Pen of Light : Automatic Writing with Jordan B. Peterson

" My wife and I learned that if you ask yourself such a question, and you genuinely desire the answer (no matter how disgraceful and terrible and shameful), then a memory of something you did that was stupid and wrong at some point in the generally not-distant-enough past will arise from the depths of your mind. Then you can go back to your partner and reveal why you’re an idiot, and apologize (sincerely) and that person can do the same for you, and then apologize (sincerely), and then you two idiots will be able to talk again. 

Perhaps that is true prayer: the question, 

“What have I done wrong, and what can I do now to set things at least a little bit more right?” 

But your heart must be open to the terrible truth. You must be receptive to that which you do not want to hear. 

When you decide to learn about your faults, so that they can be rectified, you open a line of communication with the source of all revelatory thought. Maybe that’s the same thing as consulting your conscience. Maybe that’s the same thing, in some manner, as a discussion with God. 

 It was in that spirit, with some paper in front of me, that I asked my question: 

What shall I do with my newfound pen of light?

Write down the words you want inscribed on your soul. I wrote that down. 

What shall I do next year? 

Try to ensure that the good I do then will be exceeded only by the good I do the year after that. 

What shall I do with my life? 

Aim for Paradise, and concentrate on today. Hah! I knew what that meant. It’s what Geppetto does in the Disney movie Pinocchio, when he wishes upon a star. 

The grandfatherly woodcarver lifts up his eyes to the twinkling diamond set high above the mundane world of day-to-day human concerns and articulates his deepest desire: that the marionette he created lose the strings by which he is manipulated by others and transform himself into a real boy. 

It’s also the central message of the Sermon on the Mount, as we saw in Rule 4 (Compare yourself to who you were yesterday …), but which deserve repeating here: 

 And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you (Matthew 6:28-6:33). 

What does all that mean? Orient yourself properly. Then—and only then— concentrate on the day. Set your sights at the Good, the Beautiful, and the True, and then focus pointedly and carefully on the concerns of each moment. Aim continually at Heaven while you work diligently on Earth. Attend fully to the future, in that manner, while attending fully to the present. Then you have the best chance of perfecting both.

What shall I do with my wife? 

Treat her as if she is the Holy Mother of God, so that she may give birth to the world-redeeming hero. 

What shall I do with my daughter? 

Stand behind her, listen to her, guard her, train her mind, and let her know it’s OK if she wants to be a mother. 

What shall I do with my parents? 

Act such that your actions justify the suffering they endured.

 What shall I do with my son? 

Encourage him to be a true Son of God. 

How shall I educate my people?

Share with them those things I regard as truly important. That’s Rule 8 (Tell the truth—or, at least, don’t lie). That is to aim for wisdom, to distill that wisdom into words, and to speak forth those words as if they matter, with true concern and care. That’s all relevant, as well, to the next question (and answer): 

What shall I do with a torn nation?

Stitch it back together with careful words of truth. 

What shall I do for God my Father?

Sacrifice everything I hold dear to yet greater perfection. 

Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them 

(Matthew 7:16-7:20).

How shall I deal with the enlightened one? 

Replace him with the true seeker of enlightenment

What shall I do when I despise what I have? 

Remember those who have nothing and strive to be grateful.

What shall I do when greed consumes me? 

Remember that it is truly better to give than to receive.

What shall I do when I ruin my rivers? 

Seek for the living water and let it cleanse the Earth.

What shall I do when my enemy succeeds? 

Aim a little higher and be grateful for the lesson.

What shall I do when I’m tired and impatient? 

Gratefully accept an outstretched helping hand

What shall I do with the fact of aging? 

Replace the potential of my youth with the accomplishments of my maturity. 

What shall I do with my infant’s death? 

Hold my other loved ones and heal their pain. It is necessary to be strong in the face of death, because death is intrinsic to life. 

What shall I do in the next dire moment? 

