The Secret Magdalene

Men and women will forever make gods of others rather than see the god in themselves.

In the Beginning there was Nothing, which can be thought of as 'dazzling darkness' or Absolute Mystery. This is the singularity before all thought and all things, which is called Temu. Temu came even before the shapeless void which the Greeks name Chaos and the Egyptians call Nun. Temu cannot be Consciousness because Consciousness needs something to be conscious of. It cannot even be said to exist because what exists does so within Consciousness. Temu is unknowable. Temu is unthinkable. Temu is beyond being. But by some way not even the most sublime of philosophers can yet say, came from Temu the First Idea, named by some Logos, the unknowable knew itself by becoming both known and knower. And thus was created duality, as in, the witness and the experience, the God and the Goddess, Consciousness as the witnessing God and experience as the Goddess Sophia. The First Idea is that Temu is conscious of itself, being the One Soul of the Universe that is conscious through all beings.

Only priests and politicians benefit from a people's ignorance.

Beliefs are the masters of the world, and all masters are tyranical

There is nothing that is not God. It follows then, that it is not his Mind that moves all things, for we are not separate, but ‘our’ Mind.

Five hundred years ago, the Greek philosopher Xenophanes wrote, ‘There is one God, always still and at rest, who moves all things with the thoughts of His mind.’ In this year, I, the philosopher Seth, mathetes of the philosopher Philo Judaeus, teaching my favorite students in Alexandria, would add, it is not that there is one God but that God is One, meaning All There Is.

A man who gains control over the rain can surely gain control over sin, which is merely a word for error.

I tell you that philosophers are those who dwell in the cosmos as their city. I tell you that philosophers are an international brotherhood. They are the select of the earth and it is their duty and their joy to raise up those who are not philosophers.

The Buddha taught that life is filled with suffering, and that suffering is caused not by a thing outside the self like a demonic serpent, but by the self in the form of desire.

And then we see the library. Ten huge marble halls filled from floor to ceiling with books, every book that has ever been written. And everywhere scholars come from all the corners of the world, reading and writing and discussing and teaching. Oh! There is no describing the joy of this for such as Salome and myself. It is a great feast, a feast of the gods, and we are favored guests. I cannot imagine choosing another life.

The secret of the inner Nazorean is to place no blame, nurse no guilt, seek no redress, harbor no hatred, follow no Law, suffer no priest, and look not to an angry arrogant god, or to a messiah, but within for knowledge of Source.” At my stricken face, he softens. “As I love you, John, do you not yet know the still, small voice that sounds within? That the secret is to listen and by listening to hear? You are the secret. Know yourself and you know the All.

This path turns out to be much as the commandments of Moses, but being only eight in number seems more understanding of a human heart. I like best, “to intend to resist evil.” I am charmed by the word intend.

Salome quivers with what I call a lust to know more. As do I.

By this, I am reminded of something I have read in Plato’s work, “Each pleasure and pain is a sort of nail which nails the soul to the body.

What have your people taught you of Adam and Eve, John?” Hearing my name over the pounding rain and the crashing sea, I blurt out, “That the serpent was Satan who causes all suffering.” “By this,” shrieks Joor, “since the serpent represents Wisdom, you are told that wisdom is bad and therefore ignorance is good. But good for whom? Only priests and politicians benefit from a people’s ignorance.