John Roger and MSIA

John Roger Hinkins (1981) [Affirmations]

• God is my unfailing supply, and large sums of money come to me quickly, under grace, in perfect ways.
• Every plan my father in Heaven has not planned, shall be dissolved and dissipated. The Divine Idea now comes to pass.
• Only that which is true of God is true of me, for I and the Father am one.
• As I am one with God, I am one with my good, for God is both the Giver nd the Gift. I cannot separate the Giver from the Gift.
• Divine love now dissolves and dissipates every wrong condition in my mind, my body and affairs. Divine Love is the most powerful chemical in the universe and dissolves everything which is not of itself.
• Divine Love floods my consciousness with health and every cell in my body is filled with Light.
• My eyes are God's eyes. I see with the eyes of Spirit. I see clearly the open way. There are no obstacles on my pathway. I see clearly the perfect plan.

John-Roger appears to have a proclivity for taking other teachings, writings, and practices and developing them as his own. Besides the obvious similarities between Roger's Insight Transformational Seminars and Life Spring (as well as Est) one can see his tendency for "borrowing" in his curious use of the word "Sarmad" as a term for God. It seems likely, given J.R.'s track record in matters of religious shoplifting, that he first learned the word "Sugmad" from Paul Twitchell. However, after his exposure to certain Radhasoami Beas texts (particularly the one entitled Sarmad), he transposed Twitchell's term "Sugmad" (which stands for the Highest Lord) into M.S.I.A.'s "Sarmad." In any case, "Sarmad" is actually the name given for a famous Indian-Jewish saint in the Shabd Yoga tradition who died a martyr because of his claim that he was one with God.

Roger, coincidentally, has also taken over the "Holy Five Names" mantra from the Radhasoami Beas and Ruhani Satsangs. In doing so, though, J.R. has mistakenly rearranged the order in two of the names, betraying his ignorance in understanding Indian terminology. This type of indiscriminate borrowing, at least to practitioners from established centers of Surat Shabd Yoga, shows John-Roger to be an unscrupulous spermologos and his group M.S.I.A. to be a potpourri of unoriginal spiritual teachings. The allegation that J.R. is a plagiarist, to some disciples, looks more and more to be a statement of fact.