Reclaiming Our Founders' Vision of Freedom, with Onelight, by Celeste Adams

We all have our own memories of learning about the "founders" of this country, and about the American Revolution. As a child, growing up in a small town in New York, I often waited for a school bus in front of a stone house that had a sign announcing "George Washington slept here." On occasion, I ate at a restaurant in Tappan where Major John Andre, the spy who convinced Benedict Arnold to sell out West Point, was imprisoned (he was later hanged). I often walked past other historical sites in neighboring towns where Washington also had slept, and where battles were won or lost. In high school, passionless teachers recited dates of famous battles, but never seemed to have a true understanding of the principles that inspired a third of the colonists to risk their lives fighting a revolution.

At home, my father mentioned that we were descendants of John Adams, but I never traced the line of descent and never developed an interest in genealogy. As a child, I was unable to understand the continual outrage my father often expressed at what I believe he felt were limitations to his "inalienable rights." Every tax bill that came in the mail seemed to be an assault, every need for a permit or license, an infringement to his personal freedom.

I was raised a Unitarian, a sect that celebrates aspects of all faiths, and was surprised, when I visited a Unitarian Church in Quincy, Massachusetts, to discover that John Adams and his family had been members of that congregation. But sitting in that old stone structure and strolling around the grounds did little to help me understand John Adams or the spirit behind the American Revolution.

I wondered who these revolutionaries were, and why they risked their lives for freedom. Some of the great icons of leadership — Franklin, Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln — have been described as sources of spiritual inspiration and guidance. Washington stepped back from grasping egotistically at power at the end of the revolution, not trying to become king, as many had predicted he would. He yielded to something higher, and has been described as a spiritual leader.

The revolutionaries were men with flaws and imperfections — who did extraordinary things. Many were involved with the very things they wanted to reform.

Many of us connect to the history of this country in different but profound ways. America was built on the destruction of the native people, although various principles of liberty and democracy came from the Iroquois nation.[1]

Our country also was built upon the enslavement and oppression of the black Americans. Jefferson, although he was instrumental in shaping our ethical ideals, had slaves and was said to have been intimate with one of them. In a poignant 1852 address, Frederick Douglass spoke about the 4th of July and said, "Your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery." Yet despite Douglass's outrage, he ended his speech with hope, pointing to this nation's possibilities for the future.

Although the very terms "founding fathers" and "forefathers" keep us from recognizing their existence, many women also took part in forming the foundations of this country. Some of the most visionary historians still fail to acknowledge some of the most clearly evident contributions of women.

For instance, some of the letters that Abigail Adams wrote to John were important and inspirational. In his biography of John Adams, David McCullough eloquently describes these letters, which show Abigail's commitment to the freedoms that the American revolutionaries were fighting for and won.

Jacob Needleman writes, "All the rights guaranteed by the Constitution were based on a vision of human nature that calls us to be responsible beings — responsible to something within ourselves that is higher than the all-too-human desires for personal gain and satisfaction; higher than the dictates of the purely theoretical or logical mind; higher than instinctive loyalties to family and tribe. This higher reality within the self was called many things — reason, conscience, Nature's God. When this idea is left out, or treated as though its meaning were obvious, then the ideals of independence and liberty lose their power and truth. They become mere names that mask the ever-present tendency of nations and groups and individuals to seek only their own external and short-term advantages."[2]

I recently met with a man who helps people access their own inalienable rights and freedom. He prefers not to limit himself with a particular title, but said that Universal Transformational Catalyst is a tentative description of his function, and this title seems to work. He believes that he can be most effective if he retains his anonymity, so he is using a pseudonym in the following interview. His main focus is in helping people to reclaim the personal freedoms that are set forth in The Declaration of Independence.

Adams: What was the concept of freedom that our forebears had for the people of this country?

Onelight: The founding fathers envisioned the individuals in this country as sovereign beings. These sovereign beings bequeathed to the state specific sets of powers, and in doing so, relinquished those powers, allowing the state to do certain things for them in terms of services.

The states were empowered to take a subset of those things and bequeath them to the federal government, which means that the federal government had specific and limited powers in which to operate. Those powers were given to them by the sovereign citizens.

So in the scheme of things, if one were to build a little pyramid of power structure, the sovereigns would be at the top, the states below that, and the federal at the bottom.

Adams: How is the pyramid of power structured today?

Onelight: The situation we live in today is just the opposite. The federal government is by far the most powerful institution in the country. The rights of individuals are trampled on. I wouldn't say this is done routinely, but when it benefits them, or when they think individuals are doing things that are not in the interest of the people at the top.

