Thursday, July 16, 2015

DR KENEZ AFFIRMS THAT OUR DECLINE IN SOCIAL ETHICS AND MORALITY IN IGBOLAND WAS THE RESULT OF IMPORTED RELIGIONS

IMPORTED RELIGIONS BROUGHT ABOUT THE DECLINE IN SOCIAL ETHICS AND MORALITY IN IGBOLAND SINCE WE EMBRACED WESTERNISATION

THE INTEGRATIONAL SPIRITAN MOVEMENT

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A KENEZIAN PREFACE

INTRODUCTION TO INTEGRATIONAL SPIRITAN MOVEMENT

The Computer-Age Spiritual Fellowship for Citizens of Our Global Village

Many people are mere conformists. They are those personalities that are satisfied with ‘going through the motions’; doing what everyone else is doing to make a living and waiting for the final ‘call to glory’ as they brand death! Many of us are born and live an inconsequential life; bland, uneventful and without anything particular to be remembered for after our exit from this mundane world, a temporal habitation for the soul. There are some others, whose lives and contributions to the society made a difference! They changed the ‘status quo’ by either extending the frontiers of knowledge or developing their immediate communities. They improved the understanding of human nature and taught others the values of humanitarianism. These heroes and heroines touched the lives of many both inter-racially and internationally.

They added colour to the doldrums of routine existence on planet earth!

A few had tall dreams and went ahead to transform them into reality despite all odds. This group devised methods of changing the deplorable situations and the deprived circumstances of the lifestyle they met on becoming adults. Some adolescents dream of the courage to better their social status, but often take off on the wrong foot of seeking for titles, money, fame and crowning it all with indulging in romantic relationships.

They eventually became geniuses, inventors, explorers, leaders or discoverers! They evolved into the innovators and pioneers who helped to enlarge the frontiers of human civilisations and removed the age-old boundaries of the unknown. Joining this select group of animators or league of achievers is usually not by accident or by mere wishful thinking. Beyond desire and hard work is a divine factor that must be recognised, respected and appropriated in unveiling the unknown that the Divine Architect had hidden there for ages waiting for a brave soul to convert it from obscure dormancy to utilitarian vibrancy. This author, Dr Kenez wants to know where you belong in this universal continuum. Or, are you waiting for ‘manna from heaven’?

Historians inform us that Christopher Columbus actually set out to discover another route to India when he stumbled at the Americas and thus opened up humanity to a large continent partitioned into northern and southern halves but connected by a strip of islands. Today, the Panama Canal has made it possible to access the Eastern Regions of the World while travelling continuously to the west! Inventors, Discoverers and occasionally, religious leaders emerge from obscure communities of despised nations to beam supernatural light and divine wisdom of the Creator!

Those who search will eventually discover something unique. Those who ask penetrating questions may one day obtain answers from above rather than human palliatives that rarely satisfy the saintly soul. Those who ardently knock on the doors of heavenly wisdom, sooner than later gain divine inspirations from the Holy Spirit of the Original Architect and Ultimate Engineer of the earth we inhabit! He alone has all the answers to all physical, social, mental, spiritual and the personal and socio-political problems of our mundane world, if only we humble ourselves and honestly ask for his wisdom and guidance. But, do we?

The Creator has hidden so much from our intellectual faculties that to date we are still unravelling those He is allowing humanity to glimpse at through divine dreams, intuitions, inspirations and revelations to devout souls! Do you want to have supernatural knowledge mediated by spiritual faculties of seeing, feeling, sensing and caring for others? Look inwards, for the kingdom of God is inside you, not outside as many preachers tell you. No one ever got eternal bliss by keeping the commandments of men. It is given to altruistic seekers of that Divine Guidance in the affairs of mankind, which many yearn for but do not know where, when and how to find it. Search for it in this book!

The creator gave humans some of his powers and knowledge for recreating the material universe for the mutual benefits of all his created beings but today many use his gifts to perpetrate evil. Either by design or demonic manipulation, the obverse is the case; the first datum that every living thing recognises is that someone put it here and caters for its welfare. Dogs respect and fight in defence of their owners. Every pet realises that it is loved and taken care of by someone who has value for its existence. It is human who pride themselves of being rational beings that do not recognise, respect or realise that all of us have a single owner. It is absurd! Some believe there is an Almighty Creator who provides for each creature on daily basis, some assert that he has turned his back on us due to our congenital wickedness and cruel ways, while others simply deny his existence!

This is my summation of the problem; “Religion was/is a superstitious search by humanity for its origin, existence, meaning and relevance before the scientific era. The search was led by acclaimed sages among the elders of a community who defined its theories and practices. It is later ratified and recommended for legislation and implementation by state apparatus by convincing stratagem or coercion by politico-religious leaders. Thereafter, it is fine tuned and administered by ordained priests and priestesses who hand it down along ancestral lineages from one generation of lukewarm adherents, fanatics and mystics to another. Gradually, strong personalities emerge claiming divine appointment and so pull strong followers who idolise them as role models with supernatural powers. This obsession confirms them as beacons of adulation and finally leads to full scale idolatry.

Religion, which is superstition sanctioned by the state, is actually an addiction to man-made doctrines and dogmas invented, patented and copyrighted by a few demagogues.

It enslaves the mind more than psychoactive drugs,
Benumbs human creativity and resourcefulness thereby
Restricting the development of the human potential and capital.

Perhaps its only advantage is that it makes the polity docile and amenable to the whims and caprices of their oppressive leaders. Often, it hoodwinks its adherents into believing that ‘The God’ or ‘the gods’ they worship speak to them through the voices of their egocentric clerics who therefore can conveniently exploit them to satisfy their demonic desires of sensual pleasure and inordinate ambitions of amassing wealth. Their wanton indulgence in gluttony, wine and women is seen in every action and definitely this is the foolproof evidence of their demonic genealogy.

To rescue humanity from the demonic stranglehold of idolatry that now predominates worldwide, you are invited to reason along with us and see that we provide an everlasting cure for sensual lust for food, wine, sex, wealth and power that are the trademarks of society heading for damnation! Are you going to sit on the fence and wait for another failed experiment in Messiahship that was riddled with myopic and ethnocentric bias? Who knows the Creator well enough to declare that he has ‘a chosen people’? Where is the evidence that Moses actually led the so-called people out of any oppressive regime? The history books and modern encyclopaedia did not record the enslavement of the Jewish race except as ‘they were believed as revealed truths’.

Then he went on to introduce the first and most heinous dichotomy in racism; JEWS and GENTILES! The negative impact of that first categorisation of humanity gave birth to all the nepotic, apartheid and racist policies in the entire world. If you care to join us in a sanitation exercise that will guarantee a better future for your children, the come and witness the development of religion from time immemorial to evaluate it subjugation to man-made doctrines, dogmas and modes of worship that are irreligious. Thereafter, we can seek for solutions as proposed by the computer-age Integrational fellowship; I S M.

THE REVOLUTIONARY DEPOSITION

IMPORTED RELIGIONS BROUGHT OUR DECLINE IN SOCIAL MORALITY

The Genesis of Immorality in Biafra Was the Assimilation of Westernisation

The desecration of our pre-colonial high moral values started with the arrival of the first white missionaries in West Africa. What the natives called “NSO-ANI” was re-branded FORGIVEABLE SINS and so watered down the sanctity of religious values in Biafra. Its partner, WESTERN EDUCATION neatly completed the ‘coup de grace’ as the foreign concepts and social values of the colonialists destroyed the social ethics of the natives and rendered our pristine mores and norms ineffective. In some communities; “aping the white man’s dress code and mannerisms became fashionable and ignoring the customs and traditions of the community was seen as the criterion of being EDUCATED and MORE CIVILISED than the illiterate folks in the villages!

---------DR JIDEOFO KENECHUKWU DANMBAEZUE, @ 30/06/2013 04:14:32 HRS GMT.

PREAMBLE TO AUTHENTICITY OF RELIGIOUS BEHAVIOUR

Daily we interact with our parents, siblings, immediate relatives and neighbours in our small circles of physical habitations. When we travel outside our ethnic and national boundaries, we run into different personalities we love to hate or vice versa, who consciously or unconsciously influence our lives positively or negatively. Have you ever sat down and taken stock of what you have become over the last ten years?

Many people you see, meet with and/or socialise with are mere conformists. They are those personalities that are satisfied with ‘going through the motions’; doing what everyone else is doing to make a living and waiting for the final ‘call to glory’ as they brand death! Many of us are born and live an inconsequential life; bland, uneventful and without anything particular to be remembered for after our exit from this mundane world, a temporal habitation for the soul.

There are some others, whose lives and contributions to the society made a difference! They changed the ‘status quo’ by either extending the frontiers of knowledge or developing their immediate communities. They improved the understanding of human nature and taught others the values of humanitarianism. These heroes and heroines touched the lives of many intellectually and socially which elevated brotherhood of mankind both inter-racially and internationally.

These agents of change were the true sons and daughters of the Almighty Creator of the universe. They added colour to daily routines and the doldrums of routine existence on planet earth! A few had tall dreams and went ahead to transform them into reality despite all odds. This group devised methods of changing the deplorable situations and the deprived circumstances of the lifestyle they met on becoming adults. Some adolescents dream of the courage to better their social status, but often take off on the wrong foot of seeking for titles, money, fame and crowning it all with indulging in romantic relationships.

Others dared to pursue the unknown, to break new grounds and blaze trails for followers to tread on. Their zeal, inquisitiveness, passion, persistence, desire, motivations and prayers were fully rewarded if they paid the prize for success; optimism, dedication and the refusal to quit. Their philosophy of life was ‘When the task gets tough, the tough get it going!’, ‘Never say, never again!’ or ‘All that it takes to make the impossible possible is the power to remove the ‘im’ in front of the possible!’ They eventually became geniuses, inventors, explorers, leaders or discoverers! They evolved into the innovators and pioneers who helped to enlarge the frontiers of human civilisations and removed the age-old boundaries of the unknown. They were the catalysts of the world!

Historians inform us that Christopher Columbus actually set out to discover another route to India when he stumbled at the new America and thus opened up humanity to a large continent partitioned into northern and southern halves but naturally connected by a strip of islands. Today, the Panama Canal has made it possible to access the Eastern Regions of the world while travelling continuously to the west! Inventors, Discoverers and occasionally, religious leaders emerge from obscure communities of despised nations to beam supernatural light and divine wisdom of the Creator!

Joining this select group of animators or league of achievers is usually not by accident or by mere wishful thinking. Beyond the routine duties of satisfying the five senses of the body lies the desire to excel in unexplored areas of human existence and the freedom to choose a divergent track that levies hard work is a divine factor that must be recognised, respected and appropriated in unveiling the unknown that the Divine Architect had hidden there for ages waiting for a brave soul to convert it from obscure dormancy to utilitarian vibrancy. This author, a global agent of spiritual evolution, Dr J. J. Kenez wants to know where you belong in this universal continuum of innovators. Or, are you waiting for ‘manna from heaven’?

Those who place priority on breaking new grounds and earnestly search for better alternatives will eventually discover something unique. Those who ask penetrating questions may one day obtain answers from above rather than the routine human palliatives that rarely satisfy the saintly soul. Those who ardently knock on the doors of heavenly wisdom, sooner than later gain divine inspirations from the Holy Spirit of the Original Architect and Ultimate Engineer of the earth we inhabit! He alone has all the answers to all physical, social, mental, spiritual and the personal and socio-political problems of our mundane world, if only we humble ourselves and honestly ask for his wisdom and guidance. But, do we?

The Creator has hidden so much from our intellectual faculties that to date we are still unravelling those He is allowing humanity to glimpse at through divine dreams, intuitions, inspirations and revelations to devout souls! Do you want to have supernatural knowledge mediated by spiritual faculties of seeing, feeling, sensing and caring for others? Look inwards, for the kingdom of God is inside you, not outside as many prosperity preachers erroneously tell you. No one ever got eternal bliss by keeping the commandments of men. It is given to altruistic seekers of that Divine Guidance in the affairs of mankind, which many yearn for but do not know where, when and how to find it. Search for it in this book!

The creator gave humans some of his powers and knowledge for recreating the material universe for the mutual benefits of all his created beings. The obverse is the case! Today many use his gifts to perpetrate evil. Either by design or demonic manipulation, ingrates abound everywhere and dominate the scene. The first datum that every living thing recognises is that someone put it here and caters for its welfare. Dogs respect and fight in defence of their owners. Every pet realises that it is loved and taken care of by someone who has value for its existence. It is only human beings, who pride themselves of being rational beings that do not recognise, respect or realise that all of us have a single owner, a caretaker and benevolent father/mother. Meditate over this assertion for a minute and provide me an answer.

It is absurd! It is unintelligent. It is unlike what a rational being can do.

Yet, that is only a tip of the iceberg of irreverent religiosity in our global village.

Some learned fools insist that everything came by chance and hold on to the theory of evolution! Despite knowing that the common wristwatch could never have arrived by blind chance and that computers and the Internet had inventors, this brand of demented humans refuse to see and acknowledge the great artistry and creative ingenuity in what they indulge in on a daily basis to survive till the next morning! Some believe there is an Almighty Creator who provides for each creature on a daily basis, some assert that he has turned his back on us due to our congenital wickedness and cruel ways, while others simply deny his existence!

DECLINE IN SOCIAL ETHICS IS THE CRUX OF MORAL DEPRAVITY

Double-faced Christians and Muslims now abound everywhere; they worship Satan at night and come to church/mosque on Fridays/Sundays! This lifestyle has eroded the credentials of our forebears! There is now, an urgent need to redeem our children from these nefarious practices! We must revert to the legacies of our renowned grandfathers, improve on it and bequeath the next generation a better religious legacy than we had!

If you are concerned that our children need fresh religious air that suits this global village and that posterity deserves a better lifestyle devoid of wearing masks of deceit, pretences, subterfuges, ‘holier-than-thou’ attitudes, then join us in the sanitation exercise. Your offspring will remain forever grateful that a select group of enlightened ‘Homo sapiens sapientis’ took the bull by the horns to avert the perilous moral decadence that is steadily turning all of us into unabashed hypocrites, unrepentant fanatics and deluded mystics. You are welcome!

Culture is a summation of ethnocentric survival strategies that each sub-unit of humanity had developed over the centuries, institutionalized and passed on to their descendants. The sons and daughters of the Almighty Creator have ignored their ONE CULTURE; which is OBEDIENCE TO ALL THE NATURAL LAWS as ONE WORLD RELIGION. That is what we desperately need today just we use cellular phones and the Internet without killing anyone. Respect for and obedience to all the laws of nature is the key for a peaceful world with beautiful people living, loving and sharing the Creator's benefits as equal heirs to his blissful global world that we now share amicably thanks to scientists who have uncovered his designs for our mutual existence. LET US LIVE IN PEACE! This is the ‘One Global Religion’ that humanity needs now for ‘One Peaceful Global Village! Here I rest my case/pen!

You are welcome to “Let us reason together” as Isaiah, the prophet invited his kinsmen many centuries ago or sit on the fence and die unenlightened by genuine Aristotelian-Kantian combine of deductive and inductive logic, aided by current fund of science knowledge and enquiry to unravel the fables and legends that are now labelled as theology! There is nothing theological about an accumulation of guesswork done by primitive men! They are simply a collection of puerile belief in man-made doctrines, dogmas and rituals that is steadily pushing the humane race to annihilation. Here, I rest my objective of penning this protracted but comprehensive diatribe. Call it heresy, if you like. I do not care a dime. Truth is supreme! Truth is Life, my people declare!

The author took his two sons to participate in the ANAMBRA CULTURAL DAY CELEBRATIONS at the Nnamdi Azikiwe Stadium in 1995 for their first exposure to fully traditional dances and masquerade festival. They enjoyed it!

RESUME OF MY DEPOSITION

Just type RENASCENT IGBO RELIGION into Google Search and see the volumes I had written on how, why and wherefore our traditional "NSO ANI" i.e. AVOIDNACE OF DESECRATION OF NATURAL LAWS is the best religion in the whole world, yet we prefer to swim in foreign religions and create an immoral nation wherein demonic politicians and pecuniary religious leaders swindle us and smile to the banks!!

YOU CAN FOOL ALL THE PEOPLE SOME OF THE TIME, AND YOU CAN ALSO FOOL SOME OF THE PEOPLE ALL THE TIME, BUT YOU CAN NEVER FOOL ALL THE PEOPLE ALL THE TIME, TALK LESS OF ATTEMPTING TO FOOL GOD AT ANY TIME.

CHAPTER ONE

DELIMITING OUR UNIVERSE OF DISCOURSE

The demands of Formal Logic dictate that we begin our dissertation from the very beginning of the theories and practices that gave birth to the doctrines and dogmas that various religious demagogues invented and developed over the centuries!

UNIVERSAL DEFINITION OF RELIGION

Let us start with this unabridged and unedited from Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009

“Religion is the sacred engagement with that which is believed to be a spiritual reality. Religion is a worldwide phenomenon that has played a part in all human culture and so is a much broader, more complex category than the set of beliefs or practices found in any single religious tradition. An adequate understanding of religion must take into account its distinctive qualities and patterns as a form of human experience, as well as the similarities and differences in religions across human cultures. In all cultures, human beings make a practice of interacting with what are taken to be spiritual powers. These powers may be in the form of gods, spirits, ancestors, or any kind of sacred reality with which humans believe themselves to be connected. Sometimes a spiritual power is understood broadly as an all-embracing reality (see Pantheism), and sometimes it is approached through its manifestation in special symbols. It may be regarded as external to the self, internal, or both. People interact with such a presence in a sacred manner—that is, with reverence and care. Religion is the term most commonly used to designate this complex and diverse realm of human experience.”

“The word religion is derived from the Latin noun religio, which denotes both earnest observance of ritual obligations and an inward spirit of reverence. In modern usage, religion covers a wide spectrum of meanings that reflect the enormous variety of ways the term can be interpreted. At one extreme, many committed believers recognize only their own tradition as a religion, understanding expressions such as worship and prayer to refer exclusively to the practices of their tradition. Although many believers stop short of claiming an exclusive status for their tradition, they may nevertheless use vague or idealizing terms in defining religion—for example, “true love of God,” or “the path of enlightenment.” At the other extreme, religion may be equated with ignorance, fanaticism, or wishful thinking.”

“By defining religion as a sacred engagement with what is taken to be a spiritual reality, it is possible to consider the importance of religion in human life without making claims about what it really is or ought to be. Religion is not an object with a single, fixed meaning, or even a zone with clear boundaries. It is an aspect of human experience that may intersect, incorporate, or transcend other aspects of life and society. Such a definition avoids the drawbacks of limiting the investigation of religion to Western or biblical categories such as monotheism (belief in one god only) or to church structure, which are not universal. For example, in tribal societies, religion—unlike the Christian church—usually is not a separate institution but pervades the whole of public and private life. In Buddhism, gods are not as central as the idea of a Buddha (fully enlightened human being). In many traditional cultures the idea of a sacred cosmic order is the most prominent religious belief. Because of this variety, some scholars prefer to use a general term such as the sacred to designate the common foundation of religious life.”

“Religion in this understanding includes a complex of activities that cannot be reduced to any single aspect of human experience. It is a part of individual life but also of group dynamics. Religion includes patterns of behavior but also patterns of language and thought. It is sometimes a highly organized institution that sets itself apart from a culture, and it is sometimes an integral part of a culture. Religious experience may be expressed in visual symbols, dance and performance, elaborate philosophical systems, legendary and imaginative stories, formal ceremonies, meditative techniques, and detailed rules of ethical conduct and law. Each of these elements assumes innumerable cultural forms. In some ways there are as many forms of religious expression as there are human cultural environments.”

KENEZIAN DEFINITION OF RELIGION

“Religion was/is a superstitious search by humanity for its origin, existence, meaning and relevance before the scientific era. The search was led by acclaimed sages among the elders of a community who defined its theories and practices. It is later ratified and recommended for legislation and implementation by state apparatus by convincing stratagem or coercion by politico-religious leaders. Thereafter, it is fine tuned and administered by ordained priests and priestesses who hand it down along ancestral lineages from one generation of lukewarm adherents, fanatics and mystics to another. Gradually, strong personalities emerge claiming divine appointment and so pull strong followers who idolise them as role models with supernatural powers. This obsession confirms them as beacons of adulation and finally leads to full scale idolatry.

Religion, which is superstition sanctioned by the state, is actually an addiction to man-made doctrines and dogmas invented, patented and copyrighted by a few demagogues.

It enslaves the mind more than psychoactive drugs,
Benumbs human creativity and resourcefulness thereby
Restricting the development of the human potential and capital.

It is the main cause of poverty of the mind and underdevelopment of third world countries as its side-effects are indolence, redundancy, laziness and dependence of finished products and services. In the final analysis, it is the predisposing factor to lack of initiative, debilitating ignorance, fetish belief-systems, abject poverty and perennial ill-health. Perhaps its only advantage is that it makes the polity docile and amenable to the whims and caprices of their oppressive leaders. Often, it hoodwinks its adherents into believing that ‘The God’ or ‘the gods’ they worship speak to them through the voices of their egocentric clerics who therefore can conveniently exploit them to satisfy their demonic desires of sensual pleasure and inordinate ambitions of amassing wealth. Their wanton indulgence in gluttony, wine and women is seen in every action and definitely this is the foolproof evidence of their demonic genealogy.” ( Dr Kenez 1991)

From the Animator’s Introduction to Integrational Spiritan Movement I S M Manifesto

SEE APPENDIX A

To rescue humanity from the demonic stranglehold of idolatry that now predominates worldwide, you are invited to reason along with us and see that we provide an everlasting cure for sensual lust for food, wine, sex, wealth and power that are the trademarks of a society heading for damnation! Are you going to sit on the fence and wait for another failed experiment in Messiahship that was riddled with myopic and ethnocentric bias? Who knows the Creator well enough to declare that he has ‘a chosen people’? Where is the evidence that Moses actually led the so-called people out of any oppressive regime? The history books and modern encyclopaedia did not record the enslavement of the Jewish race except as ‘they were believed as revealed truths’. Then Moses, who was brought up in an Egyptian royal court went on to introduce the first and most heinous dichotomy in racism; JEWS and GENTILES! The negative impact of that first categorisation of humanity gave birth to all the nepotic, apartheid and racist policies in the entire world.

There is a plethora of ancient and modern major world religions. In each, there are factions, sects and denominations. It is syncretism galore! The name of the game is “join our own, ours is the one prospering for now!” It is a religious market. It is a mad world. Many nationals all over the globe are smarting under the colonial yoke of Roman Catholicism or Islamism. The intriguing aspect of this brand of neo-colonialism is that it brews dogmas and doctrines that propel fanatical members to kill or be killed in the name of ‘God’. Religious fanaticism or mysticism is a religio-psychiatric personality disorder that has never been classified by any DSM and so has never been diagnosed and managed as other psychopathological conditions that present in health services all over the world!

If you care to join us in a sanitation exercise that will guarantee a better future for your children, then come and witness the development of religion from time immemorial to evaluate its subjugation to man-made doctrines, dogmas and modes of worship that are irreligious. Thereafter, we can seek for solutions as proposed by the computer-age integrational fellowship; INTEGRATIONAL SPIRITAN MOVEMENT, abbreviated thus: I S M. This medical scientist, pragmatic researcher and existential therapist, is proposing that we scrutinise all the religious and ethnocentric prejudices that had enslaved many children right from birth, who were born into their parents religio-cultural practices and were never given the freedom to search for objective methods of relating to their maker and other humans. Can you join us to make this feasible?

………………………………………….……Rev. Prof. J. J. KENEZ (11^th Nov. 2009)

CHAPTER TWO

A SAMPLE OF HOW IMPORTED FALSE RELIGIOUS LIFESTYLES HAVE DESECRATED OUR TRADITIONAL SANCTITY; MORES, NORMS AND ETHICAL VALUES

In my culture, one does not interpret proverbs. I dare do so for my readers who are non-indigenes of Igbo land; both idioms imply that anyone who does not know who he is or where he is coming from will definitely not know where he is going! The words of the elders of my people of Biafra are definitely words of wisdom. They can write a doctoral thesis with just an idiom or a statement of the fact with a simple analogy!

Let’s look at these: The bat is totally blind and is neither an animal of the sky nor of the land! The bat is neither a bird nor a rodent for it hasn’t any feathers yet it flies! And though it has the anatomy of mammals and a skin with furs it neither crawls nor runs on all fours, yet it feeds like birds, amphibians and rodents! The bat says he knows how ugly it is, so it has resolved to fly only at night! What a tragedy! These unreverend men and women should emulate the bat!

There was a time when Catholic Reverend Fathers and Reverend Sisters on missionary services in this country were really admired, respected and idolised! That was in my teens when the Late Bishop Shanahan was still an ordinary priest! Rev. Fr. Bindel was the Parish Priest of Ihiala, then a very large area extending as far away as Emekuku, Orlu and Oguta! They rode long distances on Hercules bicycles carrying out their evangelistic duties. They trekked most of the time and made converts by using the very few semi-literate natives as their interpreters!

These interpreters were later promoted to Catechists and soon wielded much power! They taught pagans catechism classes in the vernacular language and only those they certified as having passed their examinations were baptised. They stood between every catechumen and the sacraments of baptism, confession, confirmation, matrimony and even the irregular reception of the Holy Eucharist! You could neither see any Rev. Fr. nor receive any of these sacraments without greasing their palms! No girls or women ever came close to the parish houses, not to mention having handshakes with any priest!

The Rev. Sisters wore sparkling ankle-length white gowns and their head-gear with a tall hood and overflowing veils covered every part of their heads except for just the outline of their faces. I never saw their ears! To us little urchins at the turn of the century, they were angels. After all the pictures in our catechism classes were made of white skins. They were all white women. We never dreamt that we would, in later years, have our own black sisters and daughters qualified to become Rev. Sisters. No one ever imagined that a black skinned woman could ever be dressed like these white angels. These angels were our earliest teachers, nurses, midwives and doctors. They ran the few mission schools and hospitals that were then in existence at Ihiala and Emekuku. We adored and loved them for their motherly care but, at the same time, we hated their injection needles!

We were told that both the priests and nuns were virgins. It was even rumoured that they had no sexual parts to their bodies. They were ‘castrated’ was the naïve belief that made the rumour rounds then! We assumed that the nuns had neither breasts nor large buttocks like our mothers and aunts! How were we to find out? The priests were covered all over with their flowing white soutanes that they never put off in our presence. “Did they ever urinate or defecate?” we wondered! I never saw any of them in short knickers although I was a mass server for several years at St Martin’s Parish, Odo-ata Ihiala, now in Ihiala Local Government Area of Anambra State. In addition, we never saw the ears, necks and feet of the nuns. During clinical attendance they wore gloves, so we were partially denied seeing their hands and fingers. “Did these ladies know how to cook?” we pondered!

