A Quick Summary of the Two Religion

Two is a new religion that began to form in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1982. For the first 15 years it was a developing spiritual philosophy. In 1997 work began to convert the philosophy into a framework for a new religion, an American religion. The result of that work is a book containing the first public documentation of this new religion. It is hoped that this document will act as a catalyst to continue the process of forming this new religion and expand the membership from a few to many.

The Two religion is based on American culture, American heritage, and American values. Two is, in many ways, very different from the Arab-based religions (such as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam); East Indian practices (such as Hinduism and Buddhism); and the Asian philosophical and religious systems (such as Taoism and Confucianism). Two is a religion that assumes there are two basic creative Sources in our universe: one that is responsible for the idea of a male and another that is responsible for the idea of a female. Working together, these Two Sources create from themselves all of the various kinds of males and females on earth. Male and female human beings can send messages to and receive messages from the Two Sources through the use of the "quiet voice" inside their head and through the "gut feelings" near the pit of their stomach. These messages are referred to as "spiritual messages." The basic function of the Two religion is to help a person learn to send and receive spiritual messages as clearly as possible. Two, by its very American nature, is a more personal, privately centered and much less public religion, focused entirely upon spiritual matters.

Over the past nineteen years and through the use of yearly manuscripts, a relatively small group of people endeavored to understand how to produce the clearest possible spiritual messages. An individual human life appears to be more pleasant and much easier if spiritual messages can be clearly understood. Life is more pleasant because life seems less lonely when one is in contact with the Two Sources. Life is easier because a person can learn how to "be at the right place at the right time." The task ahead is to gradually refine the understanding of how to clarify spiritual messages and share that information with people who express an interest in Two.

For the immediate future, Two is intended to function under certain "preferred practices." These practices are intended to help ensure that the religion remains focused only upon helping an individual person send and receive spiritual messages for the purpose of determining personal behavior (realizing that personal behavior must also conform to the laws and traditions of the United States of America). The preferred practices are also intended to prevent the religion from developing into a personality cult; from owning religious property; from becoming a large, centralized organization; from collecting money; and from other religious practices common to the Old World religions.

There seems to be no need for priests, ministers, rabbis, bishops, or popes--likewise no need for prophets, saints, or mystical people. Ordinary people seem perfectly capable of discovering what needs to be discovered. Information about the religion can easily be disseminated by what we call the "modern oral tradition"; one-to-one communication supplemented by the worldwide Web and by electronic mail. It is hoped that the modern oral tradition will become the preferred method for dissemination and refinement of the religion because each time the story is told it can be slightly modified to suit the teller and the listener. The religion, thereby, should have no fixed spiritual ideology beyond a basic framework and should remained dynamic and always changing.

There are no sacred written books for the religion. The intention, at the moment, is to limit written material to summary publications authored anonymously and made available to the general public only every nineteen years (see Preferred Practice # 9). The book is one such summary publication and as such is nothing more than a chronicle of the fundamental ideas and preferred practices of the religion as they existed at a certain point in time.