Most Important Concepts

Action Points

• The ancients were right to worship the sun. I feel better when I get some sunlight on my skin. Therefore, if I were to worship the sun every day at noon, I will be better off.

Chapter Recap

Introduction

• Secret philosophy was banned in the 3rd century, but the knowledge has been passed down within secret societies.
• Induce in yourself a different state of mind and the most famous and familiar histories mean something very different.
  • If anything in this history is true, then everything your teachers taught you is thrown into question.

1 - In the beginning

• Time is nothing but a measure of the changing positions of objects in space. In the beginning there were no objects in space, therefore there was no time.
• The universe this book describes was made with humankind in mind.
• The secret societies have always believed the everyday world behaves in a similar way to Schrodingers cat. By looking at the cat, you kill or save it.
• Similarly to how an extraordinary amount of factors has been necessary to make life on Earth physically possible, we also have required an equally extraordinary set of balanced to make our subjective consciousness what it is.
  • E.g. memory has to be strong enough to enable us to act without forgetting what we wanted to do, to learn without ceasing to be the same person, but it also has to be weak enough to allow us to keep evolving.
  • We have to be able to perceive the outside world through the senses, but it is equally important for us not to be overwhelmed by sensations. Then we could neither reflect nor imagine.
  • We need the right balance of attachment and detachment from our interior impulses and our perceptions of the outside world. Otherwise we wouldn’t have the freedom to take our attention away or to think about something else.

2 - A short walk in the ancient woods

• What can you be more sure of - the contents of your mind or the objects you perceive with your senses?
• While today we like to think of ourselves as having one individual sense of consciousness located inside the head, in the ancient world each person experienced him or herself having several different centres of consciousness originating outside the head.
• The ancients worship of objects like the sun does not mean they believed the physical object a sentient being. Rather they felt the impact the sun had on different parts of their minds and bodies, and considered the physical object as sort of a lens through which a heavenly being influenced them.
  • Other gods rayed their influences through other planets and constellations, so as the positions of heavenly bodies changed, so the various patterns of influence give history meaning and shape.
  • Modern science is starting to understand the movement of Venus affects the production of testosterone in the kidneys. It really is true to say that Venus is the planet of desire.

3 - The garden of Eden

• All religion taught that mind came before matter.
  • All understood creation as taking place in a series of emanations.
    • And this series was universally visualized as a hierarchy of spiritual beings, either gods or angels.
• Even the bible, which in modern times is interpreted as fully monotheistic, the most important passages can be seen to describe the deities of the stars and planets, once layers of mistranslation and obfuscation have been removed.
• Elohim, the god of the sun, acted to hold Saturn/Satan in check.