We are Omni, we love dolphins

I've been looking through some of Findhorn's output lately, and it seems that a substantial portion of their books consist of channelled material. This book introduces us to Omni or Omni-Emmanuel, a highly evolved spiritual personage (or perhaps a collective identity of some sort?) channelled by John L Payne. Omni's message sounds like a combination of ACIM and the Seth Material. Everything is Love, evil and suffering are illusions, human life is just a game played by Spirit. Even our worst enemies are part of the game. We actually choose them while still dwelling in the spirit-world. Humans play the game in order to master matter, a process Omni calls “Descension”, something which interests him more than Ascension.

God is a strictly impersonal force, and is identical to Consciousness. The “gods” are highly evolved spirits which aid humanity, but none of them is God in the strict monotheist sense. Omni's idea that our individual spirits are part of a broader collective whose members hang together is similar to notions found in the Seth Material (and Robert Monroe). Omni loves dolphins and whales, claiming that humanity will soon acquire telepathic powers, making it possible for us to communicate with the cetaceans, which are presumably on a higher spiritual level than ourselves. Dolphins hail from a water planet near Sirius, named Delphi! Omni's message also contain inversions of the Bible at several points: the fallen angels were good aliens rather than evil demons, “you are gods” is a correct statement, and humans aren't unworthy sinners in the hands of an angry god… Note also that Omni calls himself Omni-Emmanuel, making him a kind of “Anti-Christ”.

To be honest, we heard all this before, haven’t we? My objections are also the same as usual. If God is Love, how can even the *illusion* of separation, evil and suffering exist? It can only come from the Divine itself, since God is All-There-Is. Therefore, God creates evil and suffering. Therefore, God is evil! How can God be strictly impersonal, if God is Consciousness? Consciousness implies a person. Does Payne *really* believe that, say, mass rape of women in wartime was freely chosen by the women in the spirit-world, as part of a bizarre game to master matter? Not being a Christian, I have less objections to the Biblical inversions than, say, Pope Francis, but somehow I doubt that the message humans in AD 2014 need to hear is “ye are gods”! And no, dolphins don't come from Sirius. (Everyone knows they evolved from cow-like ruminants. OK, maybe not. But I think you get my point, LOL.)

Since “Omni reveals the four principles of creation” is relatively well-written, I will give it three stars, but I'm afraid its message is the usual combination of New Age honey and good ol' arsenic…