IT Happens

What is IT about; This rollercoaster we refer to as life? Instead of asking what is IT about why not ask what can IT be about. Hmm. Possibilities? A different consciousness all together, wouldn't you say? Asking what life is about makes one a witness; An observer of something already existing. You may enjoy IT's beauty. You may despise IT's horridness. IT may be art or absolute rubbish but that all depends on how you wish to observe IT. Asking yourself what IT can be about changes everything. You now can become the artist, the sculptor, the creator. There's no more having to succumb and make choices to exist and "get through". Now one may be involved and create ones own reality. Following a path, usually the one of least resistance, not only diverts one from experiencing wondrous events and opportunities but it leads one through already chartered territory. Someone else's glorious claims and discoveries. By creating ones own path, hacking through the thick wooded jungle and unchartered ground, one gets to discover and claim the treasures one may find along ITs way. If you're ready for the trek but feel a little ill equipped, contact an elder relative. Try Grandma. I heard she wears hiking boots not combat boots. Borrow them.

Ted's first Blog

CEO-Ted's first Blog, coming soon

Being angered about your personal circumstances

Being angered about your personal circumstances or, those of the world doesn't do much good without actions intended to bring about change. Actually, without doing something that leads to positive changes, anger brings only harm. This kind of complaining coupled with inaction doesn't make us smarter or more powerful. Although, it may feel as though it does. Then of course, this kind of smartness usually leads to more inaction and still less freedom. Action-less anger turns us into bellyaches. The world has always had its complainers. They have never added to the humanity's overall good.

To help you figure out what your true emotions might be behind why you're feeling so angry, here are 10 different reasons and emotions that could be happening:

To help you figure out what your true emotions might be behind why you're feeling so angry, here are 10 different reasons and emotions that could be happening:

1. Fear

Anger is often caused by fear. Something happens and it scares you in some way. You fear losing control, looking foolish, being in trouble, or maybe even getting hurt. But, your anger is in response to being afraid of something. It's that whole fight or flight concept happening. Anger is the fighting back at what scares you. So, ask yourself if you're really feeling afraid.

2. Powerlessness

There's a great quote which says, "Anger is a chosen response to the feeling of powerlessness. Anger is how we attempt to reassert control over situations that baffle us." So, you may be feeling helpless or like a victim with something and you use anger to try and regain some sort of control in your life.

Something to watch out for this one is that you could be feeling powerless in one situation and it will cause you to react with anger at anyone who upsets you. For example, say you have a health issue and you're feeling frustrated because you can't get in to see the specialist. So, you feel powerless in this situation, probably also a little scared and frustrated. That's the feeling percolating in the back of your mind and you need a way to release that so as soon as someone or something annoys you, all your pent up feelings are vented on that person. They may have absolutely nothing to do with why you're feeling powerless. But, they've become a handy way to release all those negative feelings you've bottled up.

So, if you find yourself over reacting to situations, check and see if you are feeling powerless in a different situation. Again, you're figuring out where your real anger is coming from.

3. Frustration

If you're feeling frustrated with something in your life, you might respond with anger. You're just so frustrated with something that you're annoyed and angry. For example when you're learning something new like a software program. You just want the program to do something and it's so frustrating because you don't know how to get the software to do that. So, you're feeling impatient and you respond by getting angry at the computer or the program.

Or if you're stuck in a traffic jam and you're frustrated because there's nothing you can do. This one can also be caused by fear though. You fear that you're going to be late due to the traffic jam and your imagination starts going wild with all the bad things that are now going to happen (eg. lose your job because you're going to be late or someone is going to be mad at you, etc.) But, the anger starts with feeling frustrated or powerless with the situation. You don't know what to do.

To deal with this one, it can help if you take a step back and just look at the big picture again. What do I want to achieve in this situation? How can I do that? rather than focusing on the obstacle or thing that's frustrating you.

4. Pain From The Past

Often anger is associated with pain from the past. A traumatic experience happened in the past that the person has never really dealt with. Abuse as a child for example or feeling abandoned as a child. In this case, often the anger isn't even associated with the current event the person is experiencing. The person is just so angry at the entire world due to something that happened a long time ago. They hit out at everyone they come into contact with due to the constant pain they have deep inside. Or they feel so hurt that they don't want to let anyone come close to them. They use the anger as a way of protecting themselves from further hurt. Or a situation happens and it reminds them of that event that happened a long time ago and they automatically react with anger.

5. Bad Habit

Sometimes anger comes because it's easier to blame others for problems rather than taking responsibility for your own life or you don't want to come up with a solution yourself. You're just used to reacting that way and it's become a very bad habit.

6. Feeling Overwhelmed or Exhausted

If you're overly exhausted all the time, you might be just too tired to mentally deal with situations that happen. You don't have the strength to have patience with the situation. This is one you often find with new parents but it can happen to anyone if they're overly tired.

Or you might just have too many things happening at once and it causes overwhelm for you. You're at the limit of what you can handle at the moment. It can feel scary and you might react with anger at the next event that pushes you over your threshold of what you can deal with.

7. Jealousy

You feel jealous about what someone else has or has done. It might remind you that you want that as well or it tells you that you're not following your own dreams. But, instead you get so angry at the person for having something you want when really you need to turn it around and start thinking "That's something I'd like to have in my life too. How do I start to work towards getting that for myself?"

8. Approval Seeking

If someone is looking for validation or approval from others, they might go to incredible lengths to please the other person and when the other person doesn't react the way they want them to, they feel hurt but they respond with anger as a way to deal with those feelings. They don't feel good enough inside or they feel like a failure so they try to get others to tell them how good they are. But, it doesn't work and they end up feeling angry at everyone because they've gone to so much effort and it wasn't appreciated.

The answer to this one is that you need to deal with those feelings of why you don't feel good enough and start to approve of yourself first. Once you approve of yourself, so will others.

9. Hurt

If you feel hurt by someone's actions, a part of you might not want to deal with that emotion so you choose to respond with anger instead.

10. Manipulation

Sometimes people use anger as a way to get others to react in a certain way. For example, they want the other person to do them a favor and if the other person hesitates they get mad so the other person will do what they want. Or they want to gain control over the other person and they know if they get angry the other person will back down. Or they want to make the other person afraid of them. Sometimes people even use it as a way to get out of doing things. Someone asks them to help them with something and they get mad at the other person not only to get out of the current situation but to discourage the other person from ever asking again.

Hmmmmm, Murder in the Bible

Murder in the Bible

    The act of murder is rampant in the Bible.  In much of the Bible, especially the Old Testament, there are laws that command that people be killed for absurd reasons such as working on the Sabbath, being gay, cursing your parents, or not being a virgin on your wedding night.  In addition to these crazy and immoral laws, there are plenty of examples of God's irrationality by his direct killing of many people for reasons that defy any rational explanation such as killing children who make fun of bald people, and the killing of a man who tried to keep the ark of God from falling during transport.  There are also countless examples of mass murders commanded by God, including the murder of women, infants, and children.

    The following passages are a very small percentage of the total passages approving of murder in the Bible.  They are divided here into three parts: 1) Capital Punishment Crimes, 2) God's Murders for Stupid Reasons, 3) Murdering Children, and 4)Miscellaneous Murders.  This list is long, but it barely scratches the surface of all the murders approved of in the Bible.

