Atheism and Ligotti

I have noticed that many of Ligotti's works seem to presuppose a non-theistic, materialist worldview despite the supernatural elements that many of them contain. It seems very clear to me that Ligotti is an atheist (or strong agnostic, which is, in practice, pretty much the same thing, though whether he would label himself this way is debatable). This is particularly evident when reading TCATHR, which seems to assume that the reader already assents to such a view. For me, this seems obvious, and being of a similar mind in such matters, I had not really given it much thought. However, it has recently occurred to me that this could be part of the reason why his works do not speak to many people the same way they speak to me. In a similar way, Lovecraft was also an atheist (very clear in his writings; though he was explicit about it and even wrote an essay saying so that has been reprinted in several anthologies of antireligious writings), and perhaps this 'feature' of his writings and worldview is why it took so long for general recognition (which is still by some accounts incomplete).

In contrast to my perspective, one of the highest profile Ligotti-philes is David Tibet of Current 93, who apparently now identifies himself as a Christian. This would seem to contradict what I have just stated, although Tibet's 'Christianity' seems to be very different from most others who self-identify as Christians.

This made me wonder whether or not others here approach TL's work from a similar perspective as I do, or if there is a diversity of religious viewpoints in those that appreciate his writings. Anyone care to share?

I also am, to use your term, a strong agnostic. Based on what we know of the universe, I think that atheism is the most reasonable conclusion; but over-confidence in the current state of human knowledge (impressive as it is) hardly seems to be warranted, so my view is agnosticism-leaning-toward-atheism rather than atheism pure and simple.

I’m not happy with this view of things because, although literal Christianity gives me the the willies (it would be like living in a “celestial North Korea,” as Christopher Hitchens aptly puts it), it seems intolerable to me that we’re all just dying animals and that everything we ever do is ultimately for naught. It would be nice if there were some sort of benign transcendental order, but I don’t see any reason to think there is.

This gloominess separates me from some “movement” atheists who seem concerned to put a happy face on atheism; this may be a political need, a public relations need, but it doesn’t necessarily follow from the philosophy of atheism. I don’t doubt that some atheists are cheerful people, but I think this is more a matter of temperament than anything else. I have never been severely depressed, just frequently anxious and glum -- also a matter of temperament rather than philosophy. If I were a religious believer, I would no doubt be a glum, brooding believer, as some people are.

I have noticed that a number of Thomas Ligotti’s appreciators are religious believers, and I suspect they are believers of the melancholy, brooding type rather than the relentlessly-cheerful type. Some of the greatest religious writers in history have seemingly taken relish in describing the awfulness and intolerableness of the human condition; they think they have an otherworldly ace up their sleeve, and this may psychologically enable them to be more honest about the hard truths of human life than secularists who don’t fall for religious myths but can’t stand to be without this-worldly myths of their own (such as human goodness, inevitable political progress, and forthcoming technological “fixes” for all these problems). My own favorite this-worldly myth is the value of the arts and of intellectual pursuits such as philosophy and science, and I’m also somewhat optimistic about technology, although I probably won’t see any wondrous transformations in my lifetime.

I’m still thinking about these matters, trying to come up with a tolerable modus vivendi. After all, if one isn’t going to off oneself (and I’m not – again, a matter of temperament), then one might as well live as happily as one can. One of the benefits to me of reading CATHR is realizing that pessimism is a matter of degree. Call me a coward or a pragmatist: As pessimistic as I am, I don’t follow that road all the way to its end. Unlike Thomas Ligotti and Peter Zapffe, I’m quite willing to live in denial much of the time, and I think that much of what we do in these states of denial is of value, at least ephemerally. I can’t handle living on the knife-edge of psychological angst and clear-sighted terror all the time. But I can’t even begin to convince myself that religion is true, either. So I’ll have to make do (as all of us do, even the religious, and even Thomas Ligotti, I suspect) with smaller and more mundane consolations now and then as I can.

Wow. This was longer and more personal than I intended, but I guess I’ll post it anyway. Also, I don’t wish to offend anyone with the views expressed above; I understand that others have different opinions; I’m just explaining what I think.

I consider myself a fairly strong agnostic, and appreciate Ligotti from this perspective. For me, religious uncertainty only enhances Ligotti's horrors. Though I also found myself appreciating a lot of TCATHR, Ligotti's fiction always struck me as containing the most shocking suggestions of human existence and supernatural facets beyond.