That the priests were chaste and the nuns, virgins, were assumed! We never saw the priests and nuns chat together, hug each other or stroll along any road side by side. They were discreet and circumspect. They were conscious of their vows of celibacy and public image knowing that they were continuously being watched day and night. So, they never scandalised us nor gave us the chance to suspect them! That was in the early 1930s and 1940s. We gradually began to notice that many nuns went on leaves that were termed “annual” and understood why some others that lasted beyond twelve months were termed “sudden”, “casual” or “sick.” Soon, our own sons and daughters were admitted into seminaries and convents. By the 1950s, some were ordained and professed respectively. This first set never scandalised us! We never suspected that they could lower the standards set by these missionary white angels! That was before the Nigeria-Biafra civil war that lasted from 1967 to 1970.

The wind blew strongly so the hen’s anus was clearly seen by all!

All that changed as the scales fell off our eyes. Our religious blinkers were forcibly removed by what we saw during the civil war at the few Caritas Feeding Centres that we naturally located within the parish premises. We saw a lot. Some printable, others not whisper-able! Promiscuity was the mildest term for describing what the refugee women described as own contributions to the war effort! Our clergymen and women were the butt of their sexual exploits as relief items like stockfish, egg-yolk and milk were exchanged for amorous relationships. Some wore the glamorous foreign dresses donated by CARITAS & WCC that were meant for homeless refugees that left their wardrobes behind!

“Have they also eaten the forbidden fruit” was the mildest joke about what we knew was happening at our local parishes. There was a conspiracy of silence by all the culprits!

The war unmasked everyone. Today, my ten-year-old niece knows that priests are anything but celibate! Most mass servers can swear that beside heterosexual indulgence involving widows, married and unmarried women in our parishes, our self-professed celibates clandestinely practise homosexualism and lesbianism! It is no longer news that paedophilia is the scourge of the Catholic clergy in the United States of America. Nor is it news here in Africa that our own brothers and sisters, ‘self-proclaimed celibates’, have secret wives and husbands with their illicit children tucked away in remote villages and the dark alleys of streets in our urban areas!

Even among our Protestant communities, legally married pastors indulge in adulterous relationships without any qualms of conscience. Prominent television evangelists are now caught pants down at brothels. In the Catholic hierarchy, most of our so-called celibates, males and females, are not only promiscuous, but revel in homosexual and lesbian relationships. Some are pathological Casanovas and Nymphomaniacs! Hell is let loose as most of the demons there are now living in our parishes and convents. It is more of a rat race than an epidemic! There seems to be gold, silver and bronze prizes reserved for those who excel in this sexual revolution among our celibate community!

In addition, no one wants to be left behind to pick up a bronze medal! Some have secretly fathered children and are using church funds to maintain them. The female celibates go on the pill or commit abortion monthly, dilatation & curettage being their favourite option! Others build houses and sponsor their concubines in tertiary educations. The ‘been-tos’ among them send their girlfriends overseas for summer holidays. Others receive and entertain their white girlfriends, right here in Nigeria!

No one seems to be bothered by this anomaly. Recently, however, some local ordinaries were forced to set up special diocesan tribunals to investigate some of the reports they received from parishioners who were/are the victims of this immoral revolution! Some married women have lost their husbands to some pretty and sensuous Rev. Sisters! Equally, some members of the C.M.O, whose wives have been snatched by vivacious and amorous Rev. Fathers, are also complaining. Who can redeem us from these demonic onslaughts? In the mass media, one reads about kidnapping; which many have re-named “MAN-NAPPING’ considering that most of the abducted are ADULTS not KIDS! Was that ever heard of in the days of yore? That was only possible in epochs of inter-communal wars or slave trade, both of which arrived with the white-man’s settling down and establishing foreign administrative structures and their legal systems. Wife snatching, rape, abortion, nymphomania and all other sexual sins; contraception, oral sex, homosexuality and lesbianism came in the wake of aping the white man’s romantic behaviour that the youths watched on videos and television screens. The acceptance of confessions and the ‘sacrament’ of penance worsened an already degenerating moral decadence!

CHAPTER THREE

FUNDAMENTALS OF IGBO RELIGION

A Preliminary Introduction to RENASCENT IGBO RELIGION

Internet abbreviation; wwwrenigborel or wwwrenascentigborel

To be modified with tree branches and a triangle in a circle

Replace 4 Coloured Triangles with Biafra Map

This is the symbol of Renascent Igbo Religion, RIR.
The highest number in numerology worldwide is nine and
The highest fine levied for crimes and offered to the Ultimate Spirit for absolution
In ritual worship Igbo land is nine kola nuts and nine alligator pepper and
The same number applies to presents given in obeisance to the highest titled men.

The Igbo has no name for the Ultimate Giver of Life! All we have are appellations that describe the superlative traits of this Consummate Spirit that created, creates and will still continue to create and sustain all the beings, visible and invisible, for ages in the future;

Chi-na-eke: the ultimate spirit that creates
Chi-ukwu: the greatest spirit
Obasi bi n-elu: the omnipotent that lives on high
Ama-di-oha: the supreme husband of all
Ogara-nya ngada-nga: the wealthiest of the rich
Ugwu ana-ari-atu egwu: the highest mountain that is climbed with trepidation
Ogbajiri igwe kpoo ya nku: He that breaks steel and calls it dry wood
Utu na agba igwe: bacteria that eats up iron, i.e. potent ant that tears iron to shreds
Ogbu onye mbosi ndu n’ato ya oto: he that snuffs life off the arrogant

In our culture, one can only give names to what one owns, has authority over and can dispose of at will! It is not right to give any name to the creator; we describe what he is and does; “Chi-na-eke”, meaning; “the divine spirit that creates” or “Chi-Ukwu”; the Ultimate Spirit! Therefore, I conclude this prelude thus: May Our Chineke prosper the work of your hands and provide divine guidance and protection for your spouses and children. I share in this last prayer and hope that all is well for those who love Chukwu, the Lord that gives us love and children may always be diligent in obeying His marriage laws! Amen!

Whereas other nations and cultures built places of worship for their religions, the Igbo know that the sky is the dome of the Creator and his illuminating lights are the sun, moon and stars. They grooves or open squares well planned and decorated are our places of worship come rain come shine! Most devotional rituals are done in moonlighting periods as it is cool and lasts the whole night. Above are edifices other major world religions built. For the Igbo, no human engineered structure is good enough to be the abode of the supreme spirit that owns the sky, the land and the sea. He is worshipped in the open!

PANTHEON IN RENASIGBOREL NEEDS MODERNISATION

The most widely worshiped deity of the Igbo was clearly the Earth goddess, ALA or ANI due to linguistic nuances. Next in rank to the Father Chineke, she is the Mother that manages the physical beings on earth for the benefit of her children. She provides fertility and the food that sustains all living things. She blesses farm work with bountiful harvest. The beautiful landscapes are the result of her proper feminine grooming! The ponds, lakes streams and all other sources of drinking water come under her care. The dead are buried in her bosom!

Thus she became the deity that must be placated first for protection before one is clean enough to approach Chineke or else face the wrath of Amadioha, the god of thunder and lightning, the disciplinarian. She is represented by a nursing mother in sculptures and painting. Today, RIR uses this tripartite symbol of a family to depict her;

It is impossible to enumerate all the lesser deities our forebears had, many of whom are now mere names to us. Among them were the spirits of many mountains, rivers, springs, respected ancestors, and reputable warriors, past kings and queens who had “become gods” at death. Demons also existed in pre-colonial era as malevolent spirits under the command of Amadioha, the disciplinarian. Sickness and misfortune were ascribed either to these demons, to sorcery or to divine retribution.

Gods and men

The gods were imagined to have their own lives, though also needing the service of their worshipers, who in turn were dependent on the gods for their well-being. They lived in their temples, where they had to be fed, clothed, washed, and entertained. Part of their time, however, might be spent in heaven or in roaming the sea or the mountains. They might withdraw in anger and so cause life on Earth to wither and cease. One of the most characteristic rituals of the Hittites was the invocation by which a god who had absented himself was induced to return and attend to his duties by a combination of prayer and magic.

The relation between man and god resembled that between servant and master. “If a servant has committed an offence and confesses his guilt before his master, his master may do with him whatever he pleases; but because he has confessed his guilt . . . his master's spirit is appeased and he will not call that servant to account.” Confession and expiation form the main theme of the extant royal prayers.

BASIC DEFINITIONS FOR NEW MEMBERS OF R I R

renaissance

ren·ais·sance [rénnə snss, rènnə snss, ri náyss'nss]

(plural ren·ais·sanc·es)

noun

rebirth: a rebirth or revival, e.g. of culture, skills, or learning forgotten or previously ignored

[Late 19th century. < French renaître "be reborn" < Latin renasci < nasci "be born"]

renascent

re·nas·cent [ri náss'nt, ri náyss'nt]

adjective

newly active: showing new life or activity

[Early 18th century. < Latin renascent-, present participle of renasci "be reborn" (see renaissance)]

religion

re·li·gion [ri líjjən]

(plural re·li·gions)

noun

1.	*beliefs and worship: people's beliefs and opinions concerning the existence, nature, and worship of a deity or deities, and divine involvement in the universe and human life*
2.	*system: an institutionalized or personal system of beliefs and practices relating to the divine*
3.	*personal beliefs or values: a set of strongly-held beliefs, values, and attitudes that somebody lives by*
4.	*obsession: an object, practice, cause, or activity that somebody is completely devoted to or obsessed by* * The danger is that you start to make fitness a religion.*
5.	*christianity* *monk's or nun's life: life as a monk or a nun, especially in the Roman Catholic Church*

[12th century. Via French < Latin religion- "obligation, reverence"]

-re·lig·ion·less, adjective

get religion (informal)

1. U.S. to stop flouting the rules, regulations, customs, and expectations of society

2. to become a believer or join a religious organization, and, usually, start to lead a life that follows its teachings

African

Af·ri·can [áffrikən]

adjective

of Africa: relating to any part of the African continent, or its peoples, languages, or culture

noun (plural Af·ri·cans)

1.	*somebody from Africa: somebody who comes from Africa*
2.	*somebody of African descent: somebody descended from a people of Africa*

[Pre-12th century. < Latin Africanus < Afri "the ancient inhabitants of N Africa"]

For More Info Contact:

Rev. Prof. J. J. Kenez, D. Sc.

The Humble Vessel of the Holy Spirit of the Creator of the Universe

Phone: 0803-9097614, 0805-1764999 or 0809-6765365,

Email: agunabu1948@gmail.com OR saintkenez@yahoo.co.uk

CHAPTER FOUR

THE IGBO THEORY & PRACTICE OF “NSO ANI”

A literal ‘word-for-word’ translation of the concept is ‘reverence earth’, whose real import implies “Total Reverence for the Prescriptions of the Sacred Earth Goddess and Avoidance of her Proscriptions” is the sum total of all the religiosity in Igbo land.

Although the pre-scientific metaphysics of the people of Biafra will definitely need updating, their Pristine Social Ethics will never need any existential change despite the whirlwind of foreign religions raging all around them! This is not only the opinion of this author but that of many intellectuals who affirm that the corrupting influence of both Westernisation and Imported Religions will never erase the respect, adoration and loyalty NSO ANI enjoys in the hearts of liberated and self-actualised indigenes of the Igbo land! Authentic natives still live by NSO ANI in their private lives, whether at home or in the Diaspora, and transmit its mores and norms to their children by words and deeds!

To date, when all other religious abracadabra fail to heal an erring son or daughter of Biafra, resort is made to the pristine modes of cleansing the individual of the guilt he or she had earned by desecrating the natural laws of the Earth Goddess. No amount of religious imperialism or psychosocial politicisation of Igbo traditional religion can ever successfully replace the respect that NSO ANI enjoys in Biafra.

WHAT IS ‘NSO ANI’ IN PRACTICAL TERMS

In one phrase, it is TOTAL OBEDIENCE TO NATURAL LAWS. This was, has been and will ever remain the authentic religion of past, present and future generations of true children of CHI-NEKE, CHI-UKWU, OBASI-BI-N’ELU!

To date, AMADIOHA, the disciplinarian god of THUNDER & LIGHTNING still carries out the punishment of grave violations of NSO ANI in the entire length and width of the thick tropical Igbo land of Biafra, whether Christianised or Islamised!

Here, let me cite the entries of Igbo scholars who had benefited from western education I found in WIKIPEDIA, the Free encyclopaedia, to buttress my deposition that THE ORIGINAL IGBO RELIGION BEFORE MISSIONARIES ARRIVED AND BASTARDISED IT WAS HOLY, JUST, INTER-RACIAL AND HUMANITARIAN!

NSO-ANI IN IGBO RELIGION IS OBEDIENCE TO ALL NATURAL LAWS

Avoidance of Violating the Laws of the Earth Goddess ODINANI

Ọdinanilt, which is also spelt; ‘Ọdinala, Omenala,Omenana, Odinana or Ọmenani’ is THE TRADITIONAL CULTURAL BELIEFS AND PRACTICES OF THE IGBO PEOPLE^[1] of West Africa. These terms, as used here in the Igbo language, are synonymous with the traditional Igbo "religious system" which was not considered separate from the social norms of ancient or traditional Igbo societies.

Afulezy, Uju "On Odinani, the Igbo Religion", Niger Delta Congress, Nigeria, April 03, 2010

Original Igbo Religion now being updated to RENASCENT IGBO RELIGION was, is and will ever remain Theocentric in nature, for spirituality played a central role in every activity of the indigenes from waking up to going to sleep everyday of their lives. Although it has largely been supplanted by Christianity, the indigenous belief system remains in strong effect among the rural and village populations of the Igbo, where it has at times been influenced the colonial religions. Odinani is a panentheistic faith, having a strong central deity at its head. All things spring from this deity. Although a semi-pantheon exists in the belief system, as it does in many indigenous African and Eastern religions, the lesser deities prevalent in Odinani expressly serve as elements of Chukwu or Chukouuee the central deity.^[2]

M. O. Ené "The fundamentals of Odinani", KWENU: Our Culture, Our Future, April 03, 2010

Like all religions, Odinani is the vehicle used by its practitioners to understand their World (called "Uwa"), or more specifically, the part of the World that affects them — which is to say the dry Land on which the Igbo live and gather sustenance — and it is from this that the belief acquires its names: "Ọ di" (Igbo: it is ) + n'(na - Igbo: on/within) + "Ani" (Igbo: the Land or the Earth goddess) in the Northern Igbo dialects and also "O me" (Igbo: it happens ) + n'(na - Igbo:on/within) + "Ala" (Igbo: the Land or the physical manifestation of the Earth goddess as dry land) as used primarily in the Southern Igbo dialects.^[3]

Chukwu, as the central deity and driving force in the cosmos is unknowable, and too great of a power to be approached directly save by the manifestations that exist on the World (the Land, the Skies, and the Sea). Thus, Odinani rarely deals directly with the force that is Chukwu. Many other spirits and forces also exist in Odinani belief and folklore.^[2]

Origin

The term ‘ọdịnala’ also pronounced ‘ọdịnani’ (depending on dialect) is derived from three Igbo words ‘ọdị’ –meaning ‘it is’; ‘na’ – meaning ‘on/within’ and ‘ala’ – meaning ‘the Land or the Earth’. In this literary sense, Ọdịnala comes to mean ‘it is on the Land’ or ‘something that is anchored on the Earth or Land’.

In Igbo nation where this word originated, it is also called omenala, omenana, or omenani by some tribes. M.O Ene (2000) presented Igbo culture as: "a dynamic phenomenon that deals with the artifacts and mores by which Ndiigbo of Africa distinguish themselves from other racial/ethnic groups." To him, it is a serious mistake to distinguish between Igbo religion and culture but he later went further to agree that Igbo religion (Ọdịnala) led to Igbo culture (omenala) by stating that: “..if, the Igbo have no religion, then they have no culture….. Religion is our culture, our way of life”. Thus, no matter what it may be called, the truth is that 80% of the Igbo people use the word ọdịnala to describe the Igbo traditional religion and have differentiated it from omenala; which is culture.

There are various definitions of the term ‘Ọdịnala’ from different Igbo scholars, writers, philosophers and teachers of culture and tradition. The conclusion could be drawn from Dr. Uju Afulezi (2000) and Ene M.O (2003) that “Ọdịnala is the ancient Igbo traditional religion”. This definition has some limitations and is subjected to criticism especially, if we can remember that Ọdịnala is anchored on the land (ala). Provided that ala exists, it is the same all over the world. The basic belief and the teachings of this religion (Ọdịnala) hold in any part of the Earth (Ala); hence the Igbo sentence ‘ala wu otu’ which translates ‘the land is the same everywhere’. Thus, Ọdịnala in this view is for every world but originated from Igboland.

Ọdịnala is therefore, the ancient religion of the people that connect mmadu (human being) to Chukwu (God) through Chi (personal spiritual guardian or providence). It is an ancient sacred science that enables people to exist in peace, love and harmony with Chukwu (God)(also called as Chukouuee, and Guio in differing dialects), Chi (personal providence) and Arushi (the supernatural forces) on their way back to eternal.

Like all religions, Ọdịnala is the vehicle used by its practitioners (Dibias or priests) and spiritual students (followers of the religion) to understand their World (called "Uwa"), or more specifically, the part of the World that affects them — which is to say the dry land on which the people live and gather sustenance. I call it ‘a gifted spiritual route’.

Alusi

Main article: Alusi

Chukwu's incarnations in the world (Igbo: uwa) are the Alusi. The Alusi, who are also known as Arushi, Anusi or Arusi in differing dialects all spring from Ala the earth goddess who embodies the workings of the world. There are lesser deities in Odinani, each of whom are responsible for a specific aspect of nature or abstract concept. According to Igbo lore, these lesser Alusi, as elements of Chukwu, have their own specific purpose. They exist only as long as their purpose does thus many Alusi die off except for the universally served Alusi. The top four Alusi of the Igbo pantheon are Ala, Igwe, Anyanwu, and Amadioha (or Kamalu); other less important Alusi exist after these, some depending on the community. They are, Ogwugwu, Urasi or Ulasi, Ichi, Uchu, Iyi, Agwu etc.^[4]

Ala

Main article: Ala (Odinani)

Ala is the earth goddess who is also responsible for morality and fertility and the dead ancestors who are stored in the underworld in her womb. Ala translates to 'earth' in Igbo as she is the ground itself, for this reason taboos and crimes are known as nsọ ala, "desecration of Ala". As the highest Alusi in the Igbo pantheon, she was among the first to be created by Chukwu almighty. Ala is depicted in Mbari temples of the Owerre-Igbo, but smaller shrines are placed in the public squares of communities and in the homes of her devotees.

Amadioha

Main article: Amadioha

Amadioha in Igbo means "free will of the people", he is the Alusi of thunder and lightning and is referred to as Amadiora, Kamalu,Kamanu, or Ofufe in certain parts of Igboland.^[5][6][7] His governing planet is the Sun.^[8] His color is red, and his symbol is a white ram.^[9] Metaphysically, Amadioha represents the collective will of the people and he is often associated with Anyanwu.^[10] While Anyanwu is more prominent in northern Igboland, Amadioha is more prominent in the south. His day is Afor, which is the second day of the Igbo four day week.^[11]

Anyanwu

Main article: Anyanwu

Igwe

Main article: Igwe

Igwe is the Alusi of the sky and the husband of Ala. He produces rain to replenish the earth and the earth goddess to aid her productiveness.^[4]

Other Alusi

[edit]Njoku Ji

Main article: Njoku Ji

[edit]Agwu Nsi

Main article: Agwu Nsi

[edit]Ndebunze

Main article:

Ndebunze

Ndebunze, or Ndichie, are the deceased ancestors deified into Alusi. In Odinani, it is believed that the dead ancestors are invisible members of the community; their role in the community, in conjunction with Ala, is to protect the community from epidemics and strife such as famine and small pox.^[4]

[edit]Ikenga

Main article: Ikenga

[edit]Ekwensu

Main article:

Ekwensu

Ekwensu is an Igbo deity with a convoluted modern identity. Among the Christian Igbo, this deity is misrepresented as the Christian "Devil" or Satan and is seen as a force which places itself opposite to that of Chukwu.^[12] Anthropological studies suggest however that this traditional deity may have been a revered Trickster God, similar to Eshu in Orisha. This Alusi was adept at bargains and trade, and praying to Ekwensu was said to guarantee victory in negotiations. As a force of change and chaos, Ekwensu also represented the God of War among the Igbo. He was invoked during times of conflict and banished during peacetime to avoid his influences inciting bloodshed in the community. This is based upon the finding of old shrines dedicated to the worship of the deity^[13] as well as the recounting of old oral lores which depict the character of Ekwensu.^[14] Ekwensu is also the Igbo word for the tester.

Panentheism

Ọdịnala is a panentheistic faith, having a strong central deity at its head. All things spring from this deity. Although semi – pantheon exists in the belief system, as it does in many indigenous African and Eastern religions.

Chukwu is the central deity. Chukwu as the creator of everything (visible and invisible) and the source of other deities is referred to as Chineke. Chukwu is genderless possessing the supreme power in the cosmos control.

To the ancient Igbo, the force that is Chukwu is infinitely powerful that no mmadu (human being) approach this force directly. Also, the force does not impact into our worlds directly but rather through lower force (s). The general truth is that no person can work with or deal with Chukwu directly without passing through the lower force (s). This is why the Igbo people were easily captured by the teachings of the imported western religion which holds that either Christ of Christianity or Mohammed of Islam is a lower force.

The lower force(s) are the outflows from the main stream; sparks from the supreme force that takes forms. They are the incarnations of the almighty Chukwu. Ọdịnala identify these lower forces by their names and use a collective term Arushi to describe them. If an Arushi is assigned to an individual, it becomes a Chi.

The term ‘panentheism’ refer to as a belief system which posits that God personally exists, interpenetrates every part of nature and timelessly extends beyond it. Such interpenetrations in a spiritual view occur as lower deities or Arushi. Ọdịnala therefore, anchored its belief on the existence of only but one Supreme Being: Chukwu (God) and many lower supernatural beings or deities (Arushi).

Please note that this author has refrained from editing or modifying whatever you see here so that people who are not Igbos can better appreciate what was on the ground that our imperial religionists blacklisted as PAGANISM in their ignorance!

‘Chukwu’ in Ọdịnala

In Ọdịnala, every individual is assigned a personal providence; Chi. The mathematics here is very simple. Depending on the number of people living presently on Earth (Uwa), as many as possible number of Chis may exist. A person’s Chi is his right in the main source that is Chukwu. Chi as a spiritual being, takes care of any mmadu (human being) assigned to him in the lower World.

The overall Chi that indirectly takes care of everything (visible and invisible) is therefore, called ‘Chi Ukwu’ or Chukwu, the Supreme Being. This is why the Igbos used the phrases/sentences: ‘chi awughi otu’--- ‘personal guardians are not the same for everybody’; ‘otu Chukwu’ or ‘ofu Chukwu’----‘only one God’; ‘Chukwu ebuka’---- ‘God is great’ and ‘mu na chim’-----‘me and my godly guardian’.

Functions

There is a general spiritual law that one must pass through the lesser supernatural forces before he can make his ways to eternal. There are various routes that enable one to embark on a spiritual journey (i.e. different religion e.g. Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Eckankar, Judaism, Godianism, Ọdịnalaism and so on). No matter the route chosen, one must meet these forces severally on the way. These supernatural forces are the agents of purification of human beings (mmadu). They effects compressed the road and make it look very narrow. They may even block the road to eternity and cause people to continue running on cycles and meeting bad spirits.

The purpose of Ọdịnala is to restore peace, love and harmony between mmadu and the supernatural forces or (Arushi or deities). By ensuring that peace reigned, we can then manipulate they negative outcomes (that supposed to intrude into our lives) to yield positive effects. Through this way, we can get to our promise land with less suffering or struggles.

To restore peace, love and harmony between mmadu and Arushi is all about the dictation of our personal providence, Chi and doing the right thing. The spiritual peace, love and harmony will cleansing a person with both inner and outer experiences and prepare his ways back Chukwu. This will also go a longer way to determine a person’s level of morality, peaceful existence, harmony and love to people in the society. Also, the person will be on his way to his destiny in the physical world (Uwa). Once your destiny is actualized, you can then relate religion to humanity.

Chi

Chi is the personal spiritual guardian of a person. Chi as a personal providence is a divine agent assigned to each human from cradle to the coffin. Chukwu will assign one’s Chi before and at the time of birth, which remains with the person for the rest of his/her lives on Earth (Uwa). Chi simply means an Arushi (supernatural being) that is assigned to a human being for care, guardianship, and providence, which remains with that person until the end of his/her life on Earth. Unlike Chukwu which is genderless, Chi can be either feminine or masculine. It is the ocean Chukwu’s divine love that takes form on the lower world. It is the spark of Chukwu and the right of any mmadu in the main stream.

Chi determines a person’s successes, misfortunes, and failures throughout his/her lifetime. It serves as an intermediary between mmadu and Chukwu. The Igbo believe that their success in life is determined by their Chi, and that no human can rise past the greatness of his or her own Chi. In this respect, a person’s Chi is analogous to the concept of a guardian angel in Western Christianity, the daimon in ancient Greek religion, and the genius in ancient Roman religion.

To survive spiritually, one must establish a special relationship between oneself and one's godly guardian. This places the human person at the forefront of interlinked activities that involve other cosmic forces. But not so fast: He who walks before his godly guardian runs the race of his life “Onye buru chi ya uzo, ogbagbue onwe ya n'oso.”

Dictation of Chi

The Igbo know that the Almighty Chukwu (God) cannot be manipulated in any way. Our lot is etched on the palm of our hands as destiny. One can’t decode it, but one can derail it. Chi, the personal godly guardian, can be coerced to help here: “Onye kwe chi ya ekwe” (whoever believeth, achieveth).

Chi as the lower force of Chukwu is the only means through which one can get connected. One spiritual law here is that “No one reaches Chukwu directly or gets favor directly from the same supreme force except through Chi.” In this sense, dictation of one’s Chi marks the beginning of one’s spiritual journey on Earth. This is one of the major practices of Ndiigbo.

Often, people receive prophecy that the major cause of their failure is a spirit of their home town. This is not a general spirit for everybody but rather one’s personal Chi. If you receive such a prophecy, it means that Ọdịnala is calling you, which is a problem to some people. The only solution to such a problem is to dictate your personal providence, Chi; identify it by name and know what the spirit wants and how to placate/negotiate with it.

This may be difficult if the Dibias (priest in Ọdịnala) are not there. The Dibia can identify a person’s Chi through divination and give more of an idea how to placate it. For such spiritual purposes, one can visit any of the real temples of Ọdịnala e.g. Ukoma/Duruojikeeme Temple, Umunumo Amandugba, Isu, LGA, Imo State. There are many other temples around Igboland and the Igbo diaspora.

