Spiritual Learning Center

The Gospel of Mary Magdalene

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 19:26:14 -0600

The Gospel of Mary Magdalene

Sun. Feb. 26 11am-1pm $25

Yes, this gospel does exist. A Gnostic text hidden for centuries; suppressed and declared heresy by the church. Read and followed by early Christians as a true teaching and story of the apostle, Mary Magdalene. Read and discuss this document and take home your very own copy of this gospel.

Location: Soderworld.

Movie & Discussion: TO BE ANNOUNCED

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 19:24:44 -0600

Movie & Discussion:TO BE ANNOUNCED

Fri. Feb. 24 7pm-9:30pm $10

This movie is a story of a profound inward journey. It was not a journey the main character sought or was prepared for, but nonetheless, it happened. Set in a remote and frigid but beautiful environment the scenery alone is worth seeing. Watch as this extraordinary transformation of belief unfolds in small steps over a short time, and brings a message of hope for everyone. Plan to stay for the discussion to follow.

Location: Soderworld

Meditation 101

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 19:23:59 -0600

Meditation 101

Tue. Feb. 21 7pm-9pm

Suggested Love Offering $5

This is a free class for those who want to learn how to meditate and for those who are or have tried to meditate with limited success. If you are beginner or challenged to quiet the mind chatter and focus enough to succeed at meditation, this class is for you. Learn a simple ” how to” process through guided meditation to improve your life.

Meditation room.

Location: Soderworld

Healing Circle

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 19:23:13 -0600

Healing Circle

Sun. Feb.19 11am-1pm

Suggested Love Offering $10

Our healing circles include energy healers of many traditions and various practices. Each healing circle will have 2 or 3 practitioners who may work with each attendee individually, one on one, or sometimes they will work together as a unit. Individual sessions usually last 15-30 minutes and are scheduled on a first come, first served, basis. Experience a personal energy healing by professional healers. Rejuvenate your physical and emotional body in a positive energy field.

Reservations are requested. Please call 312 786 0077 to register.

Location: Soderworld

Your Mind is Amazing!

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 19:22:11 -0600

Your Mind is Amazing!

An introduction to the body-mind connection

Sun. Feb. 12 11am-1pm $35

Do you realize you are a walking miracle? Every day trillions of cells carry out their functions without you even thinking about them…..until some of them don’t function correctly. Attend this workshop and learn more about your own body-mind connection. Whether you are perfectly healthy, or dealing with minor or major health concerns, NOW is the time to learn techniques to restore your body to health or stay healthy.

Location: Soderworld

Guided Meditation with Walter Perschke

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 19:18:00 -0600

Guided Meditation with Walter Perschke

Mon. 6, 13, 20, 27 7-9pm Location: Chicago

Thur. Feb. 9, 16, 23 7-8pm Location: Soderworld

Suggested Love Offering $5

“In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.” Eric Hoffer
Be a learner to prepare for the changes our world is experiencing now and the changes to come. Learn how to center yourself and enter the inward journey we are all on. Join the peaceful future rather than the chaotic present. The answers are there for us to find. Let us help you to find them.

Yoga room.

Location:

1609 W Belmont, Chicago . Free Parking on Federal Savings Plaza

Soderworld, 16 W. 501 Nielson Lane, Hinsdale. On Kingery just south of I55. FREE PARKING

Guided Meditation with Walter Perschke

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 12:21:36 -0600

Thur. Jan. 19 7pm-8pm

Suggested Love Offering $5

Yoga room.

Location: Soderworld, 16 W. 501 Nielson Lane, Hinsdale. On Kingery just south of I55. FREE PARKING.

Reiki I, Part 1

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 12:20:21 -0600

Reiki I, Part 1

Wed. Jan. 18 7pm-9pm $150

Reiki I, Part 2

Wed. Jan. 25 7pm-9pm

Reiki is a Japanese word that means universal life force energy. Reiki helps balance the energy structure around the body. Reiki restores the energetic balance and sets an environment for wellness on all levels: physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. Reiki is safe and does no harm and is always used for your highest good. Reiki 1 is an introduction where you learn about Reiki, the history and how to give Reiki. This level can use Reiki for self treatment and treatment of close family and friends.

Location: 1609 W Belmont, Chicago. FREE PARKING on Central Savings PLaza

Guided Meditation with Walter Perschk

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 12:18:45 -0600

Mon. Jan. 16 7pm-8pm

Suggested Love Offering $5

Location: 1609 W Belmont, Chicago. FREE PARKING

Healing Circle

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 12:17:26 -0600

Sun. Jan. 15 11am-1pm Suggested Love Offering $10 Location: Soderworld

Reservations are requested.

