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Christian historians often give the impression that Europe's barbarians welcomed the new faith, which held out a hope of immortality and a more kindly ethic. The iimpression is false. The people didn't willingly give up the faith of their ancestors, which they considered essential to proper functioning of the earth's cycles. They had their own hope of immortality and their own ethic, in many ways a kinder ethic than that of Christianity which was iposed on them by force. (p. 760)

Psychonautics Navigator

A personal note: Having lived in Europe for a good many years, and visited many of the sacred places of Paganism, I have reflected long and hard on the problem of communicating the true nature of Paganism to people of our time. The greatest obstacle here may be the failure of historical writing to tell the extraordinary story of how Paganism was eradicated. This involves explaining how the indigenous culture of Europe was destroyed by Europeans themselves. Centuries before small bands of Europeans set out to ravage the rest of the world and to enslave and decimate untold millions of indigenous peoples, a small percentage of the European population had already perpetrated the same evil on their own people. From the 2nd Century CE onward, converts to Christianity who allied themselves with the political structures set in place by the Roman Empire proceeded systematically to destroy the indigenous culture of their own world. Starting with the persecution and massacre of Gnostics, and the closing of the Mystery Schools where Gnostic taught, the perpetrators of European cultural genocide extended their efforts to a general purge of anything and everything Pagan.

• Morality is based on honor, not obligation.
• The ideal of nobility as humanitas, not a superhuman model.
• Rejection of the belief in the redemptive value of suffering.
• Love for truth as knowable in human terms.
• Empathy with locality and the resident spirits of place.
• Respect for esthetics, the unity of form and function.
• Recognition of character influence in moral education.
• Good deeds are non-prudential, done for their own sake and not for how they reward the doer. (See definition of prudential, below.)
• The human soul is animistic, able to morph into many forms.
• Empathy with nature is the basis of religious experience.

preceptive belief
Upcoming

preemptive belief
Upcoming

Piscean Age A period of cosmic timing, calculated by precise astronomical (not astrological) factors, believed to be marked by a cultural-spiritual signature, or Zeitgeist ("sprit of the time"), comprising the the themes of transcendence, change of fate, and guidance.

Easily mistaken for a astrological fantasy, the Piscean Age is in fact a concept supported by hard astronomical evidence. It belongs to an overall scheme of World Ages based on the real-sky Zodiac, a timeframe encompassing 26,000 years. Two steps are required to set up this scheme: establish how the Ages are to be measured, and determine the extent of each Age.

By an ancient rule whose origin is unknown to any scholar, the Ages are defined by the passage of the spring equinox through the constellations of the Zodiac. There is no need to guess the timing of any Age, because they can all be calculated with relative precision, given that we have established proximate boundaries for those constellations. The spring equinox shifted from Aries, the Ram, into Pisces, the Fishes, around 120 CE and will remain in the Fishes until about 2800 CE. The extent of the Piscean Age is about 29 centuries because the constellation of the Fishes is exceptionally long. Other Ages are of different durations. The Age of the Ram (Aries) lasted from 1850 BCE to 120 BCE, an extent of 1730 years, more than a thousand years shorter than the Piscean Age that followed it.

It is one thing to define the world Ages in astronomical terms, it is quite another to explain the fantastic beliefs attached to this scheme. The pattern of the World Ages is a vast bafflement to scholars, but on thing is certain: the primary themes of the Piscean Age really do fit the historical trajectory of the Age. Change of fate, transcendence, and guidance - these issues have become exceptionally problematic for humanity since the dawn of the Common Era. The exact moment of transition into the Age can almost be identified by the year of a single historical event: the discovery of precession by the Greek Astronomer Hipparchus in 127 BCE.