Focus my attention on the next right move. The flood is coming. The flood is always coming. The apocalypse is always upon us. 

What shall I say to a faithless brother? 

The King of the Damned is a poor judge of Being.

What shall I do to strengthen my spirit? 

Do not tell lies, or do what you despise.

What shall I do to ennoble my body? 

Use it only in the service of my soul.

What shall I do with the most difficult of questions?

Consider them the gateway to the path of life.

What shall I do with the poor man’s plight? 

Strive through right example to lift his broken heart.

What shall I do when the great crowd beckons? 

Stand tall and utter my broken truths

Victory Is Mine

Josh Lyman: 

Victory is Mine, Victory is Mine. 

Great day in the morning, people, Victory is Mine. 

Donna Moss: 

Morning, Josh. 

Josh Lyman: 

I drink from the Keg of Glory, Donna. 

Bring me the finest muffins and bagels in all the land. 

Donna Moss: 

It's going to be an unbearable day.

Josh Lyman: 

Someone give me a river to forge, a serpent to slay. 

C.J. Cregg: 

What's his problem? 

Donna Moss: He's been drinking from the keg of glory. We're to bring him all the muffins and bagels in the land. 

Toby Ziegler: 

We heard.

He Waits

TACTICS: 

Commander, you're not eating very much. 

RIKER: 

I'm not that hungry. 

KLAG: Is the food all right, Commander? 

RIKER: It's delicious. The pipius claw was excellent. I also enjoyed this Bregit lungs. 

VEKMA: And the Rokeg blood pie? 

RIKER: Delicious. 

KLAG: Good. Then you'll also enjoy this. 

RIKER: Isn't that gagh? 

KLAG: 

Very good. You did some research on our nutritional choices. 

RIKER: 

Yes, but, it's still moving. 

KLAG: Gagh is always best when served live. Would you like something easier? 

RIKER: 

Easier? 

KLAG: 

Yes. If Klingon food is too strong for you, perhaps we could get one of the females to breast feed you. 

(laughter all round the tables) 

RIKER: 

You're not worried about my weakening, are you? 

KLAG: 

Look around you. There are no old warriors. 

RIKER: 

No, sir, I'm sure they all died with honour. 

KLAG: Exactly. You may live long enough to learn about us. 

VEKMA: 

He is not very attractive, but I will have him. 

TACTICS: 

They are inquisitive. They would like to know how you would endure. 

RIKER: 

Endure what? 

KLAG: 

Them. 

RIKER: 

One or both? 

(he grins, they all laugh, and the bonding has started) 

VEKMA: 

I may be back for you. 

RIKER: Is she serious? 

KLAG: Yes. 

(Other Klingons leave) 

KLAG: Commander, would you say you're a typical Federation officer? 

RIKER: I suppose so. Why? 

KLAG: Well, it's just you're not what I expected. 

RIKER: In what way? 

TACTICS: You have a sense of humour. 

RIKER: 

I was thinking the same thing about you. 

In all my dealings with Klingons, including our Lieutenant Worf, the thought never occurred to me of Klingons laughing. 

TACTICS: 

There is much about us you do not know. 

RIKER: 

That's why I'm here. 

KLAG: You should ask. 

RIKER: 

I may. After this tour, I may have some worthy questions. 

KLAG: 

Questions about what? About our future? 

Our future is honour. 

Our present is serving this ship. 

TACTICS: 

Like you, I have a mother and a father. 

They look like me, I look like them. 

RIKER: 

Are they still alive? 

TACTICS: 

My mother lives, My father was killed in battle at Tranome Sar. 

RIKER: 

And your father? 

KLAG: 

My father? My father was captured in battle by Romulans and not allowed to die. He eventually escaped. 

RIKER: 

Where is he now? 

KLAG: 

He is on our planet. 

He waits. 

TACTICS: 

He waits for his death. 

KLAG: He will eventually fade of a natural illness and die, weakened and useless. Honourless. I will not see him. 

