Gabriel D. Roberts - The Quest For Gnosis.pdf

The Quest for Gnosis Gabriel D. Roberts

Copyright © 2014 Gabriel D. Roberts All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1495980145

DEDICATION This book is dedicated to the lights of my life, Gideon and Gwyneth Roberts. May you always thirst for knowledge and live life to its fullest with verve and integrity. I love you with all of my heart.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank the many wonderful people who have helped to make this ambitious book a possibility. Transcriptions are a time consuming and tedious task and I am grateful for transcription assistance provided by the following people: Hunter Muse, Philippe J M Morel, Wade Stich, Amber Pollock, Jes Flores, Kieron McDarby, Lee Flax. Thank you so very much!

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Gnostica Pro Primario Munientibus Aurei Seculi My dear friends, above reads in Latin the phrase, “Gnostic primer for the pioneers of the golden age”, and that is the intent of this book, to introduce you to the concept of Gnosis as you make your own mark on this world. This selection of conversations and essays has been carefully put together in order to provide you with many ideas that have roots in wisdom that was once hidden, perspectives on what they mean to us today and the practical use of Gnosis in our own lives. This book is an anthem of illumination, an introduction into some of the most freeing concepts in modern and ancient thought from the minds of both the mechanistic materialist and the modern magus; a cross pollination of the things we see in common as means to meaning and paths to promise. Those who have read my other works know that I came from Fundamentalist Christian background; a mindset that clearly set boundaries of what I should and should not believe. This book may touch on some of those ideas in conversation, but will not be the primary focus here, instead the focus is upon equipping you with a new sense of wonder and understanding of just how big this universe is and just 5

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how amazing a part of it you can be. Though you will find the definition to vary within the pages of this book, the term Gnosis in its most basic form simply means knowledge. Going more deeply Gnosis means intrinsic knowledge of a mystical nature; something that is personal and experiential. It is my opinion that the best way to understand something is to take a hands on approach to its investigation, not taking other people’s word for it. For too long we have taken things on faith without testing for ourselves whether a truth, or idea really works; we’ve often paid the price of a fool when it turned out that what was presented to us was not the thing advertised. When I think about the legacy that many of the great spiritual leaders, martyrs, shamans, philosophers and mystics have left us, I feel a sense of awe and inspiration. Sadly, the state of our world leaves much to be desired by virtually every measure of quality. For many, the grip of materialism has driven them to excesses that would make the ancient Roman emperors blush, for others, the grip of fundamentalist doctrine freezes them in a barbaric tumult no different from the crusades of the dark ages. The mechanistic materialistic scientific worldview has led many to an existentialist crisis while others scoff at anyone who believes anything other than what the latest study shows is the truth. Meanwhile our governments run amok, spending money they don’t have to fight wars nobody wants to extract resources fewer and fewer of us can afford. In many ways we could be falling into a new dark age in which sociopathic technocrats coax this lost throng of humanity into a 24/7 control system in which privacy, decency, humanity and a bright future are all at their disposal. Despite all warnings, the rain forests of this planet are still shrinking at an alarming rate and with them, the population of indigenous cultures and rare animals. Now decades deep and running, the middle east continues to be a hotbed of 6

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strife and suffering with war plans being carried out in public and in secret with new expansions into Africa on the horizon. Meanwhile Fukushima’s rogue nuclear reactor is filling the Pacific Ocean with 300,000 gallons of contaminated water per hour. It truly seems that the Kali Yuga is living up to its name and reputation. Many harbingers of our doom fill our minds daily with the latest body count, governmental fuckery and tales of our heroes selling us out. Is this the legacy we will leave the earth? Is this the best we as individuals can do? Are we simply to remain voiceless under the reign of our worst sci-fi futures come to life? If I thought this was the case, this book would certainly look very different than it does now. I can’t claim to have an answer to the Chimera of deadly problems we face, but I can offer up to you the thoughts and ideas that are helping me to transform myself and those around me. At the very worst, it is better to fight nobly in a battle you may lose than to just let the wave of arrows nail you to the ground. No, while we still have breath to speak, hands to write, hold and heal, we shall continue to blaze a trail through the wasteland, to climb to that high hill and shine a beacon of hope for those desperately lost in the valley floor. Poetic speech is nice, but it does little to stem the tide of real evil at work in this world. This is why I offer this book to you; it is a primer for the conscientious mystic, a new gnostic tome that honors the old gods, but makes way for a new balance of techno-mystic reason. This is for the practical magician in the making, the pioneer of the golden age that we can still bring to fruition. We are the shamans of the wasteland, the war zone, the ghetto; wherever our tribe has us, we are the focal points that heal the minds and hearts of the wounded all around us. Every single person who I’ve spoken with for this book is good people. We may not agree with each other on everything, but in each of them I see a thread of color found 7

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nowhere else. Theirs is the thread that must be intertwined into the tapestry of our newfound Gnosis; they are the fibers of our unbreakable chord. And in this work, we can find a common ground, a fragile yet beautiful unity, a powerful psychonautical compound created to confound and shock the hellish system we find ourselves a part of. The illumination we carry together has the potential to keep the flickering hope of a golden age alive. I have mixed the conversations and essays to balance the dialogue and provide with the pleasure and relief of each form of dispensation. So please enjoy this work, take in what inspires you and suspend judgement until these voices have been heard out. May you take as much pleasure in reading this book as I have had making it with all of these fantastic conversations with extraordinary people. As always I humbly offer this work to you, the reader. Love and Peace, Gabriel D. Roberts

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The Gnosis of Odd Edges Odd and I first met at an art showing in the Redhook section of Brooklyn. At the time he was running the AV show at Reality Sandwich and I was struck by his over the top enthusiasm and open heart. We’ve stayed in close communication since then and help to support each other in our endeavors. He’s been working on a film called, Life is a Videogame, which is based on the work of NASA scientist, Tom Campbell’s book, My Big Toe. Campbell’s book is a Theory of Everything and is absolutely fascinating. Odd and I got together to talk about his film and the ideas that drive it in relation to gnosis. GR - So your name is Elliot Odd-Edges? OE - Yes, my name is Elliot Andrew Edge. OddEdges is an internet handle that I picked up around 2006 when my brother and I started uploading videos to Youtube together. And Um, it just felt appropriate for us as we had always been making avant-garde films and comedies, sort of strange and unusual things. So Odd-Edges ended up really taking on a life of its own and because a bit of a mask when playing with remix videos which, of course, flirt with copyright 9

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infringement. They do that purposefully. The whole idea is to take something that exists and manipulate it in certain ways. You represent it as the artist. So it has that kind of hip-hop element and graffiti culture to it and internet culture is of course famous for taking on pseudonyms, and then the pseudonyms if you indulge them long enough will take on a life of their own. Odd-Edges, now, almost feels like a brand. For example I don't consider my Facebook page to really be about me. Of course everyone is going to argue against that. It's Odd-Edges' page. It's a way on compartmentalizing my consciousness. There were so many years when I was trying desperately to be a straight, normal person. And as I see today that’s failed. Miserably. GDR - Alright so tell em about the theory behind life as a video game. Start at the beginning and try to describe in detail for the kids. OE - Certainly, lets begin with considering immediately social norms, when someone says "life is a video game" you can think of personal realities, political realities, religious realities. If you want to look at them metaphorically or just on a higher plane of consideration, you can aptly apply a metaphor of life as a video game, and each one of these little things are "Reality tunnels" as Robert Anton Wilson always said. So that's one way of considering video games, our lives are little video games and we are characters in them. What's far more fascinating is the science behind the suggestion of life being a video game. That science showed up really in a big way in the 90's with a guy named Edward Fredkin. Fredkin has a website called Digital philosophy. His whole thing was founding this idea that reality is information. He was really the big guy, one of the early pioneers with [John Archibald] Wheeler who wrote an essay called "It from bit" and that's written about a lot. Seth Lloyd's book Programming the Universe. He is an MIT quantum computer physicist, I think. It's the same notion that reality is information. The big feud 10

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going on between them now is - is reality physical, or is it non-physical? That's where the argument is today in this domain. The idea goes back really far if you want to think about Maya in Hindu and Buddhist scripture, the idea of the world being an illusion that is actualized by an observer. That's the same sort of notion there too. Particularity the science is what has caught my attention about this entire thing. You consider our lives, personas, belief systems, religions and our psychologies, and even our own process of thinking, it becomes re-contextualized. You start considering the implication of being in a computer simulated reality. That's what this is all about, the idea that reality is virtual, essentially probabilistic in that a particle is not actualized until it's observed. Phenomena isn't actualized until it's observed. Until that happens it's all unrendered. Just like in a video game, a level doesn’t show up until the player gets there. It's sitting there, but the map doesn't show up until the player is present. Those are some of the broad stoke ideas about it. Tom Campbell is the one who really got me interested in this topic, and he is the one that this film is primarily about. GDR - What are the implications of this for the average spiritually minded person who may go to yoga but that's the extent of anything that they do? Or, what are the implications for all religions, people who believe in Allah, or people who believe in Jesus, how can this be related to them? OE - Well, to tell you the truth I think this is all of what these spiritualities are talking about. Whether it's a religion or a mystical school or even a philosophical school, a lot of them are talking about an underlying or overlaying reality of some kind. That there is an invisible world and a visible world. Somehow, not just in how we interface, but there is a morality to it, there is some kind of points system. Some kind of experience points system where if you do good you get karmic points that encourage your evolutionary growth. On 11

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the other hand you have stuff that impedes it. That’s really the immediate way to think about this. Life is a video game is a metaphor for the spiritually minded, though not exclusively, this is most appropriate, its what they are talking about. Every religion or spirituality is selling a user manual, a walk-through guide, a strategy guide, because we have all sort of emerged out of nowhere, if you go by the materialist view, from nowhere. we have shown up and we don't know what to do. We have no idea what we are doing here and we have these local religions and mystical schools and stuff and each of them peddle the same sort of concepts which is if you do these practices, these techniques, if you learn these abilities, this will enhance your spiritual and personal development. considering this, take the first games of the Zelda series, Zelda has a really great beginning in that Link, your main character, shows up in the middle of a field out of nowhere. this was so revolutionary that Nintendo didn't know if people would be able to handle it, like they wouldn't know what to do. You could walk in four different directions, there were three different places you could go and a small cave you could go into, and when you walk into the cave there was a sword or a shield and there was a famous line that says "it's dangerous to go alone, take this" It's a classic moment in video games. Link later has to explore and learn lessons and find instructions. All these spiritual and religious schools are really selling us instruction manuals and strategy guides. Some of them more effective than other and some and more effective than others, some have a lot of fact, some cultural clothing, historical clothing, traditional clothing that they have held on to for many centuries and many millennia but essentially what they are talking about is what a video game is all about, you have a lot of free will, you have choice, you have consequences, what do you do? How do you play? Most of us want to know how to play. 12

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We are terrified of being here, it's very confusing, so where do we go? What do we do? A lot of these religions give us a past, and essentially that's what they're talking about is getting some kind of past, getting some tradition and getting some structure. As long as that path or structure doesn't keep you fixed, and unfortunately a lot of them do, a lot of them are completely loaded with traps and the traps sound like anything from 'there's no god', or 'I am god', to 'there are many gods' Take your pick, each one has their own banks and things like that. This is a kind of stripping away of those things that’s not an outright denial, it's not saying that these things don't exist, but if you really want to get to the bare bones then lets talk about the metaphor, lets talk about the meta reality, that’s' really where our conversation has been taking us anyway since post-modernism and now digimodernism on the internet we now have an overview of all these systems and this is definitely in line with that tradition. GDR - Ok, so here lies the chicken or the egg question; If life is a video game, who programs the video game, and are they living in a video game in an eternal feedback loop of causality? OE - This is a really interesting question that's difficult to answer. It's almost unknowable. The guy I’m making a film about is Tom Campbell. He is a hardcore out of body experience or astral projector. It's really easy for him to parallel process other realities and he got really into exploring other physical realities, the non physical realities after he learned how to quiet his mind with meditation he learned how to have out of body experiences at the Robert Monroe institute and helped to develop serious technology for. He got into this himself and says you kind of bump up into a wall. The metaphor he uses is a bacteria in someone’s gut, this bacteria could have a 5 million point I.Q. but it's not going to know anything that's going on outside of the body because all 13

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it knows is that food comes in and that’s that. It's not going to have any comments on Shakespeare, or meteorology, or basketball or anything like that. This information might not be available to us, however, what he implies if its a conscious system, if it exists outside of consciousness then it might not be legitimate. His whole thing is that reality is consciousness, consciousness is information. Going back to your question here, "who programmed the programmer', and where they programmed, and how did it begin?" It looks like it began with a simple rule set. Look at John Conway’s Game of Life, if you come up with a very simple rule set of three or four rules, and then you push go and put some energy into the then you get incredibly complex structures that show up. That's called emergence in computation. It's also emergence in nature. You take a seed, a seed becomes a tree, the tree evolves over time and becomes a different kind of tree, so you simplicity becoming incredibly complex over time. This is the degree to which it would be programmed. It's an evolutionary type thing we are seeing. A simple university evolved into a very complex one. I forget the name or it, but a satellite was shot out and photographed some baby galaxies which were so structured and there were so many of them and they were completely unanticipated by cosmology and what it showed was even galaxies tend to grow in the same way that biology grows. In fact I remember an interesting fact that a younger galaxy will produce more stars than an older one. I couldn't help but think of animal pubescence. A younger creature tends to have a stronger libido than an older one. As for "Who programmed them", I don't know, this is something that makes me very interested. There must have been some kind of catalyst, for a catalyst, for a catalyst. It's very difficult to talk about the origin of an Alpha. We bump into our own naiveté. It's worth our attention and our time. I certainly don't subscribe to the idea that the universe came 14

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from nothing. Laurence M. Krauss is very big on the idea that the universe came from nothing, but even if you take a look at his description of nothing there is an element of the physical and the laws of physics are at work in there. So it's not an ultimate nothing. GDR - What if somebody says "well, if life is a video game, and I really like Grand Theft Auto", what if somebody takes this message and say "great, I'm gonna go blow some stuff up and steal cars and sleep with hookers" Can we skip morality now? OE - I thought of that, The universe is either Amoral, or BE moral. one of the things that Tom puts forth in his model, which we go into in the film, he opens his model with two assumptions; and that is: consciousness exists, and evolution exists. Then you get the idea that consciousness evolves. So what makes consciousness evolve? Tom says it's intent. It's the reason WHY you do something. Why you do what you do. And you get a lifetime to rack up experience points. and see if you evolve and 'Level up' People who are familiar with video games understand the concept of leveling up. The whole idea he is putting forth is that He is pushing morality. And the morality is that you can think about consciousness in terms of entropy. In physics entropy is all about if something is ordered or unordered and in disarray. If something has high entropy its very gaseous and you cant make it do much work. But if its a solid, like a rock, then it has gravity and inertia you can throw it. It has a focused point. So what is a high entropy consciousness, what is dispersed, or chaotic? Well, someone who is neurotic, someone who has a lot of anxiety, someone who is afraid. They, as a conscious entity have very few options available to them. They are horrified of everything, they have to protect themselves from everything, and that's the point of their existence, this exclusive self protection. All the other 15

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"individual units of consciousness" as Tom calls them, are out in the world and they don’t have anything to do with you. On the other hand you have love, what is love when we see it in action, what is love when its not romantic love where you can be spurned, and your heart broken, and have all these expectations that another person doesn't share. If you look at love that is more like agape, unconditional love in the Buddhist sense of the term, you have someone who is cooperative and helps the whole and feels like they are a part of the human organism as a whole and a part of life itself in the entire biosphere, and then some. He puts forth that consciousness evolves towards love, that is where it wants to go. If you look at what he calls low entropy individuals then you can imagine some right away, like Yoda, Dalai Lama or Amma the hugging saint who hugs everybody and makes them feel good and builds charities on that. I don’t know if they are, but on the outside they look like really great people who are doing good things. That’s what he is putting forth. That its not just a blind video game, but it exists to evolve consciousness so we can see what happens when we do something nasty, and it puts itself in these scenarios like the Sims, where you and I are engaging each other so we can see what kind of life do you see people living lives that are miserable. You might get a lot of money, but you wouldn’t get a lot of love. You don’t get a lot of companionship, you don’t really connect. In other words you don’t integrate into the consciousness around you. You are interested in your own history and narrative. The whole thing is that of a Buddhist idea where if you don’t move along and progress, you will be put back on Earth again to respawn and continue, and do it all over again. Physical reality exists for this purpose. Consciousness is constrained into a body, and they face each other, and they have to see what happens and how do you use your free will. And how you use your free will will determine the quality of your consciousness and your 16

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growth. And the more you evolve the more options will be available to you when you demonstrate you are mature enough to have more power, and to go into different places and to try more things. That's the part of it that I'm really attracted to, actually. We are lacking a new moral philosophy. We don’t really have a moral philosophy right now. We have some secular humanist vision that you are a human being, and I am a human being, we are brothers and sisters, and your misery and my misery are connected. I agree with that. But when you get to the fact that we are embedded in the same fabric of reality, that when I hurt you I'm hurting the same fabric of reality that I am. A lot of us don't really think about that. We just think about negotiation of our own gravitation around people and circumstances. GDR - Say if someone accepts this understanding of 'Life is a video Game' How then should we live? How would this understanding change the way we view the world, how we view ourselves, and view our place in the world? OE - Well, the first thing a metaphor like this does, and science and philosophy is built exclusively upon metaphors, the only thing that makes science different in a way is that they are measurable and we have a record of them, but really all we are playing with is metaphors, here. 'Life is a Video Game' as a concept is a new level of magnitude to begin to look at the human condition and look at personal existence as a whole. Its just like a video game where you can take a step back and see the back of your head and you look at yourself from outside and not be so in-meshed with the local rumor and hearsay that you are rubbing up against in the form of ideologies whether they be philosophical, scientific, personal, religious, or what have you. In that element its valuable. On the other hand it also gives us some heavy metaphor to begin to play with. You know, problems like free will, choice, that’s really it for me. Choice is my crisis. We are in a constant state 17

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of crisis with choice. really I don’t want people to just sit there and accept that life is a video game, what I would like to do is get people to investigate the particular model that’s putting this forth, and that’s Tom's model, My Big Toe by Campbell. He is a NASA physicist, DOD physicist. He is a heavy hitter, private consultant. That kind of thing. HE says "Don't trust me, find out for yourself". The big thing about finding out for yourself is that it adds a new level of engagement. Human beings are constantly salivating to entertain themselves. And how we entertain ourselves it though video games. But at the same time I feel a kind of ubiquitous disengagement with life. There is a lot of fear, a lot of repeating yourself and getting stuck in a loop and this is a way to dislodge you out of that crisis and begin to explore the question of "maybe this is a video game, am I living my life" but I definitely don’t want people to take my word for it. I want people to investigate what Tom and many other and by association, ME, are putting forward. And what we are putting forward is that there are certain experiences available for human beings that aren’t being popularly engaged and personally I believe its something we should be doing more of. In other words, We feel a lot of emotions but we don’t investigate the hows and whys. We have a lot of experience but we don’t get into the brass mechanics. What can we really do as a conscious entity. That question is surprisingly scant in the dialogue. The dialogue is sort of, Well, I’m a human being, its been dropped, and as true as that statement is, its also not true because as a human to say that you don’t investigate. You just slide it under the rug and say OK I'm a human being, there's human nature, and I always say human nature is a bad idea that goes on to legitimize worse ones. Its sort of a STOP, you don’t really go forward and investigate. One of the big charges that Tom and others like Russell Targ 18

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and Rupert Sheldrake and others at Princeton, and the Monroe Institute and all the places around the world, what they are putting forth is that consciousness is non local. Its not in your head, its not a by-product of your brain, or your entire body, its something else and it can do more things. One of the ways I stated investigating if Tom's claims are true is that I got into remote viewing. For those who don’t know what remote viewing is, its a practice that a laser physicist named Russell Targ, PhD who worked at Lockheed Martin and helped write a text book on quantum mechanics. They ended up doing psychic research at Stanford for the CIA and the DIA and NRO and others, they proved conclusively over and over that remote viewing is real. You sit in a room and describe an object phenomena what is happening in a place that you shouldn’t know about. If I'm sitting here I would know about where you are in California. To the average person that’s whacky. The average person who has been raised on rational materialism that consciousness is a byproduct of the brain. But we have decades of research now that consciousness now is more like we are engaged in a cosmic google. We are all filtering down into these bodies like a SIMS like situation. We are all playing the SIMS. Human life on Earth, Tom calls it TMR 'Physical Matter Reality'. We occupy both places at the same time, so one of the things about 'Life As a Video game' is to get people to see that it is real and natural and it doesn’t require a lot of training. We are doing it all the time. We know when someone is about to call us on the phone, before it rings. GDR - Another question- If we are here to build our consciousness, that would imply we are conscious elsewhere and in need of improvement. This would imply, like the Buddhist idea, some kind of variation of digital karma, or some reincarnation of eternal individuals and we have the ability just like any game, sitting outside of it you press the respawn button or shut the system off. 19

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OE - I like the idea that life is always optional. You can always walk off a bridge if it's too much for you. GDR - I have had a lot of psychedelic experiences where I have been transplanted, from my perspective it seems, an eternal space, a timeless space, where I am hanging out with beings that are timeless as well, and I know them. I was outside of the rules and regulations of everyday physical life. This begs the question of how does this parallel with the idea of enlightenment, the ideas made popular by the Matrix, you are hacking the Matrix, as it were. How do these things tie together, and have you had any psychedelic experiences yourself that have let you to be more interested in this subject? OE - I had my first psychedelic experiences before I was exposed to this conversation. Those I always thought were incredibly interesting because I did feel conscious of multiple spaces and multiple times. I could see my body outside myself and if I closed my eyes I felt very sincerely engaged in another dimension of reality. That’s always made me very curious about the whole nature of perception. Can we just change channels with certain compounds, practices, in other words, is this compound just squeezing my attention into another space. I would like to save the question about enlightenment for last, well, now that we have brought it up lets go into it. Enlightenment feels like a funky word, for me enlightenment just means re-contextualization. A lot of these philosophical schools suggest that there are forms of ultimate enlightenment, final enlightenment that's it, you are done. Its over. You either die or you become super human or transhuman. I'm not negging that. More so I think that enlightenment is a mysticised word for re-contextualization. All enlightenment is just re-contextualization In The Matrix, which I love, watch the audio commentary with Ken Wilbur and Cornell West, please do because it brings the film to life again in a way that will keep you up for days. You will love it. 20

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The idea with enlightenment is that you become conscious of more than one reality, one you are ignoring. you can consider dreams, that’s one reality, then you wake up, that’s another reality. A question is: Is a butterfly dreaming of a man, or is a man dreaming of a butterfly? So Enlightenment is tied really close with the idea of gnosis, of knowledge. What is real knowledge? I think gnosis, and enlightenment and knowledge are tied really close to ignorance. If you admit to utter ignorance you create a space for new information and experience to pop up. That’s not idealized so much in America these days. In the digital culture its all about knowing everything. But what is knowledge? Aren’t we just engaging in metaphor? How often is a fact a fact etc.? To me knowledge is tied really closely with my knowledge and my ignorance was revealed the first time I had a psychedelic experience, and I've had several. But more important were my psychic and synchronistic experiences have been even more profound that any psychedelic compound. I have experimented with what’s available on the market as well as different forms of meditation and binaural beats and audio technology and all these things to manipulate your consciousness I have flirted with all of them and I recommend them totally. Definitely more than going to the mall. The synchronicities, and telepathic experiences, and remote viewing experiments that I’ve done in community college where I was grabbing kids and saying "try this" and they were getting great results, incredible accuracy of 80-90% accuracy. Spooky stuff. It was one of those things where you would experience it and you would want a shot of scotch after. It was so disorienting. I would push really hard on people is to try it. You have to give it a shot. All of this is useless unless you are interested in the video game. If you want to try and see what’s available to you then please do. we need more people like this. That’s what’s been most 21

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disorienting is the dreams. To prove without any doubt in my mind that information is available to us that is not something you can perceive with the 5 senses. And when you get into it and engaged on this level it comes much easier. you become open to it. its not that you create these meanings. If you are skeptical, you got to keep a diary and try. You have to do experiments otherwise you are just going to float from one weird experience to the next. I’m more interested in treating my life like a detective mystery. I don’t know how I showed up or why. I don’t know what I can do or what I am. I think its a relief when I meet people who have similar attitudes. GDR - We are all like Link in that field, some people decide that they really like hanging out in a field and they just stay there. OE - It seems like a strange place to go to in comparison to the knowledge that we have already accumulated about what we are and what the world is. Its stressful. Its energetic. I had the same experience when I was Elliot, Elliot was occupying a body that was occupying a certain space-time in a relativistic fashion. But it was moving through the Universe. That was my previous orientation. After the experiences I have gone through, I had seen other people going through parallel experiences. Once I was into it I had all my friends to at least try it. After that there is a complete disorientation. You realize that’s not really the way things are. Its the way I had been raised to believe things were that way. For us to become mature is to explore what we are. otherwise we are just repeating rumor and hearsay. The noise we pick up in the neighborhood. Just what everyone is saying and peddling. That’s stuff I don’t dig because look at the world it has created. With so much conflict it cant be doing the trick. GDR - Why is it then that there so often seems to be no reward. The hero dies long before the journey finishes and hearts are broken with babies starving to death. All this gnarly stuff. How does that apply to the idea of leveling up. I 22

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apologize if this is harsh, but about the starving Somalian baby, what are they gonna win? OE - What they win is a fast track. The whole lesson here is suffering. The lesson about life on Earth is suffering. Its not meant to be happy and feel good, best time ever. Its meant to be challenging, horrible, horrific, and insane and gross, and grotesque. The thing about it is its only insane and grotesque is because WE ARE. We think it seems like shit and we activate that. We actualize that in our lives. That’s the reason there are starving people. There's nothing technological or engineering wise that couldn't stop that happening. We have the technology available to stop disease and hunger. What’s stopping that from happening? Its political, social, and economical and sexual ideologies. Its prejudices that are stopping this. The world looks like shit because WE are shit. That’s the way we treat each other and the way we treat ourselves. It seems bad because often we are sitting around wanting things for ourselves. If we do things for other people that becomes its own reward. Even if it doesn’t pay of in the way we hope and want it to. IT doesn’t always work like that. You try to give a person advice and they take it and go even further down in their depths. Sometimes they have to hit rock bottom before they have a transformation. Nothing spurs about transformation more than exhaustion. I don’t think "enlightenment" happens until you are exhausted. Once you are really tired of You, then you change. It's not the world that's boring, its not the world that's miserable, it's our learned pattern of engagement with the world that's unbearable. The way we treat ourselves and each other. There's no evil force at work outside of ourselves. That’s the evil force. So the idea of the starving child in Somalia is they learn very quickly what suffering is. They learn quickly about caring. They learn what the meaning of a gesture is in the 23

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sense of "I give you food because I love you" When you suffer, you learn. Its the tool, the teaching mechanism. As long as you need to breathe, eat, and get out of the sun you are going to suffer. That’s the agenda here, you got to survive. And how you go about surviving, that’s' the whole shtick regarding evolution. That's the idea Tom's putting forth and I have been incredibly attracted to it for about 5 years, I have been testing, and it's working for me. Again, I'm saying give it a shot. Imagine taking a month out of your life and keeping a diary and treating it like an experiment and saying OK, I have lived my life, I know who I am with my personal and this role that I play. what if I put that aside for a month. What if I make all my intents love based intent. In other words I do it for other people. I do it because They Are. I respect the crisis they are in. I alter myself and see if I can help and see what happens to my health. I helped out some people and they gave me the keys to their apartment and I go there any time I want. Its a sweet gesture. Its that simple. I wouldn’t have access to that space. I could be stranded in the heart of Brooklyn in the middle of the night. Since I put forth the care and love and attention and clean up their place. I listen to them and I love who they are. They are very kind to me in return. From that we all get a chance to evolve. We get to experience each other and interact with each other. Its that simple.

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The Gnosis of Anthony Peake Anthony Peake is an excellent author and thinker, the kind that spurs you on and doesn’t mind saying things others are afraid to say or think. His perspective is always exciting and insightful. GDR - What first got you interested in the question of consciousness and specifically ecstatic states? Was there a key moment in your life that caused this? AP - I guess that I have always been interested in the mystery of how I – a seemingly dislocated source of awareness – exists within a physical universe. Even as I child I was intrigued by the “dream state”. Here was a world of experience that mirrored waking life in every way, indeed it was so “real” that I failed to ever realize that I was dreaming. However I had no unusual experiences at that time and, I have to state that with the exception of the occasional déjà experience, synchronicities and a couple of weird time anomalies I have never really experienced any form of “altered” or “ecstatic” states. For me an “ecstatic state” is an experience that reflects the literal meaning of the word ecstasy – ex-stasis, Latin for “out of the body” or being 25

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besides oneself. These are experiences that I have written about but never perceived. GDR - What is Gnosis to you? Does it have an application in your daily life? AP - For me Gnosis is a deeper, inner, understanding of the conscious experience. This is not generated through external learning but from a knowing that wells up from deep within. It happens to me on a regular basis, particularly when I am writing. I consider this to be very different from the classic ecstatic experience. In these experiences I seem to access knowledge that is outside of myself. By this I mean that I do not remember reading about it or sourcing it within normal every-day experience. In my book “The Daemon: A Guide to Your Extraordinary Secret Self” I suggested that this “gnosis” was generated by a subtle communication by the “Daemon”, or “higher self” with the everyday self that exists in linear time, a being I reference as the “Eidolon”. Both these terms are Gnostic in origin and the Daemon-Eidolon Dyad is something referenced time and time again in the Gnostic texts. However in recent years I have concluded that there is more to this than simply a channel of communication. The “gnosis” knowledge has its source not in the Daemon but in a reservoir of total knowledge that has been known for centuries as the “Akashic Record”. The Daemon is simply the conduit by which the Eidolon is given (limited) access to this informational field. This is usually supplied on a “needs basis”. Indeed I further believe that the aim of esoteric learning, secret societies and their associated mystical/magical techniques are to facilitate this downloading of information from the Akasha. Modern science has recently discovered something known as the Zero-Point Field (ZPF) and it is possible that this is the source of this information. Indeed there is growing evidence that the physical accesspoint to this informational field is the pineal gland and that the actual facilitator of the uploading is a chemical known as 26

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Dimethyltriptamine (DMT). GDR - How have your revelations and studies about the power of the mind and its ability to change perception changed the way you see the world and those around you? AP - Radically. I now understand that consensual reality, that is the reality that presents itself to us via our physical senses, is simply one reality of many others. These can be accessed by modulating the functioning of the brain. Indeed In my opinion evidence that the mind can change the nature of perceived “reality” is evidenced by the discoveries of quantum physics. In other words there are objectively and scientifically observed phenomena to support such a belief. The very existence of sub-atomic particles has been shown to be dependent upon what is known as the “observer effect”. Until “observed” a sub-atomic particle as no location in time or space. When “observed” its “wave-function” is collapsed into a point position that does exist in time and space. Indeed recent work by Austrian quantum physicist Anton Zeilinger has shown that this “wave-particle” duality to be not only confined to sub atomic particles but can be “observed” with regard to atoms and even molecules – large molecules. For example Zeilinger has discovered that the 60 atom molecule buckminstefullerene shows wave-particle duality. One reasonable conclusion can be drawn from these discoveries; that all atoms and molecules – the building blocks of the material universe – have a deeply significant relationship with the act of observation by a conscious mind. In other words it is the mind that modulates physical reality, not the other way round. GDR - What is the correlation between DNA, DMT and the serpent visions and lore of our mystic past and present? AP - In my recent book, “The Infinite Mindfield” I suggest that DNA and DMT are related in some deeply significant way. Following on from the work of Jeremy Narby I propose that DNA has its own intelligence and 27

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communicates with its host organism through the release of endogenous (that is, internally generated) Dimethyltriptamine. Indeed recent experiments at the University of Michigan have shown that DMT is created within the pineal gland of live rats. In effect this proves that DMT is a natural neurotransmitter of the mammalian brain and that DMT “journeys” as described by Rick Strassman’s subjects and the ayahuasca-stimulated shamanic journeying reported by the indigenous peoples of the Amazon Basin, are natural and can be generated without any external stimulus. Central to these DMT/Ayahuasca “journeys” are regularly reported encounters with “serpent beings”. These entities seem to be more than simply dream-creations. They have motivations and are keen to impart information. Indeed these beings seem to share many of the behaviors and physical appearances of “aliens” encountered during UFO-abductions. Indeed many of Strassman’s subjects described DMT-induced “hallucinations” uncannily similar to the classic abduction cases. Can this DMT-induced serpent-imagery explain the legends of “sky beings” found across the globe? For example the archeological images of the Sumerian Annunaki show distinct serpent-like features. In the “Epic of Gilgamesh” these visitors from the stars shared some of their technology and medical knowledge with the ancient Sumerians, a belief that continued into the subsequent Akkadian and Babylonian civilizations. The similarities between the statuette depictions of Annunaki individuals and the modern day “greys” of UFO-lore – and both have reptilian or serpent-like appearances. In his book “The Cosmic Serpent” anthropologist Jeremy Narby drew powerful parallels between the appearance of the “serpents” he encountered during his ayahuasca experiences and the double-helix structure of the DNA molecule. Narby puts forward a very persuasive argument that the serpents are 28

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personifications of our DNA and that DNA uses ayahuasca/DMT to communicate with us. I would like to add that the Annunaki were a similar personification and that similar personifications can be found in many cultures across the globe. In 2005 author Graham Hancock came to similar conclusions in his book “Supernatural: Meeting with the Ancient Teachers of Mankind”. GDR - Do you feel that the ecstatic state brought on by the psychedelic experience is a human right, or a human privilege to be afforded to any adult? Why is this important? AP - If the discoveries of Jimo Borjigin’s team at the University of Michigan can be reproduced then we have strong evidence that DMT is created by the pineal gland in a similar way in which this mysterious organ also produces the related neurochemical melatonin. This will be proof that not only is DMT a natural product of the brain but it has also evolved within us. It is part of our physiological heritage. Researchers such as Dr. Rick Strassman have suggested that DMT may be responsible for such phenomena as lucid dreaming, out-of-the-body experiences and near-death experiences. In my book “The Infinite Mindfield” I go further and suggest that endogenous DMT facilitates the uploading of digital information from the zero-point field and in doing so creates all “reality”, including the “consensual reality” of everyday experience. As such the ecstatic states facilitated by psychedelics are simply different “channels” of the DMT-facilitated experience. In effect the mind is like a TV set. Most of us are tuned to just one channel … this reality. However with a bit of “tuning” more channels can be experienced. The idea that the brain is a form of attenuator of reality is not new. The great nineteenth century French philosopher Henri Bergson called the brain the “reducing valve”, something that reduces down to manageable proportions the incoming (or more accurately, up-coming) digital signals 29

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being broadcast by the Zero-Point Field. The English philosopher Aldous Huxley came to a similar conclusion in his hugely influential work “The Doors of Perception”. As such it is clear that such experiences are not only the birthright of every human being (and possibly other sentient animals) but also part of our evolution as programmed within our DNA. I believe that this will be the next great evolutionary leap. Furthermore I believe that this leap will soon take place. All we need to do is become aware of our own inner-potentials and discoveries such as those of Jimo Borjigin and her team. Once we do so then we will shake off what William Blake called the “Mind-Forged Manacles” and open our mind to the total reality that has hitherto been denied us by our own evolutionary status. GDR - What are your thoughts on Phillip K. Dick in regard to his unique psychedelic, gnostic exegesis and what might his ideas add to the conversation of consciousness? AP - Philip K. Dick carried on from where Bergson and Huxley left off. He similarly believed that we are denied access to the true nature of reality. We are trapped in what he called “The Black-Iron Prison”. This has clear echoes of Blake’s “Mind-Forged Manacles” and I am sure that Dick chose his words carefully in this regard. He was in agreement with Blake that humanity was deliberately trapped in a world of illusion and deliberately denied its rightful existence in the wider experiential universe. Dick called this wider universe the “Palm Tree Garden” and he was keen to underline the Gnostic aspects of this cosmology. Taking from his starting point the Hindu concept of “maya” Phil argued that this world is a sensual prison, similar in many ways to the model of reality presented in the Wachowski Brothers “Matrix” movie trilogy. In his books and short stories Philip K. Dick returned to this theme time and time again. Of course Philip K. Dick was not just an author of speculative fiction; he was an experiencer of the extraordinary. Throughout his life he 30

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experienced glimpses of the reality beyond the “Black Iron Prison”. These experiences culminated in the events of February and March 1974 and he spent the rest of his all-tooshort life trying to understand what happened to him. GDR - Along those same lines, PKD speaks of a kind of evil empire that rules our reality. Do you think this very Archonic vision of reality could have merit? AP - Personally no I don’t. I believe that our inability to access Phil’s “Palm Tree Garden” and what the Gnostics termed “The Pleroma” is because of our own lack of readiness. We are our own prison wardens in this regard. However in my own writings I have suggested that part of us (our “Daemon”) has already advanced and is existing within the timeless place that is the “Pleroma”. The daemon has escaped “Plato’s Cave” (another wonderful Gnostic concept from the proto-gnostics, the Pre-Socratics). I am of the opinion that on death we all escape from the “mind-forged manacles” and glimpse the Pleroma before we return back to “the game”. GDR - What do feel are some good ways that an individual can confront this kind of evil empire while not embodying a new form of the empire itself? AP - As I don’t believe in the Archons as such I feel that we simply need to face-down our own “inner-archons”. I am of the opinion that the “Black-Iron Prison” is, in fact, analogous to a first-person video game. The Eidolon is the equivalent to the in-game personality that interacts with the in-game environment. The “game player”, who exists outside of the game within the Pleroma, is the Daemon. The Daemon has played the game (your linear life) many times and, in doing so gains experience of the best route to follow. Again the video game analogy works well in this regard. When we play a video game for the first few times our on-screen avatar usually gets killed within a few minutes of the start of the game. As the game-player we have the option of going back 31

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to the start to begin the game (life) again. This time the gameplayer remembers what happened in the last game and uses this knowledge to avoid the dangers and have his or her avatar survive longer within the game environment. Sooner or later the on-screen avatar will be killed again and the game is started again. Imagine that the avatar, aka the Eidolon, has selfperception. As far as it is concerned each game is a unique life and, because the avatar does not “remember” the last game, it is, as far as the avatar is concerned, the start of a singular, unique life. However, and this is the important bit) the avatar sometimes feels as if it has vague recognitions of the circumstances it encounters. Other times it feels a strong inner impelling force that guides it away from danger. The avatar will describe these sensations of danger as being inner warnings, hunches or, in certain cases, evidence of angelic guidance. With regards to the vague recognitions it will perceive them as a sensation known as déjà vu (or, more accurately déjà vecu … “already lived”). I believe that our actual life experience is similar to this analogy. The life we perceive is already encoded within the Zero-Point Field in exactly the same way that digital information located on a CD-Rom is used to create the game environment. And in the same way as in the game, the “in-formation” (using the descriptor first used by physicist David Bohm to describe the digital nature of consensual reality) is drawn up from the Zero-Point Field to create the “Black-Iron Prison”. An important point to realize with regard to this analogy is that in my hypothesis the ZPF, just like the digital information on the CDRom, has within its database the information to create a universe that can fulfil the outcomes of every decision made by the Eidolon. In many ways this is an application of the much-discussed Many-Worlds Interpretation of Hugh Everett III. I call this game-world the Bohmian IMAX. Indeed in his unpublished novel “The Owl in Daylight” Philip K. Dick 32

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suggested something very similar. Eventually, after many run-throughs of “the game” the Eidolon, with the assistance of its Daemon (whose knowledge banks increase every run through the Bohmian IMAX), lives the “perfect life” and survives to the end. This completes the game and the Eidolon becomes at-one with the Daemon. Effectively to use a Buddhist term, it becomes a. Bodhisattva. In explaining this I like to reference people to the movie “Groundhog Day”. In this cult film the central character lives the same day over and over again, remembering what he did the day before. In my Bohmian IMAX model this is as if he is an Eidolon with access to his Daemon’s memory of previous days (lives). After living many days the central character lives the “perfect day” and is allowed to move on to the next day. In my model this involves finally dying and moving fully into the Pleroma. In my book The Infinite Mindfield I suggest an advancement on this model, first suggested in my first book, Is There Life After Death? In this I apply an idea that Philip K. Dick touched upon in his later novels … the idea that all human beings are a single entity experiencing itself subjectively. Many will recall that a similar sentiment was stated by the late American stand-up comic Bill Hicks. In simple terms we are all interconnected because we are all waves from the same ocean. Each of us contains within us a shard of the Pleroma and that is part of the greater collective mind. GDR - How can we inspire a greater body of humanity to pull away from this seeming black magical spell of materialism and draw toward a better understanding of our interconnectedness? AP - By getting messages like this out to as many people as possible. We know from quantum physics that everything is connected, that at a deeper level everything is a unity. In physics terms this is known as entanglement and it is an observed physical reality. The Hindu’s call this singularity 33

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Brahman, the Cabbalists call it Or Ein Sof and the Gnostics know it as “Nous” or the “God Within”. When this is realized, if indeed it should be realized within this reality, then everything will change. We will realize what we really are. Philip K. Dick used the Platonic term “anamnesis” to describe this. It is the regaining of a lost memory or knowledge. In his novel “The Divine Invasion” there is a character called Manny. He is God but he has forgotten that he is God. If humanity collectively experiences anamnesis then the whole universe will change. What this means in practical terms I have no idea, but then again I have a simple, eidolonic intelligence, one that simply cannot comprehend such a reality. GDR - As you look to the future, do you see a way in which we can turn our catastrophic path to a more promising and loving one, or do you feel like those seeking illumination should simply prepare for damage control? AP - As I stated above, I believe that what will be needed is a large number of human beings to realize that there is more to the universe than simply the materialist-reductionist world that lends itself the measuring tools of the present scientific paradigm. However it seems that those who seek out greater truths have always been a very small minority and I see no evidence of this changing in the near future. In my experience people either “get it” or they don’t. I am of the opinion that this has got nothing to do with intelligence or education but to do with an “inner knowing” ….. I guess this is what we call “gnosis”. GDR - What do you feel our purpose is in our present existence? Why are we here? AP - We are here to learn and to experience. Nothing more and nothing less.