Kolanut Communion

Kolanut communion is the only holy communion in Ọdịnala. It is used to honor Chukwu, Chi, Arushi and Ndiichie. In this case, it is expected that the lower forces will participate and send the glory to almighty Chukwu. Also, by pouring libations, participating in kolanut communions entails being innocent before applying justice ("jide ofo, jide ogu").

Kolanut communion can be performed personally between one and his spirit or in group. It is actually the only time Ndiigbo traditionally pray together. Here, one is expected to go into communion with his personal providence, Chi as well as other concerned Arushi and Ndiichie (ancestors’ saints). This will clear the narrow road to Chukwu and create an increase in spiritual consciousness as you bargain in your spiritual journey.

Taking into Benevolence of Deities

The spiritual journey back to Chukwu is considered to be too tough; and the road very narrow. The Igbo considered it more appropriate to negotiate and navigate natural forces around them; the will of God cannot be manipulated or changed. They just need to get there without too much hassle.

The Earth Deities control the activities of good and evil spirits, which occasionally attempt to misdirect the destiny of human beings. The Igbo enter into pacts with these forces to take into their benevolence. The process is called "igommuo"(to placate/negotiate—not worship—spirits). Even Agwu ("the divination force" or the trickster Arushi, which causes confusion in the life of human beings) can be manipulated in afa (divination) to yield good effects.

It should be noted that the term ‘igommuo’ is an Igbo word meaning ‘to placate or to negotiate’. This term is sometime used in a derogatory manner by some people who described themselves as children of God and criticized others as children of devil. Meanwhile, as either a practitioner or a spiritual student of Ọdịnala you shouldn’t be afraid when they use the term in such way. You are on the right channel to Chukwu.

Afterlife

Ọdịnala belief in the concept of ‘life after life’. There are two cycles of life here. One cycle of this life is on earth while the other is in the spiritual world i.e. the other side of the realm. There are also two major calls in these cycles: (a). The inner call (which is to co-work with Chukwu in the spiritual world) and (b). The outer call (which is your destiny).

The final goal in Ọdịnala is anchored on answering the two calls once and for all in this lifetime with not too much hassle. Upon dictation of our personal providence (Chi), we are on our ways to our destiny (akalaaka). Actualizing ones destiny entails relating religion to humanity on Earth, thus answering the first call. The pattern of life chosen after meeting your destiny point will determine your level of acceptability after death as an ichie (a hallowed ancestor spirit or saint) in the spiritual world. In this case those who did good things on earth after meeting their destiny point; respect the laws of the land (iwu ala); died at ripened age and buried according to the traditions of the religion are usually accepted in the spiritual world to answer the final call.

Ekwensu

Ekwensu is a deity in Ọdịnala. Ekwensu is also the Igbo word for “the tester”. In Igbo mythology, Ekwensu was explained as a force of change and chaos and also represents the Arushi (deity) of war.

As a male Arushi in Igbo pantheon, he was believed by the ancient Igbo people as a deity who was invoked during times of conflict and banished during peacetime to avoid his influences inciting bloodshed in the community. The ancient Igbo descriptions of Ekwensu could be seen as a deity with a convoluted modern identity.

Among the Christian Igbo, this deity is misrepresented as the Christian ‘Devil’ or ‘Satan’ or ‘Demon’ and is seen as a force which places itself opposite to that of Chukwu (God). They conclusion is that Ekwensu is an evil spirit; thus, creating a false dichotomy. Acceptance of such teaching by some Igbo was possible simply because Ndiigbo have forgotten the Igbo mythology which places God in everything.

You shouldn’t be confused. No body! No spirit or deity! In fact no being (either visible or invisible) opposes the force that is Chukwu. The good, the bad and the ugly; all come from the ‘supreme being’ for one purpose or the other.

Dibia

Dibias are the spiritual masters and guardian of all spiritual students in the lower world (Uwa). The love of Chukwu has led to many dibias all over the Igbo land. Although, there are a lot of fake dibias and priest but the truth is still prevailing that dibias are the intermediates between a spiritual student and the spiritual world in Ọdịnala.

The physical destiny of a dibia is spiritual work. The dibias can see the spiritual world at any time and interpret what saw to his spiritual students. They are given the power to identify any Arushi by its name and as well prescribe possible ways of placating/negotiating with such spirit. They also use their power to identify herbs and their functions.

Spiritual Students

Spiritual students could be every other person other than the dibia. They are the followers of the religion. Unlike dibias, spiritual students do not see the spiritual world and are not even in need to do so. They have other business or work doing. They depend on the priest or dibias (i.e. the practitioner) for possible spiritual interpretations, placation / negotiation and divination. They may also depend on the dibias for herbs, charms and talisman –which may be used to overcome evil forces.

Where are you classified? Are you a dibia or a spiritual student? If you are a dibia, don’t panic because it is your destiny. Failure to do the work means rejection of a divine call in the physical world then the evil forces will take over your life. Also if you are a spiritual student, please remain on track. You may wish to sign –up with ‘Ọdịnala mystic world’ for your spiritual lessons to enable you forge ahead.

If you are neither a dibias nor a spiritual student, your name is sorry. You are therefore a ‘confused person’ of Igboland. Any ‘confused person’ may continue to run on cycles meeting bad spirits or even Satan (Ekwensu) itself. The person’s destiny may also be misdirected by these evil spirits. In an attempt to clear them using other routes, the person may place himself into suffer and hardship or eventually die on the way and reincarnate.

SOCIAL MOBILITY IN IGBO LAND WAS BY PERSONAL ACHIEVEMENT

THE CHOICE OF A CEREMONIAL LEADER IS DEPENDENT ON THE SOCIAL LADDER ONE HAD SUCCESSFULLY CLIMBED OR ACHIEVED IN LIFE APPROVED FOR KEEPING NSO ANI FROM CHILDHOOD, BEING AN HONEST HARDWORKING MAN OR WOMAN WHO HAS BEEN PURE, CHASTE AND DILIGENT BEFORE AND AFTER MARRIAGE TILL THE COMMUNITY RECOGNISES AND RESPECTS ONE’S INDIVIDUAL MERIT TO LEAD. IT HAS NEVER BEEN BY INHERITANCE BEFORE THE ARRIVAL OF WHITE MEN ON OUR SHORES! TODAY ALL THAT HAS CHANGED!

The narrative you find in Genesis 5, vv.21 – 24 and again in the Book of Sirach; Chapter 44, verse 16 makes a brief reference to Enoch. Read them now before evaluating my resume. Those narratives are instructive and it might be very beneficial for you spending some time analysing their import. The following are my humble conclusions after perusing them.

1. Enoch was an illiterate man. He obeyed the natural laws God put in his mind and the environment. Yet he was not corrupt like those around him who were described as ‘sinners’.

2. No one taught Enoch these natural laws that merited favour with the Almighty Creator of the whole universe even at the ripe age 365 years! Therefore the knowledge is in-born in humans!

3. Enoch who gave birth to Methuselah, a legend that lived 969 years, was neither a priest nor a prophet, yet he was pleasing to God! So could you and I!

SO IT IS STILL POSSIBLE TO PLEASE ALMIGHTY GOD WITHOUT BELONGING TO THE WARRING RELIGIONS OF TODAY. THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT ISM IS ALL ABOUT. YOU TOO, CAN REALLY PLEASE GOD WITHOUT BEING DEEPLY INVOLVED WITH THE MUNDANE RELIGIOUS POLITICS OF THIS AGE OF FANATICISM OR SYNCRETISM.

THE SECRET OF ENOCH WAS THAT HE HAD NO IDOLS.

He did not worship these idols: self-pride, love-of-money, indulgence-in-erotic-pleasures, lust-for-power, food & alcoholism. Rather, he obeyed all the natural laws he could decipher and was loyal to the Creator of his parents. He loved his fellow human beings, took care of them and showed his concern for them. A simple and uncomplicated life on this planet Earth will merit you the same reward HE got! Imitate him in thoughts, words and deeds. That is exactly I. S. M!

CHAPTER FIVE

ALL THE FALSE CLAIMS BY IDOLATROUS CHRISTENDOM THAT WAS PATENTED IN ROME MUST BE DISMANTLED

Religious symbols have been borrowed across cultures and religious boundaries for centuries that they rarely mean same things to a variety of fanatical followers or worshippers of the plethora of religions and denominations in our present world. How do we penetrate centuries of historical distortions of the originals to define the pristine truths from nature and established by our Creator so that we can arrive at the most objective version that is egalitarian, humane and applicable in all cultures, time and clime for world peace?

Or, put in another fashion, how can we be certain that the doctrines and dogmas we hold on to today were/are not merely fake theories from the past. In short, how do we sift truth from human beliefs, myths, legends and/or fables forged and fabricated by sages of old or demagogues whose objectives were merely manipulating the masses of their generation into reverencing and/or obeying them sheepishly? This is the task before all of us. It is the only way to arrive at ONE WORLD RELIGION. That is Integrational Spiritan Movement, led by the Holy Spirit of the Genuine Creator we all ought to worship! A.k.a KENEZIANISM.

Where I was born, we have this local saying; ‘He who does not know where the rainfall starting beating him, will never know where it stopped’. Another warns; “A rat that joins a lizard in playing in the rain, to remember that when the lizard is dry, it will still be wet.” In my culture, one does not interpret proverbs. Simply put, “One, who does not know who he is and where he is coming from, does not know where he is going especially in religion!”

The music I am about to play is not for every human being to dance! It is only for those matured humans with sturdy legs and pliable pelvic girdles. Only those who are prepared to stand out of the crowd are qualified to read this controversial dissertation. For my local lyrics for the brave warriors of old counsels; “If you have strengthened your heart for real challenges, then put your hands!” This is purely a literal rendition. Its true import is this: “Unless you are fortified as a lion-hearted warrior, do not join in this war dance!”

All over the world, the supposedly rational animal that prides itself with being the only one with language and reason has been manipulated into swallowing toxic wastes in the name of faith! From birth, one is conditioned to swallow the community’s or parents’ religious practices without questions! The general mass hysteria is that doctrines, dogmas and rituals were handed down through some prophets and priests and therefore no one dares challenge their real worth; neither their veracity, their utilitarian values nor their mutual benefits! That is now history for intelligent humans who will read and understand this book! That has been the remote cause of racism, religious intolerance and the production of majority and minority races.

In the thick rainforests of Biafra, before the arrival of the first white man on the African continent, bond-fide male indigenes in Eze Awara’s kingdom were warriors reputed for swallowing razor-sharp cutlasses or swords and thereafter excreting them at will or whenever they wanted. They solved the ‘impossibles’ by removing the ‘im’ to convert them to the ‘possibles”. “If you have strengthened your heart for real challenges, then put forward your hands!” You, too, can vomit the toxic cutlass of dogmas today! This book puts an end to myopic crusades and jihads!

The religious tradition of our forefathers has been overthrown by imported versions that our youths disregard or pay lip service to. It is the adult population that is corrupting the youth. There are no role models for the youth; neither among the fake pastors and money seeking evangelists nor among the inept public servants and the corrupt political class. That is the genesis of youth restiveness, social malaise and adult/juvenile delinquency that has escalated to unmanageable proportions in Nigeria. For too long, our people have been wearing masks; the commercial mask worn by traders from Mondays to Fridays when they extort and cheat their customers. Civil service mask of pretences is a corollary! Then religiosity mask is worn by all for funeral ceremonies and condolence visits on Saturdays and finally, the Christian mask worn on Sundays!

There is a plethora of ancient and modern major world religions. In each, there are factions, sects and denominations. It is syncretism galore! The name of the game is “join our own, ours is the one prospering for now!” It is a religious market!! It is a mad world!!! Many nationals all over the globe are smarting under the colonial yoke of Roman Catholicism or Islamism. The intriguing aspect of this brand of neo-colonialism is that it brews dogmas and doctrines that propel fanatical members to kill or be killed in the name of ‘God’. Religious fanaticism or mysticism is a religio-psychiatric personality disorder that has never been classified by any DSM and so has never been diagnosed and managed as other psychopathological conditions that present in health services all over the world!

The Almighty Creator or Ultimate Controller of the Universe has no name! One can only give names to what one completely owns and has power over their existence; life or death! In my community, we only use his divine attributes to address him in speech and supplication. This is how it ought to be. Those using the term “God” have never spelt it backwards! Do so now! Do you now realise that the terminology is not only demonic but derogatory and insane. Stop using it!

Human knowledge wears blinkers. At other times, it wears coloured sun glasses and so we see only the colorinations presented as truth. Truth does not wear any make-up. Our knowledge of things is definitely incomplete! Religious symbols have been borrowed across cultures and religious boundaries for centuries that they rarely mean same things to a variety of fanatical followers or worshippers of the plethora of religions and denominations in our present world.

At this juncture, let me repeat; “How do we penetrate centuries of historical distortions of the originals to define the pristine truths from nature and established by our Creator so that we can arrive at the most objective version that is egalitarian, humane and applicable in all cultures, time and clime for world peace?” It is our ignorance and outright incompetence about the nature of divine beings and the true nature of independence among finite beings that generate religious bigotry and world wars!

The fallacy of HUMAN CONCEPTS OF THE ULTIMATE CREATOR AND WHAT HE DEMANDS OF ALL OF US is similar to the verdicts of the four blind men who went on an excursion to know what the elephant looked like. But in our case in religious buffoonery, it is not the personal verdicts of the first set of the blind men that we hold on to; that unfortunately is the tragedy of current day Religionists and the breeding ground for puerile bigotry, fanaticism, doctrines, dogmas, crusades and jihads. It is futile to not only believe the verdicts of the earliest FOUR BLIND MEN who were actually wrong but psychotically paranoid to swallow the bastardised versions handed down by degenerate grandsons of those cowardly and shameless blind men who never made the trip at all!

So many blind religious leaders do not even set out to make the trip! Rather, they are satisfied by propagating what other blind men heard from the original four blend men that really touched the elephant. So it is that a thousand interpretations of what the wise explorers concluded is now bandied about what the original elephant looked and still looks like. The Elephant in his majesty refuses to say a word! Why, you may ask! It is unnecessary for the glory, majesty and truths about true worship of Our Almighty Creator abound in Nature and the sane observe them on a daily and hourly basis 365 days every year! Only the blind do not want to see the Natural and Eternal Laws he engraved into each macrocosm and microcosm He has made and given to all His Creations to share. We are equal heirs to His Infinite Love!

To rescue humanity from the demonic stranglehold of idolatry that now predominates worldwide, you are invited to reason along with us and see that we provide an everlasting cure for sensual lust for food, wine, sex, wealth and power that are the trademarks of a society heading for damnation! Are you going to sit on the fence and wait for another failed experiment in Messiahship that was riddled with myopic and ethnocentric bias? Who knows the Creator well enough to declare that he has ‘a chosen people’? Or, that he had only one son? If mere mortals, like this writer and other virile men can have seven sons from one fertile woman, then, who limited him to only one son? Who is the father of all the other men who had been sent earlier on? --Rev. Prof. J. J. Kenez is asking everyone!

Where is the evidence that Moses actually led the so-called people out of any oppressive regime? The history books and modern encyclopaedia did not record the enslavement of the Jewish race except as ‘they were believed as revealed truths’. Then Moses, who was brought up in an Egyptian royal court went on to introduce the first and most heinous dichotomy in racism; JEWS and GENTILES! The negative impact of that first categorisation of humanity gave birth to all the nepotic, apartheid and racist policies in the entire world. Could a universal saviour utter; “It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the little dogs.” Matt 15:26-27, NKJV. When shall we ever learn? Did Confucius, Zoroaster, Buddha, Jesus or Mohammed ever preach syncretism? The answer is an affirmative NO! Only Moses, due to depersonalisation syndromes emanating from years of the enslavement of his kith and kin in Egypt and his personal refugee status in Midian before he was recalled to lead them out, inadvertently introduced segregationist concepts encapsulated in the Mosaic laws of ‘clean and unclean’ injunctions that culminated in ‘the Jew and the Gentile’ racist policies. Jesus failed to address this succinctly before he was crucified. As it stands today, there is no evidence that he actually succeeded in his mission.

As far as we are concerned in Kenezianism, it was disastrous! It was a costly price for every religious leader who failed to address parochial issues embedded in its tenets and modes of worship! To date, any failure to resolve ethnic issues in the sermons of current preachers will have similar repercussions! Did he reconcile the descendants of Esau, Ishmael and Jacob? No! Did he identify with the Samaritans, Greek or other ‘Gentile’ citizens of his epoch? No! Did he integrate the Roman Rulers of his time with his ethnic group? No! That is why Arab-Israeli wars will never have an end! There were many other leaders, religious and/or political, in history that paid for the same negligence. The concept that he died for everyone is not only preposterous, irrational and obsolete but also idiosyncratic and outrageously fanatical, for up till now, present Jews and previous ones never acknowledged that idea. To-date, the Jewish race is still expecting a Saviour! The scenario is the same in Islam, as can be seen by all the violence that breakaway factions have introduced to it! Some scholars argue that it is not a Religion, but a Rebellion against the highhandedness of Roman Catholic Church all down the ages when the Roman Pontiff ruled the entire world and carried their infamous crusades!

It was Saul of Tarsus who marketed the idea of a universal saviour, as he was making reparations for murdering Stephen and many early followers that he had dispatched to impromptu graves! Later as Emperor Constantine capitulated to the doctrines of Saul of Tarsus in order to marry a Christian girl he had fallen in love with, the pagan emperor eventually convened the Council of Nicea for all religious leaders in his empire and overnight deified Jesus of Nazareth! Historians tell us that he relied on the sign of the cross; an insignia on all the armours of his soldiers Paul had suggested, with which he achieved what he believed was his most successful military campaign. The Evil One had again manipulated humanity into another FULL SCALE IDOLATRY that is reigning to date! When shall we ever learn!

The truth will always surface no matter for how long it is buried. Let us learn to apportion blame wherever and whenever they are due. Hero worship never pays any lasting dividends. Idolising a great leader detracts from total loyalty and the true worship we owe to the Almighty Father; the Indisputable Immovable Mover, the Great Architect and Omniscient Creator of the universe and all of us; human beings, plants, animals, animate microcosms and other inanimate macrocosms. It is time to proclaim the true Unitarian Godhead! It will erase the concept of “infidels” and “gentiles” that has been the albatross of factionalism in the religious circles worldwide and usher in an internationally recognised theology that can unify humanity. This is the main objective of Kenezianism, a.k.a. Integrational Spiritan Movement, (ISM). All Trinitarians are idolaters who copied it from the ancient symbols of the religions of the Far East and those of Egyptian mythology! The “Madonna” and “Queen of the Coast” were all borrowed from previous religions, so also is the recitations of the chaplet that now traverse a variety of denominations!

How can we be certain that the doctrines and dogmas we hold on to today were/are not merely fake theories from the past? In short, how do we sift truth from human beliefs, myths, legends and/or fables forged and fabricated by sages of old or demagogues whose objectives were merely manipulating the masses of their generation into reverencing and/or obeying them sheepishly? This is the task before all of us. It is the only way to arrive at ONE WORLD RELIGION. That is Integrational Spiritan Movement, led by the Holy Spirit of the Genuine Creator we all ought to worship, a.k.a Kenezianism. If you care to join us in a sanitation exercise that will guarantee a better future for your children, then come, read, observe, witness and finally analyse the development of religion from time immemorial to evaluate its subjugation to man-made doctrines, dogmas and modes of worship that are irreligious! Thereafter, we can seek for solutions as proposed by the computer-age integrational fellowship; INTEGRATIONAL SPIRITAN MOVEMENT, abbreviated thus: I S M.

Every individual nature is part of the cosmos. To live virtuously means to live in accord with one's nature, to live according to the natural and eternal laws the designer of the universe intended by employing truth and right reason in all we do. Because passion and emotion are considered irrational movements of the soul, the wise individual seeks to eradicate the passions and consciously embrace the rational life. “True law is right reason in agreement with Nature; it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting; it summons to duty by its commands and averts from wrongdoing by its prohibitions. . . . There will not be different laws at different countries or communities, or different laws now and in the future, BUT ONE ETERNAL AND UNCHANGEABLE LAW WILL BE VALID FOR ALL NATIONS AND FOR ALL TIMES.” The natural laws governing all living things; birth, growth, respiration, movement, nutrition, excretion, reproduction and finally death hold sway in every place on planet earth under normal temperature and pressure. Humans have the same anatomy and physiology despite our differing languages, child-rearing practices, skin colour, racial differences and social statuses. We are the offspring of the Almighty Creator of the macrocosms and microcosms we share. Our survival in our variety of physical environment follows the same laws. No man is an island. We need each other! Rev. Prof. J. J. Kenez also contends that natural laws are sacrosanct for they were made by the Almighty Architect and Engineer who created every being on planet; EARTH. They are divine and eternal; because they are universal and are no respecters of places and times of birth, parentage, race, educational level or religion! There are so many self-evident examples; the movement of the sun and moon regulate the hours of day, night, weeks, months and years; so also do gravity, temperature, pressure, emotion, motivation, conception, pregnancy, labour and birth regulate family life. If anyone disagrees, let him provide evidence to the contrary. The founders of HAPPY FAMILY NETWORK, INTEGRATIONAL SPIRITAN MOVEMENT AND FINALLY FAMILY LIFE COLLEGE, therefore, posit that human slavery, in whatever form it is used to deny any Homo sapiens and others their fundamental human rights, was/is and will forever remain illegal! Caste systems must be abrogated both in civil and religious circles all over the world to arrive at;

 ONE ALMIGHTY CREATOR, ONE CREATED UNIVERSE, ONE HUMAN FAMILY, ONE GLOBAL FAITH and ONE MODE OF WORSHIP; which is our creed

 SERVICE TO HUMANITY INTERNATIONALLY; is the lifestyle of all bona-fide members,

 LOYALTY TO THE ABSOLUTE TRUTH; in every thought, word or deed is our international social ethics &

 OBEDIENCE TO ALL THE NATURAL & ETERNAL LAWS OF THE CREATOR; is our gospel worldwide.

If you want to be a foundation member of the board of directors for this all-inclusive humanitarian FAMILY LIFE COLLEGE send us a proposal of what you can contribute and attach a brief CV, your contact addresses and a current passport sized photo of yourself.

Once you can pool your resources and co-ordinate a hundred like-minds who are rational thinkers in your community either by Face book networking or any other ingenious methodology, contact us for inauguration. We do not care whether you ‘believe in God or gods’! The Creator has never had, has and will never have a name by any language or be labelled by his creatures! Those who use ‘God or god’ have never spelt it backwards to see its demonic origin! The only qualification you need is that you are a sane human being who is naturally objective, is ready to respect the opinions of others and is prepared to disabuse the mind of all previous indoctrinations that you had been forced to swallow hook, line and sinker since childhood.

This medical scientist, pragmatic researcher and existential therapist, Dr Jideofo Kenechukwu Danmbaezue also known as Rev. Prof. J. J. Kenez is proposing that we scrutinise all the religious and ethnocentric prejudices that had enslaved many children right from birth, who were born into their parents religio-cultural practices and were never given the freedom to search for objective methods of relating to their maker and other humans. Can you join us to make this feasible?

A KENEZIAN EPILOGUE

DR KENEZ SUMMATION OF FAITH FROM PREVIOUS RELIGIONS THAT CAN ENTHRONE REAL PEACE FOR CITIZENS OF THE GLOBAL VILLAGE

There is one supreme eternal reality; the truth; imminent in all things; creator of all things; immanent in creation. Without fear and without hatred; not subject to time; beyond birth and death; self-revealing. This Eternal Reality is known only by the Divine Revelations from His Grace.

Faith is ultimately the acceptance of the divine authority of the Omnipotent and Omniscient Almighty Creator of the universe we share with all the other beings he has made; micro/macrocosms, living and non-living beings that regularly obey the natural and eternal laws he embedded in his creations for our mutual benefits.

----Rev. Prof. J. J. Kenez (1999)

By faith is meant, first, conscious knowledge, and second, the practice of good deeds. "Know, therefore, that only the LORD your Creator is the Ultimate Reality, the Absolute Truth. Only he is the steadfast Godhead who keeps His gracious covenant to the all who believe and trust in his everlasting love and fatherly care for beings, seen and unseen to the tens, hundreds and thousandth generations of those who love Him and keep His commandments." Hence, recognizing and affirming that this One Almighty Creator of the entire Universe is our Father/Mother and therefore, only to this Creator is total worship due. Our corporate willingness, commitment and submission to this One Creator that exists guarantees all that are alive sustenance, and to His prescriptions for living in accordance with his ordained eternal and natural laws is surely the only assurance of living a good life assured to anyone who (1) believes in Him, and (2) believes in the Last Day, and (3) leads a righteous life, will receive their recompense from the Lord. They have nothing to fear, nor will they grieve." ------------- ISM Integrational Faith (2013)

Faith in Buddhism centres on the understanding that the Buddha is an Awakened being, on his superior role as teacher, in the truth of his Dharma (spiritual teachings), and in his Sangha (community of spiritually developed followers).

In the teachings, saddhā is often described as:

· a conviction that something is

· a determination to accomplish one's goals

· a sense of joy deriving from the other two spiritual teachings and in community of spiritually developed followers.

As a counter to any form of "blind faith", the Buddha's teachings included those included in the Kalama Sutra, exhorting his disciples to investigate any teaching and to live by what is learnt and accepted, rather than believing in something simply because it is taught.

Meher Baba described three types of faith, emphasizing the importance of faith in a spiritual master:

"One of the most important qualifications for the aspirant is faith. There are three kinds of faith: (i) faith in oneself, (ii) faith in the Master and (iii) faith in life. Faith is so indispensable to life that unless it is present in some degree, life itself would be impossible. It is because of faith that cooperative and social life becomes possible. It is faith in each other that facilitates a free give and take of love, a free sharing of work and its results. When life is burdened with unjustified fear of one another it becomes cramped and restricted....Faith in the Master becomes all-important because it nourishes and sustains faith in oneself and faith in life in the very teeth of set-backs and failures, handicaps and difficulties, limitations and failings. Life, as man knows it in himself, or in most of his fellow-men, may be narrow, twisted and perverse, but life as he sees it in the Master is unlimited, pure and untainted. In the Master, man sees his own ideal realised; the Master is what his own deeper self would rather be. He sees in the Master the reflection of the best in himself which is yet to be, but which he will surely one day attain. Faith in the Master therefore becomes the chief motive-power for realising the divinity which is latent in man."

THE BAROMETRE OF MORAL DECADENNCE

In summary, one can measure the moral ethics, moral health and social ethics of any civilised or uncivilised society or semi-urban, urban or rural community by the pre-eminent value they inculcate in their younger generation of marriage and family life and the mores and norms they place on sexual relationships.

