Higher Consciousness Society

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Question 1:
What does HCS represent? Why does it exist and what are its basic principles?

The Higher Consciousness Society is a tax-exempt spiritual education society dedicated to providing instruction and guidance to those seeking to expand awareness, personal power, and inner spiritual direction. The Higher Consciousness Society works through on-line classes, local chapters, and centers around the world to provide the spiritual insight and guidance necessary to build bridges to higher consciousness. For more information, please click here.

Question 2:
What does the book Confessions of a God Seeker: A Journey to Higher Consciousness have to do with HCS?

HCS is an outgrowth of the book Confessions, written by author and HCS founder, Ford Johnson. The spiritual principles of the Higher Consciousness Society and the Great Work are set forth in Part IV of Confessions of A God Seeker. For more information, please click here.

As outlined in Confessions of a God Seeker, the Great Work is a term used for the efforts of spiritually developed persons who aid others in recognizing the innate spirituality within, and the illusion of worshipping or depending on intermediaries for our return to the ONE (God).

Question 4:
I am interested in the information provided by HCS. How can I participate in this organization’s spiritual mission?

If you are interested in participating in the activities of HCS, there are three distinct category of membership that have been created (Participant, General Member, Sustaining Member) for those individuals who are at various stages of spiritual transition and commitment. For more information, please click here.

Question 5:
I would like to be a member of HCS, but am unclear about the financial obligation involved. Could you please clarify?

Membership in HCS requires no mandatory contribution or fees, although donations in support of the activities of HCS, to the degree that your financial ability and conscience dictate, are appreciated. For more information, please click here.

To assist in the Great Work of liberating, enlightening and empowering souls to understand and live from the divinity that lies within, the categories of General and Sustaining Membership have been created. As the bedrock of HCS, members share their spiritual experiences and knowledge with others. This takes the form of conducting book discussions on Confessions and other relevant books, write and share book reviews, set up HCS Chapters in your area, distribute posters and other brochures of the organization to those who are interested and to serve as instructors for online classes covering a wide range of spiritual topics.

Question 7:
The book Confessions talks about a number of other religions. Is Ford Johnson and HCS against religion?

Neither the book Confessions or its author are against religions as such. However, both consistently portray an anti-deception, anti-mythology (as religion), anti-lie entrapment perspective while recognizing the need for and the role religions have played in the world. While the historical contributions of religions are acknowledged, HCS also recognizes that true inner guidance comes from the higher self, God-soul that lies within each person. It accepts the guidance of others as teachers but never as intercessors, masters, saviors, messengers, or by any other title suggesting spiritual superiority. Instead, it views every person as both teacher and student differing only in the degree to which they understand, accept, and live by the highest of all spiritual truths: I AM, GOD IS, WE ARE ONE.

Question 8:
Many major religions use prayer as a means of both worshipping and petitioning to the God of their understanding. What is the view of HCS regarding prayer?

As stated in the book Confessions of a God Seeker, (page 354), “Prayer is a means of calling upon the responsive nature of spirit. However, it often fails due to a misunderstanding of its nature. Most prayer proceeds from the assumption of a benevolent deity that responds to our entreaties or not, depending on our worthiness. This has some validity, at least in an oblique way. Yet, it misses the point that spirit’s responsiveness to our prayers has nothing to do with morality, as we normally use the term and everything to do with the Law of Spirit. This holds that spirit is responsive to any idea or thought placed in it. Once placed there, the duration and intensity of focus and belief determine the extent and speed of spirit’s responsiveness.”

Question 9:
Some religions and spiritual paths use chanting as a means to move themselves closer to God. Some claim that the word HU is the highest word there is; some claim it is the AUM. Which one is it, or is there a highest word?

The thing that is most important to understand here is that the power does not lie in the word itself, but in belief of its power. HCS helps the truth seeker move beyond the mythology of the HU and the AUM to the reality that the power of the sacred word resides in the consciousness (the thoughts and beliefs) of the individual. (See pages 393 to 405, Confessions of a God Seeker)

Question 10:
Is there a word or mantra that HCS recommends when meditating and attempting inner spiritual travel?