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The Gnosis of Krystle Cole I've been a fan of Krystle Cole for a while now. She's well known for her numerous informational videos about psychedelics. Her website, Neurosoup.com, provides information for a broad spectrum of entheogens, entactogens, and other little helpers to the human pursuit for greater understanding in the bigger picture of life. We spoke about her perspective on psychedelics and life in general. GDR - You're a person who has experienced a broad spectrum of psychedelics. You're probably one of the most encyclopedic reference points for the breadth of the psychedelic experience. How has your perspective on psychedelics changed since the first time you did it? KC - When I started using entheogens, the first I used was MDMA -- which is more of an entactogen than an entheogen -- but that's the first time I delved into the psychedelic experience. My level of understanding has really grown since then. It's not just from the amount of other substances I've done that are stronger than MDMA, but also from life in general, and everything I do that doesn't relate to psychedelics. I think that's the case with everyone. We all grow as life goes on, and so I interpret some of what I've 35

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experienced differently now. GDR - In the non-psychedelic sense, do you have any regular spiritual practice? KC - I like to meditate and do yoga. I like to do meditations that don't involve just sitting there in a traditional meditative posture because of my back issues. I can do chair meditation, but I also like to do walking meditations or meditation during yoga, so I'm moving and concentrating on how I connect with everything. That's probably the daily practice I enjoy the most. GDR - If you had to line everyone up in the world and say to them, "You have to try this one particular psychedelic," set and setting taken into consideration, and this would be for the purpose of changing the world, what, in that hypothetical sense, would be the most powerful mind changer? KC - I think that saying that everyone should have to take something would be unhealthy for a lot of people. Some people may have psychological disorders, and probably shouldn't be taking entheogens. I wouldn't say that there would be something that everyone should have to take. However, if I were to start life all over again, having not taken anything before, I would absolutely have to take LSD. GDR - That's interesting. What is the main difference that you see between LSD and other psychedelics? KC - I think that a lot of the entheogens are somewhat similar, although the head spaces, let's say psilocybin versus LSD, are different. You said one substance, and it's difficult to choose one. The best thing about LSD to me was that it didn't make me nauseous, whereas psilocybin would. It had the least number of negative side effects for me. Everyone is different. Of course, I had really high quality LSD. A lot of things that are out there on the market now aren't even LSD. They're being substituted as LSD, like the NBOME family of chemicals. A lot of people are seeing these really negative side effects and attributing them to LSD. I really liked the length 36

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and strength of the experience from the LSD I took. GDR - You and I both have spent some time with Hamilton Morris. I had a discussion with him about spirituality versus materialism. What is your take on the subject? KC - I don't label myself as any one thing. GDR - That's wise. KC - I believe the experiences I've had are the realest things I've ever experienced. But it's as if reality has multiple dimensions. I don't believe I've reached out and touched an alien entity, or that anything like that has taught me anything. I center my beliefs within what Ken Wilbur has to say on our reality. In his "Integral Theory," you have stages of consciousness you develop through. You have different states as well that you can experience with things like LSD or meditation from whatever stage of consciousness you're at. As you go through life and have different experiences, you may move up to different levels and higher or more aware stages of consciousness. Some people are interpreting what is right for them at their stage, but there are many different stages. It may not be that anyone is necessarily right or wrong when it comes to the reductionist scientific perspective and the spiritual perspective. We're interpreting the entheogenic experience or other altered states from different stages of consciousness. That's why I think we're all right at some level. GDR - I think it was Terence McKenna who said that if you were to have a cone floating in space, there would be no two people who could see that cone the same way. If you had everyone in a circle, even from a million different ways, no two perspectives would be exactly the same, even though they are all looking at the same thing. He described the psychedelic experience as us all being like blind men with an elephant. One is tugging the tail saying, "This is a snake," and the one is saying, "No, this is a pillar of some great building." 37

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KC - Ken Wilbur has written lots of different books. Integral Spirituality is a really good one. So is Integral Psychology. His integral theory is really great if you're looking for a way to look at reality and understand how everything fits together. It's not different arguments, but a synthesis and integration of all arguments thus far. He does not say that he's a psychedelic user but from everything I've seen, he gets it. However he got there -- he says he did it with meditation -- it's awesome. If he was able to put all of this together and experience the one being we all share that exists always and everywhere infinitely through the practice of meditation, then that, to me, shows that meditation is equally as good at getting you there as entheogens are. Entheogens are my preferred means, though. I think they're the elevator to the top, whereas meditation is the stairs. GDR - It seems like there is a paradigm shift underway in which more and more people are discovering the story of life. For instance, the American Dream was a farce; it was something sold to us as a part of an advertising campaign. We're finding ourselves realizing the madness of our lives, but we feel trapped in mortgages and car payments, sending our kids to college, and then we watch all of our tax dollars going to bombing people on the other side of the planet. What's the thing that helps you to keep a positive perspective on that? What is the thing you would say to people who are just "waking up," to help them along the path? KC - Sometimes it's difficult to keep perspective. That's the first thing. Some people have asked me that question, and no one can find the answer but you. You just have to try to have a positive attitude. That helps me a lot. The cup is half full instead of half empty. Look to all the positive things. But even so, it's difficult sometimes. Life can definitely get you down and I think that having a daily spiritual practice has really helped me. Of course, the lessons that I've learned through entheogens have really helped me as well. GR 38

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What is your purpose behind Neurosoup.com? What is the common theme? KC - There's a couple of them, but the main one is responsible use. I'm not advocating for people to use any substance, but I am advocating for people to educate themselves prior to using, if that's what they choose to do. Every substance, whether it's LSD or heroin, has positives and negatives. No matter what, there is going to be something that some think is good and some think is bad. That's one of the biggest messages of Neurosoup, and that's why I put all that information on YouTube. I don't just have the trip reports, I have other information about both sides of the story. That way, people can make responsible choices about the substances they choose to put into their bodies. The government tries to make these laws that are saying, "Drugs are bad, you're going to jail for life if you're caught with these substances," but they're out there, and everybody is able to obtain different drugs. In the end, the individual user is the one making that choice. The individual user needs to be empowered with the correct knowledge so that they can make that choice. That's what I'm trying to do. GDR - This raises the question about your feelings on personal sovereignty. There are two camps in America that are at the farthest ends of the spectrum and yet I see where they are in so many ways identical. Where do you stand on the issue of asserting one's own personal sovereignty? KC - I think that every person should have the right to do whatever they want as long as it does not harm someone else. I guess that's the best way to really describe it. That applies to different cultures as well. We look at different cultures and different beliefs and say, "Well, we don't understand that." No matter what a person does, they should be able to do it. Have fun, have great life, experience everything that you want to. Just don't harm someone else in the process. GDR - There has been much debate over the last several decades about what "soma," the true sacred mushroom was. 39

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There's been many books written about amanita muscaria, and other people have said no, psilocybin is much more appropriate because of its rampant availability, and so on. If you had to pick which one was this inspiring mushroom, what do you think? KC - Back when I lived in Mendocino, I learned all about that because I was collecting specimens of amanita muscaria. I wanted to learn everything there was about them. I read a lot of different things but my understanding of soma is that they would ingest the substance and then they would urinate and be able to trip from what would come out again, the urine. To my understanding, psilocybin wouldn't fit in with that. Have you heard that if you take psilocybin and urinate, there would be anything left in the urination to actually drink? It's gross, but that was one of the things I read about soma, and that's why amanita muscaria is probably the best fit. GDR - Well you would have to be with someone you care about to drink their pee. Where's R. Kelly? I need to try this amanita. KC - I've heard of people doing amanita muscaria and saving their urine in the refrigerator for the next day. Hypothetically, you could drink your own pee if you really wanted to see if soma was amanita muscario. I've never tried amanita muscario, but I was with some people who did. I was almost going to try it but they started drooling and feeling really bad, and I didn't want to feel like that, so I didn't take it. GDR - It sounds difficult to go through. I've never personally experienced it, but according to the trip reports it's not a sunny day entheogen. It's not just something you jump right into. You have to plan on feeling like garbage for a really long time. KC - I have heard that people do have a psychedelic experience when they drink their pee. I think that's the context that soma and the Rigveda was ingested. But how many trip reports are out there of people who have actually 40

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tried it? I know I'm not willing to try it. From the standpoint of the experience itself, psilocybin seems like it would be a much better fit. But there's some science there that needs to be backed up, since the soma and Rigveda were drank, and have effects that are as strong as drinking urine. GDR - If they put together a panel of ten psychedelic masters, people who have really fun the gamut of experiences, and they said, "We want you to be one of the ten, and we're all going to drink this pee to see if it's the real one," you wouldn't join? KC - I don't know. I don't think so. I already did some other questionable methods of taking substances. I don't think I'll try the urine route. GDR - Fair enough. We'll step away from the pee discussion then. Oh my goodness. What do you think happens when we die? KC - I think I've experienced dying. A lot of people look at that with skepticism and say, "Well you didn't really die, you experienced ego dissolution." But at the time, and looking back on it, I still feel that's what happens when we die. It felt like a transition. Look at reality as though we're a coin. On one side of the coin is the little me perspective. That's the Krystle Cole, the you, the everyone else that's out there listening. On the other side of the coin is the one mind, the Godhead, the all that is. When we die, we are one the other side of that coin, and the part that's us is no longer as relevant in the stream of consciousness as it was. It's not that it ever stops because from what I experienced with the one, with everything, is that there is no time and it just goes on infinitely. From that standpoint, we always are. It always is. It's hard to describe some of this, so it sounds vague, but I think death is a transition into ultimate bliss. It's the ultimate being of the now and the one. We experience the ultimate Godhead with entheogens. I'm not afraid of dying. But I am afraid of dying painfully. 41

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GDR - Well I think everyone is, yes. KC - I don't want to die painfully but once I'm dead, I'm not afraid of going. I think it's going to be beautiful. I've been there before, so it's just going home. It's what always is. We don't normally perceive that. We have to figure out a way to open this doorway within ourselves, go to that other side of the coin, and experience all that is. I think that's the difference between individuals who interpret the entheogenic experience as something that's a hallucination and all in their head, versus something that is a spiritual experience. It's the full integration of that. It depends on how everyone interprets it. That's how I saw it. GDR - I've been intrigued by the morning glory varieties of entheogens. And from everything that I've read -- for instance in Psychedelic Shamanism, Jim DeKorne -- it's described as something really hardcore. Like some arcane spirit of the ancient world when we were back in a matriarchal society, and it's a man-hating entheogen. Have you ever heard these things? And have you experienced anything in the datura and/or morning glory family? KC - I have tried morning glory seeds. I did not experience anything like that. My experiences with most entheogens have had a common thread. It hasn't been anything other than experiencing the one mind that I was describing before. Of course, you have your hallucinations and everything else, but there's a difference between what I would experience when it came to visual field hallucinations. I could tell it was a hallucination rather than experiencing the one mind. Whenever I take anything, I travel down the path in my mind, or in my consciousness, in our soul, our shared one being. I always go back to where I was before. I always gravitate toward that. It's a process of getting back there. Sometimes it's harder to let go than others. Sometimes I have more anxiety than others. I didn't do a really strong dose of them. I felt kind of nauseating. I prefer LSD any day. 42

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GDR - If you were to fantasize about building an ideal society, what would that look like? What might you imagine? KC - There are things we could do to our current society that would make it more ideal. We could decriminalize most of the substances that are not addictive and that are spiritual tools for self exploration, like LSD, DMT, and psilocybin. If other highly addictive substances like heroin or methamphetamine continue to be illegal, make the punishment so that it's not the mandatory minimum sentence of five years. Do away with the DEA. That would make things a lot better. Also, restructuring how society finds benefit in things. People were raised with television and commercials, now the internet. There are commercials all over the internet. Everywhere you go you're bombarded with advertising campaigns that tell you what is supposed to make you happy, and that buying stuff is going to make it all better. That's just not the case. Money's not evil, money is good -- we all need it to live. But you can't buy things and expect them to all of a sudden fix your life or make you happy. Restructuring the way society think about happiness, love, spirituality, and not being so selfish. That's another thing to restructure. If we could look at each other as a global community rather than isolated individuals, and say, "Hey, if I do something good out there to help these other people, I'm actually helping myself, because we're all one." That's what entheogens have taught me. I might sound like a hippie, but that's what they taught me. I would like to see some of those things happen in the world. I don't know if that's the perfect utopia, but I think it would go a long way to improving things.

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The Many Methods of Modern Exegesis In the study of many sacred texts, some may find themselves trying to find Truth with a capital T within it. Indeed many if not most holy texts to carry some, if not many truths that apply to our lives. Depending on our own predilections, areas of study, understanding of the original language and many other factors, our view may be slanted or skewed to see it in one way or another. The reality of our situation is that most holy books were written long ago, leaving many to make up information as seems best to them, information about who the writers were, what the culture was like and so on. So when we are trying to establish Truth with a capital T, it becomes daunting to find truly faultless methods of enquiry. I would like to propose that there are many ways a text can be seen and used, but this suggestion must be accepted as a mere observation of the ways I have personally seen religious texts and not necessarily a dictation of preferred methods of exegesis. I will be using primarily Christian examples since that is the area of my expertise, though undoubtedly these examples are applicable to any system that has a primary holy text.

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1 . The most basic way to review material is the simply take the story as a literal interpretation, trusting that time and chance have been kind and true to the original. To the mind of the believer at this level, the words used are words that can be relied upon and the characters contained therein actually lived and participated in the story at some point in actual history. Many who take a Fundamentalist view of holy texts see this to be the proper and only way that one can achieve Truth with a capital T. I myself was party to this viewpoint in my youth as were the lion’s share of my friends and family. When operating within this framework, one can make a cosmological rulebook that works to the liking of a great many people. There is however a lack of dimensionality within this framework that prevents one from seeing the nuances that are hidden when seen at face value. One may relate this as the way a complex system may be explained to a child; the story may be genuine and true in its explanation, but lacking the color and shape that only a more mature mind could comprehend. The misfortune of our time is that many only need this most basic version of said story in order to develop their own flavors of reason. This usually devolves into superstitions that have no basis in the original intent of the story they profess to know. Nevertheless, it is human nature to find a nice, comfortable place in our physicality and in our minds. The more compassionate among us can empathize with this sentiment, though it should be said that those who rest their head on the soft pillow of their own delusion are prone to be duped, not only by hucksters, but by themselves as well. 2. Another method of review is at the level of clergy, a deeper reading into the texts beyond just the stories at face value and a cross pollination of the ideas of many leaders and characters throughout the holy text. When one does this, one may find that there are indeed correlations, types, anti45

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types, foreshadowing and prophecies fulfilled. To many people, the pastoral level of understanding is the full fruition of the text; yielding layers of meaning that intertwine the tendrils of doctrine with the face value of the blunt story. Within this thought paradigm, the clergy can impress the basic believer with and understanding of the deeper doctrines. The issue at hand within the realm of those privy to advanced doctrine is the sheer amount of variation in interpretation. According to the Center for the Study of Global Christianity (CSGC) at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, there are approximately 41,000 Christian denominations and organizations in the world. It’s easy to see how many differences of opinion there are as to which points of doctrine are more important than others. Much of the discourse between denominations devolves into the “no true Scotsman” logical fallacy in which an opponent claims that his or her adversary is not a “true _____”. Sometimes these fall along lines that pivot on a few short verses in which the original writer may not be easily understood. In this case, the argument is then taken to the root language in which the original (or closest to original) texts are consulted. The book of Romans, chapter 15 provides an excellent example. In Romans 15, St. Paul claims that it is God’s pleasure to create vessels for destruction and other vessels for glory. Theologically, all humans are these vessels. Protestant reformer, John Calvin interpreted this as a predetermination of our lives, to be lived like a movie (the movie metaphor is mine and not Calvin’s) with only the appearance of choice. The vessels for destruction were actually made to be broken, simply because God could. In this case, the broken vessel (person) is sent to hell for their evil lives that God made them live (according to Calvinism). The Armenian outlook states that in light of the rest of scripture, we have free will and will go to hell without God being morally culpable. To them, the verse simply makes the 46

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point that God could send us all to hell if he wanted to, because, well, he’s GOD! We can see the dizzying issues that arise within this contextual background and the limitations that it poses when trying to find the Truth with a capital T. But for many, this is as good as it gets and the more sinuous aspects of doctrine are either avoided, or just accepted for the sake of the greater message. This was exactly where I found myself stymied during my crisis of faith in my book, Born Again To Rebirth. 3. Another method of review relates to Astrotheology, a viewpoint that finds correlations between the movements of the stars, the nature and characteristics of the signs of the horoscope and the way that the earth interacts with other celestial bodies. Those who study Astrotheology have shown that there are indeed connections to be made within virtually all the major religious texts recognized today. To the first two types of people who review the religious text, this may be seen as heresy, something that is an evil distraction from the real truth that the literal interpretation conveys. Yet, one doesn’t have to look to hard to see the integration of astrological ideas incorporated in belief systems. Upon my visit to Rome, I saw references to the zodiac all over with the symbol of a + shaped cross inside a circle. It was very clear to me as I viewed the great statue of Moses with horns growing from his head, that this was a nod to Aries, the Ram. According to Astrotheology, the 12 signs of the zodiac are broken down into *2,166.66 sections of years in which each symbol of the zodiac has its age. The word ‘AGE’ is used liberally in the bible to define an era. Abram’s (Abraham) era was that of Taurus, the bull. During the time that Moses went to the mountain to receive the law, he was furious to find his people worshipping a golden cow (Taurus’ age preceding his own new age) and destroyed the tablets he had come down with. Once the new law had been established, the era of Moses began, which sits in alignment 47

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with the age of Aries, the age of the Ram and it’s counterpart, the lamb. From here on, a sacrificial lamb was the preferred method of covering one’s sins. Jesus’ ministry is seen as the age of Pisces, the two fish. As it is commonly known, the fish theme runs entirely through the New Testament. There are many references again to the end of the AGE. “Behold I am with you always, even until the end of the AGE”. When the disciples asked Jesus where they should go after he was gone, Jesus told them to follow a man carrying a water pitcher. Oddly enough, men NEVER carried water pitchers in that era, it was exclusively a woman’s job. Astrotheologists see this as a reference to Jesus pointing out the Aquarian age that is symbolized by a man pouring out a water pitcher. This is just a small portion of the interesting and compelling finds that Astrotheologists have brought to bear in their common assertion that the stories of both the Old and New Testament as well as other holy texts are simply moral stories that hide a deeper meaning which an understanding of astrology and astronomy are keys to. The only real danger that may come from this viewpoint is that there may be a tendency to cheapen the story value, or even ethical lessons contained in the holy texts used. I feel that this is not too likely for many, because by the time one has researched this much outside the comfort and confines of their own safe dogma, the egg may have already cracked, leading the researcher to understand that there is surely more than meets the eye and that perhaps a staunch approach to dogma is in many ways a blind approach to life. 4. In many ways, Sacred Geometry is the sister to Astrotheology, or better yet, Astrotheology may fall under one wing of Sacred Geometry. As Randall Carlson has deftly demonstrated in his Sacred Geometry video series, “Cosmic Cycles of Catastrophe” there seem to be many uncanny correlations between holy texts, the sizes and shapes of 48

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ancient structures like the great pyramid and the pantheon. Did you know that the great pyramid is a scale twin in measurement to the earth? How did the ancients know how to do that and to make it mirror what we presently assume was unknowable; the circumference of the earth!? When the movements of the planets are taken into consideration and measured and graphed with our modern technology, we find the most strange geometric anomalies repeating over and over. We find octagons on the poles of Saturn, we see Venus’ cycles making the shape of a pentacle. The mysterious part about all this is that we are just now able to confirm what the ancients seemed to know since time immemorial. Not only did they know these things, but they stuck these little gems of wisdom into the stories of our holy books. To me, I see no danger in gaining more understanding in these fields, because for the believer, it may simply confirm that their sacred book is the right one (though all the oldest books of the major religions have these gems hidden within them). In any account, Sacred Geometry shows us even more amazing things than we even knew were possible about our own story. 5. The Theosophical approach to holy texts looks at the breadth of texts across all religions and systems and finds the common theme among them; disposing of hard core dogma and pulling the ‘secret doctrine’ which had been hidden from the general public. One may ask why such doctrine would be hidden and the answer is simple, people in power want to keep control of the people they dominate. Empowerment is an ideal that has arisen and been subverted in many times and places in our history. The term Theosophy comes from ‘Sophia” and “Theos”, which mean Wisdom and God respectively. It’s simply a nod to having the wisdom of God. Though many may have quarrel with me associating with Theosophical ideas, we must remember that good ideas are 49

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worth keeping and the bad ideas become self evident to the astute researcher. But we must give credit where credit is due, Helena Blavatsky was a pioneer in the integration of theological concepts from all populated continents. For our purposes, the focus remains on the concept of there being a common theme running through all of our stories. It amazes me when people react negatively to the idea that we have a common story. To me, it is an encouragement that all over the world people are thinking the same thoughts and having the same ecstatic experiences. This offers a breadth of interpretation and perspective that just cannot be found from a single focal point. 6. Perhaps the easiest to deal with within these perspectives is the angle of poetry, prose, mystic vision and metaphor. Holy texts vary so much between individual books and authors that the swing between metaphorical event and literal event can become quite confusing. Is it easier to accept the story of Jonah and the whale as a literal tale of a man being swallowed by a sea beast and living for 3 days within it, or is it more proper to guess what might seem obvious to others and see it as a moral tale? Taking a story like this, it would certainly be easier to ascribe broader value to if we don’t have to try to prove how a man could live under such circumstance and for the claimed reasons. In regard to poetry, there is much to be enjoyed in both the moral rhyme and the rapturous expressions of awe for the unknowable and the divine. And who would not chuckle at such phrases like, “As a dog returns to his vomit, so does a fool to his folly” - Proverbs 26:11 My encouragement to the budding Gnostic researcher is to hold belief lightly and consider that it may simply be the way you see things for now. Life changes and with it changes us, with this in mind a humble approach to the divine works, yearnings and passions of those lives long past seems most appropriate. Belief is a tool that you use in order to 50

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accomplish something special, supernatural and yes, even magickal. Like virtually everything else in life, things only have the meaning that we decide to ascribe to them. One man’s treasure is another man’s trash. We must remember that we are pondering mysteries of a small speck of time in an infinitesimally tiny solar system in this sea of a universe. We ponder very big things because our minds have the capacity to attempt to fathom these mysteries. I can say quite confidently with this in mind that only an arrogant fool would state that they really know what’s going on. Therefore, we must be sure to be circumspect in our review of our tiny mysteries and admire the nuances and even the poetry of the many ways we can extract meaning from holy texts.

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The Gnosis of Randall Carlson Randall Carlson is a world class scholar and researcher whose area of expertise is in sacred geometry. His insights on unfolding ancient mysteries through the language of geometry have blown my mind. GDR - What is the study of Sacred Geometry and how does it affect the way we see our past, present and future? RC - Sacred Geometry is the study of patterns in Nature, Art and Life, utilizing practical methods of construction, geometric proofs and reasoning in the classical sense, combined with a philosophical, intuitive and symbolical dimension of understanding. Our perception of the past is significantly enhanced with the realization of the importance of geometric knowledge to previous cultures. Modern science is, in a sense, playing catch-up in this realm of knowing. The utilization of Sacred Geometry by past cultures implies that there was a highly developed science of harmony, a deliberately arranged relationship between the human world and the world of nature. An awareness and employment of a system of harmony could be enormously valuable to a world with 7 billion inhabitants trying to learn to coexist. 52

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GDR - Does the concept of sacred geometry lead one to believing that the universe is an ordered construct, lending evidence to the existence of a creator, or is there more than one way to view it? RC - It certainly suggests as much. To the extent that we can discern the structure of the cosmos it would appear that geometry does indeed pervade all of creation. It has been recognized in the dimensions and ratios pervading our Solar System as well as appearing in the forms of spiral galaxies. It has been recognized in the ordered arrangement of atoms and molecules. As to the larger scale structure of the universe, metagalactic and beyond, our perception at this stage is too limited to declare with absolute certainty that such is the case, although it is likely that whatever scale of phenomenon we are ultimately able to perceive, the forms and patterns of Sacred Geometry will likely be pervasive. GDR - Are instances of Sacred Geometry included in scripture proof of the ‘truth’ of the scripture in which it is contained? RC - Sacred Geometry embedded in scripture reveals that there are additional dimensions of meaning beyond the purely literal. This has been recognized by Kabbalists, Gnostics, Occultists and others for centuries. However, it does not necessarily follow that scripture is then infallible, only that there were levels of knowledge amongst the authors and compilers heretofore unrecognized by modern scriptural exegetes. It most definitely opens the door to an evolved understanding of the origins of various ancient writings that have, over time, come to be viewed as sacred and this includes other works and traditions without being limited to only those of the Judeo-Christian heritage. The near universal presence of Sacred Geometry in a diverse array of historical, cultural and spiritual traditions implies a former unity of knowledge that has become fragmented through time. 53

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GDR - Sacred Geometry has gained popularity over time and seems to be on the forefront of many people’s minds, capturing the imagination. Many use it to bolster their own views on god, aliens, and ancient advanced cultures. How does one keep the integrity of the study intact while so many people wish to use it for their own well meaning, but perhaps, misguided purposes? RC - Sacred Geometry has been perpetuated through the centuries as an integral part of various arcane traditions, meaning that it was deliberately withheld from the masses and reserved exclusively for Initiates and those who were deemed worthy and well qualified. With the openness and availability of knowledge in the 21st century much of this knowledge has become accessible on a popular level. Many unsubstantiated claims have been put forward by proponents of various agendas, some valid, others highly suspect or disingenuous, apparently to create an aura of metaphysical expertise. It is extremely important not to minimize or neglect the rational dimension of Geometry that involves the rigorous training of the intellect and the development of critical thinking skills. Plato, the presumed greatest metaphysician of the western world, required any student of his who aspired to attainment of the metaphysical heights to be well grounded in the methods of Geometry and in the exercise of the powers of Reason. GDR - What do you personally find the most thrilling about this study? RC - I find an immense satisfaction in the mental processes accompanying the study of Sacred Geometry and in the world of possibilities opened up through the use of Sacred Geometry as a creative tool. It also immeasurably enhances ones understanding of the mindset of ancient peoples who employed the methods, principles and philosophy of Sacred Geometry in varied ways both 54

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artistically and scientifically. GDR - How does Sacred Geometry relate to Astrotheology? What does this tell us about the concept of the precession of the equinoxes? Should we all be studying our astrological charts more closely, or simply take all this as mystical units of measurement? RC - Most, if not all, ancient cultures, held an obsessive interest in the celestial realm. There were several reasons for this. To a mystically inspired mind the heavens were a source of extraordinary wonder and could quite easily be viewed as evidence of a divine purpose. In addition the motions of the heavens served as both clock and calendar of the annual seasons that was essential to the successful functioning of all agriculturally based societies. Finally, on an experiential level the heavens were a source of consternation and terror. Over the past several decades evidence has been accumulating that human history, like biological history, has been punctuated by a series of cosmically induced catastrophes. It seems increasingly likely that for periods of time the heavens came alive with activity and ancestral humanity directly experienced the consequences of this activity in the form of great meteor showers and comet and asteroid impacts on Earth. There is also the possibility that other cosmic events such as giant solar flares and nearby supernovas dramatically affected the human condition throughout history. As the rhythms and tempos of celestial motion governed the agricultural cycles of the seasons, so they governed the tempo of the cosmic seasons. The precession of the equinoxes represents a great celestial clock by which the tempo of the cosmic seasons of the Great Year could be measured and established. This cycle of changing astronomical geometries appears to provide the gauge by which the tempo of world altering catastrophes can be ascertained. That this was understood by early peoples is demonstrated through their art, architecture, social rituals and 55

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religious beliefs. This insight emerges from a study of the astral symbolism of ancient cultures and is copiously confirmed by modern scientific discoveries in a broad array of disciplines. Precession of the Equinoxes provides us with a model of temporal change. The numerical values generated from the ratios of astronomical time cycles are the same numerical ratios manifesting through the forms and patterns of Sacred Geometry. In other words as there is a Sacred Geometry of Space, so is there a Sacred Geometry of time. GDR - People are looking for truth and in so many instances get sidelined by their own foibles or the star-power of the latest inspirational speaker du jure. What methods have you employed to try to stay on point? RC - Again, I will reiterate the importance of developing critical thinking skills and the associated powers of discernment, both of which are the natural outcome of a study of Geometry. There are broad, general truths which are part of the collective heritage of mankind. These provide the raw material for most of the varied teachings of a moral nature that are propagated through traditional venues and are accessible to the majority of people. Beyond this, however, there are very specific teachings, passed down from antiquity, which deal with issues of a verifiable and testable spiritual technology. It is this corpus of information that constitutes the true esoteric tradition. The late Carl Sagan once said that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs. This is a good thing to keep in mind when dealing with a lot of the impressive sounding but very indefinite assertions emanating from various New Age self-promoters. An authentic teacher welcomes challenges and doesn’t pretend to have the final answer to all questions. Any seeker of knowledge should always check the source of various claims, insisting upon actual, verifiable evidence, and always be willing to wield the ‘sword of reason’ when aspiring to explore the metaphysical jungle. 56

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GDR - What does the term Gnosis mean to you and what value does it hold in your life? Does it have relevance to us today, if so in what way? RC - We are living in a time of Gnostic revival. The early Christian Gnostics believed that the route to God was unique for every individual, and that by following the dictates of both heart and mind, of intuition and reason, the aspirant could attain to the heights of wisdom and spiritual understanding. Sacred Geometry was one important methodology employed in this quest. To the Gnostics, faith was part of the process, but faith alone, especially in unverifiable dogmas, was contrary to the goal of enlightenment. We have replaced our faith in religious dogmas with faith in political dogmas and our allegiance to the all-powerful institution of the Church with that of the authoritarian state. The new Gnosis asks people to think for themselves, to constantly question ‘authority’ and to cultivate their own inherent intelligence. Through this means the liberation and higher evolution of Mankind shall be realized.

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The Gnosis of Dr. Lew Graham Dr. Lew Graham has spent much of his life studying the subject of gnosis in all its forms. His fascinating life story and tremendous wellspring of knowledge in this area makes for a conversation that is foundational to an understanding gnosis in a manner that applies to us very poignantly today. GDR - Who were the historical Gnostics, and how was their worldview different from, you know, say, the traditional Christians view ? LG - Well, the historical Gnostics, were the traditional Christians. Christianity didn't exist as an organized group. Early on it was more of a spiritual calling, and a spiritual path. When the Roman empire took over Christianity and made it the official state religion. But the term Christianity is very different from the way it was practiced and understood in the early days of the 1st century. GDR - So it was considered more of, kind of a path, or a choice, like someone would choose to go follow, like within Buddhism for instance, there are many traditions in which you can kind of decide which path you want to pursue according to your own predilections? 58

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LG: - Well, that's one way of putting it, but really, it was more of a radical wisdom about direct contact with the divine, without having to go an intermediary, or to a temple or change money. In the other social rituals like that. When Jesus was quoted accurately as saying, "the kingdom of God is within you", what he was saying is that, 1st of all, Caesar is not God! And 2nd, everyone who can have access to the divine without having to go through a group of political , you know, meddlers and gate keepers. GDR - Well, that's very apropos; that's exactly the idea behind this, to bring a modern take on Gnosis in that exact principle, and allow people to decide for themselves how they choose to pursue an experience; a direct experience with the divine as you say. So, with that being said how does Gnosis affect your daily life in practice, or in theory? LG - If you consider Gnosis to be what the Greek word originally meant, which was direct, inexplicable, intuitive knowing through contact with the spirit world. I would say that I am pretty much in constant contact; it guides my decisions, fuels my intuitions, helps me follow my activities and energies in one direction versus another; Helps with choices. It would never tell you what to do in terms of the future but you can ask what the consequences of a particular path might be, so I do that a lot. And I feel that if you turn that away If I take step A, what would happen versus step B? And that’s what I hear actually, when I died I asked the question:"what's life gonna be like if I stay in this beautiful place? And then I ask a different question which is:" wow wow wow, what life would be like if I go back to the body?" GDR - Right. LG - So I do a lot of that sort of test; testing of the spiritual world to get a download, shall we say, of unexplainable intuitive knowing that's richly detailed, unerringly accurate and a great source of inspiration and support. 59

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GDR - That's so awesome! What method do you use? Is it a form of prayer, or is it a meditation that you do? Do you consult various tools like throwing the I-Ching or Tarot? What do you personally do? how does that work for you? LG: - Good question! Well, I've been at this so long that I'd sort of naturally tune in. The 1st step is to get my head out of the way because the intellect, in many respects, is the only of really knowing. So I get the chatter out of the way and I tune in. And I make contact with the spiritual world through the utterly trustworthy frontal spirit that is our firewall. Jesus called it the Holy Ghost, New-Agers call it the higher-self; all the same thing. There is an androgynous spirit that's angelic in nature, that doesn't have the need for it's own reincarnation. And in it is the closest access we have to the spiritual world. So one of my teachers wrote a book called ;"walking in a sacred manner", and that's something I took very seriously and take on board as a daily meditative practice which is to walk in a sacred manner by being opened to set in our seeking. GDR - In western magic and in those disciplines, magicians might describe Gnosis as a state of being similar to Samhadi which is the state of non-mind you were talking about getting rid of that mental chatter ... LG - Absolutely! You've have to clear that away first. And then you can receive messages. GDR - I talk sometimes about the writings, the exegesis, of Philip K. Dick, and to me it seems like he obviously had a bit of mania of his own, yet when one looks at his exegesis, they are these diamonds of brilliance that can be found within it. Have you ever perused that? Have you seen what he said, and is there anything that has struck you? The biggest thing to me was; he talked about how the empire, kind of this Archonic empire, is the one running thing. And that we cannot defeat the empire by using the same method that the empire uses; violence and murder, and theft, and things like 60

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that. Like the idea of causing a revolution to overthrow a tyrant makes the next person who's up there the next tyrant. LG - It just is the same pattern, absolutely. GDR - Right! So where do you foresee, or how do you , as changing these kind of patterns? Is that even possible? I mean, isn't this a part of the traditional idea, to shun in any way possible the influence of materialism on one’s own outlook? LG - Well I'm not sure what you mean by materialism. It's ok to have things and to appreciate the created world. This calvinistic idea that you have to be poor and miserable is something that I reject! I think God is loving, God is happy, God wishes us to be happy. GDR - I think so too! LG - As for Phillip K. Dick, that’s a rich scene of discussion. He’s sometimes called "the man who remembered the future". He had an odd psychic pre-conscious way of knowing things and his short stories were science-fictional, allegedly, but they were made into movies like Blade Runner and Total Recall, and it might not really look forward, you probably know that!? GDR - Right! LG: But Dick would write things and experience them months, or years later in which he exactly what he had written in fiction that would happen to him in real life. Then this strangest, most mundane possible way so it's like he was seeing actually the future. Knowing a little bit about his life I think he was a bit manic. I think he's embellished it but I think he had a real gift. And it is a candor that I would call "Gnosis" in that he had an ability to tap into some resource through which a lot could be perceived about what would happen in a future time and place. GDR - There seems to be this dichotomy between the spiritual type person who says, "we've got to change the 61

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world, we've got to change all of these things; we've got to run around and get people together and make this revolution of consciousness (and things like that!) but then there's also this aspect, at least within me, that just nags and says: "well, it doesn't really matter, per se, because we're going through these cycles and if we just focus our best towards our own spiritual growth and progress, that that is the highest goal, and weather we die in a fire or by some other means, violently, or if we achieved peace, either way it's kind of irrelevant to the grander scheme. How do you particularly view those two things that seem so close but also so opposed at times ? LG - I am more in line with your perspectives. And I have a slightly different take on it. First of all, having died once, and I remember this life-time, I have no fear of death. In fact I’m looking forward to it. And here is the reason why the early Christians were so fearless about death and why Peter for example, the requested to be crucified upside down. Because they knew that death was just the beginning of something else. And what I can say about that is that while we're here incarnated in this plane. The issue people fall into is to try to make spiritual matters more like our political world; struggles and causes in polarity, and that sort of thing. That may have worked in one point in time but only work to create a religious empire. It doesn't really work to create the conditions that advance spiritual awareness and growth. It's hardly the recipe for wisdom. What I would say is that a commitment for it to be heartfelt and passionate is wonderful, but you need to be selffocused. Everyone seems to be going around trying to fix everybody else in the world, but the one person they have control over, and the one person whose free will they can speak for is their own. So I believe that December 2012 issued in a new time where the ‘save the wales’ group-think movements begin to die off. And we're having them 62

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participate in the usual polarity of funneling our energy into causes. The most important calling is to look into our own consciousness and advance by fastidious awareness, step by step, and ultimately allow that to mature, incubate, and blossom into something else. GDR - That's such a beautiful concept! So what would you advise, would be obviously the personal growth aspect, but we are intimately connected with one another, so how do we work together without kind of creating a new monster, or a new movement, how do we get together without turning it into something that isn't so great? LG - Well you do it the way nature does, and you create magnetic conditions. By taking responsibility for yourself first, so that your own charisma and inspiration are something that motivates and attracts others. The same way a fertile land attracts seeds, seemingly. It's just that seeds flourish on it. Seeds are everywhere. So what you do is to create the most fertile soil you possibly can for other people to be inspired by. And to interact with and grow from your example. And one very important example I believe, is to take 100% personal accountability for everything one feels, reacts to, and experiences. The New Age movement has a kind of subculture. They erroneously use whatever happens to us as something that we created. I don't believe that. I think there's a lot of free-will in the world, and a lot of different people are free-willed by a lot of different forces. But I believe that we have the ability to create this wrong reaction, or response, for what we experience in life. So I would say the place to start is with full personal accountability for everything one feels, thinks, or experiences. GDR - That's really lovely! So, can you tell me more about your experience, your near-death experience, a synopsis from start to finish how you ended up in this situation where you passed away for a bit? LG - I was supposed to be on the United flight 175 on 63

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September 11th 2001, and I had this horrible feeling in my gut standing at the ticket counter on the way to board that would connect with that flight, that would board that flight. And it was just so horrible that I just said to myself, I cannot go to Boston? Till I have to go a different way. And I stepped out of the flight, much to the consternation on the staff, who'd got me 1st class seats all the way from start to finish all the way from L.A to Hawaii. Of course I would have never landed to Hawaii because, you know flight 175 crashed into the south tower of the World Trade Center. GDR - Ohhh! LG - And I had a horrible sense of sadness to the souls that did perish there. On the bright side I had a recurring nightmare that I experienced at least once a month for maybe 20 years; of dying in a plane crash. That was the 1st class cabin that was flying into a city. That nightmare stopped, and never ever ever came back which is wonderful. GDR - WOW! LG - I used to wake up and drenched in sweat and absolutely rattled, saying to myself, ”That seemed real, that seemed real! Did it really happen?" And it would take an hour or two until I eventually get back to sleep and say: "oh no that was just a dream. It seems so real, WOW!" Anyway, the following winter, I felt spiritually incomplete. So I went to New York and I visited the World Trade Center site, everyday for 5 or 6 days. And it was cold in Manhattan that winter with a particularly unbearable cold snap. Now the site itself smelt horrible. I went all along fence and the channeling fence around it and attempted to make spiritual contact with the guardian angels of the holy ghosts of the people who died there, and to usher them on their path, having been started at that horrible place. And what I discovered in the process was that a lot of people had mistakenly thought that they were in hell. They were dead and in hell. And they were still living in the torment of that miserable hallucination. I think that's 64

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probably because they were burned alive. But I sent as much healing energy as I could to those souls. And over the course of 5 days I started getting weaker, and sicker, which is typical of the use of healing energy. GDR - Right. LG - Particularly when you spend a lot of it, you feel strange and tired. But by the time I was getting ready to leave New York. I was started to feel really sick like I had a flu coming on. On the plane from New York to the west cost I really began to feel bad. I had aches like I never had before in life; no matter what position I was in I couldn't get comfortable. Everything that ever hurt in athletics, or sports in my life began to feel like a fresh injury. So I had them all over my body from, virtually, neck to toe. I got to LA and managed to get into a cab and hauled to my place in West L.A, and I went to bed thinking that like when you have the flu I will bounce back from it pretty quickly. Over the next day or so, I went to alternate season-chills. I had water bottles besides the bed and the emergency phone there to make calls. But every time I reached my hand from under the cover to try to reach them, I would erupt in such intense chills that I couldn't even grab anything, grab a bottle of water, or grab a phone. So I put my hands back under the covers, and I started to sweat profusely, and so this ultimate Malaria-like syndrome of fever and chills just kept going on, non-stop, until at some point I began to have itchy lungs and started coughing. When I started coughing it felt better but also worse at the same time and it was like it was inflaming and irritating somethings in my lungs when I coughed. GDR - Right! LG - My eyes were closed much of this time, I opened my eyes at one point and I saw that there was blood all over the sheets and I was coughing up blood. GDR - Woah! LG - I had no idea. And that continued for a while. I 65

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didn't know what to do; I couldn't do anything about it. And the pain was so intense any time I would cough, I would just kinda huddle into a fetal position in which position I began to lose control over my bodily functions. Ordinarily I'm a very prim and proper, well-behaved and a fine person but I had this feeling of resignation when I realized that I was losing control over my lungs and my vital functions. I had started to think there's nothing you can do about it. That's just the way it is. And at some point after that the room began to change. I noticed it was filling with 4 beautiful people and tall whitish angelic beings. And I began to hear a distant exhilarating music, it's so hard to describe; it's like nothing you ever heard but It was like salve to the soul. So as I looked I saw the people all standing there, and they looked familiar but I didn't recognize, except for my younger brother. I saw those whitish beings and I asked myself: "what on earth is happening here?” And I suddenly realized, when I asked myself that question: "I'm dying!?" and I felt thrilled! I was so happy about that! I said "at last" to myself basically. I said to myself: "well here's your new body! I’m not stuck with this old thing anymore, it's great!” As I turned to face my love ones in the room I saw my body was still in the bed but I was not in my body. So I walked out to my younger brother and said, you know, "do I have to go?" and he shook his head "no", and so "do I need to stay here?", he shakes his head "no", and I said "well do I stay, or go?" and he gave me a thumbs up and a thumbs down with both hands. Communication was crystal clear. GDR - Like a telepathic dialogue? LG - Oh, it's richer than that! Richer than psychic, or telepathic experience that ever happened. So yes like that! Without words, but with complete understanding. So at that point when I said: "so it's up to me", I got this resonating love washing from above me, and it was divine and energetic spirit from when I was 5 years old. I recognized it. I didn't 66

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see who or what was behind it. But I kind of stood there and communicated with this divine energy for a while. I asked to see the past and what I saw was a series of shimmering balls on the right side of the room. Everything happened kind of from right to left like Hebrew writing, or Arabic script. GDR - Right! LG - And everything was sort of stacked and leaning, to the left. But I looked in the mirror and each room was like a hologram. And I realized it was a lifetime. I stuck my finger into one lifetime and disappeared for weeks or months. And I came back, and found out where it was. I was just sticking my finger in this shimmering bubble of recollection, or experience. And from that point on I can look at each bubbles, and I can understand everything it was about. What happened during that life time and how I got to have certain hang-ups, what I learned. What facet of the soul was polished. And I remember the funny thing to me was that, except for 2 spontaneous dreams I've had, all the Money I've spent going to places like the Yellowstone Life Institute, various past-life regression therapists; all those stories were not mine. Everything else was sort of a tale told by wondering spirit who wanted to have its perspective understood. GDR - Wow! LG - I remember how hilarious I found this at the time. It was just the greatest practical joke, you know... GDR - (Laugh) I can imagine! LG - After communicating with this spirit for a while, I got to the key questions for me. As to that music I loved; the music is something I believe I can recreate. And I believe it was based on what Pythagorus called "the Harmony of the Spheres". There's still some missing mathematics to complete the 156 cords scale, but I asked about the work I've done over decades in researching the books that I call my Gnosis Series, now in their 4th edition known as "Gnosis Onward ". I asked about the book series wondering did I suss this stuff 67

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out right? Did I get the point? And I got the answer, I did! And so I said :"well, am I finished?" And the answer was:" No, but there's just more to learn and there's more to discover." And so I said: "If I stay here in this beautiful place with my loved-ones and this music and this amazing and indescribable love, what will happen to all this work I've done over the decades.?” And when I saw the future flowing kind of a series of streams from right to left, going from low to high and I understood, like a hologram between this stream and that and how they connected to each other. And what I saw that had been in place for some time was a redundancy plan. God, or the universe had put a redundancy plan in place and I could freely go and somebody else who pick up the work; all the notes and material and sundries I had left behind. So I said:" oh ok! Great, so no harm!" Absolutely not! Everything was provided for! GDR - Wow! LG - I've then asked the converse question:" Show me the future if I go back to the body and leave this beautiful place.” And I saw the same kind of pattern, different patterns this time. But same pattern floating from right to left, and low to high. I looked at it and tuned into the period about 5 to 10 years later, and said:"oh my goodness that's gonna be hard, wow! That's gonna be really hard! And in that beautiful place with all support and love, the yesterday answer, the telepathic communication, the ability to just know anything by thinking about it I said, ”Oh, I’ll go back to body no problem", and the moment I did, I went from standing up and talking to my family and I handle tall whitish beings around and communicating to this overarching presence, to being back in my blood soiled bed, and in the body in which I said, ”Oh my goodness, that was a mistake!" GDR - ( LAUGH) "Why did I not take the other pill!!?" LG - Exactly, exactly! Because this reincarnation is an ephemeral fixation from the other side. You look at it and 68

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you say:"well, maybe yes, maybe no. I'll choose that path without taking the blue pill, whatever.” But when you’re actually stuck in the middle of it, the experience is totally different. GDR - Yeah. LG - So, the good thing I found out from that experience was that there were some discoveries to be made and I knew the whole game plan. I knew every game of Poker I'd ever be playing for the rest of my life. Intimately. I mean every hand, what would occur, I knew the future in great detail. Then over the next 3 days that awareness began to fade and I started to panick. GDR - Did you feel a sense of loss over it? LG - Oh my goodness! I felt fear! Because if you knew which way the ball is coming you'd know where to swing, right? GDR - Right! LG - I remember they called me a name when I was out of the body. And part of it had a meaning like "son". I can't remember the name, I thought I'd always remember that. I'd recognize the name the moment I telepathically heard it. It felt familiar like putting on a comfortable old jacket. But even that name went away and I began to lose track of what was going to occur in the future, why it was gonna be hard, and what I had to cope with, and so forth and so on. Now I assumed that since I got rehydrated I must crawl on my stomach after I went back to the body, and got into a steamy shower to rehydrate. I assumed that I'd get well and everything would be fine. It wasn't! My memories began to fade and I'm kinda in the middle of the physical and the spiritual world. When I meet on of these people that I've already seen in the future, I get a particular kind of unmistakable intuitive signal, and will take that signal and I've had it several times since then and everybody I've met has been significant. 69

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GDR - Wow! LG - ... And they've fit right into the plan. It turned out I had Legionnaires Disease, a bacterial fungal or mold-like infection in the lungs. 100% of people who go more than 72 hours without being treated by antibiotics die! I was a rare exception to the rule. so that was the story of the so called near death experience. I almost made it out of the body for good, and it was my choice and I decided to come back. GDR - I for one am thankful that you here! (Laughs) LG - (Laughs) Thank you Gabriel! GDR - What a tremendous story! That is just beautiful! So what do you feel is, you know after that perspective, and after a lifetime of study and kind of devotion to trying to understand purpose and meaning of life; what do you feel your purpose is here? I mean, does it feel like all of the tearing, and all of the pain and suffering you had to return to is the only way to growth? What is the endgame in your opinion? LG - The endgame is about spiritual and soul evolution, acquiring wisdom, which is our job over every lifetime. And so I do a prayer to my guardian angel every day, or the Holy Ghost, or my higher-self, or whatever you want to call it! But I reached out to the spirit world, to the great company of high-selves, to the heavenly host and to every benevolent spirits through them, because they are interested in our well being. And what I thought was the big picture. What can I contribute over the course of a lifetime? But as I did decide to come back to this lifetime to get the information I had discovered, and I'd gained on my way. Not with a sense of ego, but with a sense of completion and purpose accomplished. And then within that larger context I thought it was something I could focus on and do everyday. For example, I got psychic pinch, shall we say, the intuitive alert from you yesterday, Gabriel. I emailed and you said, “you must have felt me thinking about you!” 70

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GDR - (Laughs) I was! LG - Yes I did! And I pay attention to smallest sort of signs and wonders and follow them to the point that I have completely discharged as best as I can. Whatever contribution I can make in any situation. While at the same time working on the overall life-mission of rekindling ancient magic and reminding people of what used to exist in this world.

