May 8, 2010

  • As a child, I dreamt of gnostic knowledge

    Well, not necessarily in that form. Rather, I was convinced that I was going to find the secret compartment, the hiding place for magic, and with the magic that I'd find there, I would gain the capability to gain more. There are several concrete images I hold to this day, including a variety of locations in the church that my maternal grandparents went to. There was a speaker in the ceiling that I was convinced was another podium. Parts of the pews would secrete secret scrolls when the right carvings were pressed. The crucifix would dispense a magic flute from Christ's right toe... they were all bizarrely detailed dreams and memories which seemed right at the time. There was supposed to be secret compartment behind the bed in my brother's room. The top of the sugar maple tree had a hidden cache that could grant powers. In my mind, they were all instant gratification, power granted without sacrifice, without cost, accessible to all who could understand and who knew the mysteries. So yeah, that basically describes gnōsis. And it fits with part of who I am, that part of me who refuses to believe that the mundane world that I perceive every day is the true world, who knows that there is magic somewhere if a fool only knew where to look, and that he could fly if he abandoned all fear of flying and believed.

    I don't honestly know where the line between belief and self-delusion falls here. Human beings are such excellent pattern matchers that we see patterns where there are none. Whether it's lucky socks, patterns in primes, or believing that street lamps go out more often when we pass by, we want to make sense of the world and we tend to go from a conclusion and manufacture an explanation. And so I cannot yield to what I truly believe, for to do so, I'd just become one of those crazy people who jumped off a building thinking they would fly.

    Or maybe, just maybe, I would fly.