“Instead of seeing yourself as a tiny little body wandering around in this vast universe, you should understand that this tiny little body is this vast universe.”
~ Astrotheology and Shamanism, p. 6

And now, I’m going to quote religious works. I can assure you, however, that there is a method to my madness, so to speak. I have long specialized in subverting biblical texts for example, extricating them from a rigid, authoritarian, warped, limited, and suppressive context, re-establishing their original universal message, and thus restoring them to their varied ancient sources and true power. I am also exposing the genesis of the destructive, so-called deities featured in some of those religious works, such as the god who proclaimed, “Let us cast him out of Paradise lest he take from the tree of life and live forever.” Allow me to share these words from the Gnostic text Testimony of Truth: “What kind of God is this? First, he envied Adam that he should eat from the tree of knowledge… And secondly he said, ‘Adam, where are you?’ And God does not have foreknowledge, since he did not know this from the beginning […] Surely he has shown himself to be a malicious envier.”

But I tell you, we shall be, we are as gods and goddesses. This is my purpose: to give to those who have, and take from those who don’t—to take from the supposed authorities who hid the gold of theosis and condemned their followers/subordinates (people whom they do NOT own) to an existence marked by fear and deprivation. “For whoever has will be given more, so that they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken away from them.” In light of this, what do I mean when I say “secret knowledge”? One definition of secret is “something that is not properly understood; a not commonly known or recognized method of achieving or maintaining something.”

Therefore, let us be nourished by the world tree of knowledge, which extends between heaven and earth and connects them. As I give this lecture and weave my interpretation of these passages into it, my aim in selecting and sharing these texts will become clearer.

In the beginning the Word [Logos] already existed.
The Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
He existed in the beginning with God.
God created everything through the Word,
and nothing was created except through the Word.
The Word gave life to everything that was created,
and his life brought light to everyone.
The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness can never extinguish it.
~ John 1:1-5

He came into the very world he created, but the world didn’t recognize him.
~ John 1:10

So the Word became human, and made his home among humans.
~ John 1:14

Why are we here? We are here to create and recreate ourselves, and our world. We participate in the creative mystery of the cosmos. We are the Beginning, our Genesis. We are Alpha Omega.

At the start of Tim Burton’s film Ed Wood, Criswell, the famed psychic, is seen opening the casket in which he’s lying; he sits up, gazes at the camera, and says, “Greetings, my friend. You are interested in the unknown, in the mysterious, in the unexplainable… That is why you are here.”

Those words have resonated within me for years. They’ve resonated within me in myriad sphinxlike mystical ways. As I’ve emerged from one simultaneously self-integrating and self-expanding cocoon after the other, those words have become more relevant to me, more uncannily accurate, and profoundly revelatory than ever. To me, they encapsulate the meaning of existence.

Why are we here? What and who are we? We are here to embody the mystery of the universe. We are here to reveal the cryptic divine nature of the cosmos, of ourselves. We are here to speak the voice of the universe in a human manner. We are a human expression of the infinite universe. All of us are a multitude of universes in one universe and its parallel universes, and our serenity is intertwined with our capacity to embrace the unknown, the mysterious, the unexplainable.

Some are aware of this, and some aren’t. Those who aren’t, are either afraid of the mystery, or they aren’t ready for it yet. They aren’t fully conscious of it yet. They aren’t aware of what they really are. They aren’t aware of their creative divine power. Or they only see themselves as a tiny little body, disconnected from the universe, something somehow other than the universal essence.

The universe is a creator. And we, if we don’t join in this creativity, aren’t the beings we’re meant to be, and we feel lost, alone, disjointed.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.  Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
~ Genesis 1:1

And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good.
~ Genesis 1:14-18

Here we see astrology and “pagan” holy days in the text… And we see that this is good. What is astrology, if not the proclamation that our creation is a “sign to mark sacred times”? It is an emanation of All Self into a human form of Now Being. We are an awakening universe, a fragment of it and yet all of it.

During the process of our self-creation and recreation, we go through successive eras of being “formless and empty,” with “darkness over the surface of the deep”—and the Spirit of God hovers over those waters, the waters of this cosmic womb we find ourselves in again and again as we develop into full consciousness, into attunement (being brought into harmony) and increasing self-awareness. Increasing empowered harmony: a pleasing combination of different parts. I’ll note that spirit, “ruwach” (roo-akh), is a feminine word that means “wind, breath, exhalation, life” and demonstrates “a worldview which sees the physical and spiritual realms as interconnected” [https://biblehub.com/hebrew/7307.htm].

