by David Beth

From the nocturnal consciousness of human experience manifests a shadow current of Gnosis which exists in opposition to most orthodox forms of religion and spirituality. Exalting the soul over the spirit, the pandaemonium of Life over escapist transcendence, this counter-tradition is known as Kosmic Gnosis. The wayfarers on this esoteric path quest for a unique form of liberation and distinction: Kaivalya. Before we can point to the essence of Kaivalya within our system of attainment, it is crucial to understand some of the foundations upon which our teachings are built. At the base of our work we find the conviction that true spiritual liberation can only be achieved through the recognition of the primary importance of the symbiotic relation between the inner Life (soul) of the individual and the ensouled phenomena of the kosmos. Acknowledging the Aristotelian division of the substance within man as body, soul and spirit we, unlike most other spiritual systems and paths, advocate the primacy of the soul over the spirit. Our teachings reject any notions of logocentric transcendence and monotheism/monism as dangerous illusions and deceptions that originate in the workings of the spirit. The spirit (also manifesting as logos, nous), this a-kosmic power invaded Life (residing exclusively in the I-ness of the Ego within humans) at the beginning of the ‘historical’ period. This metaphysical catastrophe triggered a continuous spiritual devolution leading to the current age known also as the Kali Yuga.

The primordial unity of body and soul not only extends to the human being or the organic world but to all phenomena which constitute the kosmos, including space and time. The soul is the meaning of the body and the body is the manifestation of the soul. Deriving from this Gnosis is the experience of a total sacredness of the phenomenal world as the ‘Ultimate Reality.’ The ‘Ultimate Reality’ is not to be found BEYOND the phenomena in an abstract transcendent world or ‘Paradise’ but WITHIN the phenomena through their magical nimbus and aura.
Dazed and numb in most people, the soul may potentially re-awake to its primordial sovereign status, capable of vision and communication. This supreme mode of night-consciousness alone allows the kosmos to rise and unveil itself before man in all its glory and daemonic splendor. A natural and harmonious symbiosis ensues in which soul bares and mates itself to soul, in which death does not exist but only the eternal flux of unique moments and ensouled metamorphosis.
This primordial unity of Life, however, has become continuously separated through the power of the a-kosmic spirit, which is the logos, literally unmoving, out of space and out of time, totally unknowable. Void and nothing in itself, it can only make itself ‘evident’ through its actions and these are characterized mainly by the rationalization and quantification of the world with all its terrible consequences.

The symbiotic relationship between man and world, the archaic unity between soul and body has been destroyed by the spirit that has established its tyranny within the I-ness of the Ego and rules through its executor, the profane ‘Will to Power.’ Our World of Essences, of ever-changing and unique ensouled images (which communicate themselves to the soul) has been replaced by a world of dead, quantifiable objects and the spirit. Rather than recognizing and realizing the immediacy and non-deducibility of the thoroughly sacred and enthusing World-All (Welt-All), man, under the yoke of the spirit now tries to deduce the phenomena of the world from one cause. The vitalistic and empowering soul-derived faculty of gazing in night-consciousness, the holistic visionary experience of the living, daemonic souls/images has now been substituted by the deficient mode of rational comprehension/appropriation and the analysis of de-souled ‘objects.’ It becomes easy to see how the ‘matriarchy’ of the holy kosmos of a million Gods could have been reduced to the patriarchic One God (the archetypal, bloated uber Ego, source of its extension, the spirit, projected into transcendence). The ‘Open Life,’ the daemonic exchange and mutual empowerment of souls within a complete and holistic sacred kosmos has been abolished. In its place, we find the ‘closed life’ manifesting in a profaned cosmos either experienced as a prison for the spirit(ually) inclined or as a place of materialistic excesses and exploitations coupled with extreme fears of death and nihilism. The balance of the true polar reality (Wirklichkeit), which within humans is always the unity of the masculine and feminine poles, has thus become impossible — except for a small minority.¹

