The Muslim will scoff at the idea of course, since their belief is that Muhammad (SAW) is THE LAST PROPHET. This means that should anybody else jump up after that and say that he or she is a prophet, that would have to be left to others to believe such a spurious claim, but not the Muslim, because for the Muslim, “last” means last and nothing comes after last, not even second to last or Karl Marx – or Chairman Mao
There are other (non-Muslim) opinions that it’s possible to train for prophecy. That could be the religion of the more ambitious, far from the sainthoods and beatifications that abound in the Roman Catholic Church, and in the eyes of the humble laity, something much more exalted than mere saint hood: Prophecy, my dear fellow, prophecy!
“He must continue and diligently train himself not to have any thoughts whatsoever about fruitless things or the vanities and intrigues of the times.
Instead, his mind should constantly be directed upward, bound beneath [God's] throne [of Glory, striving] to comprehend the holy and pure forms and gazing at the wisdom of the Holy One, blessed be He, in its entirety, [in its manifold manifestations] from the most elevated [spiritual] form until the navel of the earth, appreciating His greatness from them. [After these preparations,] the divine spirit will immediately rest upon him.”
Rabbi Pinchas ben Ya’ir says:
“Zeal leads to cleanliness
And cleanliness leads to purity
And purity leads to self-restraint
And self-restraint leads to holiness
And holiness leads to humility
And humility leads to fear of sin
And fear of sin leads to piety
And piety leads to the Holy Spirit
And the Holy Spirit leads to the revival of the dead
And the revival of the dead comes because of Elijah, whose memory is a blessing.” Amen. (M. Sotah 9:15)
Otherwise stated :
R. Pinhas b. Yair says,”Heedfulness leads to(hygienic) cleanliness, cleanliness leads to cultic cleanness, cultic cleanness leads to abstinence, abstinence leads to holiness, holiness leads to modesty, modesty leads to the fear of sin, the fear of sin leads to piety, piety leads to the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit leads to the resurrection of the dead, and the resurrection of the dead comes through Elijah, blessed be his memory. Amen.» (Mishnah-Tractate Sotah 9:15).
Here are some tips for the spiritually ambitious:
But this new Swedish-born world religion has nothing to do with prophecy in the Abrahamic sense of the word and did not take birth through any strenuous religious discipline, such as ethical living, much fasting and prayer.
Will this new religion be strong enough to offset some people’s nightmare, namely the Muslim dream of an eventual Eurabia which like in the days of the Emperor Constantine, aims at nothing less than the total conversion of Europe.
Only time will tell who’s right and who’s going to hell.
The not so good news is that in this post-enlightenment age of science and technology in Europe, church attendance has been dropping gradually and most constantly, whilst the number of European adherents to al-Islam is ever on the increase. In fact churches that have fallen into desuetude have been purchased by acceptable amounts of petrodollars far in excess of the symbolic 20 pieces of silver and transformed – converted into mosques. Church steeples are doing a disappearing act fast and more and more, mosque minarets are coming into fashion and taking over as the new prominent landmarks giving a new face to 21st century European cities. This is no exaggeration.
And as for the new Swedish religion, it’s assisted by science and technology as part of the new reality
Jesus of Nazareth himself is reported to have said, “A prophet hath no honour in his own country”. You wonder which country he was talking about?
Ask this sort of mufti.
Ask my mentor and he will tell you about the wrongness of the “land for peace“ formula:
“All have failed or have refused to understand that the Land of Israel belongs to God. “The Land shall not be sold forever; for the land is Mine; for you are strangers and sojourners with Me” (Leviticus 25:23). It is in this light that we should perceive Ahmadinejad’s vow to “wipe Israel off the map.” (Paul Eidelberg)
So Jesus had no honour in his own country?
In the same way, less known in Sweden and much better known and celebrated outside of Sweden is Emanuel Swedenborg , for his religiosity and the new church that he inspired. Much of what he described in his Heaven and Hell corresponds with some of the kinds of phenomena experienced in the earlier stages of Kundalini Yoga mediation – although some of this phenomena is somewhat culture-dependent – so in some of the upper regions/ loka of the Hindu heavens you are more likely to encounter elephants, especially if you had spent a lot of time conditioning a very receptive mind that had been studying the Hindu Scriptures….
No more beating about the bush by extending the ramble/ preamble that’s chewing at your patience: the new Swedish-born religion was reported on Monday, 16th of January 2012: New Swedish religion spread all over the world – and here are some details:
One of their cardinal beliefs is that information is holy and they have been finally recognised by the Swedish State as a bona fide religious community.
The Pope/ Chief Rabbi/ Supreme Leader/ “Mission Director and chief spiritual leader of the community” is one Isaac Gerson and the aim of his church is the information must get out, be shared.
Now if you feed those words “New Swedish religion spread over the world” into the search engine, you may be be presented with something else. The once upon a time Swedish sexual revolution as religion etc….
With the right search terms you can find yourself reading about them here : The First Church of Pirate Bay
The name of the new religion : Kopimism
Although there’s talk about its “first church” the main tenet of the glad tidings is not the arduous task of “take up your cross and follow me”, the main tenet is “Copy me!”. Something about reproducing another type of image and likeness, legally in this information age. It wlll probably attract a lot of atheists too, since it does not have the Almighty as the centrepiece.
The declaration of this kind of religion would only be possible in an advanced country like Sweden, you can be sure that they wouldn’t get a permit for establishing that kind of religion in Iran or Saudi Arabia and wouldn’t dare try that kind of nonsense there for the effrontery of the effort ( of applying to be recognised as a religion) they’d probably have been given the hangman’s noose and achieved martyrdom instead of recognition. But there is no ruling out the possibility that Kopimism could soon gain many disciples in the Maghreb and in the countries surrounding the Hijaz.
As the bard sang,
“Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Make everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It’s easy to see without looking too far
That not much is really sacred .”
Granting Kopimism permission has extended the definition of religion considerably and raises many interesting questions. Even with science playing such a dominant role in this era of European civilisation Rudolph Otto’s idea of the holy as the key to defining religion would come under scrutiny with regard to Kopimism.
Kopimism, dispensing with controversial scientific propositions such as the virgin birth or “ Jesus died for your sins” or “Jesus ascended into heaven” would not come under the purview of Antony Flew’s fatwa that religious statements that are not falsifiable in terms of sense experience are meaningless. Kopimism is much more materialistic and concrete, far from the nebulous and other notions of the numinous, but could be a little closer to “An empiricist’s view of the nature of religious belief” and I can imagine Isaac Gerson, Kopimism’s first pope or original founder preaching that information should be freely available “and the truth shall set you free” as part of his ethical commitment to the spiritual health of the global community. Furthermore, we could be sharing the smorgasbord of the scriptural files as part of the body of information transmitted by all the world’s religions, in the service of mankind., and the sum total of that information could be what’s known as he body of the church……
But censorship of their holy writ/ holy information is bound to soon show its ugly face … and the truth is that we need to be protected from certain kinds of information and opinions…..even in this our Open Society