No hierarchies in Heaven - An anarchist guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

Any unauthorized reproduction of this work is strongly encouraged

“All theology knowingly or not

or against the oppressed”

Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza

The objective of this essay is not going to convince the reader that some external, non-human, non-material forces or entities from some other plane or dimension exist; nor it will try to convince you to trascend your body or that the material world is an illusion or something of this caliber. On the contrary, it will probably show you in a lot clearer way that god is just the name of the blanket we throw above the Mystery to give it shape and that, ultimately, we live here. What I have pictured, when I first received the idea of this essay, was the intention to underline the similarities and resonances between the spiritual paths I have met during my years and the anarchist theory and practice: obviously, the main obstacle of this work is talking about two different aspects of the human experiences, so far from each other, at least on a first look; nonetheless the analysis I will try to bring forward might show you, probably, the way institutionalized religion has privatized the soul and that an actual spiritual path can only bring towards an inner liberation and a deeper and more horizontal connection with the rest of the Creation using methods of relation that can easily be applied in a politically libertarian environment without the need to admit anything more. Spirituality's main goal is never the heavens, which might be regarded as just experiences within a spiritual path, but the material world through the recognition of the Other, who or whatever this Other may be, in Me and vice-versa and can, ultimately, enrich the radical imaginary. The main difficulties for the western mind that will approach this essay would most probably be to be able to read between the lines: the Sacred Scriptures never mean to express the truth literally but through allegories - because, sometimes, the only way to tell the truth is by telling a lie; at the same time, we should be able to read these teachings on different levels of interpretation – physical, psychological and obviously spiritual, as in allegorical, in a holistic approach. Also for this reason, this essay is not going to contain deep theology nor political analyses – up to a certain degree - and it will just try to show how someone who criticizes vertical power structures can indeed fulfill a spiritual need they might have; this is based on my personal experience of spirituality as a tool for inner freedom achieved through active relationship with the people around you, either members of your group or not; also, you will probably see how the kind of discipline provided with these studies can be seen as an anarchist discipline of the Self.

When I first became an anarchist, at around 19 years of age, I was totally atheist, except for the faith I reserved to science: just to give you some context, the first two books I have ever read were children books on the lives of Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein, at about 5 or 6 years of age. Obviously, during my initial anarchist studies together with a small collective which was running an anarchist wiki, the obvious critiques to institutionalized religions were common, just like in most of the leftist ideologies. I can trustfully say that everyone who will read this essay have pretty clear in their minds which critiques we're talking about therefore we're not going to analyze them, if not to compare the reality of institutionalized religion to the reality of a most sincere (in an etymological sense, from the Latin “sin-”, without, and “cera”, wax, without any kind of coverage, mask or filter) spirituality that does not offer any hierarchical view or structure inherent to this world or to the natural organization of humans; any possible of hierarchy I have witnessed has always been functional and temporary or, citing Graeber's work, self-subverting authorities. To read that spirituality, a path to build a relationship with the Divine, does not truly offer any hierarchical structure may sound weird to many, but I will try during this essay to show that things are in reality very different when you put yourself in the difficult position to go through a spiritual path and how many, many traditions can actually offer a way to organize a community without Heads, communities that are modular, in which most members can actually cover different functions to allow the greater organism to keep living while, at the same time, ensuring that their own individuality is not lost in the process – the opposite to what happens in cults, may they be spiritual or political. This fluidity is something that many spiritual paths put you through since the first time you actually start to work on yourself and it is definitely something that a hierarchy will never even think about it, since it's inherently a static entity that does not allow changes and movements. In the schools I have been in contact with, the real important aspect of life was to be fluid and adaptable while moving in this world: that's why I was taught that, in our world, even money is a form of energy and this is a necessity based on the capitalist system our world run on.

In order for the reader to better understand my point of view and experience, I will now proceed in explaining the structure of the essay. The four chapters that form this essay are a part of a discourse that it is way wider than this essay; nonetheless, being this essay also a guide for the anarchist who might be interested in spiritual research, they form the basis of my personal experience in this field. The four chapters are:

Cathars, Waldensians, Brethren of the Free Spirit, Anabaptists, Taborites are just a few of the names of some christian groups who were living in a way that we may define as “proto-anarchist”, refusing hierarchies and private properties and were obviously labeled as heretics by the centralized christian church and ostracized and almost totally eradicated – except for the Waldesians, who still exist today and have always been more progressive than the average christian and is, at least in my opinion, one of the very few groups that can actually be called Christian, as in people who more closely follow the teachings of the man we know as Jesus of Nazareth. The focus of the essay is not going to be solely on Christianity though, as I will try to provide also a peek into spiritual paths that are usually less known to the public of the Western world and that someone may call esoteric, which is a very specific term and idea that will be analyzed in the best way I can based on my experience with such topics and the practices associated with it. My main focus, since it's also the spiritual path that I know better, having practiced these teachings for a few years now, will be on a path which shall not be named though, since the schools that offer these teachings are among the most dangerous places in the world – as too often happens in this environment. I was lucky enough to be part of an informal group and not an official school but I have met representatives of such schools and trust me when I say that you'd better stay as far from them as humanly possible. If there is only one small possibilities that you the reader may be interested in these topics, just remember the first teaching that was given to me when I started my spiritual research: if you meet the Buddha on your path, kill him!

Regarding this last point, let me give you a warning: the modern western spirituality, condensed in the definition of New Age, alongside with the kind of spiritual path I will describe, usually have fascistic tendencies. Most people you would meet, while on a path of spiritual research, will only try to oppress you, either economically or socially, by asking all your money or asking you to leave behind your previous life overnight, in the best case scenario. The kind of practices I have witnessed from many people during my years of spiritual research are easily among the most immoral and disgusting you could imagine. Thank God, I was lucky enough to my individual liberation - sort of – only thanks to the dynamic and horizontal organization of the group I was affiliated with.

