Post-Modern Religion (2/3) An Aquarian Testament

In the previous entry, I shared my thoughts on different theological structures and their implications for both society and individuality. The idea was to explore which of the 4 “-theisms” would best serve humanity in a post-Modern, post-Industrial, Information Age. In doing so, I came to the conclusion that Pantheism makes the most sense for me. As science reveals our own insignificance in the vast universe, perhaps we should have a greater respect towards ourselves for the fragile miracle our existence really is. Maybe we should have a greater appreciation for “lesser” lifeforms whom we evolved from and beside in the ongoing struggle of life. Perhaps if we all came from the same explosion of the Big Bang, that makes everything in the universe one with itself, an inter-connected self-experiencing God with many faces. That works for me (and maybe not the rest of you, and that’s totally okay.)

I briefly touched on the idea of the Aquarian Age towards the end of my last essay. I’ve stated elsewhere that I consider astrology to be an interesting pseudoscience, and no facet of it entranced me more than this. During my research into SMiLE, I came across the concept that society was entering (if it hadn’t already) a new era of individuality, creativity, technology, rationality and decentralization. Even if the onset of such a development isn’t governed by the planets and stars as astrology states, that idea deeply resonated with me. I think it should be our mission to bring about such an age where these principles are upheld. So I searched for a new ideology and leader who embodied these Aquarian values in the same way Moses supposedly guided the Arians with his forcefulness and Jesus represented Piscean self-sacrifice.

Who could this larger than life figure be? If you believe the Dawn of Aquarius has already transpired, maybe it was George McGovern, Brian Wilson, Matthew Boman or Albert Einstein. Maybe they’ve yet to come. Maybe they’re no one and it’s our job to bring these changes ourselves as opposed to pawning off the responsibility to another. Maybe all of this is stupid and weird. (Audience: Ya think?!) I don’t know. There was a time, years ago, when I was really into this New Age spirituality though, and during that phase I tried to redefine the way I saw mankind and his relation to the world around him according to “Aquarianism.” I essentially wrote my own Testament, comprised of “deep” musings I jotted down while in that spacey purple haze mindset.

At the risk of looking like a total goofball, (if I haven’t crossed that threshold already) I’d like to share those writings with you. Just don’t take them too seriously, because I wrote them as a 20 year old wannabe philosopher trying to “answer” Brian Wilson’s SMiLE. It’s not so much that this writing is meant to be lived by, it’s that we should all look at the world with a unique perspective now and then. Ask why things are the way they are, why certain perspectives are held and offer to put something new forward. Don’t blindly follow authority; think for yourself and redefine your own relationship to the world around you. Don’t go through life passively, try new things and be open to new ideas. That’s kinda what I was trying to do by writing this. In short, it’s not that I want you to follow my Testament, I want you to do some soul searching and write your own.

ASIDE: This post is going to be extremely long because I don’t feel like breaking it up and cluttering my blog with all this pseudo-religious stuff. I’m putting it out there for fun but I don’t really stand by this anymore.

Book 1: Ganymede’s Grail

Hydromancer

I’ve been thinking about two passages from the book Going Clear about Hubbard and Scientology. The first one describes an eccentric summoning ritual which he and a friend concocted in their youth. It piqued my curiosity because of the reference to “a moonchild” who (according to LRH and his companion) would later become the Antichrist. This figure was said to be a “scarlet woman” called Babalon. (Obviously in a reference to the “whore of Babylon” described in the Book of Revelation.)

The term “moonchild,” for me, evoked memories of the King Crimson song of the same name. I know there’s no real significance between the two, but all the same, it made me consider that organized religion (at least the Abrahamic ones we have in the West) would declare the subject of the song itself to be something of an “Antichrist” as well. In King Crimson’s interpretation, the moonchild’s a girl or feminine spirit who’s characterized as a night-time wanderer, exploring the forests and rivers, waiting for a “sunchild” to befriend. This imagery struck me as particularly profound considering how, if any of us saw the ghostly form of a girl in the woods past midnight, our first reaction would be towards fright. Similarly, if the wrong kind of person found a young woman alone in a secluded area after dark, they might feel free to do horrible things to her. A decent person seeing a mortal young lady alone in the woods might yell at her to go home, and/or berate her for being so stupid as to put herself at risk. Their intentions might be good, but it’s still restricting the freedom of an innocent person just for enjoying nature. Notice how all these fears and dangerous scenarios ultimately trace back from such a delicate and unassuming presence–the music is incredibly soothing and harmonious to express the purity of the Moonchild’s character. 

In short, the Moonchild herself is not a malicious entity yet she inspires some uncomfortable emotions, and repugnant inclinations in people. Therefore, the Moonchild isn’t the problem, humanity as a whole is, but we punish and defame the Moonchild instead because it’s easier than fixing society. Perhaps we, collectively, are the Antichrist and incapable of seeing our own darkness until confronted by a pure soul who unwittingly brought out the worst in us. Is that not the story of Jesus in a nutshell? Or every decent person we put down for being “too nice”/”too trusting”/”too naive” for not operating the correct way in our cold, selfish, cynical society?

If we accept Hubbard’s interpretation of the Moonchild as the Antichrist in the first place, I find it especially poignant that the innocent King Crimson description is simultaneously the embodiment all the qualities which the conservative factions in the world commonly demonize: liberated femininity, free-thinking, solitary and embracing the night itself. How do you demonize someone as gentle as the girl in the song? What establishment could condone such an outlook? Even if that youthful feminine essence became the “whore” of Babylon later in life, who are we to condemn her anyway, according to Jesus’ own example? Maybe the song serves as the “woman’s POV” for every girl who’s been unfairly treated, including slut-shamed, just for being free-spirited and unconventional.

Now, just to clarify once more, King Crimson were not laboring under the impression that their “moonchild” was an Antichrist or whore as Hubbard imagined his macabre summoned-spirit to be; I’m conflating two vastly different interpretations of the same vague concept. Despite this, the point still stands because there are real life “moonchildren” whom society (or powerful factions within it) misunderstands and proceeds to shame, silence or otherwise destroy all the time. So, the implications of these falsely accused “Antichrists” in the world got me thinking about our modern ethos, values and their impact on real people. It was this paradox of an innocent and curious beauty whom vast swathes of polite society would unfairly identify as “bad” or otherwise improper which inspired my religious epiphany, and by extension this entire “book.” I began questioning what society’s collective morals ought to be instead, and a spiritual framework from which to justify them. 

This then brings me to the other passage from Going Clear which caught my attention. 

While I think Hubbard is an irredeemable swindler and his friend here is a loon, I do share their general sentiment regarding religion itself. If there *must* be organized religion or communal ethical beliefs, then we in the West require a major overhaul. Personally, I had always considered myself an agnostic and a psychonaut since I was old enough to question and ultimately leave Catholicism. When it comes to the Great Beyond, I like to acknowledge the fact that what’s unknown is quite literally beyond the comprehension of my feeble brain, and therefore I just try to be a decent person because of the golden rule. 

I do believe it’s my responsibility as a thinking, autonomous individual to try to learn about the universe as much as I can for its own sake; it’s here, it’s part of me and its laws govern my existence, so why not try to understand how it works? Part of that process means exploring my own mind as much as possible, since that’s the lens and filter through which I perceive everything. To start with, analyzing dreams is one of the keys to understanding your subconscious (and therefore, oneself) while certain chemicals shut off the brains’ built in inhibitors, therefore unlocking its full potential. There’s no other person who has ever possessed my exact combination of genes, life experiences and opinions, and therefore I owe it to humanity to preserve my thoughts and revelations so others may be inspired by the unique circumstances of my life. (Even if that inspiration amounts solely to learning how not to repeat my less desirable actions or outcomes.) In the interconnected digital age, we can and should share our lives for posterity, so others may learn from and build upon the paths we’ve forged for them.

