"In our dreams - I know it! - we do make the journeys we seem to make: we do see the things we seem to see; the people, the homes, the cats, the dogs, the birds, the whales, are real, not chimeras; they are living spirits, not shadows; and they are immortal and indestructible. They go whither they will; they visit all resorts, all points of interest, even the twinkling suns that wander in the void of space. That is where those strange mountains are which slide from under our feet while we walk, and where those vast caverns are whose bewildering avenues close behind us and in front when we are lost, and shut us in. We know this because there are no such things here, and they must be there, because there is no other place." - Mark Twain

"In the past our politicians offered us dreams of a better world. Now they promise to protect us from nightmares." - BBC television special

Have you ever been conscious that you were dreaming while asleep?

This is known as 'lucid dreaming'.

It is possible to experience an ultra awake state called 'lucid living'.

When living lucidly you are conscious that what you thought was consciousness was, comparatively, a hazy dream.

This awakened state is sometimes called 'enlightenment' or 'gnosis'.

It is an experience of the undeniable oneness of all that lives and an understanding of the all embracing love that God has shown for all life simply through granting inanimate matter a living existence. It is an experience in which the human soul is granted God's grace - a rebirth into reality in which the unique beauty of reality is seen as it truly is, in which the individual stands in awe of God's power, a reality in which one is overcome by God's mercy, a reality permeated with God's spirit.

Throughout history men and women from all cultures and all religious faiths have awoken and experienced lucid living.

Those who claim to know nothing about ultimate reality are called agnostic (literally, "not knowing"), the person who does claim to know such things is called gnostic ("knowing"). In Gnosticism the broad term 'gnostic' is defined as 'knower' which refers to all individuals who have insight into ultimate reality and although they express their insights in the various metaphors of their diverse cultures, they all talk about the experience of awakening, of gnosis, of perceiving reality as reality truly is.

Gnosis is not primarily rational knowledge. The Greek language distinguishes between scientific or reflective knowledge ("He knows mathematics") and knowing through observation or experience ("He knows me"), which is gnosis. As the gnostic use the term, we could translate it as "insight," for gnosis involves an intuitive process of knowing oneself. To know oneself is to know human nature and understand humanity.

Critically thinking individuals often inspired the formation of small groups dedicated to awakening humanity to the beauty of living in accord with God's Natural Law - to gnosis.

Ironically, the more successful the gnostics become the more they attract those who see their power of living in accord with God's Natural Law as unprofitabe threat to the established social cultural order. What began as a loose alliance of critically thinking gnostic individuals in the past degenerated, became corrupt, over time into an organized institutionalized religion mirroring the existing established social cultural order which corrupts and transforms the original message for the purpose of social control.

This corrupted form of gnosticism is 'literalism'.

Gnosticism is sometimes called 'the perennial philosophy' because it has been found in all cultures and at all times throughout mankind's history. It is not that gnostics all say exactly the same thing. It is rather that their teachings are like fingers pointing from different perspectives to the same experience of gnosis.

Unfortunately, most people focus on the fingers and entirely miss the point.

This is literalism.

Religions mired in literalism are social clubs for people who want to walk with God but end up worshiping the One True Finger. They have no understanding of the experience of awakening towards which the finger points. Once a religion becomes institutionalized it fails to function as anything other than a social control mechanism. Once sacred writings are interpreted and literally set in social cultural stone then the critical thinking, a necessary and required step in the attainment of awakening into gnosis, is abandoned for rote interpretation by "religious" experts - rabbis, priests, teachers, prophets and apostles, ad infinitum - also known as intercessors.

Throughout history gnostics have ceaselessly exposed literalism in religion as a pernicious source of ignorance, superstition, division and suffering. In so doing gnostics have been persecuted by ruling classes.

This gnostics message has never been more relevant than it is today in our tumultuous times.

Taking religious myths literally is the root cause of religiously sanctified violence.

The time has come to say enough of this madness and consign corrupt religion mired in literalism to the garbage heap of history.

The experience of gnosis, of awakening, has answered the profound human yearning to understand the mysteries of life, of reality, of the human soul and the attributes of God.

The experience of gnosis has inspired people of all cultures to create beautiful works of art, gloriously soaring cathedrals and temples, transcendental music and songs, sublime poetry and literature that speaks to the heart of man.

The experience of gnosis has the power to rescue the teachings of gnostics from under the accumulated debris of religious dogma.

We can jettison corrupt religious literalism while we retain and revivify the perennial teachings of gnosis.

"This reality is a passing dream which the sleeper is convinced is real, until unexpectedly the dawn of death frees him from this fantasy." - Rumi (Sufi Gnostic)