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The Building 4th Podcast

The Building 4th Podcast

By: Doug Scott
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 Welcome to the Building 4th Podcast where we explore the Perennial Philosophy from various lenses including the psychological, theological, spiritual, conventional, and esoteric. Our points of emphasis include the Hebrew and Christian scriptures (including the non-canonical Christian texts), the Law of One material, the Enneagram, Process thought (ie Whitehead’s Philosophy of Organism) integral theory, and developmental psychology.Copyright 2024 All rights reserved. Science Social Sciences Spirituality
Episodes
  • On the Mystery of Mystery: A Ra-Contact Conversation

    On the Mystery of Mystery: A Ra-Contact Conversation
    Jan 25 2026
    Summary: "Mystery" — Tim's Ra Contact Night Opening Doug offered an invocation acknowledging the group as the One Infinite Creator experiencing itself, emphasizing that living life through intention becomes the gift returned to the Creator—"giving back the glory." Core Teaching: The Nature of Mystery Tim structured his presentation around Ra's statement that "all begins and ends in mystery" (28.1), weaving together personal testimonies, Ra quotations, and contemplative reflection. The Paradox of Third Density Tim opened with a central paradox: Third density is explicitly not the density of understanding, yet we are compelled to seek understanding. Ra states: "We are those who are of the Law of One. In our vibration the polarities are harmonized, the complexities are simplified, the paradoxes have a solution. We are one. That is our nature and our purpose." (Ra, 1.1) Yet for third-density beings, paradox remains unresolved—and this is by design. As Tim noted, "Seeking for understanding while we do not pass go, collect $200... somehow, we have to find mystery and flow with it while living life." Personal Encounters with Mystery Members shared formative experiences of touching mystery: Tim — At age 11, watching snow fall through a lamplight window in Utah. "What I felt was not conceptual... just pure experience. Almost just experiencing mystery or the stillness." Russell — A canoe trip in the Boundary Waters under starlight, feeling something supernatural was about to happen. "Was I about to be revealed in mystery, and I said no?" Troy — Age 5–7, experiencing the strangeness of being: "It's so strange to be me." He had to reassure himself: "You are you, and that's all there is to it." He identified this as touching "the infinite mystery of beingness." Doug — His UFO encounter in first grade. Ra speaks of the Confederation using sightings "to evoke mystery" and call the viewer "into a deeper mystery" (53.3). Beyond this, Doug noted a chronic existential mystery: "Who am I in this situation?" Nathan — A precognitive dream of a green-painted iron stake that manifested the same morning—an impossible puzzle piece that "rattled around my whole life until I found the Law of One." Clara — As a child running to her parents' room during storms, she would see a picture of an angel with two children on a bridge. Years later, her mother insisted no such picture ever existed. "Somewhere I knew I was protected." Ra's Teaching on Mystery and the Archetypical Mind (Sessions 96–97) Tim traced Don Elkins's attempts to "purify" the tarot by removing corrupted additions. Ra cooperated but then offered this correction: "It is not possible to offer what you may call a pure deck... The removal of all distortion is unlikely, and to a great extent, unimportant." (96.4) Tim identified this as one of the most liberating teachings in the material. Don's desire to "figure things out" mirrors our own seeking—yet Ra gently redirects: "May we ask the student to look up from inward working and behold the glory, the might, the majesty, mystery, and the peace of oneness." (97.9) The archetypical mind, Ra explains, "does not resolve any paradox or bring all into unity. This is not the property of any resource which is of the third density" (97.9). The tarot, the mind complex, conceptual frameworks—none can deliver final resolution. What they can do is develop "the faculty of faith and of the will." Mystery as Self-Recognition Troy's childhood experience became the interpretive key. Tim observed: "Ra makes it very clear that the mystery is our encounter with our true nature. It's us learning and turning to see ourselves and kind of surprising ourselves." The One Infinite Creator knows itself through infinite perspectives. What we touch externally as "mystery"—snowfall, starlight, a strange dream—is actually recognition of something within. We are the mystery. Ra states: "The rhythms are clothed in mystery, for they are being itself" (97.9). Doug's earlier writing captured this: "We ARE the mystery... the wholeness of the sacred universe whose form is structured by sacred geometry exists inside of you and me." Mystery and the Limits of Understanding Tim quoted a Talmudic saying: "Ain mazal l'Yisrael" — "For Israel, there is no fate." Despite all astrological and karmic factors, we possess agency. The stars do not control our destiny; we can "play with the mystery however we want to manifest it." Ra's teaching reinforces this. While the veil creates conditions of not-knowing, we retain the capacity for choice. The mystery is not obstacle but invitation. Integration: Love, Light, and the Mystery Doug offered a framework for understanding mystery's relationship to love and light: Mystery — Not something we cannot know, but something we can know infinitely without ever exhausting. Each new route to truth "enlightens and enlivens the core." Love — The energy to explore mystery. "The seeking, the luring... the ...
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    48 mins
  • Earth as Logoic Catalyst: A Session on the Uniqueness of the Terrestrial Experiment

