Journey Unto Shiloh: Part 7

By now you probably find yourself in one of three camps. The first two were obvious responses that I expected, the third I must admit took me a bit by surprise when it was first raised by one of my readers. If we look at the first camp, you are the believers. None of what I have written to date shocks you. You believe in God and you believe that the Almighty still has a hand in the action, so to speak, so on faith alone, you’re willing to accept what I have written. The second camp are reading the articles, shaking your heads and muttering that someone should be preparing the rubber room for me by now. I can accept that as well. You are the sceptics and as with everything else in life, there are always those that refuse to accept of faith alone. As I wrote numerous times in my articles, I also found it very difficult to accept at first. Our modern lifestyles, our dependence on technology, our hardwired scepticism tells you that this just doesn’t happen, yet, as much as you try to convince yourself of the implausibility, there’s a small voice buried inside all of you that still whispers, “What if?” That’s good, because if that ‘what if’ whisper keeps you reading then it means there’s a chance I will convince you otherwise by the end of the series of articles.

The third response that was raised by one of the readers, is a variant of the previous two. There is obviously a group out there that certainly believes in celestial communication, prophecy and the presence of the Almighty, but they just don’t believe that He would bother with me. That’s okay too. As I wrote in several of my articles, I wish he hadn’t ‘bothered’ with me either but I really didn’t have a choice. Those in this latter camp believe that they know individuals that are far worthier, or perhaps even consider themselves far more deserving and I can’t argue with that belief. However, I don’t think it’s a matter of worthiness which determines who is and who is not communicated with. Nor do I think that the Almighty would ever base his targets on the concept of worthiness. This concept of ‘worthiness’ is a human justification and as you read the Torah there are several, like Balaam, that He communicated with that you could hardly consider worthy. The story of the pebble and the boulder in the Journey Unto Shiloh Part 4 article partially confirms that line of thought. Moreover, I think it is actually determined by something far simpler than personal attributes based on character. Once again, as scientist, I think it has to do with a genetic structure. Something that for the lack of a better name I’ll refer to as the HRG, or Holy Receptor Gene and which I will explain subsequently.

The reality is that we consist of perhaps as little as 25,000 protein coding genes but these PCGs are only 1.5% of the total leaving another 98.5% of non-protein coding genes unidentified and we haven’t a clue as to what they actually do. Perhaps some of them are the basis for my article on Genetically Linked Memories and by this means we also serve as a warehouse for family archived memories passed down through the generations.

As a species, regarding those PCGs that have been identified by the Human Genome Project, we share most of these genes in common, but then there are certain genes which are specific to only selective families or regions. Some of these genes actually endow families with longevity, or disease resistance, leadership qualities, or even superior intellect. We no longer question the existence of such genes because many of these loci have been identified and evaluated by scientists. In August of this year, Rogalski, published in the Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society his finding of the Super-Cognitive Aging Gene. This was a group of plus 80 year olds whose brains don’t seem to undergo the aging process. Instead, their cognitive skills appear to just get better and better the older they get. How we may wish that we had that particular gene, especially if we know we have Alzheimers or Parkinsons running through our family.

In another recent publication,'Super athlete' gene EPAS1 helps Tibetans live in thin air - study , Chinese scientists found that Tibetans have developed unusual genes that help them live in the thin air of the Tibetan plateau. You can appreciate now that the Sherpas accompanying Sir Edmund Hillary were probably running up and down Mount Everest long before he ever planted a flag upon its summit.

Furthermore, during and after last year’s London Olympics, numerous papers were published proclaiming that athletes from certain regions and specifically countries like Jamaica had an unfair genetic advantage. For instance, almost every Olympic male sprinter and power athlete tested had at least one copy of a certain variant of ‘power gene’ ACTN3. A study of British runners found that those who run long distances often have a certain variant of the gene ACE, which also helps people to climb at high altitudes, and is associated with endurance. Similarly, other genetic mutations were identified that are known to boost the number of red blood cells in the body, meaning more oxygen can be delivered to exercising muscles.

