The Magian Age

A forty-year quest for the truth leads back thousands of years to the beginnings of civilization and the time of the magi.

The journey takes us through a gender-equal branch of early Christianity (Catharism), the Cathar Prophecy of 2021, Third Secret of Fatima, Eastern mysticism (reincarnation, kundalini, energy chakras...), and the Mesopotamian and Indus Valley civilizations to the shocking conclusion of the eternal conflict between the 'Gods of Old' and the 'Magi.'

This is the story of not only the Magian Age but also of those who betrayed humanity....

The Last Prophecy - Cathar Prophecy of 2021

The New Age movement failed miserably at providing answers to the age-old questions of the existence God, the meaning of life, and spirituality. Despite the 1960s sexual revolution and decades of modernization, little progress has been made. We are more open to new thinking than before, but the plethora of spiritual concepts has led to an endless labyrinth of complexity in which it is often difficult to find one's way.

The journey was a long one, and up until early 2017 I really had no idea that I would succeed, that I even had the capacity to do so, or that a solid truth underneath it all actually existed. I had several pieces of the puzzle but not enough. As of January 2017 and after four decades of hard pursuit, this would never have been written.

Then on February 04, 2017, the pieces began falling into place...

of one of the biggest story in the history of humanity!

Overview

The content below is available as ASMR Video/Audio Book

 for meditation & relaxation on our Youtube Channel.

What This Is & What This Is Not

A. The True Path is the Truth

Bible Creationism vs. the Truth

Is the road to God, Nirvana, or the

Universal Conscience paved with lies? 

The True Bible: Evolutionism

If the truth is not in the 

traditional Bible, where is it to be found?

The Path to God Is the Truth

The truth has the power to change the world.

God left evidence of the truth everywhere in creation.

B. Epiphany: The Beginning of a New Era

Deserting Religions for Spirituality

The faithful are leaving religions in

droves for humanism and Eastern spirituality. 

Epiphany - The Root of All Evils

Corrupt power hierarchies.  

The immunity aspect of democracies and equality.

C. The Cathar Genocide

Gnosticism: Touching the Divine

The spiritual branch of 

Christianity with roots in Eastern mysticism.

Catharism: A Jewel of Faith

The gender-equal and 

spiritual branch of Christianity.

A Genocide by the Catholic Church

The Cathars' extermination by the Catholic Church.

D. Kingdoms of Sand,

False Prophets, and Obsolete Religions

The Unholy Land, Sand Castles, and Tainted Religions

New generations are abandoning moral religions.

Corrupt foundations, power seekers, rituals, and idolatry.

A Kingdom Built Upon Sand

A look at falsehood in the New Testament.

Prophets, Clerics, and Obsolete Religions

How can one tell true leaders

from false ones and find true spirituality.

E. The Divine Comedy: 

Angels, Gods & Slaves

The Soul, Spirit, and Realms of Existence

The material and energetic realms. The mundane

 and spiritual planes. The spirit and families of souls.

Gods & Pyramids of Power

Hierarchism & human suffering. 

Of Gods, their servants, & human enslavement. 

Crossing the Threshold

Entering Heaven and finding it

 overrun by power-seekers and ruled by evil.

What This Is & What This Is Not

Most writing on spirituality and religions only summarizes existing information, for example, a web page on Reiki. This delves right into the very core of religions like Christianity and spiritual concepts of Eastern mysticism in order to identify for those genuinely interested in a true path the various stepping stones of a journey that really leads to the Divine--whether in the form of a God, a universal consciousness, or whatever else.

The main premise of this work is the truth. Follow the truth and it will eventually lead you to God if there is a god, or to the meaning of life or whatever else you call it, if there is no God. Conversely, a path of lies will lead you to a false god or false beliefs and, in many cases, onto a destructive path.

In the Bible, the Earth is flat and the moon is a big lamp whose purpose is to light up the night sky. Can a flat-Earth religion lead you to the divine? Can a faith based on false foundations be a true path to God?

If the universe is a divine creation,

there should be traces of God everywhere in reality.

Follow the evidence and the journey

might just be more exiting than you expect.

What about all the miracle preachers? The James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) offered $1,000,000 to anyone doing true magic, miracles, etc. for over 50 years from 1964 to 2015 (Wikipedia, One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge, February 17, 2019). Many tried, but none succeeded.

The waves of abandonment of Christianity in the West for Eastern spirituality (yoga, reiki, meditation, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc.) is underscored by an appeal for spiritual growth, personal empowerment, love, and happiness. If this is what you want, this work is for you. If you look for a knowledge of and an inner connection to the Divine, you are also in the right place.

Expect a journey that is a

little crazy and sometimes unbelievable.

The truth is much more

 surprising and powerful than you may think.

Welcome to the Journey!

==============================================

A. The True Path is the Truth

ASMR Video/Audio Book

Bible Creationism vs. The Truth

1. The Importance of the Truth in Beliefs

Generally speaking, there are two main ways to explain the creation of the universe, the biblical one and the scientific one. Does it matter which one we choose? Absolutely! Who wants a religion based on falsehoods?

Religious values determine, or at least influence, many major aspects and parts of our lives. False beliefs lead to false conclusions, internal emotional conflicts, and potentially to wrongful actions and abuse. Think of the centuries of repression of gays and lesbians (LGBTQ+). Was it right or wrong? Were centuries of condemnation by morally upstanding people (in the mind of the faithful) actually reprehensible bullying, harassment, and abuse!

"It is a matter of faith" is not good enough an excuse or explanation to exonerate a religion for subscribing to falsehoods.

Religious values have major impacts on society and the world. Think about the open Christian communities versus Muslim societies. Without being judgmental about either of them, most people would agree that they are significantly different living environments. Most of today's wars and continuing conflicts are ones for which the battle lines are drawn along religious values: Iran, Iraq, Israel, Syria, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Pakistan, India, among others. Terrorist acts are even worse; the vast majority of which specifically target peaceful religious places and communities for the openly admitted purpose of causing the maximum number of casualties.

Disregarding the truth is not a laughing matter when it comes to religious values. The consequences over time can be staggering.

2. Creationism

Science has clearly established that the universe was not formed in seven days as per the creationist story of the book of Genesis in the Bible's Old Testament, in other words, as per the Word of God. And, God created the universe in seven days. From Bible.com (GNT Translation), here are partial excerpts of the story:

1 # In the beginning, when God created the universe, 2 the earth was formless and desolate. The raging ocean that covered everything was engulfed in total darkness, and the Spirit of God was moving over the water. 3 Then God commanded, “Let there be light”—and light appeared.... ...that was the first day.

6-7 # Then God commanded, “Let there be a dome to divide the water and to keep it in two separate places”—and it was done.... ...that was the second day.

9 # Then God commanded, “Let the water below the sky come together in one place, so that the land will appear”—and it was done. 10 He named the land “Earth,” and the water which had come together he named “Sea.” And God was pleased with what he saw. 11 Then he commanded, “Let the earth produce all kinds of plants, those that bear grain and those that bear fruit”—and it was done. 12 So the earth produced all kinds of plants.... ...that was the third day.

14 # Then God commanded, “Let lights appear in the sky to separate day from night and to show the time when days, years, and religious festivals begin; 15 they will shine in the sky to give light to the earth”—and it was done. 16 So God made the two larger lights, the sun to rule over the day and the moon to rule over the night; he also made the stars.... ...that was the fourth day.

20 # Then God commanded, “Let the water be filled with many kinds of living beings, and let the air be filled with birds.” 21 So God created the great sea monsters, all kinds of creatures that live in the water, and all kinds of birds.... ...that was the fifth day.

