u/BrushDistinct3950

I’m in a bit of a spout of irritation. On top of my mental health struggles (PTSD, Depression, and ABI), I find going to church difficult. My oldest daughter is Neurodivergent and can be a handful so I feel terrible dropping her off at the nursery when we did go. I’d also like to point out that I did go to school and have a bachelors in Christian Studies with an Emphasis in Philosophy, so I’m not oblivious to doctrine/ dogma but I’m also not an expert by any means, just an observer who questions deeply. With that being said towards the end of my course study, which was back in January I found that I’ve become more progressive over the years studying where exactly Christian theology picked up various ideas in the developments overtime. It made it difficult to stay in church knowing where all these theological ideas come from and nobody questioning it and through that questioning, we have these dog doctor that we are rectify and I just felt like I couldn’t be in a church that was so tied to their dogma. For reference I used to go to a global Methodist Church. I tricked that split from the United Methodist Church because of various issues with creeds as well as the main issue with homosexuality.

My thing is being in the Midwest and living in Indiana. It makes it extremely hard finding a more progressive style church and the closest town to me that is a larger city is Fort Wayne. And there’s a plethora of different progressive Christian churches such as Evangelical, Lutheran, Church of America, United Church of Christ, Episcopal Church, and a few offshoot, metaphysical and unity spiritual churches, these don’t really feel like they would fit me. I guess it’s just because I’m so scared to go into experience something that just feels inauthentic. When we first went to the United Methodist Church before it became the global Methodist Church the relationship we had with the people was how should I say, they didn’t care that we were there which I guess is better than the overly pushy style, but I don’t know. I guess my overall ran his. I’m just trying to find a church Community and it just feels like I can’t get that around where I live and I have to get myself my wife in our two kids up and out of the door driving about 50 minutes to Fort Wayne just seems daunting.

Has anyone gone through a spiritual awakening, where they realize that a major majority of the New Age spiritual things that are out there are really just Theosophy and I AM movements recycled?

I’m not imposing this to be contrarian or to cause a fight and argument. I have legitimate questions and I’m looking for engagement. I have a hard time, trying to understand individuals perspectives that seem to be either devoid of understanding or understand that a lot of of the modern terminology and thought within New Age spirituality it is based on these old premise ideas.

With that being said what’s the good that came out of these movements and that are beneficial for spirituality obviously some of the things that I’ve read such as area race and other aspects like that which actually aided as a specific regime and Germany during the 1930s to 1940s and a lot of other racist tropes that existed.

I guess I’m just exhausted of all these various perspectives and not having a concise answer, maybe it’s just my ADHD making me so hyper fixated on a particular subject matter but anyone else question things like this and so forth?

So I’m pretty open in my spirituality, I’d say I am a Christian but very progressive. Anyways, I was listening to a guided meditation by Neil Cooper (RIP), I listened to him many many years ago when I was a teenager exploring the chakras. In this video he talked about the violet flame, I also seen reiki practitioners talk about it.

I was doing some reading and it seems to be attributed to Saint-Germaine. Further digging revealed some foundation here in the states. Boy was that…interesting.. the rabbit hole I went down seemed to be about two people the Ballards. Apparently it was and still a racist theosophical offshoot, taking the teaching of Saint-Germaine to an extreme? Only English translations, white brotherhood (which I got two perspectives that say it’s about white magic and one about racial purity and people groups.)

I’m assuming, just like Christianity, the teachings of someone can be manipulated in a way to serve an agenda or what have you.

Does anyone have legitimate experience and understanding they care to share with me? Book recommendations? Is the I AM really the great I AM energy? I’m very fascinated by this phenomena I have seen thus far, but I can’t imagine this universal love being so.. racist.