This article represents a cursory written experiment in paradigm technology. We've composed each of the three sections below from the perspective of different aeonic models: the materialist (Atheism), the transcendentalist (Theism), and the magician (Chaoism), respectively. We've also explored the utilization of gnosis within the confines of those paragons. For further information or to clear up any confusion you may wish to consult the section on "Random Belief" in Liber NOX from Liber Null & Psychonaut.
Let us presuppose that the duality of consciousness divides itself by an unfixed principle before our eyes transfer this article into the discursive synaptic manifold. Watch also the evolution of gnosis in thought processes through these psycho-paradigmatic explorations. Even the means by which gnosis gets treated as a subject reflects its use in each given belief model. It should come off as most intimate within Paganism where utilization of gnosis doesn't get treated in any way separate from Nature in form or function. As capital K knowledge, it epitmozes the seed of the fall of humankind in Monotheism. Atheism treats it as the vehicle for all magickal developments, alterations, manipulations, or fascinations of reality.
0. 1st World Revisionism
Applications in theoretical physics have left us without a need for such a thing as "magick" and advanced psychologies have left us without a need to refer to the transmission and reception of hind brain processes as "sorcery" and "divination" as these terms have become increments of identity for the lifelong neophyte not explanatory details of their practice. The same goes for those who would call themselves "pagans" yet do not engage in the nomadic lifestyles of outlaw biker gangs or counter-culture commune-living psychedelicists.
Silly as it may seem, those governmental agencies who currently receive criticism for their war-mongering tactics offer us a glimpse into the future of this near-extinct art once called "magick". The illusionist of yesteryear with hir roaming stage of theatrical witchcraft has been replaced by the psy-ops agent with hir A/V design facility and hir mass re-conditioning techniques.
The gurus of today deserve their own unique form of prejudice as they conjure a strain of viral deception that rivals even the Catholic's anti-humanist dogma. Awareness (un-defiled) supersedes the factoring of human "intelligence" as the mind can not get measured by culturally biased units on socio-economic sliding scales. Although, we can still agree that "primitive means complex" as Rothenberg has so eloquently pointed out.
Within Atheism, given the abandonment of all eminent Cosmic Truths secular to our technological capabilities and capacity for scientific reasoning, we find gnosis cultivated almost exclusively through psycho-chemical and physiological means. Mysticism failed to entertain our notions of ontological deprogramming. Direct experience requires only cathartic release to set the manifestation of our desires into motion.
We circumvent the spiritualities of ages past and ditch all, but the lucrative vital organs of the baby with the bath-water. Any observable yet unexplainable phenomena simply exists as a by-product of our refusal to recognize that all experiential events have been crafted by our interpretive mind.
Within Nihilism (late atheism) we find that the patterns arising from hyper-mathematical equations insinuate that the chaotic nature of the universe represents a facade of itself. On one hand, we can see the unknown destination full of endless possibilities and indefinite potential within complex and unstable systems, while at the same time we witness the unfolding predictability inherent to those systems.
In a universe made up of numbers our interpretations of causality foster out-of-element world-views from beneath the unclear surface of acausal phenomena. The magician who finds hirselv unable to structurally engineer hir own reality need only lie, cheat, and steal from other accomplished magician's realities until the fantasy of inseparability melts away with the Antarctic ice shelves.
1. 3rd world conditioning
The essences and entities of our ancestors, the spiritual fossil fuels, have either evaporated or been obstructed by the machinations of mankind. Radio waves, cellular signals, and even global satellite transmissions (as some form of invisible yet detectable, technologically concocted Ley lines) have all but chased away the supernal magics of A.T.W.A. except in those places where poverty is so damaging to the populous and industry so scarce that the ancient spirits are allowed to congregate.
We find the most potent emissions of natural magic emanating from those lands which retain some vestige of virginity: Haiti, Africa, Tibet, the Amazon, Samoa, Easter Island, The Yukon, Siberia, and certainly the list continues. But these lands linger at risk as the wrecking ball of capitalism swings against the infrastructure of direct communion with the fertile earth.
It does not seem A.T.W.A. hirself who shall cast vengeance upon the likes of man and his tyrannies, but instead the ancestral monoliths whose anger has been awakened from digging too deep in the soil and diving too deep into the oceans: the Elder Gods, the Loa, the heterogeneous entities of Diasporic consciousness, the Djinn, and the countless and untranslatable spirits whose names mankind once recalled and whose eminence mankind once respected.
