Steps in the Evolution of Consciousness | Emissaries of Divine Light

Steps in the Evolution of Consciousness | Emissaries of Divine Light



Steps in the Evolution of Consciousness

Fresh Thinking, Inspiration, and Vision on the Process of Spiritual Transformation

At the lowest level of consciousness, a person has the experience of being a bystander to their own life. And if they are a bystander to their life, they are very likely a victim of it; they experience themselves as being “done unto” by the people and circumstances around them, and perhaps even by supernatural forces, by whatever name. A person may feel powerless in the face of that experience, and resign themselves to the inevitability of it. There are many people around the world for whom this is what is real, and the acceptance of victimhood is pervasive in the mass consciousness of humanity. In this experience, the person is not taking responsibility for their experience. This is the low point for humankind.

As the consciousness of a person, or a culture, evolves, the individual takes responsibility for the way they respond to the people and circumstances around them. This is the second stage of the evolution of consciousness. According to whatever values the person holds, they aspire to meet their world with thoughts, words and deeds that bring something virtuous—something good—to it. At this level of conscious evolution, the person may disavow any responsibility for creating the circumstances in which they find themselves. However, they are thinking about their responsibility to meet those circumstances in a virtuous way, in a creative way, based on whatever beliefs they have as to what that would be. The religions of the world excel in advocating this approach.

This is a step on the spiritual path, and it is a step in the evolution of consciousness for humanity. But it is only a step, not the destination. For one thing, this level of consciousness is prone to a terrible self-righteousness. To the individual, it can seem that there are all these bad, even evil people who are the cause of the terrible circumstances of the world. And the greater the judgment of others, the less the individual can see their own participation in creating the circumstances in which they find themselves. The individual may attempt to cloak themselves in visions of righteousness, leaving hidden the reality that they, themselves, are engaging in destructive behavior.

In this second stage in the evolution of consciousness, the individual may have committed to do their best in the situation—to treat others with kindness, to act with integrity, or to live a life of service. All these virtues are worth aspiring to. In fact, a person doesn’t evolve spiritually, and humanity does not evolve spiritually, without aspiring to the expression of the highest virtues possible to them. Yet this level of consciousness will not bring a person to their full creative potential, and it will not take humanity as a whole to its destiny.

If a person doesn’t develop further, they end up believing that they are a good person, and that it is the bad people who are creating the world as it is. It is this approach that has motivated the most destructive human activity. A person who has not evolved past this stage of spiritual evolution can steer jetliners into tall buildings, build nuclear power plants on geological fault lines, and carry out all the myriad smaller acts in the private lives of people around the world that are ultimately destructive.

The third stage of spiritual evolution is the destiny of humanity. It involves what appears to be a radical step—complete and utter responsibility by the individual for the contents of their consciousness, understanding that the whole world of a person’s awareness is present in their consciousness. In taking this responsibility, a person begins to have the experience that they are the creator of their world.

Up to the point of this acceptance, responsibility tends to be viewed in terms of “Who’s to blame?” and “Who gets the credit?” This is the second stage of consciousness thinking. “Who is good? Who is bad?” Our destiny is to realize our role as creators of our world. A creator is always responsible for their creation. And while there is a learning process as a person assumes this responsibility, the usual human judgment of other people becomes irrelevant.

There are several ways that you are responsible for the contents of your consciousness. Firstly, the world that is in your awareness exists nowhere else as it does to you. It is the magical combining of whatever the external reality may be and the unique attributes of your consciousness as a human being. No consciousness, no world. And if the consciousness is different, the world looks different. I can only imagine how the world looks to my Labradoodle! And I am certain that the world looks different to me than it does to people very close to me. It even looks different to me, depending on which side of the bed I wake up on, and I can change how the world is in my awareness by changing my mental and emotional state. In such case, have I just changed my thoughts, or have I changed the world? Increasingly, we understand that our consciousness and the world are not separate things. They are part of one thing, and the two aspects of that one thing are interdependent. Our thoughts and feelings change our world. You are responsible for the contents of your consciousness.

Prior to a person accepting that they are responsible for the contents of their consciousness, they tend to hide from their conscious awareness how they are influencing the people and events around them. It is usually easier to see how other people do this. We may observe the person who manages to offend almost every person they meet, but can’t understand why they don’t have friends. We witness the person who snacks all day, but wonders why they can’t lose weight. It is much more difficult to see how we, ourselves, are creating our own reality.

The truth is that you are responsible for the contents of your consciousness in a very practical way. You are thinking, feeling and doing things that are manifesting in the reality of the world in which you live. Taking radical responsibility as a creator, you see and understand your own process of creation in an uncommon way. If you are willing to face the feeling of shame that may come up, you can gain that insight and that understanding.

The most profound reason that you are responsible for the contents of your consciousness is that you are part of the one universal reality that is creating it. You are a human being, but you are much more than just a human being. You are the universal creative spirit that created you, your world, and all that is in that world. You can live your life in a way that lets that awareness blossom through your thoughts and feelings. You can bring the intelligence of universal consciousness and the empowering love of universal consciousness to your world. You can live your life as the creator of your world, not just because you can track, in a practical way, what you did to create it. Not just because you feel responsible to make the best of the cards that have been dealt to you. You can be the universal creative spirit for all the people and all the forms of life in your world, and for your own humanity, because you are awakening to the reality that this truly is who you are.

As I rose this morning, I was thinking about the place where I live, Sunrise Ranch, in this light. I live my life being responsible for this place. In an outer sense, I didn’t, by any means, create everything that has happened here. This place was here long before I came and will be here long after I leave. And there are many other people who live here now who are a part of creating Sunrise Ranch. But still, I live my life knowing that I am responsible for this place; for the people who live and visit here, and for the project being undertaken here. From an outer standpoint, it is not a rational thought, but from an inner standpoint it is what’s true for me. There are choices that other people have made over the years at Sunrise Ranch, and made even in recent history, that are not my choices. And in that sense, I have to live with other people’s choices. It might seem easier to say that I am the victim of those choices, and to live my life that way. It might seem easy to say I’m not really responsible—that there are things that other people have done that are to blame. And that there are other people who deserve the credit for the creative accomplishments here. But that is not the reality in which I live. The true nature of responsibility is such that despite what anybody else does, that’s just surface play. I am responsible for my world. If Sunrise Ranch is a world, then every world needs people who are responsible for it, who see it as their own in the name of the universal spirit that creates all things.

Living in that place of responsibility, we open ourselves for more insight as to what is happening in our world and why. We have more insight into the causative factors and the part that we have played, and the parts that other people are playing in creating what is happening. We have more capacity to act creatively, not less. All too often for people, being responsible goes to who’s to blame. Who’s at fault? Who did something wrong? And who gets the credit? That’s what responsibility is believed to be. That view of the world hides what is truly happening. It blocks the ability to see what is really going on, and certainly keeps a person from taking complete and utter responsibility for the contents of our consciousness.

The first verse of the Twenty-fourth Psalm is an expression of this attitude of total ownership and responsibility on the part of a Creator for their world:

The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.

That is true for the creative spirit that is your ultimate reality. The earth is yours—your physical body and all the rest of the physical world you inhabit. The human world, too, is yours, and all who are present in that world.

You are responsible because it is yours. It is your world. It is your life.

