Game of Gods:
The Temple of Man in the Age of Re-Enchantment
By Carl Teichrib
* The following is an excerpt from the first pages of chapter nine.
Chapter 9
Circle of Gods
When that day comes I shall look upon you all, brothers and sisters, as workers for the Light and engage you in the transforming of our world… Prepare to see yourselves as Gods. – Maitreya.[1]
The complete man, who has experienced and mastered all things, has vanquished Nature and mounted higher than the heavens. He has reached the centre where man becomes God. The achievement of this is the Great Work. – Richard Cavendish.[2]
“Everybody stand up.”
Chairs shuffled as the crowded conference room came alive. “Now take a hand and form a circle,” explained our afternoon speaker. Quickly I scanned for an exit, but a hand grabbed mine and pulled me to the edge of the row. Another hand connected. Soon a chain formed, and I was a link.
A respected Broadway vocalist stepped into our giant ring. Earlier in the day our paths crossed, and her eyes twinkled in a smile. Now, standing before us with confidence and poise, she poured out the richness of her voice. Flowing into every corner of the room she melodically imparting well-known themes from the Gospel of John and the Book of Revelation: “I am the Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last… I am the Word of God… I am the King of Kings and Lord of Lords… I am that I am.”[3]
Her last note faded into a reverential hush, a solemn silence. The feeling of being in a place of worship was palpable, and the song could have been performed in a church service. Heads were respectfully bowed and most eyes were closed in profound introspection. Some in the group would have called this a pause in our collective soul.
Breaking the moment, our speaker – now standing in the center – calmly acknowledged the divinity that encircled him: “The Christ within me salutes, honors, and respects the Christ within each and everyone of you.”
Hands dropped as men and women, old and young, turned and bowed with veneration to one another. Each was a divine being. I stood statue-still, encircled by mutually affirming “gods and goddess.” Then, like everyone else in the room, I returned to my seat.
It was 1999, and humanity was about to enter a new epoch. Looking to the immediate future, this one-day event, hosted by Spiritual Unity of Nations (SUN),[4] was titled 1999: Year of the Covenant.[5] Participants from across the US Midwest had gathered to assist in the birthing of a new age in conscious evolution. The dawning of Aquarius, we were told, was at hand.
John Davis, Director of SUN, was there to inspire us with visions of millennial mysticism. Earlier he had published the following,
Each person is in essence a nation. Living many past lives in various nations on Earth, within us we express the vision of unity… 1999 is truly a year to communicate with the inner planes of consciousness to assist with the higher mental healing of the nations.[6]
Anticipation was in the air, for 1999 was a bridge between the old era and an entirely new millennium. Symbolically we would be merging into a collective whole. The age of Revelation was upon us.
To help understand the significance of the transition period, Davis had brought copies of his book, Revelation For Our Time. Re-interpreting the New Testament’s Revelation using the occult technique of numerology, a great secret had supposedly been uncovered: “Revelation has elements of Buddha, the Great Pyramid, and King Arthur within its vibration.”[7]
His calculations produced a story of Re-enchantment: The return of the divine feminine to a restored balance in nature; the spiritual connection of all within a Planetary Logos; and the evolution of humanity into the Group Avatar – the “Second Coming,” a Messiah of our collective making.
Our task would be to shed the old traditions and beliefs associated with separation and fear. Hence, Davis turned the “Anti-Christ” of Revelation into a positive group experience, a foreshadowing “ante-Christ,” in which we participate as heralds of the Universal Awakening.[8] In his numerology, the “Mark of the Beast,” 666, turned into a symbol for the responsibility we have as individuals working for planetary oneness.[9]
“World peace can prevail,” promised Davis, “as we replace misguided ideas such as the existence of an AntiChrist with the positive vibrations of thoughts of world peace, world sharing and world unity.”[10]
Davis predicated a transformation into a new spiritual season,
We belong to a new humanity born again beyond personality, beyond soul, born again to a Universal Awareness. We should not be concerned with creating a new religion. The new message is one of unity, planetary sister/brotherhood and opportunity for all. We are presently in the transition period between two dispensations. We are at the end of the old Piscean age and not quite ready for the new energies of the Aquarian.[11]
Although Davis wrote the above in his re-interpretation of Revelation, this belief nevertheless pulsed as the heartbeat of our conference.
It was an interesting day.
