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Independent Bishop Excommunicates Pope

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Jul 202010

As you may or may not know, Pope Benedict recently directed that anyone who attempts to ordain a woman to the priesthood, and any woman who is ordained, is automatically excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church. In response to that, my bishop, Bishop Lewis Keizer, presiding bishop of the Home Temple, formally excommunicated Pope Benedict last Sunday (July 18th 2010) at a ceremony in Aromas California.

Bishop Keizer

I’ve written elsewhere on this site about Bishop Keizer, who is probably the most learned man I know on the subjects of esoteric and mystical Christianity. Bishop Keizer and the Home Temple are part of the Independent Catholic movement, has all the twenty two known lines of apostolic authority (far more than the Pope, as it happens). Bishop Keizer, who ordained me to the priesthood, has also been ordaining women for years.

Bishop Keizer explained that he took this action in honor of Mary Magdalene and the scores of other women in the early Christian period who served in positions of leadership and authority, but who were systematically written out of official church history – the Magdalene herself being falsely stigmatized as a prostitute.

The formal decree prescribing excommunication for those who ordain women comes from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a name changed in 1965 from the original (historically infamous) name of the Holy Office of the Inquisition. Pope Benedict himself, in his former name of Joseph Ratzinger, presided over this body, which enforces the doctrinal decrees of the Vatican.

Below I’ve included the youtube video of Bishop Keizer’s announcement, as well as the texts of the rationale for the excommunication and the ceremony itself. Those women (and men) who feel called to priesthood are invited to visit Bishop Keizer’s website at www.hometemple.org and look into his seminary program.

TEXT OF RATIONALE

“I don’t excommunicate people. But I am excommunicating the Pope in order to empower a subtle and invisible spiritual process that will result in his removal from leadership of the Roman Catholic Church, and replacement by a Pope grounded in the true historical teachings of Yeshua, the Master Jesus, which are embedded in every human heart through the Image of Godhead and the Yetzer Ha-Tov or Good Motive, and opposed by the Yetzer Ha-Ra or Evil or Egoistic Motive. The current Pope represents the wrong-headed ideals of the medieval Council for the Inquisition, which resulted in massive injustice and genocide against my spiritual predecessors, the so-called heretics. The name of the Inquisition council was recently changed for public relation purposes to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith or CDF, and before he was Pope, Joseph Ratzinger served as Prefect or head of that order, which deals out punishment for grave offenses against Catholic Canon Law. This week, in his role as Pope Benedict XVI, Ratzinger has ordered the CDF to deal out retribution against Catholic Bishops who ordain women Priests-another major wrongheaded step backwards in a series of Ratinger’s zealous revival of Inquisition-era mentality that will probably result in the future bankruptcy and demise of Catholic Christianity. I am an independent Bishop with all twenty-two extant lines of valid Apostolic Succession, even more Apostolic lineages than the Pope has, since mine also include the so-called heretical lineages. I have been training, ordaining, and consecrating women Priests and Bishops for over thirty years in the Home Temple, and I have great faith in the spiritual and institutional leadership insights of women in partnership with men.
Being a scholar/Bishop grounded in the authentic teachings of Yeshua, I have the right, the authority, the responsibility, and the power to excommunicate this Pope for the benefit of all beings, and for the sake of a future Catholic Church and the New Humanity that is now coming into manifestation as proclaimed by the Master Jesus, and that is need of spiritual leadership that represents the humanistic wisdom and compassion that emanate from the authentic Heart and Mind of Christ within.”