24 # Then God commanded, “Let the earth produce all kinds of animal life: domestic and wild, large and small”—and it was done. 25 So God made them all, and he was pleased with what he saw.

26 # Then God said, “And now we will make human beings; they will be like us and resemble us. They will have power over the fish, the birds, and all animals, domestic and wild, large and small.” 27 So God created human beings, making them to be like himself.... ...31 God looked at everything he had made, and he was very pleased. Evening passed and morning came—that was the sixth day.

And, on the seventh day, He/She took a break!

Of note, the Old Testament places the creation of the universe at about 6,000 years ago. How do we know that? It traces the ancestry of Jewish people all the way back to Adam & Eve!

The truth matters. If a religion is not truthful, then what is it? Can faith be about lies and falsehoods! Spiritual and religious people are interested in true values, not lies.

This series on Neo-Spirituality looks at a spirituality that is based on the truth. You will find the journey a lot more exciting and powerful than you may think. It is also very liberating:

You can kiss goodbye to biblical gender inequality and other types of discrimination as well as false stories of creation and various forms of dis-empowerment.

Say hello to a new way of thinking.

The True Bible: Evolutionism

1. Evolutionism

Creationism is a story that we know, today, is blatantly false. It should not be surprising as the Bible is based partly on accounts of true events and partly on myths and oral traditions.

Faith seems to have reached an impasse in the 21st century. Christians have been leaving their own religion in droves for a couple of decades already, and Islam is falling apart: at war with itself and with others, and under siege from its own home-grown extremism.

Are these just random occurrences or could they simply be the direct result of falsehoods in scriptures? If the information on which you base your beliefs is false, it should not be a surprise if the result is people losing faith or even war and chaos.

Evolutionism is basically the scientific view taught in school, where the earth is not a flat plane hanging below a sky with two big spotlights in it but a gigantic globe in space, one of trillions of other globes in a universe that is almost infinite.

The most reliable source of information that we have about God's creation is written in the DNA of living organisms (which led to Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution), in the layers of sediments of the Earth's crust (which with the help of geology provided us with a true story of the creation of the earth), and in the light from space (which allows us to see back almost as far as the beginning of time, the Big Bang, 13.8 billion years ago).

God's Work (life, the Earth, and the universe) is your True Bible.

By studying it, science has found the true story of creation: Evolution. Science relies on massive amounts of data and knowledge, and most importantly, it relies on proof. While it does not always provide absolute answers, it is a lot better than accepting a story that we already know is false.

The true story here may be that God, if there is a god, left traces of evidence everywhere in creation so his children may one day find the true path as well as be able tell the true leaders from the false ones.

This work follows the trail of evidence hidden in God's Work.

The journey will be liberating and a lot more exiting than you think!

Stay tuned if you want to see where it leads.

2. God's Word vs God's Work

Science does not argue that God does not exist. It rather says that none of the proofs provided for its existence add up or are valid. There might be a God, but so far no one has successfully proven its existence.

The Word of God (the Bible) says that some foods are unhealthy, unclean (non-kosher, non-halal foods). What does the Work of God (the True Bible) say about this? Pork is haram (forbidden) food for both Jewish people and Muslims. Science has studied the Work of God (animals, plants, nutrition...) and does not support that pork is less healthy than other kosher/halal foods. The issues are not the kind of animal but the levels of fat, cholesterol, carcinogens...

People can say anything! People can write anything. That does not make it true. What makes things true is whether they are proven or not. When we examine, re-examine, re-re-examine God's Work (which is what science does), we find that many of the things written in the Old Testament are not true. The question is, is a faith based on false information going to lead you to God?

Those who want us to base our values on blind faith do so because they know that they lack proof for their claims and beliefs. More likely than not, it is because they are not true.

A truthful path will lead you to God, if there is one, or to True Spirituality, if there is not.

A truthful path will also prevent you from straying onto wrongful roads stemming from myths, oral traditions, ignorance, malice... like the centuries of oppression of women, LGBTQ+, and God knows who else... by religions... just because... it is written in a book.

Both ways, you win. The truth is the path you want to be on.

The Path to God Is the Truth

1. Charles Darwin Changed the World

Charles Darwin is an example of a person who, despite adversity and the massive controversy that was attached to what he discovered, chose to forge ahead on the path of truth.

Born in 1809, he was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist. He became famously known for his theory of evolution based on natural selection, which argued essentially that the universe was not created spontaneously in 7 days but that all life (from bacteria all the way to human beings) evolved over long periods of time from a single ancestor, a single organism, through a process called natural selection.

The branching in the tree of life, or differentiation that happened over time between all species, occurred in a competitive process in which the organism best fit for a particular environment would out-compete and out-survive others. In the struggle for existence--for food and resources--less fit species would lose out and die off. You may remember from school that his research was carried out while on a journey on the HMS Beagle that took him, among other places, to the Galapagos Islands.

His theory, which is universally accepted today and one of the foundations of modern science, was highly controversial at the time and faced opposition and hostility from religious authorities (New Scientist) as it contradicted directly the creationist story of the Bible.

2. Charles Darwin Followed the Truth

Charles Darwin was not an evil person or even an atheist. Before he took interest in evolution, he was actually studying at Christ’s College, Cambridge, UK, to become a clergyman (1928) and took the creationist story literally as most people would at that point in time. His journey to the Galapagos Islands was not made with any intention of disproving creationism.

In 2008, the Church of England finally apologized saying "that it was over-defensive and over-emotional in dismissing Darwin’s ideas" (New Scientist, Vatican says it does not owe Darwin an apology, Sept. 17, 2008). That is, 150 years after the fact. On the other hand, this is better than the Vatican, which still refuses to apologize. How many hundreds of years is it going to take them?

The traces of evidence that God left in His/Her creation show us even today who is who!

When he was faced with evidence, Charles Darwin persevered on the path of truth despite that his theory contradicted his own fundamental beliefs and religion. As a result, "Darwin has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history" (Wikipedia, Charles Darwin, Sept. 20, 2021).

In Charles Darwin's time, New Age and Neo-Spirituality did not exist. Yet, his story is a perfect example of one who has chosen to follow the truth and, in the process, taken humanity one step forward. This is not theory, imagery, preaching, moralizing, or proselytizing. The truth is real. As seen in Darwin's story, it can change the world and has done so.

More importantly, the question here is, what did religious authorities themselves choose to do when faced with the truth? The ran the other way.

And, God created the universe.

On the first day, there was a big, big, Big Bang.

From there, life evolved from inert matter

slowly over the longest period of time.

In His/Her creation,

God left traces of evidence everywhere

so that His/Her children can one day know the truth,

the right path forward, and are able to tell the true leaders from the false ones.

While science has been the quintessential foe of religions because it exposes lies and falsehoods, it has been the genuine and unrivaled friend of faith.

It did so by enabling us to uncover the truth, to disentangle it from traditions, myths, scriptures, and from the layers upon layers of deception of those seeking power and of those who wanted to be first.

B. Epiphany - The Beginning of a New Era

Deserting Religions for Spirituality

1. Leaving Religions in Droves

Since the 1960s, people have been leaving Christianity in droves. In his 2005 book, Memory and Identity: Conversations Between Millenniums, Pope John Paul II himself underscored the problem by complaining about the godless Europe and godless democracies (Bruce Johnston, Pope labels democracy 'godless', February 23, 2005). The routing from religions that we are seeing is predominantly happening in Christianity today, but it will eventually affect all religions (Bonnie Allen, From sacred to secular: Canada set to lose 9,000 churches, March 10, 2019). What is really happening?

