Category: Religion

THE STRANGE CASE OF LIEUTENANT COLONEL MICHAEL AQUINO AND THE TEMPLE OF SET

July 8, 2026

A high-ranking, respected military officer with top-secret security clearance, a  specialist in psychological warfare with a PhD in political science, a worshipper of Satan and founder of The Temple of Set, Michael Aquino was accused but never convicted of Satanic Ritual Abuse  of children (SRA).

Aquino was also a leading member of Anton LaVey’s Church of Satan but broke with LaVey  in 1975 when LaVey sold priestly offices previously awarded for attainment. Draped in black, a Hollywood version of a horned devil,  LaVey was a carnival barker, provocateur  and showman who denied any spiritual reality. Aquino, however, was more sincere.  He describes performing a ritual invoking Satan, but the Egyptian god Set showed up instead. Set told him Satan was old news, that the future was Set, and Aquino was thereby anointed high priest of a new order called the Temple of Set. Set was the Egyptian god of chaos, war and storms who murdered and dismembered his brother Osiris.

The Temple of Set was nominally “theistic Satanism” as opposed to LaVey’s “atheistic Satanism”  but Aquino’s actual perspective was vague. When Sean Stone, son of filmmaker Oliver Stone, asked Aquino if he believed that spiritual beings were real external entities or simply manifestations of our own mind, Aquino’s answer was  unclear. Predictably, Sean repeated the question. Aquino then  referred to “universal principles”, “natural law”  and manifestations of consciousness. The only unambiguous position was held by high-ranking member Nikolas Schreck. He believed these entities were entirely real and some downright dangerous and malevolent. He later abandoned Aquino’s brand of Satanism in favour of Buddhism and Gnosticism.

 In conversation with Peter Levenda, Aquino always denied the existence of anything paranormal, including ghosts, UFOs or spirits. This materialism seems at odds with his actual practice. Perhaps the stated position conceals a deeper occulted reality. Materialism is the most insidious of all religions but  designed only for the rubes, not the initiated.

What then did his actual practice include?

In one instance, it included a trip to Wewelsburg Castle, where Heinrich Himmler and other SS officers performed occult ceremonies. Aquino was attracted to the location because he considered it magically charged. He performed his own ceremony in the ritual chamber, then moved on to Hitler’s mountain retreat, the Eagle’s Nest, to pay further homage.  On national television, he proudly displayed a dagger belonging to the most senior SS officer at Wewelsburg. He does not tell us what the dagger was used for. That part is left to the imagination. 

In Vietnam, Aquino, as a psychological warfare operative, put his skills to work as part of Operation Phoenix. They used helicopters blasting blood-curdling demonic screams to frighten both civilians and combatants alike. In one instance they captured a local tax collector, murdered him, drained all his blood and left him hanging outside a village. The villagers were terrified of vampires, and this was calculated to encourage reliance on the US Army for protection. This was an application of what Aquino called “lesser black magic”, the alteration of perceptions; “greater black magic” involved the truly miraculous, the alteration of reality itself.

In 1980, he was commissioned by General Paul Vallely, board member of Turning Point USA, to write a paper on mind control. This resulted in an academic treatise  From PSYOP to MindWar: The Psychology of Victory. Henceforth, mind war would be primary, not secondary to actual combat, to be practised on both enemies and citizens alike. He acknowledges the illegality of lying to the American people but gets around this with a concept he terms, “future truth”. First you decide what narrative you want to spin, control all the means by which people process information until everyone believes it; and because everyone believes it, it becomes real. That’s next-level magic! This is the negative application of the postmodernist assertion: there’s no such thing as objective reality, no such thing as truth. Reality is something we mould and shape to our liking.

During a BBC interview, he was asked if it was OK, in his view, to put a curse on someone. He replied in the affirmative. He was then asked if he had ever  cursed anyone. Sensing a trap, there was a long pause. He never felt the need, he said,  because he was always able to influence events preventatively. An extravagant claim, I thought.

Satanism is a form of magic which comes under the general heading  “left-hand path”. It does not recognize a higher power or moral authority beyond the individual, whereas “the right-hand path” does. The right-hand path is also a magical tradition but subject to safeguards. Jesus was a magician, and prayer is a form of magic but always with a qualification, “thy will be done”.   A higher power could mean, among other things, a wiser, more evolved version of ourselves as yet unrealized, something beyond the ego to which we might turn for guidance.

Satanists reject moral authority, taboos, rules and societal norms, claiming the individual alone is god.  This could be a call to personal autonomy or a wilful refusal to tame the ego. Which rules do they want to get rid of? How about murder, for example? They could argue a moral person needs no rules but this could easily qualify as Christianity 101, so why Satanism then? Christian doctrine says if you have the law written in your heart, the law is no longer needed.  Satanism might imply such a high level of attainment that asserting  one’s own will would always be the right thing.  Satanism could manifest as wilfulness, enlisting entities to force a desired outcome. This could come with a price.

For the Satanist, Satan or Set is the ultimate rebel. If we are speaking of rebellion against religious authority, Jesus Christ could  be an equally worthy figurehead. He opposed the religious authorities of his day and the moneychangers at the Temple. Just as easily, rebellion could mean cutting yourself off from  Source consciousness and going it alone. In Gnosticism, this was Sophia’s error, a permissionless departure, creating on her own, separate from Source.

