Here we are in the wonderful year of 2,000. Space and race and keeping pace with science are forgotten. We are ruled by powerful thought-transference waves. We look alike and speak alike, and our children are all the same. The Political Power of Supreme Order has us all in hand.
The World Church has come and gone, having proved its absolute equation with the society of its day and having been swallowed by irrelevance. It wished itself big—and burst, one body splattered all the way to the Moon. One belief, one standard, and that a faith in a Thought outside ourselves!
I took a refresher course in World Theology last week and passed it with an excellent grade. I missed seeing you and was told that you were on a preaching mission to Mars. I understand that Universe Theology 202 is giving you trouble; that was one of the courses I missed.
I find in my travels that everyone is socialized. It’s a wonderful feeling to know that we all believe the same basic stuff. In World rheology I sat next to a former Muslim, and you can’t imagine the thrill of our conversation as we compared our means of raising money here and there. No barrier of belief—only a difference in financing.
I must tell you of a seminar I went to recently with some leading ex-Buddhists, who shared their findings on nursery supervision during meditation time. You know, these basic, how-to-do-it tools are what make the Universe Councils and Meditation Centers worthwhile.
The former Shintoists have an interesting theory that the representative from Mars was endorsing. It was something about Space-A-Vision Educational Programs for Cultural Promotion, replacing the regular Communion services in Christian Churches; after all, the sacraments have had no meaning since the Jesus-myth was exploded. Do you remember who he was?
Having Sabbath services on Monday is a real boon, because it follows no pattern set down by any great minds of the old religions. Really, it was a stroke of genius when the representative from Venus and the leaders of the Russian nation on World concurred. After all, with a two-day work week, we should spend a little time in meditation.
The brotherhood all of us feel is hard to express. It’s almost as if God—and I hesitate to use a word that is now generally outmoded—yes, almost as if God has finally been ousted and the supreme fight we have waged is at last coming to an end.
At a recent session of our Assembly, we expunged the word “World” from our constitution. The delegates felt that it was too provincial and that now we ought to have a Universe view.
There are negotiations going on in committee to link several Universes together in a United Universe Council and Meditation Center, but I sensed some lingering opposition from World and Venus. The new dwellers on the Moon were in favor of it, because their position astronomically is closer than ours to the others.
You have heard of the new theory of prayer and how very harmful prayer is in robbing conscience of selfhood and sufficiency? Then you will be pleased to note that at long last, the prayer movement has been outlawed, and what began in the early 1960s is at last a reality after forty years of struggle with traditionalist forces.
We attended a service at the World Cathedral in Moscow, Russia, World. The place was packed. The lecture was on the history of the development of ray-lessons that bombard the mind with elevating thoughts about the Universe. The speaker didn’t really follow a “text” so far as I could ascertain.
One of the living Saints of the Council was in attendance. His eloquence knew no bounds. He traced the movements for Unity from their beginnings and showed how living “greats” of every religion had contributed to the growth of spirit-dominance of World and the Universe of the Sun.
The newest translation of the Compilation is just out. You remember hearing of all the struggles in getting rid of the Bible in Christian America and the Koran and other sectarian books when you were younger? I lived through it, and I can tell you that this is the best version yet. It’s surely destined to be read in Meditation Centers all around the Solar System.
I shouldn’t say this, but somehow the new songs of spirit-outreach don’t impress me as much as the hymns of outmoded Christianity. But that may only be my experience. One of the favorites of the Assembly began;
We are all one; Master Thought has won;
We are all together.…
I can’t remember the rest.
Well, I’ll be home tomorrow on Spaceship 84. Sorry you couldn’t make the Saturn luncheon.
Ever your teacher,
PAUL II
—THE REV. IRVING C. BEVERIDGE, minister, Highland Avenue Congregational Church, Orange, New Jersey.