There is a lot missing from this essay. I cannot go in details of my almost 10 years of spiritual research in a few pages, and the same time I know that even ten thousands pages wouldn't be enough to explain: words are often limited, while navigating these waters; yet, I tried to focus on four main pillars, the four chapters of the essay, in order to help the comrade who may be interest in spiritual research to move the stormy lanes of the spiritual supermarket, as I like to call it. These lenses were the ones who have been guiding me in these last years, helping me in reaching good teachers, stay away from the dangerous ones and getting rid of supposed good people and friends. Hopefully, I will do a good enough job in showing you how to decide the only path good for you, the one that has a heart:

To start closing this introduction: I am not enlightened; if anything, I might be barely able to see the reflection of the crescent Moon in a puddle while sitting at the entrance of the cave, while the Sun is still a far away possibility2. But during these years, I was able to reach a conclusion, that was shared by many of my companions as well as many other people who have and still are doing the Work, that the organizational methods of this plane of existence are just corrupted versions of the symbols used to describe the structure of Our Beloved Universe because this is functional to our own slavery. Just remember, while you are reading these pages: there is no single way to read them and everything I will explain does not simply take place on a “spiritual” level, but on all levels that form the human experience.

“Be yourself; and then, God

and the Devil won't matter”

G.

I am a recovered addict. For a few, dark years I was facing a sever depression mainly because of my undiagnosed autism and my closeted queerness – which I must say, now take a big chunk of my overall identity – together with the necessity, put above me by others, to follow a conservative, cisheteronormative patriarchal way of life in order to survive in an hostile environment that does not represent my essence the slightest; this brought me to start using substances. At one point though, around my 25th or 26th year of age, I was diagnosed with a rare disease called syringomyelia, which usually start to present its symptoms after adolescence – in my case, at around 18 years but it was not discovered yet back then. After the diagnosis, I faced another deep wave of depression which though let me to a realization: I am going to die one day and I should be ready for that moment. I stopped using substances overnight – and I have not used any in almost 10 years even when they were offered, which was a smaller effort than what I got used to in the following years – and started my journey through different hospitals during which I could only feel as a lab rat with all the tests, tubes and needles that went through my body during those two months. The tests were only useful to the doctors to see that I could be considered overall healthy – regardless of the hernias and the cyst in my spine – but never really provided me with a discipline or a point of view that could make me feel still human. For them, I was just another broken thing that could never really be fixed but y'know, if you take these pills it will probably be better. Needless to say, those pills only made me feel dizzy and confused without actually providing any help with my daily symptoms, let alone the big ones.

It was in that period, in which I was slowly but steadily losing control of the left side of my body that some people I knew actually suggested me some unorthodox ways to analyze my issues. This was my first time meeting with some remarkable people who had a kind of knowledge that was actually helping me in an holistic way. I won't go into details, but my symptoms started to get better and I began regaining control of my left side after just a couple of days of their treatments, which went on for about one week. I had already resigned from my previous job, since my body did not allow me to use it, so I decided that the best thing would have been to take a sabbatical and start to known this cyst in my spine and what had happened to me during that week with that remarkable person I had met. I started to study astrology, bought my first deck of Tarot cards and after a few months the book that changed my life, written by an armenian-greek who lived all around Europe during some of the most historically important moments of the last century – for one, he was in Russia during the revolutionary period.3

The teachings I was offered, alongside with the practice that follows the theory, during the work of some years, offered me a better realization of what I had learned during my late adolescence years working with that anarchist wiki: anarchy is not only a natural state of organization for humans but it's also the one an ideal and theoretical Truth - whatever this word means - may guide us to. As above, so below, as in the hermetic tradition. To get once again to this realization took me a lot of sweat and tears, especially since, at least at the beginning, the organizational structure may seem extremely hierarchical while it is actually the most horizontal you may imagine; not only that, the organizational level I met in this informal group was very reminiscent of the organizational dualism that anarcho-communism offers, with a level of this group which was open to new members and was used to present some ideas to the general public and a deeper level that you could access after some time, depending solely on your level of preparation; it is worth to mention that this deeper level was not an elitist inner circle or a specific level you were getting into because you were “better than the others” but because some practices need time before being accessible. This is a form of functional hierarchy that was never fixed and always temporary, only functional towards the collective goal of inner freedom.

The path I know best is a purely esoteric path which follows that abrahamic traditions, especially the Christian one, even though it recuperates a lot from other traditions, such as the kabalistic and sufi mysticism and in a few cases also from zoroastrianism. This syncretism is not a facade nor simple eclecticism but an actual way to find similarities among paths which have everything in common and whose differences were created by centralized religious powers through the application of dogmas, in the perspective to reach a “fuller” realization: as I was taught near the beginning of my path, the way to the Truth is never a straight one, but it intersect with many other paths. But before starting to dive deep down into the similarities between these teachings and the anarchist theory, let me explain you a bit better the organizational structure I was practicing in and what this word “esoteric” really means in its own context.

The overall structure was depicted as three main circles: exoteric, mesoteric and esoteric. The exoteric circle contains all people, indistinctly: there is everyone in it. The mesoteric circle is the one to which everyone can participate and through which the system is presented to the general public. The mesoteric circle may include people who are joining for the first time as well as people from the esoteric circle, depending on the reason of the meeting and/or the specific activity that may have been assigned, or more simply their ordinary lives. The mesoteric circle's meeting may well be a public conference or a scheduled meeting among the members to reflect on their results with their individual practice. In this sense, the mesoteric circle may easily be seen as a mass organization, having the role of welcoming who may be interested in the knowledge; it is worth to mention then that this knowledge is not kept secret by anyone and in a moment we will also see that it is intended to be shared. The esoteric circle provides advanced practices and exercises to the members who finally reached it as well as maybe some decisions regarding the mesoteric circle and how to approach further the general public, which is something worth to mention especially regarding the usual feeling that the word “esoteric” may summon: it does not define automatically a “magical” or “mystical” teaching nor an elitist approach to life – even though, I have to be honest, this organization and the meaning of the word was corrupted when some men started to concentrate power in their own hands, which is why I will never stop warning the reader regarding their spiritual well-being and the dangers that esoteric schools of any Way will pose on them, if horizontality is not respected. In a truly spiritual school, meaning one where the teachings are actually respected, there are no Masters, not in the sense of people who concentrate power, but as people who have reached a higher level of consciousness and therefore have reached a point in which the can show the way to the younger members. In this perspective, a Master is a self-subverting authority because it provides you the tools to not needing them anymore and the only reason why they should be listened to is because they are closer to the Truth. Closeness is the only thing that may in some way resemble a hierarchy, since a person is allegedly closer to someone else to the ideal Truth, but it is inherently not one and the explanation to it of this was already given to us by Plato in the Allegory of the Cave, which is a very powerful metaphor for the path to Spiritual Enlightenment and exactly for this is taught in a individualistic way from the centralized powers – since, and this is something lesser known, Plato's school was a mystery one. Let's analyze it together very briefly, shall we?

