"Then God said,
'Let us make man in our image and likeness....'
So God created man in His own image;
in the image of God he created him...."
Genesis 1:24-25
"Not Ray," he whispers.
The lanky, six-foot-four Ray Elkins had collapsed on the sofa in his Globe, Arizona, home before falling unconscious. His epileptic seizures left him motionless and seemingly lifeless, to outward appearances. The 40-year-old Ray experienced sudden losses of consciousness from brain injury in 1965, five years before. Neurologists hadn't expected him to survive long.
Ray is a man who doesn't relinquish control easily, a fighter who never gives up. Maybe his strong will had kept him alive this long, and his equally strong faith in God. Though sometimes stubborn, his one greatest truth is his love for God.
As he collapsed into unconsciousness, it's likely that his dying prayer was to be with God -- in life, or in death.
Ray's breathing slowed. Nothing could reach him. He seemed not to even be in his body.
Ray's frightened wife leans over her husband. She can't detect his breathing -- only deep silence. Was he there?
This time it's differentthan other seizures. He whispers! She gets a small tape recorder to record the whisper, in case the neurologist needs to hear this.
"Ray?" she calls.
"Not Ray," he whispers. He is unconscious.
"Not Ray," she asks, "who then?"
The whisper grows stronger. It contains such love, reflecting what is said, "Body...spirit...soul...God!..."Many worlds, many universes, many galaxies -- like pebbles on a beach, so vast. Each galaxy set up for man's expansion."
"Which is most important?" she asks.
"God!" the unfathomable, loving whisper seems to resound from all it speaks. This word is said in the greatest love she has ever heard.
"Who is God?" she asks. She feels such a profoundly spiritual presence in the room."An entity?"
The loving whisper answers after a long,long pause, as though reaching through immeasurable space and time, "God...is.........everything,"
"Not one thing?" she asks, awed.
"Not one thing, but everything," the words resound from where they are being spoken. Then a love so vast, it cannot be expressed, says, "God is -- is God!"
Humbled by this presence, she asks, "What do you want to tell me about?"
"In the beginning," the words pause, to speak through time. "In the beginning God gave man spirit because He was lonely. Then man's spirit was not enough because spirit always knew of God -- in spirit -- so many spirits -- so many, many spirits," he lovingly whispers of all he sees.
"Then God thought, 'I SHALL MAKE MAN, FOR I HAVE USE OF [THIS] BEFORE.' For there were many gods, like our God! Before [this], worlds and worlds." "Our God" is said in immeasurable love.
Many reigions share similar words of the story of the creation of the world. These words resemble those written in the Biblical story of creation, in Genesis 1:26, that says, "'Let us make man in our image and likeness.'"
The voice had said it was God's intention that, since the beginning man, should know his Father. And thus, be as he was created in the beginning, in God's likeness and image.
Is this not what the voice was sharing as it said, "Body, soul, spirit, God...many worlds, many universes, many galaxies, like pebbles on a beach, so vast -- each galaxy set up for man's expansion?"
In very great love, God sends His spiritual messengers who are closest to Him to man, that His words not be misinterpreted -- to give man the gift of greater Life, that we may know Him, that we may be born over again in God's likeness and image, and His covenant with man would continue forever.
Could something like this have happened that day, April 3, 1970, when spiritual messengers from God entered into Ray Elkins, giving him a gift from God of greater Life, which Ray did not understand -- on a mission, "to bring man back to God?"
If we look, can we see a similarity to other times, before, when God sent His messengers and gave a gift -- and made a covenant with man. Though the man was willing to give up his life, if it be God's will, it was God's will to give man back life, and to give a gift of greater Life still, in His even greater love.
We may not be able to hear some of the words that were recorded that day, when spirit sent from God first spoke through Ray. Ray's wife had to back up the tape which had run out before the voice finished speaking. She needed to record instructions about how to bring Ray back into his body -- and to this life -- how to awaken him from this death-like trance. Never before had he spoken during seizures, or could he be wakened.
Although we don't know what was said, because the middle of the tape was recorded over, the voice seemed to be speaking to man from the beginning. It sought to remind man of his Father, by whatever name He is called, so that he may know a way to God. Perhaps man was reminded, through his far memory or written history, of what may be the earliest belief in one God known to Western Civilization, predating and probably influencing later scriptures of the Vedaic, Judeo-Christian and Muslim faiths.
The unerased portion of the tape picks up with his wife's question, "Where can we prove this?"
"Cairo. In Egypt (cough), in Egypt. I was there. And he came and said, 'Form thy a church for one God.' I built Him a temple."
"What was you name? Do you know?" she asks. "We can find out later."
The voice answers, "I built Him a temple, and God, God said.........." The voice seems to reach through infinity, beyond form to speak God's words.
"What did God say," she asks? Still the word God spoke is unexpressible.
"Can you hear me? Ray?"
What do we know? Scholars of Western Civilization say that the first records found of the worship of one God are in Egypt. Can we compare man's historical records of the origins of religions, in ancient Egypt, with what we heard spoken through Ray from a voice that seems to speak through all time. Can we can find proof, or evidence?
Amenhotep IV (1379 - 1362 B.C.E.) built a temple and palace to one God about 20 miles from Cairo. Akhnaten was both the name he gave to himself and to the capitol of ancient Egypt during his reign. His temple had no idols and was open to the sky, or the sun's disk, which represented Aten, the great, unseen God beyond.