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The Gnosis of Dr. Rupert Sheldrake I met Dr. Sheldrake in New York a couple of years back and had already been a fan of his work for a long time. I enjoyed his approachable nature and sharply subtle wit and humor. “I’m all for science and reason as long as it is scientific and reasonable.”, he softly said to the audience, drawing a good chuckle. Dr. Sheldrake’s work has been the bane of the Mechanistic Scientist since his book, A New Science of Life was released in 1983. He maintains that there is a morphic field that contains a collective memory. This field is outside the bounds of the material world and therefore is an irksome notion to many who hold an ‘it’s material, or it doesn’t exist’ viewpoint. I was lucky enough to include this, my second interview with him. GDR – I asked a bunch of my people online about questions to ask you. I picked the best one out of it. The first one I have is from Sir Penrose’s research on quantum vibration in microtubules. The long and short of it is that they believe that the quantum pathways inside the brain that are the source from which our consciousness comes. But it seems like it doesn’t answer the question of consciousness, just 72

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where it might be received. RS – Well, for years they have been plugging this idea of microtubules as the place where it is being received, I myself feel the interface is the whole pattern of brain activity including the electrical patterns of activity and it’s not just microtubules which are no doubt quantum processors which interface with morphic fields, but so are cell membranes that are whole pattern of activity throughout whole regions of the brain. So I think they have zeroed in on one little bit. So, I think the basic idea that there are quantum process that there is an interface throughout such processes in the brain may be okay, But I think their extreme specificity about microtubules is like saying the whole economy depends on the activity of cash registers in supermarkets. Its true to a point that they are involved, but it doesn’t explain the whole thing. GDR – I like the cash register analogy. One thing I have come across, especially in circles with people talking about consciousness and psychedelics and spirituality, a lot of people take your work, and they pick and choose how they might want to apply it. Could you explain what these morphic fields are and what they are not in relation to spirituality and things like that. RS – Morphic fields are the organizing fields of systems at all levels of organization including atoms, molecules, crystals, cells, organisms, flocks of birds, solar systems and galaxies. Morphic Fields are organizing structures that make the whole more than the sum of it's parts in self organizing systems. They have a built in memory by morphic resonance from similar things of the some kind in the past, therefore they are basis of collected memory within living organisms, and basically they underlie the habits of nature, in it's most general sense my theory says the so called laws of nature are more like habits. So it's a theory of habits and a theory of collective memory. It helps to explain the collective unconscious that Jung proposed. It helps to explain how repeated activities can 73

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have a particular effect in the context of religion and spirituality. Rituals are activities that are deliberately done in as similar way as possible, like thanksgiving dinner or the passover ritual or the holy Communion. These rituals are done in similar way that they have been done before which creates the right conditions for morphic resonance. I think that morphic resonance explains part of the power of rituals and mantras where the same phrase is repeated, and by repeating it in the present, you tune into yourself and others using that in the past. So I think it helps with those aspects of spirituality, but I don’t think it tells us much about consciousness itself because habits are usually unconscious. It leaves open the question of consciousness, and creativity, both of those areas are important in spirituality but morphic resonance itself doesn’t explain either the existence of consciousness or creativity but it is compatible with consciousness being an arena of choice. Morphic resonance is really the habit principle in evolution we need at least two principles, habit and creativity. So it explains how; once new creative things have happened, including new creative spiritual breakthroughs, they become easier for others to follow. It can explain the propagation of creative events but it can't explain creativity itself. GDR – I read a book by the author Peter J Carroll, he mentioned you, one thing he talked about is that He himself is an Atheist, however, he believes in things like telepathy and morphic fields. So going along secondary to the last question, does one require a belief in god per se, to believe that morphic fields are a real thing or is it something that can be separately applied as some people do? RS – Oh Yes, it can be separately applied. In my first book A new Science of life I give 4 different theories of creativity, one of which is an expanded version of naturalism, or materialism. Morphic fields and morphic resonance are a part of science and scientific investigation and don’t require a 74

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spiritual or religious belief, but they leave open the question of spirituality and I think that the kind of world view I'm putting forward is compatible with a spiritual world view but it doesn’t necessitate it. I think its important to have in science something which doesn’t require a particular world view or require Atheism. Right now science is inherently Atheistic; the materialist world view. So it sort of marginalizes spirituality. I think the new kind of science I'm keen on would allow for both spirituality and an expanded liberal naturalism. GDR – It seems there is an ongoing refinement. Once the bickering dies down a little bit there seems to be a drawing closer. Are there things going on now in current research that are encouraging as far as these trends are concerned? Are we finding new things or less things that would lead us to believe that morphic resonance is occurring in the regard to consciousness and the mind sciences, for instance? RS - There have been very few experiments directly looking at morphic resonance. One of the features of morphic resonance is that memories are not stored inside the brain, and also that inheritance involves morphic resonance not just genes and epigenetics. There have been some rather interesting experiments recently particularly, one involving mice, I don’t know if you saw the paper on mice where the father is made averse to a chemical Acetophenone that they don’t normally encounter in nature, or the lab, they are made averse to it, they smell it and are given electric shocks to their feet, it's one of those old style cruel experiments, so after a while they are terrified when they smell Acetophenone. Their children and grandchildren are terrified when they smell Acetophenone, They inherited this fear from their fathers, even when they have never met, or even when the mothers are artificially inseminated. So the only way that conventional science can explain that would be in terms of epigenetic modifications of the genes in a way that goes far beyond 75

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anything that has ever been demonstrated. Whereas morphic resonance would make it relatively easy to explain. I think the data suggests to me that its a combination of the two, there may be some degree of epigenetic modification but I think that the main learning may be transferred by morphic resonance. That's a very interesting paper that recently attracted a lot of attention. Another one was some work by Michael Levin at Tufts did experiment where he trained flatworms to respond to light in a particular way, they can learn, they are simple organisms but they have the capacity to learn. So he trained a population of flatworms then he cut their heads off and they don’t have much of a brain but they have a sort of Cerebral ganglia, and the eyes are in the head as well, so he cut the head and brain and eyes and these worms regenerated their heads and they can still remember what they had learned before their head was cut off. So you would have to say there are some physical memory stores all over the body, which is possible, or that this is a morphic resonance effect. It would require further experiments to to decide between them. But the fact that these experiments have been done, or reported in the last few months is to me very exciting because these areas where morphic resonance is definitely one of the potential explanations. GDR – So one of the difficulties in things like morphic fields is how to map these things that are not necessarily in the traditional material realm. Are there ways that we can do this in a scientific manner that will allow us to make progress? I suppose that the worm test is a good example of a repeatable method; are there others? How can we try to figure out what's going on in the non-local aspect? RS – The main thing is to do experiments to show whether morphic resonance is happening or not. There is already quite a lot of circumstantial evidence and experiments on human learning, and animal learning that suggests morphic resonance is happening. I discussed this at length in my book 76

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A New Science of Life which came out 2-3 years ago, in America it's called Morphic Resonance. I have a whole appendix summarizing the research so far and describing ten new tests. So the basic tests are when one animal would learn something in one place and other animals of the same kind should learn the same thing elsewhere. There is already evidence this happens with rats. Experiments with people could show this as well; several have been done. It's not difficult to do the experiments, the problem is getting them funded or persuading people in universities to do unconventional research because there is a big disincentive to doing anything unconventional in the scientific world because you can damage your career. The problem is more sociological than scientific. GDR – So have you found in your own research over the years that this has been kind of a detriment that some things you have promoted? In the original trialogues Terence Mckenna said your book was a prime candidate for burning, have you found it difficult to continue your research? How do you continue on and get around those pitfalls? RS – Well, there is a lot of prejudice within the scientific world against morphic resonance and especially psychic phenomenon like telepathy on which I have also worked. So there is a kind of narrow dogmatic conservatism, and that after all is the theme of my recent book Science Set Free, I think this is a problem for all of science this dogmatic attitude that has become increasingly predominant. I believe that science should be a method of free enquiry, I don't think it should be a dogmatic belief system, and that's what keeps me going, I really believe in science, I think science has a great and bright future but not if it remains under the control of this extreme narrow dogmatism. So there are plenty of people who want science to move on and change. Not everyone in the scientific world is dogmatic, though the dogmatic people are a rather vociferous minority. So I'm encouraged by the 77

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fact that there are lots of open minded people in the scientific world, I meet them all the time, but many of them keep their views private because they are afraid of damaging their careers by coming out of the closet and speaking more freely, at least in public. But I think the potential of revitalization of science is very great, not just in my area but in other areas too, and that's precisely why I wrote the book Science set Free to explain what I think the problems are and how we can move forward. GDR – I really enjoyed it I thought it was an excellent work. So traditionally Gnosis , from the Greek, represents an experience that is not necessarily intellectually based but a personal experience, for instance if one is to talk about making love, that is one thing, but to actually experience making love, after that experience they have gnosis on that matter. How have you experienced gnosis in that sense in a modern applicable way in your life? RS – Gnosis in its general sense has the same roots of our word knowledge. So there is a sense that we all have access to knowledge, and knowing through experiencing this happens every day all the time. A more deep sense of knowing, a sense of connection with a greater consciousness then our own is usually called a mystical experience and I have had quite a few experiences of that kind. Things that make clear to me that the world is more then just a surface appearances of thing or just the mechanistic model of things, that’s there is a kind of mind or consciousness within the natural world and one that transcends it as well. So I would call that a sort of contemplative experience or mystical experience. The Greeks used the word Fyuria, Fyuria meant intuitive knowing. Some of the gnostics were Platonists, Plato thought that there was a world of eternal forms and ideas that we can directly glimpse in mystical or altered states on consciousness, and I think many of the gnostics in the traditional sense of the word were rigid in Platonic tradition. I’m not a Platonist myself because I 78

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don’t think the forms of things are all fixed, I think we live in a radically evolutionary universe. The Platonic version of Gnosis is not one I've ever felt very drawn to, but the sense of the intuitive, mystical, unitive experience is something I have had myself and I think many other people have had and that's the root of any spirituality or religion in the ultimate analysis.

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The Gnosis of Camron Wiltshire GDR - What is the study of Sacred Geometry and how does it affect the way we see our past, present and future? CW - First we should define Sacred Geometry. Sacred denotes something of a divine or holy nature and geometry is the combination of geo, meaning earth, with metry, meaning to measure or measurement. In other words, Sacred Geometry is the measurement of nature divine. It appears from all angles, that life as we know it plays out according to mathematical templates (ratios and proportions) embedded within nature herself, or rather, that what we experience as nature, is comprised of interwoven wave forms of self assembling and disassembling materia. Materia whose alchemical operations and interactions reveal patterns (from the latin ‘pater’ or father) that repeat throughout all perceivable scales of existence, from the, “sub-microscopic to the super galactic” as my teacher Randall Carson has described it. This “hidden architecture of creation”, serves as the template or blueprint through which the universal language of mathematics manifests into form. As for how this realization modifies our perspective of time and history, I’d say it’s something akin to the key to the 80

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holy city. Cryptic utterances aside, Sacred Geometry is the most potent system for comprehending the great Mystery of life and the operating system upon which it runs. Therefore all that is, has been or could be, can be best understood through the modification to our perceptual lenses this knowledge provides. GDR - Does the concept of sacred geometry lead one to believing that the universe is an ordered construct, lending evidence to the existence of a creator, or is there more than one way to view it? CW - “A super-intelligence is the only good explanation of the origin of life and the complexity of nature’ – Anthony Flew “Rather than accept that fantastically small probability of life having arisen through the blind forces of nature, it seemed better to suppose that the origin of life was a deliberate intellectual act. By “better” I mean less likely to be wrong.”–Sir Fred Hoyle Both of the above quotes mirror completely my own perspective as I tumble down the rabbit hole that is the study of Sacred Geometry. Such a feat of engineering is not random and implies some incomprehensible cosmic intelligence has set in motion this whole as above so below alembic vitrium show. Regardless of your professed faith or belief system, life could not function without the supremely complex coordination of innumerable variables throughout all visible scales of resolution. For example, ponder the fact that the following numerical cipher shows up in so many different scales simultaneously throughout our galaxy. Our planet rotates on it’s axis relative to the Sun in exactly 86,400 seconds every solar day. The Sun’s diameter is 864,000 miles with an accuracy of 99.9%. The distance from our Sun to the brightest star in the sky Sirius is 8.64 light years and the distance from it to the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy is 864,000 81

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parsecs. Thanks to Scott Onstott for providing such scintillating infographics and the inspiration behind this particular revelation. GDR - Are instances of Sacred Geometry included in scripture proof of the ‘truth’ of the scripture in which it is contained? CW - No, to believe so would be to commit the sin (missing the mark) of the fallacy of virtue or genetic fallacy, and falsely presume, that because scripture contains scientific truth within it, that it must follow then that the book in which it is contained is therefore sacrosanct-ified “truth” so to speak. I think this is yet another primary example of our need to revisit history with new eyes all together, especially concerning the astro-theological basis of the three dominant monotheistic religions. All of whose holy days of worship are devoted to certain celestial bodies. Whether or not the practitioners realize this is a different matter. Case in point, here are a few rather curious examples of technically advanced scientific information being anachronistically encoded in scripture. Those familiar with apocalyptic Judeo-christianity are likely also already familiar with the number of the beast 666. Yet most likely have never considered that within this allegory there is encoded highly evolved scientific information which unveils the meaning behind this oft maligned segment of the book of Revelation. “Here is wisdom let him who hath understanding count the number of the beast, for it is a number of a man, six hundred three score and six.” – Revelations 13:18 KJV How is it possible that this potent allegory could encode at least 4 scientific facts of a highly technical nature, which if we adhere to the current paradigm of mainstream historical scholarship, could not have been understood by the author at the time of its writing? Again don’t take my word for it, let’s begin the exegetical revelation of this encoded scripture. First of all our planet maintains an orbital velocity around 82

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the Sun (of God) which equals 66,600 (99.9%) miles per hour. Don’t take my word for it, to verify this please head to your favorite search engine and type in Nasa, earth data fact sheet and access the following information located underneath the heading titled,“Oribital parameter”. You will find listed there that Earth’s mean orbital velocity equals 29.78 (km/s) Convert this into miles by multiplying by 0.621371 and the result is 18.5044 miles per second. Repeat this expansion by the same factor of 60 to receive another fascinating repetitive number sequence of 1,110.265 miles per minute. Convert this number into miles per hour by again multiplying by 60 and the result is 66,615.94 miles per hour (99.9%). Secondarily, we turn our attention from the Earth’s speed to the Moon’s size to discover the next correspondence. The Earth’s moon is 2,160 miles in diameter (99.9%). The cube of 6 or 6.6.6 equals 216. Utilizing Pythagorean addition, the zeros are understood as merely place holders denoting scale or orders of magnitude. The number essence or digital root of the figure is found in the numeric pattern preceding them. Thus ignoring the thousandth place holder which would give us 2,160 we here again we have a 666 correspondence appearing in this scripture as well as the physical geometry of our planet’s moon, commonly associated with the Virgin Mary or Isis and another divine portion of the holy trinity. Keep in mind that the Moon rules the tides and that without it life on this planet most likely never would have evolved beyond a very simple stage of existence, if at all. The tides are the means by which primary marine life was swept into the intertidal zone which provided the impetus for amphibious life and later terrestrial life to evolve, or so the theory goes. Falling further into this magical scripture, yet another correspondence presents itself. The Moon is calibrated so that as it orbits us once a month, it operates much like a flywheel, stabilizing our planet’s rotation while 83

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holding our axial tilt at 23.4˚ relative to the plane of the ecliptic. The complementary angle produced by this alignment again yields the number of the man/beast 66.6˚ (90.0˚-23.4˚) This angular relationship provides the procession of the equinoxes and the solstices, which in turn give us the annual freezing and melting cycles of the polar ice caps. This process is critical for the yearly replenishment of the food chain via the infusion of purified and remineralized water which nourishes the entire planetary ecosystem’s food chain. Finally, Carbon based life, which is a vital ingredient for all known naturally occurring life on this planet.

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Essential molecular essence is again characterized by 666. Carbon molecules are composed of 6 electrons, 6 protons and 6 neutrons. All organic life is carbon based. Carbon 85

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amazingly is a by product of the explosive death of stars billions of years previous to the creation of the earth. For those raised in a fundamentalist interpretation of these scriptures please keep in mind that these revelations do not invalidate your faith in a higher being that loves you. Many of this mysterious architect or engineers Suns were literally sacrificed (transmuted) billions of years before our planet came into being, so that we might live. Unquestioningly there is so much more to the astrotheological Jesus narrative than previously understood. The beautiful irony here is that science is proving the existence of God and part of the hidden meaning encoded within St. John’s revelatory gnosis. For those subjected to a demonized and irrational view point of this segment of St. John’s apocalyptic vision I present the following advice. “Can we be so naïve and superstitious as to ascribe evilness to a mere number? If you are scared of the number 666, or attribute it to the devil, you have simply mistaken what is being said about this number. St. John clearly informs us in Revelation that 666 is a number of wisdom and a number of man. If you fear this number, you are but fearing yourself and fearing wisdom. If there is anything beastly about this number at all, St. John is asking but one thing of you overcome your fears.” -Claudia Pavonis GDR - Sacred Geometry has gained popularity over time and seems to be on the forefront of many people’s minds, capturing the imagination. Many use it to bolster their own views on god, aliens, and ancient advanced cultures. How does one keep the integrity of the study intact while so many people wish to use it for their own well meaning, but perhaps, misguided purposes? CW - The beauty of the study of Sacred Geometry that it is self evidently true. Sola fide or blind faith, is usually required at some level, by those who would take advantage of 86

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the uninitiated so to speak. Developing your own powers of critical thinking and immersing yourself not only in the study of Sacred Geometry but of logical fallacies, sophistry, disinformation and so on, are vital means for identifying when you are being fed a load of bullshit by some would be authority figure or new age con artist. The 7 liberating arts; Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric, Arithmetic, Geometry, Music and Astronomy are also key components for awakening the eye of the soul and cultivating the intelligence of the heart. Becoming well versed in utilizing these implements in pursuit of wisdom can save you years in your quest for gnosis. Fools gold is just that and what a shame and waste of one’s precious time it would be, to find yourself lost in the illusions of another, for lack of a well honed sword of reason. A necessary means to cleave wheat from chaff or egotist from sage. GDR - What do you personally find the most thrilling about this study? CW - The implications of the revelations present within an authentic study of Sacred Geometry and it’s associated magical and mystery traditions is frankly staggering. I am a passionate advocate for human liberation and I find that this multi-faceted philosophical discipline provides the greatest means for removing the blight of ignorance and violence that is sadly still so prevalent in the world today. War has appropriately been likened to, “the death of reason” and so providing the antidote as best as I can offer is work I am happy to be a part of. I find it thrilling to know that such arts exist and that anyone willing to do the work can achieve gnosis through their labors. Our salvation is there for the making. This is the purpose of our work at SGI. Randall Carlson has devoted the lion share of his current incarnation to preserving and expanding this liberating scientific knowledge, and we at SacredGeometryInternational.com have gone to 87

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great lengths to make it accessible to those who want to comprehend and apply this sacred wisdom to their lives through numerous free articles, videos, podcasts and classes (available for a nominal fee) with the hopes that a new generation of rational mystics and divine scientist philosophers, might one day coordinate their efforts in developing harmonic centers for the spiritual, scientific and philosophical evolution of human kind. GDR - How does Sacred Geometry relate to Astrotheology? What does this tell us about the concept of the precession of the equinoxes? Should we all be studying our astrological charts more closely, or simply take all this as mystical units of measurement? CW - Astro-theology is defined by dictionary.com as “Theology founded on observation or knowledge of the celestial bodies. Religion has been defined as, “a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.” - Derham. How this relates to Sacred Geometry and the precession of the equinoxes is something worthy of much consideration. Short of explaining the mechanism of the third motion of our planet and it’s utilization in timing the past and potential future episodes of periodic catastrophe here, I will relay that we have multimedia articles and videos present on our site which feature visual aides and animations that help explain this cosmology to the true lover of wisdom.The best way to answer this question is to request that readers visit our youtube channel )(youtube.com/sacredgeometryatl) and watch our film Cosmic Patterns and Cycles of Catastrophe as it provides a thorough overview of what is likely the most important scientific discovery of the 20th summed up with the following quote again from Randall. 88

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“A cosmic tempo based on Sacred Geometry, encoded in myth & mystical architecture throughout the Earth governs the unfolding of world ages, the rise and fall of civilizations & is ultimately the very basis of apocalyptic prophecy” – Randall Carlson GDR - People are looking for truth, but get distracted with nonsense very often. What methods have you employed to try to stay on point? CW - Experience is the greatest teacher of course. As I have aged I have gained greater clarity as to why the manufactured fixation on celebrity is so powerful on the mind of the individuals who compose the ‘masses’. The “shamans of madison avenue”, or the magistrates of the great mind fuck of the military industrial media complex, require incessant repetition of fallacious logic, narcohypnotic induction and pure terror to maintain entranced subjugation to their violently coercive externalized authoritarian systems. Breaking the trance can take place in so many ways and beware you don’t find yourself swept up by further tiers of prefabricated illusion that many systems of mind control and propaganda feature as fail safes. The best methods I have found to date are to maintain a healthy skepticism about anything you hear, and before adding it to your mental registry, that you vet each aspect as much as possible, applying critical thinking skills in gauging it’s veracity. Studying the trivium method (grammar, logic and rhetoric) and applying this system of mental filtration to any line of study will yield great dividends for the authentic seeker, and help avoid contagion from unchecked mental viruses. Triviumeducation.com is a wonderful resource for getting up to speed with this ancient and suppressed means for winnowing truth from lie systematically. There are many fascinating independent communities developing online now that employ these methods and thus self-police against abusive and manipulative thought viruses or propagandistic 89

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techniques, by providing extensive examples and deconstructions of common tactics of disinformation and sophistry as they are employed in various verses of thought and media throughout recorded history. I say may the best and most self evidently true philosophies win out in the freemarket (agora) of ideas. To this effect I hope that current and future generations can participate in the various Phight (philosophic) clubs where neo-renaissance humankind can again engage in open minded and spirited inquiry regarding the nature and purpose of our existence. GDR - What does the term Gnosis mean to you and what value does it hold in your life? Does it have relevance to us today, is so in what way? Gnosis is for me the opportunity to come to know yourself as part of the divine plan and to cultivate wisdom, strength and beauty in pursuit of transformative heightened consciousness. CW - Regarding its relevance to us today, I can only offer that for all of the immense work which has gone before in preparing this stage of history; that it would be a shame to again forget the lessons of the past, and to ignore the modern prophets who present the will and challenges of the heavens. Challenges which must be bested if we are to prove our worthiness to embark upon the greater cosmic destiny that awaits a liberated populace. A cosmopolitan society fully awake and aware to the reality that our time here is very limited given that approximately 13,000 years the world was remade entirely. This event has been recorded in geomythology as that of the fall of the Atlantean civilization. There is ample scientific evidence accumulating daily independently confirming the reality that we have in fact lost technically advanced civilizations previously. Or to quote Manly P. Hall, “Mother Nature has shaken many civilizations from her back.” With the information provided by vanguard journalists and 90

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scholars such as Graham Hancock, Randall Carlson, Dr. Robert Schoch, Robert Bauval, John Anthony West and many more, it is apparent that our entire conception of history is overdo for fundamental revision.Thomas Jefferson famously summarized this heroic call to action when he commanded, “Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God.” Knowledge of the challenges of our era and the willingness to protect and expand the sacred sovereignty of humankind is in fact the key to our species liberation and long term success. The revelatory gnosis provided in Randall Carlson’s stunning and apocalyptic vision of periodic world rending catastrophes is ample inspiration for quickening ones step in pursuit of divine knowledge. Similarly, the enigmatic Timothy Leary imagined the future evolution and success of our species as boiling down to a very critical and simple formula, the invitation was for us to look again to the heavens above, S.M.I².L.E and re-member. S.M.I².L.E stands for Space Migration Intelligence squared = Life Extension. The key to our future lies in acknowledging that our planet and multiple civilizations that have lived upon it have had repetitive periodic destructions visited upon them and that this knowledge provides perhaps, the greatest paradigm shift for our species in modern history. If you feel called to delve deeper and participate in these studies, we are currently enrolling students in our online classes in preparation for the work that is to come, we also feature numerous informative articles, podcasts, infographics, and videos which have been specifically designed to bring the would be initiate up to speed with Randall Carlson’s paradigm changing research. Please visit our website SacredGeometryInternational.com for more information and to join us in our own quest for gnosis.

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The Gnosis of Dr. Aaron Cheak Aaron is a dear friend of mine, he also happens to be a world class scholar and author. His book, Alchemical Traditions gives an in depth look at alchemy in cultures throughout the world and history. He is a foundational influence on my work. GDR - Aaron, What is Alchemy and how does it relate to us today? AC - Alchemy is many things to many people, but to me it is the art and science of taking something mortal and bound to death and transforming it into something that is immortal and deathless. In other words, it is the process of “distilling the eternal from the transient”, as Baudelaire once said. Alchemy has always been about turning “poison into medicine”, but more importantly, of realizing that the poison is inherently a Gift (and here I play on a dual language pun— in German, the word for poison is Gift). In other words, everything that is “given”—that is to say, “reality as such”— can be taken as a poison or as a gift, depending on our conscious comportment. “The mind is it’s own place, and can make a heaven of hell, and a hell of heaven”, as Milton’s Satan famously said in Paradise Lost. Every poisonous 92

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“negativity” contains a hidden gift or offering, and as such is secretly a gate to liberation. Transformers of poison, alchemists in the western tradition sought the “universal medicine”—the agent of all transmutations that can heal and harmonize all things, perfecting all bodies, from metals to mortals. According to prevailing alchemical theory, the elixir allows the divine “seed” cast in the nourishing “ground” of a species to ripen into its innate, immortal “fruit”. It is the catalyst that renders metals golden and humans divine. However, the word they used for this universal medicine was katholikon pharmakon. Now, katholikon is a Greek word that means “universal, pure, whole”; it’s where we get our word Catholic, but also catharsis (as well as those glorious gnostic heretics, the Cathars). Pharmakon, however, straddles opposites: it means poison, medicine, magical spell, philter. Thanks to the desacralisation of alchemy and the genesis of materialistic chemistry in seventeenth century Europe, pharmakon also gives us the words pharmacy and pharmaceutical (and, curiously enough, it still attaches the Hermetic caduceus, the serpent-entwined staff, as a symbol of its medicine). However, modern pharmaceuticals are very much poisonous medicines. They are not alchemical elixirs, much less poisonous gifts, and the universal medicine should in no way be compared to some kind of pill to be popped. Rather, it is a liberating and perfecting principle; an attitude or comportment that engages the poison and raises it to its innate divinity. Western chemistry and biomedicine is largely antithetical to the alchemical approach because it ignores the spiritual roots of illness and is ignorant of the biosemiotics in which symptoms are symbols or signatures of a deeper psycho-spiritual reality that requires balancing; instead of taking these poisons as gifts, it masks these symptoms, destroys them with chemicals, eliminates them with surgery, thus ignoring and rebuking the hidden gift in the “poisonous” 93

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symptom. Alchemy, by contrast, embraces death, dissolution and putrefaction as the first step along the Hermetic path. It kills to vivify, destroys to create, dissolves to consolidate. Alchemy embraces and engages death as a path of initiation and liberation. In the East, among the Hindu Tantric siddhi alchemists, among the Tantric Buddhist alchemists of the Vajrayana, and among Taoist alchemists (alchemical currents which never died out and which still exist to this day), alchemical medicines—mineral and botanical preparations—did exist and were used to promote physical longevity. However, this was done not to perpetuate worldly existence for its own sake, but to purify and prepare the initiate’s body for more intensive spiritual practices. In seeking physical health and longevity, alchemy sought to “buy more time” to achieve liberation from the cycles of birth and death here and now, in this life. This was known as jivanmukti, or “liberation in life”. Here, liberation is not postponed for some nebulous postmortem judgment in the afterlife. Full responsibility is taken here and now, in this current incarnation, in this body, in this life. Immortality must be won in the midst of mortality and death by embracing mortality and death and finding its hidden gift. Alchemy is therefore quintessentially tantric in the sense that it engages material existence at its most dissolute or “poisonous” in order to transfigure it into a vehicle of liberation. Alchemy, like Tantra, embraces this world and its processes in order to transform them into divine instruments. Indeed, when grasped integrally, alchemy is best understood as the science of the perfection of bodies, whether material or spiritual. Ultimately it is the art of forming the spiritual body, the immortal vehicle of one’s innate divine consciousness. But physical existence is the starting point. So you begin by learning how the divine processes work through material bodies—minerals, metals, plants, animate beings. You learn 94

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how to make spirits into bodies and bodies into spirits. The alchemists called these states “volatile” and “fixed”, and all their symbols play on this. Plato’s Timaeus, for instance, talks of the bond between “fire” and “earth”, light and matter, the visible and the tangible. The alchemists speak repeatedly of making the fixed volatile and the volatile fixed. Above all it is about developing an essential fluidity between these states, which is why mercury—liquid metal—is a perennial substance and symbol in all alchemical traditions, east and west. Rather than setting up a duality between body and soul, rather than clinging to permanence, alchemy embraces the process of flux and learns how to transform one into the other with effortless fluidity. In doing this it learns to navigate the interzones, what the great scholar of Sufi metaphysics, Henry Corbin, called the mundus imaginalis (the “imaginal world”), which is not simple fantasy, but an exact ontological reality that mediates between physical and spiritual realities, just as the phenomenon of musical harmony exists as a distinctly perceptible phenomenon “between” two notes, embracing yet transcending them both. It is the place where spirits are corporealized and bodies are spiritualized. This is how you “distill the eternal from the transient” but also how you create the transient from the eternal. This is why alchemy is the science of both creation and dissolution, and why it is the art of transmutation par excellence. As a universal science, alchemy encompasses all phenomena, from metallurgy to metaphysics. In this sense it is nondual, which means that both the physical and the metaphysical aspects of existence are equally encompassed within its purview, and it cannot be reduced to either a purely material or purely psycho-spiritual phenomenon. It is always both, at one and the same time. The alchemical reality is holarchical. According to this nondual understanding, the physical world both reveals and conceals the mysteries of the 95

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metaphysical reality, which is its foundation. The physical world—the book of nature—is a theophany, a divine manifestation or revelation, of the metaphysical ground of being; it is more primordial than the revelation of scripture, but both are regarded as complimentary expressions of the logos. For there is an alchemy of the world (physis, natura) and an alchemy of the word (logos), but it is the divine structure common to both that we must learn to perceive through the natural and scriptural forms. GDR - In your writing you display a deep knowledge of deities from around the world, how has the study of these world religions and myths changed you? AC - Well, I’ve been drawn to strange myths and divinities since a fairly young age. It was principally the works of the great religious scholars of inter-war Europe, such as Mircea Eliade (comparative religion), Georges Dumezil (IndoEuropean studies), Henry Corbin (Islamic esotericism and phenomenology), Ananda Coomaraswamy (Philosophia Perennis et Universalis), and Carl Jung (archetypal psychology) who first drew me to the academic study of religion. And it was largely because of figures like these that I decided to officially make “religion” my discipline. Also, religious studies gave me the most flexibility to dip in and out of disparate fields, such as classics, philosophy, philology, history, psychology, phenomenology, and so on. This meant that I could essentially ignore the standard disciplinary boundaries. This enabled me to take the whole idea of the academy in its original, Platonic spirit, where philosophy was not hairsplitting scholasticism, but love of wisdom. Too many forget that the original academy was a not an ivory tower, but a grove of trees outside Athens. It was formerly a cult site of Athena, goddess of war and wisdom. To me this speaks volumes about the presiding spirit of philosophy. As developed by Platonists, Pythagoreans, and Theurgists, the whole point of philosophy was preparation for death through 96

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Gnosis of the immortality of the soul. Obviously, modern philosophy has fallen a long way from these origins, and even considers this departure “progress”. It should also be noted that philosophy, while literally indicating the “love of wisdom” (philo-sophia), also indicates love of the goddess Sophia, the Gnostic liberatrix. This is also true in Indo-Tibetan tradition, where wisdom (Sanskrit vidya, Tibetan yeshe) was no less than the ritually deified initiate’s divine consort. Here, wisdom is the transfiguring goddess to whom we are wedded via the alchemical marriage, entwined like serpents in nondual union. I mention this to emphasize that the original ramifications of “philosophy” are worlds apart from the modern, fragmented condition of the academy, which is intractably secularized, desacralized, and increasingly eroded by the cancer of corporate “management” (the dominant force in academia nowadays). For these reasons, I always felt like I belonged to an academy of another era, and when I undertook religious studies, I was never drawn to the conventional and moralistic “world religions”, but always to the hieratic arts, the esoteric dimension of the world’s spiritual traditions: Gnosticism, Hermeticism, Theurgy, Tantra, Graeco-Egyptian magic, and in more recent years, the world’s alchemical traditions. But to answer your question a little more directly: knowledge of mythology for me has always been about knowledge of divine archetypes (which are not necessarily to be equated with psychological archetypes in a Jungian sense, though divine archetypes certainly have a psychological aspect or manifestation, which is where Jung’s work is important). Divinities are very real forces, like gravity or magnetism. Indeed, gravity and magnetism may be considered as precise manifestations of the divine principle of “love” or “eros”— the bonding force in the universe. The Renaissance magician and philosopher, Giordano 97

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Bruno, who was burned at the stake as a heretic, called love “the bond of bonds”, and for very good reason. Whether it is a stone falling to earth or a lover uniting with the beloved, there is one underlying reality: the inexorable pull of divine desire. The Hermetic philosopher, Rene Schwaller de Lubicz, called this process affinité. It was the principle by which one nature is drawn to, and through, the forms that lead it to its innate divine perfection. From quantum gravitation and chemical affinity, or the bonds of heartfelt friendship, right down to raw, erotic fornication, the same principle of attraction applies. This principle of will or desire operates among chemicals through affinity and repulsion, which is the most primordial form of choice. But this capacity for choice evolves. In more highly organized beings, it becomes “will”. As the primordial desire is refined through the kingdoms of nature, it creates higher bodies for itself in order to express and fulfill its divine desire, until the subject and object of desire become one. In this sense it is the force behind what is ordinarily understood as “evolution”, which is the selfrevelation of divinity through its embodiments in phenomenal reality. Now, the ancients brought this bonding function under the aegis of goddesses such as Hathor, Aphrodite, or Venus, depending on the culture. A rose by any other name. But the principle properly understood applies across all domains—all kingdoms—and although it is different in its particular manifestations, it is universal in its implications. What is more, it can be increasingly understood in this sense the more we look at its specific manifestations not with a limited, narrow, fragmenting consciousness, but with the desire to know and integrate the whole, which is our true nature. Like is know by like, as the ancient epistemology goes. Divine consciousness can only be known by divine consciousness. To know god we must become god. And yet divinity, like the cosmos as a whole, has an invisible and a visible aspect. For 98

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in the ancient view, this world is a reaction to a metaphysical action, and on one level, just like the “invisible” forces studied by science, it can be known by its effects. And so “Venus” moves through our world at every level, both visibly and invisibly, as do all “divinities” (reality principles). And so through being drawn to the study of different religions, mythologies, and divinities, this process has itself been a one of following my own affinitive path, of unfolding—slowly but surely—my own divine desire and, ultimately, eventually, my own divine nature. GDR - What is the virtue of researching ancient mythologies and old religious rites and practices? AC - The German integral philosopher, Jean Gebser, once said that, as consciousness evolves, there is both a gain and a loss. Clearly the modern world has gained much through the efficiency of its rational consciousness. However, few would look at the world today and say we have truly “progressed”. Rationality left to its own devices has deep deficiencies. One simply has to look at the world run (or ruined) by economic rationalism to see the results of a truly deficient rational ontology. To evolve consciousness does not mean to abandon the previous structures of consciousness—the worldviews of magic, ritual, religion, and mythology—as if they were mere stepping-stones on the way to somewhere “higher”; they are not something we can do away with now that we have “rationality” and “science”. Rather, consciousness is a whole, and to truly “evolve”, we have to integrate and encompass the whole, not exalt the most recent part over and against the others. We cannot abandon our magical and mythical “past” for our mental-rational “present” any more than we can abandon our skeleton, our viscera or our heart just because we currently consider the brain the most important organ. The great “revolutions of spirit”—matter, life, and mind— exist as a continuum. All must function integrally and 99

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interdependently. The value of studying ancient magic and mythology lies first and foremost in integrating their ontologies, of crystallizing and concretizing them, as Gebser says, in order to awaken ourselves more fully to the complete spectrum of our being. GDR - What part do you think ecstatic states plays in the modern spiritual context? What are the benefits of psychedelic experiences and what are the dangers? AC - Ecstatic states are vitally important, especially in light of what I just spoke of in regards to the overwhelming predominance of the mental-rational ontology and the need to reintegrate the “earlier” ontologies that form the more complete structure of our being. Rational consciousness is essentially egocentric, based on a subject-object dualism that separates consciousness into a fixed “I” or “self” over and against perceived “objects” and “things”. To go beyond this pervasive duality requires standing outside oneself (ex-stasis, literally “to stand outside”). It is to break down the barriers of the dualistic world and to experience the world as a living, breathing, heaving, pulsing entity, brimming with wisdom both exalting and humbling. Instead of duality as an ontological constant, there is boundless unity, but within this unity a fundamental polarity or complementarity pervades, in which opposites are still experienced, but instead of being separate entities, they are now two halves of an intimately related whole, like day and night. Modern westerners are so acculturated into a positivistscientist worldview, in which rationality reigns falsely supreme and everything that cannot be rationalized is dismissed as superstition, that often the only way to viscerally break out of this ontological straightjacket is to take wild psychedelic drugs. So psychedelics are good for breaking down the walls that our socio-cultural conditioning has constructed around our ability to perceive reality in an integral or arational manner. The floodgates of the spirit have to be opened. 100

