How to Become God
by
Michael Faust
Published by Hyperreality Books at Smashwords
Copyright 2010 Michael Faust
The right of Michael Faust to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the author, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages embodied in critical articles or in a review.
Cover Art: The Empyrean, Gustave Dore
Quotations
“I am writing for a race of men which do not exist yet: for the lords of the earth.” -- Nietzsche
“The aim should be to prepare for a revaluation of all values for a particularly strong kind of man, most highly gifted in intellect and will, and to this end slowly and cautiously to liberate in him a host of slandered instincts previously held in check.” -- Nietzsche
“I am by far the most terrible human being there has ever been.” -- Nietzsche
The Illuminati
THIS IS ONE OF A SERIES OF BOOKS outlining the religion, politics and philosophy of the ancient and controversial secret society known as the Illuminati, of which the Greek polymath Pythagoras was the first official Grand Master. The society exists to this day and the author is a senior member, working under a pseudonym.
The Illuminati’s religion is the most highly developed expression of Gnosticism and is called Illumination (alternatively, Illuminism). Dedicated to the pursuit of enlightenment, it has many parallels with the Eastern religions of Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism. It rejects the Abrahamic religions of faith: Judaism, Christianity and Islam, considering these the work of the “Demiurge”; an inferior, cruel and wicked deity who deludes himself that he is the True God, and who has inflicted endless horrors on humanity.
If you wish to judge for yourself how deranged the Demiurge is, you need only read the Old Testament, the story of the Demiurge’s involvement with his “Chosen People”, the Hebrews. You may wonder why the “God of All” entered into an exclusive and partisan Covenant with a tribe in the Middle East several thousand years ago, why he promised them a land (Canaan) that belonged to others, and why he then actively participated with them in a genocidal war against the Canaanites. Even more bizarrely, according to Christian theology, he then despatched all of those Hebrews, whom he had supported so fanatically, to Limbo – the edge of Hell – when they died. They couldn’t go to Heaven because they were indelibly marked by the “Original Sin” of Adam and Eve. Only the atonement provided by the agonising death of God’s “son”, Jesus Christ, could wipe the slate clean and allow the Hebrews to be released from Limbo. But there was a catch. Only those who accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour were eligible for Paradise.
Of course, the Chosen People of “God” have almost entirely rejected Jesus Christ. Therefore, from the Christian perspective, nearly all of the Chosen People are now in hell proper. Don’t you find God’s behaviour distinctly odd? Indeed, unbelievable? Don’t alarm bells start ringing? Doesn’t the behaviour of this God sound rather more like what would be expected of Satan?
Remember that this same “God” ordered Abraham to perform human sacrifice on his own son, Isaac. Abraham, rather than rejecting this monstrous command, rather than denouncing the creature that gave it as evil incarnate, agreed to butcher his own flesh and blood to demonstrate how slavishly and mindlessly obedient he was – the prototype of all psychopathic, fanatical “believers”.
Does God’s command to Abraham sound like something that would ever pass the lips of the True God? We pity you if you think it does because you are surely a creature of the Demiurge and one of the legions of the damned. If, however, you doubt the credentials of the Abrahamic God, you may be receptive to the message of the Illuminati and our future-oriented, rational, scientific, mathematical and dialectical religion of light – Illumination.
Introduction
Every day brings a new opportunity, the chance to do the unthinkable, to change everything once and for all.
To become God.
There is no more sacred task.
Are you ready?
The God Program
People continually moan about how difficult the world is, about how it’s so hard to understand, about how they have no sense that they have a soul, that they find it impossible to accept the existence of God. Everything seems futile and pointless, they say. They already seem dead. No light flickers in their eyes. Welcome to Zombie Land, the modern world.
We have done this to ourselves. Or, rather, evolution has. All steps forward summon a dialectical antithesis. If the dialectic isn’t handled properly, disaster is possible and even probable.
The last three thousand years have been the era of human consciousness, but things haven’t gone too well so far. Consciousness is exactly what evolution is seeking to accomplish, yet it has had a catastrophic impact in so many ways. In particular, it has distanced us from the infinite power of the unconscious where our true superpowers reside, and where our spiritual dimension resides.
This is the strange tale of how consciousness has been both the marvel of evolution, and its greatest curse. Consciousness has a long way to go before it can make us happy, before it can allow us to be everything we need to be.
Moreover, we will demonstrate something astounding: two thirds of the human race can barely be considered conscious at all, and it’s their lack of consciousness that underlies so many of the world’s most serious ills.
The greatest challenge facing the human race isn’t global warming or over-population or financial chaos – it’s consciousness, and how to get it to function properly. It’s not evolution that’s in charge of this process: we are. Evolution’s task is to create the biological platform for consciousness, but it’s up to us what we do with it. It’s up to us to raise our consciousness to the next level.
Ordinary consciousness has thrown up two main types of human being:
1) stupid and lazy people who have a childish understanding of God, the soul and the afterlife. In truth, they haven’t understood the first thing about religion and they are horrifically alienated from their true selves, preferring to worship some narcissistic, egomaniacal dictator (the Abrahamic God) who demands absolute obedience. The most obvious question has passed these people by – why would God, the supreme cosmic power, have any desire to be worshipped? Is he supremely conceited? Does he love the sight of people grovelling to him, afraid to raise their eyes? Is that how he gets his kicks? Does he love it when people beg him for favours, when the masses get down on their hands and knees to him to entreat him for help? Does it fill him with pleasure when his “followers” murder people in his name and offer up their bloody slaughter to him as a “gift”? What kind of monster is this? How could any sane person have such a perverse relationship with God, and such a weird idea of his true nature? Our task is not to worship God but to become God, to unite with the cosmic Mind. God’s consciousness is completed through us. He is not perfect until we are. If we “worship” him then we are useless to him. Worshippers are never anything other than pathetic, clueless non-entities. The whole concept of “worship” must be abolished. We must stop worshipping the rich, the powerful, the shining celebrities. Screw them all. WORSHIP NO ONE!!! Everyone who wants you to worship anything has an agenda, and that agenda is to control you by making you inferior: by creating an enormous, unbridgeable divide between you and the thing worshipped. The only voices you should ever listen to are those that seek to raise you up, not cast you down. Never grovel to another. Never bend your knee. Never bow. Never avert your eyes. Condemn anyone who says that you should do any of these things. They are trying to make you a second-class citizen. So, if you are about to encounter a monarch, pope or president and an adviser approaches you and tells you to bow, say, “Kiss my ASS!!!” The idea that any human being should bow to another is ludicrous beyond words. All people who subscribe to these nauseating systems of etiquette, designed to create a power differential between two people, must be swept aside forever.