Some Biblical scholars say that he was the first in recorded history to worship one God. The Pharoah renamed himself, "Akhnaten," which means, "one who is useful to God," after Aten (or God). He was an instrument through whom messengers of God spoke.
On his temple walls, one can see him depicted with rays of Aten coming down and reaching to him, and in each outstretched hands he holds an ankh (an Egyptian, tau cross with a loop at the top) used as a symbol of generation or enduring life.
Ankh means "Life" or "the Living One." Ka means "spirit(s) of." Ankh-ka means spirit(s) of the Living One or of Life. The name also means "my spirit lives."
A name that sounds smiilar to what was heard through Ray comes from the time of the fifth King of the first dynasty, Den and Queen Merideth. (See Ancient Egypt in the Metropolitan Museum Journal.)
April 6, 1970, when the messenger(s) again speak through Ray's body, Ray's wife asked, "Can you tell us who you are?"
The messenger(s) of God answer, "My name is Aka."
We were told that "it does not matter how you spell of this. But if all of you could agree upon this one simple thing, then you have taken one step closer to our Father."Another evening they said, "We are the spirits of Aka for we stand as close to God that we feel His teardrops upon our foreheads; yet, we are not great. Only God is great."
This phrase translated from the Egyptian Book of the Dead seems to speak of this:
"The living ones,
he becomes `God, the son of God,' and all the heaven become his brethern."
Many Biblical scholars consider the early concept of the resurrection, predating and influencing Judeo-Christian and Muslim teachings, to have come from Egypt.
the Egyptian Book of the Dead tells us.
Could this concept help us better understand the long pause after Ray's wife asks, "What did God say?" Then she asks, Can you hear me? Ray?"
"Not Ray," the voice answers her.
"Why can't I call you Ray?" she asks.
"Ray is of this plane. I, by my name, who speaks through him, who has taken possession of his body and soul, there to guide him -- that others may learn through him, that they may learn a way to God," is the answer.
"What can Ray do to help you?" she asks.
Spirit sent from
God to be born in man, born in God's image and likeness, lovingly answers, "For Ray is I, and I am Ray."
Perhaps it is not surprising that his wife did not understand, for this concept mystified even the most learned religious scholars who questioned Jesus about being born again of spirit. Throughout time, seekers of enlightenment have sought to attain this knowledge. People of many faiths have searched for a way to be closer to God, each in their own way.
"Can you help him?" she asks, not knowing the fullness of her question.
"Yes," a loving answer comes.
"How?" she asks.
"Every day, in his walk, in his speech, sometimes he grows irritable with people; the reason is because in his conscious state his mind projects such force, and he does not understand it all."
She asks, "How can we help him understand it?"
"Love, understanding, and listen to him."
"Don't I?" she says, a little short.
"Sometimes," a gentle voice answers her. "His mission and my mission are to bring man back to God --for when he awakens he will have new knowledge that he has not had before, for he will be able to speak of things I have thought of, and to think [knowledge] -- [And this] will be closer to God. Closer to God."
That night, a gift had been given to Ray when he had passed on, up a stairway into the increasing light of the Father, to stand with God. The gift was given to him by one seated, around whom many, many stood. This one had more love in his eyes than Ray had ever seen, Ray said when he awoke. Ray had been given a choice -- to stay there with all those who were gathered, or to return back to his body and give this gift to others in the same manner of love it was give to him. If he did, nothing wuold have changed; he would still have pain. Ray chose to return.
Ray did not know what the gift was. For quite some time, Ray did not fully understand -- the gift of spiritual messengers of God that was born in Ray, that others may learn through him, that they may learn a way to God.
His mission and the mission of the spiritual mssengers God sent "are the bring man back to God." From this day on, Ray would have new knowledge that he had not had before, speak of things the spiritual messengers of God had thought of, [and this] will be closer to God.
April 6, 1970, the next evening the voice speaks through Ray's unconscious body, his wife asks, "Can you tell us who you are?"
"My name is Aka."
"Why do you come to us," she asks?
The spiritual messengers of God answer about this link of their spirits to Ray's body and soul, "I do not come to you."
She asks, "Who do you come to?"
"I come to Ray."
She does not understand what cannot be understood fully, until it is known with and in one. She asks, "What do you want Ray to know?"
"To bring his flock to God."
"How shall he go about it?" she asks. The only people present were her parents, and Ray's best friend. After the session, they laughed about the word, "flock, as they looked around the room and saw only themselves. But over the years, they themselves reached many others, and then thousands of people flocked to Ray for healing and spiritual guidance. So this answer of the spiritual messengers of God would come true.
"Through I. Ray shall know," For Ray had been asked, by the one with such love in his eyes who gave him this gift when he passed on to God, to give this gift freely to others in the same manner of love it was given to him. He was asked to bring those who came to him to God, each in their own way -- to show them a way to God. For did not the spiritual messengers of God who speak through Ray, "who had taken possession of his body and his soul, there to guide him," say this was done so "that others may learn through him, that they may learn a way to God."
They have come, they say, but for one purpose, to prepare a way within men and women for the coming of the Messiah, that the world may know him.
The spiritual messengers of God spoke of the needs of those present and other loved ones -- his wife, his wife's aunt, her parents, Ray's best friend. And they suggested how to improve Ray's health and diet, for his health was not good.
Ray's wife asked, "Does your coming hurt Ray's body?"
