1. Periodically a restatement or clarification of spiritual principles is needed. Such occasions take place when previous statements have fallen into decadence, have been forgotten or misinterpreted, or when changes that have taken place in human affairs make it appear that inadequate guidance is provided by words that were spoken at some previous time. There seems to be about a 500 year minor cycle and about a 2000 year major cycle to such statements.

2. Human civilization appears to have arrived again at a time when a restatement of spiritual principles is needed. The advent of current scientific ideas about 500 years ago with a change from geocentric to heliocentric astronomy, and the repercussions of that change in religious thinking, scientific thinking, as well as political and economic ideas which some feel also resulted to some extent from Protestantism, also a phenomenon of about 500 years ago,--- now seem to have brought human civilization to the brink of total disaster. It is at such times of apparent disaster that new spiritual statements have been given in the past.

The three major developments in human civilization in the last 500 years, and in a larger sense the last 2000 years that seem most to require additional spiritual guidance at this time are:---

A. Modern science seeming to have developed no concept whatsoever of morality or ideas of when it is right or wrong to investigate and use the principles of nature to devise procedures that can destroy all of human civilization or produce the current problems of environmental pollution and human overpopulation.

B. Democratic or "majority opinion" forms of government that have replaced the older systems of a nobility, serfs, and kings. What the purpose of such a form of government should be is still unclear. Should its purpose be to cause majorities or the strongest to dictate to and enslave or destroy minorities as kingdoms used to do? Should it be to further the interests of nations that war constantly with other nations? This needs spiritual clarification and guidance for possibly a new form of government.

C. Almost universal taxation that coupled with modern industrialization and almost instantaneous electronic communication throughout human civilization and the gigantic economic division of labor this has created, now involves almost everyone on this planet in directly violating the basic principles given by previous spiritual doctrines. This pertains particularly to supporting human dictatorships by taxation, supporting more and more violent wars, and the absurd situation that humanity by present business ideas cannot afford to slow down to stop wasting rapidly dwindling natural resources, or achieve a balanced population size for fear that such actions will cause an economic disaster through depression and unemployment worse that the present state of wars, hate, waste, and human overpopulation. New revelation and showing how to apply spiritual principles to these situations is desperately needed.

The conclusion that can be drawn from these problems is that a way is now needed that is simple enough for everyone in human civilization to understand, that is honest, fair, and workable without constant hypocrisy and contradiction. Such a clarification is particularly needed for younger people who are constantly joining human civilization who for its lack are being drawn into more and more teachings that spirituality is seeking to evade or run away from unsolved problems, retreat into oneself through drugs or meditation, and in some instances strike out blindly in anger and frustration to destroy whatever seems to represent to them the symbols of the unsolved problems or failures of spirituality.

A time of reclarification and how to apply spiritual principles to current human problems certainly seems to have arrived once again.

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3. Almost all of the statements redefining spirituality in the last 8000 years or so of human history have been given by individuals who were born in and experienced the conditions of what are now called Eastern countries. Even new names in religion initiated in some instances by individuals from Western countries such as Mormons, Quakers, Christian Science, Vedanta, Theosophy, or Bahi either claim simply to be current day sects or variations on some previous religion originally given by some prophet from the East, or are a composite of ideas having their origins in countries that are now called "the East". "The West", it would appear, that is to say what are now called the Americas, which seems to have been a spawning ground for most of the problems now confronting human civilization, (as well as their potential solutions), does not seem to have produced a spokesman in a NEW spiritual guidance sense for its spiritual position, if indeed such a statement is any longer possible with the growth of materialism and personal selfishness that has gone hand in hand with the West's industrialization and spreading of its culture shattering ideas and procedures.

Christianity for example, the predominant religion in the West at this time, in respect to the gigantic wars financed by almost universal taxation and debt, seems to have very little more to say about remedying such a situation than, "Render to Ceaser that which is Ceaser's". This is frequently coupled with "get to know yourself", which might be paraphrased as, "play with yourself endlessly because that feels better than facing up to the problems your selfishness is causing in the lives of others".

On the other hand there are some Christians in true Western style who say they are waiting for the founder of Christianity to return and brutally murder everyone on the Earth who is not by that time a member of whatever Christian church is looking forward to such an event. To many non-Christians now being slaughtered by Christian bombs, jellied gasoline, and chemicals to say nothing of old fashioned bullets, it may seem that such a teaching of Christianity is already in the process of taking place. But hypocrisy or mass murdering in the name of God is not an exclusive characteristic of Christians. There are many others who engage in the same actions with just as flimsy an excuse, or who are just as much in need now of a spiritual re-clarification as the members of the predominant religion in Western nations.

Another possibility, however, is merely that "the West" is a still immature phenomenon on this planet, and that before now it had not yet developed enough to produce philosophers or a religious prophet that can state its spiritual position in modern terms. But time may be running out. The inventions of the West and its scientific, political, and economic immorality or amorality may destroy human civilization before a spiritual concept or new religious prophet from the West can succeed in describing or re-defining its spiritual position in such a way that it can handle its discoveries and power it has acquired creatively.

