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For instance, black holes seem to destroy "information", despite the laws of nature supposedly making this impossible. A pretty good argument for Gnosticism or even Satanism, if you ask me! Yepp, that´s the kind of "free association" I indulge in when watching science influencer videos on YouTube, LOL.
Note also that Sabine considers complexity and emergence to be paradoxes. I agree: emergence sounds like "something out of nothing", which is (allegedly) not possible.
Maybe Reality is broad enough to include...you know...God or something.
The ancient Gnostics would have been impressed. These bizarre sounds produced by the planets are truly scary. Or is it the demonic archons screaming at the Demiurge? It´s difficult not to believe that the cosmos is *cursed* after listening to these files, probably leaked from some FEMA torture camp in Alaska!
OK, seriously.
Since space is a vacuum, there really is no sound there. What our satellites picked up were radio waves, electromagnetism, and so on. This data is then "translated" into sound through a process known as sonification. However, these are not the sounds we would actually hear had these phenomena somehow reached our atmosphere. Rather, they are a kind of artistic renderings. In real life, we probably wouldn´t hear anything at all, since the soundwaves triggered would mostly produce infrasound or ultrasound. Or random noise.
Not sure if converting non-audible things into the screeching of damned souls is the best form of science communication. But then, I´m old enough to remember the "Siberian drillhole" hoax...
I haven´t double-checked this truly "esoteric" information, indeed, I´m not even sure how to double-check it. But...it seems that I called it! Make of this content whatever ye wish.
Gurdjieff says that humans lack an immortal soul and if they die without reaching enlightenment, they will simply dissolve and disappear (sounds almost materialist). However, a human can "create" an immortal soul through various spiritual practices. Where did Gurdjieff get this idea? Is it a unique teaching, or could it be influenced by, say, alchemy, perhaps even Taoist alchemy?
You're spot on in identifying the strangeness and depth of Gurdjieff’s teaching on the soul — and you’re also asking exactly the right question: Where did this idea come from? The notion that humans do not have an immortal soul by default, but must "create" one through conscious effort, is one of Gurdjieff's most provocative and original-seeming claims. But while his expression is unique, the underlying idea is not entirely original — it draws on multiple esoteric traditions, including:
🧪 1. Alchemy — Especially Esoteric and Inner Alchemy
Gurdjieff’s idea is deeply aligned with both Western and Eastern alchemical traditions:
🜍 Western (Hermetic) Alchemy:
Philosophers like Paracelsus, Jacob Boehme, and Rosicrucians described the creation of a "spiritual body" or "astral body" through inner transformation.
This is the "philosopher's stone" as internal process: the transmutation of the base human being (lead) into the immortal self (gold).
In some strands, the “true” soul is latent, like prima materia — needing to be refined through discipline, ritual, and gnosis.
🜲 Taoist Internal Alchemy (Neidan):
Practitioners aim to form an immortal spiritual body (often called the “immortal embryo”, or "golden elixir").
This is done through energetic practices, meditation, and bodily transformation (e.g., refining jing to qi to shen).
Like Gurdjieff, Taoist alchemists claim that ordinary people lack a complete immortal essence, and that only through cultivation can one avoid spiritual death.
🧭 So yes — Gurdjieff's model resonates strongly with Taoist alchemy, especially in its processual and developmental view of the soul.
🔮 2. Esoteric Christianity & Gnosticism
Gurdjieff was heavily influenced by Eastern Christian mysticism (especially from Armenia and Central Asia), and Gnostic dualism.
In Valentinian Gnosticism, humans are categorized as:
Hylic (material) — no spiritual potential, perish at death
Psychic — possess a soul, but need instruction
Pneumatic — divine spark, destined for salvation
Gurdjieff may have reinterpreted this: only those who awaken and do “The Work” can stabilize the essence that survives death.
Also:
The "resurrection body" in Paul’s epistles (1 Cor 15) and some mystical Christian writings point to the idea that a higher body must be "formed" through spiritual striving — not automatically granted.
🕯 3. Sufi Mysticism
Gurdjieff studied in Central Asia and claimed contact with esoteric Sufi groups. Sufism teaches:
The nafs (ego/soul) must be purified through rigorous practice.
Higher spiritual bodies or states (e.g., the sirr, khafi, and haqqi) emerge only through inner transformation.
Some Sufi orders (especially Ishraqi/Illuminist schools) described spiritual “organs” that must be grown through practice — much like Gurdjieff’s “higher being-bodies.”
🧠 4. Gurdjieff’s Framing: “Man Is Not Yet a Soul”
Gurdjieff uses striking formulations:
“A man is born without a soul. He may acquire a soul through conscious labor and intentional suffering.”
