The difference between fantasy and reality - for those who do not understand it.
Kenneth C Stahl
ever dare to delve into it because it is a study of things that shake
the very foundation of those things that commonly considered normal
academic facts.
The christian church, it their fight to become the one world supreme
power, called this area Gnosticism and the individuals who had this
knowledge were mercilessly persecuted, tortured and murdered. Their
efforts were ultimately futile because while this knowledge was
suppressed, it did survive. Today this wisdom is often called "esoteric"
knowledge. Because it was forced underground by the church it spread by
word of mouth to the far corners of the earth. Most individuals who
search for this knowledge never learn the full extent of this type of
wisdom, but there are several places around the world that are natural
magnets for this knowledge. One of the most famous is the Langue d'oc
region of France. Another is the area around the Rosslyn Chapel near
Edinburgh, Scotland.
However, while many of these seats of knowledge are located in western
Europe, there are several places that are more distant. One of the is
the Oblast region of the Urals. In ancient times some of the individuals
who possessed this esoteric knowledge settled along the banks of a river
that is now known as the Kama River and eventually this town came to be
called Yegoshikha. Years later as the result of the upheaval which
followed the Russian revolution, the town merged with an adjacent area
called Molotovo and the new town took on the name of Molotov.
Eventually, however, the name of the town was changed once more and the
name became Perm. One of the oldest buildings in this town is now known
as an art museum but formerly it was a cathedral. This cathedral was
build on the site of some much older ruins and this site has a history
that is buried deep within esoteric thought. It is thought that there
are some artifacts which are buried there which can be used as evidence
to show that the christian church has deliberately suppressed
information which would be extremely damaging to christian teachings and
as a result the church would like to eradicate these materials.
Sometime this month there will be an individual who will fly there on a
special mission to this area to seize these materials and keep them from
being exposed to public inspection. That is all I know. That is the
extent of the knowledge with which I have been exposed. I don't want
this to happen because I think those materials should be allowed to
become public knowledge.
Earlier today I posted a message in which I wistfully hoped that this
individual's plane would crash. I couldn't name the individual because I
do not know his name.
This afternoon I received an extremely disturbing email. An individual
with whom I had a conflict with in the past sent me a private email
which basically said that I live in the sewers of society. I had no idea
of why this individual sent me this email since I had previous this
individual via a message posted on atl.atlanta that he was required to
"cease and desist" from sending me private email in accordance with the
"terms of service" agreement of his ISP. Not knowing what else to do, as
soon as I read the email I sent a second "cease and desist" demand which
was also cc'd to the relevant ISP.
It was only when I read the rather libelous message that this individual
posted on atl.atlanta this afternoon that I began to understand what had
happened. This is where the word "fantasy" contained in my subject line
comes into play. This individual apparently has a notion that I was
referring to him. I have no idea of why he thinks this either. It isn't
as if someone can just drive down to Hartsfield Airport and get the next
plane to Oblast Perm. I don't even think you can get anywhere in the
former U.S.S.R via a direct flight from Hartsfield. But for some reason
this individual's anger at me is so great that he fantasized that he
will be flying there and that I was referring to him.
This is disturbing in the extreme. If I had said that I hope that a
plane going into Axum, Ethiopia this month would crash would this same
individual suddenly develop the notion that he would have a need to go
to that rather remote location?
I don't know what to make of this. I am suddenly being accused of
psychosis because I dabble in esoteric knowledge. Is there anything
wrong in this? The list of individuals in our country's history who have
been adepts in esoteric knowledge would fill volumes. How about George
Washington? How about Alexander Hamilton? Thomas Jefferson? George Bush?
Gerald Ford? Were they "emotionally unstable"? Does a person
automatically become "emotionally unstable" simply because they have
viewpoints which may offend others?
As I said, this is all very disturbing. I am starting to wonder whether
my personal safety will be placed at jeopardy. Are my first amendment
rights to freedom of expression to be curtailed based how another person
happens to read what I write? Something is extremely wrong here.
Nevertheless I am remaining call and retaining copies of the relevant
messages. Hopefully nothing bizarre will happen to me that would prevent
me from passing the information to the proper authorities.
