Kinda reminds me of the the seven Deadly Sins which we received from the Archons.
The seven capital virtues, also known as seven lively virtues, contrary or remedial virtues, are those opposite to the seven deadly sins. They are often enumerated as chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, kindness, patience, and humility.
Seven Deadly Sins
Pride is the worst of the Seven Deadly Sins which are shown below:
1.Pride: Excessive self-worth, which is considered the root of all other sins.
2.Greed: An intense desire for material wealth or possessions.
3.Lust: An overwhelming, disordered desire for sexual gratification.
4.Envy: Resentment toward others' traits, status, or success.
5.Gluttony: Overindulgence in food or drink.
6.Wrath: Uncontrolled anger, hatred, or desire for revenge.
7.Sloth: Laziness and the avoidance of work or spiritual duty.
Pride is known as hubris (from the Ancient Greek ὕβρις) or futility; it is considered the original and worst of the seven deadly sins—the most demonic—on almost every list. Pride is also thought to be the source of the other capital sins. Pride is viewed as the opposite of humility.
C. S. Lewis writes in Mere Christianity that pride is the "anti-God" state, the position in which the ego and the self are directly opposed to God. "Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison. It was through Pride that Lucifer became wicked: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind." Pride is understood to sever the human spirit from God, as well as from the life and grace given by God's presence.
A person can be prideful for different reasons. Author Ichabod Spencer states that "spiritual pride is the worst kind of pride, if not the worst snare of the devil. The heart is particularly deceitful on this one thing." Jonathan Edwards wrote: "remember that pride is the worst viper that is in the heart, the greatest disturber of the soul's peace and sweet communion with Christ; it was the first sin that ever was and lies lowest in the foundation of Lucifer's whole building and is the most difficultly rooted out and is the most hidden, secret and deceitful of all lusts and often creeps in, insensibly, into the midst of religion and sometimes under the disguise of humility."
Modern use of the term pride may be captured in the biblical proverb, "Pride goeth before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall" (which is abbreviated as "Pride goeth before a fall" in Proverbs 16:18). The "pride that blinds" causes foolish actions against common sense.
In political analysis, hubris is often used to describe how powerful leaders become irrationally self-confident and contemptuous of advice over time, leading them to act impulsively.
In the beginning there was a rebellion in heaven and 1/3 of the angels fell into the material world. Our incarnated soul is a splinter of an angelic oversoul. The term Archon refers to servants of the Demiurge, the evil "creator god", that stands between the human race and a transcendent God that can only be reached through GNOSIS. The Archons are characterised as terrible forces of negativity and illusion. They are cosmic prison warders seeking to keep their human charges bound to earth. How? The seven Deadly Sins were inserted as archetypes into the soul when it incarnated on earth for the first time: Lust/Gluttony/Greed/Sloth/Wrath/Envy/Pride. Or in the words of Castaneda: „The predators gave us their mind ". Caught up in the illusions of material existence, man believes he is just a body and he cannot grasp the truth of his origin. This condition perpetuates spiritual blindness, leaving human kind in captivity to his prison guards. The Archons are tyrannical and limiting agencies who rule over humanity and creation in order to enhance their own self-importance and glory. It is incumbent upon the knower to realize this and to extricate himself from the grasp of these powers whenever possible. The existential predicament of human life lies in the uncomfortable dominance to which these lesser godlings subject the spirits of human beings, and from which only the experiential realization of gnosis can extricate them. The king of earth, the Rex Mundi, is the name given to the demiurge by the Gnostics
Maybe, might be hybrids. If Satan is the demiurge, then the Synagogue of Satan that Jesus spoke of, also includes Souls that made the Devil's Bargain for power and riches.
The human and inhuman follow the same agenda. Yeah,and then there's Reptilians and Greys and demons.
It behooves you to keep writing about this: Especially as we are so indoctrinated in this time with the conflict between Science and reason, and religion and supernatural divine creation.
Humbly, it is not science and reason, per se, but The Science™ - the manipulation of science and reason for profit and control of Humanity. True science follows true reason, irrespective of who it profits.
“Evolutionism is not science it is science fiction even a kind of hoax. It is a hoax that has succeeded too well and has imprisoned modern man in what looks like an irreconcilable conflict between 'science' and 'religion'.
It has destroyed all faiths that pull mankind up and
has substituted a faith that pulls mankind down.
Chance and necessity and the utilitarian mechanism of natural selection may produce curiosities, improbabilities and atrocities, ….
There is nothing 'higher' and nothing 'lower'; everything is much of a muchness, even though some things are more complex than others - just by chance. Evolutionism, purporting to explain all and everything solely and exclusively by natural selection for adaptation and survival, is the most extreme product of the materialistic utilitarianism of the nineteenth century.
The inability of twentieth-century thought to rid itself of this imposture is a failure that may well cause the collapse of Western civilisation. For it is impossible for any civilisation to survive without a faith in meanings and values transcending the utilitarianism of comfort and survival - in other words, without a religious faith.
