Back to Members Works Table of Contents Eremitics and The Mystical More By Michael P. Campbell As a bee seeks nectar from all kinds of flowers, Seek teachings everywhere. Like a deer that find a quiet place to graze, Seek seclusion to digest all that you have gathered. Like a madman beyond all limits, Go wherever you please, And live like a lion, Completely free from all fear.                         -ancient Dzogchen Tantra -CONTENTS- FOREWARD INTRODUCTION SECTION ONE             The Starting Point of Now and The Planting of a Seed. SECTION TWO             Hermits Rest SECTION THREE             Introspection SECTION FOUR             The Tell CONCLUSION           Foreword             When the balanced bond between Goddess and God  was severed by men who feared her mystical power and influence, the unbalanced world of male hysteria came into being and continues to this day as we pummel villages to ruin.  And so for thousands of years, God has been the masculine and singular Supreme Being while Goddess is most often used in reference to a deity of folklore.  The real tragedy of this masculine reference goes beyond the chauvinistic and into the irreverent, committing a double homicide with the exoteric Judeo-Christian, guilty as charged.             In the Tao Teh Ching, which is thought to have been written around 500 B.C., its author, the eminent Chinese mystic and founder of Taoism, Lao Tzu, begins Chapter 25 with:             There was something undefined and yet complete in itself,                Born before Heaven-and-Earth.             Silent and boundless,             Standing alone without change,             Yet pervading all without fail,             It may be regarded as the Mother of the World.             I do not know its name,             I style it “Tao” and in the absence of a better word,             Call it “The Great”. In the beginning of Chapter One, he writes:             Tao can be talked about, but not the Eternal Tao.             As the origin of Heaven-and-Earth, it is nameless,             As “The Mother” of all things, it is nameable.             So, as ever hidden, we should look at its inner essence,             As always manifest, we should look at its outer aspects.             These two flow from the same source, though differently named,             And both are called mysteries.             The Mystery of mysteries is the door of all essence.* To read the ancient scriptures is to look inside the un-fettered mystical minds that lived close to the mystery of mysteries, the door of all essence, behind which was an Eternal Tao that could not be known with the conceptual mind.  But as the Mother of the World and all things, it could be known.  I refer to the Eternal Tao as the Absolute Absence, absent of intellectual concepts.  I refer to the Mother aspect of the Eternal Tao as God(dess). The absolute Absence isn’t to be “named”; it’s to be experienced.  God(dess) can be both named and experienced.   * Tao Teh Ching, Lao Tzu. Translated by John C.H. Wu Boston and London; Shambala, 1989 -INTRODUCTION-             Since 1997 I have been a contemplative eremite, dancing my joy with the Absolute Absence on a high desert plateau in the wilderness of northwestern Arizona.  I give thanks continuously.             There is a totality that’s so complete, it goes beyond the need of existence.  It would not be seen if found, nor felt if touched.  If you were to stand in the middle of it, you wouldn’t know it.  If it roared past you, there would be no sound or the hint of a breeze.  It is beyond thought and so it cannot be pondered by mind or verbalized with voice.  It can only be known through its intention and so it goes beyond conscious concern.             Intention is the fluidity in mystical movement and we are but a drop in its ocean.  Become the intention. -ONE- The Starting Point on Now and the Planting of a Seed.             Sometimes when we want to jump into the now, we have to stop.  We have to go back and find the starting point of the now, and every now has its starting point.             The past is not only the foundation of the present, it was its catalyst. Introspection is the tracker of thought events and every one of those events is the starting point to a particular now.   The trick is to visit the beginning but not to linger there. The purpose of these biographical  forays is to point out the opportunities for spiritual wisdom and reveal the benefits of the spiritual perspective, which gives experienced being not only a unique flavor but also its survivability.             When I was around three years old I contracted acute polio-myelitis. I was too young to take it personally, even though it had personally taken me.  I didn’t lie in bed that year worrying about my karma.  The question wasn’t “why me?”, but more “why not me?”. During the mid 1940’s to the early1950’s, before the Salk vaccine, some 250,000 people in this country contracted polio.  I was just one of many; it was a random event.  I survived, which was also a random event; many didn’t. I would much rather view their misfortune as a random event, than believe that it was their karma to die and mine to live.  Random I can understand, direct causality I can understand. But latent karma, the belief that a specific actions karma created in a past life can wait and manifest in this life is to nihilistic for me.  Karma is causal and we are the creators of the causality.  Karma is not some mystical force working for or against us, it’s a mystical law regarding how our behavior patterns work for or against us.             I emerged from the hospital structurally reinforced with two full-length leg braces, a back brace and a pair of crutches; I also became a ward of the state of New York. I spent the next year and a half in various foster homes until I was taken in by a wonderful Seventh-Day Adventist family who had two kids of their own and two foster kids.  They lived in a big house that was way out in the country surrounded by a birch tree forest; the nearest neighbor was a quarter of a mile away.  By then I was walking with just one short leg brace and the woods became my refuge; I spent all of my free time there.             Two profound events took place during those years in the woods. The first was that I sensed a strong presence with me that was always at its strongest when I was alone in the woods.  