“Today we have utterly forgotten that heresy derives from the Greek ‘heraisthai’, “to choose.” To be heretical means to have choices and not be forced or obligated to believe what one is told to believe. A heretic is free to choose what to believe, or not to believe.”
― John Lamb Lash

“Monotheism begins with a god who hates trees.”
― John Lamb Lash

“Demeter seals all that we have seen and heard by her own peculiar utterance and signals, by vivid coruscations of light, and cloud piled upon cloud…and then finally, the light of a serene wonder fills the temple and we see the pure fields of Elysium and hear the chorus of the Blessed. Then, not merely by external seeming or philosophic interpretation, but in real fact does the Hierophant becomes the creator and revealer of all things.”
-Hypatia

“Today we live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups... So I ask, in my writing, What is real? Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudo-realities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. I do not distrust their motives; I distrust their power. They have a lot of it. And it is an astonishing power: that of creating whole universes, universes of the mind. I ought to know. I do the same thing.”
― Philip K. Dick

“The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water and breeds reptiles of the mind.”
― William Blake

“Who really needs to be commanded to love? Anyone who has loved anything in life, be it another person, an animal, a place in nature, a work of art—whatever—knows that love comes by its own power. It cannot and need not be commanded.”
― John Lamb Lash, Not in His Image

They [alien parasites] make their victims (usually referred to as 'hosts') think the whole world is a kind of lie, a simulation.
― Laurence Galian, Alien Parasites

“All societies end up wearing masks.”
― Jean Baudrillard

“The spontaneous generation of the Archons is certainly one of the more difficult features of Gnostic cosmology to take seriously. The eruption of an inorganic species in interstellar space is truly bizarre and may look highly implausible. How can any organism arise without a habitat from which to arise? How could spontaneous generation of this kind occur? Those who baulk at this episode would be advised to investigate the abiogenesis of Acari insects demonstrated by Andrew Crosse in 1837. His experiment showed the precipitation of nanobot-like insects by agitation of an electromagnetic medium.”
-John Lamb Lash, Not in His Image

Andrew Crosse - Abiogenesis of Acari (1837)
http://www.rexresearch.com/crosse/crosse.htm

“They want to be the agents, not the victims, of history. They identify with God's power and believe they are godlike. That is their basic madness. They are overcome by some archtype; their egos have expanded psychotically so that they cannot tell where they begin and the godhead leaves off. It is not hubris, not pride; it is inflation of the ego to its ultimate — confusion between him who worships and that which is worshipped. Man has not eaten God; God has eaten man.”
― Philip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle

Archons: (from Greek for “first,” “from the beginning”) Inorganic species produced by the impact of Sophia upon elementary matter before Sophia turned into the earth. Cyborgs inhabiting the solar system at large who excel in the psychotechnology of virtual reality, intrude upon humanity by psychic stealth, and propagate the ideological virus of redemptive religion. Intrapsychic forces that exaggerate human error beyond the scale of correction. “Messengers of deception” (Jacques Vallee). Adj., Archontic.

“Human beings are under the control of a strange force that bends them in absurd ways, forcing them to play a role in a bizarre game of deception.”
― Jacques Vallee

“Creation and destruction are one, to the eyes who can see beauty.”
― Savitri Devi

“Unlike Old Testament prophets, Gnostics did not predict. But the sacred narrative does contain one passage that addresses the final defeat of the Archons. It describes Sophia's defiance of the Lord Archon, Yaldabaoth, who presumes to be the master of the universe:

“You are mistaken, blind one. There is an immortal Child of Light who came into this realm before you and who will appear among your spectral forms (plasmata)... He will trample you in scorn as potter's clay is pounded. And you will descend to your origin, the abyss, along with those who belong to you. For at the consummation of your works, the entire defect that has become revealed by the truth will be annihilated, and it will cease to be and will be as if it had never been.”
― On the Origin of the World, 103 passim, Nag Hammadi Library

-Extract from pg 197-198 Not in His Image -15th Anniversary Edition, John Lamb Lash

“Belief can be manipulated. Only knowledge is dangerous.”
― Frank Herbert

“I am Nature, the universal Mother, mistress of all the elements, primordial child of time, sovereign of all things spiritual, queen of the dead, queen also of the immortals, the single manifestation of all the gods and goddesses that are known to you on earth.”
― Apuleius, The Golden Ass, translated by Robert Graves (New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 1983)

Image: Pan and Psyche by Edward Burne-Jones

“The suppression of ecstasy and condemnation of pleasure by patriarchal religion have left us in a deep, festering morass. The pleasures people seek in modern times are superficial, venal, and corrupt. This is deeply unfortunate, for it justifies the patriarchal condemnation of pleasure that rotted out our hedonistic capacities in the first place! Narcissism is rampant, having reached a truly global scale. It now appears to have entered the terminal phase known as “cocooning,” the ultimate state of isolation. Dissociation from the natural world verges on complete disembodiment, represented in Archontic ploys such as “transhumanism,” cloning, virtual reality, and the uploading of human consciousness into cyberspace. The computer looks due to replace the cross as the primary image of salvation. It is already the altar where millions worship daily. If the technocrats prevail, artificial intelligence and artificial life will soon overrule the natural order of the planet.”
― John Lamb Lash

“The Demiurge of the Old Testament is jealous, insisting that no other gods be honored before him. This demand of course implies that there are other gods, competing deities. They are Pagan divinities who pervade nature, manifesting in all manner of creatures, in clouds and rivers and trees, even in rocks. Monotheism will tolerate none of these sensuous immanent powers. It makes the earth void of divinity, its inhabitants subject to an off-planet landlord.”

-John Lamb Lash, Not in His Image (2006), Chapter 17

Image: Triumph of Christianity by Tommaso Laureti

Additional notes: The image is intended as a celebration of the Christian destruction of the Pagan world depicting a smashed ancient statue of the god Mercury. Another way to see this is a human shattered into pieces in front of a tortured and dying man on a cross, the supposed representation of ‘divine love’.