Take the Plunge

So it was in the Fall of 1977 that I once again made an appointment to attend a ‘new student’ meeting for the Fourth Way school. I was given the address of a home in the eastern suburbs of Seattle. This time I was the only ‘new student’ to attend. If memory serves me there were 3 ‘students’ that presented the ideas to me, once again the deck of cards was used.

After about an hour the meeting ended and light refreshments were served. I was told that I had to attend two more meetings before I could join the Fourth Way school. I was given a time for the next meeting and was told that I had to confirm my intention to come by phoning a day in advance.

Being determined to become part of a Fourth Way school I did complete the next two meetings. At these meetings the idea of payment was mentioned as a requirement to be a student. It was at the last meeting that I was told the beginning students were required to pay $100 a month.

This may not sound like much, but back in 77 it was a fair amount, and I was one that lived pretty minimally. I earned a living by driving taxi cabs, so I only worked when I wanted to, which was pretty much just when I needed to. An extra 100 bucks a month meant I would have to work 3 or 4 more days than I already was.

Anyway I decided to give it a try and see what would happen.

Fourth Way School

After getting through about half of “The Theory of Celestial Influence” I was intrigued. It was slow reading with a lot to think about. I decided to check out the Fourth Way group that was advertised on the bookmark.


I was a little apprehensive but I made the phone call and they set up a time for me to come to a meeting. I don’t remember a lot about the meeting. It was at a very nice home and there was another person, like myself, that was there to find out more about the Fourth Way school.

There were maybe 3 other people there to explain the Fourth Way. They used the picture cards from a deck of cards to explain what they said were the 4 brains in a human: Intellectual, Emotional, Moving and Instinctive.

I found it interesting, but I didn’t feel a need to pursue the matter any further at that time. However, they did introduce to me the works of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky. So I went to the library and checked out a copy of "Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson ".

It was a rather thick book and the author loves to write sentences that are a page long, but I very much enjoyed his sense of humor. The story he told was fascinating, like an ancient history of our planet.

I spent the next year finishing the first book and reading Beelzebub’s Tales, when I finally decided that I wanted to be part of a Fourth Way School.

The Theory of Celestial Influence

So to continue my story here, I found astrology fascinating, but what I was really looking for was some scientific study on the phenomenon. When I thought about our solar system it reminded me of an atom with electrons spinning around it.


Scientist say the space between the electron and nucleus is really quite vast, yet the particles exert force on each other. So why wouldn’t the same be true of the planets? I know there are gravitational effects, but what is gravity anyway? And might there be other effects? Could there be forces that affected our minds and bodies as well?

I was cruising the book titles at my book store and ran across one: "The Theory of Celestial Influence" by Rodney Collin. This seemed like what I was looking for.

I took the book home and began reading it. It wasn’t exactly what I thought it would be, but it introduced me to the work of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky. I also found inside the book a bookmark inviting me join a Fourth Way School.

I soon took up the invitation to discover what exactly a Fourth Way School was. This was 1976, I was in the middle of building the Pentagon Shack. Over the next six years I studied this in more depth, and I want to share my experiences there.

Finding a Way

As a young man in my early twenties I had a lot of questions about life. I had abandoned Christianity by that time, as it only seemed to stifle answers. All I had to do was believe and I’d be saved.


That answer wasn’t good enough for me. It’s obviously enough for a lot of people, and they are welcome to it, but I wanted to understand more about how things worked. I wasn’t going to accept pat answers or faith. I felt sure there was more to learn and understand.

Really my search began much earlier than that. I explored the ‘gifts of the spirit’ in my days as a Christian. I looked for more esoteric teachings and understandings of the Bible, but they didn’t satisfy me. I knew there was more and that I was missing something.

I was always fascinated with the infinite vastness of space. I had a curiosity about Horoscopes and Astrology. I’d read the Horoscope in the daily paper and thought how ridiculous it seemed. Making predictions based on planets was outlandish and smacked of Dark Age superstitions.

I did like most people, and brushed it off as unbelievable. It was entertaining but ridiculous. One day it occurred to me I really new very little about the subject. It seemed ignorant to me to reach a conclusion about a subject without knowing anything about it.

So I took to visiting the local occult book store to find some books on the subject. My research showed me that there was a lot more to the subject then I had first realized. It was after all a very ancient teaching, and getting deeper into it I discovered there seemed to be a science about it.

I got all the reference books and began to teach myself how to cast a chart and place all the planets in it. Of course interpreting the chart was another matter all together. But I began to see that astrology wasn’t so much about predicting future events, as it was a tool to learn more about oneself.

