FIRST PART

The Creation of the World

In the beginning all was darkness (Genesis,1): there only existed the inscrutable and mysterious nothing, the absolute emptiness, eternal, atemporal and infinite. But within it, permeating everything, there was an energy, different from that that men would come one day to know. That energy was a superior consciousness, a supreme intelligence - God *.

When, billions of years later, the human species appeared in the distant planet Earth, each human mind would be provided, as in a hologram * *, with a tiny part of that infinite primordial consciousness. In other words, God became present inside the mind of every man.

About 15 billion years ago, somewhere in the infinite, the energy that emanated from that Supreme Being, started condensing and condensing and condensing, until a critical point was reached. Then, God promoted His first divine intervention - the Cosmogenic Transformation - by ordering : "let there be light" (Genesis 1,3). And so occurred the Big Bang.

All that concentrated energy exploded in an immeasurable sparkle, generating a fantastic temperature of the order of 10 quadrillions of centigrade degrees, and spreading, in every direction , with an incalculable speed, the elementary particles of matter: electrons, neutrinos, quarks and gluons. It was the beginning of the Universe and the emergence of the concept of space. Atoms joined into molecules. Matter was being formed and, starting from it, millions of galaxies composed of trillions of stars appeared in the Cosmos. And the Universe continued to expand. And, because it had an initial moment and kept existing, the concept of time was developed.

Some stars, still in an embryonic stage, started to accumulated layers of interestelar dust, that solidified, becoming rocks. And, when the star exploded, "to be born", those rocky fragments were thrown throughout space and, according to their size, they turned into planets or asteroids, which began to orbit around the mother-star, forming the planetary systems.

About 12 billion years ago, at the periphery of a super galactic conglomerate denominated Virgo, a galaxy that, later, would be named Milky Way was constituted. And, close to 4.5 billion years ago, 30,000 light-year away from the center of that galaxy, a star, relatively small in size and energy, appeared: our Sun, circled by nine planets and a ring of asteroids.

In the third planet, due to its convenient distance from the Sun, and because of the presence of water, in liquid stage and in great amount, it became possible that a little later - around 3.5 billion years ago - specific chemical reactions developed, given rise to a type of quite peculiar matter, composed of atoms of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen, constituting the four "organic molecules". They then started to form amino acids and nucleic acids, originating the long chains of DNA. Matter was now ready to receive the divine blow. And the second great intervention of God, the Biogenic Transformation, takes place: inanimate matter becomes lively matter and LIFE is created ! And the first species appears : the bacteria !

Since then, Evolution took charge. More complex and specialized forms of life were developed, according to the laws of Natural Selection. And the two great kingdoms, vegetable and animal, started to occupy the air, the seas and the lands, under the rigid control of the so-called ecological balance.

Then, about 5 to 6 million of years ago, God felt that the time had arrived for the creation of a different being, endowed with a higher intelligence, reasoning thought, conscience and consciousness, free-will and spirituality, thus performing His third great intervention - the Anthropogenic Transformation.: from a certain species of chimpanzee, a genetic mutation took place, giving rise to the lineage of the Hominids. And, about 150,000 years ago, after several mutational processes, the Homo sapiens, from whom modern man originates, appeared. Homo sapiens who, from an original "paradise" in Northeastern Africa, in obedience to a divine command, spread all over the Earth, forming different races, according to the ecological and climatic conditions of each region.

And then God ceased, at least temporarily, the Evolution Process and concentrated upon the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual development of mankind. And endowed man with progressive scientific knowledge, for him to use it, right or wrong, according to his reasoning and free will. It was the beginning of the great march of humanity towards its goal on Earth. A mission still unknown to us. However, when God traced it, He opened different pathways for man to choose which was to be followed. If mankind shall succeed, only time will tell. If and when all humans get rid of hate and prejudices and live under the banner of love and peace, then, perhaps, they will achieve the right to remain the supreme creation of God in planet Earth. Otherwise, they will have failed. And then, God, through a last intervention - the Metagenic Transformation - shall replace the present mankind by a new and superior species. One more capable to accomplish His mysterious designs.

This is our conception about the Creation of the World. Certainly, an incomplete one, since it was developed by an imperfect human, based on historical data full of gaps, that, so we believe, will never be filled out. Some, because many significant information never reached us. They got lost in the mist of time. Others, for being mysteries unfathomable to mankind.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

* - To define who or what is God, is something that can only be done in the field of hypotheses. Thus, to consider God as an infinite and supreme consciousness has the same merit of any other mythological concept that a theology or religion may apply to Him.