The second was that my communication with this presence wasn’t through thought. Just being immersed in the solitude of nature with this presence brought an overwhelming peace.  I had never felt such a peace before, and it just had a ‘rightness’ to it.  And so the seed of a contemplative eremite was sown.  It was in Sabbath School that I learned the identity of the presence that I felt; it was God.  And so at around six or seven, I contemplated my first spiritual lesson, “With every loss, there’s a gain.” I’d lost my parents and the full use of some body parts, but I gained a continuous companion; I had gained God.  And I can remember thinking how I had come out ahead in the deal.  Destiny and fate fly in on the wings of mystery without the courtesy of an advanced notice.  You can respond to the negative by steeping yourself in sorrow, making for a bitter tea, or realize the positive that underlies the negative and in so doing harness present realities.             I hesitated writing about this because of the potential for invoking the emotion of sentiment, which is contrary to my basic nature; I’m not sentimental. I don’t believe God(dess) is either. Compassionate yes, but not sentimental; it wouldn’t work. But because this thesis is about a deep conviction in the practice of eremiticism and spiritual contemplation, I felt that the origin of this conviction had a necessary relevance.             An early life epiphany can continue to manifest throughout life in several distinct ways. It can be relegated out of conscious awareness into the subconscious awareness by the passing of time and life events, but still have a founding influence on life direction. It can periodically move back into conscious awareness as a beckoning reminder of purpose, or it can haunt you until acknowledged, or it drives you mad.  Fortunately for me, my manifestations have been the first two.             Based on my personal experience the further from society you are the easier it is to develop and maintain contact with divine presence.  There are however, many individuals that are steeped in social and family interaction who have, or will have, reached a level of spiritual awareness that I may never experience. But I’ve contemplated on what it would be like to spend many years in complete solitude; it would be beyond beyond. When the mind is left in prolonged solitude with the absence of a social behavioral reference point, it becomes free to explore and diffuse into the mystical abstraction.  But once you reach a certain level of immersion or diffusion in this abstraction, it could be difficult if not impossible, to relate the experience.  There isn’t any room in pure mystical abstraction for the rational thought patterns found in linear sequential thinking or in the limitations of language. This is why pure mystical experience is said to be ineffable. What’s in the mystical box, stays in the box. There is the potential to know, but not to tell. -TWO- Hermits Rest             Throughout my adult life I would answer my ancient hermit calling every ten years or so.  I’d take a sabbatical into solitude where I’d remain for as long as was financially feasible.  In 1997 the calling was finally answered with the commitment of continuance; I was forty-seven years old.  I sold everything that I thought not essential and pulled up the twenty-eight year old stake of living in Santa Cruz California on the Monterey Bay.  I traded seagulls and the ocean for ravens and the high desert sky, along with people and the city for the life of a recluse in the wilderness.             I was drawn to this high desert plateau, not only for its solitude and magnificent wide-open landscape, but also by what could only be described as a sense of deep urgency.  In looking back I’d have to say that it was divine intervention, as I’ve never experienced such a sustained peace and joy anywhere else.             I call the place Hermits Rest, and believe it or not, the dirt road leading up to it is called Calle Reposa, street of rest. I’m up on a tree-studded ridge filled with a variety of low-lying cactus, shrubs and wildflowers.  To the west is a heavily  treed valley and another ridge. Behind that ridge looms a huge mesa, that’s about 1,400 feet higher than my elevation, which is 5,600 feet. I’ve watched many Pacific storms boil over that mesa on their way east.  The trees at this elevation don’t get much taller than twenty feet which affords an unobstructed 360-degree view of a huge ever-changing sky. The air is so clear that you can see the mountain peaks that are eighty-five miles east of here.  I spent my first three years here living in a small eighteen foot travel trailer, I’d sit outside for most of the day (weather permitting) and just marvel at the wonderment of it all; I’d finally come home to the big empty open.             When you're living in a 8 foot wide by 18 foot long trailer with 1-1/2 inch thick walls, lots of windows, a low ceiling and a tin roof, you’re adequately sheltered but you’re definitely not cut off from the presence of nature.  We get summer thunderstorms up from the Gulf of Mexico that are quite dramatic.  These storms can produce flash floods, marble to golf-ball size hail, non-stop thunder and lightning and wind gusts of up to sixty miles per hour. So when you’re sitting up on this ridge in a  small travel  trailer during one of these storms you don’t have to employ any meditation skills to become one with nature, you’re an integral part of the storm! And when a bolt of lightning strikes six inches from your door, the presence and power of God(dess) is experienced through the primordial soul.  When you think about how the hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, large earthquakes and volcanic eruptions on this planet are dwarfed by the storms on the surface of the sun; you can’t help wondering why we are so anthropocentric.             I found that I not only enjoyed this close contact with nature, I reveled in it.  By living in a minimal shelter I gained an increased sensory experience of nature and decided to make minimalism an integral part of my spiritual practice, which became a devotion in and of itself.  