It also showed me that there was knowledge out there that wasn’t in the mainstream. Though not exactly hidden, one had to make an effort to find it. This was a start for me.

Survivor: Reality TV

I haven’t posted in a while, I just didn’t feel like I had anything worthwhile to report. Today it’s Friday, which means donut day at work.

I sit out of sight in my cubical while listening to the idle conversations of my fellow co-workers. Today the hot topic of concern seems to be who will get voted off on the latest Survivor show. I find it hard to believe how serious and concerned they are about this issue.

I’m looking at a rigged economy that is on the verge of total collapse, an illegal war that kills innocent families and tortures people in the most inhuman manner, a public execution by starvation. And the list doesn't stop there. What the heck is going on?!! Shouldn’t we be concerned about our future and the future of our children?

They really have us snookered. Oh well, I wonder who will get voted off the Survivor show. I hear the Pope is on death's door. What about the Michael Jackson trial? So many important issues to be concerned about as Rome burns down around us.

Become Like Little Children

Jesus said in Matthew 18:3, “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Some people liken this to being born again, and though I might agree with this, I have a different take on it.

When a child is born it is like an empty canvas waiting for a picture to be painted on it. A child is a blank slate; it has no beliefs or prejudice. The world is a vast place to be discovered and experienced.

As a child grows its parents and society program it, teaching it beliefs and giving the child its view of the world.

To me, to become like little children means to return to the state of a blank slate. We need to let go of all the beliefs and sacred cows that we hold dear. Then as an adult we can use the gifts God gave us to study our reality and develop beliefs and understandings that are our own, not something that was given to us by our parents and society. The key is to see the world objectively and accept the reality that surrounds us.

Dropping one’s beliefs and sacred cows is not an easy task, and can be very frightening as it appears to remove the underpinnings of one’s life. But this I believe is what Jesus was referring to when he said in John 3:3, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”

It has nothing to do with letting some entity come into your life; it has to do with building an understanding based on reality. This is what will show a man the kingdom of heaven.

God in Our Image

The Bible says man was made in God’s image, however I think it is a big mistake to reverse that statement, you cannot have a God in man’s image. What I mean by this is that people assume God is like some sort of person. They’ll refer to him with some pronoun (like I just did) or give him some sort of human type attributes. They think that God thinks like a man, what a mistake!

Let me use an analogy to explain what I am thinking. Imagine our relationship to the world of ants. If the ants could have some sort of comprehension of a human, we would certainly appear as some sort of all powerful God.

Imagine the ants trying to put some sort of ant traits on human beings. They would assume humans are like ants only all powerful. Think about how ridiculous that would actually be. But how could the ants think anything else? Ants are all they know. They have absolutely no concept on what it is like to be a human, zero, nadda, zilch!!

Look at it from the other angle. As humans how can we communicate with ants? Maybe on some very rudimentary level, but really we have no idea if they actually got our message. Now try to imagine explaining to a group of ants the concept of political power or some other abstract idea. It’s clearly not going to happen. From the ants point of view they wouldn’t be able to understand our problem, after all in their minds we are all powerful ‘ants’, we can do anything, why can’t we talk to them?

The gulf between ants and man is virtually impassable and yet I believe the gulf between God and human kind is probably even greater. Perhaps we are wiser than ants and can learn something from this analogy. We can learn that we must change our way of thinking and perceiving of what we call God. We need to reach upwards to refine our awareness where it might have a higher possibility of understanding some small concept that might filter down from higher.

Its clearly foolishness to think that God is talking to someone and telling them to wage war. This is the act of impressing human traits on God. The model doesn’t work in that direction. God can impress his image on us, we should study that image and strive for higher, more refined perceptions to understand what the image of God is. God may be all powerful, just as we are all powerful in comparison to the ant, but until the ant can learn and understand human concepts we will never be able to communicate with them.

life and consciousness

Well I see I did get a few comments on my Born again post. Some seem to think the exposé is bunk, but the only proof given is that it is silly to think that there is some secret hidden agenda from Christians. Of course the people described in the article could hardly be called Christians.

I didn’t really post that link to disparage Christians; I was hoping it might shine a light on what we are dealing with in this reality. Ignoring it will not make it go away or stop it from existing.

Others don’t doubt their faith, but hold it as a hedge, if its wrong there is nothing to lose they feel, if it turns out to be right then they will find themselves in heaven.

My feeling is we are already in heaven, so we need to deal with it and accept the conditions we find here. We shouldn’t be like the servant that buried the talents waiting for his master to return. We need to do something with what we are given.

Expecting something for free is not logical, there is no free lunch. All takes work and effort. We constantly need to question and investigate. We need to learn from what we can discover about life and consciousness.

