Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope was right when he says that the proper study of mankind is man, but he implied that when we study man we are not studying God. Rather than adding further to our dualistic dilemma, we shall study Human Divinity as the proper study of mankind.

We have pretty well finished the geographical exploration of the earth, we have pushed the scientific exploration of nature…but the exploration of human nature and its possibilities has scarcely begun. A vast New World of uncharted possibilities awaits its Columbus. Julian Huxley

The natural sciences study nature; the humanities study human nature; theologians study God’s nature; metaphysics studies the meaning of all three.

Henry David Thoreau

Throughout human history, we have discovered many things about nature and human nature, but we are still just in Phase One. The greatest discoveries and revelations are yet to come. I say revelations because we don’t discover everything. Most things are revealed. Most great breakthroughs were accidents or synchronicities, right? The aggressive masculine mode of research and investigation starts the ball rolling, but the feminine mode of receptivity or revelation is where the breakthroughs most often occur. The Sufis have a neat saying that you can’t find by seeking, but you don’t find without seeking.

I have an unshakable faith that mankind’s higher nature is on the whole still dormant. Helen Keller

The greatest discoveries and revelations are yet to come. Psychologists are researching human nature, as well as doctors, anthropologists, social workers, psychiatrists, sociologists, physicists, biologists, philosophers and theologians. People everywhere assume themselves to be experts in the knowledge of human nature. We all believe we know what makes people tick, and why people do what they do, don’t we? We are special experts on our spouses, parents and kids. We gossip about human nature all the time. Our movies, televisions shows, media, newspaper reporters, journalists, commentators, preachers, comedians and politicians all have notions about what human nature is.

And so I shall join the crowd and give my opinions. I believe that every thought, word and action reveal our view of human nature, and I believe that it is all projection. I believe that my world is made up of the kind of people that inhabit my brainscape.

The fascinating thing is that everyone has a piece of this magnificent puzzle, this secret knowledge. Everyone knows something, no one knows it all. We all have access to discovery and revelation about the nature of things. Ask a child or ask the elderly what they know about human nature.

Let us explore the question: "What is human nature?" I don’t believe that we know what human nature is, or if we do know , we have forgotten the essence of it. That is why thy mystery remains, and that is why we are in such a symptomatic predicament.

The crud in our lives doesn’t seem to be a mystery, but it is. All of our dirty little secrets have not been explained. Everyone has a theory about why people are criminals, but do we know? Everyone has a theory about mental illness, but do we know? Everyone has a theory about teenage killers and child molesters, but do we know? If we know, why do such problems continue?

Our dirty little secrets, and even our hidden crimes, are mediocre. Only their motivation remains a mystery. We catalog many human behaviors but we cannot truly diagnose them yet. The meaning of our human behavior and motivation remains enshrouded in mystery, even in this 21^st century of information explosion.

People have always tried to analyze why people do stupid self-defeating things, but the Big Secret has not been revealed until this present time. We have excused or condemned every human depravity and fault, but we have not understood them beyond a very superficial level.

But now our survival depends upon the depth comprehension of the meaning of human behavior. Before now, if some kook shot somebody, it could be shrugged off. Now we have mass weapons of destruction and the means of lightning fast communication which demand that the mystery of life be discovered and revealed.

So in this study, we are seeking to find and we shall be willing to be shown the true meaning of human nature. My role here is to focus the flow of this dialogue according to what I have discovered and what has been revealed to me: that man is an infinite being with a finite belief system which perverts the whole picture.

We will look at two themes here: (1) the proposition that the world that you experience is a perfect mirror reflecting your consciousness; and (2) the proposition that there is evidence everywhere of your infinity, and of your resistance to your infinite nature

• A Hebrew king named David asked "What is man that thou art mindful of him?"

• A Greek philosopher named Diogenes spent his whole life searching for a true man but found none.

• They said of Jesus that he "knew what was in man."

• Jesus asked his students "Who am I?"

• Neitzsche pronounced God dead and announced that man is Superman

• Freud said that man was driven by the Id and unconsciously programmed by trauma.

• Jung said that man is governed by the archetypes in his unconscious

• Psychiatrists have studied the insane man

• Doctors have studied the sickness of man

• Theologians have studied the sinfulness of mankind

• Maslow studied the healthiness and successfulness of humanity

• Transpersonalists study the contemplative man

• Kierkegaard found man to have a sickness unto death

• Criminologists study the psychopathic personality

• Sociologists study humanity as a community animal

• Skinner studied man as a stimulus-response mechanism

• New Agers study humankind as creators

• Marx studied man as a victim of economics

• Anthropologists study man as a product of culture

• The average person views humanity as a product of the environment

• Biologists study man as a genetic being

• Darwinians study mankind as a survival of the fittest

• Philosophers consider man as any and everything imaginable

Although these statements are vast over-simplifications, they do indicate that man is a many sided, complex being. We have tried to simplify all of this and study man as a finite/infinite being because none of these disciplines seem to focus specifically on this kind of inquiry and research. Our intent here is to make this study relevant to living life now.