I disagree with taking something that should be a personal discovery like religious/spiritual philosophy and trying to standardize it for a collective, lowest-common-denominator mass audience. Humans are not a hive-mind; universal values cannot be forced upon individuals who each possess their own unique personalities, experiences and thoughts.

When any ideology tries to accomplish this, it only leads to the mess that we have now–stagnation, conformity, repression, rebellion, corruption, hypocrisy and general unhappiness. You get a big book of arbitrarily compiled, contradictory, mistranslated, out of context stories written by dozens of authors who are in turn disconnected by centuries of time and/or irreconcilable in their worldviews. Not only that, but no one bothers to read the entire book anyway, much less work thru its proper context, so they just pick and choose the arbitrary passages they happen to already agree with. This in turn breeds misguided or otherwise malevolent people using said book(s) to justify behaviors as unchristlike as discrimination against the poor, women, gays and submission of the general public to their fickle interpretation of Gods’s will, or worse, their own will disguised as God’s supreme judgement. From that broader cultural wound comes a Republican Party debate where self-professed “good Christians” chant “let him die!” because they don’t want to pay a little more in taxes to support their neighbors in need of healthcare. Ultimately, you get a Church of repressed old men shaming our natural sexual urges while sexually abusing vulnerable children behind closed doors.

I’m not against the idea of having religious or spiritual beliefs, but clearly a one-size-fits-all approach isn’t going to cut it. People are complex individuals with their own experiences and access to different sources. They cannot be expected to conform to any one ethos–that kind of uniformity paradoxically leads to chaos and strife. The only way to achieve peace and unity is in acceptance of as wide an array of faiths as possible. This contradiction is at the heart of Pantheism–in being the exact opposite of Monotheism, it provides exactly what Monotheistic faith structures were promised to provide in the first place.

What’s more, if you’re not going to follow the Christlike path of charity, forgiveness and and affection, you don’t get to act holier-than-thou for whatever label you attach to yourself, or which people you go to practice your religion. The fact is, people don’t follow the teachings of their supposed religion in practice anyway, save for a very select few. Moreover, everyone ascribes equal or near equal weight to the non-religious words of certain revered friends and family, or favorite stories in the secular sphere. So why not acknowledge the inherent meaning in those sources too–what separates a Biblical parable or Buddhist doctrine from the moral in a modern film, or an acid trip, except tradition? Instead of reverence to any one faith or written source, we should respect the message itself regardless of what medium or man it originated from.

Ultimately, I think a just God(s) would want us to respect and develop the minds and personalities we were endowed with. God(s) would want us to know each other and all creation as much as possible for the simple reason that Creation itself was God(s’) gift to us. When we destroy the environment, discriminate against people who are different, or allow institutions to abuse us we are exploiting ourselves and the Earth–we are taking Creation (and by extension, God(s)) for granted. When we rely on a set in stone organized religion to do all of our thinking and imagining for us, we are not meeting God(s) for ourselves, on our own terms. No just, loving God(s), whether Pagan or Jewish or Muslim or Aquarian could possibly be happy about all of that. Surely they created our expansive intellect and beautiful planet for us to explore, enjoy and create. Surely they gave us free will and alternative means of ritual/divination–be it praying, dreaming, reading, seances and psychedelics–for us to find them, and weigh the lessons therein, in our own individual way. In short, the way to get closer to God(s) is not by reading the “right” book, or meeting the “right” people–it’s by reading as many books, and meeting as many different people, as possible!

And therefore, I decided to embark on a proactive exploration into my own mind, utilizing some of these methods, to discover the Great Unknown in my own one-of-a-kind manner. This collection of writings will document some of what I’ve found. I’ll begin by presenting you with these key concepts, for context going forward, and I will explore them in-depth in later Chapters:

1. The blessed trinity is not a Father, Son, Spirit. Instead, divinity is composed of the Three Eternals: Space, Time and Imagination. These are the three fields in which our minds exist as well as all the subjects which inspire them to learn and create. These are the three fields so expansive that mankind can never fully map or comprehend them. Coming as close as possible to doing so, despite the insurmountable nature of the task is how we get closer to God(s) as a whole.
    
   
2. The great duality is not the abstract, subjective alignments of good and evil. Instead, everything is both a shade of gray and a unique color in the rainbow of Divine Creation. The dueling forces guiding Creation are Zero and Infinity, the two incomprehensible concepts we nonetheless rely on for mathematical logic to work. And there is no divide between the Creator(s) and the Created, instead everything in the multiverse is part of God(s), the manifestation of all divinity, and therefore everything in it is individually worthy of analysis and respect on its own terms. Put another way, the lowly outcast, the cockroach and the diarrhea fecal ejection in the toilet bowl are all just as much a part of God(s) as the Sun, or Jesus, or the majestic eagle in flight.
   
   
3. Humanity’s place is not to accept ourselves as inherently sinful and unworthy of goodness or salvation, prostrating ourselves before God to receive it anyway. Instead, our struggle comes from the paradox of our great intellect. We must utilize our incredible potential for deep thought in order to analyze the Three Eternals and create, yet all the while make peace with our inevitable shortcomings due to human error, primitive instincts and ignorance. It is not for us to shut ourselves out from learning, nor limit or understanding of God(s) to any one book (including this one!) God(s) is(are) everything; and manifest themselves differently to everyone. The conformist rituals we partake in at church might work for some, but for those who don’t communicate that way, we must allow alternative means of experiencing God(s)–whatever they may be. One need not sacrifice a goat–God(s) would prefer we study its behavior.
      
   
4. Overall, society needs a religion that celebrates individuality, creativity, science, diversity and free expression. Humanity needs a free-spirited, open-minded, inquisitive ethos that allows everyone to choose their own path to God(s), and celebrate the Divine Creation in their own unfettered way. In short, we need Aquarian Pantheism.

Anthromancer

I love the Gerudo Outfit Link wears in Breath of the Wild.

I love the idea of a man either being so secure in his masculinity that he’s not afraid of being feminine, or conversely, a man not afraid of himself to the point where he can explore femininity and see what it has to offer.

I love how a man can be beautiful (legit, if you didn’t know it was a boy in this costume you’d think she was gorgeous.)

I love how Nintendo wasn’t afraid to put this mission in the game and how they they chose not make it weird or a big deal.

I love how, thus far at least, nobody has politicized it on either side. Neither right-wing groups claiming it’s bad for kids or LGBT groups claiming it’s offensive to trans people or something stupid like that. 

I love myself, for being able to express these opinions and not feel ashamed about it.

A lot of the hate and fear against trans, cross-dressers and gender non-conforming people seems to be the shame of being “tricked” into finding men attractive and therefore questioning your own sexuality. I love people who are mature enough to not be troubled by what others think. 

Why should we not be free to explore both sides, and why should we not at least be open to seeing the beauty across the gender and sexuality spectrums? For me, the greatest glory is exploring both without letting anyone hold you back. 

You can never really live, you can never be certain of your identity or what you really enjoy if you try to repress anything about yourself. You have to be open-minded to EVERYTHING.