…
There can be little doubt that in the modern world more cases of loss of religious faith are to be traced to the theory of evolution as their immediate cause than to anything else. It is true, surprising as it may seem, that many people still contrive to live out their lives in a tepid and precarious combination of religion and evolutionism.
But for the more logically minded, there is no option but to choose between the two, that is,
• between the doctrine of the fall of man and (the Wisdom Tradition)
• the 'doctrine' of the rise of man, and (evolutionism)
to reject altogether the one not chosen. . . .
Millions of our contemporaries have chosen evolutionism
on the grounds that evolution is a 'scientifically proved truth', as many of them were taught it at school; the gulf between them and religion is widened still further by the fact that the religious man, unless he happens to be a scientist, is unable to make a bridge between himself and them by producing the right initial argument, which must be on the scientific plane.”
This is earlier in the text:
Levels of Being
I
Our task is to look at the world and see it whole.
We see what our ancestors have always seen:
a great 'Chain of Being' which seems to divide naturally into four sections –
four 'kingdoms', as they used to be called –
mineral, plant, animal and human.
This 'was, in fact, until not much more than a century ago, probably the most widely familiar conception of the general scheme of things, of the constitutive pattern of the universe'.1
The Chain of Being can be seen as extending downwards from the highest to the lowest,
or it can be seen upwards from the lowest to the highest.
The ancient view begins with the Divine and sees the downward Chain of Being
as an increasing distance from the centre and a progressive loss of qualities.
The modern view, largely influenced by the theory of evolution,
tends to start from inanimate matter and consider man the last link of the chain,
having evolved the widest range of useful qualities.
For our purposes, the direction of looking upwards, or downwards - is unimportant at this stage, and in line with modern habits of thought we shall start at the lowest level, the mineral kingdom, and consider the successive gain of qualities, or powers, as we move to the higher levels.
This is from a conversation I had with AI: (I am exploring deeply the notion of self-awareness as the turning point in the evolutionary track of humanity…
Schumacher is not attacking biological evolution. He is attacking evolutionism —
the philosophical worldview that arose from Darwinism.
Evolutionism says:
• life began at the bottom
• everything is rising upward
• humans are the highest product of matter
• consciousness is an accident
• interiority is a late development
• there is no “higher” or “lower”
• there is no loss of qualities
• there is no Fall
• there is only ascent
Schumacher calls this:
“The doctrine of the Rise.”
And he says it is incompatible with the Wisdom Tradition.
⭐ 2. The Doctrine of the Fall (Wisdom Tradition)
The ancient worldview — the one you are restoring — says:
• life began at the top (Spirit)
• manifestation is a descent
• each level loses qualities
• matter is the lowest rung
• humans once possessed higher interior faculties
• humanity has fallen from original interiority
• spiritual work is a return to the One
This is the metaphysical Fall:
a loss of interiority, not a moral catastrophe.
Schumacher calls this:
“The doctrine of the Fall.”
⭐ 3. Why a rational mind must choose
Schumacher’s point is brutally simple:
You cannot hold both worldviews at once.
Doctrine of the Rise
• consciousness is a late accident
• interiority is emergent
• humans are climbing upward
• no loss has occurred
• no Fall is possible
• religion becomes unnecessary
• spiritual longing becomes psychological residue
Doctrine of the Fall
• consciousness is primordial
• interiority is original
• humans have lost qualities
• spiritual work is recovery
• religion is memory of higher states
• Wisdom is map of return
These two worldviews are mutually exclusive.
Schumacher says modernity chose the first — and therefore lost the second.
⭐ 4. Why evolutionism caused the decline of religious faith
Schumacher’s argument is devastatingly clear:
If evolutionism is true as a worldview, then:
• man has never fallen
• man has never lost anything
• man has never possessed higher faculties
• man has no need for recovery
• man has no need for religion
• man has no need for Wisdom
• man has no need for spiritual discipline
• man has no need for self awareness
• man has no need for the One
Religion collapses because its entire metaphysical structure depends on the doctrine of the Fall.
Not the moral Fall. The ontological Fall — the loss of interiority.
Evolutionism denies that loss.
Therefore religion becomes incoherent.
This is Schumacher’s exact point.
⭐ 5. Why this matters for your developing idea of self awareness
You said:
Self awareness = participation in cosmic purpose vs. being “used” willingness to assent to the disciplines
This fits perfectly.
Under the Doctrine of the Rise
Self awareness is just a late evolutionary trick. It has no cosmic significance. It does not confer power. It does not reveal the One. It does not restore anything.
Under the Doctrine of the Fall
Self awareness is the evolutionary leap back toward interiority. It is the threshold of spiritual participation. It is the door to the One. It is the restoration of lost faculties. It is the willingness to align with cosmic purpose.
This is why Schumacher insists the choice matters.