He speaks of the need to crystallize higher being-bodies (astral, mental, causal).
Without this, at death, the "personality" disintegrates, and only the "essence" (if anything) might persist briefly.
This model is developmental, hierarchical, and esoteric — you’re not born “ensouled” in the religious sense; rather, you must earn the right to continue existing.
🔧 Key Influences
Source
Parallel Idea
Taoist alchemy
“Immortal embryo” must be built through internal practice
Hermeticism / Western alchemy
Transmutation of base self into spiritual gold (immortality)
Gnosticism
Only certain people have the potential for divine awakening
Sufism
The soul/self must be constructed through disciplined work
Christian mysticism
Resurrection body or "inner man" is a result of spiritual effort
🧭 Conclusion
Gurdjieff’s teaching on the soul is not entirely unique, but rather a creative synthesis of alchemical, Gnostic, Christian, Sufi, and Eastern influences, shaped into a rigorous psycho-spiritual path. His brilliance lay in systematizing these esoteric ideas into a structured program — "The Work" — focused on self-remembering and the construction of the immortal self.
If you're interested, I can show how Gurdjieff’s “three bodies” map onto Taoist or Hermetic alchemical stages — or how this concept evolved in his students' writings (e.g., Ouspensky or Jeanne de Salzmann).
How do the three bodies map onto Taoist or Hermetic alchemical stages?
Great question — Gurdjieff’s doctrine of the three bodies maps intriguingly onto both Taoist internal alchemy and Hermetic/Western alchemy. Though these traditions are culturally and terminologically distinct, all three describe a process of inner transformation, with stages of energetic refinement and spiritual embodiment that result in immortality or enlightenment.
Below is a comparative mapping of Gurdjieff's model with Taoist Neidan and Western Hermetic alchemy:
🧍♂️ GURDJIEFF'S THREE BODIES
Gurdjieff teaches that humans are not born with fully developed being-bodies, but can construct them through conscious labor and intentional suffering:
Astral Body (also called the "body Kesdjan")
Created through emotional refinement and discipline
Allows for conscious existence after physical death
Mental Body
Formed through development of higher thought, will, and awareness
Capable of objective understanding and cosmic consciousness
Causal Body (or "Real I")
Permanent, immortal body
Linked to true individuality, able to reincarnate or escape time
These are not metaphorical, but actual energetic “vehicles” a person must construct.
🜲 TAOIST INTERNAL ALCHEMY (NEIDAN)
Taoist Neidan (內丹) describes the process of cultivating the "Three Treasures" and forming an immortal spiritual body:
Jing (Essence) → refined into Qi
Related to physical vitality and sexual energy
Corresponds to early alchemical work on the body
Parallel: Gurdjieff's astral body, formed by refining instinctive/emotional forces
Qi (Energy) → refined into Shen
Breath, life-force, movement of subtle energy
Internal breathing, energy circulation
Parallel: Gurdjieff's mental body, developed through control of attention and presence
Shen (Spirit) → refined into Xu (emptiness / true self)
Pure consciousness, the immortal spirit
Birth of the “immortal embryo” (spirit body)
Parallel: Gurdjieff’s causal body, the immortal “I” beyond ego
Taoists say that only when Shen returns to the Dao, one becomes a Zhenren — a "true person" — akin to Gurdjieff’s Real Man or Man No. 7.
🜍 WESTERN HERMETIC ALCHEMY
Western alchemy is metaphorically about turning lead into gold, but esoterically it’s about spiritual rebirth:
Nigredo (Blackening) – death of the base self
Descent into unconsciousness, chaos
Beginning of inner work
Parallel: Early stage of forming astral body, confronting sleep and mechanicality
Albedo (Whitening) – purification
Cleansing of emotions, emergence of inner clarity
Parallel: Refinement of consciousness → mental body
Rubedo (Reddening) – union and rebirth
The fusion of opposites (soul and spirit), realization of immortal self
Philosopher’s Stone formed
Parallel: Full realization of causal body, the "permanent I"
Some alchemists speak explicitly of forming a "subtle body" or "glorified body", capable of transcending the material world.
🔁 MAPPING TABLE
Gurdjieff
Taoist Neidan
Hermetic Alchemy
Theme
Physical Body
Jing
Prima Materia / Lead
Raw material, unrefined being
Astral Body
Refined Jing → Qi
Nigredo
Emotional transmutation, energetic base
Mental Body
Refined Qi → Shen
Albedo
Mental clarity, subtle will, awareness
Causal Body
Shen → Immortal Embryo
Rubedo
Immortal soul, true self, resurrection
“Man No. 7”
Zhenren (True Person)
Philosopher’s Stone
Completed being, Real I, divine union
🧩 Shared Esoteric Logic
Despite vastly different symbols, all three systems share these assumptions:
Ordinary humans are incomplete.
