The Canadian National Newspaper: Gnostic inspired focus on our Survival and Planet Earth must avoid Occult Trap

As a child, when I participated in something that did not turn out in the manner that I had hoped, my comment was usually that, “I had not expected things to turn out like that”. Meanwhile, when that happened, I could usually count on somebody nearby, who would remind me that “the road to Hell, is usually paved with good intentions”.

With that cautionary observation resonating in my brain, I therefore find it unfortunate that I must conclude, on reading the John Lamb Lash book, Not In His Image: Gnostic Vision, Sacred Ecology, and the Structure of Belief; that in respect of the eventual path that is being “proposed”, I was confronting a corresponding case of good intentions, that appear to have eventually also landed upon “the road to Hell”, as an endpoint. Herein, therefore, I shall be inviting Mr Lash and his readers, to take a bypass route that I shall implicitly propose below.

This book by John Lamb Lash, is comprehensive in detail, and it is also well written. However, the religion fundamentalists of various ilk, (and particularly those individuals who are followers of religions in what Mr Lash calls the Abrahamic traditions -- of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism), will find the book to be exasperating, disconcerting, and discombobulating.

Yet, unless the members of these groups respectively think that they have “truth” by the short-hairs (and Which religious fundamentalist does not hold that view?) I make the following proposition: I would like to invite these persons (as responsible Mind-guided human beings), to “stick it out”, and to read through the whole of what Mr Lash has written there.

Meanwhile, even though I am an essential primitivist, it is my deduction that Mr Lash is an intellectually provocative as well as a personally sincere writer; and that he is not wittingly “a Pied Piper” in disguise. His presentation about Gnostic history and lore, is comprehensive; as well as incisive. Indeed, at times, he exhibits an almost enviable gift for evocative turns of notable phrases, that manage to retain a devastating and stimulating intellectual precision.

I would therefore argue that, the accompanying breadth and historically trenchant scope of the ideas about our encounters on the path to human spirituality which this book by John Lamb Lash is conveying, essentially commands due thought-provoking consideration from his readers.

However, the following is also my argument:

To me, the least disturbing part of the message that floats on the surface of this book by John Lamb Lash, is the imputation that, the Gnostic tradition, had essentially propounded a survival-centred ecological union, between human beings and the rest of the environment of planet earth. Sadly, however, it appears that this message from the Gnostics, was calculated and ruthlessly destroyed, during a systematic process in which the members of that tradition were brutally and genocidally eliminated and suppressed. That suppression was meted out by a redeemer-centred, triumphal Rome-led Christianity, (that also subsequently meted out a corresponding genocidal operation on the native populations in North and South America).

Furthermore, Mr Lash also implicitly argues that, a revised existential perspective, (such as that which the Gnostics had provided), is critically necessary for us to adopt TODAY, if we and our planet are to survive the internal and the external assaults that are currently being made upon it.

An additional (survival-related) cautionary feature in the Gnostic lore, to which Mr Lash particularly draws our attention, is the fact of the presence of, and the impact which potential malevolent as well as well as beneficent extra-terrestrial extra-organic interference. Their operations have been aimed to impact on the effective and successful evolution of the human reality on planet earth.

Notably, therefore, the presence of such extra-terrestrial relationships, links us to the whole UFO teleos, as well as goes beyond it.

Indeed, Mr Lash essentially also argues that, it is particularly the impact which such potential malevolent intrusions have, or have had, on the Abrahamic religions (as well as on other venues), which is now sending human survival on this planet, on a journey which I would call “to hell in a hand-cart”.

I would therefore argue without hesitation that, it is the intense desire of Mr Lash to put a brake on our (human) progress on that journey - “to hell in a handcart” - which has the potential (in my view) of generating the distressing side effect, of sucking him up into the not to be ignored potential trap, of an “occult vortex”.

I would also argue that, the road which has the effect of leading an earnest person? who is as positively existentially committed as is Mr Lash, into being caught in an occult trap, is not particularly disguised.

