Elaine Pagels, Miguel Connor, etc., wrote (or edited) some great books on the history of the gnostic movement. Gnosis Chicago is a good website. You can also attend gnostic mass/service/discussion virtually and meet female, ordained, gnostic clergy (from the Stephen Hoeller school, Seattle) and other nice peeps. https://www.facebook.com/groups/55604320994
These are/were gnostic christians so you still get the Jesus as a messenger of light part (uncoupled from all the Catholic hierarchy crap) but they also worship Sophia, a mother goddess of wisdom, and other things considered heretic. It’s helped us with our worry and sadness over the current state of the increasingly dystopic soul-killing material world. Thanks Slick for a great article!
Thanks for sharing! And indeed, some gnostics believed they were the recipients of the true teachings of Jesus, his initiates, and that the Church was founded on a more superficial version. Elaine Pagels mentions it in *The Gnostic Gospels*.
So maybe, just maybe, heretic is a very big word, and that they would be so labeled, quite ironic... it would almost be funny, if it hadn't translated into their massacre 😅
This was way more than an essay on Gnosticism. I’m 80 with a doctorate in philosophy and psychology. Reading this was like walking through my life journey. Add to it a profound Near Death Experience into formlessness with infinite consciousness awareness within infinity. Your description of the awakened infinite conscious awareness says we are playing in a similar sandbox. I don’t know my next steps yet but my heart-love is truly the guiding light.
It's like you're walking beside us. We found the Gnostics in the last year and haven't been able to look away. We see and have been talking about exactly what you're talking about here and yes, we're startled at how the tech bros espouse what seems like similar ideas about transformation but also completely miss the point that acquisition of enormous power (and money) flies in the face of achieving true transcendence. They posit themselves as the most intelligent people among us but when you step outside the paradigm, their claim is laughable.
It's an interesting paradox, you see the ridiculousness of it all, but self-knowledge and creation are necessarily unknown avenues which can feel like a foolish or ridiculous road. I can't tell you how validating and empowering it feels to finally find people talking about similar ideas as we are though. I had given up on the internet as a whole until I read you Slick, truly. Thank you. I want to recommend a movie to you (which, if you ask anyone that knows me, is itself ridiculous, I hate watching TV) called The Holy Mountain.
I am so grateful for these words, friend, and for walking together!
Indeed a golden cage is just as laughable, if not more, than the stock version; probably harder to escape even, judging by how little gold its occupants seem to find within...
I'm glad you found me before completely giving up, and I do love Jodorowsky--can only appreciate the recommendation!
I'm glad too! I've lived long enough to know that there is always someone out there sharing what you know, it's always an immense relief to get to the point in your journey when you find them. I'm so excited for you to get to watch this movie for the first time and that you already know the director! You're a kindred spirit Slick. <3
I'm not used to reading an essay on Gnosticism while nodding my head in agreement. In historical reality, the narrative frame of the Gnostics more resembled that of groups like the Heaven's Gate cult and the Zizians. But I like this take on the principles.
While you provide some useful connections —- I hadn’t know about Guillaume Faye— and many of your references are familiar — I live with someone who used to wear a Thor’s hammer until it became a right wing symbol, I’ve read some Lachman, I’m familiar with Dugin, etc., I don’t find your conclusions persuasive. It’s not hard to leave the techno sphere for some poetic private life —- what is hard is to actually do anything for the people most threatened. Writing mystical poetry or studying alchemy won’t help the innocent person in the El Salvador concentration camp. Two of the people you cite as major influences embraced Nazism at least part of the time — Heidegger obviously, but also Jung, and you mention Guénon positively in terms of the idea of “total inversion,” when he was a far right fanatic. I don’t see your path as actually very different from the billionaire technophiles you write against; the primary difference is that they wield power and you speak of poetry. You almost completely ignore the voices of women; there are tiny mentions of Arendt and Weil; you quote Emily Dickinson in your post about pussy, pay a little lip service to Freya, but that’s about it. You promote the philosophy of white male reactionaries while ignoring the voices of black women such as Angela Davis, Audre Lorde, and so many others. While I can appreciate a creative Jungian approach — alchemy, astrology, etc. and the idea you promote of making a counter myth to their myth is interesting, for the most part your conclusions strike me as idealistic rather than useful, and really just another side of the same coin.
I appreciate the challenge, even agree with some of it.
You're right: I do cite a lot of white male European authors.
But I often do so to criticize the frameworks that dominate, not to endorse them. I’m engaging with the architecture of power to dismantle it from within (much like Angela Davis engages canonical male European thinkers: Freud, Marx, Hegel... not to perpetuate their blind spots, but to extract what’s useful and challenge what’s not). I'm not trying to balance a bookshelf (and I don't think she is, either).
