This is a question I have been asked many times when discussing samadhi, satori, enlightenment and other states in the non-Christian scriptures. Well maybe it sometimes is spiritual, but the experience is often a genuine one with a totally misplaced understanding of its source.

There is no doubt about the enormous spiritual attainment of some who followed the Christian way over the centuries. Such extraordinary people left the Popes, Cardinals and Bishops of their faith way behind in the dust. And they were often given a rough time because they went beyond the dogma of their spiritually inferior superiors in the Church hierarchy.

But they didn’t call themselves born agains. That is a phrase used mainly by fundamentalists of the Christian ilk. And I have to regard fundamentalists of ANY faith as bad news, because dogma must not be questioned. The extraordinary group of genuine saints in the orthodox religions were not those who swallowed the dogma, hook, line and sinker. Their experiences led them beyond the dogmas.

People of limited intelligence often associate the circumstances and the time when they have a spiritual experience of some sort with that particular mundane experience. This could lead to errors of the fundamentalist variety.

Just because a person was in a group who were singing and praying and talking about the Lord Jesus when the experience occurred doesn’t mean that the experience actually had anything to do with the particular creed held by the group in which the person found themselves at the time. Contagious group euphoria is not necessarily an optimum guide. Cyanide laced pop anybody?

Many of my students who were beyond the novice level Gate of the Aspirant have woken up at three in the morning with the need to meditate. I do myself. That occurred wherever they were but they don't associate Day's Inn, or the Super 8, or the Hilton with the experience.

Observation of yogis over millennia say that it was due to the preparation that the human nervous systems have undergone and the way they keep tabs on a whole complex of factors that makes three o'clock the optimum time for meditation for the prepared. Many ashrams adhere to the ‘up at three’ rule, as those of you who have gone on retreats may know.

Similarly the diligent internal search for the single identity of all leads people to various experiences at whatever time their systems are ready to stand the pressure of the experience, and this has nothing to do with whatever mundane tasks or circumstances are occurring at that specific moment.

The subtle realm communicates with the mundane realm when the pressure is correct, and the right work has been done, not when it is convenient in the transitory mundane realm. An epiphany that happens when someone is washing the dishes is not necessarily related to founding a religion with the dogma that washing dishes is the only way to god.

Of course, if a person is totally immersed and identified with screaming encouragement to a bunch of gladiators, present or on a screen, with whom he has identified, in the hope that they will crush another set of gladiators, then the more subtle experiences will likely occur without the knowledge of that person, who will deny ever having had a ‘spiritual experience.’

I don't need to say more to the kind of people who read this blog from choice, rather than accident, but contemplation on the matter is definitely required. Silence too.

Necessary belief in dogma and an all or nothing attitude are related together with the ‘those who aren’t for us are against us’ nonsense.

There is an evangelical book available in Christian bookstores called The Bondage Breaker in which the author assures people that the demons that make them into habitual sinners can be overcome by prayer and by the intercession of trained demon fighters like himself. Being a demon myself according to his ideas, I was interested in how to avoid destruction and read the book.

He asks his various congregations almost the same question that I have asked Aspirants. He says "How many of you have been woken up between two and three in the morning for no reason?" Usually lots have. He then explains why. Possibly you didn't know why.

It is because the devil worshippers, in which he would include most everybody who actually chose to read this blog, are doing their deadly and evil rituals at three in the morning.

Maybe you didn’t know you were a sleep walking demon. Choose the explanation you prefer, or make up one of your own. Billy Graham, after much prayer and contemplation, attributed Nixon’s problems to demons. A similar misplacement of apparent cause and effect, given a dogma to drive the conclusion, can occur because of the egregore of a group or even of a nation.

Under Hitler the National Socialists in Germany were incredibly successful in binding together into a coherent group what was possibly the most intelligent nation in Europe. The German economy became the strongest in Europe. The Socialists did this by using symbols that appealed in a religious way to the collective unconscious of the Germanic races. The political path morphed into a religious path, filled with dogmas, and the amazing one-pointed energy that fundamentalists of all kinds portray.

