"Hyper-individualism is the displacement of communal commitments which are replaced by individual expression.  The best example I can think of in Quaker history is the replacement of the Peace Witness as a Communal Commitment with the individual conscience of members.  Whereas in the past members of the Quaker Meetings could be 'written out of the Meeting' for violating the Peace Witness, or living a life that was felt to be contrary to that witness,…

I AM not of the world of human being enchanted by simulation and similitude. In the Name of God, I AM. I AM Presence itself and Presence is me. Presence is within me and all around me shattering the outward shadowy layers of abstract and artificial simulations and similitudes overlaying human being. In the Name itself , the foggy spell of outward secular and religious forms, practices, and governments, fashioned and called forth in the cauldron of the abstract…

I am abiding in the Light and I am abiding the Light in me. I am the Name. To speak it is to abide in the essence of that which I AM. This gift of being in the Name is literally Being that is ever present. What a blessing to be in the Name ... I AM. I AM born again into the world every moment. This gospel is literally true and I AM come to living the eternal story every day and every moment.  

This Life in the Name is Meeting, Community, Practice, Love, and there is no thing before…

A Witness from Heaven



I am a new being by the power of the inward Light re-placing how I am conscious and the direction from which my conscience is informed. My identity and self-conscious rests completely in the Light itself. It has taken years, yet the Light has open my being to the clarity of life independent of the outward religious, political, governmental, institutional, theological, and ideological, abstractions that once overlaid my conscious and conscience. I now live…

Each of us can know the power of the Inshining right down to the deepest depths of our conscious and conscience and with this Inshining, we can experience the transformation of our perception so that the inward Light pushes out into the world and we see in a different light, percieving the Kingdom all around us and within us. We do not have to take anyone's word for it or read about it in a book. We can live in the outshining percieving the power of the Spirit in all things. There is no…

Human being has a special gift. The gift is the knowledge, through personal experience, of personal identity through direct and unmediated intuition of self-consciousness sustained in itself. This intuited self-conscious or awareness is being or Being turned inwardly.

Normally, human beings are aware of themselves in relationship to outward forms, mirrors, or layers through which they “see” themselves. These outward mirrors are, for examples, their occupations, religious…

William Roger writes in Part One of his Christian Quaker (1680) on pages 24-26:

'Tis well known, that it pleased the Lord, to reach unto many of our Consciences at the beginning of this latter Day, that hath dawned amongst us; whereby we came to Believe in the Everlasting Light of the Lord; and as others held forth the Visible Orders, and Written Faiths of a Visible Church to be as a lantern to their Paths, and as a Ground of their Faith, so this…

Where there is no outward tradition, Where there is no outward Family, Where is no outward creed or doctrine, Where there is no outward institution, Where there is no outward community, Where there is no outward nation, Where this is no outward government, Where there is no outward practice, Where there is no outward religion; enter that empty space and patiently wait for the re-cognition of eternal human being independent of outward forms and professors of form. In patient waiting, without…

Around 26 years after a spiritual impulse, that changed the very nature of their conscious and conscience, manifested within a group of individuals (who called themselves Children of Light) in England a disunity happened among them over whether there was a role for the establishment of outward doctrine, tradition, and institutional structure. Some in the gathering affirmed a role and others in the gathering did not.

It is compelling that for at least around 30 years there existed a…

The perfect way of unity and conformity

 Leslie Higgins, in an article(1) entitled “The Apostatized Apostle, John Pennyman: Heresy and Community in Seventeenth Century Quakerism,” quotes John Pennyman:

 “And if any have not the self-same measure of the Spirit, and know the self-same things, let such alone, without imposing upon them, and leave them to walk in the measure of Light and Knowledge that they have reciev'd, though…

I once dreamt I was standing on a peak overlooking a large field surrounded by forest. People populated the whole of the field and among the people were various individuals talking and espousing a particular belief or way of life. As they spoke, a mist came from their mouths and encompassed some of those listening. This mist had an atmosphere and economy of its own. Those who breathed the mist became enchanted by it so that their very identity and meaning was made of the stuff of this mist.…

In a recent post, Doug Bennett wrote:

“Stillness is a spiritual discipline (like Mass, like walking the labyrinth, like fasting, like praying, like hymn singing, etc.). Friends don’t see it as a tradition, but rather as an essential practice for their worship together. ”

Silence or Stillness as a Spiritual Discipline

I have been reading James…

Spent the evening in Fortuna, CA. This morning, there is an overwhelming Grace that fills the spaces between activities; there is a contiguous (ever Present) Being anchoring conscious in itself and conscience embraces various renderings through intuitive momentum. The wheel of fortune ever tumbling is overridden by the eternal nature of a life in Presence itself ... unpredicated by the tumblings of Fortuna's outward wheel. 

Oh, what a blessing to know a life unpredicated; a…

This moment in Quaker history has completely captured my attention. I am only beginning my research, however, I am completely compelled.

It is regrettable that the early Quakers who did not agree with Wilkinson seemingly destroyed much of the of the separatists writings. Because of that it seems I’m relegated to the characterizations of separatists by those who worked against them. I have little faith in such characterizations.…

My study of the Wilkinson/Story separation, to date, is edifying. Just to know there was a time right at the very beginning (relatively speaking) wherein, those who gathered together in the Light (Quakers) experienced disagreement over whether  directly inspired Presence was sufficient in itself to rule over the individuals among…

Witnessing to Presence as air.

Generally speaking, we don't argue over breathing air. I mean, there are no groups advocating for a particular way of breathing air. There are no air intake traditions. There are no groups running around advocating for a particular philosophy or theology of breathing. Furthermore, there are no political groups or politicians advocating against people who do not breath the correct way or groups who would persecute others who do not breath the way they…

The US President and officials in his administration believe in outward remedies to the ills of this world based upon their adherence to particular political, secular, and religious philosophies. The basic idea that, if you acknowledge and address the grievances of people (like use government to give them jobs) they will stop terrorising and killing is political agenda based on the false assumption that outward lack is the cause of killing and terrorism. The cause of terrorism is a conscious…

All throughout the whole of various religious contexts there is a sentiment that acting and contemplation are different; that you have to come off the mountain to act.

This sentiment is misplaced. It may be that Moses had to come off the mountain to share God's words, however, it is not the case in the immediacy of Presence. Under the new covenant, inward Christ is the mountain and we are now blessed with mountaintop rest while acting at the same time.

As it has been all along the history of human beings' renunciation of its measure of inknowing through the power of the direct illumination of Presence itself, today people gather around and are enchanted simulations or shadows of life rather than the Life itself. Men and woman (ministers, philosophers, theologians, teachers, politicians, political and religious activists) fashion religious and secular ideological, theological, political, institutional, and scriptural simulations of…

They'll tell you they have the answer.

When your up against the concrete

on the diagonal beneath life and death.

Floating under the bridge in between the space were cold becomes warm,

and death is life.

They will come to you with their answers and promises.

Though their promises don't inspire, because they are expired.

When your soul aches,

In the solitude of heart break,

Peace is creased in the fold of the expressed; in the space where hate…