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April 13 - May 22, 2021
All that I could fathom was that the conventional picture that we normally get—and seem to share—is not in fact what is there; what is there is not even in time or space, nor is causation involved. There seems to be a mind and we are in it . … “We are all but cells in a colossal mad brain that both makes and perceives reality”—something like that, the main thrust being that there is some relationship between the creating of reality and perceiving of it … the percipient is cosmogenitor [literally, “creator of the universe”], or conversely, the cosmogenitor wound up as unwilling percipient of
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All that I could fathom was that the conventional picture that we normally get—and seem to share—is not in fact what is there; what is there is not even in time or space, nor is causation involved. There seems to be a mind and we are in it . … “We are all but cells in a colossal mad brain that both makes and perceives reality”—something like that, the main thrust being that there is some relationship between the creating of reality and perceiving of it … the percipient is cosmogenitor [literally, “creator of the universe”], or conversely, the cosmogenitor wound up as unwilling percipient of
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Indeed, if Bernardo Kastrup and the idealist mystical literatures of the world are pointing us in the right direction—and I think they are—the materialist hypothesis is the exact opposite of the truth. It is fantastically wrong. Mind does not emerge as a fragile and temporary product of matter. Matter emerges as a fragile and temporary product of what Aldous Huxley famously called “mind-at-large” and its own mathematical structures and symmetrical beauty. Or, if you prefer, what we so pathetically call “mind” and “matter” emerge from some deeper superstructure or symmetry that is at once
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Indeed, if Bernardo Kastrup and the idealist mystical literatures of the world are pointing us in the right direction—and I think they are—the materialist hypothesis is the exact opposite of the truth. It is fantastically wrong. Mind does not emerge as a fragile and temporary product of matter. Matter emerges as a fragile and temporary product of what Aldous Huxley famously called “mind-at-large” and its own mathematical structures and symmetrical beauty. Or, if you prefer, what we so pathetically call “mind” and “matter” emerge from some deeper superstructure or symmetry that is at once
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We are embodied forms of cosmic mind, split off “alters” in some vast multiple-personality order. These alters have entered God’s dream through sexual reproduction and evolutionary biology (note that eros becomes the energy and portal of divine incarnation here) in order to wake up within the dream, look around the physical universe as the interior of God’s brain, and reflect on our own cosmic nature within this same neural galactic network.
We are embodied forms of cosmic mind, split off “alters” in some vast multiple-personality order. These alters have entered God’s dream through sexual reproduction and evolutionary biology (note that eros becomes the energy and portal of divine incarnation here) in order to wake up within the dream, look around the physical universe as the interior of God’s brain, and reflect on our own cosmic nature within this same neural galactic network.
“Put in another way, the universe is the scan of God’s brain; except that you don’t need the scanner: you’re already inside God’s brain so all you have to do is to look around. Your perceptions of the sun, rainbows, thunderstorms, etc., are as inaccessible to God as the patterns of firing neurons in your brain—with all their beauty and complexity—are inaccessible to you in any direct way.”
“Put in another way, the universe is the scan of God’s brain; except that you don’t need the scanner: you’re already inside God’s brain so all you have to do is to look around. Your perceptions of the sun, rainbows, thunderstorms, etc., are as inaccessible to God as the patterns of firing neurons in your brain—with all their beauty and complexity—are inaccessible to you in any direct way.”
“we are all hanging from the self-conceptualized cross of space, time, confinement and impermanence. His divine nature is our true nature as timeless mind taking particular, seemingly limited perspectives within its own dream. That Christ is both God and the Son of God born into God’s creation is a hardly disguised way to express this symbolically.”
“we are all hanging from the self-conceptualized cross of space, time, confinement and impermanence. His divine nature is our true nature as timeless mind taking particular, seemingly limited perspectives within its own dream. That Christ is both God and the Son of God born into God’s creation is a hardly disguised way to express this symbolically.”
This book is a three-part journey into the rabbit hole we call the nature of reality. Its ultimate destination is a plausible, living validation of transcendence.
This book is a three-part journey into the rabbit hole we call the nature of reality. Its ultimate destination is a plausible, living validation of transcendence.
We call what hasn't yet found its place in our modern, Western order, transcendence. When transcendent states become the norm, what shall we call the norm of today?
This book is a three-part journey into the rabbit hole we call the nature of reality. Its ultimate destination is a plausible, living validation of transcendence.
We call what hasn't yet found its place in our modern, Western order, transcendence. When transcendent states become the norm, what shall we call the norm of today?
