Pioneering Mystic Lectures, 2011

Protective Intuition

Linda Mihalic, February 23, 2011, Cleveland, Ohio

Do not woolgather because what people say bores you. The Laws of the Crown states that there are no repetitions. Listen and be alert!–Edna Lister, 1945

  I believe that the instances of intuition that I have experienced about some danger near at hand are twofold. 1) Sensory input like a tone of voice, the look on person’s face, and body language are all signs you read on others. The insane soul or the workers of evil literally make me shiver and my hair to stand on end. When I experience that shiver and I am not aware what is causing it, I have some to believe that my Guardians are warning me to beware.
  One winter night, long ago, I'd worked late, and arrived at home at around 9:00 p.m., so it was fully dark. I rented the first floor of a duplex house then. When I pulled in the driveway, no lights were on anywhere, which meant my upstairs neighbor was not home either. I drove to the detached garage, but just as I was to pull in, all my warning signals went off. My hair stood on end! I put the car in reverse, pulled out and drove two blocks to the police station. I went in and told the night clerk my fears. He sent a patrol car—the officers quietly went up the drive and caught a scruffy man hiding in the garage. His criminal record included assault and rape. Listen to the warnings!

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Forgiveness

Linda Mihalic, March 28, 2011, Cleveland, Ohio

  People may ask your forgiveness for having backstabbed you, but do not feel obligated to forgive these folks or to feel connected to them personally. Several persons have called me names then later asked my forgiveness. Edna Lister said, “You already have a name. Why would you accept the name another gives you?” If you never take it in, you really don't need an apology. If you want the apology, then you need God to forgive you for holding a grudge! Your personal forgiveness is not as critical for them as it is for them to repent and ask God for His forgiveness. You can say something like, I accept your apology, but asking me to forgive you isn’t as important as asking God to forgive and heal you.
  People too often ask forgiveness to hide some illusion they choose to preserve. If they won’t go to God, imagination is their reality; your forgiveness is merely the cover-up justification for their actions. To be clean yourself, do not hold a grudge or feel “sentiment”—as either guilt or blame. Remain neutral. Do not give what is not yours to give, but gently suggest that they need to go to God who forgives in answer to their repentance.
  If the transgressor had not felt guilty, he would never have said he needed your forgiveness, which is different from asking for forgiveness. Also, a subtle difference divides “I own this as mine” (“I did it”) and “I accept this as mine” (as my responsibility to lift). A caveat applies to this: What you accept, you come to expect. If you accept the illusion of the names you were called, if you accept these illusions as truths, you expect the same treatment in the future, which results in living as if the illusion were true. Pay attention and you will notice how often people project their own guilt onto others. You can choose either to accept that illusion or to embrace the truth. People who do or say hateful thing to you detest what they see of themselves when they look at you. You are a mirror for them when you carry the Light.
  Forgiveness must be preceded by repentance. Repentance is to turn completely to God, meaning to turn completely around, to change your mind to be in accord with God’s Mind. You repent from the illusion you hold in your mind. An illusion is born from “God-and” thinking: “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.”–Philippians 2:5. What do you need to repent from doing? Stop operating from “God-and” thinking. “I think” is different from “God thinks.” The “I-think” results in negative emotions, which leave you “needy” and recycles the “I-think.” Lotus Landis quoted Edna Miriam, who said, Your greatest need is your greatest weakness.
  Be gentle with those whom you love. You give love here on earth but it may not be returned, so remember that all the love you give, always goes to God. Edna Lister said that forgiveness is loving the life sparks. So eventually you come into syzygy with the Father’s wisdom and the Mother’s true love—the mind and substance of healing—which is wholeness.

Trust and Forgiveness

Linda Mihalic, April 8, 2011, Cleveland, Ohio

  The whole universe conspires to bring everything together to create the perfect situation and experience that will enable you to learn your lessons. If you take upsetting events and what people say personally, you will fail to see the lessons they contain, and limit your ability to see universally. You have to go to God first, not to self first because self is just chock-full of useless emotions that will side-track your train of consciousness.
  God is the only person you can trust completely and absolutely because no self enters to cause your trust to fail. You can trust most people “just this far, but no farther.” Edna Lister said to ask yourself whether you are trustworthy enough for God to answer your prayers. God has to know you are trustworthy before He can burden you with what you think you need or want. You are as trustworthy as you are, not as you think you are. Your relationship to God is like a solar system—He is the Sun, the Light at the center, while the souls are the planetary spheres, the orbiting planets; everyone is orbiting same Light, but each is moving at a different rate of speed and proximity.
  “Return unto Me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of hosts.”–Malachi 3:7. We’ve all been away from God for so long, we feel that we need forgiveness—many fear the results of their errors and sins, or resent that God has “abandoned” them when He has not. Edna Lister said that all your “its,” your sins and errors are like beggars begging to be brought into the Light to be forgiven and healed. The emotional constructs that surround “marriage” and “family” confer no special virtue or relationship.
  For example one woman’s mother painted in black and white whatever she regarded as “evil.” Her parents wounded her “sentimentality"-nerve so greatly that she could finally relinquish the need for “love” that she had imagined was real. She said she was still learning from her mother’s life, her ideas of “marriage” and her “family.” Her ideas and experiences remain hers and her daughter no longer confabulates any special predetermination or “guiding influence” in the relationship between her life and her mother’s. Base your conceptions of marriage and family on the foundation of eternal truth for the best results.
  People may do harmful hateful things, but still not be evil. However, the effects of your harmful deeds and thoughts is cumulative, so watch out! This also relates to your trustworthiness. To become a good judge of character, you must learn how to differentiate between sentimentality and empathy. One way is by noting whether a person wants Light to fill the void he has created by misusing his soul substance, which is selfish, or whether he desires the Light for healing forgiveness. We have spoken about the relationship between repentance and forgiveness.
  Repentance is also closely related to redemption. Redeeming your own soul substance is how you become your own savior. Edna Lister said this is part of “working out your own salvation.” You can’t depend on God or the Master to do it for you. It’s your task, and you have the Star Power to do it: all the Mind, Substance, and Power of God is yours to call upon.
  Some people conflate money and fame as being God-given when it’s really only man-earned. Apply discernment, discrimination and discretion to fully comprehend the true nature of what you call substance, which is everything in form in the universe, from the stars down to the rock that forms a planet. Money is substance in the form of our current medium of exchange. Failure to understand the full nature of substance leads to unintended results and unexpected consequences. You can squeeze substance’s flow to and through you by belittling others, thinking everyone else is wrong and only you are right, by believing in your own entitlement, and your “right” to grasp what you think is yours. Those folks who equate money with love demonstrate their true beliefs every birthday, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and at Christmas.