People, us as well of course, live their whole life in a cave, with chains to their necks and feet, forced to gaze upon a wall on which shadows of real objects are cast. Already from here, a difference in what was taught to me in school: the hands of the prisoners are free, not chained; they are able at any time to get free and leave the cave, but they are so used to that slumber that don't even think to question that state of things. They are then freed by someone else and so their journey to the Truth begins. Now, this is how usually, from my experience, how the Allegory ends for most, with the freed person looking at the Sun, but in reality it continues: who is able to get outside of the Cave then returns inside of it. The beginning and then end of the Allegory, with their circularity explain perfectly how Spiritual Enlightenment works: first of all, you don't want to be free; so used we are to the slumber, the dark and the chains that, upon hearing that all of this is merely an illusion, we would think that the person who says this is at least totally nuts. Upon the arrival of someone who says that we've been living a collective lie, how would a normal person react? With blind rage probably, or with pity for that crazy bastard. Nonetheless, let's assume that someone actually decides to listen and starts the journey to the Sun outside: they would have to go through a series of difficulties, traumas to discover the shadows, the people keeping the puppets of real objects in front of the fire, climb towards the exit and all of this alone just to...come back inside? What Plato tells us here is that all of the Truth itself and the majesty of the Light of the Sun, if gazed upon alone, is useless. The difficulties, the traumas, the Light which can't be seen directly but through a series of intermediate steps, can only bring you to the realization that, even if you went though all of that alone, it is something that can only be shared with the rest of your siblings. Truly, if you put enough efforts, you work hard, are willing to pay the price for it, and are lucky enough, you might be able, one day, to see the Light, and at that point the only thing that will matter for you it will be to bring it back down in the cave for everyone to see it.

This is a very condensed exposition of the Allegory but it highlights the most important points to me: the individual struggle to get free has as ultimate goal the collective liberation, which cannot be achieved without the application of the ideas of mutual aid and care, because individual liberation and collective liberation are intertwined from the roots and need to grow together. No one is liberated alone. Other than that, it also showcases perfectly how closeness is not a hierarchy: who arrives to certain realizations feels the physical need to share it with the others. Why else would someone who has reached the higher heights want to go back in a dark, deep oscurity with an obviously difficult terrain that can't even be seen? I could mention that as long as we have a body this world is the one we have to inhabit but this is just a density issue and Will is not involved. For me it was kinda easy to follow these crazy nuts who gave me these new information, living through all of the events that opened this first chapter: I was at my lowest possible point so I was readier than ever to the biggest changes.

This chapter was needed in order to put the foundation of the rest of the essay: spirituality can be a tool for collective liberation, if approached properly. During my years of spiritual research, I have obviously come across highly hierarchical and authoritarian schools, on both sides of the fence, and it would be dishonest for me not to highlight it during this essay. Many people have attempted to push their power on me, especially those same people who had actually helped me at the beginning of my research, from ways that go from prohibiting me to eat certain foods from pushing me to follow a specific “therapy” because the spike protein in the Covid vaccine was “slowly destroying me”, verbatim. The spiritual supermarket is a sad truth and the New Age movement is only an example of how a colonial capitalist system can even recuperate the Sacred of many cultures – the most “esotic” the better - and make it just another product to consume. I am pretty confident that we all know what these self proclaimed shamans and gurus are able to do, but I think it is worth to mention the aspect of the usage of psychedelic substances: the risk of addiction is probably not even on the table since what these plants, like Ayahuasca which is the most widely used globally, can very easily bring to mental illnesses if not death even during the first use, if not handled by someone who actually knows what they're doing, just to provide some white annoyed bourgeois a ticket in the spiritual theme park at a competitive price. In these years of spiritual research, I have come across similar stories too many times not to feel the need to warn everyone about it, those few times I talk about this aspect of my life; but I have been lucky enough to have good teachers who were there just to show me a direction because the ultimate choice to take it had to be mine, so I am confident there are others like them. One of them has definitely been this weird dance teacher, who was a master of walking across the fence I mentioned before while being blamed by every side because of it and somehow imagined that the West was ready to receive as a gift a spiritual matrix which was lost when Peter won over Magdalene - imagine portraying the Apostle to the apostles, the closest to the Nazarene, as a prostitute!

“ Blessed is who has a soul,

has it in embryo.”

G.

