Nothing New Under the Sun. (But, Lie to Me. I like it.)

Christmas of 1994, at 16 years old, my dad gave me Tony Robbins’ Awaken the Giant Within with money tucked inside. He thought this guy had the secret to building independent wealth. (Thanks, dad. Also… sorry. I’ve never cared about getting rich.) What was inside the book - buried beneath the self-help hustle - was my introduction to neurolinguistic programming and the power of communication. I spent my 20s devouring everything I could find about neurolinguistic programming. And, as a result of this gift, my formal learning became communication.

At 18, I wandered into a bookstore and picked up Caroline Myss’s Anatomy of the Spirit. It was my first glimpse into subtle energy and the possibility that there’s far more propelling our experience than what we see. Look, I was a weird teenager. An introverted-extrovert. Hyper-curious. Always trying to fit in, but never quite in the comfortable “fit.” Spending my earnings ($4/hour) from my dairy queen job on books at bookstores in the “big city” that I probably still can’t find in my small town library.

By the end of college, I had formal introductions to Phenomenology and Hermetics. That led me to Gnosticism. Then the Dead Sea Scrolls. Somewhere in there, I joined the Institute of Noetic Sciences. As a broke student, waiting tables, using tip money to wash clothes.

Systems Break Down When Real Connection Happens
Throughout college, I likely attended 200 churches within a 75 mile radius. Weird girl hobby in the Southern Bible Belt. Evangelical, Southern Baptist, Church of Christ, Pentecostal… you name it. I’d read the Bible cover to cover, twice, at that point. Diligently. I could not reconcile the scripture I was reading with what was being preached in most churches or even various study guides that were recommended.

So… I asked questions. Direct ones. In pastors’ offices.
The kind that made people very uncomfortable.
It kept me up at night.
It also gave my formal learning somewhere to land.

I was raised Catholic, attending Sunday school and mass each week. My dad immigrated from Iran, not entirely by choice. He was raised Shi’a Muslim, though he didn’t practice after arriving in the United States. I was hyperaware of that presence - his culture, that lineage, the silence around it. As well as the tensions between characterizations of Catholicism and the culture of the Southern Bible Belt.

As a hypersensitive child with deep intuition for contradiction, the clash of expressions about a God by adults in my world was unbearable at times. “God” seemed… kinda hateful, divisive, and likely confused. Everywhere and nowhere. Palpably present in my experience and absent from what I could see. (Fortunately, maybe, it was the 90s before my hyper ways were problematized in girls.)

Some Christians use verses like Deuteronomy 7:3–4 to argue against mixing cultures, religions, or races. To create a false sense of safety and loyalty the church. (Those who don’t think or look like us are threatening to our way of life, dangerous.) And, to generate fear…. Because when people connect across difference, when they mix, mingle, fall in love, or form community - systems lose control. And when systems lose control, power becomes harder to hoard.

Yes, the tension I carry between cultures and traditions was challenging. A fantastic challenge. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Perhaps, a gift to my life that I appreciate most.

Rabbit Holes Turned Black Holes
Around 2004, my daughter was born. We were living in Chico, CA. That’s were I stumbled upon Ernest Holmes Science of Mind. I took classes. Attended services. Around that time, Jerry & Esther Hicks had just published their first book, “Ask & It is Given.” They came to Chico to speak. I sat in the audience, incredibly curious but skeptical.

This marked the beginning of quieter, deeper dive. Exploring ideas in physics and metaphysics that reside beside, but definitely outside, ways I had been taught to understand “God” or the universe at large.

I’m a big-time skeptic. I love evidence. I spent fifteen years directing & coaching research-based debate programs at universities. A committed career in skepticism. And yet… I wasn’t able to reconcile the life-giving value of spiritual experiences - unknowable and sublime - and our dogged focus on what can be seen or proven. Our Western way of knowing is valuable in its precision and narrow in depth, breadth, and beauty.

The Discovery
That old saying, “There’s nothing new under the sun.” Welp.
There’s nothing new here. There never was. The self-help, pop-psychology, alternative thinking world - Caroline Myss, Esther Hicks, Ernest Holmes, even Joe Dispenza (the most expensive voice in the game) - is repackaging of threads of ancient teachings.

All trying to name, market, and generate money from threads of the unnamable. Rooted in traditions from Indigenous People, Sufism, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, Christianity, and more. All similar in many ways, when themes are examined. All searching for a connection to something greater than themselves that explains “God” and creates a sense of security. All eventually shaped, broken, or erased by quests for control, power, and domination (the politics of their time).

That doesn’t mean the new stuff isn’t helpful. It can be. That doesn’t mean the old stuff is what there is to know either.

But make no mistake:
This wisdom is ancient. Sacred. Expansive.
Once meant to be revealed over the arc of life and embodied at every revelation.
Here’s a tune for ya: No Shortcuts by Heather Maloney & Darlingside.

What I Know for Sure - Expect a Mudslide
No one actually knows much.
Not me.
Not Dr. Joe Dispenza. <insert your favorite charismatic authority>
Not the Pope. <insert your selected religious authority>
The sheer magnitude of what can be known, renders it unknowable… and in constant motion.

This is uncomfortable. Inconvenient. Sometimes scary.

We get exhilarating glimpses. Temporary clarity.
However, if we build condos on top of those glimpses. Populate them…
Turn those glimpses into monuments…
Decide this glimpse is the mountaintop. We have arrived. Ordained Keeper of Truth. Expect a mudslide.

Truth does not like to be caged.

But, I’ll be damned if it doesn’t feel like relief for someone to lie to me. I like it when the solution to my pain only costs $39.99 (or name your price… I am in). I just need a medication. Plastic surgery. This experience. That work out plan. To show up regularly for this or that sermon on God & follow those ways of devotion to save my soul from my painful human condition (AKA eternal damnation).