I suppose on a personal level, I share an understanding of the Ligottian melancholy. Like gveranon, I can't go all the way in strongly embracing this 24/7. However, I do understand it since I have long kept a dour-leaning view of existence. And I'd imagine a good deal of Ligotti's admirers tilt in this direction too, religious beliefs notwithstanding.

I am an atheist. Certainly one of the reasons, but not the only reason, that TL's work appeals to me is his dark vision. I am also curious to know the religious demographic that composes Ligotti's readership. Robert M. Price, another skeptic who knows a little something about religion, made the observation: "Virtually all of the fiction of Thomas Ligotti enshrines and presupposes a very definite worldview." This was the first line in his essay "The Mystagogue, the Gnostic Quest, the Secret Book". I would agree that Ligotti seems to be an atheist, but he has made a few statements that hint at the possibility that he thinks there is something evil behind it all. I'll try to find a few later.

This is actually an interesting time to be an atheist. The current wave of "New Atheism" (I dislike the term, but that is what everyone is calling it) in the best selling books by Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, etc. has brought a great deal of discussion to the forefront. Youtube has excellent lectures by the above named authors. Check out the Beyond Belief Conference in 06, the Atheist Tapes, and Atheist debate. (Not the one with Kirk Cameron! If you watch that, you'll never forgive yourself.)

I am a news junky when it comes to this subject, especially the stealth creationism movement of Intelligent Design. I have even read a few of their books: Darwin on Trial by Philip Johnson and The Design Revolution by William Dembski. Their main concern is not with the truth, of course, but with the implications of scientific materialism that strips away life's meaning and the special place of humanity in the universe. ID was completely defeated in the Dover Trial a year or two ago. PBS just released the program "Judgement Day: Intelligent Design on Trial" available to view for free on their website.

I call myself a Buddhist but I delve much more into the practice and disciplines then into the mystical or historical aspect. I find much merit in the works of Chogyam Trungpa (despite his prediliction for showiness and strong drink). These works relate the way that ego works in the mind and how most of what we do that we call spirituality really only feeds the ego. The simplest form of meditation is to watch the breath. Through this simple act we begin to actually observe the workings of our minds and how prevalent and dominating our thoughts are. The idea is that if you do this persistently over a long period of time the thoughts you think have much less power over you. I'm still in the learning stage and my thoughts are still stumbling blocks to my growth and awareness.

However, for most religion I am very turned off by the idea that if you invest your money and effort into this vague thing - belief - dogma - call it what you will - that you will be accepted into heaven - but only if you follow OUR rules - don't you dare look into other beliefs or practices.

It is a curious thought to ponder on the Buddhist idea of realms - specifically hell realms - not quite as absolute or horrifying as the christian version - just someplace you spend a little time in - that maybe the place we're in right now may be a hell realm.

Man - sounds like a Ligotti story!

alec...