    Earth as Logoic Catalyst: A Session on the Uniqueness of the Terrestrial Experiment
    Jan 25 2026
    This Law of One study night explored a bold cosmological thesis: that Earth, far from being a "prison planet," may serve as a pivotal catalyst for the Logos itself—a location where the Creator is learning something genuinely new at the macro scale. The Premise of Earth's Anomalous Position Doug opened by noting that while Earth is not unique as a third-density planet (Ra states that 33% of life-bearing planets host third-density experience), nor unique as a mixed-polarity planet, something extraordinary is occurring here. He proposed that Earth represents an extreme case—a location where the consequences of the veil experiment have reached their furthest expression. Ra describes the Logos as "a Protean entity that learns upon the macro scale"—and Doug invited the group to consider what kind of catalyst might provoke learning at that level. If we as individual beings learn through the intensity of our experiences, what experiences might teach the Creator itself? The discussion traced the composition of Earth's original third-density population at the beginning of the 75,000-year Master Cycle: One quarter: Native ape-body graduates from Earth's own second densityOne half: Souls from Mars, whose bellicose civilization destroyed their atmosphere mid-cycleOne quarter: A mixture from thirteen other planetary groups—some third-density repeaters who didn't graduate with their home populations, others from planets whose aging suns could no longer support development As Troy observed, this created an unusually heterogeneous population—a "motley crew," in Doug's words—that has contributed to Earth's distinctive challenges. The Veil as Logoic Learning The conversation situated Earth's current condition within the larger context of the veil's implementation. Demarcus explained that prior to the veil, third-density beings experienced no forgetting: they could perceive the Creator directly, understood their purpose, yet felt no impetus to polarize. As Doug noted, Ra describes these pre-veil civilizations as existing in "monochrome"—without intensity or hue. Ra addresses this directly: "The first beings of mind, body, and spirit were not complex. The experience of mind/body/spirits at the beginning of this octave of experience was singular. There was no third-density forgetting. There was no veil." (Ra, 82.12) The veil's introduction created the conditions for genuine choice by separating the conscious mind from the unconscious—making each mysterious to the other. This generated the tension necessary for polarization, which in turn provided the "work" that allows consciousness to evolve. Doug likened this to the positive and negative charges in electromagnetism—polarity creates the capacity for movement, for transformation. The Paradox: A New Logjam Doug posed a provocative question: What if Earth represents the opposite extreme of the original logjam? Prior to the veil, beings were stuck in contentment, unable to polarize—like students born into wealth who see no need to study. Now, on Earth, we have a different kind of stuckness—millions of years of third-density repetition, where even our spiritual institutions can become entrapments. Doug pointed to the irony: "I know people who go to church... never miss a Sunday mass... and yet when you listen to them, oftentimes they're the most judgmental, the most alienating." The very structures meant to foster growth can perpetuate the same lower-chakra blockages they were designed to transcend. Barbara reflected on how "history, since the beginning of time has repeated itself, and still appears to be repeating itself." Yet Doug noted something new is emerging alongside the repetition: "We're repeating. But we're also increasing our self-awareness. So we know, maybe we're repeating." This is the peculiar gift of our moment—a growing gnosis within the repetition itself. Ra's Karmic Investment in Earth The discussion turned to Ra's own relationship with Earth. Doug highlighted that Ra, as late sixth-density beings, recorded their experience with Earth's population in "the great record of creation"—language suggesting implications beyond this solar system or galaxy. Ra's statement that "never again will any other group have to make the same mistakes" implies this situation is unprecedented. Ra became karmically entangled through their well-intentioned but naive interventions with the Egyptians. Yet this entanglement serves their own curriculum: "In learning how to balance the karmic imbalances that their influence created in earth's humanity... to try to redress those imbalances actually is their curriculum—how they're learning about the fine nuances of Karma in the universe." Ra's lesson, it seems, is unity—not merely within their social memory complex, but across the sphere of their influence. Their mistakes with us became their teacher. Ascension as Incarnation Perhaps the most practical teaching ...
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    48 mins
  • Remembering Agency within Despair (A Vision)

