I am a fundamentalist

 

 

Often, suicide terrorists are referred to as fundamentalists. But that is what they are absolutely not. They are mostly confused young people, who have lost themselves completely. And they are often abused by cynical people who want to gain power through terror.

The word 'fundamentalism' is often associated with Muslim men who want to oppress the woman. The pope and company seem to want that too. But have these people gone back to their foundation? Or do they slavishly follow the teachings of their ancestors? Or do they just live out their instincts? Or are they the slave of the combination of an old doctrine combined with their instincts?

 

My youth

My father was a reformed Christian, free-mason, spiritualist, alcoholic and psychopath. My mother was brought up in a Catholic convent by crazy nuns, with the superstition of the twenties and thirties of the last century. Both were totally unsuitable for raising children, according to a clinical psychiatrist. At the age of seven I was placed in a children's home and I had some protection. At the age of 11 I was placed with my psychotic mother again without good reason. In the final report of the children's home they even stated: "He has the intelligence for gymnasium, but that will not work with mother at home". Indeed. Moreover, the agreed supervision of the childcare custody organization was completely absent.

If I had been a 'normal' child, I would have become a drug addict or drug dealer or terrorist. Fortunately I was 'abnormal'. At the age of 8 I bought (in the children's home) my first chemistry box. At the age of 12 I had a complete laboratory in the attic. (With substances for which you would now be arrested.) Also at the age of 12, I went with my mother to a Mazdaznan course. Mazdaznan is a kind of Persian yoga, based on the teachings of the old Zoroastrians. I immediately became vegetarian and started with an ever continuing spiritual development with daily breathing exercises and meditation. With that I kept my psychological problems in check.

At the age of 20 I applied for psychoanalysis. The psychoanalytic institute rejected this with the words: "You are doing well in society. Your psychological foundations are so damaged that psychoanalysis only offers risks." There we have it: psychological foundations. In order to repair them, I had to become a fundamentalist. I had to and would go to my foundations. But how do you do that?

 

LSD

Meditation and breathing exercises helped me to control my mind. But that made the barrier between me and my damaged foundations only stronger. I tried everything: Behaviorism, Jungian and Freudian psychology, alpha training, silva mind control, alchemy, magical rituals, shamanism. I made a primitive brain machine from a 555-ic, complete with TENS (neuro-electric stimulation) and used it in combination with self hypnosis cassettes. Little progress. What now?

The breakthrough came after reading books by John C. Lilly. He described his experiments with LSD. At that time I was still fiercely against drugs, but after reading Lilly I decided to try LSD. LSD is not actually a drug, at least not a drug that sedates you or that eases your psychological pain. It is rather 'dynamite for the mind'. It will destroy you when you misuse it. With proper use it is a tool to become a fundamentalist.

I started taking seeds from Morning Glory. That was in 1985, around my 24th. I saw myself as a mindless robot, that run its standard programs. Then I got a paper trip from a friend. That really took me further. At that time I immersed myself in the Icelandic myths around Yggdrasil, the world tree. I changed to Surtr, the fire giant. In mythology Surtr burns the old world, so that there is room for a new one. In my vision I trampled my old world and created a new one. From that moment on I went deeper and deeper into the old Germanic mythology.

The most important works on Germanic mythology are the two Eddas from Iceland. One is written by a heathen converted to Christianity: Snorri Sturlusson. The other by a Christian priest. They have more or less described paganism as it was. If we compare it with the Bible or the Rig Veda, then we see an important difference. The Bible and Rig Veda have been edited, polished, made more beautiful. The Eddas contain raw myths. They bring us back to our origins. They can not be understood intellectually. They must be experienced.

 

Becoming a werewolf

In April 1987 I decided to dedicate myself like the old Ulf-hedh-nar. Ulf means wolf, hedh means skin and a nar is an initiate. (Often nar is translated as 'corpse', 'dead body'. The real meaning is 'someone who is death for family and tribe'. The old 'you' dies and you are reborn with another personality.) The Ulf-hedh-nar were the old werewolves, a shamanic cult of ancient Europe. 'Were' means man, werewolf means wolf-man. Forget the Hollywood fables. Compare werewolves with the leopard men from Africa. Also forget the idea that one literally changed into a wolf. They became a wolf in a shamanic way, in a sort of trance. Do not try to understand this intellectually. Eating bread and drinking wine and then believing that you eat the flesh and drink the blood of Jesus is intellectually as incomprehensible. Declaring that Catholics regard themselves as cannibals is ridiculous. The fable that you become a werewolf when you are being bitten by a werewolf is ridiculous to.