A huge, unresolved argument surrounds this historical detail. Most scholars insist that precession could not have been known before Hipparchus computed it, working from data provided by a predecessor, Timocharis. This is the party line, even though there is massive evidence that precession was known before Hipparchus. The rare scholar (such as Jocelyn Godwin) now refers to the rediscovery of precession by the Greeks. (Arktos, p. 162,. See the review of this book in orientation reading.) We are looking here at different ways of writing history, one which credits the ancients with profound astronomical knowledge, and another which denies them such knowledge. Consistent with the view of Godwin, I refer to the public (or, if you will, profane) disclosure of precession by Hipparchus.

How is this arcane issue pertinent to the Piscean Age? Well, first of all, it seems a rather significant coincidence that precession, symbolically denoting a shift in the astral fixation of human fate, came to be revealed with the dawning of the Age. And came to be revealed, let's note, in the context of a starry timeframe. From the realm of the fixed stars that determine human fate (so the ancient world believed) came a piece of information that would change humans' conception of their fate. This is already a catchy, self-referential proposition. And there is more.

The themes of a Zodiacal Age can be inferred from the mythological material associated with the constellations (technically, this is called sidereal myth). They can also be inferred from an overview of the historical trends of the Age, in cases where such trends can be identified. For instance, during the Arien Age (1850 - 120 BCE) historical developments in the Western world were largely effected by two related factors: the writing of the Old Testament which establishes a Father God as the source of moral authority, and the rise of Greek science. These developments occurred in parallel , timed closely to the shift of the spring equinox through the stars composing the face and horns of the Ram.

Reader Be Warned: : I do not claim that the astronomical shift caused these developments, merely that it coincided with them.

From this historical-astronomical parallelism we can infer that the Age of the Ram (Arien Age) was marked by the theme of male authority in matters of morality (Mosaic Law) and knowledge (Greek Science). The effects of these Arien trends were far-reaching. For all centuries thereafter, Biblical dogma and scientific law have been closely associated. Both desacralize nature. Both elevate male ness to to the highest level of authority. Both assert the monopoly of men over all matters concerning control of the social order and domination of the natural order.

Every Age carries its problematic themes. We are still far from seeing a resolution to the problems that emerged in the Arien age, namely, the scriptural-rational legitimation of patriarchy. Yet we are living out the final centuries of the Piscean Age, a long, distended eopch that entrains its own set of probems - or challenges, if that sounds any better. I noted above to the self-referential trick of this Age, its opening cue: the signal to change fate comes from the starry realms where fate is signed and sealed. Guidance can be inferred as a theme of the Piscean Age, because people who are set loose to pursue their personal destinies will be in need of guidance.

However, there is another self-referential trick in the works here. The scheme of the World Ages was considered to present a program for guiding humanity over the long term. At least this was how it was viewed, and applied, by the teachers in the Mystery Schools. In each Age humanity faces certain lessons, challenges, opportunities and setbacks. Initiated skywatchers who could follow the timing and seers who could interpret the tests particular to each Age worked together to guide humanity in accordance with the progression, as they understood it. Such, at least, is the explanation offered by various occult teacherrs of the 20th century, most notably Rudolf Steiner and Schwaller de Lubicz.

Now, if there is any truth in this grandiose historical fantasy, the dawn of the Piscean Age must have been a moment when initiates in the Mysteries were lookiing hard at how to deal with the emergent problem of self-concern. And they were facing a double whammy, because their mission was to guide (using the Zodiacal timeframe as their hermeneutic structure, if you will), but the game was changing. In the Piscean Age the process of guidance becomes problematic. Here again is the self-referential cue: the spiritual guides of humanity, who used precession as a view-finder for their long-term vision of human cultural evolution, were challenged to revise their program to meet the needs of an increasingly self-obsessed species. Face to face with the intesnity of self-concern, what solutions did they consider? (It's worth noting, by the way, that the word "consider" derives from the Latin con-, "with," and sidere, "stars." Originally, to consider something was to place it with the stars, to view it in the context of the stars.)

