Michael E. Hurley, Priest, Church of All Worlds
In the Church of All Worlds, the concept of "Thou Art God is the key concept of our philosophy. By examining this concept its origins, its meanings and its implications, one can approach in understanding the full scope of the Neo-Pagan thought.
When Mike Smith first uttered this phrase in Stranger In A Strange Land, Jubal was taken completely aback. His shock was a typical reaction from a person taught from infancy to imagine God as something separate, outside of man. Mike had a completely different viewpoint.
Being raised by the Martians, Mike had absorbed their bask assumptions (or knowledge) of the nature of the universe. When Jubal tried to explain the concept of God to Mile, Mike placed the word in the only concept-frame he knew-the Martian frame.
On Mars, Mike explains, the Martians themselves do all that humans usually associate with God. They "teach the plants to grow," they manage their world, hand down infallible instructions and generally act divine. When Mike heard that these activities were associated with the English word "God,," he made the logical conclusion: since his former people did these things and since his present people -said God did these things, it was simple to say `Thou Art God, I am God, all that groks is god."
For Mike Smith this was as obvious a fact of reality as breathing. He was baffled that his human brothers did not immediately accept (or know) this. Even after years of work with men he still remained puzzled:
"No matter what I said they insisted on thinking of God as something outside themselves. Some-thing that yearns to take every indolent moron to His breast and comfort him. The notion that the effort has to be their own.. and that the trouble they are in is all their own doing.. is one they can't or won't entertain.".
Mike's whole self-ordained mission was to help people realize their own nature and the nature of the world around them. 'Mike is like the first man to discover fire. Fire was there all along - after he showed them how, anybody could use it... Mike is our Prometheus.' He offered no panaceas, no instant cures. His followers had to accept a discipline and work at it. All the benefits the Nest members received were the result of "conceptual logic...understand who you are, why you're here, how you tick - and behaving accordingly."
The prime concept Mike taught - using a dozen methods and hidden in a score of definitions - was I AM GOD, THOU ART GOD, ALL THAT GROKS IS GOD. "It's not a message of cheer and hope. It's a defiance - and an unafraid unabashed assumption of personal responsibility."
In this challenge, in this hour of freedom, in this acceptance of
responsibility, we have the whole essence of Mike's philosophy, But, as Mike and Jubal and Stinky Mahmoud admit~ the words fail to immediately express the fullness of the concept. However, on one occasion Jubal redefines the concept in such a way as to open up some of the ramifications of THOU ART GOD.
In discussing the idea with Ben, Jubal says, 'thou art God'...It's the universe proclaiming its self-awareness... or it's 'peccavimus' with a total absence of contrition." This statement leads to a whole new interpretation of the concept.
Mike Smith preaches the concept of a pantheistic universe. This is the most obvious implication of his declaration 'All that groks is God." His first naive statements show this:
'You grok. Anne groks. I grok. The grasses under my feet grok in happy beauty
... Thou art God...that which groks. Anne is God, I am God. The happy grasses are God...Jill is god. All shaping and making and creating together.'"
All life that is, is God and of God. it is all God collectively. Some elements are more self-aware than others, but they are all God. As stated above, Mikes problem was to awaken those around him into an awareness of their divinity. Once they realized that they were part of the pantheistic wholeness of themselves and the world, they could grok the fullness of THOU ART GOD.
This first step of self-awareness is a fulfillment of the perennial challenge:
'Know thyself" It is an existential assertion of "I AM."
It is an answer to the eternal inquiry into the nature of the universe.
But moving to a more sophisticated level of understanding, there is Jubal's definition: "Peccavimus' with a total absence of contrition." In grokking this statement, one may gain a deeper insight into THOU ART GOD.
'Peccavimus' is a word of Latin origin meaning 'a confession or acknowledgment of sin.* (literally, 'we have sinned") There is an obvious difference between confession as an act and acknowledging it. Confession entertains the idea of sorrow or repentance, whereas acknowledgment is merely a statement of fact with no moral judgement added. Jubal is very careful to add that this particular sort of "peccavimus" is one without contrition, without guilt or sorrow. This seems to eliminate the confession aspect of the definition, leaving us with mere acknowledgment.
But what of sin? The definition of sin is 'a willful violation of the will of God.' But in Mikes teachings we am all collectively God. How can one violate ones own will? Each individual freely chooses to perform acts and does them; he has obeyed the will of 'God" and has not 'sinned.' Even if~ at the moment of execution, the individual should do something other than his first thought, that alternate action would have to be an act of will. To go against ones will is a psychological impossibility. Thus when we define God pantheistically, the idea of sin becomes cancelled through contradiction.
If the concepts of sin and contrition no longer apply to this particular definition of peccavimus, why did Jubal choose it? Obviously, Jubal grokked more of the essence of the idea than he would admit because he uses this definition in a very special context.
Those-who-are-gods cannot commit sin in the usual sense; this point is made several times in the novel. Aunt Patty, in her description of a Fosterite Happiness meeting, illustrates this idea of no-sin-among-gods (Le. the saved).
Later Jubal observes the same about Mikes nest. But these people could have done wrong (sinned) in the past before they were aware of their nature. Mike in the early part of the story worries of having doing wrong when he vanished the two SS men threatening Jill. Again he faced a similar cusp when he faced Bishop Digby. In both, cases Mike was faced with possible sin; in both cases he made a choice; in both cases he grew. Later, in grokking his actions, he came to a moment of peccavimus without contrition, a moment of grokking fully the implications of his actions and of himself at that moment.
Mike says, 'Thou art God and I am god and all that groks is God, and I am all that I have ever been or seen or felt or experienced, I am all that I grok." The totality of an individuals existence is that individual, and that individual is his total existence. Whether his acts were done in love and joy or in doubt and fear, they were the acts of a self-aware God and the full responsibility for them rests only on that person.
So to say "THOU ART GOD" is at once the existential moment of self- actualization, the joyous/solemn declaration of personal responsible freedom, and the acknowledgment of the eternal unity, of Self and actions. It is not only the key that unlocks the doors of perception, -but it is also the map that guides one beyond those doors. From this understanding flows all the benefits of Mikes way, or rather from applying it to the business of living. As quoted above, from this "conceptual logic...(this) understating (of) who you am why.
you're hem how do you tick' comes the discipline that allows slumbering man to become awake God, a God overflowing with joy in life and happiness. Since
'happiness is functioning the way a' being is organized to function" it is a logical result of grokking "THOU ART GOD".
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The above article was published in Green Egg sometime in the late 60's or early
70's when the Church of All Worlds was based in St. Louis. The author is Michael Harley, a former Priest of the Church of All Worlds.
All of the quotes are from Stranger in a Strange Land. The
cited page numbers, which do mot match the page numbers in the present edition.
Page references will be added to the next printing of this article.
- Don Wildgrube
Stranger in a Strange land, by Robert Heinlein (1961) An
Ace Book The Berkley Publishing Company, New York
(paper)
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