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However, once these walls have fallen, the tools that brought the walls down are not always useful for anything enduringly constructive, and one can often flounder in the spectacle of the psychedelic world unless one has a truly initiatory directive. One needs courage to actualize the spiritual visions that psychedelics make clear to our souls. In effect, psychedelics place us at the top of a mountain and show us a magnificent spectacle and say: “this is your true purview”. They give us groundbreaking keys. Then they place us at the bottom, at the foothills, and the unspoken imperative is that we must learn to climb. Few take that arduous journey however, and without any real work on ourselves, without any spiritual discipline, without using the keys given to us, future use of psychedelics will seldom take us much further; they may even delude us into falsely thinking we have attained heights that we have no real claim to. GDR - In all of your studies, who is the deity, or deities that have won your heart? Who do you relate to the most? AC - In my wayward youth I was mainly attracted to the sinister end of the numinous spectrum. In other words, I was a teenage Satanist. This affinity eventually matured into a serious and sustained theurgical relationship with the god Seth-Typhon, the Egyptian archetype of war, disorder, anomaly and strife, but also violent liberation and divine transgression. Seth was the rupturer of boundaries between being and non-being, life and death, cosmos and chaos. In short, not a divine function to be taken lightly. As a storm god, Seth-Typhon is synonymous with the divine thunderbolt, and his symbolism is intimately bound to the eternal axis of the circumpolar stars that never rise or set, but eternally circumambulate the celestial pole. The circumpolar stars are universally emblematic of the bornless and deathless principle in the cosmos. It was from here that meteors were thought to originate and fall to earth as thunderbolts. In this fashion they provided the meteoric iron 101

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that the ancient Egyptians used to make the blades of initiation in the Ceremony for Opening the Mouth: a rite for revivifying the dead, animating statues and creating gods. However, when I took the sacred entheogen Ayahuasca for the first time, it was not Seth-Typhon that transfigured my being, but the Nordic world-ender, Loki, the god of cunning and play. I was deeply and theurgically animated by the one god of the entire Norse pantheon who, like Seth-Typhon, is both “of the gods” and “against the gods”; who resides both within the sacred circle of the Aesir, and who is nevertheless their inveterate calumniator—the breaker of the divine bond. Loki is the liberating destroyer in the unfolding cosmic dramaturgy. As instigator of Ragnarok he is the bringer of the world’s end, the twilight of the gods, and yet in doing this he embraces both the declining sun and the dawn of the world’s renewal—the return to the Golden Age through cataclysmic destruction. Many of the intricacies of Loki’s mythology came to vibrant life in the details of my own personal path in a way that was both subtle and profound, and above all— delightfully funny! I have elaborated on these experiences elsewhere in a piece entitled The Leaf of Immortality. Suffice it to say that the decidedly “Heraclitian” spirit of Loki, which mingles opposition and rapture with the zest of a skilled dramatist, infused my nature with a glee, ecstacy and play that I was now tasked to integrate into my day to day existence. In recent years, increasingly dissatisfied with the rootlessness of modern esotericism, I have begun working with the traditional framework of Tantric Buddhism. Rather than a departure from my previous path, however, it should be seen as a direct consequence. Indeed, the basic continuity between the divine thunderbolt of Egyptian theology and the vajra or “diamond-thunderbolt” of Tantric Buddhism always seemed a natural progression to me. Vajrayana is, literally, the 102

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“path of the diamond-thunderbolt” (vajra-ayana). From this perspective, Seth-Typhon is essentially consonant with the wrathful yidams (meditational deities) who embody the overmastering power of the sacred purbha, the blade of nondual wisdom that transfixes and destroys delusion—just as Seth-Typhon slays the demon-serpent Apep with the peshkef blade in order for the solar theophany to rise each day. In working with Tibetan Buddhist yidams, one is essentially undertaking the alchemical process of solve et coagula, “dissolve and coagulate”, albeit in reverse. You create the divinity through use of ritual visualizations, consecrate it with mantras, and then you dissolve the deity back into yourself, becoming one with its boundless energy. Most importantly, this allows the enlightened qualities of the divinity to take root in the deepest ground of your being (the alaya), the storehouse of karma. The practice is one of embodying the divine nature quite literally (i.e. identifying one’s body, speech and mind with the deity’s divine body, speech and mind). In this capacity, under the excellent direction of an unorthodox but brilliant Lama of the Nyingma tradition, I have worked principally with feminine divinities such as Seng Dongma (the Lion-faced Dakini, the Indo-Tibetan answer to the blood-thirsty Egyptian goddess, Sekhmet) and Arya Tara, the Noble Liberator and divine feminine par excellence. Tara quite literally wrested, opened, and won my heart in ways that are too intricate to detail here. Suffice it to say that I learned to embrace vulnerability as the source of true strength, something I never learned when focusing on more “bad-ass” masculine deities. In this capacity, I am ultimately a devotee of Shakti, the feminine force that rises through my body like an undulating fire, who melts and entwines my inner nature like a coiling serpent, and who raises herself through the deathless axis of my being like a living, dancing whirlwind. GDR - What is “Gnosis” to you? Is it important for the 103

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modern man or woman to achieve Gnosis and how would you suggest they go about doing it? AC - I take Gnosis in the sense imparted by the ancient Coptic gnostic codices found at Nag Hammadi in 1945, as well as cognate currents in comparative theology and metaphysics. In this sense, Gnosis is knowledge of one’s divine origin and nature. It is the knowledge that we are already—primordially, eternally and ever-presently—divine. Gnosis is, strictly speaking, anamnesis (“remembering”, the antidote to amnesia, or forgetfulness); it is remembrance of the divine beauty that the soul already knows because it is eternal, but which the embodied mind “forgets”, because it is entangled in corruptible materiality and illusion. Thus, all that prevents us from realizing, or better, actualizing this primordial, ever-present and eternal nature are our own mental and emotional conflictions. The path of Gnosis is thus akin to “polishing a mirror”, of removing the tarnishes of our cognitive accretions and emotional distortions in order to see our true nature unblemished. Thus, Gnosis is much more about “taking away” than “adding on”, in my experience. It is a path of abandoning all that prevents us from residing fully in our true nature, not a path of “acquisition” of something that we lack (which is how ordinary knowledge is conceived). It is imperative to point out here that the primordial nature itself is not tarnished. Just as the sun may be covered by clouds, the sun itself is not touched or affected by the clouds at all. So too the primordial Gnosis. By removing the obscurations, we reveal the primordial light. GDR - What is the difference between the practice of Magick and pop-psychology like that found in books like, “The Secret”? Is there any relevance to either? AC - Well, there’s a lot of difference. The aims of authentic magic are often completely at odds with modern pop-psychology, and dare I say, much of modern “magick” too. Modern pop-psychology attempts to use “magic” (which 104

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it equates with positive thinking) to meet the needs of modern people, which are invariably very pedestrian and egocentric needs. Ancient magic—and here I refer more to Theurgy and Tantra as the overarching worldviews in which valid magical praxis should be understood—sought no less than to become a living vehicle for the primordial, divine ground of being, an instrument by which it may effectuate itself consciously as a force in this world, at once immanent and transcendent. Paradoxically, this divine consciousness is the essence or primordial nature of human consciousness, so by doing this, one becomes an instrument of one’s truest self; indeed, one effectuates one’s highest nature, but this is not a “self” that is fixed or dualistically separated from other “selves”, but an unhindered expression of the very ground of being without which all particularities, indeed all sentient beings, could not exist. In modern magic(k) one commonly uses a symbolic system to invoke forces named or unnamed, personal or transpersonal, to effect one’s will in the world. Some traditions are quite postmodern about it. “Practical” results trump ontological or theological commitments. In theurgic and tantric magic, however, one evokes the gods as living realities and interacts with them as sentient beings with wills of their own. One evokes them to unite with them, become them, and thus transform oneself into a vehicle of divine power. In Theurgy, one “takes on the form of the gods” and “participates in the divine fire” in order to take part in the cosmic demiurgy, in effect becoming a co-creator of the manifest cosmos; in Tantric Buddhism, one becomes divine in order to embody the transformative Bodhisattvic qualities of the yidam deities, and uses both pacifying or wrathful methods to unite with divine wisdom. In both cases, one does not do this for one’s own petty, human purposes, but to become a divine instrument, a vehicle of creation and liberation. To modern secularised humans, this is often seen 105

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as anathema, for so-called “free will” is a bastion of the modern mindset, and this mindset desperately clings to its desires and its precious personal volitions. Curiously, this condition is strangely exacerbated in “magickal” circles, where individualism and personal will is exalted as a god in itself. Magic requires apotheosis, to be sure, but not the apotheosis of our cherished human perspectives and limitations. Magic as apotheosis is a path of breaking down and abandoning everything that prevents our primordial divine nature from being fully effective, here and now, as a creative and liberating force. All too often it is precisely our human desires and wills that are standing in the way of this. Magic is not the deification of our common self or will, but the raising of ourselves to the Gnosis of the divine will that acts through us, and of which we are a creative, magical expression. As we do this we actually become vehicles by which divine consciousness knows itself, per Eckhart’s dictum “Mine eyes are the eyes of god”. In regards to the false dichotomy of free will versus predestination, it is perhaps instructive to add here a remark on the Taoist idea of the yin will versus the yang will (zhi yin and zhi yang). Whereas the yang will refers to our everyday, conscious decisions and choices, the will that we identify with and which we have control over, the yin will is that which unfolds slowly and unconsciously over time. It is passive yet inexorable, and is embodied in all the things that happen to us and which irrevocably shape us, but which we have little conscious control over. Indeed, we only notice it when we look back in hindsight, over a period of years, decades even; we only notice it when we see the patterns, themes, cycles and processes that have unfolded through our lives over time and which had nothing to do with our conscious volition. It is much more akin to the slow unfolding of our “destiny” rather than the immediate decisions and impulses of our day-to-day wants and needs. The yin will corresponds to the decisions or 106

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actions we made before birth, our karma, if you will, which we have already committed to, which already determine us, and which, like a seed cast into the earth, plays out in this life regardless of our personal wishes. This is the will that will teach us more about our divine path than our individualistic wants and needs. GDR - What do you think about the extra-terrestrial phenomena? Have you had any experience with it, or do you have any hunches as to what they might be? AC - My worldview is essentially panentheistic, which means that the phenomenal cosmos as a whole bears consciousness and is thus a living entity. From the process of stellar nucleosynthesis that generates the elements of the cosmic spectra and thus forms worlds as we know them, to the evolutive process that unfolds from mineral to man, the world is essentially alive. In other words, my definition of “life” is very broad to begin with, and alongside the alchemists, I view supposedly “dead” things like minerals and metals—the elements or building blocks of nature—as conscious, living entities. From this perspective, everything “extraterrestrial” (outside the planet earth) is already part of a living, breathing, cosmic organism. To seek signs of extraterrestrial “life” by narrowing the definition of life to quasi-biological species akin to humans is not really a burning issue for me. I am neither for nor against it, nor have I experienced “alien” entities as popularly conceived. GDR - In the good old days, there were sex cults all over the place. After the advent of Christianity, these were deemed immoral. Now that Christianity seems to be waning and neo-paganism is on the rise, people are taking their cues from people like Aleister Crowley who promoted Sex-magick. Is there anything to this? What role does sex play in ‘seeing god’? AC - Sexuality in the service of Gnosis and liberation forms a perennial current in history, from the ancient 107

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Egyptian “Festival of Drunkenness”, which celebrated the pacification of the destructive lioness Sekhmet through ritual erotic abandon and inebriation, to the ecstatic mystical visions of Teresa of Avilla, who was penetrated by the rays of Christ in an explicitly erotic way. Now, although he is not without interest, I’ve never been terribly impressed by Crowley, much less Crowleyan “sex magic”, and not for reasons of morality, but more because I prefer to take my pointers in this regard from authentic libertine gnostic and pre-Shrividya tantric traditions rather than modern western occultism. Also, as Nikolas and Zeena Schreck make saliently clear in their excellent book, Demons of the Flesh, Crowley was appallingly misogynistic, a point which is raised not because it is “politically incorrect”, but because it is in flagrant violation of the tantric principle of exalting all embodied females as living avatars of the divine Shakti. While some of the outer forms of gnostic and tantric sexual practices may be superficially similar to Crowleyan and Thelemic ritual, I remain to be convinced that modern sex magicians within Thelemic and quasi-Thelemic traditions are anything but slaves to their libidos. While there is nothing “wrong” with pursuing hedonism through ritual theatrics or psychodrama, whether it forms an effective spiritual path whose fruits actually manifest in liberating Gnosis remains to be seen. While I’m sure there are exceptions to this admittedly sweeping statement, and while I don’t mean to disparage Thelemic traditions tout court, the tendency is one that has actually been confirmed for me by former practitioners of this path who have recognized this very issue and abandoned this path for more effective spiritual Traditions (and here I use Tradition in the Guénonian sense). But those issues aside, is there something to sexuality as a tool of Gnosis and liberation? I would say—yes. Once again it comes down to the principle of using the “poison” of desire as a gift. Desire can either enslave or liberate us. It is 108

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one of the most powerful forces at our disposal. There is good reason that mainstream religions seek to limit desire to the realm of mere procreation (or worse, demonize it as an inherently anti-spiritual force). I find more affinity with the approach to desire taken in the Mahamudra and Dzogchen traditions of Tantric Buddhism. Like other “negative” emotions such as anger or wrath, desire is not to be avoided but to be used; the energies of desire are put directly in the service of liberation. Erotic desire thus becomes a quintessential ritual element for evoking divine desire. Our being becomes the temple, the mandala, the inner sanctum, in which divinity is invoked to living presence, dancing through our bodies, transfiguring our hearts and minds. In this sense, using desire as a liberating force directly relates to the practice of raising the serpent goddess Kundalini through our beings—of turning the presence that would ordinarily kill us into a vitalizing and divinizing energy. This itself is a dim shadow of the original Tantric practices in which human hero-initiates would engage with dangerous, bloodthirsty, semi-divine feminine entities known as Dakinis in order to create a mutually beneficial exchange of power. Here, sexual fluids are exchanged for siddhis (divine powers or initiatic accomplishments); for the initiate, pleasure and power become paths to apotheosis, while for the Dakini, the sexual fluids empower her siddhi of flight. The transformation of erotic desire into a liberating force is thus an alchemical refinement of a “poison” into an immortalizing elixir. But what of “magic” proper? What of using desire to “attain” objects of desire? Again, this is operating on a limited understanding, in my opinion. In the modern west, sex magic is largely about harnessing the power of the orgasm and instilling it in a sigil, visualization or other ritual element that expresses a preformulated desire. The orgasm is used as a force to somehow empower and manifest 109

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our conscious will. However, I’ve never felt that starkly imposing one’s will upon the universe, orgasmically enhanced or otherwise, is a very wise approach. Or at least, it’s not the one that speaks to my nature, and my path has taught me to seek the deeper dynamic of magic elsewhere. Magic conceived as the dominance of will is highly egocentric, binds one to a dualistic conception of the universe, and completely ignores the whole issue of the refinement of desire (which relates directly to the process of liberation). For ultimately, one of the things we learn in refining desire is that the object of erotic or material want is always an externalization of something that we already have, but which we have lost conscious access to. It is a veil that symbolizes something that we must recover from the depths of our being. For like sunlight broken through a drop of dew, we are all expressions of the one divine radiance, and everything that is separate from us is secretly also innate to us. As in the Cittamatra view, all subjectivity and objectivity are simply displays of a deeper, nondual consciousness. To cling to the illusion of separation between subject and object is to perpetuate the very forces that we need to transcend in order to realize our primordial perfection. For some years now I’ve been increasingly struck by the definition of magic that Schwaller de Lubicz gave when speaking of the Egyptian hieratic arts. He compared the act of magic to digging a ditch or hole deeper than an adjacent water source in order to draw the water to the new source. Once the receptacle is prepared, the water moves by the inherent virtue of its own nature. It is inexorable. Water, as its alchemical glyph illustrates, is oriented downward: its tendency is to sink, or flow down. Here, the “magic” works not by virtue of a preformulated will starkly imposed upon something or someone, but by virtue of the innate nature and desire of the object that is “enchanted”. In essence, magic is not domination. Magic is seduction. To perform magic is to 110

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seduce something into being, to inflame its innate desire so that it wants to grace the “receptacle” you have so carefully prepared. There is no dominance, but simply an understanding of the divine laws, or neteru, the universal functions at play. Magic as seduction is essentially “Taoist” in the sense that it works with the given energies rather than against them, much as martial arts systems based on Taoist principles use the energy of a given attack, blending with it and harnessing it, rather than directly opposing it. More than this, magic as seduction is the activity of the heart beguiling its beloved into the desired form. It is not a rigid force of volition, but the effortless play of Lila. At this level, the boundaries between magic as apotheosis, magic as transformation of consciousness, and magic as transformation of the world, begin to dissolve. GDR - We will all die one day. There are a million opinions on what happens afterwards. In your own mind, what do you hope or believe happens? AC - Like a wheel in a rut, we will follow the paths we have carved. Unless we have striven to carve a path that leads beyond the world of birth and death, we will be born back into the world of birth and death to reap what we have sewn. Unless we learn to live with death now, which is the path of initiation, and of philosophy as learning to “die before you die”, death will not be a gift but a poison. How we deal with desire and fear in this life are the keys to how we will deal with the death process. If all we do is recoil away from the things that revile, disturb, and terrify us, and lunge towards the things we like, desire and want, then we are subject to the push and pull of external circumstance, which in and of themselves, are simply externalizations of our internal “poisons” in the Buddhist sense. Again, we must engage these poisons and transform them into gifts. Our consciousness must develop the resilience to withstand the 111

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push and pull of fear and desire, and while this is a fundamentally internal process, it is also mirrored by a very concrete, external one. If we do not face, transform, and transcend fear and desire, we will be enslaved by fear and desire. It is as simple as that. Eros and thanatos can either imprison us or open the gate of apotheosis.

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The Gnosis of Nick Margerrison I’ve enjoyed listening to Nick’s podcast for a while now and have always enjoyed his perspective and wit. A conversation with him is always welcome on the quest. GDR - In your work with radio, have you ever gotten frustrated with the everyday crowd asking silly questions? NM - I try not to see any questions as silly. I'm a big fan of the question mark, it belongs at the end of all my sentences really. The finality of a punctuation mark implies a level of certainty non of us have any right to so, if you're totally honest, you should always remember you're not sure of anything. Question, everything. Even that last sentence. GDR - What can we do to help folks along and get them excited about the cool stuff? NM - I think the best way to attract attention to something is to advocate it and share it as honestly as possible. Over the last year or so I've enjoyed the freedom the internet presents us to put over ideas related to what is called "magick". In my life as a radio talkshow host in the UK I encountered problems whenever I tried to tackle these ideas because of broadcast law. It's complex and quite dull but in 113

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short you can't really discuss it because the guidelines are far too restrictive. It used to be about protecting the state backed Church Of England from challenges, life after death was seen as exclusively being Jesus's territory. Nowadays the cover is that it's to stop bogus psychics but whatever excuse they use the fact is you encounter major problems talking about "the cool stuff". What I always found annoying about this is that I don't really think you need the "supernatural" to understand how things like "magick" might work. The writer Robert Anton Wilson put it nicely, "Magick has many aspects, but primarily it acts as a dramatized system of psychology". GDR - You and I share an affinity for Robert Anton Wilson’s work. Could you describe for the kids what it means to be a Discordian? What’s the purpose behind claiming to be one? NM - The meaning of that has changed for me and will hopefully continue to do so throughout my life. I started saying I was a Discordian because I was sick of people who were religious claiming they were entitled to special rights. This explains why I was a "Jedi" before that and toyed with "Pastafarianism" as well. However, Gods and Goddesses are funny old things and it was when I landed on a quote "true communication is only possible between equals" that I discovered mine, it led me to Eris Discordia, the fictional Goddess of Chaos who we acknowledge. I remember looking into it and being delighted that I'd found a parody religion that would really genuinely confuse people because it's not entirely clear we're joking. A good satirist doesn't drop the mask he's using to expose things with. Nowadays though it's a more complex question because I've stuck with it for so long there have found more than one purpose to claiming to be "an Erisian". I was initially coming from a very "rational" practical point of view but these days I've started to see "rationalism" as a belief system which we 114

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should use as a tool rather than a rule. I think if there was a specific measurable purpose to saying I was a Discordian it'd become a rational and limited belief system and it's very much the contrary. Rationalism reduces the world, it's useful if you want to punctuate your sentences, but consensus reality refuses to be controlled by any single point of view. No one has the final irrefutable narrative for you, you're the only one who can make sense of your world. Also, although I came in from the other side, the sort of evangelical atheist side, I'm very uncomfortable with the fact 'the powers that be' seem to want us all to hate religions. Obviously the history of the world its not quite as the establishment tell us and the narrative which supports the so called "new atheism" is a good example, they often push this idea that religion is the cause of all wars. But, lets look at that claim, World War 2, not about religion, Vietnam, not about religion, World War 1, The Napoleonic conflicts, not about religion. It seems more accurate to say they were mainly caused by the establishments of the world who find religion, more often than not, is a thorn in its side when it tries to rally us to go kill people. For example, in world war two religion was grit in the shoe of Hitlarian tyranny. Being Christian in the The Third Reich became an act of defiance according to one guy I interviewed from the period. Now, I don't believe in Christianity, or Islam, or whatever but I like the idea, which they both contain, that there are limits to what you are prepared to do when the masters crack the whip. Most religions push a notion of personal responsibility before your God for your eternal soul. And it's the people who have this world view who are often the ones who lead the charge against tyranny because they believe in this idea of eternal, unlimited, in other words non-rational, life. That's part of it for me at the moment but Discordianism is of course a joke. It was invented at a bowling alley by a 115

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couple of friends as a satire on, I think, Mormonism. It's a parody religion. But, like all great jokes, you can play it totally straight and piss people off who are out to control you. The best case scenario with it is to have people, including yourself, wonder if the 'joke religion' bit is a cover for a genuine cult of some kind. Hidden in plain sight as they like to say. GDR - One can’t talk about RAW’s work without mentioning reality tunnels. How do they relate to our every day life and what can this concept teach us about ourselves and the world we live in? NM - Well, Pope Bob's his real name and reality tunnels are not exclusively his idea but like you say they're a key concept for most Discordians. In short the term describes the filter that lies between you and objective reality. No one sees "objectively" we all see with our minds, "subjectively". This is because in order for the outside world to reach you it has to pass through and be interpreted by your brain and body. Nothing you see, hear, touch, taste or whatever, gets to you without first managing to get through that tunnel. You filter out more than you see and ignore "irrelevant" data by using our past experiences and our understanding of the world. In short we use our "reality tunnels" our, "rational mind". We ration reality like they rationed out food after the war in the UK. For example, when confronted by non human entities that came from the sky, people in the past people would see angels and demons or, sometimes even, Gods. This is because they had a reality tunnel where those things were accepted. Nowadays you'd probably emerge from the experience telling people you'd spoken to an extra terrestrial. Or, if you firmly do not believe in such things, you'd say you'd had an emotional breakdown or whatever. You'd seen a "weather balloon". You’ve spoken with prominent occultists like Alan 116

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Moore. I listened to your interview where gives an account of his encounter with a spirit. In the middle of it he states that it’s all just within his mind. What purpose is there to playing with one’s own head when there might be scary things bumping around? "Dramatized system of psychology" quote kicks in here I guess. Firstly occultism and magick is not for everyone. As I said before, no one has your narrative written down for you to learn, you're writing your own story. Some people might do better to leave it alone, I'm not sure. For me I don't find my own head particularly scary. The best way of testing this, I think, is by exploring Lucid Dreaming. I wrote a series of essays, which sort of put my flag in the ground as regards these areas, called "Essays For The Discordian Occultist". Like most things I've written they seem a bit tame now but if you're looking for five simple steps to get started for yourself in this realm that's my best shot at it so far. They are in a very specific order but as is the nature of these things I don't think most people bother reading them all, they skip to the magick spell bit usually, Essay Four, if you go looking. The first essay encourages people to try lucid dreaming and kind of explains how to do it. I'm re-writing them right now actually because the versions I published on Disinfo.com are a bit pissy in places. Anyway, the point is, if you try lucid dreaming and it doesn't work out or it turns out you can't control your dreams once you're lucid, sack it off. The style of magick I advocate is not for you. It is for people who are able to take responsibility for themselves and their thoughts. This is a key part of my current belief system, use your thoughts and ideas rather than have them use you. GDR - How does the magickal state of being known as gnosis help a magician, or anyone else in their ‘spiritual’ life? NM - Well, I'm not sure I have "gnosis" or even that I have experienced it. There's this idea in the subculture that 117

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some people are "awakened" or whatever and I do not claim to be in that state. In fact, I kind of claim the opposite with Discordianism. That's very much about the idea of doubt and the power of the word "maybe". The best three words you can drop into a conversation with someone are "I don't know". In the words of Socrates "the only true knowledge is in knowing you know nothing". That said I've had moments where I might have been in gnosis but I'm not sure about them. Also it's insanely paradoxical so I don't usually tell people that. As that's the point of the book though, lets give it a go. Imagine there is a packet of information that you can be told by something that is an intelligence outside of the human experience. It was communicated to you in a non-linguistic fashion, while you were in an altered state of consciousness, and so, as you use language and stories to remember things, you cannot really explain it to yourself, let alone others. Nor can you even fully recall it but you feel you've experienced it. Like, how would you explain to someone what it's like to close your eyes and see from every direction simultaneously? You can't really, and even linguistically it sounds too absurd it's best left alone, particularly when you mention that's only one tiny aspect of the experience you're trying to describe. It's worth mentioning though that it's a positive feeling and it was digested directly by the only sense organ you can ever really see anything with, your mind. Also, be wary of any firm beliefs or abstractions of this communication coming from "gurus" or whatever. It's something you experience and no one can tell you if you have or haven't. Anyone seeking to lay out rules and dogmas about a concept such as that will betray the fullness of what it is supposed to be that I'm talking about. Right, so, if I'm still making sense to you, imagine that, and remember I'm saying that in the same interview where I told you that it's important to remember my religion is a complex joke. In other words what I am 118

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saying here is wilfully irrational so any real rational analysis will misrepresent it. GDR - There seems to be an upswell in occult or esoteric studies and meanwhile governments seem to be trying to quiet these ideas. Why do you think that may be and why are these things important to preserve? NM - Because they seem to believe in them and advocate them. The "secret teachings" of the mystery schools are a huge part of our collective history. Nowadays anyone can find them easily online. Now, that's real a pisser if you want to control people because these ideas all allow you to take control of yourself. As regards "magick" lemme put it like this: they spend years and years, killing Witches. That's documented. They burned thousands of people all around the world for the "crime" of magical knowledge. Then, once everyone who might have been able to contradict them is dead, they explain there's no such thing as magic. It's like burning all the people in the world who can speak French and then telling everyone there's no such language. Also, as I mentioned before, here in the UK they introduce laws to limit what you can and cannot say about these areas. So, it'd be like denying there's a French language and then, just for good measure, taking anyone who spoke about French, in the broadcast media, off the air. GDR - How can the average person experience magick in their life without going shopping for robes and all the Harry Potter items? NM - Well, inevitably I think my series of essays on the topic is a good starter but as I said, I'm re-writing them and I'm hoping to get that finished soon in book form. I think I'll make it cheap and self publish but we'll see. Pope Bob is a great way in, Cosmic Trigger, Prometheus Rising, all that stuff. But the most important thing is to try it. Go buy some tarot cards, sit down, do yourself a reading with the book and 119

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do it in the same sense you might play a little game. If it doesn't give you cause for thought, as I said before, it's not for you. GDR - What is a sigil and how does it work? NM - In short it's a magical picture which has a wish behind it. Most people destroy them in order to activate their power, some people think you should display them instead. People vary on method but although it's an idea which people claim is very, very, old the version most people are into was popularised by Grant Morrison's speech at the Disinfo conference. However, he and most other people, point to Austin Osman Spare as the one who birthed the modern version. Now, here's where some fellow occultists get a little prickly, I'm not sure if they do in fact "work" but I do know that they appear to. The distinction is important. I think magick has to live in that zone where we don't quite know what's going on, otherwise it's science or a religion. Ramsey Dukes really nails those barriers in his work, I think in SSOTMBE. I've used sigils to do various things in my life but I got a bit worried about the fact they appeared to work so convincingly. I genuinely do not know why they seem so effective. Rational thought might argue "it's just" good goal setting and a bit of self hypnosis? Maybe it's a way of tapping into your innate magickal energy? Maybe it's a little fairy who makes it work called Eris Discordia. I'm not sure. GDR - If you could sit down and have a conversation over tea with any person alive or dead, who would they be and why? NM - Bloody hell, err. I'm not sure. Probably Pope Bob. He's been such a huge influence on my life, I love him like a brother from another mother. But I'm not sure because sometimes you can speak to people and they're a disappointment. Maybe he's best left in idea-space where in 120

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my mind he's reunited with the people he lost in this one. Hail Bob! GDR - Do you ever use anything like the Tarot, or the IChing for purposes of personal guidance? If so, how do they work? NM - I use tarot frequently. Often I do private readings for friends but I've never, ever, done it for money, that seems wrong somehow. I usually stick with the standard "Celtic Cross" readings because it tells you things you already know first, before it goes on to hint at your future. So, for me it's a way of looking at your life as it is and then speculating on what might come in the future. If you dabble in it though, remember the famous maxim of Peter J. Carroll, "divine short, enchant long". Only ask questions about the next few months or so. Divination can easily leave you with a curse of sorts and the less time you live with that, the better. Divination and enchantment are very similar and you really don't want to accidentally curse yourself with a crap future. The power of the word "maybe" is a useful back door for all that nonsense as well. Again, hard to say how, or even if, they do work. They certainly appear to for me. There seems to be something about the mechanic of trusting chaos to be interpreted by previously established rules. You ask Chaos, The Goddess, what she thinks will happen. She made you after all, the birth process is wonderfully chaotic, the odds of you being born were stacked to the contrary. I guess it's fair to think she might occasionally give you a hand and a few clues about what's coming up. But prophecy is overrated, it's often the case that the best only really make sense in retrospect, when all the information is available and then they're a form of history. GDR - What do you think our purpose is while we’re here on earth? What would you tell somebody who asked you in earnest? 121

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NM - I’m not sure we all share the same purpose. We're all unique and so should probably all have unique answers to that question. Now, I strongly suspect we are part of a larger process. To me that's kind of obvious, if you stick to the raw data. Looking at where we are now and where we used to be there are certain patterns from the past which might indicate it'll go in the future. Do this is by rejecting this notion that "you" are limited to the moment society stuck its a label on you and gave you your name. There were things which preceded that named baby that at the time were "you" expressed in the physical universe. The fetus, the sperm, the egg, the matter which built those things. In some form or other, "you" have been around physically since the dawn of time. You're not separate from the universe, you are part of it. So, what consistent pattern is this process you call your life following? Well, one of the things we can see is "you" are getting bigger. At each stage of this process we're involved in "you" cross the various boundaries we used earlier with massive comparative physical growth. The sperm and egg are tiny compared to the baby which leaves the womb. So, one pattern is, we're growing. Now, if you look around, the universe is huge, fucking huge! And there's a lot of space left for us to grow into. If that continues what is the next stage? Well, it might be, "planetary consciousness" of some form. Or maybe it's solar consciousness. Not sure but I think the next stage is not likely to be the passive death many people imagine but another huge trippy leap into this universe we can all see around us. And again we will manifest an even bigger physical size. Then, when you discover yourself floating around what used to look like a ball of fire, you'll probably have no clear understanding of this process you were in now where we had a little chat about a joke religion. You know, when you realize you are planet earth or the sun itself, these things will seem less relevant. 122

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The Gnosis of David Metcalfe I first met David when I was writing for Reality Sandwich. We agreed to meet for coffee and ended up talking for about 9 hours straight, wearing out our welcome at a restaurant, we made our way to the coffee shop next door, then again to another restaurant. It seemed like every new discovery I was making just so happened to be something David was a well read expert on. Our meeting was certainly one I would term as a fortuitous occasion. Now David serves as one of my most trusted advisers when I find myself mixed up. His credentials as an expert on esoteric studies and his approachable style of delivery make him a welcome voice in our quest for Gnosis. GDR - David, the world seems to be split into two parts; those who see something mystical beyond the realm of what we call reality and those who think anything outside of the mechanistic world is ridiculous, we might as well think unicorns are real. So how does a ‘sane’ man live in this paradoxical world? Does something magickal live with us here and now and how can we tap in to it in a simple way? DM - Really it's a question of how we approach being and 123

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Being isn't it? I have a hard time seeing the conflict between mechanism and mysticism. Looking at those who have made valuable contributions to society you usually find that people who bring us to the next level have found a way to integrate both the practicality of material thinking, with the insights and integration of more holistic thinking. In the 14th century the word 'mystery' was used to describe a craft or art, along with the connotations we have for it today. From this understanding arose the great cathedrals, alchemical traditions and powerful works of practical spirituality like the Cloud of Unknowing. Perhaps in thinking on these connections, and returning to a place where our inner and outer experiences merge without giving undue authority to either side, there exists a simple way to explore what lies beyond what seems like an ontological paradox. There's a wonderful quote from Eugene Canseliet, a French alchemist involved in the Fulcanelli circle, that speaks volumes to avoiding obfuscation in the process of developing a deeper understanding of ourselves and the world: " I teach through books and personal contact. Science and the university are my territory and not so-called occult circles." Ignoring popular pundits and teachers who court celebrity on either side of the argument, and focusing on personal development and direct contact with those farther along on the path is the best step anyone can take in approaching these areas. I find that most conflict comes from commercialism and politics. Those looking to make a living on spiritual teachings, or who use them to advance political motives, need to present something that looks new and add some mystification to the process in order to keep up the interest. When you read accounts of traditional training techniques all the flash and fury is stripped away, most of it involves seeking stillness and quiet, learning focus, and from those basic elements (which are quite difficult to achieve in our culture of distraction) grows realization of much deeper connections. 124

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GDR - You've reported on Psi-research for Reality Sandwich; could you explain what Psi-research is, why it’s important and what implications it has for us in daily life? DM - Psi is a mathematical variable that stands in for an unknown, in parapsychological usage it indicates the anomalous effects that show up in experiments, implying a need for revising and expanding popular theories of mind to matter interaction. This includes indications that we are able to sense future events before they happen, access information about past events that we have no connection to, sense things happening far beyond what we would assume our normal awareness is capable of, and being able to focus on physical objects and effect them in someway. Under the auspices of parapsychology also falls questions of continued awareness and influence after physical death, Near Death Experiences, Out of Body Experiences, channeling, possession, and other areas where there is some evidence that the phenomena occurs, but our current popularly expressed scientific theories don't seem to support a mechanism for them. Many scientists, however, feel that there is really no contradiction between more nuanced understandings of these theories and psi phenomena, and that skepticism taken to the level of religious dogma is the main cause of contention. Living in an environment saturated with technology, in which the driving assumption is that more machines and technical prowess are the answer to global problems I think that the implications for psi-research are profound. This lust for technology gives the impression that we are nothing more than pathetic organisms that need to be superseded yet if even a small percentage of what is implied by the findings of parapsychology is true, than we need to radically reassess who we are, and what we are capable of. Our techno-frenzy is less than 200 years old in it's current form, and radical skepticism in the form we find it today has 125

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only been around since the mid-1970's and represents a cultural movement, more than a scientific one. Bastions of the so-called Enlightenment, such as Isaac Newton were deeply engaged in alchemical practice and their insights came from combining psychical and mystical research with more materially focused aims. We've lost something very valuable by allowing the dogmatic skepticism of a few vocal critics to hinder our exploration of the human condition. The history of skepticism regarding the efficacy of hypnosis, meditation, lucid dreaming, and many other now widely accepted phenomena points to the fact that those who rant about the impossibility of widely reported experiences are usually short sighted, and lack the proper critical faculties to address the topics they draw such indignation from GDR - Have you ever personally experienced something paranormal? Has it happened more than once, never, or often? Tell us a story. DM - We live in a holistic field, and I find that the most beneficial aspect of keeping an open mind is being able to see the connections that exist at a deeper level, and to be comfortable accessing them through things like coincidence and synergy. Even if the dogmatic materialists are completely correct, we still are able to access the cause and effect mechanisms of the universe through contemplating the inner workings of existence. When I hear paranormal I tend to think of more extreme examples of phenomena, such as apparitions, unidentified lights, and that sort of thing, but my experience usually leans towards more subtle aspects. One of my most treasured moments was a number of years ago while walking through the wooded area around an apartment I lived in near Chicago. As I was walking the natural sounds, the breeze, the movement of insects, the swaying of trees all began to open up in an interior vision of liquidity. I saw the trees forming from upward pressure, the water which had fallen from the 126

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sky returning to the sky through the material growth of plant life, the animals, squirrels and rabbits, motive material active in the same process of consumption and reintegration. It was a very powerful moment, and since then I've never been able to see the world the same way, as anything other than a holistic and cyclical movement. Recently, as I've spent more time considering things like sacred geometry and geography, through conversations with Randall Carlson, Paul Devereux and David Chaim Smith these brief glimpses of the inner mystery of nature have become much more solidified and profound. Contemplation allows us to live within the Mystery, and the entirety of existence becomes something more powerful and sublime than brief paranormal encounters can ever capture. GDR - Among those of us who do believe that there is something more, there are still massive schisms of belief; how can a magician and a Born Again Christian relate to one another? Is it possible to reconcile these seemingly massive differences in views? DM - This is another area where I find very little contradiction outside of flawed fundamentalisms on both sides. Living in the South I've been amused to hear Born Again believers talking about their psychic experiences in terms of Jesus, and discussing prayer, visionary and protective techniques that any magic practitioner would recognize. In a recent piece that I wrote on the New Apostolic Reformation movement I point out how in many ways contemporary charismatic and Pentecostal Christians are better occultists than most people claiming that they practice magic. These socalled new apostles have a deep belief in what they do, something that most publicly proclaiming occult practitioners are too self conscious to fully embrace. The differences we see, again, are largely in terms of marketing and commercialization, or have been spurred on by fundamentalist politics which seek to control personal 127

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experiences. I have family that at times have been very active in various factions of the Evangelical movement, and it's been humorous to see them recommend writers and theologians who have been very influenced by esoteric philosophy in one way or another. Occultism, as something which people openly express allegiance to, is almost always more about identity politics than actual practice. Outer elements of differentiation are useful in terms of public performance of culturally significant ideas, but the actual esoteric practice, the real heart of the matter, is something that happens outside of any outward manifestation and is possible whatever religion a person adheres to. Most of the truly valuable esoteric material comes from one faith tradition or another, and I think it's a mistake for any one who is interested in delving into these areas to fall into the error of dismissing something because it's outward appearance uses the mytho-poetic structures of a major religion. Esoteric practice is not about preferences, it's about discipline and growth towards a realization of union with reality. To think that one can step out of Christianity, for instance, and take on the mytho-poetic structure of Buddhism, Sufism, Thelema or any other tradition and escape from the rigorous reworking of the self only leads to complicating things much more than is necessary and taking on mythotypes that will eventually have to be abandoned anyway when one advances in understanding. That's not to say that mainstream adherents of dogmatic religion won't reject, persecute and seek to dissuade the deeper journey, or that going to a church on Sunday where the pastor or priest is discussing football and politics isn't repellent, but this too is part of the lesson of practice. There are also situations where one might be drawn to a tradition which provides access to something that goes beyond the tradition that they were born into and find additional light there. The danger lies in mistaking self 128

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satisfaction for effective devotion, and that can happen no matter what one professes. GDR - You’ve done quite a bit of research on Santa Muerte, the dreaded religion of the drug lords. What can you tell us about Santa Muerte that may surprise us and what lessons can we learn through softening our views on The Boney Lady? DM - Probably the most surprising thing for most people would be to realize that She's traditionally associated with women, wives and mothers, and not drug lords and gunmen. Even now, if you look at two of the major public shrines in Mexico City, in Tultitlan and Tepito, you find their protectors are powerful local women, 'La Madrina' Enriqueta Vargas Ortiz and Dona Queta Romero. In Mexico City Santa Muerte has become a driver for local organizing. Her shrines represent a sort of neutral ground where people can meet outside of conflicts and contentions. One of the Mass readers at the Tepito shrine talks about a time when he was about to be held up and one of the gunman recognized him from the shrine. After the guy realized who he was about to rob he put his gun away and left. Walmart sells t-shirts with the same grim reaper figure that in Mexico is used to represent Her, while shirts marketed in the United States as being related to Santa Muerte look nothing like how She is portrayed in Latin America. In the Botanicas that I've visited, most of the owners are Santeros and have little interest in Her outside of the fact that their clientelle buy Her devotional items, and I've yet to see a website in English that fully understands or expresses how She is portrayed in Her traditional setting. It's one of the most fascinating examples of contemporary faith that I've come across. I find in Her a very beautiful and complex devotional Mystery, which opens up a relationship with death and 129

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mortality that is raw and essential. As a folk tradition Her iconography and devotional practices have developed out of the immediate needs, hopes, fears, and experiences of Her ardent devotees, and as a contemporary phenomena the material aspects of Her tradition offer a unique opportunity to see how effective the marketplace is in producing complex associations of belief and experience. GDR - How would you define the term ‘Gnosis’? What does it mean to you and where do we go to get some of it? DM - Gnosis comes from the Greek word for investigation or direct experiential knowledge. In terms of spirituality it is differentiated from faith or belief in that it implies a concrete realization that leaves no room for doubt. In order to experience it, I'd recommend getting a hold of some alchemical V.I.T.R.I.O.L. or contemplating Luke 17:21. The flames of devotion melt the hardened heart, and allow for the higher understanding to evaporate like incense which pleases the beloved. GDR - We’ve spent some time drinking together and during that time, it seemed there was an inspiration spirit that even made it feel like a holy occasion. What can we get out of our intoxicating experiences aside from whiskey-dick? What about Cannabis, or other hallucinogens? DM - The controversial, yet often very explicit, Italian magus Julius Evola discusses the use of intoxication as an acid to unmoor set behavior patterns. It's a fast track to ecstatic annihilation, which if rightly applied can aid in stepping outside of one's set patterns where new experiences and understandings can open up. Unfortunately in our culture of nihilistic excess this can often lead to unwanted consequences and missteps on the path. Ecstasy and death are closely related, and we have to realize that if we're not properly attuned to the truth applying this kind of immediate release from the bonds of self identity can have very averse effects on practice. One can become 130

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addicted to that easy ecstatic release, rather than applying it towards something greater, and developing a fixed state of union which requires no additional material aids. Because our society is so focused away from spiritual development, many find that their first taste of selflessness comes from drugs or alcohol, but our society also has a narrative in which this is a path in and of itself, which it is not. The Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, for a time, used hashish as a visualization aid at a certain point in their initiation, as did practitioners like Paschal Beverly Randolph, Blavatsky smoked copious amounts of weed to enhance her psychic faculties. However, in studying these instances you'll find that use of a substance was always tied to physical phenomena, or a physical level of initiation, and was in no way the end of the path. For those who go further, these material aids become unnecessary and to continue with them represents a return to spiritual infancy Puritanical prohibition and complete hedonism are both excessive, but fast tracking enlightenment can lead to cracking the vessel. GDR - From the seekers perspective, what is the real meaning behind the term, “know thyself”? How can I use this for my betterment? DM - Know thyself is one of the greatest Mysteries. Today it's often purported as some kind of psychological mantra, relating to knowing one's emotional state, or understanding one's identity, however if you contemplate what is implied by knowing in terms of gnosis, and is implied by the self in terms of union, this phrase has very, very deep esoteric significance. History shows us that this quest does not always lead to betterment in terms of material well being, many have been martyred, or have lost everything in the search for authentic union, but there is no greater achievement and the closer one moves towards the goal the less material well being matters. 131

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As an Italian alchemist once told me, the dragons in our path are real, and I would add, so is the treasure that they guard.

