Kindle Notes & Highlights
We can try. Indeed, plotting the escape from this prison of matter is the raison d'être of the world's great religions. As Hindus and Buddhists, we deny it as illusion; as Christians, we attempt to bribe our way free with a ransomed savior and, together with the other “people of the Book”— Muslims and Jews—we hate it and fear it as a devil, make war upon it as an enemy, flee from it as sin, and (discarding God-given common sense) gamble our souls on the historicity of myths and obedience to scriptural law so that, after death, we might discover we have won the prize of immortality.
Verses five and six go on to provide the diligent aspirant the mystic key by which he or she can arise from the tomb of matter even while acknowledging that the tomb is an integral part of the self.
Basically, the New Hermetics is a synthesis of Western esoteric thought, Jungian psychology, the ideas of neuro-linguistic programming, the eight-circuit model of consciousness, and Scientific Illuminism.
There is no break between our individuality and the wholeness of the cosmos. The experience of separation is just a consequence, a residue of perception. This seeming separation occurs merely because we have each been given individual functions and purposes within the great cosmic mind.
In order to explore our minds with the hope of understanding the cosmic scope of our consciousness, it is necessary to have some sort of road map. Otherwise, we might quickly become lost in seas of neurotic delusion, daydreams, and fantasy.
It must be remembered that science and materialism are just as invisible, mysterious, and intangible as Jehovah or Jesus.
However, the underlying theme of all Hermetic philosophy is that the mind shapes reality.
Your mind and the mind of the universe are connected inextricably to accomplish the miracle of existence.
By learning to understand your mind, you will learn to understand the universe.
You must understand that, when I discuss the mind, I am not merely discussing the conscious mind as people usually think of it—the flitting thoughts about what you're going to eat for dinner or do this weekend. I am also referring to the greater aspect of mind often called today the “collective unconscious.
As you become progressively more in touch with this collective unconscious, you will be increasingly able to influence the world around you.
The Western mysteries are about understanding and mastering life as it is, rather than chasing ethereal chimeras into oblivion.
The New Hermetics is a system for understanding our subjective, spiritual nature and systematically exploring our subjective reality.
Because of this understanding, what may take years for the average mystic will take just a few weeks or months for the New Hermeticist, who will also have the distinct advantage of knowing that the experience was, although beautiful and life-transforming, a subjective experience nonetheless. This will hopefully protect against the delusions of grandeur and self-importance that plague so many mystics.
The universe is mental, and so is the magick of the New Hermetics.
Since everyone becomes a potential black magician in your eyes, you live in a fear-based world, cut off from the universal mind that is the source of power. Your magick will begin to fail, because you are no longer in harmony with its source. If you are afraid that people are going to use magick for evil, then you are already living in this fearful world.
Throughout history, this has been called “union with God.” However, the New Hermetics is not based on any particular theory about religion, or the nature of God or the universe. Rather it is based on the methods that humans have used since the beginning of time to establish a connection with their source. These methods form the process of exploring our internal worlds and ourselves until we eventually discover our center, the source of our consciousness itself.
In order to become a New Hermeticist, you must adopt several new models of behavior. These will help you to actualize your powers in the fullest and most helpful and positive way possible.
The basic guideposts of the New Hermeticist are simple: cultivate a natural cheerful skepticism, a sense of possibility, knowledge that truth is entirely subjective, an awareness and cultivation of the basic mystical states, and an endless pursuit of equilibrium.
If you are a scientific atheist, you may feel free to follow your inclinations, but don't be surprised if you must expand your horizons as your adventure takes you into wild new territory.
When the light of illumination dawns and you experience your union with cosmic, universal consciousness, as a skeptic you will not accept this ecstatic vision as “truth” and begin to preach from the mountaintops. You will continue to question, continue to search, and that search will never end. My own search continues to this day and will continue forever.
Once you have grasped the importance of skepticism, you are confronted with a seeming paradox. In order to take advantage of the mental technology of the New Hermetics, you must explore territories that may seem, on the surface, unbelievable.
Truth is a subjective experience. Is there even such a thing as objective reality? Objective reality is by far the most improbable of all of humankind's abstract ideas. In order for anything to be objectively real, it must be able to be isolated from any context and still be itself. Comparison of any kind would then be impossible, because all methods of doing so would be removed in the process. Once you place anything into a context, it loses every drop of its objectivity, becoming simply another subjective quantity in the palette of your existence.
It is from this standpoint that you must approach the mysteries of the universe. You can never really hold onto any idea as being true. Instead, you must merely decide which ideas are useful at the moment for your purposes, and be ready to cast them aside as soon as they are no longer necessary.
This phase is pure consciousness. Your consciousness slips into the gap between your thoughts, “stopping the world.