RIKER: He's your father. 

KLAG: A Klingon is his work, not his family. That is the way of things. 

RIKER: He's your father. 

KLAG: Klingons do not express feeling the way you do. 

RIKER: Perhaps you should. 

KLAG: We would not know how. 

RIKER: Yesterday, I did not know how to eat gagh.

Babylon

Coming soon to the Fourth Plinth

This year’s artwork is 'The Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist' by Michael Rakowitz.

Michael started The Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist project in 2006. It attempts to recreate more than 7,000 objects which have been lost forever. Some were looted from the Iraq Museum in 2003, while others were destroyed at archaeological sites across the country during the Iraq War. 

For the Fourth Plinth, Rakowitz has recreated the Lamassu. This winged bull and protective deity guarded the entrance to Nergal Gate of Nineveh (near modern day Mosul) from c 700 B.C, until it was destroyed by ISIS in 2015.

The reconstructions in The Invisible Enemy project are made from recycled packaging from Middle Eastern foodstuffs. The Lamassu comprises 10,500 empty Iraqi date syrup cans. This represents a once-renowned industry now decimated by war.

The inscription written in Cuneiform, one of the earliest systems of writing, on the side of the Lamassu reads: “Sennacherib, king of the world, king of Assyria, had the inner and outer wall of Ninevah built anew and raised as high as mountains.”

Rebuilding the Lamassu in Trafalgar Square means it can continue to guard the people who live, visit and work in London. It is the 12th work to appear on the Fourth Plinth since the programme started, and will be there until March 2020.

Michael Rakowitz - The Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist

Rakowitz will recreate the Lamassu, a winged bull and protective deity that stood at the entrance to Nergal Gate of Nineveh from c 700 B.C.

In 2015 it was destroyed by ISIS along with other artefacts in Mosul Museum. The Lamassu will be made of empty Iraqi date syrup cans, representative of a once-renowned industry decimated by the Iraq Wars.

The Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist is a project begun by Michael Rakowitz in 2006 that attempts to recreate over 7,000 archeological artefacts looted from the Iraq Museum during the war or destroyed in its aftermath.

Do Not Listen to Your Wife

Real Smooth

Don't Ask, Don't Tell : John Bolton is Decadent and Depraved

"John Bolton was reportedly kicked out of Plato's Retreat in NYC after propositioning a 16 year old outside the club."

John Bolton's Divorce – Group Sex Allegations

Friday, 13 May 2005, 11:43 am
Press Release: Larry Flynt

John R. Bolton Court Divorce Records Show His First

Wife Fled Home When He Was Traveling Abroad

From Larry Flynt

http://www.larryflynt.com/bolton/

Publisher Larry Flynt's Questions Posed to State Department Regarding Corroborated Allegations that First Wife was Forced into Group Sex go Unanswered

May 11-LOS ANGELES - Court records concerning the divorce of John R. Bolton, the Bush administration's nominee to become the next ambassador to the United Nations, show his first wife fled the couple's marital home when he was traveling abroad in mid-August 1982. The records further show that she took most of the couple's furniture.

Corroborated allegations that Mr. Bolton's first wife, Christina Bolton, was forced to engage in group sex have not been refuted by the State Department despite inquires posed by Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt concerning the allegations. Mr. Flynt has obtained information from numerous sources that Mr. Bolton participated in paid visits to Plato's Retreat, the popular swingers club that operated in New York City in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

"The first Mrs. Bolton's conduct raises the presumption that she fled out of fear for her safety or, at a minimum, it demonstrates that Mr. Bolton's established inability to communicate or work respectfully with others extended to his intimate family relations," said Mr. Flynt. "The court records alone provide sufficient basis for further investigation of nominee Bolton by the Senate." (Click here for court records). Mr. Flynt continued, "The U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations must be free of any potential source of disrepute or blackmail."

