Taking Down The Curtain: The Truth About Faith, Fact, and the Slippery Wizards of Voodoo Metaphysics

This Book Was Written

Are you a good witch, or a bad witch?

~ Glinda, the Good Witch of the North

So, the story goes that two thousand years ago, there was a boy who ran and played in the dirty streets of Nazareth, and that deep within this boy’s mind there was the seed of a revolutionary new way to view God, and humanity’s relationship with God. As to what this boy could have already known of this seed, or of the sort of tree that was likely to grow from such a seed, while retaining what it means to be a boy, there is debate. Still, it is widely agreed that this was no ordinary boy who played and learned in much the same manner as the other boys of his era. Certainly not when that boy is viewed in retrospect.

It would be another twenty years or so before that seed would germinate. The boy would then be a man – again, by all accounts, seen by his community to be no more or less than most other men – who would suddenly launch a brief, but very influential ministry (certainly influential when viewed, again, in retrospect), that would end – by all published accounts – with his public execution. That seed, the same seed that’d been buried deep within his childish mind as he’d grown in knowledge and stature, went on to change a world that was much larger than anyone could have ever imagined it to be. The ministry of this man – this Jesus of Nazareth – introduced the last primary theological premise to be seriously considered on our planet to the date of this book’s publication. It’s true. Since his execution, the deification of Jesus has been the last wholesale adjustment to humanity’s relationship with its creator god.

Since then, technology, science, philosophy, and every possible form of human expression has evolved and progressed at an increasingly breakneck pace, while foundational theology and the fundamental questions concerning the nature of God have remained frozen – framed and mounted – as if officially warehoused forever within the walls of that museum that we built to honor the classics; where all that’s to be seriously considered has long been finally determined.

So. what’s changed since that last new and revolutionary view of God and humankind hit the world’s marketplace of ideas? One change has been that the marketplace itself has become into an entirely new environment. The advent of whole societies that are fully literate has introduced a new range of individual perspectives, with the sweaty masses having acquired the knowledge, skill and readily available technology to express their unique views. This development has transformed the world of ideas. Not only are the kinds of ideas created by differences in culture or geographic origin available to everyone, but those kinds of ideas that can only be inspired by significant differences in social and economic status are universally available as well. Differences that had never before been included within the larger exchange of ideas. And certainly not included within the preserved exchange of ideas.

And yet, the ancient views of God, and of humanity’s role in God’s plan, have not been significantly affected by this radical new openness. In fact, while the subject’s specifics have been discussed and debated, adjusted and affected – with one theological wrinkle placed against the other; perhaps even blended together in ways and to varying degrees – the basic questions have always been framed in the same general manner; with the same basic building blocks simply arranged and rearranged, regardless of what new break-through scientific or technological discovery has occurred that probably should’ve had a lot more of a fundamental impact on the nature of the debate than it did.

Meanwhile, humanity has learned that its corporeal body is composed of cells, that each cell is a miniature factory of miraculous symmetry and organizational sophistication, with all that production seamlessly coordinated by chromosomes and strands of malleable DNA that direct the action of atoms and quarks and maybe even vibrating strings. And while that was happening, the universe repositioned Earth itself, and moved it to a small, obscure pasture far outside the center of even this one, fairly insignificant galaxy. This was after adding millions, maybe even billions of such galaxies to its ever expanding territory. And still, nothing in all of that new revelation carried with it the sort of inherent gravitas that it takes to affect the way that the human being has chosen to see itself in the eyes of its god.

Be it pagan, Judeo-Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Islamic, or any of the thousands of shades that blend between one theological primary color and another, the last time the fundamental issue was addressed in a wholesale manner was nearly 1900 years before Edison finally eliminated every one of the ten thousand other ways that won’t invent a light bulb.