We become aware that we are a blend, “a mixture of different types of the same substance,” of the cosmos.

More than that, we become aware that we have always, in an enigmatic way, been the infinite life source, an image of infinite diversity in infinite combinations. As such, we can recombine ourselves, taking past experiences and seeing them in a new light, like a supreme alchemist separating the darkness of “I didn’t understand at the time what that was for, when I felt helpless and alone and bereft, when I believed I wasn’t going anywhere” into the power of the light, the knowledge that we can attribute our own meaning to whatever happened in our lives, and transform ourselves into formidable creators at the helm of our existence, taking what we have and transforming it into something more: writing our own creation story, interpreting our creation story, healing ourselves, and claiming the power of our own myth. As above, so below.

In this new world we’ve created, we hardly recognize ourselves: god from god, light from light, true god from true god, begotten, not made, of one essence with the Universe, by whom all things were made (these words are taken from the Orthodox version of the Nicene Creed, boldly subverted and given its vital meaning). As a result of this extraordinary self-generative act, this autonomous self-rule, though we’ve made our home among our fellow humans, their worlds don’t recognize us. They don’t know what we are either.

We have to let them go, let them be, let them grow at their own pace, let them slowly discover themselves. Instead of needless and energy-depleting interference, we focus our attention on our own growth, our own creation, and join forces with those who have ears to hear, those with whom our energy is aligned, who are in a position to fathom the secrets of our wondrous cosmos.

Thus, we observe our radiance becoming a lighthouse in this world. We are the extraterrestrials [from “alien” mid-14th century, used to describe “something as strange”]: we are of this world, and not of it at the same time. We are a cosmic polarity. We are transcendentally human [“transcendent: otherwordly” trans: beyond, scandere: to climb, going “beyond ordinary limitations,” “to lie beyond the scope of”].

At this point, let me share with you a practical example of recreation, interpretation, and self-integration/self-expansion. An example of spiritual-material alchemy.

I recently added a beautiful and most significant item to one of my main altars. When I saw it, I immediately felt drawn to it, and hesitant at the same time. I left it on the shelf… However, I couldn’t get the item out of my mind, and felt even more drawn to it; the following day, I went back to the place where I’d seen it and left with several of them, for different altars throughout my home. The moment I placed this item on my altars, I experienced a combination of autodivine agency and personal healing.

It’s a candle featuring the Virgin Mary, and so much more than the Virgin Mary. It is, to be more precise, a cièrge, a church candle, especially the type found in Roman Catholic churches.

I find the image profoundly comforting—irresistible. A Celestial Mother figure, dressed in soft, flowing blue and white, standing on a moon crescent (associated with female monthly cycles), and with twelve stars around her head, again a reference to astrology (not that church authorities would agree). She is surrounded by clouds, with energy emanating from her hands.

She is the sea, the cosmic womb. She is the ruwach, the Breath Spirit, and she is the deep waters. Through her, I am healed, I am comforted, I rebirth myself and my life, and I give birth to meaningful endeavors and mind-body exaltation. She shelters me, and she is also an image of me: through her, I give comfort, healing, shelter, and serenity to myself and to others.

Once I placed these candles on my altars, I recreated several chapters of my existence. I had transformed a symbol, restored it to its ancient positive meaning, and in combination with my life experiences, given it my own personal meaning. I placed her next to my Self Icon: my framed birth chart, a recreation of Orthodox sacred objects knowns as icons, which serve as windows into the divine. Thus I revere and venerate myself and the entire universe.

In this Beginning, I created my new heaven and my new earth. My new, more genuine universe. I love etymology, and I’d like to point out that “genuine” is from the Latin genuinus; of uncertain origin, perhaps from genu “knee” (with reference to the Roman custom of a father acknowledging paternity of a newborn child by placing it on his knee), or related to gignere, “create, beget.”

In this Beginning, I refashioned myself out of the dirt of my past experiences, all that I’ve learned, my past lives, and my new understanding. My Now Being and my All Self are more and more aligned with each other, and my spiritual-material bliss increases.

And that is my wish for you. It’s my calling. I am Messenger Logos, and I desire to foster the calling of those who are meant to enter my Circle. Together, we will recreate ourselves and our world, and expand our being on a cosmic level, thus celebrating our infinite Presence.