A spiritual body or essence must be constructed through effort.
The process involves refining energy, unifying mind/emotion/body, and achieving non-egoic being.
Without this transformation, the person perishes or dissolves.
🧠 Conclusion
Gurdjieff’s model is not isolated, but harmonizes with both Taoist and Hermetic traditions. He translates alchemical transformation into a psychological and existential framework suited to modern seekers, replacing older symbolic language with terms like "self-remembering," "essence," and "the Work."
Would you like diagrams, visual mappings, or deeper dives into one of these traditions (e.g., Neidan practices or Gurdjieff’s "food diagram")?
What did Gurdjieff mean by his notorious statement "the moon eats people"?
Gurdjieff’s cryptic and unsettling statement that “the Moon eats people” is one of the most provocative in his teachings — and like much of his work, it operates on multiple symbolic, cosmological, and psychological levels.
Let’s unpack it carefully.
🌓 1. Cosmic Energy Recycling: The Moon as a Feeding Entity
In Gurdjieff’s cosmology (especially as presented in In Search of the Miraculous), everything exists to serve something else, and cosmic bodies feed on the energies of smaller ones in a hierarchical structure.
The Moon, in his view, is not fully formed, a kind of embryonic body in the solar system.
It requires energy to grow, and Earth life provides that energy — particularly the energies released at death.
💬 Gurdjieff: "Everything living on Earth exists to feed the Moon."
Meaning:
When human beings die without having developed a soul, the energies of their essence are drawn off by the Moon.
Thus, mechanical, unconscious people live and die in vain — their life-energy nourishes the Moon, not their own being.
🧠 2. Psychological Interpretation: The Moon as Mechanical Habit
On the psychological level, the Moon represents mechanicalness — unconscious behavior, habit, and sleep.
It’s cold, repetitive, and predictable — like the way people live when they're not awake.
Gurdjieff says “man is a machine”, and unless a person begins conscious inner work, he functions entirely according to lunar influences.
💬 “All of man’s actions, words, thoughts, feelings, opinions, convictions, and habits are mechanical. All that he says, does, thinks, and feels happens. Man cannot move, think, or speak of his own accord. He is a marionette pulled by strings.”
So:
➡ The Moon “eats” people = people live entirely under its mechanical influence, die without waking up, and are reabsorbed into the planetary machine.
🌌 3. Esoteric Cosmology: The Ray of Creation
Gurdjieff outlines a metaphysical hierarchy he calls the Ray of Creation:
Absolute → All Worlds → All Suns → Our Sun → Earth → Moon
The Moon is the lowest, densest level of matter and consciousness.
Its position at the bottom means it receives the least light or will — it's almost pure inertia.
Life on Earth acts as a kind of bridge, transferring energies down the Ray to the Moon.
Thus, humans who remain mechanical are absorbed downward, becoming part of the Moon’s energetic field.
🛑 If one does not work to awaken, their being is "food for the Moon."
🧪 4. Relation to Death and the Soul
According to Gurdjieff:
Only those who create a higher body (astral, mental, causal) can retain their individuality after death.
Those who do not are dispersed — their psychic energies are recycled, part of which goes to the Moon.
The Moon thus becomes a symbol of annihilation through unconsciousness.
🐍 Symbolic and Mythic Parallels
The idea that a celestial being “eats” souls or energy has mythic parallels:
Taoism & Chinese astrology: the Moon influences "hun" and "po" souls — without proper cultivation, the soul dissolves.
Egyptian mythology: Ammit, the “soul eater,” devours those unworthy of immortality.
Alchemy: the Moon often represents the unredeemed soul, or the passivity that must be transmuted into solar (conscious) essence.
Gurdjieff modernized this: the Moon is what devours you if you don’t wake up.
🧭 Summary
Level
Interpretation
Cosmic
The Moon literally feeds on life-force from Earth; unconscious people’s energy goes to nourish it.
Psychological
The Moon = mechanical behavior. If you stay asleep, you live and die as a machine.
Spiritual
Without inner development, the self is not preserved; you are absorbed into lunar recycling.
Symbolic
The Moon is the pull of inertia, habit, fate, unconscious death.
✅ Final Thought
When Gurdjieff says “The Moon eats people”, he is warning:
If you do not awaken and crystallize a soul, your life will be lost to mechanical nature — you will serve as energy for the cosmos, not as a conscious being.