Jesus embodied the spirit of the Creator for Planet Earth and her peoples. The story of his life and ministry is the story of the Creator taking responsibility for His creation. The creative spirit within Jesus was not content to observe humanity from afar, passing judgment on the failings of humanity. That spirit incarnated in human flesh, even as we each have done, to take direct responsibility for the contents of human consciousness.

John 3:17 speaks of Jesus’ incarnation this way:

For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

This statement does not portray the spirit of a bystander, or a victim. Nor does the story of Jesus’ life. He was not content to see others as to blame, and himself as good. This verse portrays the spirit of the Creator taking total responsibility for His creation.

Jesus embodies the evolution of consciousness that is the destiny of people who are awakening spiritually today, and the destiny of all of humanity. We didn’t come here to be a bystander to our world, to be an observer to it, to judge it, to view it from afar as if it was not ours; to pretend that we do not have a vital interest in what happens in our world. We didn’t come to divorce our world, or to stand aside from it in any way.

The story of Jesus is the story of an incarnation right into the depth of humanity, not of trying to affect it from far off, not trying to receive it gracefully with love and compassion from a distance. No, he transformed the human world through his own being. Do you think you have any other way of transforming the world, really? Do you think you have any chance of transforming it from afar off?

Thinking of the world as a whole, is it possible that this story of Jesus that has been looked at as a religious story, as if it related only to him, is the story of a man who was on the vanguard of what must happen for us as humanity today? There must be some number of people who together say, “This world is mine. I can’t blame its problems on the bad people. This is my world, and I’m here to take the radical view that I am completely and utterly responsible for it.”

The truest thing about us is the universal creative spirit that created this world. It is our destiny to know it.

David Karchere
dkarchere@emnet.org
June 20th, 2011
Copyright © 2011 by International Emissaries

Posted in David Karchere | Print this page

Seven Steps To the Temple of Light (PDF) - Sunrise Ranch

Seven Steps To the Temple of Light (PDF) - Sunrise Ranch

Seven Steps To the Temple of Light (PDF)




Seven Steps To the Temple of Light (PDF)

$2.00

ublisher ‏ : ‎ Emissaries of Divine Light; 3rd edition (January 1, 1958)

Language ‏ : ‎ English

Unknown Binding ‏ : ‎ 20 page

  

 

Practical Spirituality: An Operator's Guide to Being Human - Emissaries Of Divine Light

Practical Spirituality: An Operator's Guide to Being Human - Emissaries Of Divine Light

Practical Spirituality: An Operator’s Guide to Being Human

From February 6th to 9th, Maureen Waller and I held a course for thirteen people at Glen Ivy, in Corona, California, entitled Practical Spirituality: An Operator’s Guide to Being Human. As I told the participants, any good operator’s guide has two main components to it. One is spatially oriented and the other oriented in time.

The spatially oriented part contains the diagrams—you know, the kind that shows all the various components of the product and, if you are lucky, maybe even an exploded diagram with the parts separated but in right relationship. It is important, if you have a piece of equipment that you’re trying to operate, to know where all the parts are and how they fit together. And it might even be important to know the names of the various parts.

The spatially oriented part of the operator’s guide is important, but it may not be enough. Because even if you know where all the parts are and how they fit together, you have to know the steps to take to operate the equipment. You have to know how the equipment operates over time. So there is probably step number one, step number two, and so on. The instructions take you through time and the process by which the piece of equipment works.

For us as human beings, there ought to be an operator’s guide; an understanding of what our parts are and how they work together, and what the process is over time that leads to a creative life. The most significant parts of a human being are not all visible, at least not with physical sight, and that makes the process of identification more difficult. The processes that operate in the mind and in the emotions, and even in our spiritual capacity, cannot be seen with our physical eyes, even though we can observe the physical effects of those processes.

Have you ever ridden shotgun, in the passenger seat next to the driver of a car, and after riding to a certain place repeatedly, had to drive there by yourself? And then found that you didn’t really know the way? The way looks different when you are sitting in the driver’s seat than it does even if you are sitting in the seat right next to the driver. Of course, it looks like a whole other thing again from outside the car.

So many of the studies of the human experience prove to be close to worthless from the standpoint of the operator, because we are not operating our human capacity from the outside, looking in. We are operating it from the inside, looking out, so that any study that observes human behavior from the outside doesn’t necessarily help very much.

Most people are not very articulate about life from the inside out, not just because they don’t want to talk about it but because they don’t have names for what is happening. They don’t understand what’s happening. They know they’re impacted by their experience, they know something has happened—they may be in the same situation that they have been in countless times in their life. And while it may be familiar, and they may have a pet way to get through it, there is often a lack of a real depth of understanding of what is occurring. There is a lack of understanding of where the accelerator is, where the steering wheel is, and where the brakes are, too. So in the course we offered, Practical Spirituality: An Operator’s Guide to Being Human, we assisted people to become more familiar with their own internal makeup and the processes at work within them.

In ancient times, there was a way of understanding the world that was more from the inside out than today. Some of the ancient stories, myths and legends served that purpose. That is also the purpose of poetry. Good poetry describes what is happening from the inside out. That is important, because that is how we live our life. So good poetry uses the forms of the physical world in which we live to speak about what’s happening inside a person.

What flummoxes most people is the energy that is inside them. For the most part, they don’t know what to do with it. We live in a world that tells them that virtually every natural urge that they have in their body and in every other part of them is wrong and should be stuffed back inside. And that they should live in a box that is prescribed by the world the way it is. That is an awful predicament, given that we are energetic beings. So when we talk about how we are made and how we operate, we are talking about the creative power of the universe running through us, and that really wasn’t made to fit in a box. So what do we do now?

I had a discussion with a friend recently about addiction. It is difficult to get to the bottom of conversations about addiction. The biggest problem is all the shame the person is feeling. That is a problem, because it is the creative power within, translated in a particular way, that is making them addicted. The person finds themselves in a box that shames them for having the compulsion in the first place, and then finds a way to translate the compulsion that destroys them. It usually has something to do with being in a box, usually carefully constructed by one’s elders in childhood, and maintained by the person and the culture they are in ever after. Under those conditions, the person does their best to summon up sufficient willpower to be good for a while—which is usually what it is, just a while. And being good usually has to do with putting oneself back in the box.

What I said to my friend was that you have to distinguish between the passion within you that drove you to the addictive behavior, and the addictive behavior itself. Do you really want to shame yourself for being a passionate person? Do you really want to shame yourself for being a person that is full of desire? Good luck trying to send your desire back to whence it came. That sounds like hell. It is the translation of the passion that is the problem.

I am not suggesting that every urge from within us should be acted upon without thought. If you have powerful desire, what is the true creative fulfillment of that desire? It is good to know that the creative fulfillment of desire is based in two simple things.

Step 1: The urge to be consumed by the reality of spirit that we are, so that it overtake us, ego and all.

Step 2: The desire to have union with our world.

What does the operator’s guide say about this process? Don’t take Step 2 before you take Step 1. Be consumed by the spirit that made you before you have union with your world. The operator’s guide also carries a warning: If you mix the order of these two steps, the human instrument is subject to malfunction, and the manufacturer’s warranty is voided.