I am a student of religious and esoteric practices. I travel through them as a means of discovering aspects of this, so seeming, distinct human phenomena. Currently, the closest thing to my personal path is Left Hand Path Chaos Magic(k). Only a fool fails to realize that the world is made of symbols and all things end in mystery. As Ligotti said, we are the mystery making machines. As Willy Wonka said, we are the music makers and we are the dreamers of dreams. It is our lot, it is part of the reason we are not given the truth, to find what we will come up with on our own. Even if there is no such thing behind it.
I believe Ligotti to be a kind of shaman, whether he knows it or not, but I think he does. I present "The Order of Illusion" in Noctuary as evidence. I found it to be every bit as filled with magickal learning and occult knowledge as anything being written on the subject today. The same is true for "The Prodigy of Dreams" and really I could list several more.
Yes, maybe it is all worthless, but to who? I mean if there's nothing out there anyway, then who are we? To me, to say it is worthless and do nothing about it, is to give up your right to "Godhood". But to realize it is worthless and attack it with all your vicious wondering, that is the path of true rebellion. Creation is a blight on the purity of the void, as the void is a carbunkle on the ass of what came before it. There is no out of here. Nothing I have personally seen, says you get to leave.
I deal sometimes with anti-cosmic current thinkers who see the cosmic order as the limiter of potential and wish to return to a state of mystery or develop isolate consciousness. Not to become one with "god", but to become "god". While I do favor the individual over the group, I'm not sure it can be done, but I'm glad someone thought of it! And I love Ligotti's and Zapffe's 'pessimistic' viewpoints. With all they struggle to make low, they only serve to discover a deeper stratum of preciousness in things.
On a last note, what has brought me to the path (words are often inadequate)I'm on seems, of course, fatalistic. However, it does seem I am able to manipulate my environment through seemingly unrelated actions, which seems to reinforce the idea of the connectivity of things. This is actually represented in some new(ish) physics and hologram theory. A whole in every part. Change the part to change the whole.
And then we have Corporate Culture, the inheritors of the hermetic traditions. The rulers of today have the benefit that no other rulers have had in all of history; the accumulation of knowledge of all the rulers in history, along with the knowledge of their court magicians. All their corporate magic, positive thinking and neuro-linguistic programming.
The brain does not remember words as such. It records everything in a series of pictograms. Therefore, concepts such as sacred geometry (the shapes that make up all things) or sigilization (the fundament of modern chaos magick as put forth by A.O. Spare) seem particularly relevant in a material world, where most action revolves around acquiring, creating or trading things. They put their logos out there, specifically designed to appeal to you at an other than fully conscious level.
And, after much experimentation, the conclusion is that I seem to be able to do it, too. I am currently werking on shaping the future of some future persons who will be influenced by my impending ART, manifesting through occult film.
And if you were of mind, you could take a statement of desire, remove all vowels and repeating letters and turn what remains into a magickal symbol (sigil)and see what happens. Or you could devise your own system of magickal practice and ritual and pray to gods who are only aspects of you and of us all and explore what it means to be that and see what happens. I bet something will. So what does that mean? And so I can do magic, so what? Eventually, it comes down to "what do you want?" Then comes "How bad do you want it?"
So I ask you, what do you want? If you see nothing, but a cardboard facade propped up against a sham of reality, that's wonderful, I'd love to hear about it. If you see nothing, but rainbows and sunshine and kittens smiling at you as you pass by everyday of your life, that's terrifying, and I'd love to hear about it and what it means to you. I myself refuse to stop creating creations and dreaming dreams and honoring the gods of the mythos that lives within me, even if they are only a Doll's gods, a puppet's gods. Lord of the Living Effigy.
So please, continue to create, and I will be happy to praise and mock you for it, staring at you with my eyes spinning like mad marbles, all the while trembling with wonder.

Sin cerely,
Arthur Cullipher
The Black Ferris
Clockwerk Pictures

Omnia exunt in mysterium.

Mr. TBF, although you declare yourself to be an occultist, it seems that you have embraced an outlook which both mocks and emulates the more traditional. Adopting a different system of beliefs and practices strikes me as more of the same, especially the ritualistic aspect. Religion is religion is religion, is it not?

From a cathedral of Doghood,
Rover

Indeed, Rover.
des

Spotbowserfido2 said:

Religion is religion is religion, is it not?

Rover

Click to expand...

Well, in the sense that the word, 'Religion' is a woefully inadequate word to describe a huge range of belief structures yes. Christianity is not Buddism is not Haitian Voudon is not Atheism is not Jainism is not Left Handed Chaos Magick is not Wicca is not Islam (etc etc) though. But yes, Rover, it seems you're right in what TBF is getting at if in a bit of an excitable way. Maybe because he's found a new way of looking at the world (born again in a sense). Bit dated though. Really TBF, Chaos Magick? What is this? The 1980s!!

Wow! Strange that I was checking this thread to see the answers to Adam's original question...
(This made me wonder whether or not others here approach TL's work from a similar perspective as I do, or if there is a diversity of religious viewpoints in those that appreciate his writings. Anyone care to share?)
...and I find that people are more interested in picking apart my beliefs. Which is fine, although I had no intention of doing the same to any of you. However, the door has been opened, so let's see what's inside.
"Mr. TBF, although you declare yourself to be an occultist,"
Only because of the question posed. Actually, I said I am a student of religious and esoteric practices.
"it seems that you have embraced an outlook which both mocks and emulates the more traditional."
This is true. That is what children do. I am a child in a foreign library, starving for knowledge, desperately attempting to read books written in languages I do not yet understand.
"Adopting a different system of beliefs and practices strikes me as more of the same, especially the ritualistic aspect."
Perhaps. Certainly when you study enough of them, at their core is a central theme. And there's usually a snake, a tree and a woman, responsible in some way for bringing us into the duality of existence. And in each there is the dual path. Either creation is beautiful and from "God" (it's just a metaphor, don't get uptight) or creation is horrible and is from "The Devil". And in each of those, there is the argument of which is which. However, the major point of what I'm werking with as far as ritualistic aspects go, is that there is a machination at work here and if you tinker with some of its subtler aspects, you can make things happen in your life. Just as if you tinker with the physical. A "spell" is only a gathering of related objects in order to appeal to a psychological archetype. Be it a prayer or an incantation or a sales pitch or a work of art, a spell is a spell is a spell.

