“The early history of the people of the Mediterranean is fragmentary. The earlier the people, the more fragmentary it is. One of the fragments that has come down to us is of the first Cretian Civilization. This civilization was pre-Greek, Egyptian, Hebrew, or Phoenician, etc. One might venture the suggestion that their religion was privative as that of most of the early races was. This is not true. Their religion was more advanced than anything that we have seen, practiced, or hypothesized since. It was Gnosticism, the search for knowledge. It was not a religion that said yes or no to anything: God, nature, etc. It searched for knowledge. It is time that this religion was revived.”
He continues, “It is suggested that a religion be constructed. Immediately questions will be asked both by those opposed and those favorably inclined to it as to what its dogma will be. Such a question is well placed. Though it will probably be denied, all religions and philosophies of this Earth – past, and present – theorized and practiced, have their dogma.
Gnosticism considers the pursuit, distribution, and clear statement of facts and their synthesis into knowledge as all-important. Anything that facilitates this sort of endeavor is therefore good, and that which opposes it is evil.
A good analogy is the outlook of a child on things about him is to be emulated. The more intelligent the child, the more penetrating his outlook of course, but in all cases the thing to be commended about the child’s examination of things about him is its freshness. Everything is new and wonderful. Each item is examined for itself and as a separate entity. There is no need to struggle to fit the new things into a pattern of convention (theological, political, behavioristic, or otherwise). Very little is ignored by the child. Though the period of attention may be brief it is complete and penetrating. Adults often ignore things, or if forced to abstract one quality with a glance and hypothesize the others through convention or past experience.
To study the universe is fascinating. It must be approached with a fresh outlook. To be sure, some branches of knowledge such as facility in higher mathematics are desirable to the student as walking is a help in examining a cobweb on a lawn, but they should never blind the student.
Probably the most blinding methods that we have learned are those of convention theological convention, political convention, and behavioristic convention. There are reasons for the conventions such as maintaining the stability of social systems or gaining control or wrecking social systems. The proponents and followers of such conventions will, unfortunately, have great power today as they always have and will likely continue to have in the foreseeable future. This is because a gifted group of proponents (with conviction or tongue in cheek) must keep control or gain control of the less talented mob. If there were only one group of proponents then the world would have been united under them long ago.
It is a great misfortune that some of the greatest minds either have been indoctrinated into manmade dogmas or pay lip service to them so that they may be safe from the pack which will rip any real non-conformist to shreds. If the pack does not turn to the work of shredding automatically, then the elect will set the to it. Under such circumstances, it is not often that one can free his mind and look at things with freshness and fascination, and practice true Gnosticism.”
There is a large amount of manuscript material in the Enzmann Archive about Cosmology. FREA is publishing parts of this material in each ENDEAVOR Quarterly and intends to publish a book when all the writing of Doc E is compiled about this subject.