Christianity can mean different things to different people. Satanism can mean different things to different people. Saying you are a rebel tells us very little. What kind of rebel, rebelling against what? Most inmates of maximum-security prisons are rebels, so was Jesus Christ.

There are probably as many versions of Satanism as there are versions of Christianity and it’s impossible to overgeneralize.  Some argue that the god of the Old Testament  was not the ultimate God but a flawed, lesser created being, often cruel, jealous and wrathful. So, what we once thought was good might be considered bad.  Carrying this inversion further, the one rebelling against that flawed deity, Satan, once thought bad becomes symbolic of liberation. The acid test is  not so much belief as behaviour.  Watch what they do, not what they say. By their fruits you shall know them, not their labels.

One form of Satanism might seek to provoke or ridicule fundamentalist Christians, a self-defeating and unnecessary practice which, I believe, contributed to the “Satanic Panic” of the 1980s which swept across the United States and other countries. The Satanic Panic was a modern version of the Salem witch trials and the Spanish Inquisition. These events all involved serious accusations of Satanic Ritual Abuse of children attending daycare centres. Some convictions were attained on flimsy evidence, the convictions later overturned.

 It takes two to tango, however. You cannot ignite a firestorm, appear on national television in black robes, an SS ceremonial dagger in hand, then act surprised and claim victimhood when accusations come your way. Newton’s third law of motion is “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”.

Now comes my tentative hypothesis, an out-on-a-limb speculation. The Satanic Panic could have been a psyop, the proverbial battle of opposites, the classic divide and conquer strategy, diverting and misdirecting attention from the puppet master behind the stage and the hard truths too difficult to believe. Widespread fantasies of demons everywhere tormenting the overactive imagination should not be taken as evidence that demons do not exist. I believe that MindWar is a real thing and that Aquino’s dream of controlling all the means by which we perceive reality has been achieved. Therefore, when the media participates in stoking the hysteria of the Satanic Panic, as it did through shows like Geraldo and  The Oprah Winfrey Show, this might not be  an accident.  Hollywood was in on the act is well with a series of horror films, such as Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist.

If the overall effect of MindWar is to obscure and muddy the waters, discouraging serious investigation into allegations of SRA, then  we could easily conclude it has  succeeded. The whole episode damages our perception of what might be the real thing.

(c) Adrian Charles Smith 2026

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

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

For Those to Whom Adversity has Dealt the Final Blow

December 9, 2021
The Mary Ellen Carter

Whenever hope seems lost – never give up. Rise again! This is the message of a favorite folk song (which I have linked below).

Maritime Canada has a long seafaring tradition, which is reflected in its music. Stan Rogers’ “The Mary Ellen Carter” is an inspirational ballad about a ship which sank in stormy seas. For the owners, she was just an insurance claim; but for her devoted crew, those who knew her best, she was a beloved companion to be rescued from the ocean floor. Newly unemployed, they combine their strength, their skill and their resources to raise the Mary Ellen Carter from the deep.

No one experiences hardship more than those who go down to the sea in ships. In the video introduction, a sailor describes his ordeal in the cold North Atlantic when a fierce storm sends his ship to the bottom. Floating in the freezing water, waves crashing on his head, ready to expire, he finds the strength to sing himself back to life with the lyrics of “The Mary Ellen Carter”; and for him, this was the difference between life and death

The song is a message of hope for all those to whom adversity has dealt the final blow.

 No matter what you’ve lost be it home or love or friend like the Mary Ellen Carter rise again!

Christians can understand the mythic significance of rising from a watery grave in the baptism ritual and in the story of Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection.  When all hope seems lost, rescue is at hand. In an ancient Egyptian myth, Osiris, a murdered king, is brought back to life and restored to his throne; and likewise, those heroes of a thousand faces from diverse cultures –  suffer a descent into the underworld, followed by a miraculous restoration.

Mythology contains profound truths to sustain us in life. Novels, music, poetry and works of art which tap into these universal motifs have a special and enduring significance because there is a recognition from deep within our subconscious mind.

(C) Adrian Charles Smith 2021

A Hermetic Prophecy for Our Time

June 28, 2021
Image: Shutterstock

Ancient prophecies point to a time when the sacred will not be honoured, accepted, or believed in, thus generating chaos in a world “bereft of the presence of its deities” (Hermes). Materialism fills the spiritual void, causing disintegration, deception, crime, war, and environmental degradation. Their idols are their possessions, and their magic is technology; “they worship the work of their own hands” with no reverence for the mystery and wonder of the Cosmos.  The earth, with all its resources, is considered mere pre-production inventory, not a living presence or animating goddess (Sophia), worthy of reverence. Science and technology reinforce the paramount importance of production—we all have our parts to play, so that we might feel successful and receive approval, fulfilling our purpose as cogs in the great wheel of materialism. In the end, having done our duty, we are discarded like so many worn-out parts, no longer fulfilling any purpose or function.