What’s even more amazing is that the only headline-worthy theological revelations over the last century or better (and this, in spite of all those amazing advances in physics, cosmology and bio-physics that have occurred) have been archeological in nature. As if the truth of humanity’s true place in existence can only be determined by going back further in time, and consulting with people who had even less knowledge of their physical nature than the ones we last consulted with. Come on. Since when do we approach the study of any other true unknown by putting the most comfortably ignorant people in charge of the effort? (yes, I can feel you middle managers rolling your eyes from here)

Seriously, what can a man, who could never even imagine the idea of the atom as a building block of corporeal matter, ever teach us about the nature of physical existence, and why anything exists in the first place? Here’s a hint – <nothing> He can only tell us what he’s been told, and whatever that is, it’s been heavily affected by the accepted knowns that littered his world. Knowns that we know better than to believe in now days.

Now, it may seem as though I’m being a bit harsh on the human race as we begin, but the truth is that when waking someone up from a deep sleep, it can take some shaking and aggressive persistence to pull them back from that profound level of oblivion. As obvious as it might be for me to state this, we (that’d be us, the human race) have a crisis on our hands here, and somebody has to shake somebody awake. Even if it’s just me shaking you awake. Who knows? Maybe you’ll be the one who’ll know what to do from here, or maybe you’ll shake the right person awake yourself? It could happen. It’s happened before in other crises. And yes, this is a crisis. A real life bona fide emergency. As we get into this further, I promise that I’ll explain everything.

Why?

Okay, so this is where I make the big statement about what I plan to accomplish with this book, and where I make my pitch for why you need to read on. I’ve done my fieldwork, and I’ve scoured the shelves at the bookstores to learn how this sort of book is supposed to begin. As you can tell, I rejected the popular idea of weaving a compellingly (or maybe even harrowing) true story into why God needs you to take this book home right now and bury yourself deep within its pages. I also declined the notion of starting the book off with statistics or pertinent official data that puts its own grave demands on a responsible individual to do the right thing and buy this book for their own and everyone else’s sake. No, what I did was dismiss the greatest truths of all time – past and present – and I did so within the first nine hundred words. But I didn’t make these tragic craft errors flippantly, or without reservation. You see, this is not an ordinary book, and it’s important that you know that right from the start.

This isn’t a book about what God wants or doesn’t want from you. This is a book about how and why you exist. And when I say that it’s about why we exist, I’m including all the whys that lead right up to those specific whys that you deal with all day long. It’s like a dream come true for that little kid who never stops asking why until his dad finally has to say "Because I said so. In this book, I’m not letting anyone say Because I said so.", and that’s what makes this book different than any other book you’ll ever find on the subject of God, humanity and what’s at the foundation of everything.

That’s right. Not only will we look at why you exist, we’ll also look at why anything at all exists, and what actually constitutes existence in any form whatsoever. In this book there won’t be an omnipotent all-assuming anything that simply is, was and always will be. No ethereal everything that stands like a brick wall between your questions and the kind of answers you deserve. In this book, such traditional barriers launch new questions about God that will demand and provide answers.

Questions like So, if this omnipotent All is so sophisticated and powerful, then how did It become so sophisticated and powerful?

Or, how about, Since existential presence demands a foundational relative context, what is it that contains this aware and dynamic source of omnipotent sophistication – providing it with that necessary contextual foundation – and how did this contextual environment come into being?

I won’t be allowing anything to simply exist without a direct challenge, and while I may end up being wrong in the end, it certainly won’t be due to a capitulation to any assertion that lacks its own independent verification.

When I decided to finally write this book, the first thing I did was start digging around for someone, anyone, who I could compare notes with. I was looking for someone who’d started this very specific ball rolling, and could give me a place to either jump in and amplify what had already been offered, or maybe pick up and carry on where they'd stopped off for whatever reason. After a few years of doing as thorough a job as I’m capable of, I was stuck with the possibility that this unique way of dealing with this broad inquiry is an effort that had never been done, or (perhaps even more unsettling) that the results of all such efforts had been successfully eliminated from the market of public discourse.

I had no trouble finding ideas and assertions associated with human existence that were far more ambitious than the traditional theologies. Plenty of elaborate notions concerning the larger questions of why we exist, but the notions were either non-answers (there is no reason, we simply exist), or they were convoluted premises that involved sophisticated existential dilemmas that only a thoroughly mature intellect could ever be presented with.