It’s a chilling metaphor for the consequences of spiritual sleep.
Would you like to go further into Gurdjieff’s lunar theory (like how movements, shocks, or sex relate to Moon-energy), or how his system overlaps with astrology or ancient lunar cults?
Kind of. John Michael Greer builds up the suspense to his forthcoming analysis of Wagner´s last opera "Parsifal". The idea that the Holy Grail is really the fallen Sophia and has something to do with the Cathars is interesting.
Here is something that struck me: some people in Wagner´s time apparently believed that Parisfal is an Iranian name. And the Cathars were inspired by Manichaeism. Which comes from Persia.
Timothy (Tim) Freke is mostly known as the co-author of "The Jesus Mysteries", the book that launched my own personal quest for the (Non)Historical Jesus. He also co-wrote "Jesus and the Goddess", which purportedly exegetes the true message of the Gnostic Christ, but ultimately lands in teachings surprisingly similar to certain esoteric and Tantric strands of Hinduism and Buddhism. In other words: not Gnosticism. And probably not my man Jesus, either.
However, it seems Freke has changed his messaging the last couple of years, perhaps under the influence of process philosophers, Ken Wilber and Rupert Sheldrake (although none of them can be made directly responsible). His new understanding of God *is* intriguing to be sure. "God" is seen as an emergent property of a natural process, the beginnings of which can be described by modern science. Thus, the universe begins with a singularity and a big bang, much later life appears, and even later intelligence. Only in the present stage does "God" appear, apparently due to the social and spiritual communion of humans. Presumably, we will see even greater things in the future...
Like the process philosophers, Freke sees the theodicy associated with this evolving-naturalistic god as one of the theology´s strong points. Suffering is an inevitable consequence of the fact that God actually isn´t omnipotent. From the top of my head, the objections to Freke´s peculiar understanding of the divine would be pretty much the same as towards all similar approaches. First, who really wants to worship an evolving limited god? What guarantees do we have that evolution won´t bring about even more evil and suffering in the future? Indeed, what guarantees do we have that God (being an emergent property of human activities) can´t be turned malevolent by a pernicious human group-soul? Or that such a god, even if good, is eternal? He does have a beginning, after all.
And while Freke is contented with a god that emerges from matter, super-strings, quantum fields or whatever, most people will ask "what came before" and draw the conclusion that where there is evolution, there must have been prior involution. Nor will scientists find Freke´s visions compelling or even comprehensible, so the dialogue I think he wants between science and spirituality isn´t likely to become very succesful.
Yes, I sound negative, so let me end by saying that your more than welcome to check out the latest intellectual peregrinations of our mystery man...
Doreen Virtue strikes again, this time interviewing a fundamentalist Christian who believes that Marvel Comics have a demonic and downright Satanic agenda. Well, maybe.
I admit that his analysis of Stan Lee´s poetry and the characters "Galactus" and "the Silver Surfers" is at least vaguely interesting. The idea seems to be that the comic "Fantastic Four" has a Gnostic subtext, with Galactus being Yahweh (who is cast as an evil devil-like character) while the Silver Surfer is Lucifer. Naturally, the latter turns out to be good and even goes through a Christ-like passion!
Sure, this may even be true. And therefore...what?
I´m not surprised that David Icke has embraced the idea of "soul traps". It´s exactly the kind of paranoid and contrarian notion you would expect from this conspiracy theorist to end all conspiracy theories. The idea is that seemingly blissful and benign near death experiences (NDEs) are really part of the Simulation or Matrix, which I assume is held together by evil reptiloid space aliens. If your soul gets tricked and flies into the light at death, it will be mind-wiped and forced to reincarnate on prison planet Earth.
A *somewhat* less paranoid interpretation would be similar to Buddhism, where there are a number of temporary "heaven-realms" which may be nice & cozy as far as they go...but sub specie eternitatis, they don´t go very far. The soul (or no-soul) must eventually be reborn as a human again...and suffering starts all over. But in the Buddhist scenario, the only real culprit is *you* and your negative karma.
In Icke´s version, there are actively malevolent forces working behind the scenes to imprison us in the Matrix (yes, that´s a reference to the science fiction film "The Matrix"). The love that flows in a NDE would therefore be fake, and so are the angelic beings or ascended masters who come to greet the soul in the afterlife.
I´m not sure if we can somehow get rid of these spiritual free-riders, but Icke seems to be suggesting that nothing can be done...except trying to find the real light (at one point Icke calls it "watery light" as opposed to electro-magnetic ditto) which will finally liberate us.