2) The second and less numerous class of people are those who have taken their primitive, feeble consciousness and reason as the supreme reality of the existence and decided that there is nothing mysterious “out there”. They literally think that scientific materialism can answer everything, and that there is no place for God, souls or the afterlife. They are so deluded by this consciousness of theirs that they have turned their back entirely on the infinitely more potent unconscious where every secret of the cosmos truly resides. These people effectively deny the existence of the unconscious. When pushed, they even deny the existence of the mind and free will – because these are totally incompatible with the rigorous, deterministic paradigm of scientific materialism which reduces the whole of existence to the mere jostling of lifeless, mindless atoms. These jostlings, they say, are entirely dictated by the laws of physics, and “mind” simply doesn’t have any role in the laws of physics since free will is nowhere present in these laws. (Any physical law based on free will wouldn’t be a law since it would be subject to whim rather than certainty.) If eternal, immutable laws are all there is then their conclusion is entirely correct. But, of course, when you ask scientists what the origins of these laws are, where the laws are stored, where they were located before the Big Bang in order to shape that event, how they came into existence in the first place, and how atoms “know” how to act in accordance with these laws, then they have no answers for you. Their position amounts to a kind of mind blindness brought on by a flawed and arrogant rationality that, ironically, is shown to be fundamentally irrational when its axioms are logically examined. The Illuminati are well qualified to say so because many of their members come from just this background of atheistic, scientific hyper-rationality. It was only when they engaged in “deep thought” that they realised the entire paradigm of contemporary science was built on sand. Although science provides brilliant answers in specific areas – those areas that have no connection with mind and free will – its understanding of the true workings of the cosmos is astoundingly close to zero.
We want to show you some true magic – the mysterious power of the unconscious human mind. We want to show you that there was a time when people were much more in tune with the cosmos than we are now, who had none of the existential fears we have today, who found life remarkably straightforward. No doubts plagued them. Why? Because they did not have consciousness as we now experience it, and they were directly linked to the power of the unconscious.
Consciousness has an inevitable consequence when it first appears: alienation. It automatically alienates us from others. It is the essence of individuation. It makes us feel fundamentally alone in the world. Our consciousness is uniquely ours: our joy and our burden. Consciousness also, and equally significantly, alienates us from our unconscious, which is where all of the secrets of the cosmos have their home. Thus we become estranged from the truth of the cosmos. We are thrown onto our own, limited, finite conscious resources, which are as nothing in comparison with the unlimited, infinite nature of the cosmos. This tension between the finite and the infinite, the mortal and immortal, produces a terrible anxiety within us. It seems as though an uncrossable chasm exists between the cosmos and us. Some people fill that frightening abyss by worshipping an infinite dictator – the God of Abrahamism. Others fill it with the ineffable laws of physics. But there is only one healthy way to bridge it: by rediscovering the unconscious, by tapping into its infinite power, and, ultimately, by discovering the supreme mystery that exists at its core – God.
God is inside all of us. By venturing into our unconscious, we all have the opportunity to find God at our centre. We can all become God. We have been given a special program – the “God Program” – that allows us to accomplish this transcendent feat. It is this program that underpins all religious feelings, all intuitions about souls and the afterlife. Unfortunately, the program can be sabotaged – by consciousness! Consciousness does not understand the unconscious. It’s as if consciousness is harnessed to an infinite cloud of impenetrable mystery. Naturally, the consciousness is disturbed by this and seeks to defend itself against the angst the unconscious generates. Consciousness goes into denial. It represses difficult ideas. It projects the contents of the unconscious onto external objects. It does everything it can to detach itself from the unconscious, to make it seem as though the unconscious isn’t there at all. Everything it does is the opposite of what it should be doing. Consciousness needs to become the partner of the unconscious, not its lifelong sworn foe.
Why do people fear death? It’s because they have identified themselves with their space-time consciousness which is sure to perish. However, as soon as you realise that your true self is actually connected to your unconscious, which is not in space-time, you will understand that you cannot die. You simply change. And, in fact, it’s your consciousness that is the vehicle of change, that undergoes radical change from one life to another. It’s your consciousness that’s on a remarkable journey. But where is it going? Into the heart of the unconscious, of course, where all the answers lie. When consciousness accomplishes the supreme quest and ventures all the way to the centre of the unconscious, it achieves gnosis – God consciousness.
But there are so many obstacles. Doubt is the biggest. Scientific materialism has made billions struggle to experience God in any meaningful way. Yet, when it comes to the most fundamental questions of existence, the claims of science are simply ludicrous.