In April 1987 I put myself in a leather bag and stayed in that bag for nine days. The ancient Germanic shamans probably did that without food and drink. But they hung in a tree in a forest where it rained regularly. Hanging yourself in a tree is a bit difficult in the Netherlands. So I did it in house and made sure I had enough water.

Many people will probably conclude that I am indeed 'mad as a hatter'. Or a fundamentalist. To Christians I would say: Become a fundamentalist to. Go to the desert for a good fast. 40 days may be a bit much, but seven days must be possible. Or search on 'Vision Quest' and see where you end up.

After this initiation, I resigned from my job and began writing to my life's work: the Yggdrasil course. This course has 48 CDs with 2 TRANCE-FORMATIONS per cd. A TRANCE-FORMATION is a guided visualization. You can compare them a little bit with the Exercitia of Loyola. But there is a lot more technology behind TRANCE-FORMATION. In the background is a sound signal generated by a computer program, with a differential beat. (Or bin-aural beat.) This beat frequency helps you to go to a certain level of consciousness (alpha or theta). TRANCE-FORMATION can be combined with a brain machine, but that is not necessary.

In the 96 TRANCE-FORMATIONS you are guided through the mythological worlds of the world tree Yggdrasil. The journeys through the ice worlds and the fire worlds can be compared to the mythological journey through Dante's Inferno, without the political implications. In the TRANCE-FORMATIONS you are mentally shaken and often pulled apart, totally destroyed, finely ground. This aspect also occurs in the visualization of Tibetan shamans, where one imagines that one sacrifices the body or the lower self to the demons, who then tear us apart.

In Yggdrasil your identity is constantly changing. The TRANCE-FORMATION on Ragnarokkr, the downfall of the ruling powers (or Armageddon), makes this visible. One moment you are a petty ego. You feel safe in a self-created world. The sun and the moon move according to your laws. Then you are Surtr, the fire giant, and you laugh at the world view of your ego. With a giant flaming sword you split the bulwark of your ego. As your ego you look at the sky and a flaming sword splits it open. As Surtr you burn the world of your ego. Then you stick your sword in the belly of Jormungandr, the Midgard snake. She awakens, her tail flips out of her mouth and with unbridled violence she rises from the primeval sea.

Then you yourself are Jormungandr. You see the world as a small island that floats on the primeval sea. You dive under this island and burning with anger you rise up under the middle of the island. With your gigantic head you split the island open. Endlessly you rise up and up, like a fiery burning serpent. As an infinite column of fire, you rise up for miles and you break through the island. You tear open the island, and it breaks apart into pieces. Endlessly you rise up and up, and you unite with the creator. And then you realize that you and the creator are one. You are now one with the creator and you experience the unity with all that lives.

The paragraph above is similar to Hinduism mythology as the rising of the kundalini snake, when Shakti unites with Shiva.

 

Pre-fundamentalism

Am I a fundamentalist? Rather a pre-fundamentalist. I descended under my damaged foundations and cleaned them up. I dived under the foundations of the existing religions and returned to the origin. In origin, religion's are one. Ultimately they come from the direct experience of the most primitive forces in the human psyche.

What I am going to say about Christianity also applies to Judaism and Islam. But I do not know those religions well enough. I limit myself to Christianity. I would like to point out: 'Christianity' does not exist, 'the Christian' does not exist either. There are many 'esoteric Christians' for whom the following does not apply. The following remarks are mainly about people who often hang around in the church and who are fairly biblical. In other words: for dogmatic Christians.

Dogmatism is something very different than fundamentalism. With the dogmatist the dogma or doctrine prevails. For example, the dogma: The Bible is God's word. God can and may only say things that are in accordance with the Bible. When He sends an angel who says something new, the angel gets an ink pot to his head. (As Luther did according to mythology!).

In this way, Christians use the Bible as 'anti-aircraft gun against god'. And as stated above one can say: That is blasphemy. Personally, I do not believe that you can blaspheme god. But blasphemy plays a strong role in Christianity. To state that God MUST confine himself to the Bible is extremely presumptuous. Read about this Isaiah. This prophet spoke out viciously against arrogant people, who teach things that have been devised by people, while their hearts have turned from the divine.

A fundamentalist goes back to the foundations and dislikes dogmas. Dogmas are trapped in language and culture and belong to the higher layers of the human mind. The fundamentalist goes back to the direct experience, which comes far before language and culture. The direct experience does not know about dogmas. But dogma can prevent the direct experience.