The 1960s sexual revolution may be where it all started. That moment in time probably best symbolizes when religions really lost their grip on secular society, having been able to successfully control what is one of the most powerful human drive up until that point. Has the Western world collapsed since then as predicted by fearmongers? No! In fact, what is screaming at us today from the media is the paedophilia scandals in Christianity and their cover up by the church hierarchy, the decades physical and sexual abuse of children in residential schools, and more recently the sex slavery of nuns by priests.

Why is this? In fact, while people were abandoning their religion, most were actually calling it quits on the buildings, the rituals, and clerical authorities.

Most of those that left are still calling themselves Christians and still broadly holding on to the values that they had, which are also embodied in western secularism. They did not abandon faith. Many of them are also actively exploring various spiritual alternatives.

Others completely closed the door on Christianity but did not abandon faith either. They shifted their beliefs from organized Western moral religions to Eastern mysticism (yoga, Buddhism, reiki...).

Remember the Beatles who spent several weeks studying transcendental meditation in India in 1967. That was just the beginning of a trend.

2. Morality vs. Spirituality

Religions today generally fall into two categories, moral and spiritual. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are moral faiths (also called ethical theism). Morality is a dual system, a carrot and stick approach in which you can be rewarded by God for good behaviour or punished to hell.

Hinduism and Buddhism, on the other hand, are spiritual religions. There is no punishment, or at least not as it is in a moral religion. It is up to you to learn and better yourself if you want to. There is no God to punish you if you don't.

The purpose of spiritual religions is self-improvement with the aim of freeing oneself from suffering. Essentially, you learn meditation, yoga, reiki, etc. to increase your well-being. If you do not, you are not worse off than you were before. It is an open system not based on fear.

More importantly, spirituality also seeks to discover the truth: what exists, how the universe is organized, what is matter made of, the laws of the invisible world. It is flexible and evolves because much is yet to be discovered.

For example, while a British scientist, John Dalton (1766 – 1844), is generally credited with the invention of the atomic model, Hindus sacred texts dating back to about 600 years BCE already talked about the parmanu (sanskrit for atom), which they described as the smallest possible unit of matter that could not be divided and as "matter [that] could not be sensed through any human organ or seen by the naked eye" and that "different combinations of Parmanu... produced different types of substances." (April Holloway, The Indian Sage who developed Atomic Theory 2,600 years ago, March 02, 2014). That is essentially modern day chemistry.

Eastern spirituality is based on science and fully compatible with it. It searches for the truth. Despite being older than Christianity, it had a conception of the universe that was more true and accurate and, in some respects, was itself even ahead of science.

In contrast, in moral religions knowledge is established by scriptures; end of story. The Bible is the Word of God; it is the truth, the absolute truth, and nothing but the truth. Knowledge is frozen in time and often flawed, for example, the false biblical story of creation. To seek to discover more about the nature of reality or to question the scriptures is condemned and considered blasphemy. This is a form of disempowerment which can be carried to the extreme, for example, when blasphemy is punishable by death or imprisonment, which is still the case in many countries today.

While very close, morality and spirituality are very dissimilar and have different implications for your mental make up and well-being.

Morality is a guilt-and-fear prison based on disempowering and dated moral codes. Spirituality continuously seeks the truth to foster freedom of the mind, self-improvement, and empowerment.

Moral faiths are religions of the past and are dying because they are based on frozen-in-time knowledge which is often fraught with falsehood.

If a religion is not based on truth, what is it?

Epiphany: The Root of All Evils

1. Hierarchy vs. Democracy

Moral religions are generally structured hierarchically, with an all-powerful and absolute God at the top of the pyramid. This is followed by progressively decreasing levels of power from the top earthly authority all the way down to the masses, which have little or no power.

Paralleling the power structure is an immunity from justice. God can get away with murder. There are many stories in the Old Testament where God committed massacres or sent plagues that harmed or killed men, women, and children indiscriminately, the innocent and the guilty without distinction. On the other hand, those at the bottom of the power pyramid have a hard time getting justice, as seen regularly in media stories. Think also about the victims of the Church's sex abuse and pedophilia scandals.

Spiritual religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, etc.) tend to be more decentralized. Essentially, acolytes study under a master. After years of apprenticeship, those who want to teach get out there and make a name for themselves. The better ones eventually gather large numbers of followers. The uninspired ones are weeded out through the inverse process.

As such, spiritual teachers or gurus are essentially democratically selected.

Comparatively, the clerics of moral religions are trained and get a job at the end of their apprenticeship. The competency, or absence of it, is determined higher up in the power structure.

Power is corruptible. As decisions are made by few people, it is unsafe.

Think about the pedophiles that made their way into priesthood in Christianity. Did God not warn the pope about that? Were those making the decisions about promotions totally blind, not being able to tell the difference between someone on a highly moral path and a pedophile?

Spirituality is not immune to bad apples. However, the fact that gurus are essentially selected by tens of thousands of people, makes the system much safer. Even a hundred corrupted votes have no influence on the final result. In a hierarchy, even just one corrupted vote can determine the outcome, as we saw in the Church's sexual abuse cover ups.

Hierarchism is highly corruptible by the simple fact that it concentrates power in the hands of the few. As we see today, religions are not immune to its effects and the consequences can be pure evil, as evidenced in the recent sexual abuse and pedophilia scandals in the Church.

2. The Link Between Corruption and Hierarchy

The difference between moral religions and spirituality expressed above brought me to February 04, 2017, more specifically to where it all started to make sense. I had been on a long journey in search for the truth. While I had gathered most if not all of the major pieces of the puzzle, I had not been able to start fitting them together until that day.

I had been an equalist all of my life, and I abhorred chauvinists and chauvinism. I had left Christianity and strongly rejected the Old Testament. Yet, there was no denial for me that the values expressed in the parables and sayings of the New Testament were inspired and that the life of Jesus of Nazareth was also inspirational.

However, these values, in which I believed and that have fashioned much of the modern world, were linked through Christianity to the Old Testament, which places women in a subservient and subordinate position relative to men.

I was very conflicted inside and frustrated over the issue. I could not live with a religion that supported gender inequality. I could not let go of some of the New Testament values either. By letting the latter in, I forcibly let the former in also. That was corrupting my soul.

On February 04, 2017, I was pondering about the issues of corruption in hierarchies, for example, communist dictatorships and monarchism. The same problem existed with moral religions.

While hierarchies are not meant to be evil, they are easily and invariable corruptible because they lack an immunity function.

Wipe out the human immune system and our entire species has got only months to go. We stay alive not because our bodies are well designed but because we have strong protective systems.

Democracies have an immune system. Through regular elections, you can give the boot with immense pleasure to unscrupulous politicians and avoid the worst part of corruption.

Democracies are far from being perfect, but they are much better than hierarchies. Everybody is equal, one person one vote, which brought me to the concept of gender equality.

Democracies are based on equalism. Dictatorships are based on inequality and hierarchism.

So are all of today's major moral religions. Perhaps, it is not by chance that Jean Paul II railed against godless democracy (Bruce Johnston, Pope labels democracy 'godless', February 23, 2005) in his 2005 book, Memory and Identity: Conversations Between Millenniums.

With this understanding of hierarchism, things started to make sense for me, and pieces of the puzzle began to quickly fall into place.

However, it is only months later that I realized the true significance of February 04, 2017. The connections made on that day not only became the cornerstone of what I was to write, but also turned out to be far more fundamental than I anticipated and a true epiphany that may just redefine the world of the future.

