Original Heresy: The Light Behind the Shadows in the Bible.

By Paul Hunting

Transcending religious dogma and atheist myopia, Paul uncovers a universal spiritual message of profound significance.

This intelligent, witty, book demystifies the complex, convoluted symbology and metaphor in the Old Testament.

It reveals a new clarity of thought and realisation about who we really are, how we were betrayed and how we can liberate ourselves from dilemma and suffering.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paul Hunting
• Release date: May 4, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452387000

Paul Hunting

Paul has spent the past thirty years of his life earning a well-deserved, worldwide reputation for using the metaphor in human behaviour and language to enable profound personal transformation. He now takes on his ultimate challenge – to demystify the metaphors and symbols in the Bible. By so doing he intends to make a major contribution to the worldwide paradigm shift that will enable us to find greater peace, cooperation and abundance – the qualities we need to take us through the global crises we now face.Paul graduated from university with a degree in psychology having found a passion for symbolic logic and psycholinguistics - an equation that didn't seem to add up to the basis for a career. He spent ten years in multinational advertising agencies before retraining as a coach and pioneering coaching in business.Having submitted for a period to the seductions of both religion and atheism, his unwillingness neither to buy into religious nor anti-religious beliefs made him available to a profound spiritual essence whose flow is the stream of consciousness upon which he now navigates his life.Example. From an idea he had after a transcendent experience riding an over-zealous horse, he has created an entirely new field of human leadership development and coaching. He calls it Horse Accelerated Transformation.His first book, 'Why talk to a guru? When you can whisper to a horse.', elucidates his paradigm-busting philosophy and methodologies.

Book preview

ORIGINAL HERESY

The light behind the shadows in the Bible

Paul Hunting

VOLUME 1 - ADAM AND EVERYONE

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Original Heresy - the light behind the shadows in the Bible

By Paul Hunting

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2010, Paul Hunting

Discover other titles by Paul Hunting at Smashwords.com

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If you were God

Imagine you wanted to bring home a group of souls who, when you sent them on a divine learning mission, had access to all knowledge in the universe as well as awareness of their true divine nature. Originally, they knew who they really were as one with you and each other. However, they were deceived into losing nearly all of this awareness and knowledge. They now define themselves by the illusions caused by time, space, words, language and judgment. Accordingly, they feel the constant pain of separation from their true selves and each other. They are now trapped in an almost inescapable space-time matrix.

How would you communicate what happened to them and how they can get back home to you? How would you communicate the truth of a series of events and directions that only exist in a dimension without space, without time, without words, without language and without judgment to this group of beings whose apparent reality is nothing but space, time, language and judgment? What on earth would you do?

Give up? Forget about it? Declare it impossible? Lose these souls forever?

Or - construct a nexus of symbols that, on the one hand, speaks in the language of time and space that they can relate to, and at the same time points to the reality that exists beyond space and time?

If you did take this latter, more optimistic course, there would of course be risks. They might not understand it. They might spend thousands of 'years' trying to make sense of it. They might make some dreadful mistakes that drive them not back home to where they belong, but even further away into the outer regions of darkness and despair.

But if you did take this risk, if you did, through some agency, get your message written in a book - albeit at times mysterious and masked by static, what do you imagine these people might call this book? How would you begin?

From the book

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All great truths begin as blasphemies – George Bernard Shaw

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Why read Paul Hunting's book?

Where are his credentials? His qualifications? His doctorate? His track record? Is he a recognised expert in this field?

'Some artists transform the sun into a yellow spot, others transform a yellow spot into the sun'. – Pablo Picasso.

In order to not compromise his heretical worldview, Paul has eschewed mainstream ‘qualifications’. Thirty years of commitment to meditation, spiritual exercises, personal growth and theological study have been the bedrock of his career as executive coach and creator of Horse Assisted Transformation. This experiential, non-academic approach to life, work and writing are the ideal qualifications for cracking open the deepest paradigms on the planet.

Although following neither Judaism nor Christianity, he has the added perspective of being a Jew brought up in the Church of England School system.

Paul has spent the past thirty years of his life earning a well-deserved, worldwide reputation for using the metaphor in human behaviour and language to enable profound personal transformation. He now takes on his ultimate challenge – to demystify the metaphors and symbols in the Bible. By so doing he intends to make a major contribution to the worldwide paradigm shift that will enable us to find greater peace, cooperation and abundance – the qualities we need to take us through the global crises we now face.

Paul graduated from university with a degree in psychology having found a passion for symbolic logic and psycholinguistics - an equation that didn't seem to add up to the basis for a career. He spent ten years in multinational advertising agencies before retraining as a coach and pioneering coaching in business.

