John Lash for something constructive [Archive]

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24th August 2014, 18:47

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METAHISTORY
S i t e G u i d e

Writings by John Lash and Lydia Dzumardjin
The purpose of this guide is twofold: provide one-click access to any text on the site, and showcase the topics and themes treated in those texts. To assist navigation through this material, the guide follows the buttons on the menu panel. This is a teachng site so each button can be regarded as a classroom, or a course being offered there. This guide shows where you go by entering each classroom and previews the topics to be explored, the subject matter on offer, etc.

Please note indications of unfinished work.

PLANETARY TANTRA has its own site guide: Tantra Tour. The link to Planetary Tantra is found at the top of the home page: click on the banner beneath the menu panel. This link is consistent on all pages with the metahistory heading. Pages in PT have a different heading with the link back to metahistory through the tree and well logo in the lefthand column.

Click for SPOKEN TOUR of metahistory.org (part 1).

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See the French Site Liberterre for translations of many articles from metahistory.org, plus chapters from Not in His Image
HOME PAGE

defines metahistory.org as a teaching site and states its dual purpose: to critique beliefs and invite a future myth to guide humanity. The "future myth"proposed in metahistory is not the author's personal invention, and not a channeled scenario. It is a recovery and extrapolation of the sacred narrative of the fallen goddess Sophia derived from the Pagan Mysteries of pre-Christian Europe, Egypt, and the Levant. Hence the mission statement links immediately to the story of Gaia-Sophia, a myth in progress.

Throughout the site, a click on the Tree and Well logo in the upper lefthand of the first page of every file returns you to the home page. Or use the menu panel at the end of each document. How Metahistory Works (starting beneath the cartouche that signals recently posted material) is the opening orientation essay with emphasis on the Socratic angle of the site. Both these essays belong to the category (/folder) of

GUIDELINES
Essential orientation to the concept of metahistory, its assumptions, themes, and applications.

Socrates in dialogue. Raphael, The School of Athens
How Metahistory Works sets out the Socratic orientation of the site and examines the problems posed by the inveterate need to believe in what cannot be proven or tested.

The death of Socrates in 399 BCE was said to have been a voluntary act, self-applied euthanasia. The old sage had several offers to leave Athens, but chose to stay and face conviction on two bogus charges: "corrupting the youth" and asebia, impiety—refusal to honor the accepted dieties of high Athenian culture. On that count, you could say he died for what he did not believe. i.e., the spiritual authorities. This was his greatest heresy, and it is also his finest legacy. Hemlock smoothie, anyone?

Socrates in the Last Days offers an idiosyncratic portrait of the mascot of metahistory and takes a wild shot at explaining his unique position in the Western intellectual tradition.
On the Hidden Deception in Believing is a mock-up of a dialogue with Socrates who opens with this challenging suggestion: What if we do not adopt beliefs because we find truth in them, but only, once they are adopted, come to regard them as true? He contrasts the truth value of a belief to its expedient value, the reason why it was adopted. This dialogue exemplifies the technique of dereasoning beliefs, the third basic tool of metacritique. The other two are: assessing belief by the behavior it produces, and defusing belief by analysis of the rationale constructed around it.

Tree and Well explains the logo of metahistory.org, a composite of ancient images of a magical tree and a sacred spring or well.

The Right to Believe is a brief, one-page text addressing the risk of believing in blind faith, that cannot be verified, balanced against the necessity to believe in what may be possible.

The Four Concerns considers how all human concerns reduce to four primary issues corresponding to the four relations that pertain between God, Nature, and Humanity. Compare with A Concise Inventory of Beliefs under gnostique/Metacritique.

In the Knowledge that Frees explains the status of metahistory.org as a teaching site.

The Themes: The Arch of Metahistory with its five themes presents a suggested format for thematic organization of the material on the site.

Sacred Nature: All we know and are is rooted in the earth.
Opposition: Everything develops by polarities, with or without conflict.
Origins: We postulate beginnings by the act of recording them.
Moral Design: Is there justice and equilibrium in human reality?
Technology: In ancient and modern times alike, our tool-making skills set the course of our experience.

Background to Metahistory is long essay on the antecedents of metahistory, going back to founding of Rome in 747 BCE, an event in which mythical and history converge, and coming forward to the modern definition of metahistory proposed by the academic Hayden White.

Myth in Metahistory is on long essay on the nature of myth, the eight categories of mythic narrative, and problems concerning the use of myth in its application to actual experience.
The Uses of the Erotic by Audre Lorde is an exception on the site, a rare guest writer. Metahistory.org does not feature the writings of any other authors except this one. Audre Lorde was a black lesbian feminist active in the 1970s. Her view of the erotic resonates closely to the spirit and tone of metahistory.org, and especially the goddess material. See, for instance, in the Eros section of Gaia-Sophia: Coco de Mer.

More orientation-type essays with emphasis on the Gnostic angles of metahistory can be found in Gnostique/Telestics.
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READING

Here is more orientation material, including 36 suggested books for research and reference, and a few book reviews. Special emphasis on the Gnostic literature: NHL, Nag Hammadi Library.

