Shipwrecked by Belief: A Gnostic Story

April 9, 2024

When my early life as a fundamentalist minister came to an abrupt and traumatic end, I surveyed what could be salvaged from the general shipwreck of disappointment. A few valuables could be gathered up, for sure; but that old ship would never sail again. Disappointment is an understatement. What is left to believe in when belief itself has betrayed you? We are held captive by belief (ideology, narrative, meme). Manipulation of belief is the basis of mind control, a clear pathway to dystopia.

I spent time in the corporate world. More accurately, I “did” time there. But to survive and thrive aboard the ship of commerce, one must believe without question. “True believers” embrace with total commitment, the paramount importance of production. Quotas and achievements give meaning, purpose, and a direction in life. Scientific materialism produces labour-saving machines and fascinating gadgets which do nothing for the soul. So, with the passage of time, belief falters. “We keep you alive to serve this ship,” the Roman overlord tells the galley slave. I would abandon the ship of commerce to find a new direction.

A man can only stand so much disappointment. I even thought I might become an atheist, but I couldn’t do it. Those who confidently champion scientific materialism, and deny any spiritual reality, are true believers but not true scientists. A true scientist examines the evidence on its merits without pre-conception. No need to review the evidence, they say, we already know the answer. But evidence does exist for a supernatural or paranormal reality. The scientific research of sincere parapsychologists and paranormal investigators is met with derision and ridicule. This is getting much too close to that original experience of belief which tolerates no dissent. The militant atheist has much in common with the religious fanatic.

I graduated from The University of London with a degree in law. Here I began to re-evaluate the fatal attraction of belief. Asking the right question is more important than finding the right answer. Appreciating a good argument is more realistic than an over-abundance of certitude. Adherence to core values of justice, truth and morality are the foundation of natural law. Pursuing what is right, is more important than being right.

Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, defend the fatherless, plead for the widow. (Isaiah 1)

I discovered Gnosticism by a process of elimination, filtering out that which was reminiscent of my original experience of fundamentalism. Fundamentalism is a mentality, transcending any particular belief system, religious or otherwise. The devil (demiurge) is a shapeshifter. Changing a disguise does not alter the true nature of what lurks beneath the costume. On a good day, the adversary is rigid, inflexible, arrogant, intolerant, argumentative, narrow minded, and contemptuous; on a bad one, unhinged, vicious and violent. The same mental virus infecting the Christian mob which murdered Hypatia of Alexandria also infected the Jacobins of The French Revolution. They believed in extensive government intervention to effect revolutionary social change, in some ways, an early version of Marxism. Thomas Paine was arrested in Paris after he recommended mercy for the royal family. Only an intervention by Thomas Jefferson saved him from the guillotine. A different context yes but the same counterfeiting spirit.

Beliefs are toxic when held tightly. Toxic beliefs thrive on ignorance. Exposure to a wide range of ideas is an effective antidote.

Gnostics believed different things and argued amongst themselves, but that melting pot of ideas uncovered an array of possibilities which could not be known otherwise. When constantly exposed to new ideas which challenge old ones, we avoid the cult of belief. Gnostics hold beliefs lightly. Theirs is a unity of Spirit. Their gnosis (knowledge) is experiential and shamanistic. Beliefs are provisional and subject to change.

A world without belief becomes administratively unworkable. What is there to manage if people are allowed to believe what they want. Authority demands one truth, a narrowing of the imagination. Brute force is clumsy and expensive, better if the masses accept or even demand their servitude.  For this they must believe.

I have also had time to reflect upon all the false beliefs (narratives) we hold about ourselves which, quite apart from those in the world at large, also keep us locked up in a prison for the mind.

This process of calcification drove the Gnostics underground, their wisdom reduced to fragments found in pots. The Library of Alexandria was burned to the ground and with it the natural curiosity of the human mind. If you want to control the world, control the mind.

Paul of Tarsus was once a man of definite belief, a Pharisee of the Pharisees, as he described himself. Early Christians were heretics of Judaism and he participated in their persecution. Paul was later transformed, not by a new belief but by a bolt of lightning, a vision on the road to Damascus, a transformative religious experience (gnosis).

He emerges much less certain about belief.

I am determined not to know anything,

He who thinks he knows, knows nothing yet as he ought to know.

Where there is knowledge, it shall pass away.

 He speaks of that impermeant or provisional knowledge which often fails but not of gnosis, that revelatory experiential knowledge which is transformative and everlasting.

Psychologist Carl Jung, referring to gnosis, says it best: “I do not believe, I know.’

(C) Adrian Charles Smith, 2024

Trudeau’s Invocation of Emergency Act: “Unconstitutional, Illegal and Unreasonable”

January 25, 2024

Further to my presentations on Canada’s truckers’ protest, delivered at The Glastonbury Symposium and on Aeon Byte, there has been an important new development. The Federal Court of Canada has just decided that Trudeau’s invocation of the Emergencies Act 1988, was unconstitutional, illegal and unreasonable.

