Generally, light is considered a good thing. Here outside my little home, since invisible Light is a whole lot harder to photograph.

My (still unfinished!) Lightwielder stories are obviously fiction, but they do carry certain elements that I perceive as real.  More real, indeed, than our everyday rags and riches.  One of the central tenets is that the Light is not only unlimited, but more than unlimited.

Let me explain what I mean by that.  If the Light was limited, if it was scarce or in short supply, then Lightwielders would have to compete for it.  If there were two of them in the same area, one or both would find it harder to channel the Light.  If however the Light was unlimited, then you could pack together as many Lightwielders as the space allowed, and they would all be able to channel as easily as if they were all alone.

But the Light is not quite like that either.  Rather, as the fictional Book of Light says, “where two Sing, three are present”.  (Singing, or chanting as some of us might call it, is the common way of invoking the Light in my stories.  There are more general and more specific songs depending on what you want to achieve, and depending on your attunement.) When two Lightwielders are singing the same song, the Light is stronger than the sum of what they could channel alone.  Add more of them, and the effect grows stronger and stronger.  The Light flows stronger and more readily, like a fire when the burning logs are moved together. (And yeah, I’ve burned a lot of logs lately, thanks for asking.)

But apart from this very noticeable effect, there is said to be a weaker non-local effect.  There is a saying, I believe it to be a commentary and not a direct quote from the Book of Light:  “If everyone was a Servant, all the world would be bright” and also, “If everyone was a Servant, every Servant could raise the dead.”   The Lightwielders believe that every time someone channels the Light into the world, it becomes slightly easier for everyone else.  This is a bit similar to the belief in morphic resonance, although more specific.

It should be obvious to those who know me that I hold similar beliefs.  The difference is that the Lightwielder stories take place in an imaginary group of worlds in which spiritual effects take a clear physical form.  In the normal world, this is not the case.  Most people don’t actually see light shine from someone who lives an extremely honest life of blessing and giving.  Some people claim to see this light (author Ryuho Okawa among them) but it should be clear that this is a visualization that comes from inside the observer, not a physical light made of photons that can be caught on film.  But people who have a reasonably unhurt soul are easily able to grasp the mental picture and agree that this is a good way to describe such a person.  For this reason, saints – not only in Christianity but also their counterparts in other religions – have long been portrayed with a halo or aura of light radiating from them.  If you were to portray such people with for instance leaves or brown threads protruding from them, it would not at all be obvious and probably disgust the onlooker, but the image of light radiating from a person is immediately easy to understand.

OK, I really ought to go back to writing those stories, shouldn’t I?  But the point I’m making today is non-fiction, or at least I certainly believe so.  I believe that there is a “Light”, for lack of a better word, outside time and space, but present everywhere and at all times.  Humans, probably no one else, can let this light in.  The purpose of most religious practice would be to find those cracks in the cosmic eggshell where the light can be seen, even if only as weakly as a twinkling star, and then pry the crack open, letting in more and more light.  You could also say that we are together in a huge dark room, and whenever someone opens their little window to the sunshine, the whole room becomes a little brighter.

Thus I posit that if one’s religious practice causes the world to become a darker place (in the long run, I mean), it needs a critical review. I don’t really have any grand revelations about the Dark Night of the Soul, but I am pretty sure that if one causes a Dark Night for everyone around, it is time for a re-think. “This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.” (1. John 1:5).  Your religion or life philosophy may vary, but hopefully not in that regard.