In the tragic/comedy film “About Schmidt” a sense of emptiness in Schmidt’s retirement leads him to re-visit the office to see if he can be “useful.” Once there, he finds his entire life’s work  neatly packed in cardboard boxes on its way to the incinerator, as a new generation of middle management finds a better way. No, it really isn’t pretty what a world without pity can do.

As well as offering the only life worth living, the religion of scientific materialism even promises a kind of technological immortality, called, “transhumanism,” a vain belief which ignores an immutable law of the universe—entropy. Everything returns to dust, even the most sophisticated artificial life form.

And this leads me to the prophecies of the thrice great (Thoth) Hermes as delivered to his pupil, Asclepius, in the Hermetica:

Do you not know, Asclepius, that Egypt is an image of heaven, or, to speak more exactly, in Egypt all the operations of the powers which rule and work in heaven have been transferred to earth below?

Nay, it should rather be said that the whole Cosmos dwells in this our land as in its sanctuary. And yet, since it is fitting that wise men should have knowledge of all events before they come to pass, you must not be left in ignorance of this: there will come a time when it will be seen that in vain have the Egyptians honoured the deity with heartfelt piety and assiduous service; and all our holy worship will be found bootless and ineffectual. For the gods will return from earth to heaven; Egypt will be forsaken, and the land which was once the home of religion will be left desolate, bereft of the presence of its deities.

0 Egypt, Egypt, of thy religion nothing will remain but an empty tale, which thine own children in time to come will not believe; nothing will be left but graven words, and only the stones will tell of thy piety.

Darkness will be preferred to light, and death will be thought more profitable than life; no one will raise his eyes to heaven; the pious will be deemed insane, and the impious wise; the madman will be thought a brave man, and the wicked will be esteemed as good. As to the soul, and the belief that it is immortal by nature, or may hope to attain to immortality, as I have taught you, all this they will mock at, and will even persuade themselves that it is false. No word of reverence or piety, no utterance worthy of heaven and of the gods of heaven, will be heard or believed.

And so the gods will depart from mankind, a grievous thing!, and only evil angels will remain, who will mingle with men, and drive the poor wretches by main force into all manner of reckless crime, into wars, and robberies, and frauds, and all things hostile to the nature of the soul.

Yet, Hermes foresees an end to this Matrix and an escape from this “desert of the real” by a dramatic re-ordering of all things, “a new heavens and a new earth” as predicted in the Book of Revelation. Hermes calls it a “new birth of the Cosmos”:

But when all this has befallen, Asclepius, then the Master and Father, God, the first before all, the maker of that god who first came into being, will look on that which has come to pass, and will stay the disorder by the counterworking of his will, which is the good. He will call back to the right path those who have gone astray; he will cleanse the world from evil, now washing it away with waterfloods, now burning it out with fiercest fire, or again expelling it by war and pestilence. And thus he will bring back his world to its former aspect, so that the Cosmos will once more be deemed worthy of worship and wondering reverence, and God, the maker and restorer of the mighty fabric, will be adored by the men of that day with unceasing hymns of praise and blessing. Such is the new birth of the Cosmos; it is a making again of all things good, a holy and awe-striking restoration of all nature; and it is wrought in the process of time by the eternal will of God. For Gods will has no beginning; it is ever the same, and as it now is, even so it has ever been, without beginning. For it is the very being of God to purpose good.

In all corners of the globe, the remnants of ancient civilizations, much older and more advanced than previously known, speak of a piety and reverence for nature and connection to Spirit, which is almost incomprehensible to the modern mind. It is as though they occupied a parallel universe, one viewed by them in a manner which we can barely understand.  From the Great Pyramid of Giza to the living stones of Sacsayhuamán, their piety is written in the stones, some weighing 350 tonnes and placed with a precision that modern science has great difficulty explaining; and all this to honour the sacred and the divine. The production and consumption of endless “stuff” did not interest them; the cycles of the heavens and communion with Spirit did. For them, the veil between dimensions was thin.

In Cuzco, Peru, in 1589, Don Mancio Serra de Leguizamo — one of the last survivors of the original conquerors of Peru—wrote in the preamble of his will, the following:

“We found these kingdoms in such good order, and the said Incas governed them in such wise [manner] that throughout them there was not a thief, nor a vicious man, nor an adulteress, nor was a bad woman admitted among them, nor were there immoral people. The men had honest and useful occupations. The lands, forests, mines, pastures, houses and all kinds of products were regulated and distributed in such sort that each one knew his property without any other person seizing it or occupying it, nor were there lawsuits respecting it… the motive which obliges me to make this statement is the discharge of my conscience, as I find myself guilty. For we have destroyed by our evil example, the people who had such a government as was enjoyed by these natives.”

Leguizamo left all his worldly goods to help the Inca people.

Not all the New World was found in this condition, where indeed some tribes worshipped cruel gods demanding human sacrifice, but this was no more the whole story of indigenous culture than conquest and exploitation is the whole story of European civilization.  Every civilization, every tribe and every individual has a dark side or shadow, and in fact, the brighter the light the darker the shadow. Perhaps “the new birth” will be a coming together of all the tribes of the earth, the contribution of each elevating the whole.

 And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.