The starting point of multiple and diverse spiritual traditions is not, as someone may think, proving that “God” exists, but is the person and usually it remains the focus of the teachings; this is not for individualism, which is the corruption we see in the spiritual supermarket, but because the individuality needs to be healthy before being able to be free. Let me get this straight: the very first teaching of the schools I have been in contact with is that people live in a state of slumber due to societal norms and expectations (the formatory apparatus, an inorganic organ installed in us) or, with a more difficult language, that our assemblage point gets crystallized and fixed while growing up because no one ever teaches us how to move it. In a more mondane language, the authoritarian weight of society is able to crystallize some old pre-digested ideas about the world which easily includes then the political apparatus: if we go back to the “proto-anarchist” christian sect I mentioned earlier, these groups were living separeted from the rest of society not for elitism, but because they came to the realization that the life we usually live, a life of accumulation, separation and borders is not based on the necessities of a collective well-being but on the interest of the few, therefore some of them even renounced the sacraments of the church and rejected the power of the priests. Of course we are talking about periods of time in which the church had not only the spiritual power but also the mundane one, therefore refusing the authority of the Church automatically meant refusing the idea of a centralized power of any kind. It doesn't surprise me anymore that, in my own personal experience, those people who were actually doing some work often ended up on the libertarian leftist portion of the political spectrum and very often into anarchism. I cannot deny that many people also end up being authoritarian but my reflections on Power in my spiritual experience will come at a later stage; just for you to know, the warnings around Power come already at a pretty early stage of the teachings, as the systems always proactively need to make you ready to be authentically free.

The basic idea around these teachings, we said, is that we live in a state of slumber, which corresponds to a mental slavery, explaining this mental slavery through the idea of this inorganic formatory apparatus, which is made up of our upbringing and it is filled with unnatural ideas about the world. Obviously, this teachings point to a metaphysical understanding of the world, but the goal will always be this world. This world is the one we have to live in and is the one in which we have to bring back the knowledge we gained in the other worlds. In order to be effective and healthy members of this world, we need to regain balance within ourselves and this can only be done through self-discipline. Discipline, when not imposed above us to keep the status quo intact and maintain power over one another, is the most valuable tool that any person has to gain an healthy relationship with the rest of the Creation and all that forms it. It is always important to kill the Buddha if you meet him, but at the same time we need to be able to admit that discipline is a vital tool also in the anarchist practice. The discipline offered by these teachings is not a discipline of domination but a discipline to create an individual who accepts the responsibility of their life in participation and relationship with the Other, therefore deciding not to apply domination on the rest because I am part of the Creation and instead of being a tool for domination, I become responsible for my actions and deny any form of domination. In this line of thought, I feel is also fundamental to analyze a specific point of view: if you study the person, you are studying the universe and vice versa. The discipline offered in these teachings is at least anarchist-lenient because it teaches how to find in ourselves the same structures of domination that live in the mundane world and the emergency to destroy these superstructures within ourselves first of all. In this, this is the kind of discipline that a libertarian should apply: the first Revolution that needs to happen is an inner one. If we cannot see in ourselves these mechanisms of domination, if we are unable to apply anarchism as a framework, method and end goal, we won't ever be able to provide an authentic alternative to the rest of the world since we are unable to live inside of us that same alternative.

It is at this point also important to start analyzing the idea of Freedom in a spiritual tradition, for which I will use one of the two languages I know best. Some shamans in some areas of South America teach that freedom is not border-less and total, but it is defined as railroads: we can only be authentically free if we move inside these borders. This implies at least two important points: the individual can be authentically free only if they can actually be themselves fully, following their own path; at the same time, we cannot move outside of these borders because it will invalidate someone else's freedom. Both of these points are obviously in line with the anarchist theory: the individual, or better their essence, needs to develop fully and harmoniously and at the same time, this harmonious development cannot happen to the detriment of another individuality. I can only be free if everyone else is because their freedom validates and confirms mine and vice versa. Freedom, as intended in the modern capitalist world, is not real freedom neither in anarchism and in spiritual traditions since both of them aim to create a more balanced existence among individuals inside a community and the implications of freedom are similar in both the political and spiritual praxis and practices. In this sense, I invite you to meditate on the quote I used to open this chapter: a soul, as in a realized individuality, is grown through efforts and not a birthright. Self-discipline and high levels of attention are mandatory to build a soul, an individuality which is fully realized and free from its upbringing; it doesn't need material goods, it doesn't look to compete with other individualities for profit, it doesn't need to dominate others because it has dominion over itself. This is, in my opinion, a fully libertarian approach: inner freedom, the freedom of the one not only is not in competition with others' freedom because it has abandoned those imposed needs of domination and authority but has reached a level of self-knowledge, self-discipline and self-control that denies the need for external powers in the relationship with humans. This same tale is the same narrated by Tarots, if read in sequence, or by the Ten Ox Hearding Pictures. Most importantly, this same discipline, commitment and efforts needed in order to realize oneself, to build a soul and to be free, can only bring to the realization that no Messiah will ever come to save us and all of this is our own direct responsibility4, denying the existence of someone inherently deserving of power and centralization by their own nature, but this is a conclusion that we will try to reach at a later stage of this essay. What is what I consider a focal point of this first chapter is that without a true self-discipline we cannot reach individual and collective liberation and in order to do so we have to radically change the way in which we interpret the world: as it is written in the Bible, “no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine will burst the wineskins and be spilled, and the wineskins will be ruined. But new wine must be put into new wineskins, and both are preserved. And no one, having drunk old wine, immediately desires new; for he says, ‘The old is better.’ ” (Luke, 5:37-39). The struggle to individual and collective liberation are constant and who knows if it will ever end; what's known to me though is that there is only one way to continue – and hopefully, one day, actually realize – our Struggle towards Liberation, both inner and outer: a collective reflection on Power. Power is obviously needed to achieve Liberation, since we are individually and collectively deprived of it, therefore it has to be regained; but how can one and the community avoid the usual old habits and tendencies to centralize it? The answer is the fruit of the discipline provided.

“Man5 has no permanent and unchangeable ‘I.’

is the aim of the Work.”

G.