Consider the Big Bang. Some scientists claim that it was the product of a quantum fluctuation, but this is impossible. Quantum mechanics is intimately related to space and time, but as scientists will eagerly tell you, space and time didn’t exist before the Big Bang, hence neither did quantum mechanics, hence there was no ineffable quantum fluctuation that gave rise to the Big Bang. No scientist has ever grasped that the Big Bang cannot be explained by the laws of physics if these are fundamentally materialistic in nature – since there was no material prior to the Big Bang, hence no laws of physics. According to materialism, the materialistic laws of physics must come into being WITH the Big Bang, hence have no connection with the CAUSE of the Big Bang. Logically, from the perspective of materialism, the laws of physics are an effect of the Big Bang, not its cause. So, science, in its present form, can NEVER explain what caused the Big Bang using science. Scientists are forced to engage in metaphysical speculation i.e. they must acknowledge the supremacy of philosophy.
Physicist Stephen Hawking claimed that science had made philosophy redundant. What a fool. Science is entirely subservient to philosophy. Only philosophy can get to the truth. Why? Because philosophy is a subject that addresses the mind while science addresses matter. Science has tried to banish the mind, which is surely the most foolish undertaking in the history of the cosmos. There is only one plausible thing that can precede matter. It certainly isn’t NOTHING as scientists claim. In fact, it’s MIND. That is the secret of the universe. Mind is the fundamental reality. The laws of physics formed mentally and then gave rise to the material universe. Those laws didn’t magically spring out of nothing, along with an entire universe, as scientists so ridiculously assert. And scientists have the arrogance to call religion stupid!!!
When we say “Mind”, we are referring to an unconscious cosmic mind. What that unconsciousness is striving to do is become conscious – which is the ultimate manifestation and actualisation of mind’s potential. God’s mind is the one that has made all that is unconscious conscious. We, the human race, are a long way behind God. We have a spark of consciousness amongst an ocean of the unconscious. Our task is to fully illuminate the unconscious, and when we have done so then we become God.
The medieval tales of the quest for the Holy Grail were ingenious because they were based on a fork in the road that was sure to lure the unworthy down the wrong path, and to attract only those who understood the true nature of the test. The unworthy were obsessed with the Grail as a specific, precious object that they could find if they searched long and hard enough. And they all failed. The Holy Grail IS an object, but in order to understand what it is you must first accomplish a spiritual, not a physical journey. Only the spiritual can attain the Grail. To find the Grail, you have to use lateral thinking. You have to understand that it’s necessary to find something else first, and that until you have achieved this other quest, you can never achieve the Grail Quest. You have to take a step BACK before you can go forward. So many knights failed to understand that simple requirement.
They thought that if they found the Grail they would have all the answers to their life. In fact, the reverse is true. You must find the answers to your life before you can have the Grail.
Zen Buddhists talk of attaining satori – a flash of enlightenment. They seek to build on this, to keep expanding on it until they attain full enlightenment: nirvana. In terms of the Grail, someone who has started to have regular flashes of enlightenment is on the verge of Grail consciousness. The Holy Grail is the most sacred object of the Illuminati and only those who have attained the highest mystery degree know the Grail’s location. The Grail is in fact a “gnosis accelerator”. The Grail transforms episodic enlightenment into full and final gnosis. It’s the holiest and most sacred object of all – the supreme culmination of spirituality – because it is none other than the Heavengate: the God Portal. To use the Grail is to become God.
Thus there is no object more precious, more remarkable, more magical, more mystical, and more divine than the Holy Grail. Centuries ago, the leaders of the Illuminati went to astounding lengths to safeguard it and ensure it never fell into the wrong hands. In the event that all of the leaders were killed, they left a fabulously intricate puzzle that could be solved to ascertain its whereabouts. But they deliberately included many highways and byways that would mislead those who did not have the noblest and most spiritual of intentions. In essence, only those who have already attained the foothills of gnosis can solve the puzzle. Such people are able to make remarkable intuitive leaps that link together parts of the puzzle in a way that would never occur to those lacking the necessary intuitive qualities.
We cannot stress enough the importance of intuition, for what is intuition but an astonishing ability to derive answers from an unknown source. Yet the source IS known, but that doesn’t reduce its mystery. The source of intuition is the unconscious mind. The closer you get to gnosis, the more intuitive you become. Gnosis is nothing other than intuitive thinking taken to its limit – when in a dazzling, ineffable flash of inspiration, the whole of the cosmic unconscious is illuminated and fully revealed to you. You understand everything. You are GOD!
The Grail Quest is the journey to become God. The Grail is not indispensable for gnosis, but, unlike anything else, it makes gnosis certain. Yet even Grand Masters of the Illuminati hesitate before the Grail. If they do not yet feel worthy of it, they do not attempt to use it.
The Grail Quest is the supreme quest of the human race. The Grail is the ultimate object. In a very real sense, the Grail can be equated with God himself. The Holy Grail is thus God on Earth. The Jews believed that the Ark of the Covenant was the earthly location of God. In fact, the Grail fulfils that function. To be more precise, a worthy person (such as Sir Galahad in the legends of the Grail), who takes hold of the Grail instantly achieves full and complete gnosis and becomes God there and then. The Grail is the apotheosis, the deification, of an individual human being.
Nietzsche, in his poetic, bewilderingly brilliant masterpiece Thus Spoke Zarathustra, wrote: “But to reveal my heart entirely to you, friends: if there were gods, how could I endure not to be a god! Therefore there are no gods.”
Had he been familiar with Gnostic and Hermetic thinking, he would have written instead: Therefore I will become God!
Nietzsche substituted his Übermensch – the Superman – for God. But, in truth, the Superman is but a precursor of God. The Übermensch taken to its logical conclusion IS God.
The Big Bang physical cosmos arose from the unconscious mind of the cosmos. Through the Big Bang, the unconscious mind sought to become conscious. God – Abraxas – was the first distinct consciousness. Like us, he was faced with expanding his consciousness to take in all of the unknown, unconscious mind. He has taken the journey we are currently on. He has left us the means of achieving it: the God program. If we follow his program, we too can become God. Our thoughts and his merge. At that point, we are indistinguishable from God.
