What I Saw in Atlanta

"Excuse me, but... is that man glowing?"

Part 2 - The Lecture

If you missed Part 1, you really should read it first!

The Lecture

I assume you have already read Part One of this article, so let's get on with it...

With the recorded messages finally over, the lights go up, and Ruth Donovan gives a few announcements. Benjamin Creme has yet to utter his first words. He has been sitting, staring at the crowd with a somewhat friendly expression on his face for a full 30 minutes now. Ms. Donovan speaks of Mr. Creme almost as if he isn't in the room... she reminds me of a school teacher preparing the class to meet the Principal. Benjamin is positioned highly by her comments, which paint him somewhere between a professor, a head of state, and a deity. We are told to avoid approaching him during the break, and after the lecture is complete.

The crowd of 250 or so is composed of all ages from about 25 to 70 years old, and approximately 70% are women. They are dressed casually, some nicer than others, and very few of them would stand out in a crowd. They seem well-educated for the most part, and have behaved in a rather reverent manner throughout the evening. Actually, most churches that I have attended are not this quiet and pensive, save for maybe during funerals. I looked around a bit during the second message, and was surprised to see that some of them actually looked ashamed by what they were hearing about the neglect of the poor and starving of the world. Putty in Mr. Creme's hands. Oh boy.

Finally, Benjamin is introduced to polite applause. At this point in my notes I wrote "I feel more comfortable now, yet this is rather unusual. The tone is museum-like." I felt quite safe from danger, but I was aware that I needed to continue praying constantly, as I had been doing all along.

He Speaks!

The distinguished looking gentleman seated in front of us was not a wax figure after all! He graciously accepted the applause with true British poise, and began to tell us about his mission. His voice was almost grandfatherly, very smooth and quite different from the one we had heard receiving the Messages earlier. A light continental accent and comfortable delivery hid the extreme "importance" of his topic. If I hadn't already known way too much about him, and the blasphemous things he has said about Jesus Christ and the Lord God Jehovah, I would have wished we were friends. Benjamin Creme makes a wonderful "father figure". Doubtlessly, most of the other people in the audience were at least equally enamoured with his style.

He proceeded to say that he was here to deliver information. Quickly adding that he representented no particular religious sect, Benjamin was able to cast aside prejudice and fear from much of the crowd. He casually explained that his message is difficult to accept for certain "orthodox" religions.

Then the clincher. We were asked to put aside everything we believe.

He began to speak of Jesus in Palestine (not Israel, interestingly enough) and his polite, warm storytelling style continued to ease the gathered lemmings. After about 10 minutes of this intro, we were asked to accept or reject his teaching on the basis of whether "it rings of Truth".

. . . . . . .

If you really want to know everything he said, you can go to Share International's sound site and pull down streaming audio of his lecture in San Francisco, which I assume was nearly verbatim to what we heard in Atlanta four days earlier. All you will need is RealPlayer 5.0 (which is a free download) and almost 2 hours worth of patience to listen to the whole speech.

The purpose of this report is not so much to explore what he said (much of which has been frequently discussed on the Share International site), but rather to document my personal experience. The majority of the information he provided has been easily accessible on the net and in books for many years. However, I have yet to see one of his lectures reported on from a Christian, or prophetic viewpoint... until now.

Nonetheless, here are some snippets from Atlanta. I must warn you that I am not a stenographer, and hence I could not possibly have recorded perfect quotes at all times. However, based on my extensive readings of past info written by Benjamin Creme, I feel that all of my paraphrases will accurately portray his message. I in no way intend to misquote or use his words out of context. They serve my purpose perfectly just as they are, without embellishment. My purpose is simply to show the depth and magnitude of his heresy as seen from Christian eyes, and the very strong possibility that Mr. Creme is describing the coming of the Antichrist within the next few years (or weeks?).

Some High (or Low) Points

Once again, these are paraphrased... I cannot remember exactly which quotes I was able to record perfectly, and which I only had time to "get the essence".

"Doom and catastrophe will not happen... it was never predicted...". From here he went on to tell how the fundamentalist readers of Scripture have misunderstood their writings. Apparently Revelation does not mean what it says, and the judgments of God should not concern us... considering that God is not who we think He is anyway. The woman sitting in front of me nodded often in agreement, and leaned to her female partner as if to say, "See, I told you this guy was on the ball!". They, as well as the rest of the crowd, particularly liked hearing that Bible believers were totally wrong, and would be phased out as the new information took hold. Creme threw out easy jokes and they all chuckled comfortably. I was reminded of the verses in the 4th chapter of 2nd Timothy: "(3) For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; (4) And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables." Anyone agree?

