The Seven Gates

I'm currently reading this book called The Gates of the Necronomicon which is basically about magic and it sort of gives an interesting overview about things that ancient and not so ancient religions and/or mysticisms have in common. It is interesting to see how many of them seem to be based on learning how to do magic. And also that they are sort of interrelated, such as having gods or key figures that have very similar names and functions. Such as the Egyptian goddess Sheshat who, among other things, helped the builders to line up pyramids with the great celestial gate (called The Stretching of the Cord) which was the area of the heavens where, according to the ancient Indians and ancient Chinese, humanity came from. She, or at least someone who has a similar name, function and symbol (a seven pointed star on a pole) above her head, also shows up in other mysticisms.
Furthermore it tells about gates between our plane of existence and another plane. Which is the underworld or maybe just the spiritual world. If you gain access to this world you can learn the nature of magic or even achieve immortality. But it is dangerous to go there, you need to make sacrifices, you need to come apart or go insane (the destruction of the self) before you reach the end (where you are reborn). There is an interesting Sumerian story about the goddess Inanna, who descents unto the underworld and, during which, at each of the Seven Gates must remove a piece of clothing. She comes to the end of her journey naked..

O well, it's just interesting, that's what it is ;)

What's The Opposite of Life

I just saw the final episode of Dawson's Creek. Besides from it being a tear-jerker Dawson raises an interesting point somewhere during the show. He points out that the opposite of death isn't life, it's birth. Although one might argue that the opposite of being born is dying and that definitely the opposite of being dead is living (and that the opposite of being death is being life, or god. Which bring me to the hypothesis that life is heaven, or paradise), lets assume for a while that death isn't the obvious opposite of life as we take it to be. What then is the opposite of life?
If you see existence as a two dimensional plane, with a line dividing it (infinite space above and below) and life is above the line, what do you think is the opposite of life, under the line (call it the great divide). I know what I would think was on the other side. I would think that was on the other side, meaning that I would think that life after death was on the other side... But who knows; the other side might just be the mirror image of this side. Which gives me a very interesting dualistic idea: mind (the spirit, soul, etc.) lives in another universe/existence (on the other side of the divide), with not identical, but functionally comparable physics, which makes mind always run exactly in sync with our bodies. Thus not needing to pass energy through the divide, but still having some sort of synergy between them.. I call it: scindoism. The ism of the divide.

And that's how you get from Dawson's Creek, via paradise, through physics, to spiritualism..