⭐ 6. The clean synthesis (for your Wisdom Cosmology folder)
Evolutionism (the doctrine of the Rise) says humanity is climbing upward from matter and has lost nothing.
The Wisdom Tradition (the doctrine of the Fall) says humanity has descended from Spirit and lost interiority.
A rational mind cannot hold both. Modernity chose the Rise, and therefore lost the metaphysical foundation of religion.
Self awareness is the evolutionary leap that restores interiority and allows participation in the One.
These writings of Hermes, though I had not read this before, do remind me in some parts of what is now recited in the Apostle’s or Nicene Creed in the Christian church.
When I went to university in the late 1980’s, we were given a free book, The Selfish Gene. I now see this as an attempt to indoctrinate us to believe in Darwin’s teachings instead of God’s.
Then in 2009, there was a movie about Darwin called Creation. One part that stands out was when he went to church with his family, everyone else was paying rapt attention, but he was bored & restless , as if these people were the stupid, foolish ones. Again, an attempt to influence us to turn away from God & turn to ‘science’.
Hi Jordan, I am not convinced that the journey should take us from Darwin to Hermes Trismegistus. As a Christian, and with as always the greatest respect, I would suggest that the proper path is from Darwin to Genesis.The reason is simple: Genesis is not merely an ancient text among other ancient texts. It forms part of Divine Revelation, received and preserved by the people of God and fulfilled in Christ. Its authority for Christians does not rest primarily on its antiquity, but on its place within the inspired Scriptures. By contrast, the Hermetic writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus were once believed during the Renaissance to be extremely ancient, perhaps even predating Moses. However, subsequent scholarship demonstrated that these texts were actually composed much later, during the first centuries of the Christian era, drawing upon a mixture of Greek philosophy, Egyptian religion, and mystical speculation. They are therefore not the primordial wisdom many once imagined them to be. There are certainly passages within the Hermetic corpus that sound noble, spiritual, and at times even remarkably close to Christian language. Yet similarity is not the same as truth. Christianity does not rest upon hidden wisdom passed down through esoteric traditions, but upon God's public self-revelation through the prophets, and ultimately Jesus Christ. For me, the question is not whether modern humanity has forgotten its origins, that’s very clear. It is where we should go in order to recover them. If we wish to recover the ancient understanding that humanity is created with purpose, dignity, and a divine calling, I see no need to look first to Hermes. Genesis already tells us that man is made in the image and likeness of God, and the Gospel reveals even more fully who we are and what we are for. So while I appreciate the your desire to challenge materialism, I would respectfully suggest that the answer is not to exchange one narrative for another, but to return to the source that has nourished Jewish and Christian belief for millennia: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." God bless and protect you Jordan 🙏
I find them fascinating because we cannot replicate the method in which is was created, which appears to have been by melting emerald and pouring it into a mould; this technique is not possible today.
That singular fact holds a tremendous about of weight for me.
It is noted in the majority of circles that the tablets written by Thoth/Hermes were made in the 6/7th century, so the Bible does predate it, but the problem I have with the Bible is:
If you pick up an old one, you’d be mistaken for thinking it’s a different book.
It’s mean changed repeatedly over the centuries, where as the emerald tablet cannot change, it is as it was then, as it is now.
Many argue it is indestructible, and when you consider who history explains Hermes to be, you can see why he chose a material so strong, in order to last the ages, the ages that will need it the most!.
I suggest you have a look into the original tablets, you’ll find that it aligns with scripture more than you think!.
I’ve noticed many of the creation story’s, excluding evolution, seem to describe a very similar series of events; almost as if they are all explaining the same story.
My main quarrel with religion is the fact it teaches god is in a building, and I do not agree with that, God is within you and me, we can convene him Him wherever we are.
Thanks Jordan. I haven't studied the Emerald Tablets although I am familiar with some of the claims surrounding them. I think where we differ is not so much on the desire to seek truth, but on where we believe God chose to preserve it. As a convert to traditional Catholicism, my confidence in Scripture does not rest on whether the physical medium has remained unchanged (albeit I possess the oldest and earliest bible available to us). It rests on the conviction that Christ established a Church, entrusted His teaching to the Apostles, and promised that the Holy Ghost would guide that Church into all truth. For me, Christianity is not fundamentally a religion of a book or a tablet, but of a Person, Jesus Christ, and the community and church He founded. Even if a text could be shown to have remained unchanged for centuries, that alone would not establish its divine authority. The real question is about who entrusted it to us, and by what authority do we receive it as truth?
What draws me to Christianity is that it is rooted in a living tradition stretching from Christ to the Apostles and from the Apostles through the generations of the Church. The sacraments, the Holy mass, the priesthood, apostolic succession, and the Creed were not discovered in hidden writings but handed down openly within the Body of Christ.