It’s not an ascetic lifestyle because it lacks the ascetics rigorous self-denial. I do, however, believe that living a simple life with the minimal can result in a spiritual fullness, a mystical more.             Being a minimal consumer enables me to be less involved with the worldly worlds cleverly marketed conveniences that I don’t find the least bit convenient. Things demand attention and attention demands time. The more things you have the less time you have. Less things results in less distraction and more time to engage in spiritual contemplation, which brings peace and a fullness in being.  Now I haven’t renounced worldly concerns and pleasures because I think they’re evil, I’m just no longer interested in them. I’ve simply found simple more interesting. I’m also not asocial, I enjoy people very much, and because my social interactions are infrequent, when they do occur, it’s a celebration.             Many years ago I read an ancient Taoist teaching that said, if a person were to devote their entire life to contemplating the ‘One’, and were to arrive at truly knowing the ‘One’; all matters would be concluded. I was stunned by the profound and simple truth in it, the intellectual resolution to all matters. I immediately knew that was what I wanted to pursue up here at Hermits Rest. The ancient Taoist adepts also believed that ones dwelling should fit them as a glove fits a hand. And that it was better to have a small house with a big garden than a big house without a garden. I eventually removed the trailers wheels and set it on a concrete foundation and built a small addition with four large windows that I use as a study. The place is a comfortable 230 square feet. There aren’t any public utilities or services. My water is hauled in by truck twice a year and is stored in a 1,850 gallon tank; I use between 150 to 225 gallons a month. My electricity is solar generated with minimal equipment and everything operates off of two golf cart batteries. I only use between 150 and 300 watts of twelve volt electricity a day which is equivalent to using a lap-top computer for three to six hours. I don’t have a radio, T.V. or computer. I have a minimal amount of clothes, dishes and cookware. My only kitchen appliances are a small propane refrigerator and cook stove. I don’t own a vacuum because I don’t have a carpet. But I do have a broom, a small propane heater , a six gallon water heater that is only used for bathing, a seven year old Jeep Cherokee and this typewriter; which, as you can tell by the typos I don’t have a license to operate.             The house is small but it has twelve windows that bring the outside inside and the outside is a Garden of Eden. I have everything I need. -THREE- Introspection             In the awakened mind of primordial original intent, the intellect and intuition worked in mutual dependence, creating a symbiotic modality for optimum being. In the modern mind, intuition has been eclipsed by a discursive mind that has digressed to a desultory thought process, which has difficulty staying focused on the simplest of tasks.  Productive mystical contemplation requires a single pointed focus that’s not easily achieved with such a mind and amidst the distractions of the worldly world, the difficulties are compounded.             When I took my intellect and intuition out of civilization and into the wilderness, they each responded differently and a transformation occurred.  The intellect started losing its grasp on mind dominance and the intuition became elated. Solitude in nature is an openness in simply being because the need for social maneuvering, which takes up a great deal of mental activity, is suddenly gone. The self begins to realize its insignificance in an environment where it really isn’t needed. As being ‘a being’ begins to yield to the ‘experience of being’, you realize the fictitious existence in ‘a being’. The intuition doesn’t have any difficulty in this transformation because its always only needed ‘to be’. But the intellect has always needed to know, and this transformation threatens the intellectual known. I call the point where the intellect stops and the intuition begins, the cosmic dot of significance, and when a mind remains in the simplicity of solitude and nature, the dot moves. The intuition gets stronger and begins to eclipse the intellect by becoming involved in directing physical activities in an environment where it’s more proficient than intellectual direction would be.  And so the intellectual mind becomes totally exposed; it has nowhere to go.  There aren’t any distractions or the complexities of conventional living for it to be involved in and because the nature of mind is to think, it is forced to think about the only thing left to think about, itself; which becomes the impetus for deep introspection.             It took a year of just sitting or aimless wandering in the hills to wash away forty-eight years of conditioned accumulation based on fear, almost half a century held captive by fear. It took two more years to trade anger for compassion, sorrow for joy the discursive mind for the intuitive mind and to end reification and set myself free from me.  There’s nothing quite like solitude for untying the knots of self-deception.                         “When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.”   -Lao Tzu -FOUR- The Tell.             Civilization has once again lost its appreciation for and the ability to know, that which matters and that which doesn’t. It has become a complication that breeds the madness of greed and anger.  Its inhabitants have become nonsensical because they’re confused and their perceptions are distorted. They’ve sacrificed clarity or the myth of more. Our human mind can be a dangerous gift, or is it a divine test that few take and fewer pass? For the most part, people are doing the best they can with what they were given, and the given only changed through divine intervention.             To be spiritually holistic is to become one with divine intention; because the doors of physical, mental, and emotional well being all swing on the hinges of spiritual awakening. But many don’t know because they’re not really looking. The spiritual experience is not static, it’s forever dynamic and the deeper you go the deeper it get.  