The ebb and flow of the book’s trinity of themes ultimately circles around one of them: truth, the central motif of this work. All three parts revolve around it: Part I by exploring how myths can deliver truth, Part II by unveiling the nature of truth through dispelling unexamined beliefs, and Part III by appealing to belief in a myth in order to hint at truth.
The ebb and flow of the book’s trinity of themes ultimately circles around one of them: truth, the central motif of this work. All three parts revolve around it: Part I by exploring how myths can deliver truth, Part II by unveiling the nature of truth through dispelling unexamined beliefs, and Part III by appealing to belief in a myth in order to hint at truth.
The religious myth is one of man’s greatest and most significant achievements, giving him the security and inner strength not to be crushed by the monstrousness of the universe. Carl Jung
The religious myth is one of man’s greatest and most significant achievements, giving him the security and inner strength not to be crushed by the monstrousness of the universe. Carl Jung
In a culture obsessed with literal truth and pragmatism, such as our own, the impoverishment of myth is increasingly—if only instinctively—felt. Never before in history has a civilization been so desperately devoid of context and perspective. Who are we? Where do we come from? Where should we go? What’s the point of it all? We feel lost because we are unable to take seriously the maps that could give us directions. We can no longer take myths seriously because, after all, they are only myths.
In a culture obsessed with literal truth and pragmatism, such as our own, the impoverishment of myth is increasingly—if only instinctively—felt. Never before in history has a civilization been so desperately devoid of context and perspective. Who are we? Where do we come from? Where should we go? What’s the point of it all? We feel lost because we are unable to take seriously the maps that could give us directions. We can no longer take myths seriously because, after all, they are only myths.
Whether meaning is anchored in the outer or inner realm is thus irrelevant: the world is meaningful in both cases for these realms are, at bottom, expressions of one and the same reality.
Whether meaning is anchored in the outer or inner realm is thus irrelevant: the world is meaningful in both cases for these realms are, at bottom, expressions of one and the same reality.
Indeed, the English word ‘myth’ derives from the Ancient Greek μῦθος (muthos): something said in words, like a story, speech or report. That we think of reality according to myths is even suggested by the Common Slavic derivative of the original Greek: мысль (mysl’), which means ‘thought’ or ‘idea.’ Therefore, the word ‘myth’ originally meant a story that evokes thought; not necessarily an untrue story, as it is often understood today.
Indeed, the English word ‘myth’ derives from the Ancient Greek μῦθος (muthos): something said in words, like a story, speech or report. That we think of reality according to myths is even suggested by the Common Slavic derivative of the original Greek: мысль (mysl’), which means ‘thought’ or ‘idea.’ Therefore, the word ‘myth’ originally meant a story that evokes thought; not necessarily an untrue story, as it is often understood today.
myth is a story that implies a certain way of interpreting consensus reality so to derive meaning and affective charge from its images and interactions.
myth is a story that implies a certain way of interpreting consensus reality so to derive meaning and affective charge from its images and interactions.
Myth is disguised in subtle forms. Take, for instance, the notion that consensus reality exists outside mind: it’s an inference, an interpretation of perceptions, since the perceptions themselves are always in mind.
Myth is disguised in subtle forms. Take, for instance, the notion that consensus reality exists outside mind: it’s an inference, an interpretation of perceptions, since the perceptions themselves are always in mind.
One always lives according to a myth, for a continuous interpretation of consensus reality is inherent to the human condition. The question is whether one’s chosen myth resonates with one’s deepest intuitions or runs counter to them.
One always lives according to a myth, for a continuous interpretation of consensus reality is inherent to the human condition. The question is whether one’s chosen myth resonates with one’s deepest intuitions or runs counter to them.
In the Talmudic myth of conception, Lailah—an angel of the night—touches the fetus on the upper lip immediately prior to birth, causing him to forget everything about the transcendent order of reality whence he originates. This angelic action is supposedly what creates the philtrum, that little groove between the nose and the upper lip that we all have. Every time a Rabbinic Jew looks at someone’s face on the streets, he potentially sees the footprints of transcendence, the touch of Lailah. Through the religious myth, the ‘otherworld’ enters this world. The dam is broken and the river flows.
In the Talmudic myth of conception, Lailah—an angel of the night—touches the fetus on the upper lip immediately prior to birth, causing him to forget everything about the transcendent order of reality whence he originates. This angelic action is supposedly what creates the philtrum, that little groove between the nose and the upper lip that we all have. Every time a Rabbinic Jew looks at someone’s face on the streets, he potentially sees the footprints of transcendence, the touch of Lailah. Through the religious myth, the ‘otherworld’ enters this world. The dam is broken and the river flows.