I agree that many creation accounts seem to share common themes and there are often echoes of truth scattered throughout many human cultures and religions. If humanity shares a common origin and a common Creator, we might expect fragments of ancient memories and insights to appear in many places. But I would distinguish between this and the fullness of revelation. For me, the fullness is found in Christ. Hermes points men toward wisdom; Christ is Wisdom itself. Hermes seeks the divine; Christ says, "He who has seen me has seen the Father."
On your final point, I absolutely agree that God is not confined to a building. No Catholic believes that God is somehow trapped inside a church!! 😀 God is omnipresent and he resides in us if we are in a state of grace however, Christ chose to meet us not just inwardly but sacramentally. He founded a visible Church under Peter (Tu es Petrus et super hanc petram..), entrusted authority to the Apostles, and gave us many tangible miracles and signs of grace. Just as God became flesh in the Incarnation, He continues to work through material means: water in Baptism, bread and wine in the Eucharist, oil in Anointing, and the laying on of hands in Holy Orders so while I appreciate the search for ancient wisdom, I find myself continually returning to a simpler question which is if Christ truly rose from the dead and founded a Church, why would I look elsewhere for what He has already given? For that reason, my path is not from Darwin to Hermes, but from Darwin to Genesis, and ultimately from Genesis to Christ and the Church He established. Phew! 😀
You’re most welcome Àine, I enjoy our conversations very much so.
You write in a way that is beautiful, clear and distinct, grounded and serious, yet light and enjoyable.
I cannot say I disagree with you, quite the contrary, I have grown to rather enjoy the way you see things and your beliefs.
I’m glad to hear that you don’t confine god to a box, that was my main qualm with the religion, but it seems I have been naive in regard to the entirety of the faith.
My only other qualm, well something I ponder, it seems the focus is on Jesus, and He, as you say, was a man, but I was always under the impression the only true father we have is God.
Many Christian’s say in Jesus we trust, but for me, I would say in God I trust.
Perhaps it means the same thing and, again, I’m naive, regardless, I hope you can see what I’m trying to describe.
I get the impression people are following the word of Jesus, when Jesus was the messenger of God, so perhaps we should follow God and not his messenger.
Thank you Jordan, I too very much enjoy our interactions and I completely understand what you're saying. I think the key difference is that Christians do not believe Jesus was merely a ‘messenger’ sent by God. If that were the case, I would agree that our focus should move beyond the messenger to God Himself. The Christian belief is that Jesus is God made man or incarnate. This is where the Trinity is important. Christians believe in one God in three Persons - Father, Son and Holy Ghost so when we say, "In Jesus I trust," we are not placing Jesus above God but we are trusting God as He has revealed Himself in the Person of the Son. I’m doing a rubbish job of explaining this sorry as it is a really profound mystery of the faith!
I completely agree with your beautiful statement that our true Father is God. In fact, Jesus Himself constantly points us to the Father. But He also made an astonishing claim to His apostles which is that to know Him is to know the Father so when I say, "In Jesus I trust," I mean exactly what you mean when you say, "In God I trust."
I do ponder whether even these words are there to direct Us into beliefs and behaviors... The Ones in control on Our planet have been so since before the Sumerians, after all...
And from My spiritual experience, We ARE God - co-Gods, co-creating the Now with the behaviors We choose. We are Conscious - and God is Consciousness - and aware, able to choose how We behave.
Sentient and sapient.
Some are psychopaths, incapable of feeling caring, compassion, love or empathy for Others, and They are few. But... As They will choose unEthically, They will garner the tool to power, that enables the manipulation of Humanity. And that tool is money.
Money has been the bane of Humanity for aeons.
For Those who would control Us can buy the things and the People to They agendas, as long as We must account, with "money" in any form, for Our energy added into a system so as to survive, affording to live.
And so... Knowing We have the tech to obsolete that tool, I choose My behavior thusly: to share awareness of such tech and promote getting it out in the open and stripping those few psychopaths of the power over Us They have.
It is My only passion to do this for Humanity, irrespective of the hell I endure for having made this choice - I am targeted, and something ensures My bed vibrates with frequencies likely unhealthy all night, every night.
Still, I will not forego My work to free Humanity from these psychopaths' besetment!
Kinda reminds me of the the seven Deadly Sins which we received from the Archons.
The seven capital virtues, also known as seven lively virtues, contrary or remedial virtues, are those opposite to the seven deadly sins. They are often enumerated as chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, kindness, patience, and humility.
Seven Deadly Sins
Pride is the worst of the Seven Deadly Sins which are shown below:
1.Pride: Excessive self-worth, which is considered the root of all other sins.
2.Greed: An intense desire for material wealth or possessions.
3.Lust: An overwhelming, disordered desire for sexual gratification.
4.Envy: Resentment toward others' traits, status, or success.
5.Gluttony: Overindulgence in food or drink.
6.Wrath: Uncontrolled anger, hatred, or desire for revenge.
7.Sloth: Laziness and the avoidance of work or spiritual duty.