If you believe in God(s), a light of the world, a planner of creation, then you must accept all parts of it or none at all. You cannot fully appreciate the white light without understanding that it is actually made up of a collection of different colors. Neither can you truly understand your God(s) if you single out any “color” for rejection. There can be no rainbow, and therefore no white light, without the color purple. Nor can there be an omniscient, omnipotent being without trans/black/jew/”others” as part of the plan. We all exist for a reason; we were all put here by God(s) or none of us were.

It is our duty as conscious beings to study and respect all elements of creation, including empathize with and even experiment with, all that the human experience has to offer. When you meet your God(s), it helps to have knowledge of all they created–all they are.

In the end of time, we will all come together as one, like we had been before the Big Bang, and become God(s) together again. It will be impossible then to stay divided from your fellow creation, the other colors. Once merged we will see how wrong and unwise it would have been to want to split anything from the rainbow in the first place.

There will be no hell to punish sinners or “others” because we are all sinners and “others” only from the perspective of someone else. Instead, the only punishment will be the guilt of not embracing our collective, diversified singularity earlier. And there will be no reward except in the joy of a common identity within our differences.

What makes us different also makes us pieces of the One Whole. What unites us is our unique identities and perspectives. Monotheism is actually Pantheism. We are all divine and worthy of worship because we all come from the Divine and worship its’ creation in our own way. 

We are the Rainbow of God(s).

Theomancer

They didn’t know it yet, but the designers of Perfection created the most accurate portrayal of God(s) ever expressed on this planet. The explosion is the birth of the universe. And the mascot’s multi-shaped nipples you see depicted in the commercial are the ways in which our Creator nurtures their children. Each breast is specially designed for the heirs to every planet of their holy imagination. The Creator is equal parts male and female, equally caring and ruthless. The creation of the universe and its ultimate fate are violent acts, but in the meantime, God(s) produce(s) the sustenance which maintain life, and shares it with all us mortal creatures.

The game itself is an expression of how fleeting both our own lives and the universe itself truly are in the grand scheme of things. Just as you get everything in order, you’re dead in a cataclysmic explosion. Just as the universe expands and creates this beautiful puzzle, it will die also. It’s all a “Perfection” we can only grasp for the briefest of moments before it’s gone forever.

In the future, there will be Cults who worship Perfection, just as there will be Cults of SMiLE and that episode of Who’s the Boss where Tony sees Angela naked in the shower. No one person will belong to just one single Cult; they will all overlap in membership. Everything will be worshiped by somebody, and with everything divine…nothing will be. That’s because Aquarius is Pantheism. Aquarius is Paradox. Aquarius is…Perfection. 

Technomancer

In the Age of Aquarius, the Messiah will not offer their followers wine and bread. There won’t be any in the garden–only water from a great pitcher, and a few onions from the dirt.

“Water, sometimes, when the sun hits it just right y’know…it makes rainbows,” the Aquarius says. “Mostly it’s just really clear and boring looking…but sometimes it reveals the hidden beauty in the world.”

Some nodded in agreement, some tuned their benefactor out, some walked away in frustration, and others were just happy to drink.

“And the onions…they make you cry, the deeper you peel into them. But, so do people, if you know what I’m saying. People have layers too, just like the onions.”

And, again, some of the followers were enraptured by this wisdom. Others were just happy to eat what was offered. More still dug in vain for something less offensive to their pallets.

The Aquarius will not last forever. Whoever they may be, they are mortal so are we all. And when they’re gone, their ideas will be misinterpreted. Some would claim to serve their will as they flayed men living and watched them weep in uncontrollable agony. “A punishment for the wicked ruling class,” they’d say, for the men who allowed climate change to grow into such an insurmountable threat as long as there was profit to be made. Others would take the time to get to know the people in their life while they had the chance, try to find the deeper story of what made them who they are, and together they would cry over past insults and grow close. And still more would dismiss the teachings of their leader as the entertaining, if inconsequential, ramblings of a drug addled or mentally challenged buffoon. A source of shallow amusement but no more and no less.

In a way, the many followers of the Aquarius were like a prism, refracting the teachings in unique ways as they passed it along with their words and actions. Until years later, no one could ever decide on the true nature or character of the Aquarian Messiah anymore. Wicked, slothful, ridiculous or enlightened depending on who spoke of them…they were the Many Colored.

The Multiverse, once we prove its existence, will be the same way. God/Creation spread their plan to their children, and they built it as they understood the schematic. However, like a game of Chinese Whispers/Telephone, the story got corrupted each time. With each son/daughter god and again with each grandfather/granddaughter god with every new level away from the Original Creator. We will go mad searching for the original universe, where the plan was perfect and there was no suffering or inequality. But we will not find it, because we only have our own flawed worldview from this universe to go off of–we will not even know from which “direction” to search.

Every life, every idea, every action, leaves a ripple of interpretations across every person it will ever come in contact with. Everything will be corrupted by an unintended interpretation and generation loss, like so many old VHS tapes.

2: Wandering Shepherd

Pyromancer

It was a nice long weekend. I saw friends…I saw family…I saw the beautiful rainbow lights in my room again…and when I stepped outside, I saw the natural lights of the stars.

But I think the most amazing thing I saw was when I looked in my heart, and there was Moses staring back at me. And he said “Hey man, it’s all good. Just as I have shepherded the people of Abraham from the desert to the promised land, so too will I shepherd you…to the Light of the Lord.” And in the next instant, I felt Jesus reaching out from my gallbladder, to say “That’s right, buddy. And as I myself have made my disciples the fishermen of man, so too will I see you fished from the Ocean of darkness into the boat of salvation.”

And before I could respond to either, my head split open as if gutted by a spear…and some goddess emerged from my mind and stood before my mutilated form. “They speak the truth,” said she “but their time has passed. The Age of Aquarius draws near, and with it, the decentralization of power, the beginning of the unionization of all men–powerful or disenfranchised–and the time of enlightenment. Go forth, offer your unique perspective, but always be open to new ideas. Seek out the truth, but accept that many truths are relative. The future does not belong to a messiah, or an institution. The future is the chaotic collective of Divine Creation. And the future is now.”

And it was then that she offered me a drink from her water pitcher. “It is I who ought to offer something to you,” I gurgled from my shattered windpipe. “For you have imparted upon me an invaluable insight.”

“Let it be so. Spread the word. Tend the gardens, so the fruits of creation may prosper,” was her response.

The skies parted then and the Great Dragonfly called Meganeurus, Keeper of Divine Knowledge and Wisdom, descended onto her shoulder. On each of his four wings he bore the natural elements of the universe. Upon each leg and tail he carried the seven colors of the rainbow. With his beaked tongue he sang the seven notes of the diatonic scale. In his eyes, the woman’s face was reflected in an infinite kaleidoscope of possibilities, each slightly different by the angle in which the lens captured her image and how the sun shone upon it. I suspected they represented the alternative potential outcomes of each individual’s life, and the interconnection of all humanity itself. 

Perhaps Meganeurus noticed my transfixion upon his gaze, for he said to me “These are my children, whom I love and with whom I am well pleased.”

He continued: “Fear not! For, behold, I bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all my people. For unto you is born this day, Saviors of all sorts, which are the fruits of the Lord’s garden. And this shall be a sign unto you: Ye shall find the babes of all colors, all religions, all walks of life. And this is good, because diversity fosters growth and progress. Uniformity breeds defects and stagnation. Cherish all, and collectively you shall prosper!”