Before the arrival of foreign religions in Biafra, ONE COULD NOT IMAGINE DREAM NOR HEAR OF ABORTION, INFANTICIDE OR DIVORCE. Today it is no news as the presumed religious leaders are the one in the forefront of the desecration of family values. May be an excerptfrom my book entitled GRADUATES OF SATAN’S UNIVERSITY will bring home to you the extent of damage already done on NSO ANI and MORAL PROBITY in Igbo Land;

The Association for the Abrogation of Celibacy in the Catholic Church is the answer to all the immoral acts that irreverent priest and nuns have unleashed on our erstwhile holy and sacrosanct rural and urban communities in Igbo Land.! Their Animator International states that; “Celibacy is a legislation that can be abrogated anytime.” It is a convenience that can be dispensed with as soon as it is grossly abused and becomes counterproductive. That is what it is for now! Therefore, it must be abrogated or, in the least optionalised!

“If clerical celibacy has out-lived its usefulness, what is the need of clinging tenaciously to it? This is an absurdity on the part of the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy”. In medical language, it is giving a wrong diagnosis while a sick patient is in a comatose state! Alternatively, shall we take it that the Church Fathers support the numerous sex scandals rocking the boat? Or, has it become so insensitive to the evidence of cases of paedophilia in USA, of lesbian and homosexual relationships reported in the mass media and so many incidences of promiscuity in other parts of the globe and that warrants our “separated brethren” laughing us to scorn? Why has the Pope and the Cardinals turned their eyes the other way? Are they neck deep in these scandals themselves? Probably it is a case of those living in glass houses not throwing stones at each other? They are blind pastors leading the faithful!

Our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, had prophesied about them when he compared them to the religious leaders of his time. He reiterated that they were hypocrites that devoured the homes of widows. He labelled them, “white sepulchres, which on the outside looked clean but were rotten and decaying on the inside.” Anyone who deceptively takes a vow of celibacy, deliberately violates it regularly without any pricks of the conscience is a definitely a disciple of Satan. That is why we refer to them as ‘Postgraduates of Satan’s University.’ They are candidates for hellfire and they will lead as many of us as they can to the same place. They are only working for their master, Lucifer! Listen to what Jesus Christ said about such hypocrites who take false vows in New Testament account of Matthew’s Gospel, Chapter 23, vv. 25 - 28:

“How terrible for you, teachers of the Law and Pharisees! You hypocrites! You clean the outside of your cup and plate, while the inside is full of what you have obtained by violence and selfishness. Blind Pharisee! Clean what is inside the cup first, and then the outside will be clean too!: “How terrible for you, teachers of the Law and Pharisees! You hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look fine on the outside but are full of bones and decaying corpses on the inside. In the same way, on the outside you appear good to everybody, but on the inside, you are full of hypocrisy and sins.”

Does anyone need an interpretation for those simple statements of facts? What does a tomb covered with tiles look like theses days? White! Suppose you dig up the contents after three months, what will you find inside? Dry bones, nails, hairs, the teeth, the skull and may be some decaying flesh!

Today, that is what the Nigerian clergy is! Our Protestant married priests are now preferred! Many of these erring brothers and sisters of our Catholic community come to my clinic. Nevertheless, that does not solve the matter! They go to physicians and gynaecologists who are not Catholics; and probably in mufti, and still accomplish their infanticide mission. My colleagues laugh at me! Our teaching hospitals and private clinics are inundated with so many cases that I blush whenever I meet with some of the irreverent ‘Rev. Fathers and Sisters!’ I may be forced to document some of these aberrations if nothing tangible is done by the local ordinaries of these erring sons and daughters of ours! This is definitely “abomination standing in a holy place”!

During the civil war, I handled more than five hundred cases, mostly out of paternal concern and humanitarian principles. I pitied the refugee girls and women who were the commonest preys of these amorous parish priests that used stockfish, egg-yolk and milk, donated by CARITAS as their baits! Often, I had to turn them back. The story has not changed much! Only their baits have changed and their methodologies have greatly been improved on. Their new treacheries and cover-ups have undergone metamorphosis, but they can never outwit old hands in our profession!

My colleagues, still in active service, report that the upsurge is astronomical. The most current evidence to buttress the incidence and frequency of these scandalous practices by our ‘celibate children’ is that five hundred cases of HIV/AIDS involving Rev. Fathers and Sisters have been recorded at all the teaching hospitals nation-wide. The story is the same in other sister African countries; Ghana, Ivory Coast, Gambia, Kenya, Malawi, Angola and South Africa! The papacy must exempt Africans from the foolery of pretences at a celibate culture! It is ‘Un-African’, to say the least. Moreover, the scandalous lessons this clerical subterfuge passes on to our youth, most especially the young girls and women who are the victims of these amorous relationships does more harm to their spiritual development than whatever ablutions they get at their weekly confessions. It is a blatant mockery of the sacrament of reconciliation!

By God’s grace, I am an octogenarian. It is equally ‘Un-African’ for an elder to see evil, sit complacently and not warn the youth about its impending and disastrous consequences. I have done my duty! If nothing is done, and fast too, we shall be left with no option than to assert that celibacy is a canonical camouflage designed to shelter all those who are incapable of living the monogamous lifestyle demanded by the sacrament of Holy Matrimony! It shall then be obvious that it is an institutionalised welcome haven for those having sociopathological inadequacies! For now, that is what it represents among the Igbos of Biafra in West Africa, who love children and cherish family life dearly!

P R E F A C E

THE RAISON D’ÊTRE

Current sex scandals in Catholic dioceses all over the world and in many parishes of the African Church have necessitated the timely formation of an association of deeply concerned parents, with the sole objective of sanitising the congregation of what is regarded today as the greatest demonic attack on decency, purity, holiness and social ethics! Many postgraduates of Satan’s universities have invaded our churches. We urgently need to checkmate them!

IT IS SEX SCANDALS GALORE AS AT NOW!

It is hoped that this association, as a child of necessity, will save us the recurrent shame, stigmatisation and embarrassment serious minded members of the clergy and our faithful laity suffer at the hands of our separated brethren. They are fully aware of the deceit going on. Now they deride us on the false claims we make on celibacy and so laugh us to scorn! We have no excuses for the flagrant violations of the vows of chastity and virginity by our sons and daughters!

The words of Apostle Peter, in 2^nd Peter 2: 17-22, Good News Bible edition (GNB) is prophetic and says it all!

v.17: These men are like dried-up springs, like clouds blown along by a storm; God has reserved a place for them in the deepest darkness.

v.18: They make proud and stupid statements, and use immoral bodily lusts to trap those who are just beginning to escape from among people who live in error.

v.19: They promise them freedom while they themselves are slaves of destructive habits—for a person is a slave of anything that has conquered him.

v.20: If people have escaped from the corrupting forces of the world through their knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and then are again caught and conquered by them, such people are in a worse state at the end than they were at the beginning.

v.21: It would have been much better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than to know it and then turn away from the sacred command that was given them.

v.22: What happened to them shows that the proverbs are true:

“A dog goes back to what it has vomited” and “A pig that has been washed goes back to roll in the mud.”

What else can be more appropriate in describing our erring religious hypocrites than the last two verses? One takes a vow of chastity or that of virginity after fifteen years of training at the seminary or a minimum of seven years after a postulancy at a convent respectively. Thereafter, such candidates flaunt the vow and unrepentantly indulge in promiscuous sexual exploits shortly after a mission-sponsored tutelage and the diocesan ceremonies of ordinations or solemn professions usually well orchestrated and extensively financed by the laity! This cancerous sore deserves a surgical excision!

Is this not a variant of the abominations of desolation standing in holy places?

Has Satan taken over our seminaries and convents or are the spiritual directors and formators to be held responsible for this turn of events? Subterfuge, deceit and pretence must have been so eulogised, practised and indulged in at some of the religious training grounds, otherwise how can anyone explain how these wolves in sheep’s clothing survived the rigorous classical conditioning and role-modelling of their formators for so long. The sorrows of parents of these wayward candidates are better imagined than experienced!

The situation has so got out of hand that the warnings of Jesus Christ himself now apply to our clergy. The whole of chapter twenty-three of the gospel according to Matthew is an apt description of the depravity of most of our present day priests! Currently, about fifty-five cases of reported HIV/AIDS patients in our teaching hospitals are those of our young men and women in religious cassocks, gowns and veils of all descriptions. However only one appellation truly fits them all, and that is- HYPOCRITES!

THE STATUS QUO OF CLERICAL CELIBACY TODAY

“CELIBACY, is the state of being unmarried, with abstinence from sexual activity. Considered a form of asceticism (q.v.), it has been practiced in many religious traditions: in ancient Judaism, by the Essenes; and in Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism, by the members of monastic groups.

In Christianity, monks and nuns in both the Western and Eastern churches have practiced celibacy. In the Eastern Church, parish clergy are permitted to marry before ordination, but bishops are selected from among the unmarried clergy. In the Roman Catholic Church, celibacy is required of all clergy in the Latin Rite. The church holds that this practice is sanctioned, although not required, by the New Testament, basing this claim upon what it avers to have been the constant tradition of the church and upon several biblical texts (notably, 1 Cor. 7:6-7, 25; Matt. 19:12). The principles upon which the law of celibacy is founded are (1) that the clergy may serve God with more freedom and with undivided heart; and (2) that, being called to serve Jesus Christ; they may embrace the holier life of self-restraint. This statement does not imply, it is said, that matrimony is not a holy state but simply that celibacy is a state of greater perfection.

Having no doctrinal bearing in the Roman Catholic Church, celibacy is regarded as a purely disciplinary law. A dispensation from the obligation of celibacy has occasionally been granted to ecclesiastics under exceptional circumstances, for instance, to provide an heir for a noble family in danger of extinction.

The Protestant reformers rejected the celibacy of the clergy, Martin Luther setting the example to his followers by marrying a former nun. Both the marriage of ministers and the abolition of monastic vows became common features of those bodies that withdrew their allegiance from the Roman Catholic Church. According to the articles of religion of the Church of England, "bishops, priests, and deacons are not commanded by God's law, either to vow the estate of single life, or to abstain from marriage; therefore it is lawful for them, as for all other Christian men, to marry at their own discretion, as they shall judge the same to serve better to godliness."

The history of priestly celibacy has been a stormy one since it became law for the clergy of the Latin Rite in the 6th century. Although Pope Paul VI, in his encyclical of June 24, 1967, reaffirmed the traditional position, the requirement of priestly celibacy remains a much-disputed ecclesiastical question.”

Excerpts from INFOPEDIA, the ultimate in information & historical data, USA, 2000

THE SCENARIO IN NIGERIA

· At UNTH some years back, a convent girl was used at the medical students’ practical session to demonstrate the early signs of pregnancy in a virgin. The naïve postulant was made to stand in front of students of her age and narrate what happens to her early in the morning. ‘Of course her descriptions are nothing peculiar’, the mischievous Consultant explained to the class, ‘Congrats my dear, you are a very good sample of a healthy mother-to-be, you are pregnant!” he thundered.

You can only conceptualise the loud ovation or the sarcastic uproar that greeted the Consultant’s verdict! Then imagine the scorn and shame the Catholic medical students had to bear because of a parish priest’s secret love affair with the adolescent girl who honestly desired the vocation and seriously hoped to become an exemplary Reverend Sister!

· At a wedding in my hometown back in 1992, a handsome light complexioned Rev. Fr. travelled all the way from Umuahia to officiate at St Martin’s Parish, Odoata-Ihiala. The grandmother of the bridegroom was at hand to witness the ceremony despite her aging frame and figure! She insisted on being present at her first grandson’s wedding feast, but for a different reason altogether as the events of the wedding celebration unfolded. At the end of the cutting of the wedding cake, she requested to speak. Sitting in front of the audience with the microphone secure in her trembling hands, she feebly implored the visiting Rev. Fr. not to forget to take along with him the beautiful daughter the bride bore for him prior to being engaged to her grandson. “We have taken care of her for you for three years now!” she concluded. You can imagine the livid consternation her confession caused in the reception hall!

This is only the tip of the iceberg, as many such violations of the vow of celibacy and worse stories from the convents litter all our parishes. One cannot recount even ninety percent of them were such a one to narrate for ten hours the sex scandals perpetrated under the unnatural guise of a celibate life that no African is qualified for, let alone programmed to keep! We have been deceiving ourselves all these years. Before the civil war, this author could vouch for 33% of the Rev. Gentlemen who took their sacred vows seriously. Now, he cannot even swear an affidavit for as little as 0.05%.

The current vocation explosion is thanks to this nonchalant attitude to the vows of obedience, poverty and chastity. Most of the candidates for the religious life nowadays, are frustrated applicants who now see easy life and sensual pleasure as the exclusive preserve of clandestine Rev. Frs. and impious Rev. Srs. They are the only ones permitted by the Church to dissect the sexual enjoyment in Holy Matrimony from the difficult roles and duties of parenthood as demanded by the Canon Laws of the Holy Roman Catholic Church. They enjoy sex without the corresponding responsibility of pregnancy, gestation period, labour pains, delivery and child rearing involved in it. Let those who want to marry come out and do so honourably! It is time to put an end to pretence and public deceit!

The seven or more items listed on the title page will be treated on separate well research volumes. For now, only the first has been examined. The treatise is neither comprehensive nor exhaustive! Every concerned parent or Christian is invited to make his or her inputs on any of the listed aberrations in the theory and practice of Christianity today and mail it to the headquarters of the INTEGRATIONAL SPIRITAN MOVEMENT, a fellowship for all natural scientists for immediate publication.

Feel free to communicate with us by dialling 042-550344 or 0804-2719800, e-mail saintkenez@yahoo.co.uk.

Many seminarians and postulants are virgins at their ordinations and first professions! They are sincere on the vows they take. However, their seniors who are already morally depraved and demonised seduce them into joining the cohort of fraudsters in cassocks and veils!

Many young Reverend Sisters equally, report that they were initiated into illicit sex exploits by their parish priests or those they trusted. Platonic love affairs became translated into concubinage within the first three years of their profession. Some, rather than withdrawing and getting married legally, are then convinced that everyone was indulging in it, so why should they leave?

That there is an option to this deceitful aberration is all that the association for the abrogation of celibacy in the Catholic Church is saying. This clandestine misapplication of what Paul said in his letter to the Corinthian Church is the genesis of the mass deception! It did not make celibacy either obligatory or mandatory, but optional. So, who invented this compulsory application?

1 Corinthians 7:1-9

7:1 Now for the matters you wrote about: It is good for a man not to marry.

2 But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband.

3 The husband should fulfil his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband.

4 The wife's body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband's body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife.

5 Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

6 I say this as a concession, not as a command.

7 I wish that all men were as I am. But each man has his own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that.

8 Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am.

9 But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

It is this wrong misapplication of what the apostle recommended that is the crux of the matter. Our association is only asking that we sanitise the priesthood and stop the mass deception. It is evident to members of the mass servers and altar girls that both Rev. Frs. & Rev. Srs. Do not keep the vow. Here is our position:

1. Celibacy must be made optional, with priests allowed to renew their choice every three years for the first ten years of their ordination. They should be as free as Reverend Sisters to marry if they have fallen in love with someone they feel can assist them live a happily married life and an exemplary Christian life!

2. Only those who are resolute in their virginity can then aspire to becoming full-

time Parish Priests, with the prospect of becoming Papal Chamberlains

at the fifteenth year of their ordination! They have the option of voluntarily

undergoing vasectomy to confirm their perpetual loyalty to the Church!

3. A broad-based Diocesan Commission of both the laity and the clergy can interview and appoint some of the married priests as reliable vicars in their home parishes. However, they will find their own accommodation and cater for their families as they will be paid salaries and sick-call allowances!

Both the few honest celibates and the uncountable dishonest ‘celibates’ know that this is the truth of the matter. Therefore, the African Synod of Bishops should take the option Pope John Paul II gave them. In African culture, elders do not tell lies nor propagate falsehood or false lifestyles. That is the essence of the Ozo-titles that are conferred on trust-worthy citizens, whose tongues are washed and minds rid of subterfuge during the rituals of purification in the long drawn out ceremonies. Most of these clerics want the abolition of the obnoxious dogma but are cautious lest any one says that he or she has been indulging in its violation. That is the origin of all the ‘hide-me-& I-hide-you’ scenario we are being treated to! Let the honest ones come out boldly and condemn the unnatural law of celibacy. They will gain greater respect!

We are equal partners in this business of sanitising all Christian Churches! We cannot shy away from our responsibilities to chart a new course and so sanitise our Catholic Church! Get as many people as possible to fill out the registration forms at the back of the book. Enlist only dedicated and devout practitioners of the Christian Faith to join us. God be with you as the Holy Spirit guides you. For “Surely, His Goodness and Mercy shall follow us all the days of our lives and we shall dwell in the house of the Almighty God, for ever and ever”.

In support of my recommendations, now read 1^st Maccabees 1, 2 & 3.

I might as well insert verbatim my earlier dedication page to that diatribe here:

DEDICATION

To the million souls that were deliberately aborted and have been sent to limbo due to the promiscuous lifestyles of our erring brothers and sisters!

To all the underage that have been abused sexually by the homosexual and lesbian graduates of Satan’s university adorning cassocks or veils of varying colours!

To the memory of naïve girls who were deceived, seduced, impregnated and forced to have D&C, from which they did not survive!

To the repentant celibates who want to renounce the inhuman vow and wed canonically with the appropriate dispensations!

Finally, TO THE FEW HONEST AND DEDICATED SERVANTS OF THE LORD WHO HAVE KEPT THEIR VOWS VERY RELIGIOUSLY!

May the Blood of Jesus Christ, Plead For All of You, Amen!

This is a very good birthday gift for seminarians and convent girls. Please give out copies of this memorable book as souvenirs to your loved sons and daughters at their ordinations and final professions!

CONCLUDING REMARKS BY TWO MORAL AGENTS:

Bertrand Russell noted, "Where there is evidence, no one speaks of 'faith'. We do not speak of faith that two and two are four or that the earth is round. We only speak of faith when we wish to substitute emotion for evidence."

Kenez Danmbaezue observes; “ The only truthful thing anyone can say about the Almighty and Benevolent Creator known in many cultures and languages by a variety of names is; AN INTELLIGENT SUPERNATURAL BEING EXISTS WHO CREATED ALL WE CAN EVER SEE, THINK AND FEEL! Any other statement we make about this Ultimate Reality, Absolute Truth that is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent being is mere guesswork that only feeds doctrine and dogmas!

FELLOWSHIP OF TRUE CHILDREN OF THE CREATOR

APPENDIX A

A UNIVERSAL MEDITATION FOR WORLD PEACE

INTEGRATIONAL SPIRITAN MOVEMENT

The Computer Age Fellowship for Rational Children of the Creator

Religion was/is a superstitious search by humanity for its origin, existence, meaning and relevance before the scientific era. The search was led by acclaimed sages among the elders of a community who defined its theories and practices. It is later ratified and recommended for legislation and implementation by state apparatus by convincing stratagem or coercion by politico-religious leaders. Thereafter, it is fine tuned and administered by ordained priests and priestesses who hand it down along ancestral lineages from one generation of lukewarm adherents, fanatics and mystics to another. Gradually, strong personalities emerge claiming divine appointment and so pull strong followers who idolise them as role models with supernatural powers. This obsession confirms them as beacons of adulation and finally leads to full scale idolatry.

ALTERNATIVE DEFINITION BY SAME AUTHOR

Religion, which is superstition sanctioned by the state, is actually an addiction to man-made doctrines and dogmas invented, patented and copyrighted by a few demagogues.

It enslaves the mind more than psychoactive drugs,
Benumbs human creativity and resourcefulness thereby
Restricting the development of the human potential and capital.

PROLOGUE:

I once met three philosophers arguing about the nature of God. The Christian theologian among them insisted on the Trinitarian doctrine, the Oriental Christian emphasized that the Holy Spirit proceeded only from the Father whereas the Roman Christian argued that the Holy Spirit proceeded from both the Father and the Son!

I laughed at them. They got angry. In unison, they demanded to know why I was laughing them to scorn. I said, “Why not bother yourselves about the things in the world that you can comprehend? Leave God alone!” One of them interjected, “Why do you say that, are you wiser than the Holy Church fathers and the great theologians that handed down these doctrines?”

“Thank you very much for being truthful. You just called them ‘doctrines’ and that’s exactly what they are! You can’t arrive at any meaningful conclusion in your argument since all we can ever know or say about him is, “God exists!” And what that really means is this: “God is the Almighty Being that created everything that exists in the universe. Anything else anybody says or we say is puerile, futile and simply mundane guesswork!” I concluded.

In I.S.M. we do not theorise about what we have no existential answers that can satisfy human reasoning! We limit ourselves to provable and rational concepts, no mysteries, no dogmas and no doctrines. You are very welcome to disproving anything we posit, provided you can defend your position convincingly and carry along seventy-five per cent of humankind. We are okay!

I S M IS ON A RESCUE MISSION

To liberate those who desire independence from the shackles of dogmatism and indoctrination, ISM only requires those who are willing and rational enough to think for themselves to apply simple logic and arrive at certain basic universal truths devoid of intellectual enslavements.

Read the KENEZIAN CREED and see for yourself whether the truths catalogued there apply to all beings on planet earth.
Study DR KENEZ LETTER TO TEACHERS OF HIS CHILDREN and evaluate the universality of the ethics enshrined in the stanzas.
Finally, analyse the principles of equality of all races of mankind contained in HARMONISATION OF YOUTH SOCIALISATION;

If these do not open your eyes to the futility of ethnocentrisms embedded in most dogmatic religions, then you are lost to individual thought and clear rationalisations. You are either a fanatic or a misguided mystic!

ISM is founded on the discovery of all the natural and eternal laws in creation and full obedience to all of them. In brief, Kenezians worship the Absolute Truth wherever it is found; on, below or above the earth! TELL, LIVE, PROPAGATE AND DIE FOR THE TRUTH! These and only this principle guide the true sons & daughters of God!

THE KENEZIAN CREED (The Brief Version)

Nuggets of Wisdom by Dr Kenez Danmbaezue for the Unification of all Belief Systems.

1. I am of age; therefore, I affirm that I exist! I am “ME”, you are “YOU” and we are “US”. I affirm that I am a Created Being living in the present, hoping to come to an end as other creatures I have observed, do come to a definitive end.

2. I therefore know that all finite creatures obey some natural laws that govern existence. I affirm that these laws are also eternal and like every other law, must have a Giver. I deduce therefore that there are commensurate sanctions for any deliberate violation of these laws.

3. When I observe the heavens and landscapes, hills and valleys, rivers and oceans, sunrise and sunset, equinoxes and eclipses, I am certain that this Eternal Lawgiver is Great and Powerful in all respects and possesses Superhuman Intelligence, Power and Control over all of us?

4. When I inspect living and non-living beings, their beauty and variety, their numbers and their sizes, especially their modes of survival in varying environments and particularly their ability to reproduce their kinds, I confess that this Eternal Lawgiver must be Beautiful, Loving and All-Creative.

5. I respect “IT” in all “ITS” creations while admiring in particular those that move about. For I do realise that I share the traits they have; we all have the same basic structures, we survive by performing similar functions, have similar feelings and produce comparable results. I cannot but bow in reverence and worship this Almighty Being, the Eternal Lawgiver, who sustains everything on this planet.

6. This Almighty Being set all things in motion. “IT” directs their courses and life spans, keeps them in space and time, now and always. Moreover, because there are no accidents in nature when “IT’S” laws are strictly adhered to, I attest to the fact that “IT” is the greatest GOOD; the All-knowing, All-caring and Ever Present Being.

7. To “IT” be all my respect, obedience and loyalty, as I extend my hands of love and brotherhood to all human beings, co-heirs and offspring of this Almighty Creator and Father of all. Therefore, my creed concisely is this:

(a) THE UNIVERSE IS MY COUNTRY AND INHERITANCE,

(b) ALL MANKIND, MY BLOOD RELATIVES AND EQUALS,

(c) SEEKING THE TRUTH, LIVING THE TRUTH, PROPAGATING

THE TRUTH AND DOING GOOD AT ALL TIMES – IS MY RELIGION.

This is the concise version. There is a more comprehensive / longer version

DR. KENEZ DANMBAEZUE’S PLEAS TO EVERY TEACHER OF HIS CHILDREN AND ALL EDUCATIONISTS ALL OVER THW WORLD

**(Each paragraph/plea can be used as the theme of Morning Assembly Talks)**

Dear Teacher,

Preamble: Your job is an onerous one, commendable by both God and man,

My child will look up to you as a role model, a mirror to view the world;

You will have to father him for 5 hours a day, 5 days a week and 35 weeks per year,

That’s long enough to make or mar his future, his classmates and that of this country.

1. Teach him to look around and admire the beauty in nature, himself inclusive,

Let him know that for every child he sees, there are two parents – a father and a mother;

So for the birds he sees, trees, animals, hills, rivers, sun, daylight, night and moonlight,

There is but One Almighty Father, who created and takes care of us all on a daily basis.

2. Teach him to trust and obey The Almighty Creator with worship in humility,

And to love every other being, as we all are sons and daughters of the same Creator;

Let him realise that when it rains, it’s for every one: plants, animals and man,

The Creator’s kindness and benevolence does not choose those to hate or love.

3. Teach him that for every lie he tells, he will tell ten more lies to cover it up,

And for ten lies, he needs one hundred more lies – that is foolishness;

So let him learn that truth is golden, more precious than wealth and riches,

Knowledge, wisdom and fame are the rewards earned by truthful people.

4. In school, let him love and respect his classmates and fight to protect the weaker ones,

Allow him to taste bitter and sweet things; and to combine laughter and suffering;

That way you will have prepared him to deal with wicked and honest human beings,

Thereby teaching him to differentiate good from evil and to do good all his life.

5. Teach him that lying, cheating and stealing produce criminals and rogues,

Teach him that a kobo earned is better than a hundred won by lottery;

It’s better to go hungry for days than enjoy a meal prepared with stolen money,

Or eat crumbs of bread among finest friends than a loaf among dishonest men.

6. Teach him that a passage studied, understood and memorised,

Is far better than one simply crammed and repeated like a parrot;

The former leads to ingenuity, resourcefulness and creativity,

The latter to imitative behaviour, and lack of self-confidence;

Teach him that it’s more honourable to fail an examination,

Than to copy, cheat or use “expo” methods to pass any examination.

7. Finally teach him that it is better to be neither too poor nor too rich,

Than to become wealthy by stealing, deceit and cutting corners;

The former leads to contentment, peace of mind and long life,

The latter to arrogance, greed, restlessness and sudden death;

Explain to him what “Honesty is the best policy” really means,

And the practical implications of the saying: “More haste, less speed”.