C. Cathar Genocide

by the Catholic Church

Gnosticism: Touching the Divine - Spiritual Christianity

1. Gnosticism: The Spiritual Branch of Christianity

Before February 2017, I had researched off and on other religions in the times of Jesus of Nazareth (Gnosticism, Catharism, proto-orthodoxy, etc). Wikipedia has a lot of information and links available for them. It gives a good idea of the jumble of values in the middle of which Christianity emerged.

At that point in time, the closest thing I would associate with in terms of a religion was Gnosticism, not to be confounded with agnosticism or atheism, which question the existence of God. Gnosticism--a word coined much later in the 17th century--is sort of a catch-all term for a number of early Christian religious trends that had roots in Middle East and Eastern mysticism (Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, etc.) and were spiritual rather than moral in nature. Wikipedia defines it as follows:

Gnosis refers to knowledge based on personal experience or perception. In a religious context, gnosis is mystical or esoteric knowledge based on direct participation with the divine. In most Gnostic systems, the sufficient cause of salvation is this "knowledge of" ("acquaintance with") the divine. It is an inward "knowing"....

... Scholars debate Gnosticism's origins as having roots in Neoplatonism and Buddhism, due to similarities in beliefs, but ultimately, its origins are currently unknown. (Wikipedia, Gnosticism, March 05, 2019)

In other words, Gnostics looked for some sort of inspiration or direct or inner contact with God.

As a Gnostic teacher, you had to have a certain spiritual depth, a certain connection with God. You could not just train from books. What was important was your spiritual level of insight, not the amount of data you could cram into your head.

Having had all of my life a strong interest in Eastern religions and esoterism, the spiritual angle of Gnosticism really resonated with me. I was looking for an inner connection to the divine, not a dated and arbitrary moral code. Wikipedia further sets it as a major trend of early Christianity:

As Christianity developed and became more popular, so did Gnosticism, with both proto-orthodox Christian and Gnostic Christian groups often existing in the same places. The Gnostic belief was widespread within Christianity until the proto-orthodox Christian communities expelled the group in the second and third centuries (C.E.). Gnosticism became the first group to be declared heresy. (Wikipedia, Gnosticism, March 05, 2019)

In other words, the early moral and scripture-based branch of Christianity expelled an equally popular and important sister faith, one that was spiritual rather than moral in nature and that was based on inspiration and true experience of the divine.

In doing so, it began the process of killing the spiritual branch of Christianity and denied the world the most important half of that faith, its very essence.

The moral arm became dominant over time, with most of us having not even a clue centuries later that a spiritual branch of Christianity had ever existed.

2. Catharism: Spiritual and Gender-Equal Christianity

As just seen, right from the early years of Christianity, there were two important but different trends that shared the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. The moral one gave birth to the orthodox Christian movement, which later on split into modern Catholicism, Anglicanism, and what not. The Gnostic branch was spiritual in nature and had Eastern roots.

The existence of a spiritual branch of Christianity was absolutely fascinating to me and the perfect mix for my beliefs.

That prompted me to look further down the timeline to see what had happened to Gnosticism. This took me to Catharism, a religion based not on moral orthodox Christianity but on a mix of Eastern spirituality and the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. An earlier look at it had intrigued me and raised my interest not only for that reason but also for the fact that it had reincarnation as one of its core beliefs, a very important aspect for me. A quick search of the Wikipedia page confirmed that Catharism was also a gender equal religion.

Being based on the Jewish prophesy of the messiah or Christ, Christianity recognizes the Old Testament and is undeniably linked to it--hence, in my view, linked to gender inequality. On the other hand, the fact that Catharism was equalist suggested flimsy links to it, if any. In fact, a closer look confirmed that Cathars generally rejected the Old Testament.

There you had it, a spiritual religion that shared the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, one that supported the idea of gender equality as well as reincarnation, and one that was not linked to the Old Testament.

Furthermore, it was not the New Age stuff invented as you go as we see nowadays.

It was an important and authentic branch whose roots dated back to the early years of Christianity, one that was widespread and popular at the time and that lined up with everything I believed in.

As you will see later, it even competed favourably with orthodox Christianity for over a thousand years.

That day, the world changed for me.

The early moral orthodox Church, a gender-unequal stream of faith led almost exclusively by males, not only rejected the early spiritual branch of Christianity (Gnosticism) but also opposed its gender-equal successor, Catharism. As you will see later, it eventually completely destroyed it.

In the process, it killed off not only the spiritual branch of Christianity, but also the potential for a gender-equality revolution in society literally almost a thousand years ago. The missed opportunity meant a thousand years' worth of misogyny, gender discrimination, violence against women, rapes...

And, for what exactly? Nothing prevented these two important branches of Christianity from coexisting.

Catharism: The Spiritual & Gender-Equal Branch of Christianity

1. A Quick Look at Catharism

Wikipedia describes Catharism as follows:

A Christian dualist or Gnostic revival[4] movement that thrived in some areas of Southern Europe, particularly what is now northern Italy and southern France, between the 12th and 14th centuries. The followers were known as Cathars and are now mainly remembered for a prolonged period of persecution by the Catholic Church, which did not recognise their belief as being Christian. (Wikipedia, Catharism, March 08, 2019)

The cities of Albi and Languedoc in southern France are most often associated with the movement. It was also popular in northern Italy. The role of women and gender is one of the things that distinguished it from Christianity. Cathars believed in reincarnation and held that one's spirit could be reborn as either male or female, making their faith essentially gender equal:

The spirit was of utmost importance to the Cathars and was described as being immaterial and sexless.[49] Because of this belief, the Cathars saw women as equally capable of being spiritual leaders, which undermined the very concept of gender as held by the Catholic Church.[50] (Wikipedia, Catharism, March 08, 2019)

Both Cathars and Gnostics, gave more recognition to the role of women than Christianity in the early development of the religion. Speaking of Mary Magdalene, Wikipedia states:

Her vital role as a teacher contributed to the Cathar belief that women could serve as spiritual leaders. Women were found to be included in the Perfecti [Cathar ascetic teachers or gurus] in significant numbers.... (Wikipedia, Catharism, March 08, 2019)

One thing that caught my attention about this spiritual religion was its loose organization: "Catharism was initially taught by ascetic leaders who set few guidelines..." (Wikipedia, Catharism, March 08, 2019). It had more of an Eastern guru structure and, for that reason, acted less as a magnet for power-seekers and corruption. As such, the organization of Catharism was more conducive to authenticity with respect to the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.

2. Catharism, a True Jewel of Faith

One of the most striking aspects of Catharism to me was their belief that there were two Gods rather than one. The first one was the good God of the New Testament, which created the spirit. The second one was the evil God of the Old Testament, which was responsible for the creation of the material world. It was often viewed as being Satan, himself, or his father.

In Catharist beliefs, humans were angels that were seduced by Satan into a downfall to the evil God's material world in which they were trapped forever and from which they could escape if they renounced it. The latter was achieved by perfecting themselves through cycles of reincarnation.

Cathars called themselves "good Christians" and were adamant in following what they believed to be the true teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. They abhorred killing. As such, they abstained from eating animal foods and opposed war. Beyond that, specific beliefs are hard to firmly establish for lack of historical records and the fact that they were not consistent throughout Catharist communities, perhaps owing to their loose organizational structure.

Cathars were generally well respected within communities. For example when the Languedoc Knights failed to persecute them on the orders of their bishop, they replied: ""We cannot. We have been reared in their midst. We have relatives among them and we see them living lives of perfection."" (Wikipedia, Catharism, March 08, 2019).

