It's difficult to leave what you're used to, but, god, it's worth it


Some stuff to do! Hooray!

22ND CENTURY PRONOIA THERAPY
Experiments and exercises in becoming a bewilderingly enlightened,
ecstatically grateful, unselfishly proud Master of Fiendishly Benevolent
Tricks

1. Philosopher Robert Anton Wilson has proposed that the single greatest
contribution to world peace would come from there being six billion
different religions—a unique spiritual path for each person on the planet.
The Beauty and Truth Laboratory urges you to get started on doing your
part to make this happen. What will your religion be called? What rituals
will you perform? Write down your three core tenets.

2. You'll also need a new name for the Creator. "God" and "Goddess"
have been so overused and abused that most of us are numb to them.
And given the spiritual opportunities that will open up for you as you
explore pronoia, you can't afford to have an impaired sensitivity towards
the Great Mystery.

Here's an idea to stimulate your search: The Russian word for God is
"Bog." The Basques call the Supreme Being "Jingo." To purge your
psychic dockets of built-up fixations about deity, you might try singing
improvisational prayers to "Jingo Bog."

Here are a few other fresh names to inspire you:
Blooming HaHa
Divine Wow
Whirl-Zap-Gush
Sublime Cackler
Chthonic Riddler

3. Since ancient times, China has hosted three religions: Confucianism,
Buddhism, and Taoism. The typical Chinese person has cobbled together a
mélange of beliefs gathered from all three. This is different from the
Western way, which is to be faithful to one religion or another, never
mixing and matching.

But that's changing in certain enclaves in North America, where growing
numbers of seekers are adopting the Chinese approach. They borrow
elements from a variety of spiritual traditions to create a personalized
path. Religious historians call this syncretism.

As you meditate on conjuring up your own unique mode of worship, think
of the good parts you'd like to steal from other religions.

4. Most religions designate a special class of people—priests, rabbis,
ayatollahs—to oversee official communications with the Source. This has
led to a prevailing assumption, even among those who don't follow an
established faith, that we can't initiate a divine conversation without the
aid of a professional class of trained mediators. Among some sects of the
ancient gnostics, in contrast, everyone was regarded as a potential
prophet who could experience epiphanies worthy of becoming part of the
ever-evolving doctrine.

As you create your own spiritual path, experiment with this approach.
What might you do to eliminate the middleman and commune directly
with the Source?

5. The chorus of an old Depeche Mode song goes like this: "I don't want
to start/ Any blasphemous rumors/ But I think that God's/ Got a sick
sense of humor/ And when I die/ I expect to find him laughing." I have a
grudging respect for these lyrics. In an age when God has been co-opted
by intolerant fundamentalists and mirthless sentimentalists, I appreciate
any artist who suggests there's more to the Infinite Spirit than the one-
dimensional prig described in the Bible or Koran.

On the other hand, Depeche Mode's notion of the Blooming HaHa is also
disinformation. It's as much a hostage to pop culture's knee-jerk nihilism
as the right-wing bigots' God is to their monumental hatreds. One thing I
know for sure about the Supreme Being is that while she does have a
complicated sense of humor, it's not cruel or vengeful.

Your assignment: Pray to be granted a healing sample of her comedic
genius—a funny, shocking miracle that will free you of any tendencies you
have to believe the age-old lies about her.

6. Will there be prayer in your new religion? If so, we suggest that you
avoid the body language traditionally used by Christians in their worship.
The gesture of clasping one's hands together originated long ago as an
imitation of being shackled; it was thought to be the proper way to
express submission to divine power.

The prayers you make, however, may be imbued as much with reverent
exuberance or ecstatic gratitude as somber submissiveness. An example
of a more apt gesture is to spread your arms as wide and high as they'll
go, as if you're hugging the sky. Any other ideas?

7. What if the Creator is like Rainer Maria Rilke's God, "like a webbing
made of a hundred roots, that drink in silence"? What if the Source of All
Life inhabits both the dark and the light, heals with strange splendor as
much as with sweet insight, is hermaphroditic and omnisexual? What if
the Source loves to give you riddles that push you past the boundaries of
your understanding, forcing you to deepen your perceptions and change
the way you think about everything? Close your eyes and imagine you can
sense the presence of this tender, marvelous, difficult, entertaining
intelligence.