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How to Survive The Empire It takes very little today to get many of us into froth over global injustice, the rape of the earth, the bombing of children, the mistreatment of captives; the list goes on and on. It is as if we are in some kind of violent squeeze, penance for past sins, or just wicked men behaving wickedly. Regardless of whom or what is behind the endless cavalcade of charred carcasses, those of us who look on in horror feel a sense of grief; inability to change as if we were in the middle of a living, breathing night terror from which we cannot awake. But how do we fight this beast of a million heads that mines our hearts for the last drop of fear and anxiety it can draw until we collapse, punctured and poisoned by its necrotizing fangs? If ever there was a growing sense that we are still under the rule of a malevolent empire, that time is now. Phillip K. Dick wrote a manic and brilliant exegesis; his very own cosmology. And whether we choose to look at it as total insanity, or a divine inspiration, there are a few points that struck me deeply as I read them: 41. The Empire is the institution, the codification, of derangement; it 133

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is insane and imposes its insanity on us by violence, since its nature is a violent one. 42. To fight the Empire is to be infected by its derangement. This is a paradox: whoever defeats a segment of the Empire becomes the Empire; it proliferates like a virus, imposing its form on its enemies. Thereby it becomes its enemies. These two points beg the question, ‘How do we fight something that through fighting will turn us into the very thing we oppose?’ This the riddle of every peace activist out there, how to stand against something so vile as to never lash out and fight fire with fire. How can we Obi Wan Kenobi-ify ourselves to become unstoppable against this empire? It would seem that we mustn’t approach this beast on it’s own terms, but must change the way we see the world and therefore become transfigured into something that the beast cannot reach. But we cannot do this until we understand the nature of the reality in which we live and therefore look for the hacks and loopholes that will allow us to not be vandalized as others might be: 48. ON OUR NATURE. It is proper to say: we appear to be memory coils (DNA carriers capable of experience) in a computer-like thinking system which, although we have correctly recorded and stored thousands of years of experiential information, and each of us possesses somewhat different deposits from all the other life forms, there is a malfunction -- a failure - of memory retrieval . There lies the trouble in our particular sub-circuit. 'Salvation' through gnosis -- more properly anamnesis (the loss of amnesia) -- although it has individual significance for each of us -- a quantum leap in perception, identity, cognition, understanding, world- and self-experience, including immortality -- it has greater and further importance for the system as a whole, inasmuch as these memories are data needed by it and valuable to it, to its overall functioning.

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So if we are (in theory) indeed part of a simulated reality, then we must consider what it all really means. Are the bad guys in your video game coming to murder you in your sleep? When you die in the video game, does it trouble you in your ‘real life’? We can call this reality many things: A holograph (Stanislav Grof), a video game (Tom Campbell, The Edge Bros), A ride (Bill Hicks), Maya or Doxa (Eastern and Greek thought respectively), but no matter how we see it, there seems to be a consensus that it isn’t really REAL; we are here doing something for some purpose (which is up for discussion what that is) and yet our hearts and minds tell us it’s not everything that there is to experience. Our psychedelic experiences show us something different, our spiritual leaders tell us something different and yet we cling so hard to this illusion that we can’t sleep at night. What to do, what to do? Realize to the core of your being that this life is yours; you can do amazing things. You can do impossible things, you can change the world, but it all begins with yourself. My dear readers, all the craziness you see and hear takes your breath away and breaks your heart, but it is all a strange necessity. It's like the the squeeze of birth pains, a constriction and a purge. I don't know what tomorrow brings, but as long as good people like us are here to bring light to the dark, we are still the winners. In fact, we win, no matter what; whether battered and bruised or somehow unscathed. We win. Love wins, truth wins. Freedom wins. Remember your own power and use it to change our reality.

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The Gnosis of Matt Staggs For those who don’t know, I write for Disinfo.com and was invited to write for them by Matt Staggs. The Disinformation Company has been a pioneer in bringing the strange, offensive, intriguing and enlightening things of life to a broader audience and Matt Staggs is the man at the helm, bringing us a daily dose of the stuff the mainstream might overlook. A man I highly respect, Matt is always ready to address the weirder things in life with openness, clarity of thought and a sense of humor and that’s why his words are worth hearing. GDR - Matt, You’re an aficionado of all things weird and interesting, where did this interest in the subjects on the edge of society come from, was there a eureka moment where you found your niche, or did you come out of the womb holding the Necronomicon? MS - I could probably point to a few seminal cultural influences in my childhood: “In Search Of...” with Leonard Nimoy; the paranormal young adult books of Daniel Cohen that were always available at my library; my early movie experience - Jaws, Star Wars, The Thing, Alien. These 136

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probably set me on the path that I’m on now, but I’ve always been a bit of a weirdo, I think. I was a socially awkward kid and didn’t have too many friends growing up. I spent my time reading, watching television and playing games like Dungeons & Dragons when other boys my age were engaging in sports, hunting and other pursuits considered normal for a childhood in the Deep South. Throw in a deeply dysfunctional family background, a little bit of abuse and a lot of bullying here and there, stir liberally and then mix with an artistic temperament and intelligence in a setting where you were branded a “fag” for exhibiting both. It’s kind of a confusing question; a “chicken or the egg” kind of thing. Did my personal obsessions with weird stuff make me an outcast, or did being an outcast force me to gravitate toward weird stuff? I really don’t know. The more people treated me like garbage the more I retreated into a comforting world of Sasquatch, computers, occultism, mythology, horror novels, twenty-sided dice and zombie movies. Little did I know that the things that made me practically useless in the eighties would become priceless commodities in the nerd-driven Internet age. When I was a miserable kid, I used to pretend to receive messages from a future me that reassured me that things would get better. Now, as a reasonably happy adult, I pretend to send messages back to the past me that things would get better. In a way, I’ve kept up that promise to that scared, angry boy. GDR - What are your thoughts on the Mechanistic Materialist worldview that now dominates our scientific world? What are its advantages and what are it’s flaws in light of what you see as the grand scheme? MS - Wow. Heavy question. When you look at the current “Skeptic” and “New Atheist” movement, you can clearly see a bunch of frightened, angry people trying to stuff what Sartre called the “God-shaped hole” with a new faith that they 137

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hardly understand. It’s always funny to me to have people lecture me about science that they themselves understand no better than I do. Why should I take the word of a - say - an IT professional on the nature of reality just because he spends a bunch of time reading Richard Dawkins or PZ Myers? Some of those guys go full-on fundamentalist crazy if you poke their sacred cows a little too hard. They raise hell about the need to listen to experts on this or that subject, without even once questioning what makes themselves an authority. Do I really need a geologist’s opinion on UFOs or transcendental experiences? For that matter, what does Dawkins know and how is it that his opinion is any more valid than mine? (And that’s with me clearly accepting that I’m not much of an expert on anything.) Skepticism, rather than a tool in the “critical thinking” toolbox, has become a subculture with its own set of predefined belief systems. There’s not an open discourse on certain subjects, and on top of it, most of them tend to prefer low-hanging fruit. Why criticize the claims of big pharma or government when you can take potshots at some poor guy out in the sticks who claims he has seen aliens? And potshots they are. The irony is that I’m a pretty skeptical guy myself, and I reap the benefits of science every day. We’d probably agree on alot of things, I just don’t think that there’s any reason why you have to be a browbeating dick about the stuff you believe. Further, just because you don’t believe in the aforementioned guy’s UFO story, it doesn’t mean that you can’t draw benefit from it if you can get off your high horse and examine it in an anthropological, sociological or cultural perspective. GDR - The nature of reality seems to get weirder and weirder as we see the world through the quantum lens. How have the discoveries within the realms of cutting edge science changed, or bolstered your own cosmology? 138

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MS - I’m basically a monkey when it comes to things like physics and mathematics, and I’m going to get bogged down if I try to focus on specifics. I can say that they’ve convinced me that the “real” world is something we probably don’t ever experience in its entirety, and that it’s probably much weirder than we could ever believe. I like it that way. I’ve learned to relax and enjoy the ride. GDR - In a world where it seems we are beset on all sides by the alarmist voices of people like Alex Jones and the lackluster corporate media represented by CNN, MSNBC and FOX news; what are your keys to keeping a level head and parsing the shit from shinola in the information age? MS - Obviously, question everything. Really think about things, and calibrate your bullshit meter as much as you can. Realize, of course, you’re going to get fooled from time to time again, and you probably already believe a bunch of lies without realizing it. The other thing I could say would be to try to find numerous sources and perspectives on important matters and gauge to what extent they agree, and disagree, on the essential facts. GDR - What are your thoughts on the UFO/Extraterrestrial phenomena and what; if anything should we do about the implications of their presence, or lack thereof? MS - UFOs are one of history’s most enduring mysteries, and there is a lot to unpack if you begin to really examine the phenomena. To what extent are people misidentifying natural phenomena? What about man-made objects? Or hoaxes? How about experimental crafts, government psychological operations and other black bag shenanigans? After you get through that, you have to wonder if the “alien” perspective is the right one. How about time travelers, or extra-dimensional beings? What if, like John A. Keel thought, things like Bigfoot, little green men and elves are all manifestations of the same intelligence somehow co-existing beyond our 139

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senses? GDR - What writers have inspired you the most in your own life? Can you cite certain books, or quotes that have helped you turn to the next page in your own life? MS - It’s hard to answer this because my answer changes from day to day. I’m a big fan of Jon Ronson’s works of narrative journalism. He expanded my horizons to what is possible when it comes to examining “weird” beliefs without turning people into targets for derision. Robert Anton Wilson’s books, particularly the “Cosmic Trigger” series were influential. So was John A. Keel’s body of work. Paradoxically, books like Michael Shermer’s “Why People Believe Weird Things” played a big role as well. Albert Camus and Herman Hesse were big ones, and so was Viktor Frankls’ “Man’s Search for Meaning”. Finally, the works of Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell have been influential in the way that I live. GDR - December 21st, 2012 came and went and many people have felt disappointed (at least in the New Age-ish community) that nothing seemed to happen. Do you personally feel like something did occur, or was it total horse shit? Where do we lead the faithful now and prevent another 2012 letdown from occurring once more? MS - Something did happen in the sense that it got a lot of people thinking about what “the apocalypse” meant. Incidentally, it really means “unveiling.” Otherwise, it was a case of the post-millennial jitters. GDR - What does the term ‘Gnosis’ mean to you and how can it be positively applied in our lives and the lives of those around us? MS - I have personally appropriated this term for knowledge beyond science, and beyond explanation: Personal psychological and spiritual insights about the nature of being. I have my own ideas about who I am and what I am meant to do, but if I try to put them into words then I run the risk of 140

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sounding like a lunatic.

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The Transcendental Object Preparing a Moka pot of coffee this morning, I decided to continue my reading of Joseph Campbell's book, The Hero With A Thousand Faces. The primary thrust of the book is to show the world-wide correlation of all holy texts from tribal tales to what we consider canonized texts of antiquity. There is indeed a unifying theme of the human experience, the drive toward religion and the seeking of a personal quest for enlightenment. Terence McKenna once spoke of what he referred to as the transcendental object at the end of history as the unifying vision that all seekers see in the hallucinations of mushrooms, LSD, DMT, Mescaline and Ayahuasca. He described this object as the same thing, but looking different. In describing this monolithic object, he cited the mathematical concept of a free floating cone in blank space. He added that if we were to imagine this simple object viewed by many, we would see that no two people would see it in the exact same light, shape and form. In fact the view of that simple object would not be the same for any two people. It's almost as if they were not seeing the same object at all. And so, we understand that our views are very different 142

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even though we may bear witness to the same experience. In my psychedelic and spiritual visions, I have often seen a massive rolling curtain of eyes, holy and mystical, floating in an endless sea of stars and bejeweled with every fine thing the eye can view. It was not a view of god per se, but a view of things as they are in a way the the two natural eyes cannot perceive. I've thought this for a long time now, that the objects we envision are metaphors to help us along in our path. I wanted to see god, but instead I saw the whole universe bursting with galaxies swirling and mathematical theorems played out like a symphonic movement of sound and light. It took some time for me to realize that I was indeed seeing god, because god is everything. Joseph Campbell says this about the matter of god and our perception of it: "We do not particularly care whether Rip van Winkle, Kamar al-Zaman, or Jesus Christ ever actually lived. Their stories are what concern us: and these stories are so widely distributed over the world—attached to various heroes in various lands—that the question of whether this or that local carrier of the universal theme may or may not have been a historical, living man can be of only secondary moment. The stressing of this historical element will lead to confusion; it will simply obfuscate the picture message. What, then, is the tenor of the image of the transfiguration? That is the question we have to ask. But in order that it may be confronted on universal grounds, rather than sectarian, we had better review one further example, equally celebrated, of the archetypal event." In other words, to be hung up on the religious event as an historical fact is to miss the point entirely. See again his quoting from the Bhagavad Gita and compare it to my description of my own psychedelic experience: The following is taken from the Hindu "Song of the 143

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Lord," the Bhagavad Gita. The Lord, the beautiful youth Krishna, is an incarnation of Vishnu, the Universal God; Prince Arjuna is his disciple and friend. Arjuna said: "O Lord, if you think me able to behold it, then, O master of yogis, reveal to me your Immutable Self." The Lord said: "Behold my forms by the hundreds and the thousands- manifold and divine, various in shape and hue. Behold all the gods and angels; behold many wonders that no one has ever seen before. Behold here today the whole universe, the moving and the unmoving, and whatever else you may desire to see, all concentrated in my body.—But with these eyes of yours you cannot see me. I give you a divine eye; behold, now, my sovereign yoga-power." Having spoken thus, the great Lord of yoga revealed to Arjuna his supreme form as Vishnu, Lord of the Universe: with many faces and eyes, presenting many wondrous sights, bedecked with many celestial ornaments, armed with many divine uplifted weapons; wearing celestial garlands and vestments, anointed with divine perfumes, all-wonderful, resplendent, boundless, and with faces on all sides. If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst forth at once in the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One. There in the person of the God of gods, Arjuna be- held the whole universe, with its manifold divisions, all gathered together in one. Then, overcome with wonder, his hair standing on end, Arjuna bowed his head to the Lord, joined his palms in salutation, and addressed Him: "In Thy body, O Lord, I behold all the gods and all the diverse hosts of beings—the Lord Brahma, seated on the lotus, all the patriarchs and the celestial serpents. I behold Thee with myriads of arms and bellies, with myriads of faces and eyes; I behold Thee, infinite in form, on every side, but I see not Thy end nor Thy middle nor Thy beginning, O Lord of the Universe, O Universal Form! On all sides glowing like a mass of radiance I behold Thee, with Thy diadem, mace, 144

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and discus, blazing everywhere like burning fire and the burning sun, passing all measure and difficult to behold. Thou art the Supreme Support of the Uni-verse; Thou art the undying Guardian of the Eternal Law; Thou art, in my belief, the Primal Being." It is as if we see things like god in whatever way we will best understand, though we see it so differently, it is the same object at the end, timeless and wonderful. Campbell provides further detail: "The disciple has been blessed with a vision transcending the scope of normal human destiny, and amounting to a glimpse of the essential nature of the cosmos. Not his personal fate, but the fate of mankind, of life as a whole, the atom and all the solar systems, has been opened to him; and this in terms befitting his human understanding, that is to say, in terms of an anthropomorphic vision: the Cosmic Man. An identical initiation might have been effected by means of the equally valid image of the Cosmic Horse, the Cosmic Eagle, the Cosmic Tree, or the Cosmic Praying-Mantis. "The Song of the Lord" was made in terms befitting Arjuna's caste and race: The Cosmic Man whom he beheld was an aristocrat, like himself, and a Hindu. Correspondingly, in Palestine the Cosmic Man appeared as a Jew, in ancient Germany as a German; among the Basuto he is a Negro, in Japan Japanese. The race and stature of the figure symbolizing the immanent and transcendent Universal is of historical, not semantic, moment; so also the sex: the Cosmic Woman, who appears in the iconography of the Jains. Symbols are only the vehicles of communication; they must not be mistaken for the final term, the tenor, of their reference. no matter how attractive or impressive they may seem, they re- main but convenient means, accommodated to the understand- ing. Hence the personality or personalities of God, whether represented in trinitarian, dualistic, or Unitarian terms, in polytheistic, monotheistic, or henotheistic terms, 145

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pictorially or verbally, as documented fact or as apocalyptic vision, no one should attempt to read or interpret as the final thing. The problem of the theologian is to keep his symbol translucent, so that it may not block out the very light it is supposed to convey. "For then alone do we know God truly," writes Saint Thomas Aquinas, "when we believe that He is far above all that man can possibly think of God." "To know is not to know; not to know is to know." Mistaking a vehicle for its tenor may lead to the spilling not only of valueless ink, but of valuable blood. Finally, we see that the transcendental object at the end of history is indeed another version of this story; a newer form of the old revelation that continues to carry us without our former religious trappings into a vision of the eternal and divine. These are wondrous confirmations that can unify humanity if properly understood. If we truly understand that dogma is cement trying to float in the sea of all that is ever changing. The key is to float with the change and know that it is still THE experience to be visaged, the thing to know, the thing to believe. Breaking apart the cement that we are in and stepping away from dogma in this sense draws us closer to the transcendental object, the mono-myth, the one true God. Just as Krishna revealed himself to Arjuna as Arjuna would best understand, so does the true God reveal itself unto us in whatever form we may receive best. This to me is a miracle and a fine example of the endless love that the universe (a term I interchange with God) has to share with us. What a marvelous experience this life is, what a great chance we have to learn from each joy and sorrow, understanding that we are a part of God just by nature of our very existence. Though we may see things so differently, we are all viewing the same timeless event unfolding.

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The Gnosis of Thad McKraken Thad McKraken is an unabashed magician and writer for Disinfo.com. His book, The Galactic Dialogue tells the story of his wild and fascinating experiences in his occult study and practice; he’s also wicked funny and full of humble, yet poignant insight. Since he’s unafraid to talk about the weirder stuff, I knew I had to share my conversation with him here. GDR - Thad, how did you come to the idea that there were inter dimensional beings that you could talk to? What's the purpose of doing something that seems so strange to the average person? TM - Well, what I've really been forced to entertain repeatedly throughout the course of pursuing these things, is that the idea that consciousness must be confined to a body and exist within a linear time-stream is a primitive one. I'm not sure why humanity became so obsessed with this concept, but repeatedly I've been shown quite deliberately that there are conscious entities which are sort of perceiving us from a third person perspective and can interact with us, often without us having any knowledge of it. Hell, it appears they can project thoughts into our heads and manipulate us like 147

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puppets to a degree. They've been trying to beat this concept into me in dream states for years, and it's funny because it's always in this manner where they can't believe I have such a hard time grasping it, like they're sort of fucking with me, why on earth is this so difficult? That's just how lost we get in these roles that we're playing down here. I started taking psychedelics at age 18 and I have an insanely strong reaction to things like LSD and mushrooms. Total art world invasion. Because of that I started playing around with Robert Monroe's techniques for astral projection which is something that was recommended to me by my mom. This is the sort of thing that happens. Now, I think you're referring to the magick, contacting your Holy Guardian Angel thing though. Probably because of the astral projection, a being showed up in my room one afternoon, at roughly the lowest part in my life and hypnotized me awake, telling me I needed to start practicing magick. Long story, but yeah, something showed up in my room one day and basically clapped it's hands and transformed me into an occultist. I'd read about sigil magick and basic chaos magick, but would have never tried it without that otherwordly instigation. I needed to be pushed into the pool. I think the primary reason anyone should honestly pursue this is because our world of consumerism is crumbling. We've advanced as informational creatures far quicker than imagined with recent technology and we barely understand the implications of this just yet. We need to use this increased knowledge base to undermine the established internal orders of control, which have everything to do with materialistic thought. As long as people think this level of reality is all there is, they are subject to control by the authority of man. Once you're answering to another internal authority, you're far more difficult to manipulate which is why the people in control hate it so much. Bad for the bottom line. Mainly 148

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though, this stuff is cheap kicks. How many kids are going to be able to afford this lifestyle they're being sold by the media these days. Not many. Fuck it. You can talk to planets, that's better than bling. Sort of what Jesus was saying if I'm remembering correctly. GDR - It's funny, because if my ideas from Born Again To Rebirth are correct, Jesus would have been handed the magickal masterworks of the Zorastrian traditions and followed up with an upbringing (most likely) in Alexandra, which was the knowledge capital of the word during that time. Based on this, Jesus would have embodied the best the world had to offer, being both naturally talented and educated in the best shamanic and magickal arts available. It also blows my mind that the average person might be offended at the idea that Jesus was some kind of great wizard, but if you look at the Qabballa and the Jewish traditions surrounding these practices, you find that the whole bible is like a secret magick text covered up with Aesop's fables type stories to soften the blow. Never in the Bible is there enough given for the reader to really effectively practice anything, but it's there. I've had similar experiences in my life where I was told I was supposed to minister. At the time I thought it meant Christian ministry, but when you think about it, healing people and helping them solve their own problems by way of intuitive shamanism/magick is exactly the same if not loads better than what some person on the street might think of as ministry. With two specific instances in my psychedelic journeys, 'they' hurried up to me and said, "Ok, we don't have much time! We've got to get you moving and doing your work!", a second instance came where I was called to the desert, a call I have yet to heed, but I will. Since then I've been treating my life like school, studying furiously and trying my best to surround myself with people who can help me fast-track my experience and knowledge. If the consensus model of the universe is correct, this life 149

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is just a construct, a game, or an illusion, one that we can hack, is this ultimately the way you see it? If so, who do you think the others are? Are they the programmers? Are they us when we're not in the time/space constraint? TM - Well yeah, thinking about it as a game or an illusion is right on point. Just recently I had an experience while doing what I call occult ganj-i-tating where I had the typical eye in the pyramid type visions emerge spontaneously and this projective force was just beaming upside down pentagrams into the minds of our subconscious through the media. So of course, this pissed me off and I set the pentagrams right side up again with the force of my will which took some effort. The inverted pentagram of course represents materialism over the spirit with the normal pentagram representing the inverse. Why am I talking about that? Well, because right afterward a voice came into my head that loudly proclaimed: "this movie is being filmed in the 5th dimension", which ended up being the title of a Facebook post which I also ended up throwing on Disinfo. I understood it immediately because earlier in the week I was in the same state and found myself in a hypnagogic realm surrounded by shrouded monks who started chanting: "it's only an act" over and over again ritualistically until it was so loud that it jarred me awake thinking, no shit. So, life is like an exotic film is the metaphor du jour in my camp because of that. What are you tapping into through lens of that metaphor? Well, the director I suppose. The writing team. Maybe both. The 5th dimension thing makes sense as well, as I've been shown in multiple visionary dreams a model of third, fourth, and fifth dimensionality of consciousness, which has come through metaphorically as the holy trinity as weird as that sounds. In 4-D, all of our perspectives are tied together, which makes for the most absolutely awesome cut sequences in the living film. You can go from one person's perspective 150

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to another, and back again, between speices. Explore how different singular events and how they had an affect on multiple people's lives. And I think you're absolutely right when you say they exist completely outside of time, which is what people who try and pin down UFO's get totally lost. This whole thing is like a movie to them. They can go back and watch it again, re-edit the beginning, trim out 20 minutes, re-cut it. All of time is one singular work. When you think about human history, this sort of conscious experience lost in time is absolutely infinite, and events from a thousand years ago are still influencing the world today. Great film making, which is I think the point and I think magick is not only trying to tap into your role, but trying to let the directors or writers know which path you would prefer. The holy trinity of dimensional perspectives should be working in tandem to blow your own mind or something like that. GDR - It's funny that you should mention the film cuts and time being one piece that we perceive as a moving thing. This was the crux of Phillip K. Dick's experience which he catalogued in his book, "Valis". Long before anybody was really toying with the idea that this life is a video game, etc, PKD was saying that this reality is a construct of information. He also talked about how he found himself in a wild crunch where he was himself in Biblical times and the present simultaneously. Mind blowing stuff. Us being ourselves RIGHT NOW in layers of time. What a mind blowing concept. So the directors who we can't quite nail down are running this show, which begs the question; are the machine elves of Terence McKenna and the Greys of Whitley Streiber and the angels of the religious books all the same thing? Why the contrast in the way they appear, the malevolence of some and benevolence of others? Getting caught up in this mix doesn't seem to get us any closer to 'the truth', or does it? How can we clearly collaborate? Do we all 151

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have to become master magicians? That seems, well...an impossible feat. Where does that leave everyone who doesn't want to go mad with study for the next two decades in a weed fueled journey? TM - Yeah, and I read Phillip K. Dick, Terrence McKenna, and Whitley Streiber when I was in my late teens/early twenties, really as a means to try and understand the experiences I had on hallucinogens, which were so incredibly weird. I actually saw Terrence McKenna lecture right before Whitley Streiber at this thing called the Whole Life Expo in Chicago one year while I was in college. As a psychedelic pseudo-jock from Ohio, I felt more out of place around the new age crowd than pretty much anywhere I'd been. Terrence ruled, Whitley wasn't as good, but the main reason I mention this is because they both wrote about their encounters and there was an insectile component to both to them. When Terrence went balls out with shrooms in the Amazon he was communicating with this entity that presented itself as a preying mantis. Whitley's grey guardian came across as a spider. A sex goddess spider I might point out. When I first moved out to Seattle I had this experience on acid where I sort of got the vibes that the spider was my spirit animal. Years later after dabbling in magick, I start to get increasingly insectile vibes to my hallucinations and the concepts start to flesh themselves out more. I even wrote about a chapter in my book where I was tripping on shrooms and I had this spontaneous multi-eyed vision where this entity seemed to be indicating to me that the creative intelligence behind the insect world was also responsible for things like crustaceans and all other kinds of sea creatures like sea spiders and what not. Just nuts, they had this incredible sense of community among them and they sort of sang in unison in this telepathic language outside our perception. Total shamanism stuff. And them I'm having all these "life is a movie" 152

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communique recently, and I'd sort of forgotten that was the basis for Valis, because I read that so long ago now. When you just mentioned it, I was like, oh shit. The main thing I remember about that book was the super surrealist film sequence and how much it's one of the best things I've ever read. I bring this up because it does beg the question. Consciousness is all part of a continuum, so were visions such as these fueled by reading things like Terrence and Whitley at such a young age? I'd sort of forgotten that they'd both talked about insectile forms of intelligence until I stumbled across some interviews with them in recent years. The power of suggestion is so demonstrably weird in terms of human psychology and how it shapes experience, which is sort of why I write what I do. I think it potentially actually creates psychic experience by expanding linguistic parameters for what is possible with the human experience, which is sort of limitless. As far as how do we start to right the ship of humanity, we've got to get away from consumerism, and there really isn't much of an effort to veer in that direction at this point. I think though that wealth inequality and environmental decline just might finally push our hand. Just recently I was told in a ganj-i-tation session that "we're being forced to wake up". And that's sort of where western magick differs from the old shamanic traditions. They're trying to stay as far away from western society as they can so they can get back to the old ways. We're (I'm at least) trying to use the very creations of materialism to subtly bring it to it's knees. We have to continually demonstrate to the kids that you can get bigger kicks by tinkering with your inner world than you're ever going to get from a mansion or a gold encrusted Jesus neck chain or a cocaine orgy with prostitutes. It's going to take long periods of time I imagine, but there's a hundredth monkey thing we can maybe get moving in my 153

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lifetime. I personally feel like maybe a subtle veil has lifted and this stuff is going to be increasingly "permitted" moving forward.

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The Earth Liquidation Warehouse I've just woken up from the strangest dream. I was an actor in a comedy sketch show where I was a salesman in a furniture liquidation warehouse of some kind; the sort of place where everything was ridiculously cheap and the sales staff were extremely dubious. The actress across from me who played the part of the 'mark', the sucker that I made the sale to was very convincingly playing out her part, asking about the quality of the product. We were both actors, but she, even though she knew my rushed and hoarse voice was forced for dramatic effect was actually buying the $1,200 coffee table. I don't have any reason to think why we would have actually gone through this much effort to put me in a cheap suit with my hair slicked back and my refined salesman's rasp barking off how I would never think to allow this dear woman to pay even 75% off, no, no, for her I would cut her an astounding deal of 80% off. In this dream everything was in caricature, like a bad Hunter S. Thompson trip sequence left on the cutting room floor; too searing for public consumption, too much of a bite into the Western consumptive psyche to be deemed worthy of airing. On the ceiling of the liquidation warehouse, there 155

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played a projection over and over of our spinning planet, spinning faster and faster, expanding to cover the whole of the ceiling, then shrinking down and spinning faster until it moved to the next continent; the message to the buyer was clear, "We travel across the globe and stop at nothing to get you the best high quality bargains at a fraction of the real price." But in this comedy sketch, another woman comes up having already paid the price on a no-refund, 'the deal was too smokin' to last' sale, upset that the veneer on her just purchased dresser set had begun to come unglued. I as the slick salesman kept my present mark engaged while joking that the woman with the dresser set had poor taste and should have picked the dresser set I had suggested, implying that she had gone with the suggestion of one of my more unscrupulous liquidation cohorts. And somehow in this sketch, my newest mark doesn't even seem to pay attention to the complaints or poor treatment of my old mark, adding comedy to the sketch. She buys into my sale of this deal of a lifetime as I begin to shark around for my next sale, above my head the big world spins round under my control for the second rate hypnosis of the buying masses. The laugh track ensues and the sketch goes dark. Where the comedy stops is the reality of our present situation. Like it or not, many of us have taken on the role of the mark in real life. We pay the price, ignore the signs and act on impulse. I mean what could go wrong? Sure we see that the selling floor is peopled with gawking buyers and the salesmen are not to be trusted, the evidence is standing right in front of us, but we continue to be reassured that the people complaining have something wrong with them. We want so bad for the illusion to stay in place that we make ourselves believe it's true and good. This isn't just about climate change, this is about us. This is about the way we choose to see the world and as surely as we live and breathe we collectively are consistently choosing 156

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not to see, not to step away from the liquidation racket. Just like a Shakespearian comedy, there is sure to be a fair amount of tragedy and so it is with us. At the time, I lived in Astoria, Queens and braced myself and my family for hurricane Sandy. I posted a few goofy quips about it on my social media and tried to shake off the fear that we were going to be decimated. We stocked up on food and water and made sure we had candles and the like, but when the storm came, it was truly scary. We watched on television in real time as a man walked around in his house with his lights on while his house was surrounded by 3 feet of water, BEFORE the storm had even made landfall. His was surely washed away over the course of that night, if not horribly damaged. As a new day dawned, the real horror show ensued. Bodies floating in the boroughs of the greatest city in the world, dozens and dozens of houses flooded, yet burned to the ground. Elderly people without food, power of methods of communication, in untold numbers, trapped on the second floors of apartments and assisted living centers. It was awful to hear about. In the past few days I've spent my time watching the body count rise and the tragic reports continue to come in. I went to work at a popular spot in Brooklyn and served up drinks to the bedraggled crowd, feeling sick to my stomach about the situation, but determined to make them feel warm and welcome when many had been without hot food, lights or heat, did my best to serve them with a good heart. When I got off work, I checked my social media feed to find comments like, "oh my god! I just love dancing in my car whenever (generic pop song) comes on!", next feed says something about how smarmy our presidential candidates are, more drivel, more distraction. I tried to shake off my selfrighteous indignation when I posted real photos of what went on and people commented that they must have been faked. Didn't they know or understand that NEW YORK CITY was partially under water? 157

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I tried to keep my cool and stay positive, but the next night as I again went in to serve up comfort, I couldn't help but sear at the thought that the night seemed just like any other before it when there was no horrible danger, no death, no tunnels under water. Just like that, the two-bit spinning hypnotic dance of the little world on the ceiling of the liquidation warehouse had gotten us back in the mood. Was our attention span that short? Was our empathy that shallow? Was I a jerk to even think that it might be wrong to bitterly observe as I had? The answers are not easy to attain and the perfect path is not clear to us all, but what is clear is the necessity for us to change in virtually every way. Taken seriously or not, the 2012 meme was a gift, a reminder that we are not in control of this world, but we are certainly poor stewards of it and will soon be displaced if we stay our present course. The liquidation warehouse of our culture and our own minds will be swept away in the flood of reality as the veneer of our past impulse buys peels away to show us that we bought utter garbage, unsuitable for purchase at any price. So now the question extends to us all, was hurricane Sandy enough to shake us loose from our buyers daze, or will we still play the part in a play that has become all too real? We know we are acting out something artificial, yet we do it anyway, will we leave the tragic comedy behind, or unwittingly become the real 'mark' of our own hustler schemes? Of course that the hurricane was not enough to wake the masses to the fact that our way of life may soon come to an end. Financial materialism and "FTW" outlook are the old ways. If we stay like this we will surely die a miserable death, or even worse, continue to live a miserable life. Western Christianity, Materialist Social Darwinism and the rest of the pillars of our modern world must be abandoned. There is a way forward with the help of a return to earnest scientific work, psychedelic perspective and immediate rejection of ego 158

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driven selfishness and submission to the Archonic forces of our present mental paradigms; those salesmen of the dystopic vision. The choice is up to each of us. Hopefully we will take what has gone on and run with it, refuse to take part in our part of the sketch, change what we know must be changed and don't fall prey to the pressure of the norm, the spinning eye-treats that so easily distract, hopefully we decide to step off the show room and buy into something real.

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The Gnosis of Hamilton Morris Hamilton Morris is one of my favorite people. He’s a scientist and an explorer, a journalist and philosopher, a snappy dresser and a sharp witted investigator. His documentaries have exposed untold thousands of people to some of the more fantastic mysteries of our minds. Ever since we first did an interview for Realitysandwich.com we’ve stayed in touch and enjoyed the benefits of each others perspective. GDR: “There’s two…traditionally there’s two explanations of the form of gnosis. One explanation is that it’s intrinsic or kind of personal knowledge that came about from personal experience. And then the other is, is generally seen as a state of being; a meditative state or state of nonmind. As you’ve gone through all of these experiences with a psychedelics and altered states of consciousness…what is it that you’re seeking? Is there a holy grail in your own mind? HM: A holy grail? There are certain scientific questions that I’d like to answer and there are certain aspects of perception and cognition that I would like to explore. Scientifically I don’t think it’s useful to set a large ill-defined 160

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goal because it doesn’t put you in a position to arrive at meaningful conclusions. Even the smallest scientific investigations don’t necessarily produce meaningful conclusions. A superficially small, hyper-specific scientific question can still contain an enormous amount of ambiguity. For example, if you give LSD to a rat and its head twitches in a specific way, is that head twitch caused by a psychedelic experience that is somehow analogous to the psychedelic experience humans have when they ingest LSD, or is the head twitch signifying something entirely different? The head twitch could be a result of activating the same neurotransmitter system, the exact same 5HT2A receptor, but does that mean that the qualitative effects of LSD in a mouse are comparable to the effects of the same material in a human? And if the head twitch represents something entirely different, is it still a meaningful predictor of psychedelic action? What if an alien race responded to capsaiacin as a psychedelic and saw that spraying it into the nostrils of humans made us sneeze and then concluded “Humans respond to the psychedelic effect of capsaiacin with a series of sneezes.” It’s a similar situation with rodents, psychedelics, and head twitch…and that is a seemingly small, simple question. GDR: “Doesn’t that lead into the bigger question? This concept could easily be exchanging a rats head for a humans head, because even if we sit down and talk about our experience we cannot be inside the head of another individual and see as they see. This is the whole idea behind the subjective truth of the matter or the subjectivity of the experience. It changes from person to person. HM: Of course and that is the quintessential stoner question, “What if the red I see isn’t the same that you see?’” GDR: Right. HM: And that is also a complicated question when you start talking about qualia or private language, you can spin 161

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these topics out into very large philosophical questions but, again, my main goal is to try and keep things focused on small, specific questions about the physical world so that I can harbor some small hope of discovering a meaningful answer. As soon as you start to spin out into the bigger questions, at least for me, it turns into a despairing, unfulfilling pursuit. GDR: Right and it becomes too many rabbit trails to be able to follow down, right? HM: But that kind of thinking is not something that scientists or materialists are immune to! I have a friend with a PhD in neuroscience who works at a prestigious lab and she’ll say that sort of thing as well, “With all of this research, what have we really learned about consciousness?” I think once you start asking questions like that you are distancing yourself from the purpose of neuroscientific investigation. You’re falling into linguistic traps by asking large ambiguous questions that are not actually scientific questions and may not even be meaningful questions in the first place. If you want to understand these things you’ve got to start very small and you’ve got to stay small and then maybe, over the course of decades, you can begin to have a more sophisticated understanding of what tracts and what neurotransmitter systems might play a role in mediating depression in certain people. Even then there will be exceptions and inexplicable variations. When I see the astonishing complexity in the smallest biochemical questions, that is when I really start to think asking the big questions is not going to be a useful way to spend my time. GDR: Right, so when you’re spending a lot of your time trying to simplify and get down to the nitty gritty to get little tiny answers to little tiny questions, that can lead to something good. I read your sleep study article and you describe how you had consumed, I forget the name of the chemical that you were talking about but it had some sort of 162

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relation to muscamol…”What was it called?” HM: Gaboxadol. GDR: “Right and after you had taken it, you had the chemicals checked out and then you found that it might have been a chemical that caused brain lesions and so then you went into a whole section where you psyched yourself out into worrying if you’d totally scratched up the insides of your brain forever. I wonder, when you take the clinical approach does it take any of the romance away from the ecstatic experience are you able to stay with the so called magic of the moment? HM: Absolutely not. GDR: So you’re still able to take away from it and, and, and when you go into an ecstatic state you allow yourself to just soak in the moment rather than trying to over-analyze it?” HM: Even if I wanted to diminish the romance and overanalyze subjective experience as much as possible, if I made an ongoing effort to conceptualize all life as a meaningless collision of molecules, which I intellectually believe it is, I am not capable of experiencing it as such. I simply cannot strip the beauty and mystery out of these strange, ecstatic moments. But I often hear that as a criticism, that this sort of technical or scientific analysis prevents one from reveling in the raw animal pleasure of direct experience, or whatever, and you know that’s just a classic anti-science argument, unweaving the rainbow. It didn’t hold any weight when Keats leveled it against Newton and it doesn’t hold weight now. GDR: Right. Conversely there’s a lot of challenges that arise when you out yourself as a psychedelic investigator, you have to be able to show that you have the scientific prowess to stand your ground and say, ‘I know what I’m talking about guys; this is what I’m studying.’ Right? It’s a fine line because you can’t necessarily please everyone.” HM: Well because people only see the results of my work 163

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and not the work itself it is easy to dismiss it and say, “Oh this guy just smoked a joint, I have also smoked a joint, therefore I have the same qualifications as him and should be him and have his job.” Science provides a buffer from that attitude because the people making those sorts of criticisms are also, without question, scientifically illiterate. In some sense it’s a futile endeavor though, you know that Bertrand Russell quote “A stupid man’s report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.” Even if I spend weeks working out the best way to execute some kind of chemical analysis to introduce objective information into a journalistic project, to some people it will always be, “This guy just smoked a joint, I have also smoked a joint, therefore…” GDR: It seems that the psychedelic community takes on a religious tone as far as how things should be done. I’ve seen that first hand, I’ve come from a religious background and I’ve definitely seen a religious tinge to a lot of things which has turned me off. Actually, our initial interview confirmed a lot of suspicions that I had and bolstered a lot of ideas that were bugging me at the time. It’s very interesting, you often find that ayahuasca groups have a very set way in which they like to do things and it becomes a dogmatic thing. But the experience itself is so personal that even from the agnostic point of view you would come across it and say, ‘Well, there is no meaning except for the meaning we assign to things and therefore we can make something into a spiritual occasion if we so choose. We can ascribe value to something, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that it holds that same value in the eyes of other people. I wonder, what is it that you would like to contribute to the the psychedelic experience for posterity on a philosophical level. What does it mean to you? What is its 164

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purpose in your life? Aside from the clinical perspective I’m talking in a personal sense here.” HM: I would like to contribute through the introduction of new chemicals that may have some scientific or therapeutic value, essentially by following in Shulgin’s footsteps in some small way. Thus far I’ve done very little in that regard. In my writing I hope to set a certain tone about these subjects that bridges the gap between formal scientific analysis and conventional science journalism. Most science journalism people are exposed to is essentially a press release that serves to promote a university. The journalist simply repeats this information, sometimes with a bit of minor criticism and translation of technical terminology. But I feel good science writing can do something very unique, something more than translation, it can introduce new scientific information in the same fashion as formal scientific research but it can do so in ways that would be unacceptable in academia. There is a lot of untapped potential in science writing and there are very few science writers I am aware of who really take advantage of the possibilities. Alexander Shulgin and Primo Levi are the two science writers I admire most, and it’s not a coincidence that they both wrote about their own work as opposed to rehashing the contents of a press release. GDR: This is an excellent segue to an ongoing conspiracy theory that is prominent in the psychedelic community. There are a lot of claims being made about pretty much all of the founders of the psychedelic movement going back to Wasson, claiming that the psychedelic movement was propagated by US alphabet agencies for the purposes of mass mind control and cultural manipulation. According to the theory, psychedelics were introduced into the general public as a distraction to make us a bunch of soft-headed hippies who would be convinced that they could change the world just by having good thoughts and intentions. In your 165

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estimation, is there any credibility to this theory? Do you think it’s really that cut and dry? Does this theory reveal the ‘true history’ of psychedelics in the West? HM: I don’t think that’s actually the case, but it’s a really provocative idea and one I had not considered seriously until recently. I think most would agree there is a disconnect between perception and reality, without getting bogged down in a discussion of what constitutes reality if it is not a sensory phenomenon. Historically there has been a lengthy debate over what the best word is to describe psychedelics, terms such as hallucinogen, entheogen, illusionogen, delusionogen have all been used and reflect various biases. Many of us are familiar with a sensation of psychedelic omniscience coupled with an inability to articulate exactly what it is we have learned, if it cannot be mentally articulated or linguistically communicated then it is very hard to evaluate exactly what, if anything, has happened. I think we have to be open to the possibility that what we perceive as “mind expanding” could just as easily be mind contracting, that drugs which are thought to provoke subversive thinking could actually serve to pacify users with “self-exploration” or “mind-expansion” that is nothing more than a masturbatory excursion into a world of fantasy. I am not saying this is the case, just that it must be acknowledged as a possibility. I was in Africa for a month earlier this summer and there’s a similar story people like to discuss, that drug distribution is entirely controlled by the South African government because drugs pacify people and they want the poor tranquilized and engaged in a meaningless cycle of drug acquisition and consumption so that they are easier to control and exploit. I don’t think that either the South African government or the American government really had such a large-scale organized plan, even if they were involved in some shady deals with controlled substances. What I’m trying to say is that regardless of intention or distribution network, drugs could 166

