Imagine a single, unified spirituality that combines all religions, yet does so on an account of true reverence towards the eternal powers of the all divine. Recent meeting at Stanford California Campus in California began to look into the interest people have in creating an all new spiritual choice and presence within the world today. Below is some of that which came out of what those at Stanford working on, combined with several other sources of which have requested they not be publicized as taking part in this combined initiative, and has been compiled together in a swift, rogue edit. What is MOST important is the fact that this challenge is now offered to all people who wish to share creatively and collectively, to attempt to create for ourselves and each other a home closer to the divine, rather than to hell. You are being asked to CREATE IT. So, as a "creator" where will your creation begin?

Imagine a clean slate for religion. No bearded prophets, no holy texts, no brainwashing, no going back hundreds and thousands of years, no commandments, no saints, no angels, no rituals, no sacraments, no places of worship, no priests and preachers, no traditional practices and observances, no holy days, no popes, no rules regarding diet, clothes or appearance, no prohibitions, no sermons. Imagine a new state of presence that wakes up humanity and brings about spiritual renaissance. Imagine that spiritual awakening doing the following:

Frees humanity from the materialistic, zombie consumer culture of shopping malls

Appeals to theists, deists, gnostics, agnostics and even atheists.

Promotes mystery, secrecy and wonder, and provides a transformative experience for its initiates.

It's up to you to build it. Create, on the drawing board, via crowd-sourcing, the perfect religion, with no historical baggage, and then bring it alive. Can you do it?

Perhaps for now we'll just call it Illuminism (rather than Illumination). The aim is for it to be so inspiring that it will consign all other religions to oblivion, and will allow agnostics and atheists to participate. For all of its triumphs, science, the bedrock of atheism, is full of holes and contradictions (it's amazing how many critical flaws in science are glossed over as if they didn't exist), and, above all, science can't answer the most basic question of all: what is the meaning of life? This isn't a scientific question, it's a philosophical one, and atheists are as interested in it as much as everyone else.

So, can you collaborate with others to produce a religion that will inspire the world and save us all from the horrors of the dominant religions and the current state of our existence?

It should be a religion that costs nothing, requires no priests, rabbis, or imams, no churches, mosques, synagogues or temples, no baptisms, no "holy" days; a religion that has no need of "saints" interceding on our behalf, nor of "sacraments" that bestow "grace" upon us, nor ancient texts that we are supposed to take literally, nor fierce prophets ordering us what to do. No one and no organization stands between you and God. God is within you. Look here if you do not believe me.

The qualities attributed to Jesus Christ are those possessed by each person if they did but know it. As with Christ, God and man are united in each and every one of us; two natures existing within each person. Christians are willing to believe this of Christ, but not of ordinary men and women. Gnostics accept it as true of everyone. This radically opposite view makes all the difference in the world.

Christianity or Gnosticism? - God incarnate in one person (Christ), or the divine spark incarnate in everyone? Which offers the most glorious and hopeful vision for humanity? There is no possible doubt. Had Christianity evolved slightly differently (and it had many opportunities to become unrecognizable from the way it turned out), it could have been Gnostic Christianity, with Christ as an Everyman…a shining example to all Gnostics, a model for everyone to emulate, the perfect blend of humanness and the divine spark. (Some Gnostics regarded Christ as a divine messenger sent by the True God to enlighten us. He had a phantom body, they said, rather than a real one because no being from the realm of light would ever fully enter into the Satanic material world. Other Gnostics regarded him as indeed taking on a physical reality so that he could act as the perfect example to everyone of how to escape Satan's material hell. His life, they said, was about an ordinary man - a carpenter - going on an incredible journey to release his divine spark and become God. He was so successful that billions now worship him as though he were a unique being rather than an exemplar whom anyone can emulate.)

The Illuminati, knowing the true identity of Jesus Christ, revile him, but the "image" of Jesus Christ rather than the reality could certainly have been the foundation of great things if it had evolved along Gnostic lines. The archons - the agents of the Demiurge, the ultimate puppet masters - ensured that this did not happen.

Nothing is more important than the idea that God (or a "higher self" to placate atheists) resides within you, because this ensures that no one is alienated from God (he is no longer separate, alien and distant from us) and it gives every person's life infinite value. It ensures that everyone has high self-esteem and self-confidence. Kings of old claimed to be divinely appointed and thus to have the absolute right to dominate everyone else. Illuminism should teach that we are all divinely appointed and no one has the right to dominate anyone.

Illuminism should promote humanity's highest aspirations, the feeling of well-being and contentment, the feeling that everyone is precious and to be treated as such.

Illuminism should abolish churches and formal buildings of worship. Religion should return to nature, to the outdoors: to groves and forests, rivers and lakes, mountains and fields, caves and grottoes. It should contain mystery and magic to kindle the human imagination. There should be no power hierarchy.

Ecstasy means standing outside of oneself. Enthusiasm means being possessed or inspired by a god. Inspiration means breathing in the divine essence. These words are all related to the quest for the divine spark and attaining your higher self. Illuminism should be full of ecstatic experiences, enthusiasm and inspiration.

A long-running joke in The Simpsons is the incredible tedium of the Reverend Lovejoy's services. The Simpsons, like most Christians, regard religion as a chore that needs to be endured every Sunday. There's nothing uplifting about it, nothing transcendent. Religion is supposed to be the core of the mystery of life, and yet for most people it's something that sends them to sleep. Modern religion is either a bore or leads to the psychopathic fanaticism of  suicide bombers. The majority of people these days are numb, "comfortably" numb. Isn't it time to come out of your numbness, to feel the exhilaration that true religion brings? The world is crying out for a new religion.

 

Can you create symbols and initiation degrees for Illuminism? Can you create a structure for an underground religion? Can you create secret and mystical ceremonies? Can you create a religion that allows people to feel like gods?

Perhaps the ancient and historical red Phrygian cap should be worn? This is the famous liberty cap of the American and French Revolutions.

 

 
Perhaps you can find inspiration from the following texts:.

• The Emerald Tablet
• The Kybalion
• The Corpus Hermeticum
• The Rosicrucian Manifestos
       1. Fama Fraternitatis
       2. Confessio Fraternitatis
       3. Chymical Wedding
  

• The Holy Grail:
     1. Perceval, The Story of the Grail by Chrétien de Troyes
     2. Joseph of Arimithea, or the Novel of the History of the Grail by Robert de Boron
     3. Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach
  
• The Divine Comedy by Dante
• Paradise Lost by John Milton
• Faust by Goethe

Or from the following spiritual films:

Stalker (Andrei Tarkovsky)
(The quest for a modern Grail.)

Solaris (Andrei Tarkovsky)
(An encounter with reified dreams and the deep contents of the unconscious.)

Excalibur (John Boorman)
(The quest for the original Grail.)

Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola)
(Journey into the heart of darkness for an encounter with your higher self, only to discover that it has become corrupt. You must "kill" your higher self, allowing it to be reborn in a purified state.)

Groundhog Day (Harold Ramis)
(A man finding his higher self through eternal recurrence and reincarnation.)

The Matrix (Wachowski Brothers)
(A man transforming into his divine self.)

V for Vendetta ( James McTeigue)
(A masked hero fights back against an oppressive, totalitarian regime.)

Network (Sidney Lumet)
(The cynicism and evil of corporations and the media are spectacularly exposed.

DO THE RIGHT THING, AND PASS THIS MESSAGE ON TO ALL YOU KNOW AND LOVE!

Author: Unknown