Well, the question obviously spills beyond the limits of this Lexicon entry, but I will offer a suggestion, by way of playing into other entries. In a genial twist, some initiates proposed, rather than to guide humanity according to the age-old programs of initiation, to teach it to be self-guiding. Now there's a plot-line for a story yet to be told. The plot thickens if we imagine that some other initiates deferred from this proposal because, in their view, the human species was not capable of self-guidance. Hence there was a split among the guardians of the Mysteries, a division of opinion concerning the moral and mental capacities of humankind. This is all a fantasy, of course, with no historical basis to it. Or is it?

Intrigued readers may follow this tentative plot through other entries, particularly Spiritual Masters and Hierarchy.

play impulse defined by Schiller, explored by Huizinga. The price of progress seems to be a loss of time for play, even a loss of the ability to play.

Pleroma Greek, "fullness, completion, whole " equivalent to the Sanskrit Purna, "wholeness," a term used in Tantric texts for the ground state of all that exists. Pronounced Plair-ROAM-ah.

In Gnostic metaphysics the Pleroma is the Godhead or Urgrund, the primal ground. In Buddhism this is Shunyata, "Voidness," often wrongly understood as emptiness or nullity. On the contrary, the Void is a fullness that cannot be further amplified or increased; hence a "plenum void." Buddhism emphasizes that the Void is uncreated, so there was never a time when it did not exist, nor did it come to be at a particular time, or over a period of time. The Void is Eternity, the simultaneous presence of all moments. It is both timelessness and the absolute fullness of time. It is both the infinite expanse of space and no space, no location. All language is inadequate to describe the nature of the Pleromic Void.

The Gnostic Pleroma is conceived as both unitary and plural. Its structure—if one may speak of the Urgrund having a structure—consists of a central grounding presence, the Originator, and a set of dynamic powers, the Generators or Aeons. There there is one God and a company of Gods in the Pleroma. This mysterious arrangement is evoked in the opening passage of the Gaia Mythos.

Throughout Metahistory.org, I extrapolate Gnostic mythology by equating the Pleroma with the central bulge of our galaxy, while at the same time proposing that they are many Pleromas, as Gnostic teachings assert. Hence a Pleroma is a center of a galaxy, not the center of the Universe in its totality. I would not presume to say what or where the center of the Universe, the totality of galaxies, is, but based on current astronomical research I can confidently say that the center of the galaxy we on Earth inhabit is located about 26,000 light-years away in the direction of the constellation of the Archer. The exact point of the galactic center is not known, and cannot be known, because it is a region rather than a point-source. Estimates put it at 27-8 degrees of the Zodiacal Sign Sagittarius, or 267-8 on the Ecliptic.

In the mythopoetic description developed for the Gaia Mythos, I propose that the center of the galaxy is a vortex of mass-free, high-porosity light, including black light. These are Organic and Superorganic Light, respectively. Insofar as it can be described in terms comparable to anything we know, this light is a substance like foam from a fire-extinguisher. The eruption of Pleromic Light is compared to an overflowing wellspring in Gnostic texts. It is intensely and immensely animated and alive, sentient, aware, and possessed of intention. Massive self-aware currents in the core light field were called Aeons in Gnostic cosmology. I am convinced that Gnostic seers were able to contact the galactic center, stand in the torrential currents of Organic and Superorganic Light, and download signals from the Aeons. Those who did so were called "the immovable race" for their ability to take in the streaming of cosmic information and remain steady, without melting away into ecstatic mindlessness, or lapsing into hallucinations or fantasy.

Gnostics recognized a three-level capacity to transceive Pleromic Light. At one level, the adept attunes to the presence of Aeonic currents operating within the natural light of the Earth's atmosphere. At the next level, he or she attunes to the streaming of Aeonic currents from the galactic core into the Earth's atmosphere. At the third level, the adept transceives directly from the galactic core where the currents originate. Different information (I prefer to say "signals) arise at each level. The seer who is able to attain and sustain attunement at all three levels was called Trimegistus, "Thrice Great," a title for the supreme heirophant in the Egyptian Mystery Schools.