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have that effect. But I don’t want to go into this, ‘Oh Wasson worked or…’ what bank was it that he worked for?” GDR: Uh, JP Morgan, I believe. HM: Right, yeah, so Wasson worked for JP Morgan…therefore…what? Many of us live long lives, we work many places and meet many people, once you start saying “This person went to this university, this person knew that person.” It’s guilt by association, you can draw any connection you want. GDR: I’m sure between us we could find quite a number of dubious connections! (laughing) HM: I’m sure, that is true of anyone who gains a certain degree of social prominence. The same thing is certainly true of Shulgin, he also knew everyone. That’s one thing that never ceases to amaze me as I go through life speaking to scientists and people in the underground community; everyone knew Shulgin. Not some, EVERYONE knew him. Chemists and agents in the DEA knew him, people designing chemical weapons for the government knew him, chemists working in the pharmaceutical industry knew him, doctors, psychiatrists, and therapists knew him, all the underground chemists knew him. I hate to even say this because someone might take it seriously but if you wanted to you could make an argument that Alexander Shulgin orchestrated virtually any historical event relating to CNS active drugs over the last 60 years. GDR: So when it comes to the psychedelic experience, many people develop their own kind of ritual, or way of doing things. Have you developed any personal procedures that you like to do that have been inspired by your psychedelic experiences…I don’t know if it’s like…do you ever talk to a mushroom before you eat it…or do you ever kind of do some sort of little crossing of yourself or do you just go right in? I guess what I’m trying to say is that everybody seems to go about a particular way of doing things 167

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that makes it, its own special method or ritual and do you think a personal ritual developed is an ok thing to do or is it on the other end totally important to have? What are your thoughts on that? HM: I think it really just depends on what the purpose of using the material is, what the dose of the material is and your personality and how you approach that sort of thing. I’m not the sort of person that takes a high dose of LSD and goes to a concert. I really don’t take psychedelics very often at all. I’ve used LSD three times in my life and I haven’t used psilocybin containing mushrooms in years. So for me, the main area of interest is exploring minimally tested or completely untested compounds, and when you go into that area it’s not so much a ritual as a methodology that is required to accurately evaluate the activity of the compound and to do so while putting yourself at minimal risk. So that includes things like discontinuing any medications that could interact whatever they might be, putting yourself in the position where you are physically safe if something unanticipated were to happen, and taking detailed notes so that the time and risk you have taken have some value. GDR: “That makes sense. Have you ever had any thoughts or epiphanies that you hadn’t had before a specific moment in an ecstatic state that you brought back with you, that you’ve carried with you ever since. Can you tell us of any experience like that? HM: Often the things I value most are very specific, small things, almost like the same things I value most in science. I have those sorts of classical psychedelic revelations, especially when I was younger and first starting to explore classical psychedelics. I would have thoughts like, “Everything is made of love” or “Love is the fundamental force connecting everything.” And it would feel very important and powerful at the time, but it’s such an abstract visceral concept that it’s not entirely useful outside of the experience in consensus reality. 168

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As much as I’d like to, I can’t quite feel that right now when I say it. I don’t feel much emotional or intellectual connection to the statement, “Everything is made of love.” Although it seems like a fine thing to say or think. But the specific, small things have been immensely useful and they are things that I do connect with and often they have to do with life choices academically, professionally, dietarily, whatever. You know it’s not always something as dramatic as, “Everything is made of love” sometimes it’s, “Oh, I really do need to apply for toxicology PhD programs in the fall.” Or “Despite its seeming lack of adverse effects, using ambien nightly as a hypnotic is not sustainable and should be avoided.” GDR: Right (laughing)…well that’s funny because I think sometimes we miss the fact that people are so very different. As much as I would like to have the analytical mind in the same manner that you have I just don’t have it…I can view things from a kind of materialist viewpoint, but I’m also a natural born mystic. I was totally meant to be that person who goes out and experiments with weird stuff just because it’s a mystical experience…like I’m in to it…and so it’s so nice to be able to have that perspective that you have, but it amuses me highly because every time we talk the thoughts that you talk about are so foreign from my own. But I think this is one of the lessons we can be taught by the psychedelic experience is that we can have a unified event occur and all of our perspectives can be so different, but it can also work that way. We don’t all have to think all the same thoughts and to me this is why the arguments that come about in the psychedelic community seem trivial at times because a lot of it’s coming down to the way we see the world; as Robert Anton Wilson would say, “our reality tunnels. GDR: What are you looking forward to in the near future here? Do you see things on the horizon that may drastically 169

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change based on your perspective in pharmacology and the people you know and the research that’s going on? Is there anything that we can look forward to…get excited about? HM: Yes, there are some major changes taking place that are very exciting, in New Zealand scientists are now allowed to create new drugs explicitly for recreational, non-medical use. That’s a huge deal. The first above ground labs are emerging that are dedicated solely to producing new drugs for no purpose except the promotion of joy and the betterment of well people, that’s very exciting. And that has the potential to be a huge development from a research perspective. Think about the immense impact Alexander Shulgin had in one lab and then imagine if you have twenty chemists working on their own investigations in a similar line and you would have the potential for huge strides in psychopharmacology and medicinal chemistry. A lot of important things are going to be discovered, even if only by accident. GDR: Ray Kurzweil is famous for his view on a singularity between technological advances and the human brain. What do you think about this? Will there be a loss of what makes us human, or might it make it easier for us to find some digital way to change our consciousness?” HM: I think at the very least dramatic life extension is within the realm of possibility, but I’m not expecting a sudden development that allows humans to become semiimmortal. As for the digitization of consciousness and memory, I don’t know enough about computer science to say if something like that is really on the horizon, but my guess is that we are a long way off. To be honest those sorts of speculations don’t interest me all that much because they are so detached from the real issues we are currently facing. It would be great if we could digitize memory and live forever as cyborgs, but it is certainly less of a priority than developing effective treatments for depression or schizophrenia. There are a lot of smaller, specific not so romantic 170

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problems to address. I hate to be so pragmatic, but I do find it a little bit ridiculous to like spend all of this time seriously fantasizing about sci-fi immortality scenarios when depression prevents millions of people from living functional lives. And just because we solve one problem doesn’t mean it will not create other problems of equivalent severity. The antiretroviral drugs that are used to treat HIV are literally life saving, HIV is no longer a death sentence, but because people can now live for decades with HIV there is also the possibility that these people could transmit the virus more times in their extended lifespan if they are not cautious, this is purely hypothetical but its interesting to consider the possibility that a treatment could actually increase the prevalence of a disease. GDR: What does the concept of Gnosis mean to you? Does it have any meaning at all? What does the value of personal experience have over just hearsay?” HM: I think that there is a huge value in personal experience. I just got back from Texas today and I was interviewing a pharmacologist who seemingly had never ingested a psychoactive drug. This pharmacologist was studying an antiretroviral called efavirenz to evaluate whether or not it behaved like LSD, and his method of investigating this question was extremely elaborate animal experimentation to determine how efavirenz impacted place preference, head twitch, discriminative stimulus, and so forth and yet all of this fails to address the core question of whether the drug is psychedelic. Whereas if he had ingested this drug, which is not a controlled substance, he could have conducted the experiment with a completely different level of understanding. GDR: Yeah, that makes total sense. HM: The same is true for psychiatry. This may be an unorthodox view but I think it’s unethical for psychiatrists to encourage patients to use drugs they have never tried 171

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themselves. You can dramatically interfere with someone’s functioning by dispensing an anti-psychotic drug in a cavalier fashion and I think that sort of cavalier dispensing of psychoactive drugs by psychiatrists would not happen in the same way if they had personal experience with the substances they deal with.

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Was Jesus a Mushroom? A question was posed to me about the possible validity of the work of Dead Sea Scrolls translator, John M. Allegro. This is definitely a discussion worth having in our quest for Gnosis. JM - Hi Gabriel, What's your take on John Allegro's "The Sacred Mushroom And The Cross"? I've managed to get a copy, but it's proving to be a tough read. There does seem to be a little controversy surrounding it (vis. Jan Irvin), but one rarely finds any mention of it in one's quotidian quarters. -J. McDougall GR - What is really at stake (at least for me) in the question of Jesus being a mushroom is this: Does the message and power that comes from the archetypal idea of Jesus change if he is in fact a mushroom? The short answer is a resounding 'no'. We only need Jesus to be fully operating in the flesh if we believe the entire story of the canonized bible and its inerrance as a holy text. In my book, BORN AGAIN TO REBIRTH, I spend a chapter discussing many aspects of Jesus' life that have been rarely looked at, such as the identity of the Magi and what wisdom they may have supplied him 173

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with. If you have studied any aspects of astrotheology, you will undoubtedly see the many correlations between astrological events and the birth and death and resurrection of Jesus as a god-man in a long line of historical god-men We certainly live in astounding times with an everexpanding compendium of information at our fingertips. The Internet has greatly increased our ability to access information on an exponential scale. The limitations of being stuck with just one source of authority on any given subject are a thing of the past. However, with the truth comes half-truth, quarter-truth and outright misinformation. As faithful Americans, we have been trained from a young age to respect the authoritarian version of the story when it comes to virtually everything. We have been trained to think in a linear fashion: We think along religious lines, judging others for not behaving in step with our own systems, we think along political lines, voting for a particular party in an effort to push our agendas and support those elected officials who (though we may not agree with everything they do) will get us closer than the other side would toward reaching our political goals. What we eat, how we exercise, what we wear and every other aspect of who we are is a result of this two-tone world we've been groomed to accept and propagate. The truth has had a hard time dealing with our black and white views and has something to say about it. Let's face it, for everything that we are knowledgeable about, there is other stuff we're just guessing about. We're just as full of shit as our counterparts in any given argument. The more we admit that we don't have it all together in regard to the meaning of all things, the closer we will be to the truth. It is my belief that real truth, or something quite close to it is possible, but I believe that our monochromatic mindset has limited the spectrum of our own sight. Like it or not, those you disagree with probably have a point among the partisan 174

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bickering and straw man diatribes. Like it or not, there's reason somewhere in there, even in the minds of the most vacuously dim individuals. The truth is like a diamond among garbage. Imagine the world of information as a giant dump. It really is an information dump, overwhelming in its mixture of all thought and belief, turning it to a metaphorical greyish-brown, steaming, stench of the collective mind-spew of humanity. And dotted among the ridiculous and appalling is a tiny diamond of truth. It sits there and sparkles under the ashes and refuse, never crushed by lesser thought or knowledge, it waits with the patience that only the timeless know. Each of us sits on top of his or her pile of garbage and diamonds, thinking, or hoping somehow that our own collection of diamonds is great enough to obscure our mess and shine brightly enough to pierce through the muck. We look across at those we would see as our opponents and point at their trash, calling out the dirty diapers and old pizza boxes of their logic, knowing we've amassed slightly more than them. I do believe that our understanding of whom we are and our potential as a greater body of humanity is done a tremendous disservice by this game of whose garbage stinks worse. It brings us no closer to the truth and perpetuates our spirit of superiority over others, our disunity and ultimately, our impending destruction. We are responsible to change our cosmologies accordingly. You are just as responsible as I am to change the old ways. It is imperative for our growth as a species. The problem comes from our vantage points, our ability to see through the eyes of another. It's really really hard to have empathy when you disagree with somebody. This is where the age old "being open minded" debate comes into play. The term is now a byword for being a dirty hippie who wants to smoke weed and have multiple sexual partners. The goal of being open minded is not to muddle oneself in 175

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mediocrity, but to parse the facts from the fiction and being willing to admit to ones own serious pile of bullshit. If we understand this, then we realize that being open minded is not the bringing in of new ideas, but more like stripping away our own mental dross. When we eliminate that, we make room for those diamonds that others have to offer us. By being "open minded" we have added truth and eliminated the garbage that was there before. It frustrates me to no end to see smart people argue along their party lines or personal talking points. It makes them look like dummies in reality. People who could contribute to each other's improved outlook are now vilified and eliminated as voices of caring wisdom. Insults come out and the argument becomes about the mental superiority of one over the other rather than an actual pursuit of truth. What is that worth? It doesn't do anyone any good at all. Meanwhile the truth stands on the sidelines tapping its foot and looking at its watch, wondering when the useless bickering will end. One truth is the relativity of truth. It's got to be accepted that even if we were to come to some grand conclusion about the absoluteness of all things, there is a possibility that one day, all of that will be proven to be illusory. This is why the person who screams that they know the ultimate and perfect way should be held at arm's length until fully vetted. The fact that truth in many occasions is situational should not deter us from its pursuit. Getting closer to the truth is always better than staying defiantly on your pile of filth. There is a sequential nature to the discovery of the truth and the older I get, the more I see how complex some realities are. The world is in transformation and so are we. To remain mentally static is as vile an atrocity to the gift of human existence as suicide. I've spoken to many people whom I've known for over a decade who speak as though they have not had a new thought in that time. I'm astonished when this happens. What have they been doing? 176

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So what's the point? I see a world possible where people are constantly picking through their own information and the information that others offer them and digging for diamonds. I see them sharing what they've found and our collective efforts yielding benefits to us all. What I see now is very far from that. I see people taking the weakest parts of other people's arguments and discrediting them because one point doesn't stand up, while diverting their own inadequacies. It's a shame. We have so much to learn and so much to share. What is the harm in learning more, exploring more and having a bit more empathy? I of course am guilty of the very things of which I speak, but at least I'm in the process of digging through my own garbage and making way for diamonds. Look and don't stop! Make life an adventure! I'm speaking in generalities because this applies to everything. So next time you decide to write somebody off entirely, really consider if it's because of your ego, or some need to be superior, or protect yourself from new information that might rock your cosmological boat. I think if we can all improve on this, we would see immediate benefits in our ability to solve problems worldwide. And now, more than ever, we need to rid ourselves of garbage and share our diamonds. If you can understand that all standpoints in a discussion about the nature of life and especially religion are fraught with garbage and diamonds, you can understand how you can take the good lessons from Jesus and leave the stuff that doesn't work behind. If you can do that, it doesn't matter if he was a wolverine, a turnip, or a pickled herring if the message is well received. To many people, this is just too much and the baby must be thrown out with the bath water, but I don't think that is necessary. 177

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The benefit of Allegro's book is that it broadens one's mind to the possibilities that are out there; that the truth as we once knew it may have been anything but, or just a sliver of the whole story. As far as Jan Irvin is concerned, I think that many of his ideas furthering Allegro’s have merit, but Jan himself is not the kind of researcher I would recommend. The mushroom itself (According to Allegro and debated by Terence McKenna) is the Amanita Muscaria, which is not pleasant to consume. I personally have made dear friends with psilocybin mushrooms and the little people who seem to come along with them. They have provided me with a spiritual experience full of love and compassion that no AnteNicean creed could ever give me.

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The Gnosis of Simon G. Powell I first became aware of Simon’s work by watching his documentary, Mana, in which he described his ‘biophilia’ which came as a side-effect of his consumption of the psilocybin mushroom in the rural regions of the U.K. His passion for spreading the word about the healing effects of a well thought out psychedelic trip resonated with me and I’ve followed his work ever since. As an internationally known spokesman for the psychedelic experience, his perspective is a welcome guidepost on our quest for Gnosis. GDR - Simon, you’re well known for your love of psilocybin mushrooms and the positive effects they have on the human mind. What was the turning point for you between just going along like everyone else and taking the time and effort to put out your book The Psilocybin Solution? SP - What inspired me to write The Psilocybin Solution was the bout of ‘mushroom fever’ and ‘chronic biophilia’ that I suffered in 1992. Basically, I had a series of visionary mystical experiences induced by mushrooms gathered from London’s Richmond Park at that time. I had also been 179

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reading Terence McKenna’s The Archaic Revival and, like him, felt curiously compelled to spread word of the mushroom’s extraordinary visionary power, particularly its ability to make one feel more connected to nature. That such a powerful and long revered resource was growing naturally and abundantly in London’s wild spaces at a time when ecological destruction was on the increase seemed very auspicious to me and worthy of a book or two. Certainly I felt the mushroom had great historical/cultural significance in as much as it could help reorient our species toward a better relationship with the biosphere. The bottom line is that the mushroom can heal—both psychologically and culturally. Sometimes radical means are needed to kick us into wakefulness so that we can see how alienated we have become from the rest of the web of life. The mushroom cuts through all that is spurious and false and can retune one to nature and to what is truly valuable. In that sense it is, at the very least, a potential remedy for what is sometimes called ‘nature deficit disorder’. More than twenty years on from those early days of inspiration I still feel the same way about psilocybin. It has a tremendous eco-psychological potential that has yet to be harnessed by culture. GDR - Do you think that the psychedelic experience is a panacea for our cultural ills, or that it is right for some and not right for others? Either way, who do you think should decide what people take mushrooms? SP - No, they are not a guaranteed cure-all for our personal ills nor are they a guaranteed cure-all for our cultural ills. After all, the experience is temporary. What they do offer is a brief entry into an elevated mode of being and awareness. The important thing is to integrate what you have learned, to work on what was shown to you. If you don’t do anything with the experience, then it will really count for nothing and will fade with time. As for controlling the mushroom, the fact is that they are part of our ambient ecology and therefore 180

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utilizing them is our birthright, just like foraging for wild blackberries or enjoying the sunshine is part of our birthright. I think the most crucial element prior to seeking the psilocybin experience is intention. The mushroom has a long revered history—and for good reason as it is spiritually volatile. Psilocybin is akin to spiritual fire. Like physical fire, how one intends to use it can determine the difference between being burned or being inspired. For this reason, the only function of the state it to inform and educate people. Certainly the state should have no remit to criminalize people for using psilocybin mushrooms (which is currently the case). GDR - In Dennis McKenna’s book The Brotherhood of The Screaming Abyss, he says of his brother, (pioneering author and speaker on psychedelics) Terence McKenna that he had a horrific trip on mushrooms that was so bad, he never took them again. What can people do when they are looking at psychedelics as a sacrament to deal with the fact that someday these plant teachers may burn us? SP - Actually, Dennis did not include that in the published version of his book even though there was a pre-publication audio version of him reading that admittedly striking story. As far as I know, Terence’s ex-wife had a problem with these claims and so that section was removed. As I recall, in the published version Dennis says that Terence only used mushrooms rarely in the last decade or so of his life. In any case, bad trips, or at least uncomfortable experiences, do crop up with psychedelics. However, it is important to realize that there is nothing ‘bad’ inside the psilocybin molecule. What psychedelics like psilocybin do is create a temporary new interface between you and your unconscious. This means that an array of unconscious material (think of buried traumas, unfinished business, relationship problems, and such) is brought into conscious awareness. This might be painful. You are forced to work through issues. Thus, I think 181

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McKenna had it right when he described a bad trip as a situation in which you are being forced to learn more quickly than you are accustomed to. As General Zaius says to Taylor in Planet of the Apes, careful what you go looking for as you might not like what you find! GDR - Have you had any contact with the “Others” as many have within the psychedelic experience; the selftransforming machine elves, the earth spirit, etc. Who do you think they are and why do they want to communicate with us? Why are they communicating with us here and now when there have been centuries of silence in contrast to scale in which people are meeting them now? SP - I currently take a Jungian view of all this. There is no doubt that psilocybin can catalyze an experience in which there is a felt communion with a tutorial Other. Which is to say that one can find oneself on the receiving end of communicative visions behind closed eyes and one can sense some sort of higher guiding wisdom. In fact, one can become verily bombarded with lessons, messages and insights. There is most definitely an ‘I thou’ relationship there. The tutorial influence is autonomous and has a life of its own and for this reason it can seem like one is in communion with a separate entity of some kind. But in my opinion the Other is really a manifestation of what I call the Higher Self. In other words, deep within the psyche (and bear in mind that inner space is likely as vast and as complex and outer space) there are unconscious self-organising processes which can typically lead to intuitions, insights, insightful dreams, and moods. What happens with psychedelics is that these unconscious self-organising processes are boosted and come into conscious awareness and we thence experience the Other, the Logos, the Gods or whatever. But it is really us, or at least a higher creative potential of the human psyche that is emerging. Not that I rule out ambient spirits or hyperspatial entities, but those kinds of interpretations just seem rather 182

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fanciful and overly sensational to me. I therefore think that the Other is part of us. We are closer to the mystery than we realize! GDR - Alan Watts once said in light of the psychedelic experience, “If you get the message, hang up the phone”. It’s obvious we can’t all be on psychedelics all the time, so we must cherish the time we spend with it and value its experience. How can we know when it’s time to put psychedelics away? SP - People often quote Alan Watts on this. The thing is, how can we really be sure it’s time to hang up the phone? For how long do we hang up? And how do we recognize when the phone is ringing again? I am sure that a mushroom voyage, say, at least once year (which hardly constitutes a habit!) will invariably be instructive. And I am also sure that had Alan Watts again taken psilocybin in his latter years, he would have had new insights. I think everyone must find their own way. One thing I feel sure of and which is worth reiterating is that one has to integrate what one has learned. Failure to do this will lead to more and more alienation. If that is what Watts meant, then I concur with him. GDR - Have your experiences with psychedelics changed your perception of time and mortality? SP - It is difficult to ignore mortality the older you get. My current thinking, undoubtedly inspired by my many psilocybin experiences, is that we are all partial reflections of the Whole. Which means that when we die the unique reflection of the Whole that was us, ceases to manifest. But the Whole (and its ‘beingness’) continues. This implies that it is our relationship with the Whole that will be involved in any ‘connected continuity’. Maybe our lives are to the Whole what our dreams are to us. A dream we have will cease when we wake up but there is a ‘connected continuity’ with us as we reflect on that dream and make sense of it. The same kind of principle may well apply to our lives and the Whole. As for 183

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time, well my teleological ideas about nature and the ultimate destiny of life are tied to vast timescales and such conception has again been influenced by psilocybin. And there is also the experience of being out of time, of being in eternity. That has happened to me many times with the mushroom—although it remains a mystery to me. GDR - What does the term ‘Gnosis’ mean to you? How can we attain it? How can we spread it? SP - When I was in my early 20s I became very interested in Gnosticism. I read a popular book by Elaine Pagels on the Gnostic Gospels and there was also a UK TV series that I watched that was all about the Cathars and the Gnostics. I recall that gnosis refers to ‘higher knowledge’ or a ‘higher understanding’ that comes directly without the need for priests and church hierarchies. Which is to say direct illumination stemming from some higher source. This is what I found so interesting when reading extracts of the various Gnostic gospels. It is like they were saying that Jesus was effectively a state of mind (akin to the Buddha-nature perhaps). This ties in with my current understanding of the unconscious, that there is a wisdom to it and that it can guide us once we are in harmonious connection with it. I guess this is why I spent so long on the trail of the mushroom—I intuitively felt that it was a direct link to some kind of spiritual reality buried within us and not tied to institutions, hearsay or dogma. Of course, psychedelic plants and psychedelic fungi are not the only methods of accessing higher states of mind and experiencing gnosis. There are lots of ways. If one is interested in these kind of thing, you have to find the ways that work best for you. GDR - What is the legacy that we should seek to pass on to the next generation? What wisdom do you want to leave behind when you are no more? SP - This is where long term thinking comes in. One of the most important things we all have in common is the 184

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biosphere. It is the life support system that sustains us. The biosphere is beyond religions and borders and flags and ideologies. The biosphere is our shared home. If we are to have a long term future it is imperative that we ‘fit in’ with the rest of life on earth. To ‘fit in’ requires that we align ourselves with the same biospherical principles that evolved aeons ago and which still prevail. A good example of such an essential life principle is symbiosis. Symbiosis is everywhere. It is evinced by the mitochondria in our cells (they have their own DNA), by chloroplasts inside plant cells (which also have their own DNA), by the fact that most plants are associated with symbiotic fungi, by the symbiotic pollination of plants by insects, by the symbiotic interaction of genes and gene complexes, and by all manner of symbiotic relationships that one finds within ecosystems. All out greed, all out resource grabbing, and the valuing of money and profit above all other considerations cannot persist indefinitely because it does not make sense within the context of a finite interconnected biosphere. It is not symbiotic behaviour. Currently we are more like parasitic leeches than symbiotic partners with the biosphere. Thus, we have to build and install a new set of values within culture, a set of values wherein wealth is measured not in terms of money and profit for a lucky few, but in terms of shared well-being. Buckminster Fuller had it right when he spoke of Spaceship Earth. The biosphere is indeed akin to a spaceship—and a fantastically well equipped one at that with all manner of life support systems. We have spent so long holed up in cities that we have lost touch with this larger life support system. Worse, we are relentlessly dismantling that system. So we really have to forge a new relationship with the biosphere. That is what my work is aimed at achieving. The mushroom is a sort of special fuel that can be made use of in such paradigm changing endeavors. 185

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The Gnosis of Jeremy Johnson Jeremy is an excellent scholar and writer, presently working on his first book and editing for Realitysandwich.com. I was deeply impressed by his kind demeanor and lucid insight at the Jean Gebser conference in Los Angeles. He has become a good friend and a good mind to bounce ideas off. After this chapter, you’ll see what I mean. GDR – When was the first time that you had what you would consider a moment of gnosis, of experiential change in yourself that drastically blew your mind to change the direction you were heading, what, when did that first happen for you? JJ – For me it was much more subtle, it was more of a kind of a general pull in a certain direction; so like when I was in high school for instance you know I had a lot of friends and, there was a, you know substance issues and all that stuff, and um part of it was an interest in this kind of magical world view where chaos magic and shamanism were like the buzz words and we were like passing along like Daniel Pinchbeck’s um, Breaking Open the Head and uh you know the classic stuff and kind of from reading everything, and for me 186

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actually, a bigger part of that, a sort of grounding part of that, was my interest in eastern philosophy. GDR – Right. JJ - And it was beginnings like that and Taoism. So I mean all of these ideas sort of permeated a kind of sense that the world is a stranger than what it appears to be, and that for those of us who are fortunate enough or maybe just, I don’t know, open enough, we can experience interesting things that kind of lie outside the boundaries of, you know, a material paradigm; that you know we go to work, we go to school, we make money and then certain things happen. I mean just little, little things, synchronicities coincidences. Those sorts of things kind of kept me open to that sort of, I guess, world view, this alternative world view. But actually I can think of one moment that kind of affirmed all that. I was doing meditation in high school to Tool, and I don’t know if you listen to Tool but… GDR – Sometimes, yea. JJ – For somebody, yea, for somebody who is really getting interested in this stuff, there kind of interesting codex of, you know, cryptic messages and allusions to gnostic ideas and so forth. GDR – Right. JJ – An allegory of course, (laugh) that’s how I found Alex for his work. So now having had this kind of meditation experience where after about 67 minutes into like Lateralus, right toward the end, I had this kind of union experience with the song. I don’t know how to explain it except that later on when I learned more about meditation and concentration techniques, you can kind of, if you heighten your concentration enough you can sort of join with the thing you are meditating on. GDR – For sure. JJ – So I think I had a kind of like union experience with that Lateralus song, which kind of blew my mind at the time. 187

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It kind of made me go like, hey! If I do something with my consciousness, if I focus it, if I practice that this technique, there’s going to be some kind of insight that be claimed; and it is not just written in a book you know. This is not just like, oh it would be nice if angels are real, and prayers and god… no this is something that I can actually experience. GDR – Right. JJ – That I can, that I can develop and cultivate a technique that can channel that. That was actually like my first experience. But I mean, I guess growing up with that mindset, of like my whole upbringing was kind of littered with little moments like that. GDR – That’s very interesting because, you know, I don’t really, I’ve done a lot of different psychedelics and things like that, and have experienced you know spiritual ecstatic states, but ironically one of the things that was most powerful me, for me, in recent history was when I was alone, living in the woods and, you know, I smoked a large amount of marijuana and, just laid down and put my headphones on and listened to a couple of choice songs and I, it was, I almost went out of my body on several occasions like there was that that rattle that happens, because it became so rapturous. The music itself, like you were describing; it, the space between myself and the music disappeared and I was was no longer me. I was the song being sung. I was the dancing of the notes. So that is amazing, and it doesn’t surprise me especially because of the rhythmic nature of Tool’s musical style in many ways emulates the shamanic drumming techniques and things like that so I could see how that would easily get you in there. And they are the kind of people who, who probably plan that stuff. (laughter) JJ – Probably, probably yes. (laughter) GDR – Tell me, how do you feel Taoism relates to kind of the, the general principles of gnosis in the modern context in the way that we’re kind of used to discussing? 188

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JJ – That’s a good question: Taoism. I especially like William Robert Thomson’s interpretation of the Tao teaching, but I think the fundamental idea is that this way, or the water-course way, or all these metaphors for the Tao explicitly states that intrinsic to our nature is this supreme or natural intelligence, but/and we can only get out of the way, or re-align ourselves, or fall into it, or um harmonize ourselves with this course. We can kind of bring out that knowledge into everyday life and work with it. So there is a deep sense of harmony and a deep sense that like there is nothing really wrong with us. There is nothing that we have to necessarily achieve. It is a matter sort of tuning into the natural course of this reality, or this multiverse. And so I guess for me that sounds a lot like gnosis because the whole idea of gnosis is you are, you belong in the stars. You are star stuff, in a kind of cosmic esoteric sense and you can return to that. That is your home and you just need to gain the right kind of knowledge in order to return. So I mean that superficially I guess it is similar but it is just a way of kind of encountering the world in a very natural way. Not on a naturalistic way like what scientist would sort of describe, but a deeper sense than that; a sense like that of your primordial nature is already part of all of this. Just, you know it is really difficult to see that because you need a very clear mind, right? The whole metaphor of polishing the mirror. So, I don’t know if that necessarily entirely harmonizes with the gnostic historically, but it my mind it does anyway. GDR – Right. Though I think there is this strong correlation between some of those concepts and, and present ideas in magic. You mentioned chaos magic, and one thing about chaos magic is the idea of, of whatever it is you are trying to connect with, the one of the best ways to do it is to identify with it so much that your sense of self disappears; just like we were talking about with the musical experience; where you disappear into that which it is. Which is a direct 189

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connection to shamanism as well, because when a shaman wants to embody the panther they cease to be a human; they become the panther. GDR - And again that is the same kind of state that they try achieve in voodoo and, and those sorts of things where the self entirely disappears and one becomes something else. In that way there is a kind of possession from which someone must be brought back out. And this is one of those things I think that is the experiment in training our mind to change in such extreme ways. I think that even, you know, occultists like Aliester Crowley, I feel like almost his life was a work in which he just used his own body and his own mind as a case study. to see what you could do with it. And of course he did all kinds of extreme stuff and wasn’t necessarily the nicest guy. But the example of that sort of idea is a very archaic concept. GDR - So I can see how all these things come together. I know that you and I participated at the Gebser conference. JJ – (affirms) M-Hm. GDR – What do you think Gebser’s contribution to the concept of modern gnosis, of intrinsic knowledge and understanding and kind of the evolution of consciousness; what contribution do you believe he has to make on this conversation? JJ – I’ve thought a lot about this and I think there is always going to be, another way to put it. (laughs) I really shouldn’t make this until I got a focus point of my study, but just the simple fact of Gebser was alluding to what he called the structures of consciousness; these different modalities of perceiving time and space. And that he was alluding to some kind of huge transformation, you know, going on in our day, where it would no longer be rationality. It will no longer be mere intellectual knowledge. But we would be tapping into, or apperceiving, or directly, his word for it was, “concretizing,” a mode of existence which he called you know, the “integral” 190

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or “whole.” And if you look at his writing in The Ever Present Origin and some of his letters with a number of other individuals, it sounds a lot like the kind of prime experience for some kind of heightened state of consciousness. That is analogous I think from my readings of other hermetic texts. So at least in my mind anyway Gebser is offering a kind of highly intensified form of conscious. He is suggesting that as a species we need to head toward this. We need to realize this in a real way if we are going to survive this crisis. And I think the prescience in his work, is the idea, the whole idea of crisis and mutation. So like the idea that in evolution things aren’t just going to get better because they can. They are going to develop a custom kind of type of catastrophe and are going to have to figure out a way through that catastrophe; through a leap in understanding. And it is that idea of this leap, or this mutation, into a higher understanding that I think is very much analogous to the individual as a practitioner and they are trying to develop some kind of realization. But for us it is much more prescient because we are dealing with a world crisis. We are dealing with global meltdown and economic and ecological problems. And here he is saying that there is a new form and complex way of thinking; a kind of gnosis. He mentions this in a great letter towards the end of his life. He says, “This is not intellectual thinking. This is not conceptual grasping. This is not about the ego, but kind of rendering it transparent to this greater consciousness that we actually already are”. GDR – Right. JJ - That’s why he called it The Ever Present Origin. So I mean you can trace these ideas. You can kind of see he is fighting his own language for, in my biased simplified way of understanding it, gnosis, or again some kind of heightened consciousness that a lot of the great mystics around the world have described, and here he is making it contemporary. So I found it really important because he is very intellectual about 191

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it and is saying that whatever this is, it shines straight through the intellect. It renders it transparent to something greater. And that is a kind of meditation even while reading him, I have had, you know, moments of kind of insight through just contemplating that idea. Like even when I am reading right now, even if conceptual knowledge isn’t what he was alluding to. So to tie back into the original question. I had a moment where I was reading about the magical structure as it emerges into the mythical structure; and there is this picture of this Minoan prince who is standing in a grass field, and behind him is this mountain scape, and above him, are the starry sky. And he is standing there kind of like half into the sky; his torso that sort of like in the horizon and then his lower half his legs are in the grass. And Gebser mentions that, “oh yea, as you can see here that in the art of the time there alluding to this transformation of consciousness where he is standing within the magical vegetation of interconnection.” That is the way that he described it. Magical consciousness is a kind of shamanic inter-connectedness where one point is connected to all other points. GDR – Yes. JJ – And his torso is reaching up in to the sky as he alludes toward the emergence of mythical time, and the cycles and seasons nature and the astrological systems of knowledge that would emerge. Here he was just sitting, just standing there, so I had this insight that the human being is a recapitulation of this whole process of emerging from this vegetation of nature in a kind of, some parts may be transcending sometimes realizing, recapitulating the same structures at higher and higher levels of intensification. So, I had a ‘holy crap’ moment, I can’t describe it in language; even everything I said right now doesn’t really map it out. It was just a moment of clear insight and I felt like I stumbled upon whatever Gebser was stumbling upon. For just a moment and it just left me completely elated. Here I was simply reading a book and yet I 192

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felt that I had realized something about the nature of consciousness of the human species. GDR – Because we always hear about interconnectedness and how we should love each other and so on and so forth but it is a whole other thing when, you are in that place and you’re like, oh wow! It is funny that from so many directions people are saying a lot of the same stuff. I mean this is what Helena Blavatsky referred to as the secret doctrine; which was the unified theme among all traditions, and we see this. Also in sacred geometry. We see things like this over and over again with variances of the same symbol, or of the same archetypes, and they’re all pointing to a similar thing. So do you think that our present spiritual evolution and our pursuit of gnosis, and of integral living in which the analytical mind and the luminous mind connects and integrates entirely is a choice we make? Can we make this thing happen, or is it something that we just have to allow to happen from generation to generation? JJ – I think it’s probably a mix of both. It always has to be a combination. Just from barely experiencing these things in a kind of non-conceptual way, it doesn’t feel like I have much control over them. You know, but what I think is the choice is this, sort of open up and respond to it. And I think we’re being pressured right now for whatever cosmic reasons, whatever complex social and ecological crisis, or even personal existential crisis as a civilization right now trying to figure out ourselves awash in the meaning of the cosmos. We are being pressured to respond and I think this goes back to a contemplative path for me because you can meditate, yes. You can definitely achieve states of high concentration and bliss and so forth, but I don’t know if we can just consciously step over, or if it has to be a kind of dialogue with this greater, higher mind, or if it requires something we don’t yet understand. The deities and the presences and the intelligences that we 193

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meet in these altered states would have already achieved them. I think there has to be a kind of conversation that takes place with us and them, a choice to allow them in, a choice to step up and open up and be vulnerable. To look past ourselves and see through, as Gebser says letting the ego be transparent to this greater mind, or greater cause that we are. That’s all definitely choice. But it is also definitely just allowance and surrender; and we don’t often talk about that in western dialogues with this whole idea of gnosis? It sounds great, “Oh I can do this all myself!” But I think there is definitely a element of complete and total surrender to this, this higher mind, this higher consciousness, that we definitely have to you know, keep in mind and definitely consider. GDR – Right, because I think most people are busy talking about their favorite variety of microwavable pizza! (Laughs) JJ – (laughs) Yes. Ah then. GDR – So which leads me to the discussion on the value and/or dangers of the psychedelics today. I always find it interesting because a lot of people who have done a lot of psychedelics will then they say, “no, this isn’t for everyone else. This is just for me because I am smart enough to do this. I am good enough to do this.” I have a two-fold question. Have you any had psychedelic experiences with entheogens, and if so what did you bring back from that experience and what would you say to people who kind of say, “No, you shouldn’t go there. That’s not the right way to go about it.” Where is the balance in that? JJ – Yea, yea, there is. I, You know I have oscillated on this question over the years because I have taken psychedelics. The strongest one I have taken was Salvia Divinorum and the experience that I took back from that kind of interesting. I seemed to be joined with a plant consciousness. And it was interesting because I was in Manhattan at that time. Storming an undergrad at Fordham 194

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University and there is nothing very organic about that place, but for some reason that is where that experience took me to. And I don’t know if I would say that that was the most transformative experience that I’ve had. I’ve actually had a lot more of a contemplative, practicional experiences for me. Or even while reading or while meditating, or while doing both and having these insights and having these deeply affirmative moments. Psychedelics have never been a central thrust of my practice, or passion of my exploration; but they have always been a very important supplement or weigh station. And I definitely say that, or extend that idea to others because you know they are very powerful, but for me it’s more of a question of how can we bring that into sustainable everyday mind, everyday heart, you know everyday practice. And for a psychedelic experience you know, it so, it’s so powerful; it will rip you out of your body sometimes in my cases. I’m sure, so I’m sure there are cases like your “Sleuthing An Immortal Goddess” experience. Even like that one for you was more of life journey culminating in that moment in that experience and affirmed what was happening with you. You know what was going on all along. So that is my question, not necessarily to say or speak against psychedelic users but as a temperate and cautious perspective into how is this affecting your life, you know… GDR – Right. JJ – You know the rock quote like, “You must change your life.” But HOW is it going to change your life? How is it going to change your everyday mind? GDR – Right. For 27 years I was a very devout Pentecostal Christian and I constantly sought a direct connection with the divine. And I did all the things I was supposed to do. And felt like I had committed myself more by doing missionary work and taking the road of poverty, attempting the more pious path, yet I still found myself in this 195

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position where I didn’t really have the kind of contact with the divine that my heart told me that I could have. And not until I had a strong psychedelic experience with 5 grams of psilocybe mushrooms did I actually get to that place. And once I saw it, my heart glowed in a new way, like I finally had gotten through. And even like in my story of Sleuthing The Immortal Goddess, that was a path and it was like the psychedelic experience was a weigh station. Graham Hancock has been very vocal about saying this is a choice that every human should have an inalienable right to. To be able to explore their own inner space and understand themselves from a psychedelic perspective. And many people say, “no, you shouldn’t, it’ll make you crazy and you are going to chew people’s faces off, or something!” But the reality is many people’s spiritual path begins with a psychedelic experience. And I guess the thing that people like Terence McKenna would argue, is that because they are boundary dissolving entheogens, it’s kind of like being in the emergency room and you are about to die! And you need strong medicine to get you out of that state; that catatonic western culture induced state. And so many people have had that experience, myself included, where the cultural reset button is pushed and it can’t ever be undone. I think that there are so many different uses for it. But one of the things about it is the issue o this is initiating such dramatic change in the lives of people; I mean you have heroin addicts who are gaunt and dying, and they go through an iboga (ibogaine) treatment and they never touch the stuff again because they had such a transformative experience. That is a miracle! That is healing! JJ – Oh Yea. Yea. GDR – And I just wonder, if we were to remove that psychedelic from the conversation, it would seem unfair. JJ – Yea, for sure. And again it’s not that they shouldn’t be used at all. There’s multiple uses for them and I think there 196

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has to be kind of an application of wisdom in what they can and can’t do. And also they’re mysterious in themselves and I think they will never have a limit, like art. But, I think they have to be respected. and where you are and what your place is. Like for instance: like, you know, if you are a recovering addict, I that could be hugely transformative and as a culture right now, it can be hugely healing. And if we can agree on that social level, we may see that this is a great way to break down that barrier; that great,“Berlin wall”! We need to break it open and that is part of the power of psychedelics is that they will definitively do that, and help you through that and initiate you. It is kind of a cliché to describe it, but I always liked the concept that, after an initiative experience, then the question is posed as to how to bring that into your everyday life, how to embody that. GDR – That’s when the real work begins, sort of speak. JJ – Exactly. GDR - There is a lot of work that has to be done. Psychedelic just provide that reminder that there is something beyond us, even if it is within the confines of our mind. There is something beyond our standard perception that is worth pursuing and worth understanding and that’s where I think people can become lost and say that it is the end all, be all. Which I don’t think is the case at all. I think it rather is the beginning of an initiation. Have you ever read Robert Anton Wilson’s book Prometheus Rising? JJ – Prometheus Rising; yes, that’s one of my favorite books. GDR – So can you describe for me how the concept of say the reality tunnels would relate to what we’ve been talking about as far as changes in perception and so on? JJ – Yes, it relates to my presentation at the Gebser conference as far as this bizarre kind of internet age we live in with all these perspectives and reality tunnels; depending on your social network really. But I really like that because it’s 197

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such an applicable modern example that anyone can understand. GDR – Well it seems that people want to love and hate the internet. But frankly I think that the internet is one of the things that is catalyzing the fastest growth in this kind of initiation, both on the intellectual and on the spiritual level. I think that the internet might just save humanity in some way. JJ – (laughter) I like that! That was a thesis that I developed and, I didn’t really develop it myself, but one you can explore in Goddard College. And basically the idea is like what if the internet is some kind of altered state of consciousness that we are now continuously plugging ourselves into every single day and it is becoming part of our environment. How is it changing our sense of reality; our anthology? Blurring online/offline, public and private, you know our sense of self is now split up into these different avatars. Even if it is just web form or you have a persona and you are exploring something that you haven’t explored before, you know there can be kind of powerful experience in that; and that was revolutionary for me. It’s interesting because it brings me back to a lot of postmodern thought, but in a more positive sense. I don’t know if you’ve read, Revisioning Transpersonal Theory, by Jorge Ferrer, but it is a great critique of depth psychology; Carl Jung, and the whole human potential movement. But in its place, instead of saying like, “all right,” maybe all of these ideas of one reality are over exaggerated and limiting because there are infinite ways to experience that unity. And so Jorge Ferrer takes that concept of Ivan Habib (who is a Muslim theologian, probably one of the greatest; a kind of Thomas Aquinas of his time) and his concept of the infinite ocean, of being. Where basically the divine is kind of an infinite shoreline that we are always in contact with. And there’s all these different permeations and points of contact in which to experience it. And it’s just constantly morphing and shifting 198

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so that there is no real way to be stable about it; but that’s not the point. Everything is sort of this flux of creative, creative encounters with, you know, the other, with the divine. So I really like that idea, and I, you know, I think Robert Anton Wilson’s concept of reality tunnels kind of works well with that concept; and I think it definitely just deeply affirms it. Lorenzo Hagerty from the Psychedelic Salon wrote a book in like 2000/2001 about the internet,”The Spirit of the Internet”. And the idea is that the internet is basically a cyberdelic plant. Basically a psychedelic technology that we’re all plugging into. He explores that concept as an interesting interpretation of the net. So I mean, here we are with all these different perspectives,and I am wondering if this is sort of what it has been all along, but we have just come into it now. The whole idea, it has been ever present. James Hellman describes the reality of the psyche as this sort of infinite churning multiple persona being. I love that idea I think that maybe the internet may be unleashing the psyche into its fullest extent; to an extent it hasn’t been able to before. And as much as we want to hate on the internet, or some people do, and has legitimate problems, we forget that centralized ego is not the point. Western individualism and the whole train of thought with print media has led us down this path where we have this centralized cult of self. That is in the midst of being broken down literally and virtually into avatars and into fragments. But this is a very mythical idea to be broken down, right. This is a very shamanic concept. To be taken into the astral plane or the underworld and split apart by demons and consumed. GDR – Right. JJ – And thus reborn. So for me like when I hear that people are getting split up into multiple personalities and ‘you’re getting distracted here and you’re getting distracted there’, I think there is a way to get more contemplative about that experience and consider it a kind of break down. Again 199

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this is a social address, not necessarily individual. Maybe it would be good to step away from the internet once in a while. But as a social thing, as McKenna even said about psychedelics, I think the internet as a social phenomenon is working to break down this ego, and to throw us, whether or not we are ready, into this multiple-persona and multiple reality tunnel existence were everything is morphing and shifting; and we don’t know how to swim. And we have to figure out how to float, or if we are going to sink. And I don’t know, is that a choice? I am not sure. I think we kind of have inadvertently done it to ourselves. Maybe it is a choice on a higher level of consciousness, that we forced ourselves to forget as we’ve been thrown into this incarnation. Who knows? (laughter) That’s more heavy (unintelligible 36’10”) now. GDR – I’ve been talking with a couple people about the work of Phillip K. Dick as a kind of a modern mystic, almost like a seer. He’s obviously had problems of his own, just like we all do. But he seemed to have able to prognosticate things that were going to happen and see what was going on. But one thing that he did that was so amazing was he wrote his theological exegesis in his book VALIS and one of the most powerful things to me was his talk about this idea of the empire; this kind of mental prison that we have all been put inside of. And again, not to be cheesy, but a Matrix style environment in which we are being misled and fed off of. And so this empire is kind of running the show. And we are still growing and becoming more illuminated even though we are within this empire kind of beast. But what he talks about is that you cannot destroy the empire by using the techniques of the empire. The empire is built on violence. So therefore you can’t overthrow, let’s say you can’t go through some sort bloody revolution per se without creating a new kind of dictator or dictatorship. And it seems to even be the case with the way we live now, with even the United States, here we’ve 200

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been seen, at least in our own eyes, as the saviors of the world; with world war I and world war II. And yet in our own way we have become the empire, the tyrants who are ruining a lot of things in the world. So that’s a long hand way of leading up to the question of, ‘if we cannot destroy the empire by its means, how can we change the world that we are in since we are here?” I mean, I feel like we have a sense of purpose, or some of us sense that, some people feel like they don’t have a sense of purpose. But I feel like we do have a purpose. What do you think that purpose is and what is the best way to go about trying to initiate genuine positive change toward an enlightened, evolved kind of mindset that we’ve been talking about? JJ – Hm. GDR – Solve the world’s problems Jeremy. JJ – (laughter) Oh, man! Tall order! But I wish we had actually Aaron Cheak here for a moment because he would definitively be able to contribute something about alchemy… GDR – Well he has his own answers. (laughter) JJ – Yeah, (laughter) yeah. I think it is a very alchemical concept never the less, the whole idea that; is it a prison that, you know, that this divine light is trapped in matter? You know the very gnostic idea of this emerging reality. Or is there a way to work with that prison? Is there a way to not necessarily fight fire with fire, but find some other kind of fire. And for me anyway, that’s the fire of storytelling; of narrative and imagination and creativity. So I think one of the things we can do is, what we are doing here, and I think what a lot of people are doing in their work in their own perspective ways, is creating these alternative reality tunnels that are more attractive than the ones we are, they are entrusting. And, you know, I think part of it is journalism, part of it describing their own, you know, tales of awakening, of transformation. Part of it is also mythologizing. I think mythology and general narrative like, it is a very deep 201

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structure of the mind, and it might be a very deep structure of reality. So I think the more we tap into that creative imagination and find a kind of meaning through the, you know, the kind of existential wasteland that we’re in with the breakdown of, you know, western civilization as a an effective narrative that people want now. I mean it is not really something that is as much a powerful attracter in my mind anyway. We’re all having a crisis; people are depressed probably more than ever, you know. There is a sense of angst and anxiety in even, you know, in recently the whole 2012 thing; a sense of apocalypse. Darda described that as terrorism as kind of autoimmune disease, we’re literally destroying ourselves. So, I mean, in my mind anyway, the cultural imagination of the west is already self-imploding; already deconstructing itself into oblivion. So as artists, as writers, as creative type; even if not a creative type, I’d say like, read the stories that you want to see, you know, into existence. Go buy that book. Go like affirm that author, because you are participating in a kind of genesis, you know, a kind of pro-creative energy. So yeah, the artist, I think, the art and the culture is where it’s at; and the innovation of course too. I mean there is so much practically we need to do, right? Like there’s the practical side of things about, well we need to create alternative currencies, we need to create sustainable urban environments, and so on. But I think behind all of that again is a world view that needs to be cultivated first. And it’s the artist; it’s the people that can imagine a different world. Who can project themselves into that space first as a kind of anchor for others to do the same and amplify that. I don’t know if that is going to be effective enough at this point, but it is the only thing I know personally how to do.