Postscript:

You’ll have to believe and practise these yourself,

Before you can teach them to my son and his mates;

But be assured that if you succeed in this assignment,

You will be a hero and the father of heroes and heroines;

And that’s what our dear country needs most.

May God guide your endeavours!

A CROSS-CULTURAL HARMONISATION OF YOUTH DEVELOPMENT

*THE PANACEA FOR RACISM*

Dr. J. K. Danmbaezue, D. Psych., FACRS,

Consultant Clinical Psychologist / Existential Family Therapist.

MEDICAL DIRECTOR, Kenez Health Klinik, &

ANIMATOR, Happy Family Network International

Block: C, House: 82, Federal Housing Estate, Trans-Ekulu, Enugu.

P. O. Box 1995. Phone 0803-9097614 or 0805-1764999, ENUGU, NIGERIA

Being the Paper presented at

THE UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE ON RACISM

Held at Durban, South Africa

From 23^rd August – 2^nd September 2001.

ABSTRACT

This guest paper emphasizes the origins and development of prejudice, discrimination, ethnocentrism, stereotypy and religious bigotry as the seeds that germinate into racism or political radicalism, dominant and minority ethnic groups that culminate in stressful relations, violence and wars.

A cross-cultural harmonization of child-rearing practices is the author’s therapeutic prescription if youths must be re-oriented towards the universal brotherhood of mankind. We have the same basic anatomy and physiology; we share the same air, water, food and rest periods. Blood groupings, emotions, motivations, and libido allow for similar sex attractions, pregnancies and births. So, where do these ethnic superiority and inferiority complexes come from?

The “Kenezian Creed” and “The Letter to Educationists all over the world”, epitomise the ideals that this Existential Therapeutic Programme enunciates. The panacea for racism is a systematic re-education, religious liberalism and socio-political equality, which should form the foundations of cross-cultural harmonisation of youth counselling and personality development initiatives.

Concise C.V.

Dr. J. K. Danmbaezue is a fifty-three year old privately employed psychotherapist/psychometrician with an outfit named KENEZ HEALTH KLINIK, where he counsels young adults about to wed, administering psychological tests and utilizing them objectively to re-direct incompatible couples. He also has an NGO-christened HAPPY FAMILY NETWORK INTERNATIONAL, which aims at the globalization of those principles neatly encapsulated in ‘The Kenezian Creed’ and ‘Dr. Kenez Letter to All Educationists’. He is happily married and has three kids. He holds a Doctor of Science degree in Psychometrics, and the prestigious Fellowship of the African College of Research Scientists. He is married with three children and is an Existentialist to the core!

INTRODUCTION:

Philosophy demands the delimitation of concepts, terms or nomenclatures for clarity of discussions, analyses, conclusions and recommendations. The following are relevant in our case:

Prejudice is “a system of negative conceptions, feelings and action-orientations regarding the members of a particular group”; whereas “Discrimination” refers to “overt action in which members of a group are accorded unfavourable treatment on the basis of their religious, ethnic or racial membership” Zanden, (1972).

Ethnocentrism is “an exaggerated tendency to think the characteristics of one’s own group or race superior to those of other groups or races” whereas “stereotypy” means “a pathological symptom of mental or nervous disorder showing itself in continuous repetition of seemingly senseless words and syllables, or of certain posture’s and actions”. Drever (1972).

Religious bigotry refers to “an obsessive belief and practice system whereby a person or group of people has strong and unreasonable opinion and will not listen to or accept any contrary views or religious opinions of anyone who disagrees”. Hornby (1976).

Racism or Racialism refers to “any set of beliefs that organic genetically transmitted differences (whether real or imagined) between human groups are intrinsically associated with the presence or absence of certain socially relevant abilities or characteristics, hence that such differences are a legitimate basis of invidious distinctions between groups socially defined as races” Berghe (1967).

Ethnic Group is a parallel term for race “which is often socially defined on the basis of cultural characteristics superimposed on perceived physical traits defined by the group and/or is defined by other groups as different.... by virtue of innate... inherited on genetically induced behavioural patterns”. A. H. Coleman-cited in – Krauss (1976) and this naturally leads us to Dominant and Minority groups – which are the remote and immediate causes of violence, terrorism and wars.

A Dominant Group is “one within a national state whose distinctive culture and/or physiognomy is established as superior in the society and which treats differentially/unequally other groups in the society with other cultures or physiognomy “Marden and Meyer (1968), and correspondingly;

A Minority Group is a “culturally or physically distinctive and self–conscious social aggregate, with hereditary membership and a high degree of endogamy, which is subject to political, economic or social discrimination by a dominant segment of an environing political society” Williams (1964).

Analytically therefore, the recurrent decimal in all these definitions is that racists are misguided, self-opinionated and neurotic people who need ego trips or massage to suppress their feelings of inadequacy, otherwise termed INFERIORITY COMPLEX.

Ethnology and Ethnography do not support apartheid, religious bigotry or racism. For want of space and time, there are two traditions in ethnic relations and socio-anthropological studies, which this existential author subscribes to (i) the psychosocial orientation, which is phenomenological, and (ii) the socio-cultural orientation, which is existential. Both form the contrasting research perspectives that most scholars patronize. However they should complement each other.

Individuals are born “tabula raza” - a clean slate! It is parents and relevant others that write on and crowd this slate with parochial traditions! No child hates another child! Hatred is a learned behaviour! So many films and dramas portray this. Individual prejudice comes mainly from the internalization of the prejudicial norms of one’s society. A case in point is the historical origin of Hitler’s hatred for the Jews. A mistaken identity and maltreatment in his primary school days when he freely associated with Jewish children -–was the remote cause of anti-Semitism which he internationalized, followed by ‘German blood superiority’ he championed which eventually led to the two world wars he engineered!

The adult populations manufactured Black-white relations in U.S.A., Indians, Mexicans and Puerto Ricans segregationist policies, not teenagers nor adolescents! South Africa’s multiracial society and apartheid system have been studied as the ultimate in structured inequality while Hawaii and Brazil as multiracial societies with a low degree of racism. Why can’t we replicate the latter form of ethnic relations in all countries of the world? The choice is ours!

YOUTH DEVELOPMENT:

It is interesting to note what anthropologists, psychiatrists, sociologists and psychologists have concluded after varying researches into various aspects of child-rearing practices all over the world. Collumb and Valatin (1970), French psychiatrists, concluded thus:

“The social changes attendant on modernization cause far reaching disturbances in traditional family organization and bring about alterations in the relationship of the child to the family group. Love and authority are no longer provided for the child by the communal group of the whole family but (only) by the biological parents.... Are the parents able to take on these loving and disciplinary roles alone? Cut off from their extended family group on all sides, can they overcome their own problems and fears and make themselves ready to fulfill their new functions? How does the child experience these changes? Is it already possible to set out their pathological consequences? It is difficult to say; however, one may state that the number of maladjusted children, the number of adolescents with problems is growing considerably, especially in towns. The present generation will be followed by another which will have the same incidence of schizophrenia as in West” p. 127

This international Conference in South Africa in 2001 should address those fundamental questions. What this author offers is only a palliative/prophylactic recommendation. Before that however – we need to recall what Erikson (1972) and Kohlberg (1969) posited as the critical stages of moral development in teenagers and adolescents. These will help us formulate the cross-cultural harmonization this paper proposes. In his “EIGHT AGES OF MAN,” Chap. 7 pp. 239-266; Erikson established eight sensitive developmental patterns that parents, teachers and relevant others must take advantage of, if children must grow up into mature, respectful and responsible citizens of the world. Correspondingly, in his “DEVELOPMENT OF MORAL CHARACTER AND MORAL IDEOLOGY” – a cognitive developmental approach – Lawrence Kohlberg of Harvard University posted six moral stages that teenagers pass through – namely: pre-moral, instrumental-hedonistic, role taking, law-and-order, autonomous-principle, and finally the universal-ethical-principle.

Time and space may not allow a detailed discussion of these stages. However, let it be known also that: Bandura & Walters, (1963) have their SOCIAL LEARNING AND PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACH, while Goshin, (1969) has relevant topics in their HANDBOOK OF SOCIALIZATION THEORY AND RESEARCH; while Hoffman Martin has his “Moral Development Theory” cited in Paul. H. Mussen (Ed.) CARMICHAEL’S MANUAL OF CHILD PSYCHOLOGY (3^rd Ed.)

All point to this one fact: That what we give or fail to give growing children, teenagers or adolescents form the base of all racial discriminations, hatred, fear and apartheid tendencies. There are no known genetic traits, or inherited behavioural patterns that warrant racial discrimination. The adult population manufactured, patented and marketed RACISM. Therefore, it remains their duty and urgent responsibility to dismantle and obliterate the consequences of their mischievous and xenophobic creations; apartheid, religious bigotry, anti-Semitism, Zionism and all other forms of racial inequalities that they breed!

The creator of the Universe did not input any racial inequalities in his created universe and beings. Nor did Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, even mention any scientific basis for racism. Politicians, warmongers, and demonic rulers who traded in human beings and monetary values invented racism based on their inferiority complexes, xenophobic reactions and vainglorious exploits. For how long must we all suffer for their mischief? The onerous duty of liberated minds, as exemplified by the participants at this United Nation’s Conference will come into sharper focus as we deliberate on the therapeutic measures proposed by this paper.

CROSS-CULTURAL HARMONISATION

In the light of the foregone scientific references, this psychotherapist has developed two basic inter-ethnic and inter-racial compositions – spanning a period of thirty years and has labelled them “THE KENEZIAN CREED” and “THE LETTER TO TEACHERS OF HIS CHILDREN”. The pair is crucial re-orientation ploys to revolutionize the religious and educational climates of the world and subsequently ameliorate or slow down the incidence of/or the increase in racial tensions, religious fanaticism and ethnic cleansing.

“CROSS-CULTURAL” here is used as an adjective meaning “involving, or containing ideas or elements from two or more different cultures, while “HARMONIZE” to make something harmonious e.g. colours that harmonize well (i.e. together produce a pleasing effect) or the cottages harmonize well with the landscape. In music “harmonization” means to play or sing notes that accompany the main tune and produce harmony with the lead singer”. Hornby (1995) pp 279 & 544

From the above the therapeutic regimen for racialism and other ethnic stressful relationships lies in the Homo sapiens sapiens accepting that each culture must harmonize with the lead race; that is, the HUMAN RACE. If musicians can harmonize with the lead singer why are whites, blacks and yellows unable to harmonize? Its is due to ignorance, petty jealousy, morbid fear of strangers and unbridled self-pride. An attempt must be made to de-emphasize religion which is the greatest harbinger of fanatical zeal to discriminate against and dominate others. MISINFORMATION or DISINFORMATION – also known as propaganda that completes the racial tones dictated by maniacal leaders, politicians and governments must be halted and reversed systematically.

The Kenezian Creed sifts the L.C.M and H.C.F. of the human race. Then it dresses them in philosophic, ethical and scientific language which harmonises with the main language of nature – “WE ARE HUMAN BEINGS, WITH SAME CREATOR, SAME BLOOD AND PLASMA, SIMILAR ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY and WE INTER-MARRY AND PRODUCE SAME SPECIES.

Of what value are our World Cups, Olympics and Arts Festivals, if at the end of the day we still discriminate and derogate others based simply on the colour of their skin, eyes and/or the texture of their hairs? Does emotion and motivation vary among the races of mankind? No, is the only right answer! Any man or woman can learn the language of the ethnic groups they are born into and mingle with; hence, English, French, Swahili, German and some other languages have gained international appeal and usage. In the like manner, let’s amplify those areas of cognition, memory and recall that unify the races rather than propagate those minor differences that separate and antagonise us.”

“In education, any child irrespective of skin colour, genetic endowment and child rearing practice can become a genius in nuclear physics, computer science, acrobatics and music. There has never been, nor will there ever be a scientific proof of the superiority of one race to another. These xenophobic rationalizations are ego defence mechanisms that emanate from depraved and demented minds and must not be allowed to drag us to another world war. A word is enough for the wise.”

The systematic incorporation of the tenets of the following compositions into primary school/educational curricula will eradicate racism worldwide:

THE KENEZIAN CREED

Nuggets of Wisdom for the Unification of all Belief Systems.

3. When I observe the heavens and landscapes, hills and valleys, rivers and oceans, sunrise and sunset, equinoxes and eclipses, I am certain that this Eternal Law-giver is Great and Powerful in all respects and possesses Superhuman Intelligence, Power and Control over all of us?

4. When I inspect living and non-living beings, their beauty and variety, their numbers and their sizes, especially their modes of survival in varying environments, and particularly their ability to reproduce their kinds, I confess that this Eternal Law-giver must be Beautiful, Loving and All-Creative.

6. This Almighty Being set all things in motion. “IT” directs their courses and life spans, keeps them in space and time, now and always. And because there are no accidents in nature when “IT’S” laws are strictly adhered to, I attest to the fact that “IT” is the greatest GOOD; All-knowing, All-caring and Ever Present Being.

7. To “IT” be all my respect, obedience and loyalty, as I extend my hands of love and brotherhood to all Human Beings, co-heirs and offspring of this Almighty Creator and Father of all. Therefore, my creed concisely is this: (a) THE UNIVERSE IS MY COUNTRY AND INHERITANCE, (b) ALL MANKIND, MY BLOOD RELATIVES AND EQUALS, (c) SEEKING THE TRUTH, LIVING THE TRUTH AND DOING GOOD AT LL TIMES – MY RELIGION.

My 50^th Birthday gift to Mankind. Composed, Revised and Ratified between 1970-1998

DR KENEZ PLEAS TO EVERY TEACHER OF HIS CHILDREN

*(Each paragraph/plea can be used as the theme of Morning Assembly Talks)

Dear Teacher, Your job is an onerous one, commendable by both God and man,

My child will look up to you as a role model, a mirror to view the world;

You will have to father him for 5 hours a day, 5 days a week and 35 weeks per year,

That’s long enough to make or mar his future, his classmates and that of this country.

1.Teach him to look around and admire the beauty in nature, himself inclusive,

Let him know that for every child he sees, there are two parents – a father and a mother;

So for the birds he sees, trees, animals, hills, rivers, sun, daylight, night and moonlight,

There is but One Almighty Father, who created and takes care of us all on a daily basis.

2.Teach him to trust and obey The Almighty Creator with worship in humility,

And to love every other being, as we all are sons and daughters of the same Creator;

Let him realise that when it rains, it’s for every one: plants, animals and man,

The Creator’s kindness and benevolence does not choose those to hate or love.

3.Teach him that for every lie he tells, he will tell ten more lies to cover it up,

And for ten lies, he needs one hundred more lies – that is foolishness;

So let him learn that truth is golden, more precious than wealth and riches,

Knowledge, wisdom and fame are the rewards earned by truthful people.

4.In school, let him love and respect his classmates and fight to protect the weaker ones,

Allow him to taste bitter and sweet things; and to combine laughter and suffering;

That way you will have prepared him to deal with wicked and honest human beings,

Thereby teaching him to differentiate good from evil and to do good all his life.

5.Teach him that lying, cheating and stealing produce criminals and rogues,

Teach him that a kobo earned is better than a hundred won by lottery;

It’s better to go hungry than enjoy a meal prepared with stolen money,

Or eat crumbs of bread among finest friends than a whole loaf among dishonest men.

6.Teach him that a passage studied, understood and memorised,

Is far better than one simply crammed and repeated like a parrot;

The former leads to ingenuity, resourcefulness and creativity,

The latter to imitative behaviour, and lack of self-confidence;

Teach him that it’s more honourable to fail an examination,

Than to copy, cheat or use “expo” methods to pass any examination.

7.Finally teach him that it is better to be neither too poor nor too rich,

Than to become wealthy by stealing, deceit and cutting corners;

The former leads to contentment, peace of mind and long life,

The latter to arrogance, greed, restlessness and sudden death;

Explain to him what “Honesty is the best policy” really means,

And the practical implications of the saying: “More haste, less speed”.

Postscript: You’ll have to believe and practise these yourself,

Before you can teach them to my son and his mates;

But be assured that if you succeed in this assignment,

You will be a hero and the father of heroes and heroines;

And that’s what our dear country needs most.

May God guide your endeavours!

*My 53^rd Birthday Gift to all Educationists,

Inspired by Abraham Lincoln’s letter, Gestation Period: 1997-2001*

RESUME, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The etiological origin of racism is ethnocentric megalomania best exemplified by Adolph Hitler’s xenophobic ideas. “Xenophobia” as defined by Drever (1972) is “a morbid fear of strangers”, and Hornby (1995) concerns by defining it as “an intense dislike or fear of strangers or people from other countries”.... “excessive patriotism can lead to xenophobia” – he concluded p. 1385.

“Racism or racialism” van den Berghe (1967) affirms, “are beliefs (not facts) that organic genetically transmitted differences (real or imagined) exist between social groups” which he concluded were false. There has never been any existential or scientific proof that a Caucasian is superior to Negroid or Mongoloid specie of the human race. Racism is puerile and futile!

Professor M. Nesturkh, a Russian anthropologist has a 133-page hardbound book, with over 100 black and white and coloured pictures - entitled THE RACES OF MANKIND. In the preface, Professor N. N. Cheboksarov, a Doctor of History and a Miklukho-Maklai Prize Winner, opens up thus:

“The problem of the races of mankind is one of the most important in anthropology, the science that studies the natural history of man with all the variations due to age, sex, and geographical factors. The races of mankind are, in actual fact, geographical (or territorial) variations, historically conditioned, of a single physical type-MAN.

“The writings of the founders of Marxism-Leninism contain many valuable statements on such problems as the connection between the origin of races and the natural geographical conditions of life of primitive man; the distant ancestors of the present–day peoples, the gradual obliteration of racial differences in the course of historical development, the racial mixtures that make up modern nations and the absolute invalidity of racism.

“A correct conception of the races of mankind is of particularly great political and scientific importance today, in the period of the collapse of the colonial system and the unparalleled development of the struggle for national liberation by the dependent and colonial peoples. The ideologists of imperialism, in their effort to provide a basis for class, national and colonial oppression, have advanced the false “theory” of the physical and mental inequality of races, or the existence of “higher” and “lower” races, of races that are capable and those that are incapable of independent, social, economic and cultural development.

“Racism is closely bound up with reactionary nationalism and chauvinism. The Programme of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, adopted by the Twenty-Second Party Congress, lays special stress on the fact that nationalistic prejudice and the survivals of former national discord constitute the sphere in which resistance to social progress may be the longest, fiercest, most stubborn and most implacable. The misanthropic inventions of the racists stand in direct contradiction to the data provided by anthropology”. Pp 5 & 6

All scientists agree with the learned Russian Professor and Prize-winner! Moreover, Professor M. Nesturukh, himself concludes his introduction to the book thus:

“The author realises the difficulties attaching to the task he has undertaken and will be satisfied if his readers obtain from his book a general idea of the concept of races and their origin and a conviction of the unscientific nature of racism”. P. 10.

It is the conclusions of this paper that only intellectual pygmies and anthropological misfits can, and do propagate racism in ethnic or religious relations. But for the fact that this is a scientific paper, passages in the Torah, Bible, Koran and the Bhagavad-Gita would have been used to substantiate the stupidity of racialism and the demonic possession of all racists. They are all adenescents!

Suffice it to recommend the following:

i. That all racists be subjected to a psychiatric evaluation. It is possible that they have congenital deficiencies that warrant their schizophrenia fantasies.

ii. That participants at this conference devise means and modalities for appealing to religious leaders of all shades, colours and faith to repudiate discriminatory sermons, doctrines or catechesis in their religious worship.

iii. That all film makers and drama writers expunge sentences or scenes depicting superiority or inferiority in all their products. On the other hand they must encourage scriptwriters to douse the embers of hatred, violence and ethnic jealousies in their productions e.g. GUESS, WHO’S COMING TO DINNER.

iv. That musicians review their lyrics and emulate the consortium of international stars that gave us the famous song: WE ARE THE WORLD. In like manner, let all intelligent people all over the world stand up to be counted among music lovers who appreciate that orchestras and choirs need soprano, alto, tenor and bass to harmonise the lead instrument or singer. So also should white, black and yellow races blend or harmonize the leading HUMAN RACE.

v. All newly established families must make conscious efforts to give their offspring a better deal or lease of life rather than feed them the same nepotic ideas or prejudices their own parents condemned to feed on during their growing years

vi. Re-education in all nursery, kindergarten and primary schools, must eliminate segregation based on skin colour, class or creed. Each stanza or paragraph of the Kenezian Letter to all Liberated Educationist can be used to conduct morning assemblies.

vii. National constitutions should incorporate sections that make it a crime to discriminate against any citizen, guest or stranger in one’s native land. Moreover, national prizes may be awarded to those adjudged to have demonstrated the tenets of the Kenezian Creed practically in their daily living.

Permit me to add a brief version of an international prayer I composed for ten years here to support my view that there could be a universal mode of worshipping this almighty creator of us all.

KENEZIAN I. S. M. UNIVERSAL PRAYER

My eternal creator and lord of the universe, I know that you exist,

I observe that you made all beings interdependent, we need each other,

Therefore, increase my loyalty and dependence on your benevolence.

I love you as the Father of all that exists; I want to love other beings,

As well as I love myself; permit me to truly achieve this increasingly!

I worship you as my first beginning; I wish to do this as long as I live.

I acknowledge your constant sustenance and care for me and all that is.

Guide me by your divine wisdom; correct me with your eternal justice,

Comfort me with your mercy and protect me with your limitless power,

So that I may obey all the laws, you put in creation for our own good!

I have a princely heritage in that I function at three levels of operations,

In that tripartite functionality of thought, word and action, I am like you.

Grant me a large heart and mind to understand the universal knowledge

That all humankind are blood relatives and co-heirs of this your ability,

Therefore, we all are brothers and sisters, children of the same Father!

Double-faced Christians now abound everywhere; they worship Satan at night and come to church on Sundays! This lifestyle has eroded the credentials of our forebears! There is now, an urgent need to redeem our children from these nefarious practices! We must revert to the legacies of our renowned grandfathers, improve on it and bequeath the next generation a better religious legacy than we had!

Dr Jideofo Kenechukwu Danmbaezue, 11^th March 1999

REFERENCES

Bandura A. & Walters, R. H. (1963)

Social Learning and Personality Development, New York. Holt, Rinehart and Winston

Coleman A. K. (1976)

Race and Ethnic Relations. p. 451. Cited in Krauss S. (ed.) Encyclopedic Handbook of Medical Psychology, Butterworths. London Boston.

Collomb H & Valantin S (1970)

Ethopsychiatrie et evolution de la schizophrenia” in Famille Africaine “de” L’enfant dans la Famille”, ed. by E.J. Anthony and C. Koupermik, Paris; Masson et Cie.

Danmbaezue J. K. (1998)

The Kenezian Creed – Interethnic Ethical Principles for the Universal Brotherhood of Mankind. Hafani Publications, Kihol Products Ltd. Ihiala, Anambra State of Nigeria.

Danmbaezue, J. K. (2001)

Letter to Teachers of Children World-wide”. International Education Project, Kenez Health Klinik C 82, Federal Housing Estate, Enugu.

Drever James (1972)

A Dictionary of Psychology – Penguin Reference Books-Revised by Harvey Wallersten – Hazell Watson & Viney Ltd. Great Britain.

Erikson E. H. (1972)

Childhood and Society – a Pelican Book, Penguin Books Ltd, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England.

Goslin., D.A. Ed. (1969)

Hand Book of Socialisation Theory and Research, Chicago, Rand Mc Nally and Co.

Holffman, Martin (1970)

Moral Development in Paul H. Mussen (Ed.) Carmichael’s Manual of Child Psychology, 3^rd. Ed. Vol. II, New York, Wiley 1970.

Hornby A. S. (1995)

Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 5^th Ed. by Jonathan Crowder Oxford University Press. Walton Street, Oxford 0X2 6DP.

Kohlberg L. (1964)

Development of Moral Character and Moral Ideology in M.L. Hoffman and L. W. Hoffman (eds.) Review of Child Development Research, New York; Russel Sage Foundation.

Marden C. F. And Meyer G. (1967)

Minorities in American Society. 3^rd Ed. New York and London. John Wiley.

Nesturkh M. (undated)

The Races of Mankind: Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow; Translated from the Russian by George Hanna. Designed by Vladimir A.N.

van den Borghe, P. L. (1967)

Race and Racism pp 9,11, New York and London. John Wiley.

Zanden Vander J. W. (1972)

American Minority Relations. 3^rd Ed. P. 21, 26, New York, Ronald Press.

THE PRINCIPLES OF KENEZIANISM

A.k.a. INTEGRATIONAL SPIRITAN MOVEMENT

General Introduction

The theory and practice of Kenezianism started in 1970, at the end of the civil war when its originator Major Kenechukwu Nzeogwu Mbaezue; BA/6532, of the Degema Strike Force, 12th Commando Brigade, Biafra, returned from the war front with multiple injuries and artillery shock! He felt shattered by the outcome of the fratricidal debacle of three years that abruptly postponed his post-secondary education at C.K.C. Onitsha.

THE AUTHOR AS AN UNDER-AGED BIAFRAN SOLDIER

The Nigerian civil war started in 1967 when Nigeria’s Eastern Region, due to excessive pogroms unleashed on the Igbos in the north seceded and proclaimed itself the Republic of Biafra. Here, this author as a youth of nineteen years participated in the defence of Oguta, converted to a river port and used to import medical necessities as blockades by land, sea and air became a weapon of war by the Nigerian government. Starvation, hunger and disease; malnutrition, kwashiorkor, marasmus and hepatitis took their toll on children, refugees and soldiers on the Biafran side before it eventually capitulated. The brave leaders of the dislocated Biafran forces then surrendered to the Nigerian armed forces in January 1970.

“Why did we lose the war of survival? Should Nigeria the aggressor defeat us the victims of their cruel and premeditated pogroms? Of what use were the prayers to a god that never answered us? Or did our leaders commit unpardonable war crimes or indulge in sacrilegious absurdities? Is the Muslim religion more authentic and reliable than Christianity? If yes, then let us join them and go on pilgrimages to Mecca!”

Finding answers to these existential questions drove the young war veteran crazy. He could not comprehend how an unjust war ended in favour of the aggressors. For him it meant that we wasted all our time and youthfulness in the war fronts praying to the God of Christians! He truly deserved veritable explanations! He withdrew from all religious engagement for a period of ten consecutive years, from 1970 to 1980. That gave him enough time to reflect on some existential questions about all he had learnt from the Christian missionaries that moulded his early life in the junior and senior seminaries.