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1) Capital Punishment Crimes:

Kill People Who Don't Listen to Priests

    Anyone arrogant enough to reject the verdict of the judge or of the priest who represents the LORD your God must be put to death.  Such evil must be purged from Israel.  (Deuteronomy 17:12 NLT)

Kill Witches

    You should not let a sorceress live.  (Exodus 22:17 NAB)

Kill Homosexuals
    "If a man lies with a male as with a women, both of them shall be put to death for their abominable deed; they have forfeited their lives."  (Leviticus 20:13 NAB)

Kill Fortunetellers

    A man or a woman who acts as a medium or fortuneteller shall be put to death by stoning; they have no one but themselves to blame for their death.  (Leviticus 20:27 NAB)

Death for Hitting Dad

    Whoever strikes his father or mother shall be put to death.  (Exodus 21:15 NAB)

Death for Cursing Parents

    1) If one curses his father or mother, his lamp will go out at the coming of darkness.  (Proverbs 20:20 NAB)

    2) All who curse their father or mother must be put to death.  They are guilty of a capital offense.  (Leviticus 20:9 NLT)

Death for Adultery

    If a man commits adultery with another man's wife, both the man and the woman must be put to death.  (Leviticus 20:10 NLT)

Death for Fornication

    A priest's daughter who loses her honor by committing fornication and thereby dishonors her father also, shall be burned to death.  (Leviticus 21:9 NAB)

Death to Followers of Other Religions

    Whoever sacrifices to any god, except the Lord alone, shall be doomed. (Exodus 22:19 NAB)

Kill Nonbelievers

    They entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and soul; and everyone who would not seek the Lord, the God of Israel, was to be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman.  (2 Chronicles 15:12-13 NAB)

Kill False Prophets

    If a man still prophesies, his parents, father and mother, shall say to him, "You shall not live, because you have spoken a lie in the name of the Lord."  When he prophesies, his parents, father and mother, shall thrust him through.  (Zechariah 13:3 NAB)

Kill the Entire Town if One Person Worships Another God

    Suppose you hear in one of the towns the LORD your God is giving you that some worthless rabble among you have led their fellow citizens astray by encouraging them to worship foreign gods.  In such cases, you must examine the facts carefully.  If you find it is true and can prove that such a detestable act has occurred among you, you must attack that town and completely destroy all its inhabitants, as well as all the livestock.  Then you must pile all the plunder in the middle of the street and burn it.  Put the entire town to the torch as a burnt offering to the LORD your God.  That town must remain a ruin forever; it may never be rebuilt.  Keep none of the plunder that has been set apart for destruction.  Then the LORD will turn from his fierce anger and be merciful to you.  He will have compassion on you and make you a great nation, just as he solemnly promised your ancestors.  "The LORD your God will be merciful only if you obey him and keep all the commands I am giving you today, doing what is pleasing to him."  (Deuteronomy 13:13-19 NLT)

Kill Women Who Are Not Virgins On Their Wedding Night

    But if this charge is true (that she wasn't a virgin on her wedding night), and evidence of the girls virginity is not found, they shall bring the girl to the entrance of her fathers house and there her townsman shall stone her to death, because she committed a crime against Israel by her unchasteness in her father's house.  Thus shall you purge the evil from your midst.  (Deuteronomy  22:20-21 NAB)

Kill Followers of Other Religions.

    1) If your own full brother, or your son or daughter, or your beloved wife, or you intimate friend, entices you secretly to serve other gods, whom you and your fathers have not known, gods of any other nations, near at hand or far away, from one end of the earth to the other: do not yield to him or listen to him, nor look with pity upon him, to spare or shield him, but kill him.  Your hand shall be the first raised to slay him; the rest of the people shall join in with you.  You shall stone him to death, because he sought to lead you astray from the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery.  And all Israel, hearing of this, shall fear and never do such evil as this in your midst.  (Deuteronomy 13:7-12 NAB)

    2) Suppose a man or woman among you, in one of your towns that the LORD your God is giving you, has done evil in the sight of the LORD your God and has violated the covenant by serving other gods or by worshiping the sun, the moon, or any of the forces of heaven, which I have strictly forbidden.  When you hear about it, investigate the matter thoroughly. If it is true that this detestable thing has been done in Israel, then that man or woman must be taken to the gates of the town and stoned to death.  (Deuteronomy 17:2-5 NLT)

Death for Blasphemy

    One day a man who had an Israelite mother and an Egyptian father got into a fight with one of the Israelite men.  During the fight, this son of an Israelite woman blasphemed the LORD's name.  So the man was brought to Moses for judgment.  His mother's name was Shelomith. She was the daughter of Dibri of the tribe of Dan.  They put the man in custody until the LORD's will in the matter should become clear.  Then the LORD said to Moses, "Take the blasphemer outside the camp, and tell all those who heard him to lay their hands on his head.  Then let the entire community stone him to death.  Say to the people of Israel: Those who blaspheme God will suffer the consequences of their guilt and be punished.  Anyone who blasphemes the LORD's name must be stoned to death by the whole community of Israel.  Any Israelite or foreigner among you who blasphemes the LORD's name will surely die.  (Leviticus 24:10-16 NLT)

Kill False Prophets

    1) Suppose there are prophets among you, or those who have dreams about the future, and they promise you signs or miracles,  and the predicted signs or miracles take place.  If the prophets then say, 'Come, let us worship the gods of foreign nations,' do not listen to them.  The LORD your God is testing you to see if you love him with all your heart and soul.  Serve only the LORD your God and fear him alone.  Obey his commands, listen to his voice, and cling to him.  The false prophets or dreamers who try to lead you astray must be put to death, for they encourage rebellion against the LORD your God, who brought you out of slavery in the land of Egypt.  Since they try to keep you from following the LORD your God, you must execute them to remove the evil from among you. (Deuteronomy 13:1-5 NLT)

    2) But any prophet who claims to give a message from another god or who falsely claims to speak for me must die.'  You may wonder, 'How will we know whether the prophecy is from the LORD or not?'  If the prophet predicts something in the LORD's name and it does not happen, the LORD did not give the message.  That prophet has spoken on his own and need not be feared. (Deuteronomy 18:20-22 NLT)

Infidels and Gays Should Die

    So God let them go ahead and do whatever shameful things their hearts desired.  As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other's bodies.  Instead of believing what they knew was the truth about God, they deliberately chose to believe lies.  So they worshiped the things God made but not the Creator himself, who is to be praised forever.  Amen.  That is why God abandoned them to their shameful desires.  Even the women turned against the natural way to have sex and instead indulged in sex with each other.  And the men, instead of having normal sexual relationships with women, burned with lust for each other.  Men did shameful things with other men and, as a result, suffered within themselves the penalty they so richly deserved.  When they refused to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their evil minds and let them do things that should never be done.  Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, fighting, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip.  They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful.  They are forever inventing new ways of sinning and are disobedient to their parents.  They refuse to understand, break their promises, and are heartless and unforgiving.  They are fully aware of God's death penalty for those who do these things, yet they go right ahead and do them anyway.  And, worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too.  (Romans 1:24-32 NLT)