If you have taken Step 2 before Step 1, you have been seduced by whatever is your addiction of choice. And if you take Step 1 first, you establish the basis for creative engagement with your world.

So what does it take to change that whole pattern around? It makes no sense to take the life force that’s moving in us and try to send it back to wherever it came from. Not a good idea, not really possible, and doesn’t make for a happy human being. Nonetheless, restraint is required, so that we don’t act on our desires in a way that destroys us.

Without conscious restraint, we are destined to a life of knee-jerk reactions to our own subconscious urges. If you cannot stop in a moment when there is power moving in you and think consciously about how that power is best used, if you don’t ponder the true desire within the desire, you will not be happy.

Have you ever had this remarkable experience? That something very challenging happened in your life, and still you exercised restraint in what you did about it? And then found that there was a volcano of energy that was exploding within you, which you chose to contain? Try it sometime. If you face a life circumstance that brings you great challenge and pressure, try letting an explosion go off within you instead of exploding on your world. Try exercising restraint long enough to know that you have a choice in how you use that energy. You could use it unconsciously, on a reactive basis, or you could stop and use it for good.

The operating manual for being human tells us that there has to be containment within a person. That is practical spirituality. The power does not have to be contained forever. But getting back to the analogy of the car, the cylinder within a gasoline engine has to have containment if the explosion within it is going to generate the power necessary for the operation of the car. An uncontained explosion simply blows up the car. It is a contained explosion that drives the car. So a key question for us as people is whether we have the capacity to hold the creative energy and power that is moving within us and let it be used on a controlled basis for good.

It is the same for any community of people. Any community has to be able to keep its peace if the power of creation is to be used for good. Otherwise, that power is frittered away in gossip, complaint and reactive emotion. No containment, no power.

There is a way we are made, and there is a way we are meant to operate. There can be no doubt that there is great power within us, and when we know what we are doing as masterful guides of the human capacity, that power is used for good. It creates joy, and brings the fulfillment that is natural to each of us.

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The course, Practical Spirituality: An Operator’s Guide to Being Human, will be offered at Edenvale Retreat and Conference Center (www.edenvaleretreat.ca/) on November 9 to 12. Contact Maureen Waller at to find out more about the program.

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David Karchere
Posted on February 20, 2012

Copyright © 2022 by Emissaries of Divine Light

Eternal Creative Laws and Principles | Emissaries of Divine Light

Eternal Creative Laws and Principles | Emissaries of Divine Light



Eternal Creative Laws and Principles


Uranda and Martin Exeter, who were the foundational leaders of Emissaries of Divine Light, brought an understanding of eternal creative laws and principles that restore wholeness to human experience. Their teachings resonate with the truth brought by visionaries and spiritual leaders through the ages. The essence of what they taught is full of great possibility for the future of humanity.

Uranda and Martin Exeter presented the core of what they taught in simple and straightforward expressions of the truth. They expanded that core understanding in a comprehensive way to cover virtually every facet of human function.

They spoke in terms that were natural to them, the people who were with them, and the culture of the day. Some of the language used may seem out of date but the essential truth that they brought is just as applicable now as it was then.

My View of Cults | Emissaries of Divine Light

My View of Cults | Emissaries of Divine Light

My View of Cults

By David Karchere

Wikipedia defines the word cult this way:

The word cult pejoratively refers to a group whose beliefs or practices are considered strange. The word originally denoted a system of ritual practices. The narrower, derogatory sense of the word is a product of the 20th century, especially since the 1980s, and is considered subjective. It is also a result of the anti-cult movement which uses the word in reference to groups seen as authoritarian, exploitative and that are believed to use dangerous rituals or mind control. The word implies a group which is a minority in a given society.

The popular, derogatory sense of the word has no currency in academic studies of religions, where “cults” are subsumed under the neutral label of the “new religious movement,” while academic sociology has partly adopted the popular meaning of the word.

I believe that any culture has the potential to exhibit the worst qualities of a cult by this definition. The spiritual groups I know about certainly have the potential to be a cult, and that includes Emissaries of Divine Light. But Emissaries of Divine Light is not, in any way, unique in this regard. All spiritual and religious groups, large and small, and indeed all cultures, can display the worst qualities of a cult. It is easy to point to the worst offenders–Nazi Germany, Charles Manson, and Jonestown come easily to mind. Most people are unaware of any cultic tendencies in the culture in which they, themselves, live. They are like a fish in water–they hardly notice they are getting wet.

I believe that the critical factor in whether a person has a cultic experience in Emissaries of Divine Light, or anywhere else, depends on the consciousness and the function of the people involved in the culture, most particularly the person themselves. All adults in any culture have responsibility for avoiding cultic behavior–for thinking clearly and acting with integrity. As a leader, I believe that elders have a special responsibility for the culture in which they live. Using the word elder, I am not just speaking about seniors. I am referring to people who are in a relative position of greater knowledge, power or age.

It is easy to think of a cult as something that happens to someone. If we are talking about children, I agree with that view. If we are talking about adults who are participating together by choice, then I believe it is far more creative and empowering to view cultic behavior as something that people have decided to accept and act out. This doesn’t mean that elders don’t have the special responsibility I spoke of. It just means that it is a healthy, empowered view of one’s own life and the life of others to believe that we all are “at choice” in our life all the time. With rare exceptions, no one is really making us do what we do. The German people who participated in the Nazi regime were responsible for the choice they made. So was the Manson family, and so were the participants in Jonestown. This, in no way, justifies the horror the leaders in these circumstances perpetrated on their cultures and on others. The point is that the antidote to cultic behavior is taking personal responsibility for one’s own thought, action and experience, whatever one’s role may be in the culture.

In my life, I have witnessed, firsthand, cultic behavior in many contexts. While on business in Japan, I saw office workers in Tokyo who regularly worked until 7:30 p.m., then had dinner in the corporate cafeteria and continued work until 9 p.m. or later. They were back at work at 9 a.m. the next day. When I asked about it, I was told that if a Japanese man came home at dinnertime, his wife, and anyone else in the apartment building who saw him, would wonder if he was really valued by his company. In the United States, I knew a man who worked regularly until at least 9p.m., and then drove home on the crooked rural roads of Connecticut, completing work in his lap as he went. This was an intelligent man who, I believe, was subject to exploitative, authoritarian, mind-controlling culture.

I haven’t participated in the military, or in an organized religion in which the leadership repeatedly perpetrated sexual abuse upon children. But from what I know, there are cultic behaviors taking place in both the military and organized religions of the world.

I have participated in Emissaries of Divine Light since 1970, when I was seventeen years old. I have the greatest appreciation for what I have come to know and experience through this program. That is why I serve as a leader of Emissaries of Divine Light today. I am repaying a debt of gratitude that I feel for what I have received, and I am doing what I can to offer a similar opportunity to others.

Nonetheless, I believe there has been cultic behavior in the context of Emissaries of Divine Light. I have seen some leaders who took advantage of, and disempowered, followers. And I have seen some followers who were eager to give responsibility for their life to someone else. I’ve come to understand that people are people wherever you go, including in this program. And still, as far as I am concerned, I have not heard a more empowering, inspiring teaching in all the world. I haven’t met leaders who are more worthy of listening to and learning from.