In a proper spiritual path, the road to Freedom is a road to gain Power. This will surely make some comrades turn their noses up, but let's try to understand better. We live in a state of slavery: Plato tells us that we are in chains while our hands are free, other traditions talk about the formatory apparatus, in general our life, on a level that is both inner and outer, is seen as the one of a slave too deep into its own slavery who is not able to see that it already has all tools to live freely already. We are enslaved by our territory, by our family habits and costumes, by our friends and by society as a whole, everything that is not perceived as normal is ostracized. This is a common state of things inside human societies. The only way to gain freedom is by regaining enough personal power to destroy the mental superstructures and break free from our chains. This is clearly very dangerous, in a libertarian framework, because it is obvious how easily such an idea brings to authoritarianism. Proper traditions though already contain the tools to avoid the centralization of Power into one's hands, except the focus on self-discipline. For example, one of the traditions I know best focuses most of the teachings on the hunt for power: someone who decides to free themselves will have to learn how to tap into the intent, the higher force of Will; other traditions see power as the capacity to rebuild their psyche, which got fragmented because of the upbringing received, and stay awake. It is obvious to me that these traditions do not aim to concentrate power for personal profit (even though some other traditions do teach exactly how to concentrate power for personal gain) but the dangers of these techniques remain, therefore the systems themselves start with offering a warning about Power and its consequences. The most prominent example, among the schools I have been in contact with, in my opinion is the following: any person who starts the path to Knowledge will always face Four Enemies. The Enemies are Fear, Clarity, Power and Old Age. If Fear and Clarity still do not have great collective consequences, for someone who loses to them will just leave the path to Knowledge or be blinded by it, Power will have serious consequences if we lose our battle to it, and it's an ever going battle. Power will make you a cruel, capricious person who, as a slave to Power, will just apply their power on the others in order to deprive them and enrich himself of it even further, by any means necessary. In this specific explanation, Power is definitely the strongest of all Four Enemies and can only be won by challenging it: Power, as an irrational force, will corrupt those who are not able to control themselves. Whoever identify themselves with Power, will lose every single step towards Truth and Knowledge and will go back to a state which is even worse than the initial one because they tried to block the natural flow of this energy among the members of Creation. This reiterates the importance of self-discipline of course, but also shows that our attention should be driven towards this world first and foremost: even though there will be spiritual consequences to the centralization of Power into one's hands, the worst consequences one can have come on the dominant relationship with the Other. You cannot really have Power if you can't let Power go; or, as Don Juan once said to Carlos, "For a warrior, power is never a matter of personal desire. It is a challenge he must face if it presents itself. The warrior does not seek power; rather, he seeks to be impeccable. For only in his impeccability will power come to him effortlessly.".6

I have illustrated how many tradition explain that we live in a state of slumber; more importantly, many traditions also explain how our ordinary lives in a mechanical state. Without self-discipline and humbleness in approaching Power, we will end up as a tyrant in our lives for everyone else around us. Even in a proper school, one which actually follows the teachings – which is something unfortunately very rare – there is no centralized power. As already explained, the “master” is not in a position of power above the students but in the position of a guide, as their role is to show the student the direction! Moreover, when conflicts arise, the push is not, or should not, have the goal of winning over another but to resolve that same conflict in a way that allows all parties involved to come out with imbalance and asymmetry between them. This is because power is not negative per se but becomes negative when it is concentrated and this aspect of power, as these spiritual traditions as well as many anarchists in history, is not only related to state institutions but also presents itself in the more daily relationships we have with other people: from our parents during our upbringing, among siblings while growing up, among friends...our formatory apparatus make us think that competition and the run for power are perfectly normal dynamics and they are on a certain level, the trick is to understand that “normal” does not mean “natural”. Power is meaningless without Justice as only Justice that make it a non-coercive force that we as anarchist should see Power: the capacity to be free. The centralization of power, being either a self-proclaimed shaman or a colonial-capitalist bourgeois nation-state, can only bring to the visualization of Power as the main goal for everyone, which is exactly what we live everyday in capitalism: work hard enough and you shall succeed. I feel there is no need to analyze deeply the implications of such a vision but it is exactly what the spiritual traditions and the anarchist theory that I am grateful to have met in my years warn us about: it can only bring chaos and havoc. Power in itself is irrational and can only bring violence if not tamed and challenged constantly and the best way to win over power is remembering that, while it is the strongest of the Four Enemies, we still have allies to fight it: Self-Discipline, Justice and the One Above All, Love.

In synthesis, Power is first of all power on ourselves, over our fragmented psyche and against societal expectations and the establishment; is the capacity to heal our inner imbalances, to learn to recognise injustice, the be committed and able to perform efforts for a goal that trascends the individual to get to a wider balance and harmony in this world. Power is, when rooted in Justice, the shared capacity to be able to move freely and participate in our world as equals. This last sentence on its own is, in my opinion, a perfect mirror of an anarchist point of view on power and the world-building push it inherently has. In the words of David Graeber:

“The real power of direct action is that it allows us to create new social relations and practices that reflect our values and aspirations, rather than simply resisting existing systems.”

Because, at the end of the day, this is what spirituality does: it provides you the power to directly intervene in your own world. Spirituality is direct action. As individualistic this whole discourse may appear though, it is extremely necessary for me to highlight one fact: until now, I have mentioned the individual effort and discipline necessary. What I have not mentioned yet is actually the most important level, without which I would have never been able to be where I am now, quite literally; a level hinted so far, which though holds the most importance in this Work: the community. Without my group, I would have been nothing, I would have never really Worked; and this is because no one is awakened alone and if Justice exists, it will be Justice for All.

"If a man is alone, he can deceive himself easily.

against their weaknesses."

P.D. Ouspenski

Until now, we have analyzed the roles and responsibilities of the individual in their own path to spiritual realization, therefore is important to analyze also the role and the responsibilities of the community towards the individual and vice-versa. As simple as can be, even on a spiritual path the community is essential to the realization of the individual just like the individual is essential to the realization of their own community overall. In all the schools I have been in contact with, the individual is the starting point but after a very short time, the practices that used to be singular can become collective: there will be exercises to do in couples or bigger groups if not all together and the whole community meets on a regular basis to analyze together the progresses – or regresses. Even though the focus is on the individual and the efforts the individual needs to complete in order to evolve, all of the individual work is nothing, if not damaging7, without a community to share these progresses or regresses with. On a first level, the community sustains the individual: a regress may lower the morale of the individual - or bring the octave to become descending, as the language expresses - and it celebrates the journey of the individual progresses and regresses as collective progresses or regresses; it is also what we may call in modern terms as a safe space for the members8, in which to practice without the weight of their ordinary lives, without malicious judgment but only in a collective lens of shared experiences and mutually aided self-realization.