Mr. Flynt has contacted the State Department asking that they confirm or deny the allegations of Mr. Bolton's prior conduct concerning his wife and the alleged paid visits to Plato's Retreat. He has also called upon the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to conduct an inquiry into the very serious evidence concerning his first wife's fear of him.

Neither the State Department nor the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has yet responded to Mr. Flynt's inquiries.

The Hustler magazine publisher demanded an immediate response from Mr. Bolton. Mr. Flynt has personal knowledge about sources corroborating the allegations of nominee Bolton's misconduct, and he has called upon these persons to publicly come forward with their information.

"First wife Christina Bolton has understandably remained silent on what led her to flee her husband of 10 years and to take the family belonging with hers. A full inquiry would necessarily involve meetings with Mrs. Bolton to uncover the circumstances of her flight and the Committee should subpoena her in private session," Mr. Flynt said.

Mr. Flynt has no further comment at this time, except to ask that the press examine the attached court document pertaining to Mrs. Bolton flight from her home.

Mr. Flynt is awaiting further leads regarding Mr. Bolton's private behavior, at which point he will have more information to convey.

************

V I R G I N I A: IN THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR THE CITY OF ALEXANDRIA

JOHN R. BOLTON
Complainant

VS.

CHRISTINA M. BOLTON
Defendant

IN CHANCERY NO. 15645

REPORT OF SPECIAL COMMISSIONER IN CHANCERY

The undersigned, ROGER L. AMOLE, JR., a Special Commissioner in Chancery, to whom this cause was referred on the 4th day of December, 1984, respectfully reports as follows:

Your Commissioner proceeded on the 5th day of December, 1984, at 12:10 p.m. at his office at 437 North Lee Street, Alexandria, Virginia 22314, to take the deposition of the Complainant, JOHN R. BOLTON, and his witness, GEORGE B. REID, JR. The Defendant, CHRISTINA M. BOLTON, was not present and was not represented by counsel at the hearing. The court reporter and witnesses were duly sworn, testimony in evidence was taken and reduced to writing and is filed as a part of this report.

Pursuant to an order of this Court entered on December 14, 1981, in order Book 67, at page 111, your Special Commissioner reports on the following matters set out in the said order:

[interceding text missing] December 28, 1983 at 1021 Arlington Boulevard, Arlington, Virginia. The Complainant's witness, GEORGE B. REID, JR., testified that he is a personal friend and law partner of the Complainant's since 1974. He corroborated the dates and places of residence of the parties as stated by the Complainant. Accordingly your Commissioner finds that the statutory domicile, residence and venue requirements have been properly alleged and proven and that this Court has jurisdiction to hear and determine this cause.

3. "When and where the parties were married; the names and ages of all children born of the marriage."

From the evidence your Commissioner finds that the parties were married on May 6, 1972 in Northampton, Massachusetts and that there were no children born of the marriage.

4. "Whether the grounds for divorce alleged in the pleadings have been proved by corroborated testimony."

From the evidence in form of testimony from the Complainant and his witness, your Commissioner finds that the parties separated in mid August of 1982. While the Complainant was on a trip to Vienna for two weeks, the Defendant moved out of the marital home taking all of her personal possessions and most of the furniture. At that time she moved into her present residence at 508 Tobacco Quay in Alexandria, Virginia and has lived at that address since then. The separation was intended to be permanent and has continued from on or about August 15, 1982 up to the present without any cohabitation or interruption. It further appears from the evidence that there is no hope or possibility of a reconciliation between the [text missing here as well]

V I R G I N I A: IN THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR THE CITY OF ALEXANDRIA

JOHN R. BOLTON
Complainant

VS.

CHRISTINA M. BOLTON
Defendant

IN CHANCERY NO. 15645

Depositions in the above-styled cause came on to be heard this 5th day of December, 1984, before Roger L. Amole, Jr., Esquire, a Special Commissioner in Chancery for the Circuit Court of the City of Alexandria, at his office located at 437 North Lee Street, Alexandria, Virginia, commencing at 12:10 p.m., Eastern Standard Time.