Location: Soderworld, 16 W. 501 Nielson Lane, Hinsdale. On Kingery just south of I55. FREE PARKING.

Guided Meditation with Walter Perschke

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 12:14:00 -0600

Thur. Jan. 12 7pm-8pm

Suggested Love Offering $5

Yoga room.

Location: Soderworld, 16 W. 501 Nielson Lane, Hinsdale. On Kingery just south of I55. FREE PARKING.

Metaphysical Christmas Story

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 09:32:20 -0600

Sun. Dec. 18 11am-1pm $10

Christmas wasn’t always Christmas. Learn the true metaphysical meaning of the birth story of Jesus and how December 25th became his birthday. When was Jesus really born? Was it actually a virgin birth? Learn what is fact and what is myth and metaphor in the birth story. Learn the true and mystical meaning of Jesus virgin birth, the three wise men and the gifts they brought, the manger and the inn, the star and Herod all through recently channeled information.

Location: Soderworld, 16 W. 501 Nielson Lane, Hinsdale. On Kingery just south of I55. FREE PARKING.

Guided Meditation with Walter Perschke

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 09:29:44 -0600

Thur. Dec 15 7pm-8pm

Suggested Love Offering $5

Yoga room.

Location: Soderworld, 16 W. 501 Nielson Lane, Hinsdale. On Kingery just south of I55. FREE PARKING.

Learn How to Meditate with Light Watkins

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 09:28:00 -0600

Thur. Dec. 15 Time: 7 - 8:30 PM

Fri. Dec. 16 7-8:30 PM

Sat. Dec. 17 9 - 11 AM

The Vedic Meditation technique is taught in a gradual, step-wise format over four days (sometimes weekend intensive courses are offered as well). In addition to attending the daily sessions (which are normally held before or after work hours), participants are also assigned practice meditations at home. This insures that every participant will gain enough understanding and experience with both the technique and the underlying principles to become self-sufficient by the end of the course

The course is offered for a sliding-scale contribution.

Pre-registration required. Please call (646) 450-3426 to register

Location : Life Force Arts Center, 1609 W Belmont, Chicago 60657

THE METAPHYSICAL CHRISTMAS STORY. The true story of the birth of Jesus

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 10:51:43 -0600

We have a beautiful Christmas story that is wonderful, but we have been working on it for 2000 years. The story has changed over time. It is important for us to focus on the energy of the story, and not just the facts.

The “facts,” as we have been taught, have been given great reverence, but don’t lose the energy of the metaphor in those facts, especially since they are not all accurate. It is also important for us to understand what really happened so that we get past the misconceptions and better comprehend the power of the story.

The true story as revealed through extensive channeling experiences over time is portrayed here is this article. It is not the same story that is church dogma today. Over many centuries the birth story of the man Jesus has been re-interpreted by church leaders to agree with the then current dogma. Some beliefs that many of us have accepted as absolute truth are the product of church leaders attempting to justify the historical record with developing theology, often at the cost of losing that historical record. And many of us knew intuitively that there

were aspects in the teachings that were difficult or impossible to accept.

The true story of the birth of Jesus is somewhat different from the traditional story that many of us were taught at some point, and which appears in the Bible. The differences do not in any way detract or lessen the impact of the story. In fact, for those that have had questions about their religious or spiritual beliefs, it may provide some answers at long last. The true story simply presents another viewpoint from which to understand its significance to humanity.

In the book of Matthew (1:18), we begin our story.

Joseph and Mary are betrothed when it is discovered that she is with child, but hasn’t been with Joseph yet, in the biblical sense, and Joseph plans to divorce Mary quietly so as not to put her to shame.

It was the tradition among the Jews to name the first born son after the father, so we would expect Jesus to have been named Joseph, after his father and this custom. But, Joseph has a dream, and an angel of the Lord appears to him and says, Joseph, son of David, “do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit: she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” So Joseph stays with Mary and their son is born and named Jesus. The dream happened, but contained only the information about the name of Jesus. The rest was to support the dogma of the virgin birth developed centuries later.

The fact that Jesus was named anything but Joseph symbolizes the new beginning that Jesus represents for humanity. There are many instances in the Bible of people taking on new names, perhaps most notably, Saul of Tarsus, who becomes Paul. All of those new names signify a new beginning, or rebirth, for the individual.