TEXT OF RITUAL DONE IN THE CONTEXT OF THE MESSIANIC SEDER MASS

“In the Name of Mar Yeshua, the Master Jesus, and for the Honor of the scores of women leaders of the original home congregations of Christians saluted in the authentic Epistles of Paul, but later denounced in the Pseudo-Pauline Epistles composed by a later generation who used Paul’s authority as a tool in their campaign to systematically ban women from church leadership, and for the great woman Apostle Miriam Magdalene, who was finally declared in the third century to be identical with the anonymous repentant prostitute of the Synoptic Gospels in a final attempt defame female leadership in the churches:
I, Dr. Lewis Keizer, Presiding Bishop of the Home Temple, validly holding and transmitting all twenty-two extant lines of Apostolic Succession from the Master Yeshua, training and ordaining both men and women Deacons, Priests, and Bishops for home ministry and volunteer interfaith chaplaincies for over thirty years, joined by Bishops Willa and Daniel, this day, Sunday, July 18, 2010, do hereby Excommunicate from the community of the truly faithful the man called Pope Benedict XVI, Joseph A. Ratzinger, former Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith or CDF, which was known in earlier centuries as the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition. Pope Benedict XVI this week made the ordination of women into a crime against Canon Law equivalent in gravity to the crime of child molestation by Catholic priests, and making Bishops who ordain women to Priesthood referable to the CDF for punishment. Catholic Bishops cannot be excommunicated or stripped of their Apostolic Consecration, but they can be deposed from their sees and salaries. The Home Temple has no such rules regarding excommunication of Bishops, and thus we formally Excommunicate Pope Benedict XVI from the Body of Christ, which is the body of Bar-Enash, the so-called Son-of-man Messiah, the Second Adam, the New Humanity.”
[All Bishops put hands on candle and Lewis extinguishes it. Lewis declares: "So be it!" Willa and Daniel answer: "And so it is!"]
LEWIS: And now may the Spirit of the Eternal One and the Mind of Christ arise from within the heart of humanity to provide true spiritual leadership, not only in the Roman Catholic Church, but in all the Christian churches, based on the Halakah of spiritual life and the coming Sovereignty of God’s Way within the New Humanity taught and proclaimed by the Master Jesus. May the atavistic doctrines and dogmas of men opposing science, birth control, human love in all its expressions, and the leadership of women, be overcome and replaced by the love and wisdom of Christ that dwells in the heart of the New Humanity SO BE IT, AND SO IT IS! . Amen Amen Amen.”

Bishop Lewis Keizer,M.Div., Ph.D. Presiding Bishop of the Home Temple www.hometemple.org See also www.wisdomseminars.org and the Home Temple Seminary distance learning program for ordination training at www.hometemple.org/PROGRAM.htm. Subscribe to Dr. Keizer’s YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/lewiskeizer and view the series entitled THE PRE-CHRISTIAN TEACHINGS OF YESHUA. For information about THE BISHOP’S WORLD BLESSING CIRCUMNAVIGATION go to www.hometemple.org/blog/ and watch the presentation at http://hometemple.org/BISHOP%20KEIZER’S%20WORLD%20BLESSING%20VOYAGE.WMV

The Joy of Being Wrong

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Jul 142010

I was browsing around this morning and ran into a rather grim article over at the Boston Globe titled How Facts Backfire. It highlights psychological research which uncovers the interesting pattern that when people are deeply committed to a particular opinion, showing them facts that prove them conclusively wrong doesn’t change their opinion. It actually makes it stronger.

This bias also works on the positive side of course. We’ll gladly accept “facts” that confirm our opinions.

There is a substantial body of psychological research showing that people tend to interpret information with an eye toward reinforcing their preexisting views. If we believe something about the world, we are more likely to passively accept as truth any information that confirms our beliefs, and actively dismiss information that doesn’t. This is known as “motivated reasoning.” Whether or not the consistent information is accurate, we might accept it as fact, as confirmation of our beliefs. This makes us more confident in said beliefs, and even less likely to entertain facts that contradict them.

Jumping to conclusions is actually a mental shortcut that served us well in survival situations. It can be unhealthy to stop and ponder whether this particular lion, unlike the last one you met, might in fact be friendly. Doubt and hesitation are unwelcome when decisive action is needed.

But this survival instinct can backfire, and it can be used against us to manipulate us by our leaders, our culture, and even our religions. Research shows that the stronger and more deeply held our opinions, the less likely we are to be swayed by any facts. And while we have no problem seeing this tendency in people who agree with us, the trick is to see it in ourselves.

The best defense against this and other cognitive biases is to be aware of them and to

Consult my favorites on Amazon.

seriously ask ourselves, especially with regard to our dearest opinions, to which of them we might be falling victim. I find it very helpful to make myself clearly and honestly adopt the motto, “I might be wrong”.

Many of my most transformative and wonderful experiences in life have been the result of discovering I was wrong about something. I’ve gotten to the point where I actually relish the th

rill of uncovering some new opinion or aspect of myself where false ideas are lurking. To find them opens us up to new experiences and new learning. Learn to embrace them.

As for convincing the unwilling of their errors, the article in the Globe is less than optimistic. As Von Schiller put it, “Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain”. Lord Acton was a bit kinder, and put it like this:

“There are two things which cannot be attacked in front: ignorance and narrow-mindedness. They can only be shaken by the simple development of the contrary qualities. They will not bear discussion.”