"Religion is religion is religion, is it not?"

"Well, in the sense that the word, 'Religion' is a woefully inadequate word to describe a huge range of belief structures yes. Christianity is not Buddism is not Haitian Voudon is not Atheism is not Jainism is not Left Handed Chaos Magick is not Wicca is not Islam (etc etc) though."
I see this as sort of like saying all art is essentially the same. Of course, all art is either made from some animal, vegetable, mineral or some concocted amalgum of those substances. But how many different things can you make with them?
"But yes, Rover, it seems you're right in what TBF is getting at if in a bit of an excitable way. Maybe because he's found a new way of looking at the world (born again in a sense)."
Thank you for not putting one of those winking symbols at the end of your sentence when you're mocking me. I appreciate it.
" Bit dated though. Really TBF, Chaos Magick? What is this? The 1980s!!"
It's not the 1980s!?!?!
Actually, as previously stated, it is only the closest thing to what I am doing. Is there some new millenial magic I should be aware of? Yes, I'm following in some footsteps, but I'm also following ways that are overgrown, untrodden, underexplored or unfinished altogether. That's what I'm doing whether you think me foolish or not. But I am not afraid to appear foolish.

I am also a juggler, a father, a fire performer, a stage magician, a Dollmaker, a filmmaker, a published author, a special effects artist, a telemarketer, a betentacled horror movie host, a clown, help run an international independent horror film festival, and love to eat #####. I have a lot of vices.

If you'd like to comment negatively on any of those things, feel free.

However, I understand how sad it must be to think the puppet show is so boring and your puzzle book is too hard and not at all what you wanted for your birthday. But perfect voids are expensive and I just couldn't afford one for you this year.

I didn't mean to upset you so.
So now, back to the original question?
Would anyone else care to share THEIR "beliefs"?

Sin cerely,
The Black Ferris

TBF, your points are well made and well taken. However, the concept of Chaos Magick seems rather akin to another's notion of "the power of positive thinking." Is it really necessary to work so hard when a little fantasizing will do the same trick?

The Black Ferris said:

Would anyone else care to share THEIR "beliefs"?

Click to expand...

I believe in serendipity within nothingness; the synchronised shards of random truth and fiction.

I believe in the Intentional Fallacy and I note, in this context, your mention of what you infer from some of Ligotti's work above.

I try for not believing in anything. That's probably more pretentious than anything anyone else has said on this thread, I admit!

I happen to have been enthused today by this (in hindsight: amazinglyserendipitous) quotation from Lawrence Durrell: The Avignon Quincunx - THE NIGHTMARE NETWORK

MY APPENDICES:
Fiction as religion: Fiction as 'religion' - THE NIGHTMARE NETWORK
Magic Fiction: Magic Fiction - THE NIGHTMARE NETWORK
On The Hoof: ON THE HOOF - THE NIGHTMARE NETWORK

The Black Ferris said:

"But yes, Rover, it seems you're right in what TBF is getting at if in a bit of an excitable way. Maybe because he's found a new way of looking at the world (born again in a sense)."
Thank you for not putting one of those winking symbols at the end of your sentence when you're mocking me. I appreciate it.
" Bit dated though. Really TBF, Chaos Magick? What is this? The 1980s!!"
It's not the 1980s!?!?!
Actually, as previously stated, it is only the closest thing to what I am doing. Is there some new millenial magic I should be aware of? Yes, I'm following in some footsteps, but I'm also following ways that are overgrown, untrodden, underexplored or unfinished altogether. That's what I'm doing whether you think me foolish or not. But I am not afraid to appear foolish.

Click to expand...

Hi TBF.

