In the previous post, I claimed that the New Message from God was internally consistent, and offered it as a “witness” that the New Message from God was real.  I will now elaborate on that claim.

When I first encountered the New Message in the fall of 1988, there was a relatively small amount of material available to the public.  I recall listening to a series of five cassette tapes, where each tape contained one of the messages received by Marshall Summers.  The timeline video shows that Marshall had received a total of 161 messages by the end of 1988.  This works out to 18% of the total number of message received by the end of 2011. I recall reading transcripts of some of the messages that were not on the tapes. These transcripts were sent to people on a mailing list.  I was an eyewitness to the reception of at least three of the messages received between 1988 and 1990, two of which were received in Dallas, Texas, and one of which was received in Tyler, Texas.  I say “at least three,” because it might have been more, but I definitely recall three of these occasions.

I recall the subjects of three of the five cassette tapes.  One of the subjects was the Presence of the Teachers, and the development of Self-Knowledge.  In later messages, the term Self-Knowledge was replaced with Knowledge.  One of the tapes was on relationships and sexuality.  One of them was on the subject of humanity’s near future.

The material that was on those cassette tapes was expanded and elaborated on in series of messages, which later became New Message books.  The material on the development of Self-Knowledge tape became part of the material of the book “Steps to Knowledge.” The material on the relationships and sexuality tape became part of the material of the book “Relationships and Higher Purpose.”  The material in the near future tape became part of the material in the book “The Great Waves of Change”

When I say “The New Message from God is internally consistent,” I mean the ideas for which the New Message is now known were received at an early stage in its history.

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Welcome to Mystery of Ascension! We are students and advocates of the the New Message from God. We are members of a worldwide community. We seek to assist the world in successfully navigating difficult times ahead. We seek to assist the world in successfully emerging into a greater community of intelligent life. You will also find some poetry. Find out more about us here. Contact us here.

Every community has concerns that it works on, and the New Message from God community is no exception.  A concern we’re working on is how to advocate for the New Message in the marketplace of commitments.  There are a number of dynamics at work.

People who bring hopes of getting famous to their study of the New Message are going to be disappointed.  There are many teachings as to how the wise stay hidden, working behind the scenes, giving their gifts with humility.  Students are encouraged to develop discretion, to cultivate the ability to restrain themselves from sharing everything they know with everyone they know.  I do not claim to have developed this ability yet, but I’m working on it.

On the other hand, I observed a growing realization among my fellow Encampment participants, that if the New Message is going to have the impact it should have, that we must reach a larger audience.  The phrase “Make the message findable” has been said in many conversations.

Someone who read the last paragraph might think, “What impact should the New Message have?”  It should cleanse individuals from their wounds, and their itches for money, fame, survival, sex and power.  It should help people to keep calm and carry on in the face of a world undergoing wrenching adjustments of declining resources, environmental degradation, and political upheaval.  It should help humanity advance from a collection of warring tribes to a united people.  It should help humanity emerge into a greater community of intelligent life, with its sovereignty intact.

I forget exactly when this happened at Encampment, but someone shared their personal nightmare with the group. He imagined himself 30 years in the future, walking through a store selling used books, books that people have read and sold back to the bookstore. In a dusty corner of the section of the store containing spiritual teachings, is a copy of Steps to Knowledge. I encouraged him to share his positive vision of the future as well. The next morning I said “Well, I didn’t dream about the used book store, so I suppose I had a good night’s sleep.”

Welcome to Mystery of Ascension! We are students and advocates of the the New Message from God. We are members of a worldwide community. We seek to assist the world in successfully navigating difficult times ahead. We seek to assist the world in successfully emerging into a greater community of intelligent life. You will also find some poetry. Find out more about us here. Contact us here.

I wish to share something that I wrote in my notebook sometime during the afternoon session of Friday, September 14, the second day of the Encampment of the New Message from God.  This is not a New Message teaching, merely some thoughts I had.  I wrote:

Knowledge is unmoved by our preferences, anxieties, thoughts, emotions and feelings.

Knowledge wants our minds to be able to investigate, calculate, compare, encourage helpful thoughts, arrest harmful thoughts, and be still.

Knowledge wants our wills to be able to choose what we know, reject what we don’t know, and not be bamboozled by our minds and emotions.

Knowledge wants our emotions to be a healthy partner with our minds and wills. Knowledge wants our emotions to alert us when our minds are arresting helpful thoughts, helping harmful thoughts, not arresting harmful thoughts. Knowledge wants our emotions to alert us when our wills commit sins of omission and commission.

At the end of day 2, I was encouraged that people enjoyed the Rumi poem I shared with them (“Who Makes These Changes?”).  I was encouraged as to how nice people were to me.  I considered it a good, productive day.

Welcome to Mystery of Ascension! We are students and advocates of the the New Message from God. We are members of a worldwide community. We seek to assist the world in successfully navigating difficult times ahead. We seek to assist the world in successfully emerging into a greater community of intelligent life. You will also find some poetry. Find out more about us here. Contact us here.

The daily schedule of Encampment offered the participants two hours in the afternoon for free time.  On the other hand, we were also given a list of 20 questions to ponder.  I only got around to pondering the first one to my own satisfaction.  The question is:

How do I know that the New Message from God is real?

As I pondered this, I recalled a Bible verse that first appeared in the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 19:15), and was later quoted in the New Testament (2 Corinthians 13:1) “Every matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.” (New International Version). Over the next few posts, I plan to bring forth “witnesses,” to present evidence, for the reality of the New Message from God.

One witness is the decency and magnanimity of the students of the New Message. Many teachings make claims for what will be produced in students who follow them.  A teaching could be evaluated both on the quality of its claims, and its effectiveness in producing its claims in its students.  One of the steps in Steps to Knowledge describes what the New Message promises to its students:

“To come into the proximity of Knowledge means that you become more and more like Knowledge itself—more whole, more consistent, more honest, more devoted, more concentrated, more self-disciplined, more compassionate and more self-loving. All of these qualities are developed as you approach that which is the source of these qualities.” (Step 18, “Today I feel the truth arising within myself”)

I was a student of the New Message for about 2 1/2 years (1988-1991), and I’ve been a student from April 2010 to the present. There are people who have been students for a much longer time than I.  I was able to ask if there was any student of the New Message who they knew to be convicted of a serious crime.  They knew of no one.  I believe that if the students of the New Message were subjected to a battery of psychological tests, they would be found to be well-adjusted and integrated human beings.

How do I know this?  Because I spent 5 days, give or take a few hours, among more than 70 people, who had nothing else in common than their studenthood of the New Message. In those five days, not one unkind, snarky or sarcastic word was spoken to me. I observed no cliques of people who thought they were better or more important than other people.  I observed no one trying to leverage the gathering for a romantic encounter or a business deal.  I have never been around a group of that many people, who were that cleansed of the normal human complement of wounds and itches.

So one way I know that the New Message from God is real is the nobility of its promises to the students who follow its teachings, and its ability to deliver on its promises.

Welcome to Mystery of Ascension! We are students and advocates of the the New Message from God. We are members of a worldwide community. We seek to assist the world in successfully navigating difficult times ahead. We seek to assist the world in successfully emerging into a greater community of intelligent life. You will also find some poetry. Find out more about us here. Contact us here.