A Midwest Journal

It’s really just too easy to get hope into your life, making everything around you make sense. Life can be a calm, rewarding experience.

Really, there are only two steps:

1. Find out what makes you really happy and narrow your focus to these points.
2. Gradually get rid of those things which irritate you.

Now, along this line, you are adjusting your world view and your belief system to the one you’ve always wanted.

The only reason you don’t have this all settled by now is that you accepted (more or less) the people and instances around you which told you that you couldn’t be in control of your life and that things didn’t always happen for the better.

Your life is and has always been exactly what you make it.  So you can simply start re-making it by deciding what you want to improve in it and then move in that direction. For some, this means work. For others, they realize it’s just changing your attitude toward things.

At no time in our past has it been easier to change your mind than it is now. You can have access to the world’s religions and philosophies through the Internet and through all these massive amounts of books that are published each year. It’s just too easy to get all this data.

The next thing is to do something with it.

Just start tracking what make you happy, makes your life more pleasant – and then learn more about how to get this sort of material into your life on a regular basis. At the same time, make room for all this by simply getting all the noise and critical people and random effects out of your life. Do whatever actions you have to.

For critical people, this can be simply being pleasant to them – just not set them off. Don’t talk about subjects which you know irritate them. Be supportive and make all your own criticism constructive. If you have to live with these, then as you change your own actions, this will then help them adjust theirs. Don’t think for a moment they like to be critical – it’s just that they don’t know a better way to live life. So help educate them by your own example.

For example: you may want to get rich…

Now, it’s easier than ever to get rich. Lots of books on this subject:

• Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
• Science of Getting Rich by Wallace Wattles
• How to Turn Your Abilities into Cash by Earl Prevette

I even compiled a lot of self help authors’ essays on money into a single book called Money: How to Get It, How to Keep It.

And you can get all of this data online for free if you want – just find it and download it from the Internet (I work to find and republish these after I clean up their formatting – and publish them as hardcopy versions if you want.)

But these books are the time-proven classics which tell you everything you could possibly want to know about the subject. Now, modernly, you can get Robert Kiyosaki or Dolf De Roos if you want to know about real estate. And others tell of other routes to getting rich.

The trick with all this is to follow your intuition and not your habits of “Get Rich Quick”. (I’ve been that route with the Utah Internet scammers and know that it just leads you into more debt – until you can force them to pay you back.)

Even that is its own example – you don’t have to be effect of anything out there. Just research it, apply what you learn, and change your life into what you want it.

Lots of hope for change in the future – and it’ isn’t tied to some politician. It’s up to you and what you want to do with your life.

Always has been.

I may have a different idea about things like churches and religion than most, I imagine.

It came to me this morning that I probably never laid these out.

A “church” by definition is a group. Mostly of people with a common belief-system, usually religious or spiritual at least. It’s really nothing to do with any building. It should be helping you find Freedom, Happiness, and Peace of Mind. And if you aren’t getting these, you’ve got a right to look elsewhere. Not just the promise of them, but the actual life-qualities themselves.

Now the problem with religions in general is that mostly they’ve forgotten where they came from and are more pomp and circumstance than the original salvation they were intended to be.  Most have gone straight off the road into getting into peoples’ actual way when they are trying to find their own road out. Because they are part and parcel of keeping them in the dark – because they get more money, or support, or power, or what-have-you.

Of course, I’m saying “most” so you have an out with your own church. But if it fits you, then wear it.

My idea on these is a bit loose. You’re here for some reason you set out for yourself. And if you really want to achieve it, you will. But if you just want to mess around and take forever, then you’ll do that, too. Because you can only get what you want, not what someone else wants. That’s the way this place is set up. No one else can “make” you do anything. If you’re a victim, it’s your own damned fault.

The trick is wising up. That’s the whole reason I wrote all the “Go Thunk Yourself” series, re-published their referenced works, and also my latest, “Get Your Self Scam Free.” Because you deserve it.

Now, I’ve been having a hole in my line-up as regards Huna. But I just found that a couple of Max Freedom Long’s classics had fallen into the public domain. And interestingly, they actually tie a lot of what Napoleon Hill, Charles Haanel, and Thomas Troward were talking about. And also earlier authors such as Emile Coue. ( Of course if you like Long, you’ll also like Claude Bristol’s “Magic of Believing.”) So you’ve got a fair bit of study to do if you’re going down this line.

But my idea is that churches are support groups. It doesn’t particularly matter which one you belong to, as long as they don’t make you swallow that silly notion that they are the one and only way of redemption/salvation/enlightenment. That’s where they went off the cliff a long time ago. And became a spiritual dead-end.

But check out this stuff from Long about religions (while I’m busy editing this book into shape). I figure that there used to be a great deal of “magic” available to the early churches – only theymay have called them “miracles”. Levenson and Alan Watts cover this a great deal – both that this is something that gets easier as you get more spiritual and less worldly, and also that it’s nothing to pay attention to particularly as it can quickly become some sort of occult sideshow.