I'm not an NGO, and my writing is strategic, mythopoetic, philosophical—not activist journalism.
You have elegantly woven the argument I have been making with the Pirate Paradigm into philosophy.
And it takes me way back into my student years in philosophy and comparative religion, where Heidegger and the Gnostics where favourite fields of study for me.
And enter the Lucifer argument! What you resists persists! Indeed, if we go into open rebellion to the cage they are building we will just exhaust ourselves while still being part of the system.
We need to opt out. Disengage, find our own path by reclaiming the mysteries, intuition, magick.
Even though the robots can hold conversation about magick and mysticism... they cannot experience it.
We need to keep cultivating direct experience of consciousness unmediated by this screens.
Keep exploring our inner territories.
And we can use the digital intelligence as tools for Liberation as well.
So many thought-provoking concepts in this piece. Here's one that resonated: "In this way, Nietzsche’s path is not nihilism—it is a radical act of re-enchantment, but one that refuses to retreat into comforting myths. The task is not to believe in a better world—it is to make one."
Provoking thought is the whole point of my writing, so, thank you!
I'll go further in a later piece on what living outside the cage looks like, being the poets of our own becoming, and what I'd call "mythic grammar"... Stay tuned!
Another imaginative tour-de-force, Slick. Thanks for continuing to explore and shine the light of reason on the dark spiritual terrain of the far right’s MAGA Musk brave new world. Couid we not say that both Heidegger and Nietzsche looked into the abyss, but then fell into it as well? The Magi of Messkirch eventually climbed back out and somewhat though not completely, learned his lesson, one of which is his take on the dangers of technocracy. The tragic and courageous Nietzsche also fought his demons, but (we don’t know for sure), tertiary syphilis brought him down, and the brilliance of his joyful wisdom was in his last decade distorted by his pathological, antisemitic sister.
The abyss is deep indeed, and maybe it is impossible not to fall into it when staring long enough. The descent might even be necessary to reach the right conditions of temperature and pressure that arrange carbon atoms into diamonds--though nothing guarantees one won't just get crushed in the process.
It's hard to excuse Heidegger's stint with nazism, for which (as you recently pointed out) he never really apologized.
His later insight on the poet as the answer to modernity remains, and can be seen as philosophy going full-circle, acknowledging its pre-Socratic roots and the value of poet-thinkers over abstract theorists it tried to ignore for so long.
On Nietzsche, I like Jung's perspective that he descended into the collective unconscious without the tools to handle it. Complete nihilism might have been too much to bear, or the path to the superhuman maybe required one thinker to shatter the illusions (Nietzsche) and another to find meaning in the fragments (Jung).
I wasn't planning on it, but I now realize this piece begs to be continued; what is it like to live *outside* the cage?
Or (and I have a trusted friend to thank for the prompt),
*“You asked to be free my brother. I ask you not what are you seeking freedom from, but what are you seeking it for. To what end shall your freedom fly."* (Nietzsche)
Inddeed. I don’t have a Nietzsche quote at the ready, though I’m sure there is one lol but it comes to my mind that it is sometimes difficult to prevail amidst the fog of war. We all need be of good cheer. And stay the course.
Yes first of all, thank you for weaving this together so beautifully. Your writing truly took me through a personal journey. Im looking forward to your next piece, so please do write it 🙏 I want to know this too, what is it like living *outside* the cage? Is the purpose and next step action self defined or self-created - if so based on what - own self perception? Something else to follow? Or then what is the purpose? And what does it feel like, what are we moving towards while out there?
Superlative article Sir The only way forward in my opinion is complete detachment from the material to the extent possible There is no freedom in the material realm that doesn’t come from the spiritual realm. The so called elites understand that basic spiritual truth and have used it against humanity to its detriment.All praise to the God of creation 🙏
Elaine Pagels, Miguel Connor, etc., wrote (or edited) some great books on the history of the gnostic movement. Gnosis Chicago is a good website. You can also attend gnostic mass/service/discussion virtually and meet female, ordained, gnostic clergy (from the Stephen Hoeller school, Seattle) and other nice peeps. https://www.facebook.com/groups/55604320994
These are/were gnostic christians so you still get the Jesus as a messenger of light part (uncoupled from all the Catholic hierarchy crap) but they also worship Sophia, a mother goddess of wisdom, and other things considered heretic. It’s helped us with our worry and sadness over the current state of the increasingly dystopic soul-killing material world. Thanks Slick for a great article!
Thanks for sharing! And indeed, some gnostics believed they were the recipients of the true teachings of Jesus, his initiates, and that the Church was founded on a more superficial version. Elaine Pagels mentions it in *The Gnostic Gospels*.