He then spoke about the Age of Aquarius. As Benjamin informed us, Jesus was the Master for the Age of Pisces and that age has come to an end. Each zodiacal age lasts for around 2000 years or so, and the Piscean Age is currently giving way to the Age of Aquarius, the waterbearer. Maitreya is likened unto a waterbearer, especially in the sense that he is providing those 777 wells of healing waters!

Of course, Christians don't put much stock in astrology (although the Jews have been known to) but isn't it interesting to find that Jesus and His Church have existed during the "Sign of the Fish" which is also a very Christian symbol. Just check the bumpers in any church parking lot, right? Now, it turns out that Pisces is also the 12th and final sign of the Zodiac, and Aquarius starts the cycle all over again. Hmmm... could this be why there is so much fuss in the New Age groups? Are we really seen to be at a point of massive change? Look at it from the Christian point of view - if God, who made the stars, wanted to tell us when the end would be... might he not place the EndTimes at the very end of the Zodiac? Perhaps the New Agers and astrologers have something here? Perhaps the year 2000AD is more than just a number, since it corresponds so closely to the completion of the zodiacal cycle?

Nah... couldn't be...

Apparently one woman had heard all she could take, and she left the room at that point.

Mr. Creme went on to tell of "the ageless task of the Masters of Wisdom", who he says dwell in the mountains and deserts of the world (including the Rockies, the Gobi Desert, and if I remember correctly even the Mojave!) They have been helping us quietly, but are about to come out and work side-by-side with Maitreya in a more proactive way. Several more people started to wander out at this juncture. Though Benjamin had now uttered several things that made him sound like a fruitcake, 99% were still listening intently.

Why was Jesus unrecognized and killed? The "Fundamentalists" of His time got rid of Him "because He was not the expected idea of the Messiah"! Yes, the crowd took that to mean the same thing that you're thinking.

Maitreya is "the Teacher alike of angels and men...". After this I had made the notation: "St. Paul and Buddha both!" which I believe meant that Maitreya had overshadowed (or led) each during their ministries.

At that point, Mr. Creme launched into an extensive oratory about the problems of the Third World. This was met by wandering attention spans, but he managed to keep the vast amount of the crowd in their seats. During this portion, he makes groundbreaking statements including these:

We are not individual souls, but a fragment of a huge "oversoul"..., which apparently means something like "deny yourself so that your brother might share in your wealth".

"Market force economy and commercialism are more dangerous than an atomic bomb!" Now this really hit home, since I make commercials for a living. Of course, it also hit home because I believe in democracy and capitalism... not socialism, communism or totalitarianism. Oh well, guess I'll be out of a job soon.

"Complacency is the root of all evil...".
Even my dog, who died years ago, could find where that one goes against Christian teaching. But did you know that the answer is NOT money? It's true... check your Bible! It's actually stated that the LOVE of money is the root of all evil. But of course that no longer matters, for Benjamin Creme is here to show us the way of his leader Satan, um... ooops... Maitreya. In the new realm we are to feel guilty and flagellate ourselves for the fact that someone is doing worse than us and needs help. It all sounds good, but doesn't this ring of a new order where "sharing" is really "redistribution" regardless of whether the help is deserved or warranted? And isn't that what is going on already in the USA anyway? Wait! Is the Priory of Sion in on this? Just kidding, I got out of control.

Creme had been laying into the USA for being such a bad bad greedy nasty nation a little too heavily, apparently. That kind of talk doesn't play as well in the South as it does on the coasts, and it cost him another dozen or so lemmings by the time he got finished.

But right then, he shifted gears into Miracles, Madonnas, and Signs of the Times and managed to keep the rest on the edges of their seats. He followed up with the incredibly exciting news that The Master Jesus had been living in Rome for the last 7 years, and would be one of the first Masters of Wisdom to show up after Maitreya's own Day of Declaration! Master Jesus would then get the unenviable task of assuring the Christians that Lord Maitreya is a nice boy and we should like him.

On or about this time, by the way, all 777 healing waters will be revealed around the world... perhaps making doctors obsolete?

Whew... what an on-slaught of info right at the end! Thus endeth the Lecture portion of our show, and we were dismissed for an intermission. This was to give Benjamin some time to breathe and read the questions that we had submitted on our 3x5 cards. It was also time for us to wander out into the hall to enjoy the makeshift library/store of materials.

Intermission

"Ah ha!", you say, thinking that this is where Benjamin Creme and Share International become like Jim and Tammy Bakker and the high rolling PTL Club! Not so fast. That wouldn't be in the vein of everything he had just been teaching us. Nope. In fact, three quarters of the material was laid out in stacks, free for the taking. The rest was printed oh-so-economically and priced accordingly...extremely affordable. And, oh yes... the price of admission for this event? A five dollar suggested donation at the door, barely enough to cover plane fare from England and a hotel night. It didn't appear that Benjamin was getting rich in this deal at all, nor did he seem pretentiously wealthy in any way. Sales were brisk, but not overwhelming. I would guess that less than $1000 changed hands.