FAMINE IN BIAFRA

During the Nigerian civil war of 1967 to 1970, the Nigerian government imposed blockades around Biafra, effectively cutting off the secessionist state’s food supply. The resulting famine in Biafra was devastating, as upwards of one million people died of starvation. The swollen bellies and ankles of these Biafran children are symptoms of kwashiorkor, an extreme form of protein-energy malnutrition.

There arose the need for him to re-evaluate his belief system, moderate his scrupulous orientation to social life and thereafter, formulate a realistic code of conduct that could guarantee his survival in the conflicting world of the Nigerian society he found himself trapped in! He lived as a war captive for the next 30 years! Within this period, he fully practised the introverted meditative lifestyle of Viktor Frankl or that detached life of a research scientist reminiscent of the great Austrian monk geneticist, MacGregor Mendel.

He earned four university degrees that spanned a period of 15 years, with breaks here and there to assist his eight younger brothers and sisters, siblings of the same humble family of a school teacher/catechist! To achieve this, he again joined the armed forces of the nation he lived as an exile, the fallout of which was that he neatly sandwiched a military diploma, pjsc, from the Nigerian Air Force in between the four degrees!

A bachelor’s degree in Philosophy, sponsored by the Catholic missionaries in1970, then another bachelor’s degree in Psychology, self-sponsored and partly aided by a Federal Government Loans Bursary award in 1975. This loan was later paid in full after his NYSC, which he served at the Department of Psychiatry, University College Hospital, Ibadan and Lambo’s Aro-Village System, Abeokuta from 1975- 1976! This was followed by the three-year stint as an Air Force Medical Officer, NAF 759. Upon winning the Anambra State Ph.D. Scholarship Award in 1977 he resigned in 1979 and later earned a Masters in Clinical Psychology, from the School of Medicine, University of Benin, in 1982. He rounded his training with a Doctor of Science degree in Research Psychometrics, earned by innovative researches in personality evaluation, organisational psychology and family counselling in 1993! This doctorate degree qualified him to join the prestigious African College of Research Scientists, Addis Ababa Campus, of which he is now, a Fellow! A rare feat of academic achievement for anyone to obtain through self-reliance, ingenuity and resourcefulness!

For the next phase of his research/academic life he combined family roles and clinical duties, churning out psychological tests for guidance/career counselling, personality evaluation and marriage/family counselling. In the interim he got married and to date has two boys and a girl, who became the well-deserved consolation for his long years of ambivalence! Today he is a retired Flight Lieutenant in private clinical practice as a HUMANISTIC-EXISTENTIAL PSYCHOTHERAPIST. He still does extensive research in Family Counselling, Existential Family Therapy and Community Medicine. His published psychological tests and books exceed fifteen, as at the last count. He is a respected authority in Psychometrics, a Member of the National Association of Clinical Psychologists and the Founder/Animator of three world-wide NGOs;

i. KENEZ HEALTH KLINIK, an Interdisciplinary Therapeutic Organisation for Family Health,

ii. HAPPY FAMILY NETWORK an Inter-ethnic CBO for grooming healthy & successful families,

iii. INTEGRATIONAL SPIRITAN MOVEMENT, a Spiritual Fellowship for Modern Scientists!

The greatest contribution he has made so far seems to be in the area of family counselling and existential therapy where he has developed, constructed, validated and standardised more than thirteen psychological tests for school career guidance, pre-marital counselling and crises intervention in families that need help! In addition, he has written nine books covering such areas of knowledge as: social ethics, theosophy, cosmology, social and community medicine. The manuscripts of these inspirational works are, in the real sense of the phrase, begging for funds to print them. Can anyone publish these books so that others may benefit from the information stashed away in them? His religious involvement in early life became an asset as this book in moral ethics has turned out to be the best outcome of his contemplative lifestyle. Below are some of the verses he wrote that kept him mentally alive and hopeful that his children would have a better future! You may benefit from reading and practising some of them in your daily living! There are existential truths rather than theological jargons! Establishment of Universal Truths and control of one’s tongue and selfless service summarises ISM.

THESE ARE THE KENEZIAN FOUNDATION STONES OF

INTEGRATIONAL SPIRITAN MOVEMENT (I. S. M.)

If anyone does not control his sensual desires and tongue, his religion is worthless and he deceives himself. What the Creator and Father of all living beings put on planet earth considers to be pure and genuine religion is this: being truthful in every thing ones does by worshipping him in spirit; being pure in thoughts, word and deeds, taking care of suffering orphans and widows while keeping oneself from being corrupted by the world. The essence of Kenezianism, a.k.a. ISM , is graciously encapsulated in its eternal motto: ONE ALMIGHTY CREATOR, ONE CREATED UNIVERSE and therefore ONE HUMAN FAMILY, who are equal beneficiaries and heirs to his omnipresent graces, his omniscient benefits and omnipotent protection!

CHAPTER 1:

AN OVERVIEW

i. Oh! Mortal man, why do you pride yourself with such titles as “ Homo sapiens”, “His or Her Excellency”, “His Lordship or His Grace”, His Royal Highness” and finally the “Lord of the Material Universe”, when you can never hear better than a common bat, nor see better than the eagle?

ii. What achievement has any man made that is not built on what has already been provided by Nature? Just name one. Is it not enough to humble us down to our knees in respect to whatever put us here on planet earth?

iii. What is it that took care of our forefathers and ensured that they survived to rear us the best they could? Who protected us in our mothers’ wombs and those deadly infant diseases that some of our peers so that we survived to flaunt our high resounding titles.

iv. Now let us all bow our heads. Be silent for a while and listen to Nature communicate wisdom in its simplest forms. When you hear the cock that crows at night, starting from about 3.00am till it is 6.00 a.m. marking out the hours while you sleep, what is it saying? -- It is thanking its Creator for another day. And secondly, it is obeying Him by doing its duty twenty-four hours a day marking out the hours of each day for all other animals and you, man, the lord of the material universe as you choose to call yourself!

v. It does it regularly and has been doing so before you, oh little creature copied him to make your wristwatches in an attempt to supplant him, but you have failed. The cock is more precise than the best chronometer you ever invented or will soon manufacture! For one thing, it does not need a battery to operate nor does it need servicing!

vi. So man, learn to imitate the birds that wake each morning chirping their morning prayers of thanks, while pleading to the Lord for their daily bread.

vii. What of trees that daily release oxygen for your use? Have you ever gone to the gas station to purchase human fuel, either air or water? How much air and water do you use each hour of your life? Who provides and purifies them?

viii. Did you thank the Creator of this universe for these two items only? When will you do so? Do it now! Stop at this page, kneel down and reverence whatever put you here on planet Earth

ix. From today when the birds start their own morning hymns, oh you little man, join them. That is why He feeds them on a daily basis, but you have to struggle and suffer or steal to have food on an irregular basis besides our human greed that makes it difficult for his fellow men to even have a little!

x. Whatever or whoever created us all must have put some laws to govern whatever breathes his air and drinks his water, for there are accidents and suffocation when these elementary functions are performed inappropriately.

xi. We must eat to live, drink to survive, sleep to rest and procreate to save out species from extinction. Each of these functions we perform from generation to generation, educated or not, civilised or not pious or crooked! It wonderful isn’t it.

xii. Order and grace, beauty and serenity adorn His creations wherever you find them in their natural habitats unperturbed by the most destructive animal; man! So let us relent!

xiii. The voice of wisdom speaks in all His creations but only the wise can hear them! Can you interpret the language of honeybees or bring fellow men to march in formation like the soldier ants without coercion and spending some funds on training programmes, which the ants never do even at birth!

xiv. These and similar precision occurrences like sunrise and sunset should make more pious and respectful but what do we find? Arrogance and buffoonery intoxicates most of us.

xv. The wisdom of the Creator shines forth everyday like the sunlight, but we prefer to walk around like blind men vaunting our ignorance of His natural laws that govern our very existence.

xvi. So how do you assist a blind that does not see properly but claims that he is okay and is not in need of your help, as he will never accept that he does not know everything!

xvii. That is the problem with our human race. Other animals are ready to learn from their parents and obey them diligently, only man claims to know when he does not! When shall ever learn as other baby animals learn?

xviii. The time is now, not tomorrow, not next month, not next year but this very moment. How does one do exactly that, you may ask?

xix. Don’t ask me, Kenez, rather ask King Solomon, the Wise! Go and read and memorise 1^st Kings, Chapter 3, verses 6-15. Or for an elaborate treatise, find the complete bible edition and read chapter 9 verses 1- 18 of the WISDOM OF SOLOMON.

Always use the Good News Bible Edition for all references!

CHAPTER 2:

PRACTICAL LESSONS FROM NATURE

i. Open your eyes and look at newborn babies. Study them for a whole week. Who taught them to cry? Why do they cry? Watch them during breastfeeding. Who taught them to suck properly? Did you, or did their mothers teach them? Answer me, Oh man!

ii. Look at babies everywhere, you were once like that, so learn to be humble and thank your father and mother if they are still alive! You were a helpless animal that a cat or a dog could have eaten raw, were it not for their paternal and maternal care!

iii. There from, O arrogant creature learn the virtue of gratitude, it does not hurt you nor will it cost you anything more than to always say a loud “Thank You” all the rest of your short span of existence on this planet

iv. Carry a baby and note that it looks you straight in the eyes and either smiles or begins to cry. If the latter, be sure you are a bad person or you looked aggressive. Babies are the best judges of character! So, learn to drop your worries and frowns when you approach others in life.

v. Everyone else you meet has personal problems but they do not advertise them all the time, so why that scowl on your face? Smile at difficulties and so learn forbearance, tolerance and equanimity! There are virtues that you will need all the time!

vi. Babies have weight as you must have noticed, and this increases as they feed well and grow. What makes them grow? How do they learn to sit, crawl, stand, and then walk? Answer me, oh Homo sapiens! Lord of the material universe!

vii. Why does an object fall to the ground? Even when you throw objects far into the air, they return to the earth on which you stand. You may simply answer that it is because of the force of gravity, as you must have learnt by rote memory far back in elementary school.

viii. But that answer was not so easy for the first men and women on earth! Prehistoric men once worshiped that magnetic phenomenon. So learn to investigate nature, discover new facts and share your knowledge with others. It is a fundamental lesson of life!

ix. The ground you stand on carries your weight, no matter how large and heavy you think you are! All those heavyweight wrestlers you watch on television all walk on the same ground. Those heavy trucks that compete with trains in carrying loads are also resting on the same ground! It carries all of us besides all the tall buildings man has constructed everywhere in the world. Have you ever wondered what would happen if the earth for once refused to carry our weight?

x. We bury dead men and animals in the ground to avoid their stench and the epidemics they could cause! Yet has it at any time rejected to accept more corpses? Why? Answer me, the self-styled “Man, the summit of creation”

xi. It is no use answering titles one cannot defend, nor lumber around under the euphoria of crammed information gathered from books and school curricula. Put on your thinking cap and attempt an answer.

xii. The wisdom of the Almighty Creator fashioned all those macrocosms and microcosms and assigned them eternal duties which they religiously obey at all times, come rain, come sunshine! So have you found out yours? If not, when will you begin? Start now. It is yet early morning on creation day for you! Make an honest inquiry. Imitate them. Therefore in life don’t expect a “thank you” for doing your duties!

xiii. Those macrocosms that serve your purposes; the sun, the moon, water, air and the ground never demanded any from you! They all co-operate to grow the crops from which we prepare the meals at our dinner tables daily! Or are you the one who produces the grains, tubers, roots and fruits that wild animals, birds and humans consume?

xiv. I have not forgotten that the breast milk is by far better than any infant formula that any scientist can ever produce! The same goes for the natural and clean water collected during a heavy rainfall. Its purer, as it contains all the minerals the animal body needs, both wild and domesticated, including man himself!

xv. When last did you eat an egg laid by a non-poultry-raised hen, for example a guinea fowl? Or to make it simpler, taste a sample of wild eggs and that of poultry eggs, and you will be amazed that despite all the veterinary care and husbandry of agricultural farmers, the wild eggs taste not only better but also contain more concentrates of the nutrients that build the body! Ask any qualified scientist in that field!

xvi. Who ensures all these? Can any created being human or non-humans perform these feats? If your answer is positive please tell us where you got your materials! If negative, then bow down and worship Nature or whoever produces them for our enjoyment!

xvii. The focus is still on babyhood. You have many more lessons to learn from infants! Do you remember who carried you about when you were small? Ask your parents. Find him or her and please give a big hug or a large gift in appreciation!

xviii. Your weight alone must have deformed the natural structure of your babysitter's figure. The spinal column, the backbones or the waist of such a one must have altered its structure, no matter how infinitesimal! Ask physiotherapists. You caused that; and therefore you owe an apology or a “thank you”! Which do you prefer?

xix. All go to show the interdependence of created beings. House helps; stewards, cooks, maids and servants must be valued and appreciated! We need each other to grow, mature and enjoy life to the fullest. The name of the game of life is; “you rub my backside and I rub yours!”

xx. The innocence of nudity is the most important lesson the baby teaches. Why do we need clothes if not to cover our guilt and the embarrassment that it enunciates? Try to regain your innocence if you can, however note that shame or societal disdain is what we deserve as the just punishment for disobeying any natural laws!

CHAPTER 3:

SOME INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGES

i. Did you know that you were once a linguist? Yes, you were once an international orator and everyone listened and reacted to your famous speeches! You must have lost that talent or suppressed it. But you can reclaim it if you really want to be an international sage!! Read on, if you do!

ii. Visit the home of a couple that has a newborn and quietly observe everyone in the house for an hour when the baby is wide-awake. Relax. Just watch mummy, daddy, children and others in the house! This is a very important practical. Don’t miss it. Do this before reading any further, please!

iii. What did you see in the home you visited? Who was dishing out orders to everyone else? Who was the parade commander? Who was obeyed and must be obeyed? And finally what did you learn about children and their ability to order everyone around them. Do they get immediate obedience or compliance? ----Yes, they always do!

iv. You were once an autocratic baby like the one you observed! You gave commands and everyone came running to obey you. At times you even caused a quarrel between daddy and mummy when there was a delay in compliance to your demands!

v. Am I making any useful remarks? Of course, I am! The world of the infant is full of “give me, carry me, feed me, change my wet pants, cant you see I am hot? - do something about it, cant you feel the cold?- common, cover me with a blanket,.. etc”

vi. Some of that language still remains in everyone’s subconscious mind and we occasionally demand immediate gratification. If you do so, it shows that you are still a baby when you are among adults. So stop it now! Selfishness or egocentricity is childish behaviour! Drop any vestiges of it remaining with you today!

vii. But that is not all. Did you also assimilate the love showered on the infant by all around, including yourself? Atimes, while you were there, you felt like scolding the mum for delaying the prompt breastfeeding of the baby. Did you?

viii. That is called “empathy”. You felt for the helpless infant and wanted to assist in the little way you could. You were right then, but do you do so nowadays helping or assisting others in this selfish country and world that we live in? Sympathy is an international language!

ix. Did you notice that even daddy was ready to fight for the baby? He was ready to abandon the love he has for the wife just to please the infant. Why? I need an answer from you, the proud Homo sapiens!

x. It is called international justice! The weak are always to be defended or protected before the strong. It is a natural code written in our minds but we sooner than later stifle it, replacing it with cultural stereotypes and ethnic prejudices. Re-learn it today!!

xi. My dear, I am not giving you any new codes of conduct. No! These have always been there! I am only unearthing them for mankind to become conscious of the international language that everyone once spoke and understood.

xii. Crying is an international language that translates thus: I am in difficulty… I need your assistance to get out of this sad situation, please help me… will someone listen to me? Did you get my message? How many people have you rescued in the past week?

xiii. However note that sometimes teardrops could indicate extreme pleasure, unexpected joy or negative emotional upset! But you always tell the difference by assessing the cues in the immediate environment of the one concerned!

xiv. Smiling is an international language, and converts to laughter when doubled or multiplied in geometric proportions! Both translate into;“ I am pleased at the moment,.. thank you for the pleasant stimulus,.. it is hilarious here, why don’t you join us and laugh! Am I making any sense to you? Do not say yes when you really mean no.

xv. Frowning is an international language, which when serious becomes a scowl, threat or hatred and a prelude to mischief. In all your life avoid it. It does you no good. Ask Cain, the brother of Abel in the Christian Bible! He is a professor in that subject. He graduated in it and became the first murderer in the history of mankind, as we are told!

xvi. Music is an international language! And when dramatised turns into various types of dancing! Good ones cut across ethnic, religious and national boundaries. All domesticated and wild animals, especially snakes listen to and enjoy good music. Ask any zookeeper! Even criminals enjoy their own kind of music.

xvii. Romance is an international language! Falling in love cuts across all human demarcations. It has even resulted in peace accords, unions and festivals as well as murders, wars and enmity!

xviii. There are many other international languages! Learn to cultivate the good ones and minimise the use of any bad language like scolding, shouting, gossiping, backbiting, slandering and finally maligning others!

xix. Two other international languages are; urinating and defecating! As an infant we all did it wherever and whenever pressed, but we were also trained to postpone or delay them till we get to the appropriate places for doing so. Have you been doing these rightly?

xx. Finally, this is definitely the one that runs haywire for immature people! Libido or sexual energy, its profitable use or misuse!! Promiscuity is bad in concept and unhealthy / futile in execution; anywhere, any day, anytime. Control your passions! The ability to do so separates mature rational human beings from all infantile, hedonistic and regressed ones! Which are you? Adieu!

CHAPTER 4:

LECTURES FROM A TODDLER

i. Have you ever heard of Sigmund Freud, Jean Piaget, Erik Erickson or Lawrence Kohlberghas? These are well known research scientists that spent years, studying children in minute detail. So you need to get into a library or consult a current encyclopaedia to appreciate the wisdom contained in this chapter!

ii. We may take off with the toddler. Do you remember some of the things you did at that age? I can only summarise some of them here; you sucked your thumb so much that you had to be punished to stop that 'naughty' habit. Again as you dropped that one, you began to babble monosyllabic words and very much later you were able to pronounce your first meaning words, which were; mama, dada, ada, aha aba, then -mummy, daddy, etc followed gradually!

iii. But the greatest achievement was what Jean Piaget called; the acquisition of pre-operational concepts of mass, volume, height, and depth. But let's take thumb sucking first, which the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud elaborated on in great detail. It contains so much on personality formation! It is normal for children to suck, for they even started it right there in the womb long before they were delivered!

iv. Thumb sucking relieves an infant’s tension and stimulates the sensitive membranes of the mouth pleasantly. In this respect the thumb is to the infant what the cigarette is to the adult. When children are tired, sleepy, hungry, sick, or are teething, their finger sucking increases.

v. Scolding a child for thumb sucking will make him feel guilty, which he will try to relieve by more thumb sucking. This is counter-productive! It is more effective to keep him well fed and to provide him with adequate toys to occupy his hands and fingers.

vi. So newly weds should take note. You could be damaging your infant’s future personality by your ignorant enforcement of age-old discipline that was only done in error and is really a cultural proscription!

vii. For cigarette smokers, you now know that you are regressing to a toddler's method of reducing tension or anxiety, thereby informing all around you that you still immature. This is equally applicable to ladies who always delight in chewing gums! A word is enough for the wise!

viii. However the most important lesson to learn from the infant at this time is to face your tensions as a mature adult and seek for help if need be! Don’t resort to infantile behaviour!! Excessive drinking is akin to this problem. Alcohol never solved any problems, rather it adds to it!

ix. The next lesson is what Freud called “fixations”. “Fixation at the oral stage leads to extreme selfishness” states Sigmund Freud. This naturally leads the child onto seeking pleasurable things in later life, thereby developing as an egocentric personality! Sensuality, avarice and gluttony follow in the wake of retaining this misdemeanour!

x. The next fixation is that of the anal stage, when the child derives pleasure from controlling the anus. Due to routine you may not have noticed that defecation is pleasurable! It relieves tension. But in infancy the toddler notices that he/she can control the parents by inappropriate release or withholding of bowel movements!

xi. In later life, those that resort to this regression of infantile manoeuvre develop stingy personality traits. They tend to hoard in order to control the relevant others' behaviour! Traders take note! When this trait combines with the previous one; greed, stealing and robbery are the triplets that are delivered!

xii. Stingy parents, please realise that your marriage partner is unduly being stressed by you regressed fixation! Some sexual relationships suffer because of this subconscious manipulation learnt in early life!! I have treated many cases of this type in my clinical practice.

xiii. Bosses in offices, Principals of schools, Pastors in parishes, Bursars or Purchasing Officers in various organisations should take a good note of this and re-evaluate their behaviour henceforth!

xiv. The next lecture from that toddler is the fixation at the phallic stage! Most infants derive pleasure from caressing their sex organs early in life. Some parents notice this and reclaim their kids before much damage is done. Others ignore this or do not even take notice!

xv. In reality everyone indulged temporarily in masturbation early in life to relieve tensions. However some carry it to teenage, adolescence, and even to adulthood! This results in promiscuity! It is as simple as that! Retrain yourself if you are involved or consult a sex therapist!

xvi. By now you may think that all these are psychological jargons, but I assure you that they are not! Sigmund Freud spent all his life after medical college studying these and he is an authority in this area!

xvii. That one did not take notice of what one did, as a child does not translate to that they never occurred! Observe your own kids from now on and you will be grateful to that great psychoanalyst!

xviii. The hurdles that every toddler has to cross to develop into a well-balanced personality have been highlighted for you to begin a sanitation exercise within yourself! Consult a clinical psychologist for remedies!

xix. The integrated personality that we all desire consists in passing those stage in life appropriately assisted by our cultural norm and mores. Parental awareness of these stages is hereby canvassed for. Religion often comes to the rescue, but with varying degrees of success. Some develop scruples or other depersonalisation syndromes!

xx. A normal heterosexual relationship is hard to attain but it is achievable! Don’t give up! Make the best use of the knowledge your garnered from this chapter to raise your lovely children and leave the rest for the Almighty Creator of both you and you kids!

INTERLUDE FOR REFLECTIONS

The Creator has hidden so much from our intellectual faculties that to date we are still unravelling those He is allowing humanity to glimpse at through divine dreams, intuitions, inspirations and revelations to devout souls! Do you want to have supernatural knowledge mediated by spiritual faculties of seeing, feeling, sensing and caring for others? Look inwards, for the kingdom of God is inside you , not outside as many preachers tell you. No one ever got eternal bliss by keeping the commandments of men. It is given to altruistic seekers of that Divine Guidance in the affairs of mankind, which many yearn for but do not know where, when and how to find it. Search for it in this book!

DO YOU REALISE THAT EVERY BEING HAS A SOUL? AND EACH IS VALUED BY OUR CREATOR?

CHAPTER 5:

WINDOWS OF THE SOUL

i. Before you misinterpret this subheading, note that it is only a continuation of “Lectures from a toddler” but from a different perspective. As I was typing this on my computer it occurred to me that we humans perform similar tasks as the hard disc, floppy diskette or CD-ROM.

ii. All computers need windows to function, and so does the human central nervous system. I quickly remembered also that in the science of ergonomics machines are made to fit human operators. Then the really big one is that electronic engineers studied the human brain, how it functions in everyday life, and copied it to invent the computer itself!

iii. The eyes, ears, nose, mouth and the skin of the infant allow it to communicate with the external environment just as the keyboard, the mouse, and modems permit the computer to appreciate the “garbage in, garbage out “ paradigm!

iv. So it is with the human soul! It has many windows with which it interacts with, controls and responds to both the internal and the external environments of the human body!

v. We feel hot, cold, warm, and have tactile responses because nature’s gift of feeling is a window of the soul! So also are the other windows you may observe in the body of our little lecturer, “the toddler”.

vi. A brand new hard disc, “the C drive”, is blank until programs are fed into it! And so is the new-born / babe's mind, its early responses and later in life its traits, mannerisms, and ultimately its good and bad behaviours!

vii. Has it ever occurred to you that differences in children are due to a variety of programmers working on its “CPU”, by the very same ways different soft wares fed into a computer determines the behaviours and services it can render?

viii. So, we intend to reflect on how we influence the making of saints or criminals in our family interactions with toddlers in this chapter! In reality, we are the products of parental influences, cultural, ethnic and religious stereotypes and social prejudices! This is the hard truth!

ix. If you rear a set of identical male twins, one in a prison yard and the other in a monastery. What would you expect at the end of twenty-five years? Or, on the other hand, you rear a set of female identical twins, one in a convent and the other in a brothel, what will the results of your experiment behaviour-wise?

x. That is exactly what happens to us all within our short life span of home upbringing by responsible or irresponsible adults around us! Make no mistakes about it; stealing, aggressiveness, telling lies, cleanliness, carefulness, loyalty promiscuity etc are all programmed behaviours!

xi. So we must be wary and conscious of what we do or fail to do in the presence of toddlers, teenagers and adolescents! They constitute the best imitators and artistes in the world. The irony of it being that they take it for real and the beat way to survive in he socio-cultural milieu they grew up! And they carry it about to other areas of the world unable to differentiate “the good, the bad and the ugly”.

xii. When I bought my first computer, I had “Microsoft Windows 95” as its pre-installation program from Compaq, the factory that made it. Later on I learnt that two more windows were already in existence since then, but there little I could do about a change. I made the best use of that primary learning program, even though most of my more informed friends pressurised me to re-program it.

xiii. Sooner than later, fluctuations in electric current in my neighbourhood took its toll on my hard disc, and all I got after my computer had booted out was; “operating system, not found”. Truly, that was exactly “experimental neurosis” for my poor CPU, and it won my sympathy. I took the whole compartment that houses the hard disc to Lagos, parted with a large chunk of my income and had “Microsoft Windows 98” installed!

xiv. Before that decision, however, I had made inquiries on the best program that was in the market, for by then two more windows had been introduced into the computer world! And so it is with every toddler's mind! It is programmed. But unlike the computer, it cannot be reprogrammed easily. There are always traces of the original programs, software, on line, Internet (surfed or browsed) and downloaded programs!

xv. You can begin to appreciate more why parents and other relevant adults around every new-born must be wise and selective about what the baby sees, hears, tastes, feels or touches within the first five years of life! Do I need to explain an idiom? No! It is never done in my culture. You just have to grow up to unravel the nuggets of wisdom wrapped in an idiom! Do so now!

xvi. The ‘icons, shortcuts, mouse’ and other methods of recognising and inserting good and bad behaviour patterns in the infant, graduates into more sophistication as it learns to walk, talk, read, listen to radio/ tape recorders and watch television programs!

xvii. Therefore, bringing up a balanced and well-groomed teenager is not a simple task. Unfortunately that is exactly what obtains in most homes! Parents think that all they need do is; feed the baby well, take it hospital, Nursery school or Sunday service. They are as wrong as they can ever be in life!

xviii. And such parents are the first to exclaim, “ What’s wrong with junior? Why is this child behaving abnormally? During my teenage years, I never did things like these? What is wrong with children of nowadays? I cannot exhaust the list of embarrassing statements I have heard!

xix. For an answer, I have only this “They had immature parents who ignored them early in life, but were busy chasing money, and those parents are delinquents!” We over-emphasise what is trivial, magnify or over-prioritise that which does not build good human relationships but in the same vein neglect our children’s proper upbringing.

xx. Please rethink after reading this chapter. The greatest investment you can ever make in life is training you child properly, not a fat bank account or landed properties scattered all over the world! Many homes have no children but you are toying with the fruits of love Nature has bountifully and/or gracefully given to you! Do you deserve them? Relent, my friend, I mean repent!

