Today, Norm Goldman Publisher & Editor of Bookpleasures.com is honored to have as our guest Dr. Jerry J. Pollock author of Messiah Interviews: Belonging to God.

Dr. Pollock has also authored Divinely Inspired: Spiritual Awaking as well as seventy-five scientific publications.

Dr. Pollock holds a Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Pharmacy and he has obtained his Ph.D in Biophysics from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel in 1969. He subsequent pursued his studies at the University Medical Center in New York as a Postdoctoral Fellow and Assistant Professor for four years of training in Microbiology. In 1981 he was appointed Professor of Oral Biology and Pathology in the School of Dental Medicine at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He retired as Professor Emeritus from Stony Brook in July 2006.

Good day Jerry and thanks for participating in our interview.

Norm:

How did you get started in writing? What keeps you going?

Jerry:

A Mitzvah or kind deed is a two way street. Thank you for thanking me and thank you for giving me the opportunity to share with you Norm and with the many readers of Book Pleasures.

I got started in writing when I had to write my Masters in Science Pharmacy dissertation at the University of Toronto in 1966. Then came my Ph.D. dissertation in Israel at the Weizmann Institute of Science. My academic career at Stony Brook University followed and over the course of my scientific research, I wrote seventy five scientific articles in scientific journals and books. To have the money to do the research, I also had to write grants which are my basis in learning on how to do the research for and write two book tiles, Divinely Inspired and the Messiah Interviews, in the spiritual arts field rather than in science. Divinely Inspired was originally published in 2003 because of some unusual spiritual experiences that I experienced. I reissued my memoir in January of 2009 along with ‘my not so fictional’ novel, Messiah Interviews.

What keeps me going? Good question. In earlier days, I was driven by my neurotic ego trying to get the approval of mommy and daddy. I did the scientific research not for anyone or humanity but for myself. There is a Hebrew term, shelo lishma, when you do things for yourself. Nothing wrong in doing for yourself unless your life is totally shelo lishma. After  the Divine miracles dating back to 1982, but actually in full force at the end of 1998, something else entered myself – lishma or for its own sake. For the past ten years, I have been inching myself up the spiritual ladder and I now feel that I do more for the sake of heaven than I do for myself. My gratefulness to the Creator is what keeps me going. I am committed to doing everything in my power to bring His message to the public. This is my manifesto, my invisible mandate. I have never had conversations with God but I feel connected. God doesn’t really need me to help Him. However, God has always been a partner with humans. You can read the spiritual  messages in my books.

Norm:

What do you want your books to do?

Jerry:

I want them to fly. Only kidding, but I do fly in the Messiah Interviews. I guess that most of all, I want my books to offer help and not despair. When you read the books, you will see both the hopelessness and the Garden of Eden. I hope the books empower readers to decide which they want to choose with their God-given free will. Embarking on the spiritual road is demanding.

Climbing the ladder doesn’t necessarily make you happy, but it does make you grateful and allows you to better deal with the unhappy times. I want the books to give readers a sense of what it means to be truthful and sincere in their hearts by baring my own soul and exposing the flaws of even those whom we consider to be great men in our biblical history.

I am encouraging readers to improve their character through following the Ten Commandments because we are all flawed. The Messiah Interviews is really about the Age of God, the Messianic Age, when we shall live again if peace, harmony and bliss, and when God will perform miracles incredible even to Him. To get admitted into the Messianic Age, the Messiah Interviews is telling readers that they are accountable for their moral actions in this life. Accountable to God, that is. 

Norm:

How has your environment and/or upbringing influenced your writing?

Jerry:

All the good and all the bad stuff that happens to you in a lifetime bring you to where you are in life. The sum total has brought me to spirituality. That’s where I am now and that’s where I plan to stay. All of my experiences have shaped my writing. They say that God chooses your parents for a reason. I believe this just like I believe that it is God who determines the outcome of my non-moral decisions if I lead a morally acceptable life in His Eyes.

If you go back to the story of Jacob and Esau in the Bible, Jacob prepared for his meeting with his older twin Esau, but Jacob knew that the outcome of the meeting (Jacob might be killed) would depend upon God. Jacob also never took his righteousness for granted because God had told him that He would keep him safe. God hasn’t told me that either but I believe God is keeping me safe. I have been through too much to believe otherwise.

Norm:

In Messiah Interviews: Belonging to God you make reference to primal therapy. Could you explain to our readers what this is all about?

Jerry:

Oy veh! Books have been written on this subject by Arthur Janov the originator of this groundbreaking therapy and by others. I wrote about a tiny part of Primal Therapy in my books. Readers might find the womb regression in the Messiah Interviews interesting. I did when I was surprised to find myself inside my mother’s womb.

There is an old quote, “Never seek the wind in the field; it is useless to try and find what is gone.” Meaning, you can’t grasp onto wind. There is nothing to grasp onto and it’s gone before you can grab onto it.