Example – A supreme All being, with the need to experience the All that it is by way of piecing itself out as fully independent selves that can experience its All-ness in relational juxtaposition with the rest of itself, being –after all – the All of all that it is.

What I never found was a simple nuts and bolts explanation for why anything exists, and why we believe that we exist in the manner that we exist. What was even more unsettling was that no one seemed to think that there needed to be a reason for why we firmly believe that we exist in the manner that we exist – at least how the majority of humanity sees itself as existing. Yes, this may seem a bit unnecessary as a concern, but if you really think about it, the collective self-image of the majority of a particular species – especially one that’s become as affected by self-image as this species has – is an extremely important issue when addressing the nature of that species.

In fact, what we firmly believe about ourselves is a hell of a lot more revealing than any disinterested evidence that proves or disproves anything about who and what we are. To frame it in the form of a question; why is it that many hundreds of millions of human beings understand themselves to ultimately exist in a physical manner that is completely incompatible with what they can see, touch, smell, taste or hear?

In fact, how could such a bizarre idea have ever emerged? And once it did, how did it grow to dominate the collective identity of an entire species? After all, humans are the only Earth creatures to believe that they’re not of the earth, or even of the physical realm. We may be very comfortable with that notion, but it’s an extremely unusual notion to have developed regardless of the quality of intellect that invented it and the brilliant minds that went on to develop that bizarre notion to the degree that it is the fundamental self image of the entire human race..

Yes, I did run into a lot of answers to questions about God and the human being, but those questions seemed to already be highly developed, and thoroughly dependent upon foundational assumptions that have never been properly addressed. Even the most primitive questions assumed an existential structure that has always enjoyed a very advanced state of development and reflect recognizable human drives and emotional concerns. As if human emotions and motivations could possibly be fundamental to the framework of raw existence. Personification is one thing, but demanding that the essential core of reality be a literal extension of the human being is quite a demand.

I found that even physics questions were based on existential levels that permitted the use of mathematics and formulas in mapping out the fundamentals involved. Clearly, there wasn’t much being discussed that pertains to existence at its most primordial and elemental level, and this is where I’ve always believed we would find the truth about who we are and why we exist.

On My Own

I began to realize that I wasn’t going to find what I was looking for. For reasons that I have yet to understand, there was no one, with available published material, that had taken the human being from where and what it is right now, and marched it back to the point of an overall existential void, in an effort to determine why the human being exists in the way it does. Like I said, there were more than enough examinations that began with any of a variety of well-developed foundational structures (Big Bangs, unsatisfied deities, battles between good and evil, and omniscient uber-consciousnesses that are only lacking some good drama entertainment) but nothing that bothered with establishing where all that structure came from, or what drove it on to become what it’s become and do what it’s done.

What I also began to suspect was that, as the assertions became more profound and declarative, the proponents were less likely to go on record as having authored the specific idea that they were proposing. Especially when the more authoritative assertions involved metaphysics and related disciplines. In these areas, a wide range of nonphysical, astral ringers were credited with delivering elaborate theses that – again – ignored the fact that if you’re going to detail a process, you have to start at the beginning of that process, and not a third of the way down the line.

Eventually, it occurred to me that, while I was running into plenty of metaphysical blowhards and con artists, it was possible that some of these people were getting their information from unusual (paranormal?) sources that they’d actually come in contact with, and that it was also possible that this information itself was being offered by these astral sources in good faith and honorable intent. Of course, then the issue becomes one of accurate perspective, regardless of the source of that perspective.

What became apparent is that even after folks have died, and even if they have found a way to break through and teach us what they’ve learned, these folks are still restricted by their own level of experience as a resident of wherever it is that they now call home. In essence, they could detail some specifics about their new environs, but of the whole of existence itself, what could they ever know that they didn’t already suspect?

The Inside Information Source

This is going to sound a bit blasphemous to some people, but the truth is that dying doesn’t teach you anything about existence other than what the experience of dying teaches you. Finding yourself in a brand new state of being doesn’t teach you anything more than what it feels like, looks like, sounds like, and is like to discover that you suddenly exist in a brand new state of being. The notion that you will suddenly possess all knowledge concerning God, reality, existence or anything other than what you discover from moment to moment (if there are even moments to pile one against the other outside of this corporeal realm) is nothing more than naïve conjecture.

