The “Cosmic Chessboard” describes the way in which world events unfold. The chessboard has visible pieces, but the game is played by invisible hands. It is the hand of Sammael that moves the Blackmen, striving against the hand of God which moves the Whitemen. But God has limited the power of Sammael, inasmuch as the pieces can only move according to the rules of the game. And by the same token God has limited Himself to the same set of rules. Furthermore, authority is needed for hands to move the chessmen, and this authority is granted according to the responses of human beings. Obedience to God is known as faith, whereas obedience to Sammael might conveniently be called antifaith. Acts of faith and antifaith are the authorities for moving pieces on the board. Small acts of faith might be reflected in the moving of a pawn, whereas greater acts of faith could initiate the moving of horse, castle, bishop or even queen.
But faith must not be confused with religion. The two are quite distinct. Faith responds directly to God and to His spoken word, whereas religion deals with sets of rules for daily living, enslaving man as in a ‘precept prison’. Without enlightenment, men mistake the one for the other, because the ‘rules for daily living’ are derived originally from what God has said in the past. By the power of religion, Sammael is able to siphon off large quantities of power from the sons of men, enabling him to move his Blackmen. He takes yesterday’s manna, filled with worms, and feeds it to the religious community. It produces spiritual torpor, but gives him what he needs – power to move.
Antifaith is not obtained from acts of violence, or from prostitution, or drunkenness, which are but the outworking of man’s fallen nature. Antifaith is only obtained where religion is found. Wherever the temples of men’s religions are found, there also one will find entrenched the agents of Sammael, for according to a well-known parable, tares are always sown amongst wheat, nowhere else. Wherever one finds religion and religious men, parading their virtuous lives, displaying their religion publicly as an example of their holiness, the agents of Sammael are alert and pleased.
But look for men of faith and unless you know what you are looking for, you may find them difficult to recognise, because men of faith are basically pioneers. They have no time to sit in religious assemblies, lulled asleep each week by the same old doggerel of ‘precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little, there a little’, churned out incessantly by the pundits of the system. Indeed, they are the ones who always trouble the minds of the religious community. They rise up at the Divine Whisper and go places. They leave behind the crowds of virtuous religious men howling them down for not abiding by their ‘rules for daily living.’ They walk in dangerous places, and dare to do ‘forbidden things’, because their Master has spoken, and they have heard, risen up, and obeyed. That is faith. And the more they do it, the greater is their Lord’s ability to move the Whitemen on the board. And this in turn creates more opposition, making the Blackmen and their human agents crazy and even brutal. And so the game goes on, between those who are ‘wise as serpents and harmless as doves’ and those who are ‘virtual serpents dressed up as doves.’
Let a man act in true faith, then watch for the responses. Does the man in the street get mad with him? No. Neither ordinary ‘decent’ men, nor wretched law-breakers find very much interest in his actions. But watch the religious community, and you will witness some of them gnashing their teeth, getting very angry. The agents of Sammael are merely expressing their feelings through them. By this one is able to distinguish the world at large from those who operate by antifaith. And remember, the latter always do it ‘in the name of God’ whom they believe they are serving.
The Chess game is therefore a purely spiritual exercise. It is based upon the supernatural at all times. God is Spirit. He is not interested in the flesh, even though He provides all, good and bad, with their daily bread. The supernatural, as the name implies, is something that is above the natural. That is where faith (and antifaith) operate. Faith hears the whisper of the Divine Spirit. It triggers action, and this is supernatural. No man can prove the existence of the whisper, by science or other means. But the outcome may very well be miraculous, and again, this cannot be explained by ‘nuts and bolts’ techniques. The miracle is a divine response, a visible manifestation, and the faith was the stimulus to trigger it. The stimulus is mother to the response, and is of far greater significance than the response. But most acts of faith are not accompanied by visible miracles. But in the sight of God the faith has an equally high rating.
The Dark side also operates on the supernatural level. Although very little power is obtained from the religious masses as such, because all their ‘rules for daily living’ are directed to the physical realm, yet Sammael has much use for them. He thinks as a man, acts as a man, and understands the needs of the human flesh, and is prepared to pander to it quite generously to obtain his ends. Yes, these world-wide religious masses form a sort of springboard for higher actions. The religious platform enables a few to climb to those higher levels where they too hear voices, dark voices speaking smooth acceptable words, and to obey these is often accompanied by Sammael’s miracles.
Hence, miracles are not always what they seem. Some say, let’s have more and more miracles. Will they not engender faith? But the answer is no, not always. There could be many miracles by Sammael’s workings to every one of God’s. And many will feed their stimulated minds on the miracles, and crave more and more, until the miraculous becomes a drug. But the true man of faith will find his own faith rising from the miracle due to his faith. He will go away, not to find more miracles, but to listen more attentively to the God who gave it. Sammael’s men feed upon Earthquakes, Winds, and Fires, but God’s Elijahs tune in to those still small voices, which make them rise up and act in faith-obedience. This is how the Cosmic Chessboard operates.