The colors of the flags and the proliferation of Elder Futhark runes together with the purity of blood and race propaganda, injected into the education system, brought the whole power of the egregore into national life.

Using the usual political and religious necessity of enemies to be feared, in this case the Jews, Gypsies, and homosexuals, it overwhelmed the vast majority of Germans, who basked ecstatically in the tremendous flow of energy that gave purpose and meaning to their previously disaster filled lives. They became proud to be German, and to have the world coming to the new Germany, to witness the 1936 Olympics.

That energy infusion from the subtle realms is the basis of a being born again experience. A meaningless or aimless life gains a purpose, and with humans it unfortunately usually includes the total acceptance of all the belief systems of the group in which the person was when the experience occurred.

The reverse of the coin is that people tend to throw out the whole of any philosophy or religion if its implementation brought misery or discomfort to themselves. All or nothing, so to speak.

For a mundane example; I currently live near Chicago. The roads to and from the city are always being repaired, apparently using the technology of the 21st century. The local saying is that in Illinois we have two seasons, winter and road construction. Every year they need repair.

The roads built with 20th century technology under Hitler’s National Socialism religion in the 30's stayed in perfect shape for decades, and any of you who have been to Germany will know the experience of driving along at a brisk 70 or 80 on an autobahn and realizing that you are in the slow lane and people are zipping by at 120+, and I mean miles per hour. So the roads aren't in good shape just because nobody uses them. They were built with intention by people proud of helping the Fatherland. A positive side of the National Socialist religion. But there are two sides to every coin.

The imposed education system worked wonders for the morale of the people. All sorts of obviously good things happened. Instead of throwing out everything labeled Socialist, using the all or nothing concept, maybe we should try to see what parts of such pseudo religious political systems could be beneficially applied to the problems that beset us.

The Russians beat us into outer space because of their superior math and science education, and by educating their women as scientists and engineers. Maybe we should learn to pick and choose. All or nothing doesn’t work.

Hitler, Mussolini and Franco ruled Germany, Italy and Spain by intimidation and propaganda and did many things to improve the lot of the many and destroy the lot of the few. They were all cosy with the Vatican, that runs the same kind of organization. Only compliance with political doctrine was required. Fifty million people died in war because of the self created dogmas of that trio.

The three dictators were all Roman Catholics, a matter which is often conveniently forgotten. Hitler’s speeches are full of religious phrases, sometimes almost identical to those of our current born again leader.

Stalin of Communist Russia was as cruel as all three put together and he had two years training in a seminary as a priest. They all were brought up in a religion in which obedience to dogma was paramount and each one organized political philosophies in which the same acceptance was necessary. Total compliance was necessary. Thinking was not, as is the case in the religion of the born agains. Accept it all. Dissent is blasphemy in one case and lack of patriotism or treachery in the other.

Remember the old lady who said in answer to an astonished questioner, “Yes, I believe that the whale swallowed Jonah. And if the Bible said that Jonah swallowed the whale I’d believe that too.” There is no reasoning with such people. They would vote for anyone who said he was a ‘born again.’ And the politician who says that he is a 'born again' is not necessarily telling the truth.

The all or nothing attitude is not very wise and it is the one almost universally held by the born-agains because of their error of associating circumstance and experience, and deploring any rational thought about the dogmas they insist are too sacred to examine.

Their universe is very small and black and white, not much like the world the rest of us live in. But their dogma insists that it is the world in which everyone should live.

And their energy is focused on that one aim, to bring us all into their unquestioning fold. We, of conflicting aims and opinions, with the weaknesses of a more tolerant attitude, should beware the power of that mono focus of money, resources and energy. The horse with blinkers on can be led to do things that an unblinkered horse cannot. A nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse, as the old proverb says.