I until reading about the two of you had never heard of the Coptics. I just want to know where it came from. Is it something that was created in this country? How does it differ from Christianity? It is Christianity. This church is accepted by the Jamaican government. It's accepted by the Queen of England and is accepted by the Florida Supreme Court as a religion. Marijuana is our communion. It's our sacrament. We have formal prayers three times a day, and at that time we pass the marijuana in a cup amongst us, amongst ourselves, the brothers amongst themselves and the sisters amongst themselves. We raise Psalms, we raise chants, and we read from the scripture. We believe in the fatherhood of man and the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. Christ took a cup at the Last Supper and blessed the cup and passed it amongst his disciples and said, Take and eat. This is my body and my blood, this do in remembrance of me. So as we partake of that divine substance that Christ partook of with His disciples we're partakers of Christ's Holy Spirit. So it's like a denomination, like there are Methodist and there are Baptists and Episcopalians, there are Coptics. Well Christ only did preach one word. He preached a word of love and a word of salvation. So man has to examine the churches that say they're preaching that and see which one is walking in his word. Christ put his spirit into something and passed it among pass it amongst his disciples. And we say that he's put his spirit into the Ganja. Christ is going to come and baptize with fire. And John said he was going to come and baptize with water. And this is a fiery sacrifice. This is a fiery baptism that John said would come after him, someone that was preferred before him. Christ also said that he that does not partake of my body and my blood has no life in him. So I know that all of us have life. But what kind of life is he talking about? He's talking about spiritual life. In other words, marijuana in itself isn't a cure all. Man has to live, right? Man has to think right. Man has to live cleanly in order for marijuana to be of use to him, the creation of God, it's a seed existing within itself that's perfect. There's nothing there's nothing imperfect about marijuana. By partaking of that same spirit, I have a direct experience with God within myself. I partake of wine at a certain services and that's that's really made me more or less a drunkard. I know that this church is a church. God has always had a relationship with man from Adam to this day. And this church is the present day manifestation of God's true relationship with man. According to the laws of God, the laws of God are contrary in many aspects to the laws of men. I don't consider the marijuana statute to be a law. Law is something that I was shown throughout my life is something that doesn't change. Law is eternal. You have mosaic law. We live by the law of Moses: to kill, to thief, to rob, to lie. Those are always things that are wrong. But statutes one year will say that marijuana is an illegal controlled substance. In a few, in a few years, it's likely to be something that's legal. My final year of college with about a half a semester left. I had a burning desire in myself to find out what my place in the earth was rather than what position in society I would hold. I wanted to know what I as a man was doing on the earth. I went to California. I went to the Haight-Ashbury area of San Francisco and spent a few years out there and my wife was with me and we were very disillusioned and found nothing that showed us any path worthy of following. And we returned to Massachusetts, rented a small place in the country and lived there for a number of years. And after a few years, some college friends of mine came by and told us that this doctrine and lived with us for a while. And basically I didn't really want to hear anything about another doctrine because I'd been exposed to so many and found them all to be something that really didn't interest me. And it's just recently that the the lies and all the absurdities about marijuana from the 30s with Reefer Madness and all those movies is now finally people are starting to realize that marijuana doesn't cause all those dangerous things. Men and women have a responsibility every day to do the right, not just one day a week on Sunday, but every day, every hour of the day to do the right and think right and love. I just got to ask you this, because when I ask you earlier about why you decided that marijuana was divine and the perfect seed and all that, I wasn't trying to be facetious because in my mind, if everything God created is perfect, you might as well smoke a tomato plant if you just want to do something. Well we've been also given the knowledge of what we did is we found an herbal civilization and herbal culture. See, America doesn't really know anything about an herbal culture. It doesn't have any understanding of what herbs are used for. Yet many civilizations in the Earth and throughout history have used herbs in many ways. We just don't use marijuana. We use many different kinds of herbs, but we use marijuana in a divine relationship. First of all, scientifically, we've been involved now in a court case and we've had various experts from all over the country testifying on our behalf. And basically their testimony is similar, that there's been no proven ill effects to marijuana, on the contrary, there aremany beneficial uses for marijuana. It takes a few ounces to make the tea. I make tonics, I make tinctures. Some of it's fed to my chickens. Every man has to decide for himself. This is a judgment where every man has to decide for himself. God said that he would take man and cleanse him as he does gold. We start smoking when we get up and we pray and we smoke till we go down at night. And I don't really notice one one moment being different from another. I'm not high one minute and not high the other. I'm just like, I probably feel like anybody else. But you do know of being high because you did smoke it before at one time before you became religious in this. That's why we're so convinced of this of this church and this doctrine because we do know the difference between smoking marijuana recreationally and getting stoned and and enjoying that sort of attitude. And then we know about sacramental use of marijuana and it's just a complete difference. I make herbal tonics out of ganja and other herbs and I make a large tonic usually twice a year. And it does ferment naturally to I don't know what the percentage would be, but it's a very light, it's a medicinal type drink, but there is a tiny bit of alcohol in it. I'm not trying to to make something up or try and invent a way to God. I've been handed something that I accepted and have found to be truly the way. As I mentioned, it's really not something I'm trying to make fit my life. It's something I had to change my entire life to be a partaker of. He says: "those who love me will follow my commandment."
