The same beliefs often spread to economic areas in which (long pause) people who met pleasure in God’s eyes were therefore gifted with wealth and prosperity, as well as good health. Therefore God was seen to be on the side of those who competed most strenuously, so that to be poor or sick was almost seen as a sign of God’s disfavor. [...]

In the past some religious groups have also promoted beliefs that illness is a sign of God’s punishment, or vengeance for sins committed against his “goodness.”

[...] I was brought up a Catholic, but as I grew older I found it more and more difficult to accept the God of my ancestors. [...] Who wanted to sit around singing hymns to a father-God, even if He did exist, and what sort of intelligent God would require such constant adoration? A very insecure, appallingly human kind of God indeed.

The alternative, that of hellfire, was equally unbelievable. Yet the conventional God of our fathers apparently sat without a qualm with the blessed in heaven, while the devil tortured the rest of the unlucky dead. That God, I decided, was out. [...]

[...] The God that is, is within you, for you are a part of all that is.”

[...] He wanted to show that God was not responsible for the world’s cruelties. [...] He could not bear to see a cat play with a mouse, without blaming God who would permit such cruelty. He tried to wipe God’s hands clean, as he understood the nature of God through his early beliefs—but in so doing he wiped the soul from the face of nature. [...]

To a large degree, however, and for many people, he did remove the idea of God’s injustice, even if he removed the image of God in the process. The idea of one God as a superman would not carry again the same weight as it had before. For your species, the questions behind the conventional God the father were at least brought out into the open. [...]

Darwin was faced with the proposition of a kind god who was more cruel than any human being, and with supernatural power behind him to boot—so Darwin tried to justify God’s ways to man. [...]

[...] They will say, “I am nothing, but the spirit of God moves through me, and if I do any good it is because of God’s spirit and not my own,” or, “I have no ability of my own. Only the power of God has any ability.”

[...] The whole concept of God the Father, as given by Christ, was indeed a “new testament.” The male image of God was used because of the sex orientation of the times, but beyond this the Christ personality said, “…the kingdom of God is within (among) you” (Luke 17:21).

(Intently:) Now: In those terms you are the power of God manifested. [...] Through your being the power of God is strengthened, for you are a portion of what He is. [...]

[...] The pope became God the Father personified, but that god had indeed changed from the old Jewish Jehovah. Christ, historically speaking, had altered that concept enough so that at least God the Father was not quite as capricious as Jehovah. [...]

Because you dwell in time, however, the god image will also reflect the state of your consciousness as it “is,” as well as point toward the future state desired. The god concept will operate as a psychic and spiritual blueprint just like the architect’s plan, only at a different level. [...]

[...] God the Father would be recognized and the Earth Goddess forgotten. [...] Man would believe he did indeed have dominion over the earth as a separate species, for God the Father had given it to him.

[...] If you are bound and determined that “GOD” (in capitals and quotes) creates only “good,” then any physical deficiency, illness or deformity becomes an affront to your belief, threatens it, and makes you angry and resentful. If you become ill you can hate yourself for not being what you think you should be — a perfect physical image made in the likeness of a perfect God.

You may believe that wealth is a result of a moral virtue, and comes from “God’s” direct benevolence. [...] “God” made so many people poor that obviously no man should dare try to change the situation — that rationale is often used. [...]

[...] On a quite simple basis, if you consider God in human terms you will project him as belonging to your own race. [...]

The concepts of God that you have, have gone hand-in-hand with the development of your consciousness. The ego, emerging, needed to feel its dominance and control, and so it imagined a dominant god apart from nature. Often nations acted as group egos — each with its own god-picturing, its own concepts of power. Whenever a tribe or a group or a nation decided to embark upon a war, it always used the concept of its god to lead it on.

(Faster at 10:45:) The god concept then was an aid, and an important one, to man’s emerging ego. [...] In terms of ego consciousness, however, there were stages of growth; and the god concepts that spoke of oneness with nature were not those that served the ego’s purposes in the line of development as you understand it (deliberately).

[...] They have told you to love God, but rarely taught you to experience the gods in yourselves.

[...] I do not tell you that a god is waiting for you on the other side of a golden door. I do not reassure you by telling you that when you are dead, God will be waiting for you in all His majestic mercy and that will be the end of your responsibility. [...]

What so many want is a god who walks down the street and says “Happy Sunday, I am I, follow Me.” But God is hidden craftily in His creations so that He is what they are and they are what He is, and in knowing them, you know Him. [...]

Actually you are with God now. [...]

[...] I do not tell you that a God is waiting for you on the other side of a golden door. I do not reassure you by telling you that when you are dead, God will be waiting for you in all his majestic mercy, and that that will be the end of your responsibility. [...]