And suddenly, there was with the Great Dragonfly a multitude of the Heavenly Host praising God(s), and saying, “Glory to God(s) in the Highest, and on Earth peace, and good will toward men–and women!”

And that’s what Christmas…nay…that’s what *everyday* on this rock we call Earth is all about, Charlie Brown! 

Meganeurus, the Messenger of God(s), commanded me to preserve the instructions Heaven hath ordained to Gaia, for the cultivation of a perfect Garden.

1. To the Elders, the Seer of Many Futures says this: “Remember your duty to plant the Seeds of Trees whose shade you will never sit under. I grant you charge over the Hoe, power of life and death, with the task of protecting the vulnerable. Destroy the weeds, who would otherwise harm future generations in the development of their potential while offering nothing of value in return. Cultivate a garden in which all seeds sprout into a safe, supportive environment, empowered to choose their own destiny.”
    
2. To the Patrons, the Speaker of Harmonious Scales says this: “Remember the impossibility of composing a symphony using only a single note. I grant you charge over the Trowel, keys to the Earth, with the task of enriching the collective discourse. Through the many languages of expression, through a healthy humility and acceptance of your own bullshit, fertilize the soil. To those whose expression is not accepted by the immediate masses, look to the Capsaicin peppers, so repugnant to the animals below yet shared far and wide by the birds above–sometimes it’s all about finding the right audience for your message.”
    
3. To the Adolescents, the Navigator of Rainbow Passages says this: “Remember the stagnation that comes from seclusion and closed-mindedness. I grant you charge over the Cornucopia, horn of plenty, with the task of collecting outside influences. Recognize your dependence on the discourse of your teachers, represented by the breeze. Recognize your dependence on attracting vastly different individuals, represented by pollinating insects. It is through their aid that your seed spreads beyond a small circle. It is through shared love and knowledge that the garden diversifies. It is through a vibrant and adaptable gene pool that life prospers in the long term.”
    
4. To the Youth, the Mediator of Divergent Identities says this: “Remember that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and the fallibility of mankind is inescapable. I grant you charge over the Pitcher, sign of Ganymede, with the task of choosing a foundation for humanity’s ultimate destiny.”
   
   Spreading his four wings wide apart, the Guardian of Innocence and Individuality continued: “The top-right path promises rock-steady stability, yet betrays a crushing weight for those propping it up. The top-left path promises fiery passion, yet betrays an irresistible propensity to devour itself. The bottom-right path promises unrestricted freedom, yet betrays a complete lack of protection from the vicious and greedy impulses buried within all men’s hearts. The bottom-left path promises nourishing egalitarianism yet betrays a lack of clear direction or structure. Choose wisely, and remember that nature favors balance.” 

Upon completing my transcription of his will, the Great Dragonfly Meganeurus, Beholder of Seven Titles and Wonders, left me alone to contemplate this encounter. And my head is still blown from the sheer holy awesomeness of this divine revelation.

Geomancer

Last week, in a fit of masochistic flagellation, I covered myself in honey and laid out in the fields for nature to have its way with me. I wanted to experience the most humiliating, drawn out agony imaginable, Scaphism, and see if I could out-last the 15 day record set by Mithradates. Around the eve of the seventh day, delirium set in. I began to see myself as Mother Earth, and the bugs were my children greedily pillaging the resources of my body for their own gain. These emotionless monsters knew nothing of the suffering they inflicted, nor was there any expression of glee on their part for enjoying such a feast. We were inhabitants of two different worlds, unable to communicate across the vast gap which evolution had placed between us many millennia ago.

Slowly but surely the ants took over and drove all competing insects away by sheer force of will. Their overwhelming numbers covered every square inch, penetrated every orifice, and soon defined my every sensation and thought. In this manner, we became one. After several days of the conquering plunderers mercilessly gnawing at my flesh, they seemed to speak in mocking tones:”Did you really believe this world belonged to you, human?” They asked thru horny beaks. “Are you unaware of the massive army we’ve been building across every continent, waiting for the opportunity to rise up?” I didn’t even have the mental capacity to be afraid of this threat. It just seemed to me like common sense; of course the ants rule the world behind the scenes. Look how organized they are, how efficient. But what they said next blew my mind. “We owe it all to you,” they laughed “for spreading our sisters to every corner of the globe. One colony, one mind, one mission.”

I knew they spoke the truth. It was inevitable that mankind’s lack of direction would be our ultimate downfall. The supposed value of free will? Only keeps us fighting ourselves. Our apparent benefit of intelligence? Only creates more defeating ways of keeping ourselves imprisoned by society, driving ourselves crazy with the strive to be civilized against our primal instincts. Our principles of human dignity and inalienable rights? Merely a farce, a futile attempt to rise above a nature we have exploited for far too long. Our “empowering” technology? Distractions. Badly planned, ugly cities. Toxins to our only home. The closest we came to the sophisticated organization of ants was in our corporations and society. Yet our corporations work against the benefit of the common man, and our governments are prone to mismanagement and corruption.

Man was a beast with too many masters and too many possibilities.Contrasted with that, the ants were the perfect organism. Too stupid individually to comprehend the pathetic futility of their solitary lives or their own insignificance within the vast and uncaring universe. Yet at the same time, so smart collectively they accomplish feats which took humanity centuries to match. Not only that, ants do it in such a way that their colonies remain sustainable and resource-efficient. They manage to work these wonders without complex economies to incentivize the workers with pay or future status. Instead, workers live to serve the queen as slaves to pheromones alone. For 10,000 years, humans have been asserting their individual rights, yet egotistical oligarchs and their exploitative organizations combat this inherent strive with their unlimited power to control or coerce the masses from achieving their potential.

This constant struggle of egos will always set us back, while the ants march on singularly. Eusocial organization is the next logical step in evolution. Several self-replicating carbon molecules joined to form prokaryotes. Several prokaryotic cells joined together to form the first eukaryotes. Millions of individual eukaryotic cells became multicellular life, including animals. In the future, it stands to reason that millions of animals will make the new dominant organism, the colony. This super-organism is the great hive-mind, the hands of the Almighty Queen as enforcers of her will.

This unspeakable horror shook me to my senses and I began beating myself in hopes of dispelling the devouring ants. I raced here to tell you all of my unfortunate discovery. With humans introducing invasive species of ants all over the globe, as well as our impact on climate, we are seeing the rise of super-colonies. Argentine Ants have colonized all of Southern Europe, Japan, the US and probably other locations. Dozens of Queens, billions of workers, all displacing other species and taking over the planet in a few decades where humans took countless generations to accomplish the same milestone. Massive hives of wasps are no longer dying out over the winter like they’re supposed to. They are growing to the size of many dozens of older hives, with multiple queens. The Asian Giant Hornets are getting more aggressive in the warmer climate–and even making appearances in the US!

We humans had our chance at running the world and we failed. Soon, through nuclear war or climate change or overpopulation, we will decline and make way for the hive-minds to take their rightful place as masters of Earth. This was our only true purpose. We were not special, we were not some wondrous creatures destined to spread thru the cosmos and attain enlightenment. Humans were certainly not made in the image of some beneficent God–that was our own sad delusion to give life some kind of vague sense of meaning. The truth is, man was only a footnote in evolution. A stepping stone between the dinosaurs and the rise of the eusocial insects, who will no doubt create far more amazing societies than we could ever hope to do in the same time-frame. Great individual intelligence was never a long-term asset nor the endgame of evolution, it was a random and chaotic offshoot. The true Darwinian Destiny of the world was selfless teamwork maintained by unquestioned domination of a supreme monarch.