I remember when I first discovered the social potential of the Internet. It was the summer of 2004 (I was a late bloomer) and friends of mine had steered me toward a new online social phenomenon that we called message board forums. Everyone knows about these pits of misinformation and vitriol now days, but back then, these were fairly new, and we were all pretty vulnerable to what was being posted by board members that we ran into. Of course, some of us were more vulnerable than others, and it didn’t take long for the more aggressively savvy to realize that they could achieve expert status if they preyed upon those vulnerabilities with raw bluster.

The big debate at the time was the faltering US occupation of Iraq. The divide was clear and it resonated powerfully on the board where I spent 2/3 of my workday battling with others over the minute specifics concerning legitimacy, probable cause and the legitimacy of the intelligence that pulled the nation into that mess. As the evidence began to get murky, the board posters backing the war began to get more and more belligerent. Just as one would expect from either side if it was the side that was feeling the heat. Just like the rest of the US, our forum society was beginning to smell a rat in connection with this whole ugly affair. But then, something fascinating occurred that changed everything. What happened, going into that summer, was that the entire opinion balance on that board shifted suddenly, and all those obvious inconsistencies in the official invasion narrative lost their power to affect the average posting board member’s opinion of the war. Our little Boston-based Internet board community had gotten its first live posting from a local guy (board name elgato) who was manning a communications center Internet portal inside what had become known as The Green Zone.

elgato was on the ground, inside Baghdad, and he was immediately elevated to expert status involving all debates centered on the US invasion of Iraq. Now, if the debate concerned aspect of the invasion that included individual logistical hurdles, sights and sounds, the experience of being in Baghdad in the early summer of 2004, the smell of cordite in the air after a nearby munitions detonation, then elgato was our guy with the latest and the most accurate information on the subject being discussed. The problem became that he was also designated – by a majority of the board’s members – to be the ultimate authority on all aspects of the US invasion of Iraq. And this included the veracity of the evidence concerning the threat of weapons of mass destruction that had been the premier justification given by the US State Department for launching the invasion.

And elgato did not shrink from his duty to defend the preemptive invasion, or the clearly stated justification for that unprecedented international action. In fact, it immediately became clear to each of us who posted on the board that elgato was not to be challenged on any subject related to Iraq, the invasion, or any US policy related to either. After all, this was a guy who was on the ground in Iraq, and assigned to the US Army’s communications center. We were simply to appreciate how fortunate we all were that he would pop onto the board throughout the day – here and there – and settle our debates about the war, before logging off and returning to the important business of managing that war.

It wasn’t until a year or so later that we discovered that elgato – while he was in The Green Zone at the time, and manning a US Army Internet connection, as he claimed – had no better information than we did about the larger issues surrounding the invasion that he was a part of at the time. In fact, it became clear, as we dug up the old thread exchanges from that summer of 2004, that elgato was actually in a much worse position to know the truth of what was behind the invasion itself. His POV – the literary point of perspective allowed any character in a story or vignette – prevented him from being able to fully investigate the policy issues to the same degree that someone freed from his daily on-the-ground status would be capable of achieving. In effect, elgato’s presence and position as an insider had the net impact of crippling his capacity to accurately perceive the invasion as a whole.

As to how this relates to the issue of paranormal sources, when a person makes the claim that they either have supernormal capacity to bridge the divide between the corporeal and the spiritual, or they have access to an agent within the ranks of those who dwell beyond the veil between our world and the next, we have to always remind ourselves that presence is nothing more than a point of view, and that POV is still subject to the impact of interpretation and natural intellectual bias.