The more you put into it the more you get back, this never ends.  You are never ‘there’ because ‘there’ is forever moving in the dynamic flow of continuance. You  see the power of understanding is in the movement. If allowed to evolve naturally, conventional exoteric God will flow into mystical esoteric God(dess), which can flow into Buddhas nothingness, which can become Lao Tzus Tao, the Way of all things. The centerless center beginningless beginning of the Absolute Absence. And it’s the profound union with such, absent of all differentia, that becomes the ecstatic joy of the spiritual seeker; the wayfarer of mystical travel.             Many distrust the intrinsic beauty of randomness and the ambiguity in the mystical because it renders the intellect unnecessary. For those relying on ordinary mind, the intellect is ego and the identity of self. And even though this self-identity is in essence an illusion and the sole cause of all suffering, people cling to it with persistent determination rather than taking that first step into the free fall of mysticism where there is seemingly no net; and so the expansiveness of diversity is forfeited.             There is a knowing that is not conveyed by language or perceived by thought. A whisper, a hint of suggestion, passes through a receptive heart and results in clarity. The knowing becomes known and no explanation is needed.             To diffuse into the undifferentiated wholeness of the vast expanse of being, which has no corners or edges, is to shatter the confines of space where there will be found a continuum of Absolute Absence. It pervades all places and all things because it is all places and all things. You can see this by the simple observation of its many manifestations. It has been called by many names, but it is not to be belittled by concept, personage, doctrine or dogma. It will not be found in intellectual thought, it has existed long before conscious mind. This was back when time was out of mind and the wholeness of being  was perceived through innate knowing and contemplated with the primordial intuitive mind.  A mind that knew without learning and was without being.  It was a mind that remained empty because only emptiness can occupy no space, which is the domain of God(dess), a continuous Absolute Absence. The mystery in the mystical isn’t that it exists or that it cannot be defined. It's that we can become one with Absolute Absence and the result is absolute presence. It’s the coming together of that which is perceived and doesn’t need to know and that which knows and doesn’t need to perceive.  When that happens, mouthfuls are spoken through silence.             Now there was a moment so far back and long ago that it is yet to come, but it will.  This was before linear sequential time reference when what was used was only what was needed and the only time reference needed was continuance.  Things continued as they were or could discontinue as they had been, to continue anew.  Everything was a significant part of a quintessential Whole in quintessential balance.  This was when mind was perception, not opinion, and what mind perceived was its significant relationship to the Whole, in continuance and balance.  The interaction frequency between mind and the Whole is subtle, and at some inter-moment within the moment being discussed and for reasons unknown; except for the possibility that the unknown was the reason.  Mind mutated and became preoccupied with the gross frequency stimulus of the physical senses which muted all subtle frequencies thereby diminishing the contact bond with the Whole and its continuance in balance.  I believe that we live in a moment of a closed loop cosmos.  Nothing is added to or subtracted from the quintessential Whole.  There is no death, there is only molecular change, entirety is in the perpetual motion of continuance.  And so the moment will come within the moment of moments when we will once again become simple particles and have intimate contact with that which matters. The quintessential Whole in a balanced continuance with the Absolute Absence.             You can cling to the self and remain very, very small, or you can diminish the self and become very, very large.             Most of us live our lives confined by conditioned mind and travel in linear sequential time wreaking havoc with our convictions. We dismiss the essential to embrace the follies of phantom thought that tends the unnecessary and cultivates the meaningless, building an incomplete life of hollows that can haunt you forever.  When you walk away from fixed expectations, you’re taking the first steps toward the probability of primordial completeness.             When ordinary mind thinks, it becomes the thought and then insists on taking you along with it.  When you’re thinking, you cease being and become the thinking.  The myriad display and multiplicity of phenomena is never ending, and there are no definitive quantifiers and qualifiers to be found. So free yourself from the thinking and searching because it removes you from your natural place in the oneness of participation.  There is nothing to analyze or to achieve. The awakened intuitive mind doesn’t think, it diffuses into the primordial pulse.  Life isn’t a dynamic of dualities it’s a dynamic of continuum.  We are merely a continuance of the continuum where nothing need be done.             If you are still and listen, you will hear the padding of primitive feet.  If you are still and look, you will see the great transparency.  If you are still, all that’s in motion will move through you and you through it.  The most productive and fulfilling times in your life can be when you are still. It’s when you are still that true movement is possible, all other movement is merely a process.  It’s true movement that brought you in and it’s true movement that takes you out.  True movement is true motion, the wave of continuance.             Everything abides in a single vast expanse of empty open evenness which is beyond dimensionality. This is where emptiness embraces nothingness and results in an open evenness.  Within this vast expanse everything is of one taste.  This eliminates the need for preferences and therein lies its simplicity. It’s the ground from which all phenomena arises and it’s the ground in which all phenomena dissolve.  