I recently finished reading a book called We’ve Never Been Alone by Paul Von Ward who is a Christian minister. He is not like any Christian minister I have met before. He writes about what he calls Advanced Beings (ABs).
Von Ward reviews the sacred texts, myths and old legends as well as contemporary data to suggest that all knowledge, historical, archaeological, scientific and more, have been brought to us from extraterrestrial visitors from other planets. This sounds very fanciful, but it is a highly scholarly work of some 400 pages and therefore not easy to dismiss.
Von Ward states that governments, religious leaders and scientists know about the ABs, but they have chosen to ignore it. He states that there is a covert struggle for the control of human consciousness and this is why the knowledge has not been made public.
I do see such a struggle taking place for the capture of consciousness. I have spent many years studying consciousness and its various levels of insight and manipulation. To this end, Von Ward states that we still have contact with the Advanced Beings, but no one will admit to it, because it would significantly cause a change in human consciousness. One Advanced Being, Von Ward identifies is God. This contact happens, states Von Ward, through Divine Revelation as in the visions of prophets. What Von Ward is really saying is the Prophets (and other ABs arrived from another dimension, universe or planet and they came in large numbers to teach us via Divine Revelation.
With regard to Islam Von Ward writes, “modern Egyptian society almost totally consists of an Islamic culture unrelated to that of ancient Egypt. Rather, it can be traced to a metaphysical encounter in the year 610 CE between a human from a Kuraish tribe and an AB”. There is no mention of how the writer traces this encounter. Von Ward goes on to say: “From Mecca Mohammed reported that the Angel Gabrial appeared to him in several visions and instructed him to propagate a new religion. By 630 CE a group of believers had organised themselves and they took over the City of Mecca giving birth to Islam. The writer tells us that after this, any future prophets were imprisoned as imposters and knowledge of Advanced Beings was blocked out, (this from a Christian Minister)? Wow!
Von Ward states the aforementioned events across the globe caused a split between the natural and supernatural and this in turn resulted in a split in human consciousness, which today moves between neurosis and psychosis.
I agree with the social and psychological diagnosis, there is a split between the natural and supernatural and of course this impacts the human psyche on many levels. As far as we know, no such split takes place in other animals, in this dichotomy of mind, we humans are unique.
Now I will get to my point.
What I find interesting about Islam, is the teachings are not Platonic, but are grounded in Aristotle and his naturalism, this takes place while Christianity embraces supernaturalism and the esoteric as does Judaism in the Kabbalah. I am not opposed to some forms of supernaturalism. The human mind cannot perceive everything, but timing is everything.
Aristotelian naturalism is the metaethical theory most often associated with contemporary virtue ethics. In this view, moral goodness is a form of natural goodness, which is a sort of species-relative goodness that applies in the evaluation of living organisms. Nature, according to Aristotle, is an inner principle of change and being at rest (Physics 2.1, 192b20–23). This means that when an entity moves or is at rest according to its nature this may serve as an explanation of the event.
How does the Quran bode with Aristotle’s explanation of a natural event? For example the Big Bang has a natural scientific explanation, not an esoteric one. It rests on certain principles. In contrast, for Christianity the science of evolution, otherwise universal expansion, is considered as blasphemy against God’s Creation. There is no identifiable natural principle here, only the esoteric.
Mohammed was said to be illiterate, but today we know that there are different states of mind (different levels of cognition) where different forms of learning take place.
Today, we have some of the highest levels of autism that the world has ever scientifically calculated. Yet, how we understand this depends on our own perception of what autism is and is not. As a general view the autistic brain is one that thinks differently. How is this related to the above discussion? Evolution and human development depends of the knowledge that is available.
In this sense autism is not a disability, but a different ability.
Let me qualify this further, by saying, different thinking may not be caused by a difference in brain capacity, there may be many other reasons for difference, including societal and spirituality.
With this view in mind, I would like to believe that spirituality is part of our evolution, not something to be abandoned or attributed to visiting Advanced Beings.
Do I believe in Von Ward’s proposal? I cannot say, I am keeping an open mind.
There is great joy and peace to be found in spirituality, whether taught by ABs or whether it comes naturally.
Many are turning away from the old religions and finding new ones.
Islam stands as an interesting example. Islam is in a state of revival. Before the Iranian Revolution hardly anyone in the western world knew anything about Islam. Today, it is the fastest growing religion next to atheism. Can this be attributed to ABs? Do we all share part of an AB legacy? Who knows?