If a paranormal manifestation were to ask you So, what does it feel like to wake up in the morning after sleeping for eight hours?, it would be a question that you’d be perfectly qualified to answer. However, if the same entity were to ask you So, why do your atoms resist joining with the atoms in a chair as soon as they come in contact with one another when you sit down?, by what authority would you claim to know the answer? Then again, I can’t imagine that many of us would even have the immediate creativity to offer a credible sounding answer to such a question. As corporeal beings, we are intimately involved in a lot of what we simply do not understand. We can assume that everything on the other side of the divide automatically knows all there is to know about the whole of existence, but the evidence doesn’t support this assumption. In fact, the evidence supports that there are so-called experts on both sides of the divide, and that the old axiom caveat emptor – or buyer beware – is good advice well beyond our own existential confines.

Still, in the interest of open inquiry, I have decided to refrain from completely dismissing any well-established assertions, since long-held traditions have a level of significance that can’t appropriately be ignored. However, I have required that all such claims – regardless of stature – do not clash with the logical structure that clearly lays the foundation for the vast majority of what we already know about reality and existence. If such a clash does exist, then the author’s POV is considered as a viable reason for the clash.

However, if the claim is still impossibly inconsistent with the majority of what is known of demonstrated logic and the repeatedly established facts of existence, then the assertion is rejected as myth and/or misinformation. To do anything else is to be irresponsible with this effort, and in this book, all errors will be made on behalf of responsible, defendable extrapolation.

What I also need to be absolutely clear about, is that what we’ll be examining will not involve the specific dramas and activities that may or may not exist for the surviving individual once their corporeal husk is tossed to the grave. That is a completely different examination, and one that could very well be open to as much variety as the corporeal phase of life offered to that same individual at one time. This examination involves the creation of both our corporeal and spiritual realms, and why this entire contextual environment was initiated into physical existence.

Many authorities claim that there are the corporeal and non-corporeal realms, and that within these realms there are multiple dimensions, and I have no real debate with these assertions, as to whether they are true or not. Maybe they are and maybe there are all kinds of progressed and regressed planes of existence – with varying vibration frequencies that serve to make them invisible to each other – that are being achieved and lost by astral beings of various shapes, sizes, origins, and dispositions, but frankly, none of that has anything at all to do with what this book is about.

What this examination focuses on is the whole of it together, everything within this one contextual environment that contains us, and the specific mission behind this entire environment, as engineered and initiated by the being that most of us refer to as God. This focus is what makes this book very different than other books, and why the nature of this examination will seem very different than any that you’ve ever engaged in. There is literally no other published work that presents what you will be taught here, and when you’re done, nothing in the world will ever appear the same.

Establishing The Ground Rules

In order to make this presentation possible, and keep it from becoming consumed with explanatory digression, I’m going to assume that I’m writing for a reader from the modern industrialized world as I proceed here. In fact, not only will I assume that you’re a modern-era reader, but I’m going to assume that you’re familiar with the kind of things that most modern-era human beings understand. Things like electricity, math, basic logic, the variety of traditional religious fundamentals that the majority of modern-era humans have been exposed to in the course of their lives, and those general cultural fundamentals that include right and wrong, masculine and feminine, parent and child, and the concept of people who are similar to each other, as opposed to dissimilar, and how that often affects the way that those people respond to one another.

I am also declaring a bias, and I’m doing so right up front. In fact, it’s this bias that will make this particular book a bit peculiar and help it find its own dusty little corner of the retail bookshelf. That bias is that I have decided that this book will be an examination of humanity’s true relationship with the active, intelligent being that created it. Yes, I’ve made the decision to assume that we exist as a result of the clear and purposeful intent of an intelligent author, and will proceed from that premise, even as I work to prove why I have made that determination. And I will make that case, and without a bit of faith-based conjecture. There’s no room for faith when working to establish truth, and there’s no faith being embraced within this book at any point between the covers.

And that’s what’s unique about this book. Even though a creator is fully acknowledged, this is not a religious or spiritual book. Not at any level whatsoever. In fact, I make the case that the entire idea of God as being holy, holy as a concept, religion as a whole, and the whole notion of spirits in general is completely man-made, and the result of the human mind trying to deal with a hands-off process that allows for whatever develops to carry on with whatever its become. Still, I will be taking advantage of the fact that theology has given us a fair amount of insight into what we’re part of and integral to. Especially since this is an effort that has been ongoing for a long time, and there is much that has been learned over the centuries, even if it’s been shrouded, at times, within wonderfully brilliant distractions that were designed to ensure its survival.

