Esoteric pedagogy for those who outgrew the academy but not the search.
Wanting Leads to the Wrong Life Our default state is wanting. Most of our activity can be summarized as: This quadratic hell is what I call the wrong life — the quintessential, out-of-Alignment exsitence. Why? For the very reason that wanting is not necessary. It is not as if you will become an inert object …
Understanding the Metaphysics of Paganism: Beyond Monotheistic Reduction The metaphysics of paganism has been consistently misrepresented by monotheistic traditions as primitive or philosophically inferior. This claim rests on a fundamental confusion between the Absolute Principle (Brahman, the Tao, Guénon’s “Supreme Principle”) and a personal creator God. What monotheism presents as theological advancement represents, from the …
Read more “The Metaphysics of Paganism: A Traditional Defense of Polytheistic Philosophy”
Traditional spiritual texts—scripture, sacred poetry, metaphysical treatises—were written in a language modern readers no longer speak. Not Sanskrit, Arabic, or Greek, though learning these helps immensely, but the language of symbol, correspondence, and multiple simultaneous meanings. The contemporary mind, trained by literalist fundamentalism on one side and materialist skepticism on the other, approaches these texts …
Read more “Occult Literacy: Reading Esoteric Texts Without Getting Lost”
Gurdjieff’s higher centers—the dormant emotional and intellectual capacities beyond ordinary consciousness. Learn why they don’t function and how to activate them through Fourth Way practices.
When modern seekers encounter traditional spiritual texts—the Upanishads, the Yoga Sutras, Plotinus’ Enneads, the Tao Te Ching, Sufi poetry—they often experience one of two responses: either the texts seem impenetrably obscure, or they seem deceptively simple. Both responses signal the same problem: the reader lacks qualifications the text assumes are already present. Traditional teachings were …
Read more “Underground Study Groups, and What Traditional Texts Assume You Already Have”
The field of consciousness studies presents itself as the cutting edge of interdisciplinary inquiry—neuroscience meeting philosophy, psychology engaging contemplative traditions, the bridging of Eastern wisdom and Western science. Its practitioners speak of “neurophenomenology,” “contemplative science,” and the “hard problem of consciousness” with an air of profound discovery, as if generations of materialist reduction have finally matured into …
Read more “Against Academic Consciousness Studies: The Epistemological Fraud of Profane Inquiry”
There are no Conflicts The so-called conflicts you’ve read about in history books or experienced with the people around you are merely unfoldings of what is. Conflicts have no ontological weight. Opponents also do not exist. Conflicts only exist internally. Holding on to internal conflicts — seeing parts of unfolding as “conflict” — only weakens …
Read more “Conflicts aren’t Real: The Parasitic Concept of Opposition”
The End of Struggle Efforts are not the expenditure of energy — they are the misuse of energy that leads to fatigue and inauthentic action. The need for effort is an obstacle placed by the sense of importance. Contrary to the mind-worm’s logic, efforts are not necessary. In fact, whatever you think requires effort can …
Read more “Efforts are Unnecessary: The Vestigial Faculty of Discipline”
We first used the carrot and stick on donkeys— indeed, the life of an ass is nothing more than being motivated by reward or punishment. However, humans have made themselves to be more asinine than their four-legged counterparts. The donkey is at least free from the carrot and the stick while its master is away. …
Read more “Carrot and Stick: The Vestigial Faculty of Self-Assification”
The Polypsychic Being Part I — Origins of the Idea of Many Selves In the early twentieth century, Russian philosopher P. D. Ouspensky and his teacher George Ivanovich Gurdjieff introduced a psychology that still feels ahead of its time. They began from a simple observation: a human being does not think, feel, or act as …