The government and the banking institutions tend to do whatever they want. It's 180 degrees from what the founding fathers intended. Under emergency powers, the Constitution is more or less suspended. Various aspects of the Constitution are suspended.

Adams: How did the founding fathers come up with their concept of freedom?

Onelight: Our founding fathers had a vision that was very powerful, and they did something that had never been done before. They had lived under the tyrannical British government, where the people were treated as subjects. They moved to a new land and saw a great deal of possibility here. Many of them moved here for reasons of religious freedom. British governors ran the states for the longest times until the signing of the Declaration of Independence. They were tired of tyranny. Much of that tyranny was in the form of taxation, which I believe we live under now.

Adams: Do you think that the vision of freedom that the founding fathers had was unique in history?

Onelight: What the Romans had was similar, but not as expansive. Eventually, Rome got so big that it collapsed on its own. At that time, the people who could vote — who could be in the Senate, which made all the decisions in Rome — had to be Roman citizens. They had to be male landowners.

In our country, to get elected, you don't have to be any of those things. You do have to be a citizen, but you don't have to be white, male, or a landowner to run for office.

Unfortunately, under the existing laws and statutes, we don't really have a democracy here anymore. It is the thought of democracy that keeps people believing that we have freedom.

Adams: The reason that our forebears came to this land was not for the purpose of unbounded consumerism, but for spiritual liberty. They rejected political and religious tyranny so that they could search for inner freedom. They were not necessarily religious, but they were spiritual. They were probably even against conventional forms of religion. How did their spiritual affiliations shape their concept of freedom?

Onelight: Ninety percent of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence were Freemasons, including Jefferson, Washington, and Franklin. As Freemasons, they didn't believe in the Catholic or Christian Church, and they didn't believe in most of the organized religions. They were deists and believed in God. There are various definitions of what God meant to them, and whether it was a god of light or darkness.

Jefferson wrote his own version of the Bible, called the Jefferson Bible. He took the King James Bible and edited out everything that was either not specifically the words of Jesus, or was not something very specific that described things that Jesus said or did. The Jefferson Bible is the teachings of Jesus, as discerned from the King James Bible.

Jefferson wrote the Bible for himself. He was interested in the teachings of Jesus. He wanted to understand the morals, values, and ethics that Jesus lived by so that he himself could live a holy life. Jefferson wasn't interested in the dogma and belief systems that the Church espoused. He was drawn to the moral character of Jesus, rather than his religious status as the Son of God.

Most of the founding fathers were deists. They wanted to keep Catholics out of the country initially, but that didn't work out and they eventually opened it up to all religions. Thence the freedom-of-religion clause. Initially, they were cautious about the power of the Vatican and the Catholic Church, the Jesuits, as well as the Church of England. They knew that churches had enormous power. And if you look at history, basically churches were the organizing powers in society until roughly the 1700s or 1800s — until nation states became the organizing power.

That's the importance of the separation of church and state. They knew that if you let religions get into the creation of countries, they would try to run the countries.

They were also aware that if you let banking institutions and financiers get too connected to the foundation of a country they also will run a country — and that is very much what is happening today. The church for the most part is a waning power, although they are still extremely influential. Banking institutions are by far the most powerful organizing influence on the planet today.

Adams: Jefferson and Adams both died on July 4th, 1826 — the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Dr. Walter Semkiw suggests that these synchronistic events are symbols of the spiritual world's involvement in earthly matters. He says that people of that era saw it as a sign that the creation of the United States was an act of Providence, of Divine Destiny. What happened to the other men who signed the Declaration of Independence?

Onelight: Ten to fifteen years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, seventy percent of the signers had been hunted down and killed by the British government. Their families died, too. Their deaths weren't pleasant, since the British felt that they had committed treason.

Adams: Dr. Semkiw is writing a book that focuses on the reincarnation of a circle of people who played important roles in the Revolution.[3] What do you think of this concept?

Onelight: I think that when your spirit is no longer in your body, it doesn't stay as a single unit. If one person thinks that he is George Washington, that doesn't mean that there aren't fifty other people who have the consciousness of George Washington connected to their spirits or souls.

I believe there are two kinds of DNA: spiritual and physical. The soul has its own journey that may or may not correspond with our bloodlines. Spirit moves around between bloodlines.

Adams: I think the spirit of our founders is in us when we understand and share their ideals. Jacob Needleman describes Lincoln, for example, as a symbol for the developing soul, of what we need to struggle against and what to struggle for in our own process of development.

How and why we have given away our freedoms

For those who stubbornly seek freedom, there can be no more urgent task than to come to understand the mechanisms and practices of indoctrination. These are easy to perceive in the totalitarian societies, much less so in the system of "brainwashing under freedom" to which we are subjected and which all too often we serve as willing or unwitting instruments.

