Personal gnosis vs. public gnosis.

I did not set out to write a book about my experiences with the Shem ha-Mephoresh. However, when talking to Nanael, I was encouraged to get this experience out there quickly, and in a more permanent form than a blog post.

I've got a print version on the way, the only version currently is the Kindle one, because kindle is very quick to get from final draft to print.

I will not say this the most intense spiritual experience I've ever had, but it has a different quality than the other times I've done this ritual. It was in a group setting, and the imagery was very clear. Usually, these experiences are very dream like, sort of vague and fuzzy. This one was intense and quite clear. The angel, his environs, his words, and his purpose were all quite clearly communicated as was the desire for them to be transmitted further.

The gnosis in this book is definitely personal. It's my experience encountering a being who's nature is manifestly different than my own. There are messages within that are universal, and messages that are surprising to me in my own ideas and opinions. There are things contrary to reason, that never the less seem to reoccur time and time again in human culture.

What encouraged me to share this is there are no grandiose claims about my own purpose in this. Nanael encouraged me to put the magical name I used for this work on the cover, not my every day name. This was not an every day experience, it was not something Scott did. It was outside, incredibly sublime and 'other'. In some ways it was quite frightening. However, it's also not some grandiose statement on reality, some new path to follow, some revelation that will change and found a world religion. It is a bit of insight, to be taken or left as needed.

I've had books spring fully formed into my imagination before. Hipster Abraxas, for instance, is one of those ideas, and it's slowly coalescing into a final form to be written. The problem with me writing is generally I get to much in the way of my own work. I have read and studied too much, and everything I write seems to be derivative, hackneyed, and boring. By the meter I have judged, I judge my own work. Harshly, it seems.

That's what makes this so different. It came, and it was done, and even though I was was sure it was hackneyed and derivative as well, I pushed it out and put it out in the world, to be read and let the reader what they will with it.

Take a look at it, and see if you'd like to read more. If you like it, share it around, review it, and let me know. If you don't like it, especially let me know. There are more abode of the angel books in the offing, and I want to know if there are improvements to be made.