Random Thoughts

Humans conform as easily as they breath. And conformity takes place at an equally unconscious level. And humans value conformity above life itself. Just as our central nervous system has nothing to do with the regulation of our breathing; so it has nothing to do with our ability to conform (adopt the behaviors, desires, opinions, thoughts, and values of others).

Humans like to be different only insofar as they are appreciated. Once that appreciation ceases, the desire to be different is greatly decreased. That is why, the safest form of "difference" is performance, where we retain all the benefits of conformity, while at the same time expressing our individuality. Competition is a form of conformity, where every individual accepts the values of the others.

An important part of Gnostic theology is the doctrine of the fall of man. Now, this is a bit of a misnomer, because it wasn't man who fell, but man's spirit that descended into matter -- so the doctrine goes. If one accepts the notion that man is a spiritual being, at least in part, then one must logically accept that this physical world is not his home! It is esoteric Qabbalism -- the "received" doctrine of the ancient sacerodotal class -- that man's physical being is sustained by his ethereal body, which extends beyond his epidermal "clothing".

This physical world is not a world of "illusion", but rather a world of shadows, as Plato rightly stated. Every object of physical manifestation is the result of, or, is symbolic of, the projected forces and powers by which it was produced.
And every metaphysician should study physics (and every physicist should study metaphysics). Why? Because Nature, herself, is an occultist -- she clothes her doctrines in physical manifestation. Every star is the garb of gravitational and quantum forces. Life itself is the garment of forces that Nature has no inclination to reveal and that science has only specious knowledge. Nature does not reveal "the thing as it is", but only the shadow of itself. Science unveils, but by doing so, reveals that the essence of all physical manifestation is metaphysical. The power of science is to look beyond physical manifestation to see the "occult" powers operating in nature. The power of science is that it looks beyond the physical. Hermetic priests knew that the "transitory", i.e. the world of physical manifestation, is not reality, but rather the "effect" of reality -- the cause of all effects were called "gods", but the hermetists knew that these "gods" were natural forces or principles.

Once man realizes that the essence of his being is also non-physical -- and that the energy that resides within him is the same as the energy that resides within the stars -- he will realize that the stars themselves are beings, and that the entire universe, not just the planet Earth, is his home. God has bestowed blessings on us all, but these blessings ceased to be felt with the fall of man -- that is to say, the "amnesiacal" descent of spirit into matter. Once man looks at himself in the mirror and takes his physical body for himself, he commits the same error as Narcissus, and, like the latter, drowns in an ocean of matter.