By the way, despite the overall secrecy of esoteric knowledge, there is
plenty of it available if you just know where to get started. If you
start the journey as I did you will start to learn a lot of things which
will change basic beliefs which you have of this world. However, I must
also warn everyone that once you start on this journey you must be
prepared to let it take you wherever it leads.
The Sanity Inspector
"When people stop believing in God they do not believe in
nothing. They believe in anything."
--G. K. Chesterton
--
bruce
The dignified don't even enter in the game.
--The Jam
holger
There is a lot of information on the gnostic gospels on the web. Just
use a good search engine (I used excite.com.) and type in "gnostic
gospels" in quotation marks and click on search or just press enter.
One comment is at: http://www.spotlights.org/GNOSTIC.htm
On only about 1 page it explains why the Biblical Gospels are still to
be regarded as the most reliable historical information concerning
Jesus:
There is a paperback book on http://www.amazon.com called The Gnostic
Gospels by Elaine Pagels.
"The first major and eminently readable book on gnosticism benefiting
from the discovery in 1945 of a collection of Gnostic Christian texts
at Nag Hammadi in Egypt." --The New York Times Book Review
I think they were discovered in an earthen jar in a cave.
Harold Bloom, Sterling Professor of Humanities, Yale University
"...provides an effective introduction to the difficult, almost
oxymoronic notion of a Christian Gnosticism. She is always readable,
always deeply informed, always richly suggestive of pathways her
readers may wish to follow out for themselves... Like many other
readers, I am indebted to Professor Pagels for her devoted and sound
scholarship, and for her clarity of exposition."
On the same page with this book are other relevant books.
Holger
Kenneth C Stahl
The Chesterton quote is interesting. I suppose it is in keeping with
traditional Anglican thought at Cambridge and is largely consistant with
his own writings. However, he is wrong because in his eyes non-belief in
christianity was considered the be synonymous with disbelief in god.
Simply untrue. I know from my own experience that I know that a higher
power (which, in human language, can be called "god") exists, but that
he/she/it has nothing to do with the concept of "god" that is used
within christian circles to describe a petty, mean, selfish, dishonest,
murderous entity who has the right to dictate human affairs.
Kenneth C Stahl
Good places to start, but that which the church calls "gnosticism"
barely scratches the surface of esoteric knowledge that is deeply
entrenched in hermetic thought. Nevertheless, "gnosticism"s main
validity comes from the fact that it was suppressed as "heresy" by the
christian church. It was never "proven" to be wrong, but because it
conflicted with the official doctrines of the church (especially after
the council of Nicea in 325A.D.) gnisticism was driven underground and
eventually erradicated from mainstream christianity. However, to this
day there is a sect in southern Iraq which probably follows the true
teachings of jesus and completely rejects the idea that jesus died in
Jerusalem on a cross.
If someone really wants to take a brief glance inside the door of
esoteric thought, pick up the book "Holy Blood, Holy Grail". It is by no
means a comprehensive work on the subject because it is on the absolute
fringe of esoteric thought, but it gives at least an idea of what is in
store for the person who is willing to consider that they have been fed
lies by the church for their entire life.
Ken
The Crayfish
wriggled free of the leather straps and managed to scrawl:
>Simply untrue. I know from my own experience that I know that a higher
>power (which, in human language, can be called "god") exists, but that
>he/she/it has nothing to do with the concept of "god" that is used
>within christian circles to describe a petty, mean, selfish, dishonest,
>murderous entity who has the right to dictate human affairs.
I think you may have restricted your description of the Christian God to
that of the Old Testament, particularly the "Deuteronomy" God. Later books
of the Old Testament, as well as the New Testament, describe a more loving,
forgiving God.
While I'm not a believer, I do think that the Christian Bible actually
ascribes many different "personalities" to God over time. For example, He
begins as a sort of "creator / father" figure and then later becomes a
warrior / politician. He starts off talking to his prophets directly, then
grows more and more silent as His story progresses.