It’s the non-differentia of awakened intuitive mind that is beyond the need to know. It’s the Absolute Absence, empty but not void, it contains entirety in non-confinement.  Such an arrangement allows for the primordially pure ebb and flow of continuance, where nothing is held captive by concept.  This allows for a space in between all that is and all that occurs, which is so pervasive that it is all things and occurrences; separate yet the same.  Some call it God(dess) and offer prayers, some call it Tao and conform to it and some call it awakened intuitive mind and live by it.  Those that live in the stillness of being fall into balance with its rhythm, separate, and yet the same.  Realization is in the heart, not the conceptual mind.  We are forever investing a non-existent self into non-existent phenomena, and then suffering the results of false perceptions.             God(dess) is the motion in the movement of you, an effortless primordial knowing that’s always been there, in time being time. -CONCLUSION-             Kabir, one of the great Sufi mystics of the thirteenth century wrote the following, regarding where you’ll find God: “Are you looking for me? I am in the next seat My shoulder is against yours. You will not find me in stupas, Not in Indian shrine rooms, Nor in synagogues, nor kirtans, Not in legs winding around your own neck, Nor in eating nothing but vegetables. When you REALLY look for ME, You will see ME instantly, You will find ME in the tiniest house of time.”             We live in the middle of wonderment and are an integral part of the mystery of mysteries and it all occurs in the tiniest house of time, where I shall wander unfettered, aimlessly following the empty continuum of intuitive mind. Shanti. The Church of the Priory Doctor of Divinity Thesis by Terence Grupe   The Church of the Priory was created to honor the true beginnings of the religious experience.  The FIRST TIME of Osiris.  It is my belief that approximately 10,500 years ago there was a group of advanced people skilled in the sciences and geometry that came to Egypt to train the inhabitants.  The first generation of an educated people who understood the meaning of the true god, the Creator of the Universe.  How did I arrive at this conclusion?  According to researchers the great pyramids were a copy of the stars of the constellation Orion.  Why Orion?  The so-called air shafts located inside the Great Pyramid points directly toward the stars of the Orion belt.  Computer analysis indicates that the date of the position of Orion that correlates most closely to the pyramid’s layout is 10,500 BC.  Ironically, this date is also the date that the ancient Ammonites considered very important.  The Ammonites are a community who today still practice the ancient Egyptian religion.  According to Ammonite tradition it asserts that the first appearance of Osiris occurred in 10,500 BC.  This date is when the Nile-dwellers first came into contact with a more ancient and advanced civilization who accelerated their culture and sense of spirituality, laying down the fundamentals of Egyptian civilization. Where did these people who taught the Nile-dwellers come from?  I believe the legend of Atlantis is where these advanced people came from.  Atlantis according to legend is an advanced society with a strong social structure which fostered schooling, group interaction to a common goal, free thinking, commerce, and an understanding of the stars.  From that understanding the basis of geometry, the principle of god, and the creator of the universe was discovered.  I believe this group came from the northern hemisphere where the study of the stars was enhanced by prolonged darkness for half the year.  It is likely that the people of Atlantis’s were what we consider Nordic today.  Where was Atlantis located?  The island referenced in legend would need to be of immense proportions, rich in materials required to sustain an advanced culture.  I believe that island exists today known as Greenland.  A very old ancient map The Piri Re’is Map reveals advanced geographic knowledge in prehistory.  Cartographers of the 1930’s were amazed by the detail of the new world map which was not according to history discovered yet.  It was extremely accurate in detail.  But the most amazing thing was it had been drawn according to azimuthally equidistant projection.  The map could only have been created by aerial photography.  The date of when the map was used is 1519 and was created based on the map of Columbus and maps dating from Alexander the Great.  The HADJI Ahmed Map is dated in 1559.  This map is extremely accurate but actually shows there was no Bering Straight, just a land mass connecting Alaska and Asia.  This would be correct if it was over 10,000 years old.   Zeno’s map dated to the 1300’s showed Greenland to be ice free, mountains in the interior, and rivers flowing to the sea, where in many cases glaciers are found today. Why Greenland for Atlantis?  I believe Greenland would have provided the night sky for study of the stars, wood for their sea going boats, minerals, fresh water, meat, seafood, and produce.  It would also provide a location from which to travel east to northern Europe and west to the Americas.  It would also explain the Nordic people’s ancient knowledge of Greenland and the Americas.  They felt that their ancestors were from the west sea.                                                                                                                                               What was the most remarkable thing about the Atlantian Nordic peoples?  While their science was remarkably advanced, they firmly believed in sharing their science with other cultures.  Proof of these peoples can be found in Egyptian and Sumerian cultures.  They were known as a “tall,” “god-like” people who taught these cultures the sciences and geometry.  They were known as the “watchers” or “angels.”  Where did these people come from at this time?  In one Sumerian’s comments about his travel to the land of the “watchers” he commented on the location of the Sun, Moon, and Venus at certain times of the year.  By calculating the location from his descriptions, it was determined to be the British islands.  