CHAPTER 6 OF BECOMING A GREAT SOUL

i. Everything that lives and possesses immanent motion has a soul! Do you want a debate on that? Simple, tell me any invention of man that is self- propelled? The nearest we have come to that, is the novel solar system whereby some prototypes of electrical machines are energised by the power of the sun. This would definitely benefit those living in the tropics and that explains why European scientists are dragging their feet over their mass production!

ii. But what are our so-called professors in engineering waiting for? When shall all those warming academic stools in our glorified universities in the tropics compete with their counterparts? In order not to derail, lets focus on how one can aspire to and eventually become a great soul worthy of mention after one's lifespan on earth!

iii. What or who is a great soul? To answer that question let us consider some great statements that have changed the course of man's history and identify those who made them; - “The moment the slave resolves that he will no longer be a slave, his fetters fall. He frees himself and shows the way to others. Freedom and slavery are mental states.” Guess who made that everlasting statement!

iv. “ If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognise the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place.” I hope you will get this very easily, can you?

v. “ I submit that an individual who breaks an unjust law that his conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.”

vi. Have you attempted to find the Great Souls that made those watersheds of eternal truths? If not, you need the services of a historian of repute to unravel their identities! Let me give you some more clues.

vii. Add this to the first quotation; --– A diminutive man possessed of an indomitable will, who not only secured national independence for his native land, but also introduced to world politics a concept of active, non-violent civil disobedience an idea whose myriad applications have only begun to be explored. Have you remembered him by now?

viii. Add this to the second quotation; --As an anthropologist, she advocated progressive social action, as is evident in one of her most famous quotes: “ Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.”

ix. Add this to the third quotation; -- When he was in jail, he wrote, “ I am in Birmingham because injustice is here”, and then added this to his fellow clergymen… “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

x. If by now you have not guessed anyone of the three Great Souls correctly, then stop reading this Kenezian Ethics, for it will do you no good! You need to refine your thoughts, enlarge your heart, begin to learn new ideas about humanitarian principles and a little more from history books!

xi. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, also known as Mahatma (Great Soul) wrote the first one in 1949, in his book: NON-VIOLENCE IN PEACE AND WAR. He is today regarded as the greatest revolutionary of the century. He has many disciples, to date, including this author!

xii. Margaret Mead, while popularising anthropology through her field studies on the cultures of New Guinea and Samoa, wrote the second quotation in 1935, in her classic: “SEX AND TEMPERAMENT IN THREE PRIMITIVE SOCIETIES.” She argued that culture and society, not biological inheritance, determine individual character. The idea disarmed theorists who asserted that personality and intelligence, like the colour of skin, stemmed from biology, and it discredited arguments that supported race-based policies of segregation.

xiii. Martin Luther King, jnr. wrote the third quotation in a book compiled from the letters he wrote on scraps of paper and smuggled out from prison cell in 1963, entitled: “ LETTER FROM BIRMINGHAM JAIL.” The letters were mainly addressed to his critics in the clergy who opposed his civil rights marches.

xiv. King credited Indian leader Mohandas Gandhi for the non-violent methods of civil disobedience he used against unjust laws. In subsequent years before his assassination in 1968, King – against much resistance – led the drive toward civil rights legislation while promoting peaceful civil disobedience as a universal method of demanding social and economic justice.

xv. Have you learnt any veritable lessons from those quotes of Great Souls? I deliberately chose from three different cultures and from both sexes, to assert that great minds exist in most men and women of great repute! You too, can become a beacon of light in this present life and a source of inspiration after death!

xvi. A single voice can change the world! Whether the voice describes a new scientific theory, tells the stories of a culture, or speaks for a previously voiceless group of people! It can reach across national borders and across time to influence a wider world and transform the world that follows.

xvii. That voice could be yours. Start today to have universal thoughts that will benefit the whole humanity. Yes, that’s the way all Great Souls began! Influential thinkers perform such feats! You too, can become a Great Soul!!

xviii. The twentieth century is nearing an end. Powerful ideas in physical and medical sciences, arts and humanities, politics and religion have changed our social relationships for better or for worse! Don’t sit on the fence. Choose a role model today and begin to emulate him or her!

xix. Some great minds have altered humanity, increased understanding between individuals and cultures, and helped to define our present world for good or for bad. Nothing ever remains the same always. Change is a natural law that we all must obey at all times!

xx. Do you want to make history? Today is your genesis! Seize the opportunity of this moment. Let this meditation on becoming a Great Soul be the impetus that you have been waiting for! Don’t procrastinate! It is a lazy man’s excuse!

BOTH IN RURAL VILLAGES AND URBAN CITIES, IT HAS BEEN FOUND THAT ONE’S BEHAVIOUR CLASSIFIES ONE AS CHILDISH, REGRESSED, ADOLESCENT, AND ADULT OR ADENESCENT. WHERE DO YOU BELONG IN THIS CATEGORISATIONS?

CHAPTER 7 EIGHT AGES OF MAN

i Now we shall consult another expert on the development of the toddler. How does the infant acquire some personality traits? In other words, how did you become the individual you are today with all your peculiar mannerisms? What roles did your parents and relevant others play in the shaping your present personality traits?

ii Erik Homburger Erikson, while practising at the Centre for the Advanced Study in the Behavioural Sciences, Stanford, California in March 1963 wrote: “CHILDHOOD AND SOCIETY”, a Pelican Book, that was the result of more than ten years of clinical observations of two American Indian tribes.

iii On the front cover he summarised his work thus: “ While tribes and nations, in many intuitive ways, use child training to the end of gaining their particular form of mature human identity, their unique version of integrity, they are and remain, beset by the irrational fears which stem from the very state of childhood which they exploited in their specific ways.”

iv Professor Erikson is a Freudian. Using a number of fascinating case histories as springboards for theoretical discussions of the formative years of childhood, he reveals human life as a delicate balance between bodily, mental and social influences in the masterpiece!

v. You just have to locate that handy book and read it in a hurry, in order to follow my conclusions here! The title of our chapter is lifted from his book and coincidentally it is also a chapter seven! I can only summarise them here, and my précis may not convey all the information you need. So, find it and read it!

vi. The first age of man, Erikson labelled as; “Basic Trust versus Basic Mistrust” which refers to the relaxation the infant feels with parental provision of his basic survival needs. “The first demonstration of social trust in the baby is the ease of his feeding, the depth of his sleep, the relaxation of his bowels. The experience of a mutual regulation of his increasingly receptive capacities, with the maternal techniques of provision gradually helps him to balance the discomfort caused by the immaturity of homeostasis with which he was born”.

vii. In practice, the infant’s first social achievement, then, is his willingness to let the mother out of sight without undue anxiety or rage, because she has become an inner certainty as well as an outer predictability. A maternal bond formed by long and regular breastfeeding ensures this! Such consistency, continuity and sameness of experience provide a rudimentary sense of ego identity. The lesson to learn from that analysis is that parents should take the blame if their children do not trust anyone in later life! Build confidence in your little infants today!!

viii. The next age is labelled: “Autonomy versus Shame & Doubt” which has to do with locomotion. Maturation of the limbs and the ability to move around brings in its wake anxiety! Muscular maturation sets the stage for experimentation with two simultaneous sets of social modalities; their basic conflicts can lead in the end to either hostile or benign expectations or attitudes. These are very important facts which parents neglect either due to ignorance or dereliction of duties towards new-borns that are priceless gifts from Mother Nature!

ix. “Thus, to hold can become as destructive and cruel as retaining or restraining, and it can become a pattern of care: to have and to hold! To let go, too, can turn into an inimical letting loose of destructive forces, or it can become a relaxed “to let pass” and “to let be”. In other words, we need to realise that self-confidence and independence depends on how much autonomy we allow our children in early life. Allow them to be on their own. Don’t over-protect nor pamper your children. When they fall down, allow them to get up by themselves!

x. The age of “Initiative versus Guilt” follows, which Erikson describes as the most important factor in morality development! There is in every child at every stage a new miracle of vigorous unfolding, which constitutes a New Hope and a New Responsibility for all. Such is the sense and the pervading quality of initiative.

xi. The criteria for all these senses and qualities are the same: a crisis, more or less beset with fumbling and fear, is resolved, in that the child suddenly seems to “grow together” both in his person and in his body. He appears “more himself”, more loving, relaxed and brighter in his judgement, more activated and activating.

xii. He is in free possession of a surplus of energy, which permits him to forget failures quickly and to approach what seems desirable (even if it also seems uncertain and even dangerous) with undiminished and more accurate direction. Initiative adds to autonomy the quality of undertaking, planning and “attacking” a task for the sake of being active and on the move, where before self-will, more often than not, inspires acts of defiance or, at any rate, protested independence!

xiii. The point for all adults around growing children to note, is that we must permit freedom to infants to makes mistakes, bear the consequences for their indiscretions and thereby learn to obey norms and mores on their own initiative rather than to please anyone! Does this make any sense to you? Moral codes must be rationalised and internalised on their own, not by religious or parental coercion!

xiv. The next age is that of “Industry versus Inferiority”, wherein Erikson next introduces the genesis of laxity, truancy and malingering. The last stage is the foundation of initiative, thus the inner stage seems all set for “entrance into life”, except that life must first be school life, whether school is in a field or a jungle or a classroom! The child must forget past hopes and wishes while his exuberant imagination is tamed and harnessed to the laws of impersonal things – even the three Rs!

xv. With the oncoming latency period, the normally advanced child forgets, or rather sublimates, the necessity to “make” people by direct attack or to become a papa or a mama in a hurry! S/he now learns to win recognition by producing things, becomes ready to apply her/himself to given skills and tasks, which go far beyond the mere playful expression of her/his sexual organ's modes of pleasure in the function of his limbs.

xvi. The growing child or teenager now develops a sense of industry – i.e., s/he adjusts her/himself to the inorganic laws of the tool world. S/he can become an eager and absorbed unit of a productive situation, and to bring it to completion is an aim/objective, which gradually supersedes the whims and wishes of play! A successful adjustment results in a well-balanced adult! So, guide your kids to achieve independence and industry in later life and you would have scored a 100% as good and dutiful parent!!!

xvii. The fifth age, Erikson called “Identity versus Role Confusion” which simply states what is happening as the teenager evolves into an adolescent. With the establishment of a good initial relationship to the world of skills and tools, and with the advent of puberty, childhood proper ends. Youth begins!

xviii. With the maturation of their gonads; menarche in females and wet dreams in males, they are now primarily concerned with what they appear to be in the eyes of others as compared with what they feel they are, and also with the question of how to connect the roles and skills cultivated earlier with the occupational prototypes of the day!

xix. The integration now taking place in the form of ego identity is, as pointed out earlier, more than the sum of the childhood identifications. It is the accrued experience of the ego's ability to integrate all identifications with the vicissitudes of the libido, with the aptitudes developed out of endowment and with the opportunities offered in social roles!

xx. The danger of this stage is role confusion! Where this is based on a strong previous doubt as to one's sexual identity, delinquency and/or outright psychotic episodes are common! But when properly resolved and to keep themselves together, they temporarily over identify, to the point of apparent complete loss of identity, with heroes of cliques and crowds!

xxi. This initiates the stage of “falling in love”, which is by no means entirely, or even primarily, a sexual matter – except where the mores demand it. To a considerable extent, adolescent love is an attempt to arrive at a definition of one's identity by projecting one's diffused ego-image on another and by seeing it thus reflected and gradually clarified. This is why; so much of young love is conversation and an over-doze of chattering spiced with giggles!

xxii. “Intimacy versus Isolation” is the next age of man, according to Professor Erik Erikson! The young adult, emerging from the search for and the insistence on identity, is eager and willing to fuse his identity with that of others. S/he is ready for intimacy, that is, the capacity to commit her/himself to concrete affiliations and partnerships and to develop the ethical strength to abide by such commitments, even though they may call for significant sacrifices and compromises.

xxiii. The physical body and the ego must now become masters of the organ modes (instinctual energies) and of the nuclear conflicts (sexual urges), in order to be able to face the fear of ego loss (inferiority complex) in situations which call for self-abandon (self denial): in the solidarity of close affiliations, in orgasms and sexual unions, in close friendship and in physical combat, in experiences of inspiration by teachers and of intuition from the recesses of the self!

xxiv. The avoidance of such experiences because of fear of ego-loss may lead to a deep sense of isolation, withdrawn personality traits and consequent self-absorption. These predisposing factors lead to masturbation, homosexuality and lesbianism! Be observant and rescue your little ones from these abnormalities early in life! Show them true love. Display genuine heterosexual relationships whenever you and your spouse are in front of them!

xxv. The seventh age of man then, is “Generativity versus Stagnation”, a term that encompasses the evolutionary development that has made man the teaching and instituting as well as the learning animal. Generativity, then, is primarily the concern in establishing and guiding the next generation of human beings, although there are individuals who, through misfortune or because of special and genuine gifts in other directions, do not apply this drive to their own offspring.

xxvi. Generativity thus is an essential on the psychosexual as well as on the psychosocial schedule. Where such enrichment fails altogether, regression to an obsessive need for pseudo-intimacy takes place, often with a pervading sense of stagnation and personal impoverishment. This is the predisposing factor for the variety of abnormal sexual behaviour mentioned earlier! In fact, some young parents suffer from the retardation of the ability to develop this stage!

xxvii. And finally, we arrive at the last age of man; “Ego integrity versus Despair”, which the learned professor describes thus; “Only in him who in some way has taken care of things and people and has adapted her/himself to the triumphs and disappointments adherent to being, the originator of others or the generator of products and ideas – only in him/her may gradually ripen the fruits of these seven stages”.

xxviii. “It is the ego's accrued assurance of its proclivity for order and meaning. It is a post-narcissistic love of the human ego – not of the self – as an experience which conveys some world order and spiritual sense, no matter how dearly paid for! It is the acceptance of one's one and only life cycle as something that had to be and that, by necessity, permitted of no substitutions: it thus means a new, a different love of one's parents” affirms Erikson!

xxix.“The lack or loss of this accrued ego integration is signified by fear of death: the one and only life cycle is not accepted as the ultimate of life. Despair expresses the feeling that the time is now short, too short for the attempt to start another life and to try out alternative roads to integrity! Disgust hides despair, if often only in form of a thousand little disgusts which do not add up to one big remorse”, concludes our learned professor!”

xxx. My dear reader, with the wisdom gained here, you can now assert that it is not religion that makes one feel guilty, develop into a sex pervert and/or become a recluse! Modern man has to learn to de-emphasise scruples induced by religious injunctions and accept his responsibility for personal failures in life! If that is the only lesson you have learnt from this chapter, you are a wise person!! Go ahead and implement that principle in all your dealings in life!

CHAPTER 8:

MORAL DEVELOPMENT IN CHILDREN

i Another recent research scientist that studied childhood in detail is Lawrence Kohlberghas, an American psychologist, who stated that as we grew up each one of us passed six developmental stages of morality! He carefully monitored and documented how infants develop the sense of right and wrong. He is a current scientist, and we can learn a lot from his research!

ii Stage one, he labelled; PRE-MORAL , here moral development is essentially at the pre-moral level. Children at this stage behave properly simply to avoid punishment. They show an unquestioning deference to power /authority, moreover, the physical consequences of any action determine its goodness or badness for the child.

iii. Stage two, is INSTRUMENTAL-HEDONISTIC, morality here is like a marketable commodity for the teenager. What is considered right is primarily what is good for the child himself; occasionally, the satisfaction of other’s needs is a factor, but the outlook of these persons is essentially an instrumental-hedonistic one; e.g. ‘You scratch my back, I scratch yours.’

iv. Stage three, is PEER GROUP APPROVAL; morality is what is approved by others. Peer group satisfaction gradually replaces parent’s approval. At this level the child is able to take the role of others, he can understand what will please them and tries to gain recognition as “the good child”.

v. Stage four; The LAW–AND–ORDER stage. Here, children’s respect for authority, whether parents, teachers, policemen, priests or pastor originates in anticipation of honour and avoidance of dishonour. The orientation is to do one’s duty, obey fixed rules and maintain the social order.

vi. Stage five; AUTONOMY, principally behaviour is based on what is right or wrong, decisions are made on what is proper or improper on the basis of contracts, social or personal at the stage. Adolescents are able to take into account the viewpoint of society in general or play the roles of adults.

vii. Stage six; is the UNIVERSAL ETHICAL PRINCIPLE orientation. According to Kohlberg, only Jesus Christ, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King jnr. have displayed in their lives; respect for the rights and dignity of their fellow human beings and had been concerned that this mutual respect becomes a universal law!

viii. From the information garnered from Lawrence Kohlberghas, most of us humans are still struggling to graduate from the third stage of moral development and this accounts for so many puerile and purposeless leaders all over the globe!

ix. The second stage of moral development fits what we observe in Third World countries, whereas, only a few of the so-called Fist and Second world country are fixated at the third stage.

x. In INTEGRATIONAL SPIRITAN MOVEMENT. (I.S.M.), the target of each member is to reach the sixth stage within ten years of joining the fellowship. Any one who lags behind will be asked to resign his/her membership! It is a sure proof that such a one is neither rational nor scientific and we detest such regressive behaviour!

xi. If as scientists or rationalists we are agreed that only AN UNMOVED MOVER or AN UNCUSED CAUSER was responsible for existence, the universe and life; then we are brothers and sisters with equal rights, privileges and responsibilities to one another.

xii. Some philosophers prefer the term ‘The Summum Bonuum’ but we are not restricting our discussion to languages that are cumbersome for some to master. ‘The Supreme Good’ is neither an idiomatic translation nor an adequate literal translation! More over both are subject to myopic misrepresentations as what is ‘good’ to one person or culture may be ‘bad’ to another, for example, polygamy whether polyandry or polygyny!

xiii. At this point it might be fundamental to summarise what Gestalt Therapy has to offer! The mainstay or the notion here is that people are born wonderful, happy creatures and would remain that was if allowed to grow up naturally.

xiv. It is the society one grows up in which begins to influence us as children, that sometimes pushes us onto the wrong track. Our problems occur when we absorb other people’s value-judgements, like our parents, siblings, uncles, aunts, teachers, religious or political leaders.

xv. When these value-judgements are in sharp contrast to our own real feelings, life-long conflicts arise. We often experience these conflicts as self-disapproval for own genuine feelings and rather impose the opinions of our culture or religion!

xvi. That alone spells the beginning of the end. So in I.S.M. it is your duty to identify these impositions and ratify them based on the divine natural laws the Almighty Creator put in the universe. This is the basic theory and practice of Kenezianism

xvii. Finding them is easy. Look inwards and find the natural laws written boldly in your heart. The little voice that speaks to you anytime you are about to violate the natural laws are international and non-partisan. What your parents and culture tried to do was only to stifle it and imprint what they thought would be good for you!

xviii. You and you are the final arbiter in what you think, decide and implement! No one can imprison your mind, thoughts and words. Yes, no one can bend your will–power if you are resolute. Are you going to be the driver in the seat of your vehicle (your material body) or are you going to be a passenger? This and only this is the golden price ISM demands of you, and thereafter you can gain eternal freedom!

xix In Kenezianism, only One True God exists, namely; GOD,THE ALMIGHTY CREATOR! He initiated initiates and will forever initiate all thoughts, words and actions that are global, eternal and metaphysical in all beings, animate as well as inanimate. He is the Only One that deserves our unalloyed worship, praise, honour and adoration!

xxi. Every other being that ever existed, exists or will ever exist, does so at His pleasure and comes under His Natural and Eternal Laws that govern all macrocosms and microcosms He created! Hence every other great religious leader, dead or alive, those acclaimed as divine prophets, gurus, saviours or mystics are all classified as ‘lords’.

xxii. Therefore Shankara & Ramanuja, K’ung Ch’iu (Confucius), Siddhartha Guatama (Buddha), Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Joshua, David, Solomon, John the Baptist, Jesus the Christ, Peter and/or Paul the apostles, Mohammed the Prophet, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Sa’i Baba and/or any other prominent moralist must be referred to only as ‘Lords’!

xxiii. None of them or anyone else that may come hereafter is near to or co-equal with Our Almighty Father, who created and sustains everything in existence! This knowledge and its eternal acceptance as the stepping stone to all educational programmes are the beginning of wisdom for scientists of all generations, as well as for all shades of religious affiliations!

xxiv. Our great grandfathers knew that much! So why did some fanatics deify their heroes and idolised what was created and finite at any stage of its material/physical existence in this universe? Ignorance is the one and only correct answer!

xxv. None of these famous religious leaders was there at the dawn of creations. Read the books credited to Job, Solomon, Issaiah, Sirach, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. None of these authors suggested anything like that! No, not even the great Patriarch Moses who founded Judaism was ever credited with dualising the Godhead, not to mention Christians tripling it!

xxvi. Even the great apostle of the gentiles, Saul of Tarsus, later called Paul after his miraculous conversion, emphatically states that the Almighty God is One and has no equal or deputy! Read more of this in his first letter to his loyal converts at Corinthians, Chapter 8 verses 1-6. Moses did a better job in the whole of his book named EXODUS!

xxvii. So let us all stop this buffoonery of attributing equality in personhood to anything else! It is not only idolatrous but sacrilegious and irrational! It breeds fanaticism, segregation, partisanship and finally syncretism. It is the harbinger of all-religious differences, schisms, feuds and wars!

xxviii. The world of science, medicine and electronics have demonstrated that all human beings can believe, learn and accept certain universal ways of doing things! This is because these areas of knowledge are impartial, objective and devoid of sentimental attachment or any form of socio-political patronage. We hold international conferences on most departments of academics and arrive at world-wide principles and standards, so why not in religion?

xxix. The answer is simple; Religion is constructed on the shifting sands of emotions, politics and hero-worships. These are inimical to modern man. And the sooner we recognised it and addressed it, the better for our generation! That is all that I.S.M. stands for. Join us today, and provide the human race with a scientifically oriented spiritual fellowship where all are brothers and sisters. Thank you and God bless everyone!

*** Christian fanatics should read Matt.19: 16 -30 or Mk.10: 17 -31 or again Lk.18: 18 -30,

And thereafter recognise that it was Saul of Tarsus that deified Jesus at Philippians 2: 6 –11;

Realising that Is.45: 23 given as a foot reference does not confirm nor corroborate that deification!

It was a Pauline error, which has diverted the true worship of the only Creator - Almighty God!

So also did the Doctrine of Holy Trinity, which was copied, from Hindu religion and from Greco-Roman mythology!