For a really interesting analysis of the changes God goes through during
the Old Testament (as well as a really great analysis of the book of Job,
the inclusion of which many scholars find amazing,) consider reading the
book, GOD: A BIOGRAPHY, by Jack Miles:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0679743685/crayfishworld
This book won the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for Biography. It analyzes God as a
literary character in the Old Testament. I really enjoyed the in-depth
analysis and learned a lot about the Bible and the culture that produced it
(as an atheist, I had never read the Bible in any detail before reading
"God: A Biography."
Some descriptions and reviews from the Amazon.com web site appear below:
Amazon.com
Is it possible to approach God not as an object of religious reverence, but
as the protagonist of the world's greatest book -- as a character who
possesses all the depths, contradictions, and ambiguities of a Hamlet? How
does he depend on the other characters, and how does his relationship with
them show his development? Miles provides a learned, original exegesis that
will send readers back to the Bible in curious amazement. Winner of the
1996 Pulitzer Prize for biography.
The New York Times
A scintillating work of literary scholarship that will forever color, if
not downright alter, our conception of the Bible as a work of
art...Dazzling.
New York Times Book Review, Phyllis Trible
A tour de force. . . . The twists and turns of this formidable reading
offer more than enough to stir up people who are at ease in Zion, and those
who are not . . . Mr. Miles has accomplished what others failed to try. He
has made a certain literary sense of the character God.
From Booklist:
In this view, God starts out as a creative being with neither a past nor
any prospective future; nor does he have any companion before he makes man
in his image. He seems, Miles argues, to discover his attributes as the
Bible progresses, and for a very long time--until Isaiah speaks of him, to
be precise--the quality now most popular with his people, love, is not
among them. Moreover, in the account of him given by the order of books in
the Tanakh, he proceeds from involvement with to retirement from human
actions and from speech to silence. Very starchy believers will doubtless
castigate what they see as the blasphemous presumption of treating God as a
literary character, but less flammable believers as well as nonbelievers
will be afforded greater understanding of how Western civilization
formulated the peculiarly personal religious consciousness that informs
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam alike.
Note: When I read this book, I had to keep a copy of the Bible and a
dictionary beside me as "auxiliary sources."
GOD: A BIOGRAPHY
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0679743685/crayfishworld
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THE CRAYFISH * http://www.thecrayfish.com/
*
"The other white meat" * Eat more skineless chicken!
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"What are you people, on DOPE?" -- Mr. Hand
Kenneth C Stahl
God. I began to form this understanding only after I had rejected
christianity.
If the bible is to be believed, god is a mutable being who is moody and
changes over time. That is an anthropomorphic concept. On the assumption
that god always has and always will exist, then the period in which
mankind has existed is absolutely trivial and for an entity such as god
to completely flip-flop in a trivial amount of time is pretty silly.
Humans are finite creatures. Absolutely insignificant within the scope
of eternity. The only god that I can ever really hope to know about god
is that which I know from the god within. Beyond that it is absurd to
think that a finite creature can possibly have any understanding
whatsoever about an infinite entity. We don't have the proper measuring
tools nor to we have any facility which would enable us to grasp
anything about the manner in which a creator may have brought us into
existance.
The only things we can understand is the events that have surrounded
other finite creatures. Tnus, to study ancient Egyptian religion is
valid because it was the spiritual exercise of another individual who
has the same limitations and abilities as I have. By the same token, it
is relevant to study esoteric and hermetic thought because both are the
result of human endeavors and were played out in a manner which is
subject to scrutiny under common epistemology. I may not be able to
change the world with the things I know, but within the three-score and
ten years that are allotted to my lifetime it gives me something to
occupy my thoughts.
If there is an ultimate reckoning with a higher power (which some might
call "god") then it is not possible for me to know anything about that
outside of my own personal experience with whatever conscious contact I
have with my higher power. And so far I do not have any revelations on
that subject.
Ken
TheNIGHTCRAWLER
coalition wrote you.
Hallelujah.
Darwinism? Is it real... Really, though. What comes afterward. Put
up or shut up, don't blame someone else for clouding your bright sunny
day.
TheNIGHTCRAWLER