Egyptologist Ahmed Fayed, who had been a personal guide to Shirley MacLaine, Henry Kissinger, Frank Sinatra, Princess Diana and Elizabeth Taylor, talked about the mystical importance of the Year 2000 and the “capstone ceremony” being planned for the Great Pyramid in Egypt.[12]
Energy healer Roger Stair read from the “angelic-inspired” Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ.[13] “My personal truth,” Stair explained after the reading, “is as changing as my convictions.”
I was given a flyer for The Light Party, a “synthesis of the Republican, Democratic, Libertarian, and Green Parities.”[14] We had discussions on how the New Age would challenge politics and religion. Social norms and values, it was agreed, will be entering a time of great flux.
In the afternoon an artistic throne was set before us. Constructed of white plaster over a high-backed chair and decoratively arranged, this, we were told, was the result of a channeling session through which the artist received a vision of the “Mercy Seat of the Ark of the Covenant.” However, it needed color. We were thus encouraged to quiet ourselves, close our eyes and free our minds, and open a space to make contact with higher intelligences. Many entered a state conducive for channeling, mentally linking themselves with the directed thoughts of otherworldly entities. After a period of silence, eyes opened and people expressed the color visions they had seen. The artist could now complete her work, and the piece could be moved to its new home – some corporation office, we were not told which.
Later, a Reiki Master who employs hypnotherapy lectured on the subject, “From Duality to the Beatitudes.” Separateness and its associated guilt tendencies must give way to an era of World Service. Assisting in this break from the old mind to the new thinking, we were led through a ritualistic release of guilt. It started with a collective chanting of the Hindu AUM.[15] Beginning in a low note and slow rhythm, the mystical sound rose and fell in intensity, and with every breath and resonance the chanters moved deeper into themselves. It felt like I was watching an exercise in mass hypnosis.
Expanding and filling the conference room, the sound finished itself in a peaked crescendo. The leader, like other attendees, was visibly spent in the ecstasy of the moment. Breathlessly she said, “let us pray.”
In unison the many voices invocated: “Our Father, which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name, Thy Kingdom come…”
It was all very spiritual.
The Genesis of Human Deity
What I had witnessed was a reminder of something very ancient: The Genesis account of the “Fall of Man,” the general fall instigating our ongoing “divine rebellion” and predicating all other falls – individual and collective.[16]
In Genesis 2 we read that the first human couple, Adam and Eve, had an intimate relationship with their Creator. God directly interacted with them, and even more, provided for their physical needs in a place specifically prepared, the Garden of Eden. Purpose, meaning, rest and good pleasure were wrapped in this relational paradigm set in a distinct location. Yet an option was open for the couple to step outside of this design, for as God is the author of love, choice is required if love is to exist. Moreover, choice infers the use of will, a requirement if we are to be God’s representatives on Earth.
Evangelist Les Woodson offers this insight,
If man were to share the Creator’s likeness, he must be allowed the use of his will. Where there is no choice, will is not only superfluous but nonexistent. Only in the midst of creative tension which provides at least one option can man be other than a non-choosing beast. The continual conflict made possible by the presence of a choice between two alternatives is an essential ingredient in responsible living.[17]
Enter the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
The choice in Genesis 2 is clear: Partake of the fruit of the Tree, or obey God and abstain. With this option comes a strong warning. If you eat of the tree, you will die. The rationality for this seemingly harsh consequence has a logical consideration. As God is Creator and therefore legal holder of life, to intentionally choose a path other than His is to enter the way of death. The human couple understood this intellectually but not experientially.
In Genesis 3 humanity comes face-to-face with a tempter, variously called Satan or the Devil. Although unnamed in Genesis, we find a correlation in Revelation 12:9 where he is referred to as the “great dragon, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world.” We also see this entity interacting in the court of God as our accuser.[18] While artistic interpretations of this adversary span the gamut from a medieval-inspired monster to a comic-book figure with horns to a well-dressed businessman, 2 Corinthians 11:14 tells us he comes as an “angel of light.” In fact, the Hebrew word given in Genesis 3:1 for serpent refers to something – or someone – as luminous and shining.[19] It can also infer divination, the impartation of knowledge through a supernatural means.[20]
We further read in Genesis 3:1 that this entity, who some refer to as Lucifer, is subtle. The root word used in this passage implies a remarkable intelligence, the application and delivery of knowledge in a tactical fashion: Crafty. Discretion and discernment can be linked, as in Proverbs 13:16 where the root is used for prudent: “Every prudent man acts with knowledge, but a fool lays open his folly.” It is used in Job 5:12 this way: “He frustrates the devices of the crafty, so that their hands cannot carry out their plans.”