Kill Anyone who Approaches the Tabernacle

    For the LORD had said to Moses, 'Exempt the tribe of Levi from the census; do not include them when you count the rest of the Israelites.  You must put the Levites in charge of the Tabernacle of the Covenant, along with its furnishings and equipment.  They must carry the Tabernacle and its equipment as you travel, and they must care for it and camp around it.  Whenever the Tabernacle is moved, the Levites will take it down and set it up again.  Anyone else who goes too near the Tabernacle will be executed.'  (Numbers 1:48-51 NLT)

Kill People for Working on the Sabbath

    The LORD then gave these further instructions to Moses: 'Tell the people of Israel to keep my Sabbath day, for the Sabbath is a sign of the covenant between me and you forever.  It helps you to remember that I am the LORD, who makes you holy.  Yes, keep the Sabbath day, for it is holy.  Anyone who desecrates it must die; anyone who works on that day will be cut off from the community.  Work six days only, but the seventh day must be a day of total rest.  I repeat: Because the LORD considers it a holy day, anyone who works on the Sabbath must be put to death.'  (Exodus 31:12-15 NLT)

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2) God's Murders for Stupid Reasons:

Kill Brats

    From there Elisha went up to Bethel.  While he was on his way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him.  "Go up baldhead," they shouted, "go up baldhead!"  The prophet turned and saw them, and he cursed them in the name of the Lord.  Then two shebears came out of the woods and tore forty two of the children to pieces.  (2 Kings 2:23-24 NAB)

God Kills the Curious 

    And he smote of the men of Beth-shemesh, because they had looked into the ark of Jehovah, he smote of the people seventy men, `and' fifty thousand men; and the people mourned, because Jehovah had smitten the people with a great slaughter.  And the men of Beth-shemesh said, Who is able to stand before Jehovah, this holy God? and to whom shall he go up from us?   (1Samuel 6:19-20 ASV)

Killed by a Lion

    Meanwhile, the LORD instructed one of the group of prophets to say to another man, "Strike me!"  But the man refused to strike the prophet.  Then the prophet told him, "Because you have not obeyed the voice of the LORD, a lion will kill you as soon as you leave me."  And sure enough, when he had gone, a lion attacked and killed him.  (1 Kings 20:35-36 NLT)

Killing the Good Samaritan

    The ark of God was placed on a new cart and taken away from the house of Abinadab on the hill.  Uzzah and Ahio, sons of Abinadab guided the cart, with Ahio walking before it, while David and all the Israelites made merry before the Lord with all their strength, with singing and with citharas, harps, tambourines, sistrums, and cymbals.

    When they came to the threshing floor of Nodan, Uzzah reached out his hand to the ark of God to steady it, for the oxen were making it tip.  But the Lord was angry with Uzzah; God struck him on that spot, and he died there before God.  (2 Samuel 6:3-7 NAB)

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3) Murdering Children

Kill Sons of Sinners

    Make ready to slaughter his sons for the guilt of their fathers; Lest they rise and posses the earth, and fill the breadth of the world with tyrants.  (Isaiah 14:21 NAB)

God Will Kill Children

    The glory of Israel will fly away like a bird, for your children will die at birth or perish in the womb or never even be conceived.  Even if your children do survive to grow up, I will take them from you.  It will be a terrible day when I turn away and leave you alone.  I have watched Israel become as beautiful and pleasant as Tyre.  But now Israel will bring out her children to be slaughtered."  O LORD, what should I request for your people?  I will ask for wombs that don't give birth and breasts that give no milk.  The LORD says, "All their wickedness began at Gilgal; there I began to hate them.  I will drive them from my land because of their evil actions.  I will love them no more because all their leaders are rebels.  The people of Israel are stricken.  Their roots are dried up; they will bear no more fruit.  And if they give birth, I will slaughter their beloved children."  (Hosea 9:11-16 NLT)

Kill Men, Women, and Children

    "Then I heard the LORD say to the other men, "Follow him through the city and kill everyone whose forehead is not marked.  Show no mercy; have no pity!  Kill them all – old and young, girls and women and little children.  But do not touch anyone with the mark.  Begin your task right here at the Temple."  So they began by killing the seventy leaders.  "Defile the Temple!" the LORD commanded.  "Fill its courtyards with the bodies of those you kill!  Go!"  So they went throughout the city and did as they were told."  (Ezekiel 9:5-7 NLT)

God Kills all the First Born of Egypt

    And at midnight the LORD killed all the firstborn sons in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn son of the captive in the dungeon. Even the firstborn of their livestock were killed.  Pharaoh and his officials and all the people of Egypt woke up during the night, and loud wailing was heard throughout the land of Egypt. There was not a single house where someone had not died.  (Exodus 12:29-30 NLT)

Kill Old Men and Young Women

    "You are my battle-ax and sword," says the LORD.  "With you I will shatter nations and destroy many kingdoms.  With you I will shatter armies, destroying the horse and rider, the chariot and charioteer.  With you I will shatter men and women, old people and children, young men and maidens.  With you I will shatter shepherds and flocks, farmers and oxen, captains and rulers.  "As you watch, I will repay Babylon and the people of Babylonia for all the wrong they have done to my people in Jerusalem," says the LORD.  "Look, O mighty mountain, destroyer of the earth!  I am your enemy," says the LORD.  "I will raise my fist against you, to roll you down from the heights.  When I am finished, you will be nothing but a heap of rubble.  You will be desolate forever.  Even your stones will never again be used for building.  You will be completely wiped out," says the LORD.  (Jeremiah 51:20-26)

     (Note that after God promises the Israelites a victory against Babylon, the Israelites actually get their butts kicked by them in the next chapter.  So much for an all-knowing and all-powerful God.)

God Will Kill the Children of Sinners

    If even then you remain hostile toward me and refuse to obey, I will inflict you with seven more disasters for your sins.  I will release wild animals that will kill your children and destroy your cattle, so your numbers will dwindle and your roads will be deserted.  (Leviticus 26:21-22 NLT)

More Rape and Baby Killing

    Anyone who is captured will be run through with a sword.  Their little children will be dashed to death right before their eyes.  Their homes will be sacked and their wives raped by the attacking hordes.  For I will stir up the Medes against Babylon, and no amount of silver or gold will buy them off.  The attacking armies will shoot down the young people with arrows.  They will have no mercy on helpless babies and will show no compassion for the children.  (Isaiah 13:15-18 NLT)

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4) Miscellaneous Murders

More of Samson's Murders

    (The Lord saves Sampson from standing trial for 30 murders and arson by allowing him to kill 1000 more men.)  When he reached Lehi, and the Philistines came shouting to meet him, the spirit of the Lord came upon him: the ropes around his arms become as flax that is consumed by fire and the bonds melted away from his hands.  Near him was the fresh jawbone of an ass; he reached out, grasped it, and with it killed a thousand men.  (Judges 15:14-15 NAB)