For many years I wasn’t a leader for Emissaries of Divine Light. As my experience grew, I took on greater and greater responsibility. In 1988, Martin Exeter, who had led the Emissaries since 1954, died. His son, Michael Cecil, led the Emissaries until 1995, and then stopped participating. It was in that time period that I assumed responsibility for the leadership of the Emissaries with a group of Trustees. I became the focus of leadership for the Emissaries in 2004.

For anyone assuming new leadership responsibility, there is a steep learning curve. For me, that was particularly so. Martin Exeter had been a strong, visionary leader who was more than three times my age when I first met him. There was a major paradigm shift under way for the organization and the people who had been associated with it when he died. There had been widespread cultural experimentation, including twelve intentional communities, and extraordinary levels of commitment to the purpose of the organization, which is to bring the spiritual regeneration of humanity. There had also been a remarkable level of shared love and empowerment that flowed through the Emissary network. Along with this, there was sexual experimentation. What I know now is that for many, especially women, this was seen, in hindsight, as unfair and abusive.

Another factor in the experience of Emissaries of Divine Light is that in its early days we had very little money. Sunrise Ranch, where I live, was initiated in 1945, and in the early days here there was virtually no pay for the people who pioneered this place. I am incredibly proud of those pioneers for what they offered to initiate this project, and for the sacrifice they made. As time went on, there were meager stipends that were offered to residents here that gradually increased over time. There was also a lot of physical work to do at Sunrise Ranch and in the other intentional communities of the Emissaries. It was hard work for little pay, though food, housing and healthcare were provided. I should add that, in most cases, the leaders worked as hard as anyone; and while there was a level of care and service to them offered by the communities, the leaders too received little compensation for their work.

But people flocked to participate in the Emissaries anyway, and they were eager to live in our intentional communities. Many who wanted to live in our communities were turned away because we were at maximum capacity. As far as I know, the organization was very straightforward with people about what they would be offered and about the work that would be expected of them. Nonetheless, there was eagerness to participate in the spiritual work that was being undertaken.

With the paradigm shift that came with Martin Exeter’s passing, the culture as it had been came unraveled. Michael Cecil’s departure accelerated that process. We who assumed leadership were left to care for the people and the culture, and to reinitiate the work of the Emissaries based in a new paradigm, based on universal spiritual principles.

Part of our work was to create ethics guidelines and trainings. We are creating a culture in which people take responsibility for their experience, and where leaders are held responsible for the influence they have on the people they lead. We have become more keenly aware of dual relationships–particularly relationships in which a person has a role as an elder or leader, as well as a friend. In the helping professions, there is often strict oversight in this area. Psychotherapists are generally not allowed to date their patients.

Dual relationships are inevitable in a small community, where people play many different roles. But conscious management of situations in which a person is functioning both in an elder capacity and as a friend really helps.

Is there a risk that people, today, will walk away from Emissaries of Divine Light, calling it a cult? Is it possible they would be filled with anger and regret as they did so? I think so. At Sunrise Ranch we pay more in salaries than we used to, but we still don’t pay much. And people are still people wherever you go. Residents of Sunrise Ranch are inspired and committed, but I know that when people leave a place like this, they can have a different view of their experience in retrospect. Have you ever spoken to someone who has recently been divorced? Sometimes they have gratitude to express regarding the other person. But often, there is acrimony, even if the marriage had been creative for a time. And I do believe that there are people who have malicious intentions regarding this organization because of unhealed places in their own hearts. Forgiveness, shared mutually by all involved, is the ultimate medicine for that experience.

It is also true that there are inherent risks in exploring new levels of consciousness, and creating new culture. This work is not for everyone, and individuals have to make their own decisions as to what they are up for in their lives. What I and gathering numbers of people around the world are finding is that the risk of living a life that is defined by a commercially oriented world culture is worse than the risk of being a spiritual pioneer. While I have no issue with commerce, I want to accept the clear, undiluted message of the greatest spiritual leaders that have walked the earth, and embrace a spirituality that answers the most urgent issues of our age.

What I’ve learned through all this is that the function of elders, and the relationship to elders, is the most critical factor in the health of any culture. In a healthy culture, the function of elders invites others to come into their own eldership. In a dysfunctional, unsustainable culture, the function of elders tends to keep others where they are.

The key functions that elders perform in a culture are teaching, directing and relating. In a healthy culture, the teaching of elders brings wisdom and the ability to teach. In an unsustainable culture, teachers teach, and others remain ignorant or perpetual students.

In a healthy culture, the direction given by elders empowers others and leads to their self-direction and the ability to offer direction to others. In an unsustainable culture, the direction of elders empowers only themselves.

In a healthy culture, the way elders relate brings love and inspires others to love. In an unsustainable culture, the way that elders relate leaves others cold, or dependent on the elders for love and approval. Or, in the worse cases, the elders steal love from others for themselves.

I believe that the functions of teaching, directing and relating are the responsibility of elders, and the responsibility of all the adults in the culture. And while elders have responsibility in the matter, I believe that everyone is responsible for their own learning, their own self-direction and their own loving.

I also believe that every culture must have elder function. And the lack of elder function is the death of a culture. The familiar, prevailing Western culture certainly has its elders–politicians, corporate leaders, religious leaders, and many more. If there is to be a new paradigm for humanity, there must be elders who lead that shift.

Personally, the resolution for me around all these factors–what lets me sleep at night–is the acceptance that I am responsible for my experience and my actions, and that the same is true for everyone else. For me, that means that I have responsibility now for my function as a leader, in the culture of Emissaries of Divine Light and with anyone else who is interested in what I have to share. I also have the responsibility to do my utmost to see that the elders around me act with integrity.

For anyone interested in knowing more about Emissaries of Divine Light, I encourage you to write (dkarchere@emnet.org) or call (970.480.7792). Or feel free to contact any of the other Emissary Trustees. Print This Page

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Woman Claims SoCal Cult|Is Trying to Sell Her Home | Courthouse News Service

Woman Claims SoCal Cult|Is Trying to Sell Her Home | Courthouse News Service

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Woman Claims SoCal Cult|Is Trying to Sell Her Home

ELIZABETH WARMERDAM / March 17, 2014

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (CN) - A cult called Emissaries of Divine Light made one of its members work for free and pay monthly fees to live in her own home, and now is trying to sell the property out from under her, she claims in court.

The cult encouraged the married woman to have sex with its leaders and to participate in threesomes, to "purify herself" and "'handle and protect' the man's spiritual expression," according to the complaint.

Linda Grindstaff sued Emissaries of Divine Light (EDL), a "global spiritual network," on claims of breach of contract, fraud and intentional infliction of emotional stress.

The mission of the cult, which began in 1932, is to "assist in the spiritual regeneration of humanity under the inspiration of the spirit of God," according to the lawsuit.

Grindstaff, who had inheritance money, claims she helped the cult buy a campus in Glen Ivy, Calif. by providing $50,000, one-half of the down payment. She hoped to make a profit, as the network leased a natural mineral springs and spa on the property to Glen Ivy Hot Springs, a popular destination in Southern California, she says in the complaint.

Grindstaff later spent $150,000 to build her own house on the Glen Ivy property and was told she would be able to live there unconditionally for the rest of her life and have full use of the amenities, including fruit trees, horse stables, and the Glen Ivy Hot Springs, the complaint states.