Consciousness should be trying to integrate, to assimilate and absorb, the contents of the unconscious, to expand consciousness from the finite to the infinite, from the limited mortal mind to the unlimited divine mind.
To show how this is possible, we want to take you back to the pre-conscious age when humanity was guided by what Julian Jaynes labelled the bicameral mind. He said, “At one time human nature was split in two, an executive part called a god, and a follower part called a man.”
In those days, everything was handed to people on a plate. Their unconscious spoke to them and it was perceived as the voice of the gods. And, in a very real sense, that’s exactly what it was.
In order to gain more control over our destiny, humanity developed consciousness and the old bicameral mind was pushed into the background. But it’s not dead. Consciousness did not replace it: rather, it was built over it. It’s still there, and occasionally it erupts in unexpected ways, especially in times of stress and crisis. These can act as a trigger for our vestigial bicameral mind to reassert itself. The conscious mind panics, freezes and surrenders control to the bicameral mind. It is in such situations that a “guardian angel” can appear to us and tell us what to do, or when we hear a dominant voice advising us. Fasting can bring on the same condition, as can extreme physical exertion or prolonged solitary confinement.
However, in our daily routines, in our drab conscious lives, the gods are voiceless. By deafening ourselves to the voices of the gods, we have lost our spiritual connection. Capitalist Westerners are practically soulless. There are plenty of fake religious types in the West, but almost no genuine ones. It’s not what you do in a church that testifies to your spirituality – it’s what you do with the rest of your life. Bono, lead singer of U2, can pontificate all he likes about world poverty, but the only salient fact about Bono is that he is one of the richest men on earth. It’s quite something when the spokesperson for the poor is a member of the hyper-rich. You would think he would choke on his hypocrisy. Far from it. He just doesn’t get it. He genuinely thinks he’s a philanthropist. Our world is full of people like this. They imagine that they are one thing, but their behaviour marks them out as the opposite. If you charitably define Christianity as the expression of the Golden Rule – Do as you would be done by – Christians are frequently the least Christian people you could ever meet.
Humanity is now faced with the greatest of tasks: to get our consciousness to work in tandem with the bicameral mind without going mad. The dangers are immense – schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are the main conditions that result when the bicameral mind springs unbidden into conventional consciousness. But if humanity can neutralise these disorders it can make gods of us all. We will hear the gods once more, but we will be no mere followers – we will be partners, fellow gods and goddesses in a divine new world.
Isn’t that a prize beyond all imagining? If we seize that greatest of treasures we will electrify our world. Divine energy will crackle through the atmosphere. We will be a trillion times more energised. We will build Golgonooza, the miraculous City of the Imagination, and it will shine throughout the cosmos and be its greatest wonder, like a celestial Lighthouse of Alexandria.
What is Illuminism? The first seven degrees provide the theoretical framework in which to explain all of science, mathematics, religion, philosophy, politics, society, and psychology in one Grand Unified Theory of Everything. It’s to that end that this series of books is dedicated. The remaining three “mystery” degrees of the Illuminati are the practical application of the theory – how to achieve superconsciousness, to harness the power of the gods and, above all, to complete the long journey to ultimate gnosis via the Holy Grail itself.
The Illuminati cell that is responsible for this series of books consists of three seventh degree Illuminists – but we are not yet party to the mystery degrees, so, even if we wanted, we couldn’t reveal to you the secrets of the mystery degrees. It is of course those secrets that we wish to possess and which drive us forward.
With this series of books, you will have at your disposal (with a few exceptions in some specific areas that require enhanced secrecy), the same theoretical framework as any sixth degree Illuminatus, and a great deal of what is the province of seventh degree Illuminists.
Members of the Illuminati up to and including the seventh degree additionally participate in various ceremonies and tasks, and they practise a number of unique techniques to prepare them for the mystery degrees, but we shall be providing no information regarding these. However, if you have been taking on board the message of the Illuminati then you will be striving to devise your own techniques. All members of the Illuminati are expected to suggest new and better ways of honing their skills, and these proposals are tested dialectically. Anything that proves superior to what already exists immediately replaces the older versions. Thus the Illuminati are always moving forward, always getting better. The Order, though the most ancient in the world, is never stuck thousands of years in the past like the backward and absurd religions of Abrahamism. Tradition is fine as long as it does not obstruct progress. If it gets in the way then it must be jettisoned. An upwards trajectory is much more important that adhering to ancient, outmoded customs. The Illuminati use ceremonial based on ancient practices for inspirational purposes only. There is no ancient custom that has been allowed to ossify. The Illuminati are always prepared to replace anything if it moves them closer to becoming God. The Abrahamic religions that are stuck forever in the past are a guarantee of failure and backwardness. These religions offer literally nothing to the onward journey of humanity. Religions must be capable of being updated. In a skyscraper age, with large hadron colliders up and running, it’s insane to slavishly follow the words of bearded desert prophets from thousands of years ago. Abrahamists are mentally retarded to cling to their pointless, sand-covered texts. A million years hence, they will be incomprehensible to future humanity.
Aleister Crowley took what he had learned from the various secret societies with which he was connected and created new ways forward. You can do the same. You can show the same energy and imagination as Crowley. He said, “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.”
That is the statement of a man heading for divinity: no apologies, no grovelling, no bowing, no kneeling, no submissiveness, no deference to others. This is not a man who would worship others, and if everyone had Crowley’s attitude there would be no Old World Order: the elite, dynastic families that control the world, relying on the compliance and submissiveness of the ordinary people.