Peter Kills Two People

    There was also a man named Ananias who, with his wife, Sapphira, sold some property.  He brought part of the money to the apostles, but he claimed it was the full amount.  His wife had agreed to this deception.  Then Peter said, "Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart?  You lied to the Holy Spirit, and you kept some of the money for yourself.  The property was yours to sell or not sell, as you wished.  And after selling it, the money was yours to give away.  How could you do a thing like this?  You weren't lying to us but to God."  As soon as Ananias heard these words, he fell to the floor and died.  Everyone who heard about it was terrified.  Then some young men wrapped him in a sheet and took him out and buried him.  About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened.  Peter asked her, "Was this the price you and your husband received for your land?"  "Yes," she replied, "that was the price."  And Peter said, "How could the two of you even think of doing a thing like this – conspiring together to test the Spirit of the Lord?  Just outside that door are the young men who buried your husband, and they will carry you out, too."  Instantly, she fell to the floor and died.  When the young men came in and saw that she was dead, they carried her out and buried her beside her husband.  Great fear gripped the entire church and all others who heard what had happened.   (Acts 5:1-11 NLT)

Mass Murder

    This is what the Lord of  hosts has to say: 'I will punish what Amalek did to Israel when he barred his way as he was coming up from Egypt.  Go, now, attack Amalek, and deal with him and all that he has under the ban.  Do not spare him, but kill men and women, children and infants, oxen and sheep, camels and asses.'  (1 Samuel 15:2-3 NAB)

You Have to Kill

    Cursed be he who does the Lords work remissly, cursed he who holds back his sword from blood.  (Jeremiah 48:10 NAB)

The Danites Kill the Next Town

    But the territory of the Danites was too small for them; so the Danites marched up and attacked Leshem, which they captured and put to the sword.  Once they had taken possession of Lesham, they renamed the settlement after their ancestor Dan.  (Joshua 19:47 NAB)

God Kills Some More

    Then the LORD said to me, "Even if Moses and Samuel stood before me pleading for these people, I wouldn't help them.  Away with them!  Get them out of my sight!  And if they say to you, 'But where can we go?' tell them, 'This is what the LORD says: Those who are destined for death, to death; those who are destined for war, to war; those who are destined for famine, to famine; those who are destined for captivity, to captivity.'  "I will send four kinds of destroyers against them," says the LORD.  "I will send the sword to kill, the dogs to drag away, the vultures to devour, and the wild animals to finish up what is left.  Because of the wicked things Manasseh son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, did in Jerusalem, I will make my people an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth."  (Jeremiah 15:1-4 NLT)

God Promises More Killing 

    I will make Mount Seir utterly desolate, killing off all who try to escape and any who return.  I will fill your mountains with the dead. Your hills, your valleys, and your streams will be filled with people slaughtered by the sword.  I will make you desolate forever. Your cities will never be rebuilt. Then you will know that I am the LORD.  (Ezekiel 35:7-9 NLT)

The Angel of Death

    My angel will go before you and bring you to the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites, and Jebusites; and I will wipe them out.  (Exodus 23:23 NAB)

Destruction of Ai

    Then the LORD said to Joshua, "Do not be afraid or discouraged.  Take the entire army and attack Ai, for I have given to you the king of Ai, his people, his city, and his land.  You will destroy them as you destroyed Jericho and its king. But this time you may keep the captured goods and the cattle for yourselves. Set an ambush behind the city."  So Joshua and the army of Israel set out to attack Ai.  Joshua chose thirty thousand fighting men and sent them out at night with these orders: "Hide in ambush close behind the city and be ready for action.  When our main army attacks, the men of Ai will come out to fight as they did before, and we will run away from them.  We will let them chase us until they have all left the city. For they will say, 'The Israelites are running away from us as they did before.'  Then you will jump up from your ambush and take possession of the city, for the LORD your God will give it to you.  Set the city on fire, as the LORD has commanded.  You have your orders."  So they left that night and lay in ambush between Bethel and the west side of Ai.  But Joshua remained among the people in the camp that night. 

    Early the next morning Joshua roused his men and started toward Ai, accompanied by the leaders of Israel.  They camped on the north side of Ai, with a valley between them and the city.  That night Joshua sent five thousand men to lie in ambush between Bethel and Ai, on the west side of the city.  So they stationed the main army north of the city and the ambush west of the city.  Joshua himself spent that night in the valley.  When the king of Ai saw the Israelites across the valley, he and all his army hurriedly went out early the next morning and attacked the Israelites at a place overlooking the Jordan Valley.  But he didn't realize there was an ambush behind the city.  Joshua and the Israelite army fled toward the wilderness as though they were badly beaten,  and all the men in the city were called out to chase after them.  In this way, they were lured away from the city.  There was not a man left in Ai or Bethel who did not chase after the Israelites, and the city was left wide open. 

    Then the LORD said to Joshua, "Point your spear toward Ai, for I will give you the city."  Joshua did as he was commanded.  As soon as Joshua gave the signal, the men in ambush jumped up and poured into the city.  They quickly captured it and set it on fire.  When the men of Ai looked behind them, smoke from the city was filling the sky, and they had nowhere to go. For the Israelites who had fled in the direction of the wilderness now turned on their pursuers.  When Joshua and the other Israelites saw that the ambush had succeeded and that smoke was rising from the city, they turned and attacked the men of Ai.  Then the Israelites who were inside the city came out and started killing the enemy from the rear. So the men of Ai were caught in a trap, and all of them died. Not a single person survived or escaped.  Only the king of Ai was taken alive and brought to Joshua.

    When the Israelite army finished killing all the men outside the city, they went back and finished off everyone inside.  So the entire population of Ai was wiped out that day – twelve thousand in all.  For Joshua kept holding out his spear until everyone who had lived in Ai was completely destroyed.  Only the cattle and the treasures of the city were not destroyed, for the Israelites kept these for themselves, as the LORD had commanded Joshua.  So Ai became a permanent mound of ruins, desolate to this very day.  Joshua hung the king of Ai on a tree and left him there until evening. At sunset the Israelites took down the body and threw it in front of the city gate.  They piled a great heap of stones over him that can still be seen today.  (Joshua 8:1-29 NLT)

Killing at Jericho

    When the people heard the sound of the horns, they shouted as loud as they could. Suddenly, the walls of Jericho collapsed, and the Israelites charged straight into the city from every side and captured it.  They completely destroyed everything in it – men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep, donkeys – everything.  (Joshua 6:20-21 NLT)

God Kills an Extended Family

    "You have done more evil than all who lived before you.  You have made other gods and have made me furious with your gold calves.  And since you have turned your back on me, I will bring disaster on your dynasty and kill all your sons, slave or free alike.  I will burn up your royal dynasty as one burns up trash until it is all gone.  I, the LORD, vow that the members of your family who die in the city will be eaten by dogs, and those who die in the field will be eaten by vultures.'"  Then Ahijah said to Jeroboam's wife, "Go on home, and when you enter the city, the child will die.  All Israel will mourn for him and bury him.  He is the only member of your family who will have a proper burial, for this child is the only good thing that the LORD, the God of Israel, sees in the entire family of Jeroboam.  And the LORD will raise up a king over Israel who will destroy the family of Jeroboam.  This will happen today, even now!  Then the LORD will shake Israel like a reed whipped about in a stream.  He will uproot the people of Israel from this good land that he gave their ancestors and will scatter them beyond the Euphrates River, for they have angered the LORD by worshiping Asherah poles.  He will abandon Israel because Jeroboam sinned and made all of Israel sin along with him."  (1 Kings 14:9-16 NLT)