Our petty political differences mean nothing. The strife between men and women is meaningless. There is no patriarchy, there is only the Matriarchy.

Chronomancer

I took a disgusting $1 7Eleven frozen pizza and made it into a work of abstract culinary art. Indulgence…indigestion…or perhaps the greatest selection of toppings ever. Either way it’s a safe bet no one has ever eaten this exact combo before, which makes me feel special. 😀

Here are the ingredients. First the pizza, then some mushrooms, an extra layer of mozzarella, then some sweet peppers and onions, more cheese and chicken pieces, finally some scrambled eggs with buffalo sauce cooked into them…boom! I call it…the 7/11 pizza. Because, y’know…there’s seven different toppings (including the extra cheese and buffalo sauce)…and it took 11 minutes putting em all on top of each other, baking it in the oven and cooking the eggs. Plus I got it at 7Eleven…and I’m bad at naming things 😝

You know how in sci-fi stories which involve time travel, someone almost always goes back to the past in order to show off their superior technology to primitive societies? Well, I’d go back and show the humans of the past this pizza I’ve made. Imagine being Hunter-gatherers or a simple agricultural society and seeing all these bizarre foods coming together to make something that tastes better than anything you’ve ever eaten before. The keeper of the recipe could unite all the different peoples of Earth together and show them that each product they farm has a part to play in the pizza to be made, just as each individual human, and every unique tribe with their special resources and cultures have a purpose in the world.

The only thing I’d change in that scenario would be to use magic mushrooms instead of those you’d buy at a store. That way, as all the different peoples who make and grow all these foods came together, their mindset would be open, euphoric and curious enough that we could learn from one another. That beautiful psilocybin would tear down the hardened attitudes mankind embraced in these primitive times. You could unite humanity under one message of love, togetherness and…pizza. Teach that it is wrong to discriminate against women; both the rooster and the hen have a place on the pie, as the meat and eggs, and so do the male and female on the pie that is the Earth. One must respect the plants and environment, because if a day should come when the onions don’t grow, or the peppers wilt, then the pizza will never be half as good again. Finally, humans must foster and maintain a lasting peace between themselves, so that trade may prosper. The ingredients all come from different corners of the globe, so if one tribe or city makes war, the pizza may never again reach its full potential, and neither will the Earth itself.

“Truly I tell you, the world is a pie of blue sauce, green crust and white cheese. And when the Age should come where man may look down upon the earth itself to see this firsthand, then the Aquarius will come and quench the thirst of its denizens. The coming Aquarius is the water-bearer and I am the baker, here to prepare you for their arrival. But do not think that makes me any more important than you, my brethren. For without the chicken and dairy farmers, the pepper and onion growers, the mushroom pickers and tomato sauce producers…well, what is the baker alone but a lot of hot air?”

Egomancer

I was dancing around naked and thought of some things. Like, “it’d be nice if I could climb the walls as a spider and dance upside down.” Or “it’d be cool if my nose was retractable so I could pop it out at certain choice parts of the song like a kind of bodily exclamation point.” Or just plain “It’d be cool to have green and violet spotted fur, two heads and moose antlers coming out my shoulders.”

And, after I was exhausted and fell to the floor, it hit me. What do souls look like? In media, it’s always just your body image but translucent, which is pretty uncreative on the God(s’) part I must say. So, the random blobs of DNA my parents donated not only define how I look in this world, but for all time? That just doesn’t seem fair to me. According to most religions (rightly or wrongly) this world is the proving grounds for the next life. You can’t choose how you look, where you’re born or your name. But if there’s any justice in this existence, you should be able to choose your soul; it ought to be a manifestation of your inner self, the end result of your experiences and choices. 

If we take this concept to its logical conclusion, then your soul shouldn’t even necessarily look like a human. Why can’t it be an animal, like a giraffe? Or an extinct animal, like a T. Rex? Or an imaginary animal, like a Manticore? Or maybe an indescribable blotch of colors and patterns? Whatever it is, the soul ought to reflect the spirituality you’ve been molding for yourself in life. Every thought, every deed, every personality quirk becomes a part of your spiritual DNA. At least, that’s my belief anyway. 

What’s your soul look like, readers? I’m still not sure about mine. Hopefully it’d be like…some kinda Owl, with one of those extinct giant wolves and like a little bit of those Devonian Giant Amphibians thrown in. With 17 Kracken tentacles and 71 unicorn horns with flowers growing out of the pointy end. And all covered in a majestic blue-white fur pattern. And if you studied it closely…you’d see it’s actually a map of some great, faraway imaginary land…called New Amsterdam II. 

Over time, however, my thoughts turned towards the corporeal. 

Your body, it seems, is a prison a lot of the time. It’s something that requires constant upkeep. It gets tired and forces you to waste 1/3 of your life sleeping. It gets infected. It’s something that other people can easily injure or exploit, much less shame you for if they deem it “ugly” or “attractive.” It contains more bacterial than human cells…

But then there are those moments…when you’re drifting off to sleep. You feel excited and tense. So you grab yourself. And you feel that life-nourishing blood pulsating through you. And you just imagine looking your physical self in the eyes and just saying “You are a disgusting, weird, inefficient machine that’s gonna get old, weak, tired and useless someday. And you work for me.” 

Now, imagine a future where we could have the best of both worlds, and morph our bodies to match with our inner souls. It’d be like a Bojack Horseman universe with anthropomorphic animals and no stigma between inter-species fornication (as is the case on the show). What animal would you become? What animal-shaped partner would you… y’know… experiment with? 

I was initially thinking a cat because they’re somehow innately feminine in some indescribable way. They just have some kind of build and attitude that gives off that kinda vibe. Don’t act like you don’t know what i mean. 

But then I thought…if I made love to a giant talking toad…he’d be all nice and moist. If the proportions in the show are right, he could fit my whole head in his mouth and croak. That’d have to be a wild sensation. And if it’s one of those toads you could get high from licking…well, that’s just a whole other dimension to an already wild experience.

But then there’s the tarantula. With all those hands and that web shooter…she could really wrap herself around ya…grab a lot of booty and tie you up like some crazy dominatrix partner (if you’re into the whole submission thing.) Just looking her in the eyes would make me feel weak and subservient. Like…which set of eyes do I even look at? If the eyes are the window to the soul…she’s got like 3 of my soul. I’m shifting around uncomfortably trying to get a read on her, while she’s analyzing me at 3~4 times the capacity I can even imagine. Eventually it would overwhelm me and I’d look down to escape that penetrating stare. I’d accept my place as her prey and scream: 

“Take me, oh all-seeing Lady of the Flies!”

3: Metaphysical Meditation

Photomancer

There is no Jekyll and Hyde. There is a fleet of reflective bodies walking the earth, and 7 Billion+ interconnected beams of light bouncing around all of them. (“Each man’s life touches so many other lives…”)

In this metaphor, every action taken is you shining your light-beam on the reflective body of someone else. How they interpret and react to your actions is then represented by the same original beam refracted and bounced off them and onto someone else.

Of course, this is happening instantaneously, ongoing, and there are countless light-beams jumping on and off each person at once. Your consciousness, your actions, your influence, is passed around among many physical bodies over the course of every day and every lifetime. No one life, no one action, happens completely in a vacuum.

