Mechanism of knowledge
by Athos A. Altomonte
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Q: Is it fair to say that we must remember, rather than declare, that we must change and that the ‘memory of Self' will bring the change (the alchemic gold is already inside us, only covered by a layer of dirt: the mind...)?

A : I think that the esoteric or (so called) ‘initiatory literature' must have many limits, such as:

a) what can and cannot be published;

b) the limits of the compiler and those determined by his inner motivations (desire for success, overestimation and self-gratification, search for money or notoriety, etc…);

c) the use of specialized languages (only hermetic, only symbolic, only alchemic, only Masonic, etc..), which are limiting because they are centripetal and therefore often misleading.

But by paying attention and studying the psychical meanings of every term we can always reach a radical meaning that corresponds all the time, despite the use of surface languages (exoterical). The radical meaning is the joining point for the ‘ tower of Babel ' of surface languages, even those with a mysteriosophic and mystical ‘character'.

After this preamble, dear friend, I get to the point of what you wrote, which, I can assure you, is perfectly relevant to the matter.

But then everything must be projected into operative planning (how do we do this?)

The mechanism of knowledge , to use an exoterical term, is dual.

We must consider a slow and limiting part linked to memory (physical reason) and another that is quick and spontaneous (therefore not subjected to the slowness of physical reason), which doesn't correspond to memory (bio-chemical) but to intelligence (neuronal-electric) which, with the expansion (and speeding up) of synapses, allows an increasingly direct interaction between mind and conscience, up to the so-called inner reawakening (memory of one's own extraordinary conscience).

Even though what we've just said is absolutely relative, due to the shortness of the exposition, it is sufficient to identify a common direction. It is the inner reawakening as ‘memory' of latent potentialities. It is an event on which, although in different terms, all lesser traditions agree, even when they are limited or limiting.

Once accepted the assumption of the ‘reawakening of self', this appears to us as a mechanism of knowledge and, as a consequence, as a determining factor of change of personality. Nevertheless, we still have to see how it is possible to ‘activate' it through one's own volitional aspects.

The ‘reasoning' might start from the statement that we can advance up to a certain point via physical reason. Therefore before we put in place any ‘strategy', we must accept the principle of impersonal knowledge (affirmation of the fact in itself), which overcomes the limits of egocentric (I like this, I don't like this) and passional (I believe this, I don't believe this) knowledge.

In order to think about an ‘advancement strategy' (expansion of conscience), we must recognize the actual evolutionary point of the researcher (actual starting point), the actual talents (mental) and qualities (energetic). Finally, the means on which to rely in order to ‘rebuild' the link between ordinary conscience and, so to speak, extraordinary conscience.

The action of linking (research of Unity) several parts of the conscience (sub-consciousness, consciousness, super-consciousness) is exoterically called initiatory journey . It is an inner journey made of tighter and tighter links ; if we don't become aware of them, viz. if we don't recognize the narrowing, we might believe that we have reached the end of a path that is in actual fact only a limit of ours.

In conclusion, once accepted the theory that initiatory conscience is not an aspect of memory , or the sciolistic or encyclopaedic cultural summa that many people enjoy displaying, it can be considered as the result of a reawakening . To avoid any misunderstandings (which are the pillar of generic esotericism), its meaning must be clearly determined, possibly in believable terms and not as the affirmation of a mysterial dogma. For example, at the beginning we should talk about vocation or inner tendency, then about intuition and intuitive intelligence and finally about empathy and empathic intelligence. Therefore, once passed the boundary of empathic intelligence, we reach the initiatory space of pure Reason and Gnosis, which we need to identify precisely in order not to fall in the usual ‘worshipping of the term' and of its exoterical meanings.