Definitions and explanations of key terms used throughout the site.
The state or quality of being aware of and able to think about oneself and the world.
There is another kind of knowledge. It is not one of physical facts, nor can it be quantified and measured. It is a knowledge of our inner world, not the outer one, a knowledge of what we used to call...
Source: The Secret Teachers of the Western World by Gary Lachman
So, you ask where did we come from? We came from the stars. And for me the most poetic accurate way to say this is not only are we alive in the universe, the universe is alive within us. We...
The esoteric tradition is also intuitive, focusing on our subtle, inner worlds, rather than our obvious outer one. It believes in a living, organic, spiritual, even conscious universe, rather than a dead, mechanical, oblivious one. It is also concerned more...
Source: The Secret Teachers of the Western World by Gary Lachman
For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we—not this crude matter.
Source: The Empire Strikes Back
The earth may now be a mere planet moving around the sun, but man is no longer confined to it. His spiritual energy, his reason, his brain power, his psyche, his consciousness have become the center and the purpose of...
Source: Utopian Thought in the Western World by Frank E. Manuel
The right brain is geared toward engaging with living things, McGilchrist says, and with recognizing overall patterns, meanings, and relations. It is attuned to the network of connections that links everything with everything else. Its fundamental attention is to the...
Source: The Secret Teachers of the Western World by Gary Lachman
Whatever he's been smoking's been immunizing him to all our shit.
Source: The Cabin in the Woods
What sets the mental-rational structure apart from the previous three structures is that it is the most separated from “Origin.” In it, human consciousness, which had previously felt a fundamental connection to the world around it, was now unattached and...
Source: The Secret Teachers of the Western World by Gary Lachman
Are you in a universe which is ruled by natural laws and, therefore, is stable, firm, absolute—and knowable? Or are you in an incomprehensible chaos, a realm of inexplicable miracles, an unpredictable, unknowable flux, which your mind is impotent to...
Source: Philosophy: Who Needs It by Ayn Rand
As its name suggests, the mental-rational structure, which Gebser believed began circa 1225 B.C., is characterized by rational, discursive thought, the kind of logical, sequential thinking associated with the left brain. Whereas the previous structure of consciousness, the mythic, is...
Source: The Secret Teachers of the Western World by Gary Lachman
To attain this transmutation, this metamorphosis of himself, he is taught first to purify and subdue his sensual nature; then to purify and develop his mental nature; and finally, by utter surrender of his old life and losing his soul...
Source: The Meaning of Masonry by W.L. Wilmshurst
He is able to discern that it was himself who at first was "without form and void" and who in virtue of that Fiat Lux! has at last become transformed from chaos and unconsciousness into a form so perfect and...
Source: The Meaning of Masonry by W.L. Wilmshurst
Is there anybody in there? Just nod if you can hear me - Is there anyone home?
Awake on my airplane, awake on my airplane - I feel so real