APPEARANCES:
Charles E. Pikrallidas, Esq. - Counsel for Complainant

PROCEEDINGS

THEREUPON, your reporter was duly sworn by the Special Commissioner in Chancery and she did answer said oath in the affirmative.

THEREUPON, the witnesses to testify in this cause of action were duly sworn by the Special Commissioner in Chancery and they did each answer said oath in the affirmative.

Q. And when was that?
A. May 6, 1972.
Q. And where were you married?
A. Northampton, Massachusetts
Q. Were there any children born as a result of this marriage?
A. No.
Q. Where does your wife presently reside?
A. 508 Tobacco Quay, Alexandria, Virginia.
Q. Is that in the City of Alexandria?
A. Yes.
Q. Are both you and your wife over the age of 18 years?
A. Yes.
Q. Are either of you members of the Armed Forces of the United States?
A. No.
Q. Where did you last cohabit as man and wife?
A. In Fairfax County, Virginia.
Q. What was that address?
A. 1918 Grand Court, Vienna, Virginia.
Q. Did there come a time when you and your wife separated?
A. Yes, in mid-August, 1982.
Q. Would you tell us what happened at that time?
A. I was on a trip to Vienna, it was a two-week trip, and during the time I was gone Christina moved out, taking all of her personal possessions and most of our furniture.
Q. Where did she move at that time?
A. Into her present residence, at 508 Tobacco Quay.
Q. Have you continued to live separate and apart since August 15, 1982?
A. Yes.
Q. Has this separation been without cohabitation and without interruption?
A. Yes.
Q. At the time you separated, was it with the intention of living separate and apart?
A. Yes.
Q. Is there any hope or possibility of a reconciliation?
A. No.
Q. Did there come a time when you and your wife entered into a Property Settlement Agreement?
A. Yes.

WHEREUPON the Commissioner accepted the Property Settlement Agreement to be marked "Complainant's Exhibit #1"

Q. I ask you to look at this document which the Commissioner has marked as "Complainant's Exhibit #1 and ask if you can identify it?
A. Yes, it's the Property Settlement we entered into.
Q. Would you please look at the last page and identify the signatures?
A. Yes, it is my signature and my wife's signature.

************

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Agreeableness : Don't Be Nice

“On my Fortieth Birthday, rather than merely bore my friends by having anything as mundane as a midlife crisis, I decided it might be more interesting to terrify them, by going completely mad, and declaring myself as a magician. This had been something that had been coming for a while. It seemed to be a logical end step in my career as a writer, and the problem is that with magic, being in many respects a science of language, you have to be very careful of what you say. Because if you suddenly declare yourself to be a magician, without any knowledge of what that entails, then one day you are likely to wake up and to discover that is exactly what you are.

There is some confusion as to what magic actually is. I think this can be cleared up if you just look at the very earliest descriptions of magic. Magic in its earliest form is often referred to as “the art”. I believe this is completely literal. I believe that magic IS art, and that art, whether it be writing, music, sculpture, or any other form, IS literally magic. Art is, like magic, the science of manipulating symbols, words, or images, to achieve changes in consciousness. The very language of magic seems to be talking as much about writing or art, as it about supernatural events. A “Grimoire” for example, “the book of spells”, is simply a fancy way of saying “grammar”. Indeed, to cast a spell, is simply “to spell”, to manipulate words, to change people’s consciousness. And I believe that this is why an artist or a writer is the closest thing, in the contemporary world, you are likely to see to a shaman.