For personal meditation, it is useful for the individual to find a word that works best for them, and there are many charged words such as love, God, and others that will have a very healing effect. While we understand that the power of any word lies within the individual using it, as a group or individual mantra, HCS suggest the student try the “HUM” (chanted as whooommmm). “HUM” combines the original and authentic sound of Hu (Hooo) with the vibration of the “M” sound from Aum. The “M” vibrates the area of the spiritual eye aiding in the movement of consciousness beyond the physical dimension.

In the Higher Consciousness Axiom I AM, GOD IS, WE ARE ONE, why do you say I AM before you say GOD IS, shouldn’t it be the reverse?

On this point, Ford spent some time contemplating which should come first. He indicates, “Your point is correct in what it might imply, but in balance, the decision was made to start with I AM. The reason is actually quite simple. The only reality that we actually know is that we are. We have awareness and whatever is our outer form, our awareness is what allows us to acknowledge our existence. This is the starting point, the beginning of all that we think we know or imagine. It is only after an acknowledgment of the ‘I AM’ state of consciousness that we are able to contemplate or consider the greater aspect of ourselves that ‘GOD IS.’”

“So it would be correct to say that I exist because GOD first existed. But my awareness and recognition of ALL THAT IS starts from my recognition of my own existence. It is true that at some point this may become semantics or another "chicken and egg" scenario but for me, I know that GOD is because I am and there is no other explanation for my being than that GOD IS. That is why the starting point was decided as I AM and not GOD IS. I could not know the latter, nor would there be the question unless first I recognize, examine and acknowledge my own existence.”

God-soul is similar to soul, but is a higher and more encompassing concept of who we are than the notion of soul itself. Within this understanding is a second concept of existence beyond time and space, which is the region in which soul and our higher self, God-soul, function. When we move beyond the notion of linear time and consider it from the perspective of soul and God-soul we find that we are living all of our lives — past, present and future — simultaneously. Each manifestation of ourselves in time and space has a component of our higher self, functioning within that unit of awareness. This is the concept of soul, an individualized aspect of our higher self that functions within a particular dimension of time and space. It is God-soul, our higher self, that is the true master. It is that part of ourselves that provides the guidance we receive every day, and in fact performs all the spiritual functions for which other religions take credit. It manages the existence of each component of itself, guiding each unit to experience what it needs to in order to become more aware of its existence in the whole of God-soul and in turn God-soul’s relation with ALL THAT IS. From this perspective, the expansion of consciousness in the physical is truly a matter of stepping from one level of awareness to another.

As to whether it is a spark of GOD, this is an accurate description. But when we consider that ALL THAT IS is a collective consciousness, we are IT of itself when we fully align our consciousness with THAT state of consciousness. Thus, we are GOD of Itself when this state of consciousness is adopted (a choice that we can make) or a "spark" (much as the holographic image) when we function as individual consciousness--as we are functioning in the physical plane. Whichever state of consciousness we choose to function in at any given moment determines the most accurate descriptor.

Question 13:
What is your view on Transmigration—the idea that from incarnation to incarnation we progress to successively higher forms until the human form and state is reached?

As for transmigration, HCS does believe that all of life is one and that souls differ only in their states of awareness. Without this understanding, how can one embrace the nature of life as constantly expanding to ever-higher states of consciousness? This understanding is central if not essential to an understanding of evolution and the continuum of life from one state of awareness to another. To suppose otherwise, one would have to conclude that everything is created in its final form without the need for progression or an expansion of awareness. Either this is true or each path of evolution is different with limitations on the level to which a particular living thing can advance (i.e., the animating spiritual principal within animals [soul] could never expand or evolve to a higher form and never advance to experience the free will and choice to which humans are allowed to reach, namely, the realization to their oneness with ALL THAT IS without the movement from one life form to another higher life form) We believe this to be fundamental to an understanding of who and what we are. Without this understanding we are left with a paradigm of a spiritual caste system where souls of a particular type are forever limited in the degree and extent of their spiritual evolution, a proposition that is not consistent with the idea of the ONE.

The realization of God under this construct is the realization not of something outside of oneself but of the divinity that we are. We are one with ALL THAT IS. When we realize this we are able to function at a level unimaginable from the human state of consciousness. Take another look at Part IV of Confessions of a God Seeker in this regard. This notion is the key to the next step that we are all taking.

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