Carissime John Opsopaus,
Haire!

I�m writing you now, a covenless Pagan, though trusting in Christ, after a year�s adoration of the deed of yours � I mean Bibliotheca Arcana, this true asylum of the Pythagorean theology. I live in Russia, being thus removed far from any glimpse of the Mediterranean spirit � even in the modern Western culture. However, my sympathies have always been with it, which I now first time profess. Paganism for me is religious freedom, springing from the assumption of the actual reality of Deities, represented in any tradition. As Russian philosopher Vladimir Soloviev said: �The totality of religious experience & religious thought comprises the stuff of religious conscious. From the objective point its stuff is revelation of the divine as a true object of religious thought. Since human spirit & therefore religious conscious is not something finite & perfect, but something emerging and perfecting, revelation of the divine in this conscious is necessarily gradual� It is clear that because of the objective & positive character of religious development none of its phases, none of epiphanies within this process can be lies or misconception per se. �A false religion� is a contradictio in adjecto� It is clear that from the religious point not minimum but maximum of the positive contents is the aim. The most rich, the most lively, the most precise religious form is the most perfect one. The perfect religion is not abiding in all of them indifferently (basic foundation of religion), but containing each of them & each of them possessing (complete religious synthesis). The perfect religion must be devoid of any limitation & exclusiveness, not because it be free of any positive feature � such freedom would be the freedom of a pauper, void freedom � but because it would contain all the features and therefore would not be bound to any of them, possessing all & being free of all. The true concept of religion is alien to both obscure fanaticism, sticking to one certain revelation, one positive form, negating any other & abstract rationalism, dissolving the essence of religion into the mist of indefinite concepts & mingling all religious forms into one empty, helpless & sterile community� The positive religious synthesis must embrace all contents of religious development, excepting no positive element. Not in indifference but in the essence religious unity is to be found.� (Readings on Godmanhead, 3)

My personal aim for years has been to find a true religion � I can�t say I succeed. I know only it can�t be damning those living in the world, can�t be damning nether Gods of Earth. I know they exist, for otherwise I would renounce this world & turn away either to pure Spirit, which I can�t love better, being taken from earth, or to this godless nature, which is also a torment. God Supreme, who is to be found in any monotheistic tradition (including as well, such traditions as Isiaic, Mitraic, Adonisiac or Attisiac cults of the late Empire) must exist since I need a head to head communication with the divine. Being an individual, i.e. finite & self-conscious existence, I need such above. This is where �salvation� comes from: I am saved out of nihil which threatens me so here through some presence, binding nihil to be something � I know such presence as a �second self� � my Sacred Self, differing from my profane self which is in such scope Maiah or Hyle � fake existence, delusion & death. Thus I learn my sin � it is not at all an exclusively �Judaic� or �Christian� feeling (as Nietzsche & many others deem it): one should read Babylonian prayers VIII BC �

God, I knew not � Thy penance is hard:
I swore a grave oath, neglected Thy law,
I went too far, I knew Thee not,
I knew Thee not, I dared too much.
My sins abide, I know not how I did them.
God, tame, dismiss, smoothen evil in my heart,
Forgive transgression, accept my prayers,
Turn my sins into a good deed.
(From the �Pacifying God�s heart� prayers)

The same way Proclus pleads his Muse:

Muse, I implore you, restrict my anxious impetus� (Hymn to the Muses, III)

Therefrom proceeds Monotheism. It is a dualism, first of all, since I acknowledge God & myself, my sinful dust in His rays. �God is�. Now I have a true & remaining consolation in that God is.

But the second step is much more perilous: �who is God?� (it may be as well �who are Gods� � nevertheless, until I answered it I shall view them as one, no distinctions clearly traced). �Quid es ergo, Deus meus?� � asks Augustine. The first &, probably, the truest answer has been given to Moses: �I am what I am� (Exodus 3:14). Eheye asher eheye. This is also the last, the ultimate understanding, man is capable of � Plotinus & Porphyry saw & immersed themselves in this �I am what I am�. Dionysius & Moses both ascended mount Sinai where they stood & �saw God of Israel� (Ex. 24:10). But we cannot abide with Him long � we are made of clay & He is Unmade. He dwells in eternity, we dwell in time. He IS & we hardly are � in His presence we are nothing, but out of His presence we are a worse nothing � nothing apt at perishing in nothing. And the main is that the answer is incomparable with the humble question. The humble question implicit in the �Who You are?� was the Pauline �What shalt Thou order?� (Acts, 9:6) How shall I glorify Thee?