Another level though is the conflict: the frictions that a collective Work brings about are intended, in the schools I have been in contact with, as actually among the best tools for collective awakening. This less talked about aspect of relationship between humans is intended to let go of automatisms, such as the need to overcome the others and more generally continue in the usual behavioral patterns. In this sense, a community is the place in which you are nurtured and protected but also the space in which the struggle against the worst of the enemies, ourselves, reaches higher heights. Towards applied and pragmatic relational techniques, a community offers the richest soil for our individual evolution and, as a direct consequence, of the rest of the community: if the techniques studied in the schools and by practicing the exercises, we are able to maintain higher levels of attention and therefore let go of the lower aspects of our own existences – as in our thirst for power and control, our vanity - and provide enough void for our essence to grow and strengthen. In this perspective, it appears clearer the place that closeness takes in these communities: if I have reached a step further than the others in my own individual realization, I will take a place inside the community which is temporary and functional to the growth and realization of the rest of the community, in order for an harmonious and collective evolution of our selves; I will assume the role of a self-subverting authority, making sure for the sake of my community, and with their help at the same time, that flow of power is mantained. A person who may have reached a higher level of realization, need to take over the role of the catalyst of the evolution of their siblings and then let go of that same role when the role expires. A person inside the community who has gained enough personal power will use that same power to guide the rest of the community to a higher level while the community has the vital role to ensure that that power is not crystallized in a couple of hands.

This is the role intended for a “master”: a guide, a point of destabilization of prefabricated ideas about the world, the catalyst towards a bigger collective change that can only happen if the whole community applies consciously and voluntarily the teachings as they are intended to be applied. This mechanic can only be understood and valued when coming to know one of the biggest esoteric secrets out there: the individual has to disappear. The final goal of all proper spiritual teachings is for us to get rid of our personality, the collection of fake identities brought upon us by our upbringings and the life in a community can bring you towards the comprehension of this paradox: on one side we have the focus on the individual, the hunt for power, the community as fertile soil for our own expression and liberation, yet after some time of these practices your own individuality is not even important anymore: what really matters is Freedom. Tying to resolve this paradox is not functional to the essay; nonetheless, it is an interesting point to reflect on and I am not sure how many anarchists have actually thought of the possibility that the spiritual supermarket likes to call ego death.

I must say that in these dynamics, with a good deal of sweat and tears, I have recognized something similar to the anarchist idea of mutual aid; in Kropotkin's words:

“Mutual aid is the basis of all social relations and the principal factor of social progress. It is through mutual aid that individuals and communities create the conditions necessary for their own development and well-being, and it is this principle that can lead to the creation of a just and equitable society.”

In my humble opinion, this is exactly what happens also in a community which shares the common goal to spiritual awakening – which, the irony, is defined also as “evolution” by the spiritual supermarket, as Kropotkin used to refer to it as: we all worked and practiced for a collective realization. If someone reached a higher point, had to stop and look back to show the others the way; if someone was staying too behind compared to the rest, it was a moral imperative for the community to stop and help the struggling individual to overcome their difficulties. As I explained in the previous chapter, Power is meaningless without Justice and collective Justice and Enlightenment is exactly what we have worked for all those years, in the schools I have been in contact with: I can't really be free if my siblings still live under the slavery put on us by the formatory apparatus and its manifestations in the ordinary world nor I can consider myself realized if someone else is still struggling in their journey towards their true self. Me achieving a certain amount of personal power is just the first step towards the real Work: redistribute the Knowledge – because knowledge is matter9 – in order for everyone to achieve the adequate amount of Power, which will then remain shared. I hope at this point that a contradiction may be clear: a spiritual path will bring you to live at the same time a sense of individualism and collectivism. I know that I can be free, but I can only be free if the others around me are free and for the well being of the whole organism it will be vital for the community to make sure that each cell of said organism is not suffering from lack but is indeed healthy and rich as much as it is needed to keep an harmonious balance among the different modules of this bigger human machine and, as the reader will learn during the next chapter, of all of Our Beloved Universe.

“God is just the name of the blanket

we throw over Mystery to give it shape”

Barry Taylor

You were all waiting for this chapter, weren't you?

How does the idea of a All-Powerful, All-Knowing Supreme Being fits into the anarchist framework and method? Easy: first thing first, reject christianity. Institutionalized religions have actively participated in the institutionalization of the formatory apparatus, more or less consciously, and especially the church of Rome, with their corrupted corrections and addictions to the teachings of Ha-Nozri, is the main example of it and I feel their colonial-capitalist cisheteronormative patriarchal legacy does not really need to be discussed; what may be more important to discuss is their influence on Western psychism. A few days ago, a reel popped up on my Instagram: it was pope Francis saying, to who knows which god-fearing catholic group, that the trinity – father, son and spirit – are actual people. This is unnatural and blasphemous and is just a technique to control the masses: making god a physical, trascendent being which sees everything you do and then will either throw you in hell or heaven but most probably in the purgatory – from which you may escape a couple of millenia earlier if your relatives fear god enough and possibly pay the priests a good amount – is so far from the reality of this Universe! Once again, my intention with this essay is not to convince you of what I will write in the next couple of pages but just to show you that our common misconceptions about god, the universe and most of the hierarchical superstructures we live in is just a more or less conscious attempt to concentrate power in a few hands or, to say it using the languages I know, the nefarious effects of the kundabuffer organ. Just be ready to be presented with something way crazier than anything else you've heard until now.