— Noam Chomsky

Adams: How are our freedoms affected when a national emergency is declared?

Onelight: Under a national emergency, the Constitution is suspended and the executive branch can assume more power during short periods of time — no longer than two years past the time of the emergency. A national emergency usually occurs during a time of war, but there could be other reasons for emergencies.

Lincoln put a national emergency into effect, and a number of things happened that allowed those national emergencies to continue. A national emergency was declared during World War I, and two years after the cessation of hostilities it ended. Roosevelt declared a state of national emergency within two or three days after becoming president. In March 1933, he proclaimed a national banking emergency. He made it illegal for a US citizen to possess gold — and it's still illegal. You can't keep gold in your house. You can't even keep gold in the bank.

Our freedoms have been weakened in the extreme by these "national emergencies." So it's one thing to talk about the founding fathers, and what they envisioned. It's another thing to look at where we are today — these are two very different situations.

Adams: On February 25, 2002, Congressman Dennis Kucinich of Cleveland, Ohio, gave a powerful speech at USC.[4] He said that we cannot justify canceling the our essential freedoms. Why aren't people more aware and concerned about the freedoms that we are giving away?

Onelight: I think it's because the illusion of freedom is very strong, so people don't dig deeper. I think people are fairly comfortable with their lives in this country, and unless something makes them uncomfortable, they don't look all that deep. They might explore their inherent freedoms when they realize that their taxes are an incredible burden, and that they are so far in debt that they"ll never get out from under it. The rate of taxation in this county is 70 percent of your income — that makes us one of the most highly-taxed countries in the world. That includes income tax, state and federal, taxes on goods, gas, car licensing, registration, business licensing, corporate taxation, etc. Various economists have computed this and you can check with reports written by the Organization for Economic Community and Development.

There's a lot to learn to become free, and you must educate yourself deeply. There are a lot of people out there with partial solutions and there's a great deal of disinformation floating around. The media constantly tells you about people trying to create freedom and going to jail for it.

Adams: What keeps people trapped in roles that limit their freedom?

Onelight: There's an ancient human drama that repeats itself in the human species. The roles are victim, arch-villain, and hero. We like to be victims, and we like to rescue victims. We like to play these different roles over and over. Freedom is available to those who move past these roles.

Reclaiming personal sovereignty

Free men set themselves free.

— James Oppenheim

Adams: How we can return to that expansive concept of freedom envisioned by our forebears?

Onelight: We are already free, but very few of us are living our lives as if this were actually true. It is a process of taking that spiritual truth and bringing it into our lives in as many facets and avenues we can. We bring our initial spiritual freedoms into the 3D world when we become free politically, economically, legally, and physically.

It starts internally — getting to the place of truly deeply believing that you are free. Until then, all the things you do externally won't hold up under pressure.

We have three ways of expressing ourselves: thought, word, and deed. You have to do all three. If you only think you're free, but you don't talk or act like you're free, then you don't really think you're free. So ultimately, you've got to behave as if the statement "I am free" is actually true. If it's true, that should show up in every aspect of your life.

We've been under a lot of darkness, and as we come out of it, we have to deal with people who aren't willing to give up their control and power. I know people who have attempted to expand their own freedoms as well as educate others, and often they are slowed down or stopped by the powers that be. That has increased since 9-11.

There's a level of maturity that goes with this process of becoming free. Do you want to be completely responsible for your life? Do you want to rely on yourself for making things happen? We need to know how to be free in all areas of life, including money, law, property, and business. If you can't bring your freedom into all spheres of your life, what freedom do you really have?

If you want to be free, you have to be more interested in the truth than in how you think or feel. If you really want to be free, you have to want to know what's true, even if it hurts to shatter a belief system. Truth, freedom, love, and God are all the same thing.

Adams: We are once again at a great turning point that will shape the future of our nation. This time period is as significant as the time of the American Revolution. All it takes is a small group of people, who desire wisdom, truth and freedom, to redirect the course of our country. As a nation, we can be more than pursuers of an axis of evil. We can become, as Congressman Dennis Kucinich's asserts in his speech, an "Axis of hope and faith and peace and freedom."

This interview was conducted on March 27, 2002

Onelight retains his anonymity because of the nature of his work. He describes himself as a Universal Transformational Catalyst and is devoted to helping people access their inalienable legal freedoms in all areas of their life.

Onelight can be reached at: onelight@onebox.com.

For further information about contractual legal technologies for freeing yourself in law so that you can assert your sovereignty, please visit: LifeIsLove.com.