# Chain: Conduit Not Scripture > *The recorded message as living conduit, never sacred object* **The argument it traces:** Guidance reaches the soul by rapport → channelled messages are one form of that guidance → the rapport does not end at delivery but attends every later reader, so the written record is itself an instrument, not a transcript → and the words are never sacred, the rapport is, which keeps the message useful while stripping it of authority **5** messages · **4** supporting · main statement not yet chosen --- ## Foundation ### 2016-04-12 - [[2016-04-12 Talk on Receiving Guidance|Talk on Receiving Guidance]] Establishes the conduit claim: the angels make "a rapport with your minds and your souls" and the rapport continues past delivery, "We are with you as you read them and we are with all who read them and help to impress upon you the importance of any particular message," attended to each reader's particular life. "All of it is a training, an education, a direction to your lives." ## Elaboration ### 2014-10-11 - [[2014-10-11 Every Soul Can Receive the Divine Love and Be Transformed by It|Every Soul Can Receive the Divine Love and Be Transformed by It]] The rapport with a published text stated plainly, "I am close to him because he reads my messages, the book that is named with my name, and I impress upon him the truths which I intended to convey through this effort." The spirit attends the reading and impresses the intended meaning, so the text is a conduit whose author is still working through it. ### 2016-03-31 - [[2016-03-31 The Purpose of Divine Love|The Purpose of Divine Love]] Judas speaks of the book bearing his name as a collaboration he is still involved with: "I have been with this instrument often when he reads the book which I collaborated in writing... I am well satisfied with the efforts that we have made in this publication which is indeed meant to be widely distributed." A spirit describing his own published text as something he participated in producing, and continuing to attend its reading, is the thread's claim demonstrated rather than argued. ### 2016-04-12 - [[2016-04-12 Lesson on the Falsity of the Vicarious Atonement and the Unsure Nature of Written Truth|Lesson on the Falsity of the Vicarious Atonement and the Unsure Nature of Written Truth]] The positive doctrine behind the denial. Truth is not a fixed object to be transmitted but something perceived: "Truth is not altogether absolute. It is perceived by each individual soul, and although the foundation of Truth can be universal, the perception of Truth is not necessarily so." From that follows the tolerance of difference, "though their truth, their understanding, their perspective may be slightly different from yours, it is no less valid," and the futility of codification, "to try and standardize Truth with words in a book is a fruitless effort." He includes himself and his own kind in the limitation: "You do not know the Absolute Truth, my beloveds... And we, who have tread this road for thousands of years, continue to evolve in our understanding of Truth." He also describes how truth actually arrives, soul first and mind second, incrementally: it "will emerge from your souls, find lodgment within your minds, and will incrementally develop and unfold and evolve." ## Objection-removed ### 2016-04-12 - [[2016-04-12 Lesson on the Falsity of the Vicarious Atonement and the Unsure Nature of Written Truth|Lesson on the Falsity of the Vicarious Atonement and the Unsure Nature of Written Truth]] Clears the belief that would distort the conduit claim into bibliolatry. Names the error from the inside, denies it, "the word is not sacred. No, words are words," relocates the sacredness, "What is sacred is your belief and connection, your rapport with your Heavenly Father," and then preserves the conduit rather than discarding it: "to bring a suggestion of Truth in the written word, for that is merely all that it is, is a productive action." That last clause is what makes it a member here and not only of [[Chains/Religious Error|Religious Error]]. --- ## Also touches on this *These messages restate or echo the idea rather than carry it forward, so they sit alongside the thread rather than in it.* - **2015-06-15** [[2015-06-15 The Imaginings and Ideas of Men Create Falsehoods and Misinterpretations|The Imaginings and Ideas of Men Create Falsehoods and Misinterpretations]] (witness) - The authority is the soul's own enlightenment rather than any office or text, "true understanding comes from the enlightenment of the soul and the enlightenment of the soul comes from the inflowing of the Father's Divine Essence." - **2015-08-20** [[2015-08-20 Express the Truth to Others - Padgett Talks of Why This Is So Important|Express the Truth to Others: Padgett Talks of Why This Is So Important]] (witness) - The medium of the volumes describing them as a map, "the Truth is ultimately simple and wordless. What was written is a map, a way to help you in your thoughts, in your desires to come to God." - **2016-11-27** [[2016-11-27 The Value of Knowing Your Souls|The Value of Knowing Your Souls]] (sighting) - "that which is the fabrication of the mind, part of the intellectual ruminations of imagination and interpretation of truth will fall away." Close to that chain's claim that words are never the sacred thing, but aimed at the seeker's own reading rather than at the standing of a recorded message. - **2019-01-26** [[2019-01-26 Establishing Portals|Establishing Portals]] (sighting) - The same teaching on the Law of Communication and Rapport bears on rapport as the sacred element; no role proposed.