The hyping of religious fundamentalism by the mainstream media simply masks the faster-advancing loss of authentic religious vibrancy: a noisy minority makes the headlines while a majority falls into apathy and cynicism.
The hyping of religious fundamentalism by the mainstream media simply masks the faster-advancing loss of authentic religious vibrancy: a noisy minority makes the headlines while a majority falls into apathy and cynicism.
On the one hand, the crucial usefulness of skepticism is degenerating into the narrow-mindedness of cynicism. The allegedly skeptical scientific myth that dominates contemporary culture is, in fact, based on a peculiarly biased value-system: an emotional and irrational need to deny all meaning and purpose in nature.
On the one hand, the crucial usefulness of skepticism is degenerating into the narrow-mindedness of cynicism. The allegedly skeptical scientific myth that dominates contemporary culture is, in fact, based on a peculiarly biased value-system: an emotional and irrational need to deny all meaning and purpose in nature.
The world-conquering West of the nineteenth century needed a philosophy of life in which realpolitik—victory for the tough people who face the bleak facts—was the guiding principle. Thus the bleaker the facts you face, the tougher you seem to be. So we vied with each other to make the Fully Automatic Model of the universe as bleak as possible.19
The world-conquering West of the nineteenth century needed a philosophy of life in which realpolitik—victory for the tough people who face the bleak facts—was the guiding principle. Thus the bleaker the facts you face, the tougher you seem to be. So we vied with each other to make the Fully Automatic Model of the universe as bleak as possible.19
We see a square for the cube, a triangle for the diamond. We make the religious myth small, a flattened shadow of what it is truly meant to represent, so we can hold on to it more easily. As a result, we’ve succumbed to lives of uptightness, intolerance and even hatred.
We see a square for the cube, a triangle for the diamond. We make the religious myth small, a flattened shadow of what it is truly meant to represent, so we can hold on to it more easily. As a result, we’ve succumbed to lives of uptightness, intolerance and even hatred.
The idea built into this religious myth is sophisticated and striking. Karora can find himself in two different mental states: one lacking lucidity, which is linked to the unconstrained freedom to imagine things into existence; and a self-reflective state linked to becoming subject to self-imposed constraints.
Traditional religious myths flood a community’s very environment and its inhabitants with transcendence. The temporal and eternal worlds become linked. Mere trees, animals and holes on the ground take on the significance of divine footprints.
In all cases, the world is seen as the mental creation of a deity; that is, a kind of thought in the mind of God. The universe begins as insubstantial imaginings—’illusions’ in the Uitoto case; ‘dreams’ in the Arandan case; thought-up primordial ‘waters’ in the Hindu case—which then gain concreteness and solidity once the deity itself enters the dream—by waking up in it, in the case of the Arandan; by stamping on it, in the case of the Uitoto; or by birthing itself into it, in the Hindu case. The deity always undergoes a significant change in its state of consciousness—from dream or illusion
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In the waking state, creation is experienced as ‘the hard, gross facts of an outer universe.’ In the dream state, it is experienced as the ‘fluid, subtle forms of a private inner world.’29 In the dreamless sleep state, there is no experience as such and, therefore, only the potential for creation exists. The different phases of the cosmogonic cycle thus entail different states of cognition of the universal consciousness.
A common motif across many traditional religious myths is the notion that the world is the imagination of a divinity. The divinity then enters its own imaginings, taking on a lucid, self-reflective state of awareness within it. It is this that brings concreteness to an essentially dreamed-up universe.
Underlying our contemporary attitude toward religious myths is the hidden but far-reaching assumption that all relevant truths about reality can be directly captured by the intellect in the form of language constructs.
As the basis of our internal models of reality, language underlies the way we reason and delineates the boundaries of what we consider possible.
As Ian Tattersall put it, ‘it is virtually impossible to imagine our thought processes in [the absence of language], for without the mediation of language those thought processes would be entirely intuitive.
Because our self-reflective reasoning is constructed in language, we assume that if something cannot be unambiguously said then it cannot be true. But truth does not care about the limits of human language. There are many natural truths that cannot be said and, hence, reasoned. These are transcendent truths.
As a cognitive domain that transcends the intellect, the obfuscated mind does not operate according to linguistic constructs. In other words, it does not process information according to a logical, algorithm-like universal grammar. Instead, evidence from depth-psychology shows that the obfuscated mind operates symbolically.50
Unlike a sign—such as a word, acronym or label—which merely denotes something well defined and circumscribed, a symbol connotes a deeper, subtler, broader idea or intuition.
Signs narrow, or reduce. Symbols are a bridge or an expansive opening.