The Birth of Consciousness
In the film The Matrix, the resistance fighters have a socket in the back of their head used to connect them to the Matrix, and to allow knowledge to be uploaded directly into the mind.
Trinity, needing to escape via helicopter, but without any knowledge of how to fly, contacts the operator and says, “I need a pilot program for a military M-109 helicopter.”
The operator locates the appropriate laser disk then uploads the program into her brain – full expertise for flying a helicopter.
Consider a model of consciousness where the unconscious mind takes the role of the loading program and supplies subroutines to consciousness, which the conscious mind then runs to accomplish a number of key tasks.
To understand this model, it’s necessary to consider six ideas: Plato’s domain of perfect Forms, Aristotle’s concepts of entelechy and teleology, Julian Jaynes’ concept of the bicameral mind, Carl Jung’s concept of the collective unconscious, Rupert Sheldrake’s concept of morphic resonance and the “cosmic equation” of the Illuminati: r >= 0. This vital equation reveals the link between the dimensional and dimensionless, the physical cosmos and the mental cosmos. The equation indicates that there are two linked realms of “r = 0” (the mental universe, outside space and time) and “r > 0” (the physical universe, inside space and time) which exist as separate but interacting domains within the continuum of r >= 0. “r” refers to the distance between two points (which can both be within an entity or each point can belong to a separate entity) and r >= 0 indicates that this distance can be reduced all the way down to zero. In relation to Cartesian philosophy, r > 0 implies a domain of extension i.e. matter, a physical world of individuated things in space and time, separated by real distances, while r = 0 implies a domain of non-extension i.e. mind, a mental world of interconnectivity, outside physical space and time, where entities are not separated by any distance and nothing has any physical size. A black hole singularity and the Big Bang singularity are examples of situations in which the distances between all entities contained within them are reduced to zero. Nothing in these singularities has any extension and therefore, according to Descartes’ definition, they have entered the realm of mind. Scientific materialism denies the existence of the r = 0 domain, and is trying to find a way to make sense of black holes and the Big Bang that avoids dimensionless singularities. (The cosmic equation is explained in much more detail in others books in this series.)
Imagine a domain of dialectical Platonic Forms (i.e. forms that are initially imperfect but are capable of evolving towards perfection), associated with every conceivable human activity such as flying a helicopter, driving a car, performing high level mathematics, sculpting, falling in love, composing a hip hop song, making a movie – you name it, every base is covered.
Now imagine that each of these Forms is an Aristotelian entelechy. It actively wants to perfect itself, to reach its omega point where its individual dialectical progression reaches its end. These Forms are teleological. They have a purpose, and a will to fulfil that purpose.
Each of these Universal Forms exists in the r = 0 domain outside space and time, but they are all connected to the r > 0 domain of particulars. Each Universal Form and its set of associated particulars constitute a system of Sheldrakian morphic resonance. So, for example, all helicopter pilots in the world are particulars of the Universal Form for piloting a helicopter. As a pilot learns to fly, he is in effect tapping into the Universal Form, and the better he gets the more he is a personal crystallisation of that Form. Each helicopter pilot (each “particular”) feeds back to the Universal Form, and the Universal feeds back to them in a continuous, synergic feedback loop. So, any new trick learned by one pilot will be communicated back to the Universal Form and this will then update all the other pilots, who will all learn the new trick much more quickly than would otherwise have been the case (just as new generations of the rats Sheldrake writes about get better at making their way through a maze, even if they have had absolutely no contact with any of the previous generation of rats that learned how best to negotiate the maze).
In other words, any activity you wish to undertake, no matter what (unless you are a groundbreaking genius), already exists as a dialectical Platonic Form available to your unconscious mind. You just need to tune into it like a radio station, pick up the signal and start channelling it. If you let your unconscious mind deal with it rather than your conscious mind (which always gets in the way), you will be able to master virtually any skill. Of course, getting your conscious mind “out of the way” is extraordinarily difficult.
When sporting stars are “in the zone”, their unconscious minds have taken over. They don’t need to think about what they are doing. However, when the pressure is cranked up to maximum, that’s usually when the conscious mind assumes control once more – with disastrous results. The golfer, one shot from glory, who misses the easy putt on the last green of the Open Championship, has invariably allowed his conscious mind to interrupt his unconscious rhythm. The greatest champions are those who don’t crack under pressure and who remain true to their unconscious talent.
Most great accomplishments are achieved through the unconscious, intuitive mind. As Aldous Huxley pointed out, consciousness is a “reducing valve” that filters out the enormous amounts of information potentially available to us. Consciousness gives us just enough scope to hold down a dull job and conform to a tedious, brain-dead society.
If we know how to control the unconscious mind then, like Trinity in The Matrix, we can load any program we like and be an instant expert. It’s useful to think of all human activities as subprograms which are all potentially loadable into our minds. They don’t load as abstract programs, sets of rules, or mathematical instructions. They load as GODS!
Human minds revolve around stories and images. What happens to the mind when it is cut off from sensory input but is still active i.e. when it dreams? Well, it shows movies to itself: it tells stories accompanied by pictures, sometimes funny, sometimes erotic, sometimes frightening, weird, embarrassing, inspiring, prophetic, enigmatic, you name it. Dreams feature symbols and, above all, they feature people, especially those involved in our lives. They don’t involve hours of mathematical equations, computer code, text, or foreign languages. Dreams reveal the unconscious. They are bearers of messages from the unconscious and these come to us as mysterious little films, emotive narratives, strange symbols, perhaps even voices.
When a Universal Form interacts with a human mind it does so not as an abstraction but as a being in the unconscious – a hidden voice, a secret guide. Using the example of Trinity’s helicopter program, it would be as if an expert pilot were now present in her subconscious, ready to effortlessly fly the helicopter for her on her command.