Within this framework, every choice affects the big picture, and in such a way that the original actor could never foresee all the radiated consequences. Every other person’s beam of light intersects with so many others, changing the color, intensity and direction in ways neither individual actor actor could have known. Every noted absence from a loved one leaves a small but significant shadow on the expected recipient.

Everything is so interconnected, each light has bounced from so many bodies, that no one could ever map or catalog it. It’s impossible to say where any light-beam begins or ends, it’s all a mesh of action, reflection and reaction. If you were to somehow remove yourself from the web and take a bird’s eye view, you’d see a continuous diffusion of shapeless, pulsating waves of colors, with each individual body the center of its own fractal rainbow.

The real-life “magic potions” in this world don’t release Hyde, they visualize this hidden metaphysical reality. Under their influence, your soul becomes self-aware and seems to stop in place, sheltered in an all-seeing white sphere. You become a peaceful neutrality in this chaotic bombardment of photons, staring infinitely in all directions into the collective kaleidoscope of consciousness. This allows you to briefly imagine all the possibilities your light-beam is capable of undertaking in our corporeal existence, depending on the path you’ll choose in life.

The Big Bang, the process of Divine Creation, is a prism.

God(s), or the Creator(s), the Multiplicity, the Pantheon…whatever you want to call it…is the pure white light from which everything else emanates.

We mortals, as well as everything we create, and everything we perceive in this plane of existence…the physical realm…it’s all the Rainbow. The rainbow of existence in fact, made up of our differences, of individuality and the Three Eternals.

It’s beyond our powers of comprehension, and outside our plane of existence, to “see” the white light. We cannot directly perceive God(s) because all that exists around us is the rainbow. We only experience God(s) as the fragmented, beautiful, self-contradicting rainbow, the manifestation of divine creation from after the Big Bang.

This is what God(s) presented us with and intended we experience. We must prove ourselves worthy of the White Light by accepting all the colors of the rainbow which exist in harmony within it. You cannot claim to love or understand God(s) if you hate other races, the other sex, or the various “flavors” of religion worshiping the same thing. Put another way, to love God(s) is to love all their Creation as is, rather than try to destroy or convert that which displeases you.

If God(s) are benevolent and wise, they chose for us to witness creation rather than witness them directly. And therefore it’s our duty to keep an open mind, experience all we can, learn from each others’ perspectives and protect each other as part of that heavenly rainbow.

If God(s) are wicked and careless, then we need to protect and empower each other since no one else will. As shared victims of a cruel existence, it’s our communal duty to work together to solve this problem or at least comfort each other as we endure it collectively.

If there is no God(s)…then we are all there is, and therefore we need to defend and nurture each other for the same reason–no one else will. And we need to keep an open mind, learn from each other and experience new things because we are the most enlightened creatures in the known universe.

You might even think of us as Gods, or reverse-Gods, observing the rainbow of different people and experiences around us. Our minds then, are prisms in reverse, focusing this stimuli into a singular cohesive ethos that is uniquely our own. If this is so, then the only way that we can be closer to God(s) is by widening our scope as much as possible. We must take in as much of the rainbow as we can, so that we can get the truest, most complete worldview possible.

You’ll never experience enough in one lifetime to get all the input needed for your mind to recreate the pure white light of Divine Enlightenment. You’ll never know the objective truth of things, nor will you as one individual ever match the wisdom of the God(s). But all the same, insurmountable as the task may be, the ultimate point of our mortal existence is to get as close as possible to achieving this ideal. How vigorously we undertake this mission, and how successfully, is the basis upon which we will all be judged.

Psychomancer

The scale says I’m down to 150 pounds now [from a starting point of almost 300], so I thought it was fair to enjoy an epic cheat day and eat a whole pizza, experiencing the menagerie of feelings that come with it: anticipation, joy, lethargy, regret and shame. Have you ever felt the urge to strip it all away? To give up all the dignities and mental facilities of humanity for a day and just be an animal? Eat slop from a trough, catch a squirrel and assert your dominance by bashing it against the tree, defecate freely in the fields, then get taken from behind by a brutish male with pure force and no mercy? I mean I know  I’m crazy, but is anyone else crazy with me? Let’s embrace our past–we’ve forgotten what it means to be Animalia I think. At the very least, people need the occasional release I’d say. Freedom from civilized, artificial expectations. 

You may be shocked, or rolling your eyes, but there’s a reason for these ravings. We all need to experience as many different sensations as we can in this life, to prepare for the final test.

When we die, our bodies release DMT into the brain, the most powerful psychedelic compound there is. We will be challenged one last time (or first time, for many of you) with what’s in our psyches. And the best way to prepare is to experience everything. Every emotion, every sensory input, as many new places and ideas as you can…because it will all help you in the Big Trip.

Your consciousness will be so varied, free from dogmatic programming as well as the fear of the unknown. When the Mad Hatter starts talking, you’ll have a better chance of understanding. Or at least, a better chance of using your enhanced empathy to make the interaction as fulfilling as possible even if you don’t. Eating the mushroom and growing 10 stories tall will seem like second nature, rather than a terrifying first step into a world you should have delved into decades ago. You’ll already be familiar with ego-death, so second guessing your identity as Alda or Mabel will feel like an exhilarating new opportunity rather than a terrifying existential crisis.

In contrast…

Those who went through life with one thought, to be better or worthier than others, will be lost. They will see themselves walking through an endless tunnel on a straight and narrow path, with other souls whizzing past them in the opposite direction like headlights on a speeding car. At first these wandering souls will smugly comfort themselves with the belief that those “poor devils” must be headed to hell for damnation, because of course they themselves must be headed in the correct direction to be among the righteous. But then they’ll keep trudging along until they realize their tunnel never ends. They’ll start looking at the spirits zooming along the other way with envy and suspicion. They will suffer a monotonous trip where dogmatic faith will be psychologically broken into disorientation and doubt, one step at a time. 

Those who never gave a thought to philosophy, meaning or other people’s feelings all around them will find themselves in a dark maze with a map but no compass or vice versa or even nothing at all depending on the magnitude of their willful ignorance. And these accursed souls will wander aimlessly for all eternity trying to solve an endless puzzle they should have given more thought to in their lifetimes. Trapped in what is essentially a winding, solitary prison cell, they will go mad and begin clawing at the walls in vain.

Those who only thought of themselves, their carnal needs, they that justified their hurtfulness with social darwinism and Objectivism will be set free into the wilderness of nature, where they are challenged to put their moral code to the test. More likely than not, they will get eaten by wolves or trampled by a wayward pack of gazelle, until they learn to appreciate the importance of empathy–of treating their fellow humans as a team.

The lovers, the dreamers and…the psychonauts, explorers and free thinkers…These are the inheritors of a surrealistic Wonderland, a personalized paradise of their mind’s creation. Their world will be full of madness, contradiction and at times, darkness, but it will make sense to them because they have prepared for it–they CREATED it, with their varied and properly stimulated subconscious. And they will have the experience, the variety and the resources to pull through where the single-minded and indoctrinated failed. These are the ones who will see God(s), on their own terms, in a place that makes sense to them. And they will be welcomed as equals, accepted into the Singularity without the need of reform or fanfare. 

The Afterlife is Egalitarian, and all will enjoy the Divine Music and Euphoric Omniscience eventually. But the open-minded ones will enjoy a far smoother transition, a great last hurrah of individual conscious experience rather than an intense spiritual deconditioning.

