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Word Gems 

exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity

Franchezzo

return to the main-page article on "Hell" 

Editor’s note: In the previous article featuring Franchezzo’s missionary work in the Dark Realms, he encountered a band of particularly perverted individuals. So base and depraved were they that their appearance had taken on a similitude of wild beasts. Among this insane crew, Franchezzo found one coherent enough to speak. He'd reached a point of willingness to do anything to get out of an incredibly dystopian environment:

there for hundreds of years, lost all track of time, seemed like eternity

How long he had been there he had no idea, but it seemed like eternity. He and other spirits like him went about in bands and were always fighting.

When they did not meet another party to fight they fought amongst themselves; the thirst for fighting was the only excitement they could get in this horrible place where there was never any drink to be got which could quench the awful burning thirst which consumed them all; what they drank only seemed to make them a thousand times worse, and was like pouring living fire down their throats.

the 'awful curse' of living, of not being able to die

Then he said, "You never could die, no matter what you suffered, that was the awful curse of the thing", you had got beyond death, and it was no use trying to kill yourself or get others to kill you, there was no such escape from suffering…

longing for any means of escape, willing to do anything to get away

“I have been longing for any means of escape. I have almost got to praying for it at last. I felt I would do anything if God would only forgive me and let me have another chance…”

cheap grace

Elsewhere on the WG site, I’ve recounted experiences from my childhood concerning the teachings of Big Religion. Their cheap grace of “If you sin, just confess to a BlackRobe, his magic words and magic hand-signs will remove all stain of malfeasance.”

During my growing up years, I witnessed, up close, what this kind of ecclesiastical libertinism did to my relatives, and many others in my community. It perverts people. It seduces one to believe "I am better, I am above, God loves me more." All cults teach an aspect of this elitism. It occurs when one believes him- or herself to be living under the protective mantle of a "strong father-figure," the Dear Leader of one's particular group.

If one believes that no matter what you do, no matter how foul one's conduct, no matter how poisonous one's spirit, one's language, one's dealings with others, one's motivations – that all this can be wiped clean in a moment by a magic hand-sign; that God is some kind of venal, purchasable, cosmic bureaucrat who cares nothing for a pure heart but only that a legalism might be honored; then, many, or most, people caught in such pernicious system will find themselves sorely perverted.

the overweening arrogance

This “blank check” approach produces an overweening arrogance, a sense of faux superiority which darkens the soul, desensitizes the spirit; not for everyone in such system, just most.

the New Agers said they hated religion, were no longer deceived, fancied themselves free-thinkers, and then created their own oppressive cult

I mention this here because the so-called New Age people, with whom I mingled, a long time ago now, during my initial studies of the afterlife, tended to view reincarnation (“R”) with a mindset similar to those who believe in the mythology of “the magic hand-sign” absolving sin.

I think every New Ager I met believed in "R". It's part of their religion, an infallible doctrine. And they didn't want to know about anything else.

It works like this. For the most cynical ones, there’s no real impetus to become a moral person, to perfect oneself, that is, if one believes that "now" doesn’t really matter because one has another hundred thousand lives coming, so why get too upset about anything?

If one believes that, upon transitioning to the other side, there’s no real accountability, and no chance of “detention” in the Dark Realms - because the New Agers see themselves as "better and above," possessing special knowledge, the existence of the afterlife, just as the adherents of Big Religion believe themselves to be "better and above", the "chosen elect" in receipt of "one true doctrines" -- then a sense of accountability will be substantially mitigated; because, if one believes that one can easily reincarnate, sending oneself back into the existential hopper of “R” to come out a new reconstituted, individualized person, then one takes refuge in the anonymity of the purported hundred thousand lives.

There were good people among the New Agers, and, for a time, I had friends, or thought I did, but too many of them were shallow-thinking, readily drank the kool-aid of their self-imagined superiority. Not so surprisingly, this sense of "I am better and above" led, essentially, all of them to support political totalitarianism, a disdain for safeguarding the personal liberties of the general populace.