So maybe, just maybe, heretic is a very big word, and that they would be so labeled, quite ironic... it would almost be funny, if it hadn't translated into their massacre 😅
Thanks for sharing 🙏
Must have been quite the conversation, and indeed, sometimes we don't need to reinvent the wheel to reinvent ourselves!
This was way more than an essay on Gnosticism. I’m 80 with a doctorate in philosophy and psychology. Reading this was like walking through my life journey. Add to it a profound Near Death Experience into formlessness with infinite consciousness awareness within infinity. Your description of the awakened infinite conscious awareness says we are playing in a similar sandbox. I don’t know my next steps yet but my heart-love is truly the guiding light.
Your kind words are heartwarming. Thank you; and I am grateful for this beautiful sandbox we share!
Jodorowsky is great. El Topo is worth watching. Terry Gilliam's Brazil addresses some of these issues as well.
Thanks for these great recos!
It's like you're walking beside us. We found the Gnostics in the last year and haven't been able to look away. We see and have been talking about exactly what you're talking about here and yes, we're startled at how the tech bros espouse what seems like similar ideas about transformation but also completely miss the point that acquisition of enormous power (and money) flies in the face of achieving true transcendence. They posit themselves as the most intelligent people among us but when you step outside the paradigm, their claim is laughable.
It's an interesting paradox, you see the ridiculousness of it all, but self-knowledge and creation are necessarily unknown avenues which can feel like a foolish or ridiculous road. I can't tell you how validating and empowering it feels to finally find people talking about similar ideas as we are though. I had given up on the internet as a whole until I read you Slick, truly. Thank you. I want to recommend a movie to you (which, if you ask anyone that knows me, is itself ridiculous, I hate watching TV) called The Holy Mountain.
I am so grateful for these words, friend, and for walking together!
Indeed a golden cage is just as laughable, if not more, than the stock version; probably harder to escape even, judging by how little gold its occupants seem to find within...
I'm glad you found me before completely giving up, and I do love Jodorowsky--can only appreciate the recommendation!
I'm glad too! I've lived long enough to know that there is always someone out there sharing what you know, it's always an immense relief to get to the point in your journey when you find them. I'm so excited for you to get to watch this movie for the first time and that you already know the director! You're a kindred spirit Slick. <3
Ditto,
I'm not used to reading an essay on Gnosticism while nodding my head in agreement. In historical reality, the narrative frame of the Gnostics more resembled that of groups like the Heaven's Gate cult and the Zizians. But I like this take on the principles.
🙂↕️ Thank you!
While you provide some useful connections —- I hadn’t know about Guillaume Faye— and many of your references are familiar — I live with someone who used to wear a Thor’s hammer until it became a right wing symbol, I’ve read some Lachman, I’m familiar with Dugin, etc., I don’t find your conclusions persuasive. It’s not hard to leave the techno sphere for some poetic private life —- what is hard is to actually do anything for the people most threatened. Writing mystical poetry or studying alchemy won’t help the innocent person in the El Salvador concentration camp. Two of the people you cite as major influences embraced Nazism at least part of the time — Heidegger obviously, but also Jung, and you mention Guénon positively in terms of the idea of “total inversion,” when he was a far right fanatic. I don’t see your path as actually very different from the billionaire technophiles you write against; the primary difference is that they wield power and you speak of poetry. You almost completely ignore the voices of women; there are tiny mentions of Arendt and Weil; you quote Emily Dickinson in your post about pussy, pay a little lip service to Freya, but that’s about it. You promote the philosophy of white male reactionaries while ignoring the voices of black women such as Angela Davis, Audre Lorde, and so many others. While I can appreciate a creative Jungian approach — alchemy, astrology, etc. and the idea you promote of making a counter myth to their myth is interesting, for the most part your conclusions strike me as idealistic rather than useful, and really just another side of the same coin.
Hi Zora,
I appreciate the challenge, even agree with some of it.
You're right: I do cite a lot of white male European authors.
But I often do so to criticize the frameworks that dominate, not to endorse them. I’m engaging with the architecture of power to dismantle it from within (much like Angela Davis engages canonical male European thinkers: Freud, Marx, Hegel... not to perpetuate their blind spots, but to extract what’s useful and challenge what’s not). I'm not trying to balance a bookshelf (and I don't think she is, either).
I'm not an NGO, and my writing is strategic, mythopoetic, philosophical—not activist journalism.
However, I believe it's a false binary. Even disregarding my less poetic conclusions (for instance here: https://open.substack.com/pub/heyslick/p/the-technate-of-north-america), I’m not writing “instead of action”—I’m writing for orientation.
Outrage without direction is easy to exploit, and there are thousands of outlets for outrage porn.
I’m trying to help people see the map beneath the chaos, and reclaim their ability to choose meaningfully.