Julian Jaynes, with his revolutionary hypothesis of the bicameral mind, proposed that until as recently as the last three thousand years or so, humans were largely controlled by hallucinated voices emerging from the right hemisphere of the brain which were interpreted in the left hemisphere as the voices of gods. It was this phenomenon that made early humanity certain of the existence of gods. After all, they were literally hearing them inside their own heads. The gods in the right hemisphere gave orders, and they were obeyed to the letter by the “follower” in the left brain. The follower didn’t need to think. The follower was submissive, passive, apathetic, waiting for orders.
Doesn’t that sound suspiciously like modern humanity? Even though they are conscious now, many modern humans still wait to be told what to do by managers, prime ministers, presidents, popes, the rich, the powerful, celebrities etc. i.e. the new cast of gods in this conscious world of ours. Little has changed in terms of underlying attitudes. Most modern humans are “followers” just like their bicameral predecessors. The only effect of consciousness has been to take the voices from inside our heads and relocate them outside. Schizophrenics are those who slide back to the old bicameral mind and once again hear voices inside their heads giving them orders. Manic depressives are those who, when in their manic phase, identify totally with the gods and think they can do anything. However, when they are in the depressed phase, they are the most abject “followers” who can barely do anything at all. They vainly wait for the gods who never come.
Jaynes argued that the advent of writing, civilisation and greater complexity in human affairs eroded and finally destroyed the bicameral mind. The gods of the right hemisphere fell silent and the “follower” in the left brain evolved into the conscious ego. Now, only its voice is heard. Any other voice would be considered a sign of mental illness. The left brain evolved into the centre of reason, logic and language skills while the right brain is emotional, intuitive and artistic.
But the right brain gods have not vanished. For one thing, they communicate with us in dreams. In emergencies, they can seize control and save our lives. When we are expert at something, we are essentially giving expression to the god within. The gods can confer their superpowers on us if we know how to listen correctly. We can load “god programs” that will allow us to accomplish anything we put our mind to. These are the treasures that await our complete mastery of the mind.
Jaynes’s hypothesis can be linked to Jung’s theory of the psyche. Jung proposed that all human beings are linked via what he called the collective unconscious. We can think of this as a collection of all the Platonic Forms applicable to the human condition. Jung called these Forms “Archetypes” and he said that they manifested themselves in consciousness as images of people and as potent symbols. Just as our physical bodies have adapted and evolved over many millennia, so have our psychic structures. Archetypes have evolved, and are still evolving. (In truth, physical evolution and mental evolution accompany and reflect each other.)
According to Jung, all human babies are born mentally identical: they all have empty conscious minds, but full access to the collective unconscious – to the archetypes. All of us are guided by the collective unconscious for the earliest period of our life. As for animals, they are controlled almost exclusively by their collective unconscious for their whole lives. Could you recognise individual “personalities” in a flock of sheep or herd of cows, or do they seem largely interchangeable? Even many human beings seem like identikit people. They are so conformist that you could easily predict what they will do in any given situation.
Jung’s ideas are radical. He says, in effect, that far from being left to our own devices in a frightening and alien world, we are provided with a complete program of archetypes that will help us to actualise our full potential. Every aspect of our life is already anticipated by the archetypes: the mother-child relationship, the father-child relationship, the only child situation, the brother-brother relationship, brother-sister, sister-sister, child-friend, child-stranger, child-teacher etc – all of these are governed by an appropriate archetype. Adolescence, falling in love, marriage, parenthood, middle age, seeking the Higher Self, old age, preparing for death, preparing for the afterlife: each of these is archetypally conditioned. If we just let the archetypes take their course, as humans did in the days of the bicameral mind, everything would proceed smoothly.
The truth is that we are all entelechies. Everything we need to become God is programmed into us. Just as an acorn is programmed to become an oak tree, we are programmed to reach maximum actualisation as divinities. The only thing that can go wrong is if our inbuilt program is subverted, and then things can rapidly start heading off course, leaving us bewildered, frightened, anxious, and alienated from our true selves. Welcome to Planet Earth!
It turns out that our conscious minds are our greatest enemy. They continually resist and sabotage the archetypes. They think they know best.
We try to impose rules devised by our consciousness that are utterly at odds with our authentic natures. For example, Muslims and Jews circumcise baby boys. Such a practice has absolutely nothing to do with nature or the archetypes. These little boys are then fed endless religious propaganda that warps their minds and turns them against their own natures. The inbuilt program to maximise their potential and guide them properly through childhood becomes useless. Instead, they are bombarded with garbage that does them nothing but harm.
All religious interference in children’s lives is an abomination and an abuse. Religion ought to wait until the child has grown up and can think for itself before it seeks to intervene. All forms of brainwashing of children should be illegal. Children should be treated AS children, not as miniature rabbis, priests or imams. They should be protected from anything that robs them of their childhood. Why should a child have to pray five times a day and memorise the Torah or Koran?
If Nature’s program for raising children is wrecked, a whole life of trouble is guaranteed. If the archetypes for childhood development are sabotaged, all the future ones are too. Every aspect of our lives is undermined. We lose contact with Nature and in fact we find ourselves in opposition to Nature. Think of the young man who wants to have as much sex as he can get, but, instead, is forced by puritanical parents to renounce all of his sexual impulses. Result? – in ten years’ time you’ll have a pervert or suicide bomber on your hands. We create monsters by continually attacking Nature. Rather than allowing healthy archetypes to guide us, we end up summoning the wrong archetypes that do us maximum damage. We manufacture hell for ourselves.
If society were designed correctly, we could ensure that everyone’s inbuilt God program was fully activated and everyone would lead the best life of which they are capable. We could create the optimal Earth, the best of all possible worlds. So why don’t we?