Any religious discord, any look askew at an �infidel� lies here, in this answer. Jewish God condemned all lands �between the Red sea & the Philistine sea & between the desert & the river� (Ex. 23:31) as prey for His people � because to commit the tribes of these realms to their sword was what the Jews had to do. Niobaea had to lose her children because the Goddess was insulted. Christ, Who came to save, not to condemn (Luke, 9:56), condemned those not believing in Him & not accepting His baptism (Mark, 16:16). We can after all find excuses for divine cruelty, build a theory of the necessity of evil, etc. � i.e. involve ourselves in Theodicaea. But divine cruelty condemns God per se, with no way to justification. Man is too good to let his god be so evil. He who knows his misery will never reconcile with a single imperfection in Him. But creation & participation in this world is a dirty work & excluding rage & passion in God we may leave Him passive, uninvolved in this reality. Apuleus & Dionysius would willingly agree to this point (both acknowledged �celestial hierarchy� with mediating daemons, miscalled Gods by Homer & others: �De Deo Socratis�, �De Hierarchia Coelesti�). They both adored not these transcendent Gods, but daemons (angels or Ranks in Dionysius), passionate, but immortal & powerful. Those may be referred to Platonic ideas since human soul itself is a daemon. A very acumen refutation to their worship has been written by Augustine, who argued (against Porphyry) that the Pagans seek salvation from those, who are worse than their own idea of what God & Good shall be (De Civitate Dei, lib. VIII, IX). Gods, who shall punish or destroy us for what we would pardon & forgive our neighbor, would rather become a hurdle on our way up. This has nothing to do with morality, that�s the wrong word. Love is not morality - & it is Love that binds me have mercy & compassion to those around me. If Empedocles or Heracleitus should say that it is hybris to worship Love alone, discarding Strife, then I should say that they simply abandon the concept of evil & thus make human�s life meaningless. In other words, why should I love & consider my good good & my evil evil if there are no such things at all? My faith & love turns to absurd, since there�s no tension between them & what opposes them. A caveman knew better than we do, that good opposes evil & that it is abnormal � that there should be only one victor. Otherwise, why should Mitra kill the Bull, why should Attis be emasculated & Adonis die? �Morte mortem vincit� � this would have been impossible if Death & corruption were the law, the foundation of Universe. Why should I need gods if nothing opposes them, if I be not placed between them & their Rival as a referee, as a center? Semper in medio manens. Oh, if I only could be such!

So, I suggest that nihil should be accepted. Not like a pole in Rhea, the Indefinite Dyad, but rather like an agalma of Hers, reformed by Zeus Her Son, the Logos. I refer to evil, called on by God to be good. Plato named it matter.

These are words, however. All this has already been said & by voices mightier than the one speaking. The problem remains: How shall I praise thee, Lord? I was not brought up in a single confession, neither was I obliged to perform one single cult. Inter religiones sto sicut misductus, sicut errans constanter, non habens certum cognitionem. Video multitudinem earum et ecce non est una sine corruptione humana: sine atrocitate, praesumptione, praeiudicione, limitatione nationale, historicale sive temporale (vero non est Deus mutabile in saeculo!). I can only develop my own religion � like Grecian heroes of yore. But what they felt I feel not � I have no certitude of being destined by That, I believe in, to invent cult & order in His Name. Maybe, it is the lust of power springing from my heart (sure it is), not divine zeal, which prevents me from affiliating churches & sects. True, I need salvation, but the way to it I can�t see. All the supposed routes seem obscure & in some things repulsive to the heart. Nihil eats me & Dyad, the Multiplicatrix tempts me. A believer, I know not, What I believe in, a dying man, I see no escape from death. Where is the desired unity? � Sectarians kill one another. �Woe is your sect if you don�t accept our God, submit!� � �Go away with your idol & effigy � we trust in a true divinity!�

Religions resemble stiff members � they can move no more. Atheism in this case looks honest & truthful, be it ten times vulgar. Stiffness in life brings death, stiffness in religion � does it bring salvation? Russian Orthodoxy � the only sect I can observe in its blood � is a cadaver, adorned & revered by people � like a tradition, a memory, a social charity institute. Salvation is either not sought, either obtained within it by people, who had voluntarily crippled (they say �tamed� or �humbled�) their minds to find mirth in their rites. (I speak not of those, who tasted no Western education & remained inside the tradition � for these it is quite natural & plausible.) Ideology, taken from other people & deemed divine, given by God, is unfair to accept. �Quicumque vult salvus esse, may obey the commandments & fulfill the canons.� � �I asked for salvation & you give me ethics & social activity!� � �No. Munch OUR prayer, & God will account it for you.� � �Why yours? Why not of that sect around the corner?� � �They are misguided. They abound in sin. They dream their illusions & compose their religion themselves. Ours is composed by God you love.� � �History says something else�� � �History is secular. Whatever is of the flesh cannot enter the abode of Spirit. Moreover, science, rectified by faith (OUR faith) comes to different conclusions, etc.�

It is natural to abandon faith & desire for salvation at all, but I fear too much, & I love too much my dream of God & His Heaven, of my own history & my own labour for His sake & in Him. I want to pray. I want to be with God � that proceeds from my first dreams of love I dreamt in my youth. When I was then dreaming, I believed my love was from God & it was God I loved in a human being. So I believe now � I don�t perceive God any more, that�s the difference.

The final word is yet to be said. Now I can only certify religion is not set in any books, neither it is in itself presented wholly & without loss in any tradition or legend. While I live, I must have a religion to breath with. If I don�t, if I�m in a condition of religious hesitation or frustration, I can�t be called alive. The heat fades when it is separated from the source of combustion; any fuel remains cold until set on fire. Religion is the fire & man is the fuel � a case when fuel acts as an incendiary. �Burn, while you live� � these would be the only words I would write in a holy book, if I was to compose it. And this religious burning, this ardour is Paganism.

I wish you & all your neighbours, friends & people you love health & happiness. May your Gods protect & be propitious unto you. Your cause is the cause of Spirit & your path is a light for the world.

Yours, D. G. A Student at P., Russia. 2003.