When confronted with ideas of social activism, political reform, and the like, there is always an overwhelming focus on the things that are broken, defective, inadequate, et cetera, and very little attention is put into actual solutions to these problems of culture. Often religion is suggested as a moral compass in order to prevent these problems, but when modern religious ideology is focusing on rudimentary trivialities like sex with whom, and what name someone gives to God, for examples, then it quickly appears that religion is a pick-and-choose solution at best. This is to mean that religion seems to be “close” to an answer, but close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades after all. And furthermore, science seems to be as equally “close” to an explanation, coming from a different spectrum of investigation—but both will continue to chase their own tails if they do not recognize each other.

Many individuals are yet coming to this conclusion, and more still are beginning to talk about it, but oftentimes what comes across in this description of synthesis is a wordy and confusing patchwork of comparisons and interpretations that show how religion and science are pointing towards the same thing. Unfortunately, there are not enough of these conversations happening that are involving the word “gnosis,” which is the exact definition of the synthesis described here.

When people talk about “information that is hidden” by today’s “secret societies,” it can generally be considered that these people are talking about the disguise that gnosis has received in modern society (a disguise that is always present, but ever-changing). For instance, in Freemasonic tradition, the Temple of Solomon is the allegorical representation of the alchemy’s process of spiritual transmutation. While alchemy is a complex topic in and of itself, the idea ultimately represents the allegory of turning the baser elements into their more purified concepts (mercury to gold), meaning the transmutation of a person’s baser qualities into a spiritual enlightenment of “gold.” Described in this article is a concise analysis of this transmutation process within the Self—only meant as a surface level discussion to whet the appetite of the reader on their own deeper journey.

For the uninitiated, the term gnosis can be characterized as the only truth that can be ascertained in this existence: the truth as experienced from the interior; the intuitive; the Self. “What a Luciferian concept!” some might say, and they would only be right insofar as their consideration of Prometheus, and the tradition all of bringers of light. But this is demonstrably a different entity of the “Ha Satan” of Christianity, perceived as the arch-nemesis to God and all his creations. Unknown to many is the importance of the “Ha” which is part of Greek and Hebrew nomenclature—thus, providing the context for the original ancient native tongues that primarily helped propagate the Bible (Greek language being more specifically carried over from Roman culture, in this specific case of Christianity). The overall idea here, which can be read further in this link, is that “Ha” before Satan in the original texts indicated whether or not the writer was talking about a Satan or the Satan (“ha” being “the”), which as result leaves room for an unsettling margin of error in translations (the one of many marginal errors in biblical translations).

To the point: the person who recognizes the divinity of the Self is recognizing the connection of the Self to the cosmos (the synthesis of the Microcosm and the Macrocosm; more on this later). While the traditional archetype of Lucifer, later adopted by the Catholic Church’s theology, is a representation of this archetype; the people who actually conduct the worship of “Ha Satan,” would be the “black magicians/dark occultists” as they are known today. There are different aspects of this worship of the preternatural forces and the inversion of gnosis, including congregations like the Temple of Set (founded by Lieutenant Colonel Michael Aquino, a man who has also been pinpointed as a “runner/smuggler” in the little known underground American pedophilia networks, who continues his high-ranking military affiliations that have since spilt over into the NSA). As an afterthought here, Aleister Crowley, while not exactly a paragon of morality by any stretch, was not a black magician or dark occult practitioner, although he did sometimes discuss these concepts.

While this may seem like a tangent, understanding the “worship of the Self” as a misunderstanding for a “worship through the Self” is of the utmost importance here. The point to take away from this is that gnosis is achieved through the proper synthesis of the Microcosm and the Macrocosm, and this synthesis can be best described as the Trivium and Quadrivium Methods of Learning, which consist of the seven ancient liberal arts and sciences of Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric, Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, and Astronomy. These seven arts/sciences can be broken down into Letter, Number, Quality, Quantity, Matter, and Mind. Quite empirically, both religion and science in today’s era have failed to approach their mindsets from this all-encompassing view towards true gnosis. But to discuss the Trivium and Quadrivium Methods of Learning is not to discuss gnosis—rather, an essential tool to use on the path towards gnosis. But if the tool can be metaphorically likened to a shovel or spade, gnosis perhaps being the seed, then what is the soil in this case?