To be more specific about the location he visited, New Grange, Ireland.  This location is an ancient site that was used by the “watchers” to determine the time of the year and its impact on their culture.   Similar to later cultures knowledge or gnosis was the foundation of the Nordic “watchers.”  This knowledge was passed on by ritualistic means to initiates.  Most likely the ritualistic training was limited to the initiates because of the amount of information that needed to be understood and mastered.  Secrecy was necessary to protect the gnosis from groups that wanted to invade or destroy existing societies.  Since knowledge is power, societies that protect their knowledge remain strong.  Societies that do not protect their knowledge or gnosis usually fall from power.  The “watchers” clearly understood this thus the reason for secrecy.  The “watchers” realized that their science would lead to an understanding of movement (time) and its impact on life.  They founded geometry based on the stars which would lead to an understanding that someone of great intelligence created the precision of the movement of the skies.  This led to the creator of the universe concept, which led to the existence of god.  In essence the understanding of science eventually created the understanding of god.  Today there is a popular belief that science is attempting to disprove god.  I find this not to be true.  In my research I found that history has shown that in every instance the great thinkers in history from the Egyptians to the masons, the Gnostic people, always associated knowledge and god.  What they generally didn’t agree with was the invention of additional gods.  The duality of god was never accepted as original.  The societies that used more than one god seemed to be based on powerful people who wanted to control their subjects or for meeting a specific agenda to mislead. What has been the impact on society by the understanding of “movement?”  By studying the sky researchers (“watchers”) determined in advance when the time would arrive for planting crops as well as when to have ritualistic sex in order to time a child’s birth for the best chance of survival.  How was the movement of the sky reproduced on earth?  The movement of the sky was reproduced by the swinging of a pendulum.  The pendulum led to a unit of measurement then referred to as the megalithic yard.  The megalithic yard is today known as the metric system.  The finite distance of the megalithic yard led to the rod.  The rod was a fixed entity so that all things could be measured.  The angle of the stars led to geometry as measured by the rod.  Geometry then led to advanced building techniques, using the rod as a measuring tool.  This geometry helped to build the pyramids in Egypt.  It was in Egypt that we have the first documentation of a society elite being initiated into the group of “watchers.”  When this group completed their studies they were considered priests.  Since the pharaoh was the leader of the priests he was considered a pharaoh/god.   This was man’s first modification of the original Gnostic people.  Ironically the pharaoh did not consider himself a god but the conduit to god.  He always maintained the true secrets of the “watchers” and god. It was at this time that the proto Jews were in-charge of Egypt.  Known as the Hykos this group ruled the North and had the conquered pharaoh rule the south for them.  It was the king of the north who wanted to know the secrets of the initiates because he knew that it was only when you truly followed the secret procedures and rituals were you considered the true king of Egypt.  So he sent three men, one of whom was a relative of Moses, to the south to retrieve the information from the high priest.  There were only two people who knew the secrets, the high priest, and the Pharaoh.  The high priest refused to give the three men the initiate secret information even under the threat of death and thus he was killed.  The three men then waited to ambush the pharaoh and obtain the information based on the threat of his death.  But to their surprise the pharaoh refused to divulge the information.  One of the members struck a blow and he refused to give up the information.  Then another blow and he still refused.  Finally a fatal blow was struck to his head and he died.  In the history of Egypt this pharaoh is the only one known to have died violently by three blows to the head.  When the Hykos king discovered that both men had been killed he went into a rage since he knew the secret of becoming a true pharaoh by the secret initiation was lost forever.  The result of the murder of the pharaoh was war and the expulsion of the Hykos from Egypt.  It was the assassinated pharaoh’s brother who led a revolution against the Hykos and eventually threw them out of Egypt after 200 years.  One of the Hykos general’s name was Moses.  One of the assassins was a relative of Moses.                                                                                                                                                 Moses was well aware of the history of the “watchers,” their initiates and science since he was in the elite circles of the Hykos king.  He knew full well that for his people to survive he must leave Egypt.  The Pharaoh of Egypt agreed an allowed Moses and his people to leave.  This time was the beginning of the Jews as a people and the proto Jews were fading into history. Moses was a believer in one god and he felt his people must follow that principle.  It was at this point when the proto Jews began a move toward a nation of Jews.  Up until this time the proto Jews worshipped idols and not Moses’ one god adopted from the Egyptians.  Since Moses was aware of the real god of the “watchers,” he wrote a series of commandments for the Jewish people to live by which reflected the “watchers” creator of the universe, education, morals, teaching others, and compassion for fellow man. The god of the “watchers” was now the god of the Jews.                    Moses then decided that the Jews needed a country/land of their own.  Previously being an army general in the Hykos Egyptian Army he organized his people into a fighting force and attacked the lands of the indigenous peoples of what is now Israel.  