Religion has been on a steady decline for over a century. Its ability to facilitate actual spiritual development in humans has been aging out as the times move forward. With the Information Age, this decline expedited as individuals had more access to knowledge, wisdom, and a path to pursue Universal truths. No longer under the control of clergy, sacred wisdom has unlimited distribution to the people.

The Information Age has also lent to transparency. While religion has always been as corrupt (or holy) as the people involved, communication on a large scale is now in everyone’s pockets. “Seeing something and saying something,” does not as easily end at the doorstep of the local newspaper who may bury the story for fear of retribution by the powerful figures under accusation. Now anyone can publish information for tens, hundreds, even billions to see.

Let me be clear that as I speak in this article of religion obsolescing, I am emphasizing the tendency for religion to have authority over the individual’s spiritual life. I am of the mind that religion and organized practices of spirituality can be useful, so long as they are utilized as tools rather than as limitations. Therefore, the aspect of religion that is becoming more outdated is the act of giving something or someone else one’s ultimate spiritual authority. And, religious leaders and/or systems are losing their power to demand that authority, for the reasons mentioned above as well because of a recent turn of events.

The newest reason that religion is antiquating as a spiritual growth technology has to do with Q Anon.

Allow me to share that I received this information by channeling. I held a workshop in February entitled, “Metatron on the Metaverse.” In it, I taught, channeled, and prophesied about the ways that the “Internet” is shifting. There is afoot a swift change and advancement of how we communicate and conduct commerce, what is also being called Web 3.0. This portion about religion breaking down as an authoritative power was one small portion of that class. Suffice it to say that I received this insight from Archangel Metatron and the Council of Light who attended (in Spirit) that workshop.

Q Anon and the surrounding ground swell of conspiratorial mindset began, but didn’t go the full distance of, the process of starting a new religion. Humans, especially in Western culture, have a pattern of creating religions that is clearly observed in history. The process is known to the unconscious mind, held in place by a predictable unfolding of events that the collective unconscious manifests.

The pattern for starting a new religion in Western culture is:

1) Epiphany
A prophet emerges with a doomsday revelation, a.k.a. millenarian narrative, that elicits fear, thereby creating followers. Fear – the fight-flight state – is a hypnotic state. Individuals are highly suggestible when afraid, and entities who are ambitious for power take advantage of this state. During the Epiphany stage, it is established that the prophet has the answers about how the followers’ lives or souls can be saved.

2) Evangelism
The followers spread the “gospel” and proselytize, thereby growing the numbers of followers. Growing numbers validates the original fear message and feeds the momentum of the growing movement.

3) Organization
The prophet now has a centralized conference of leadership. The leadership reshapes the message while providing a sustainable context for followers to continue to grow with the movement. Keys components include doctrine, buildings (brick and mortar or virtual), commerce, communication, and reliable and repeatable activities.

4) Ritualization
The centralized leadership and followers continue these steps in a feedback loop, re-catalyzing (and re-traumatizing) the congregates with the original fear-based message. Repetition convinces the primal mind that the pattern of activity and behavior is the actual means of survival, thus the hypnotic state continues.

Whether by conscious or unconscious design, by Q Anon accomplished some of those steps but missed a critical piece: identifying the prophet.

Without a person or a centralized leadership, the steps can neither be completed nor repeated to create cohesion and momentum. In fact, Q is “Anonymous”, an ephemeral and illusive entity. It is only a matter of time before the mist clears, when the followers will require a real personality to grasp.

There were identified heroes of the movement, such as the former president and other public and political figures. But nobody took up the specific mantle of being the prophet. There is no person or personality upon which the messages are based. Without this, there can be no development or refinement of doctrine, no centralized communication or meeting environment, no repeatable activities that give the illusion of survival, and above all, there is no identifiable authority.

So how does this break the authority of religion overall? Why is religion’s efficacy as a technology potentially threatened because of this failure to launch a new religion?

It is the man behind the curtain all over again. Dorothy and her friends dutifully and faithfully traveled the yellow brick road. The build-up to the pay-off was intense. When they arrived, all the promises of the narcissistic Wizard of Oz were proven false when that curtain was moved aside. With our hopeful conspiracy theory followers, there isn’t even a small, embarrassed man behind the curtain. There is no one at all. It was a thief in the night.

On a consciousness level, what happened was the state of high suggestibility was broken. As a hypnotherapist, I work with brain states and the patterns of states of consciousness in order to shift habits of feeling, thinking, and behaving. Breaking a somnambulistic (highly suggestible) state requires the hypnotherapist to take the client into a deeper state, and then wake them all the way up and out of hypnosis, back to sovereignty. The pattern of staying in the hypnotic state is broken, and there is an opportunity to maintain clarity of  consciousness; to witness the pattern that had been holding one captive – to see the wizard.

Since there is no prophet, no authority, nobody at all to maintain the fight-flight hypnotic state, the new religion miscarried, and the pattern of illusion was laid bare for all to see (he who has eyes, that is). Running part of the pattern and then “waking up” from the unconscious state interrupted the entire process of following a religious authority. A new epiphany is offered.

And of course, time and technology will keep rolling along. The foundation that made outside authority useful will continue to degrade.

It was written in the gospels that when Jesus died, the temple veil that separated the people from the Holiest of Holies – that is, God – was torn in two. God was never hiding, and humans cannot, truly, obscure God.

Collectively, we have an opportunity to keep our spiritual development sovereign, de-centralized, and independent of an outside authority. Maybe you already experience this freedom, that’s why many are attracted to reading this. But for others who have not experienced spiritual inner-dependence, there is the offer of a new paradigm. If you have experience governing your spiritual growth, you can be a model for those who may be coming out of the illusion and manipulation. Some are feeling inner spiritual authority for the first time, some are experiencing another level of awakening.

Real tools and helpful technologies would encourage independent thinking, and, perhaps even more importantly, a commitment to unity. Being of service, growing in character, loving people and our world – these are the marks of true spiritual growth.