The one before Eve is shrewd and deliberate, showing an exceptional understanding of the human propensity to rationalize. The serpentine-dragon imagery is a powerful expression of his very potent nature. In the Garden he comes to dialogue, to question and test, and to masterfully engage in the salesmanship of self-justification.
It started with a simple yet suggestive question: “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?” The query introduced doubt. Eve responded by confirming God’s admonition, but a seed had been planted in her mind.
“You will not surely die,” was the response given to Eve. “For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
The benefits of partaking appeared to surpass the costs: Life would go on, wisdom was to be granted, and the human status would be elevated. This “knowledge,” allowing one to apparently become as Yahweh Himself, would achieve a greater good. Enlightenment was before them. Following the angelic advice, they engaged in the act of taking and eating, the first technique of human-proclaimed self-divinity.
In so doing, they discovered the tempter had wiled them with a half-truth. Immortality vanished and the idea of becoming “as God” proved illusionary. Of course, the truth-part was we experientially and spiritually entered the realm of the “knowledge of good and evil.” We had now tasted its capability, but as the Garden incident demonstrated and human history shows, we were personally and collectively unable to control its capacity. It controls us.
Ecclesiastes 7:20 is a sobering reminder: “For there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin.” Romans 3:23 says something similar: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
True words.
While acts of goodness are open to us, we have nevertheless been plagued by “divine nightmares” – kings and powers and nations “playing God” against one another. Far more mundane but just as eternally damning is the fact that each of us, myself included, has an inner nature in opposition to the true God. We all pulse with the heartbeat of the Fall
What the “knowledge of good and evil” is has long been debated in theological circles, although the core meaning may rest on something very basic: To experience autonomy without reverence to God, and with it the ability to act upon good and evil. Note that Adam and Eve did not lack intellectual aptitude prior to eating the fruit, for they were making knowledgeable choices (Genesis 2:15-25). Moreover, Eve demonstrated understanding prior to intentionally disobeying God’s directive (Genesis 3:2-3). Thus, their pre-fall existence was not one of animal-like “ignorant bliss,” nor were they innocent of sexual relations as some have suggested, for becoming “one flesh” was instituted in Genesis 1:28 and 2:24. Rather, their pre-fall existence was couched in response to God’s loving order. They alone were responsible to choose love and life per God’s will, or pursue an alternative.
Are we not all carrying that responsibility? Part of being made in the “image of God” means we must respond to our Maker. I believe Emil Brunner, a Swiss theologian, was onto something when he wrote,
Man is, and remains, responsible, whatever his personal attitude to his Creator may be. He may deny his responsibility, and he may misuse his freedom, but he cannot get rid of his responsibility. Responsibility is part of the unchangeable structure of man’s being. That is: the actual existence of man – of every man, not only the man who believes in Christ – consists in the positive fact that he has been made to respond – to God.[21]
Adam and Eve responded in the negative. Fellowship with God was broken and humanity was distanced from true wisdom. We found ourselves in hostility to “God’s image” of righteousness. Death was set in motion.
Neither did human-ascended deity, to “be as God,” come to fruition. God recognized that they had become “as one of us” in Genesis 3:22, but the context was in the knowledge of good and evil, not in becoming a higher being, and certainly not in becoming equal to the Highest Being. Indeed, God stated this as a fait accompli. In other words, Adam and Eve’s fall was not a development leading to something more or better – as taught by Mormonism[22] – but a completed act of disobedience. They had deliberately stepped outside of God’s order and now sin and death was embedded in humanity’s spiritual and physical existence.
The problem of evil was upon us, by our own making.
Old Testament scholar Michael Heiser comments on the role we play as God’s created imagers on Earth, distinguishing between predestination and foreknowledge, and the problem of evil,
God is not evil. There is no biblical reason to argue that God predestined the fall, though he foreknew it. There is no biblical reason to assert that God predestined all the evil events throughout human history simply because he foreknew them…
God does not need evil as a means to accomplish anything.
God foreknew the fall. That foreknowledge did not propel the event. God also foreknew a solution to the fall that he himself would guarantee…
Evil does not flow from a first domino that God himself toppled. Rather, evil is the perversion of God’s good gift of free will. It arises from the choices made by imperfect imagers, not from God’s prompting or predestination. God does not need evil, but he has the power to take the evil that flows from free-will decisions – human or otherwise – and use it to produce good and his glory through the obedience of his loyal imagers, who are his hands and feet on the ground now.[23]
God was not selfish or vindictive, as some have popularly claimed. His righteous standards do not cause us to sin. Nor can we say the “Devil made me do it.” Temptations abound, along with opportunities to do what is right. Our acts of good and evil rest on our shoulders. But so often we blame-shift.