This contrasts with the prior determination of Justice Paul Rouleau, Chairman of The Public Order Emergencies Commission, a public inquiry into the circumstances leading up to invocation of the EA and subsequent freezing of bank accounts and martial law responses.

The important distinction here is that Justice Rouleau was a political appointee charged with rendering an “opinion” at the end of the inquiry. Justice Rouleau’s “opinion” was that the very high standards of the EA were met. In his remarks, Justice Rouleau emphasized that his “opinion” did not have the force of law and that a final determination was a matter for the courts. This recent decision of the Federal Court, on the other hand, does have the force of law and of legal precedence, opening the way for further lawsuits against the government by all those harmed by invocation.

In his remarks more than a year ago, Justice Rouleau also stated that he arrived at his “opinion” reluctantly as it was “not strongly supported by the facts” and that a reasonable person, properly informed, could easily reach a different conclusion. A compliant media dutifully reported the headline “opinion” without reporting his follow-on remarks, so the government appeared to be in the clear; that is, until now.

If granted leave to appeal, the Trudeau Government will go to the Supreme Court, but government lawyers will have a very steep hill to climb.

Having followed this protest closely for over two years, I now believe we have two different legal systems at odds with each other — one based on established principles and the other clearly politicized. The latter is prepared to ignore “facts” or redefine language to support government policy.

It has been accepted for centuries that a “balance and separation of powers”  is the basis of a free society. No one organ of governance (legislative, judicial, executive) should be allowed to dominate the others. In our system, even the police exercise an independent authority.  So, when judges make decisions which ignore facts to protect the powerful, we are in grave danger.

“Facts,” said, John Adams, “are stubborn things.” It has been two years now since the protest but those stubborn facts, though suppressed, have not gone away.

We stand on the precipice but have stepped back from the edge, at least for now.

(c) Adrian Charles Smith, 2024

Divide and Conquer

March 30, 2023

Two young fish are swimming through the water when they are approached by an older fish who asks, “How’s the water this morning?” They carry on swimming, somewhat puzzled, then one fish turns to the other and says, “What the hell is water?”

Our belief systems (or what I call “fundamentalism”) are the waters within which we swim. A belief system is natural to us, so we do not observe it, neither can we imagine anything else. 

This is important because our adversary (the demiurge) uses this propensity to control us. His strategy is divide and conquer.  The adversary is a master counterfeiter, often appearing in one disguise or another. The spider frequently moves its nest. If the spider appears in the disguise of our favorite belief system, we will identify with it even though behaviour contradicts the carefully constructed narrative.

A certain emperor disguises himself as a feminist. When someone uses the word “mankind”, he corrects them and instructs the use of “people kind” instead. The people cheer! The emperor appoints as his Minister of Justice, a Native American woman, to create an appearance of furthering “equity” and “diversity”.  In the exercise of her duties, the Minister prosecutes a business favored by the emperor. He orders her to stop. Recognizing a gross violation of the nation’s constitution, the Minister refuses, so the emperor dismisses her. It seems the emperor actually dislikes strong, principled and competent women, but in order to preserve the narrative, true believers block or forget the contradictions even as they multiply.

In another time and place far removed and at the opposite end of the political spectrum, a certain president invades a country to overthrow an “evil  dictator”. In order to garner the necessary public support and to conceal the real reasons for the invasion, he tells lies about the dictator having weapons of mass destruction and of being connected to a major terrorist attack. None of this is remotely true (and no one argues differently to this day), but people are whipped up in a frenzy of patriotism and moral outrage. Even as the contradictions and inconsistencies mount, they are blocked from consciousness or ignored, and so the bloody and destructive wars continue, one after another. Few think to ask: They have lied repeatedly in the past, why should I believe them now?

This is sophisticated mind-control, and the use of contradiction is part of the game. When subliminal contradiction is accepted into the field of perception without resistance, the critical faculty is stunned, and the mind becomes receptive to suggestion.

The mental anxiety induced when people observe the lies and contradictions is called “cognitive dissonance”. Now they have a choice to make. Question their ideological commitment, or forget the inconsistencies in order to keep believing the lies.

“Winston sank … into the labyrinthine world of doublethink. To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which canceled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget, whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly forget it again…

George Orwell 1984

It’s easy for people on opposite sides to observe the foolish behaviour of their counterparts and not see the beam which is in their own eye. Truth telling invites ridicule and contempt. As we continue to fight each other, the spell-binding machinations of the magician go unnoticed as the hidden agenda moves forward.

That is how the divide and conquer strategy works and that is why we stand on the brink of totalitarianism and WW3 (if we are not there already).

THE END

Adrian Charles Smith (c) 2023

Second Interview with Aeon Byte Gnostic Radio

June 21, 2022

My interview with Miguel Connor of Aeon Byte Gnostic Radio, home of the virtual Alexandria (see recommended section). This is a doubleheader with Sean Stone, son of filmmaker Oliver Stone, well known for such classic films as JFK and Born on The Fourth of July. We discuss Sean’s latest documentary, Best Kept Secret, a powerful expose, speaking truth to power. I have included a link to the documentary in the Media Section.

