About James Riddle

This is from the introduction to my book, The Perception Paradigm. It gives an in depth look into my life and how I learned the concepts that I teach. As usual, it is very conversational. I find that is the best way for me to present myself and my teachings. I’m not out to impress anyone, so I just tell it like it is from my heart. To summarize it all, you could say I went from the bottom to the top by falling in love with the TRUTH, ignoring ancient doctrines, and focusing on what actually works. Fundamentalists may tell you that I walk a thin line between orthodoxy and heresy and sometimes completely embrace the latter, but I challenge any of them to prove that what I’m teaching isn’t the TRUTH. Here’s the real kicker of it all though: this is not only the TRUTH, it is the very power of creation available for you to harness at will. It is your connection to the Source of all things and your guarantee of success in this life!

From The Perception Paradigm:

I, James Raymond Riddle, “The Renegade Reverend,” was born in Indianapolis, Indiana way back when Dwight D. Eisenhower was president. Hmmm… I’m suddenly feeling a renewed interest in anti-aging technology. Did you all know that scientists from Harvard, The Salk Institute, CalTech, UCLA, The University of Exeter, The University of Brighton, Marshall University, The University of Virginia, The University of Washington, and The National Institute of Aging have all conducted successful age reversal experiments? Crazy huh. Anyway, back to me.

          I had a bit of a troubled childhood. My parents divorced when I was seven, got back together when I was 8, and divorced again when I was 13. So, I guess that gives me something in common with about 70% of you. Due to the divorces and my father being regularly transferred to various locations in Indiana and Ohio to advance his career, I ended up going to ten different schools until I finally dropped out halfway through my senior year of high school.

          Growing up, I always felt like something wasn’t quite right with the world, especially in school. Even in the early grades I had a tendency to rebel against what was expected of me. If any of my teachers remember me, it’s probably not a very pleasant memory. I seldom did my homework, didn’t take my classwork very seriously, spent a lot of time in the principal’s office, and each year I advanced pretty much at the bottom of my class.

          After dropping out of high school, I left home, moved to Florida, and went from job to job never really finding my place in the world. I found an escape through drugs and alcohol which became a downward staircase leading me to rock bottom. Ultimately, I ended up homeless for about two weeks, then moved in with my sister, then back with my father, then became a Christian, then at the ripe old age of 23 I got my GED and enlisted in the United States Army.

          My military career set me on the path of learning how to play the game. For some reason I was able to see through things better than most of the other recruits. A drill sergeant yelling in my face and making me do pushups was pathetically easy to deal with. Having to do pushups, or run, or anything other kind of physical activity just put me in better shape and keeping everything in order for an inspection just made me more disciplined, so I was fine with it. None of it ever got under my skin. I always figured, I can only do what I can do, so why fret over it.

          I ended up moving up through the ranks more quickly than most and became a non-commissioned officer in less than three years. My Christianity suffered quite a bit while I was stationed in Germany – good beer will do that to you – but it was revitalized when I transferred to Ft. Bliss, Texas.

          While at Ft. Bliss, in the sunny city of El Paso, I met my late wife, Laura, and became deeply involved in the church. We volunteered in various ministries, taught classes, and even sponsored a home cell group.

          When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and the first gulf war broke out, I was nearing the end of my military career. They asked me to re-enlist, but due to a service-connected disability I declined. Instead, I took on a job as a civilian contractor with the Department of Defense to help maintain security at Ft. Bliss while their key military police unit was deployed to Kuwait. It was quite an experience, but I ended up receiving two Department of the Army Civilian Service Medals within a ten-month period, so that kinda looked nice on the ole resume.

          After the Gulf War, I enrolled at the University of Texas at El Paso in order to pursue a career as a teacher. I probably shouldn’t put that so bluntly. If any of my former teachers are reading this, it is likely they just had a stroke or heart attack. If they’re still alive, perhaps this next sentence will do them in. I graduated in the top one percent of my class, was elected to the Golden Key and Alpha Chi National Honor Societies, was awarded three presidential scholarships, received an honors degree in English, and became a certified Teacher.