All individuals and esoteric schools who have entered our meta-gnostic current of the chthonic Kosmic Gnosis and work under the spiritual protection and guidance of our Hierophancy, recognize the conflict between soul and spirit and the need to reconcile these powers to be at the root of all occult and gnostic endeavors on the path. The most supreme station the wayfarer can manifest on his spiritual journey is the mysterious Kaivalya. Kaivalya within our system encompasses both, ‘isolation’ and ‘alienation.’ Rather than signifying any kind of metaphysical escapism, the kosmic ‘isolation’ implies a supreme distinction and awakening: The kosmic isolation is the distinction of the soul from the spirit. Methodical application of magical alchemy recovers the full primordial power and superior status of the soul and simultaneously contains and transmutes the fermenting and eroding qualities of the spirit on and through Ego consciousness. The grand awakening of the soul and the successful gnostic coup d’état against the tyranny of the spirit grant the sorcerer the crucial continuity and stability for his explorations of both the inner and outer realms and protects him from losing his way in the very dangerous maze of the occult labyrinths.
A radical shift of domination from day-consciousness to night-consciousness occurs when the spiritual station of nocturnal isolation finally manifests. It is isolation the way an explorer who first sets foot onto unknown territory becomes isolated by the experience of total novelty and strangeness, an alienation of wonder and astonishment. This manifestation of a ‘new world’ (the REAL world) is fuelled by a constant erotic intoxication which is brought about by the mating of polar souls in Eros: the passive and pathic soul of the initiate with the active, inseminating soul of the daemonic opposite. This katabasis into the primordial arché through magical realization and recollection produces the radiation of the mysterious blood-lamp. The magical glow generated by the mating of inner and outer kosmic soul substance within the blood and sexual fluids of the adepts is the eternal flame which never extinguishes or exhausts and which is a symbol of the Open Life: The Dead manifesting within the Living, the Past in the Present, Eternal Becoming.²

The Kaivalya of our Gnosis, this kosmic invincibility is a spiritual station of constant unceasing access to awe and wonder; it is the numinous alienation of the sublime internalized so thoroughly as to incite an ineradicable, illuminating consciousness in the soul. Kaivalya is ‘supreme distinction,’ the most complete return to the World of Essences, the Real, the true reality in which every daemonic encounter remains forever particular. When Kaivalya manifests, every experience becomes a non-repeatable, illuminating and empowering event. Once the Black Pilgrimage has been completed and we have realized ourselves again as primordial soul, the shockwaves of archaic forces surging through our esoteric organism will break down any last remaining strongholds of the spirit within the Ego. Totally alienated not from his body, his soul or the soul(s) of the other(s) but from the clutches of the enslaving spirit, the gnostic Sorcerer becomes completely differentiated as a particular and non-repeatable being. With its domination broken through methodical esoteric work culminating in Kaivalya, the manifestations and functions of the spirit within the individual have not been eradicated but transformed. The initiate is no longer a puppet of a power striving for false self-preservation of the ‘I’; he ceases to be a serf to a profane ‘Will to Power and Domination,’ which is always a struggle motivated by a feeling of powerlessness and impotency as well as the fear of losing materialistic existence. Triumphantly returned to his true homeland of the Soul and having realized himself as daemonic Essence within the World of Essences, the Gnostic experiences a gushing forth of a ‘Will to Life’ released by his recollection and embrace of power already native to his nature. The kosmogonic Eros, which transports this power through the ecstatically orientated initiate, rushes through him in waves of erotic frenzy. The formerly parasitic properties of the spirit are being transformed into sorcerous Gnosis, generating the inner capacity of a conscious and will-fully directed manifestation of true reality out of the Heraklitean flux and even the undifferentiated chaos. Transformed day-consciousness now awakens continuously in endless possibilities of magical exchange; the ecstatic mating with the ensouled phenomena of the universe in night-consciousness unfolds endless numinosity in the experience of the sorcerer. The kosmic Gnostic dwells in sacred, sovereign isolation, revelling in the endless kosmic flux and undying chaos underlying all possible transmutations and transformations of the soul. All of his conscious acts forthwith become symbols, gateways and thus extensions of the pleromic reality of the World.

It is only through the pathways of an initiatic tradition that the wayfarer can achieve the final liberation of Kaivalya within the Kosmic Gnosis. The seeker must be an ‘elect’, chosen as much as a chooser of a teacher-based tradition which offers the appropriate arsenal of empowered magical weapons and armor to undertake this journey. This is the reason why within my Hierophancy and meta-current of the Kosmic Gnosis we find various valid initiatic schools amongst which are Esoteric Voudon and sacramental alchemical Gnosticism.
The occulted methods of our esoteric schools with its understanding of the body as a sacred treasure house of powers and as a sanctuary of the soul provide the necessary environment to accomplish the supreme katabasis, the descent and return to the pandaemonic Womb of the Dark Goddess where the gift of Kaivalya and Open Life await.

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1 – See Gunnar Alksnis, Chthonic Gnosis: Ludwig Klages and his Quest for the Pandaemonic All, Theion Publishing 2015, for an elaborate treatise on the esoteric metaphysics of Ludwig Klages whose work is greatly relevant for a deeper understanding of our Gnosis.

2 – An elaborate treatise on the shadow current of the pandaemonic Chthonic Gnosis by David Beth entitled The Black Pilgrimage will be released by Theion Publishing in the near future.