In many respects--and especially all the important ones like gender equality, reincarnation, the rejection of the Old Testament, the links to Eastern spirituality as well as to the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth--this thousand-year-old faith better fit my values than any modern religion.

Catharism was a true jewel of faith. You could have the full spirit of Christianity--the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth--within a gender-equal and spiritual faith.

A religion embodies your values. It tells the world who you are and what you stand for. As well, it is the drive for what you want to become and the kind of society that you want to live in and build for your children.

Religions are not inbred in your DNA. They are a choice. If you choose a gender-unequal faith, don't be surprised if you get a gender-unequal society. It is not a coincidence. You can choose the world that you want to wake up to tomorrow.

That being said, as you will see later,

Catharism was not going to be the end of the road for me.

The story got much bigger after that.

A Genocide by the Catholic Church

1. A Genocide Ignored by the Media

Ever heard of the Albigensian Crusade (the Cathar Genocide)? Probably not. Wikipedia has a list of 44 genocides going as far back as 149 B.C.E. ("List of Genocides, March 12, 2019 Historical Version." Wikipedia, 12 March 2019, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_genocides&oldid=887401496. Note: The Cathar Genocide and the Lemkin note below were removed after the publication of this page. See also Albigensian Crusade and Béziers Massacre). Among them, only one was contrived by the Catholic Church, the Cathar Genocide.

This is probably why it is ignored by the media even today despite the fact that being gender equal makes Catharism likely the most relevant faith of modern times. The historical records and facts are well established. Each name on the list has to meet the United Nations Genocide Convention definition for genocide: "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group" (OSAPG Analysis Framework, https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml, n.d.).

Somebody quietly removed the Cathar genocide & Lemkin note from the Wipipedia list of genocides.

The Inquisition, and the Cathar Genocide that started it, are firmly established historically (see also Lemkin below).

The Albigensian Crusade, together with the preceding events and the subsequent Inquisition, was in fact more than a genocide, it was the complete extermination of a faith. Although there are cultural and ancestral Cathars today (often living under other religious denominations), the faith aspect itself was extinguished in the 14th century. Between 200,000 and 1,000,000 men, women, and children are thought to have been killed in the crusade alone ("List of Genocides, March 12, 2019 Historical Version." Wikipedia, 12 March 2019, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_genocides&oldid=887401496.). To that, you need to add the deaths from the wars that preceded it and those that resulted from the Inquisition that followed it.

The Cathars were perceived as a threat by the hierarchist Church as they represented a truer legacy of the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth: the simple living, the ascetic leadership, the equalism, etc. (see Catharism: A Jewel of Faith). For example, in 1206 Diego of Osma, the future Saint Dominic who went on to create the Catholic Dominican Order, tried to convert them peacefully:

He concluded that only preachers who displayed real sanctity, humility and asceticism could win over convinced Cathar believers. The institutional Church as a general rule did not possess these spiritual warrants [or qualities]. (Wikipedia, Catharism, March 08, 2019)

So, you have an important Catholic saint saying not only that Catharism was much more fervent and dedicated than his own religion, but also that the Catholic Church did not have what are essential spiritual qualities: sanctity, humility, and asceticism.

Another example of the true depth of faith of Cathars is at the conclusion of the Siege of Minerve in 1210:

The Cathar perfects [ascetics & gurus] were given the choice to return to Catholicism or face death. This solution angered many of the soldiers [the Catholic Crusaders], who had wanted to participate in a massacre. Amalric [their previous commander] calmed them by insisting that the majority of perfects would not recant. His prediction was correct.[10] Only three women recanted. The remaining 140 were burned at the stake. (Wikipedia, Arnaud Amalric, October 18, 2018)

Since 1147, there had been multiple determined attempts by the Church under Pope Eugene III to halt the progress of Catharism, but those were largely unsuccessful. In 1198, Pope Innocent III took over and when one of his more aggressive legates, Pierre de Castelnau, was allegedly murdered on his return from a mission to the Cathar region in 1208, he took the Church down a genocidal path.

2. The Albigensian Crusade -- The Cathar Genocide

Following the murder of Pierre de Castelnau, Pope Innocent III immediately launched a crusade against the Cathars, which led to a military campaign that was to last about 20 years. To enlist support, a papal decree allowed the seizure of lands owned by Cathars and their sympathisers. That made it attractive to nobles who may have had otherwise little stake in the matter, and the campaign was very successful in part for that reason--assuming the word success can be used to describe a genocide.

Initially, there were several smaller conflicts that pitted the nobles of Northern France against those in the southern Languedoc area in which significant ground was made by the Catholic forces, but it is the massacre of Beziers in 1209 that changed everything.

There were many Catholics in the southern France town who chose to fight alongside Cathars rather than accept an amnesty from the papal legate. A failed sortie by the Beziers army, led to the papal crusaders under Arnaud-Amaury, the Cistercian abbot-commander, entering the city and slaughtering anyone in sight. Wikipedia describes the event as follows:

The doors of the church of St Mary Magdalene were broken down and the refugees dragged out and slaughtered. Reportedly at least 7,000 innocent men, women and children were killed there by Catholic forces. Elsewhere in the town, many more thousands were mutilated and killed. Prisoners were blinded, dragged behind horses, and used for target practice.[66] What remained of the city was razed by fire. Arnaud-Amaury wrote to Pope Innocent III, "Today your Holiness, twenty thousand heretics were put to the sword, regardless of rank, age, or sex." (Wikipedia, Catharism, March 08, 2019)

Shocking! Cistercians are a Catholic religious order still in existence today. The Inquisition that started in 1233 under Pope Gregory IX, and lasted almost 200 years, finished the job. Anyone who did not recant, was burnt alive at the stake or ended up swinging from the end of a rope. For example, even decades after the fall of Beziers, on May 13, 1239 and March 16, 1244, respectively 183 and 200 Cathar men and women were burnt to death. Most of the people responsible for those horrific actions, the inquisitors, were chosen from the ranks of the Dominicans, another Catholic religious order still in existence today.

In 1200, the total population of Europe was roughly 68 million (Wikipedia, Medieval demography, March 17, 2019). Based on Wikipedia's numbers stated earlier, the Cathar Genocide would have killed up to 1.471% of the continent's people. In today's numbers, 1.471% of Europe's population would mean over 10 million people.

The Cathar Inquisition lasted about until 1330. Starting with Pope Eugene III in 1147, the extermination of the faith would have involved 29 popes. We are not talking about an error of judgement by a pope--not that a genocide can ever be an error of judgement. We are not talking about a bad apple either, but a conscious decision and concerted effort by the Catholic Church, the deliberate extermination of a faith.

#cathargenocide

This section may seem strong to some. However, what is described here is factual. From Wikipedia:

Raphael Lemkin [the Jewish lawyer who coined the word "genocide" just before the end of World War II] referred to the Albigensian Crusade as "one of the most conclusive cases of genocide in religious history"" ("List of Genocides, March 12, 2019 Historical Version." Wikipedia, 12 March 2019, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_genocides&oldid=887401496.).

And with that the spiritual half of Christianity was extinguished, and the hopes for gender-equality, dashed for a thousand years.

But, that was not entirely the end of story for Catharism as the depth of faith and sacrifice of Cathars was to echo all the way to the 21st century and herald a new era for humanity, the Magian Age.

D. Kingdoms of Sand, Wannabe Prophets, and Obsolete Religions

The Unholy Land, Crumbling Sand Castles, and Tainted Religions

1. Moral Religions: Built Upon Sand

Most people are brainwashed from birth into a religion. The stories we are taught, some of them entirely false, eventually become a solid pseudo-reality that progressively shapes our lives and view of the world.