The Globe article tends to agree. While occasionally a brutal assault of facts will change an entrenched opinion, the only thing that seemed to work well in changing wrong opinions was an overall increase in the opinion-holder’s self esteem. This makes perfect sense, as when we become identified with our opinions, they become part of our ego structure. To lose an opinion to which we’ve become attached is to lose a part of ourselves. Only if we have a strong self-worth are we comfortable risking that kind of danger.

At the bottom of it all, the primary negative emotion in this and so many other things is fear. Our little ego’s fear of being further diminished by having the ideas it associates with damaged. By identifying, instead, with our higher selves, we learn to trust. We feel safe opening ourselves up to change, because we have faith that our true selves will survive that change. We develop an attitude of love and acceptance toward the universe, and, as the writer of First John says, perfect love casts out fear.

Integral Spirituality

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Jul 092010

Integral Spirituality: A Startling New Role for Religion in the Modern and Postmodern World – by Ken Wilber. I’ve read this book several times now, and need to return to it periodically to incorporate more of it’s insights into my thinking. I’ve previously explained that Ken Wilber is probably the most comprehensive thinker around. His writings lay out a system (a continually evolving system) that integrates science, psychology, spirituality and all the major streams of thought from all disciplines. If you think you have some great new insight or philosophical system you want to unleash on the world, read some Ken Wilber first, because he probably got there before you.

While many of the chapters in the book review material that Wilber has already written about, there are some important additions to his system. One of these is the post-modern insight that ALL of our truths are dependent on our cultural context and perspective. There is also new material on the lost “spiritual” line of development in our culture, and why it was lost. And don’t skip the appendixes to this book, because they contain critical material on “post-metaphysical spirituality”, which is a shocking but liberating concept.

All this comes together in a chapter on the “conveyer belt”. Wilber explains that only the major religions are equipped to become the vehicles that move the world into a higher level of consciousness, because religions own the great mythologies that speak to 70% of the world’s consciousness. Because of this, they can become the conveyors that usher humanity through difficult passages of transition.

Many people would find this book a bit complex, but for me, it’s going to become one of the most essential books in my library.

A Gnostic Experience

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Jun 042010

I usually don’t share my meditation or religious experiences, but I had an experience this morning so powerful for me personally that I wanted to attempt to record it and share it. It was an encounter with God unlike any I’ve had. It began with my reading last night of some passages from Karen Armstrong’s book The Case for God, which is turning out to be a profoundly good read, by the way.

Karen was discussing the interplay of cataphatic and apophatic theology. For those unfamiliar with these terms – cataphatic theology is an approach to God which focuses on what God IS – what can be affirmed about God, whereas apophatic theology focuses on what God is NOT, what is denied about God. For example, in the concept of the Trinity, God is one (cataphatic) but at the same time, God is NOT one, but three (apophatic). And yet he is not three (apophatic) but one (cataphatic). In the process of moving back and forth between these two, affirming something about God, only to deny it – we reach a state of abandoning human concepts and resting in the ineffability of God beyond human reason.

No human concept applies perfectly to God. The human intellect is like a sword – with human concepts being as much about what something is NOT as what it is. The book is here, but not there. It exists now, but it did not exist five years ago. It is red, which means it is not blue. By cutting away what something is NOT, the human intellect arrives at a definition of what it IS. But with God, none of that works. He is here, and there. He exists now, and then. There is nothing to cut away. And because our concept of “existence” relies on this cutting away, it is not even possible to say that God “exists”. It is equally impossible to say that he does NOT exist. Not because, like the agnostic, we aren’t sure – but because the word “exists” breaks down when we try to think about God.

As I continued to meditate on God as beyond existence and non-existence – beyond good and bad, beyond desire and change, I was suddenly struck with the idea that all our human ideas of meaning and purpose which so drive our religious and spiritual quests might be nothing more than misapplications of our biological drives for survival. It was a very arid and even atheistic thought, in which the whole of human existence seemed like something of a sad joke. The ultimate object of concern – God – seemed on reflection to lack real purpose or quality. He simply is – take it or leave it.

And then – suddenly, I felt the presence of something that felt very remote, and yet full of inexpressible love and goodness. I had the distinct impression that this presence was observing me from a great distance, with total acceptance, but with some disappointment at my situation of having to exist in the material world. It was as if “God” were a slightly cruel boy tormenting the ants in his ant farm with a magnifying glass (I being one of his ants), while his older and much kinder brother looked on with disapproval from behind him, reaching to intervene and snatch the magnifying glass away.

