Guidance Towards Enlightenment

Minds too narrow

Fear a shadow.

Minds enlightened

Are not frightened

of the truth.

They accept proof

Of danger.

They act to ensure

It will not injure.

They endure doubts

When necessary.

They separate

Certainty

From ambiguity.

What do you do?

An enlightened mind

Separates the personal from

Personifications.

How do you distinguish between myths, legends and biographies?

How do you address the problem of evil?

How clearly do you distinguish between fantasy and fraud?

Who has provided you with guidance towards enlightenment?

Who are you guiding towards enlightenment?

What do you know about the Natural History of Pliny the Elder?

What do you know about Apelles? 

What do you know about ekphrasis?

What do you know about narcissism?

What do you know about the legend of Faust?

What do you know about the work of Botticelli?

What do you know about Barbara Radziwiłł?

What do you know about Pan Twardowski?

What do you know about the séance dispute between Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini?

What do you know about the real Johann Georg Faust?

What do you know about the Historia von D. Johann Fausten and its influence on The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe and Faust, Part One and Faust, Part Two by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe?

What is your acquaintance with demons, devils, gods, saints, angels, Satan, Lucifer, Beezlebub and Mephistopheles?

What do you know about the deadly sins in relation to deals with the devil?

What is your acquaintance with damnation? 

Perhaps you have crossed at least one devil's bridge. 

Perhaps you have occasionally met a devil at a crossroads.

Perhaps you have studied the history of strange ideas.

Perhaps you are familiar with the Gespensterbuch and/or the French translation containing it, Fantasmagoriana.

Perhaps you think many fantastical stories continue to arise from Renaissance magic.

Perhaps you think many fantastical stories continue to arise from the minds of bullies who claim to be religious.

From the point of view of historical accuracy, all books and other documentation should be regarded as sacred.

All knowledge should be regarded as sacred, including knowledge of various cultural practices and thought processes, especially the thought processes of influential people.

Far too many people have been encouraged to destroy the recorded expressions of minds, including their own minds.  It is as if they want to destroy souls as well as egos.

Anything soul-destroying is evil.

Anyone destroying evidence of a soul is practicing evil.

Much destruction occurs not (only) through expressions of the singular, first-person pronoun but through mistaking the plural, first-person pronoun for personal morality.  In other words, through following the crowd, or at least the persuasive yet misguided influence of a particular person or group, people lose their personal morality and act destructively.

In his old age, the fictional Faust made the mistake of believing that people with seemingly simpler lives are happier than sophisticated scholars.  He also thought life itself had passed him by, even though he was highly respected.

How have you developed your self-concept?

Real witches, the wonderful ones, know that many academics, politicians, business people, bureaucrats, and all religious bigots, sexual harassers and bullies, have made Faustian bargains through expressions of egocentrism and cruelty.

Egocentrism, like narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism, prevents empathy.  That is why egocentrism usually leads towards egotism unless altruistic insight occurs.

Real witches do not follow crowds or megalomaniacs or anyone else.  They uphold personal morality in the face of many threats to it.  They know that enlightened self-interest and ethical altruism must be carefully balanced in every experience of life.

You may already be aware that solipsism and egoism cause much suffering in the world, as does collective narcissism.

How has your self-concept been shaped by centuries of persecution, forced assimilation, language death, ethnocide, ethnic cleansing, and cultural genocide?

How do you reflect upon the meaning of selfishness?

How often do you define yourself in terms of being different from other people?

When have you explored codices, and other historical documents and artifacts, to identify similarities between peoples and cultures across time?

Real witches have deeper insight into the truth than most people do.  That is why they continue to be persecuted everywhere.

For example, real witches know the difference between a poison and an allergen.

Real witches also know the difference between images and reality.  Unfortunately, Faust did not.  That was his tragedy.

How well do you distinguish between eternity and ephemerality, the permanent and the temporary, the continuing and the transient, the healthy and the unhealthy?

Many practitioners of health care in previous centuries are likely to have been murdered as witches.  That is especially likely to have been the case when physical responses to their medicinal preparations have included anaphylaxis.

How do you compare grimoires with prayer books and herbals?

What do you know about medieval theatre in Western Europe?

What do you know about paganism as it was practiced in the past and continues today?

How do you define the pagan, the heathen, the barbarian, the unruly, the philistine and the witchy?

How do you define the ordinary or otherwise unexceptional?

How do you define the eternal feminine, and from which cultural perspective?

How do you define the eternal masculine, and from which cultural perspective?

How do you compare the Western world with the Eastern world?

How do you compare and combine yin and yang?

How do you usually think about the human condition?

Perhaps you are like Faust or Mephistopheles.

Perhaps you are like Gretchen at the spinning wheel or the King of Thule.

Perhaps you are like Simon the Sorcerer and other practitioners of simony and bribery and other inappropriate commercialisation.

Perhaps you are like a sheep, following a flock mindlessly.

But how do you attempt to find true mindfulness, if at all?

What do you know about rationality and rationalism, and their limits?

What do you know about problems associated with rationalisation?

What do you know about problems associated with major depressive disorders?

How do you distinguish between ordinary and quite normal experiences, such as boredom, sadness and loneliness, and the experience of mental illness?

How do you attempt to overcome feelings of boredom, sadness and loneliness?

What do you already know about the fundamental forces of nature, and how did you acquire that knowledge?

What do you already know about the fundamental forces of politics, and how did you acquire that knowledge?

How do you attempt to overcome feelings of anger?

Perhaps you practice mindfulness as a way to cope with feelings of powerlessness and righteous indignation.

Perhaps someone in your life, or possibly even most experiences and perception of cultural practices, lower your mood and prevent you from enjoying life.

Perhaps you mostly experience a low mood and a lack of pleasure in life as a consequence of earlier and/or ongoing psychological trauma.

Perhaps your mood has been persistently depressed for much of your life.

Perhaps your feelings of powerlessness are associated with experiencing a major depressive disorder, directly or indirectly.

How do you feel when thinking about Faust and his decisions?

How do you feel when thinking about the Rosetta Stone, the Behistun Inscription and the stone of the philosophers?

How do you compare base metals with debased practices?

How do you compare precious metals with the expression of higher principles?

How do you compare the story of Faust with the Epic of Gilgamesh?

What do you know about sacred mountains and sacred bulls and cosmography?

What do you know about representations of ideal proportions of and around the human body and the ideal proportions of and in cities?

What do you know about the essence of Western culture in terms of science, religion and esotericism?

What do you know about the essence of indigenous cultures in terms of knowledge, ethics, aesthetics and metaphysics?

What do you know about the essence of Eastern cultures in relation to Mount Meru?

You may be aware that the elixir of life and the fountain of youth have been sought within many cultures. 

You may be aware that many cultures use prayer beads.

Some cultures use worry beads, worry stones, stress balls or meditation balls.

Perhaps you have sought rejuvenation in various ways.

Perhaps you have sought the distillation of knowledge into profound wisdom, possibly through beautiful poetry.

Perhaps you are seeking to re-experience a childlike innocence and playfulness, with or without the benefits of hindsight and reasonable cautiousness.

But how do you avoid a hindsight bias?

How do you attempt to avoid all cognitive biases?

How do you distinguish between protoscience, pseudoscience, refined art and experimental science?

How have you attempted to distill the essence of philosophy through the primary material of the world soul?

Consciousness is that material.

Communication is that soul.