Religions are essentially theologies or theories that explain the universe and the afterlife. There are two very different types of theologies, moral religions, which deal mostly with sin and morality, and spiritual systems (Hinduism, Buddhism, etc.), which focus on personal growth and enlightenment.

In their explanation of the universe, spiritual systems described a model of the atom over a thousand years before science did. Although eventually overtaken by the latter, spiritual theologies were built on a solid attempt at the truth.

The explanation for the physical world, including its creation, of all major moral faiths (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) has been proven to be totally false by science. If the premises of a theology are false, its theistic hierarchy (God as creator, the Holy Trinity, etc.) and values are likely to be false or off in one way or another.

As such, it should not be a surprise that new generations are leaving moral religions for either secularism or spirituality.

Where is the inspiration in a religion when, after 2000 years of leadership, it is caught in one child abuse or paedophilia scandal after another?

Where is the inspiration when problems are not dealt with in a straightforward manner: cover ups, decades-late acknowledgement of responsibility, excuses, legal manoeuvring, etc.?

Where is the inspiration in a religion when it has the death penalty for leaving it (apostasy), when people have to literally escape from it, or when it has no freedom of thought, jailing individuals for criticising it.

Major moral religions are in crisis today, either crumbling under the weight of disinterest and scandals, irrelevance and wars, or violent springs followed by more violence, simply because they were built upon sand from the start.

2. Following Followers Rather Than Prophets

Being the birthplace of major religions, the land of Israel and Palestine should be a symbol of faith, renewal, peace, the coming together of different peoples in the name of God, or whatever you prefer to call it. Yet, it has become the most desecrated place on Earth, the Unholy Land. Think about the various killings and massacres of the crusades for its possession. Think about all the deaths directly related to the current and continuing conflict over it. Think about the related external wars pitting the Middle East against the West in its wake.

In February 2019 the Vatican had a conference on Robotics and AI. What do these things really have to do with Jesus of Nazareth?

It is but one example of clericalism, where individuals who are not prophets take control of a religion, make new rules, and transform it into their own version, often splintering and tainting, or even adulterating, the meaning of the original faith in the process.

The next thing you know, a religion is no longer based on the teachings of the prophet but on those of clerics and power seekers.

As part of my journey, I read the Koran. To my surprise, I was told by a Sunni Muslim that they "did not follow the Koran but the Sunna", a mix of traditions and teachings of the Koran. This is not necessarily bad, but it is no longer pure Islam, it is a mix of clericalism and Islam.

In addition to the above, clerics are not always right. They can interpret the scriptures incorrectly. As well, before the invention of printing, books were transcribed manually by individuals. It was easy for a zealous scribe to add, remove, or exaggerate things, all for the glory of God.

There is nothing wrong with a cleric pointing people to original scriptures or giving them copies of holy texts. But, the moment they add or change one word from the prophets or make new rules, they adulterate the religion. They assume that they know better than their prophet. Who are they to do this? Clerics are neither inspired nor prophets, otherwise, they would have started their own religion. They are followers of prophets.

The same goes for adding traditions or other materials to a religion, unless the prophet has done so, or interpreting scriptures to others, in which case they pass on to them their own meaning. Who knows how close it is to that of the prophet? You do not accept second best when dealing with faith.

Sectarianism and schisms within religions are on account of clerics as there is only one prophet. And, these have been deadly in the past and continue to be so today. In fact, they are major causes of war.

If there were no clerics, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam would all be one religion.

In monotheism there is only one God!

Even after well over a thousand years of clerical religious leadership, children of God are still killing children of God for the glory of God!

Not only are major moral religions built upon sand rather than the truth, but after prophets die, followers and wannabe prophets take over.

Going straight to the original scriptures is the thing to do, but that is problematic as seen above and as we will see in the following section.

A Kingdom Built Upon Sand

1. Jesus: A Tale of Deception

If your are a Christian, you were probably taught that Jesus of Nazareth was conceived miraculously and born in Bethlehem, was the Christ of the Jewish prophecy, did many miracles, and resurrected after being crucified. Or, at least, this was the gospels' story according to the Church. When I actively started researching my faith, several things about this made me angry.

Firstly, the four gospels were actually all written anonymously. Their authorship remains speculative to this day. The first, the Gospel according to Mark, is about the teachings of St. Peter and thought to have been authored by a second-generation Christian about 70 A.D. That is a long time in which an oral story has had plenty of opportunities to change and become exaggerated. In addition, it is third-hand information. It was neither written by Jesus nor any of the twelve apostles.

The gospels of Matthew and Luke are actually synoptic or copies based on Mark's own gospel. As such, they have no value in terms of corroborating evidence. They include extra material from what is believed to be mostly, if not only, oral tradition, making it unreliable. (Wikipedia, Historical reliability of the Gospels, April 10, 2019).

In fact, the miraculous virgin birth and nativity story that we have all heard is not in the Gospel of Mark. It is found only in those of Matthew and Luke, which suggests they are fraudulent additions as their gospels are based on Mark's. Is it really possible that such miracles and a story that sets Jesus as the very messiah of the Jewish prophecy may not have been known by Mark? Absolutely not. That Jesus was the Christ is central to the Christian faith!

In fact, Reza Aslan, author of “Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth” (2013) and well respected religious commentator argued in a Washington Post article (Reza Aslan, Five myths about Jesus, September 26, 2013) that Jesus may not have been the messiah of the Hebrew scriptures. The prophecies required that the messiah,

be born in [King] David’s city: Bethlehem. But Jesus was so identified with Nazareth, the city where most scholars believe He was born, that He was known throughout his life as “the Nazarene.” The early Christians needed a creative solution to get Jesus’s parents to Bethlehem so He could be born in the same city as David.

He goes on to dismiss the Roman census story in Luke's gospel as untrue as the census was not carried out in Galilee but only in Judea, Samaria and Idumea, and was for the purpose of taxes assessed based on place of residence, not birth, just like today.

It looks like one of the most fundamental stories of the New Testament and Christianity is false. Scholars have also found that Matthew's and Luke's additions are not even consistent with each other, for example, having contradictory genealogies. See Nativity of Jesus for further details.

The Gospel of John does not have the virgin birth and nativity stories either. Was its author also out of the loop about the core event of his own faith? Most scholars believe that it was written even later than the other ones, around 90 to 110 years after the death of Jesus, again, making it an unreliable source. Its authorship is also in dispute, in addition to the fact that John would have been over 100 years old when he wrote it.

As well, the text is reported to be very different from Mark's gospel and problematic, featuring interpolations, which are errors, non-authentic additions, or alterations made by scribes sometimes centuries after the original writing. Interpolations have also been found to be a problem in other gospels. See Wikipedia, Historical reliability of the Gospels, April 10, 2019.

2. Deception, Power, and Truth

There are two major layers of deception in the story most of us heard in church. In the 10 years I spent as a Christian, there was never even once a word of caution about the anonymity of the gospels or the question of reliability and authenticity of some of their accounts. It was always presented as a perfect and seamless miraculous story.

The second layer of deception is that by cherry-picking pieces of information from different gospels, clerics created a story that looks fantastic on the surface but is effectively false. Worse, they did so in full awareness of the issues regarding the inconsistency of the so-called sacred texts. All of this led me to feeling deeply betrayed and that I could not trust the Church about anything to do with faith.

One of the implications of the fantastic but ultimately false story is that it leads to the worship of Jesus--which is idolatrous, hierarchist, and ultimately destructive as expressed earlier rather than to the values in his teachings, which is constructive. Of course, similar criticism can be made about Judaism and Islam. No major moral religion is immune to the problems of clericalism.

