Rather than answering a yes/no question, let me give my criteria for religions and philosophies.

Philosophies contain


  • Epistomology
  • Ontology
  • Aesthetics
  • Ethics
  • Politics

Religions contain the above, plus add


  • Cosmogony
  • Divinity
  • Soteriology
  • Thanatology

PhotoReading deals very much with Epistomology - how we know what we know. The accepted rules of the Epistomological system of PhotoReading are a preconscious, an other-than-conscious, and a conscious. The preconscious percieves, and chooses what to show the conscious mind and what not to. The other-than-conscious mind stores information, presents options, and takes care of automatic activities. The conscious mind acts on options, makes deciscions about information, etc. Other accepted rules of PhotoReading are the theories of multiple types of intellegence, and the idea that breath is a link between the conscious and other-than-conscious mind. (E.g., you can control your breath by thinking about it, or you can choose not to think about it and let it happen automatically). Although not directly dealt with in PhotoReading, one of the Epistomological stances of NLP is that we follow our "maps," rather than raw perception. We act on reality based on what we believe to be true.

While PhotoReading doesn't go very much into ethics, one of the stated opinions of all the Paraliminal tapes is that human beings are always doing the best they can given their current awareness. If a human being has a distorted map, (e.g. "all dogs are evil and want to kill me"), they'll act in ways that are dysfunctional (e.g. shooting the seeing-eye dogs of blind people).

As far as Aesthetics are concerned, the most that can be said is "reading is fun."

PhotoReading doesn't go into politics or ontology, as far as I have seen. In "Natural Brilliance," Paul Scheele does go into some of his own politics. For example, he mentions leading a meditation/visualization for world-peace. This is a political statement about his beliefs on peace, agreements are never explicitly asked for.

There is no Ontological statement in PhotoReading, although in "Natural Brilliance" the nature of time is discussed.

As far as the religious aspects, I have never heard any discussions on the nature of God in any LSC products, so that rules out theology. Also, the creation/emination/birth of the universe is never discussed, so that leaves out cosmogony. I have never heard anything for or against the idea of life after death on any of the tapes I've listened so, so that leaves out thanatology.

Since you mention the idea of "praying" to your brain, that does raise the idea that the brain is God. Now, pray can have two (intransitive) meanings. The first is to simply make a humble request. For example, "I pray you won't be offended, but I ran over your wife." In this sense, any request made to the inner mind ought to be a prayer. Making an arogant demand on the inner mind raises the same sort of hackles as someone making a demand of your conscious mind. The second definition of "pray" is to make a request of God. Some people may believe that God resides within the inner mind. However, the residence, and even the existance, of any sort of supreme organizing intellegence is never explained in PhotoReading. However, one implication of the act of PhotoReading is that the inner mind (or anything that may reside within it) is not omniscent. If it were, then the act of reading would be redundant. We would simply pray for the information and experience an epiphany, as we already know everything on an other-than-conscious level. While this may be true, it is not assumed in the process of PhotoReading.

Soteriology is a tough one to touch, due to the rather broad definitions one could give it. Because Soteriology is the study of damnation and salvation, one has to define those terms. If a mountain of unread books is damnation, then PhotoReading offers salvation. However, if a mountain of unreadbooks is simply an annoyance, or indeed an opportunity, then PhotoReading is a tool. It all comes down to terms, and how the individual percieves their situation.

I hope this has answered your question, or at least confused you to the point of highly desiring to PhotoRead if only to understand what I'm talking about.