 And many people shall go and say, come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

 And he shall judge among the nations and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.(Isaiah 2)

The Hopi Indians had a word in their prophecies for a world of consumer driven madness, devoid of Spirit.  They called it Koyaanisqatsi.  Koyannis means “corrupted” or “chaotic” and the word qatsi means “life” or “existence.” The Hopi called it “crazy life” or “life out of balance.”  A documentary film of the same name presents this concept in artistic form and can be accessed by using the link below.  The film helps us to visualize ourselves encased in an artificial environment that has replaced the original. Nature is only a resource to keep the artificial world alive.

If we dig precious things from the earth, we will invite disaster (Hopi prophecy)

(c) Adrian Charles Smith 2021

Revelations on my Return from the Underworld

April 12, 2021
Shutterstock

It is Friday, April 2, in the year of our demiurge 2021, a Good Friday, as fate would have it. My wife and I have finished a meal of fish chowder and I am feeling good, except for a mild discomfort in my abdomen. The discomfort grows to an acute pain extending in an ever-tightening band from front to back. Sometimes the pain subsides, only to come back like the turning of the screw.

Hours go by without relief. I try numerous remedies, including extra-strength pain killers, but nothing helps. After 24 hours of increasing and unbearable pain and no sleep, I surrender to the inevitable and we call an ambulance. I know that a blocked bowel can be life threatening and that  sometimes cancer causes the blockage.  The bumpy road to the hospital provokes heavy vomiting and I feel better for a while but the pain soon returns.

At the hospital I am given morphine. Two nurses appear and, through the nose, insert a tube into my stomach. The tube won’t go through the nasal passage, causing even more pain. They tell me how sorry they are as they push harder, switching from one nostril to the other. I am moved by their compassion and their courage to do what is needed, however difficult. 

One more night without sleep, this time in a hectic, well-lit and bustling triage area. In the morning a surgeon appears, a black African of kindly disposition, notifying me of impending surgery. He tells me I am garnering a reputation in the hospital as a real troublemaker. I burst out laughing. I can still laugh. That’s good! Where there is laughter there is hope.

As I revive from surgery, that same kindly voice is telling me that no blockage was found despite the CAT scan results clearly identifying one. The surgery had been, in that event, only exploratory, a far less invasive procedure. I would next be given a camera pill to swallow, which will, in theory, work its way to the blockage and then stop, all the while transmitting images to technicians.

It is Saturday, April 3, and I am transferred from triage to the main hospital, a shared room with three other patients.  Sitting up in a bed across from me is the perfect image of General George Armstrong Custer. When Custer speaks, which is often, his voice carries halfway across the ward. He plays loud movies on his entertainment system and keeps complaining that he has no access to the Disney Channel. He constantly asks the nurses for help, but none of them are able to solve his technical problems.

Custer is in a really bad way, something he does not seem to realize. He gets in loud arguments with his wife and sons about when he is going home, but he requires 24-hour attention. His wife tells him, “I am really stressed out about it” but he keeps on minimizing the situation. He will live in the garage to avoid the stairs, he says. His wife starts to leave, wishing him good night. He starts talking again and she says good night one last time. The phone rings and it’s number one son. “Your mom’s mad at me,” Custer says. “She stormed out — didn’t even say good night!”

Custer plays his 3AM movies at full volume. The nurses tell him to turn it down. “I can’t hear anything,” he says. “Well, use earphones then!” Custer never surrenders. “They hurt my ears,” he responds.

So this is what it’s like, I find myself thinking, this descent into the underworld. I can’t sleep, I can’t eat or drink and if I bend my arm it sets off an alarm on the IV machine. All I can do is observe. I think of holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl. Everything is taken away from you, he says, except one thing — the power to choose your state of mind.  I close my eyes and let the situation be what it is.

My throat is sore and my mouth so dry I can barely speak, so the nurse brings me a cup of crushed ice, which I must administer sparingly to avoid the ‘no fluids’ order.  I am amazed at how much joy can be derived from a few pieces of crushed ice.

A young nurse visits me frequently, always asking, when she leaves, “Is there anything I can get for you?” I know there is nothing she can get for me and she knows it too but it’s her way of saying I care, I want to help. She has an elaborate tattoo on her forearm and hand, a pink and yellow floral pattern interlaced with light green vines. I come from a generation where tattoos were for merchant seaman and dockworkers, the flotsam and jetsam of the high seas, those who  frequented seedy, smoky waterfront bars in Halifax or Saint John. I could never understand why anyone would want a tattoo, least of all a young woman; but barely visible amongst the vines on her arm is this powerful word — LOVE. I am moved almost to tears. I could tell this gentle soul was born for this line of work. Her every instinct was only to help, to make things better.

How good it is to be wrong! Being right is so dreadfully overrated. How pleasant to observe one more foolish prejudice burned in the crucible of my own experience, this silly thing about women and tattoos. Being wrong can be liberating when it frees the slave from his own stupid opinion. Our capacity to get things wrong is simply enormous.

Saint Paul was chastened by his vision to not call anything clean or unclean. In his former life as a Pharisee of the Pharisees, he had been full of judgments and definite opinions.

I’m beginning to see gnosis as the end product of a process of refinement, the burning away of false judgments, erroneous thinking, and miscalculations to arrive at the pearl of great price.