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What is Magick? In an attempt to not sound absolutely crazy to anyone who might see me mention magick, I’d like to bring some illumination of what magick is. This may prove to be a challenge because the term itself is a moving goalpost of sorts. To some, magick means a man on a stage sawing a woman in half as an act of illusion. Ironically, this can also be seen as a metaphor for our own subjective predilections toward illusion in all aspects of our life. In order to explain this correctly, I must try to get you to set aside what you think you might know about actual magic and allow yourself to hear me for what I’m saying unencumbered by preset notions. The Buddhist might say that everything is Maya (illusion) and the ancient Gnostic might say the same, but with the twist that this material construct is a kind of incubator for us to occupy ourselves while Archons feed on our thoughts and feelings without our knowing it (think, people being batteries for the machines to live off of like in the film series, The Matrix). Whether these ideas are true, or not the metaphor that they produce is indeed powerful. In many different ways, these concepts can be seen as true. 203

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Ok, on to actual explanation. Magick is first a method of transforming the world you see by changing the way you see the world. This requires one to willfully change hard-wired behavior and practices through mental gymnastics. Much of this involves understanding and playing with the thought-form. A thought form is the primary way we construct ideas; it is exactly the formation of our thoughts. A thought form can also be in some ways associated with what Jung referred to as archetypes. Archetypes are overarching themes and images that we associate with primary things in our life. For example, for many, our fathers represent an image of what God might be like; If our father is cruel, then we may see God as inherently cruel. The thought form of who God is creates a landscape for our reality in a highly subjective and personal fashion and may be entirely incorrect in contrast to the actual truth of the matter. But we are not looking for truth with a capital T here, because of the paradoxical nature of truth itself. It is like the problem scientists have with the idea that the observer changes the results of behavior simply by nature of observing. Instead we are looking to change the nature of our thoughts and tinkering with the wiring we have in our minds. So how exactly does one manipulate one’s own thought forms and for what purpose? This is the crux of the magical practice. One must in many ways trick one’s own mind, which is no small feat, but that doesn’t mean it cannot be done. Think of a time in your life in which you radically changed stances on a subject. Did the way you see the world change? Did some kind of transformative experience catalyze this change? In one way, or another, something changed the wiring of you mind on that particular subject. In one sense, you received gnosis (experiential understanding) on that 204

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particular thing. But the fact that this experience happened to you through your particular lens means that it may not have happened to others in the same way, even if the experience has happened to many people. For instance, no two people lost their virginity in the same way, but all were transformed by the experience in some form. The event is highly subjective and personal, though many themes may be similar within the broader context of the experience. The greatest act of a magician then is to transform one’s self and therefore change the world that they see. In changing our perception, we change the nature of reality. And this toying with perception can change the world from something banal into something divine. Regardless of our cosmology, we can see how this happens to everyone, hence my assertion that everything is magick. If you ask a Kung Fu master what Kung Fu is, he might say the same thing. In many ways magick is a western term for a traditionally assumed eastern idea, but our western traditions have much to contribute, though they have been stamped down and literally burned in books and people by two millennia of monotheistic suppression. The stigma is palpable and yet our disciplines of science came through these occult channels from ancient sources. Astronomy and Astrology were once one and the same, Pharmacology, Chemistry and Herbalism were once Alchemy. So in short, the manipulation of one’s own mind to achieve a specific goal in one’s self, or in the world around them is the core of magick. To those who might think magick to be a foul and odious working with demons and other fancied creatures, this is a misunderstanding brought forth by a long tradition of slander. Consider what it means to work on yourself in such a way that your goal is personal growth for the highest goal of society through your own contribution. Consider this quote from the much maligned 205

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and misunderstood book, The Black Pullet: “Do you feel, my son, do you feel this heroic ambition which is the sure stamp of the children of wisdom? Do you dare to desire to serve only the one God and to dominate over all that is not God? Have you understood what it is to prove to be a man and to be unwilling to be a slave since you are born to be a Sovereign? And if you have these noble thoughts, as the signs which I have found on your physiognomy do not permit me to doubt, have you considered maturely whether you have the courage and the strength to renounce all the things which could possibly be an obstacle to attaining the greatness for which you have been born?” At this point he stopped and regarded me fixedly as if waiting for an answer, or as if he were searching to read my heart. I asked him, “What is that which I have to renounce?” “All that is evil in order to occupy yourself only with that which is good. The proneness with which nearly all of us are born to vice rather than to virtue. Those passions which render us slaves to our senses which prevent us from applying ourselves to study, tasting its sweetness, and gathering its fruits. You see, my dear son, that the sacrifice which I demand of you is not painful and is not above your powers; on the contrary, it will make you approach perfection as near as it is possible for man to attain. Do you accept that which I propose?” If I have explained myself correctly, you will understand that magick is simply a broad term for one working on the improvement of one’s self for the betterment of self and humanity at large through the manipulation of one’s own thoughts and ideas, questioning every notion and challenging each one in practice and critical review.

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The Gnosis of Peter J. Carroll Peter J. Carroll is known as one of the founders of Chaos Magic, a modern interpretation of what magick is. His books have launched a wave of thought that integrate cutting edge science and the oldest methods of ecstatic states in a manner that leaves room for each person to make their own interpretation. His views on Neo-Panthiesm have greatly influenced my own views and I hold him in the highest esteem. Author and breakthrough thinker, Robert Anton Wilson has described Peter as, “The most original, and probably the most important, writer on Magick since Aleister Crowley.”. With that, I offer up our conversation as an important meditation on our quest for Gnosis. GDR - If you were to attempt to give a cursory description of Magic to someone who knows little to nothing about it, what might you say? PC - I wouldn’t give a cursory description, no scientist or priest would give a cursory description or a one liner if asked about their field of endeavor, they would give an interminable lecture, so here goes with an abbreviated one at least… I take the high ground, for me the universe runs on magic, 207

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science represents the study of fairly high probability and reliability phenomena, magic looks at the anomalies and the exceptions, the weird stuff, the unreliable but occasionally astonishing phenomena in the realms of religion, psychology and parapsychology. If we develop a bit of magic that tends to work most of the time by a plausible mechanism then we redefine it as science. Science = How? Religion = Why? But Magic asks the question ‘What?’ Thus it enquires into the nature of phenomena, what do they actually do? GDR - In your book, The Apophenion, you warn readers, saying the book of magic also contains a certain amount of physics. Due to the broad domination of scientific materialism, I’m sure many a physicist would scoff at the idea of physics leading one to a belief in magic. Have you made any converts among your peers in physics? What do you say to them? PC - Our Physics stands on two main and somewhat mutually-contradictory pillars, the classical –relativistic which depends on strict causality and locality, and the quantum which depends on indeterminacy/probability and a degree of non-locality. Adherents of the former have no truck with anything esoteric, adherents of the second have varying degrees of sympathy for it. I know quite a number of professional scientists who have keen esoteric interests and quite a number of esotericists who think that the quantum perspective provides a suitable, and perhaps the only credible model for ‘occult’ ideas these days. GDR - What is the difference between Black Magic and White Magic? PC - ‘Black magic means the other guys magic’ as the old quip goes. Black magic can mean the exploration of the Saturn god-form in Chaos Magic, i.e. learning the lessons that mortality and death have to offer. Other than that it just tends to mean stuff that someone disapproves of on ethical grounds. 208

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GDR - Are the Illuminatti real? What does the term mean to you? PC - Originally the term seems to have meant groups who conspired to support The Enlightenment generally and took a rationalist, humanist, anti-clerical and anti-monarchist view. Now it can mean either people who have newer radical ideas (for example Chaos Magicians) or supposed conspiracies with exploitative agendas in politics or finance. GDR - Is there a difference between a ghost, a demon, an alien, or a DMT ‘machine elf’ and why do they seem to have an interest in what we are up to, even offering help or advice? PC - I severely doubt the existence of disembodied gaseous vertebrates; however I know we have astonishing abilities hidden inside our heads, in what some psychologists have called the unconscious or subconscious. GDR - Can you explain the difference between Ideology and thought forms of belief? How do we self diagnose whether we are operating in one or the other? PC - Philosophy arises mainly from biography. However we need to remain aware of the mechanisms by which this occurs and work out why we hold beliefs and ideologies and how much utility we get out of them. Nothing has ultimate truth. GDR - By your own definition, what is Gnosis, why is it important and how do we achieve it? PC - Gnosis as defined in Chaos Magic means altered state of consciousness achieved willfully. Hey, you don’t want to go through life in just one state of mind all the time or remain dependent on external stimuli and ‘entertainment’ for alternative states do you? GDR - What are the benefits of Magic? Conversely, what are the dangers? PC - Personally I’ve defined Magic broadly enough to give me the freedom and motivation to delve into science, religion, art, psychology, history and quite a few other realms 209

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in search of knowledge, interest, and inspiration. Plus defining myself as a magician means for me that only excellence will suffice for important matters, it gives me a tremendous motivation to attempt things others might shy away from. However I have noticed that some people abuse the idea by using it to bolster their own self image without actually achieving anything much at all in their lives. GDR - It seems we are already on the fast track to the singularity with our constant attachment to our phones and computers. How may we use this growing connection between human and machine to improve and increase our own shamanic power for the general betterment of society? PC - I don’t buy the Singularity idea. Simply increasing the volume and speed of data achieves little but confusion and distraction; it does not necessarily imply an increase in its quality. I think it likely that we will experience diminishing returns for our excessive data rather than an enlightening singularity. GDR - You’ve famously stated, "Magic will only be free from occultism when we have strangled the last astrologer with the entrails of the last spiritual master." Assuming that magic is the best and most useful way to tap in to our own potential to generate change in the universe, how can we liberate ourselves from the bonds of religion and what is commonly referred to as spirituality while achieving success in exploring our inner-space. Where does the common man beginning his journey out of lifelong bondage of ideology start without falling back in to a new one? Where does the true journey of illumination begin? PC - Question everything. Look for the utility of any idea and for the conditions under which it doesn’t apply or gives poor results. GDR - In Liber Null, you speak about the 5th Aeon in which humanity either falls into a dark age, or embraces magic as a technological boon that can lead us into the 210

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Aquarian age. Which do you presently feel is more likely and what can we as individuals do to point this world in the right direction? PC - We will have to take a great deal more care of this planet’s resources and ecology and climate and keep human population and consumption to sustainable levels to avoid catastrophe over the coming decades. Plus we need to address the more stupid religious, economic and political ideas that currently worsen the situation. GDR - What happens when we die? PC - Our bodies disintegrate and become recycled into new organisms. I rather strongly suspect that the same happens to the rest of us, a few ideas and tendencies may become recycled also but the illusory self disintegrates just like the body. Even the Tibetans who have studied this for many centuries do not really expect much of the ‘self’ of even their top Lamas to reincarnate. Don’t worry about ‘being’ dead, for you have no ‘being’ to ‘be’ dead with. Nevertheless it does seem that for a short period after death, before bodily disintegration really sets in, some last thoughts seem to become telepathically projected occasionally, I’ve had several direct and indirect experiences of this with family members, including the transmission of important last minute information, previously undisclosed.

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The Gnosis of Maja D’Aoust Some people come into your life who simply exude something so kind and generous, a glow of goodness, Maja is one of those people. A brilliant author, orator, radio host, mother and snappy dresser, Maja does it all with a soft and strong grace. I’ve had the pleasure of attending many of Maja’s Magic School sessions at the legendary Theosophical Society’s Besant Lodge and have learned a great deal from her insights. She delivers a message that confirms the presence of magic in the world, but pulls no punches when discussing the how’s and why’s of the world being so messed up. It is a privilege and an honor to have her grace the pages of this book and I think after you see our conversation, you will adore her as well. GDR - Maja, what does the term Gnosis mean to you in the classical sense and what does it mean in the present practical sense? Does it have any value to us now and how may we achieve it? MD - The way I view Gnosis probably isn't the same as most in the "classical" sense. Most people would say Gnosis is "wisdom" or "knowledge" as it is of course the root of our 212

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word "know", which actually means to "recognize", or think again, or remember. Technically gnosis is the act of remembering what we have forgotten. But my own journey into the word Gnostic led all over the place. First it was a book. I came across the Gnostic Gospels and of course couldn't believe all the extra bible stuff in there and had to get to the bottom of what "gnostic" was. Looking it up doesn't help. It is at the same time, a word that describes things, A group of people that had a religion, a body of religious literature and then gnosticism that was a religion. So it seems this is a verb, a noun, an adverb and an adjective. But what does that mean. The Gnostics seemed to think the world was evil, all matter was corrupt, and our job was to free the light inside of it and ascend to heaven the only place that beauty lived. The Gnostic Gospels are from Christians, or a branch of christians, who had additional stories about Jesus that didn't quite jive with some things in the new testament. So to me the term Gnosis, because it is so many things is really a reminder that all things are everything. To achieve it we have to find the connections and unifications underlying all matter in the universe. Piece of cake, right? GDR - A lot of people may be confused about what magick really is; what is your definition of it? MD - My definition of magic is an engagement in an alteration of perception which allows the perceiver the ability to see/feel more of reality than otherwise possible. Much like when the sun and rain combine to reveal the rainbow beneath, magic is anything that can provide an increase in our perception to see the true nature of the universe. GDR - People often associate magick with bad stuff, but how do the big religions relate to magick? Do they ever use it without knowing? MD - ALL religions without exception use, or base their rituals and principles upon magic. From the Eucharist to the miracle of the Maccabees, to the dismemberment of the 213

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Buddha, magic pervades every messiah and all altars in religious temples around the globe. The word Magic comes from the same root as MAGI, as in the wise men/women or priests (the root of my own name, Maja contains the same). The words magician and priest used to be the same. GDR - How can one have a belief in magick and still be considered a reasonable person when it comes to everyday life? MD - This is VERY possible and achievable under one condition. you can not BELIEVE in magic at all. You have to just do it, perceive it and participate with it. That way, you aren't just speaking from your posterior. If you actually DO MAGIC it is not necessary to BELIEVE in it, because you have a direct experience of it. Just like you would sound like an idiot if you tried to write a paper on the Ocean, and in fact, have never been to the ocean. MAgic is not separate from reason anymore than anything else in the universe. It makes perfect sense. People sound ridiculous talking about magic when they have in fact, never experienced it and are just trying to sound spooky or powerful. It is the same with God in my opinion, you don't need to believe in God, just experience it. GDR - What was your introduction to magick as a real thing? How did it change your interactions with others? MD - I have been blessed to have experienced magic from the time I was a child. At that time it was through illnesses and fevers mostly. I have always just been confused when others didn't know what I was talking about. The only thing it changes in my interactions with others is that people's reaction to the mention of magic allows me a better sense of knowing when I'm wasting my time. So Magic has afforded me the ability to save tremendous amounts of time that would have otherwise been lost on nincompoops. GDR - What pitfalls does the modern magician face today and what methods do you employ to avoid them? 214

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MD - Judgment and scorn, mockery and attack, mistrust and fear are always the pitfalls of the magician, but I manage to avoid these by not paying them any mind (and working hard to get my mind off of them) and continuing along my way. GDR - Can you give me an example of how magicians can help shape and influence culture for the better? MD - USE YOUR MIND. Any magician holds sway and influence by organizing their consciousness to divine will. If you want to influence culture, be of service to people. Help people. Heal people. Listen to them. INSPIRE them. By being inspirational in your life and how you live. A great example of a magician who did this is Ghandi. To understand that, try and bend your brainpan to include the yogi's in the magician category, because yogis are magicians. GDR - When people hear the name Aleister Crowley, or Helena Blavatsky, there is often an immediate backlash. How are these two prominent characters of magick in general misunderstood and how can we parse their good stuff from the bad? MD - Crowley worked hard to make propaganda for himself, as did Blavatsky. Their infamy comes from hard work. ANYONE I have ever heard have a bad reaction to either of these two had never READ or had any direct experience of them whatsoever. I have arduously taken to the time to read MANY volumes of writing by both and found them to be extremely intelligent, original, perceptive magicians, who it is true might have had some nefarious ideas thrown in here and there, but really, which one of us humans has never done that? While I don't agree with everything either of them said or did, you can not mistake their genius. Anyone who can come up with their own system of magic or their own religion is doing ok in the thinking department. GDR - What is the relation between magick and 215

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psychedelics? MD - As I stated, I see magic as an increase in perception. Obviously, psychedelics can increase our perception. The trick is, you MUST remain CONSCIOUS while engaging, or you simply get posessed, and there is no magic or will or discipline in that at all is there? GDR - How do you stay positive in a world that seems to be increasingly full of bad juju? MD - All bad juju can serve as a reminder that the opposing force is equally present. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Each proton requires an electron as every asshole has a saint. Bad juju, demons, and black magic are as much evidence of GOD as anything more froofy and rainbowy. GDR - Are you keen to the concept of the Aquarian age being a golden age? If so, what should we be doing to make that golden age come about? MD - All time is now. The idea of getting to a better place is illusion. The golden age is in your heart for all eternity. No person, time, drug, food, or magical happy land will make everything perfect. Everything is already perfect.

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Sleuthing an Immortal Goddess There are few things more powerful than a mystery that begs to be solved and for me one had been lurking in my mind for a couple of years. It’s not the kind of mystery that reveals itself by traditional means. For me, it has been an internal mystery in the pantheon of my mind where gods, demons, machine elves, archetypes and ghosts all coexist as thought forms. I’ve come full circle in my process of self-discovery and have accepted the possibility that there may be gods etc. in reality. This does not require for me to descend into the bonds of dogma, but to acknowledge that something divine can and does occur even in life today. Magic is real; miracles are real. The thing I am sure of is that a very real transformation for the better has taken place and continues to do so. There is an absolute correlation between my experiences with DMT and my rocket ride of rapid revelation. For the sake of brevity I’ll only account 3 moments that were integral. The first was when I had finally ‘broke out of the waiting room’ of the initial stage of a DMT experience. The challenge as many know is the difficulty of getting enough in 217

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fast enough to get ‘all the way there’. So when I finally did, I met the most curious group of people; The Trickster, The Engineer and The Feminine Aspect. In common machine elf fashion they bombarded me with all kinds of whimsical and happy thoughts that utterly confounded. They themselves looked like whirling, constantly morphing balls of energy. At the time I was most interested in the trickster who felt like the most kindred spirit to me directly, but SHE, HER, The Feminine Aspect, whatever she was in the background allowing the trickster to have his show off time. But out of all of them, she was to be the most influential and driving in the last 3 years of my life. The second experience involved 5 dried grams of psychedelic mushrooms in the quiet gloom of my Queens apartment. As the mushrooms began to take hold, I felt the need to get as close to the earth as possible, but being in New York, going outside and laying face down on the pavement among the throngs of people wasn’t really an option so my hardwood floor was the best I could do. As I lay there I sank right through the floor out of my body down, down, down into the earth where the soil became invisible, as easy as passing through air. And there in the center of the dark was a giant rainbow snake, which I immediately recognized by feel as HER. As I floated in this gloaming aether she told me that I was supposed to go to the wilderness and she would meet me there. She then showed me a vision of being in the wilderness with a big scruffy beard, washing myself in a rushing body of water. She said, ‘come to the forest and let us take care of you. Everything will be ok. Little did I know how clear, accurate and powerful this vision would become as my final year in New York came to an end with a move to Los Angeles and a marriage that was unraveling. I had never heard of a rainbow serpent, but was surprised and shocked to know that the Aborigines of Australia 218

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worship a great rainbow serpent as the creator of all things and a bringer of wisdom. In Gnostic cosmology, the serpent in the garden of Eden is the hero of the story who teaches mankind that the one they believe is the creator is actually an impostor who wishes to enslave them by forcing them to live in either fear or worship and feed off them by way of their emotions. My studies continued at a feverish pace and these visions from the Tryptamine world haunted me with cryptic calls to the wilderness. I didn’t understand, but it was becoming clearer and clearer. In Joseph Campbell’s classic book, The Hero With A Thousand Faces he describes the Heroes Journey, a hermetic voyage that all the great spiritual leaders and heroes of mythology had taken. It was his assertion that this was an archaic call for us as individuals to take the heroes journey. Having coupled this concept with the nagging image of The Hermit of the Tarot, it seemed like a very real thing that was happening catalyzed by the psychedelic call of the divine feminine. Through a series of events I found myself at the end of my marriage and desperate for work after 8 months of unemployment. I made my way to Northern California to work as a farm hand. Inexplicably I was alone in the wilderness living on a mountain and using the local creek to wash myself. I was taken care of when the rest of the world didn’t work. I was safe in the lonesome womb of nature with a big scruffy beard! With 40 days in the wilderness without running water, a toilet, real showers, or an abundance of food I returned to Los Angeles as a new man. One that was leaner, one that was tougher, one that had learned to sleep alone in the woods with a knife and a flashlight. When I got back to my friends, Albert and Macy (names changed to protect the awesome) in LA, we decided it was high time to do LSD together. I had tried it before, but the batch was bunk and nothing happened. This time, I had 219

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returned with the goods from a friend I visited in San Francisco who said it was some of the best stuff she ever had. So we headed to a private park in Pasadena as the Acid began to kick in. We settled in a big open field and enjoyed the sunshine and people watching. A woman in the distance pulled a baby from her baby carriage and folded the child into the grass as it lay helplessly. The trees waved like a thousand Chinese women doing Tai Chi. The ground bent and flexed beneath me like it was a giant, breathing memory foam mattress. After we felt we had worn out our welcome we returned their home where I was staying and sat by the fire allowing a bit more of the crazy to come out as we tripped hard. Macy, who for the better part of the day teetered between discomfort from the trip and a bit of worry to total joy, laughter and wonder decided it was high time that I make my return to the world of DMT after a year and a half hiatus. The tone of the room grew grim as Albert and I had the sobering realization that we might have to take that big leap, the blast into lightspeed and machine elf mystery. The look on Albert’s face is something I’ll never forget, his eyes big as saucers gazed at the floor as if he had just gotten death sentence test results. Macy in an uncharacteristic fit of boldness asked me again if I really wanted to pass up going through it. I said yes and tried my best not to think about it until the time actually came. I went to the bathroom and watched the walls breathe in and out as I had a pee. I washed my hands on the swollen towel, the carcass of a cookie monster slain and walked to the couch where Macy and Albert had prepared the wax bong. They lit it and put the DMT in, I breathed in as long and deep as I could and held it. As the LSD and DMT met they dissolved my body into a hundred-thousand electric bees and with the Snap, Crackle and Pop I was thrust into a giant domed structure the size of a sports stadium. And there in that vast expanse where I was 220

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alone the walls and ceiling shimmered with diamonds, rubies, bone, ivory, emeralds, sapphires and every other precious thing in blinding shades of white. Then she arrived in the corner of my mind’s eye, HER, SHE, The Divine Feminine. I yelled out in the physical, “it’s her! It’s her!”. She was the one from my first big trip, she was the serpent in the center of the earth who called me to the desert; it was HER! She said to me as she tread across the roof of the dome, “Of course it’s me, dummy! I’m she who dances to keep the world full of splendor.” Her implications meant that without her dancing, all beauty in the universe would disappear and be lost forever. I was not allowed to see her, but could only see the imprint of her foot as it tread, like the wind leaves its imprint on dunes. As she tread across the dome, the roof rained all the fine jewels as they fell toward me like floating feathers, dripping pearls like milk. The vision waned and I returned to my LSD state, which was beginning to fade and told Albert and Macy about my experience. She told me that she had called me to the wilderness in order to set my path in motion, that it was what I needed to hear at the time. She also said that this was just my rite of passage, that the real work was just beginning and I was finally ready to take a much bigger voyage. I told David Metcalfe and Dr. Aaron Cheak about my experiences and was shocked to hear that my experience with the divine feminine was a dead ringer for visions of Tara: She who has the Face of a hundred completely full moons of Autumn, laid one upon another. She who is shining intensely with the completely diffused light Of a multitude of thousands of stars. She who fills Desire, Direction and Space She who has the power to squash down the seven worlds with her Feet, and summon all without exception. She to whom Indra, Agni, Brahma, Pavana 221

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And the Various Great Gods make offerings She who is Bliss, She who is Goodness, She who is Peace, She who is the embodiment of the field of experience of Nirvana's Peace. Dr. Cheak informed me that visions of Tara involve jewels dripping from her feet. I was absolutely floored that I hadn’t just had some random hallucination, but had quite literally had an encounter with the divine feminine, the resplendent rainbow serpent,the Gnostic Sophia, it was HER! Now it seems more clear to me that she’s right here helping and guiding with grace and beauty. Where she leads me, I do not know, but I will go with a new glow of love that emanates to all those around me. Compassion and a fervor for a life lived well. It was her all along. It was her.

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The Gnosis of Daniele Bolelli GDR: So... you're called the “Drunken Taoist.” DB: Sure. GDR: Why is that? What's the story behind that? DB: Um... Drunken Taoist I guess, you know how in Kung Fu movies you've got the old drunk guy who looks like crap and always manages to defeat these burly, strong, younger, better, faster attackers and nobody can quite figure out how. The Drunken Taoist is the power of weirdness. It's an unorthodox approach, that no one can quite figure out why it works, but it does. GDR: Right. Those are actually my favorite of the Jackie Chan movies, are the Drunken Master ones. DB: Right. Right, exactly. GDR: [laughs] That's pretty awesome. So, you wrote the book. “Create Your Own Religion.” Can you give us a synopsis of why you put this book together? DB: “Create Your Own Religon,” in a way is Bruce Lee applied to religion. In the sense that the Bruce Lee approach of researching your own experience, discarding what is useless, keeping what is useful and adding what is specifically your own. That's a perfect approach to knowledge in general, 223

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and in this case it seems healthy to apply for all facets of life, and religion definitely being one of them. You know the Bruce Lee approach is a martial art style. Martial art styles during these days were very much like organized religion, with each one feeling we are the best, we have the best methodology. GDR: Yeah and that's kind of what religions do as well: we have the best Jesus, we have the best Buddha, we've the best Muhammad. [laughter] DB: Basically the create your own religion thing is the same way as martial arts, traditionally they all had this attitude of “we have the only way to the truth.” In this case applied to combat, obviously in a bigger scenario religions do the same thing. And how do you test the claims? How do you decide which one makes sense and which one doesn't, if any of them? And so the Bruce Lee approach is just to put it to the test. So in this regard what I did was take a few key topics of human life that all religions discuss, look at what some of the beliefs out there about them are, you know such and such religion argue this, and such and such religions argue that. Look at the consequences, of what kind of results do those beliefs lead to, and then evaluate based on the evidence. And you know some stuff makes sense to me, seems great. Some other stuff seems like unhealthy crap. GDR: Right. DB: In some cases, some religions may have a good answer, and some others don't, in some cases maybe you don't find any good answers any where and you create your own. GDR: Right. DB: So in this process you basically do a job of just being honest about looking at what the evidence is case by case. Rather than making a claim, an absolute claim of such and such ideology holds the truth and nothing but the truth, well let's look case by case. 224

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GDR: Right. So it kind of sounds in some ways like either a pantheist or a theosophist or even a chaos magician's approach to it where you use what works and discard the things that don't. DB: Exactly. Absolutely. GDR: Right. That's pretty interesting. DB: In that regard everybody does it already. You know even if you pick the strictest followers of every organized religion they will tell you that they follow the religion but the reality is that they pick and choose the stuff, the stuff they like and the stuff they don't out of their own tradition. GDR: That's true. DB: So if you're going to do it any way, out of your own tradition, you might as well be honest and use all traditions. GDR: That's funny, you know, because when I was a Pentecostal Christian, obviously we were American Pentecostal Christians and we thought that our doctrine was the best. But, when I was doing research for my book “Born Again to Rebirth,” I found out that there are forty-thousand different sects of Christianity in the world, and they all think that they have the right one. DB: Of course. GDR: So the death count going to hell is pretty high I suppose, if you were to look at it that way. DB: Yup. Big time. GDR: There are two modern definitions of the term “gnosis.” There's the the ecstatic state, that's similar to samadhi or non-mind. DB: Uh huh. GDR: And then there is the traditional view of experience based knowledge and understanding. What is gnosis to you and how might you utilize it kind of, in your world view? DB: Well I mean, I guess, I don't use the term, so terminology wise I may be slightly off because it's not a term that I routinely use, but as far as concept, both concepts 225

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actually sound quite appealing. Because if it's not experience based then what is it based on? That's why to me, anything that's not based in experience I'm naturally suspicious of, because it means it's based in hearsay essentially. It's based on somebody else telling you how things are and going on it by faith, which is like, well, why? If it's not your experience then it sounds really cheap. So, the notion of experience based knowledge clearly resounds very strongly with me and that's what “Create Your Own Religion” in many ways is all about. And an ecstatic, more mystical approach is also one that makes perfect sense. Both apply. GDR: So have you had any experience in ecstatic states of your own in which you feel in one way or another you may have more contact with the divine? Or something to that effect? DB: As far as experiences where things click, where suddenly you see the outside of our ordinary perceptional things, yeah, quite a few. Some are somewhat random, some a little more looking for them, but yeah. What's interesting is that, as real as these experiences are and feel, there are just as many experiences in which nothing clicks, where you call out and all you get is a dead stone silence, and there's, it feels, with real convictions you feel there is an absolute lack of anything out there. And a lack of any type of connectivity in the universe where it does feel like it's just all random chaos and nothing else. So it's tricky for me because it's not you know the believers or people who strongly believe one thing or another; people who don't believe in any of this stuff that strongly feel there is nothing to believe in. Agnostics feel like, “well I don't have enough evidence to believe or disbelieve.” I feel that I have plenty of evidence to believe and disbelieve at the same time, which makes it slightly confusing. GDR - Right again, we're butting into an idea that magicians have is to put yourself into the position of a believer wherever you might be in order to achieve your own 226

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particular goals and purpose so that you might actually, uh kind of like the apostle Paul said it "I have learned to be all things to all men" which in a strange way is sort of the same idea. As a writer and educator, what would you say are the most common pitfalls in ideology you find your students and readers getting caught up in. how do you help them out in a gentle way. DB - I think allegiance to any ideology is a disease because it's, ideology are filters through which you perceive reality. The fact is reality is more complicated than any ideology. So even the best ideology in the universe and that being too rigid and too limited to take into account all the possible variations and experiences and things life can throw your way. So ideology can give you structure which may feel reassuring and nice in a way and it also limits what you can cannot be, what are you willing to take in as experience and what you cannot. GDR - Right, that makes sense. So how do we. In this day and age, it still seems like everyone has a yearning and this sense of awe. A friend of mine said she visited some nuns and though she didmt believe what the nuns believe but she felt this sense of emptyness that she didnt have that deep kind of desire, or that rapterous interaction with the divine which she so much found. How do we find that without getting caught up within a dogma. DB - Well I mean I think the man's approach in one approach. If you are not caught up with dogma you can try millions of approaches including some even more uh, the beauty of being flexible is you can truly take on shapes. Including the shapes that may look not as flexible to the outside someone else is just stuck in the role forever. You may just be getting the experience of it. but to me at the end of the day it's like, the beauty of this is that you can experience multiple lives. You can speak many languages, so to speak. GDR - Right, so there's kind of an inner pantheon that 227

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you can call upon to become one thing for one moment and one in another. I think that's really scary for a lot of people especially when everybody want to pin things down and feel safe. DB - Right and the problem is that it makes perfect sense, and it's sweet but life is not safe and just where it sits. And so safety to a large degree is an illusion, identity is an illusion allegiance to an ideology is an illusion. These are all things are very understandable that people feel that way but at the end of the day they are still traps GDR - So yeah it's funny beaus in my own process Ive gone through so many different layers of illusions and traps, and one of the hardest things growing up as a fundamentalist Christian, I was told 'it is not I, but Christ who lives'. So there's like the death of self. And so the way that I got out of it was one of the things that I realized, was like 'wait a second, no I can make decisions and I can have control over my life and make those decisions' but the paradox occurred is that there is kind bolstering or reassertion of my sense of self so now to try to back up on that and I have to get away from that once again but from a non-dogmatic stance. It's been one the harder things for me to try to figure out. DB - Right, of course. Especially if you are born at that way it's tough business. (?) GDR - Right, so I was wondering, because of your background studying lots of different philosophies and religions, if could you summon up any spiritual leader from antiquity or now for a conversation over tea, or the beverage of your choice, who would it be? My all time idle is a guy ikkyu sajin. He was a Zen monk from the early 1400s and he was a pretty wild guy. He was the legitimate son of the emperor of japan and he been sent to a monastery as an alternative to being killed in his palace and he was five years old. He grew up in this very stone severe environment he had an amazing grasp of Zen but precisely 228

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beause he loved zenzen he hated what Zen Buddhism had become.me. Which is sort of boring bureaucracy, so then he kind of spends the rest of his life traveling around as a wondering teacher, equally dedicated to Zen, women and Saki and he was quiet a fun guy. GDR - That's pretty awesome, Zen women and Saki. Who needs anything else right? This is interesting because it reminds me of some of my own journeys I've been going through and you know I've been having debates with some of my friends about whether or not if it's necessary for us to try, like a Christian missionary might try to convert people. And so on and so forth. And then when we're talking about well, we should expand our consciousness so that we don't destroy the earth and that we're more compassionate people. There's still the question of ‘should we even bother trying to tell people things one way or the other’ and the answer I've come to, and perhaps you can illuminate me, it seems that there's two primary paths and you make the decisions based on that. there's kind of the aesthetic path like your describing and we see you know the pillar monks and from all these traditions, there are all these aesthetic traditions. The Cathar Perfecti, all of these groups who are just like wondering mystics who are like living off what they could find, I've actually been living that way for the last 3 months and it's been really weird and wild and it hasn't been easy but I've always found some sort of fortuitous occasion or connection. Last night, or a couple nights ago, a guy got me a beer because he said he had a dream that he saw me and he wasn't hitting on me, he was like "I had a dream and I saw you" and I said let me read your tarot and I read tarot and said "Oh this is amazing, let me buy you a beer!" and I was like "OK!" and I didn't have any money but I mean this is kind of how those guys operate and it's crazy, it's crazy to our civilization. But I mean is this one of the ways that people do this? And likewise, why don't we all just go to a mountain, I suppose because there's not 229

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enough mountains? DB - Right? I mean to me there is also something to be said about being just because you may not have the same state of precociousness as everyone else there's something to be said about searching for enlightenment in the midst of the everyday world. In the midst of the struggles and the complications of it all, the lonely hermit on the mountain, I don't want to say is too easy but it's too, it's an enlightenment that's born outside of being tested by the everyday forces that mess people up, its one that is better than no enlightenment at all and is in my mind actually inferior to actually being able to deal with all the 7 million contradictions that life entails. GDR - That's such a poignant thought and this actually happened to me when I as describing what was going on to a traveling companion that I had they were like "Well what do you think is harder? To be out in the desert by yourself, living beans and rice, sitting by a fire meditating or to have to do the exact same thing but you're in a city and there's no public toilets and you have to have money to have transpiration anywhere. What's the more difficult task? DB - And also one is more applicable to many other contexts whereas one is sort of stacking when you are outside of most regular human interaction, you're outside of jobs, you're outside most of the same thing which most other humans live in. So then the question is either you live that way your whole life or you return to a reality that most people inhabit then how you deal with it. Is that enlightenment learned in the desert something that can last if brought back in or does it only work in it's own space? GDR - That's kind of the question I'm dealing with now. I think that the difficult thing is to find a balance and to get too caught up in the uh, kind of the arrogance of saying "Oh I'm on a spiritual path" that sort of thing is it's own challenge within itself. I guess coming back to the question, how do we help to initiate change for the better so that we don't leave a 230

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scorched earth by the time our kids grow up? I think that you're child is slightly younger, I have a son and a daughter and everyone has that concern for the things in the future and things like that, and I was reading Maharaj and someone was asking him "Well what happens when you have these emergencies and people are dying in the streets" and he says "Well northing's actually happening." and they're like "Well how can you say that?" and he's basically saying that in one way, it's okay. Every thing's already over and we're still all okay but that doesn't help us when we're all like, we have kids or we have people we care for. DB - Sure, Well I'm all for it. And I think it's important because people are either are very committed to changing world but they often do it from an idealistic standpoint and when they meet reality they get bummed out and cynical or they start out bummed out and cynical and they go "I'm gonna have fun in my little corner of the world and screw everything else" and both of them are somewhat losing propositions because in one case you are idealistic without real reason and the other way your sense of reality is one that's sort of miserable and born out of cynicism. The challenge is to have realistic options. To be able to be so idealistic that you want to try change the world right here, right now, but at the same time not having your self esteem and happiness wrapped up in success, because success is entirely beyond your control and may or may not come. GDR - It’s kind of like the idea of the yogi who is within the world, who participates in everything but is not stained by sin or as the metaphor goes. That's really poignant. So one last question because I've asked virtually everyone else this one question and I've gotten such crazy different answers it's been really interesting, so what do you believe, since we don't know for sure, what do you believe happens when we die? DB - I have no damn idea. Who the hell knows? GDR - I think that's the best way, because there's no way 231

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of knowing, well okay let me rephrase that. How do we deal with living our life in the face of the fear of death? Because it seems like our culture's so driven by the fear of death, or even of aging, all of those things. DB - Of course, there's no idea of what the hell happens, and it happens to everybody and it's scary as hell it's the ultimate evidence that we don't control shit. GDR - I’m gonna put that on the back of the book, it can be your review of the book. That's so perfect. Yeah and there's a guy if you wanna check out on my website danielebolelli.com there's a section that says essays, there's one called "In the beginning there was fear”. GDR - Cool I'll look that up. DB - I mean it's tricky because most people try to, because the prospect of this whole thing is so terrifying that most people try just not to think about it and then it's all just to make up shit. I'm gonna believe that I'm going to be with all my dead relatives and they'll all come back to life and we'll all have a great party forever in happiness. It's like "well that's sweet. G: Let's wait and find out. So there is one other group that fascinates me and that's the Agori and they basically force themselves to be comfortable in and around death constantly, for the sake of moving past that. And it seems there is a common theme in all of the great traditions that kind of has thing where people face their own death. I've heard of shamanic initiations where people are actually buried and they're breathing through a tube and they lay buried over night so they can experience it and move past it. I don't know if that really helps at the end of the day. DB - Yeah I mean it's like anything. It's tricky because how do you go about enjoying every little second when you know every single thing you have is going be taken away from you? That's rough. And at the same time if you don't then you have a miserable life and everything else will be taken away 232

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from you anyway. To be able to be so real, you have the knowledge that you have no control over anything and that yes, shit will happen and everything will eventually disappear. Again, who knows what happens after that, maybe it's awesome but nobody knows right? Based on what we know we don't know if anything will happen or not if it's absolute nothingness or who the hell knows. All we know is that what we know here in this world goes, and then after that, who the hell knows what happens? The ability to be able enjoy life right up until the hangmen puts the noose around your neck and strings you up kind of thing, that's serious enlightenment right there. Because it's tough, it's difficult of course. And at the same time if you don't do it there's no real way to, other than just living a lie and just telling yourself some fairy tales because you need them in order to be able to function otherwise the prospect of death is too terrifying. Then if you're not able to do this kind of stuff, then all of life is lived in fear and a life lived in fear is not always a waste to some degree but it's also severely limited in what it could be.

