WISDOM OF GOD

A spiritual guide for members of the New Church, a denomination whose teachings are from the book of Revelations.

“…If you stay with me, I will lead you into many truths, in which you never thought to be possible,” Emmanuel writes, and many “truths” are indeed revealed in this wordy volume. According to the author, man is a little world, and living within him are spirits and angels. Man has no thoughts of his own, and each individual is a little heaven and a little hell. The closer man draws to the Lord, the more he receives from the Lord. The book proceeds thusly, in a stream-of-conscious format with no paragraph breaks or organizing principle, aside from chapter headings. It’s as if James Joyce decided to confront spiritual issues while abandoning his strong imagery and innovative language. In general, the author seems to strive toward a pure connection with God without the filter of a self to interpret it. However, this results in a lack of an authoritative voice. Emmanuel takes on a variety of issues simultaneously without unpacking them to unleash their wisdom. It’s not that he makes false claims or that the cited scripture is inaccurate, but the many rhetorical questions that he attempts to answer are contradictory and render the spiritual questions meaningless. A beginning summary states that this book was written for members of the New Church, which, in the book of Revelations, is the New Jerusalem coming down out of Heaven from the Lord. “The words are meant only for those who are seeking truths of the Kingdom of Heaven. If you are not seeking these truths…these words will make little sense to you,” Emmanuel writes. The words do sometimes make sense but the lack of organization makes it impossible for them to serve as a guide to God’s wisdom.

Neither a strong, coherent spiritual guide nor a work of wisdom.