'In Ignorance, To View A Small Portion And Think That All'

I spent most of the night online, doing some more research into Gnosticism

I find it really fascinating, for me it is the only religion I have come across that makes any sense.

William Blake was a great advocate of it, and I think the aforementioned quote sums it up really. Everything in the world works towards making us think 'this is it' I am here, I struggle I die. This is the Atheist's world view

The Christian world view is equally dangerous, if not moreso. I am here, I am imperfect. God is perfect. To keep him happy I must follow a set of laws, rules, instructions. If I don't he will send me to hell.

For Blake on the other hand, 'The Divine resides in our Imagination'

For years, the church has advocated this idea of faith, belief, looking outwards

Atheism has advocated reason, sense, humanism

Both are based around a number of laws.

Blake personified reason as Urizen, "the embodiment of conventional reason and law. He is usually depicted as a bearded old man; he sometimes bears architect's tools, to create and constrain the universe; or nets, with which he ensnares people in webs of law and conventional culture."

'Urizen' has put all these laws in places to keep human conciousness relegated to a very low level. This is the purpose of the Church's doctrines on sin, to take all pleasure out of life, to limit what the individual can do, and to keep his/her conciousness from achieving it's full realisation

This is a false knowledge, as Urizen is a false godhead (remember, Urizen is not literally a 'real' person, he is a metaphor)

Because we are wrapped up in all these laws, we are constantly looking outwards

But what if it is all inside us?

True spiritual knowledge (if you wish to call it such) comes to us in our dreams, in our imagination. This is the true meaning of Gnosis, the Greek word for knowledge.

And in their stead, intricate wheels invented,
wheel without wheel:
To perplex youth in their outgoings, & to bind to labours in Albion
Of day & night the myriads of eternity that they may grind
And polish brass & ron hour after hour laborious task;
Kept ignorant of its use, that they might spend the days of wisdom
In sorrowful drudgery, to obtain a scanty pittance of bread:
In ignorance to view a small portion & think that All.
Blake, Jerusalem