Mass Murder

    The men of Israel withdrew through the territory of the Benjaminites, putting to the sword the inhabitants of the city, the livestock, and all they chanced upon.  Moreover they destroyed by fire all the cities they came upon.  (Judges 20:48 NAB)

The Angel of Death

    That night the angel of the Lord went forth and struck down one hundred and eighty five thousand men in the Assyrian camp.  Early the next morning, there they were, all the corpuses of the dead.  (2 Kings 19:35 NAB)

Kill Your Neighbors

    (Moses) stood at the entrance to the camp and shouted, "All of you who are on the LORD's side, come over here and join me." And all the Levites came.  He told them, "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: Strap on your swords! Go back and forth from one end of the camp to the other, killing even your brothers, friends, and neighbors."  The Levites obeyed Moses, and about three thousand people died that day.  Then Moses told the Levites, "Today you have been ordained for the service of the LORD, for you obeyed him even though it meant killing your own sons and brothers. Because of this, he will now give you a great blessing."  (Exodus 32:26-29 NLT)

Kill the Family of Sinners

    And Joshua said to Achan, My son, give, I pray thee, glory to the LORD God of Israel, and make confession to him; and tell me now what thou hast done, hide it not from me.  And Achan answered Joshua, and said, Indeed I have sinned against the LORD God of Israel, and thus and thus have I done.  When I saw among the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment, and two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold of fifty shekels weight, then I coveted them, and took them, and behold, they are hid in the earth in the midst of my tent, and the silver under it."  [Note that the sin is not looting, but failing to give the loot to the treasury of the Lord.]  "So Joshua sent messengers, and they ran to the tent, and behold, it was hid in his tent, and the silver under it.  And they took them from the midst of the tent, and brought them to Joshua, and to all the children of Israel, and laid them out before the LORD.  And Joshua, and all Israel with him, took Achan the son of Zerah, and the silver, and the garment, and the wedge of gold, and his sons, and his daughters, and his oxen, and his asses, and his sheep, and his tent, and all that he had: and they brought them to the valley of Achor.  And Joshua said, why hast thou troubled us?  the LORD shall trouble thee this day.  And all Israel stoned him with stones, and burned them with fire, after they had stoned them with stones.  And they raised over him a great heap of stones to this day.  So the LORD turned from the fierceness of his anger: wherefore the name of that place was called the valley of Achor to this day.  (Joshua 7:19-26 Webster's Bible)

Kill Followers of Other Religions

    While the Israelites were camped at Acacia, some of the men defiled themselves by sleeping with the local Moabite women.  These women invited them to attend sacrifices to their gods, and soon the Israelites were feasting with them and worshiping the gods of Moab.  Before long Israel was joining in the worship of Baal of Peor, causing the LORD's anger to blaze against his people.  The LORD issued the following command to Moses: "Seize all the ringleaders and execute them before the LORD in broad daylight, so his fierce anger will turn away from the people of Israel."  So Moses ordered Israel's judges to execute everyone who had joined in worshiping Baal of Peor.  Just then one of the Israelite men brought a Midianite woman into the camp, right before the eyes of Moses and all the people, as they were weeping at the entrance of the Tabernacle.  When Phinehas son of Eleazar and grandson of Aaron the priest saw this, he jumped up and left the assembly.  Then he took a spear and rushed after the man into his tent. Phinehas thrust the spear all the way through the man's body and into the woman's stomach.  So the plague against the Israelites was stopped, but not before 24,000 people had died.  (Numbers 25:1-9 NLT)

Murder

    At the customary time for offering the evening sacrifice, Elijah the prophet walked up to the altar and prayed, "O LORD, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, prove today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant. Prove that I have done all this at your command.  O LORD, answer me! Answer me so these people will know that you, O LORD, are God and that you have brought them back to yourself."  Immediately the fire of the LORD flashed down from heaven and burned up the young bull, the wood, the stones, and the dust.  It even licked up all the water in the ditch!  And when the people saw it, they fell on their faces and cried out, "The LORD is God!  The LORD is God!"  Then Elijah commanded, "Seize all the prophets of Baal.  Don't let a single one escape!"  So the people seized them all, and Elijah took them down to the Kishon Valley and killed them there.  (1 Kings 18:36-40 NLT)

Kill All of Babylon

    "Go up, my warriors, against the land of Merathaim and against the people of Pekod. Yes, march against Babylon, the land of rebels, a land that I will judge!  Pursue, kill, and completely destroy them, as I have commanded you," says the LORD.  "Let the battle cry be heard in the land, a shout of great destruction".  (Jeremiah 50:21-22 NLT)

Micah Kills a Whole Town 

    Then, with Micah's idols and his priest, the men of Dan came to the town of Laish, whose people were peaceful and secure.  They attacked and killed all the people and burned the town to the ground.  There was no one to rescue the residents of the town, for they lived a great distance from Sidon and had no allies nearby.  This happened in the valley near Beth-rehob.Then the people of the tribe of Dan rebuilt the town and lived there.  They renamed the town Dan after their ancestor, Israel's son, but it had originally been called Laish.  (Judges 18:27-29 NLT)  (Note that God approves of this slaughter in verse 6.)

Pieces Out of Time All over the world, enigmatic artifacts have been found that do not fit the accepted geologic or historical timeline. Do they offer a radically different view of our world?

Pieces Out of Time

All over the world, enigmatic artifacts have been found that do not fit the accepted geologic or historical timeline. Do they offer a radically different view of our world?

Of all the many unexplained phenomena, experiences, and objects in the world, ones that hold a great deal of fascination for me are what I categorize as "ancient anomalies." Also called "ooparts," these are objects that by scientific measure are very old, but in form or construction appear to be quite modern. They are impossible fossils, out-of-time technology, anachronistic artifacts. In other words, if our history of the world is correct, they just should not exist. And there are many examples - many more than geologists, archaeologists, and other scientists care to admit.

Why are they so fascinating? Many reasons. First of all, most of them are real and tangible. Unlike ghosts, mysterious creatures like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster, and phenomena like telekinesis, these unexplained artifacts have been seen, touched, and examined. There they are before our eyes, with nothing in our current experience or knowledge to explain them. Second, because they do exist and do not fit the standard scientific timeline or geologic and anthropologic chronology, they suggest, in their own baffling way, that either our dating techniques are wrong, geology does not progress the way we suppose it does, or there is far more to the history of life on this planet than we currently know about. In any case, these bothersome ooparts upset established, orthodox thinking. Here are a few, for your consideration:

Advanced Technology
These are the best kind of ooparts because they have been documented, often photographed, and examined by experts:

• "Spark plug" in a geode. In 1961, the owners of a gift shop in Olancha, Calif. found a fossil-encrusted geode in the Coso Mountains. When one of the owners cut the geode in half with a diamond saw, however, he found an object inside that was obviously artificial. The object had a metal core surrounded by layers of a ceramic-like material and a hexagonal wooden sleeve. When X-rayed, the object seemed to resemble a modern spark plug or some other electronic component. Yet it had been completely encased in a geode that was covered with fossils estimated to be 500,000 years old.
• Very old nail. In 1851, The Illinois Springfield Republican reported that a businessman named Hiram de Witt found a fist-sized chunk of auriferous quartz while on a trip to California. When it accidentally slipped from his hands, it split open, and out fell a cut-iron nail. The quartz was about 1 million years old.
• Gold thread among the rock. The Times of London reported in 1844 that workmen quarrying stone near the River Tweed in Scotland found a piece of gold thread embedded in the rock eight feet below ground level.
• Chain in coal. In 1891, Mrs. S. W. Culp, of Morrisonville, Ill. was fragmenting coal into smaller pieces for her kitchen stove when she noticed a chain stuck in the coal. The chain measured about 10 inches long and was later found to be made of eight-carat gold, and described as being "of antique and quaint workmanship." According to the Morrisonville Times of June 11, investigators concluded that the chain had not simply been accidentally dropped in with the coal, since some of the coal still clung to the chain, while the part that had separated from it still bore the impression of where the chain had been encased.
• Ancient modern tools. While quarrying limestone in 1786, workers came to a bed of sand about 50 feet below ground level. In the layer of sand, however, they found the stumps of stone pillars and fragments of half-worked rock. Digging further, they found coins, the petrified wooden handles of hammers, and pieces of other petrified wooden tools. The sand in which the discovery was made was beneath a layer of limestone dated at 300 million years old.
• Mysterious vase. In June, 1851, Scientific American reprinted a report from the Boston Transcript about how a metallic vase, found in two parts, was dynamited out of solid rock 15 feet below the surface in Dorchester, Mass. The bell-shaped vase (see photo), measuring 4-1/2 inches high and 6-1/2 inches at the base, was composed of a zinc and silver alloy. On the sides were figures of flowers in bouquet arrangements, inlaid with pure silver. The estimated age of the rock out of which it came: 100,000 years.
• Too-old screw. In 1865, a two-inch metal screw was discovered in a piece of feldspar unearthed from the Abbey Mine in Treasure City, Nev. The screw had long ago oxidized, but its form - particularly the shape of its threads - could be clearly seen in the feldspar. The stone was calculated to be 21 million years in age.
• Ancient nanotechnology. In 1991-1993, gold prospectors on the Narada river on the eastern side of the Ural mountains in Russia found unusual, mostly spiral-shaped objects, the smallest measuring about 1/10,000th of an inch! The objects are composed of copper and the rare metals tungsten and molybdenum. Tests showed the objects to be between 20,000 and 318,000 years old.

Maps and Drawings
Although mysterious, these findings are not quite as compelling because they could have been either forged or misinterpreted:

• Piri Reis map. Piri Reis, a Turkish admiral and avid collector of old maps, compiled information he had gathered into a map of his own in 1513. Astonishingly, his map depicts the coastal outlines of North and South America - and Antarctica, which was not officially discovered until 1818.
• Unexplained maps. Scholars aren't sure what to make of the maps etched on a rock. Do they crudely depict the continents of Earth as they appeared long ago - including the lands of Mu and Atlantis? Or, as some have suggested, do they show the lands of some other planet? To be impartial, however, they also could merely depict divisions of much smaller tracts of land.
• Ica stones. In 1966, Dr. Javier Cabrera, a Peruvian physician and professor of biology, was given a rock for his birthday from a local peasant. On it was a picture of a fish, allegedly carved thousands of years ago. Upon further study, Cabrera realized the fish depicted was of a species that has been extinct for millions of years. Cabrera hunted down the source of the mysterious rock and found many others like it in Ica, Peru - thousands of them. On them were carved impossible ancient scenes: telescopes, open heart surgery, and even men battling dinosaurs (see photo)!
• Egyptian helicopters? Discovered on the walls of a temple in Abydos, Egypt, are hieroglyphics that closely resemble modern aircraft in profile: a helicopter, an airplane, and some kind of hovercraft or flying disc.

Human Remains
Although intriguing and remarkable if true, these examples are mostly the stuff of legend and folklore, and therefore largely unverifiable:

• Devilish discovery. Human skulls with horns were discovered in a burial mound at Sayre, Bradford County, Pa., in the 1880s. Horny projections extended two inches above the eye-brows, and the skeletons were seven feet tall, but other than that were anatomically normal. It was estimated they were buried around AD 1200.
• Jaws. In 1888, seven skeletons were found in a burial mound near Clearwater Minn. They were anatomically correct, except that the skulls featured double rows of teeth in the upper and lower jaws and had been buried in a sitting position, facing the lake. The foreheads were unusually low and sloping, with prominent brows.
• Grand Canyon mystery. In 1931, Dr. F. Bruce Russell claimed to have found strangeunderground tunnels in the Death Valley area. According to his story, he discovered winding tunnels containing artifacts that appeared to be a combination of Egyptian and American Indian. There were also mummies there, he said, that were over eight feet tall. As far as we know, no one has ever rediscovered Russell's mysterious tunnels.
• Bones in rock. Ed Conrad has found impossibly old fossilized human bones embedded in solid shale rock in Pennsylvania. The bones look human, but the rock in which they were trapped is between 280 and 300 million years old.

There are dozens and dozens of examples of such anomalies - enough to give the traditional scientific disciplines a shake-up, I would think. But because they don't fit conventional theories, these exceptions to the rules are almost always rejected out of hand. Yet, it doesn't take dozens and dozens of exceptions to challenge established thinking. All it takes is one thoroughly examined, completely verifiable anomaly to say, "The world isn't quite what we think it is."   

Soul Types: The Seven Roles in Essence

Soul Types: The Seven Roles in Essence

Your soul is your innermost being, your higher self, who you really are. And according to the Michael teachings, your soul will have one of seven distinct ‘vibrations’ or ‘tones’.

The Spectrum of Essence

When we cast light through a prism, it comes out in the form of a spectrum which we perceive as the seven colours of the rainbow. Similarly, when the Source of all being (God, the Tao, the Absolute, whatever you like to call it) casts its consciousness into the relative world, it comes out in the form of individual souls of seven types:

What are the roles?

The word “role” refers to the fact that we each serve a particular type of function in the great scheme of things. We are all parts of a greater whole—the evolving consciousness of all-that-is.

Think of how every cell in your body is designed to play a specific role or function. And, although there are trillions of cells in the human body, there are only a few different types of cell.

Or think about all the stars in the cosmos. Although their number is so high as to be virtually infinite, scientists classify them all into just seven types, from hottest (type O) to coolest (type M).

Similarly, there are only seven types of soul. Which is to say, there are seven primary ‘roles in essence’ — seven ways in which the One becomes the many.

The names given to the seven soul types in the Michael Teachings are deliberately archetypal — hence somewhat old-fashioned sounding and not necessarily politically correct. The names are:

SERVER | ARTISAN | WARRIOR | SCHOLAR | SAGE | PRIEST | KING

The names reflect the natural purpose and proclivities of each soul type:

• Servers are naturally accommodating, caring, nurturing, hospitable, altruistic.

• Artisans are naturally creative, inventive, imaginative, sensitive, dexterous.

• Warriors are naturally forceful, loyal, protective, determined, steadfast.

• Scholars are naturally curious, studious, academic, analytical, neutral.

• Sages are naturally engaging, articulate, charming, entertaining, expressive.

• Priests are naturally inspirational, uplifting, motivating, energising, visionary.