CBS Interview Exerpts
Brother Keith, what exactly is the Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church? It is a redemption of human soul. The revival of Gods moral law, and to the inhabitants. Why is it different from any other church? How does your religion differ? You see, it is no difference. The people transgress God law. That's why I look different. Because the people changed the love of God and turn to the last man. Rasta man. The church of Rasta man is a living man. Rasta, Rastafari is the new name. He will have a new name in that land. We're in that land. Man is a tabernacle of God living. Right? So when you see me, you see my father within you. And I keep my commandments and live. God made a promise to his people at that time by reason of great importance. Why God later in life as a substitute without sacrifice. Great Britain ignored the rights of Africa. Great Britain bring in the slave trade in Africa and took out the people and bring another Western hemisphere and sell them all to a different country that runs slavery. So Britain ignored the rights of the people. That's why the queen handed down a constitution. So we have it. The people every five years. And the politicians never conspire against that 20 million sterling and 20 people back to slavery and religion and politics and commerce. You see, God made a promise to the generation that's been going for a team spirit upon all flesh and sons and that most prophesied. I am not the son of Satan. If you are not the Son of God, you must be the Son of Satan. It is not right for I to tell you now that I am the Son of Satan. Look within thy own self. To prove how man important in the earth is the one man bring one child from the same line. Brother man, anywhere you go, man feed man. If you got look work, you go to man. You have to seek man. Sin is death the gift of God ever living life. When you sin you go dead, die eternal life and live that death must die. You choose death. You're dead. Cause God made a promise to the world: He that keep my commandments will live, and he that transgress the commandment will die. . And it found in every one. I will not die. I will live forever. I will live forever with my Lord. This is a world of sin you know. Sin and your dead. That's why God come into a sinful world, to redeem those. Who can redeem from sin? We're dead already. So he that partake of this resurrection the second death have no power. When you live the life of God, you become God to you. Perfect. Remember, there are the dead people that are dead in the ground. But there are also people walking around every day that are dead to God. This is our life. This is not a religion. It's not something we turn on Sunday morning. This is our life of living. And we live the same way. And we maintain the same steadfastness toward the prayer and devotion and the spiritual reasoning anywhere we are. Do you see the black people as the children of Israel, the chosen people? Yes and they are in captivity. They've been banished and now they have to prepare to return. But they cannot return to their promised land as murderers and thieves and whores and drunkards. That's the first question to solve. Before every government, before every body of men. That is the question: to be able to stop sin. The pope and Billy Graham say you can't stop sin. You're supposed to sin until you die. They say because you're flesh, you can't stop sin. Well, God made us this way. And God's promise was that his Son laid down his life so that we would have power over sin, that he, without sin, laid down his life so that we sinners could live. So that's the mystery they must solve, to lead the people to God, to prepare their hearts, black and white. Wherever we are. Not just Africa or Jamaica. Wherever man is. To many of the Rasta men in Jamaica. Haile Selassie is the living God. Do you believe that? No. Haile is puppet. Haile is a political king, an earthly king, not heavenly king. Were dealing with Jesus, the heavenly King, the heavenly Redeemer who come to redeem man's soul from sin and death. Or don't the Bible declare of Christ and His eternal kingdom, the happy people. They returned to perfection. For mankind was once perfect and lost perfection. You see? And so it was, so it is, must be. You see how many people gathered yesterday? So what is impossible for we? With that strength and power? You don't see how man, man speaks word and moves the earth and stirs the earth and gets forth a blessing. The same blessing that we receive in Jamaica, these brethren received the same blessing in America. The same blessing the brothers received here in Jamaica is the same blessing we receive in America. God said I will multiply the blessing, and with blessing, I will bless the.
