Where One Comes to Know  

A brief history of how the Institute came to exist.  

The idea for the creation of the Institute  of Applied Metaphysics developed from the suggestions and contributions of many who read the Renford Books when they were still in manuscript form. While my studies had been going on for years and in a number of countries, there was only a single body of written material to which I had given no title. This work constituted my understanding on a wide range of subjects, each related to the Universal Laws.  As a student of the Institute of Applied Metaphysics you will learn that one of the Universal Laws is the Law Relativity.  One of its meanings is “Everything is connected and every action has a reaction”.  In other words, you cannot adequately explain and understand one Law without understanding its connection to the others.  This led me down many paths of research. 

The single manuscript, of necessity, covered three main areas that eventually became the three sections and three degrees of study.  As early as 1985, the basics of what was to become The Laws of Material Wealth had been written in England.  In 1989, the first draft of The House That Namuh Built was written.  It was many years later before it reached its final form.  In fact, it was completed in layers as better understanding was gained with regard to the connection between the Universal Laws.  In Search of Self is a collection of poems and free verse pertaining to the Universal Laws.  The collection contains verse that spans my career from as early as 1966.  It was not until 1996 that the main body of research material was divided into four books.  What Now? Essays by Renford contains work that also dates back to the sixties. 

It was during the war years, as a missionary in South Viet Nam, that I began to study Eastern religions.  In the mission program, my wife and I worked with the Chinese community in Cholon, adjacent to Saigon.  I studied Mandarin Chinese at the Saigon School of Living Languages (A part of Saigon University).  We studied at home with a tutor. I was very interested in Chinese culture, even learning how to write with the “Mao Bi”, the hair pen for Chinese calligraphy.  We established a school there where we taught English using a bible study course. 

I had been trained first to establish common ground with my students by showing how we were alike in our thinking, and then to show how we had the only “real truth”, the revelation of God’s word in the Bible.  My students were Taoist and Buddhist or simply adhered to traditional Confucian thought.  The only way to establish common ground was to strip away the doctrines and dogma and establish the basic principles of our respective religions. 

What I found was that the root principles, though expressed in stories of very different cultures, were the same.  What developed was a life long study of how all religions may be different as to doctrines and creeds, but at the core, the Universal Principles are invariant. I began then to study how they were alike as opposed to how they were different.  The Great Masters taught the same principles and in a similar manner.  They told little stories, and the Universal Laws are the basis of each.  The differences came when those who followed them began developing their organizations, their rules and their interpretations of the Masters’ words.  Their embellished stories about their Masters created mystical or supernatural characters.  There are many examples of this. They created doctrines and dogmas that were never a part of the pristine principles of the Great Masters. 

During the 20 years of my travels in the Far East, the Middle East and Europe, I studied and absorbed the religions and cultures of the countries in which we lived.  I continued to record my understanding of the Great Masters’ teachings with no intention of publishing.  It was a process of personal understanding.  My wife and I wanted to teach our children  how to think for themselves and be in harmony with the Universal Laws. It was important to us that they come to know as opposed to simply believing what others accepted on faith or based upon tradition.  We wanted them to know the “Laws of Life”, which are the Universal Laws. 

My rejection of organized religion and acceptance of certain practices such as meditation and maintaining a vegetarian diet came from my studies.  It had nothing to do with adhering to any particular religious law or creed.  By recording my understanding, I wanted to provide for our children, and anyone else, a guide to knowing .  We all have the ability to know , however, most people do not recognize this and, instead, accept what they have been taught from birth. 

The basis of the Renford Books is the study of the Universal Laws, and yet this is the material that, if it comes out clearly at all, comes very late in many esoteric schools.  I have placed this at the beginning because without understanding of the Universal Laws, there is no foundation for understanding Levels Two and Three. The reasons are addressed in the section pertaining to the degree program but they are painfully obvious when you find books that cover the subject matter of Sections Two and Three in isolation. 

There are some very good books on the Sumerian cuneiform Texts, the Tao, the Bible, the Koran and the Vedas.  There are some good books on alien intervention, but what have all these subjects to do with each other and why are things the way they are in the world?  When taken as a whole, we find answers, which hitherto have evaded us.  We need to understand the world and our purpose for being here.  We need to know who we are, the one within, our true Self.  While it is necessary for us to learn and experience in small increments, there must be an eventual connecting of the dots.  We have to see the whole picture to have complete understanding and this is the heart of the program created by the Institute.