If you look at today's major moral religions based on symbolism, worship, and hierarchism, they are either floundering under one scandal or another or at war with others and even with themselves.

On the other hand, we are increasingly seeing that some people have chosen to focus on the values behind their faith. They are abandoning organized religions--the buildings, the clerics, the rituals, the hierarchism--and are slowly weaving the meaning underpinning their faiths into the secular fabric of society, making the world a better place (see Deserting Religions for Spirituality above).

As a result, Western secularism and godless Europe--to use the words of Pope John Paul II (see Deserting Religions for Spirituality)--and people everywhere else that are following their lead are becoming a truer legacy to Jesus of Nazareth than Christianity.

The bottom line is, we do not really know what is true and what is not in scriptures.

Prophets, Clerics, and Obsolete Religions

1. False Prophets and False Leadership

The Parable of the Tree and its Fruits (Matthew 7:15-20) says:

"Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits."

The fantastic story taught in Church gave Christian authorities immense power, but in the wrong hands, power leads away from God. Think of the Cathar Genocide. Think of the sexual abuse and pedophilia scandals and their cover-up by the Church hierarchy. Think of the centuries of Medieval Inquisition, which involved the papal-sanctioned torture of people belonging to minority faiths, heretics (Wikipedia, Inquisition, September 14, 2019). Think of the centuries of condemnation of and resulting hate towards the LGBTQ+ community.

When exactly did Jesus of Nazareth order all of these things?

Power is only a good thing in the hands of true leaders. It results in abuse, hate, and destruction in the hands of false ones.

Economic wars may not always be avoidable, but in faith-based conflicts, children of God are involved in murdering other children of God over their clerics' different interpretations of the same scriptures.

There are many prophets in the scriptures. Some are real and actually prophetic. That is, they put forward values that are true, constructive, and liberating and will still be so even a thousand years later. Others are at least inspired and will bring changes that are in part beneficial. Others yet are simple religious leaders that were glorified by people as prophets for one reason or another. They leave a legacy of rules that may be constructive for a time but no longer make sense and become oppressive later on because they are not prophetic.

Prophetic values are inspired. Others are thought out by men and women and become problematic in the long run especially when frozen forever into a religion because they are not timeless.

Clerics are not inspired prophets. If they were, they would be called prophets, not clerics. When they declare non-prophetic values to be the Word of God, those continue to be applied centuries later even when they become oppressive and harmful.

It can be difficult to tell whether someone is a true leader or not. Think of politics. Both good and bad politicians make grand promises, but only the former deliver on them. The Parable of the Tree and its Fruits helps us tell the true leaders from the false ones and the prophetic prophets from the others, by their fruit, the result of their actions.

2. Dated and Obsolete Religions

Yesterday's Cathar Genocide and today's chaos of child abuse, paedophilia scandals, and religious and sectarian wars in the Middle East are a massive indictment against all of today's major moral faiths.

Clerical authorities gave themselves absolute power over the faithful by claiming the scriptures to be the Word of God. But the price of that absolute power was the death of their own religion as they froze them in time because the Word of God cannot be changed by clerics.

When science eventually proved many facts of the scriptures to be false, i.e. that the Bible was not the truth, Word-of-God faiths lost all authority. If a religion does not teach the truth, then what is it? Why would anyone follow a value system that teaches falsehoods?

The evidence left by God in creation and history shows that today's major moral religions are based on false foundations. They are also dated and cannot be modernized because clerics in a rush for absolute power froze them in time as the Word of God.

It made them immensely powerful but obsolete from the start and oppressive and destructive in the long run because only the truth is prophetic and only the truth leads to God.

Maybe it is just not a coincidence that they are still killing each other even after at least almost 1,500 years of existence each.

If you have ever tried to leave a religion, you were likely told that you would lose your soul, that you had been seduced by the devil, or that you would never go to heaven. That was probably the first time that you realized that all doors leading out of your religion were labelled 'Evil', that you were essentially a hostage in a prison.

The question is, if God is the best thing there is, why would he/she try to prevent anyone from going outside to verify this? You would expect this kind of behaviour from Satan, not wanting to let anyone out, lest they find the true God.

The Parable of the Prodigal Son is the story of a son leaving his own father thinking there were greener fields elsewhere. After squandering his money and experiencing hardships, he realizes that his father's was really the best place on Earth and comes back home. To his sibling's surprise, the father does not kill him upon his return but throws a big party. To me, that was the door out. I could go out and verify if the Catholic God was the true one and be welcome back home if that was the case, or find true faith elsewhere if it was not.

The true God is not afraid that his/her own children will go out and find that things are better elsewhere. Only evil is afraid of that. If you ever leave your religion, the true God will always welcome you back. But, if your faith is false or corrupted, the Parable of the Prodigal Son gives you a door out.

Religions should be liberating and for the betterment of humanity.

Clerics gave us scriptures and religions.

But, God left evidence everywhere in creation and history so that science could one day expose what is false in them and his/her children finally know the truth (see The True Path).

God gave religions power so they can one day bear fruit and his/her children tell the true leaders from the false ones, and the true prophetic religions from the others.

E. The Divine Comedy:

Angels, Gods, and Slaves

The Soul, the Spirit, and the Realms of Existence

1. The Realms of Existence & Energetic Bodies

The easiest way to understand the universe is to view it as consisting of two realms that permeate each other and occupy the same space. The first one is the material realm. Our physical body and five senses enable us to sense it and interact with it. It is time-bound, you cannot see the future, as well as random, you can be a perfect angel and die of a lightning strike at the age of 17 for no other reason than having been at the wrong place at the wrong time.

The second one is the energetic realm. It may not be physical but is just as real. Science tells us that 95% of the total mass of the universe is dark matter and energy. They are called as such not because they are evil but because we are unable to see them directly or indirectly with instruments. However, we know that they do exist through deduction (Dark Matter, Wikipedia, Feb. 20, 2020). This vast universe of dark matter and energy could very well be the energetic realm.

Unlike the material world, the energetic realm is not random, and pure principles do apply. It is mildly telepathic and can be prophetic. While nothing comes with a label in the non-physical realm, we seem to have three energetic bodies (or one with three parts) that enable us to sense it and interact with it, a human soul, a sapient mind, and an angelic spirit.

In the wake state, we are tuned in to both the physical and energetic dimensions. At night, when our physical senses are turned off, or after we die, we perceive the energetic realm only.

The human soul is related to emotions, fears, and interpersonal relationships. The mind is related to intelligence and allows us to process the various inputs we get from the physical and energetic realms.

The spirit is about intelligence and enlightenment. It is a roadmap that is intimately related to our beliefs or religion and connects us to our individual family of souls. As such, there are several main types of spirits (Eastern Mystic, Abrahamist, Angelic, etc), and not all roads lead to Rome. They frame our understanding of the world, of who we are in it, the meaning of life, higher guiding principles, etc.

2. The Invisible & Families of Souls

The energetic realm is divided into at least two planes of existence or levels, the Mundane and the Spiritual. The mind connects to the physical world via the brain and tunes in to the Mundane or Spiritual via respectively the human soul and angelic spirit.

The Mundane is the day to day human plane of existence. It is closely associated with those seeking happiness for themselves but not overly concerned over the fate of others. It is the domain of the human soul and people content with following a religion without questioning it.

The Spiritual realm is telepathic and inspirational. It is the domain of the spirit and those who want to understand the mechanics of the invisible world. It is related to spirituality and spiritual religions, which are open and continue to look for answers to fundamental questions.