Basic Reading in Metahistory, introduction to suggested reading.
14 Essential Books with reviews and comments on their relevance to the metahistorical perspective.
Suggested Books for the Themes (15), each with a brief review.
The Seven Classics, a long essay with reviews of unmissable writings on prehistory, goddess religion, mythic astronomy, and more.
Selective Book List offers one-page, one-click access to all 36 recommended books.
Bibliography, a partial list of books from my library which in its entirety is now on offer as an endowment.
Books by John Lash, in and out of print.

/ REVIEWS is the portal to this folder, listing the books reviewed:

The Candle of Vision by AE
Mary of Magdala by Karen King
The Message of Judas, various books on the Gospel of Judas
A Language Older Than Words by Derrick Jensen
The Biology of Transcendence by J. C. Pearce
The Mystery of the White Lions by Linda Tucker

Other reviews specific to Gnosticism in gnostique/tar baby jesus.

/NHL is the folder for my extensive commentaries on the Coptic writings discovered at Nag Hammadi in Egypt early in December 1945, the week, month, and year I was born. Introduction to the Nag Hammadi Reading Plan explains my selection and reasons for the three-part breakdown.

Access to the Reading Plan lists all the texts in my three-part breakdown for reading these diverse and chaotic materials. The Plan does not cover all fifty-two tractates from Nag Hammadi, or any other non-NHL Coptic writings such as the Pistis Sophia. I selected only thirty-two texts out of the total fifty-two from Nag Hammadi.

THE READING PLAN: READING/NHL/

The Prayer of the Apostle Paul, NHC I, 1.

Level One: The Mysteries and the Master

Text 1: Allogenes, XI, 3
Text 2: The Apocalypse of Peter, IV, 1
Text 3: The Dialogue of the Savior, III, 5
Text 4: The Gospel of Thomas, II, 2
Text 5: The Second Treatise of the Great Seth, VII, 2
Text 6: The Sentences of Sextus, XII, 1
Text 7: The Teachings of Silvanus, VII, 4
Text 8: Thunder, Perfect Mind, VI, 2

Level Two: Ritual and Revelation

Text 9: The First Apocalypse of James, V, 3
Text 10: The Apocryphon of James, I, 2
Text 11: The Book of Thomas the Contender, II, 7
Text 12: The Gospel of Philip, II, 3
Text 13: The Reality of the Archons, II, 4
Text 14: On the Origin of the World, II, 5; XIII, 2
Text 15: The Testimony of Truth, IX, 3
Text 16: The Tripartite Tractate, I, 5
Text 17: A Valentinian Exposition, XI, 2

Level Three: The Sense of Cosmic Order

Text 18: The Apocalypse of Adam, V, 5
Text 19: The Second Apocalypse of James, V, 4
Text 20: The Apocryphon of John, II, 1; III, 1; IV, 1 (three versions)
Text 21: The Concept of Our Great Power, VI, 4
Text 22: The Discourse on the Eighth and the Ninth, VI, 6
Text 23: Eugnostos the Blessed, III, 3; V, 1 (two versions)
Text 24: The Sophia of Jesus Christ, III, 4
Text 25: The Exegesis of the Soul, II, 6
Text 26: The Gospel of the Egyptians, III, 2; IV, 2 (two versions)
Text 27: The Gospel of Truth, XII, 2
Text 28: Marsanes, X
Text 29: The Paraphrase of Shem, VII, 1
Text 30: The Three Steles of Seth, VII, 5
Text 31: Trimorphic Protennoia, XIII, 1
Text 32: Zostrianos, VIII, 1

NOTE: The NHL Reading Plan is an unfinished book.

To my knowledge, there is so far (December 2009) no alternative guide comparable to this one that treats the NHL material from the Pagan Gnostic viewpoint, rather than from the angle of Judeo-Christian scholarship. Both viewpoints are biassed, of course. My viewpoint gives fair represention to the non- and anti-Judeo-Christian elements of the Coptic writings, and takes a huge bite into the Archon material which scholars avoid like the plague due to their fear of dabbling in psychic and supernatural matters. Furthermore, my commentaries come from someone who admits having mystical experiences comparable to those described in the texts, rather than from armchair scholars who lack the benefit of such experiences, or would be loth to admit having them if they ever did.

I regret being unable to complete these in-depth commentaries and offer them in a book. But there is only so much time in life for life. JLL
Gnostic Alphabetic NHLE is an alphabetic list of the texts in the standard English translation of the Coptic books from Nag Hammadi: The Nag Hammadi Library in English, edited by James Roberston. As if this material were not chaotic enough in the first place, the table of contents in that book makes it difficult to locate any particular text. Over the years, I have found that I end up having to riffle the entire table contents each time I want to return to a specific document. I provide this list merely for reader convenience. Print it out and keep it inside your copy of the NHLE.

