A group of researchers have posed a fascinating — and downright mind bending — thought experiment: If a planet like Earth can be “alive,” can it also have a mind of its own?
The team published a paper exploring this question in the International Journal of Astrobiology. In it, they present the idea of “planetary intelligence,” which describes the collective knowledge and cognition of an entire planet.
The 2024 Community Convocation and Cosolargy Seminar was held in Reno from June 4th through June 9th. Tuesday through Friday was devoted primarily to lectures on “The Oral Gospel as a Life System.” Bishop Gene Savoy, Jr. presented the lectures interspersed with audio by the late Most Right Reverend Gene Savoy, Sr., as well as about 200 slides. Nine highly specific imaging and breathing techniques were taught and practiced during this time.
A Pentecost Eve banquet was held on the evening of June 5th at the Rectory-Abbey. Consociates, Ministers, and the children of The Community gathered at 6 PM. At around 6:30, Bishop Savoy welcomed everyone and commented on the meaning and importance of Second Advent Pentecost. Then, the Reverend Bruce Kanzelmeyer and Bishop Savoy explained the AOUMENMNs used for Divine Service. Rev. Bruce commented on the tones, and Bishop Savoy commented on the hand gestures. The assembly then sang “Grant Life Unto Me” and was invited to the communal meal. The event was a seated buffet-style dinner. At sunset, which was at about 8:15, everyone went onto the main balcony of the Rectory and took in the sun. Following sunset, Reverend Canon Amanda Buchanan read from the Prophecy of the New Covenant. Coffee and dessert were then served. The next morning, June 6th — Second Advent Pentecost — a Sunrise Divine Service was held at the Church of New Pentecost at the Red Rock Consecrated Sanctuary.
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| Banquet | Banquet |
The traditional Saturday morning Communion of Fellowship Service was held in the Chapel of the Holy Child, which also included ordinations to the first level (Initiate) for Jeffrey Burgess, Csilla Hollo, David Mitchell, Nicolett Montanez, Herschell Soumahoro, and Collin Wizgen. Following Communion, a Memorial Service was held for the late Reverend Koshu Kawahara which is covered in detail in a separate article. Saturday’s afternoon agenda featured three speakers. Reverend Amanda did a presentation on the Sacred Calendar of the Second Advent, Bishop Shawn Smith presented a talk on the Solar Cultures of Africa, and Bishop Yukinori Matsushita presented one on the Solar Cultures of Japan.
Click here to view the short version of the schedule.
On Sunday, Sunrise Divine Service was held the at the Cathedral Church of the Americas and Monument to Human Spiritual Rights with a special litany for the Japanese Community lead by Bishop Yukinori Matsushita. Following the service, second level (Deacon) and third level (Presbyter) were held. Csilla Hollo, Olimpia Huss, Demetrice Jackson, and Collin Wizgen were ordained Deacons, and Deacons Stephan Fuelling, Shane Grady, Yukako Kawai, Radheka Patel Savoy, and Shawn Smith were ordained Presbyters. It was a first that two people received back-to-back ordinations. Csilla Hollo and Collin Wizgen received first level ordination the day before on Saturday and second degree ordination on Sunday.
Here is a selection of photos from the event
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| Reverend Francine Petrovich welcomes the assembly. | |
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| Sonya Savoy giving a presentation on Steamboat | Bishop Gene Savoy, Jr. giving a presentation |
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| Bishop Savoy lectures at the Monastery Gardens | Rev. Rob Roy conducting Communion Service at Red Rock Sanctuary |
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| Bishop Savoy performing First Level Ordinations | Bishop Savoy performing First Level Ordinations |
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| Bishop Savoy performing First Level Ordinations | Reverend Amanda Buchanan lecturing on the Sacred Calendar |
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| Bishop Shawn Smith talking on the Solar Cultures of Africa | Bishop Yukinori Matsushita talking on Solar Cultures of Japan |
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| Bishop Shawn Smith presenting The Community with a Shield |
Photos of Second and Third-Level Ordinations
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Saturday, June 22, 2024
10:00 AM COMMUNION
Chapel of The Holy Child
RRF Gene Savoy, Jr.
Lector: Rev. Dorothy Kubiak
Cantor: Rev. Harold Boulette
Reader: Rev. Stephan Fuelling
Sunday, June 23, 2024
SUNRISE DIVINE SERVICE
Church of New Pentecost
Leave: 4:15
Gate: 5:05
Service Starts: 5:23
Sunrise: 5:38
RRF Gene Savoy, Jr.
