The Devil’s Milk is an expression I use to symbolise that addictive and disorienting chemical soup that our brain releases during times of stress. While there are many studies that highlight the toxic nature of this Milk, its true danger lies not so much in how its long term effects imperils the function of our organs but in its corrosive effect on our connection with the spirit and, consequently, our connection with spiritual realities; it may, therefore, be more correctly identified as a Pneuma-toxin; a destroyer of our personal sense of and responsiveness to spiritual realities. We drink this Milk at our peril.

This Devil’s Milk is a well known guilty pleasure for most. It comes in a variety of flavours: anger, fear, greed, hatred, jealousy, resentment, lust, spite, vanity to name but a few of the more popular flavours but, regardless of which we prefer, the effects are always the same: after a few sups our higher mind [the strong man of the house Mk. 3:27] is bound and blinded and the beast within [our animalistic urges that rob us of dignity and grace] gains ascendancy rendering us spiritually blind and leaving us spiritually bereft. We awaken from these indulgences with the hangover of shame, guilt, and despair. Without exception: all the traditions warn us of the dangers of the Devil’s Milk.

The religions of the world have many things in common, structurally in creed, code, and cult: and ethically in the oft referred to Golden Rule: Treat all others as you would like to be treated. However, they also share deeper elements like the much exalted aspiration of Self Control. Furthermore, each tradition offers their respective techniques for its attainment: yoga, prayer, meditation, contemplation, study, mantra, mindfulness, service, etc. The early teachers and seers understood that the first step towards happiness is Self Control; peace is impossible without it. The Torah teaches that it is easier to take a city than to take control of one’s self; that to be without self-control is to be as ‘a city without walls’; and asserted that no one has yet tamed the tongue. In spite of the fact that ALL the traditions exalt self control and proactively promote and teach methods for its attainment, bizarrely, secular Western society – currently groaning under the health burden of gluttony, lust, and vice – hasn’t bothered to consider the social implications of having an education policy wherein self control is taught and nurtured, nor of fostering a culture wherein that is the norm. Society has not yet realised the value of the teaching that an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure; it has yet to awaken to the genuine, even economic, value of the pursuit of wisdom.

The Ego is dependent on the Devil’s Milk and will engage in myriad dramas, games, and schemes to ensure its abundant supply but only the divine Ambrosia of Truth can free the Self of the madness induced by the vapours of the boiling flesh: liberate the Self from its moorings in the flesh and free it to realise the higher and more ennobling realities of the Spirit.

Self Control cannot be had without neutralising the Ego’s power to drive behaviour. The first step in achieving Self Control, then, is Self Awareness. Self Awareness implies dispassionate self observation and reflection which - eventually and ideally - leads to a thorough understanding of one’s self; deep insight into the reasons [cultural, historical, cosmic, biological and pneumalogical] that drive behaviour. Intelligent and enlightened self understanding frees us to bring our will into harmony with the dictates of highest wisdom: LOVE. Freedom, then, real liberty – is the freedom to respond to the exigencies of life from a place of Love. Bondage, even servitude to the flesh, comes with indulging in the Devil’s Milk.

10"Then I will turn your festivals into mourning And all your songs into lamentation; And I will bring sackcloth on everyone's loins And baldness on every head. And I will make it like a time of mourning for an only son, And the end of it will be like a bitter day. 11"Behold, days are coming," declares the Lord GOD,"When I will send a famine on the land, Not a famine for bread or a thirst for water, But rather for hearing the words of the LORD. 12"People will stagger from sea to sea And from the north even to the east; They will go to and fro to seek the word of the LORD, But they will not find it.…Amos 8:10-12

We live in a time of grave spiritual jeopardy. The spiritual storehouses of the traditions are now barren. The swine feed on the spiritual husks of religious tradition while the children of the Master wander the streets in perilous want. The true spirit of the Master’s life and teachings is like a spiritually sustaining well but the cracked vessels of tradition can no more be made to hold a soul saving draught and so souls are left parched; brothers and sisters die in the very presence of the Bread of Life. For now, Christianity is a Great Mausoleum buried deep inside which lies the Fountain of Youth – the ever bubbling fount of spiritual truth.

Today we call these Mausoleums “Churches” but the enlivening spirit has long since departed. Though their marvellous structures reach the skies and are filled with tens of thousands they are filled with the dead – filled to bursting with those who are dead to living truth. They attend their services and instead of being brought to life and transformed they are daily confirmed in their rotten way of living and led into deeper spiritual decay and destitution. This Unholy Hoard devastate the world; devouring mountains, rivers, and lakes, ravishing communities and nations.

To them truth appears as darkness and salvation the death of their “way of life” – their way of life, oh the black irony of those words – way of death more like, for the price that must be paid to preserve their existence is to vomit death and pestilence upon the earth.

They slaughter the prophets, persecute the peace-makers, and castigate the righteous.

They love deception, treachery, and corruption.

This people were called to be a healing and sacred symbol of the Almighty Father’s love, fidelity, and indivisible unity but they have turned in the way of their own choosing followed after the god of war and treacherous deception and have become the very Doom of the Earth!

You fools! Repent! Flee the wrath to come! The Kin-dom is at hand and even now is!

Give heed to me – you who are lost in the Great Forest of Information, that are tossed about on the ceaseless waves of public opinion, who are blinded by science and baffled by bullshit, who thirst for wisdom amid the dry sands of knowledge.

Come! Join me. I will show you the way.

You can enter the Kin-dom even now, in an instant, for the Kin-dom is a journey; a great journey of profound transformation; departing from the old life and embarking upon the new; surrendering the old ways and embracing the new and better ways; a journey into the progressive spiritualisation of your character, into the actualisation of the divine potential of your spiritual nature; it is the progressive harmonisation, alignment, and co-ordination of one’s life with the ideals of the Divine.

It is to trade imperfection for perfection, inefficiency for efficiency, ignorance for wisdom, fearful doubt for courageous faith, grasping selfishness for freely bestowed loving service, hurt for healing, arrogance for humility, weakness for strength, despair for hope, the ash of sorrow for the oil of gladness.

Such are the spiritual jewels that adorn the crown of victory that rests gently upon the brow of the children of God.

The Father himself craves His children to seize these riches for themselves, that they would wear with pride the garments of spiritual glory that He has laid out for them which are theirs but for the striving!