I believe that all culture must have arisen from cult. Originally, all of the facets of our culture, whether they be in the arts or the sciences, were the providence of the shaman. The fact that in present times, this magical power has degenerated to the level of cheap entertainment and manipulation is, I think, a tragedy. At the moment, the people who are using shamanism and magic to shape our culture are advertisers. Rather than trying to wake people up, THEIR shamanism is used as an opiate, to tranquilize people, to make people more manipulable Their “magic box” of television, and by their “magic words”, their jingles, can cause everybody in the country to be thinking the same words, and have the same banal thoughts, all at exactly the same moment…

In all of magic, there is an incredibly large linguistic component. The “Bardic” tradition of magic would place a Bard as being much higher and more fearsome than a magician. A magician might curse you, That might make your hands lay funny, or you might have a child born with a clubbed food. If a bard were to place, not a curse upon you, but a satire, that could destroy you. If it was a clever satire, it might not just destroy you in the eyes of your associates, it would destroy you in the eyes of your family. It would destroy you in your own eyes. And if it was a (extremely) finely worded and clever satire, that might survive and be remembered for decades, even centuries, then years after you were dead, people still might be reading it, and laughing… at you, your wretchedness, and absurdity. Writers, and people who had command of words were respected and feared, (just) as people who manipulated magic.

In latter times, I think the artists and writers have allowed themselves to be ‘sold down the river’. They have ACCEPTED the prevailing belief that art, that writing, are merely forms of entertainment. 

They’re not seen as transformative forces… that can change a human being, that can change a society.

 They are seen as simple entertainment Things with which we can fill 20 minutes, half an hour, while we’re waiting to die…


It is not the job of the artist to give the audience what the audience WANTS.

If the audience knew what they needed, then they wouldn’t be the audience. They would be The Artist.

It is the job of artists to give The Audience what they NEED.

My career as a magician continues to evolve. Since I, to a certain degree, believe art and magic to be interchangeable, it has seemed only natural that art should be the means by which I express magical ideas. This has found its way into my prose writing, in works such as “Voice of the Fire”, and probably most visibly has found its way into the performance pieces that i’ve done in various locations over the past 8 years. Beautiful little psychedelic artifacts in their own right, which actually capture the kind of narrative journey that we’ve tried to take the readers on as part of these performances; to overwhelm the sensibilities of the audience; to tip them over into a kind of psychedelic state where we can hopefully actually change their consciousness and direct it to different places, different levels, hopefully into new and magical spaces.

When we are doing the will of our True Self, we are inevitably doing the Will of the Universe. In Magic these are seen as indistinguishable; that Every human soul is in fact One human soul. It is the soul of the Universe itself, and as long as you are doing the Will of the Universe, then it is impossible to do anything wrong.

The one place in which Gods and Demons inarguably exist is in the human mind, where they are real in all their grandeur and monstrosity. Much of magic, as I understand it in the Western occult tradition, is a search for the Self, with a capital ‘S’. This is understood as being the ‘Great Work’, as being the Gold the Alchemists sought, as being the Will, the Soul, the thing that we have inside us that is behind the intellect, the body, the dreams. The “inner dynamo of us” if you like.

Now this is the Single. Most. Important. Thing. that we can ever attain, the knowledge of our own Self. And yet, there are a frightening amount of people who seem to have the urge to, not just IGNORE the self, but actually seem to have the urge to OBLITERATE themselves. This is horrific… but you can almost understand the desire to simply “wipe out” that awareness, because it’s too much of a responsibility to actually POSSESS such a thing as a “soul”. Such a precious thing. ‘What if you break it? What if you lose it?’ Mightn’t it be best to anaesthetize it, to deaden it, to destroy it, to not have to live with the pain of struggling towards it and trying to keep it pure. I think that the way that people immerse themselves in alcohol, in drugs, in television, in any of the addictions that our culture throws up, can be seen as a deliberate attempt to destroy any connection between themselves and the responsibility of accepting and owning a higher Self, and then having to maintain it.

I’ve been looking at the history of magical thinking, and where it starts to go wrong. And, for my money, where it starts to go wrong is “monotheism”. I mean, if you look at the history of magic, you’ve got its origins in the caves, you’ve got its origins in shamanism, in animism, in a belief that everything around you (every tree, every rock, every animal) was inhabited by some sort of ‘essence’, some sort of spirit, that could perhaps be communicated with. You would have had some central shaman or visionary who would have been responsible for channeling ideas that were useful for survival.