It seems unfortunate that these gorgons of ages past grow intolerant of man. They cannot get appeased or placated with anything other than voluntary human sacrifice. They require the suffering of your children. They will have your blood as you have drained theirs without any reverence whatsoever.
Within Paganism the many and varying means for achieving gnosis each belong to a specific deity-form or elemental spirit or sacred ancestor or constellation. No single exercise in reaching gnosis can get denied some god or another. Everything persists under their jurisdiction as each has taken their turn to claim a piece of reality. All gnosis remains dedicated to one or more deity-forms depending upon the motive. This represents an exchange with nature and the gods. We exchange the un-defiled spirit of our person with that of the cosmic personages, the gods.
Within Monotheism all gnosis is derived from The One All-pervading Totality which created this Universe for Humankind to proliferate in under its rule. All gnosis is devoted to this Universal Essential Essence. The "lighter" side of The One True God adores generosity, chastity, abstinence, charity, and the glorification of the purity and sacredness of all Life. The "darker" side of The One True God exalts selfishness, sexuality, indulgence, responsibility, and the advancement of material success in all that lives, grows, and becomes.
When The One True God reveals itself as The Dao we can recognize it as The Force. The metaphor carries over into the Jedi tradition as an enormous amount of the last 2,000 years of history has had its course altered by the various warriors of Christ.
2. Zero-Sum Continuum
There always prevails, of course, an inclusive exception to this obtusity which reconciles duality in a gray-area of triangulation. Although, more often than not this requires an abandonment of the cosmologies handed down to us genetically and culturally via science, religion, philosophy, and fiction (which often make for one in the same). Our immortal single-celled predecessors who were able to reproduce asexually assuredly laugh in hysteric stitches as we parade about the planet (and soon enough the galaxy) with our inalienable faith in causality, creation, terrestrial emergence, and spontaneous cosmic order (which often represent one in the same, as well).
Many embody those who speak the name of Chaos and attempt to gain teat position on H.E.R. bosom by the repeated effluence of such misappropriated aliases as Eris (etc), but there continues very little going on in their practices besides outright mental masturbation and an over-exaggerated wrangling of one's identity through the ego-persona complex. S.H.E. has no synonym as the primordial Titan from whose loins we've fallen.
Chaos accepts no mortal petition. No act or service that the mammalian brain can provide can pay determinate homage to Baphomet. Only the maniacal laughter of the theriomorphic self has the capacity to penetrate the moist, tender ultraviolet lips of H.E.R. cunt. S.H.E. banishes those who would believe themselves worthy of H.E.R. cervical abyss. I would hope, at this point, that the McWiccan's oblique worship of "the trine goddess" has been shattered into six-hundred and sixteen thousand pieces on the insect laden floor below.
No fascination of confidence or glamour (no matter how grandiose) can escape the inevitable dance we must undertake in Choronzon's bottomless pit-vortex while we near orgasm as voyeurs to Cronos' cannibalization of Rhea's multitude of begotten offspring.
Within Chaoism no thing "is" and all things lie. Believe only this and "I" will surely die. There exists no perception without will to confide. There exists no will without perception as its guide. Gnosis achieved remains self re-conceived. Determine what you see if no thing can "be" as you have yourselves too firmly convinced that this you mirrors "me". Separation results in illusion when refusing to actuate as "we".
Within Superstition (low chaoism) the fluctuation between all states of consciousness resemble Altered States of Consciousness therefore we must take the utmost scrutiny in where we lend our energies. Gnosis becomes freely available to everyone at all times and we stand able to wield this gnosis as a weapon depending on how accurately one chooses to channel their own personal output and to what they ascribe their intention.
All symbols act bi-directional and carry an enormous power over the psyche of the average cadaver. We should guard ourselves from exposure to 'foreign' symbologies as they may disrupt the aeonic balance which stands of utmost importance in all magickal endeavors. Gnosis itself embodies a completely neutral energy-form emitting from and absorbing into every organic and inorganic structure in the multiverse yet, all of these energy-form behaviors only go on extant to the fact that we can observe them.
It does not seem as solipsism which tells us that Schrodinger's cat does not appear neither alive nor dead until we open the box.
"the altar cloth of one aeon is the doormat of the next"
---Mark Twain