A fleeting thought by some might be, "What would it be like if a prophet in the ancient Eastern sense were to comment on and give guidance about human civilization's problems of this moment, but in the terms and issues of today's Western civilization with its factories, huge economic division of labor, huge financing, credit, and debt system, instantaneous electronic communication, and ability either to save or destroy human civilization now within the lifetime of almost everyone living at this moment?

5. Such an idea may have been part of the thoughts of a modern author, Kahlil Gibran, who lived from 1883 to 1931, and whose book that was first published in 1923, by the year 1970 is said to have sold over three-million copies in English, and has been translated into 20 other languages. That book is called "The Prophet", which may mean it was simply referring to an imaginary person people called in a fictionalized account "the prophet", or maybe it is intended to have a deeper meaning of describing what The Prophet of this age and today's problems would say when asked about today's issues.

Judging from the number of copies it has sold, Kahlil Gibran's "The Prophet" may have been accepted in such a way by many people. In examining specifically WHAT it says, however, it seems to say very little more about exactly HOW to solve the problems of current human civilization than older religious works, and in fact seems to be written in much the same vague, personalized form that is characteristic of much of Eastern religious writing. Some have even said that "The Prophet" is a modern statement for Zorasterinism, a major religion of its author's birthplace, Lebanon.

It would be neither spiritually acceptable not respecting current copyright laws to write a different version of the same situations Kahlil Gibran may have been commenting on and attempt to call it also "The Prophet". Nevertheless, the situations he spoke of in his book are not the exclusive property of one individual, and if his book gives emotional inspiration to many but does not deal adequately with the subjects discussed in terms of showing how they produce actual SOLUTIONS to today's civilization wide problems, then it may be of some interest to examine an alternative commentary on the same sequence of conditions in human living written as if it is modern prophecy taking into consideration the development and relationships that have resulted from Western civilization.

Kahlil Gibran was born in the "East". He was not a native of nor did he grow up in an environment of building or repairing internal combustion engines, radio transmitters or receivers, or heavier than air flying toys powered by rubber bands or tiny gasoline engines before he started his formal education in public or private schools, presumably around an age of six or seven. What would it be like if a "prophet" learned such things as a natural part of growing up at about the same time one learns how to speak a language, but before one learns formal education ideas such as writing or mathematical formulation. What if a "vision from God" would appear to be no more mysterious, (until one learns later in formal schooling that it is), than the easily understood relationships one is working with in building a toy crystal set radio, or perhaps designing a radio control apparatus for a model airplane? --- and that a later development of television is a rather obvious application of what surely must have been wholly obvious for at least several thousand years in human affairs judging from the proliferation of books written by human beings seemingly making use of knowledge of such phenomena? (resonating spherical cavities). What if a person with such a childhood later in formal education were to learn the specifics of the language of Western nuclear bombs, Gross National Product, Consumer Price Index, or Gross to Net Ratio of a fluctuating Public Utility stock compared to buying Futures in Corn or Wheat? What if all of these were the natural growing up process of a "prophet", --- what would he have to say in the same frame of reference as a prophet of a religion of Eastern origin at some time in antiquity?

4. Would spiritual awareness cause one to make an insipid statement of "Love thy neighbor" while watching live by communication satellite whom one was killing at the moment as part of an economic division of labor, and have nothing more specific to say about the issue? Perhaps he would have nothing more to say, but if he said nothing more than that, he might also not be talking in today's terms about today's issues in an old traditional sense of major religious prophecy. He might instead be simply mouthing platitudes said long ago by others in a time when a king or emperor owned everyone, and someone other than a monarch could look forward to little more in a given lifetime than long fruitless suffering, with possibly a chance of Paradise gained at some remote future time after one's current death.

For whatever it may be worth, such a statement of modern prophecy is made in "THE QUEST" by a body that was born in the West, and grew up with a model airplane propeller in one hand, and an electronic valve to operate instantaneous electronic and radio communication devices in the other hand, and then after experiencing that as a natural native language, went through the ordeals of listening to tedious delineation of the details of such phenomena in school and college classrooms, like learning how to diagram parts of speech out of a sentence years after one mysteriously learned how to speak one's native language as a child, --- while asking the question as this was taking place, --- "What is it that is being left out of this that I am seeing?" The answer to that question very briefly may be, --- "A modern statement connecting morality and reality".

For individuals who may find the heavy religious overtones of this particular writing unacceptably disagreeable, or who feel a great deal must be taken away from it because it comments on the same series of human situations as those in the contemporary book called "The Prophet", (as well as other long accepted basic religious idea sequences also included in this writing), it should be observed that this is only one of many books by John Believer, most of which are written in the more conventional prose style of the middle 20th century, and many of which taken out of context with the whole body of writings, can appear to be speaking of nothing having to do with "religion". If you do not like the writing style of this book, other writings by the same author may be more to your liking, (see http://miracle.is-an-artist.com/ab). In any event if you feel any of the procedures described in this book possess merit, it may be possible to say they were given by-:

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Last update July 7, 1997