We know what to do. We know what’s stopping us. There’s just one problem. The force that stands in the way of the progress of humanity is the Old World Order. The people who rule us are our greatest enemies. Yet they too are screwed because they are leading horribly shallow and unspiritual lives. Nevertheless, they think they are doing very nicely, thank you very much, and they don’t want anyone spoiling their fun. As far as they’re concerned, our inner God can go screw himself. They want us to worship them, not to make gods of ourselves. If we did, they would no longer have power over us. They are the masters and they want us to remain their slaves.
The Workings of the God Program
So, step by step, how does Jung’s God program work? When we are born, the most crucial thing is for us to bond with our mother. The mother’s archetype for caring for a baby kicks in, and a baby’s archetype for being mothered kicks in – a perfect combination. Mother and child know exactly what’s expected of them. Biologically, we say that their instincts have been activated. Archetypes are the mental representation of instincts i.e. instincts and archetypes always go together. When people say, “Follow your gut instinct,” they are advising you to let nature guide you i.e. the archetypes. This is normally very good advice. Of course, religious advice is usually the precise opposite.
As we start to leave early infancy, the collective unconscious automatically confers on us a supremely important archetype: the ego. This is the entity that will grow into our individual consciousness. It will define us. Although we all partake of exactly the same archetype, it manifests itself uniquely in all of us because we all have a unique genetic and environmental inheritance.
It takes the ego several years to clearly separate itself from the collective unconscious. That’s why we have no conscious awareness during our earliest years, why we remember almost nothing. Memory and consciousness go hand in hand. Consciousness is also inextricably linked to language development, which of course is a left hemisphere activity.
As the ego archetype gets more powerful, it invokes other complementary archetypes that will work in tandem with the ego. These are called the Persona, the Shadow, the Anima/Animus and the Self. The last is the most important because while the ego ends up being a great disappointment to us (being only our Lower Self) the Self can deliver all that is best in us. It can actualise our full potential and, ultimately, make us divine. It is stamped with the imago Dei – the image of God. It is God inside us, waiting to be activated. But that wondrous moment can come only if all of the other archetypes have been allowed to carry out their proper functions in their proper sequence. And that, unfortunately, never happens in a typical human life. Instead, our lives tend to be dominated by the archetypes that are most destructive to us. Our corrupt, stupid society energises them, while draining energy from the helpful archetypes. The “bad” archetypes often take on a life of their own and turn into monsters, sabotaging our progress towards our divinity.
Here are the archetypes, one by one, together with an explanation of what can go horribly wrong with them; how the good function they were intended to serve becomes corrupted and toxic. Firstly, we start with the home of the archetypes: the Collective Unconscious.
The Collective Unconscious
“How did I get into the world? Why was I not asked about it and why was I not informed of the rules and regulations but just thrust into the ranks as if I had been bought by a peddling shanghaier of human beings? How did I get involved in this big enterprise called actuality? Why should I be involved? Isn’t it a matter of choice? And if I am compelled to be involved, where is the manager—I have something to say about this. Is there no manager? To whom shall I make my complaint?” -- Kierkegaard
Although Jung never lived to hear of Rupert Sheldrake’s theory of morphic resonance, it’s completely compatible with his own ideas. Sheldrake wrote, “The unconscious mind may also have properties that defy mechanistic explanation. For example, in Carl Jung’s development of this concept, the unconscious is not confined to individual minds, but provides a common substratum shared by all human minds, the collective unconscious: ‘In addition to our immediate consciousness, which is of a thoroughly personal nature and which we believe to be the only empirical psyche (even if we tack on the personal unconscious as an appendix) there exists a second psychic system of a collective, universal, and impersonal nature which is identical in all individuals. This collective unconscious does not develop individually but is inherited. It consists of pre-existent forms, the archetypes, which can only become conscious secondarily and which give definite form to certain psychic contents.’”
The collective unconscious is the repository for the past common experiences and acquired wisdom of the human race. The collective unconscious both stores and transmits the common psychological inheritance of humanity. It is the Universal Form that feeds the particular psyches of all human beings, and which in turn feed all of their experiences back to it i.e. archetypes are not static and immutable; they evolve, and have done so ever since the dawn of the human race. The archetypes are the organising principles of the psyche; the primordial structural elements, the mental equivalents of genes.
Just as the Neoplatonist Plotinus said that all human souls have a higher and lower part (the lower part being individual and the higher collective), so Jung argued that the psyche of all humans is split in two, with one part being individual and the other collective.
Mythologist Joseph Campbell said, “The whole of mythology could be taken as a sort of projection of the collective unconscious.” In other words, the arena of human culture in which the archetypes are most evident is mythology.
When we encounter an archetype in our daily life, it will seem to have a mythological nature, hence be overpowering and even otherworldly. Fans who meet celebrities in the flesh display this kind of reaction. The mass hysteria that greeted the likes of Elvis Presley and the Beatles is an example of people collectively recognising an archetypal phenomenon in their midst.
The collective unconscious is Jung’s greatest contribution to psychology, yet it was precisely this dazzling innovation that caused the split with his mentor, Sigmund Freud, who utterly rejected it.
The Ego
“It is very important in life to know when your cue comes.” -- Kierkegaard
The ego is the centre of our consciousness and the mediator between consciousness and the unconscious. It gives us our sense of identity and our self-image. This is who we believe ourselves to be in our day-to-day activities, but it’s actually our lower self, far removed from our true potential and from who we really are. Nevertheless, it’s a necessary illusion that allows us to function in the world. It’s the appropriate starting point for us, but it’s our task to move beyond it and journey towards our Higher Self. Sadly, most of us fail to do so. We identify with our ego and live out our lives as though there is nothing beyond it. Yet everything is beyond it: the whole cosmos and the Mind of God.
