A Free-Thought Manifesto and Prayer

From Golgotha

By

Martin Lewadny

My mind bows no knee to a single book except the One which reflects the Mind and Heart of the All and is inscribed upon my soul, written and read in my brave blood, spilt upon the journey of this Life freely given to me.

Indeed, I may bend a knee or two in awe and wonder of the human-divine, and perhaps even write one true line, a truth to shine so terse in a marginal space in the vast Book of the Uni-verse. Still I fear the inflation to flaunt what I think I really know, a-gnostic to my core, gazing into only one grain of sand from an Infinite shore.

This I do know, the word heresy was born of draconic hatred, birthed to devour the children of choice accused in their infancy of blasphemy. Even though my heretical tongue may be padlocked or cut out and my books burned, I will not cease to shout: orthodoxy and its hypocrisy is on the way out. It births no progress, only regress. It is heresy that sows the seeds for the growth and future of the world. For don’t we hear the Heretic who says: I am the way, the truth and the life. No one can make it to the Source without me in this beautific and barbaric world of strife.

Blasphemy is simply what these of the old have called the new. And these bound ones revel in harming the heretic with religious rack and the spiritual screw. They pontificate with personal and paper pope against every free-thinker who would dare. And while shackled in delusional pomp they see themselves as the holy angels who can separate the wheat from the tare.

The orthodox refuse to straighten out and detox, so they just keep thinking and worshiping in their suffocating box. With twisted sight they do not see that all great truths begin as blasphemy, and all great humans in history have been blasphemers who truly see. This is the honest truth from an honest human.

If upon my honest or mistaken way their honest and mistaken god should condemn me to death and eternal hell, I will certainly expect to meet him there in full form as well. I will ask this so-called loving god and this one alone why he did not provide more evidence of his single presence in every way. This way none of us perhaps would have had to go to this unimaginable place called hell. Then with their alleged free god I shall have a free talk to end all talks and there will be no more to tell.

If I should be granted a place in the heavens in all its claimed dimensions I will judge my fittedness to there by the signs of liberty and open space I see there. For I am told there are many mansions in the Father’s house. It is thus clear that there is lots of room for everyone there. Moreover, if I should discover that it is filled with some sickening conformity and is inimical to freedom I shall decide again on my own whether I will remain there for eternity. For Life in its core is not linear, straight and tidy, whether in its temporal or eternal forms. I will leave that imprisoned place and look for the free place, for I am told that wherever the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom. That is the place I will seek after leaving an orthodox heaven, and they can keep their straight-laced glory and Pharisaic leaven.

I accept no tyranny of worship to some transcendent text written in history by fallible human hands. I was called by Nature and that Mysterious Something More -- to intellect, to imagine, to intuit, to integrate, to individuate and to write my life, my own book which breaks the bindings of every book. I will not trample my originality or individuality beneath my feet and thus snuff out the breath of my free-spirit before a slave or brute who worships any book.

The books of the orthodox are simply the sum of what its writers and readers really don’t know. Be it true that many heretics have forgotten more than these so-called straight thinkers and worshippers will ever know. They smuggle and cuddle in their small circles and forget the larger circle and befuddle of the All.

Chains upon our brains are still chains, no matter if they are forged with the unbendable steel of religious or secular intolerance or fabricated with the stolen gold of fundamentalists and those priestly forgers who plunder in their course, trying to imprison the thoughts, choices and lives of freedom-fighters and all without reason or remorse.

In ignorance they branded their sham of the Christian cross upon the weakest link in their torture crown of textual thorns and fixed it to his gnostic head. So blind they did not see him wearing the hidden victory wreath beneath for all the heretical dead. And while he bled he bore our sufferings and the stigmata of freedom upon his spirit-anointed head. Despite orthodox claims and crimes, he still laughs from the tombs of the truly free and their ascending chimes.

Behold the Holy Heretic! He is the one who says to all heresy hunters who nailed him to the wooden rack, sticking their despising spear of terror and error into his side to bleed him dry and hoping he would quickly die:

“Father forgive them, for they know not what they do!

May Truth, Knowing, and Mercy flow down upon the heads of these below

who stomp upon and defame

“The Skull” – the Holy Ground of their shame!

Martin Lewadny (Feb. 23, 2010) copyright@A Writing Came. As all poetry this poetic manifesto is more effective when read out loud to oneself. It was written on the same day that the great poet John Keats died (at the age of 26! ). I was quite surprised by this discovery. He was considered a-gnostic heretic in his own day by some. In his own wonderful way Keats was a romantic heretical poet and we are all the more and most blessed because of him.

I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the Heart's affections and the truth of the imagination — What imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth… Beauty is truth, truth beauty - that is all / you know on earth, and all you need to know. (John Keats)