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December 31, 1999
This is what I have for the present passage. It was written at the Wheel’s behest, for a gathering at the end of last Winter. I think I can still endorse most of what is said, though it isdated, even before the fact.
This piece also serves as a general outline of my particular brand of Gnosticism, which I expect to further articulate, as this page develops. As such, it brings us to the issue of the use of the word “God”. I often avoid the term, as it causes an aversion reaction in many people. My conception is such that I also find it impossible to apply a sexed pronoun, which leads to some perhaps awkward phrasing. Still, every other option is a euphemism. Actually, “God” is a euphemism, but the most honest one we have, hence the sensitivity. I do not presume to explain God to anyone, but I do find it necessary to point in the direction of...of what? A supreme power? A non-relative overview? The source? The destination? The object of all our concern? I could go on, but that’s the point: the names of God are endless, but they all refer to THE End (and The Beginning).
When I was young, I thought that it was my historical fortune to have been born into an age when the existence of God was obviously ridiculous; a relic of the pre-rational past. I thought that the belief of the medieval West, or of Traditional societies, was excused by their ignorance, and that our greater knowledge was both a kind of wisdom, and a kind of alienating curse. I no longer feel that way. I now believe that it has always been obvious that there is no God. What impresses me is that people have always taken the unlikely option, and out of that choice our World has been constructed. Just as it is “obvious” that God does not exist, it is equally obvious that there is no connection between an uttered sound and an understood meaning. Belief, or Agreement, must intercede to provide the connection which allows language to function. Belief in God is of the same order, or rather the reverse is true; such Belief must precede, and provide the model for, the belief that allows us to speak. As soon as we enter into an agreement (a covenant, a promise) that enforces such an improbability (that there is a Creator, or that a sound is attached to a thing), a whole new range of options open up, offering unimagined possibilities for the expansion of reality. In this sense, I have found that there is nothing else but God.
Still, sensitivities remain, not to mention a legacy of historical misuse and abuse. I continue to consider myself a rationalist of a sort, but one who has been forced by rational protocols to step beyond such rules, in the interest of a fair investigation. I will probably veer between various euphemisms as seem most appropriate to me. At least this page will not shrink from these matters, and those who disavow any such discussion will not find comfort here.