Pride is known as hubris (from the Ancient Greek ὕβρις) or futility; it is considered the original and worst of the seven deadly sins—the most demonic—on almost every list. Pride is also thought to be the source of the other capital sins. Pride is viewed as the opposite of humility.
C. S. Lewis writes in Mere Christianity that pride is the "anti-God" state, the position in which the ego and the self are directly opposed to God. "Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison. It was through Pride that Lucifer became wicked: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind." Pride is understood to sever the human spirit from God, as well as from the life and grace given by God's presence.
A person can be prideful for different reasons. Author Ichabod Spencer states that "spiritual pride is the worst kind of pride, if not the worst snare of the devil. The heart is particularly deceitful on this one thing." Jonathan Edwards wrote: "remember that pride is the worst viper that is in the heart, the greatest disturber of the soul's peace and sweet communion with Christ; it was the first sin that ever was and lies lowest in the foundation of Lucifer's whole building and is the most difficultly rooted out and is the most hidden, secret and deceitful of all lusts and often creeps in, insensibly, into the midst of religion and sometimes under the disguise of humility."
Modern use of the term pride may be captured in the biblical proverb, "Pride goeth before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall" (which is abbreviated as "Pride goeth before a fall" in Proverbs 16:18). The "pride that blinds" causes foolish actions against common sense.
In political analysis, hubris is often used to describe how powerful leaders become irrationally self-confident and contemptuous of advice over time, leading them to act impulsively.
Are the Archons manufactured by the royal bloodline families? Or do the capital virtues simply not apply to them?
Here's my understanding of the Archons.
ARCHONS
In the beginning there was a rebellion in heaven and 1/3 of the angels fell into the material world. Our incarnated soul is a splinter of an angelic oversoul. The term Archon refers to servants of the Demiurge, the evil "creator god", that stands between the human race and a transcendent God that can only be reached through GNOSIS. The Archons are characterised as terrible forces of negativity and illusion. They are cosmic prison warders seeking to keep their human charges bound to earth. How? The seven Deadly Sins were inserted as archetypes into the soul when it incarnated on earth for the first time: Lust/Gluttony/Greed/Sloth/Wrath/Envy/Pride. Or in the words of Castaneda: „The predators gave us their mind ". Caught up in the illusions of material existence, man believes he is just a body and he cannot grasp the truth of his origin. This condition perpetuates spiritual blindness, leaving human kind in captivity to his prison guards. The Archons are tyrannical and limiting agencies who rule over humanity and creation in order to enhance their own self-importance and glory. It is incumbent upon the knower to realize this and to extricate himself from the grasp of these powers whenever possible. The existential predicament of human life lies in the uncomfortable dominance to which these lesser godlings subject the spirits of human beings, and from which only the experiential realization of gnosis can extricate them. The king of earth, the Rex Mundi, is the name given to the demiurge by the Gnostics
Maybe the Bloodline are servants of the Archons?
Yeah. So the bloodlines are not human then.
Maybe, might be hybrids. If Satan is the demiurge, then the Synagogue of Satan that Jesus spoke of, also includes Souls that made the Devil's Bargain for power and riches.
The human and inhuman follow the same agenda. Yeah,and then there's Reptilians and Greys and demons.
Jews.
Ashkenazi wanna be Joos and the offspring of the Pharisees (authors of the Talmud) intermingled somewhere in time.
Very valuable knowledge Ken, especially here, thank you.
I can attest that Pride is a dire virtue.
It behooves you to keep writing about this: Especially as we are so indoctrinated in this time with the conflict between Science and reason, and religion and supernatural divine creation.
I’ve no intention of stopping Simon, thank you brother.
Humbly, it is not science and reason, per se, but The Science™ - the manipulation of science and reason for profit and control of Humanity. True science follows true reason, irrespective of who it profits.
Guide for the Perplexed
E.F. Schumacher https://archive.org/details/guideforperplexe00schu
Jordan, I highly recommend this text.
“Evolutionism is not science it is science fiction even a kind of hoax. It is a hoax that has succeeded too well and has imprisoned modern man in what looks like an irreconcilable conflict between 'science' and 'religion'.
It has destroyed all faiths that pull mankind up and
has substituted a faith that pulls mankind down.
Chance and necessity and the utilitarian mechanism of natural selection may produce curiosities, improbabilities and atrocities, ….
There is nothing 'higher' and nothing 'lower'; everything is much of a muchness, even though some things are more complex than others - just by chance. Evolutionism, purporting to explain all and everything solely and exclusively by natural selection for adaptation and survival, is the most extreme product of the materialistic utilitarianism of the nineteenth century.
The inability of twentieth-century thought to rid itself of this imposture is a failure that may well cause the collapse of Western civilisation. For it is impossible for any civilisation to survive without a faith in meanings and values transcending the utilitarianism of comfort and survival - in other words, without a religious faith.
…
There can be little doubt that in the modern world more cases of loss of religious faith are to be traced to the theory of evolution as their immediate cause than to anything else. It is true, surprising as it may seem, that many people still contrive to live out their lives in a tepid and precarious combination of religion and evolutionism.