• Kings are naturally commanding, assured, powerful, authoritative, decisive.

You are one of these. I am one of these [a Scholar, to be exact]. Everybody is one or another of these. All the 7 billion souls who are currently on the planet, plus all those who are currently are off-planet between lives, can be identified as one of these seven types.

Incidentally, you can often (but not always) tell someone’s soul type from their facial features. I have a separate article on this: The seven soul types: what do they look like?

(Feel free to look at that now, but do come back here to learn a lot more about the nature of the seven types!)

The Proportions of Soul Types

The seven roles make up different proportions of the overall population. In percentage terms:

• Servers = 25%
• Artisans = 21%
• Warriors = 18%
• Scholars = 14%
• Sages = 11%
• Priests = 7%
• Kings = 4%

So, one quarter of the entire poluation is made up of Servers, while there are fewer Kings than any other type.

To illustrate this, think of a school class with 28 students. According to these figures, those students would probably be made up of the following: — one King, two Priests, three Sages, four Scholars, five Warriors, six Artisans and seven Servers.

Now here are some further explanations about the roles in essence.

The Nature of the Roles

• Roles are not assigned to us or imposed on us. They are who we are.
• There is no hierarchy. All roles are equal in value, and all souls are equally free. A King is in no way “higher up” or “better off” than a Server. The roles are simply seven different ways of being, seven ways of playing the game of life.
• A person’s soul type has no bearing whatsoever on that person’s station in life. A King soul will live just as many ordinary, hard-working lives as a Server. A Server has just as much opportunity to become a leader as any King. In fact, the present monarch in the UK is a Server, as is the heir to the throne.
• The roles are certainly not be confused with the Hindu caste system. There are similarities in the names used, but this is simply because the caste system is a tragic misrepresentation of the nature of the roles. Soul types having nothing to do with birth, ancestry or class heritage.
• Despite the labels used, no gender is implied. Souls have no gender. They simply choose between one or the other for each life to come. There are preferences, however. Priests, Sages, Artisans and especially Servers generally enjoy being female and often prefer it. Kings, along with Scholars and Warriors, tend to favour being male. (That said, the challenge of being female and the fight for equal rights can be very attractive to a Warrior.)
• Our soul type is often evident in the first years of life but then becomes masked to some extent by false self or false personality. This consists of cultural programming, ego, persona and so on — the superficial identity we all develop which has nothing to do with who we really are. Usually, it is not until mid-life (when much of this false identity is broken through) that our true essence comes to express itself more clearly. For example, a female Warrior in her late 30s who has so far been a stay-at-home housewife might suddenly find her true home working as a political activist. A male Artisan who has followed in his father’s footsteps in the armed forces might have a mid-life crisis and decide to become a poet.
• Whereas our soul type is permanent, everything else can change from one life to the next: race, nationality, religion, gender, social standing, profession. But the essence and consciousness will be consistent. For example, a certain Artisan soul might incarnate as a woodworker in one life, a choirboy in the next, then a housewife, then a wealthy wine merchant, then a child prostitute, then a female shopkeeper … and so on. Throughout all these human lives, however, the Artisan will tend to be creative and inventive, seeking to bring fresh and original perceptions into being.
• I am often asked if it is possible to identify with more than one role. In fact, it is almost impossible not to. Here’s why: Casting — your soul’s place in the cosmos (and how it affects your soul type).

Our role in essence is our true nature, the part we each play in the cosmos. And, as the Michael teachings remind us:

NO MATTER WHAT THE ROLE OF ESSENCE, THE ESSENCE ITSELF IS COMPOSED WHOLLY OF LOVE.

Complementary opposites

Another interesting thing about the seven soul types…

Six of the seven soul types actually belong in pairs. Those in a pair share a similar function or specialism in life:

• Priests and Servers are both inspiration specialists, bringing good intentions to life, serving a good cause, seeking to improve the quality of life for all.
• Sages and Artisans are both expression specialists, bringing good ideas to life, giving form or voice to thoughts and feelings, changing perceptions.

• Kings and Warriors are both action specialists, bringing concrete objectives to life, making things happen, setting goals and moving towards them.

Scholars stand alone as the neutral role, and they are the assimilationspecialists, absorbing knowledge from life.In each of the pairs (action, expression and inspiration), one is “cardinal” and the other is “ordinal“. Another way to put this is in terms of yin and yang.

The cardinal of the pair is yang: proactive, expansive, foreground, driven, and with a big-picture focus. The ordinal of the pair is yin, the equal-but-opposite complementary energy to yang: reactive, responsive, background, introspective, and with a detail-level focus.

• In the action-type roles, the King role is cardinal and the Warriorrole is ordinal. To use a simplistic analogy, Kings embark on wars while Warriors fight battles.
• In the expression-type roles, the Sage role is cardinal and theArtisan role is ordinal. If all the world’s a stage, Sages are the presenters of the show, while the show itself is created and crafted by Artisans.
• In the inspiration-type roles, the Priest is the cardinal role and the Server is the ordinal role. If inspiration is likened to shepherding, Priests move the whole flock on to better pastures while Servers tend to those in need.

The Scholar role is neither cardinal nor ordinal, but at the intersection of all the pairs. The Scholar is the only neutral type, the role beingassimilation — absorbing information from life to create knowledge. At the risk of mixing too many metaphors at once, Scholars would be the ones who chronicle wars, record stage shows, and study sheep!

Positive and Negative

It is important to understand that we can manifest our potential in different ways. In the extremes, each role has a positive pole (+) and a negative pole (–).

• The positive pole represents the highest, most authentic and positive expession of the soul, the true self, which is a source of love, truth and freedom.
• The negative pole represents the lowest, most distorted and negative expession of the ego, the false self, which is a source of fear, illusion and malice.

For example, my being a Scholar means that I am the sort of soul whose role in life is to take information from the raw data of reality. Scholar has as its positive pole “knowledge” and as its negative pole “theory”. When acting in my positive pole, I do indeed serve a positive purpose by collecting and offering valid, useful knowledge. But when acting in my negative pole, I tend to get side-tracked in invalid or useless theories of no interest to anyone but me, and then only because my ego gets off on knowing more and more things rather than interacting with real life. You could say that the positive manifestation of a Scholar is being a knowledgeable expert and the negative manifestation is what some would call a nerd or dweeb — (sigh) — so true.

So, the positive pole of any role leads towards true fulfilment of self and true intimacy with others. The negative pole leads to emptiness, frustration and alienation. Here they are in full:

ROLE	POSITIVE POLE	NEGATIVE POLE
Server	service (serving the common good)	servitude (loss of own power)
Artisan	creation (bringing good ideas to life)	artifice (ideas used to deceive)
Warrior	persuasion (influencing others’ will)	coercion (imposing own will)
Scholar	knowledge (learning from life)	theory (lost in abstractions)
Sage	communication (delivering messages)	verbosity (stuck on transmission)
Priest	motivation (inspiring others to change up)	zealotry (overly fanatical)
King	mastery (absolute responsibility)	tyranny (absolute power)

Relationships and Roles

Interestingly, the different roles do relationhips in subtly different ways.