It was taught to me that, millennia ago, while our Solar System was newborn and our planet was still really just formed – our system was not even participating in the “reciprocal sustaining harmony of all cosmic concentrations” - but a miscalculation by a Sacred Individual, whom remains nameless, happened: a comet, which was just concentrated and was starting its first real orbit hit our planet. A Higher Commission of Celestial Beings was formed to avoid a cosmic disaster which was avoided when two of the Laws intervened, thanks to the harmonic principles mentioned above, forming our two satellites, the Moon and Anulios. Nonetheless the Higher Commission, after exploring all the possibilities based on the data in their possession, decided that these two fragments of our planet might have left their orbit one day and cause again another cosmic disaster and to avoid it, a decision was taken, along with the direct approval of the Cosmic Womb: the two fragments would have had to be kept in place by sending them continuously a some sacred vibrations and to ensure it a new organ, the kundabuffer, was installed temporarily into the first humans. Based on the data in their possession, the Celestial Beings in the Higher Commission had calculated that while our evolution towards the Objective Reason would have continued, as it always happens in Our Beloved Universe, it would have been shown them the state of thing and their role in keeping the satellites in their place by sending these sacred vibrations and might have decided at one point to destroy themselves, therefore this organ, the kundabuffer, was installed at the base of our tails: the main property of this organ was to keep humans perceive reality upside down. After three years, on an objective calculation of Time, the Celestial Beings came back on Earth and removed the organ, since they deemed it not necessary anymore; what the sacred Individual who formed the Higher Commission could not imagine was that, even with this organ now removed, its property had already crystallized and created what is now considered, all around Our Great Universe, a plague: we keep perceiving reality upside down.

This ancient legend is way longer and more complicated than this but to me it showed something awfully important: even the most Sacred Intelligences make mistakes and a hypercontrol of events will only bring chaos and havoc. Our Great Universe is by now so complicated, also due to its distance from the Almighty, that also the Angels and Archangels who formed the Higher Commission miscalculated or underestimated the consequences of their decisions and, even though they were taken in the best interest of the Greater Harmony, it still had nefarious consequences on All. Just to add to this point, many traditions, like Jewish mysticism, tell how this Universe is not even the first one and the number of previous Creations go up to almost a thousand: even the Almighty is still learning. I cannot judge these decisions, being in such a distant point from the Almighty, nor I care to do so but it appeared painfully clear to me, while reading this legend after a few years of practice and while I was getting ready to approach the inner knowledge, that the nature of the Universe was way different than what I may have originally thought: because if even the Closest Beings, even if the Almighty Themselves10 can take a bad decision, what is the point of having such Pure Beings as figures of authority? Well...they are not, even the Almighty. It was through a crazy amount of Work and I don't how much time of “pouring nothing into the void” that I was finally able to reach a conclusion, the idea that changes all ideas: God is not here.

Jewish mysticism often offers answers to difficult questions and it was exactly this tradition that helped me reaching this conclusion through the notion of tzim-tzum, the retraction: the Almighty had to leave in order for the Creation to be born. Being the Supreme Being, Their own Essence was occupying all the Possibilities and, in Their Highest Wisdom and Love, decided to disappear. The implications of this decision in this world would be too difficult to analyze in such a short essay: in a very short and partial explanation of the consequences of this choice, a chain reaction was formed and it now takes the name of Ray of Creation, which is that distance I often mentioned during this essay and from which this almost hierarchical dynamic called closeness initially formed. The Ray of Creation represent the footsteps of the Almighty They left when leaving Existence. There are of course some fixed points in this Ray, but it is a just ladder we need to climb back as much as we can, based on the possibilities of humans with a physical body: just like koi fishes who climb the waterfall in hopes to become dragons, at the cost of inhuman struggles, we need to do the same and climb back the ladder as much as the human condition allows us. At the same time though, the distance of the Almighty from us, wherever They may be right now, make for these Intelligences almost impossible to consider things on a level than is not at least planetary and the organic life is at a more distant point than All Planets; still, the despair of knowing that we are only food for the Moon and Anulios is just an effect of our distance from the Higher Points of the Ray of Creation as well as the crystallized effects of the kundabuffer. By installing the kundabuffer, the Higher Commission tried to save Our Beloved Universe from a catastrophe but at the same time they created another catastrophe: we can't perceive the Truth anymore, if not at unbelievable costs.

The decision to install the kundabuffer was an act of loving protection: humans were not ready, just like are not ready now, to accept that part of our existence is destined to feed our satellites and keep balance at a planetary level. The kundabuffer was meant to protect us, while we were evolving towards the Objective Reason, as it always happen in Our Great Universe for all three-brained creatures, to avoid the despair and imbalance that such news might have brought upon us and our solar system and proof of it is that the installation was temporary; yet at the same time it widened our disconnection, keeping us closer to a state of mechanical instinctiveness and slumber, which is the reason why our world is in such a disastrous state. After the initial confusion this legend gifted me, I was though able to come to a few fundamental understandings: if the world we live is built upon on the consequences of the kundabuffer, which again widened our disconnection from Reality, this also applies to the general political institutions and societal norms; if we are disconnected, if we can't feel what the next person feels because we are too busy in looking at our own belly buttons, then regaining a connection can only bring to the realization that the current state of things can not only be changed but has to. Also, if the Almighty left to give space to the Creation, if They are not here...we are alone and the world is now under our own direct responsibility. We have the responsibility to nurture and protect the Creation because there is no one else to do it on our behalf. This is when I raised my head towards the Sky and promised to myself and to the Creation that I would have done nothing else until my last day but share with my human siblings what I was able to learn on the esoteric path my life had taken for years at that point. I promised that I would have shown to as many people as possible that God is not here, that Power without Justice is irrationality at its finest and that Justice is such only if based on Love. And at this point I mus say that if all of these things are true, the only way to summon Love into this world is by dismantling the nefarious effects of the kundabuffer: colonial-capitalism, cisheteronormativity, patriarchy and every single form of dominion and power of a human above another human. The only way to actually summon Love in this world is by instituting Anarchy.

