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As a sort of delaying strategy which would help me to avoid grappling, at least temporarily, with the problems surrounding my potential need to redefine some of my conceptual boundaries, I decided to ask a two-part question. "What exactly do you mean by spiritual intoxication, and how does this condition fit in with the notion of a spiritual government?" I inquired.

"I'll try to answer you, David, but in doing so, I may take what appears to be a slightly circuitous route. This just means that although you will receive a response to your queries, I want to lay down a few other ideas in order to provide a bit of context against which to consider your questions."

I motioned for Rip to proceed. As he began, I finished my coffee.

"People receive Grace from God in many different forms. Intelligence, athletic ability, creativity, career success, health, courage, friends, integrity, social standing, family stability, education, love, artistic or musical talent, monetary wealth, as well as handsomeness and beauty, are just a few of the ways in which God has conferred Grace upon different people.

"Some people, for reasons best known to God, have been given these gifts in more abundance than have other people. However, the receiving of gifts can be a two-edged sword.

"The people who are recipients of these various forms of Grace have not done anything to deserve these gifts. They are not necessarily better human beings than everyone else and, in fact, because most of us are a thankless lot, many of the ones on whom Grace has been bestowed begin to entertain very arrogant and inflated ideas about their place in the scheme of things.

"From the point of the view of the Bearers of the Cloth, everything given to us by God is both a test as well as an opportunity. Like the parable of the talents in the New Testament, God has arranged things in order to see what we will do with what we have been given, irrespective of whether this amount is much or little.

"Consequently, from the perspective of the Bearers, life is a proving ground. The Bearers believe human beings will be held accountable for, among other things, what we do with the gifts which God has entrusted to us.

"This process of accountability concerns our decisions with respect to the aspects of our potential we choose to develop, as well as the intentions with which we undertake these decisions. Accountability also involves the extent to which, and manner in which, we share our gifts with, and make these gifts available to, the rest of humanity and creation.

"Spirituality and spiritual experiences are a gift of God in the same way that, for instance, talent, health and intelligence are gifts of God. Once again, as with other bestowals of Grace, spirituality and spiritual experiences are not evenly distributed among people.

"Spiritual intoxication refers to the overflowing, incredibly intense, more or less continuous, spiritual experience of love, universal connectedness, knowledge, light, and joy one receives through an enhanced, conceptually-unmediated awareness of the presence and nearness of Divinity in one's life and being. For those who have undergone this experience, all of the other gifts of God I have mentioned earlier are viewed as, comparatively speaking, worthless trinkets. In fact, as far as those who have experienced such spiritual intoxication are concerned, if they were given a choice between having all of the other gifts or being spiritually intoxicated, they would choose the latter.

"Oddly enough, however, the Bearers claim we all, according to our individual capacities, were once in this condition of spiritual intoxication prior to being brought into earthly existence. Yet, most of us have managed to forget the experience.

"In other words, for many of us, earthly life might be likened to a massive, long lasting hang-over which follows our experience of spiritual intoxication during our stay in what is referred to by the Bearers as 'pre-eternity', or the realm of our existence prior to coming into the world of physical/material experience. We don't remember what went on the 'night' before and, now, we have to deal with the problems and pain of the morning after.

"As we go about our lives and try to make sense of its events through the fog of our hung-over condition, we all have a tendency to become caught up in pursuing the sensory, emotional, aesthetic, creative and mental pleasures that can be derived from the other kinds of gifts which God has bestowed upon our lives. In a way, these entanglements and pursuits serve as a sort of phenomenological or experiential form of methadon that we use as a substitute for the spiritual intoxication for which we always are searching, but often cannot find except in very diluted and transitory forms during what psychologists sometimes refer to as 'peak' experiences.

"Like methadon, although our worldly pursuits and pleasures help to dull and quiet our craving for the 'real stuff' of pre-eternity, these worldly pursuits and pleasures are actually addictive. Moreover, and again somewhat like the case of methadon, the worldly substitutes for which we settle do not, even remotely, compare to the original experience, but they have aspects that remind us, in a very distorted way, of the ecstasy which is inherent in the original experience of spiritual intoxication in pre-eternity.

"Some of these trace features of worldly pleasures have a certain, extremely distant resonance with the condition of spiritual intoxication. This facet of faint resonance between various trace features of worldly pleasures and the original condition of spiritual intoxication often tends to confuse us.

"In other words, we sometimes mistake the resonating quality in certain trace features of worldly pleasures as expressions of the original state of spiritual intoxication. This confusion is one of the factors that seduces us into becoming addicted to, and settling for, the world rather than continuing to seek for the real source of spiritual intoxication.

"Those who are spiritually intoxicated in this world are the ones who, by God's Grace, have been reminded, so to speak, of the original spiritual condition. Furthermore, depending on capacity, circumstances and the extent of spiritual realization, different people will experience various degrees, depths and kinds of spiritual intoxication.

"Some of these spiritually intoxicated individuals are given various tasks and responsibilities to carry out on behalf of a spiritual government which is believed by the Bearers to operate on different levels of reality, including the physical/material realm. In fact, the condition of spiritual intoxication serves as an integral part of the ability of such individuals to receive, understand and act upon, whatever spiritual ordinances and directives may come to them.

"The purpose of the spiritual government is not to assure that the world is a safe, peaceful, happy, trouble-free place in which to live. In many ways, the world and its people must be allowed to flow along their indicated paths, even if this means, on occasion, the result will be chaos, suffering, oppression, conflict and injustice.

"If the world, as the Bearers contend is the case, is a proving ground for human beings in order to see whom will be best in conduct and to determine whom will and will not realize the purposes for which life has been given in the first place, then a true, fair test means that everyone must endure trials of various sorts. Enjoyment and difficulty both can serve, simultaneously, as manifestations of trial as well as blessing.

"Moreover, these two qualities of enjoyment and difficulty can be brought together in very complex, subtle, variable and dimensionally-layered combinations. Indeed, everything that happens in the world gives expression to both of these elements, and all of these events give expression, in turn, to the trials and tests that are, so to speak, the bread and butter of the purpose of the physical/material world.

"Notwithstanding the forgoing considerations, the Bearers do not maintain that everything is fixed by an unalterable destiny. There is a certain degree of fluidity to the events of the world. Free will does have a role to play, although not everything which goes on in the world may be capable of being changed, or even affected, through the exercise of free will.

"Among other things, the spiritual government works, God willing, to assist or encourage some events to occur, or to modulate the manner in which these events take place, or to prevent such events from occurring. Which events are to be supported, resisted or modulated by the spiritual government will be in accordance with God's plan and not in accordance with the likes and dislikes of either the average person in the street or the preferences and agendas of various power brokers in government, business and so on.

"Naturally, however, there will be many events of this earthly existence in which the spiritual government, as well as both so-called 'average' people and the worldly power brokers will have a common interest, albeit for quite different reasons and with very different purposes, understandings, and intentions. Sometimes, for their own reasons, the members of the spiritual government will work in concert with the worldly activities of people, and, sometimes, the members of the spiritual government will work in opposition to those activities.

"The conditions under which they will work in concert with, or in opposition to, the worldly activities of people is not straightforward and cannot be reduced down to any simplistic formula or, even, a set of algorithms. Their mandate comes from God, not the world.

"Moreover, religion and religious hierarchies may have little, or nothing, to do with the spiritual government to which I am referring. In fact, all too frequently, organized religion and religious individuals can be a source of as many problems for the spiritual government as are those who do not believe in spiritual realities at all."

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