will argue with anything you say, sometimes merely to argue, sometimes with sincerity. But this is another reason to just go your own way and not try to make sense of what all others say or believe. Always keep in mind that 90% of the confusion is merely in their words and corresponding concept definitions.

Eventually, "all wise men think alike" even though they might very well use words entirely differently from each other.

Your only real concern is whether they are really trying to help you as they try to help their own cause, or are they merely trying to keep you confused to further their own cause. The "wise", are always trying to help you as a part of their own cause.

Satanism/Secularism is the opposite. They try (for very solid reasons) to try to ensure that you are kept confused so as to help their own cause of ruling over all things (including you) by dictating good and bad in some tricky hidden ways, while always blaming the other guy for doing that.

Comment by Jim G on November 30, 2009 at 11:49am

Makes sense James.

Comment by James S Saint on November 30, 2009 at 11:57am

The point to this blog is that by you continuing to write your own thoughts (preferably with your own definitions included), you end up "saving your soul" whether you intended to or not.

It would be a grievous error to let your pride or ego disguise who you really are because that obscures your real soul. Sometimes (often) what you see as a bad thing about you, is really a good thing that has caused you to be more than you would have been. Thus don't judge yourself and try to worry as little as possible about what others associated with this site might think or how they might judge you. Keep your writings honest to your own heart and mind.

"Write a Blog - Save your Soul"

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