CHAPTER 9:

CONTROVERSY CAUSED BY RELIGIONS

i My dear reader, can I now call you a disciple? It will help me avoid the error of many religionists who unwittingly masculinise all their injunctions with “he, his, himself, man” as if only males are moralistic! In today’s world, women are more religiously minded than men, yet many preachers and evangelists still deliver their sermons as if the womenfolk were not around!

ii. My dear disciple, have you ever noticed the competition among various churches and ministries around where you live? Would there be so much strife, slandering, castigation and/or outright condemnation of each other if leaders of these groups really understood the existential meaning of religion?

iii. The true meaning of the term “religion” is “ to bind oneself to doing something willy-nilly”. Whether it is the belief in or the worship of gods or a God, as the dictionaries would have us believe, the word originally came from the Latin root “religere” which literally translates to “to bind”, as if tied with a rope. Its origin was derogatory. It was meant to castigate the early Christians whom Nero ‘the mad emperor’ tied to stakes and made sport of, by allowing lions to tear their bodies apart while the victims screamed in pains!

iv. Read historical writings about how the early Christians were martyred and you will even realise that today we have very little faith. Where is the LOVE that these early Christians demonstrated? Where is ‘the sharing all their belongings among themselves’ that Chapter 4 verses 32 –37 of the Acts of the Apostles credited them with? When shall the present crowd of hypnotised fanatics realize that they are being taken for a ride by ‘a brood of vipers’ or demonic preachers, ‘whose only god is their belly’ as Jesus, the Christ referred to them in the Christian bible? Hypocrisy has elevated to an art that yields millions for these half-baked charlatans and school dropouts!

v. We have lost true love and religious piety that to greed, selfishness, avarice, pride and the monetisation or commercialisation of religious worship, crusades and other clandestine activities, all in the name of religion! While these pastors smile to the banks, their followers wallow in penury, starvation and ignorance! Did Christ or any other religious leader in history ever preach competition, hatred, calumny, gossiping, slandering and a myriad of other divisive behaviour that characterise today’s mode of pecuniary evangelisation antics?

vi. So, my dear disciple, can you now see the plan of the Evil One that was predicted in the Bible, the Anti-Christ and his devilish strategy? Don’t ever be caught up in their materialistic religious deceptions! Free yourself today. Rationalise what you hear, choose the one that satisfies international ethics, as all altruistic moralists would enjoin us. This is the scientific age, not the early or prehistoric ages when everything was based on introspective vituperations or theological speculations of self-proclaimed visionaries. Logical arguments and satisfactory conclusions should be your guidelines in religious activities, not emotions!

vii. If you have not acquired any logical skills, then now is the best time to learn the basics of scientific reasoning. It is the solution to so many differences of opinions in life. I encourage you to be rational in your thinking, discussions and actions from now on. You will be surprised by the amount of freedom you will feel. Take time to evaluate all you have accepted from childhood as truths without having had neither the chance nor the capability to reason them out by then! Free yourself from self-imprisonment! Throw away those dogmatic and doctrinal shackles that have held you hostage for so many years.

viii. Witness these practical samples of Kenezian wisdom: everyone uses telephone, whether cellular or non- cellular, these days without quarrelling over who invented it; no arguments arise from the use of computers or the internet; and so does transportation either by land, sea or air! None of these has ever brought any strife neither between any religious groups nor between nationalities of various nomenclatures. Why does religion generate so much strife and disagreements? The answer is very simple! It operates on the level of irrational emotions; what appeals to one group of worshippers do not appeal to others, because they are primarily based on personal opinions of their leaders. Moreover the human mind is so egocentric, impressionistic and parochial! It dichotomises what naturally does not need any divisions, segregations or compartmentalisations.

ix. Check this one out. Will two medical doctors quarrel over the treatment of headaches or bruises or fractures? No, is the natural answer. But often we do not realize why! That is exactly where Kenezianism comes in as a science of morals that cuts across national, political and religious boundaries. It reduces every concept about the supernatural to logic, facts, data and practical knowledge that are independent of its originator’s personal opinions. The concepts in Kenezianism are natural phenomena that are replicable in any part of the world, irrespective of the literacy level of its practitioner!

x. An example will demonstrate its universality. In Kenezianism, all human beings are accepted as brothers and sisters for the mere scientific fact that we have similar blood groupings, identical anatomy, comparable physiology and heterosexual behavioural patterns! The proofs are there for everyone to see and accept rationally, not emotionally nor parochially! We intermarry; blacks, whites, and yellows interchangeably; and produce children not apes. And these off springs of ours are neither ethnocentric at birth nor apartheid in social relationships until their parents introduce them to stereotypic child-rearing practices and segregationist education! This Gestalt Therapy deals with. The avid reader can explore it!

xi. The principle of Kenezianism abhors such, and will not be dragged into such mundane socio-political balderdash or any religious buffoonery! Its mission statement spells that out in the KENEZIAN CREED and the LETTER TO ALL EDUCATIONISTS. Read them over and over. Rationalise their universal utility for a more equitable and egalitarian world government! If you cannot accept nor internalise the concept therein, drop this book here and now and never border to read any other publications of the Kenezians! It is very essential that we abrogate ethnic, racial, status and religio-cultural divisions in our world of today that has become a global village. The way we fight pandemics and terrorism should serve us well in socio-political dimensions also! We must genuinely be our brothers’ keepers!

xii. The literacy level of many adherents of various religious groups is very low. Add to this, the reluctance of human beings to adjust quickly to changes, and then you will better appreciate why many wallow in ignorance. Many do not like to explore unknown areas of knowledge in their short life spans. Most accept the religion they were born into, swallow all their parental injunctions and cap them all with the dogmas/doctrines manufactured by their myopic leaders. Thus we have religious wars, crusades and jihads today, that culminate in terrorism of varying magnitudes; the highest of which was the now notorious “September 11^th of U.S.A.”

xiii. When shall we ever learn? Did Confucius, Zoroaster, Buddha, Jesus or Mohammed ever preach syncretism? The answer is an affirmative NO! Only Moses, due to depersonalisation syndromes emanating from years of the enslavement of his kith and kin in Egypt and his personal refugee status in Midian before he was recalled to lead them out, inadvertently introduced segregationist concepts encapsulated in the Mosaic laws of ‘clean and unclean’ religious injunctions that culminated in ‘the Jew and the Gentile’ racist policies Chris failed to address succinctly before he was sacrificed.

xiv. As far as we are concerned in Kenezianism, that was a costly price for every religious leader who fails to resolve ethnic issues in his sermons. Did he reconcile the descendants of Esau, Ishmael and Jacob? No! Did he identify with the Samaritans, Greek or other ‘Gentile’ citizens of his epoch? No! Did he integrate the Roman Rulers of his time with his ethnic group? No! There were many other leaders, religious and/or political, in history that paid for the same negligence. The concept that he died for everyone is not only obsolete but also idiosyncratic and outrageously fanatical, for up till now, present Jews and previous ones never acknowledged that idea. To-date, the Jewish race is still expecting a Saviour! It was Saul of Tarsus who marketed the idea, as he was making reparations for murdering Stephen and many early followers that he had dispatched to impromptu graves!

xv. The truth will always surface no matter for how long it is buried. Let us learn to apportion blame wherever and whenever they are due. Hero worship never pays lasting dividends. Idolising a great leader detracts from total loyalty and the true worship we owe to the Almighty Father, the Indisputable Creator of the universe and all of us; human beings, plants, animals, animate microcosms and other inanimate macrocosms. It is time to proclaim the true Unitarian Godhead! Trinitarians are idolaters who copied from the ancient symbols of the religions of the Far East and those of Egyptian mythology!

xvi. Pragmatism, Rationalism and Existentialism (P.R.E) remain the tripod on which Kenezianism rests! Subject every novel idea you learn, to the acid test of satisfying those ‘Three Kings’ and if it passes, then internalise and practise it in your daily life. If not, vomit it, for it is a counterfeit and therefore it is anti-thetical to the present scientific age of man; ‘the Homo sapiens’! You are hereby appointed a judge of all our write-ups that do not meet those criteria, namely PRE. In addition, every injunction of Kenezianism must be people oriented, meaning that it must be truly humanitarian in all ramifications; thus giving us the formula; k= (ica / pre) hapo, where ‘k’ is same as Kenezianism, ‘ica’ equates to; ideas, communication & actions, ‘pre’ represents the three kings just mentioned above, whereas ‘hapo’ stands for; humanitarian and people oriented! Ask a mathematician to explain the rest to you, while we proceed to other pressing fundamentals.

xvii. Whereas other spiritual organisations emphasise ‘beliefs-systems’and ‘dogmas/doctrines’ Kenezianism emphatically encourages you to know, experiment and prove beyond every reasonable doubt, every construct we propose to you for a lucid evaluation that can formulate the building blocks for an all-embracive world government. We do not believe that God exists; rather we know that HE/SHE/IT exists irrespective of our acceptance or otherwise of the great truth! God is the ONE and ONLY GODHEAD that is and has no need for a Trinitarian explanation. We prefer to refer to this godhead as ‘The Almighty Creator’ at all times and use the pronoun ‘IT’ as there is no proof that IT is either male or female!! And as the Prime Mover of all else that moves, it can manifest as sound, light, energy and even as a physical entity!

xviii. The ambition of all Kenezians is to internationalise ‘obedience to all natural and eternal laws as the bedrock of a world spiritual fellowship of realists and/or scientists not a congregation of theologians, fanatics nor religionists. There are many international religions already existing in the scientific community, like the FIFA, OLYMPIC COMMITTEE, the WCC, the ICRC or even the latest and most popular religion as at now; the internet (http/www.org) to mention but a few, with dedicated adherents from all walks of life, esoteric/mystical sects and a variety of mundane/fanatical fraternities or denominations that we can ill-afford to increase the number. Rather, we crave to stand in the gaps to bridge the sentimental divides and knock down the perennial walls of differences in doctrinal conflicts.

xix. We know that it is possible to get all intelligent people to agree to and share an international concept provided it appeals to reason and arrests the interest of literate citizens of the global community who feel concerned. Our integrational spiritual fellowship, hereafter referred to as ISF, is based on scientific principles that obey all natural laws in creation. You, too, can contribute your altruistic quota to the consolidation of this brand of interdisciplinary, inter-racial and inter-devotional organisation. Any bright formulation is welcome provided it meets the basic requirements stated above as summarised by our scientific formula.

xx. You may refer to us as the UNAID, UNICEF, UNO or WHO of all known, registered and yet to be registered religions. We are, in a real sense, the meeting/melting point of all belief-systems. Every rationalist is welcome! If you appreciate what we stand for, communicate with us today. Don’t postpone or procrastinate.

Today, the Panama Canal has made it possible to access the Eastern Regions of the World while travelling continuously to the west! Inventors, Discoverers and occasionally, religious leaders emerge from obscure communities of despised nations to beam supernatural light and divine wisdom of the Creator!

CHAPTER 10:

LECTURES FROM THREE UNIVERSITIES

i We now come to the basics of nature study. Have you ever observed soldier ants on the march? It will definitely be difficult for those of us who did not grow up in a rural community or in a farm! For such persons, their elementary biology textbooks will suffice. All they need do is revise what they learnt in secondary school about social insects or look up that title in an encyclopaedia or browse the Internet.

ii. In either case, what they will learn is that these small insects are so well organised that it is a wonder why we, the so-called ‘Homo sapiens sapientes’ are so disorganised. Why do we need the police force to beat us into line, whereas these minute insects do not step out of line nor try to do another insect’s duty?

iii. They have specialists for any and every problem they group will ever encounter while they are on any march. Pity yourself, if you interrupt their movement. By the time they swarm around you and sink their jaws into your exposed skin area, you will feel so much pain that next time you will not only fear to cross their path, but you will dread and avoid any other insects that resemble them! Why?

iv. These little creatures have soldier ants with larger mandibles specialised for aggressive actions against any intruder and their duty it is to fight and protect the group. And their job ends there. They do not interfere in other duties like reproductive activities or in feeding the younger ones in the group. We have copied that much, but do our own soldiers mind their duty only?

v. There, is an important lesson for us humans to learn! A little common sense is all that we need to learn only one trade, specialise in it, be proud of it and not interfere in other people’s professions! But this rarely happens in the social organisation of mankind, yet we claim to be ‘the lord of the material universe’.

vi. Or shall we take lectures from another university? This time, from honeybees? Read all you can about this other social insect that even has a language communicated by a dance ritual. It is wonderful how minute beings out-class us in organising their little worlds. They eschew in- fighting. Rather they co-operate so well that their hives are always peaceful until man, the selfish scavenger intrudes to harvest where he never sowed, namely their honey that we steal in order to please our tongues!

vii. Again, they are so specialised that only one queen and a king may be found in each community at a time. Unlike what obtains in our human world, where we fight to establish supremacy! How many kings, queens, presidents, chairmen/women and traditional or religious rulers do we have? Are we ready to serve, take orders and obey even our own constitutions? Yet we pride ourselves as ‘Homo sapiens’!

viii. Visit web sites and learn how the honeybee communicates to the members of the hive that it has found nectar, either nearby or faraway. It is amazing, especially when one realises that they never learn these things. They are born with the peculiar knowledge of the waggle or straight dance. Scientists call this ‘species-specific’ behaviour, thereby indicating that they are born with the information stored in their memory and they must willy-nilly manifest them at the appropriate developmental stages of their lifecycles.

ix. The inquisitive minds will at once want to find out whether human infants have anything that resembles this. The answer is an affirmative YES! So the next natural question that follows is what happened to the human infant. You want an answer? Are you really that inquisitive or you want to behave like your species of proud apes?

x. You will have to wait till we have received tutorials from another university of nature, the termite colony! You must do yourself this favor. Don’t believe me, nor trust the information you surf from the Internet. Go out there, into the fields and have a firsthand experience of these data that biologists have spent years documenting so as to spoon-feed our infants at schools. That may also explain to you how and why human beings, are the laziest and craziest veterbrates in existence.

xi. The termites are the greatest engineers in the universe! That you doubt me fades into insignificance when you compare their anthill, structure weight for weight with their bodies. Our skyscrapers are nothing wonderful if we recognise that these minute ants don’t use mechanical machines to assist them in the construction work, nor do they use building plans scaled and drafted by architects!

xii. Again, what happens inside the termite palace is another natural wonder! The social organisation, though absurdly hierarchical, commands our respect! There is specialisation, not only in body structures, but also in the roles and duties each ant plays for the mutual benefit of the community.

xiii. That, precisely, is the point I am trying to emphasise. We, humans need to send our politicians to these anthill universities scattered all over the globe, to learn public administration! For as long as we allow mediocres to manage the affairs of any nation all in the name of political patronage, for so long shall the masses bear the brunt of their bungling of the administrative apparatus of the state.

xiv. It does no one good to function as a Minister of Health with credentials in engineering or even business administration! I am sorry for developing countries that waste their little resources by so doing. My opinion is that they must learn to put square pegs in square holes and round ones in round holes! They need these tutorials from termites, honeybees and soldier ants!

xv. My dear reader, are you following my trend of meditation? What of in our individual homes, kindreds and villages? Should fathers, mothers and children not take notes of lessons from these insects? My emphatic answer is a capital YES! What a mess is made of family life and peace by parents who throw their weight all round the place, all in the name of stamping their authority and exacting immediate obedience from everyone around!

xvi. Let’s quote an example to illustrate my point; “Apart from the reproductives, all castes are sterile and wingless and have whitish bodies, Typically, the workers constitute the most numerous caste and are the smallest of the adult forms. Workers build and provision the nest, tend the eggs, and feed and groom all the other inmates of the community.”

xvii. “ All species have soldiers with greatly enlarged heads. The soldiers of certain species are equipped with huge jaws for defence of the colony; in some species, the soldiers have long snouts, from which they eject a sticky, poisonous substance to envelop an enemy and render it helpless.”

xviii. Do you see what I mean? They owe their efficiency to dedication to duty despite the fact that they do not enjoy the basic rights of all other animals, namely the joy of sexual intercourse. May be I should have said ‘mainly because they do not indulge in the time-consuming and diversionary sexual copulation’ that is the genesis of distraction and depravity in the human species. Do you get my gist?

xix. The rivalry and competition to attract and please the opposite sex is the bane of all in-fighting animals on earth, be it in higher or lower creatures, the unicellular or multicellular forms of all animate beings. In olden days, and in some cultures to date man-made eunuchs exist and perform their duties more religiously than our so-called priests and nuns!

xx. The radical position being canvassed for by this writer for a wiser society is this: ‘It is time for selective social engineering, genetical selection and specialisation of men and women!’ Reproductive activities must be controlled to reduce defective babies as well as the over -production of a generation of human beings with a very high load of defective genes! You may scream ‘Tufia-kwa!’ or curse in any other dialect or language ‘God forbid this!’ But only time will tell whether the recommendation is completely anathema! For now, most religions of the Far East and the Catholic Church do not think I am crazy!

These verses or stanzas took at least twenty five years post-doctoral research in theosophy, ethics and psychology to piece together. You can improve on it. Please send us your modifications so we can let others critique it for the benefit of humanity.

Use our e-mail addresses;

saintkenez@yahoo.co.uk or www.happyfamilynetwork.hpage.com

That is our eternal desire; THAT ALL MEN AND WOMEN SEE THEMSELVES ARE EQUAL PARTNERS IN THIS SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST.

We are descendants of the same Almighty Creator, we share the same earth with its food productivity and we intermarry and produce human infants that have similar developmental stages till death! Do this and your life will be enriched beyond your wildest dreams. Your eternal self-fulfilment is only one click away on any internet explorer nearest to you now.

Dr Jideofo Kenechukwu Danmbaezue, D.Sc. a.k.a.

Rev. Prof. J. J. Kenez, the Animator of I. S. M.

A KENEZIAN RESUME

I have humbly stated what I was inspired to write to benefit rational beings that deserve to approach the Almighty Creator as bona-fide creations of His universe. We were neither consulted nor were there when He made all of us; however we are all heirs to the mutual benefits derivable by utilising his gifts maximally devoid of racism and religious bigotry.

Here is the genesis of the call which I received as early as 1981 after the Guyana Mass suicide of Rev. Jones and his followers. I wrote a magazine article on the event and followed it up with a comprehensive analysis of remote and immediate causes of religious psychopathology for my Ph.D. dissertation, which I entitled; THE PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF RELIGIOUS FANATICISM, but it did not impress my supervisors. They rejected it on the lame excuse that the psychological test I was developing to evaluate subjects for the research work was lengthy and could alone constitute a major research proposal I could never finish in three years! They were right! They were my revered Consultants and Professors in Psychological Medicine. I acquiesced and subsequently went ahead to re-write my proposal and so ended up writing a belated dissertation that they watered down to; PERSONALITY ADJUSTMENT AND RELIGION.

Over the years, I have written over fifty-five articles on how the whole world could adopt one mode of worship of the Creator and save humanity from the religious bigotry, ethnic cleansing, wars and homicide associated with crusades and jihads. For, as far I was concerned, we are of the same anatomy/physiology, we reproduce in the same manner having same blood chemistry and die in similar circumstances. Therefore, inter-religious genocides were and will remain fratricidal campaigns led by fanatical, mystical or demented leaders with misconceived religious military campaigns as the panacea for the unification of faith. I have a better option, so that is why I have introduced you to its foundation clauses of I.S.M. a.k.a. Kenezianism, which is this;

“A well-known speaker started off his seminar by holding up a $20 bill. In the room of 200, he asked, "Who would like this $20 bill?" Hands started going up. He said, "I am going to give this $20 to one of you but first, let me do this”. He proceeded to crumple the dollar bill up. He then asked, "Who still wants it?" Still the hands were up in the air. "Well," he replied, "what if I do this?" And he dropped it on the ground and started to grind it into the floor with his shoe. He picked it up, now all crumpled and dirty. "Now who still wants it?" Still the hands went into the air. "My friends, you have all learned a very valuable lesson. No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value. It was still worth $20. Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled and grounded into the dirt by the decisions we make and the circumstances that come our way. We feel as though we are worthless. But no matter what has happened or what will happen, you will never lose your value in God's eyes. To Him, dirty or clean, crumpled or finely creased, you are still priceless to Him.” That is ISM or KENEZIANISM in practice!

I hope you cherish these words of wisdom of an Unknown Author!

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THE KENEZIAN CREED

THE KENEZIAN CREED International Worship of the Almighty Creator by All Rational Human Beings 1. I am old enough to know my natural father and mother besides recognising the biological roles they played in my physical manifestation on this plane of existence. They were definitely instrumental in my earliest survival and reared me as best as they could. Now; I am I, you are you, we are us; therefore I affirm that I exist! 2. I am aware that I had a beginning as a living corporeal being and will naturally come to an end as other animate beings I have observed do come to a definitive end. I need food, water, air and sleep to survive as an individual entity and love, education and social interactions to grow, develop and mature properly in a human community, therefore I accept that all finite beings like myself are governed by certain Natural Laws. 3. The macrocosms that I observe; the sun, the moon, mountains, canyons, rivers, oceans, and seas obey these natural laws daily as well as whales, elephants, rhinoceros, hippopotamuses, giraffes, ostriches, and other huge reptiles. These laws existed before our arrival here, are enforced all the time and will continue after our individual deaths; therefore I am convinced that they are Eternal as well as Supernatural. 4. Every law has a lawgiver, so these natural, eternal and supernatural laws must equally have a Natural, an Eternal and a Supernatural Lawgiver or givers. If the latter, there must be a hierarchy and at the apex of these lawgivers must be one Supreme overseer that is the ultimate law itself and therefore I refer to it as the Ultimate Lawgiver whom all else must obey at all times. To IT/HIM/HER I owe my existence, my breath, my blood, my food and my life. IT/HE/SHE is my Greatest Being that must be obeyed and worshipped! 5. I have equally observed actions and reactions; motions produced by winds, time and space interactions and those immanent motions that are inherited by all living entities. They obey definite laws of gravity, temperature, time and space. Therefore I concede that these laws exact commensurate punishment for any and every violation of their dictates. Some punishments are immediate while some are delayed but definitely actions and reactions as I have realised are equal and opposite in nature. This Supernatural and Eternal Lawgiver rewards for obedience to these laws and so must be the Ultimate Cause of these motions for the daily enforcement of His Natural and Eternal Laws to ensure eternal harmony in the universe. 6. The force of gravity, the energy of light, the speed of sound, the velocity of wind, and the devastating fury of all the relentless elements in creation; thunders, fires, floods, storms, volcanoes, earthquakes and cyclones exhibit the magnitude and the energy of the One who initiates, maintains and controls them. The limitlessness of time, space, sound, light and darkness force me to concede that this Eternal Lawgiver is not only Infinite and Expansive but also All Powerful! 7. When I study the skies at night or the seasons and climates, the vegetation and the desert, the lagoons and the islands, the hills and the valleys, and most especially the beauty of sunrise and sunset, I marvel at the precision, regularity and complementary nature of these phenomena and therefore fully appreciate that whoever put them there, cares and caters for them on an hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly bases and must therefore be a Benevolent Custodian, and an Accurate Time Keeper! 8. Positivity and Negativity exist in all forms of life; microcosms, macrocosms, material and non-material beings thereby producing some real currents, emotions and instincts that are equally subservient to these ever-present natural and eternal laws. These make life worth living, for they constitute the basic motivations for the survival needs of every genus and species of life on planet earth, and so all pro-creative activities obey these Natural and Eternal Laws! 9. When I observe living beings; their beauty and ugliness, their variety and numbers, their shapes, sizes, modes of feeding, defending and surviving in hostile environments and most especially their innate abilities at reproducing themselves, sexually and/or asexually, I declare that this Eternal Lawgiver is All Creative, All Beautiful, and an Impartial Judge! I am fully convinced IT/HE/SHE created all the finite beings around me. Therefore, permit me to call IT/HE/SHE our commonwealth Supernatural and Eternal Creator/Father/Mother! 10. Among the living things that move about on their own, I do observe that we all have the same basic structure, protoplasm and energy source. We equally possess identical feelings, functions and comparable life spans! We all need to prostrate and worship this All Knowing, All Powerful, and Infinite Energy Source that sustains all beings in the entire universe! And because there are no accidents in Nature when all His Natural Laws are respected and obeyed, I attest to this creed most solemnly and voluntarily: • *-THE UNIVERSE IS OUR INHERITANCE, ALL MANKIND MY BLOOD RELATIVES! • **--DOING GOOD AT ALL TIMES AND OBEYING ALL NATURAL LAWS IS MY CODE! • ***---SEEKING THE TRUTH, LIVING THE TRUTH, PROPAGATING THE TRUTH AND DYING FOR THE TRUTH IF THE NEED ARISES, IS MY RELIGION! Postscript: My respect, obedience and loyalty belongs to this Almighty Eternal Being as I extend my hands of love and co-operation to all other beings that I meet during my short span of life on this planet, since I now recognise them as my brothers, sisters and co-heirs of this Our Eternal Lawgiver, Father and Mother who created us all! This is the Genesis of Kenezianism THE ENOCHIAN BEATITUDES 1. Blessed are those who obey all the Natural Laws in creation, For theirs is the Kingdom of God, personally guaranteed by The Almighty Creator of the universe. 2. Blessed are those who recognise that all human beings are their brothers and sisters, For their portion is the possession of the true Egalitarianism. 3. Blessed are those who know that we all share the same air, water, blood plasma, sun and moon, For this native insight shall reward them with filial love and care for others. 4. Blessed are those who realise that we all walk and plant on the same ground, For social justice and the joy of sharing shall be their everlasting benefits. 5. Blessed are those who wake up early each morning thanking and praising God, For this acknowledgement shall bring them divine blessings and peace of mind. 6. Blessed are all that recognise that equality at birth is the L.C.M. of human life, For theirs is the philosophic insight that eradicates apartheid and abrogates racism. 7. Blessed are the wise who know that we return to this human equality at death, For theirs are the social virtues and simple lifestyles it inculcates in all wise people. 8. Blessed are the genuine proponents and practitioners of true family life, For, through lovely children and happy homes, they shall inherit eternal life. 9. Blessed are all who train themselves to restrain their thoughts and guard their speech, For they will be respected by and confided in by those who interact with them anywhere. 10. Blessed are the few who have conquered their appetites for food, drinks and sex, For true happiness based on control of their will power shall be crowns on their heads. BLESSED ARE THE TRUE DISCIPLES OF PATRIARCH ENOCH FOR • SUCCESSFUL LONG LIVES, • GOOD HEALTH IN OLD AGE, & • PHYSICAL ASCENSION INTO HEAVEN SHALL BE THE ETERNAL PRIZES RESERVED FOR THEM BY GOD! Inspired by the Holy Spirit and written down at 3.30 a.m. on the 11th of March, later improved on and modified till 9.35 a.m. on 26th July, 2004 by Rev. Prof. J. J. Kenez D.Sc. I. S. M. UNIVERSAL PRAYER The Animator International’s Version Lord of the universe, the Almighty Creator God, I am your humble son, Jideofo Kenechukwu, born into the family of Sir Daniel Paul Mbaezue. In your Infinite Wisdom and Love you have created me for a purpose, Permit me to understand and fulfil the mission you have assigned me, May your Holy Spirit guide me to accomplish it in my short span of life. My Eternal Creator and Lord of the universe, I know that you exist, I observe also that all beings are interdependent, we need each other, Therefore, increase my loyalty and dependence on your benevolence. I love you as the Father of all that exists, I want to love other beings, As much as I love myself, permit me to truly achieve this increasingly! I worship you as my first beginning, I wish to do this as long as I live, I acknowledge your constant sustenance and care for me and all that is, Guide me by your divine wisdom, correct me with your eternal justice, Comfort me with your mercy and protect me with your limitless power, So that I may obey all the laws, you put in creation for our own good! I have a princely heritage in that I function at three levels of operations, In that tripartite functionality of thought, word and action I am like you. Grant me a large heart and mind to appreciate the universal knowledge That all humankind are blood relatives and co-heirs of this your ability, Therefore, we all are brothers and sisters, children of the same Father! Permit me to fix all my thoughts on you; my words to edify mankind, My actions to reflect my love for all humanity because I respect you, And all my trials and sufferings to be endured for your greater glory. I want to do whatever you ask of me, in the very way that pleases you, Thereby, obey all your natural laws for as long as you permit to live here. Lord, enlighten my understanding, strengthen my will, purify my heart And make me holy so as to resist temptations and repent of all my sins, Help me to rise above human weaknesses and to grow stronger in truth, So that with simplicity of heart and humane love I may care for others, And in caring for others may my worship and adoration be self-evident. Help me to conquer every anger with gentleness, greed by generosity, Apathy by true charity, selfishness by works of mercy and compassion, Help me to forget myself and thereby freely reach out towards others. Let my conscience be clear most of the time, my conduct without fault, My speech blameless, my thoughts edifying and my life well ordered. Make me very prudent in planning ahead for all, courageous in taking risks, Patient in adversity, honest at work and unassuming in times of prosperity. Keep me attentive at my prayers, temperate at table and sober in drinking, Firm in my holy resolutions, diligent in my good intentions/ labours of love. May my lifestyle be exemplary and reflect your infinite goodness for all to see. Put me on guard against mundane desires, protect me from every vanity And licentiousness, which can draw me away from obeying your dictates. Let me cherish your benevolence for all humanity and imitate your ways. Teach me to realise that the world is passing by and that nothing here lasts, That my true happiness is being a loyal citizen in your heavenly kingdom! At the dusk of my earthly life, help me to prepare for death with a proper focus On your fair judgement, for even guilty I still rely fully on your Infinite Mercy. Lead me safely thro’ the pangs of physical death to that endless place of peace, Where all those who have done your will on earth will be adequately rewarded, With the bliss of singing your praises in communion with your saints forever! Lord, search and find that I have kept the golden rules of the psalmist: Lord, who may enter your temple or worship at your sacred hill? • A person who obeys God in everything, especially the natural laws and as far as it is humanly possible, has always done what is right at all times and places. • Whose words are true and sincere, and therefore he does not slander others. • He does no wrong to his friends nor spreads rumours about his neighbours, • Rather he has compassion for the needy and always forgives his offenders. • He despises those whom God rejects, denouncing their hypocritical lifestyles. • Nevertheless, he honours those who respect and obey the eternal laws of the Lord. • He always does what he promises, no matter how much it may cost him, in terms of material or human resources. • He makes loans without charging interest and cannot be bribed to testify against the innocent. • Whoever does these things will always be happy and feel secure in your love.