The soil is Microcosm, the sky being the Macrocosm (these metaphors can be taken quite literally at times as well), and the singular consciousness represents the gardener. While it will be addressed in further details as this series progresses, it is important to remember that there is no standard definition of the Microcosm and the Macrocosm. They are definable, surely, but their details require too many words than should be allotted here, so suffice it to say that the Macrocosm could be the individual gardener instead of the soil, and the Macrocosm could be the Earth, instead of the sky. The only detail that remains steadfast at all times is the synthesis aspect. The Yin and Yang symbol, often banally over-generalized to dualism like “good versus evil” or “positive versus negative” is better understood as an Eastern interpretation of the synthesis of the Macrocosm and Microcosm, and the intertwining symbiotic effect that both sets of energies share with each other. As an example, the colors of the Yin and Yang symbol could be changed to red and blue, and people would at least be able to recognize the symbol and the imagery it is supposed to convey—but if the symmetry and design (the synthesis of all the lines and angles) were changed, well then it would be a different symbol entirely.

So, in order to find solid ground of gnosis in this reality, it appears that one needs to seek an accurate synthesis of the Microcosm and Macrocosm, by tuning their perceptual gauges to the Trivium and Quadrivium Methods of Learning—but once tuned, the next step is application. Ultimately, the only thing that can be truly studied is the mind, because this is the only fundamental connection to the outside world.

The simple, profound and complicatedly nuanced definition of the barrier between the Self and true gnosis, is karma. Most Westerners have a poorly developed understanding of karma, and perceive it as a metaphysical “money pool” that a person is constantly betting into. This person can either bet positive or negative, but whatever they choose, these effects will directly loop back to them and affect them, even if their actions had no direct cause-and-effect relationship to their “consequence” on the material plane.

While not completely inaccurate, this a terrible explanation of karma—and the idea of karmic debt can be best described with neurology and psychotherapy. Neurologically speaking, a person uses the same type of neurological pathways for the respective actions that these neuronal pathways control—regardless of whether or not these actions are directed at the Self or something outside the Self. In other words, the old “Golden Rule” is incomplete in its teaching. “Treat others the way you would like to be treated,” it says, but this phrase should really be followed with “…because you will treat others the way you treat yourself.” This means that a person’s social mannerisms, and how they interact with their ambient environment is a fundamental and empirical echo of their inner relationship with themselves.

In this context, there is almost a type of quantum superposition of the neuron. The rule of karma is: “As you treat others, so will you treat yourself,” and with this definition, the ideas of the two “pools of bets for the future” become unnecessary. The individual who condemns others will always simultaneously be doing this to his own nature (in both the present and the foreseeable future, thus statistically localizing and limiting the possibilities of the future until the habits are changed) and thus is the same for any emotion. This will be covered in further depth as the series progresses, but for more information on this subject, psychotherapist Dr. Stanislav Grof and his fifty years of study into neuronal “condensed experience systems” is an essential point of research.

Just as a child learns to read a book by studying letters and words, the human learns to read their own mind by studying the symbols of their imagination. Far from being some fantasy land that only children enjoy, the “Imagination” is termed in eastern metaphysics as the “stream of consciousness,” the reservoir of electromagnetic signaling and communication that is processed through geometrical shapes of empirical nature, and then further assimilated into the intricacies of the individual’s neuronal patterns. As indicated by concepts like the Microcosm and the Macrocosm, and the stream of consciousness, the singular mind is not an empty echo, but rather a connection to a grand stream of divine intention, often considered the “ether” by occultists and even scientists like Nikola Tesla (who further considered the ether to be the Earth’s magnetic field).

The person who studies the “letters” and “words” of their own consciousness is the person who studies and practices the Divination Arts, considered today as Astrology, Numerology, Tarot, and the Tree of Life diagram. To consummate this introduction, let it be emphatically stated that any individual who has not personally developed an understanding of these arts/sciences has a misunderstanding—meaning that, if someone has left their definitions of these practices to their culture to define, and not for careful research to define, then they have surely led away from the truth.