* * - In a " system " said hologram, the parts of a whole reproduce, in reduced size, the totality of that whole.

The Eternal Fight Between Good and Evil

When the infinite and supreme consciousness created the universe, producing a clarity of such incalculable intensity, a part of it, possibly disturbed by so much light, separated from the whole and dove into the unfathomable darkness, acquiring its own identity. Thus appeared Satan, the essence of Evil .Who, ever since, competes with God for the ownership of the universe, seeking to turn off the lights of all galaxies, in order to bring total darkness to the world.

Since the emergence of the human species, Satan keeps trying to project his evil consciousness inside the mind of every man and woman That undefined struggle between God and the Prince of Darkness has been a permanent torment for mankind.

Fighting Evil

In almost all Christian churches, in Kardecist centers, and in places where cults of African origin are practiced, there is a common procedure: the eradication of evil spirits from people that are supposedly possessed by them.. This is a land in which human knowledge still did not penetrate totally. The supposed invasion of Evil as well as its elimination, are complex processes, besides the sphere of common reasoning and on which we can just trace hypotheses.

And our hypothesis has to coincide, necessarily, with that we traced regarding God and the Demon : the consciousness’ hypothesis. And it is through that hypothesis that we will try to explain both processes : the invasion and the extirpation of Evil.

To simplify the explanation, we shall call the ‘possessed’ person as "patient" and the one who tries to extirpate Evil as "curator".

A lot of people imagine that demons settles in a patient through his natural holes, by attaching to the patient's body, setting up in his shoulders, gluing to his backs, holding on to his legs, etc. Pure fantasy! According to our hypothesis, Evil results from the invasion of the patient's consciousness by a part of that satanic consciousness, located in the absolute darkness, far beyond the Universe.

But distance is not an obstacle for the transport of any consciousness. It can be transferred from the most distant point of the infinite to another, also infinitely distant, in a fraction of a millionth of a second; in other words, instantly!

How to proceed in order that the invasive consciousness leaves the individual mind?

The curator ponders with fervor and asks God that part of his own consciousness be projected to the patient’s mind, thus displacing that of the evil entity.

But, to have this accomplished, the patient also has to ponder fervently, requesting that the divine part of his individual consciousness enters in perfect syntony with that of the curator.

This act of mutual fervor can be called Faith.

During the process of retreat of the evil consciousness, some patients may display several physical and mental manifestations, like dizziness, emission of screams or wailing, speak strange words, do obscene gestures, have tremors, convulsions and transitory loss of conscience.

But none of those things are due to the process of expulsion of demons itself. It results from a psychological distortion of the patient, that gives rise to the hysteric crises we have witnessed in a lot of people, during the so-called act of spiritual liberation. A procedure that, if correctly oriented, would be a very calm and quiet one: just a synchronization, with faith, between two minds and an exchange of consciousness.

However, the show of a real or false evil spirit struggling to stay inside the body of the credulous victim, while the ‘curator’ keeps shouting: "I command that you leave, I expel you ...in the name of Jesus ", is much more impressive than a serene and silent exchange of energy at mental level.

It is possible that some of the ‘curators’ devoted to this type of " spiritual cleaning" and "physical healing" do believe that the patient's psychomotor reaction is due to a fight between his own power and that of the invasive demons. Either because they are "nuts" or because they know nothing about psychology, much less about the "the consciousness hypothesis". These ‘curators’ deserve criticism and must be guided and teached.

But there are those that know better: many have some psychology knowledge and others are professional psychologists! However, they stimulate the farce. Why ? Because they also know that, the more impressive the procedure looks, the greater is the patient’s gratitude. And gratitude presupposes debt. And debt presupposes financial contributions! These people deserve more than criticism. They deserve to be punished. For quackery and for swindle (article 171 of the Brazilian penal code).

In some cases, the patients' psychomotor reactions are not an expression of hysteria, but due to the existence of epileptic focuses, that can be activated by the anxiety that occurs during the procedure of "spiritual liberation".