It felt very “Gnostic”. My sense of the material world was very negative, but I felt very intensely the presence of a remote goodness what was totally unconnected with the material world – something to which I immediately felt and expressed love and loyalty.

I find this a bit confusing. Previously, I have believed that there is a progression in spirituality from nature mysticism to causal mysticism to non-dual mysticism. One first sees God in nature (Pantheism or Paganism) and then sees God as above nature (Monotheism) or even against nature (Gnosticism) and finally sees God as both in and above nature at the same time (non-duality). I have had spiritual experiences and episodes of all these mystical states. But now I’ve had what seems a more intense and advanced spiritual experience, and the flavor is definitely Gnostic.

It may be that my earlier experiences were simply intellectual counterfeits, or “light” versions of real mysticism, and now I’m working my way through the series at a more intense level. Or I may have to re-evaluate the whole progression thing.

It feels like some sort of breakthrough, but I’m not quite sure yet how to deal with it.

Get an Esoteric Library and Sponsor a Worldwide Blessing

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Apr 282010

I’ve previously written about the founding bishop of my order, Lewis Keizer. He is, bar none, the most knowledgeable writer and teacher on esoteric subjects and the mystery traditions of anyone I’ve ever met. Bishop Keizer has dozens of books, courses and lectures available at his site, and presides over an independent order of priesthood and several initiatic organizations.

Now you have a unique opportunity to pick up an excellent electronic library of bishop Keizer’s books and presentations while sponsoring his worldwide tour of apostolic blessing. The bishop will be leaving in October/November of 2010 and circumnavigating the globe by boat for a year lecturing and bestowing his apostolic blessing on the world. To raise money for this voyage, he is offering a package of five of his books, as well as dozens of video lectures and presentations in electronic form for a donation of $100 or as a CD for $150.

The titles of the books include The New Humanity: The forgotten Kabbalistic Teachings of Yeshua and the Evolution of Global Spirituality, The Kabbalistic Words of Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas: Recovering the Inner-Circle Teachings of Yeshua, Yeshua: The Unknown Jesus (Novel), The Wandering Bishops: Apostles of a New Spirituality, and The Authentic Jesus: A Guide to Aramaic Idioms, Recent Research, and the Original Message of Jesus Christ.

If any of this sounds like your cup of tea, or if you simply want to participate in a wonderful project to bless and raise the consciousness of the world, click on bishop Keizer’s donation page and sign up as a sponsor.

Hardwiring Happiness – Srikumar Rao

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Mar 122010

A wonderful talk on happiness by a very clear and lucid presenter who is completely new to me, Srikumar Rao. I’m certainly going to check out more of his material. I ran into this on Ted.org, but the video there was of lower quality so I’ve linked back here to the original. This was apparently from a conference in Denmark, so don’t worry about the foreign language graphics at the beginning, the talk itself is in English.

Exploring the Fifth Dimension – Parallel Universes, Teleportation and Out-of-Body Travel

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Feb 222010

Exploring the Fifth Dimension – Parallel Universes, Teleportation and Out-of-Body Travel, by Dr. Bruce Goldberg . Today’s review is for a much more esoteric book than I usually include on the site, but I’m sure that there are quite a few readers who, like me, will be interested in it. I first heard Dr. Goldberg during a radio interview on the famous Coast-to-Coast program (formerly hosted by Art Bell, currently by George Noory). Goldberg spent hours telling stories of past-life regressions, teleportation, invisibility, parallel universes and the like. He seemed completely at home with all of this, and claimed to be able to teach this to anyone. My enthusiasm made sure that the book ended up under the tree at Christmas.

So how is it? Well, the stories are fascinating and reasonably well researched. Dr. Goldberg’s metaphysical view is well developed and corresponds closely with my own. His views on reincarnation, for example, are nuanced and sophisticated. He manages to squeeze a lot of explanation of higher planes and spiritual concepts into a relatively small book.

The heart of the book, however, are dialogues meant to assist you in exploring these phenomena for yourself. The dialogues are meant to be recorded, with music, and listened to in order to induce teleportaiton, out-of-body travel, visitation of parallel dimensions, etc. Dr. Goldberg is primarily a hypnotherapist, and uses hypnosis as a vehicle for this kind of metaphysical exploration. Reassuringly, he has used it on thousands of subjects with no danger or ill effects.