Sorry if my comments came over as mocking or condescending in any way. It honestly wasn't my intention but i can certainly see how they were taken so. I was being a bit cheeky and playful. Should have posted a smiley perhaps. To be honest i actually agree with a lot of what you wrote about in your initial post. I too would sometimes describe myself as an occultist and was heavily involved with chaos magick 10 or 15 years ago although i wouldn't call myself a chaos magician now. I'm also very good friends with some of the people who were around in the early to mid 1980s in Leeds who developed and kickstarted the whole chaos magick thing (i'm actually married to one of them and very close friends with another whos books i'm pretty sure you've read) so the 80s thing was about that. The born again joke was about your way of writing about this stuff which is hugely enthusiastic and excitable and reads like someone who has just discovered the greatest thing ever and wants everyone to try it out. Happens to everyone who plays about with this stuff enough to actually realise that a lot of it works. Good for you. Anyway, sorry again for posting a bit flippently and coming across as a bit of an arse. I'll try and come back here and post a bit more about my beliefs etc and hopefully we can get some other interesting threads going that are relevent. I too am a big admirer of Spares work and system and while i don't class my self as Left Hand path i have been practising various forms of Tantra for 6 years or so which maybe interesting to talk about.

Belief is only a tool, one of many, for getting what you want out of life. I work hard because I love to. Fantasizing is a lovely necessity. However, I am not content unless I am making something, taking something with limitless potential that I cannot describe to you and boxing it into form and substance so that we may discuss it. I am enthusiastic and a bit excitable, particularly about art/magic/existence, but not for the newness of it. Perhaps I am an optimistic pessimist. I go on dancing in my puppet show, watching others dance, hoping there's an audience, knowing there's not, but dancing anyway.
And I never claimed it wasn't like positive thinking, my point was more that positive thinking, in that sense, is essentially a spell. Imagination is the greatest tool we own. No human structure would exist without it, especially if we are only imagining we exist.

Sin cerely,

And the Durrell quote is beautiful. And, yes, serendipitous.

The Black Ferris said:

...However, I am not content unless I am making something, taking something with limitless potential that I cannot describe to you and boxing it into form and substance so that we may discuss it. I am enthusiastic and a bit excitable, particularly about art/magic/existence, but not for the newness of it. Perhaps I am an optimistic pessimist. I go on dancing in my puppet show, watching others dance, hoping there's an audience, knowing there's not, but dancing anyway.
And I never claimed it wasn't like positive thinking, my point was more that positive thinking, in that sense, is essentially a spell. Imagination is the greatest tool we own. No human structure would exist without it, especially if we are only imagining we exist...

Click to expand...

This brings up a couple good, if unrelated, points. For one, isn't art both creation and destruction in unison, the forcible transformation and colonisation of a previous state into that of one's own vision? Is it not true then that all action, including stasis, is a form of art? Furthermore, is it possible to live and not think? Not in the sense of higher thought, but in the matter of which even an amœba or a tree "thinks", "feels"?

I digress.

Personally, I am an agnostic, and frankly, I'd love to be so blissfully assured as someone highly religious. Unfortunately, my overly contemplative and inherently empathic/just nature do not permit me. The former forces me to question such structures and rituals without end, while the latter regards the lack of perspective and brutality-cum-haughtiness of many religions to be very upsetting.

Speaking of which, around the time of the tsunami in Southeast Asia, I had a bus driver who was an evangelical Christian. In his mind, the catastrophe was his god's retribution for the lack of born-agains in the area. To be honest, were I not so stunned, nor so courteous (or feckless), I would've decked him. What, beyond his assurances, gave him the right?

Then again, in an equally bleak, albeit less prejudiced light than this man's, one might say that these escalating natural disasters, reckoned by super-genius scientist Richard Lovelock to reach their climax in 2040, are nature's just response to us as a viral species. We've overstayed our welcome, and we shall be culled... Run.

One of the best/coolest things Osho ever communicated to me was that beliefs simply cover doubt. Otherwise we either know things or we don't -- whence this necessity to believe? But I still have beliefs, I suppose that becomes obvious even after you've relinquished the more blatant ones. Well, one can criticize faith, but, as for God etc., I think many people these days are (being translated) simply saying, "I think this or that is probably true; it's my best guess and I'm going with it."

That way you don't need to admit to belief. Perhaps, in any case, it is what you decide to "go with" does the harm.

Back in about 1985 I fell in love with a bumper sticker I saw which said, "Believe in Peace." It was such a lovely thought for my New Age self... Maybe now I would have it say "Hope for Peace," but it sounds like something gets lost. Before that, in the Christian world I was taught to speak with the tongue what you believed or wanted to believe, that that would bring the power of God into any equation and manifest the fulfillment of your desires/needs. That one didn't really work in my life, for the most part. Nothing worked.