To justify his actions he explained to his people that god chose this land for them and that god considered them the chosen ones.  The conquest was ruthless.  Every man, woman, and child were killed. How did the Jews change from a sun worship to moon worship?  When the Babylonians conquered Israel/Judah, they transferred the elite class to Babylon to prevent an uprising.  During this time the worship of the Egyptian Sun god turned to the worship of the Babylon Moon god.  When the captured Jews were allowed to return to their lands, along with their captured treasure, it included a modified Moon god worship.  This is the area of disagreement that Jesus and the Essenes had with the ruling priests of the Jews.                                                                                                                                                 When Solomon was the leader of the Jews, he kept a secret.  While his people were worshipping one way, Solomon was worshipping according to the original Egyptian god, along with all the hidden rituals for membership.  Far below Solomon’s temple secret meetings were taking place similar to today’s Masonic lodges.  Only a few were privy to the activities.  One was the King of what is now know as Lebanon.  The activities for worship mirror the masons, formerly the Knights Templar.  I believe that The Essenes were considered a part of this group and Jesus was an Essene.           Since the Essenes were an elite people with the knowledge of the “watchers.”  They also worshipped the sun and considered other non-Essenes as non-Jews since they worshipped the moon.  It was this group that Jesus and his brother belonged after being baptized by John the Baptist.  The Essenes created the original Christian Church.                 Not the church of Jesus but of Christ.                                                                                                                           James the brother of Jesus was known as James the Just the leader of the Christian Church.  Jesus was the Christos in charge of the army.  Jesus’ goal was to overthrow the Roman army by force and free the holy land so that the Jews would once again have a nation.  His job was to complete the resurrection of the original Jewish state.  This resurrection was misinterpreted by the Catholic Church as his resurrection.  Jesus believed that he was a direct descendent of King David, the first king of the Jews and that he should be the rightful king of the Jews since he was pure. In the Catholic Church, Jesus was considered a son of god with all the privileges associated with what that meant.  Jesus was far from being a son of god.  One time he entered the holy city and began destroying the money exchanger’s booths where they were conducting business.  He felt it was against god for them to be on temple grounds performing an unholy activity.  He also told the ruling priests that they were not following the strict Jewish code as established originally by Moses.  His arrogance to the Jewish priests and open contempt for the Roman occupation of Israel led to his demise.  When the Roman magistrate put out a warrant for Jesus’ arrest the description was of a small man with was slightly deformed hunch in his back,  which would have made it easy for the Roman legion to correctly identify him.  It seems that Jesus was not a leader of men.  Actually he was just the opposite.  He estranged his fellow Jewish men. When the Jewish public had a choice to make between saving Jesus or the other man for their crimes, the Jews chose to let Jesus die for several reasons.  First he had destroyed the money changers booths and chastised the temple priests and second he wanted to overthrow the Roman administration, which the leaders of the Jewish nation did not intend on doing.  Jesus was tortured and killed.  The death sentence was carried out by crucifixion.  The Roman’s used the crucifixion only when there was an extreme reason.  Jesus had given them a reason to make a point.  If you went against Roman rule and would not worship Rome’s gods in addition to your own, you would be dealt with in the most severe way.  With all the activities that took place it is amazing that Jesus was only in the public eye for one year.  Was Jesus a success or failure?  You would have to concede that he failed to rally his fellow Jews to fight the Romans and he failed to overthrow of the priestly class and return to the original god. After the death of Jesus what happened to his brother James the Just, leader of the Essene Christian Church?  James was thrown off the balcony of the Temple of Solomon when he attempted to enter Solomon’s temple since the priestly class considered his views of worship wrong.  James died for his views.  Ironic that James’ views were precisely the views of Solomon.  Evidently the temple priests did not want competition or for that matter a different opinion that questioned their leadership.  What happened to the man who baptized Jesus, John the Baptist?  He was beheaded.  John the Baptist was considered by the Essenes and James the Just to be the originator of the Christian Church.  By cutting off his head it was considered a symbolic move of removing the head of the church.  The idea being that when the leader of the church dies then the church dies with him.  The killings of neither James nor John changed the Essenes or the Christian Church for the essential point was the original god’s worship not the men who ran the church. About thirty years after the death of Jesus his revolt against the Romans took place.  Jesus’ goal of restoring the original doctrine of Moses and the Jewish nation failed terribly.  Perhaps the most tragic outcome of the war with Rome was the total destruction of Solomon’s temple.  While the temple has never been rebuilt at its original location, there was one hidden secret.  The place where Solomon conducted his secret rituals, initiated his priests, where the Ark of the Covenant, and the treasures of the Jewish nation were stored was still intact.  The Romans never found the treasures because of the “watchers” rules of holding secrets among the elite class.   No one knew of the hidden levels. Did the original Christian Church bring down the mighty Roman Empire?  The answer is yes.  The fall of the Roman Empire started long before Rome realized what was happening.  