But for the more logically minded, there is no option but to choose between the two, that is,
• between the doctrine of the fall of man and (the Wisdom Tradition)
• the 'doctrine' of the rise of man, and (evolutionism)
to reject altogether the one not chosen. . . .
Millions of our contemporaries have chosen evolutionism
on the grounds that evolution is a 'scientifically proved truth', as many of them were taught it at school; the gulf between them and religion is widened still further by the fact that the religious man, unless he happens to be a scientist, is unable to make a bridge between himself and them by producing the right initial argument, which must be on the scientific plane.”
This is earlier in the text:
Levels of Being
I
Our task is to look at the world and see it whole.
We see what our ancestors have always seen:
a great 'Chain of Being' which seems to divide naturally into four sections –
four 'kingdoms', as they used to be called –
mineral, plant, animal and human.
This 'was, in fact, until not much more than a century ago, probably the most widely familiar conception of the general scheme of things, of the constitutive pattern of the universe'.1
The Chain of Being can be seen as extending downwards from the highest to the lowest,
or it can be seen upwards from the lowest to the highest.
The ancient view begins with the Divine and sees the downward Chain of Being
as an increasing distance from the centre and a progressive loss of qualities.
The modern view, largely influenced by the theory of evolution,
tends to start from inanimate matter and consider man the last link of the chain,
having evolved the widest range of useful qualities.
For our purposes, the direction of looking upwards, or downwards - is unimportant at this stage, and in line with modern habits of thought we shall start at the lowest level, the mineral kingdom, and consider the successive gain of qualities, or powers, as we move to the higher levels.
This is from a conversation I had with AI: (I am exploring deeply the notion of self-awareness as the turning point in the evolutionary track of humanity…
Schumacher is not attacking biological evolution. He is attacking evolutionism —
the philosophical worldview that arose from Darwinism.
Evolutionism says:
• life began at the bottom
• everything is rising upward
• humans are the highest product of matter
• consciousness is an accident
• interiority is a late development
• there is no “higher” or “lower”
• there is no loss of qualities
• there is no Fall
• there is only ascent
Schumacher calls this:
“The doctrine of the Rise.”
And he says it is incompatible with the Wisdom Tradition.
⭐ 2. The Doctrine of the Fall (Wisdom Tradition)
The ancient worldview — the one you are restoring — says:
• life began at the top (Spirit)
• manifestation is a descent
• each level loses qualities
• matter is the lowest rung
• humans once possessed higher interior faculties
• humanity has fallen from original interiority
• spiritual work is a return to the One
This is the metaphysical Fall:
a loss of interiority, not a moral catastrophe.
Schumacher calls this:
“The doctrine of the Fall.”
⭐ 3. Why a rational mind must choose
Schumacher’s point is brutally simple:
You cannot hold both worldviews at once.
Doctrine of the Rise
• consciousness is a late accident
• interiority is emergent
• humans are climbing upward
• no loss has occurred
• no Fall is possible
• religion becomes unnecessary
• spiritual longing becomes psychological residue
Doctrine of the Fall
• consciousness is primordial
• interiority is original
• humans have lost qualities
• spiritual work is recovery
• religion is memory of higher states
• Wisdom is map of return
These two worldviews are mutually exclusive.
Schumacher says modernity chose the first — and therefore lost the second.
⭐ 4. Why evolutionism caused the decline of religious faith
Schumacher’s argument is devastatingly clear:
If evolutionism is true as a worldview, then:
• man has never fallen
• man has never lost anything
• man has never possessed higher faculties
• man has no need for recovery
• man has no need for religion
• man has no need for Wisdom
• man has no need for spiritual discipline
• man has no need for self awareness
• man has no need for the One
Religion collapses because its entire metaphysical structure depends on the doctrine of the Fall.
Not the moral Fall. The ontological Fall — the loss of interiority.
Evolutionism denies that loss.
Therefore religion becomes incoherent.
This is Schumacher’s exact point.
⭐ 5. Why this matters for your developing idea of self awareness
You said:
Self awareness = participation in cosmic purpose vs. being “used” willingness to assent to the disciplines
This fits perfectly.
Under the Doctrine of the Rise
Self awareness is just a late evolutionary trick. It has no cosmic significance. It does not confer power. It does not reveal the One. It does not restore anything.
Under the Doctrine of the Fall
Self awareness is the evolutionary leap back toward interiority. It is the threshold of spiritual participation. It is the door to the One. It is the restoration of lost faculties. It is the willingness to align with cosmic purpose.
This is why Schumacher insists the choice matters.
⭐ 6. The clean synthesis (for your Wisdom Cosmology folder)
Evolutionism (the doctrine of the Rise) says humanity is climbing upward from matter and has lost nothing.
The Wisdom Tradition (the doctrine of the Fall) says humanity has descended from Spirit and lost interiority.