I do not see Christianity as a religion but as a prison. The Christians are bound in slavery by a book: the Bible. According to the dogmas, the Bible is God's word. In my opinion, the Bible is man's work and a political instrument.

People recreate the world according to their inner images. That is how Christians started building churches at a certain moment. Not simple buildings where you could meditate dry and warm. No, gigantic ego-centric stone buildings. Take a look at us! Our church is the biggest! Like little boys who want to have the biggest penis. The old churches are especially huge, cold and dysfunctional. They are prisons for the body, just as the Bible is a prison for the soul. Jesus himself preached simplicity: simple clothing, simple behavior. Do you think Jesus wanted to build cathedrals?

The churches are social institutions and have nothing to offer to fundamentalists. The Roman nobility transformed the Christian religion into a very well organized and hierarchical institution. The churches became places to indoctrinate and restrain the people. Church and nobility have worked together in unison to keep the people enslaved. Only with the Enlightenment did cracks appear in this power-structure. Not through the Enlightenment itself, but through technological progress. After the arrival of the steam engine, the power of landowners shifted to capital owners and engineers. The nobility lost its power base. Their allies, the priests, were under suspicion because of their collaboration with the nobility.

All this political jibber-jabber is completely unimportant for the fundamentalist. A fundamentalist seeks the truth deep within himself and withdraws from the indoctrination of the rulers of the moment. The origin of our spirit is older than humanity. World wars and revolutions are no more than ripples on the surface, unimportant transient events.

Marx rightly stated: Religion is opium for the people. Often I have jokingly stated: "The Bible must be restricted by the Controlled Substances Act. It is mind-numbing and the Bible is harmful to public health." The more often you read it, the more disturbed you become." If one looks at serial killers and sectarian lunatics in the USA, proof of this is quickly found. The Bible is all too often a source from which psychopaths draw misery to their heart's content. The same can be said of the Qur'an. Suicide terrorists draw from the Qur'an to their heart's content. Christian terrorists rely on the Bible when they shoot an abortion doctor or blow up an abortion clinic.

 

 

'True Christians' and 'true Muslims' claim that the terrorists are not 'true Christians / Muslims'. But that's what the terrorists say about the moderates. In the end, every group believes that they have all the wisdom and that the others see it all wrong. But these word-battles are conducted by people who are afraid to deviate from what they have learned. Mum or Dad have told them that their holy book is the right one and that they are good if they hold on to it. Word-fighters fight with each other about their dogmas. Their dogmas are castles in which they can endure spiritual sieges and from there they can attack neighbouring castles.

 

Faith and religion are two totally different things. A religion is a social ordering and has social structure as objective. In a religion there is something like heresy: Every thought and every act that disturbs social ordering can be branded as heresy. Accusation of heresy often leads to expulsion and exclusion. In a religion one has the choice: to accept the dogmas or to be accused of heresy and to be expelled. Faith, on the other hand, is something personal.

Faith is also something other than a creed. A creed is part of a religion and consists of repeating the dogmas of that religion. To illustrate this the following absurd example. Suppose someone goes to communion and then publicly declares: "I believe that the devil keeps me on the right path, that the archangels are wimps who serve a narcissistic psychopath." Let's see how fast you are outside! You will be banished for ever!.

Faith is something personal and comes from personal experience. It is shaped by the religion with which one grew up. But it is not the same. In the Catholic Church many examples of people who came to faith were persecuted by the Church. Once they were death, they were proclaimed saints. John of the cross, for example.

When one comes to faith, one easily comes into conflict with the rulers of one's own religion. Those in power owe their position to slavishly following "the doctrine," the system of dogmas. The system of dogmas is a prison, which prevents return to the foundations. You must first escape this prison before you can become a fundamentalist. Most faith communities are actually sects, which continuously repeat the dogmas of religion and prevent you from thinking. To escape, you must first get out of your sect. We also see this in the founders of the great religions.

Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, was, according to tradition, a priest in the order after Melchi-zedek, a group based on the ancient Zoroastrian teachings. In this teachings the juice of the white Haoma was used. In the Rig Veda this juice comes back as Soma-juice. It brings you into a state in which you come to your foundations more easily. Moses retreated to a mountain to come to himself. There he saw a bush burning and he got direct contact with the divine. Was he 'stoned like a shrimp'? Had he used something like the white Haoma? Or had he fallen into a trance through long fasting?

Jesus would have fasted 40 days in the desert. Seems a bit exaggerated, physiologically almost impossible. But what does fasting in loneliness do with us?