Further, as logical extention of self-evaluations of "I am better and above," almost none of them were interested in the scientific evidence for the afterlife. They weren't interested in the latest research, in the best findings, the classic experiments, as they clung to their own private interpretations issuing from low-grade psychic-mediums within their own group; and if you attempted to offer information concerning the best research, and especially if it countermanded their beloved "R," they considered in heresy, and would openly ridicule you before the entire group.

I say "low-grade" mediumship because - not all the time, but many times - in this arrogant group mind-think, they would fall victim to messages from wicked and mischievous spirits on the other side who either taught nonsense or were intent upon spreading disorder.

I was glad to leave the New Agers' company, it all became too toxic, and they were glad to see me go.

Bill Murray in 'Groundhog Day'

Many of us will remember Bill Murray in the entertaining “Groundhog Day.” He lives the same day over and over again. In recent years, several other movies have explored this endless iteration, but I think “Groundhog” may have been the first.

you start doing stupid things because nothing matters

And so, what happens to Bill? Well, it’s not long before a sense of meaninglessness settles upon him. If you have a seemingly endless number of days stretching before you, not much matters all of sudden. You start doing stupid things. You don't care what you do, there's no purpose to anything. You’re arrogant, you use people, you sleep around and live for brief snatches of pleasure. Then it gets worse and you try to kill yourself, you can't stand yourself anymore – you do whatever you like because nothing matters, there’s no accountability to oneself, there’s no reason to do well, there's no good future. So you think.

And this is what happens to those trapped in “infallible” religions – I’ve seen enough of it over the years – and it’s a philosophy that afflicts hard-core believers in “R” as well, because nothing matters today if you think you’ve got endless lives coming up to do whatever. This is the fantasy.

But the reality is quite different. You may want to review my related writings such as "how to survive the terror of living forever" and Dr. William Barclay's lecture on the meaning of the Greek word "eternal."

paying the last penny

Materialists -- including those of Big Religion and the New Agers -- want to believe that what we presently do has no effect on one's character, future, or evolvement of spirit. The universe tends to have no overriding meaning for materialists. Though they would deny it -- but not by their actions -- their errant precepts effectively remove personal accountability and true spirituality from life.

'by no means'

This belief-system of "live for the day, there'll be no reckoning" runs exactly contrary to Jesus' teaching of "you will pay the last penny" for every untoward thought and deed. He said "by no means" will this requirement of repayment and restitution be set aside; but almost all cultish organizations sedate their members with the false vision of cheating the system.

The various cults in our world anesthetize their true-believers with bad data, but there is a class of people, not so far away from us, who well perceive the error of such "devil may care" philosophies.

there was one man who was not deceived

The beast-like man Franchezzo met was no longer under any illusions. Much of his arrogance had been "ground out of the soul" and he was now willing to speak and think honestly.

For centuries he'd lived for momentary base pleasure; like a wild ferocious animal, torturing and pillaging, he saw himself with no accountability. But, at the end, existential crisis consumed him. Suffering and meaninglessness enshrouded him with an intolerable malaise. He tried to get away from his own self-loathing by any means possible - tried to kill himself, but could not; tried to get others to kill him, but they could not.

the 'awful curse' of living

He asserted that he'd have done anything to escape his “Groundhog Day” living-nightmare of purposelessness. He hated life, and looked for ways to end it - because a life without purpose and meaning is no blessing but an "awful curse", as he judged it.

'another chance' -- not another life

He beseeched God for "another chance" -- not another life -- to begin anew, to change, to repent.

Editor's note: On the "R" homepage, see the testimony of August Goforth and his friend Tim on the other side: one life only will always be enough for us because it's an endless, eternal life. We don't need, and couldn't even use, more than one of those.

Assuredly, if “R” had been an option for him, he would have leapt at the chance, and would have been gone from the dark places centuries ago.

But the universe doesn’t work that way. How does it work? The denizens of dark places, more than others in the universe, are in a position to answer. They see and understand. The Dark Realms will “grind the lust for sin out of the soul.”

The process isn't pleasant, and not meant to be, but it worked beautifully for him. And his prayer was answered. Franchezzo was sent to him by “upper management". He'd begun to pay his "pennies." And now he would begin a new upwardly-directed life.

No need for a hundred thousand lives - just one, an eternal one, will do just fine.