Luke, the physician, did not miss Jesus’ mission to those who were sickened, impoverished, imprisoned, broken, blinded, and bruised by false religion. What is false, sick, crippled, incomplete religion? I see twelve characteristics of such stories that we tell ourselves:

• An impoverished, debunked imagination
• Blindness to the dominating power of our human story
• Holds itself to be right and others wrong
• Excludes most of humanity
• Believes in victimization
• Denies God’s humanity and man’s divinity
• Motivated by a fear-based belief system
• Blind to the redeeming values hidden in man’s problems, sins, symptoms and suffering
• Lack of the ability to unconditionally love everything and praise God for all things
• Denies the relative, finite nature of evil, sin, wrong, hell, satan and demons, as states of mind in our self-manufactured story
• In our sick, entrapping, blinding, impoverished and incomplete religious story, we may be asleep, addicted, unaware, possessed, angry and feel hopelessly alone. Like Don Quixote, we may be chasing windmills of the mind. We may wear ourselves out listening to the same broken record or going around and around in the same rut.

But even so, who wants to hear the "good news" that his story is off-course, incomplete, entrapping and symptom-producing? Behead any such messenger!

Every religion, however organized or disorganized, has at least 1% of truth in it. Usually, however, there is not more than 50% of truth in it because most religions either deny God’s humanity or man’s divinity. And then comes that loaded question: did Jesus die for our sins? Of course, he died for the mistakes of our sick religions, there is nothing else worth dying for. But remember, even his death would do no good except for the 1% Factor, which Jesus never lost sight of.

Is every religion sick? Yes, to some degree, because all religions are dualistic

Is everyone religious? Absolutely, because we are infinite beings in a finite world

What is religion? It is whatever we think will hold us together and make us happy.

What about atheists and materialists? Every human has infinite beliefs about something, even about doubts or incomplete beliefs. There is no one without a belief system which he has designed for survival in the midst of a seemingly finite, chaotic, dangerous world.

Do even psychopaths and schizophrenics have the 1% Factor? Everyone has the same irreducible guarantee. We all have elements of paranoia and split thinking in our stories, to whatever degree we deny that we are one with God, with others and with creation. After one night that Jesus spent with a wild raging demoniac in the graveyards, the man became sane. Others returned to themselves when the "demons" of confusion, fear and sickness were "cast out." On the cross, a psychopathic thief awakened from his paranoid nightmare and entered into the soul’s paradise.

After a lifetime of rehabilitating the criminal mind, Dan MacDougald discovered that paranoia (fear) was the root of the psychopathic religion. Severe panic is also certainly a key to the condition of the schizophrenic religion. To listen to the voice of the religion of Republicanism, tune into the Rush Limbaugh show any afternoon. Everyone teaches and preaches his own brand of sick religion. What is yours? What is mine?

When Jesus announced the good news about our sick religiosity, people got upset. Who wants to think they are incomplete, blinded, imprisoned, poor, and bruised? And then he announced out loud the ultimate egocentric claim that "I and my father are one." In these six words, all false religions were laid bare because the hidden inner belief in every human story is that I am right and you are not, that you have victimized and robbed me. Jesus exposed our own hidden belief that we are the most inferior and the most superiors being in the universe. Of course, no one would admit to such a belief, and when Jesus seemed to be saying the same thing, people were enraged, so shocked and enraged that they did not hear the "rest of the story," and we rarely have until this day. What is the "rest of the story" anyway? Jesus told the "rest of the story" when he said: "Don’t you know that you are gods?" ( John 10:34) But it was too late, his destiny was sealed. At the very end as he was dying, he exclaimed "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do." His death was totally about our ignorant, sick, human religions and their victims.

Until we see and admit the sickness of our own story, we are stuck. But not without symptoms! Guaranteed! The discrepancy between our narcissistic story and the truth of our oneness with God and one another is always signaled by symptomatic pain of some sort. Crucifixion of our self or others is inevitable until our psychopathic and schizophrenic stories are brought out into the light of day. Then we will see how self-crucifixion happened and how resurrection through The 1% Factor is accomplished.

And so how do we find The 1% Factor and awaken the power of imagination to its rightful spiritual function? The Bible only speaks of "evil imaginations" (33 times) because we have not understood and rightly used our imagination. Look all around you. Everything that your eye lights upon was created by imagination, was it not? Didn’t your automobile, your kitchen table, your clothing, and your pictures on the wall begin with imagination? Did not our creator fashion the sun, moon, stars, trees, animals and humans through His imagination? Are we not created in His or Her "image" ? Were we not assigned the task of naming things? Did we not mis-use our imagination in the creation of our human problems? Is not every single man-made object, language, story, invention, and relationship fashioned by imagination? Do not all of our mis-judgments and problems arise from "evil" imaginative strategies? Is not evil, fear and human suffering a creation of the mind of man? Is not forgiveness a function of an imagination restored to its god-awareness?

The scriptures tell us that the mind of Christ is born and growing in us. Is this spiritual mind not the mind of imagination? William Blake went so far as to say "Christ is your imagination". What kind of rank heresy is that, asks our logical mind? But just suppose that the 1% Factor is your discredited Christ function, the imagination. This imagination is perhaps the only door through which you can realize and say "I and the Father are one." Otherwise, religion will not compute, and we will remain stuck in the "evil imaginations" of sick religion.

I have asked myself how the spiritual function of imagination can be restored? How can it be made conscious that we have unknowingly created our own problems and suffering, all of them. Otherwise, we will remain irresponsible and symptomatic. All of our sick religions in the 21^st century are beginning to awaken to the redeeming power of the Christ function, which we all imagination. We have a lot of crow to eat. There is a lot of egg on our faces, all of us. But the Christ stands and knocks gently at the door of the 1% Factor.

Is everyone’s religion falling short? Absolutely, look at this mess we are in. Is there a redeeming factor in everyone’s "religion?" Absolutely! Guaranteed! Where is the voice of truth going to speak next? No one knows, but if you listen carefully, you will hear the 1% Factor in every event, in every communication, in every painful symptom.

It does virtually no good to deny, justify or patch up our fear-based, control-oriented story.

It would be more beneficial to step outside of this story and look for its contradictions, flaws and inconsistencies. Unfortunately, we have spent a lifetime creating and polishing this worldview, and we are so attached to it that we will defend it to the death. We identify this story and its strategies with our very selfhood and with our very survival. We’re ready to resist any real inquiry into the validity of our story. We have censors and guards set up at the entrance to the mind. Jehad means the willingness to die for my holy cause and to get rid of all infidels at any cost. Jehad is conspiracy theory squared. All wars are holy wars. All murders are holy murders. All hostility is designed to protect our story. All self-defense is defense of our self-conceived lies.

Imagination therapy is designed to get around these censors and defenses. Since imagination is the deepest uncensored level of the mind, you can get past the story and investigate its symbolic underpinnings without arousing as much reactive fear and self-defense. After all, what harm could there be in imagining two animals and having them talk to each other? What danger could there be in visualizing a door with the name of your symptom on it and going through the door?

What problem could there be in uncovering a treasure chest at the bottom of the sea and bringing it to the surface?

What threat could there be in staring into the eyes of a nightmare monster until its eyes become friendly?

How much strain would it be to imagine repairing and rebuilding an old house until it is livable and beautiful?