The catch is that preparing these kinds of dialogue tapes to listen to yourself is a bit of work. Dr. Goldberg probably hopes that this will induce you to buy his CD’s – available on his site: www.drbrucegoldberg.com, which have already done the work for you. But you have to give him credit – he does give you the dialogues so that you at least have the OPTION of doing it yourself, if you have more time than money and need to do your metaphysical exploration on the cheap.

Do these techniques work? Well to tell the truth, I haven’t had the chance to either order the CD’s or record the dialogues. But I see no reason why they wouldn’t. The method and theory is sound. It’s certainly worth a try. The metaphysical information contained in the book is easily worth the price.

Transcending Fear

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Feb 172010

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.. (1 Jn 4:18 NKJV)

While fear is less and less a part of my life, there are still several situations that can cause me to panic. One is hypodermic needles. That’s improving. Another is sudden financial problems. The other day I opened my bank account online expecting to find a healthy balance only to find myself severely overdrawn. It turns out that when I had tried to make an online payment for $100.00 I had instead typed in 100,00 (a comma instead of a period). The company had processed a payment for $10,000.00 instead of $100.00 It took a week to straighten out, and my immediate reaction was panic to the point of having trouble breathing.

Fear is an instinctive reaction designed to make us alert and cautious in the presence of danger. This may be a very useful reaction when crossing a savanna teeming with lions. Unfortunately, our modern minds can create the mental experience of danger when there is no real physical threat. In the case of my mangled bank account, the actual situation was a matter of some pixels on a screen. There was no immediate threat or danger. My fear was the result of mental scenarios that my mind began to construct as it tried to process the implications of the error. Unfortunately, the mental reaction of fear was totally unhelpful in this situation. I needed a sense of perspective, clear objective judgment and cool reason. Instead I got tunnel vision and a body prepared to jump up a tree to escape a lion.

The spiritual roots of fear are even more destructive. Our ego, convinced of its separation from everything and everyone else, and conscious of its own mortality, constantly fears its own annihilation. The mind under the dominion of ego lives with a persistent background noise of existential fear. How do we escape it?

Since fear originates in the mind, practice in quieting the mind is a very helpful discipline to control fear. Meditation has many benefits, and this is one of them. A mind disciplined by meditation, like a well-trained horse, will not panic and throw its rider at the first sudden noise. Even if the horse jumps, like my mind did at the first sight of my negative bank balance, it can quickly be brought under control by the steady hand of consciousness. Meditation also shifts our consciousness away from the fearful ego and toward the greater Self, which is immortal, indestructible and beyond the reach of fear.

The passage from 1st John at the beginning of the article also suggests another spiritual practice that can help us. The way to escape the fear that torments us, says the author of John, is through perfect love. The Greek word for love here is “agape”, which is a rather difficult word to translate. It is not a simple human love. It is a divine, selfless openness and acceptance. It is a complete and total lack of resistance to the reality of the present moment, a surrender to the wisdom of God and the universe. It is a pure love for all that is, including the present situation.

In a post I did earlier, quoting from David Hawkins, I mentioned that this unconditional and universal love and acceptance is the first step to enlightenment. As a side benefit, as you perfect it, fear begins to disappear in your life.

There are other spiritual practices that can help transcend fear. People who have had near-death experiences report that the experience leaves them with a complete lack of fear. While we can’t deliberately have a near-death experience simply to cultivate this benefit, many of the same benefits can occur when we master astral travel, or out-of-body experiences. By having first-hand experience that we are more than just our physical bodies, and that our consciousness transcends our physical life, we lose some of our fear of physical dangers.

For particular phobias, hypnosis and self-hypnosis can also be helpful tools to rearrange our mental wiring.

Have you had good success with a particular method for overcoming fear? Share it with us in the comments.

Eckhart Tolle on Enlightenment

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Feb 152010

Do we have to SEEK enlightenment, or is seeking enlightenment counterproductive? Should enlightenment be a goal, or should we renounce the search? Different traditions have a different emphasis, and Eckhart reconciles these seeming contradictions in this excellent brief teaching on Enlightenment.

The Habits of Happiness

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Feb 092010

Today I wanted to inaugurate a new section of Pathstoknowledge.com – our video theater. I have previously used video links in various sections and book reviews when available. Now I thought I’d devote a new section to inspiring video messages, beginning with this “Ted” talk by Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard on the Habits of Happiness

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