A rational mind cannot hold both. Modernity chose the Rise, and therefore lost the metaphysical foundation of religion.
Self awareness is the evolutionary leap that restores interiority and allows participation in the One.
Wow, certainly a perfect addition to add to this article friend, thank you so very much, and I’m sure others are just as grateful.
Very interesting indeed.
A few thoughts on this…
These writings of Hermes, though I had not read this before, do remind me in some parts of what is now recited in the Apostle’s or Nicene Creed in the Christian church.
When I went to university in the late 1980’s, we were given a free book, The Selfish Gene. I now see this as an attempt to indoctrinate us to believe in Darwin’s teachings instead of God’s.
Then in 2009, there was a movie about Darwin called Creation. One part that stands out was when he went to church with his family, everyone else was paying rapt attention, but he was bored & restless , as if these people were the stupid, foolish ones. Again, an attempt to influence us to turn away from God & turn to ‘science’.
The evidence is abundantly clear when you grow eyes to see, it sounds like you grew them a long time ago Chris!.
Great comment friend, cracking insights and very revealing.
Hi Jordan, I am not convinced that the journey should take us from Darwin to Hermes Trismegistus. As a Christian, and with as always the greatest respect, I would suggest that the proper path is from Darwin to Genesis.The reason is simple: Genesis is not merely an ancient text among other ancient texts. It forms part of Divine Revelation, received and preserved by the people of God and fulfilled in Christ. Its authority for Christians does not rest primarily on its antiquity, but on its place within the inspired Scriptures. By contrast, the Hermetic writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus were once believed during the Renaissance to be extremely ancient, perhaps even predating Moses. However, subsequent scholarship demonstrated that these texts were actually composed much later, during the first centuries of the Christian era, drawing upon a mixture of Greek philosophy, Egyptian religion, and mystical speculation. They are therefore not the primordial wisdom many once imagined them to be. There are certainly passages within the Hermetic corpus that sound noble, spiritual, and at times even remarkably close to Christian language. Yet similarity is not the same as truth. Christianity does not rest upon hidden wisdom passed down through esoteric traditions, but upon God's public self-revelation through the prophets, and ultimately Jesus Christ. For me, the question is not whether modern humanity has forgotten its origins, that’s very clear. It is where we should go in order to recover them. If we wish to recover the ancient understanding that humanity is created with purpose, dignity, and a divine calling, I see no need to look first to Hermes. Genesis already tells us that man is made in the image and likeness of God, and the Gospel reveals even more fully who we are and what we are for. So while I appreciate the your desire to challenge materialism, I would respectfully suggest that the answer is not to exchange one narrative for another, but to return to the source that has nourished Jewish and Christian belief for millennia: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." God bless and protect you Jordan 🙏
Have you read the Emerald Tablets Àine?
I find them fascinating because we cannot replicate the method in which is was created, which appears to have been by melting emerald and pouring it into a mould; this technique is not possible today.
That singular fact holds a tremendous about of weight for me.
It is noted in the majority of circles that the tablets written by Thoth/Hermes were made in the 6/7th century, so the Bible does predate it, but the problem I have with the Bible is:
If you pick up an old one, you’d be mistaken for thinking it’s a different book.
It’s mean changed repeatedly over the centuries, where as the emerald tablet cannot change, it is as it was then, as it is now.
Many argue it is indestructible, and when you consider who history explains Hermes to be, you can see why he chose a material so strong, in order to last the ages, the ages that will need it the most!.
I suggest you have a look into the original tablets, you’ll find that it aligns with scripture more than you think!.
I’ve noticed many of the creation story’s, excluding evolution, seem to describe a very similar series of events; almost as if they are all explaining the same story.
My main quarrel with religion is the fact it teaches god is in a building, and I do not agree with that, God is within you and me, we can convene him Him wherever we are.
Thanks Jordan. I haven't studied the Emerald Tablets although I am familiar with some of the claims surrounding them. I think where we differ is not so much on the desire to seek truth, but on where we believe God chose to preserve it. As a convert to traditional Catholicism, my confidence in Scripture does not rest on whether the physical medium has remained unchanged (albeit I possess the oldest and earliest bible available to us). It rests on the conviction that Christ established a Church, entrusted His teaching to the Apostles, and promised that the Holy Ghost would guide that Church into all truth. For me, Christianity is not fundamentally a religion of a book or a tablet, but of a Person, Jesus Christ, and the community and church He founded. Even if a text could be shown to have remained unchanged for centuries, that alone would not establish its divine authority. The real question is about who entrusted it to us, and by what authority do we receive it as truth?
What draws me to Christianity is that it is rooted in a living tradition stretching from Christ to the Apostles and from the Apostles through the generations of the Church. The sacraments, the Holy mass, the priesthood, apostolic succession, and the Creed were not discovered in hidden writings but handed down openly within the Body of Christ.