Someone who is strictly materialistic would connect to the Mundane but not the Spiritual level and consequently would not experience the benefits of inspiration.

In the energetic world, souls are organized in families, tribes, or bubbles usually centered around a historical figure or an ideology which acts as the source of their inspiration and provides a mild telepathic link between souls. In the Mundane, these compete with each other for the leadership of society or the moral authority that defines how we should act and differentiates between good and evil.

Soul families can be based on religion, ethnicity, nationality, politics, etc. Belonging to a family affects the way you see the world and judge things, for example, the political left and right have a very different view of the same situation. Some families are secular in nature, for example, humanism (All Lives Matter).

One of oldest families of souls is that of the Angelicals. It is led by angels, and its origins go back to the pacifist civilization of the Indus Valley. It was the religion of Canaan whose mecca was Ai before its total destruction by Israelites. Its history is found in bits and pieces in biblical scriptures, for example, the Book of Enoch and the Christmas story of the Magi.

Pyramids of Power: Gods, Servants, and Slaves

1. Hierarchism, Human Exploitation, and Very Real Suffering

As discussed earlier (see Epiphany above), hierarchism is the root of corruption in religions. Hierarchies are essentially pyramids of power, with top levels being the most powerful.

An important aspect of hierarchist pyramids is that there is a theft of energy along their vertical axis. As power concentrates up, energy and wealth are siphoned from bottom to top. For example, private enterprises are generally structured as hierarchies and, as such, more often than not will reward those at the top heavily.

While the currency in the world is money, in the energetic dimension it is inner power, or confidence, and happiness. Think of those few moments of triumph in your life, when you felt strong and self-assured. This is what power feels like. Conversely, think about those moments when you lacked confidence, felt anxious or rejected, or depressed. This is what the opposite feels like.

Power is very comfortable. When you are a boss, those under you do not generally talk back to you. Popular confident people are looked up to and have many friends. Timid individuals are the more likely to be bullied and ostracised in society. Inner power or lack of it has very real consequences in one's life. How many jobs, promotions, or life partners have you missed out on because you lacked confidence?

When your energy is stolen from you, your inner power decreases. This results in suffering and reduced happiness. As a rule, you deserve to keep every bit of inner power and happiness that you have earned, and no one has the right to take it from you. Stealing energy once from somebody is theft. Stealing it on an ongoing basis is exploitation.

2. Mechanisms of Energy Theft & Monotheism

There are four mechanisms by which inner power can be stolen from you. The first one is fear. It opens in your mind vertical channels of subjection which drain your energy upwards. Fear is unpleasant and can even be crippling, depending on the degree.

The second one is false culpability. Corrupt values, things you cannot change, and unachievable ideals can create in your mind vulnerabilities that can be exploited and produce an unhealthy and even debilitating state of mind.

The third one is false stories. They also create in you vulnerabilities that drain your energy and produce a conflictual state of mind.

The fourth mechanism of energy theft is worship. You willingly give up your power to a superior entity in expectation of a reward. This tricks you into opening up the exact same channels of exploitation that fear, culpability, and false stories do. In addition to decreased confidence, a dependency on an external entity develops overtime and becomes a crutch.

Modern spiritism (channeling, spirit guides, thought adjusters, etc.) relying on invisible entities for spiritual guidance, foretelling, or esoteric knowledge can be similar to worship in terms of energy theft and dependency.

The idea that one almighty father-like figure magically created the universe in seven days generated a massive hierarchist pyramid of power. The fear of God is a common theme in personal monotheism. Culpability is a direct result of morality. Many facts in the Bible have been proven false, and worship is central to its architecture. These are the exact four mechanisms of energy theft discussed above.

God has not stopped the many disasters (droughts, floodings, earthquakes, epidemics, genocides, etc.) that afflict people. He/She has not brought peace either. On the contrary, monotheist religions are behind most of today's wars. The promises of life eternal and rewards in the afterlife remain 100% speculative.

We are asked to give up our inner power to a god which has not delivered on its promised rewards, and for which, even after 6,000 years, there is still no proof of existence.

Crossing the Threshold of Heaven

1. First Incursion Into Heaven

My 40-year search for the truth took me right up to the Gates of Heaven. It was early December 2018 when I first crossed the threshold. I was not sure what to expect, but that was to be the culmination of a lifelong pursuit, certainly a moment of fulfilment. Worst case scenario, I would get God's massive boot up my backside for not being worthy, or dead for that matter.

That is not what happened. When I crossed the threshold, it came from all sides. "It," being blows. I was under a massive assault. Lucky me, I did not realize at the time how bad it was. It would have been terrifying, making things much more dangerous for me. Worse, I was essentially blind and pretty much defenceless not only from the lack of seeing what was really happening, but also from having a limited knowledge of the energetic realm.

To be clear, I was in my physical body but deep in thoughts, in a spiritual trance-mood, sensing into that invisible plane of existence. It was not like being in an out-of-body astral projection where people can actually see what is going on. The things happening in my mind were very real, however. I could physically feel energy movements and pain. I did the best I could and survived.

The experience had been brutal but fascinating. I drew several conclusions from this first incursion into heaven. Firstly, I was in the right place. The path of truth worked! Just like it led me directly and unavoidably to Catharism, it got me from there right to the Gates of Heaven.

Secondly, if I was going to stay, I would have to fight for my right to be there. If I had been able to enter heaven, after my 40-years search for the truth, I had a right to be there and pitied those who would try to stop me.

Thirdly, God was nowhere to be found. He/She would have protected me from the senseless attacks. If I did not belong there, all I needed was to be asked to get out, and booted out if I refused to. As a human, I was certainly no match for God.

The final conclusion I could draw from my first experience in Heaven was that despite being nearly blind and not even knowing who were behind the attacks, I did not have to worry about who was the enemy. It was those that came at me. That made my life very simple.

2. Evil at the Helm of Heaven

Initially, I speculated that those targeting me were most likely the hierarchists discussed in my writings, and for good reasons: I exposed who they really were. As time went on, I got a somewhat clearer picture.

By far the nastiest and most vicious entity attacking me was what I would come to call the Evil of Old. The name appeared to echo from inside the plane of existence I was in and, I am not sure why, intuitively seemed a perfect fit. It was an entity that was totally dark and had the knowledge needed to attack and hurt in the energetic dimension, knowledge which I myself sorely lacked and that made it really, really dangerous.

The attacks against me were underhanded, gutless, behind-the-back, and anything as low and vicious as you can imagine, which pointed to more than just differences of views. In fact, it became clear over time that both sides could not abide in Heaven in the long run. One had to go.

Overall, it was a battle of wit and hard thinking, will and endurance, a painful and gruesome war of attrition in which I really stood exactly zero chance of winning at the start. Initially, they were literally torturing me; it was just a game for them.

Four things kept me going and allowed me to hang on. While the lack of progress on a daily and even on a weekly basis was very discouraging, there was a glimpse of hope in seeing that I was getting stronger from month to month.

The second thing was earlier life experiences that had forced me to push myself beyond my limits where other people would have broken down. I had learned the keep going step after step even under extreme pressure.

The third and crucial thing that enabled me to overcome the impossible odds I faced was the path I was on. Having built a solid foundation of truth, not false stories, allowed me to see ahead and make connections otherwise impossible to make. That eventually gave me an edge over those attacking me. The fourth one will be discussed later.

I walked into Heaven expecting a place of reward after a 40-year commitment to spirituality. This is also what most of us would expect after a long and hard life. What I found was a land with an absentee landlord, God, overrun by corrupt power-seekers and ruled by the Evil of Old: hell in Heaven.

I had work to do.

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