While much of the Roman Empire’s demise is credited to the invading Teutonic armies, it was the movement of the Christian church that finally determined its fate.  The Christian church gave a message that rang true with not only the out casts of society but also the Roman army.  Previously, the Roman Army worshipped Mithraism.  This religion was actually similar to Christianity, the belief in one god, comradeship, and tolerance.  The Christians were building a powerful following.  It was just a matter of time until a dramatic change would occur. So how did the original Christian Church change to the Catholic Church?  The Roman’s were if anything a practical group of people with a determination to control the masses for the benefit of a select few.  When the Eastern Roman Emperor Constantine needed a way to control the masses he turned to Christianity.  Constantine was a typical pagan Roman and was not a believer in Christianity or for that matter one god. But he needed something to hold his empire together.  So Constantine called all the Christian leaders together in Nicea, located in what is now known as Turkey in 325 A.D., which was officially called the Council of Nicea.  Until this time most Christians did not believe that Jesus was the son of god.  They felt he was a man who was the leader of a church that believed in god.  The Arians from Alexandria felt this way.  The Catholic Church out of Rome considered Jesus the son of god.  Not unusual for a Roman to think this way since all the Caesars were considered gods.  In a room of religious leaders, the Roman Emperor Constantine, of pagan beliefs, made his decision to make Jesus a god in spite of overwhelming proof that he was not a god.  To put Constantine’s decision of making Jesus a god into perspective, it is much easier to control a group if a violation of the rules could mean when you die you will to go to hell forever.  And since Constantine was The Caesar of Rome, the city he wanted to control, making Jesus a god fit perfectly into Constantine’s agenda for population control. What happens next is probably one of the greatest tragedies the world has ever seen.  The Catholic Church is based on the Roman structure of government.  Caesar became the pope; the senate became the Cardinals and the plebians the priestly class.  Once again the Romans were in-charge.  If you did not follow the Roman’s rules (Catholic Church’s official doctrine) you were severally disciplined.  Pagans were ruthlessly punished, all none Christian worship was banned, and those who did not convert were killed.  The Arians out of Alexandria were now considered heretics and were punished by death.  Many of those who were Arians went underground in order to survive.  Again meetings were kept secret in order to protect the original “watchers” views.  It seems like nothing had changed between the Roman Empire and the Catholic Roman Empire.  Rome is still Rome. For the next 1,000 years the Catholic Church tortured and killed anyone who disagreed with Church doctrine even though many times the truth was being told.  Burning at the stake in public was a common course of action that controlled dissenters by showing them what would happen if you deviated from Church doctrine.  Even the Knights Templar, the Churches own military group created to defend Christians in the Holy Land were destroyed by the Church when they didn’t need them any longer.  With the ruthlessness of the Catholic Church and the punishment given out for offences, you could say that the Roman Empire never ceased to exist; it simply changed its dress code from the purple and red of Caesar to the white of the papal pope.  Up until recent times the method of leadership for the Catholic Church was still the same as it was for Roman and Caesar.  Either you follow the rules or you will die. During this time what happened to the original believers of one god?  The beliefs of the “watchers” that there was one creator of the universe, one god?  They were still functioning in secret groups.  Sometimes even within the Catholic Church itself.  One group is known as the masons, descendants of the Knights Templar.  After the dissolution of the military Knights Templar by the Pope of the Catholic Church with the burning at the stake of its leader, they went underground with the purpose of continuing the original Christian Church and destroying the fake church that falsely identified Jesus as a god.  This battle has been raged since the 1300’s. So who won the battle between the Catholic Church and the Knights Templar (now known as the masons)?  With the creation of the United States of America the separation of Church and State became constitutional law.  No longer can the Church run your life unless you chose to let it.  I thank the masons for this wise decision.  It allows all of us the opportunity to make the decision which is right for each of us individually.  And why did the masons separate the Church from government?  They had extensive experience with what happens when a Church has absolute power.  The Jewish priests, Catholic Church, and the Church of England were all at one time “in-charge” exclusively and all three tried to destroy original thinking concerning god. Why did I create my Church and what is its doctrine?  The Church of the Priory was founded to protect the original Christian Church and its founders the Nordic peoples known as the “watchers.”  The basic principles of good; assisting people in need; providing education and training; allowing people who are of good heart to be free to conduct their lives in harmony and peace as they deem appropriate is a strong component of my ministry.  To incorporate all what has been learned from the past and present it to the future.  To understand and be tolerant of all people's religious beliefs as long as those beliefs do not impinge upon other's beliefs.  To defend what is right and true.  The Royal Knights of the Priory’s mission will be to serve and protect god’s people and his principles.  To be leaders of Kind.  To be leaders of Knowledge.  To be leaders of Faith. Respectfully submitted, Reverand Terence David Grupe Back to Members Works Table of Contents Send us your Doctoral thesis or artwork to be published here. Home | Site Directory | Top