Having submitted for a period to the seductions of both religion and atheism, his unwillingness neither to buy into religious nor anti-religious beliefs made him available to a profound spiritual essence whose flow is the stream of consciousness upon which he now navigates his life.

Example. From an idea he had after a transcendent experience riding an over-zealous horse, he has created an entirely new field of human leadership development and coaching. He calls it Horse Accelerated Transformation.

His first book, 'Why talk to a guru? When you can whisper to a horse.', elucidates his paradigm-busting philosophy and methodologies.

As the ideas expressed on these pages have been incubating and moulding themselves around his awakening and his life's experience, the climate of freedom of thought and 'heretical' expression has become more temperate.

Brave pioneers as diverse as Paulo Coelho, Eckhard Tolle, James Redfield, Neale Donald Walsh, Deepak Chopra, Sai Baba, John-Roger, Richard Dawkins and many, many others have taken much of the establishment flack.

Is it now a little safer for the yellow spot to emerge from behind the clouds?

You decide.

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Acknowledgment and thanks

I suppose first of all I should acknowledge God and Lucifer for doing such a great job putting the raw material together.

Then my wife, Geri, for her unlimited patience, unfailing support and unconditional love as I enrolled her as editor, proof-reader and motivational coach to lead me through the agonies, ecstasies and mood swings that seem to go with the territory.

John-Roger’s copious teachings, writings and seminars have infused me over the years with a way of seeing things outwardly and inwardly without which none of this would have been possible.

Claire Schrader gave me hours of her time helping me find ways to translate my wild ideas and feelings into an effective communication that hopefully balances a sense of who I am with the gravity of the information I am conveying.

Paul Kaye, always encouraging, has been a wise and ruthlessly honest friend who has, without judgment, and speaking loudly in his silences, challenged me to review and mature my ideas and their expression since I began this project.

David Sand also shoots from the hip and has given me invaluable feedback as I have grappled with these symbols and begun to heal the inevitable emotions untangling them stirs in me.

Laren Bright was kind enough to read an early draft. He also said very little - yet more than enough to inspire me to keep going.

Tom Evans has been my ‘book coach’ in the latter stages. Without his enthusiasm, experience and guidance you would not be reading this now.

Bill Long thrilled me when he emailed the stunning cover design he seemed to have conceptualised and crafted even before I’d put the phone down.

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Dedication

Despite what I say about the so-called ‘ten commandments’ I will nevertheless take this opportunity to honour my father and my mother.

Stuart John Hunting, 1923 – 2009.

Cecilia Rose Hunting, 1913 – TBA.

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Dedication

About the author - why read Paul Hunting's book?

Preface – the consciousness revolution

The King James Version

A leadership perspective

Introduction

Conversations about God

A word about words

Joining the dots

Days and confused?

The Rosetta Stone

The Bible - a new paradigm

Perchance a dream?

Part 1. Upon My Word! – how our spiritual journey began

Gems in Genesis

If you were God

The Creation – of God’s Essence

Reflections on the Seven Pillars of Light (‘days’)

God’s Word and Purpose – the first pillar

The Sacred Channel between the worlds the second pillar

The Tree of Life – the third pillar

Spiritual Guidance – the fourth pillar

Chicken Soup for the Soul – the fifth pillar

Mankind – God’s vehicle – the sixth pillar

The Perfect Present…The Sabbath day – the seventh pillar

Evolution of God’s Essence

Reconciling science, scripture, politics and philosophy - the evidence

The four forces of the universe

From paradox to parable

The Origin of species

Noah’s Archetype

Part 2. Adam and Everyone – Original Heresy -

How God got trapped in hell

The Savage Garden

Original Paradox – our story so far

Lucifer speaks ‘as God’ in the Old Testament

Original Heresy

Lucifer fell – not man

Guilt is the sin – not disobedience

Cain and Abel – Judas and Jesus – Lucifer and the son of God

Pride is the fruit – not an apple

Cogito ergo whom?

How d’ya like them apples?

If guilt is the seven seals – forgiveness is the opener

Part 3. The Second Coming – Set my people free

The second coming – God’s plan to escape from ‘the house of bondage’

Against all odds

The trinity of patriarchs

The Old Testament theme

God’s spiritual warriors

From Abraham to Jacob – how to find Peace in Israel

Children of a lesser God

Jacob’s transformation to Israel

State of Israel – state of consciousness?

The spiritual promise

Whom does the grail serve?

Exodus of the soul – out of the frying pan

The light behind the commandments

Don’t think of the two tables of stone

Judgment day

The lone commandment

Original heresy – choose grace or choose the law?