DISCOVER THE POWER WITHIN YOU
By Eric Butterworth
Chapter 1 - The Eternal Quest
The hope of mankind today lies in the great undiscovered depths within. The time is at hand when men everywhere must for sake the fruitless search of the world at the circumference of being and embark upon a courageous quest into inner space. It is a very real world, and its depths can be sounded, its potency released. It is not a conquest but a bequest. It is not as much something within man as it is the deeper level of man. "Come, ye blessed . . ., inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matt. 25:34). The history of man on the eternal quest has been a strange odyssey. In his search for the "holy grail” man has looked everywhere and in vain, but he has failed to look within himself. Occasionally, a prophet came, telling of the world within. But instead of following him into the deeper experience, men invariably made a god of the prophet—worshiped him and built monuments to him. They then trapped themselves in a religious practice that had no within. How many times has this happened? How many religions are there in the world? The pages of history tell and retell the story of mystic teachers who found it and of the ensuing religions that lost it. And the earth is dotted with monuments that tell of inner-space flights that never quite got off the ground. Yet somehow man has always known with Walt Whitman that not all of him is included between his hat and his boots. He has felt, with Wordsworth, A sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man; A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things.1 There is a strange paradox in the world today. The pressing social problems—warfare, the struggle for equality between races, and the exploding population and lagging production of foods—are framed between two contrasting spectacles: (1 ) the research and exploration into outer space, and (2) the psychedelic “trips” into the inner depths of consciousness. The one, meticulously scientific; the other, about as unscientific as you can get. Both of these activities may well be symbolic of a sense of frustra tion with the world of today—an attempt to “stop the world, I want to get off.” And the amazing thing is that both of these completely unrelated and contrasting quests may well have deep spiritual impli cations. For one thing, space research has enabled man to achieve a break through into another dimension. The more he sees of the Universe around him, the more he realizes that space and time are relative, and that the whole cosmos is like a great thought in the Mind of God. He begins to see that the Universe exists, as far as he is concerned, because he sees it. The center of the Universe, as far as you are concerned, is within you. As far as you are concerned, the Universe exists as an extension of you. The sun and moon and stars are there because you see them. In Zen Buddhism this point is made in the image of the “moon and the water.” The moon-in-the-water phenomenon is likened to human experience. The water is the subject, and the moon the object. When there is no water, there is no moon-in-the-water, and likewise when there is no moon. But when the moon rises, the water does not wait to receive its image, and when even the tiniest drop of water is poured out, the moon does not wait to cast its reflection. But the water does not receive the moon's image on purpose. The event is caused as much by the water as by the moon and, as the water manifests the brightness of the moon, the moon manifests the clarity of the water. Viewing the vastness of the Universe, we tend to become confused when we seem to be losing our identity. But we must remember that the Universe has meaning because we have meaning, and we have meaning because the Universe has meaning. All discovery is self discovery and all knowledge is self-knowledge. Thus the greatest discovery in science is not the outward accomplishments, but the inward revelation and the Truth that sets us free to take the outer step. Nations today may be pouring billions into the hardware needed for outer-space flights, but it is seldom realized that this is all being made possible because of the discoveries within matter, which are actually spiritual discoveries. We have come to know that matter, in the sense of something occupying space, does not exist. We can no longer view the Universe as a vast collection of nebulae, stars, and planets scattered about in empty space. All through the universe there are “force potentials.” What we have called “space” is really a presence, for there is one continuous, unified, intelligent, and in exhaustible potential that here and there precipitates itself as that which we call matter. Thus the ultimate of our research into the Universe around us must come in the knowledge of the Mind that sustains it, the Mind in which it actually has its only existence. And the study of Mind can only be done through introspection, self-contemplation, and spiritual research. In the words of Tennyson:2 Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control, These three alone lead life to sovereign power. The other activity that along with space research is forming a frame around the world’s serious problems is that of the group, perhaps only caricatured by the “hippies,” attempting to forsake the decadent civilization of contemporary times by psychedelic flights into the world within. Much has been written on the subject of LSD and the newer STP—the so-called “consciousness-expanding” drugs. On the one hand, Dr. Timothy Leary leads a group who insist that the drugs are here to stay and that it is but a matter of time until everyone will be having his religious experiences synthetically. On the other hand, a growing number of medical scientists warn of the dangers of the drug in terms of permanent physical and mental damage