I have had my bellyful of thinking I’m right, and old Custer is driving this home for me. I reflect upon the various Custer decisions of my life, and the lengthy postmortems in the wake of them. What’s the point of being right if it does nothing for the advancement of your own soul? Surely this is gnosis — nothing to do with correct doctrine. Gnosis is an epiphany. It moves you to your core. Who cares about being right or wrong?

An amazing thing happens after midnight on Saturday. The camera which is supposed to get stuck does not, completes its run without incident. On Sunday morning the order comes through: I may resume eating and drinking. Roxanne arrives later with a care package. It’s now Sunday. There will be more time in the hospital for observation, but the crisis is ending.

The surgeon tells me they do not know what caused my problem. There was no mistaking the CAT scan and blocked bowels do not unblock themselves, he tells me.

So there it is, three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, disgorged (discharged) at last – exhausted, chastened, but renewed. Could this be a metaphor for life itself? Our life’s experience exhibits an intelligence all its own, almost like a dream, full of hidden meaning. We have strayed too far from the centre of things, to a place of confusion and suffering, and now we are finding our way home aided by the deepest levels of the unconscious.

Hardly the Easter celebration I had in mind, but I emerge the better for it.

(c) Adrian Charles Smith 2021

War in Heaven

January 27, 2021
Image: Shutterstock

I sometimes wonder what it must have been like for Jews living in Germany circa 1935. As the storm clouds gathered, some must have thought, Let’s get out while we can. Others, however, would ignore the warning signs, labelling their more prescient neighbours as paranoid. Those others, much later as prisoners, were handed soap on their way to the “showers.” Even then, they may have continued to underestimate the peril.

History is a long, sad record of human imprisonment, punctuated by a few precious interludes of relative peace, prosperity and freedom. Do we delude ourselves that such imprisonment could never happen here?

 How thin are the walls which separate a well-ordered world from lurking chaos. (Carl Jung)

Now we face a “new normal” where civil liberties, the rule of law, democracy and privacy are threatened. We see before us the spectre of big tech censorship, robotics, AI, transhumanism, the singularity, total surveillance, a digital currency linked to social credit scores, and “the great reset.” Churchill described “a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime…”, one made more sinister by the technology of his day.  Technology has grown exponentially since then and we will soon reach the singularity, a point in time when exponential growth in technology takes on an infinite value. How much greater then the need for eternal vigilance in the defence of freedom?

Imagine a dystopian future where there is no place to hide, no place to flee. America used to be a beacon for the world, a place of refuge for “the huddled masses yearning to breathe free”. In medieval times one could always retreat to Sherwood Forest to escape the evil barons, but not now. The technocrats of the future will have us all flagged and tagged.

Both traditional Christianity and Gnosticism proclaim we are in a war – a spiritual war. If it is a war, then it is a “wizard war”, a term used by Churchill to describe the deciding factor in WW2, intelligence and counterintelligence. The Allies won that war because they cracked the German naval code, called Enigma after the device that created the code. “Intelligence” means knowing what is true in the face of overwhelming lies and secrecy. It means discerning truth from falsehood, looking beneath the surface of accepted narratives.

The Secret Book of John describes how the demiurge enslaves humanity: “His power is in deception leading astray.” Therefore, “If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.” (Descartes) Doubt all the soothing words of re-assurance by those who hide behind a mask of piety. Doubt the official line.

The demiurge is the great counterfeiter, the creator of virtual realities, a liar from the beginning and the father of it, as Jesus said; but “the truth shall make you free.” (John 8:32)

The big lie of the demiurge is that we are helpless and cannot resist. “Resistance is futile,” say the Borg. The truth, according to The Secret Book of John, is that we are more powerful than he and that his triumph depends on concealing from us the knowledge of our true identity. Gnosticism is liberation through gnosis or knowledge. Therefore, know who you truly are. The creative imaginative power of human intelligence is but an iteration of the divine creative intelligence which brings all things into being.

Holocaust survivor and author Victor Frankl (Man’s Search for Meaning) won his private war with the Nazis, but the weapons of his warfare were not carnal but spiritual (as the New Testament tells us). In the camp, “plum tasks” with perks and benefits were offered to inmates, in return for undisclosed assignments. Victor always refused these rewards because he knew a liar when he saw one. Beware the Nazi bearing gifts. Those who volunteered did not get what they bargained for and frequently did not return. Even at the end, as liberation approached, the Nazis said, come with us, we will take you to the Allies in return for clemency.  Victor refused to leave the camp in those final days. Those who accepted the offers were never heard of again. He survived the camp by refusing to believe the lies and by activating his divine creative intelligence in the pursuit of his own dreams; in his case, the completion of a significant academic paper.

The fight against the demiurge begins once we stop believing the official line. The demiurge and his archons depend, for their very survival, on our belief, our intention and our engagement with them. (Secret Book of John) We are no longer food for them when we turn instead to our own dreams and our own creation. This is how we win. 

The first casualties of war are the credulous.

“These are the days which try our souls”, says Thomas Paine. “Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.” (The American Crises)

© Adrian Charles Smith (2021)

Integrating Opposites II

January 14, 2021
Image: Shutterstock

This is a revised version of an earlier post.