The interview continues, examining those forces which control our “reality”.

Video used with permission from Miguel Connor.

(c) Adrian Charles Smith 2022

The Stoic Prayer of Emperor Marcus Aurelius

April 19, 2022

When faced with adversity, the Stoics prayed for the inner strength to remain unmoved and unbothered by the world outside.  You have power over your own mind but not the ever-changing fortunes of life. According to Stoic philosophy, whatever happens can be attributed to the god, and it would be unwise to insist on something contrary to the Divine will.

There is a legend that Roman Emperor and Stoic philosopher, Marcus Aurelius, prayed for rain to save a legion trapped and dying of thirst. The heavens opened and the soldiers caught the rain in their helmets and were saved. This is known as “The Rain Miracle” of Marcus Aurelius.

Elsewhere in The Meditations though, he wrote something more subtle and philosophical about prayer. Just because something is within our own power, rather than the realm of the gods, does not mean that we cannot pray for strength of purpose to neither crave the rain nor fear the drought.

If they (the gods) have power, why do you not pray to them to grant you the ability neither to fear any of these things nor to desire them, nor to be distressed by them, rather than praying that some of them should fall to you and others not? For surely, if the gods have any power to help human beings, they can help them in this. But perhaps you will object, ‘They have placed this in my own power.’ Well then, would it not be better to make use of what lies within your power as suits a free man rather than to strain for what lies beyond it in a slavish and abject fashion? In any case, who told you that the gods do not assist us even in things that lie within our power? Begin at least to pray so, and you will see.

He goes on, in the same passage, to give an example:

That man prays, ‘May I come to sleep with that woman,’ but you, ‘May I not desire to sleep with her.’ Another prays, ‘May I be rid of this man,’ but you, ‘May I no longer wish to be rid of him.’ Or another, ‘May I not lose my little child,’ but you, ‘May I not be afraid of losing him.’ In a word, turn your prayers round in such a way, and see what comes of it. 

When tormented by the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune we become slaves to events beyond our control, not free individuals choosing how we will react. According to Holocaust survivor, Viktor Frankl, the one thing which can never be taken away from you when all else is gone, is the power to choose your own state of mind.

We might pray, God send me a new motorcycle or, instead, God help me to be less materialistic; or yet again, Send me a new motorcycle if it is the best thing for me at this time (and not just a shiny object to distract).  

 A friend once told me that her divorce was the worst thing that had ever happened to her. A few months later she thought it was the best thing. What if she had prayed for the divorce to be cancelled? What if that prayer had been answered ? Would it not have been better to pray for acceptance of the divorce, allowing the Divine will to manifest?

Be careful what you pray for. It might happen.

There is a basic principle  embedded in the Lord’s prayer: Thy will be done; and elsewhere we read, Seek ye first the Kingdom of God […] and all these things shall be added unto you.

On the eve of his crucifixion, Jesus prayed, O father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: Nevertheless, not as I will but as Thou wilt.

We don’t always know what’s best and imperfect knowledge obscures the outcome. We don’t know how the story ends. Something might be judged good which is in fact bad or judged bad which is in fact good. Only one thing is assured – commit to the Divine will and life will be rendered meaningful, not random or accidental.

I believe the Stoic conception of prayer accords with an esoteric interpretation of a story appearing in the Book of Genesis

There was once a man called Joseph who dreamed prophetic dreams and for this, his father, Israel, favored him. His brothers grew jealous, attacked Joseph, threw him in a pit and then sold him to slavers who carried him off to Egypt. His brothers told their father that wild beasts had devoured him. The slavers sold Joseph to Pharaoh’s captain of the guard, where he found a modicum of peace until a false accusation landed him in jail for two years. Surely this was all bad news, but not so fast. We must see how the story ends. Through it all, however, Joseph retained his equanimity. Both the captain of the guard and the keeper of the prison entrusted Joseph with all that they had.

Eventually, Joseph’s reputation as a dreamer of dreams reached Pharaoh, who was so impressed by these prophetic abilities that he made Joseph prime minister of Egypt, charged with preparations for the predicted seven years famine. When the famine arrived, Joseph’s father and brothers came to Egypt looking for food. They met Joseph face to face expecting revenge but were instead embraced with acceptance and reassurance:

Do not be grieved nor angry with yourselves that you sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life.

Events which seem random and accidental may in fact be purposeful or may be rendered purposeful by a Higher Power.

You thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass as it is this day, to save many people alive.

We don’t always know how the story ends. Something which seems bad ends up being good and pursuant to a higher purpose. We can pray for deliverance from betrayal, false accusations and imprisonment but how much better to pray for equanimity, trust, and acceptance until the higher purpose is known.

(c) Adrian Charles Smith 2022