As far as my general cultural approach, and which theological flavor will be most dominant within this examination, I have done a little poking around, and have discovered that most people on planet Earth (over 33%) – if they are faith-based believers of any form of religious tradition at all – are Christian-centric believers. This being the case, I will be relating the lion’s share of this examination to traditional Christian tenets when such comparisons and/or associations are called for. This is not meant to denigrate any other faith, but is simply working from the theological basis of the largest percentage of human beings on the earth at this moment in history. This is also due to the fact that Islam and Judaism share the conceptual fundamentals with Christianity, making this choice the only reasonable choice for this presentation.

To me, this also seems like the most responsible approach, since what we’re examining is the relationship between humanity and what it sees as its god. And you’ll see that there is quite a bit of connection between what is true and what ancient humans understood, and translated into their religions and into the heroic dramas that they crafted to base those religions. The Christian theology – it is the youngest of the world’s major theologies, after all – is actually quite remarkable in how it seems to lightly brush against a significant portion of what I’ll be revealing to you. In Section III, I will be offering a bit of evidence suggesting that some writers of early Christian doctrine – if one applies a very strict metaphoric formula to their work – are describing significant aspects of this very premise. I’ll be sure to point these examples out when we get to them.

Be aware, however, that even in Section III, where at least the terms sound familiar, you may want to take a notepad with you as you go. Even some of that stuff requires keeping several fairly complex notions in intellectual suspension as you reach for a new notion that can’t possibly be understood without the direct context that those prior notions being applied. In short, don’t expect me to do the heavy lifting for you. I won’t. I did the heavy lifting required to establish this information, I provided the logical proof required to present it as a viable hypothesis, and I figured out how to actually put it into written language without resorting to 21st century versions of 1st century poetic allegories. It’s not my responsibility to force you to understand how this very intense logical structure allows and insists upon all that I’ve decided to share in this book. That responsibility belongs to you.

Now, as an American myself, I know that you’re probably not used to be bluntly addressed in this manner. As an author of a book that is designed to teach you what you actually do need to know about yourself and why you exist, I also know that our American culture celebrates a consumer-driven marketplace of goods, services, and even ideas, and that this marketplace demands that I spoon feed you with what I have to offer. And in a way, I’m going to do that, since in Section I of the book, you’ll get the high school reader version. In that overview section, I’ll make the grand statements about the truth of physical existence, lay out the major components, and tie them together in a way that illustrates how it all works as the finely engineered machine that it is. In this introduction section, I’ll explain to you why you need to know this information, and how it will immediately benefit your life, and especially how it will benefit your afterlife. After that, you can go on to the very last section and I’ll tell you how learning what I’ve learned in this effort has improved my own life.

I’ll do all that, and I’ll be happy to do all that, but I won’t dumb-down the examination of how it all works, and what drives it all to be the way that it is. I’ve already tried to do that, and as far as I can tell, it’s just not possible. I’ll simply leave that discussion to Section II, and to the deeper explanations that I reserved for Section IV. And I’ll trust that if you really want to learn this stuff, you’ll turn the pages required to find that information for yourself.

Now, if it turns out that you absolutely can’t learn this, then so be it. You won’t be tested, and you have nothing to lose if you fail to understand any of it. Rejection of this information won’t hurt you, or cast you into an outer darkness where the gnashing of teeth will keep you up all night. No demons will imprison you and eat your burning flesh as you scream in terror for eternal oblivion to come to your rescue. God isn’t, and never has been, the kind of being that slaughters and tortures what He’s brought into existence. Only human beings do that sort of thing.

So, let’s all vow to suspend our natural combative inclinations for just a while as we venture into a world that has always existed right in front of you. I promise that if you put in the effort, you’ll be rewarded with more than you can possibly imagine right now. In fact, I can guarantee that if this stuff sinks in, and if it affects you as it’s affected me, then nothing will ever be able to take that smile off your face. You’ll finally realize just how lucky you are to just be you, and what an unfathomable gift you’ve been given, no matter what happens to you from right now until the end of forever.