That is because the occult, as another resolution domain, easily beckons any individual who has been (wittingly or unwittingly) socially conditioned to take a mechanical and essentially linear process-centred structural view on our reality. Such an occult beckoning, rears its head when such individuals begin to see our prevailing reality as also having apparently anomalous features, (which appear to be outside of the current received mechanical perspective on how reality functions).

Yet, within the teleology that construes reality as sets of structurally and temporally mechanized linkages and operations, there happens to be also present, sets of relationships which appear to reveal themselves as essentially “chicken/egg” succession problems. Such “chicken/egg” circumstances then become treated as sources of “humour”.

Meanwhile, the mechanistic view/paradigm, on how our reality works, and on how its components may be discovered, subscribes to the “more serious” recognition that, in terms of results-centred operating outcomes, first comes the horse; and next comes the cart/sledge. Furthermore, the mechanical mantra instructs that, while the cart/sledge has wheels/runners (for ice), the horse has feet as the functional analogue.

The mechanical context of information processing, impacts in the following manner on what Mr. Lash is presenting:

Essentially, in our prevailing civilization, we frame our understanding of the operations of the proverbial “cart” and of the proverbial “horse” relationships (to our world), via interpretations which we make, about what are the traceable mechanical linkages that are consistent with the observed outcomes.

However, too much should not be read into our assertions/deductions (as knowledge base) about what caused the outcomes.

Because there appears to be a logically construed and structurally apparent or a discovered operating consistency of an identified forthcoming outcome, with features which we ascribed as being causal, does not mean that we can conclude that we have either a clear window on what comprises reality, or on what embeddings that reality harbours. Therefore, when humans use “science” to identify or to clarify revealed mechanical consistencies within reality, the revealed information is only about what appears to work. It is not about what exists.

Accordingly, toward executing a corresponding earnest scientific attempt at reporting on how evolving human existential experience (and also our linkages to “spirituality”) has flowed, Mr Lash has done the following:

He has deduced the presence of a flow of psychic and the existential damage (that has evolved, and that arose over time as manifest legitimated inter-human predation, and human self-denigration).

In addition, he has identified that damage stream (of psychic repression), as having been primarily and essentially due to the impact and the influence from the normal redeemer/messiah-centred operations and emphases that have accompanied, (and that have arisen from what he has called) the Abrahamic religions -- Christianity Islam and Judaism.

It therefore appears to be the view of Mr Lash, that he must use the insights from his historical research, to slow down, and to correct this religion-sanctioned and religion-embodied tragedy (of continuing the historical existential predation on humanity). Indeed, he has also emphasized that an accompanying feature of the predation, is an indifference about preservation of the natural environment.

Mr. Lash has therefore proposed, (and he also entreats), the development of what (in my view) is essentially a mechanical “correction” scheme/mantra, which would operate through the adoption of a Gaia-Sophia cult, within a Gnostic-centred focus, so as to correct the environmental and human existential “damage” which (he argues), has been the continuing norm of these redeemer-centred Abrahamic religions.

It is my argument that within his proposal, (which evolves out of his research on the Gnostic teleos), wittingly, or unwittingly, and with loads of good intentions, Mr Lash is essentially promoting what amounts to a Gnosticism-centred cult. Essentially, he is inviting humans to develop and to participate in this cult, as an alternative to the emphases and to the (on the ground) practices, of the prevailing organized Abrahamic religions.

However, (to this writer), it seems that notwithstanding his own good intentions; within his commitment to the Gaia-Sophia earth association mythos (as the effective mechanical route to spirituality on earth), Mr Lash is being sucked more and more into the realm, or into the vortex of the occult. Furthermore, if one decides to see the Gnostic perspective on humans, and on the place of humans in the universe, as being the crucible of truth, a slippage into the occult direction is easy.