We often experience the world as a struggle between competing opposites: conservative vs liberal, objective vs subjective, male vs female, right brain vs left brain, the inner life vs the outer life, the active vs the passive, and so on.

In the study and practise of Tai Chi I have observed a dynamic tension between opposing forces: advance and withdraw, rise and sink. After many years of diligent practise, you can master the rise without losing the sink or you can withdraw but remain a coiled spring prepared for the advance. Mastering integration ignites explosive power (Tai Chi is a martial art).  It’s not a question of rise or sink, advance or retreat; it’s more a case of rise and sink both happening together so fast as to achieve integration. The interaction of opposites could best be described as a marriage, not a binary choice or a conflict but integration.

A simple practical example will serve to illustrate. First assume a firm stance, left foot forward right foot behind at a 45-degree angle leaving a channel in between. Allow a partner to put his/her hand in the middle of your chest, exerting gradual pressure with a view to pushing you over. Try to stop him/her from pushing you over. The immediate instinctive response is to resist, rise to meet or push back. Note how easy it is to knock you off balance. Now try a different strategy. The more your partner pushes the more you sink into the push, a very counterintuitive response. It might take some practise but you will begin to notice how immoveable you have become. You are relaxing into the push and absorbing the energy of it, ready to give it back.  This is the power which arises from the integration of opposing forces. Alternatively, try pushing on a large tree or telephone pole as hard as you can. Then try it again while sinking into the push and note the difference. The tree or the pole may not budge much, but you can feel the strength in your push; moreover, the results are achieved with much less effort or strain. This accounts for the graceful effortless appearance of Tai Chi when the principles are internalized. Tai Chi integrates non-doing with doing. The Western mind has a hard time with the non-doing part. Chi is the lifeforce energy. The principle is — “energy follows intention.” The masters can exert great power with very little muscular effort by allowing the energy to do the work.  

Practices, like Tai Chi, foster the mind, body, spirit connection. A flexible mind fosters a flexible body and a flexible body fosters a flexible mind in a continuous feedback loop. A flexible mind and body fosters a flexible, open and non-resistant spirit, one open and receptive to an expanded state of consciousness. The Tai Chi philosophy seems to be reflected in the New Testament passage, resist not one who is evil.  The Tai Chi way is nonreactive. A constricted and contracted hose will not allow much water to flow.

Integration is the key but fundamentalists invariably identify with one pole or another creating an adversarial relationship between opposites. The totalitarian strategy of divide and conquer adds fuel to the fire.

From my office window, when spring arrives, I will survey a pleasant scene of forested hills, pastures slowly turning green, and below them, a vast expanse of wetland where ducks and geese are returning from their winter refuge. Soon our farm pond will come alive with tiny goslings and ducklings eagerly following their mothers. It’s a scene of perfect harmony which could not exist without a balance and reconciliation of opposites: death and decay vs renewal and rebirth. Neither should prevail over the other. Both work together for good and what we observe with pleasure is the outcome of integration. Likewise, the most beautiful paintings are a combination of light and dark.

In the latter part of my book, A Prison for the Mind, I identify postmodernism as a fundamentalist belief system, one which has become the prevailing orthodoxy of our time. One of the doctrines of this new religion is that there is no such thing as objective reality. This sets the philosophy on a collision course with Enlightenment principles – a worldview which asserts that there is an objective reality discoverable through reason and the scientific method. Enlightenment principles are summarily dismissed (by the extremists) as the product of a white male patriarchy, a view itself that’s overcome with bias. Here we see the battleground of the subjective (postmodernism) vs the objective (rationality). How can they be reconciled?

I didn’t get too far in my expose of postmodernism before I realized, yes, I too am a postmodernist; I only reject the counterfeit version, used wrongly for political purposes—to foster totalitarianism, censorship and societal subordination to a global technocracy. Nevertheless, we do not understand the world through reason alone and in this sense, I am a postmodernist. We have a left brain which is rational and a right brain which is artistic — the realm of the poet, the mystic, the musician and the painter. A whole person must function with both hemispheres without one dominating the other.

Image: Shutterstock

In the early part of my book, I identify personal experience (subjective) as the only thing we can know for sure and the inner journey as an avenue to certainty (very postmodern). Finding truth in the outer world is difficult because it’s like a carnival funhouse Hall of Mirrors. It’s hard to tell what is real and what is illusion. Observing the outer world, we are confused and unsure, and thus vulnerable to counterfeit offers of comforting certitude.

Here’s where I think the counterfeit version of postmodernism gets it wrong. I refer to a teaching story about a village of blind people trying to figure out what an elephant is. One holds the tail and says it’s a snake. Another holds the leg and says it’s a pillar, another holds the trunk and says it’s a hollow tube; but no one has the vantage point to see the whole elephant even with the use of scientific instruments. The extremists say there is no elephant. I say there is one but difficult to discover (difficult but not impossible). If there was no elephant, then nothing would be objective and therefore nothing in the outer world could be described as true or false. If nothing is true, then science has no place, there would be no such thing as a lie and research would be pointless (i.e., no truth to be found).