It took Emissaries more than three years to complete the home because they were using Grindstaff's money for their expenses, she claims. Grindstaff also had to pay $48,000 for "upgrades," such as bathtubs, toilets and a stove, and bought a mobile home to live in while she waited for her home to be finished, the lawsuit states.

Despite Grindstaff's requests that the oral agreement regarding the purchase of her house be put in writing, she was also told that Emissaries "could not be bothered with such paperwork for the benefit of its members" and that it could lose its status as a nonprofit corporation if it did so, the complaint states.

After Grindstaff paid the money for her house, she was asked by John Gray, the then-president of the board of directors, "when she was 'getting on the community work schedule and going to work.' Grindstaff was completely taken aback and shocked as this was never mentioned as a term of the agreement, but EDL and EDL CA already had her money. Gray said, 'What did you think you were going to do when you came to live here?'" the complaint states.

Grindstaff says she began working six days a week, 7½ hours per day - mostly as a kitchen worker or doing laundry for the single men and cleaning bathrooms. She was not paid because she was told "she had enough money already," she says.

Grindstaff was told "that she was 'volunteering' for the good of the whole, but in her own experience she felt she was being forced into slavery, expected to work as long hours as those who were employed and had their room and board paid for as well as receiving a stipend. She received nothing and could not come and go as a 'volunteer' would expect to be able to do," the complaint states.

Grindstaff had to pay for her and her daughter's food and medical expenses. She paid monthly fees to the network and her husband had to pay guest fees when he came to visit, the lawsuit states.

Grindstaff says she was manipulated "into believing she was going to enhance her service to the Lord and the Asian branch of the EDL ministry" by paying these fees.

Emissaries leaders made Grindstaff feel afraid to complain about her situation or tell any of the other community members about her arrangement. Whenever she told the leaders that she was feeling mistreated, they told her "it was all in the name of service to our great Lord and King," she says in the complaint.

Emissaries was also responsible for the end of Grindstaff's 20-year marriage, as she was often not allowed to take time off to visit her husband and the network advocated sexual promiscuity, the complaint states.

As part of the cult's teachings, Grindstaff was told that "in order to be a 'good Emissary wife' men represented 'God in the flesh' while women represented what was rising up from the Earth to meet God. EDL teaching made a distinction that man had to be awakened as all those who were designated to be 'Servers' most assuredly were. By having sex with a man who 'represented God' a woman could offer herself up and commune with God," according to the complaint.

Emissaries doctrine encouraged "triangles," which consisted of one man and two or more women having sexual encounters, because this would "handle and protect" the man's spiritual expression and spiritually purify the women, Grindstaff says.

Her husband, Stan, was often assigned to "counsel" women and share "attunements" - a "personal spiritual practice" - during which he would have sex with them. Stan had sex with many women throughout the couple's marriage, an activity sanctioned by Emissaries, the complaint states.

While Grindstaff was waiting for her home to be built, she had a renter, Carolyn, move into her other home in Oakland to help with her income. Stan got involved in a sexual relationship with Carolyn and later told Grindstaff that he was going to be spending one weekend a month with Carolyn and that she was going to be part of his life forever, the complaint states.

"This was very upsetting to Grindstaff even though she was aware of their sexual relationship. Stan said, 'Many married men in points of leadership in EDL had other women in their lives and he didn't see why this would not work for us.' Grindstaff then divorced Stan," the lawsuit states.

Stan and Carolyn were then married at Glen Ivy and Grindstaff was forced to prepare the reception room for their wedding. The community leaders told Grindstaff that she should be supportive of God's decision to bring together Carolyn and her former husband, Grindstaff says.

To add insult to injury, the Glen Ivy housing department assigned Stan and Carolyn to live next door to Grindstaff, though there were other options available on the 80-acre land, the complaint states.

Last year, Emissaries agreed to sell the Glen Ivy property for approximately $40 million. Grindstaff expect to lose her home, since her interest in the house was never put down in writing,.

Grindstaff believes that her interest in the house is worth $1.5 million, which includes $721,000 for the structure and $861,000 for the value of the amenities.

"Only now, after defendants are trying to take away her home, can Grindstaff finally acknowledge that she has been living her entire adult life within the context and beliefs of a destructive cult," the complaint states. (86)

Grindstaff seeks quiet title to the home, an accounting, rescission of purchase, a constructive trust and punitive damages for adverse possession, breach of contract, fraud, negligent infliction of emotional distress and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

She is represented by Mark A. Mellor in Riverside.

According to Emissaries' website, its goal is "to contribute to the individual lives of people who participate with us, and to the destiny of humanity as a whole."

"All people have the opportunity to deepen their attunement with the universal wisdom and love within them. That connection allows us to know ourselves more fully, and to express who we are in the world. The future of our planet depends on this for humanity as a whole," the website states.

Emissaries claims to guide people "as they build the emotional intelligence that lets them fulfill the highest potential for their life."

The site includes the article, "My View of Cults," by David Karchere, a "writer, poet and speaker on spirituality that transcends religion," and the Spiritual Director for Emissaries.

In the article, Karchere writes: "The spiritual groups I know about certainly have the potential to be a cult, and that includes Emissaries of Divine Light. But Emissaries of Divine Light is not, in any way, unique in this regard. All spiritual and religious groups, large and small, and indeed all cultures, can display the worst qualities of a cult."

He adds: "It is easy to think of a cult as something that happens to someone. If we are talking about children, I agree with that view. If we are talking about adults who are participating together by choice, then I believe it is far more creative and empowering to view cultic behavior as something that people have decided to accept and act out."

Karchere writes that he believes "there has been cultic behavior in the context of Emissaries of Divine Light. I have seen some leaders who take advantage of, and disempowered, followers. And I have seen some followers who were eager to give responsibility for their life to someone else. I've come to understand that people are people wherever you go, including in this program. And still, as far as I am concerned, I have not heard a more empowering, inspiring teaching in all the world."

The Central Guidance System for Humanity - Emissaries Of Divine Light

The Central Guidance System for Humanity - Emissaries Of Divine Light



The Central Guidance System for Humanity




Do you ever come to a point in your life where you wonder what comes next? Or do you ever embark on a creative project and wonder the same thing? What do I do now?

As a songwriter, I feel an initial inspiration that gives birth to the opening lines of a song. And then, somewhere about halfway through, I might question, Where am I? Where is this going? What is happening here? And what do I write now?

Here’s what I do when I have that experience. I go back to the song’s beginning and play it through in my mind or on my guitar. And when I arrive at the end of what I’ve already written, the next lines magically drop in.

My experience of writing text is just like that. I sometimes reach a point of wondering what comes next. So I read what I have written from the beginning until I reach the blank space on the paper or the blank computer screen staring me in the face. And what comes next appears.

As I prepared to deliver the message in this Pulse of Spirit, I did something similar. I read the past three issues. I reconnected with the powerful flow of meaning that we, who write and read this publication, have been experiencing. In that flow, it was easy to see what comes next.

All of life is like that. We pick up the thread of the unfolding creative process. We feel the creative urge behind that unfoldment. And life continues to blossom.

I would like to pick up the thread related to Sunrise Ranch and Emissaries of Divine Light. The man who founded Sunrise Ranch and Emissaries of Divine Light, Lloyd Arthur Meeker, described what we are about as the spiritual expression plane approach to the destiny of humankind. I will name it here in slightly different words. Our service to the world has to do with our spiritual nature as human beings. We see the growth and development of our spiritual nature—our spiritual evolution—as the way forward for humankind.