          As a teacher, I was nominated Campus Teacher of the Year eight times, won the award twice, won the District Empowerment Educator of the Year Award for use of technology in the classroom once, and won the Campus Empowerment Educator of the Year Award six times. Ok, now that we’ve offed all of my old teachers, let’s back up a little and examine what led up to the creation of this book.

          As a Christian in the 1990’s, I was faced with several controversies within the church. We had already lived through the Jim Bakker controversy when he allegedly drugged and raped his secretary then used over a quarter of a million dollars’ worth of church donations to pay for her silence, and then the Jimmy Swaggart controversy of his soliciting prostitutes, but a new controversy hit home like no other. On the Primetime Live news broadcast, Diane Sawyer exposed various charlatans among televangelists and one of them was my pastor’s pastor, Robert Tilton.

          I had never really felt comfortable with Pastor Tilton, but the controversy, coupled with a constant barrage of excuses for his actions, eventually led my wife and I to leave the church. For the next few years, we tried various churches, but they all had controversies of their own. It seemed that everyone in Christianity was fighting each other or criticizing other Christian groups or denominations. Everyone had their view of what the Bible “clearly teaches.” I’ll tell ya, when you go out exploring the Christian world and experience the embarrassing lack of camaraderie, it’s quite an eye-opener. After a couple of years of these church leaders all “proving” that their view was correct, I finally got fed up.

          OK, now you’re going to get a little taste of my independent personality which comes with a bit of OCD garnishment. We eventually went into a sort of spiritual limbo. So, here was my OCD solution: I decided I would read through the entire Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, highlighting everything it said about who we are, what we have, and how we are supposed to act as children of God. I had it settled in my heart that the Bible alone would be the foundation of my faith and not some dogmatic Christian creed. I didn’t care if I ended up becoming a Baptist, a Mormon, a Jehovah’s Witness, a Pentecostal, a Catholic, or a tomato. I was going to stick with exactly what the Bible said. SMH.

          I finished that project in about six months having highlighted nearly two thousand verses of scripture, and with the exception of a bit of cognitive dissonance concerning some extremely disturbing scriptures that at the time I chose to ignore, I had pretty much cemented my beliefs. We would be Red Beefsteak tomatoes! But, then the Green Beefsteak denomination made me realize my mistake, so we joined them, but it wasn’t long before I realized that they weren’t fully committed, so we became Roma, but they had ties to the Pope, so we left and became simple cherry tomatoes, but then nobody saw us as true tomatoes, so we just gave it up and decided to go back to our old church.

          I made an appointment with my old pastor, let him know how I felt, he let me know how he felt, and we both agreed that going back to his church was a good idea. My wife was thrilled, I was pensive and cautious, and my step son was like, “Oh crap, here we go again!”

          Highlighting all of those scriptures was quite an eye-opener for me. One of the things that really stood out when I did my study was how various writers in the Bible spoke of the power of faith and affirmation. This is something that my pastor always emphasized, but the concept was mostly absent in all those other churches; therefore, I figured I was making the right church choice. Even Jesus Himself taught about faith and affirmation claiming that through them we could move mountains and do even greater miracles than He did (Mark 11:22-24; John 14:12). So, being me, I delved into my project even further. I decided to go back to my Bible and turn every one of those highlighted verses into a personalized affirmation of faith. I had no intention at all of publishing it. It was merely for my own prayers and meditations.

          So, I started pouring my heart into creating these personalized affirmations. Then one day, about a month into the project, I was at the computer creating an affirmation and didn’t realize that my wife was standing behind me reading what I was writing. I heard her sob, then turned and asked her what was wrong. She told me that the words I was writing were incredibly powerful and she felt as if I was writing it just for her. She looked over a few more affirmations and told me that I just had to put it all into a book and publish it. I had not even thought of it, but I decided to print out a few pages and see what my pastor felt about it. He basically said the same thing – that I had to publish it.