These days, I'm sure that what TL has to say figures in my adoptive "beliefs." My dark guru.

One guy has a YouTube video to atheists telling them to check out Alan Watts' autobiography, In My Own Way. I've loved Watts but in the past few years haven't connected much to what he says. However, I obtained the book and started in. Stopped halfway, due to precious little in the way of ear-tickling philosophy or whatnot, maybe just his approach to his own story. But I picked it up again recently after practically resigning myself to pessimism, and just now it's starting to hit me pleasantly enough to finish reading. This is about the time he quit the Episcopal priesthood. Somehow, even as a tantric or zen-type guy, it's like he can see the same things TL or other like minds see, yet it doesn't much bother him. He's not bound up in existential angst. I know exactly what he's talking about, but when I was like that I THINK I suspected there was something fairly unexamined keeping me afloat. It could be that since reading almost all of TL (and not only him), I'm perceiving more just what that might be. And it comes down to beliefs, strangely enough...

Is it not true then that all action, including stasis, is a form of art?

Order falls, fear reigns...It is just how the wheel turns...Chaos is the only thing real...but then is it? Couldn't categorized chaos be order? misplaced order chaos? Real/unreal....live with it or die....what does it matter...What are we but marionettes dancing in the masquerade...forever lost. Chaos is empty. People place their fears in the gap. And they see disorder where there is nothing.

- Timothy Sutter, on alt.discordia with a response from alt.slack (21 Aug. 1996)

I would ask the question "who's art?" In the (however futile) struggle of the individual will, it is a matter of the illusion of originality, an appeal to an archetypal nostalgia that has twisted itself into a neophilic performance. If I create it, is it mine? The age old question of how important the artist's intentions are in relation to the interpretation and enjoyment of the art.

The idea of someone waiting in a room in a state of stasis and malaise, waiting for the end, waiting for something that never comes and waiting still, has a beauty and surreality to it that appeals to my gothic sensibilities. But who is the artist? The sitter? Those who instilled the sitter with the want to sit? The room and its trappings? The malaise? Yes?

I have a story about a woman, so in love, who was told to wait in the swamp for her lover. A lover that would never come. And She (Mz. Mirelda) is waiting there still, her hair like yarn tangled with moss, her nails long, thick and curling, lichens growing upon her legs.

She is afraid to leave for what she will find that it means.

I have another about a man who passes by a rolled up carpet, seen just inside the remains of and old shack. Passes by it everyday, wondering if perhaps it holds a hidden treasure or if there might be a body inside and just what happened to them? He wonders, he imagines, but he never looks. One day the carpet is gone.

His fear kept him from knowing and that lack of knowledge will haunt him throughout his life.

And at the point that you have read this little story, you have become the artist, the god. You could tell him exactly what is in that carpet, where it came from, where it went.

Is experiencing the art the same as the art? Is it art if no one experiences it? What references of guideposts would I give in order to be certain that those experiencing the art had at least some idea of the artist's intent?

Were I to werk artmagic upon them, perhaps I would instill a sense of synchronicity, co-incidents, deja vu or some other modus weirderandi that would help the viewer to see the strings attached to the puppet.

And that is the art that affects us, the one that resonates. So, too with philosophy, which is just more of the same. And you only "believe" it on a superficial level until an encounter with the Weird tells YOU it is true.

I'm not sure how I got here.

Blah, blah, blah.

Sin cerely,
Arthur Cullipher
The Black Ferris

Omnia exeunt in mysterium

(Upon reading this essay) it occured to me that some readers might take it as a justification for inactivity on this particular level. The old, "never mind what's happening now, things will be great in the afterlife, in heaven, on another planet, etc." This may be fine for the christian slave or whatnot, but it is hardly sufficient for those who are driven by that strange need to create, to attain. Only through progression through the multitude of evolutionary levels can one go beyond, and it is by ones actions here and now that this progression is made.

Hiram Gordon Wells

One more time from the beginning. One more time until the end.

"The first stage of seeing through the game can be a shocking enlightenment that leads either to a weary cynicism or Buddhism. The second stage of actually applying the insight to oneself can destroy the illusion of the soul and create a magician."

Peter Carroll


Yeah, it's just stuff.