    Remembering Agency within Despair (A Vision)
    Oct 9 2025
    Doug recounts a transformative visionary experience that occurred during a family RV trip to Colorado in 2020 or 2021. In Leadville, the highest city in the country at 10,000 feet, he ran ten miles and then consumed a powerful cannabis edible—his first time using cannabis in 10-15 years. Not knowing what he was doing, he ate an entire potent gummy, then smoked more weed, which launched him into an intense three-hour experience. The Descent into Hell Doug describes this period as "complete and total existential despair"—a literal descent into hell within his own psyche. He was bombarded with messages of worthlessness: "Abandon all hope, for there is none. The whole of you has always been false and a lie. You are nothing." This experience amplified his deepest insecurities, particularly around having kept his exploration of the Law of One material secret during the darkest seven-year period of his life (2013-2020). His imposter syndrome intensified to unbearable levels as he imagined his family discovering his perceived phoniness. He experienced such intense terror that he physically trembled and writhed, even contemplating that his family would be better off if he killed himself. Visually, he saw twisted, malformed, grotesque beings—viscera, lower chakra colors, volcanic orange fire, and a blackness that wasn't void but malice itself. He describes this as "dark light"—blackness inverted from void to malice rather than void to love. The Turning Point: Agency and Belonging At the lowest point, Doug received an internal nudge reminding him of cognitive behavioral principles: these thoughts and feelings were something he had created, not something creating him. He realized he'd always had a defense mechanism but now had to enact it at the deepest level ever. As he flew at 100 miles per hour over volcanic craters with demons pulling him down, he began repeating: "And you belong. And you belong. And I understand." He recognized these disintegrated parts—splintered through this lifetime and past lifetimes—as his own creations. Even negative external entities belonged because he is the creator. By saying "you belong," he cut the cords of shame and guilt. The arrows still hurt, but they no longer mounted one upon another or killed him—they bounced off. This awakened him to a greater truth that had been completely covered: he has agency. The word "Satan" means "the accuser"—the disintegrated energy level that accuses us of never having been whole. The Sacred Yes and Ascent Once Doug awakened to his agential self, he stopped being propelled by a force stronger than him. He declared his "sacred yes": "I desire to bring the light of wholeness. I desire to bring the light of Christ." For Doug, "Christ" represents the singularity of manifested wholeness—a code word invested with 2,000 years of human ritual and belief. Gold, the color of wholeness made manifest, became his experience. At this declaration, an explosion of golden luminosity occurred—a big bang bringing wholeness into the depths of hell within his psyche. He began blessing everything rather than being cursed by it. This shifted his energetic space, transporting him to a perspective higher than the hell realms. The Heaven Realms and the Great Realization Doug found himself in what he calls the heaven realms, surrounded by heavenly beings attentive to him. He belonged there and flew in the golden hue, bathed in hope after the funk of despair. When he looked down at the hell realms and saw the demonic beings looking up angrily, he didn't feel pure bliss. Instead, he felt what all the beings around him felt: the joy of wholeness simultaneously connected with great sadness that those below have, in a way, chosen to be miserable. The crucial insight: there was no line separating hell from heaven. The difference is that when one only desires disintegration, it doesn't occur to self that you have agency to transcend. From below, those in heaven appear as "other." From above, those in hell are seen as "us"—welcome to come up. The suffering Doug felt was the realization that the pain doesn't have to be this way, but we create our own hells—energetic vibrational streams of consciousness in the spectrum of separation. Integration: Metaphysical and Psychological Truth Doug emphasizes that while this was a visionary experience, it's metaphysically, archetypally, mythologically, and psychologically true. He connects it directly to his counseling work: when clients learn through courage to live in greater spaciousness and choose higher-grade responses instead of status quo reactions, they move from one frequency (perhaps hellish realms) into realms of integration and wholeness. It's all one reality, just described with different words. Good counselors, he argues, offer the "lore" of myths—these visionary experiences can be found in comic books, fantasy novels, or Revelations, but they're all words describing phenomenological, experiential facts....
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    25 mins
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