This isn’t poetry or myth as escape, but as resistance—against simulation, against despair, against the myth of inevitability.
Now, if it reads to you like I’m just the powerless mirror of the techno-Right, then I’ve clearly failed to make my distinction clear enough.
But hey—at least you stopped short of calling me a nazi?
The Resurrection of God
https://substack.com/@narrascaping/p-159589423
That's a fun rewrite!
My own 'madman' take will be out Tuesday. You may find it resonates
Hey Slick, looooove this piece!
You have found us good medicine out of this mess.
You have elegantly woven the argument I have been making with the Pirate Paradigm into philosophy.
And it takes me way back into my student years in philosophy and comparative religion, where Heidegger and the Gnostics where favourite fields of study for me.
And enter the Lucifer argument! What you resists persists! Indeed, if we go into open rebellion to the cage they are building we will just exhaust ourselves while still being part of the system.
We need to opt out. Disengage, find our own path by reclaiming the mysteries, intuition, magick.
Even though the robots can hold conversation about magick and mysticism... they cannot experience it.
We need to keep cultivating direct experience of consciousness unmediated by this screens.
Keep exploring our inner territories.
And we can use the digital intelligence as tools for Liberation as well.
Awesome piece. Love it so much.
Thank you slick.
Ayeee, thank you Captain!
C G Jung.
Dude, that was truly amazing and exceptional. Thank you
Peace & Love
🙏 Thank you!
Let's dream a little, of making it less and less exceptional, more and more prevalent--and with your help, who knows, maybe even *normal* one day...
So many thought-provoking concepts in this piece. Here's one that resonated: "In this way, Nietzsche’s path is not nihilism—it is a radical act of re-enchantment, but one that refuses to retreat into comforting myths. The task is not to believe in a better world—it is to make one."
Provoking thought is the whole point of my writing, so, thank you!
I'll go further in a later piece on what living outside the cage looks like, being the poets of our own becoming, and what I'd call "mythic grammar"... Stay tuned!
Another imaginative tour-de-force, Slick. Thanks for continuing to explore and shine the light of reason on the dark spiritual terrain of the far right’s MAGA Musk brave new world. Couid we not say that both Heidegger and Nietzsche looked into the abyss, but then fell into it as well? The Magi of Messkirch eventually climbed back out and somewhat though not completely, learned his lesson, one of which is his take on the dangers of technocracy. The tragic and courageous Nietzsche also fought his demons, but (we don’t know for sure), tertiary syphilis brought him down, and the brilliance of his joyful wisdom was in his last decade distorted by his pathological, antisemitic sister.
Thanks for your kind words, Kenneth!
The abyss is deep indeed, and maybe it is impossible not to fall into it when staring long enough. The descent might even be necessary to reach the right conditions of temperature and pressure that arrange carbon atoms into diamonds--though nothing guarantees one won't just get crushed in the process.
It's hard to excuse Heidegger's stint with nazism, for which (as you recently pointed out) he never really apologized.
His later insight on the poet as the answer to modernity remains, and can be seen as philosophy going full-circle, acknowledging its pre-Socratic roots and the value of poet-thinkers over abstract theorists it tried to ignore for so long.
On Nietzsche, I like Jung's perspective that he descended into the collective unconscious without the tools to handle it. Complete nihilism might have been too much to bear, or the path to the superhuman maybe required one thinker to shatter the illusions (Nietzsche) and another to find meaning in the fragments (Jung).
I wasn't planning on it, but I now realize this piece begs to be continued; what is it like to live *outside* the cage?
Or (and I have a trusted friend to thank for the prompt),
*“You asked to be free my brother. I ask you not what are you seeking freedom from, but what are you seeking it for. To what end shall your freedom fly."* (Nietzsche)
Inddeed. I don’t have a Nietzsche quote at the ready, though I’m sure there is one lol but it comes to my mind that it is sometimes difficult to prevail amidst the fog of war. We all need be of good cheer. And stay the course.
Yes first of all, thank you for weaving this together so beautifully. Your writing truly took me through a personal journey. Im looking forward to your next piece, so please do write it 🙏 I want to know this too, what is it like living *outside* the cage? Is the purpose and next step action self defined or self-created - if so based on what - own self perception? Something else to follow? Or then what is the purpose? And what does it feel like, what are we moving towards while out there?
It's almost ready, dear! Thanks for the encouragements :)
"To what end shall your freedom fly." Yes indeedy, that is the burning question.
Superlative article Sir The only way forward in my opinion is complete detachment from the material to the extent possible There is no freedom in the material realm that doesn’t come from the spiritual realm. The so called elites understand that basic spiritual truth and have used it against humanity to its detriment.All praise to the God of creation 🙏
Break Free or Die Trying 🔥🐦🔥 See Archaix.com