The myth of the virgin birth is a metaphor for the birth of a new consciousness into our world. The virgin birth part of the story didn’t come into religious thought and therefore dogma for hundreds of years after the event. Jesus arrived here without the karmic baggage that the rest of us have when we reincarnate. In metaphysics, Jesus is the man, Christ is his consciousness and corrected usage would be Jesus the Christ, not as is commonly said, Jesus Christ. Jesus was born so that those who have been restricted can be raised in consciousness. Jesus was very enlightened at the time of birth. Baby Jesus glowed. He had a purity of birth that was recognized by all who saw him, and the word purity at the time had the same usage as virgin, hence, virgin birth. Those who held the infant Jesus had an experience of pure love. Matthew, a disciple, tries to describe this experience, but Matthew did not hold the infant Jesus. The essence of the experience of Jesus has unfortunately been lost in trying to translate it into words, and then translating those words into another language. We can read the Bible as often as we wish, but it doesn’t become internalized until we experience the energy of the Bible. The experience cannot be described with our present vocabulary, and perhaps never will be, it simply needs to be experienced. It is truly a mystical experience.

Let’s move on to Jesus’ birth. Was Jesus born in a stable? Yes, that part of the story is factually true. But the reason wasn’t because the inn was full. Everything about Jesus birth is symbolic and metaphysical.

Everything.

The stable represents a new beginning, not a traditional environment for a birth. The stable represents the earth plane into which Jesus is born. Jesus was probably birthed on a pile of hay. A stable is not restricted by walls and people. The essence of the animals and closeness to the earth connected with the earth energies. Mother Earth. The stable is a purer energy than the inn. There was no crib. The inn was a crowded place, filled with people and much noise. And they didn’t even know it was Christmas yet.

The inn was a gathering place, it represents the norm, and Jesus is to be born outside of our external physical universe, outside of the norm. Divinity occurred within him, as it does with all of us. The journey is inward. Jesus could not have been born in the inn, he needed to be born in a place that symbolizes the new consciousness he brought into the world, and separate from the busy, noisy, inn.

Joseph, the father of Jesus, was left out of the birth picture. Joseph is the caretaker, the guardian, the protector of the baby Jesus. That is how our society is built. Joseph has no significance in the original story. He was portrayed as a very simple ordinary carpenter. Joseph was a very skilled master carpenter who had served a lengthy apprenticeship that didn’t pay very much, which is why he had not married earlier and did not have children prior to Jesus. The marriage of Joseph and Mary was an arranged marriage. Dogma further demotes Joseph by stating that not only was Jesus birth virginal, but Mary remained a virgin throughout her life. When Jesus is born, Mary was about 16 or perhaps 15 years old. That was quite normal and customary for their times. Joseph was 20 years older than Mary and would have been considered older or old at that time. Joseph and Mary’s primary role was to protect the infant and child Jesus, which they obviously did.

Mary represents the divine feminine, the earth plane. We talk about mother earth, never about father earth. In religious art, Mother Mary is frequently portrayed with a powder blue field, which represents the earth chakra, or energy field. For thousands of years femininity has been restricted from being allowed to foster. We have a predominant belief system that only men can participate in the divine because God is male. God, of course, has no gender. But in defense of the church, Christianity would have been suppressed early on, more than it actually was, if it had included a strong divine feminine element. It simply wasn’t the way of the world then and is only now coming into its own.

The three wise men is a great story, and a great metaphor, but didn’t actually happen. It symbolizes that the infant Jesus was far beyond humanity’s level of wisdom and beyond the power of kings. Kings and wise men bowed to the infant. There was a star, because the heavens were recognizing a new alignment in the universe. The star in our story represents the major change in the world that was occurring. We are now discovering new stars, new galaxies, and new planets, all of which, symbolize the profound change in our world that is now in process.

The gifts of the wise men are also symbolic, in this case, of the 3 bodies of man, the physical, emotional and soul bodies. Gold represents the physical body, frankincense the emotional body, and myrrh the soul body.

The story of Herod is true. King Herod was told, “a child is born who becomes a king and has great power” and Herod was threatened by that. King Herod feared the infant Jesus as a threat to his power, and did order the murder of children under the age of 2 in his kingdom. That order was carried out to a great extent. They say, some things never change, and humanity’s proclivity to kill its saints, teachers and healers is among the residue of our fear based cultures.

The journey to Egypt of Jesus, Mary and Joseph is true. Their time in Egypt provided shelter for Jesus to develop outside of the public eye,and from the wrath of King Herod. The family stayed in Egypt until after the death of Herod in 4 A.D., when they returned to Nazareth.