You can have your own subjective insights without imposing them on others or using them to ignore verifiable facts or lobbying to have your subjective perceptions enshrined in law. All these things the faux postmodernists attempt. Subjective and objective must walk hand in hand, recognizing their respective spheres of influence. A police officer might follow a hunch or rely on intuition (subjective) to solve a murder but a conviction can only be upheld by evidence gathered and proven in court. Many scientific breakthroughs began as dreams or flashes of insight but these must also be subjected to the rigours of the scientific method.

The great mathematician Ramanujan, from Madras India circa 1915, with almost no formal education, claimed that the Hindu goddess Namagiri would appear in his dreams, delivering mathematical insights, which he would write down when he awoke. He described one of them as follows:

While asleep, I had an unusual experience. There was a red screen formed by flowing blood, as it were. I was observing it. Suddenly a hand began to write on the screen. I became all attention. That hand wrote a number of elliptic integrals. They stuck to my mind. As soon as I woke up, I committed them to writing.”

The Cambridge University mathematician Godfrey H. Hardy, who worked with Ramanujan,  said that if mathematicians were rated on the basis of pure talent on a scale from 0 to 100, he himself would be worth 25, J.E. Littlewood 30, David Hilbert 80, and Srinivasa Ramanujan 100.

When Ramanujan first arrived at Cambridge he insisted that his mathematical insights just came to him or were dictated by God (subjective) but professor Hardy, recognizing his genius, worked with him to provide objective verification based on principles acceptable to the scientific community. This was a very fruitful partnership. The word genius comes from the Latin word of the same name, meaning, “guardian deity or spirit which watches over each person from birth” or “innate ability.”

We become much more effective as a result of integration and the world is more peaceful place without the either-or mindset of fundamentalism.

The amazing life of Ramanujan was made into a feature film, The Man Who Knew Infinity, which I highly recommend. (See Recommended Viewing section for movie trailer.) It is so inspiring to watch the two camps, the logical and the intuitive begin at odds but end in harmony.  Reconciliation of opposites is needed now, more than ever.

(C) Adrian Charles Smith, 2021

Gnosticism & the Divine Feminine

November 9, 2020

In the early centuries of the Christian era, different attitudes towards sexuality emerged in gnostic and orthodox circles, opening a great gulf between them over what it meant to be a Christian. The orthodox community began to accept the domination of men over women as divinely ordained in social life, family life and in the churches. Orthodox churches accepted as genuine the pseudo-Pauline letters of Timothy, Colossians and Ephesians, where “Paul” insists women are to keep silent in the churches and to remain obedient and submissive to their husbands. In the orthodox gospels, the Saviour ordains Peter to commence an unbroken line of apostolic succession. Jesus says,  “upon this rock (Peter) I will build my church”; but in the gnostic gospels of Phillip and Mary Magdelene, any successor would surely  have  been Mary Magdelene and not Peter; for it was Mary Magdelene who was Jesus’ most intimate companion, one who received from him special teachings. The rest of the disciples, especially Peter, were deeply offended. The Gospel of Phillip reveals the rivalry between the male disciples and Mary Magdelene.

“— the companion of the Saviour is Mary Magdelene. But Christ loved her more than all the disciples and used to kiss her often on her mouth” ; and herein lies, in symbolic terms, the basis of gnostic spirituality, arising as it does from joy, passion, romance, ecstasy, celebration, love and intimacy – the lifeforce itself. In such a setting, doctrinal correctness and obedience to authority cannot inspire or command loyalty. This is why authoritarian structures go to such great lengths to suppress the divine feminine.

For the early orthodox Christian Church, true believers were identified by external criteria, first and foremost – acceptance of Church authority and doctrine. For gnostics, however, Christians were identified by an ecstatic union with the Divine, for which romantic love is but a metaphor. By embarking on the inner journey in solitude, we are introduced to all the world in an amazing correspondence of experience as though each individual, on his own, has tapped the same vast reservoir of gnosis.

George Orwell’s classic work, 1984, reveals the antipathy of all authoritarian structures to the notion of romantic love, which was outlawed in the fictional Oceania where Winston and Julia must conceal their romance, meeting only in secret.

But they were caught and found guilty of “sexcrimes”, which in Newspeak meant the sex act performed with love and passion. The only authorized version was “goodsex”, which meant sex for reproduction only, with no pleasure. After their torture, the lovers could meet openly because they no longer had feelings for each other. They freely discuss their “sexcrimes”, “thought crimes”, and other “treacheries.” No need for the Party to keep them apart any longer. As for Winston, the war with Eurasia was now his main concern. No place at all for his own dreams, like falling in love or fleeing to the country.

This ecstatic union of souls is depicted in the music and poetry of the medieval troubadours. These worshippers of love touched the depths of the collective psyche. The word “troubadour” was derived from the French trovere which meant “to compose” but also “to invent” or “find.” Any instructor of art would want his student, as soon as possible, to sing his own song or write his own poem. The empire, however, does not react well to individual expression.

Mythologist Joseph Campbell writes, “Love was a divine visitation, and that’s why it was superior to marriage. That was the troubadour idea.” Society seeks to manage passion within certain bounds to serve societal purposes, a stabilizing influence with the man as head of the household, his wife and children under control, a microcosm of the empire itself. But true romantic love cannot be managed or contained.