Accordingly, to avoid that slippage, I invite Mr Lash, and also the earnest readers of his book, to stand back somewhat from that abyss and contemplate the following thoughts:

The Gnostic teleos, (as I understand it from the writings of Mr Lash), is that the centre of our (Milky Way) galaxy, functions as the reference/operating point of powerful non-corporeal entities or beings, of infinite creative power. In addition, his submission is that, as presented in the Gaia-Sophia mythos, planet earth and its complement, is supposed to be the outcome from the initiative power of one of those entities from the galactic centre (in association with collegial intervention).

Now, (in my view), before we start on the Gaia-Sophia cult formation -- if not revival -- that Mr Lash proposes, there hangs a problem which we must FIRST resolve.

Prevailing astronomy, tells us that there are millions of other galaxies. Furthermore, I am not aware that the Gnostics, or that Mr Lash advanced the proposition that these millions of other galaxies, were the creation of the entities that are at the heart of our milky way galaxy. Therefore, before we set out to tie up our souls in any proposed well meaning Gaia-Sophia new cult, there is a bigger universe to which the reality of mind as a part of us, (and also to which the exposition of truth that Mr Lash proposes), must accommodate. I particularly note that in two other essays that I had published here online in The Canadian National Newspaper, when I had addressed this matter of the reality of mind, and of its union with brain, I had also pursued the privilege of introducing and elaborating on the presence of AN EXISTENTIAL CONWILLOWSENCE. I had emphasized it, as existing in the form of a potentially accessible prevailing bio-electric sentience grid. Furthermore, it was stressed that this feature operates through the mind-brain linkage, (and therefore functions as a potential context that mediates the reality of human evolution).

We don’t need to subscribe to mechanical linkages in the form of a Gaia-Sophia telos, in order to contemplate that be-ing (as an existential phenomenon), comprises an opportunity with which we have been bestowed. Human existence (within the context of be-ing) is a substantive domain, and the extent and the quality level to which it realizes/expresses itself, is in association with that existential conwillowsence. Additionally, the context of be-ing also comprises a responsibility system in which we have been placed. Our actions and interactions, therefore represent discharges and commitments as a part of that bio-electrical sentience grid.

Meanwhile, Mr Lash, appears to have been seduced and awed by the presence of unusual recognition and communication abilities among many humans, and he has apparently been willing to attribute these variations to manifestations of the occult (or near occult).

At the same time, when individuals accept that, responsibilities in living, as well as opportunities in be-ing go together (as we intersect with the existential conwillowsence), they also need to recall this fact. The scope of our environment, and the multiplicity of persons that it accommodates, is also associated with our obligation and challenge to materially survive. Therefore, we respectively and collectively need to materially establish, and also to participate in networks of direct and indirect material sustenance production and distribution relationships. (However, that participation is not necessarily limited to our accommodating to those production and acquisition strategies that the capitalist economy uses).

As a result, it is necessary for us as individuals to recognize that these responsibilities in living that we have, are NOT expressed in the exercise (or in the execution of) greed-driven financial-equivalent commercial success. Yet, those are the types of operations in living, to which the capitalist system of social organization has effectively assigned its citizens who hope to gain access to living-supportive material complements and opportunities.

In contrast, the joint discharge of these responsibilities in living, as we seek to execute existential conwillowsence-linked opportunities in be-ing, is more likely to arise and to be forthcoming in those practices which comprise the exercise of compassion, mutuality, and empathy. Notably, too, the pursuit of such practices are matters about which the Dalai Lama talks.

Meanwhile, Mr Lash is also emphasizing that we each (and also together) have the human responsibilities for symbiotizing with the biotic and organic complement of the planet.

It would therefore appear that, to a large extent, any resort to the adoption of a cult which is based on Gnosticism as Mr Lash has presented it, essentially flows out of a mechanical context/myth for comprehending the operation and the presence of the existential conwillowsence.

I would therefore argue that, going along with Mr Lash, to find, to approach, or to descend into occult type rationalizations or accommodations, that are in lieu of recognizing the operating presence of the existential conwillowsence (as a prevailing bio-electric sentience grid, that may or may not be somewhat consistent with the Gaia-Sophia telos), simply represents “a bridge too far”.

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