Introduction
(This is an excerpt from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org, please feel free to visit the school website)
Paganism
and Animism are found all over the globe. In this course we will look at
Egyptian and Eastern Indian esoterics. We will also focus on two additional
areas, Assyria: from Babylon to Jerusalem, and as far South as Saudi Arabia
in the first area. The second area is Pagan Europe, Brittania, Teutonic/Gothic
Germany, Gaul and Rome.
All world religions and mystical systems have their own cosmologies of gods
and goddesses, their own mythical creatures and versions of the Adept. The
mainstream religions all have sections to their religions, which produce
types of Adepts, those who have used the systems to attain a higher state
of being. Judaism has the Qabbalists, Christianity has the Essenes and Gnostics,
and Islam has the Sufis. When we closely examine the map of the Silk Road,
we can see that the metropolitan focal points for all the world religions,
such as Jerusalem, Mecca, Cities of Tibet, Ethiopia, and China are all connected.
Every major world religion practiced today was deeply affected by the cross
fertilization of teachings and experiential yogas on the silk route.
The merchants traveled the silk route, and so did the mystics, adepts, yogis
and seekers of the world. From one spiritual aspirant to another, practices
and views were synthesized and borrowed, religion to religion, both implicitly
and explicitly. All religions share teachings such as the power of the word
(or mantra), the power of visualizing, and purification of the body in order
to attain the Light Body. For the purposes of this course all systems which
are able to produce the Adept, Wizard, or Magician are defined as systems
using mantra (chant) and visualization, the natural biotic energies of the
body such as the sex drive or altered perception, and those systems involving
communication with "higher" or hidden wisdom beings that are an
evolved humanity, or non-human beings that oversee our communal development.
In all Gnostic wings of world religions these elements appear.
Following is a brief overview of other religious paths, comparable to the
sutra path of Mahayana, and their esoteric Gnostic sections, comparable
with the Vajrayana and Great Perfection of Buddhism. Esoteric practices
can be more broadly and simply defined as the consciousness of continuum
between microcosmic and macrocosmic reality. The gnostic precept that one
contains the hidden god within is an essential precept as well. In the same
way that Vajrayana is the esoteric or tantric wing of Mahayana Buddhism,
all the other religions have their own gnostic wing where everyday living
including eating, sleeping, and sexuality is taken as a spiritual practice.
Throughout this course we will overview these aspects of many world religions
that have culturally influenced each other, creating the spiritual landscape
we live within today. Every culture has its own set of gods and goddesses,
spirits in a spiritual realm, magical creatures and mythological lore underlying
and pointing to these universal spiritual truths. These truths universally
led to the realization of the higher being within the human nature by enacting
their teachings and mystery rituals. A higher self emerged and one would
become an empowered adept, given abilities and cognitions beyond normal
humanity. Every culture has their own version of the male and female adept
as well, such as the Mahasiddha and Mahatma of India, the Wizard and Sorceress
in European culture, or the Magus and Priestess of the Egyptian tradition.
We will examine the gods, goddesses, magical creatures and lore of the many
cultures that intermingled on the silk route as well as their syntheses
as they are expressed today.