Reflections

A nice Jewish joke

The challenge of the spirit

Conclusions

Preview of Volume 2 – our journey home

The real Sang Real

A leadership perspective – revisited

Epilogue – 2012, the last word?

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Preface - the consciousness revolution

In religion and politics, people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing. - Mark Twain, Autobiography

There is little doubt that there is a revolution in consciousness taking place.

In our millions, we are waking up to less fear, less tyranny, less emotional blackmail and more choice. A lot more choice. And a lot more freedom to make these choices. As Deepak Chopra says:

Consciousness evolves. This isn't a controversial statement, because we all accept that the awareness of a toddler is only the beginning of life's journey, leading to the greater awareness of adulthood. What isn't widely accepted yet is that evolution or personal growth -- choose whatever term you will -- becomes voluntary once a person reaches biological maturity. You must choose to grow into insight, wisdom, love, and compassion. - Deepak Chopra, Huffington Post, 21/4/10.

One of the key questions addressed here is: does the Bible have a role to play in all this?

At first glance - probably not. Unless our choice is to stay exactly where we’ve always been for six thousand years.

But what about a second glance? What about more than a mere glance? What about shining the light of spiritual intelligence deeply into it?

Late one evening after a heated discussion with one of our local priests, I opened Genesis with a question in mind. Something like: what on earth does this really mean? I suddenly saw a chink of light peeping out from behind the familiar shadows. It reminds me of the apocryphal tale of the golden Buddha.

Late one evening, many centuries ago, the priest of a poor rural village goes out to examine the damage caused when attempting to move their huge stone Buddha to a new place. There’s a big crack all the way down it. As he holds up his lantern in dismay, wondering if they can ever possibly fix the damage, he sees a light shining back at him. Is there something even greater camouflaged behind the outer facade?

He could have ignored it. Denied what he saw. Told himself it’s just his imagination playing tricks on him. He could have walked away afraid to take the risk of cracking open the symbol he and his people had worshipped for centuries. But did he? No. He took the risk.

He prized open the rough stone image. And what did he find? Was it empty after all? Was it just an illusion? No. He found something even greater than that which his people had been holding onto for generations. He found hidden behind it over five tons of solid gold. Behind the facade was a golden Buddha of priceless value and inestimable beauty.

We’re faced with the same dilemma. The same challenge. Do we hang on to the Bible as its always been - albeit damaged by the onslaughts it’s receiving from various factions on a daily basis. Do we defend our beliefs regardless of self-evident truths that contradict them? Do we retreat into the cosy worlds of superstition and inexplicable miracles?

Or do we take that risk? And what is this risk? What is there to lose? Our ancient priest had everything to lose by cracking open the stone. But we have nothing to lose by cracking open the Bible. If we find nothing there - what’s the big deal? It’s still intact.

But if there is a vein of pure gold that’s been hidden all along - what have we to gain?

Before you begin this work ( and it is work, I assure you!) I suggest you prepare to be willing to enter the mind-set of the heretic. This is not a mind-set of denial, rebellion, scorn or judgment - au contraire, it’s one of respect, openness and inquiry.

Heresy is freedom of choice. Freedom of choice is heresy. The word heresy comes from the Greek, heraitikos, meaning choice.

Original Heresy is the gift God gave to his representatives on earth - mankind. You and me.

Freedom of choice is what those who usurp authority in God’s name do not want us to have.

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The King James Version

All the biblical references and quotes in here are from the KJV.

There are dozens, maybe even hundreds, of versions of the Bible. I like the King James. I find it less 'helpful' than some of the more modern versions. It's more innocent. Less smooth round the edges. Like a rough diamond. It's also written in Shakespearian English. One of my beliefs is that Shakespeare is a true spiritual teacher. His insight and wisdom is as timeless and enduring as scripture. His parables convey the essence of God's Word and to, me are the perfect companion to the KJV. My advice, for what it's worth, if you are inspired to pick up a Bible and read it, then go for the KJV - at least initially. It's well worth the extra effort. Once you get into the swing of the language, you'll enjoy the added dimension and perhaps be more open to divine inspiration.

Some of the quotes are from Bible.com – a brilliant on-line tool for searching the Bible in many different versions. Others are from The King James Study Bible, Copyright 1988 by Liberty University, Published by Thomas Nelson.

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A leadership perspective

There are at least two ways to go through this material. Out of intellectual curiosity. And/or for personal, leadership development.

If you fancy the latter, try asking yourself these questions before you read on:

What am I here to learn?

What am I here to balance and complete?

How do my personal and professional goals reflect my real learning needs?

Am I trying to ‘prove’ anything about myself to myself or anyone? What? To whom? How?

Read the material as