In the musical “Jesus Christ Superstar,” King Herod sings…

Jesus, I am overjoyed to meet you face to face.
You’ve been getting quite a name all around the place.
Healing cripples, raising from the dead.
And now I understand you’re God,
At least, that’s what you’ve said.

When the New Message from God makes claims about itself and about Marshall Summers, some clarification is in order. The New Message claims to be a message ushering a new reality, a new way of being, a new way of navigating the world. It claims to be for this time what the revelations given to Moses were in his time, what the revelations given to Buddha, Jesus and Mohammed were in their times. It claims Marshall Summers is the Messenger of this New Message. I say this to say that if a person isn’t just a little bit shocked about this, they’re not paying attention.

We had a 30 minute silent group meditation, and after that meditation, I had an idea that I had never contemplated before. The known universe is a bigger place than most people imagine, than most people are capable of imagining. I understand this video travels through about a small portion of the known universe.

I realize there are differences of opinion about this, but I find it easier to believe that the universe described in this video is crawling with life, lousy with life, riddled with life, than to believe mankind is alone in that universe. And if God were to speak to our world, would He not speak to other worlds as well? If one were to presume our world to be entirely average, as worlds go, there must be quite a few worlds in the universe which are receiving a new message from God at the very moment you are reading these words.

We spent some time contemplating how we got to Encampment, not in the physical sense, but looking over our life history, seeing where we had followed Knowledge, and where we had either ignored Knowledge or resisted Knowledge.

Knowledge is a central technical term in the New Message from God. There is a step in the book Steps to Knowledge, a central New Message text, which asks and answers the question “What is Knowledge?”

“Let us say that Knowledge is not the things that are usually associated with it. It is not ideas. It is not a body of information. It is not a system of belief. It is not a process of self-evaluation. It is the great mystery of your life. Its outward manifestations are profound intuition, great insight, inexplicable knowing, wise perception in the present and in the future and wise understanding of the past. But despite these great achievements of mind, Knowledge is greater than this. It is your True Self, a Self that is not apart from life.” (Step 10, “What is Knowledge?”)

Many participants commented that the fulfillment of their desires, ambitions, agendas, etc., would have been disastrous for their reclamation of Knowledge. I shared a poem from Rumi which seemed to address that thought, and it seemed to resonate with the people with whom I shared it.

Who makes these changes?
I shoot an arrow right.
It lands left.
I ride after a deer and find myself
Chased by a hog.
I plot to get what I want
And end up in prison.
I dig pits to trap others
And fall in.
I should be suspicious
Of what I want.

The original plan was to write one post about each day of Encampment, but this feels like a good stopping place. I’ve gotten roughly to the end of morning of the second day. More later.

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.