Spirituality for Living

Gnosis is the concept “as within so without”. Also connected with the concept “as above so below“. That knowledge of self, is knowledge of the principle that originated you.
It is connected to astrology. Astrology could be considered a Gnostic tool. Hermetic philosophy is primarily Gnostic in its premises and the principle even emerges in quantum [...]

The converse of the order we know isn’t necessarily chaos. Is chaos just the absence of order? Chaos is the presence of potential, yet not actualized energy. So, why do we perceive spirit to run counter of, or independently of matter?
If there is a fire, and “chaos” breaks out, people will run, however there is [...]

Lately I am dealing with a severe case of ennui. Existential boredom. How can that be? So much knowledge to learn? The disciplines of the mind reduce to exercising human perception. This is starkly limited and easily exhausted. From basic human premises of philosophy and science you can extrapolate any argument that has ever arisen [...]

So what do the psychic realms of function mean personally? We all come to a metaphysical or spiritual practice with our essence as it always was, even if we don’t understand our own nature well and often times we engage the first path we come across. Like the very “spiritual” and popular mysticism, and if [...]

We are overconfident of human independence. Even modern psychological research suggest that it’s a half truth at best.  Then you could delve rationalistically into why that is and why we have what subconscious influences that we do. Does that invalidate spiritual experience and make the ancients foolish?  Maybe they were more expedient and direct in some ways. [...]

There were two broad schools of thought in Chinese belief; naturalistic and legalistic. The Taoists were an example of the naturalistic school using nature and allegorical stories to focus on observations of the way the world works in general. Confucianism was more humanistic. Confucius focused on ethics and human concerns with the basic premise that [...]

What were some of the fundamentals about his thoughts or ideas? The analects of Confucius are a collection of works of his basic socio-political doctrines, and his teaching on social justice and compassion. He spoke of the need for loyalty and centralized authority, but not blind obedience. This is why his teachings would later result [...]

Alchemy can be applied widely, and it’s more a way of thinking or philosophy rather then ’stir a pot and out comes gold’ as it’s usually portrayed. The association with making gold was narrow even in the heyday of alchemy. However, some say philosophy is just a subjective stance and has no substance in the [...]

The material uses of things in magic (or whatever you prefer to call your practice) stem from one type of insight, that the world is interconnected. Hermetic philosophy refers to these connections as correspondences, and they have been viewed in literally every mystical practice across the world.  This raises the question of what is power, [...]

We have questioning minds because we have roving eyes. Does each lead or follow at different times? Does mind exist only in the wads of meat in our skulls?  I would argue the mind doesn’t follow the eye and this can be backed up in science. The eye follows the mind.
Native tribes exposed to new things [...]

We all project energy, and we interpret the energy coming to us to make sense of it like a bats sonar. The other being does the same. For me the process of projection is primary data not secondary, like senses are to you. In the case of two individuals; you project onto them, they project onto [...]

Scientism: The precept that science is the foundation of all knowledge and that all truth can be arrived at by empirical method. Does this seem presumptuous, even crazy? The scientific method is a relatively new fangled thing. To think it can have all the answers seems crazy? Well lets embrace a more critical mindset as [...]

What it would be like if I could do anything? The wizard is eventually revealed as a silly little man behind a curtain. He still had the power, and magic is everywhere. Martin Luther King was really just upset that people were being creepy to each other, and yet he made a big change in [...]

They say adversity doesn’t make you who you are, it shows who you are. It’s there. There is more than judgement. Like language is acquired by an infant, there is a language behind the mind/body connection. There is a language by which the world is assembled, and having failed to acquire that it makes things [...]

Finding peace. We all try to do it. It is a long standing objective in philosophy and religion both, if not the oldest. Yet we seem to have a haphazard grasp of it at best. A big part of this is we seek it elsewhere. It’s forever elsewhere. Peace on earth, peace with other nations, [...]

What would you say about someone who has killed a couple of hundred people, and accepts that, sleeping soundly knowing that only the dark part of his soul enables that same sleep? Is the soldier a criminal for having killed? Is someone who sees the world darkly an enemy for that view alone? I would [...]

Bushido is a diverse body of philosophy, and it is strongly linked to the Japanese religion of Shintoism. Shintoism and Ma’at, the native religion of Egypt, are very similar. They are tied to the forces of nature and the land.  Holding them sacred, but also having a sense of divine order and humans connection to [...]

Does superstition play a part in Bushido? In a sense, any tradition is a superstition. Does any belief survive? Because that is the literal meaning of superstition.
Does any form of Bushido persist in modern Japanese society, or is it all historical? Actually yes. It doesn’t exist unmodified, but it is how the “do” disciplines got [...]

The word promise is abused and overused. The only true promise is merely a recognition of what is already a spiritual reality and an affirmation of it.
You promise, and believe what you already know? Yes, and promises can be real.
Example; If you are traveling along a trail that is dependant on a bridge along its [...]

What is anarchy and anarchism? It’s a commonly misunderstood word usually ascribed to a hateful and licentious lawlessness. Anarchism is sort of a living embodiment of its own principles in that there is no one clearly held body of beliefs. There are more considered approaches of the concepts than a codified philosophy. Anarchy means no [...]