          So, for the next two and a half years I poured my heart and soul into the project. It evolved into not only affirmations, but a study guide with cross references so that the reader could see how each affirmation fit in with the overall message of the Bible. When I finished, I had written almost 400 single spaced pages worth of material.

          The next step was to send it out to the various Christian Publishers who specialized in this kind of work. 100% of them sent me “We regret to inform you” letters. I was like, geez, did it suck that bad? I re-read the work, which had already undergone about a dozen revisions, and I realized that it really was amazing, and I shouldn’t give up on it. So, I discussed it with my wife, and we decided I should self-publish. Back then, self-publishing was different than it is today. When you self-published, you basically had to buy a bunch of your own books and then try to sell them in any way you could. If I remember right, I think I eventually ordered 250 hard cover copies and 2,500 soft covers.

          Then something happened that tore my world to shreds. My precious wife of twelve years was killed in a traffic accident while heading to Austin, Texas on a business trip. My world was devastated. I had lost my soulmate. It felt as if my spirit was ripped in half and only part of me remained. What’s more is that I had a four-year-old son and sixteen-year-old stepson to suddenly raise on my own.

          I remember going ahead with the self-publishing project, but my heart wasn’t really in it anymore. It was so hard just to be with people. I was so broken that it was nearly impossible for me to even carry on a conversation. I cried every day for two months.

          In the months that followed I made mistake after mistake. My mind and spirit seemed incapable of recovering. No matter how many people were around me, I was always alone. Probably my biggest mistake was to turn away offers for counseling. If you ever find yourself in a devastating situation, don’t try to handle it on your own. It is so important to find a professional therapist who is trained to help you through such devastating heartbreak.

          As 1999 became the new millennium, I forced myself to re-engage in the world. I received my first order for my books and started a promotion program. My plan was to send the hard cover copies to various church leaders as promotional gifts and use the soft cover copies to fill orders. I ended up selling out of all of my books. In the midst of it all, I met and fell in love with my present wife, Jinny, who blessed me with two more amazing sons, and I started a new stage in my life.

          A huge turn of events happened in 2003 when I got a call from the vice-president of Harrison House Publishers. The president of the company had come across my book, read it, loved it, and wanted to know if I was still open for them to publish it for me. I agreed, we came up with a good contract, and we were off to the races. The following year, The Complete Personalized Promise Bible hit the shelves and quickly rose to best-seller status. Walmart even bought 101,700 books in a single order.

          One might think that this was the beginning of the glory years of my life. But, you see, there was this one particular problem. I was starting to awaken. It began one evening somewhere around the fall of 2006 when I was watching a program on the 9/11 attacks. When the footage of the plane crash of flight 93 was shown, I sat back in my chair and said to myself, “Where’s the plane?” In one stunned moment, I realized that what we were told about that crash was a lie. I didn’t know what the truth was, but I knew that without a plane, there is no plane crash. And there was no plane, at least at that location. Even Peter Jennings reported that there was no evidence that a plane crashed at that sight. I thought, What happened to it? And, What were they hiding? Even today those questions go unanswered.

          This was the first of 10,000+ questions I began to ask of myself and the world around me. What hit me the hardest was that easily over 95% of America believed what they were told. I didn’t know anyone who didn’t believe the official story. I personally believed it without question. I taught it to my children and my students. I even came up with an American flag bumper sticker that said, “Dear Terrorist: You filled us with fear, but that feeling has passed. Now we are going to start kicking your ass!!!” I wanted justice and was willing to exact that justice on the innocent just because someone in authority said they were guilty. I even thought about trying to re-enlist in the Army just so I could go fight the “evil doers.” I was so caught up in the hysteria and sudden unbridled patriotism that my rational mind could not engage. I had no idea that I was the target of a perception paradigm that had been working on me since the day I was born.