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The Gnosis of Dr. Rick Strassman GDR - Dr. Strassman, you wrote the groundbreaking book, DMT: The Spirit Molecule and were granted the first clinical study of Psychedelics in 20 years. How did it feel to have that much riding on the research? RS - I felt a lot of responsibility but at the same time knew that the people aware of the research and monitoring it were relatively few. I wasn’t directly responsible to that many people, even though the long-term effects of my research made me feel a lot of responsibility to perform the study with utmost rigor and care. Besides making certain to minimize the likelihood of adverse effects, the degree of direct observation and supervision was quite manageable. I recognized the importance of my work for the future of American psychedelic studied, and I wanted to make certain that it was performed in broad daylight. That way I felt the responsibility was shared among everyone involved in the process. GDR - There is much debate about whether or not the psychedelic experience is entirely within the mind, or possibly reaching outside of the mind. Can you site an example within your ongoing research that leads you to a conclusion one-way or the other? 234

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RS - At this point, I don’t believe that it is possible to objectively determine the how much of what we apprehend under the influence of psychedelic drugs is internally generated or externally perceived. It makes sense to me to suggest a spectrum of the phenomenon. There are times when our own personality predominates, rather than the awareness of something external to us. At other times, what we see is more external to us rather than self-generated. It’s impossible, though, to have a pure culture of one or the other. Without our personal life experience and biological make-up, we’d be unable to decipher what it is we are seeing. *For example, with one of the DMT subjects, Marsha, saw a profoundly psychedelic vision of manikin-like 1890s figures on a merry-go-round. With some questioning, we decided it the vision related as much to her body image in the context of her marriage than with anything more metaphysical. Another volunteer in the study, Chris, entered into a blissful yellow-white light and merged with it with very few contents that he could associate personal psychological themes. GDR - At the time of your research on DMT, you were a Buddhist. Are you still one and what benefit does your own spiritual path bring to the table as a scientist, if any? RS - I’m not an active member of any Zen organization these days. I practice sitting meditation most days. Unquestioningly, I would have been unable to pursue serious study of the Hebrew Bible without my Buddhist training. While the material that my DMT volunteers reported were beyond my understanding of Buddhism, the meditation practice helped determine how we supervised drug sessions. From the results point of view, the interaction of my sitting— a spiritual practice coming out of a well-characterized religion—and how I acquired and analyzed the data as a scientist were linked. The greatest impact on how I interpreted our results was on the development of our rating 235

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scale for the DMT effect. This was based on Buddhist psychological concepts and pointed to future studies that could tease apart the pharmacological underpinnings of the Buddhist Skandhas. GDR - Gnosis in the traditional sense is an experiential knowledge that removes the necessity for ‘blind faith’. How is Gnosis in this sense important, if at all in a spiritual pursuit? RS - If you are speaking of gnosis as a particular type of spiritual experience, it may function as a goal of spiritual practice. However, for gnosis to be important the information it contains needs to be transmittable. I say this for at least two reasons: to verify the experience as truly gnostic, and to educate and exhort others. GDR - Gnosis in the shamanic, or magical mystic sense is the same state as Samadhi, a place where our mental chatter is quieted. How may one achieve this state without the use of psychedelics? RS - There are millennia of techniques developed throughout the world for quieting mental chatter. However, gnosis is not therapy or some kind of anti-anxiety agent. It is an insight into God’s nature and activities in the spiritual and physical realms. This is more difficult to attain than simply quieting the mind and requires more extreme measures. Psychedelics may accelerate production of imaginal contents, but without grounding with the intellect, the experience may not be nearly as valuable as it might be. So with or without psychedelics, knowing what one is seeing, how to interact with it, and how to relate that information back to one’s fellows requires more than simply the experience itself. GDR - I have to admit that DMT and other Tryptamines were integral in my own spiritual reawakening, but I find that they are not the end-all-be-all of my personal pursuits in this regard. What are the dangers of seeing psychedelics as a panacea, or the final say in one’s personal path? RS - Your question addresses some of the issues I just 236

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raised in the previous question. Psychedelics are a tool that may help or may be misused. One of the ways they are misused is by overlaying one’s neuroses, so to speak, on the contents of the visions. GDR - The classic argument by the traditional religious structures in regard to psychedelics is that their use in a spiritual context is ‘cheating’. If our rich spiritual history is preceded by the existence and use of psychedelics, can we really call it cheating? How do we balance these two things that seem so connected, yet have such diametric opposition to one another at times? RS - I’m not sure if it is possible to make a blanket statement about “traditional religious structures” regarding “cheating” when it comes to using psychedelics in a spiritual context. One of the points I make in my upcoming book, “The Soul of Prophecy,” is that psychedelics enhance the imaginative faculty, as conceived of by medieval Jewish philosophy. They do little to generate novel information, at least not in most of us who do not have some background, vocabulary, and concepts that help decipher the visions. That is where development of the rational faculty, in the medieval sense of the notion, comes into play. One can use text, particularly text emerging from a state of mind like that induced by particular agents—endogenous or exogenous— to help decipher visions. GDR - My mother was in a car wreck, had a near death experience and claimed that she saw Jesus. Is this proof that Jesus is the only way as the bible claims? What other explanations are there for such a dramatic experience? RS - Jesus is interesting in that regard. He appears to people in dire straits. I don’t believe someone never exposed to Christianity or Christian cultures would see Jesus in those straits; rather, they would see the comparable force manifest in some other form. GDR - How would you like to see psychedelics handled in 237

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the future as a society? Graham Hancock for instance claims that it is a core human right to be able to explore our own consciousness that we should demand legal access to these substances. What is your take as a scientist and as a citizen? RS - Psychedelics are potentially destabilizing, and to either take or administer them requires a fair amount of training so as to provide for optimal positive effects and minimal negative ones. Thus, specialized centers might be developed where that type of training is provided. The various settings could include religious, creative, psychotherapeutic, and so on. GDR - How does belief change test results and how do you as a scientist withhold your own predilections of assumption in order to have the most objective outcome possible in research? RS - Generally, test results are difficult to change by belief. One can design a study based upon one’s beliefs that would make more likely the yielding of particular results reinforcing your beliefs. More often, one’s beliefs affect the interpretation of those results. With respect to our data from the DMT study, we divided our data into objective and subjective. Or rather, we had turned the subjective into objective by the use of the rating scale. So we had objective data to treat with various analyses. In my scientific work, my conclusions were aligned with the model in which the studies took place: human psychopharmacology, psychometrics, and psychology. I suggested certain explanations for our findings and called for future research to help answer unresolved questions. GDR - On a personal note, what do you think happens when we die? Why do you think we are here? RS - The founder of Japanese Zen, Dogen, said that our death is just another moment in time. Life goes on without us. Our impact has the potential to be immortal, however. One of my favorite authors is Olaf Stapledon who suggested that our task on earth is to interact creatively with our 238

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environment. Maimonides, one of my favorite medievalists, reminds us that the universe was not created for mankind. That leaves us quite a bit of leeway.

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Why Should We Even Try? Have you ever felt yourself slip into an existential funk in which you ask, “Why the fuck should I even care? Why the fuck should I try?” I mean what’s the point? Many of us have been long disenchanted with Religion, Politics, Love and pretty much every other institution of this mad consensus reality that we call life. Take for instance the viewpoint of Nisargadatta Maharaj, a Spiritual teacher in the Advaita Vedanta tradition in his exchange with an interviewer: Q: There is suffering and bloodshed in East Pakistan at the present moment. How do you look at it? How does it appear to you, how do you react to it? M: In pure consciousness nothing ever happens. Q: Please come down from these metaphysical heights! Of what use is it to a suffering man to be told that nobody is aware of his suffering but himself? To relegate everything to illusion is insult added to injury. The Bengali of East Pakistan is a fact and his suffering is a fact. Please, do not analyse them out of existence! You are reading newspapers, you hear people talking about it. You cannot plead ignorance. Now, what is your attitude to what is happening? M: No attitude. Nothing is happening. 240

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Q: Any day there may be a riot right in front of you, perhaps people killing each other. Surely you cannot say: nothing is happening and remain aloof. M: I never talked of remaining aloof. You could as well see me jumping into the fray to save somebody and getting killed. Yet to me nothing happened. Imagine a big building collapsing. Some rooms are in ruins, some are intact. But can you speak of the space as ruined or intact? It is only the structure that suffered and the people who happened to live in it. Nothing happened to space itself. Similarly, nothing happens to life when forms break down and names are wiped out. The goldsmith melts down old ornaments to make new. Sometimes a good piece goes with the bad. He takes it in his stride, for he knows that no gold is lost. Q: It is not death that I rebel against. It is the manner of dying. M: Death is natural, the manner of dying is man-made. Separateness causes fear and aggression, which again cause violence. Do away with man-made separations and all this horror of people killing each other will surely end. But in reality there is no killing and no dying. The real does not die, the unreal never lived. Set your mind right and all will be right. When you know that the world is one, that humanity is one, you will act accordingly. But first of all you must attend to the way you feel, think and live. Unless there is order in yourself, there can be no order in the world. I bring this up because Maharaj is saying there is nothing to be done because there is nothing. ”Set your mind right and all will be right” he says as the interviewer poses the images of death and catastrophe. So what are we to make of this idea? IF this were true, then our daily activities and cares about what present to buy x, or the immediate bill due to y mean absolutely nothing. We would be better off using our time, ‘setting our mind right’. Who wants to join a monastery with me? 241

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Let’s switch gears to Christian theologian, William Stringfellow who has this to say about our institutions, both great and small: According to the Bible, the principalities are legion in species, number, variety and name. They are designated by such multifarious titles as powers, virtues, thrones, authorities, dominions, demons, princes, strongholds, lords, angels, gods, elements, spirits… Terms that characterize are frequently used biblically in naming the principalities: “tempter,” “mocker,” “foul spirit,” “destroyer,” “adversary,” “the enemy.” And the privity of the principalities to the power of death incarnate is shown in mention of their agency to Beelzebub or Satan or the Devil or the Antichrist… And if some of these seem quaint, transposed into contemporary language they lose quaintness and the principalities become recognizable and all too familiar: they include all institutions, all ideologies, all images, all movements, all causes, all corporations, all bureaucracies, all traditions, all methods and routines, all conglomerates, all races, all nations, all idols. Thus, the Pentagon or the Ford Motor Company or Harvard University or the Hudson Institute or Consolidated Edison or the Diners Club or the Olympics or the Methodist Church or the Teamsters Union are principalities. So are capitalism, Maoism, humanism, Mormonism, astrology, the Puritan work ethic, science and scientism, white supremacy, patriotism, plus many, many more—sports, sex, any profession or discipline, technology, money, the family—beyond any prospect of full enumeration. The principalities and powers are legion. Stringfellow continues on to death: Death, after all, is no abstract idea, nor merely a destination in time, nor just an occasional happening, nor only a reality for human beings, but, both biblically and empirically, death names a moral power claiming sovereignty 242

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over all people and all things in history. Apart from God, death is a living power greater–because death survives them all–than any other moral power in this world of whatever sort: human beings, nations, corporations, cultures, wealth, knowledge, fame or memory, language, the arts, race, religion. To me, Stringfellow is indeed a fellow with strings that tug on our existential feelings of futility. His observations have merit when we see that we do create a monster of sorts when we create the Ford Motor Company, or any of the other things in the laundry list. We can see the monsters all around and in our efforts to make something of ourselves just make more demons. So to one learned man, Jesus is the answer and to the other a change of the perception of reality and our place within it is the answer. But both seem to show a very strong dislocation from the world in which we live and its edifices. So if by one hand we are exercising futility and by another creating new demons, why might we even make another effort toward anything? What’s it really worth? We’re just shitting ourselves right? The chaos magician might say that life is our plaything and therefore we should ascribe meaning where we see fit and leave the rest to chaos, not necessarily without care, but understanding we can’t do everything and the sardonic smile of knowing we will all end up as worm food anyway. But if one moves past the fear of death to where it no longer hold sway over us, then what? How does our fear of death control us and furthermore how do those most brooding about life as we speak of it head plunge headlong into it through the barrel of a gun, the top of a bridge, or the slice of the razor? G. I. Gurdjieff has his own thoughts on the matter. “There do exist enquiring minds, which long for the truth of the heart, seek it, strive to solve the problems set by life, try to penetrate to the essence of things and phenomena and 243

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to penetrate into themselves. If a man reasons and thinks soundly, no matter which path he follows in solving these problems, he must inevitably arrive back at himself, and begin with the solution of the problem of what he is himself and what his place is in the world around him.” So for the sake of argument, we’ve purified ourselves and set our minds right, understood both the illusory and or demonic nature of our constructs and chosen a life of what? Asceticism? Quiet contemplation? The hero of the grimoire, The Black Pullet ends his story of achieving all power and wisdom with this statement: My days passed between work, study, meditation, and walking exercise. I received a few visitors in my home, but nobody had an inkling of that which passed in my private life. To live happily, live concealed, as a Sage said. After much dancing around with these ideas, I’ve come to respect each perspective and identify with a number of aspects of each, regardless of wisdom tradition which each is affiliated with, but it hasn’t made me feel any better or brought us any closer to what we should do with our lives in order to get the most out of it, so here’s my personal approach: 1. In relationships to all other humans and other living beings as well: Increasingly improve your output of love and compassion. Make generosity the benchmark of your life in whatever way you can possibly think. 2. In relationship to work: Find something that you love to do and commit to it and lay out everything else around it. You can’t have a body without a frame. 3. In relationship to whether or not to participate: I believe it is each individual’s choice how they choose to do this, but for me I choose to pick up the paintbrush and paint and make the canvass of my life its own work of art. After 244

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all, art is not often seen as a necessity, but it can take you to new places and show you things you’ve never seen before. Whether real or illusory, the world is a better place with a couple ‘paintings’ on the walls. Perhaps there is no world to be saved, no actual causes to fight for and no actual tragedies. Perhaps our mind is the only thing and our internal work is the prime thing for us to work on. If so, I choose for my actions to reflect my internal process coming to life and translate that to an experience of creation, evolution and art. I choose to participate in this walking meditation of sorts because I have decided I wish to keep growing, learning, struggling and increasing in love and compassion. I can’t think of many better ways to do so than by getting into a vehicle and operating in exchange with all of you out there; people I will soon be unable to imagine myself without. Yes, it is permissible to NOT go, to NOT participate, but I choose to and perhaps in my own way I can make the perfect demon of sorts.

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The Gnosis of Abby Martin For many, mainstream media is a shell of its former self and journalism is a laughable profession where talking heads pervade the landscape. But there is one person who stands out as an actual person with actual passion, that person is Abby Martin. With a quick wit and a take no prisoners attitude toward getting to the bottom of a story, Abby has established herself as THE journalist to watch. Her RT television program, Breaking The Set has become a staple of the informational diet of anyone who is trying to see the news behind the spin. It’s been my pleasure to appear on her show in support of my book, Born Again To Rebirth and since that time, we have become friends. I believe her perspective is a much needed one on our own journey of gnosis. GDR - Abby, journalism has changed in the past few decades due to many factors including the prevalence of social media and sites like Youtube.com. How have these changes affected your own work as a journalist? What’s better? What's worse? AM - The advent of the internet has democratized information in such a way that anyone who wants to conduct 246

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the act of journalism can now do so. Decades ago you had to be working with an established news agency if you wanted to be taken seriously or even heard as a journalist. Now, if you simply have a platform you can do groundbreaking journalism and become world renowned through the power of social media. The internet has leveled the playing field in a revolutionary way but conversely, the excess of information has also made it harder to sort through the disinformation to piece together the facts. GDR - What first inspired you to take a more aggressive journalistic stance than many others that we see in popular media today? AM - I never went to journalism school, so my only perspective from the get go was that of an activist journalist. As an activist, I was shocked at how uncritical the media was in regards to corporate and government corruption at a time when so much is at stake. The erosion of the fourth estate is the biggest hinderance to a democracy, and there is no point in tip toeing around issues I consider downright criminal. The phrase unbiased is erroneous anyway, because every human has a perspective they bring to the table whether they like to admit it or not. Some of my favorite journalists are advocacy journalists, and seeing people like Glenn Greenwald's passionate reporting have inspired me to be myself. My passion isn't an act, it's who I am. People either hate or love it, but the ones whom my voice resonates with makes everything I do worth it. GDR - All of us have our own sets of core values that drive us to fight for what we believe is right. What values do you live by to ensure that you stand on the right side of history? AM - I try very hard to practice the core values of truth, kindness and basic respect for life. I see so much of the world acting out of pure greed and selfishness, and it pains me because I know we can do better. Being the change you wish 247

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to see is the biggest hurdle of all, and until we put our personal problems into the perspective of the one organism our human family shares we will always fall on the wrong side of history. GDR - In a world where information comes so fast that it becomes a blur, do you see society awakening with this flood of info, or are they drowning in it? AM - It's a double edged sword. I once heard an anecdote where someone is approached by a person from the 1800s and asked what the greatest technological advancement that has been made is in the 21st century. The person answers: "I have a device in my pocket that can access the entirety of the world's knowledge, but I use it to argue with strangers and look at cat photos." It's true. Humans get overwhelmed with too much information and the sheer amount of it available has turned some people off completely from news. Mindlessly trolling celebrity gossip websites is much easier to digest. On the other hand, we have the entirety of the world's knowledge in our pockets. Willful ignorance is understandable given the depression that can come along with learning about the nature of the world, but it's not an excuse. We have the responsibility to be aware, active citizens who are engaged with the planet so we can ensure its future survival. GDR - The word ‘Gnosis’ relates to intrinsic, experiential knowledge. What value does this term have to you and to the general public? AM - I believe human beings are intrinsically good natured and that the soul is a conduit of love, compassion and creativity. Unfortunately many human constructs such as religion, bigotry and even money have obstructed the connection we have with earth and each other. GDR - Have you ever had any spiritual or psychedelic experiences? If so, what realizations came to you? What did you take away from the experience that stays with you now? 248

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AM - I am thankful to have never been indoctrinated into any religion. Spiritually speaking though, one experience that comes to mind is a time I was doing deep breathing meditation and had a vision of a woman in the middle of a bombed out neighborhood surrounded by death and destruction, watching her children play in a dirty pool of water. It was such a profound moment because I felt who she was to the core of her being. I knew her life and saw the generations of pain and suffering. Knowing how that woman is the reality for millions of people affected by imperialist policy, that moment helped reconfirm why I do what I do. When I was younger I took some psychedelics, and they helped influence my artistic expression and perspective of nature. I think psychedelics can be great mental therapy and it's a shame they are largely demonized in today's society. GDR - Anyone who knows about you knows that you have a passion to fight injustices of the “Empire”, using journalism as your tool, but there is a danger in that as well. Phillip K. Dick said that: “To fight the Empire is to be infected by its derangement. This is a paradox: whoever defeats a segment of the Empire becomes the Empire; it proliferates like a virus, imposing its form on its enemies. Thereby it becomes its enemies.” How do we fight the empire that we now are confronted with while not, ourselves becoming a part of it? AM - It goes back to applying the principle of being the change you preach. We lie to ourselves a lot to justify and excuse our own unhappiness yet have no problem telling others how to live a full life. Dick was right in that the empire has infected those who fight it because in order to do so, we must pay so much heed and attention and investment into it. It's toxic. I wish I knew the answer, but unfortunately for many who do fight, life will be an eternal struggle trying to figure it out. GDR - When it seems like the world is falling apart and 249

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there is no sign of it really getting better, where do you turn to recharge and find the strength to soldier on? AM - Hike in nature and make art. I truly think that everyone has an artistic side of them that is waiting to be tapped into, and it's just about finding that niche and harnessing it to the best of your ability. To me, being in nature, creating art and listening to music are simply the best therapy that exists. GDR - What is our purpose in life? Why are we here? You have the floor. AM - We're here because we all have something to contribute. Life is a process of experiences that leads you - if you let it - to your true will. I know that sounds cliche as fuck, but I believe it, just because I believe so strongly that I found my calling. Too many of us end up working our entire lives doing something that makes us miserable, wasting all of the human creativity and input that could be advancing society and making the world a better place.

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Where Do We Go From Here? After the release of my book, BORN AGAIN TO REBIRTH, many things that I have not expected have occurred. People are asking me what they should be doing next? It’s been a bit a of a struggle for me to find the right thing to say to everyone who asks this question, after all we are so very different and from a myriad of backgrounds. I’d like to highlight 3 things that are to my mind, keys to personal spiritual growth and general fulfillment in life. I understand that this is very broad and make no claims to being perfect or having a perfect life, but as my dear friend told me last night, “If you play the part of the shepherd, you’ve got to expect you’re going to end up with some sheep”. Of course sheep are the last thing I want. What I want are rams. Those who stand on the high hill and roam where they please, taking control of their own life and destiny. That being said, here’s how we can all turn from sheep to rams: *Commit yourself to understanding that it is you and you alone who live and die by your decisions. * There is nobody else who will have the joys and pains of your existence like you yourself. Take charge of this fact and remember that nobody has their shit together. People want to 251

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judge you and look down on you? Let them, they will just end up stewing in their own weird stagnant state. Judgment is all they will ever have while you are making waves. From a spiritual perspective this means that you are the final say in telling the fools gold from the real deal. Steer clear of anybody who tells you that his or her way is the only way. You just walked out of dogma, don’t fall into a new one. Remember that you have a direct connection to the creative spark; your every word is a creation and your every deed is a magickal act. I mean this most literally. You don’t have to be rude to other people who are giving you advice; listen and consider and take criticism where it is appropriate, but understand that you are the master of your experience. *Commit yourself to removing distractions and replacing them with positive disciplines. Watch less TV and read more. There are things that you may have always been afraid to explore and learn about, forget that fear and learn as much as you can about what intrigues you. You will find that if you are taking in valid new information (whether you agree with all of it or not), you will find your mind creating new scenarios of thought you never had before. This will sharpen your mind and give you confidence in all situations. *Try your best to be Learning, Creating, or Loving. Many people who find themselves in a rut will find that they are not participating in one of these 3 activities. If you are busy learning, you will be adding new fuel to your mind and sparking creativity. Have you ever read a book that inspired you to do something new? Have you ever gone to an art gallery and felt like going home and drawing, or painting, or writing? This is the benefit of learning. Too much time spent learning something new can leave you drained, but you may also find yourself in a storm of inspiration. Now is the time to pick up that creative spark and use it. Create something new, no matter what you love or are 252

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good at, you can make something happen. Once you have made something that will be around for a while, you will find that you feel better about life in general. There is a sense of fulfillment that comes with making anything of your own. Much of this creative energy was fostered in us at a young age, pasting cut up pieces of paper together to make works of art for the fridge, gluing googly eyes on a rock and giving it to a parent. This all used to be an amazing act, but over time and with onset of adulthood, the magic of creation was taken away with the drudgeries of life. Finally, loving is key. We all need to love and be loved. This doesn’t mean erotic love only. Spend time with people you have fun with, or care about. Sometimes inactivity with some good friends is just the thing to take your mind off of things. Take some time to reach out to that pal you haven’t hung out with for a while and do something easy and fun. I’m a guy who told a story about my own struggles and shared it with others; I’m a storyteller. The biggest message I hope to convey is that of releasing oneself from controlling powers that would keep you in a mire of mediocrity. Take charge of your life and spirituality! It’s you who lives and dies by it, make every moment amazing!

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The Gnosis of Graham Hancock Few writers can match Graham Hancock's influence as the author of several breakthrough books of alternative history, including Fingerprints of the Gods, Underworld, and Supernatural. His work has been instrumental in challenging institutional thinking about humanity's lost past, while bringing the indigenous shamanic perspective to a broader audience. He's certainly someone to talk with about the significance of our present moment as we look to an uncertain future. GDR - What would you say the message of our time is in regard to the way we run things here on earth? GH - I think the whole state of human civilization on planet Earth right now, in the early years of the 21st century, has a message for us. It's obvious that we're not fulfilling our purpose here on this planet. I mean, it's an incredible opportunity to be born in a human body and to be gifted by the universe with this amazing, vibrant garden of a homeland that we call planet Earth. To be given the opportunity to learn, and to grow, and to develop here, have experiences, make choices. Yet somehow as a culture -- particularly as a 254

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global-industrial-technological culture -- we seem to be turning our backs on all that beauty and wonder, and creating a kind of nightmare Frankenstein civilization, which is based around the ethic of endless production and endless consumption. We've been taught to define ourselves purely as material creatures with material wants and needs where the spiritual aspect of ourselves has been sadly neglected. Very much neglected by the mainstream religions, which are supposed to be responsible for that area of human life. I would say that they themselves are the most culpable in the severing of our connection with spirit. But also neglected thanks to our addiction to science, and our belief that somehow science has the answers to everything. This too has led to a diminishing of the spiritual aspects of life. And finally, the big corporations, the profit motive, the advertising industry, the whole picture of human life that is created in the mass media -- again this denies our spiritual heritage and seeks to persuade us we are purely material beings whose function is to produce and to consume. So I actually think as a society, as a civilization we find ourselves in a very callous state, and in that state we should listen to the messages that our home, our beautiful gem of a planet, is giving to us. Those messages are that we cannot go on in this way for much longer, that we are going to have to change our pattern and our project for the future if human life is to survive. So I hope that people will take that message and I hope it does give us all pause for thought. GDR - Aldous Huxley spoke of us living in artificial paradises. You said we've made a Frankenstein, and here we have our artificial paradise seeming to fall apart. I kept thinking of this as areas of New York City went underwater during hurricane Sandy. I thought of your book, Underworld, and the parallels that it raised, because we often think, "Oh that's not ever going to happen here." What do think the cultures you've studied from our distant past would say to us 255

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today? GH - First of all I want to emphasize very strongly that I am not going around the world wearing a sandwich board saying that the end of the world is nigh. I don't think that we should embrace gloom and doom. I think there is a danger that if we dwell on destruction and chaos and misery and collapse, we are likely to manifest that and bring it down upon ourselves. I think it is important to look for the positive in human life. But at the same time, it's important to be realistic and to realize that we are doing things which are fundamentally wrong and which are leading us into a very dark place. If you look at the ancient mythologies all around the world, there is a memory of a former golden age. Of a great civilization that was at one time spiritually wise. That had achieved a very high level of development and that was destroyed in a tremendous cataclysm. Of course, the best known example of this is the story of Atlantis, passed down to us by the Greek philosopher Plato. He says that at one time Atlantis was a wondrous civilization, but it fell from grace, it fell out of harmony with the universe, it lost the mandate of heaven. It angered the gods through its own arrogance, through its own pride, through its own cruelty. The planet, which itself is a god, responded to this by striking Atlantis down. Plato tells us that it was all destroyed in a single terrible day and a night, and after that he says mankind had to begin again like children with no memory of what went before. I have to say, in mythological terms, our civilization today -- our arrogant, cruel, aggressive, demanding civilization, the technological civilization of the West which is going around the world gobbling up resources, paying no attention to the rights and needs of less economically privileged people -- this high-tech Western technological civilization looks very much in mythological terms like the next lost civilization. The next Atlantis, if you'd like. But my point is, it doesn't have to be that way. We have choice. 256

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That's the fundamental gift of being human. We have the power of discernment. We can see where things are going wrong and make the necessary adjustments to put things right. It requires political courage, it requires individual courage. It's very difficult to do, but we can make those changes. For example, a simple suggestion: it would be possible, for everybody who now eats meat, not to eat meat anymore. None of us would suffer very badly from that. It's perfectly possible. I'm not preaching vegetarianism here, but it's perfectly possible to survive and live a full and rich life and even to enjoy all one's meals without eating meat. But huge numbers of people will not make that choice. If you say to people, "The single best thing you could do for global warming is to stop eating meat, to stop this industry which rears and slaughters cattle to provide us with steaks and hamburgers," well, a lot of people get upset by that. But actually it is a personal choice any one of us could make. We could all make it right now. I personally made that decision in 1986 and haven't eaten meat since. And I haven't suffered one jot from it. I believe I've benefited from it in terms of my health. If billions of people made that same decision, then one of the single greatest factors that contributes to climate instability in the world today would go out of business. That is a way we personally can take power over the catastrophe that faces us. But are people ready to do that? So far I see very little sign. GDR - We are helplessly distracted. How can we remove this disconnect? GH - It's difficult. It is just a plain fact, and I'll state it as that, that we are all brainwashed. We live in a society that practices incredibly sophisticated mind control. That mind control operates through the education system, through politics, through the advertising industry, through mass communications to promote a particular ethic and way of life. Since we take that message in from the day we're born, with 257

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our mother's milk, until the day we die, it's very difficult to step outside that reference frame and find another way to do it. We easily fall back into habitual patterns, no matter how shaken we may momentarily be by the latest natural cataclysm to strike us for a few days or a few weeks. GDR - In your book, Supernatural, you speak about the positive aspects of shamanism. We need that kind of shamanic influence to spread, but I've heard it said, "As a Westerner, don't put on a loincloth and pretend you are a native and try to go back to the old ways. We live in a modern world that needs a new kind of shaman." Do you think we need a new form of shaman today? GH - Yes I do think the modern world needs a new, modern kind of shaman. It's important to emphasize that the essence of shamanism is the same all over the world, although the ways in which it is practiced may differ substantially from culture to culture. The essence of shamanism is altered states of consciousness. That is the fundamental, universal characteristic of all shamanism. It is the careful, thought-out, responsible, targeted use of altered states of consciousness to arrive at a broader understanding of the nature of reality. I think it is possible for the West to develop its own relevant shamanistic techniques to responsibly nurture and encourage the exploration of altered states of consciousness by adults in our society. In the very process of doing that, we will transform and change our society. Another one of those things that we are addicted to in the modern technological West is a particular state of consciousness, what I call the alert problem-solving state of consciousness, which is useful for science and military activity and Wall Street and running industry. I have nothing against the alert problem-solving state of consciousness. It has its place. But our mistake as a society is that we've elevated it to a pinnacle where it does not belong, while diminishing all other states of consciousness. I think that's another reason why we face such difficulties as a 258

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civilization. Because altered states of consciousness are a fundamental human right, a fundamental human need, and it's right and proper that we should find ways to make it possible for adults to experience altered states of consciousness and the transformative changes that can come about as a result of them. To undergo, if you like, those deep adventures in consciousness. As a society, we need to not demonize those adventures in consciousness, not to persecute and punish them, not to create a modern-day witch hunt, not to create an internal enemy that we will burn at the stake because they're not doing what we want them to do. Rather, we should say that this is an important part of human life which we, as a society, are neglecting right now, and we need to find a way to encourage it. You know, the visionary plants, the psychedelic plants that are used by shamans around the world are extremely serious business. This is not something one does recreationally. That's one of the mistakes we see in the Western world, that these ancient substances are misused for recreational purposes. They're about deep personal exploration, an encounter with a widened reality that is otherwise closed off to our senses. This needs to be done in a responsible, ceremonial, carefully thought-out way, where the experience of those who have gone before is brought to bear to help novices through the process -- a kind of initiation if you like. I do see signs that this is happening in the West, that a relevant Western shamanism is beginning to emerge. But unfortunately the legal structure of our society, which would send a person to prison for thirty years for experimenting with their own consciousness, makes it very difficult to give birth to this new form of shamanism. GDR - How do we get the attention of the government and show them that we want sovereignty? Do we behave like the citizens of Amsterdam when psilocybin was made illegal? They had huge groups of people came to the courthouse and soaked the grounds with psychedelic spore water, while 259

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surrounding the building with signs saying, "If you don't let us do this, then your very courthouse will give us what we want!" GH - That's a good example of direct action. But I think the thing that's really going to strike home is if we make our politicians feel that they're going to lose their jobs unless they do what we want them to do. That we actually regard it as a fundamental human right to have sovereignty as adults over our own consciousness. And unless an elected official is willing to put that on his platform, we will note vote for him. I see some give here in the United States, where cannabis use was just legalized in Washington state and Colorado. This is a wonderful, highly important development with global implications and I really would like to pay tribute to the spirit of democracy, which is still strong in the United States, despite enormous corporate and governmental attempts to subvert it. This could only happen in the United States. You know, on the global stage the United States is a very negative player. But in other ways, because of the activities that take place at state level rather than at federal level, it's a very positive player. The decision of the citizens of Washington state with regard to cannabis will have implications all around the world. This is one of the first vital steps in asserting our right as adults to take sovereignty over our own consciousness. Now the next fight that's going to come is how will the federal government react to that? Will the federal government respect state rights in the US? Unfortunately it has a poor track record of so doing. President Obama has himself a very poor track record in getting the federal authorities to lay off, for example, even medical marijuana production, where it is legal. There have been too many raids on medical marijuana plants. My goodness, it'll be interesting to see what happens. But you know, everything the United States stands for -- the freedom of the individual, the right of the individual to make choices about their own body and 260

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their own consciousness -- hinges on what happens next over this issue. Either the United States will be true to its principles and Washington state will be allowed to do what they have decided to do without interference from the federal authorities, or it won't. Let's see what happens. GDR - Hopefully it goes well. GH - Hopefully it goes well, because in this way, step by step, major changes occur. As a society, even if we don't like the fact that someone else smokes marijuana, once we accept as a society that it is a fundamental adult human right; if that adult chooses so to do, then we have no right to get in his face, break down his door, and send him to prison for doing it. Once we start to accept that, the acceptance will spread very quickly. And it will have remarkable effects on other aspects of life, because this issue of respect for individual sovereignty over consciousness is key to all other freedoms -we can't speak of any other freedoms if we don't acknowledge that basic freedom. GDR - How do you cope with the bombardment of negativity and the sense that things aren't going fast enough? How do you stay positive? GH - I try to get on with my life and, as far as possible, to walk the walk and not just talk the talk. In those areas of the world that surrounds me that I can have influence and that can have an effect, I recognize that my ability to affect global affairs is extremely small, as small as everybody else's. But the choices I make about my own life, how I lead my life, and what I do with my life, well those choices are under my control. And I better make sure that those are positive rather than negative choices. That's something all of us can do. To consciously seek out, as far as possible -- we're all frail, we're all gonna make mistakes, make errors. We can't always be angels. But we can do our best. That's what I'm doing, and that's what all of us can do. Nobody can stop us doing that.

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Perception & Reality All is dark and we are still, basking in the warm heartbeat of what we know is our universe. There is only muffled sounds and darkness in a space in which we cannot tell ourselves from the space around us. It is an ideal state and we are in a paradise we will not remember. Then something happens, something wholly unexpected and certainly uninvited. We are put in a squeeze and we become very aware that something is changing. It may possibly the very first time we become aware of self in the most rudimentary and primal sense. This paradise in which we have thrived is now purging us into a cold and vile place in which we cannot float, but are pressed on the hard surface of an alien plane by alien hands. Little do we know, nor may we ever consider that this is the very first epoch of conscious growth. Once the shock of being born has passed, we are lulled back into comfort by mothers milk and the swaddle of blankets. Life is full of changes that challenge us and force us in directions we are unwilling to go, to heights we are not comfortable with, to fights we didn’t ask for. It is rare that we even understand the reason things must be this way. Why leave the idyllic setting of the womb for the bedraggled and 262

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ragged world of the outside? Without our knowledge or permission fate and chaos sweep us up in a flood of change that may take us to the merry shores of a deeper Gnosis if we are ready to learn. It seems the experiences whether perceived as good or bad bring an opportunity to see the world in a new way. But each experience adds nuances that were not there before, each scar is gilded with guidance. It was Jean Gebser’s vision that humanity is going through epoch after epoch of revelation, a leap of lucidity that leads us into unknown territory. Through each new cycle we see the world a bit more clearly. We can liken this vision to the evolution of the TV from its inception till now, going to black and white, to color, to HD and on and on. With each new revelation there is a fundamental change, we now differentiate the sky from the earth and ourselves from the tribe. I might suggest that the Hermetic adage, “as above, so below” indeed has proven itself to be true and thoroughly demonstrated in Gebser’s Ever Present Origin. The macrocosm of the human experience over the ages is mirrored in the microcosm of each of our lives. We can surely all recognize that as children, our thoughts are linear and without much nuance. The child screams, NO! Meanwhile the parent ideally does their best to curb this less than attractive behavior. As a child comes to maturity, more and more enlightenment shines upon their mind, at least in theory. The potential is there. Within the potential we can indeed see how this new possibility may reflect upon the macrocosm of humanity as a whole. It seems quite apparent that we, like the struggling teen must deal with new challenges, embarrassments, pressures and changes. It is the young adult’s choice to engage whether circumstances are ideal, or whether abuse, neglect and violence must be overcome. Gebser’s ideas now walk off the pages of his works and present us with a true philosophical challenge, we must be the 263

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ones who take that next step, we must be the ones who guide the collective teenaged human mind to mature and truly conscious decisions. It could be our DaVinci-like work of art that sweeps across the morphic fields, adding a new dimension of perception to a world whose vision seems so limited. As a child in a Fundamentalist Christian home, I understood the world to be a set series of situations and circumstances rigidly dictated by an archaic text. The color and contour of my vision was monochromatic with its ideals of good and evil, restricted and allowed. For a very long time, this suited me well, providing me with the necessary tools to form a rudimentary flat world on which I could pronounce myself with pride to be whole. Through no small amount of tumult and strife, I’ve concluded that the world that I experienced did not fit the form and function of what was proclaimed; the shapes have changed and the colors have bloomed like the moment Dorothy stepped foot into OZ. It is not necessarily a conscious decision, this changing of epochs, it is sometimes the unseen hand of providence, that glimmering moment where we are touched by something divinely beyond our understanding that reaches out to us to pull us up. Sometimes this brings us to an about face in our view of the world. The Apostle Paul had a radiant vision of transformative power, which forever changed his wiring; the makeup of his perception. For him, this was the almighty, this was a divine vision of Christ. I was transfigured, made new, broken down and rebuilt. A new lens was placed upon my view of the world, a view that only closed eyes can reveal. And now in my dreams and waking state, the lines blur between the realms that the Buddha and Christ walked in, the realms that shamans are said to traverse so frequently. I go there every night and return with shocking insights, love, fear, and astonishment at the wonder of it all. 264

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The biggest lesson I’ve had to learn while exploring the myriad states of consciousness is to not grip too tightly, to not try to turn my experience to dogma, but to hold it like a praying mantis in my hand as it decides for itself what to do. I am a camera recording all of these confounding events, cruising along the surface of consciousness like a bird gliding with the breeze above a placid body of water. As I observe through this eyeglass, I realize that it is only mine, that every aspect of what I have known and seen is just a bevel of the trillion faceted diamond of the collective human experience. Through my life, the earth has remained fundamentally the same. People go about their business, the ocean still roars and the storms still come. Wildlife continues to do as it does. Yet the world looks so different to me compared to how it used to look. It is not the world that has changed, but myself. I have changed my mind through experience, struggle, study, love, hate and all manifestations that come with human experience. We see each other as separate entities, never quite knowing people’s motives or desires to hurt or help us. Our individual perceptions are the constructs of our lives, making them as unique as our fingerprints. Through all of this, I hear the voices of the Buddha, of the great masters, thinkers, teachers and Shamans around the world as they proclaim that this life is an illusion. But even if that is so, it is one of my own construction and therefore I should consider every wonder a gift, every challenge a call to live with Gnosis, intrinsic understanding of my part that I must play. And so I walk with love, I walk with a student’s heart, always wanting to learn more and more, knowing that for all I’ve strived for, I am still a fool looking to get wiser. Our perception is a soothsayer that we must be cautious of, for not everything it tells us is true. Consensus Reality is the playing field on which we all find ourselves, but if we are to understand the world, we must first individually understand 265

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ourselves so we may play this game well.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Gabriel D. Roberts was born in Tacoma, WA in the late 70s. The value of seeking the truth wherever it may be found was instilled in him at a very young age. At 7 years old he was street preaching in Salt Lake City, Utah and by 10 years old he had traveled to China, Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Macau and The Philippines as a missionary. Having grown up in a fundamentalist Christian environment, his perspective on the world was greatly influenced by the Bible and the fundamentalist view of its teachings. Having come to adulthood, Gabriel moved from his hometown of Tacoma to the more cosmopolitan Seattle to get his theology degree at Seattle Bible College. Through his studies and endeavors to live the truth and find a spiritually fulfilling life, Gabriel felt that there must be something more to the story than a contest of sin and salvation. After many years of study and with a lifetime of effort to connect with something greater, Gabriel stepped away from his Christian faith. The details and reasons are catalogued in his book, Born Again To Rebirth, which is available now. Like many others who have had an earnest thirst for the answers to the big questions of life, Gabriel was not satisfied to settle for not knowing more. His continued research in the fields of Science, Spirituality, psychedelics and Anthropology continue to yield more and more exciting discoveries. Please visit www.gabrieldroberts.com and stay in touch!

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