By the time you have reached the classical civilizations, you can see that this has formalized to a degree. The shaman was acting purely as an intermediary between the spirits and the people. He was, in his position in the village or community, I should imagine very much like a spiritual plumber. The people in the group would have had their own roles.. The person who was best at hunting would’ve been a hunter. The person who was best at talking to the spirits, perhaps because he or she was a bit crazy, a bit detached from our normal, material world, then they would have been the Shaman. They would not have been the masters of a ‘sacred craft’. They would have simply been dispensing their information throughout the community because it was believed to be helpful to the community.

When you get the actual classical cultures emerging, this has been formalized so that you’ve now got pantheons of gods, and each of those gods have a priest caste, that will act (to a certain degree) as intermediaries, who will instruct you in the worship of that god. So the relationship between ‘humans and their gods’, which could be seen a relationship between ‘humans & their highest Selves’, that was still a very direct one… 

When Christianity & monotheism comes in, then all of a sudden you’ve got a priest caste moving between the worshipper and the object of worship. You’ve got a priest caste becoming a kind of ‘spiritual middle management’ between humanity and the divine within itself that it is seeking. You no longer have a direct relationship with the godhead.


The Priests don’t really necessarily have a direct relationship with the godhead. 

They’ve just got a book that tells you about some people who lived a long time ago who DID have a direct relationship with the godhead… and that’s alright. 

“You don’t need to have miraculous visions. You don’t need to have gods talking to you. In fact if you do have any of that stuff, you’re probably insane.” 

In the modern world, "That stuff doesn’t happen". 

The only people who are allowed to talk to gods, and in a very kind of one-sided way, are priests…

Monotheism, to me, is a great simplification. I mean, the Kabbalah has a great mulitiplicity of gods, but at the very top of the Kabbalistic diagram —the tree of life—who have this one sphere that is absolute God. The Monad. 

Something that is indivisible, you know? And all of the other gods, and indeed everything else in the Universe, is a kind of emanation of that God. Now that’s fine, but it’s when you suggest that there is ‘only that one God’, at this kind of unreachable height above humanity, and there is nothing in between, you’re limiting and simplifying the thing… I mean I tend to think of Paganism as a kind of alphabet, as a language. It’s like all of the Gods are letters in this alphabet. 

They express nuances, shades of meaning, or certain subtleties of ideas. Whereas monotheism tends to be just one vowel, and it’s just something like “ooooh”. It’s like this monkey sound. You can almost imagine the Gods becoming frustrated, contemptuous.. that with all this richness of spiritual concepts that are available, why reduce it to one plaintive single note that the utterer does not even understand?

The alchemists had two components to their philosophy. These were the principles of “solve” and “coagula”. Solve was basically the equivalent of ‘analysis’. It was taking things apart to see how they worked. Coagula was basically ‘synthesis’. It was trying to put the disassembled pieces back together so that they worked more efficiently.

These are two very important principles which can be applied to almost anything in culture. Recently in literature, for example, there has been a wave of post-modernism, deconstructionism. This is Solve. Perhaps it’s time, in the arts, for a little more Coagula. Having deconstructed everything, perhaps we really should be starting to think about putting everything back together.

Spiritualism was the natural state of human thinking up until the Renaissance and the subsequent age of reason that grew out of it. Our original way of seeing the world, was as a place entirely inhabited by spirits, where everything had its indwelling essence, where everything was, in some sense, sacred, including ourselves. The age of reason changed all that. While it’s inarguable that Reason brought many great benefits, and was a necessary stage of our development, unfortunately this lead to materialism, where the physical material world was seen as the be-all and end-all of existence, where inevitably, we are seen as creatures that have no spiritual dimensions, that have no souls, in a soulless Universe of dead matter…”