          The more I questioned things, the more I began to realize that the world I thought was real wasn’t making sense anymore. I started studying how in the world I could have been duped by so many lies. What psychological tactics could work so well on my psyche? How in the world could my perceptions of both myself and the world around me be so twisted, illogical, and irrational? At first, a fervor of anger came over me and I endeavored to be a patriot among patriots and take back our country from those who were destroying it! I even came up with what I called The Natural Rights Act that I envisioned to be the 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. What completely amazed me was that most of the people around me just thought I was a nut. They saw me as a conspiracy theorist who was out of touch with reality. When I presented sound logic, they couldn’t handle it and would just shut me out and refuse to listen. When I questioned their logic, they became offended and I was ostracized.

          “In an age of universal deceit, telling the Truth is a revolutionary act.” (George Orwell)

          I finally found a few friends who were able to see through the indoctrination. Some were true revolutionaries for Truth. I started learning about the fraudulent nature of the world banking system and how most of what I believed to be my VOICE (my vote) in the political spectrum was an illusion that never enacted the change that was promised.

          What stood out more than anything in the early years of my awakening was that I had an extremely heightened sense of morality. I clearly understood the equal rights of mankind. I no longer accepted that authorities were less culpable for crimes than the general public, and that every person is equally accountable in the eyes of true justice. I realized that the divine right of kings and/or politicians is an elaborate hoax forcefully imposed upon the people. I saw right through the irrational public acceptance and support of government authority. And the worst of it all was the realization that this blind obedience and willing servitude by the public was exactly what made war possible. Sound reason took over my thought processes and I clearly understood that killing innocent men, women, and children is still a crime regardless of whether or not you bear the title of King, Queen, President, General, Soldier, Sheriff, Police, or any other title. I realized that the moral relativism that is granted to government authority by the general public is absolutely insane. And I kept asking myself, how did I not see it before?

          “If you pooled every person’s name on the earth, then drew two names from the pool, which one has more rights than the other? Neither. Which one has the right to rule the other? Neither. This is why the Declaration of Independence says, ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.’ Without consent, authority is illegitimate and anyone exercising illegitimate authority is a tyrant. Since every government on earth rules the public regardless of consent, to include the United States, then all governments are tyrannical.” (from “The Price of True Freedom”)

          I was even more mind-blown that the Christian church supported unbelievable atrocities committed in the name of government authority. I began to see the huge picture of worldwide delusion – that the same kind of mind manipulation was taking place in every country in the world. In those first few awakening years, I went through a gamut of emotions that ranged from anger, despondency, depression, loneliness, incredulity, helplessness, introspection, openness, divine connectedness… and then finally tolerance. Who was I to judge other people when I was once just as blinded as anyone else? The entire planet is born into a perception paradigm that is generations deep. I finally realized that all I can do is present the Truth. People must awaken by their own free will and according to their own capability.

          You have probably surmised by now that all of these issues had a profound effect on my faith. I didn’t just question government authority; I questioned everything. That cognitive dissonance concerning those disturbing biblical passages melted away. The more I awakened, the more I was able to question anything – even my own Christianity. For example, the concept of an eternal Hell as a place where God would torture people for all of eternity wasn’t making any sense to me anymore. I thought to myself, if I made it to Heaven, yet one of my loved ones was suffering eternal torture in Hell, how could Heaven ever be truly Heaven for me? I’d be spending eternity begging God to stop the insane torture. And, what kind of twisted rule of justice is it that tortures someone eternally for things that they did in such a tiny span of life like we are now experiencing? The pat Christian answer is, “God’s ways are higher than our ways, and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts.” Now when I hear that answer, I’m like, “Oh, thank God. Then Hell doesn’t exist because any fool can figure out that it doesn’t make sense.”

          On this point alone, I entered the ranks of the heretics. It got even worse when I was asked to do a guest teaching spot at a friend’s church. My teaching series was called “The True Price of Freedom,” and was based on the immortal words of Jesus, “You shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall set you free.” The problem was, and I quote, that I “included too much science and not enough Bible” in my teaching. Actually, I had an abundance of Bible in my lesson, but that was overshadowed by the Christian reluctance to accept science as a support for Truth – especially when science seems to contradict accepted doctrine. Additionally, my arguments for freedom were rational and not based on blind faith. Rationality is quite heretical when questioning the Bible. Those ancient doctrines are protected with an unyielding fervor. Echoes of Luther’s cries of “Sola Scriptura” still resonate in the church. The moment I questioned orthodox doctrine was the moment I had to go.

