The Useful Thinker

      Growing up in a Fundamentalist Christian home, and living most of my life as an orthodox, Fundamental Baptist, I grew up believing that church history happened a certain way. I clung dogmatically to my belief, which was well researched, and well thought-out. I believed strongly that the Bible was the literal truth and that all events in the Bible happened literally. You can even purchase a chronological Bible that arranges all of the books of the Bible in a chronological fashion to help feed the belief that all of it is true, happening within a certain timeline. Moreover, I believed that after the death of the apostles, the truth they taught continued on as the Bible spread throughout the known world. Even after the Roman Catholic Church began to change the truth of the Bible (so I believed), there were still people who dissented and taught the Gospel down through the ages until the Reformation brought the Gospel truth back into focus on the world stage. Therefore,...

     I have been walking the awakened path for over two years now, and I have to say that I have enjoyed learning about myself, about being centered and grounded, about manifestation, self love, and seeing tao in all things (or all things in Tao, depending on how you look at it). When the awakening process began, my greatest teacher (like many reading this, I would wager) was the internet. I found many YouTube videos of Stuart Wilde, Wayne Dyer, Alan Watts, Louise Hay, and many others to help me. Instagram provided me with a lot of memes and pictures with helpful information. The internet was where I found out about books such as The Power of Now  by Eckhart Tolle and The Surrender Experiment by Michael Sanger. I came to view myself and the world in a brand-new light.       However, I also noticed some disturbing philosophies that I think will be harmful to people who follow them. For this post, I am going to single out the pervading o...