Necromancer

At the end of time, you go on trial before an assembly of all the souls who have or will ever exist. Your entire life will be played back and you must honestly explain every action you have taken, or perhaps, not taken. Each individual Soul offers their own judgement, based on their own unique sensibilities. How sympathetic or critical they are determines whether you will be placed closer to or further away from them in the heavenly mass of spirits.

You will spend a virtual eternity in specialized groups with those closest to your morality and worldview, communicating with these people from all different corners of Space and Time–from across the entire universe and every generation of Life there ever was. Think of these groups like organs in a living organism, each exists as part of one great whole yet still made up of separate“cells” which is to say, sapient individuals.

After this initial process of “knowledge and experience osmosis” is finally complete, and everyone in each group is perfectly in sync with each other, the barriers between the many “organs” will break down and each soul will be sent bouncing around the realm like atoms in a star, connecting with people who have vastly different lives and views.

One by one, each soul will connect with every other, learning all the while, experiencing each memory from all Souls as though they had been their own in life. Slowly but surely, the bonds between not just the “organs” but the “cells” themselves will have dissolved away. Before we know it, there are no individuals–no Cassandras or Joshuas, nor Washingtons and Hitlers–we will all be one indivisible being of pure energy and omniscient consciousness. Like evolution in reverse, from complexity and division to simplicity and singularity.

With the combined knowledge of every being in the history of the universe, all life’s answers will be solved. We will exist as one supreme entity with the memories of infinite lives, the power to visualize every shade of the electromagnetic spectrum, and the ability to hear the symphony of the strings which make up all the quarks in all the atoms in all the molecules in all of Spacetime.

Suddenly all philosophical and theological problems will make sense. The suffering and tragedy in everyday life, the loneliness of space, the seemingly random placement of matter…all of it was one interlocking series of stories, visuals and music. And it will be all the better knowing that we created it–all of us working in concert–through our seemingly isolated, insignificant lives.

God will reveal itself to us…and it was, in fact, us ourselves the whole time. We were all one God, temporarily divided into many pieces, folded in upon ourselves in order to experience the manifestation of our own Divine Creation in every conceivable permutation imaginable. We are the Great Complexity…the Supreme Being…the One-Multiplicity…

And just as we discover this incredible revelation, instantly we will explode into the void again as a new Big Bang, to repeat the process once more with a whole new universe, a whole different set of combinations. There will be new lives lived to tell their stories an eternity later, a new symphony conducted as the strings of energy coalesce into matter.

At the end of everything, there’s String theory. Every string in every subatomic particle in every molecule of existence is all one big ongoing symphony we created unintentionally. Each individual string in all the quarks of the universe represent one note being played, with its position in space-time indicating the pitch/tempo/volume/etc. Each universe is its own individual symphony with the Multiverse representing all the collective compositions of this unimaginable, abstract, Living-Creation.

At the end, when the universe collapses into itself, and all the strings come back together as one great continuous ring of existence, we will hear the song that was us all along, played in all its glory. In that state, with all the billions of years of universal history expressed in the most wonderful chorus possible, we will know our place is there with the creator…sharing in the glory of creation as one unified being…

All the same, it won’t be long until we’re forcibly ripped apart again in a new Big Bang, to spell out the notes of the New Song. We will remember nothing until the next gathering. Our previous consciousness won’t even exist. Life itself may not even come to exist in this new song, at least not as we’ve known it before.

Every atom is an instrument which the creator intends to place in the most “sonically pleasing” location and combination possible. Whether the sequence chosen happens to form a bacterium, a human or volcano and star or whatever is irrelevant. Life is merely a glitch in the overall program too small to be noticed. All the suffering of individuals, the eat or be eaten laws of nature, the gamma ray bursts wiping out whole planets, it seems cruel and random in our plane of existence but when looking at it as moving the right strings into the right place for the song to work, suddenly it all makes sense. We were trying to apply rhetorical and moral reasoning to an existence governed by mathematical and aesthetic logic. The abstract beauty can only be fully appreciated when once looks at the big picture.

In short, the only true enlightenment is beyond the literal and proverbial rainbow at the end of the universe, where we meet other sapient life who see radio waves and feel sensations we can’t even comprehend. When all matter collapses into itself in the Big Crunch, we will see the infinite spectrum of all things that had been there from the very beginning, just out of reach of our physical and computational power to even fathom. Then, in the new universe, each soul will be reborn as a completely different kind of organism, hearing in different frequencies, seeing Gamma Rays, and in a far-out alien culture with customs indecipherable to our own. This cycle will continue forever until the end of time, when every conceivable computation has been explored and the perfect universe has been created.

Biomancer

When the Pontius Pilate Archetype asks “And what is the truth?” the Aquarian Messiah answers thus:

“Because every life, ideology and action will inevitably become corrupted, misinterpreted or exaggerated by its countless Observers over time, the truth is difficult for any one person to ascertain.

“We all began our lives in media res, 14 billion years into the ongoing cosmological reaction which began with the Big Bang, ~3.5 billion years into the ongoing chemical reaction of Earthly life, 12,000 years into the social reaction of civilization, and 500 years into the Astrological reaction that is Aquarius. We are trapped between microscopic particles and astronomically large collections of stars and planets we may never observe or fully comprehend. Nobody can predict the future, and the past is clouded by inaccuracies and biases of those telling the story.

“So, we’re here…we come into the world a blank slate. We’re innocent, we ask questions, we know no bigotries or favoritism until they are implanted on us by outside actors such as parents or social groups. Whether intentionally or not, everyone in the world is going to try to influence your perception of yourself and the world around you. They may be answering your inquiries to the best of their ability or they might be intentionally, even maliciously, misleading you. Whatever their motives, it doesn’t matter as the result is the same. Everyone is going to ‘draw’ on your blank slate. And because we’re never going to know the real purpose, driving force, objective truth or plan or whatever you want to call it that controls the universe, we must make do with those very limited perspectives we are given. Flawed as they are, we must make do with our minds, our peers and our environment to seek meaning within this madness.

“Accurate or not, there is value in the perspectives of your fellow men and your own observations–they just don’t tell the full story. They’re missing some information somewhere, or they’re warping the data they’ve accumulated thus far to suit any agendas which appeal to them. But even these flawed answers an inquisitive individual receives may reveal some insight into the character or biases of the one answering. Admittedly, this is not the information you were seeking, but it’s valuable to understanding how the wider world works nonetheless. It’s like a film negative that allows you to indirectly gleam some other truth.

“Imagine God(s) and their plan, an objective and all-encompassing truth, as a person passing on a story to 100 different people who in turn pass it along to 100 others, and so on. After 100 generations of this, we ask every single one of those witnesses to repeat the original story. And it goes without saying each retelling will be very, very unique. Some from the most recent generations may have been rendered unrecognizable from the original rendition. You can picture this analogy as a sphere of white light shining in all directions. Up close it’s brilliant and pure, but further away the light gets dimmer and its source less clear.

“Now imagine that scenario when there are billions of stories, memories and facts being passed along at once, not just the one story. And these many pieces of information often come from uncertain sources, and are passed along by billions of different people over thousands of years. If that were not enough, these countless people all have multifaceted biases in making sure certain facts are suppressed, and/or other stories are twisted to frame a desired narrative. With that, you get the mess in which modern humanity finds itself when searching for that original ‘Epicenter of Truth.’ In this alternate analogy, there are so many sources and refractions of light that there is no brilliant white source anymore; instead, everything exists as countless fluctuating ripples of rainbows with no beginning or end.