Conclusion:

The invasive evil consciousness can be expelled quietly, without appealing to procedures that look quite similar to the spiritualistic manifestations observed in African derived cults as umbanda or candomblé. We wish to state, very clearly, that we are not against the liturgy of any cult or church. Many include "hot" musical rhythms and spicy dances in their rituals. This is a free country and every one has the right to express his "religious" feelings as one pleases. Personally, we opt for calmer and serene rituals, like those of Catholics and the traditional Protestants. They also play music, but not "hot" ones. And they also execute corporal movements to accompany their songs of praises, but not rhythms that remind samba, rock or lambada.

Why screaming or shouting ? Liturgy is not show and God is not deaf. The Lord hears prayers said in low voices or even those uttered in silence, since He is aware of all our thoughts.

During his procedures of spiritual and physical cures Jesus never appealed to malabarisms or jumped like a monkey. If you wish to express your "religiosity" that way, do so, since, as we have said, this is a free country. But, please, be reasonable: keep Jesus’ name out of it, OK ?

Spirituality and Recent Scientific Knowledge

The dictionaries define spirituality as being "a quality of the spirit, in other words, "of that immaterial part of the human being". Leonardo Boff enlarges the concept by saying that "spirituality is not a monopoly of religions nor of codified spiritual roads. It is a dimension of each human being. Such spiritual dimension is revealed by the capacity to dialogue with himself and with his own heart. It is translated by love, sensibility, the ability to listen to someone else, and by considering responsibility and care as fundamental attitudes."

During centuries it was said that science and spirituality were locate at opposite poles, almost infinitely distant one from the other. While science leans on the investigative method and reason, spirituality is exclusively based on faith, sparing any participation of logic and reasoning. But this thought is changing, as two scientific areas - quantum physics and neuroscience - are expanding and forming new concepts on this subject.

Recently published studies seem to throw a certain light on the matter. Although science and spirituality are still far away from overlaping, the distance between them is being considerably shortened. Let us see why:

In Philadelphia, a researcher discovered areas of the brain that are activated during meditation. In California and Duke Universities, doctors are studying how epilepsy and certain hallucinogenic drugs can provoke religious experiences. In Canada, a neurocientist has tested a helmet that produces spiritual "experiences". Those studies are part of a general effort to understand religious experiences and to reproduce them. Using powerful technologies of cerebral image, researchers explore what Oriental mystics call nirvana and Christians describe as "state of grace". Actually, science wants to know if spirituality can be explained in terms of neuron nets and brain chemistry.

What creates the sensation of communion with the Universe? Some researches believe that this could be related to the reduction of activity in the parietal lobe, the region of the brain that helps to regulate the sense of self and body control.

How does religion raise the feelings of love and compassion? Possibly because of changes in the frontal lobe, due to the increase of concentration during meditation.

Why a lot of people believe that religion changed their lives? Perhaps because spiritual practices activate the temporal lobe, which enhances personal experiences.

"The brain is predisposed to have spiritual experiences and that is why so many people believe in God. Unless a fundamental change will occur in the brain, religion and spirituality will be with us for a long time " - says the neurocientist Andrew Newberg, from Pensilvania University and author of the book " Why God doesn't go away".

Let us try, now, to correlate those new scientific discoveries with our vision of God as a supreme and infinite consciousness. And, who knows if, in so doing, we are contributing to approach the poles...

We have already referred, in "The Creation of the World" and in "The Eternal Fight between Good and Evil", that, long before the formation of the universe, there existed an infinite consciousness which, as in a hologram, reproduces itself, in tiny dimensions, in the mind of all humans. And if we consider that supreme conscience as being God, then we can also admit that He is present in the brain of each one of us.

Therefore, those extraordinary experiences may be revealing that, during meditation, by getting rid of our mundane thoughts, we are allowing our own divine consciousness to expand. And then, we go through the mystic experience of a mental and spiritual encounter with the Creator.

The scientific demonstration that, by reducing the activity of the parietal lobe, the one that analyzes our sensorial perceptions and the sense of self, we alienate ourselves from the immediate space that surrounds our bodies, thus opening the barrier between our mind and the world as a whole. Through this procedure, we enter in communion with the universe. An evidence that God, by projecting His superior consciousness into the mind of each one of us, turned our brains receptive to spiritual experiences.

Neurocientists still have a lot to investigate in that amazing field. But we are convinced that each step will mean a progressive approach between mental knowledge and spirituality, between theology and science.