When faced with having to explain to God why he disobeyed, Adam blamed Eve and indirectly, his Maker: “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.” Eve then acknowledged her deception, and imputes fault on the tempter. We too put blame on others, or we point to circumstances or past wrongs. Certainly there are provoking situations; nevertheless, the responsibility to choose how we act and react is on us.
“All of this means that what we choose to do is an important part of how things will turn out,” Heiser reminds us. “What we do matters.”[24]
This does not change the fundamental nature of our rebellion and its effects. The seriousness of our actions are ever before us, as is the gravity of our turning from the Author of Life. We see and experience it daily.
Proverbs 16:25 speaks to the error committed in the heart of Man: “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.” Romans 5:12 fleshes this out with a direct link to the Genesis account: “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”
The human cry of I am God is the first act of identity theft.
Game of Gods can be purchased on Amazon.
[1] Messages from Maitreya the Christ, Vol.1., as channeled to Benjamin Crème (Tara Press, 1980), p.76. Maitreya is considered a bodhisattva – a Perfected Man on the Buddhist path, an Ascended Master – and is claimed by occultists to be the coming “World Teacher.
[2] Richard Cavendish, The Black Arts (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1967), p.6.
[3] All quotes from the SUN conference come from my notes and recordings.
[4] Spiritual Unity of Nations is the offspring of Coptic Fellowship International, a Michigan headquartered learning center for esoteric/occult teachings.
[5] This conference was held in Fort Wayne, Indiana, on July 10, 1999.
[6] “1999: What is the Significance of the Year 1999?” SUN UP Newsletter, Spiritual Unity of Nations, May 11, 1999, p.1-2.
[7] John Davis, Revelation For Our Time: A New Paradigm for the Next Century (Spiritual Unity of Nations Publishing, 1998), p.13.
[8] Ibid., pp.81-85.
[9] Ibid., pp.82-83.
[10] Ibid., p.81.
[11] Ibid., p.115.
[12] The Pyramid Millennium Concert, a music and light-show extravaganza with strong ritualistic overtones, was to culminate in a “capstone ceremony.” At midnight, a golden capstone was to be lowered by helicopter onto the top of the Great Pyramid. For some reason this part of the celebration was cancelled.
[13] This text, released in 1907, was channeled to Levi H. Dowling from an “angelic being.”
[14] From a handout given at the SUN 1999 event, The Light Party. This strange political aspiration was the brainchild of Da Vid, director of The Global Peace Foundation.
[15] Also spelled as Om, a sound that is said to embody the entire cosmos.
[16] It can be argued that Genesis 1-11 introduces all evils into the world, showing us the consequences of our continual sin experience: Genesis 3 introduces the base rebellion of Mankind against God’s will and order, resulting in death and pain for all. This can be called a general fall for it begins the cycle of sin. Genesis 4 showcases moral failure with envy culminating in the murder of Abel. We also see rebellion against God’s judgment in Cain’s construction of a settlement. Genesis 6 continues this moral theme with the acknowledgment that men’s thoughts were continually evil. The passage also introduces a supernatural element, the participation of created, celestial beings in sinful acts. 2 Peter 2:1-10 and Jude 6-7 gives us insight into this situation. Genesis 9 reveals moral failing again, this time pertaining to Noah – demonstrating the impossibility of righteous living and the continuation of sin even after the Flood judgment. And Genesis 11 presents the case for a collective and peak falling away, resulting in the division of nations and God’s choice to begin working through one primary people group – the family of Jacob – while allowing others to follow foreign gods (see Deuteronomy 32 for more information).
[17] Les Woodson, The Beginning: Genesis (Victor Books, 1974), p.27.
[18] Job 1.
[19] See Michael S. Heiser, The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible (Lexham Press, 2015), p.87-88. See also, Victor P. Hamilton, Handbook on the Pentateuch (Baker Book House, 1982), pp.42-43.
[20] Heiser, The Unseen Realm, p.87. See also Hamilton, Handbook on the Pentateuch, p.43.
[21] Emil Brunner, “Man and Creation,” Readings in Christian Theology, Volume 2: Man’s Need and God’s Gift (Baker Book House, 1976, edited by Millard J. Erickson), p.49.
[22] See Gospel Principles (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1997), p.33.
[23] Heiser, The Unseen Realm, p.66, italics in original.
[24] Ibid, p.66, italics in original.