Lloyd Meeker traced the conscious evolution of humankind this way: he said there was a time when human civilization was all about something happening in the physical experience of people. There were huge survival issues, so the practical, physical reality loomed large. And so, with people who are oriented in that direction, the steps in the conscious evolution of humankind were relevant to that experience. The ten commandments and other laws governing people’s conduct were introduced. People erected physical buildings as reference points for conscious evolution, prescribed physical rites and rituals, and laid down dietary laws.

As consciousness and culture evolved, the arena for that unfolding evolution changed. The evolution of human attitudes, thoughts, and beliefs came to the fore.

We think of Jesus Christ as a human being of great Love, who taught us to Love. Yet if you look carefully at his teaching, it was supremely simple and foundational relative to human attitudes, thoughts, and beliefs.

Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven.

Thy will be done.

Love the Lord thy God with all.

It was a teaching that addressed the mental nature of humankind.

Lloyd Meeker had the vision that we have now reached a point in our conscious evolution when the critical factor is what is happening in the human spirit—through our spiritual nature. And so, we are here bringing what he called the spiritual expression plane approach.

Lloyd Meeker had his awakening in 1932, ninety years ago. Some say things have changed, and that we are on to something else. And people claim to work at ascended levels of human experience, the oomphty-oomph level of reality, until we reach the twelfth of never.

There is a lot that has changed in world culture since 1932, and there are many new factors related to Emissaries of Divine Light and Sunrise Ranch. But what Lloyd Meeker was describing has not changed. The issue for us, as humankind, is what has yet to happen through the human spirit.

Religious and spiritual institutions have tended to take up the space of the spiritual in the experience of humankind. They have claimed authority regarding that dimension of human life. All too often, those institutions have done so in a way that shackled the human spirit instead of liberating it. And God forbid anybody comes along and actually has a new experience of their own spiritual nature that connects them to the source of life inside them. Shocking! Unacceptable!

Human institutions sometimes act as if they own our spiritual nature. They lay claim to it in a way that does not liberate the human spirit. It might be entertaining to rail against that for the remainder of this article. But I won’t. We have better things to do than rail against what human culture has done. Nonetheless, it is good to recognize what goes on. We are here to facilitate spiritual connection so that the full potential of our spiritual nature is known.

Our spiritual nature does not come alive without something else—an opening of the heart. Spiritual connection relies on it. But people have tried to connect just emotionally, as if all that needed to occur in the human experience was an emotional connection. Sometimes there are religious names that are given to something that is mostly emotional and leaves out the full potential of the spiritual experience, as if the spiritual experience was all just the deep feeling. For instance, people talk about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Spiritual experience does not happen without deep feeling, but it is not just that. We do not know Love without emotion, but there is more that comes on the carrier wave of Love than emotion alone.

Where there really is a spiritual connection, we know an unfolding order that expresses itself through us and in our lives. The unfolding order is our central guidance system. When there is union between us as a human being and our divine origin, we are connecting to that central guidance system. And do you think we need that?

There is terror of all kinds in our world. Recently, the threat of nuclear Armageddon has risen to the surface. But that is not the only terror that visits humankind.

Looking at the terror in this world, what is needed? What is missing? The central guidance system from within the body of humankind.

If we were alien anthropologists studying humanity and looking at what is happening with world civilization on Planet Earth, would we not come to the conclusion that something has gone terribly awry with the human race? That the central guidance system for us as a species is missing?

You can observe a central guidance system at work in other species—ants, fish, deer, and all of nature. There is a natural order to their behavior. But there is an erratic, self-sabotaging behavior in the body of humankind. Why? And what is the remedy?

Lloyd Meeker’s diagnosis, and the remedy for it, both have to do with the spiritual nature of humankind. The malady from which we suffer is a sickness of the spirit. And the remedy is a reconnection of the human spirit with the central guidance system natural for it, borne on the carrier wave of Love.

How does the carrier wave of Love come to a person? The religious name for the medium through which it comes is the Holy Spirit. The download of the Holy Spirit into us brings Love. Love is the central nature of a human being. It is the central nature of our spiritual origin.

So the Holy Spirit brings Love. But Love is more than an emotional outpouring. The Holy Spirit brings the information that Love carries. It brings the wisdom of the unfolding order of our lives. But we have to be open to that—yes, open emotionally, because the download from the source of our Being is not on if there is not that openness. We do not walk around as hard-hearted people and then spiritually reconnect. So yes, we are openhearted, passionate people. But then, in that passion, there is a download of divine intelligence, which becomes our intelligence, the intelligence of life itself that can reestablish the central guidance system for an individual human being and for humankind.

In our current Attunement training, we have reached the study of the pineal gland. The pure essence of the Spirit of Love focuses in the pineal, which is in the middle of the brain.

The experience of that pure essence is an experience of grace. Our human journey is a journey to grace. And coming to that place, we have grace to bring to whatever is happening in the world in which we live.

Our training teaches that gratitude is a conscious practice that brings a person to grace. Gratitude is a fairly general word. But gratitude is more than a happy feeling. It is an imperative on the journey to grace.

In all things, give thanks.

Borrowing from the title of a spaghetti western, we live in a world of the good, the bad, and the ugly. There is so much that is imperfect. But even that word seems like a euphemism. There is so much that is far more than imperfect. That is dysfunctional! We live in a world of the imperfect, the dysfunctional, and what is good and noble. The world is like that, near and far. On the global scene, there is the threat of nuclear war and all kinds of other terror. And even in our own individual lives and our lives together, there is the good, the bad, and the ugly.

In all things, give thanks. That imperative fulfilled brings grace to the good, the bad, and the ugly.

In all things, give thanks. There is no other way to bring the ordering power of Love through oneself and into the world other than by accepting that world exactly as it is, being grateful that it is there, and for the opportunity it provides to bring the central guidance system to it.

If there is dysfunction halfway across the world, there is perhaps not much I can do about it directly. So, thank God there is dysfunction in my life close at hand, because it gives me an immediate opportunity to bring the unfolding order of Creation to the world in which I live.

Spiritual government is vastly different from human government. It is not an attempt to control anyone or anything humanly. Spiritual government is bringing the spiritual atmosphere that contains the unfolding order of Creation to my own personal culture and to the culture we share.

That does not happen without gratitude. It is easy to question what transpires in the world or one’s own life. How did this happen? Why is this person acting this way? What did I do to make them behave that way? What did I not do that I should have done? What happened in their childhood? What happened last year?

We can come to think that life’s judgment is imposed upon us for some reason—that we did something wrong and we are paying the price.

But Creation doesn’t operate based on some kind of karmic debt that we might imagine we have to pay, and it does not operate based on karma credit. Creation is simply what is transpiring now that gives you and me the opportunity to bring the central guidance system borne on the carrier wave of Love.

That is all that matters, is it not? Whatever happened before, all that matters now is that I am here to bring what I am here to bring to the people in my world, and so are you. We are here to do that together.

How did it get like this? I suppose if we were alien anthropologists, we might study that and try to figure it out. But we are not. We are here to bring what might be a religious-sounding phrase: the government of God. That comes through our spiritual nature. And that is what brings a natural sovereignty from within us.

