Having endured a serious "dark night of the soul", Larry began on a personal quest of reading and self-study in the various disciplines of religious history, philosophy, mysticism and quantum physics that lasted for several years. There was no agenda in his study- he had no idea where it might lead or even if it might lead anywhere. The only rule that Larry Copling held himself to during this period of self-study was to follow the "evidence" of Truth, wherever it might lead, with a sincere and prayerful intention not to "disprove" anything, as such, but only to understand.
Eventually, Larry's investigation into spirituality led to the discovery of a kind of "pattern of conclusions" hidden inside the various disciplines of knowledge he investigated. He came to realize a profound "inter-connectedness"- an underlying theme of consciousness that seems to run through the diverse and apparently dissimilar fields of science, philosophy and applied metaphysics ("Law of Attraction" teachings).
The results of that self-study experience led to the ideas of a "re-vamped" or updated Deism for the modern age- the general concept of "PanenDeism".
Ask Larry about the ideas contained in this concept and he will probably tell you, "You may not believe what I have discovered, but then again, you may discover what you have believed all along!"
Professionally, Larry is a technology specialist and serves as an IT Support Engineer for a large company of over 30,000 employees. He has been involved in electronics (and eventually computer technology) since his sophomore year in high school and has over 30 years of technical support experience to prove it.
Larry was educated in electronics during his 4 years in the military (US Army). He was a member of the Signal Corp at Ft. Bragg, NC; where he served as a TV Studio technician and as a Television Production Specialist. After leaving the military, Larry graduated from an Associate degree program in Consumer Electronics Technology at DeVry University (DeVry Institute of Technology at the time). Through the years, Larry has continued to acquire more education by enrolling in night classes (University of Tennessee) as a transfer student. He is currently working on an IT Security degree (B.S.) at Western Governors University (online), as well as in acquiring several IT certifications through that degree program (A+, CCNA, CCNA-Security, etc.).
But it has been other passions that have really defined his life to those that know him best. Since Larry was a very young boy, he has been blessed (or cursed, depending on your point of view) with an insatiable curiosity and desire to understand what makes things "tick" in the world. Whether the questions revolved around the mysterious, internal workings of a television set or computer, to the secrets of sustained wealth creation, the mechanics of writing and/or performing a hit song on the radio, to the contradictions observed in the lives of "religious" people, Larry has always be driven to better understand the world around him.
As a "baby-boomer", growing up in the 1970's, he learned early on to question everything "traditional" in his life. It was that uncomfortably curious spirit that eventually led Larry to not one, but two, major "re-directions" on his personal spiritual path. His first major detour came about when he was introduced by a friend to that group of Christians known collectively as the "charismatics" or the "Pentecostal movement". As a result of experiencing a form of spirituality that he never knew existed, Larry eventually left the Southern Baptist tradition in which he was raised, in order to follow a more "holiness" path to God with those that "speak in tongues" and practice "Divine healing" in their services. It was a sincere "correction" that lasted many years in Larry's life.
A second major "correction" came about after years of living with the teachings of the very people that caused him to abandon the religion of his youth in the first place. After a very nasty divorce (Larry says that he just could not get along with his wife's boyfriend), a period of strong disillusionment began to set in. In the early 1990's, Larry identified what he calls "Churchianity"- a form of "spiritual socialism" that attempts to dictate and control the spiritual thought process of the individual seeker. Through the mechanisms of carefully rewritten history ("History is always written by the winners"); along with the required "word worship" of an "infallible" bible, we are basically told what we must believe and how we must live in order to remain a member in good standing with the particular Christian brand of spirituality that we happen to embrace.