Concelebrants:
RF Robert Petrovich
Rev. Bruce Kanzelmeyer
Assistant: RM Barbara Whitney
OPEN-AIR COMMUNION
Church of the Golden Age of Light: Rev. Bruce Kanzelmeyer
Church of the Universal Theocracy: Rev. Larry Coesens
Wednesday, June 26, 2024 – Convocation
12:00 NOON COMMUNION
Chapel of the Holy Child
RM Elizabeth Reece
Friday, June 28, 2024
9:00 AM PRAYER & FELLOWSHIP
Chapel of the Roses
RM Elizabeth Reece
Koshu Kawahara
Born into this world: July 23, 1941, Kurume City, Fukuoka, Japan
Passed into the Light: March 20, 2024, Chikugo City, Fukuoka, Japan
A Memorial Service for Reverend Koshu Kawahara was held in the Chapel of the Holy Child on June 8, 2024. While Koshu passed into the Light in March, the Memorial Service was delayed so that it would be held during this year’s Community Convocation, and so some of his fellow Japanese Consociates would be able to attend. For more details about his life, click here.
Bishop Gene Savoy Jr., Reverend Canon Peter Foust, Reverend Dorothy Kubiak, and Deacon Shane Grady gave the scriptural readings and memorial prayers. Bishop Yukinori Matsushita read the eulogy. (Click here to read the eulogy.)
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“Faith is indeed as the ‘grain of mustard seed, to which, as to growth, it is compared in the New Testament. But it can grow for evil as well as good, and, if for evil, may become a tree in which every foul bird of evil omen will come and build its nest. Your evil or gloomy imagining is faith in that evil. Your fear of a disease is in the perpetuity and increase of such disease. You have a slight derangement of stomach or kidney or other organ. So, having it for one day or a few days, you begin to expect it. You think of it only as an unhealthy organ. You never in your mind see it as a sound organ. You may be then told it is in dangerous condition. You have a name possibly given to the ailment which suggests great suffering, debility, and ultimately death. All this is aiding your faith in evil. The force of other minds added to your own increases that evil. Everything tends to make you see yourself as sick, weak, and enfeebled. You have not in your own mind an imagining of the part affected as sound and healthy. None are sending you thoughts or imaginings as vigorous and healthy. The spiritual force sent to you is all for evil. You get more disease, more weakness by the same law, or force, which can, otherwise directed, bring you heath.”
-Prentice Mulford
When Jesus said that with faith no bigger than a mustard seed, which is a very small seed, we can move mountains, that is very true, but it is just as true that if we have faith we won’t be able to do something, then we won’t be able to do it until we manage to lose that false faith. Mulford calls that kind of faith, faith in evil. Still, I would prefer to call it faith in falsehood, because I think of evil as intentional, while in most cases, as in Mulford’s example regarding health, we are not doing it intentionally.
What Mr. Mulford is saying here in an allegorical form is that once you have let some false faith, more is likely to follow. Evil attracts more evil.
The rest of the quote from Mulford centers on the idea of developing faith in disease. Sadly, just about all of us do this to some degree. You don’t have to be a hypochondriac to develop a faith in disease or unhealthy conditions of the body. A hypochondriac can hear someone talking about an illness on the news and they immediately think they have it and actually start developing symptoms. However, anyone can have an illness such as the stomach flu and convince themselves that it is something serious that will never go away. Or a man can have sexual problems on one day and think he has become impotent and needs to use drugs all the time if he wants to have sex. We could go through a hundred variations, but the point with all of them is that we make the situation worse by believing the illness will continue to get worse. If we learn to start thinking and telling our subconscious mind that the illness is temporary, it will get better, it is getting better every day, etc. We will usually see improvement. Unfortunately, when a belief has become firmly embedded in the subconscious, it is hard to overcome, but it can be done.
Our physical health is not the only area in life where many of us tend to sabotage ourselves with false beliefs. We do it in business also. We believe that we won’t get a promotion and so fill the situation with falsehoods that hold us back. We think that we aren’t smart enough to become a doctor or a lawyer, possibly because others have told us so, therefore we never try.
The most deadly kind of evil, or falsehood, is false spiritual beliefs. Demons of darkness love to whisper ideas into our heads that fill us with false spiritual beliefs, and we often fall for it. Churches that have, for the most part, lost the way, teach many falsehoods, and millions of people believe them. Scientists will sometimes claim that there is no God, when they have no proof of that belief, and therefore, should know better. In any case, false spiritual beliefs often prevent us from developing our spiritual faculties, even when we want to. That is why an old Chinese saying says you must empty the tea cup before you can fill it with fresh tea. It means you must clear out the false beliefs before the truth can start seeping in. It isn’t easy to do, but it can be done. You don’t have to convince your subconscious that all those beliefs you have accumulated are false, you have to convince it that they may not be true.