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Money and Politics

M. C. Whyman, September 15, 2011

  In the following, I offer a theoretical definition of corruption based on the assumption that there are objective moral principles against which we can measure deviations from right action. I assert that campaign finance regulations impose unjust limits on freedom of speech for those who haven’t committed any acts of corruption. Lastly, I posit that identifying and reducing corruption requires an operational definition of corruption, as well as a public that’s engaged in active monitoring of the political sphere and a system that is as transparent as possible.
  Corruption has existed in many forms throughout time and human affairs. It is perversion from uprightness and deviation from right action in the discharge of one’s duties (OED 2011). Corruption does not occur in a conceptual vacuum. It is a perversion of something and a deviation from something. That something is honor, morality, uprightness or right action. Each of these terms taps into the same concept. They are each expressions of the plumb line of principle that all actions must be measured against. I assume that all individuals have access to an objective set of principles (the plumb line of the universe) which functions as the constant against which we measure the rightness of human actions. 1 Individuals may differ in their application of these principles in their personal lives, but all have equal access to them. Corruption is deviation from the plumb line and occurs in various degrees and kinds.
  Although it is most commonly associated with bribery and the misuse of political power for illegitimate private gain within politics, corruption can be understood as covering a whole range of transgressions against principle. Corruption is fundamentally a moral, rather than simply an economic problem. It can take forms that result in non-monetary categories of gain for the perpetrator. A political party that secures a majority vote by arranging for ballot boxes to be stuffed has corrupted the electoral process. A president who appoints an unqualified family member to a position of power or authority is corrupt through an act of nepotism. Neither the political party nor the president gain financially through their actions and yet it is clear in both cases that the political process has been corrupted.
  Campaign finance laws seek to reduce the likelihood of corruption with regard to a single expression of corruption within the political sphere, bribery. The most basic logic behind these regulations is that by limiting contributions you ensure a right to equal expression of political preferences (Buckley v. Valeo). The regulations seek to reduce the probability that, by virtue of a donation, a representative will vote or act in a way that deviates from how they would have otherwise.
  The injustice of campaign finance legislation is rooted in its broad strokes approach to limiting the freedom of speech for all candidates and donors. It matters not whether a candidate has or will engage in corrupt practices, or whether they are innocent, the legislation restricts liberty and freedom of speech for all parties regardless of their guilt. This is antithetical to our values in a democracy. The rights of the innocent should not be excessively abridged to reduce the chances that the potentially guilty will commit a crime.
  This problem highlights the need for an operational, as opposed to theoretical, understanding of corruption which allows us to individually prosecute persons suspected of corruption, rather than universally apply law which limits free speech. Our operational understanding of corruption should take the form of a well specified list of offenses that are regarded as instances of corruption. These instances of corruption, like bribery or fraud, should be outlawed if they aren’t already and candidates and donors suspected of breaking them should be tried within the legal system. Outlawing specific cases will not eliminate all instances of corruption; however it will allow us to prosecute those whom we suspect of corruption without abridging the rights of other citizens. In order to convict an individual there must be sufficient evidence to prove their guilt. It will never be enough to say that we believe corruption has occurred. It must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
  The ability to identify specific instances of corruption (deviations from the plumb line) in the realm of money and politics requires two things beyond an operational definition of corruption, transparency and an attentive public. Transparency in this realm has been partially realized through the publication of campaign donations by the FEC and the meticulous documentation of voting records and congressional activity by government and various independent organizations. It could be further realized through legislation which requires enhanced disclosure with respect to corporate spending in elections in the wake of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. 2 Should an individual or group choose to make connections between donations and outcomes, it would be well within their rights to publish the findings, question the motivations of elected officials and accuse them of a crime if there were sufficient evidence to prosecute them. This would of course require that the public or a subset of the public be attentive to the flow of money within the political sphere and willing to monitor the activities of representatives.
  Unfortunately, the average citizen is often woefully uninformed and uninterested in politics and therefore unlikely to monitor the activities of elected officials (Sniderman Brody and Tetlock 1991, Carpini 1997). While it is true that the public as a whole is largely inattentive, this does not release the public from their collective responsibility to civic duty. The degree to which the public is willing to monitor and tolerate corruption is the degree to which it will continue to occur.
  The combination of these factors, increased transparency and public monitoring, constitute a proximate solution to an insoluble problem. As long as there are deviations from the moral plumb line in private human affairs, there will be corruption in the political sphere. It is not something that one can do away with through the use of blanket legislation, but rather must be confronted in a case by case basis in all its varied forms.

Endnotes

1^ As opposed to assuming that moral principles are relative and there is therefore no universal moral standard by which to judge actions.

2^ Legislation to enhance disclosure will help to avoid the appearance of corruption the Court was so concerned with in Buckley v. Valeo.

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