“So, it’s up to us to seek out as many different versions of the truth as possible from as many sources as possible. The more data one has absorbed, the greater probability of arriving at a balanced understanding and truth. Our minds are like reverse prisms taking in rainbows and trying to reform the original, objective White Light from it. Shared details across various sources, or the mannerisms of the storytellers themselves will help determine who is closer to the mark. But we will never know for sure, so it’s important to keep an open mind, to maintain and feed a certain intellectual curiosity, and to have a good understanding of human nature. Every mind is different, and every life has its own unique experiences which have shaped it, so analyse the storyteller as well as their story. Not only that, but dissect your own mind just as you dissect the world around it. You can’t fully comprehend a computer program without studying the hardware and software which govern its actions.

“You cannot always choose who paints on your canvas, or what those allowed access to it will draw for you. That said, you can rearrange the marks on your canvass in your own way, though it’s not always easy. And, because nobody’s life experiences will ever be quite the same as yours, it then becomes your duty to share your special canvass with the world, lest that one-of-a-kind piece of art be lost forever. Your life, and the worldview you develop throughout it, are unique to you and it’s a responsibility to share it so others might be inspired by your perspectives in the future. By the same token, you should appreciate the many people in your vicinity, and hear what they have to say, because you might not have the chance to later.

“The Romans believed in both a Capitoline and Aventine Triad of Gods, and the Christians in a Holy Trinity. We Aquarians believe in something else–the Three Eternals. They are Space, Time and Imagination. We have a limited insight into the first two and only a partial control over the third. Our imagination pushes us to study the other two, but it also causes us to fill in the gaps of objective understanding with our own make-believe superstitions. By utilizing an open mind, a compassionate heart, and the dedicated hands to preserve and expand upon our insights, we can focus the Imagination and discover Space-Time.

“The truth, then, is utilizing the flawed tools at our disposal in order to form a comprehensive aggregate of knowledge within ourselves, and with this we must bring balance to the Three Eternals as best we can.”

And the Pilate Archetype just thought “Man fuck this shit, I’m washing my hands of this goofball and their ramblings. I don’t get paid enough for this nonsense!”

Apocrypha_______

_______Vacumancer

According to the Bible, Pisces will end in a great battle between good and evil. This is described in the Book of Revelation, with Jesus returning to lead the righteous to victory against the Antichrist. The Antichrist, sometimes conflated with the beast, is not a person. It is a system of oppression and destruction by those in power which has existed since before the time of Jesus himself and will continue to exist until we take charge and overthrow it. I’m talking out of my ass here (even more than before!) but…it’s a subject that’s caught my imagination recently.

There are said to be two beasts, one of the sea and one of the earth. The beast of the sea has 7 heads and 10 horns. According to traditional interpretation, this was meant to symbolize all empires who had mistreated the Hebrews and their holy land. I see it as the empires who claimed to be godly and Christian yet learned nothing from Jesus’ actual teachings, and instead treated their conquered peoples just as harshly as Jesus himself had been in the hands of the Romans. The first would be Rome itself, including the Byzantines. Then the Holy Roman Empire of the Germans, the Russian Empire, the Spanish colonial empire, the British Empire and now the American Empire. The sixth head (America) is said to be current, and the seventh is yet to come (China? A united European Empire?) The fifth head is said to be mortally wounded yet has since been reforged (maybe Russia briefly turning into the atheistic Soviet Union? Or the Holy Roman Empire becoming the German Empire and/or Nazi Germany?)

The ten horns with ten crowns might be individual idols, people or ideas which societies have given power to that mislead the masses from their best interests. Or perhaps the instruments of control by which these empires cowed their subjects into submission. Perhaps in the modern age especially, we might think of these as industries or systems (like the military industrial complex or private prison complex for example) which command authority while hurting the public. You could draw up any number of arbitrary examples for this. For me personally, let’s say it’s: private prison industry, military industrial complex, big pharma keeping us from getting universal healthcare, media conglomeration and their ability to spread propaganda, the intelligence community, energy industry (Exxon, etc) polluting our planet, factory farming industry, the pedophilia ring in the entertainment industry, perhaps the sex industry itself and…mercury poisoning. Again, I freely admit these examples are arbitrary and perhaps forced. The point is, these societies built by the many historical empires claiming to be Christian utilize tactics and worship idols or institutions which go against everything Jesus taught. You may disagree with my specific list, but I doubt anyone could deny that fact. These are used by the rulers as weapons against the populace to either sedate or scare them into submission. The arbiters of this power are made to appear respectable and necessary to the public, hence the crowns.

There is also mention of a “scarlet beast” said to have seven heads and ten horns, with a harlot riding it. Some say this is supposed to be the same beast, some say it’s different. I personally believe the former. The harlot riding the beast is the Church itself, which has become just as corrupted, out of touch, and hypocritical as the Sanhedrin who sent Jesus over to Pilate. No one could deny how corrupted the Catholic church became soon enough after merging with the political power of Rome, and how it remained so for a long time afterwards (arguably up to the present day and beyond.) The merger of heartless big business and idolatry with religion is evident in the emergence of the modern religious right. And what do they do with their power? Argue against healthcare for all, try to destroy the safety net, shame women and persecute gays and religious minorities. Is that what Jesus would do? No. Are these the ideals the Church was supposed to stand for? No. Modern, organized Christianity is everything Jesus spoke out against in the first place. The symbol of the whore is not random or forced either. Isaiah 1:21 even calls Jerusalem a harlot, and Christ was said to be appalled by the monetization of the temple in the four gospels, even chasing out the money lenders himself.

The beast of the earth has two horns and makes an image of itself for humans to worship. I suggest that this image is the Bull outside Wall Street, similar to the blasphemous golden calf Moses found his people worshiping as he descended from Mount Sinai. The two horns in this case represent Wall Street (and/or Corporations in general) and the Federal Reserve System (and/or big banks in general), again instruments of control which are given an undeserved praise in society. The mark of the beast is arguably the credit cards and Federal Reserve Notes of our currency. So why would Wall Street and the FED be separate from the other institutions represented by the 10 horns on Beast #1? It’s because unlike those, Wall Street and the FED have the power to force people into actively supporting the establishment, even if they see through the whole charade. The little game they’ve forced us all into with money means we must slave away in support of a monstrous system which no longer has our interests at heart. That’s what makes these financial instruments of power different and ultimately more malevolent. Speaking more broadly, we could perhaps think of the two beasts as military/physical and financial power. In international relations, the terms are “hard power” and “soft power” respectively.

The Apocalypse is not some far off heavenly war with the devil and Jesus’ triumphal return. The beasts are not going to be literal monsters who spontaneously appear out of nowhere. And we’re not helping to speed up the return of Christ by deliberately funding the Jewish state and killing the planet with global warming. We’re already living in the reign of the Antichrist as our twisted, upside down society claims to be “a christian nation” while going against everything that was good or noble about Jesus’ teachings.

We will only be saved when someone comes along who can lead us to a renewal of freedom and mutual dignity among men. This person, I believe, will be the bringer of the Aquarian Age. (S)he who washes away the stain of corruption in the world, and grows the gardens of the future. I frame it as if some great savior will come and do the work for us…but this is not so. We cannot sit on our hands and wait, as we in the Information Age are more than empowered to stand up for ourselves. It’s our responsibility to create this better world for our children, to break down all sources of authoritarianism, corruption, conformity and silence. Only then will the Aquarian Utopia of freedom, creativity, individuality and technology thrive.