I agree that many creation accounts seem to share common themes and there are often echoes of truth scattered throughout many human cultures and religions. If humanity shares a common origin and a common Creator, we might expect fragments of ancient memories and insights to appear in many places. But I would distinguish between this and the fullness of revelation. For me, the fullness is found in Christ. Hermes points men toward wisdom; Christ is Wisdom itself. Hermes seeks the divine; Christ says, "He who has seen me has seen the Father."
On your final point, I absolutely agree that God is not confined to a building. No Catholic believes that God is somehow trapped inside a church!! 😀 God is omnipresent and he resides in us if we are in a state of grace however, Christ chose to meet us not just inwardly but sacramentally. He founded a visible Church under Peter (Tu es Petrus et super hanc petram..), entrusted authority to the Apostles, and gave us many tangible miracles and signs of grace. Just as God became flesh in the Incarnation, He continues to work through material means: water in Baptism, bread and wine in the Eucharist, oil in Anointing, and the laying on of hands in Holy Orders so while I appreciate the search for ancient wisdom, I find myself continually returning to a simpler question which is if Christ truly rose from the dead and founded a Church, why would I look elsewhere for what He has already given? For that reason, my path is not from Darwin to Hermes, but from Darwin to Genesis, and ultimately from Genesis to Christ and the Church He established. Phew! 😀
You’re most welcome Àine, I enjoy our conversations very much so.
You write in a way that is beautiful, clear and distinct, grounded and serious, yet light and enjoyable.
I cannot say I disagree with you, quite the contrary, I have grown to rather enjoy the way you see things and your beliefs.
I’m glad to hear that you don’t confine god to a box, that was my main qualm with the religion, but it seems I have been naive in regard to the entirety of the faith.
My only other qualm, well something I ponder, it seems the focus is on Jesus, and He, as you say, was a man, but I was always under the impression the only true father we have is God.
Many Christian’s say in Jesus we trust, but for me, I would say in God I trust.
Perhaps it means the same thing and, again, I’m naive, regardless, I hope you can see what I’m trying to describe.
I get the impression people are following the word of Jesus, when Jesus was the messenger of God, so perhaps we should follow God and not his messenger.
Thank you Jordan, I too very much enjoy our interactions and I completely understand what you're saying. I think the key difference is that Christians do not believe Jesus was merely a ‘messenger’ sent by God. If that were the case, I would agree that our focus should move beyond the messenger to God Himself. The Christian belief is that Jesus is God made man or incarnate. This is where the Trinity is important. Christians believe in one God in three Persons - Father, Son and Holy Ghost so when we say, "In Jesus I trust," we are not placing Jesus above God but we are trusting God as He has revealed Himself in the Person of the Son. I’m doing a rubbish job of explaining this sorry as it is a really profound mystery of the faith!
I completely agree with your beautiful statement that our true Father is God. In fact, Jesus Himself constantly points us to the Father. But He also made an astonishing claim to His apostles which is that to know Him is to know the Father so when I say, "In Jesus I trust," I mean exactly what you mean when you say, "In God I trust."
Wow, you have done a remarkable job at explaining that for me, thank you Àine, I can confidently say I see it now.
It makes a lot more sense that what I deduced from passing knowledge, thank you again, and have a great weekend ❤️
You too Jordan and thank you again. I really love our interactions! God bless 🙏
I do ponder whether even these words are there to direct Us into beliefs and behaviors... The Ones in control on Our planet have been so since before the Sumerians, after all...
And from My spiritual experience, We ARE God - co-Gods, co-creating the Now with the behaviors We choose. We are Conscious - and God is Consciousness - and aware, able to choose how We behave.
Sentient and sapient.
Some are psychopaths, incapable of feeling caring, compassion, love or empathy for Others, and They are few. But... As They will choose unEthically, They will garner the tool to power, that enables the manipulation of Humanity. And that tool is money.
Money has been the bane of Humanity for aeons.
For Those who would control Us can buy the things and the People to They agendas, as long as We must account, with "money" in any form, for Our energy added into a system so as to survive, affording to live.
And so... Knowing We have the tech to obsolete that tool, I choose My behavior thusly: to share awareness of such tech and promote getting it out in the open and stripping those few psychopaths of the power over Us They have.
It is My only passion to do this for Humanity, irrespective of the hell I endure for having made this choice - I am targeted, and something ensures My bed vibrates with frequencies likely unhealthy all night, every night.
Still, I will not forego My work to free Humanity from these psychopaths' besetment!
The Problems in Profit (article): https://amaterasusolar.substack.com/p/the-problems-in-profit
The World They’re Building for Us (article): https://amaterasusolar.substack.com/p/the-world-theyre-building-for-us
My Targeted Individual Story (article): https://amaterasusolar.substack.com/p/my-targeted-individual-story
A Breakdown of Why Abundancism is the Solution (article): https://amaterasusolar.substack.com/p/a-breakdown-of-why-abundancism-is