Leanin’ On Jesus

So, let’s agree that at some point we’re all going to pass from this mortal existence. While it’s true that there’s no sure bet on what awaits us, or even if anything at all awaits us, we can all agree that it’s probably not a good idea to be too rigid in our expectations. After all, over the course of life, the one thing we’ve all learned is that expectations produce restrictions, and all too often, disappointments. Buddha even built an entire religion on the notion of how damaging a rigid expectation can be. Well, Buddhism involves more than just tempering expectation, but still, battling a harmful expectation is a central theme of what he put together, and that’s significant.

The one real problem with religions and theologies, is that they teach expectation as if it’s the one quality that purifies everything else about a person. Like a blanket of chocolate sauce over whatever else is in the bowl. Ketchup smothering the gray hulk that might’ve been pot roast if it hadn’t been destroyed during preparation. It’s as if expectation is the password that gets you into Heaven when all else fails. Of course, they don’t call it expectation. They call it Faith, and it literally moves mountains, brings sight to the blind and performs a whole plethora of other wonderful parlor tricks. At least it does in the dreamy narratives that are offered by many of the faithful.

But what happens when that faith is the central driver for someone who embraces a contrary religious narrative? Is it still faith, or is it something entirely different. When it gives a young man the inner strength to explode himself inside a packed synagogue. Is that faith? Is the expectation of this disciple – that this murderous act will be rewarded with golden streets and rivers of milk and honey – faith? And what of the dozens who were killed by this act of faith? Are they rewarded for the faith they have in their own version of God’s will? And what is God’s will in such a situation? That all of them should die in such a manner? In other words, when is faith the transcendent essence of godliness, and when is it nothing more than delusional expectation? Or is there ever a true distinction?

When you leave this life, what will you be expecting to see? What do you expect to hear? What have you decided that it will feel like? You can claim that you have no expectations, but the truth is that we all have an idea, even if it exists in the most rudimentary form. As intelligent beings that will definitely die, we all have taken a moment to address the inevitable, and most of us have a reasonably comfortable idea of what to expect.

Now – and here’s a tough question – what happens if nothing makes any sense to you at all when the crossing occurs? And I don’t mean that it looks different, or smells different, or your Jesus has red hair and freckles. What I mean is that nothing makes sense at all. Not even the way that sense can be made of anything that is, at all, familiar. And all you know is that you’re there without even the capacity to understand how to process the fact that you’re completely lost.

Of course that can’t happen, right? If so, someone would have told us. Isn’t that what priests and rabbis and clergy are all about? Well, that’s what you’d think, but they’re all busy contradicting each other, so what’s to say that they’ve got the answer? Then, there are the spiritualists and transcendental what-have-yous – what about them? Again, what about them? They don’t agree with one another either. And they certainly don’t agree with the priests, rabbis and clergy. Are you starting to see a problem here? I certainly am.

What has become obvious, is that the rigid expectation of religious faith – while great for getting folks to keep quiet in line – is not going to be much of a benefit for a large percentage of human beings who are going to have to make the transition from corporeal existence to whatever it is that we’re each going to have to deal with once we’re done with planet Earth. In fact, faith just may be the worst restriction possible when facing that big transition. Ironically, it’s at that specific moment that most normal people – probably yourself included – will be leaning the hardest on their faith for whatever its got that can give them what they need.

And it’s because of this dilemma that we all will face that I wrote this book. I see that rigid expectation as a real threat to a lot of people. Especially if there is anyone at all that is right in their expectations for what lies ahead for the rest of us. If so, that just means that most of us have a big surprise ahead, and some of us are going to have trouble erasing all that faith and starting over again.

This book is for you, and not if your hereafter works out exactly as you planned. It’s for when you’ve crossed over, and there’s no one waiting for you with your ride to the park entrance. What I’m trying to do is to prevent you from sitting there forever. And the truth is, if your expectations fall through on you, that forever of sitting there