Jesus came to earth as a new revelation for mankind, but he was still human and had to experience growing up just like the rest of us.The guides say, “Because that’s the way we do it on earth.”

Sheep and shepherds at the birth of Jesus represent his connection to the earth energies. Everyone knew this infant was different, you could feel it, and Jesus glowed. His birth represented a new consciousness, the Christ consciousness, on earth, and everything in the traditional story many of us grew up hearing has a spiritual meaning, whether it actually happened or not. Do not get lost in the details of the story and miss the deeper and profound meaning.

December 25, the date we celebrate his birth on, is not Jesus actual birthday. Sometime in the 4^th century and after the council of Nicaea in the year 325, a group of men, bishops of the Christian church, got together and decided on a birth date for Jesus. December 25^th was picked in part because it was the birth date of the pagan god Mithra and a popular date in the culture of that time. The Emperor Constantine wanted to codify Christianity into a church with common beliefs and even when he made Christianity the official church of the Roman Empire, he did not persecute or try to stop pagan religions. He permitted them to continue and they did for centuries. Pope Leo around 460 A.D. broke up a meeting of Christians on the steps of St. Peters church who were celebrating the sun god before going to Sunday mass in the church. There were groups of Christians that were still celebrating more than just Christianity on Sundays well into the 6^th century.

Jesus actual birth date is in the last week of May and he was a Gemini.He was present in two worlds, human and spiritual, at the same time.

Although the true story of Jesus birth and early years may differ from the traditional recollection taught today, the power of the story if enhanced by understanding how it all really happened. Humanity is at the largest turning point in its history and the information being revealed in most areas of science is intended to help us through the changes. This is the subject for another time.

Movie & Discussion: The Science of Miracles

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 11:27:48 -0600

Fri. Dec. 9 7pm-9pm $10

The Quantum Language of Healing, Peace, Feeling and Belief. An illustrated interview with Gregg Braden. Braden clearly and concisely demonstrates the science underlying the spiritual powers we all have, and the ways many are already utilizing them to enhance their lives and change our world. Excellent movie.

Location: Soderworld, 16 W. 501 Nielson Lane, Hinsdale. On Kingery just south of I55. FREE PARKING.

Guided Meditation with Walter Perschke

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 11:27:06 -0600

Thur. Dec. 8 7pm-8pm

Suggested Love Offering $5

“In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.” Eric Hoffer

Be a learner to prepare for the changes our world is experiencing now and the changes to come. Learn how to center yourself and enter the inward journey we are all on. Join the peaceful future rather than the chaotic present. The answers are there for us to find. Let us help you to find them

Yoga room.

Location: Soderworld, 16 W. 501 Nielson Lane, Hinsdale. On Kingery just south of I55. FREE PARKING.

Channeling with Sharyl Noday

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 11:26:19 -0600

Thur. Dec. 8 7:30pm-9:30pm $25

Experience a wonderful spiritual healing with Sharyl and the Siria Family! If there is anything you want to change and improve in your life, any “stuck” places, this is the event that can do it for you energetically.You will see Sharyl go into trance and bring through the beings of light called the Siria Family, who exist on the spiritual plane. They are funny, warm and wise, and they are here to assist us in our growth, and release the blocks that are holding us back in life. Their goal is to create heaven on earth.
Location: Chicago. FREE PARKING. Central Bank Saving plaza. Please call to register 773 327 7224 or visit LFAC website

Make Your Own Crystal Jewelry

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 11:25:35 -0600

Tue. Dec. 6 7pm-10pm

Learn about the healing and magical properties of crystals and create your own pendant for yourself, or to give as a special gift. Steven Blaine Adams, LFAC’s master crystal jewelry designer, teaches you how to make your own jewelry! Materials included.

Location: Chicago. FREE PARKING. Central Bank Saving plaza.
Please call to register 773 327 7224 or visit LFAC website

Meditation 101

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 11:10:50 -0600

Tue. Dec. 6 7pm-8pm Suggested Love Offering $5

This is a free class for those who want to learn how to meditate and for those who are or have tried to meditate with limited success. If you are beginner or challenged to quiet the mind chatter and focus enough to succeed at meditation, this class is for you. Learn a simple “ how to” process through guided meditation to improve your life.

Meditation room.

Location: Soderworld, 16 W. 501 Nielson Lane, Hinsdale. On Kingery just south of I55. FREE PARKING.