• For Warriors and Kings (action type), relationships are a matter offealty or loyalty.
• For Sages and Artisans (expression type), relationships are a matter of commitment.
• For Priests and Servers (inspiration type), relationships are a matter of dedication.
• For Scholars (assimilation type), relationships are a matter ofinvolvement.

Channels of Input

We process our experiences through one or more channels of perceptual input. The number of channels we possess varies, depending upon our role in essence.

• Scholars, Kings and Warriors receive information through just one channel. This allows them to focus on what’s what, concentrate on the matter at hand, and think clearly amid chaos.
• Priests and Servers receive information through two channels. One is tuned to the immediate situation, and the other is tuned to, in the case of Priests, their sense of the “higher good”, and in the case of Servers, a sense of the “common good”. Hence, there is often a moral or ethical overtone to their conversations.
• Sages process information through three channels, while Artisans have five channels. With Sages, one channel is tuned to the immediate situation, one is managing their “act” or “performance”, and one is monitoring their audience. With Artisans, it is more a case of having multiple “back burners” making creative connections around the immediate situation.

While they are shifting their attention between their multiple channels, Sages and especially Artisans can appear to “tune out” the person they are communicating with. This makes Artisans in particular seem somewhat scattered, at least to non-Artisans. By the same token, those with multiple channels can find it difficult to accept the single-mindedness of Scholars, Kings and Warriors.

Read On

OK, you have the background. Now perhaps you want to know more specifically about each of the seven roles in essence. If you want a quick sense of what they all look like, based on photos of some famous examples in each case, see:

• The seven soul types: what do they look like?

If you want to read a fuller, more-in-depth description of each one (with more photos), click below. Enjoy!

SERVER | ARTISAN | WARRIOR | SCHOLAR | SAGE | PRIEST | KING

Discover Your Soul Type

Some people find it easy to intuit their own soul type or essence. For others, it’s far from obvious. To help you identify yours, I have put together a questionnaire (personality quiz) at Quibblo. Here’s the link:http://www.quibblo.com/quiz/atufj3C/Discover-Your-Soul-Type.

Over 1,000 people have taken it already and the results look like this:

The ‘natural’ proportions, you may remember, range from 4% Kings to 25% Servers. So this chart is showing a lot more Priests and Artisans than would be expected, and not many Warriors. This suggests either that the test is skewed to identify Priests and Artisans but not Warriors (which I totally accept is a possibility), or perhaps it is simply that Priests and Artisans are more likely to be doing this kind of thing on the Internet and Warriors aren’t. Feedback welcome!

Casting – Your Place in the Cosmos

(and how it affects your soul type)

In addition to our core essence or soul archetype, each of us has additional tendencies at the soul level that influence our way of being.

I am often asked if it is possible to identify with more than one role. In fact, it is almost impossible not to.

Take me, for example. I am a Scholar soul in essence, yet I have a way of being a Scholar that is somewhat like a Sage. Okay, I am nowhere near as outgoing as a typical Sage. In fact, I am generally quiet and studious like a typical Scholar. But put me in a room filled with Scholars and I will stand out from the rest as being relatively outgoing, fun-loving, witty and expressive.

How so?

It is all to do with how souls are organized into groups.

Soul groups

First of all, each of us belongs to a particular “family” or “team” of souls — our own little soul group, all of the same essence. I, for example, belong to a small group of Scholars. If you are an Artisan, then you will belong to a family of Artisans. Your siblings in your soul group will be among your closest soul mates.

Secondly, each member has a distinct role to play within the group.This team role is equivalent to one of the seven archetypes (King, Scholar, etc.). Why? It’s just how consciousness naturally self-organizes, having these seven different ways of being that can interact with one another. It happens as the Source disperses into the seven essence types, and it happens again as individual souls organize into groups.

In the lingo of the Michael teachings, all this organising and grouping is referred to as casting.

Think of actors being cast into roles for a play. Or perhaps, think of molten gold being poured (cast) into molds to make beautiful objects, all made from the same substance (gold) but each unique in its own way.

Casting

So in addition to being the expression of some archetypal essence (King, Server, etc), we are also cast into specific positions within soul groups, each of us playing a particular function within our own team.

The casting roles/functions within any soul team consist of:

• Artisan-cast: creativity, inventiveness
• Sage-cast: communication, wisdom
• Server-cast: care, nurturing
• Priest-cast: vision, encouragement
• Warrior-cast: action, productivity
• King-cast: command, decisiveness
• Scholar-cast: research, knowledge

Imagine, for example, a soul group made up of Artisans like the one below.

Within this team, one will be a bit like an inspiring coach (Priest-cast), one will be a bit of a knowledge specialist (Scholar-cast), and so on. There will even be one Artisan in the team playing an inventive, Artisan-like role.

They are all Artisans at core; that is their primary nature. At the same time, though, they will each have this other, secondary quality that comes from their casting. The ratio of the two energies (essence to casting) is probably something like 70:30.

Coming back to myself as an example, I am a Sage-cast Scholar. So along with my primary thrust as a Scholar I also bring a Sage-like energy of outward expressiveness. This means that as a Scholar I loveto spread my knowledge about in a way that is both lucid and entertaining.

Here are some more real-life examples (caveat: these are probable, not certain):

• Sages
  • Orson Welles — King-cast Sage
  • Lenny Bruce — Warrior-cast Sage
  • Isadora Duncan — Artisan-cast Sage
• Artisans
  • Viggo Mortensen — King-cast Artisan
  • Daniel Craig — Warrior-cast Artisan
  • Michael Jackson — Sage-cast Artisan
• Scholars
  • Ben Affleck — King-cast Scholar
  • Ken Wilber — Priest-cast Scholar
  • Michelle Obama — Warrior-cast Scholar
• Priests
  • Barack Obama — Scholar-cast Priest
  • Gandhi — Server-cast Priest
  • Ed Harris — King-cast Priest
• Servers
  • Queen Victoria — King-cast Server
  • Ammachi — Sage-cast Server
  • Dalai Lama — Priest-cast Server
• Kings
  • Cate Blanchett — Artisan-cast King
  • James Cameron — Warrior-cast King
  • Lucy Lawless — Sage-cast King
• Warriors
  • Judi Dench — Sage-cast Warrior
  • Colin Powell — Server-cast Warrior
  • Abraham Lincoln — Scholar-cast Warrior

So, this is why we can usually sense more than one archetypal energy within ourselves, though one will be predominant (the core essence or soul type) and the other will be secondary (the casting). Your casting is like an outer layer of archetypal energy enveloping your core essence, affecting how you operate as that soul type.

I say we can “usually” sense more than one because there are of course some souls who have the same archetypal qualities both in their essence and in their casting. An Artisan who is cast into the Artisan-like team position, for example, will be highly creative and inventive. They will also be more easily recognisable as an Artisan than, say, a King-cast Artisan, because they will be much more like the Artisan “stereotype”.

The bigger picture

Not only are our souls cast into positions within groups, but our groups are cast into specific positions within larger groups, and so on and so on… Ultimately, we all belong to the same infinitely large family, yet each of us has a unique place within it.

It would be of no value to the Source to create billions and billions of clones. Instead, each and every evolving consciousness has an absoluetly unique presence in the great scheme of things, a bit like the way each computer on the Internet has a unique IP address.

There is not another soul in the cosmos with the same quality of presence as you.