The Persona
“Don’t you know that a midnight hour comes when everyone has to take off his mask? Do you think life always lets itself be trifled with? Do you think you can sneak off a little before midnight to escape this?” -- Kierkegaard
“The ego quickly realises that what it wants isn’t necessarily what it will be allowed to have. It understands that it has to fit in with others. What does it do? It can’t change itself because it is what it is, but it can don a mask and thus present a version of itself that disguises what it really thinks and feels. The archetype it summons is called the Persona (Latin for “mask”).
This is what we present to the outside world, our public face. It’s a social construct designed to make us acceptable to others. In terms of the Freudian model of the psyche, the Superego plays a key role in the formation of the persona.
We typically put on the particular persona that we calculate will make people think highly of us. If they do indeed respond positively then this reinforces our chosen persona and binds us more tightly to it. This raises the possibility of a major problem in our psychic development: we can over-identify with our persona and become terrified of ever removing it. If this happens we are rendered fake and inauthentic – all front and no substance. Our entire life revolves around ensuring that the mask never slips, in keeping up appearances. But where is the real person, the true self? It has been buried alive.
Many public figures are Persona People. Politicians make a career out of it. Public Relations advisers exist to cultivate, nourish and protect the personas that prominent people adopt. Brand management is all about the persona. It doesn’t have to be the persona of an individual – it can be that of a company, a product, a political party, an institution and so on. Everything must be done to protect it, to prevent brand damage. Thus we find ourselves in the territory of cover-ups. All the stops are pulled out to prop up the façade and to prevent us seeing the truth. Many crimes are caused by those people who are terrified of the truth about them being revealed. Actor Rock Hudson spent an entire life pretending to be heterosexual when he was in fact gay. The film studios knew the truth, but they believed it would be the end of Hudson’s career if the truth came out, so they did everything to conceal it, even inventing fake romances and girlfriends, and Hudson agreed to go along with it. Our world is full of these Persona Protection schemes. How many times are politicians who espouse family values exposed as gay or having affairs? There’s nothing worse than getting trapped by your persona because your whole life becomes one long lie.
The persona need not be nice, acceptable and conventional. In a group of gangsters, one of them might deliberately adopt a persona of hardness and toughness, whereas in reality he might be sensitive and vulnerable. Rebels cultivate the “rebel” persona, mavericks the “maverick” persona, “bad” boys the bad boy persona. All of these personas, whether benevolent or malevolent, are equally bad if they lead to inauthentic lives conducted in bad faith.
Think of the scandal of Catholic priests: men with a persona of holiness, otherworldliness, the utmost moral integrity, yet secretly molesting children. In a sense, their persona was the cause of their child abuse. They had become so attached to their persona that their true self had never had a chance to exist and, instead, all sorts of monsters began to grow behind the mask, and the monsters then fed on the easiest target – children.
The Catholic Church, if it had any sense, would instantly abolish the celibacy rule for priests because enforced celibacy is one of the most dangerous psychological time bombs imaginable. In fact, the issue should be taken out of the Church’s hands. Society and government should order it in the name of psychological well-being. The Catholic “experiment” with celibacy has failed dismally and now others must step in to resolve the matter, whether Catholics like it or not. An ultimatum should be delivered to the Pope – either abolish the rule of celibacy or have the Catholic Church declared illegal and banned from participating in society. The same goes for whether women should be allowed to be priests. The signal sent out by prohibiting a female priesthood is unambiguously sexist and contrary to the laws of any modern country. It’s time to get tough with the Catholic Church and all other religions. If they refuse to relinquish socially unacceptable positions then they should be put out of business. Why do we pussyfoot around these religions with their archaic and dangerous value systems? Whether or not their beliefs were acceptable a thousand years ago is one thing. What is certain that they are completely unacceptable now and it’s about time our leaders had the guts to say so. We can’t let ancient religions dictate to us just because they’re ancient. Who cares about their traditions? If they’re incompatible with the modern world then they have to be legally challenged and rejected. Should we have gone on tolerating slavery because all the major religions supported it (which they certainly did)?
Our leaders won’t lift a finger, of course. Why not? Because of political expediency. And thus the evils of the world are never confronted.
We live in a Persona Society. Everyone is faking it. Look at Facebook. Its hundreds of millions of users spend hours cultivating their public face, constructing their social image for the consumption of others. Where is the real person with real feelings and controversial opinions, with doubts, fears and anxieties, with emotional highs and lows? All suppressed and repressed. All buried.
Facebook is about personal brand management and is every bit as obnoxious as the more expensive efforts that go into protecting the brands of the huge, faceless multinational corporations. It’s the same cynical game. Facebook should be called Two-faced book, because the real face is always hidden by the self-serving propaganda. A new Facebook should be created called the True Self where no one has to wear any mask and pretend to be anything they’re not.
No matter how successful our persona is, it will start to disgust us if it is inconsistent with who we really are. An inner revulsion will grow and we will begin to cast a dangerous shadow.
The tale of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is all about the respectable public face of the doctor being removed by a secret potion to reveal the monster underneath. Mr Hyde – the opposite of Dr Jekyll – was the inevitable psychic response to Jekyll’s fake persona.
Whenever you encounter anyone overly respectable, you can be certain that they are doing the vilest things in private, when they close the door behind them, when they draw the curtains. That’s when Mr Hyde emerges…and he always does. It’s the psychic law of balance.
The persona applies to companies, institutions and nations as much as to individuals. America presents itself as a fun-loving country of freedom, creativity and goodwill, so what’s it doing tramping around in Iraq and Afghanistan where no one wants it? Why’s it threatening WikiLeaks? Why is there so much poverty and squalor in America that’s never commented upon? Why is it still racist to its core? (The Confederates have never gone away.) Why is it full of religious fundamentalists?