Gnostic Source Materials (note on sources in the site bibliography)
Gnostic Studies (from Not in His Image) Reading and Research

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LEXICON

This large section of the website is not displayed by any button on the menu panel, but may be accessed at the Introduction. Definitions in the Lexicon are linked occasionally throughout the site when specific terms such as behavior call for clarification. I have taken this feature out of circulation because it is a massive project I was unable to finish or edit properly, so it contains some gaps and errors. However, it is still there to be explored if you are inclined. The index page lists all the entries and most of the links seem to work.

If this is only one entry you read in the Lexicon, make it this: Zaddikim

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ALTERNATIVE GRAIL

nine chapters of a thirteen-chapter book on the quest for the Holy Grail, considered by Joseph Campbell to be the most important secular myth of the Western world. The book traces an untold story: the diaspora of the Pagan Mysteries after 400 AD. It describes how refugees from those ancient schools of visionary science sought santuary in the far westlands of Europe, in Brittany, Wales, Ireland. This historical account of the survival of the Mysteries is exclusive to metahistory.org. To my knowledge, such an account cannot be found anywhere else on the internet or in any book.

An Alternative History of the Grail
1. Grail Magic Versus the Paternal Lie
The Grail Quest entails a challenge to expose the paternal lie about the message of the off-planet father god, and counteract that lie by direct engagement with the power of the Goddess, the living earth. The mythemes of hero and goddess and hero (true man) versus patriarch underpin the Grail narrative, as explained in my book The Hero - Manhood and Power

Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach: A Synopsis
Ahandy recounting of the complex medieval story.

2. The Destiny of the Swan Knight
3. Three Currents from the Grail
4. The Radiant Wisdom Stone
5. The Most Enigmatic of All Enigmas
It is possible to describe in a concrete and explicit way what the Grail was in experiential terms, an experience rather than a symbol or relic. Doing so, I make an unprecedented claim: attainment of the Grail was a direct encounter with the Organic Light, the "radiant wisdom stone." Whoever chooses to undertake the Quest can verify this claim first-hand. It is not a theory I expect anyone to accept. It is not my pet notion. It is not a matter of speculation any more than is the presence of oxygen in your lungs.
6. Spiritual Warriors of the Grail
7. Sacred Love, Sacred Light
8. Faith Incarnate

(Alchemical Peacock, image of psychedelic vision
of the Organic Light, the goal of the Great Work.
In the Grail legend, the wounded Fisher King wears
a peacock plume in his hat.)

The mystical quest for the Grail is linked closely with the knights of the Round Table and the troubadours. Because the Arthurian order of knights was founded to protect the refugees from the Pagan Mysteries who preserved direct knowledge of "attainment of the Grail," that is, first-hand encounter with the Organic Light. Arthurian literature was the genre in which that knowledge became encoded. Among the troubadours, romantic love was intertwined with the Grail Quest: the Girl and the Grail were regarded as one. The mystique and ethos of romantic love, defined at "the mythogenetic moment" (Campbell's term) of 1250 AD, defined a highpoint of human spirituality, but that moment was also the gateway into the oppression, deceit, and addiction of our time.

9. The Tale of the Magic Garland
The Gawain Episodes: A Synopsis (forthcoming)
This chapter discloses the lore of entheogenic shamanism encoded in the Grail legend. It affirms that the ancient Mysteries, even in their late survival down to the 13th century, contained extensive knowledge of sacred plants and used such plants for visionary trance to acquire supernatural power and enjoy direct access to the Organic Light.

10. The Bleeding Lance
11, 12, 13 ...incomplete
With chapter 10, this book brings the Grail legend up to the 20th century, showing how the Nazis adapted the legend to their political agenda. The uncompleted chapters would then show how Grail lore survived clandestinely in Russia and from there, starting with Vernadsky, produced what we today call Gaia theory.

NOTE: The Alternative History of the Grail is also an incomplete book, and remains so as of December 2009....

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Click here to continue the SPOKEN TOUR (part 2)

PSYCHONAUTICS

Originally conceived in three parts, but only Part 1, covering the years 1935 - 1965, has been completed so far: The Psychonautic Adventure. Right now I can't say if or when I will complete the two remaining parts, generation two 1965 - 1995, and the current generation, 1995 - current. The remainder of this classroom consists of two folders:
/Eadwine
The Discovery of a Lifetime describes how I found in the National Library in Paris a medieval ms. of the 13th Century, the Paris Eadwine Psalter, the only copy in existence, lavishly illustrated with Daliesque images of psychoactive mushrooms.
Entheogenic Revelation: The Paris Eadwine Psalter outlines my proposed book on the Wasson theory of the origin of religion (working title "Paradise Denied'), a project that did not get sold. It relates the Eadwine psalter to the Mysteries, in particular to perception of the molecular structure of DNA in a heightened state induced by psychoactive plants.
Illuminated Heresy presents further commentary with illustrations from the Eadwine psalter, including one image of Christ tempted by an antlered shaman-devil in a mushroom grove.
Mystic Jesus: Hanged Man and Dancer offers yet more jaw-dropping images from the Eadwine psalter, included Christ inverted and an explicit cameo of Jesus dancing with Mary Magdalene. All in all, extraordinary evidence for Gnostic heresy and entheogenic mysticism preserved in this unique medieval text.