8. At one point in James Michener's novel Hawaii, a native Hawaiian tells
ignorant missionaries, "You cannot speak to the gods with your clothes
on." Whereupon he strips and prepares for prayer. Test this theory. Find
out if your communion with the Divine Wow improves when you're naked.

9. A few Christian sects now enjoy a new addition to their once-staid
church services: holy laughter. Parishioners become so excited while
worshiping that they erupt in uncontrollable glee. Some may crack up so
profoundly that they fall on the floor and flop around like breakdancers.
Others repeatedly leap into the air as if on pogo sticks, or wobble and
zigzag as if trying to dance while drunk.

Imagine that the holy books of your religion prescribe laughing prayers as
a reliable way to know the Divine Wow. Recite one of those laughing
prayers.

10. In Judeo-Christian cultures, many people associate the sky with the
masculine form of God. According to this bias, the Supreme Father rules
us all from on high—up, away, far from here. But if you were an ancient
Egyptian, the sky was the goddess Nuit, her body its very substance. She
was a loving mother whose tender touch could be felt with each new
breath.

For one day, act as if you and Nuit are in constant contact.

11. In Kevin Smith's movie, Dogma, pop singer Alanis Morissette played
God. Anthony Quinn was Zeus in the TV show, Hercules, and comedian
George Burns performed the role of God in three movies, always "without
makeup," as he bragged. Your assignment is to choose the person you'd
like to portray God or Goddess in the movie of your life.

15. In *Letters to a Young Poet,* Rilke urged an aspiring bard to change
the way he imagined the Supreme Being. "Why don't you conceive of God
as an ally who is coming," Rilke said, "who has been approaching since
time began, the one who will someday arrive, the fruit of a tree whose
leaves we are? Why not project his birth into the future, and live your life
as an excruciating and lyrical moment in the history of a prodigious
pregnancy?"

How would your life change if you made this idea your working
hypothesis?

16. In some ancient Greek dramas, a god showed up out of nowhere to
cause a miraculous twist at a crucial point in the tale. This divine intrusion
was referred to as theos ek mechanes, literally "god from a machine,"
because the symbolic figure of the god was lowered onto the stage by a
crane. In modern usage, the term is Latin—deus ex machina—and refers
to a story in which a sudden event unexpectedly brings about a resolution
to a baffling problem.

Write a tale in which you're the beneficiary of such an intervention.

17. In Frederick Buechner's book, *On the Road with the Archangel,* the
star is the archangel Raphael. This supernatural helper has a tough gig:
gathering the prayers of human beings and delivering them to God. Here's
how he describes the range of pleas he hears: "'There are prayers of such
power that you might say they carry me rather than the other way
around. There are prayers so apologetic and shamefaced and half-hearted
that they all but melt away in my grasp like sad little flakes of snow. Some
prayers are very boring.'"

Compose a prayer that's so powerful and entertaining that it could thrill
an archangel.

18. Thousands of scientists are engaged in research to crack the code of
the aging process. Their coming breakthroughs may allow you to live a
healthy and vigorous life well into your 90s—and even beyond.

How can you contribute to this worthy cause? What might you do to
promote your longevity? Brainstorm about possible strategies.

And now I drink a toast to your coffin. May it be fashioned of lumber
obtained from a hundred-year-old cypress tree whose seed will germinate
this year.

19. Let's move on to discuss the possibility that sooner or later, the
physical body you inhabit will expire. Your heart will shut down. Blood will
no longer course through your veins. The fleshly vehicle you knew as your
home for so many years will begin to rot. Is this the ultimate proof, as
some people bitterly proclaim, that there is no God and that pronoia is a
lie?

I say no. I say that the Creator includes death as an essential part of
evolution's master plan. Lifetime after lifetime, our immortal souls take on
a series of temporary forms as we help unfold, in our own small ways, the
inconceivably complex plot of the divine drama. Each time we die, it's
hard and sad to our time-bound egos. But from the perspective of the
part of us that has always been and will always be, it's simply part of the
epic adventure.

Assume, for argument's sake, that what I've just said is a fact. Describe
how different your life would be if you not only believed but perceived the
truth that your essential self will never die, but will inhabit many bodies
and live many lives on earth.