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The Church of Gnostic Luminism will compile a
Canon of Revealed Truth: a compendium of recognized discoveries about
reality that can be independently verified by each aspirant to Revelation. This
Canon will not be an inflexible system of dogma; on the contrary, it will always
be subject to refinement, revision, and expansion — for there is no final
plateau of revelation. However much we know, there is always more to learn. The
Canon will consist of a catalog of findings to date, to be used as a suggestive
guide by individuals — always subject to each one’s own Illumination.
Membership in the Church of Gnostic Luminism will
be defined as general agreement with the ideas contained in our Canon of
Revealed Truth, as published and periodically updated by the Church — with the
understanding that the member need not agree with it in every particular.
Essential Points
Among the most important primary principles of the
Canon of Revealed Truth will be the following:
Unity of All Life:
The Church of Gnostic Luminism will recognize as a primary Revealed Principle
that all life in the universe is ultimately a single Being.
Self of All Life:
All living beings are connected as are the individual cells of our bodies;
every being is part of a larger being, and every being is composed of smaller
beings. There is a commonality of consciousness between all living beings, great
and small. At its esoteric core, every entity shares a common identity with the
Self of All Life — for there is, and can be, only one Life extant in this
infinite universe — and we are it! There is in reality one Actor playing an
infinitude of roles. In the language of the Vedas, the individual self
(Atman) is one with the Universal Self or World Soul (Brahman). In
the Hebrew tradition, the universal Self is called “I Am That I Am” (as if to
say, I am any being who can say “I am”). In Christian mysticism, the
all-inclusive Supreme Identity is the paraklete, the Holy Spirit that
indwells the redeemed, identical with the Logos through which the phenomenal
world came into being (Gospel of John 1:1), and identical as well with the
Hebrew ruach elohim, the “Spirit of Life” blown into Adam’s nostrils that
made him a “living soul”
(Genesis 2:7).
The Great Mother: The planet of our birth is a living being,
a Goddess; we have our individual lives within the continuity of Her Life. The
Sun is the source of the life of Earth and all of Her component beings; a God.
The energy that flows forth from our Sun, and from every Sun, is identical with
the energy found in the nucleus of every atom: this energy is also identical
with Spirit, Life, and
Consciousness. It is personified in the Thelemic tradition as the god
Hadit. The living suns of infinite space together make up the body of
Nuit, the Cosmic Goddess, the Great Mother, “in whom we live and move and
have our being.” (The Goddess will play an important role in the religious
ceremonies and teachings of the Church of Gnostic Luminism as the primary object
of “worship” or passionate ideation.)
Universal Consciousness: An essential
Recognized Revealed Principle will be that consciousness is an inherent
element of all life — and, since all that exists is alive, consciousness
permeates all that is.
To be
is to be conscious.
Every living being is conscious to some degree all
the time. The state we commonly refer to as “unconsciousness,” as in deep sleep
or coma, is in reality merely a primordial level of consciousness. Even a rock
is conscious to some degree. (An old Sufi proverb states: “God sleeps in the
rock, dreams in the plant, stirs in the animal, and awakens in man.”)
Consciousness is a
Basic Force: The human brain does not generate consciousness as an
“epiphenomenon,” the way a generator produces electricity, as some materialist
theories suppose; rather, the brain acts like a radio receiver, picking up the
“broadcast” of consciousness. Consciousness is prior to, not a product of,
material forms. It is the Prime Mover, the First Cause, the Supreme Being of
theology. It is one of the primary forces of the universe, like gravity and the
nuclear forces that bind atoms together.
Samadhi: Consciousness is focused
differently in different forms of life, but ultimately, all beings share the
same “I Am That I Am” identity. At its core, deep in the “unconscious mind,”
every living being is aware of the unitary nature of consciousness and of the
interconnectedness of all life. The part of each being that lives in this
awareness all the time is called the “higher self” or the “silent watcher” in
Theosophy; in the Vedas it is the Atman; in Thelema
it is the Augoeides;
it is referred to by
Abramelin as the “holy guardian angel”; the Hermetic Order of the
Golden Dawn refers to it as the “Genius”; the ancient Gnostics knew it as
the Logos; to the ancient Egyptians it was Asar-un-nefer;
in Christian mysticism it is “Christ in us, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27); in Buddhism it
is the Adi-Buddha or the “Buddha Nature.” The goal of Gnostic Luminism is
to establish a permanent connection between our “normal” awareness and this
“higher self,” the part of us that always enjoys the ultimate transcendental
awareness of cosmic unity. The connection is made by discovering and eliminating
the illusory barriers between the parts of one’s self. When this connection is
established, the experience known as Samadhi is the result: full
awareness of and complete identification with the infinite/eternal unity
rather than, or in addition to, the spatiotemporal particularity of the “ego” or
Earth lifetime identity channel.
Focusing of
Consciousness: The Gnostic Luminist will learn to gain voluntary control
over the focusing of consciousness between “higher” (more inclusive) and “lower”
(more tightly focused) states. Techniques will be developed and taught for
shifting between the “exterior” awareness (the realm of the ego, “normal”
reality, objective rationalist materialism, maya) and the “interior”
transcendental awareness of cosmic unity. With the proper training and
technology, it will be possible to voluntarily shift one’s awareness so as to
cognitively apprehend the subjective experience of life at any of its levels of
manifestation, from the subatomic to the metagalactic; to subjectively
experience each of the stages of organic evolution, past, present and future; to
experientially grasp the microcosmic (particular) and macrocosmic (universal)
qualities of existence; to comprehend the human and the divine.
