I'm going to theorise about the mechanism by which God communicates and acts so that we are better able to respond and have faith. While I was thinking about this, two images appeared. Additionally, previous images had appeared involving bits of string (one had a person on the end of the string).

  

The first image appeared in a bowl of pasta/sauce that I was eating, and the second appeared in some spilled water. God often puts little pictures into things (or sometimes great big ones as in the case of map images in the world). He may also put things in numbers, dates of birth, and other representations (for example St. Paul's tomb was opened recently, which has spiritual meaning relating to the analysis of his theology on this website). This type of communication by God does not involve deliberate human intervention. God does not talk through people's voices or speak in dreams or visions or appear as an angel or ghost (possible exceptions are in the Bible itself, but not since it was written). This is the sole province of Satan.

God speaks through the whole world and He does so across time. For this reason, I can say that La Palma will erupt because I know that God can and will influence the Universe in the past so that this happens. God can respond to us yesterday, a year ago or thousands of years ago. It makes no difference to Him because He sees everything at the same time (time has no meaning to Him).

An analogy is a light beam (light is also a Biblical representation for the teachings of Jesus). As you approach the speed of light, (a) time slows down and (b) distances get shorter. If you were to travel at the speed of light, time would be frozen, and the Universe would appear flat (in two dimensions). You would have a picture of the whole Universe frozen in time, which is much like how it must appear to God.

The two pictures above are (a) a black hole and (b) a Holy heart (a heart with a hole in). It is thought that there is a black hole at the centre of our galaxy. Black holes are very interesting, and have given rise to something called 'string theory', which physicists think might be a 'theory of everything'. It has more recently been termed M-Theory, which stands for 'The Mother of all Theories', providing parable-based evidence that this theory is correct. My role is that of Mary, the spiritual mother of Peter/Jesus (see "About the Author").

I am not a physicist, and I know very little about string theory. However, God certainly uses something like this – it is possible that everything in the Universe is linked to everything else across time by strings. Therefore, your actions as an individual now affect people not only in your present and future but also in the past, and help to shape how the Universe has developed. The strings must be directed by God, and this is how He communicates and influences the Universe.

I often get a sense of time having no meaning to God. For example, a few months ago I wrote that the extinction of dinosaurs paralleled us today – big dinosaurs were like people with big sin and died, but little dinosaurs survived and became birds. Later, I found pictures of them on a satellite image of Mount Kenya – images that would have been formed through geological events over millions of years.

If you have ever played the game called Pictionary then you will be familiar with the skills involved in discerning communication from God. This game involves one person drawing something that has been shown on a card, and the other person has to guess what it is. Another version of Pictionary is Rapiddough, where people use dough to create three-dimensional models rather than flat pictures. However, communication from God is much more varied, and can involve anything in the Universe from concepts like the speed of light to the whore of Babylon drawn into Canada to a tiny drawing of David and Saul in some used crockery or a shape of a horse imprinted into the floor. Parables that can be observed by everyone are often relevant to everyone. Parables that are only visible to individuals are not usually relevant to others and may have no meaning attached to them other than to provide encouragement. Interpreting parables requires that we use some imagination about representations – bear in mind that Jesus always spoke in parables:

Luke 8:10
"The knowledge of the secrets of the Kingdom of God has been given to you, but to the rest it comes by means of parables, so that they may look but not see, and listen but not understand."

Since God can influence the Universe to take any shape He wants, it is perfectly possible to do what Jesus says without having to worry about where our food and clothing is coming from. All we need is faith that God will influence the Universe to sort these things out for us.

Communication by Satan

Satan is an autonomous evil non-corporeal entity which appears not to be constrained by time and can influence people through other people (by speaking through them), giving dreams/visions, speaking to people directly and actually appearing as angels/ghosts etc. Christians claim that this is how they receive communication from God, in the same way that the Jews did (e.g. 1 Samuel 28:6). Therefore, the same spirit (Satan) is involved.

The Old Testament god (Satan) appears to know what will happen in alternate futures, and can predict exactly what effect he has on events in the future. However, I believe he only has any influence if people respond to him. Responding to Satan includes doing what he says, and deliberately doing the opposite of what he says – if he communicates then he should be ignored, and we should still judge by true standards.