that may result from continued or even occasional use. However, one fact stands out that cannot be overlooked. Psyche delics have helped to prove the existence of a nonmaterial world of spirit within man. There is serious question whether LSD is the way to reach this world or to release this inherent potential. Perhaps we will ultimately agree that it is an illicit picking of the lock of the door to the superconscious, or at best an improper window-peeking glimpse of the depths of the world within. The method of apprehen sion is all wrong, but the basic motivation is spiritual and the object of the quest is pure Spirit. An interesting account of a personal encounter with LSD appears in a book entitled Exploring Inner Space, by Jane Dunlap. She tells how it seemed to open the door and allow her to look into the core of life. She says: People who had such experiences usually agreed that deep within each of us lie goodness unimagined, wisdom, music, talents of every variety, joy, peace, humility, love and spirituality. Hidden away in each individual is a vast gold mine but, as yet, only a few puny and thread-like veins have been discovered. . . . Our fault lies, not in our lack of talent or poten tials, but in our refusal to believe that it exists. Only after we can accept such a belief and have thus gained enough confidence to look within ourselves can our development go full steam ahead.8 Does that mean we should all take LSD? Certainly not, any more than we should all send rockets out into space. Descriptions of psychedelic illusions do seem to support the spiritual discoveries of the mystics of the ages. There is obviously a great depth of splendor within us, but it must be unfolded through self-realization and self discipline. There is no synthetic short cut to the Kingdom. If you have a rosebud in your garden, you may be anxious to see its beauty in full bloom, and so you may force the bud open. For a moment you see the loveliness of its interior, but then it quickly fades and dies. By law, growth is an unfoldment—‘‘first the grain, then the ear, then the full-grain in the ear.” The quest for reality through psychedelics is a misguided quest. Man is a spiritual being with infinite possibilities within himself. If he must take psychedelics to prove it, he will find that even the momentary experience of heavenly visions will not endure long enough to make him really believe it over the long haul. The grievous problems facing mankind today can be solved. How ever, the solution must be a spiritual one, for material and intellec tual ones have been tried and found wanting. And “spiritual things can only be spiritually discerned/' The time is ripe, and rotten-ripe, for a serious and concerted drive to educate people in self-knowledge, self-reverence, and self-control. This has been the historic role of religion, but, as we have noted, religions have historically failed to get off the ground in terms of the quest into the world within. This book calls for a rediscovery of the teachings of Jesus Christ, a reappraisal of the achievements of His life, and a renaissance of the Christian faith. Two thousand years ago, Jesus made the great break through into the world within, when He demonstrated the miracle working implications of letting that inner kingdom come in earth as it is in heaven. It is a strange and yet simple story that is old and yet ever new. Certainly the concept of the great within has inspired philosophers and poets and mystic teachers through all the ages. None has put it more eloquently than Robert Browning in his poem “Paracelsus” :4 Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise From outward things, whatever you may believe. There is an inmost center in us all, Where truth abides in fulness; and around, Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in, This perfect, clear perception—which is truth. A baffling and perverting carnal mesh Binds it, and makes all error; and to know Rather consists in opening out a way Whence the imprisoned splendor may escape, Than in effecting entry for a light Supposed to be without. About a hundred generations ago in far-off Palestine, some thing happened that may well be the greatest event in human history. It was the great break-through in man to the world of the spirit within. It happened to a young lad, the son of a simple carpenter. His name was Jesus, the son of Joseph and Mary of Nazareth. This was no ordinary boy, though He was not unusual in the eyes of his neighbors. Many years later, He returned to Nazareth and was rejected by the people. In essence they said, “What's so special about Jesus? We knew him as a boy in the carpenter shop” (Matt. 13:54). Much has been made over the manner of His birth. The Bible seems to indicate that His fellow townspeople knew nothing unusual about the incident. Thus the great event was not the birth of Jesus, but a kind of awakening that took place within Him during the years of His growth “in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men” (Luke2:52). We don't know when it happened or even what happened. We only know that sometime between His birth and the beginning of His miracle-working ministry at thirty years of age, He achieved a unique relationship with God and became the channel for the expression of powers no one had ever before dreamed of. Many believe it was the result of His education. And this is puzzling, too, for we have little knowledge of His life. Some have conjectured that He must have had some exposure to the “masters” of the world of the intellect, in India or Egypt, or even some contact with the Druids in England! However, I believe that what happened had nothing to do with tuition, but was an intuition, an insight, a revelation. It could not have been taught, for there was no precedent. I like to believe that it happened to him as a youth of about eleven or twelve.