One of the leading innovations of the reinvented Gnosticism in this site is the assertion that Gaia is not merely a name for the living Earth, but a way to address the self-aware intelligence of the planet. We can call Gaia by name, just as one pronounces the name of a beloved person. Yet the trick here is not to personalize Gaia in doing so. Gnostics taught that Sophia was a divine presence united with Earth but whose origin is beyond and before the planet itself. "Thrice-Great" initiates who stood in the Pleromic currents were able to communicate directly with Sophia within the atmosphere of the Earth, for She is the sole Pleromic Aeon accessible in such a manner. This is not an extravagance I am inventing but a mystical reality to be explored and tested.

Gaia-Sophia Navigator

preceptive belief: states a form or rule of behavior that preclude learning from experience because it imposes behavior with a preassigned value. Preceptive beliefs are stated in the form of aphorisms and commandments.

Example: "The meek shall inherit the earth".

Preceptive beliefs are compounded by the reflex belief that following the prescribed behavior makes one a better person, wins favor in the eyes of God, saves one’s soul. In some religious texts, the result to be achieved from the practice of a prescribed belief is textually stated (see textual belief), but more often it is asserted by reflex belief.


preemptive belief: formuated in such a way that the language used to state it precludes or short-circuits any attempt to question it.

primitive As an adjective, literally, that which belongs to the origin, the beginning or the primal conditions. As a noun, in routine usage, a person who exhibits crude moral traits and a level of intelligence below the norm for "civilized" folk; hence a brute or savage. In metahistorical usage, a person who realizes the primal or original essence of humanity. Discussed in Children of the Damned. Entry in development. See also future primitive.

propagation: the usual method of presenting beliefs: stating the belief with the intention (unstated or otherwise) to impose it. The most common procedure for spreading religious beliefs.

In fundamentalist creeds, those inducted into the system are told what to believe. At the very most, it could be said that they are taught what to believe, but the teaching, such as it is, follows the imperative of telling. If you are being told about a belief, you can be quite sure that you are being told to believe it. Not asked, told. This holds true of beliefs scripted in political stories, and in familial and sexual scenarios, as much as it does in the case of religious inculcation.

For beliefs to endure and be carried from one generation to the next, they must be propagated, although the process works better if it appears that the acceptance of the beliefs is free and voluntary. Propagation carries a double impact, because recipients of beliefs adopt them in the belief that they are doing so of their own free will. Recent studies in the psychology of cults indicate that cultic indoctrination depends upon what has been called the “myth of voluntarism.” (Singer, 73ff) Inductees subject to brainwashing (more properly called “thought reform”) come out of the process convinced that they have actually chosen by free what they have in reality accepted under pressure and manipulation. Robert Jay Lifton, the foremost psychologist of cultic behavior in the USA, has even argued that beliefs acquired in this manner, just because they were not chosen yet are believed to have been, are more difficult to change than beliefs acquired by a process of reasoning and deliberation.

If mass-scale religions do indeed exploit the same techniques of control and manipulation as cults ­ and this is the growing view of experts in the field ­ then it is little wonder that these belief-systems continue to exert massive influence over the minds of millions of people.


proposition: suggested term for an option to imposing belief: rather than stating a belief and insisting that it be accepted, one proposes a belief for consideration. The proposition of a belief leaves the mind free to assess it, modify it, and eventually accept or discard it. This is rarely the case, for beliefs of all kinds are routinely propagated rather than proposed.

Beliefs are most effectively propagated through stories, because narration is vivid and memorable and, if necessary, it can conceal the belief being imparted. Stories that propagate beliefs exist by the thousands. They are the operative media through which families, nations, cultures and religious systems perpetuate themselves and recruit new members. Stories that propose beliefs are altogether more rare. They belong largely to the realm of fiction and the cinema.


prudential: term applied by Walter Kaufmann (The Faith of Heretic) to a system of morality that rewards those who adopt it, even if they do not practice its tenets. (This recalls the vocation of law in which attorneys collect their fees whether or not they win a case.)