Our connection with that inner sovereignty puts us into a relationship with it. It establishes the basis for reciprocity, the exchange that moves between us and the immutable, the unchanging, the rock of reality, the everlasting God. We, the mutable, who sing and dance our way through life, enter into a vibrant reciprocity with Sovereign Being. And in that relationship, Love brings the ordering power of the universe through us into the world.

This is our lineage. It is the unbroken line of conscious evolution we are on as humankind.

I invite you to raise your hands to shoulder height, facing forward, and join me in this Attunement meditation.

We attune to the source of Love that sends us the Holy Spirit and to the divine intelligence that contains the ordering power of the universe. Feel the atmosphere of that building now. Feel the Holy Ghost, the sacred auric substance that is the essence of the new culture we are creating together, constantly purified from within by the source of Love’s vibration.

We open to the Love of Mother God and the Love of Father God and accept that we are loved. And we pass it on. May I Love you with that same Love with which I am Loved.

We are aware that we are not only Loved. We are guided by divine intelligence. We are given the ordering power of Love, which we accept, releasing our dysfunctionality. May that ordering power guide our thoughts, feelings, words, and actions. May it bring harmony to our life and work together. May it bring enlightened ideas to all that we do. May it call to order all that is dysfunctional and all that is terrifying humankind.

I call on my own human soul and the soul of each one I know: Come to this Love. Come to this order. Come to this intelligence. Know life, and life more abundantly, born out of Love.

I wish this for you and for all of us together. I wish this for the world in which we live. And I say to my world, Hear our prayer. Our prayer is for life. Our prayer is for Love. Our prayer is for peace that is known because the central guidance system for humankind is embraced and allowed to order our life.

So may it be. Aum-en.
David Karchere
dkarchere@emnet.org
Posted on October 12, 2022

Copyright © 2022 by Emissaries of Divine Light
Posted in David Karchere |Print this page | Tagged inspiration, spirituality

5 COMMENTS



Newest

Fiona Gawronsky
October 15, 2022 7:56 am

What is our invitation today? We are being asked a fundamental question: Do you know the difference between belief and knowing? Belief is a concept, knowing resides deeper in human awareness, beyond belief. You know, because you know. It has a resonance in our very core.

It was Uranda who introduced me to the idea of an inner compass in one of his children’s publications, “Child Light”; that there is a guidance system inherent in life itself. It is in nature and in all humanity, largely overlooked in the drama of human experience. What if… this were to catch-on, like the GPS? How radical would that be?




Maverick
October 14, 2022 10:51 pm

Much has changed since 1932 for sure. For one thing, we’re transitioning from the Piscean age (which was a Water sign) into the Aquarian age (which is an Air sign). The air about us is being filled with electrical transmitting devices which makes it possible for us to communicate through the ether as never before. Even this blog comes through such telecommunication.




Katie-Grace
October 13, 2022 12:19 am

When I moved to Sunrise Ranch I was 74 – I am now 80 (praise Spirit) – and I remember the music of the night I turned 75 – you David played your guitar – people sang and danced – and if they hadn’t seen the Ranch-wide invite to the porch party – they gathered as they heard the music. The combination of the words and music reminding us that Love is All There Is – is a continual blessing and healing. Thank you David for the music you have in you, that you share as you open your heart each week.




Ron Free
October 13, 2022 12:15 am

Nowadays human beings look to a GPS device (Global Positioning System) in order to get their bearings while traveling to and fro in the earth and going up and down in it. I’ve used these devices myself on occasion and they do come in handy at times. But they can also be misleading and prone to error as many users can attest.

On the other hand, David, this Central Guidance System (CGS) of which you speak relies on an entirely different kind of technology. GPS technology is geared toward the physical and mental planes, whereas CGS is more appropriate to the Third Sacred School. When we learn to master that system surely the whole world will be transformed. No more terror. Only peace on earth and good will toward man.




Michael Piovesan
October 12, 2022 11:55 pm


So may it be. Amen.

Lynne McTaggart - Wikipedia

Lynne McTaggart - Wikipedia

Lynne McTaggart

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"PROOF!" redirects here. For other topics, see proof (disambiguation).

Lynne McTaggart
Born	January 23, 1951 (age 71) New York City
Occupation	Author, lecturer

Lynne McTaggart (born 23 January 1951, in New York City) is an American alternative medicine activist,^[1] lecturer, journalist, author, and publisher. She is the author of six books, including The Intention Experiment and The Field. According to her author profile, she is a spokesperson "on consciousness, the new physics, and the practices of conventional and alternative medicine."^[2]

McTaggart is anti-vaccinationist.^[3] She promotes this belief in her book What Doctors Don't Tell You and in other publications.^[4] This has drawn significant criticism of her work and has created controversy.^[5] Her ideas are widely criticized as pseudoscience.

Contents

• 1Career
• 2Views
• 3Personal life
• 4Works
• 5References
• 6External links

Career[edit]

In her autobiography McTaggart reports that after recovering from an illness using alternative medical approaches her husband suggested she start a newsletter on the risks of some medical practices and devised the title: "What Doctors Don't Tell You". In 1996 McTaggart published the book with the same name.

She and her husband set up a public company in 2001, What Doctors Don't Tell You plc,^[6] later Conatus plc, which published newsletters, magazines and audio-tapes based on conferences and seminars including, What Doctors Don't Tell You, PROOF!, and Living the Field.^[7] This company was wound up in 2009.^[8]

A new company, Wddty Publishing Ltd, run by McTaggart and her husband, took over the What Doctors Don't Tell You website, and New Age Publishing Ltd for McTaggart's other publishing and public-speaking activities. Publication of their monthly magazine What Doctors Don't Tell You restarted in August 2012, in a glossy format aimed at newsagent and high-street distribution, instead of using the previous subscription model, and carrying paid advertising, something McTaggart had originally said WDDTY would not do.^[9]

In her book The Field, McTaggart asserts that the universe is unified by an interactive field. The book has been translated into fourteen languages.^[7] In a later book, The Intention Experiment, she discusses research in the field of human consciousness which she says supports the theory that "the universe is connected by a vast quantum energy field" and can be influenced by thought. Michael Shermer states that this belief is contradicted by conflicting evidence (e.g. studies on intercessory prayer).^[10]

McTaggart has a personal-development program called "Living The Field" which is based on an idiosyncratic interpretation of the zero point field as applied to quantum mechanics. She appears in the extended version of the movie What the Bleep Do We Know!?,^[11] (2004).

From 1996 until 2002 McTaggart and her husband Bryan Hubbard published the monthly newsletter Mother Knows Best, later renamed Natural Parent magazine, focusing on home schooling, environmental and health concerns, including nutrition and homeopathy. They also published related books: My Learning Child, My Spiritual Child and My Healthy Child.

Significant portions of her book about Kathleen Cavendish, Marchioness of Hartington appeared without attribution^[12] or permission in The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys: An American Saga (1987), by historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. Goodwin eventually resolved the matter with a public apology to McTaggart and a "substantial" monetary settlement.^[13][14][15]

Views[edit]

What Doctors Don't Tell You has been cited for factual errors in its attacks on medicine, such as confusing the antiviral drug Tamiflu for a vaccine and attributing deaths to a nonexistent avian influenza vaccine.^[16] Ben Goldacre has described McTaggart as "viciously, viciously anti-vaccine"^[3] and notes that "In a radical move, even for the vaccine fear-mongering community, this time she has people dying from a vaccine that doesn’t actually exist".