[...] What so many want is a God who walks down the street and says, “Happy Sunday, I am I, follow me.” But God is hidden craftily in his creations, so that he is what they are and they are what he is; and in knowing them, you know him.

Actually, you are with God now. [...]

[...] To that degree, then, there are indeed “tree gods,” gods of the forest, and “gods of being” connected with each person.

That earth-god portion of yourself attempts to direct you through probabilities. [...] The earth-god concept can be consciously used, but only to your greatest advantage if you understand the purposes of your conscious mind and its relationship with your biological nature.

[...] They are indeed connected with flora and fauna, but also with the animals and yourselves, and they are the “earth gods” that Ruburt imagined as a young person.

Almost any question that you can ask about God, with a capital, can be legitimately asked of the psyche as well. [...] When you think of finding God, you often think in the same terms.

[...] In that context, God is as known and as unknown as you are to yourself. Both God and the psyche are constantly expanding — unutterable, and always becoming.

THE PSYCHE, LANGUAGES, AND GODS

[...] You have in your history then a male god of power and vengeance, who killed your enemies for you. You have a prejudiced god, who will for example slay the Egyptians on behalf of the Jews to retaliate against previous Egyptian cruelty. The male god is a god of power. He is not a god of creativity.

[...] God is supposed to be male. [...]

[...] You have in your history then a male god of power and vengeance, who killed your enemies for you. You have a prejudiced god, who will, for example, slay the Egyptians and half of the Jews to retaliate against previous Egyptian cruelty. The male god is a god of power. He is not a god of creativity.

[...] God is supposed to be male. [...]

[...] There are probable gods as there are probable men; but these probable gods are all a part of what you may call the soul of, or the identity of, All That Is; even as your probable selves are all a portion of your soul or entity.

PROBABLE SYSTEMS, MEN, AND GODS

(9:24.) And now we begin the next chapter: “Probable Systems, Men, and Gods.”

[...] What you call God is the sum of all consciousness and yet the whole is more than the sum of its parts. God is more than the sum of all personalities, and yet all personalities is what He is. [...] This force is part of the innate knowledge within all consciousness and it is a part of the God within you. [...]

[...] No god ever meant or intended that you suffer. God is a joyful being. [...]

[...] But when you return to that from which you have come, when you return to what you think of as God, by then new creativity will have already begun, consciousness will evolve in new ways and there will be new challenges. [...]

Give us a moment … Man is himself made as much of God-stuff as earth-stuff, so in those terms now the god in himself yearned toward the man in the god, and earth experience. Not understanding yourselves,⁶ you have tried to put the idea of God outside of yourselves and your living framework. Through various exercises in this book, I hope to acquaint each of you with the inherent oneness of the inside and outside realities, to give you a glimpse of your own infinite nature even within the bounds of your creaturehood — to help you see the god-stuff in the man-stuff. [...]

4. Plato, the Greek philosopher, poet, and logician, lived from about 427 to about 347 B.C. Throughout his mature life he treated what he considered to be man’s God-given ideas in a series of Dialogues, or free conversations.

[...] The inner experience with the multidimensional God can come in two main areas. [...]

All personal contact with the multidimensional God, all legitimate moments of mystic consciousness, will always have a unifying effect. [...]

[...] There are, therefore, probable gods, each one reflecting in its way the multidimensional aspects of a prime identity so great and dazzling that no one reality form or particular kind of existence could contain it.

(9:13.) Various old religions picked up the idea of the Lumanians’ fierce god figure for example, in whom they managed to project their concepts of force, power, and violence, this god who had meant to protect them when nonviolence would not allow them to protect themselves.

[...] Ideas of probable realities and probable men and gods may strike some of you as quite absurd, and yet as you read this book, you are but one of the probable you’s. Other probable you’s would not consider you real, of course, and some might indignantly question your existence. [...]

[...] During break, Florence brought up the question of the will of God—whether God has control over what happens to us, etc. [...]

[...] God is creativity and he creates creativity or other creators. [...] No God knows the word or the meaning of control, nor does he exert control as far as his abilities are concerned, for it would lead to dead alleys, and spirituality would go and leave him dried up as a fruit pit. [...]

[...] Spontaneity knows its own direction and the god is not fearful. [...]

Is he saying: “Let there be light,” or “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

(At this moment I then consciously knew what my prophet was saying in the painting; the words came clearly to mind: “My God, my God, what am I?” I was tempted to speak them aloud next chance I had, but did not. [...]

[...] To whom is his implied speech spoken—to a god he understands, to a god he does not understand, to the elements or to a part of himself that he knows exists and cannot reach. [...]