After grabbing quite a bit of free info, and purchasing two Share International magazines for a total of 6 bucks, I wandered back into the meetingroom to peruse the displays. Creme had two of his paintings on easles, but I don't remember seeing a price tag. They were quite unusual, a bit like Marc Chagall if you know your art. Many of the iconesque pictures that you see littering the Share website turn out to be Creme's art... colorful blobs and shapes that purportedly have deep inner meanings on etheric levels.

But it was the Cross of Light that interested me. I had read several articles about these apparent manifestations, as well as having seen some pictures of them, but here was one I could inspect! Now, please realize that I am a photographer and a Broadcast Professional. I did very well in physics. I know much about optics, light and especially special effects like magic and sleight-of-hand. I have made over 10,000 commercials... I am a born skeptic, and I usually know poop when I see it. This was simply a pane of glass, held up by a simple 2x4 frame on three sides with the fourth side exposed. Light was provided by a small electric candle (like those in your windows at Christmas time) sitting behind the glass. The image was similar to the one at the right, except that it was colored white from the lightbulb. Though the glass was frosted, it didn't seem to refract light in the expected way. The effect was more like a hologram, yet a hologram doesn't normally follow the viewer around the viewing axis like this "cross of light" did. I have seen many different kinds of holograms, and this was like none of them. Suffice it to say... I was pleasantly stumped, as was everyone else that inspected it. Some said they felt a Spiritual Energy which calmed them, but I sure didn't get anything like that. My calm was coming from the fact that I had been praying to God via Jesus Christ for the last several hours!

The Questions

We filed back to our seats to prepare for the question and answer session. The tone of the crowd was now decidedly upbeat and anticipatory, despite the fact that only about 150 stalwart people remained. It was now well over two hours since we had started, and many had left at intermission, for whatever reason.

Mr.Creme began by welcoming our special guest from Knoxville, Tennessee, Reverend Joe Bullard. The good reverend runs the small Copper Ridge Baptist Church where Crosses of Light have virtually taken over the church. Read about it here if you are interested. It seems Rev. Joe had heard about Maitreya being the cause of such things and thus had dropped down I-75 to see what more there was to learn. I will hold further comment.

Benjamin answered about 8 or 10 questions, mostly ones that I could have answered based on Share's extensive material. Among the interesting bits were these:

The Self alone matters! Now, to a Christian, as well as to some other religions, this is a ridiculous statement. In Christianity we reach a proper balance when we get these 3 priorities in the correct order: 1) God, 2) Others, 3) Self.

What Mr. Creme was sharing was the fact that in his world, we are all working toward our ultimate godhood, both as individuals and as a group. Of course, with us and God being the same in his estimation, there is no such thing as putting Self above God! For a Christian, however, this is the ultimate rejection of The Lord.

Furthermore, according to Benjamin Creme: The words of Jesus Christ, "...no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." (John 14:6) means that no man can realize his own deity except by the realization of the Christ Principle within his own heart. Complete, total and utter blasphemy.

Now Lucifer on the other hand, according to Creme, is very misunderstood. It seems Lucifer actually refers to the Human Kingdom, not to some dangerous deceiver. And where did this silly idea of a Satan or Devil come from? Why, those arrogant Christians of course! They have such gall to believe that they are the only ones that get to go to Heaven. In Creme's eyes, every religion is equal and all people are working toward the next level, which all will eventually reach! Now, when I say that he has all religions being equal, both he and I are ignoring his obvious contempt for the arrogant, misguided and foolish fundamental Christians. During all of his talk, this was the only religious group that got hit with such venom. All the rest were declared "perfectly fine". You can bet the crowd smiled heartily in their agreement on this issue.

Ya know, just as an aside here... the very fact that Christians are hated so much by all the rest makes it obvious that there is something special (whether good or bad) about this particular group. Do you know the essential difference between all these other groups and fundamental Christianity? All the others have man figuring into the equation; by his works, efforts, traditions, penance or whatever, man earns his right to move up to Heaven, godhood, or whatever. Only the Protestant trusts FULLY in salvation by faith ALONE in Jesus Christ, through the awesome grace of God the Father. It is the only faith where man acknowledges his complete and total depravity and helplessness. It's the humble faith that says: "God, without you, I am dead and I fully deserve it." All the rest nurse the egotistical thought that man has some sort of power over his destiny.

If there is a God, which do you think He would prefer?
If you were God, who would get your blessing?

* On to Part Three - The Overshadowing! *

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