“There is no way to re-enchant our lives in a disenchanted culture except by becoming renegades from that culture and planting the seeds for a new one.”
—Thomas Moore

Image: Infinite Forests by Albert Bierstadt

“Christian societies have never come to the realization that the Mosaic covenant is nothing but a program for world domination by the Jewish nation. That is because it is written right under their nose, in a book whose malice they cannot recognize because they have been told it is the Word of God. It takes a free-thinker like H. G. Wells to see the biblical idea of the Chosen People for what it is: ‘a conspiracy against the rest of the world.’”
― Laurent Guyénot, Our God is Your God Too But He Has Chosen Us*

*Herbert George Wells, The Fate of Homo Sapiens, 1935, p.128. (archive.org)

Image: Esau sold his birthright by Matthias Stom

'This world is a prison full of tyranny, injustice, hardship and suffering. I want out.'

I get it. I sympathise. I occupied that headspace in my younger years, when I became interested in 'Gnostic Luciferianism' - 'Escaping the cosmic trap through gnosis and death to return to the void of chaos and liberty' etc. Thankfully it was a short lived phase.

David Icke and an increasing number of 'Truthers' have been pushing the 'Prison Planet' narrative. They're wrong, and what they preach is dangerous.

This natural, material realm that we experience with our Five Senses, is one of many. It is a place of immense beauty upon which evil has placed a veil of illusion: Man-made law, the digital experience, unnecessary strife, distraction and ignorance*. It is neither better nor worse than the so-called 'spiritual' realms, but due to the physical laws that govern this world it offers immense opportunity for growth and experience. It is sacred.

No malevolent demiurge created this place (though he might like you to think he did). To create is to love, and this realm is for our benefit. Yes, it is a place of finite lifespans, and the mechanism to enable that finiteness is 'dharmic' yet reliant upon what we perceive as suffering - death. To make this material realm entirely pain-free would be to take away the very feature that sets it apart from the spiritual realms; the aspects which give us the gift of learning in a 3D, time-bound environment. Clearly those who wish to 'escape' to a spiritual realm and yet bemoan the suffering of the material do not comprehend the gift of contrast. There may well be realms free of suffering, but that is not the purpose of this one.

*Note: 'Evil' is a pre-Christian, OE word.

“We cannot experience the world, even for an instant, without experiencing it through some myth, some narrative structure that sorts out our experiences and gives them meaning to us.”
― John Michael Greer, A World Full of Gods: An Inquiry into Polytheism

Notes: Such statements shouldn't be construed to deem the material world illusory. Instead, they highlight the pivotal role of myth and narrative in shaping our subjective reality. Often, these narratives, ingrained since birth, operate unnoticed, influencing our perception profoundly.

The challenge lies in discerning the myths and narratives that inform our perception and questioning their validity and impact on our lives. This is what is truly meant by lifting the veil, a bifurcated process. By lifting the veil of deceptive narratives operating within, we, in turn, unveil an aspect of the external world, allowing us to see with increased clarity, appreciation and insight.

Image: Douglas Smith

“Questioning is the engine of contemporary initiation.”
― Linda Sussman, The Speech of the Grail

Notes: The narrative device utilised by chroniclers of the Grail legend revolves around the concept of the "Grail Question." Upon first encounter with the Grail, the knight does not know what question to ask. This embodies the human condition of confronting the mysteries of existence without possessing the insight to pose the essential inquiries, despite witnessing extraordinary events. This parallels our own journey, where we often encounter profound truths without recognising their significance until reaching spiritual maturity.

Central to unlocking these enigmas is the act of inquiry, of remaining receptive to knowledge and personal evolution. The timeless virtues of embarking on quests, displaying knightly courage, and mastering the art of asking pertinent questions continue to play a pivotal role in the modern pursuit of uncovering the Grail's mysteries.

Image: Tiago Sousa

“This Jesus of Nazareth, as the embodiment of the gospel of love, this ‘redeemer’ bringing salvation and victory to the poor, the sick, to sinners – was he not seduction in its most sinister and irresistible form, seduction and the circuitous route to just those very Jewish values and innovative ideals? Did Israel not reach the pinnacle of her sublime vengefulness via this very ‘redeemer’, this apparent opponent of and disperser of Israel? Is it not part of a secret black art of a truly grand politics of revenge, a far-sighted, subterranean revenge, slow to grip and calculating, that Israel had to denounce her actual instrument of revenge before all the world as a mortal enemy and nail him to the cross so that ‘all the world’, namely all Israel’s enemies, could safely nibble at this bait? And could anyone, on the other hand, using all the ingenuity of his intellect, think up a more dangerous bait? Something to equal the enticing, intoxicating, benumbing, corrupting power of that symbol of the ‘holy cross’, to equal that horrible paradox of a ‘God on the Cross’, to equal that mystery of an unthinkable final act of extreme cruelty and selfcrucifixion of God for the salvation of mankind? At least it is certain that sub hoc signo Israel, with its revenge and revaluation of all former values, has triumphed repeatedly over all other ideals, all nobler ideals.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality

Notes: Nietzsche astutely observes that Jesus and thereby Christianity serve as a vehicle for Jewish revenge against its enemies, at that time Rome (referred to as Edom). By presenting Jesus as a sacrificial victim, Christianity transformed the Jewish desire for vengeance into a universal moral imperative, thereby perpetuating a cycle of retribution under the guise of salvation. This subversion of traditional values, wherein weakness and suffering are exalted as virtues, serves to undermine the traditional notions of strength and power, ultimately reshaping moral and ethical frameworks. This represents a form of "grand politics of revenge," wherein Israel strategically denounces its own instrument of revenge, acting as a form of ‘reverse psychology’ in order to consolidate power and influence.

“To control a people you must first control what they think about themselves and how they regard their history and culture. And when your conqueror makes you ashamed of your culture and your history, he needs no prison walls and no chains to hold you.”
― John Henrik Clarke

Notes: It can be widely observed that the manipulation of identity, history, and culture profoundly impacts a population. Those who shape the narrative of people's self-perception and historical consciousness wield true power in the world. By instilling the low vibrational frequencies of shame and guilt regarding one's culture and history, those in power can establish a form of mental captivity. Subjugation is not solely a matter of external forces but also a psychological battle to be resisted at every turn, a battle that commences by reclaiming our culture, true history, and identity.

Image: Prometheus Bringing Fire to Mankind by Friedrich Heinrich Fuger

“Enclosed within his artificial creation, man finds that there is “no exit”; that he cannot pierce the shell of technology again to find the ancient milieu to which he was adapted for hundreds of thousands of years . In our cities there is no more day or night or heat or cold. But there is overpopulation, thralldom to press and television, total absence of purpose. All men are constrained by means external to them to ends equally external. The further the technical mechanism develops that allows us to escape natural necessity, the more we are subjected to artificial technical necessities.”
― Jacques Ellul

Image: Hvite striper 2 by Kenneth Blom

"On the night of December 21/22, the sun reaches its southernmost point. Were it to remain in the south, it would mean death for living beings in the northern hemisphere. Thus we greet the returning sun as a "savior."

On the night when it begins its northward journey, the constellation Virgo, the celestial virgin, appears on the eastern horizon at midnight and is therefore, astrologically, the ascendant.

This coordinates with the myth of the various saviors of humanity, immaculately conceived and born from a virgin. Later, the sun symbolically sacrifices its life on the cross when it passes over the equinoctial point at the spring equinox, an apparent descent as seen from the southern hemisphere and an ascent in the northern sky. The focal points of the year — the four sacred seasons of the solstices and equinoxes — affect the consciousness of all humanity; and no matter on which day the festivals fall, they can provide gateways for the properly attuned heart and mind, allowing us to enter the forecourt of the temple of learning and life. . .

At the winter solstice the universal currents of life help human consciousness to enter divine spheres. At the same time spiritual energy can descend from higher worlds into the human arena: the gods "descend into hell" to garner experience in their underworld — our own world — thereby bringing inspiration and enlightenment to humanity.

At this time each of us also may undergo a new birth. Nature has opened the door, and it is up to us to recognize this and take a step further."

-Dorothea Hamann

“Sabbateanism is the matrix of every significant movement to have emerged in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, from Hasidism, to Reform Judaism, to the earliest Masonic circles and revolutionary idealism. The Sabbatean believers felt that they were champions of a new world which was to be established by overthrowing the values of all positive religions.”
— Gershom Scholem, The Messianic Idea in Judaism: And Other Essays on Jewish Spirituality

Notes: Sabbateanism was named after it’s founder a Sephardic rabbi and Kabbalist Sabbatai Zevi who in 1666 declared himself to be the Jewish messiah. Up to half of the Jewish diaspora accepted his claims and the Sabbatean principle of ‘redemption through sin’ justified through the Talmudic dictum (Nazir 23b) “transgression committed for its own sake is greater than a commandment not committed for its own sake”.

Image: Seal of Solomon by J.A. Knapp