I remember a dissertation from the Erasmus University of Rotterdam. I believe it was from Dr. Schouten. According to this dissertation, the brain makes LSD-like substances if one follows a diet with too few carbohydrates. A diet of pure meat makes people crazy and this seems to have a physiological basis. Prolonged fasting probably has a similar effect: Glucose deficiency in the brain causes a trance state, a changed state of consciousness, through which one starts to see the inner world. The world that precedes the world of mental constructions, in which we usually wander around.

Jesus withdrew from his sect (Judaism) and fasted in solitude. There he got direct contact with the divine. He came back to his community with a new teaching. That was not really appreciated by the old rulers.

Mohammed retired to a cave after having sought seclusion for years. There he got into a trance and had direct contact with the divine. As a changed man, he brought a new religion.

Do you see the pattern? The founders of new religions withdrew from their sect and meditated in solitude, often combined with fasting or perhaps in combination with magical plants. They got direct contact with the divine and came back with new insights.

Those in power are not happy with changes. They already have the power and change is not good for their power base. Those in power are also not happy with fundamentalists, with people who withdraw from their indoctrination and who come back with new ideas. Such people are dangerous and they must be combated. One should prevent such new inspiration. That is why rulers oppose the use of shamanic plants. They are against the withdrawal from the religious community and against the search for truth.

 

The truth

What do I mean with 'search for truth'? The truth has already been formulated in the dogmas of your religion. That is the ultimate and only truth. Your religion is the only right one, all other religions are inventions of monkeys, pigs, dogs, vipers. There is only one truth and you already know that. Everything else is heresy. Or not?

 

 

As a Christian you can choose: do you want to live your life with your heavy Christian cross on your shoulders or do you want to follow Jesus? If you want to follow Jesus, go to the desert to fast. Go on Vision Quest. If you do not, you can call yourself a Christian, but not a follower of Jesus. Those are two completely different things. Go to the Pope or to the desert. You can not serve two lords.

The same applies to the follower of every religion. Every religion is petrified over time into a prison full of fossilized people.

 

I am the Savior of the Jews

The ultra-Orthodox Jews are a daunting example of this. They have been keeping their holy scriptures for thousands of years and they are out of phase with time. I am the Savior of the Jews who believe in me. To them I say: Shred the Torah and the Talmud. Shred the QaBaLaH. Throw your Jewish identity into the fire like an old worn down coat and create a new identity, a new coat. Then you become a human being. Then you are free and liberated. Then you will suffer no longer from anti-Semitism.

The same I say in slightly different terms against Christians, Muslims and followers of other religions. Tear your Bible or Quran. Destroy your old identity as a Muslim or a Christian and become a human being. Then you are free.

If you call yourself Christian, Jew or Muslim, you do that "to belong" to some group. It has nothing to do with faith. The true fundamentalist returns to the source from which all religions originated. And he / she does everything necessary to get there.

 

Do you have to use 'drugs' for this?

No!

Most drugs are totally useless. Nicotine, cocaine, heroin, hemp, amphetamines and also alcohol are only harmful. I share the opinion of Muslims that drinking alcohol is wrong.

Until your 25th birthday, your brain is in rapid development and unstable. Using drugs before you are 25 years old is a bit stupid.

Many people can achieve spiritual experiences without drugs. For example through a Vision Quest, through prolonged fasting in isolation and through meditation. A TRANCE-FORMATION CD in combination with a brain machine and CES (Cranial Electro Stimulation) is usually more than enough to get spiritual experiences.

This is not enough for some people. For me it was not enough, perhaps because my youth was extremely traumatic. If you have tried everything to get an authentic spiritual experience without drugs and if you have disciplined your mind with years of meditation and an authentic spiritual experience is of vital importance to you, then you can consider certain shamanic drugs.

In general: If you are younger than 25 or if you have the slightest doubt: stay away from drugs. Shamanic drugs are dynamite for your mind. You can quickly get to your foundations and also quickly blow up your foundations. For most people, drugs are simply totally unsuitable.

 

I recommend reading: Psilocybin can occasion mystical-type experiences having substantial and sustained personal meaning and spiritual significance

 

The most important question you need to ask yourself is this: Do you want to be a socially accepted person or do you want to return to your foundations? In the first case you can become reasonably successful. In the second case, a difficult road awaits you with fantastic experiences and personal growth. It becomes problematic when you do not really choose. Some of my students want to become a fundamentalist, but they can not let go of social acceptance. Then you come into a kind of no man's land, where you can not be happy. You miss the depth of fundamentalism and you miss social acceptance.

With Light and Love, Andreas Firewolf