          I had a renewed respect and heartfelt empathy for Bishop Carlton Pearson who awakened, shared his awakening, then lost over 90% of his congregation and consequently over 90% of his income as well. When the church leaders offered him reconciliation, he chose to embrace his awakening instead. That’s what I call a proven love for the Truth!

          Don’t get me wrong; I cherish my Bible and consider it one of the most important books in my library. I just don’t consider it to be the ONLY book that leads one to the Truth. As a matter of fact, if you aren’t free to question what’s in it, and accept the answers you find, not only is your mind enslaved, but you have condemned yourself to living a lie. Think about it; you didn’t decide what you believe about the Bible because one day you picked it up, read it, and then formed your opinion. No, the vast majority of us were simply told over and over again by trusted authority figures that the Bible was this or that and that’s how we developed our belief. Be honest. Did you decide what you believe about the Bible because you did your own research FIRST, or did you have a pre-conceived idea about the Bible based on what others told you? It isn’t easy to admit that you are indoctrinated, but once you admit it, it’s quite liberating.

          Someone asked me once why I haven’t taken my Bible-based prayer books out of print, and my first response was because I’m still writing them. I’m more in love with God now than I have ever been. The Bible has a profound power that I have experienced firsthand. It has its flaws, but in my opinion, God still dwells within its pages. Besides, The Complete Personalized Promise Bible series was part of the journey that led me to where I am today. Maybe it will be the same for someone else. They’re really good books written from the heart. Sure, there are some places that I would like to revise, but that’s not something I consider a priority. Right now, my life’s mission is to help raise the frequency signature of this planet and help bring freedom and awakening to as many people as I can.

          When I think about how controlled and manipulated society has become, it breaks my heart. As for myself, I just want to be free. I want to live my life on my own terms the way God intended. I don’t consent to some politician forcing me to act against my will or telling me what I can or cannot do. I have a moral code. Most politicians don’t. I don’t want to be forced to fund wars, the killing of the innocent, the incarceration of the harmless, and the destruction of the planet. I don’t want to be forced to fund other people’s ideas. I have a natural God-given right to be in control of my own finances and no one has a right to take my finances against my will and use them for things that violate my moral code.

          I voted for years until the day I realized that it wasn’t changing anything. All I was doing was partaking in a rigged system. As Mayer Amschel Rothschild once said, “Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation and I care not who makes its laws.” Nearly every election just bounces the political power from left to right or right to left. Whenever the left has control, they make laws that the right doesn’t want; when the right has control, they make laws that the left doesn’t want. And the laws just keep piling up.

          The founders of the United States would have a fit if they saw what we’ve become. But, no one questions it because it’s all they’ve ever known. They were born into it and therefore don’t know any better. When the politician says, “It’s just a small tax increase,” the general public doesn’t see the hundreds of tax increases that led up to it. They don’t stop to realize how many ways they are actually taxed. If they added it all up, they’d realize that the United States government steals over half of their income. The tax code that began as a few hundred pages is now over 80,000 pages long.

          The more powerful a nation becomes, the more they steal, kill, and destroy. The most powerful are the ones who are able to create the most patriotic population. Patriots refuse to see things as they truly are. They will enlist in the military and go kill other human beings based on government propaganda. And the ones they kill are given the same kind of propaganda from their own government. They don’t stop to realize that they are pawns of corrupt governments funding the military industrial complex with your tax dollars. It’s a life for the insane, and I don’t want to be a part of it.

          “War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.” (Major General Smedley Butler)

          Since those first days of awakening, I have studied in depth how our perceptions are formed, how they are being manipulated, and for what purpose. It is a stunning revelation. I’m not saying that I have all the answers, but read these pages with an open and rational mind. You’ll see that what I’m telling you is the Truth, and this Truth will absolutely set you free!