The Field has been characterized by Mark Henderson of The Times as pseudoscience, focusing on her personal understanding of quantum physics as a misconception.^[9]

McTaggart was reported to have threatened to sue Simon Singh after he contacted Comag, the distributors of WDDTY, complaining that the magazine was "largely unscientific" and "promoting advice that could potentially harm readers." "Also, many of the adverts appear to make pseudoscientific and unsubstantiated claims," he said. "I even offered to meet with Comag and introduce them to medical experts, but they have not accepted this invitation. When I suggested that I would blog about our email exchange, their reaction was to tell me in no uncertain terms: 'I should inform you that we have sought legal advice in respect of this matter. We would take any attempts to damage our reputation on social media or elsewhere very seriously.'"^[17]

In the months between first publication of What Doctors Don't Tell You in magazine form, and February 2013, 54 breaches of the Code of Advertising Practice in 11 adverts were adjudicated and upheld by the Advertising Standards Authority along with a further 11 informally resolved cases, concerning adverts in the first two issues,^[18] with more breaches in subsequent issues too.^[19]

In an interview on BBC Radio 4, GP and author Margaret McCartney stated: "I'm astounded that Lynne thinks this is an evidence-based publication. It's anything but," she said. "The problem with evidence is that it can tell you things that you'd rather not know. A lot of the time medicine does do harm but that's why doctors and scientists are duty-bound to put their research findings out there and to stop doing things that cause harm. What we shouldn't do is abandon medicine and the scientific method and go straight for alternative medicine with no good evidence that that works either."^[17] She criticised stories in the magazine as "absolute rubbish" and "ridiculously alarmist".

In an article in The Times in October 2013 Tom Whipple, science correspondent, said that "Experts are calling on high street shops to stop selling a magazine that claims that vitamin C cures HIV, suggests homeopathy could treat cancer and implies that the cervical cancer vaccine has killed hundreds of girls."^[20]

Personal life[edit]

McTaggart is married to publisher Bryan Hubbard and lives in London with her two daughters.^[2][21]

Works[edit]

• Kathleen Kennedy: Her Life and Times (1983) ISBN 0-385-27415-7
• What Doctors Don't Tell You: The Truth About The Dangers Of Modern Medicine (1999) ISBN 0-380-80761-0
• The Cancer Handbook: What's Really Working (2000) ISBN 1-890612-18-9
• The Field: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe (2003) ISBN 0-06-093117-5
• The Intention Experiment: Using Your Thoughts to Change Your Life and the World (2007) ISBN 0-00-719458-7
• The Bond: Connecting through the Space Between Us (2011) ISBN 978-1-4391-5794-7
• The Power of Eight: Harnessing the Miraculous Energies of a Small Group to Heal Others, Your Life, and the World (2017) ISBN 978-1501115547

References[edit]

1. ^ "The Selective Skepticism of Lynne McTaggart". discovermagazine.com. Retrieved April 26, 2020.
2. ^ Jump up to:^a b "Author biography at Harper Collins". Archived from the original on 26 October 2010. Retrieved 23 October 2010.
3. ^ Jump up to:^a b Goldacre, Ben (18 February 2006). "The Great Tamiflu Vaccine Scare". Retrieved 18 May 2013.
4. ^ Bedford, Helen; Elliman, David (January 2000). "Concerns about immunisation". BMJ. 320 (7229): 240–243. doi:10.1136/bmj.320.7229.240. PMC 1117437. PMID 10642238.
5. ^ Mark Porter, Margaret McCartney, Lynne McTaggart (3 October 2012). Inside Health (Radio). United Kingdom: BBC Radio 4.
6. ^ "Whistleblower sees fast turnaround". Growth Company Investor. 14 March 2001. Retrieved 17 August 2012.
7. ^ Jump up to:^a b "Lynne McTaggart – Biography". Simon & Schuster. Archived from the original on 9 September 2011.
8. ^ "Petitions to Wind Up - CONATUS Limited". The London Gazette. 18 February 2009. Issue Number: 58983 Page: 2909. Retrieved 17 August 2012.
9. ^ Jump up to:^a b Mark Henderson (30 October 2004). "Junk medicine: Anti-vaccine activists". The Times. London. Retrieved 17 December 2009.
10. ^ Shermer, Michael (5 April 2006). "Prayer & Healing: The Verdict is in and the Results are Null". ESkeptic. ISSN 1556-5696.
11. ^ Jason Buchanan (2014). "Down the Rabbit Hole (2006)". Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times. Archived from the original on 28 May 2014. Retrieved 26 May 2014.
12. ^ Compare: Goodwin, Doris Kearns (27 January 2002). "How I Caused That Story". Time. Archived from the original on 9 February 2002. Retrieved 18 October 2014. Fourteen years ago, not long after the publication of my book The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, I received a communication from author Lynne McTaggart pointing out that material from her book on Kathleen Kennedy had not been properly attributed. [...] Though my footnotes repeatedly cited Ms. McTaggart's work, I failed to provide quotation marks for phrases that I had taken verbatim[...].
13. ^ Bo Crader, "A Historian and Her Sources," The Weekly Standard, January 28, 2002
14. ^ Jill Lawless, "Author Says Doris Kearns Goodwin Took 'Heart and Guts' From Her Book," Associated Press, March 23, 2002.
15. ^ Goodwin, Doris Kearns (27 January 2002). "How I Caused That Story". Time. Archived from the original on 9 February 2002. Retrieved 18 October 2014. Though my footnotes repeatedly cited Ms. McTaggart's work, I failed to provide quotation marks for phrases that I had taken verbatim.... The larger question for those of us who write history is to understand how citation mistakes can happen.
16. ^ Ben Goldacre (18 February 2006). "How to be beautifully, blissfully wrong about Tamiflu: just call it a bird flu vaccine". The Guardian. London. p. 7. Retrieved 19 December 2009.
17. ^ Jump up to:^a b Jha, Alok (3 October 2012). "Simon Singh threatened with legal action for criticising health magazine". The Guardian. Retrieved 18 May 2013.
18. ^ WDDTY #9 - Taking Stock, Nightingale Collaboration, 27 Feb 2013
19. ^ Stemming the tide: 'The list of misleading adverts in the magazine What Doctors Don't Tell You sometimes seems endless...' nightingale-collaboration.org, accessed 2 July 2018
20. ^ Tom Whipple (1 October 2013). "Call to ban magazine for scaremongering". The Times. London. Retrieved 7 October 2013.
21. ^ "Biography: Lynne McTaggart". Intent Inc. Archived from the original on 27 September 2011.

External links[edit]

• Lynne McTaggart's umbrella website
• Works by or about Lynne McTaggart in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Lynne McTaggart at IMDb

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Categories: 

• 1951 births
• Living people
• Alternative cancer treatment advocates
• Alternative medicine activists
• American anti-vaccination activists
• British health and wellness writers
• Nautilus Book Award winners
• People from Wimbledon, London
• Quantum mysticism advocates