Here’s Max Freedom Long:

All we can take with us at the time of death is knowledge, and it should be the first duty of each of us to accumulate the correct “take-withable” knowledge by a careful study of the psycho-religions and the discarding of beliefs which cannot be substantiated.

It should be held in mind that no two inspired or revealed religions agree, and that teachings obtained from the departed through mediums show a similar disagreement. There may be one correct revealed religion and one correct teaching from a spirit or a spirit group, or there may be a partial truth in all such sources of information.

At present we have before us only one basic and practical criterion by which to measure such material, and that is Huna. I say this, because Huna work[s].

(from THE SECRET SCIENCE BEHIND MIRACLES)

…

The “Secret,” or body of information handed down from one magician to another, was what may be called applied psychology for the most part. The element of religion was very small, especially if we accept the technical definitions of religion in the best modern sense.

Dr. Paul Tillich, Professor of Philosophical Theology at Union Theological Seminary writes, “Magic is a special kind of interrelation between finite powers; religion is the human relation to the infinite power and value.… Magic is the exercise of imminent power, religion is the subjection to the transcendent power.”

All religions are mixed with magic. Prayer is magic. Everything we do to gain benefits for ourselves in this life or the next is a part of magic. Magic is getting something from supernormal sources. Religion is worship of a Supreme Being and an acceptance of whatever It gives us, whether pleasant or unpleasant.

(from SELF-SUGGESTION AND THE NEW HUNA THEORY OF MESMERISM AND HYPNOSIS)

Both are part of a soon-to-be-released book at Go Thunk Yourself Self Help Bookstore…

Just to make this all official: I have a religion.

Of course it’s taken over 50 years to nail it down. And only through blogging and suffering through several scams, as well as writing books about them – only then have I recently had it all come clear.

Here’s the key points. I call them my Freedoms:

1. I believe what I believe. And my freedom to do so doesn’t depend on anyone or anything around me.

2. Governments are optional. My choice to participate in their programs and policies – or not – is my own freedom. And any government “body” or organization has no authority over me except what I grant them. This is my freedom.

3. My faith and beliefs require me to pray/meditate constantly. Everywhere I am, everything I use around me, all that I create – these are all part of my own religious belief-system. Anything a government might claim I “own” is used to further my own personal salvation/redemption/enlightenment. The world is my church. I am free to pray and meditate as I want. This is my freedom.

4. I am free to act or say as I want. The effects I create with these actions are the mutual responsibility of myself and those who are on the effect-end of those actions or statements. I give no authority to anyone to tell me what I can or can’t say or do. This is my freedom.

5. My redemption/salvation/enlightenment is my own to choose. No one else is going to redeem me, save me, or enlighten me. Only I can do this and only for myself. How I choose to do this is my freedom.

6. And I have the freedom to alter these beliefs anytime I want to, for any “reason”. I don’t have to tell anyone about any personal change I make. I owe no one any of my freedoms, as they are created, maintained, and supported by me and me alone. I am free.

- – - -

Why I bring these to you at this time is my way of being polite. Thought you might be able to use something like this in your life. As we are all connected in some way, how I help you with your freedom helps me with mine.

These principles, these beliefs, are older than all the hills, mountains, and valleys on this planet. Older than this universe, in fact. You can find them in any philosophy on this planet that still exists in some format or another. If you doubt this, ask any real Master or Sage and see if they don’t tell you that these exist.

A real Master or Sage will ask you why you are even bringing this up. They are that obvious. Writing this is even redundant.

But I’m sure some dedicated soul can find someone with some “authority” somewhere who disagrees with what I say above. This is their choice. This is their freedom.

I’ve found personally that your freedoms are created by you as a natural occurrence. You can only limit or give away your freedoms yourself. Governments and other people have no authority except what you give them. Perhaps they have a purpose, perhaps not. Your choice, your freedom.

Can you affect someone else’s freedom? Only with their permission.

People can be as free as they want, however they decide to be. Some decide to live with incredible amounts of “money” in their lives. Others decide to live in “poverty”. Any person can have any amount of freedom or happiness or peace that they want. And while you can look for confirmation of this in our oldest philosophies (such as Huna, or newer Masters such as Alan Watts and Lester Levenson), you really only have to look within your Self to see what you choose to believe, and what “works” for you.

And in looking through these various older teachings, you might even get your Self free from the illusion of death. Maybe. Up to you.

To my understanding at this moment, this universe is just a sham, an illusion, a scam. And it still exists only to the exact degree we believe there is still a purpose for it.

So I invite you to laugh at everything around you. Realize, just perhaps, that all this is simply a very good (or very bad) joke you are playing on yourself – for whatever reason that comes to mind.

And even this essay is a joke you created – or a path to enlightenment, salvation, or redemption. Your choice.

Your freedom.

Go Thunk Yourself.