Addendum
An Introductory
Discussion Of Group Consciousness
in Context of the
Laodicean
Church
Age
In a word, the
spirit of the world (ie, corporate mankind) is a spirit
of common or group consciousness. It is a spirit that
denies the essentiality of (ie, the personal
responsibility and moral accountability of)
individuality as the basis for human existence or
salvation.
The spirit of the
group becomes its own salvation whereby men mediate
salvation and worship through one another. It is a power
that subjugates individuality of awareness, thought and
determination to a faceless, nameless corporate entity
under the auspices of the ruler of darkness.
In fact, the world
spirit of group consciousness is the kingdom of
darkness. The fundamental uniqueness of individual
personality by which man comes to know God is all but
erased wherever this spirit prevails.
The
extent of the spirit of the world is so vast and
multi-faceted as to defy description. However, numerous
words borrowed from various walks of earthly life (including
religious life) easily demonstrate its essence. These
include:
|
society
/ culture / nationality
|
"everyone
does it"
|
group
think
|
mystery
of iniquity
|
|
socialism
/ communism
|
"praise
of men"
|
thought
control
|
"the
harlot church"
|
|
"the
people" (saul)
|
peer
pressure
|
mind
control
|
"mystery
babylon"
|
|
democracy
(rule of the people)
|
"borg
mentality"
|
[labor]
union
|
"the
beast"
|
|
laodicea
(will / custom of the people)
|
herd
mentality
|
[political]
party
|
"jezebel"
|
|
[corporate]
man of sin
|
|
catholicism
|
denomination
|
Not only must the
overcomer battle earthly awareness of personal
temptation, he must overcome the worldwide force of
group consciousness in all its forms--one that operates
as a barrier that cuts the lifeline and anchor to
Christ on the throne of the heart -- the force of the
awareness of men that clamors for direct worship and
attention at the expense of devotion to Christ.
The Church: Nurturer
of Identity or Custodian of Group
Consciousness?
Understanding this
brings us to the subject of the church. For the church
lies at the heart of the battle between the overcomers
and the power of group consciousness, To appreciate the
centricity of the church in this conflict, we have to
review the purpose of the church and the developmental
nature of spiritual growth.
Realizing the
intrinsically personal nature of salvation, we
understand that the church as a corporate body exists to
bring each individual member into the fullness of union
with his or her Lord (see Eph 4). Under the reign of
mortality, the church is divided into 2 groups: the
immature and the mature.
The immature are
those whose faith has not worked to the point of heart
circumcision whereby they obtain their own free-standing
independent access to the Lord's heart and intimacy.
Because of their weakness, they need the aid of the
mature who have gone before them in obtaining their
clear, unclouded access to the Lord. Thus a relational
yoking is woven by the Spirit of God for this
perfecting, creating a corporation.
The mature meanwhile
need the weak for fulfilling their own ongoing direct
mortal apprenticeship of the Father, thus leading to the
same yoking and corporation from the other side.
In addition to this
foundational reason for the church, the Spirit has
distributed varieties of impartations among the various
members each representing unique aspects of God's mani
- fold
nature designed for the mutual completion of all as each
receives help from others who bear in the Lord what His
own limited allotment of the Lord's nature does not
afford. For the Lord has willed a body for His
inhabiting, the variety of His nature being too
all-encompassing for any single individual to fully
receive.
However, all of this is subsidiary
to the essential uniqueness
of union between the Lord and each believer from
which all the rest is derived. The
theoretical difference
between the church and any other corporation is that the
church exists to advance the unique personal
relationship of each of its members with the Lord
himself. It does not exist to subject the individual to
itself as a corporation.
In theory then, the
church is the Lord's answer to the world spirit of group
consciousness. The church was designed to breed overcomers
of the world -- to be a forum where everyone
according to their weakness at whatever level or
deficiency in whatever arena could have their union with
the Lord anchored and perfected by those who bear a
facet of Him they still lack -- especially in respect to
becoming liberated from the world's faceless entities
with their controlling rulers.
This was the theory.
But the story of the Church Age has been an entirely
different one. It has been a story of a "church"
specifically targeted and infested by the spirit of the
world, specifically the power of group consciousness
with a religious face -- a culture among cultures, a
society among societies. This has set up an age-long
situation where the overcomers -- in order to have the
kingdom advanced in their own hearts, have been forced
to oppose the church itself in its slavery to group
consciousness.
The essential story
of the evolution of church restoration since its first
fathers fell asleep has been a story of conflict between
overcomers committed to recovery of personal access to
the Lord and sycophant church leaders under dominion of
group consciousness seeking to preserve a false
corporate unity and thus their own position of ministry
(--surrogates of satan keeping the seat warm for satan
til he arrives).
So far the power of
group consciousness has yet to be overthrown from the
church. Not even the release of the anointing has
dislodged the seat of group think. Group think has
rather usurped the anointing to its own strengthening,
converting it into a falsehood.
The Conflict
In-Depth
The mystery of
iniquity is and was from the beginning the setting up of
the world spirit in the seat of the church -- something
that occurred even before the founders themselves had
died -- leading to the rejections of even Paul (II Cor)
and John (III John). It was foretold that by the end of
the age, the Man of Sin himself would be incarnatedly
seated in the temple. So in one sense, the way the
church age has fallen out as a housewarming for satan's
man over 2,000 years should be no surprise. In his
stead, the corporate spirit has seized upon the various
church leaders of the generations to prepare his way in
the final hour.
For the first 1,500
years, the chief office holder and host for the spirit
of Group Consciousness was the "priest" and "pope." In
succeeding years, the blows for restoration led the
groupthink control power to lodge in the office of
pastor. All of these were after types of the chief
priest and ruler of the synagogues--
the Church Age having been nothing more than the gentile
version of Judaism.
Today, the power of
Group Think remains entrenched in the church power
structures of the world, persecuting all who would seek
to grow into a free self-standing mature relationship
with the Lord apart from its dominion.
In the present Age
of Laodicea, the power of the Holy Spirit has been
hijacked through those bearing the insemination of the
Man of Sin, who together with the Beast and the power of
jezebel continue reinforcing their positions of power
and control over the minds of believers. A purging
process is underway in the church in preparation for the
Lord's return, but it is one that will force the
eventual division of the true Church of the Lord from
her counterfeit in the harlot of Revelation 17.
The purpose of this brief
introductory discussion of Laodicean group
consciousness is to awaken the unsuspecting believer to
what is happening to his congregation, and to help
provide him a way to participate in the Lord's master
plan for his own purified salvation from this power and
for his place toward working deliverance in others.