Satan may also have influence over evil spirits/illness (e.g. a spirit said that it knew Jesus and Paul – perhaps the spirit knew to leave a person in the name of Paul to make Paul look like someone following Jesus). The purpose of Satan is to provide convincing 'alternatives' to Jesus, and Paul certainly manages to do this. Other examples include Muhammad, Nostradamus, ghost stories and the occult, even UFOs – anything that Satan has the capacity to do to encourage alternative beliefs while still ensuring that people don't identify the true source.

Why does Satan exist at all, given that he is so evil (pure evil in fact)? What would happen if Satan did not exist? Humans would still behave in much the same way. The Gospel message of Jesus would have been corrupted like it was by Paul – although perhaps not so spectacularly, perhaps by many people over a long period of time. In other words, I do not believe that the evil that results from Satan is any worse than the evil that would result from humanity anyway if Satan did not exist. That may be why Jesus says:

Matthew 16:23
Jesus turned around and said to Peter, "Get away from me, Satan! You are an obstacle in my way, because these thoughts of yours don't come from God, but from human nature."

Luke 22:31
"Simon, Simon! Listen! Satan has received permission to test all of you, to separate the good from the bad, as a farmer separates the wheat from the chaff."

The link between the whore and the teachings of Paul is described here. This means that there is a representation of Paul riding a dragon. The dragon can be thought to represent the evil that comes from humanity. Paul is riding that evil; in other words, he is concentrating the false teachings that allow evil into one place. His letters give a direct choice between following Jesus or following Paul's teachings, which seem a lot easier and do not involve the truth. Satan really has tested us all.

Having a spirit around that is pure evil may help us to recognise evil, and therefore learn to reject it. It should also prevent us from becoming complacent, because Satan will be ready to step in with lies, visions, ghosts, 'imaginary' friends for children and so on.

Here are some examples of different types of evil:

Examples of evil from human source:

1. Group pressure to try to force someone to do something.

2. Verbal abuse.

3. Physical abuse.

4. Torture.

5. Slavery.

6. Psychological abuse:
   1. Bullying of various kinds.

   2. Permanently blaming people for things they may not have done (e.g. blaming a child for a mother's death in childbirth).

   3. Subtle linguistic techniques to confuse someone with malicious intent.

   4. Subtle techniques to try to force people to do something (e.g. reverse psychology, pretending to be upset etc. with selfish intent).

7. Greed that can cause war or oppression of others.

8. Persecution of those doing good.

9. In relationships:
   1. Trying to control the life of another person.

   2. Using another person only for selfish reasons (a wage etc.).

   3. Pretend friendships that only exist to use people.

   4. Relationships built only on the exchange of gifts and possessions.

10. Exclusion of people or unwarranted derision of a social group.

11. Power hierarchies.

Examples of evil from Satan:

1. Pretend communication from God:
   1. Dreams.

   2. Visions.

   3. Voices.

   4. Morphing background noise into voices or screams.

   5. Apparitions/angels/ghosts.

   6. Other unusual sensory experience (e.g. touch and smell).

   7. Prophecy not backed up by parable-based evidence.

2. Evil spirits (illness) especially psychological conditions like schizophrenia (delusions, voices and visions).

3. Lies about how to follow Jesus (Pauline theology etc.).

4. Talking through people (this is where people hear things that are relevant to their religion when other people talk to them).

5. Taking possession of people (tongues, Muhammad etc.).

6. Mixing good and evil together to disguise the evil.

Examples of what is not evil:

1. Mistakes.

2. Unkindness and unfriendliness (e.g. if you have a headache or if you are being persecuted for doing good).

3. Sexual relationships.

4. Jokes and humour (with no malicious intent).

5. Lying (without malicious intent, e.g. to protect someone).

6. Being human.

7. Teaching and helping people (in contrast with controlling people).

8. Breaking any rule or law if it is demanded by true standards.

I'm sure that God can communicate in the same way that Satan can, but because Satan can't communicate by arranging the world, this is a reliable method of communication for God to use.