"The people who seem to have a monopoly on the Bible right now are basically insane."

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"The people who seem to have a monopoly on the Bible right now are basically insane. Truly. They're nuts, and believe really outrageous things about creation and judgment. Even our President believes this really bizarre stuff - on the order of Santa Claus myths, but dark and damning.

The problem is when we surrender the most potent mythology developed this side of the Euphrates to those folks. Sure, we still have our Star Wars and Matrix, but the Bible was written over many centuries, and holds open the door to a myriad of valuable mysteries.

I just hated the idea that the tools in there would be lost to our generation and generations to follow. So many big answers have been worked out, it's be foolish to have to start over. And if kids are willing to read Crowley and Blavatsky and the Upanishads, they really should have access to these stories, as well.

..."Do you feel it more pressing to explain this to those who dismiss it outright or those who praise it yet miss the point completely?

Those who praise it yet miss the point are a lot harder to reach. They're looking for the Bible to serve as an idol - and it turns out it's been written well enough to answer this need, too. It's really working on two levels at once - as any great writer attempts to. One is for the people who need to have their beliefs confirmed, and the other is for the people who are willing to have them smashed wide open.

The best writing - and I think Bible was once capable of doing this - speaks to that first group in such a way as to slowly bring them to their senses. It strokes with one hand while taking away false beliefs with the other. The problem is that the Bible was written so long ago that people no longer recognize what's allegory and what's history. The first hearers of Torah got the jokes, and saw the symbolism. People today would need to learn a whole lot of history to distinguish all the references. They may as well be reading Finnegan's Wake.

...Let me put it this way: there's something that needs to be done to the Bible in order for it to live and function today the way it needs to. In order for its power to be accessible to those who actually need it.

The wrong crowd has gotten hold of these stories, and is using them for the reverse purpose of what they were intended. And the more they do it, the less those of us ready and willing to hack reality understand that the instruction manual is available.

So to break it all open again, I need to engage people with the myth - get everyone inside - and then rip it apart.

It has to be exploded."