The overarching reality of these sciences is simply this: they are pictorial, allegorical representations of systems and phenomena that lacked any type of classification. Thus, classifications were needed in order to interpret and utilize the information. A true divination reading is reading the individual’s neuronal map by transposing ancient symbols onto this map of the brain, coined as “archetypes” by psychotherapist Carl Jung. Any appearances of “reading the future” in any considered regard can be deemed an accurate prediction of an individual’s own thought patterns, and how they will choose to interact with the circumstances that they have helped to attract to themselves. Learning the Divination Arts is merely learning the context and knack of “symbolic literacy.”

This is the idea of gnosis, and this is what people are so desperately trying to achieve on a search for stability or equilibrium. It matters less what type of symbols are used, and more so what these symbols are being used for. The ends don’t necessarily justify the means, but they certainly contextualize it. Unfortunately, not only have modern religion and science not received their proper dose of gnosis, but neither have ideas like modern medicine, politics, nor even the fringe groups like Ufology and New Age. Not only will this series critique this variety of new rationales through a lens of esoteric principles originally promulgated by Gnosticism, it will as well seek to further define the concepts discussed in this introduction. Through the series of processes described here, it can be empirically demonstrated that a person’s individual consciousness is always their most fundamental barrier between them and the truth—and thus, the ideas of the ego are the truest illusion, and the authentic expression of “selfhood” can only be recognized by a synthesis with the Divine.

This is some of the most quintessential knowledge that modern-day “secret societies” have kept from the public. Secret societies like Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism were originally developed during historical periods in the West where people who spoke of this information and practiced it were persecuted and killed, usually by means of sadistic and politically administrated torture. However, as society and culture develops, the physical persecution is often hidden by means of psychological persecution, veiled in trigger-words like the “conspiracy theorist.” There may be too many people who are surprised by the equation between secret, occulted information and the conspiracy theorist—as these camps are often diametrically opposed today—but the modern “conspiracy theorist” is ideally a person who is an empirical seeker of truth, no matter where it leads, and isn’t this, as well, a fundamental definition of the original reason for “secret societies?”

Before some people blow their top, this is not an advocacy of today’s completely corrupted aspects of these secret societies (this corruption sometimes being planned long in advance); this is the declaration that the history of secret societies through the study of occult metaphysics is much more complicated than is currently being discussed by today’s researchers. Furthermore, today’s separation of the “conspiracy theorist” from this occulted information has been one of the ultimate sociocultural thefts at hand in today’s realm of research towards gnosis.

To end this introduction, remember: the human being is the fractal represented by Chaos Theory, and gnosis is the true order out of the chaos of the neuronal maze of illusion, or “Maya.” While this article, or even this entire series, will not be the proverbial key to the temple, an open-mind will find their key within these words all the same. Finding the key is not any sort of completion—it is crucial to remember that the finding of this key is actually the mark of the very beginning.

[accordion title=”Your Esoteric Initiation – Continued” close=”0″]Part 1: You are the Illusion

Part 2: Everything You Thought You Knew is Actually the Occult

Part 3: Your Archetypes Own You (Astrotheology)

Part 4: Alchemical Transmutation and Owning Your Archetypes

Part 5: Fortean Ontology: A Meta-Analysis of Esoteric Metaphysics, the Paranormal and Ufology

Part 6: A Look at Modern Secret Societies and Natural Law

Part 7: Real Magicians Don’t Read “New Age”[/accordion]

Sources: http://www.oldenwilde.org/oldenwilde/members/diu/quadriv.html, http://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/sta/index.htm, http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/hamlets_mill/hamletmill.htm, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZSRKNw-lTE, http://www.michaeltsarion.com/symbolic-literacy.html, http://www.michaeltsarion.com/inner-zodiac.html, http://www.gnosis.org/gnintro.htm, http://www.realdevil.info/a1-2.htm, http://runesoup.com/category/, https://ccwe.wordpress.com/tag/dr-susan-greenwood/, http://gnosis.org/redbook/, http://www.manlyphall.org/text/the-lost-keys-of-freemasonry/, https://www.scribd.com/doc/9272251/Alchemy-The-Science-of-Enlightenment