Life Energy:
An essential Revealed Principle will be that life itself is a form of energy
analogous to the spectra of energy known to present-day physics (heat, light,
radiation, etc.). Classically, this life energy has been referred to as “spirit”
or “soul.” In Greek, it is pneuma; in Hebrew, ruach or
neschama; in Latin, anima; in Sanskrit, prana, shakti, and
kundalini; in Chinese, chi; to Rosicrucian alchemists, “vril” or the
“odic force”; and it is known by many other terms in different times, languages,
and cultures. In the 20th century the term “orgone” was coined
by Wilhelm Reich to refer to the same “life energy,” and he began developing
technologies for measuring and interacting with it. Unfortunately his work was
crushed by political repression. Hopefully Reich’s work will be rediscovered and
carried forward in the 21st century. The Church of Gnostic Luminism
will promote this research, as well as studying and codifying traditional
methods of managing and working with this energy, as taught in the religious,
mystical, and “occult” traditions of the world.
Personal Reality:
Study of the nature of personal reality will be an important part of the work of
our Church. Among the essential Revealed principles in this area will be the
following:
Spiritual Indestructibility:
The life energy that makes up the “true self” of each person (as
distinguished from the “ego” or exterior identifications) cannot die, always has
existed and always will exist — in conformation with the laws of conservation of
matter and energy (neither matter nor energy can be created or destroyed; they
merely change form). “Death” is merely a transition from one stage of existence,
or form of manifestation, to another; there is no “final end” of one’s most
essential “self.” The only part of oneself that can be touched by death is the
“ego” (the illusory shell of exterior identifications). If you think that
is “you” — if you choose to identify with the exterior form rather than the
interior reality — then, yes, “you” may indeed “die.”
Reincarnation: The life energy or “spirit” that constitutes one’s conscious
self returns to physical life as an infant after the end of each lifetime, in
obedience to an attractive force as real as the force of gravity. This
attractive force arises from karma, or actions performed in life which
cause reactions. Every action, every spoken word, and even every thought in
one’s mind will cause vibrations to pulse outward through the “æther,” the
subtle matter of which space is composed. These vibrations ripple outward
through time and space, and eventually rebound on the entity that originated
them, shaping the nature and quality of that one’s life experience in a present
or future incarnation. In the average person, this process occurs unconsciously.
The task of the Gnostic Luminist is to gain conscious control over the process
of karma, and harmonize the vibrations as they rebound, canceling out each wave
without creating any new ripples. When the soul is karmically harmonized like
the clear, calm surface of a windless lake, liberation can be obtained from the
compulsive attraction that mandates a return to material manifestation. Other
options, it is said, then become available.
Involution and Evolution:
The desire of spirit to merge with matter and taste the dark magnetic bliss
of Earth-life, a blind and inexorable hunger, arises like wind-ripples on the
lake, luring the life energy away from its focus in the infinite/eternal realm
of cosmic unity, and into discrete particularity within the finite/temporal
dimensions. This descent of Spirit into Matter (involution), a “fall from
grace,” continues until a state of maximum saturation is achieved and the hunger
of Spirit for material experience is satiated. At this point, a rebound begins;
the incarnate Spirit starts to remember its origins and begins working its way
back toward Unity; thus involution ends and evolution begins.
The archetypal story of the involution and evolution of Spirit into/out of
Matter is recounted in the Christian parable of the Prodigal Son in the New
Testament (Luke 15:11-32).
Illumination and Liberation:
The culmination of spiritual evolution is the expansion of consciousness in
the individual until it reaches a point at which the individual becomes fully
aware of the true trans-spatiotemporal unity of all life, the identity of the
particular with the universal. This experience is called samadhi,
“cosmic consciousness,” or Illumination. It makes possible a release from the
necessity of continued physical incarnation; liberation (moksha) from the
wheel of lives and deaths (samsara). This liberation is the only true
“salvation.” Conscious unity with the Self of All Life is the true
“heaven.”
Telepathy: Mind-to-mind communication that is not
dependent on the spoken or written word is a natural function of the human mind
(and other minds as well). In earlier epochs, before the way of life we
(falsely) call “civilization” began, telepathy was our normal, primary means of
communication. Spontaneous mutual awareness of subjective mental experience was
“normal” for the vast majority of the time humans have existed on Earth, well
over a million years; it has only been “paranormal” for the last few thousand
years. Common awareness of the subjective quality of life experience was shared
across species boundaries, between all forms of life.
Ice Age Trauma: The advent of the late Pleistocene glaciation brought this Edenic
golden age to a close. The traumatic struggle for survival in the wake of the
great glaciers, as scarcity and difficulty replaced the abundance and ease of
the Paleolithic period, caused a rapid change in the nature of human life on
Earth. The remnants of our ancient memory of the pre-glacial period and its
demise are preserved in the myths and folktales of many lands. An example is the
Biblical tale of the Tower of Babel (in Genesis 11:1-9), which symbolically
depicts the loss of conscious telepathy that accompanied our adoption of spoken
language, linear-rational thought, and the accoutrements of “civilization” — and
the accompanying retreat from a culture based on sharing and empathy, to one
based on struggle and competition. (For more discussion of these matters, see
Post-Apocalyptic Paganism.)
Repression and Taboo:
Telepathy is still a fact of life for humans, but it now occurs on a
subconscious level. The fact is that — as
Stephen Gaskin has taught — we are
really telepathic all the time, but we refuse to admit it to ourselves and
to each other. Our natural telepathy is inhibited by social conditioning that
denies and forbids it. The struggle against this anti-telepathic conditioning is
an essential part of the Luminist path, a prerequisite for attainment of higher
consciousness. And in the political realm, the struggle to free human minds from
anti-telepathic social conditioning is an essential part of the Revolutionary
Luminist strategy. It is a necessary precursor to the revolutionary
reorganization of human life on Earth and the emergence of true civilization. As
it has been said: We have had the First and Second World Wars; now we must have
the First World Revolution.
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