And of course we shouldn’t overlook the Scientific American Publication of May 2012 in which they summarized the work of numerous scientists and psychologists that identified that there is such a thing as a religious gene. In their summary, they concluded that many people change their religious affiliation over the course of a lifetime but their overall attitudes toward belief, are generally stable in adulthood. In fact there were specific clusters of personality traits that correlated highly with particular kinds of religious beliefs. Therefore, even though you may have always thought you inherited your religious beliefs from your parents, it was demonstrated that they only really could influence you during your adolescent years and it were the genetic factors that emerged and took over in adulthood. In other words, we are already pre-programmed to believe and in what to believe when it comes to religion. That being the case, then the concept of a Holy Receptor Gene being transmitted down generations within a few families has a very good likelihood and should not be that difficult to appreciate.

Is there any proof that such a gene exists within certain families in the Torah and Tanakh? There wouldn’t be much sense in appointing the singular tribe of Levi to be priests if there wasn’t. Nor would the focus on a particular family, being Aaron’s descendants as Kohanim or High Priests, have much relevance if such a gene didn’t exist. Since it was believed, as it certainly should be if we are truly believers in the word of God that every year during the Yom Kippur ceremony, the High Priest would enter into the Holy of Holies and commune with God, one on one, then in fact we must acknowledge that this inherited capacity most certainly existed. It did not matter who might have been the high priest in a particular year, since they did change routinely; they all had this inherited ability. They all could tune in to God-FM to put it simple terminology that appeals to our technologically based age, because they possessed this specific receptor.

If you can appreciate this fundamental Torahitic truth, this clearly evident continual practice for 1350 years from the time of Aaron until the destruction of the Second Temple, then you will understand why certain people are touched by this other world and why most are not. Acceptance beyond reasonable doubt that there is an affiliation of a particular family with the ability to hear the Heavenly Voice, as was appreciated not only by the Jews of Temple times, but by every other foreign ruler of occupying empires that came in contact with the Jewish State, is a priority if you want to clearly understand the message. You should have no questions or doubts as to why a descendant of this same tribe, this same family, and in fact a particular House cursed by the Rabbis because of its affiliation with communing with God above all the other priestly houses, would be carrying this same gene. This is especially true since my family practiced first cousin marriages for a very long period of time ensuring the preservation of any ‘peculiar’ genes.

Whether you are Jew, Christian, or Muslim, and you truly believe in the scriptures of the Old Testament, and have no doubt that the prophets of the Tanakh are as described, then you would have noticed a trend regarding their birthrite. Samuel, was the 7^th descendant from Korah, the Levitical Priest. Jeremiah, was the 6^th descendant from Zadok, the Levitical Priest. Ezekiel confirms that he was the son of Buzi, the Levitical Priest. Zechariah, son of Berechiah, son of Iddo the Levitical Priest. Malachi, can be presumed from his insider information on how the Temple Priesthood worked, or didn’t work in his description, had to be a Levitical Priest. Though we lack the genealogies for some of the other prophets, we can assume that those that are disgruntled with the operation of the Temple priesthood have that insider information because they too are Levitical Priests. That being the case, do you honestly believe it is merely coincidence that so many of the great and minor prophets are descendants of the same family? As I told you a long time ago, there are no coincidences. Merely patterns that most people refuse to accept.

So, perhaps now you will understand why I am very comfortable with confessing to these episodes, my ‘epiphanies’ as I have labelled them, where I experience visions, images and even voices in my head. I can defend my sanity simply because I can point to the fact that it is in my Kahana genes to do so. What you consider abnormal, my family would have always considered normal. I can defend against those that say, “But you are not worthy,” with exactly the same argument, because it is in my genes. Worthiness has nothing to do with it! The same way I know that there are others out there, sharing my genetic code, a similar family heritage and instead of acknowledging their experiences of images, the insights, perhaps even the voices, they have shut them out and are in denial. They have placed the light, this gift they have been given, beneath a basket and refuse to let it shine! Good luck to them, since I know that trying to deny the messages has bitter consequences.

I wanted to use this article to ease you into what will follow in later articles. I want you, as the reader to appreciate that modern day prophecies can exist and they are every bit as real as those we cherish in our religious practices even though they are for the most part 2500 years old. I want you to understand that just because we live in an age of technological miracles, that does not automatically exclude the ancient beliefs from co-existing. You cannot believe that something could exist a few thousand years ago and cannot exist today. To do so would make me question, “Why do you even believe at all?” If you deny the possibility, if you are unwilling to accept the truth, then I can only advise that you better be ready to accept the consequences.

Avrom Aryeh-Zuk Kahana