We’ve all been mesmerized by the images that NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has been sending back to Earth. Webb captures its views of the universe in both near-infrared and mid-infrared light, in unprecedented detail. NASA just released its latest batch of images on January 29, 2024, and they are spectacular. The new photos show 19 spiral galaxies, all of which appear face-on toward Earth. They are the highest-resolution images of these galaxies ever obtained so far.
Click here to read the full article.
Link submitted by Gene Savoy, Jr.
How do you build a giant black hole in the early universe? Start with the explosions of lots of little ones, a counterintuitive new preprint study proposes.
Numerous observations, especially with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), have revealed ironclad evidence that the young universe was populated by incredibly massive black holes. Although astronomers can’t see the black holes directly, they do observe quasars — ultrabright objects powered by supermassive black holes.
The James Webb Space Telescope has captured scintillating images of 19 spiral galaxies — and the millions of stars that call them home — in unprecedented detail never seen before by astronomers.
Webb’s singular ability to observe the universe in different wavelengths of infrared light, such as near-infrared and mid-infrared, showcases the stars, gas and dust within the intricate structure of each galaxy.
Click here to read the full article.
Link Submitted by Gene Savoy, Jr.
Saturday, June 15, 2024
10:00 AM COMMUNION
Chapel of The Holy Child
RRF Gene Savoy, Jr.
Lector: Rev. Bruce Kanzelmeyer
Cantor: RC amanda Buchanan
Reader: Sonya Savoy
Sunday, June 16, 2024
SUNRISE DIVINE SERVICE
Church of New Pentecost
Leave: 4:15
Gate: 5:05
Service Starts: 5:21
Sunrise: 5:37
RRF Gene Savoy, Jr.
Concelebrants:
RF Robert Petrovich
Rev. Bruce Kanzelmeyer
Assistant: RM Barbara Whitney
OPEN-AIR COMMUNION
Rev. Shane Grady
Dea. Claudia Grady
Wednesday, June 19, 2024 – Convocation
12:00 NOON COMMUNION
Chapel of the Holy Child
RRF Gene Savoy, Jr.
Friday, June 21, 2024
9:00 AM PRAYER & FELLOWSHIP
Chapel of the Roses
RM Barbara Whitney
MAY 2024
1
The People of Ukraine
Prayer for Peace in Eastern Europe
The People of Israel and Palestine
Prayer for Peace in the Middle East
Tomizou Sonoda
Akiko Sonoda
Elijah and Joshua Myers
Muntrice Myers
4
The People of Ukraine
Prayer for Peace in Eastern Europe
The People of Israel and Palestine
Prayer for Peace in the Middle East
Tomizou Sonoda
Akiko Sonoda
Elijah and Joshua Myers
Muntrice Myers
Brent Bec Var
Vivienne Marcsik
8
The People of Ukraine
Prayer for Peace in Eastern Europe
The People of Israel and Palestine
Prayer for Peace in the Middle East
Brent Bec Var
Shelly Deusenberry
Vivienne Marcsik
11
The People of Ukraine
Prayer for Peace in Eastern Europe
The People of Israel and Palestine
Prayer for Peace in the Middle East
Brent BecVar
Myron Dill
Shelly Deusenberry
Glen Hansenfluke
Vivienne Marcsik
15
The People of Ukraine
Prayer for Peace in Eastern Europe
The People of Israel and Palestine
Prayer for Peace in the Middle East
Vivienne Marcsik
18
The People of Ukraine
Prayer for Peace in Eastern Europe
The People of Israel and Palestine
Prayer for Peace in the Middle East
Vivienne Marcsik
Peter Harkins, Jr.
Viola Cleo Bradshaw
George Cican
22
The People of Ukraine
Prayer for Peace in Eastern Europe
The People of Israel and Palestine
Prayer for Peace in the Middle East
Vivienne Marcsik
25
The People of Ukraine
Prayer for Peace in Eastern Europe
The People of Israel and Palestine
Prayer for Peace in the Middle East
Vivienne Marcsik
Tee Harr
29
The People of Ukraine
Prayer for Peace in Eastern Europe
The People of Israel and Palestine
Prayer for Peace in the Middle East
† indicates Memorial Prayer