When you are neurotic you do seek the wind in the field. You seek the earliest love of your mother and father which you cannot grasp onto, because you never were offered it in the first place. When you progress through the therapy, you realize that nothing that you do in life will bring this early love back.

If you are lucky, maybe you will find it later in life with your parents (I did not), but even this later love does not make up for that early love (in the womb and first three years of life).

You go through your life and seek it from everybody else who become substitutes for your mother and father. All of these early hurts are stored in your body and often the memories are in your unconscious. In Primal Therapy, you regress and bring these unconscious experiences into consciousness by feeling the hurts at the very time they happened and not years later.

All the sensations and feelings like repressed fear, anger, rage, anxiety, panic, and terror come up and leads you to expressing your needs in context. Gradually, and everyone is different, you empty the pain of the memories but you always have the memories. I’ve painted a simplistic picture and there is so much more to discuss. If anyone wants to contact me, please email me at  jerrypollock@bellsouth.net and I shall be glad to help.

Norm:

Do you worry about the human race?

Jerry:

Norm, your questions are getting progressively tougher. I don’t know if worry is the right word for me. I feel badly for people who are hurting and I am empathetic to those who came into life through dysfunctional families or have mental illness. I have experienced Bipolar Disorder.

On a global scale, I have a different view because I see God as the Master Scientist and that this life is therefore just one big scientific experiment of imperfection. God purposely made us imperfect so we could understand a more perfect world in the Messianic Age to come.

We have two choices. One is we treat each other with love or second, we blow each other up and destroy the world as we know it today. I don’t believe God will allow us to destroy humanity because the Messianic Age has always been His failsafe plan. We shall live again. So I guess my answer is that I don’t worry about the human race because I feel God has it under control. He may seem to be in heaven but He has the stewardship of the world in His Hands.

Norm:

What was the most difficult part of writing Messiah Interviews: Belonging to God?

Jerry:

The years of research and learning in order to be able to write an exciting book. Without first having written Divinely Inspired, I probably wouldn’t have written the Messiah Interviews. I need at least three lifetimes to learn. I’m a student at heart. As I read I come up with my own interpretations and my own original ideas to offer. Much of what is written in the books is uniquely my own.

Norm:

What was one of the most surprising things you learned in creating your books?

Jerry:

That I was actually advancing up the spiritual ladder and that there was hope for me to act with meaning and humility in my life. I feel very good about my spirituality.

Norm:

Do you feel that writers, regardless of genre owe something to readers, if not, why not, if so, why and what would that be?

Jerry:

I don’t know if owe is the right word. I’m such a strong proponent of free will. Owe implies something you must do and I believe it’s better if you freely give it of your own free will. In general, part of living in God’s image is to give back so in that sense, yes a writer should give to his readers. Readers are buying his books so as we started out at the beginning of this interview, a mitzvah is a two way street. The writer thanks the reader for reading his books and the reader thanks the writer for writing the books. Of course, more often than not the reader and writer never meet but that may be irrelevant. What’s relevant is to perform every kind deed that you can while you are on this earth. It’s the brotherhood and sisterhood of humankind.

Norm:

Do you hear from your readers much? What kinds of things do they say?

Jerry:

I am not a famous author. However, I have heard good thinks back from readers who have completed the Messiah Interviews. They are very kind and complimentary. You can’t please everyone. If you have to, then you are neurotic as we discussed above under Primal therapy.

Norm:

If you could switch places with someone famous, who would it be and why?

Jerry:

It’s not the first time I have been asked this question. Previously, I have always answered that I am content and would not want to switch with anyone. Today, I will give you a different answer. It would be Moses because I think more than anyone else in our History, Moses had the most intimate relationship with God without understanding the Essence of God.

Norm:

Although we all hope and pray that you will continue to be with us for a long time, when the time does come for your departure from earth, how do you want to be remembered?

Jerry:

Sorry Norm, I hope to live again for almost an eternity in the future Messianic Age. Even before I became spiritual, I always considered myself a good person. If there were some remembrances, this is what I would want people to say. “Jerry was a good person who was true of heart and would be there for you.”

Norm:

How can readers find out more about you and your endeavors?

Jerry:

Go to our nonprofit website and Blog,  www.shechinahthirdtemple.org  or  www.thirdtempleinfo.com    Shechinah means Divine Presence.

Norm:

Is there anything else you wish to add that we have not covered?

Jerry:

I’m down with a virus, so we’ll have to save it for another time. Read the books and email me.

Thanks once again and good luck with all of your future endeavors.

Thank you Norm. May the Shechinah be with you and your readers.

Click Here To Read Norm's Review of  Messiah Interviews: Belonging to God

 Click Here To Purchase Messiah Interviews: Belonging to God.