Born Again

I got to say something about this. This whole idea of ‘letting Jesus’ into your heart and suddenly being born again doesn’t sit right with me. Something seems fishy about it.

I mean it’s like saying you can get something for nothing. You don’t have to do anything, just allow some outside entity to come in and take over your life it will answer all your problems, and make you feel good to!

I don’t buy it, there’s something wrong about it. My understanding of Jesus’ teaching was that he emphasized the fact that he was a man, a human being like all the rest of us. Of course if that is true, what is he suppose to do? Let himself into his heart?

Actually, I could go with that. That sounds more like taking responsibility for yourself, instead of counting on some outside entity to save you.

Besides, I don’t want anything that’s not me coming inside of me. It’s just not safe, I don’t care who it is, or how benevolent he’s suppose to be. If there’s work I need to do, then I need to do it, there isn’t any magic that’s going to get that done.

I don’t really expect any born again Christian to accept my thoughts, but I have to at least try to show them the light.

I know many of them are sincere lost souls that have been lead astray. However, many of them are not lost at all and know exactly what they are doing, and its not a pretty picture.

I dare anyone to read this exposé . It’s rather long, but well researched and quite revealing. It’s not a pretty picture but I’m afraid it’s the truth of our reality. Can you handle the truth?

Not a Pretty Picture

So what should we be concerned about these days? Should we be fretting about the use of steroids in baseball? Apparently Congress thinks that’s important enough to spend their time and our tax money on.



Personally, I’m more concerned about being able to trust my government. I don’t know any body that really does. Most people don’t believe the official JFK assassination story.

What does it take to get elected to a federal office? Honesty and integrity won’t get you there. You certainly need money and the support of those that have a lot of money. What does that tell you?

It’s not a pretty picture. A close look at what goes in the halls of government reveals a very shady quagmire.

What about the news media? Journalists can’t just write about anything. Well, they don’t get put in jail for writing about taboo topics, but they won’t keep their jobs if they do, and the editors won’t allow it to print.

At least under a dictator most people know what they see in the media is propaganda. A smart dictator will hide the fact and try to get people to believe they are living in the land of the free.

So what do we have here? What a great place America is, and there are a lot of wonderful people living here. Too bad it seems like all the bad guys are running the show.

A Hypothetical Man

Here’s a brief description of a hypothetical man, is he a Christian?

Hypothetically there could be a man on the planet and he could be responsible for the death of over 100,000 people in the course of a year.

Some of the people were ‘bad’ and perhaps deserved death, though that is of course a subjective determination.

Some of the people were soldiers, so you could argue they knew what they signed up for, death was always a possibility. After all when you play with fire you might get burned.

But by far, the majority of the people that were killed were just regular family people at a wedding or in their homes, or driving on the street. Many parents grieve for their lost children, and many sad children are left orphans.

Besides the massive death and sorrow caused by this hypothetical man, the land in which these people lived and in which the survivors try to carry on, has been violently destroyed. The buildings and the basic infrastructure to supply human daily needs are gone.

The survivors live in constant fear, knowing that they may be the next to die. A quiet peaceful life is not a possibility for them, because of the actions of this hypothetical man.

If that were not enough, the weapons used to destroy the countryside are of the most diabolical nature. Because they are radioactive the land has been permanently polluted. Well maybe in a million years humans might be able to exist there without worrying about the effects of radioactivity.

Even more telling, this hypothetical man has placed his army, the men that do his killing, in the midst of this slow acting poison. So besides dying and being maimed for this hypothetical man, they are also exposing their bodies to deadly radiation.

Our hypothetical man speaks words of Jesus and Love. He claims a direct connection with God. He claims God is on his side.

Now after considering this hypothetical man I have to ask the Christians, particularly those considered the religious right, is this hypothetical man a Christian? How do we know a man’s character? Is it by his words or his actions?

Be on the lookout for this hypothetical man, though I describe a hypothetical situation, it could be real… happening on a planet near you.

Back on the Home Front

Well I’m back. The wedding was memorable, Lake Tahoe is truly a beautiful place. Now I’m married to the most wonderful girl in world. We took a honeymoon trip across the pond to celebrate.



While I was there one of the Watchers was sent on assignment to maintain Watch over the Scientist on a trip to a distant city. That all went well.

There were a few minor, unexplained cyber attacks on the Writers web pages while we were there. Coincidental glitches in cyber space or a intentional attack? Some people don’t believe in coincident. The Watchers keep an open mind.

Now I’m back home catching on all the things that were left undone in my absence, blogging, being one of them. I’ll try to get back in full swing tomorrow.