To further emphasize the schism, Sophia, the goddess of wisdom, is central to gnostic mythology, but in the orthodox community, the divine feminine existed only as a weak and watered-down version of both gnostic and pagan mythologies.

According to gnostic myth, Sophia, goddess of wisdom, strays far from the Pleroma (the fullness of God), but without Divine sanction and in the absence of her male consort, the Christ. Sophia cannot help but create, so in her great distress, she gives birth to a flawed, lesser deity, called Yaldabaoth (demiurge), who with the divine light received from his mother, creates material reality, an imperfect refection of the higher realms.  Both Sophia and human beings are now trapped in the false reality of the demiurge and his Archons (rulers).  Sophia herself is embodied in the living earth but the flawed nature of the demiurge is also woven into the fabric of creation. Sophia repents and God takes pity on her by tricking the demiurge to breathing Sophia’s light into the human creation. 

His mother’s divine power left Yaldabaoth. It entered the psychic human body. Yaldabaoth’s demonic forces envied the man. They had given their power to him. His understanding was far greater than that of those who had created him. And greater than that of the chief ruler himself.

(The Secret Book of John, Stevan Davies translation, pages 105-107)

Human beings now have the pivotal role in Sophia’s restoration.                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

Gnostic scholar, Dr Joanna Kujawa (visit Recommended Viewing/Reading) encourages restoration of the divine feminine as essential to escaping the false reality of the demiurge. Mary Magdelene is yet another version of Sophia, as are the ancient goddesses, Inanna, Isis, Ishtar and Persephone. According to Dr Kujawa, all these goddesses are portals between life and death, ignorance and gnosis. We see, for example, Mary Magdelene present at the tomb of Jesus, co-incident with his resurrection. The feminine is our portal into this world and our portal between this world and the next. Sophia is the goddess of resurrection which, metaphorically, includes the transformation of consciousness while we are alive. That transformation takes place through an expansion of consciousness, not possible when operating with the left-brained, male-dominated, linear mind alone. The linear mind is perfect at organizing life on the material plane – building hierarchies, empires, bridges, spaceships; crucial to the work of police detectives, paramedics, plane crash investigators and when arguing in court. But it can be inflexible, fear-based, contracted, limited in vision, clinging to the status quo; and preferring the hard nosed “desert of the real” to the fluidity and uncertainty of the transcendent. The divine feminine, by contrast, is based on love, intuition, comfort, joy and when “perfect love casts out fear”, we are free at last from the confines of our mental prison.

A contracted fear-based consciousness perceives a world which really is not there. An expanded open consciousness will see “a new heavens and a new earth” which was always there but not perceived.  It is the goddess which will cleanse the doors of our perception.

This is confirmed in the gnostic texts and reiterated by the romantic poets.

The kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth, but you do not see it (Gospel of Thomas)

According to the Secret Book of John, “human beings erroneously believe they are embedded in a material world when in fact they are spiritual beings, and the material world is not really there at all.”

 (Stephan Davies Annotation page 106)

Likewise, the poet Wordsworth, recalls his early childhood bliss but laments the gradual loss of an elevated level of perception.

“There was a time when meadow, grove and stream the earth, and every common sight, to me did seem apparelled in celestial light, the glory and freshness of a dream”

These early childhood memories of the celestial realms are soon crowded out by the cares of this world.

“Heaven lies about us in our infancy! Shades of the prison-house begin to close upon the growing boy.”

(Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood By William Wordsworth)

By contrast, another of the romantics, William Blake, sees the work of the demiurge in nature.

Tyger Tyger, burning bright, 
In the forests of the night; 
What immortal hand or eye, 
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

What the hammer? what the chain, 
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp, 
Dare its deadly terrors clasp! 

When the stars threw down their spears 
And water’d heaven with their tears: 
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
(The Tyger by William Blake)

Nevertheless, in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, he also emphasizes our perceptual limitations.

“If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.”

(William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell)      

This is reminiscent of Plato’s cave dwellers, sitting with their backs to the cave entrance, seeing only shadows on the wall and mistaking this for reality.

A few years ago, I had a powerful dream more significant to me now than it was then. It was one of those dreams, more real than real with an enduring impact. I am paddling my kayak along canals in what appears to be an ancient city. The water is still and calm, the canals are straight, meeting at right angles. The buildings are imposing, made of large granite blocks and tall Corinthian columns. But there are no people around and the environment feels sterile. I make a turn into one canal where the water is flowing, albeit slowly. Soon the scene changes dramatically, as I battle a raging torrent in a breathtaking natural environment. Everything around me is now alive, wild water and towering waves, forest, fields and mountains; but I am very afraid.  Soon, however, I feel a strong reassurance that I cannot die, and this allows me to go with the flow. Fear turns into exhilaration as the waters form a luminous blue and white tunnel all around me. At the end of the tunnel is a bright light.

Could this have been the goddess opening a portal and providing the comfort and re-assurance to enter it?  In retrospect, I think so, and this was her message – trust, allow and surrender.

(C) Adrian C. Smith 2020