In the Gnostic traditions, the physical world is often spoken of as a prison or coffin in which Spirit is temporarily housed in its' journey of self-discovery across time and space. Ultimate realities are not confined by gravity, time, space, flesh or mind. How can we reach those realities while confined in the World-prision? How can we hope to see beyond the prison walls to reality? The answer is not difficult. Intuition, meditation, contemplation, deep artistic experiences can all literally make the World stop for a second to let us see beyond. It is not complex or unreachable at all. Having that experience is something that even neophytes can easily have. Understanding it and making it the core of one's life is the hard part and that takes many lifetimes to achieve. Journaling, writing, making music, doing visual arts can help us to not only record but to begin the process of understanding our deepest experiences.
For that reason, the Athanor Institute teaches not only the history of gnosticism and esotericism, but the practice of achieving moments of insight as well as the ways of recording those experiences. Interpreting and undersanding them is our most important work and while each individual has their own unique experience, our focus is upon the wider traditions of the World and how the individual validates and widens those traditions.
There is no room for egotism in such an endeavour, so we use our tools of self-discovery to link to the oldest and deepest teachings to help ourselves and others in the Universal quest for evolution and perfeciton. This is, in its' heart, a work of healing and insight and we are careful to ensure that it is used to aid and not to hurt.
One does not need to be a great artist to do this work, but in the course of doing it, one's art will grow and become strong and an expression of the personal and universal in ways that will surprise those that thought they could never achieve such things!