William Blake

Sometimes when I talk to clients about their infinity, they seem to get spaced out. They seem awed and speechless, with their eyes staring through me. Their thoughts seem to evaporate. They are listening very attentively, incredibly absorptive. I seem to become an oracle-giver. My speech flows. Whatever they have told me about themselves and their dilemma is woven into the oracle narrative as it unfolds.

There is a psychoactive drug called Ecstasy, but I have named this oracle "drug" Infinity. Infinity is a natural high. All of our barriers and edges disappear. This is one "drug" where no one loses and no one gets hurt. The major difference between this drug and others is that Infinity takes effect when you get rid of a substance rather than when you take in a substance. The substance you get rid of is the finite belief. This belief is a non-substance substance. Infinity is not a drug of abuse but a drug of dis-abuse. Infinity is actually a non-drug drug. When you take Infinity, you are un-drugged, not drugged. It is not a hypnotic, but de-hypnotic. It is perhaps best described as an Altered State of Consciousness.

I have labeled this experience Oracle Psychology. It is a life reading which telescopes the past and the future into the Eternal Now. I have no idea when it is going to happen and I do not plan it. It is absolutely inspiring and totally amazing how it weaves and flows, creating a totally unique personalized new narrative out of the old story. Both the patient and I seem to be transfigured and transformed. When it ends I am flabbergasted. Neither of us is necessarily out of control, but we are gathered up, as it were, into an altered state of consciousness. The old state is alchemically transfigured into a new state of transcendence/immanence. It is like a Spirit visitation.

I believe that Oracle Psychology happens in bits and pieces all of the time as a synchronicity type of speech, not so much a Freudian slip as a Jungian slip. A higher consciousness seems to supply the right word, a surprising insight, a moment of wisdom. Walter Russell went into such an altered state for days and wrote furiously about nuclear charts and all sorts of scientific and philosophical data. Inspired artists, musicians and poets often enter into such states and receive celestial visions, music and poetry. Some inventors "see" new ideas in dreamstates of revelry.

I have had moments of insight and creativity in therapy for years, but only recently have I gone into the oracle phase. Such an oracle may last for up to 30 minutes. During these inspirational dialogues, I recall stories, images and experiences that I had forgotten for years and they all fit perfectly into the new story being created. New thoughtforms are also sprinkled into the oracle, absolutely new ideas that I had never had before. I respect this as a gift to the patient and to myself from the universe. None of these oracles has ever been a duplicate of the previous ones.

An oracle was understood in the days of Ancient Greece to be a wise or authoritative answer, message or decision given through a priest or priestess by which a deity reveals a hidden knowledge or divine purpose. The questioner has usually made some kind of preparation to present his dilemma clearly and honestly. The more honest and open he is, the deeper the oracle can be. The inspired message lifts up the questioner’s dilemma to a higher plane of creativity.

Oracle-giving might be compared to the transfiguration which the disciples witnessed after Peter had exclaimed about who Jesus was. Peter, James and John went up into a high mountain with Jesus and Jesus was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun and his garments were as white as light. They also saw Moses and Elijah talking with Jesus in this transfigured state, and they heard an "oracle" message to which they were to pay special attention. They were afraid and Jesus told them to fear not. (Matthew 17:1-13) I often feel that some of the Great Ones are involved in oracle wisdom-giving, and although I cannot see what is happening, I suspect that the experience of light is what accounts for the Infinity drug state, along with the exceptional receptivity and accelerated learning which seems to take place.

After reviewing the Biblical account of the transfiguration oracle, I realized that there were three steps in oracle psychology: (1) the ego story of the client is reviewed and its finite beliefs are analyzed (2) the Christ Self or infinite nature of the client is addressed, and (3) the oracle weaves together the meaning of the finite story with the Infinite Vision capability of the client.

The interesting thing about the Biblical transfiguration experience was that it occurred after Jesus asked who he was, and Peter saw that he was the Christ. We are not transfigured until we begin to realize Infinity in human form. Oracles are about the transformative meaning of the client’s infinite nature for the client’s problems and suffering.