Kaufmann specifically cites the Judaeo-Christian ethic with the comment that neither the Old Testament or the New know the meaning of a deed done for its own sake. In prudential morality, a deed is performed for the good it will bring to the doer, for instance, for the salvation of the soul by God. By contrast, pagan morality encourages the performance of noble and honest actions for their own sake, rather than as a means to an end. (The best-preserved summation of the pagan morality is found in the Meditation of Marcus Aurelius.)

psychonaut "One who navigates the psyche." Term proposed by Ernst Junger, German writer-researcher on psychoactive chemicals, and colleague and friend of Albert Hofmann, who discovered LSD. Jonathan Ott uses a derivative noun, psychonautics, and the adjective, psychonautic.

The relevance of psychonautics to Gnosis is self-evident. I have proposed that Gnosis in its genuine, pre-Christian form, was the theory and practice of noetic science. Hence, the equation psychonautics = psychonoetics. Gnostics did not call themselves such, however, for gnostikos was intended as an insult, meaning "smart ass, know-it-all." They called themselves telestes, "those who know the goal, telos." In the Mystery Schools where Gnostics comprised both the faculty and the directing body (comparable to a "college of deans"), the goal of training and teaching was to produce culture from illumined knowledge. Gnostics sought initiation, and transmitted is to others, so that they could consecrate themselves to the higher education of humanity.

Dedicated to the Magna Mater, Gnostics initiated their neophytes into the mysteries of Sacred Nature, but they directed them to apply what they learned through illumination in the realm of culture. Hence the graduates of the Mystery Schools were the educators of the classical world. They taught in all areas essential to culture-building: mathematics, geometry, music, astronomy, architecture, medicine, etc. Each of the Mystery Schools was the matrix of many guilds in which non-initiated people were trained. The last flowering of this system occured with the construction of the Gothic cathedrals in the 12th century, but the idea that the "trades" have a sacred, initiatory origin persisted into later times. (The Grand Place in Brussels, not far from where I write these words, in unique for its display of iconic art pointing to the initiatory origin of the trades. Many books have been written on the esoteric symbolism of its decor.)

It is always necessary to distinguish between the result of initiation and the telos, or purpose. (I originally pointed out this distinction in The Seeker's Handbook, published in 1991.) For the Gnostics of antiquity, the result of initiation was the attainment of God-like faculties or siddhis (hence "deification," a term which has been grossly misinterpreted), but the pupose was to apply these faculties to teach culture and guide human society. While profoundly rooted in mystic adoration of the Goddess, the adepts of the Mysteries looked to the human world for their self-assigned mission.

I believe that the situation for psychonauts today reverses the norm of antiquity. The trend of illumined experience today is away from culture and back to Sacred Nature. It is a return to the Goddess whom we now know as Gaia. Living in an insane society, modern psychonauts cannot be aimed toward engendering culture where there is neither the intelligence nor the inclination to accept it. That would be pointless, if not suicidal. (The life of Antonin Artaud is a case study of such a mistake. One of several that might be cited.)

By contrast, cybernauts believe they are involved in the most advanced aspects of culture, and disposed toward the decisive culture-making activities of the future. Many cybernauts take drugs (as distinguished from psychoactive plants) and then log on to computers, or strap themselves into virtual reality gear, believing that they are exploring the far reaches of the universe. Even though most of what is said about the potential for informatics to dominate the human world is pure hype, the belief in the hype is self-fulfilling — if one can describe psychosis and disembodiment as types of human fulfillment. Cybernetic fixation may be the endgame script for our species, the way we write ourselves out of the Gaian narrative. Hence, the fundamental contrast to be seen between psychonauts and cybernauts: the former are heading away from culture and back into the matrix of the Earth Mystery, while the latter are heading into the cultural void of the Artificial, the zone of the Archons.

As Dale Pendell says in Pharmacopoeia, "Despite fractals and logarithmic roses, plants don't grow in cyberspace."

Navigator for Psychonautics