Anarchy is, in the light of the Laws that keep Our Beloved Universe running since when the Almighty initially created Time, the only logical solution on this planet and for our species. Even though many would judge the decision to install at the base of our tails the kundabuffer as a bad one, it was taken and done; this is the condition we start from and that's a fact. Getting rid of our personal importance, which is damaging to our most authentic individualities, is the first step into actually being able to do and we cannot do if we keep staring at our own belly buttons. Once again, as the goal of this essay pointed out at the beginning, the goal of these spiritual teachings is not having visions and superpowers but collective liberation. Through the practices, stories and teachings, the schools I have been in contact with were always just focused on what many people have been killed for, throughout history: the highest form of collective liberation is the one whose foundation lay in Love or, in a simple word, Anarchy. A State, as a fixed authority, is not meant to liberate us: the job of those who centralize power is to separate us further and further to keep the power centralized. The current state of things, of a world in which there is no class consciousness, in which individualism and capitalism are the moral imperatives, in which colonialism and genocide are seen as perfectly valid positions, in which if you were assigned male at birth like me you can't, under any circumstances, move out of the option provided to you – and me wearing gel nails and changing them every month is a full on betrayal of this established state of things – completely go against the idea of “reciprocal sustaining harmony of all cosmic concentrations”, which is a founding Cosmic Law. The Cosmic Laws guide us towards Balance, Harmony, Beauty and Love. And Anarchy is Love because it's Power shared collectively and built upon Justice. And this is Beautiful. And at this point I must say to you that Beauty is the face of the Will of the Absolute into this World. Anarchy just makes sense.

"The poet sees, at the same time

what is open to two persons in isolation"11

Spirituality is a tool of individual liberation which works on a relational and collective level. One does not join a spiritual path because they want to go around in their astral body and if they do so, they just going to waste their time and money – and it will most probably be a lot of both. During my years of practice, I might even have had glimpses of something “above” but they were never really important; this is something that was narrated to me, after some years of practice: when Satprem confessed to La Mère that he was feeling “less” than the other disciples because he was not having such heaveanly visions, La Mère explained him that the visions and all that stuff is just another test we need to pass, another way to fall victim to Power, to use a language that may be familiar to the reader, by now. All of my years of research and practice were, at the end, a research towards new relational methods with the rest of the Creation and a practice of those new relational methods. Still, I can only learn: there are so many other people I have to meet and still so many things to understand! I truly know nothing about anything! And yet, something I have learned: we need to take the responsibility of the World we live in and we must be fully committed to keep Balance and Harmony. I became committed to find the most authentic possible way to walk around this world, with the highest amount of Grace possible. I became committed to find a way of living that could be as close to Love as possible. I became committed to find the most natural way of relate with the Creation. Little did I know, I became committed to Anarchy.

Once again, the aim of the essay was to show that the anarchist theory shares the same basic values with some spiritual paths. As just as the critiques of institutionalized religions are, it is also worth to remember that spiritual needs are present in humans and they can be accepted into an anarchist community. As people who crave societies without vertical power structures, I believe that the relational methods I have learned in these years can indeed teach us a different point of view in human relations which can, ultimately, also provide new ways of organizing, depending on the context: also due to my research, I have lived both in hypercapitalistic concrete jungles like Milan but also in the nature, cultivating earth, digging manure into the soil and hugging trees and meditating below them early in the morning and both these contexts of life were vital for widening my perspective. The only trick is: experiment moving upon our values. A community is formed upon shared values and inside the community the members have the responsibility to keep and active flow of ideas and exchange of experiences in order to enrich each other and the community as a whole.

If we crave an alternative to the current societal norms, we need to be able to work into experimenting as much as possible in already existing communal spaces but also to the general public. We need to be able to create impeccable material proofs of organizations that are not presented to the general public and produce material able to pierce through the layers of the formatory apparatus; but to do so we always need to remember that “the only Revolution that matters is the inner one” because all of us, to a certain degree, still live inside of them the same outer struggle against capitalism, fascism and the rest of ugly things that live around us. And the only effective way to get rid of them is through and healthy community. In short, we need to start a virtuous circle that will create something Beautiful.

Anarchy is the natural state of things because Anarchy is Love and the natural conclusion of a Life committed to Love and Justice. Never stop Loving, never stop attempting to bring Beauty into this world. May your hearth beat in unison with the Cosmic Heartbeat and never skip a beat. May you never serve any Masters, since neither the Almighty looks for slaves but for brave and courageous Individuals. May your Rage be Blessed, may your mind be clear and your foot steady. Never give in into Power but defy it and abandon it. Never give up in the face of the Apocalypse but laugh in front of it. We can still learn to walk into this world with Grace. We can still build something Beautiful. We can still see Anarchy realized.

To Anarchy and Love

"Power is something that one comes into contact with only for brief moments. It is not permanent, and it does not belong to anyone. It is there, floating in the universe, but it is accessible only to those who have learned to let go of the ego."Don Juan Matus

1Funny modern concept. It would take too much space to analyze them as well in this essay but you can easily find them with a quick research.

2This will be clearer at the end of next chapter

3 As mentioned in the introduction, the schools that offer the knowledge this person brought to the Western public are extremely dangerous places, therefore I will not mention the name of the path nor the name of this person. Also, he was a...pretty extravagant personality.

4The Messiah is another symbol, a model we need to follow. In my main spiritual school, people are defined from number 1 to 7, based on their level of consciousness; Jesus of Nazareth is canonically a number 8, but still a man.

5This sentence was written over 100 years ago and even though it doesn't contain gender-inclusive language, I preferred to report it as it is provided in the system.

6Unironically, the person who wrote this fell victim to the Third Enemy

7As simple as falling victim to Power, or its mirage, as we have analyzed in the previous chapter

8Even though safe spaces don't truly exist

9An explanation of it needs its own essay.

10Gender neutral pronouns, not plural. Do you really think The Absolute needs a gender?