Report from the Compound

This is your intrepid "embedded reporter" transmitting from inside a cultist compound located somewhere in the alpine jungles of Central America.

Yep, I'm sure that it seems to many of my friends that I have fallen into the hands of a religious cult and that I'm completely "out of my tree". True enough, there are plenty of very "spiritual" (my friends would call them "flaky") people here and as I said before, more rainbow coloured clothes and dreadlocks etc here than I can poke my trusty stick at. Religion is very much in the forefront of conversations and peoples minds here (its as if they are putting something in the water!...).
Truth be told, religion is more or less what this esoteric studies program is about. The difference here is that there is no threatening with "Gods wrath" and there is no pressure on anyone about anything. The students at Las Piramides do what they want, eat what they want, smoke what they want, take what input they care to and leave the rest.
For myself, I am here to gain some tools to work on my "inner self" and I believe that some of the information provided will be very useful. I'm unexpectedly feeling some "solid connection" with some of the material offered but I'm also feeling a complete lack of connection with other material. Ive always been the type to "work things out myself" and it feels right for me to do this rather than swallowing dogmatic ideas from others. So, I intend to keep on going with my own approach to the matter.

So, what religion do they teach - hmmm.
Well, I think it mostly fits under the heading of Judaism!
Its not the common simplified version of things that seems to have been sold to the general public in virtually all Western religions (Judaism is the root of western religions) that I have had any contact with. They have a far more elaborate version of creation than "God and us".
A synopsis would be that there are a bunch of steps in the creation of the universe and that these steps/states are likewise reproduced in the personalities of each of us. These states/steps conform to many aspects of the psychological states/steps that are propounded by modern psychological science. And this is the main bit that interests me since it seems to be a very effective tool for working on the inner self. The ultimate version of "God" in this stuff is not really a personality at all but more along the lines of "Unity" where we are in fact all fractal images of the one entity - "The All" and we are working our way up the spiritual scale to rejoin with the one.
I'm reserving judgment on this stuff and will need a lot more inner and outer experiences before I sign up for it wholesale - but that's the way I work and I'm happiest like that.

So, what are the "tools" being offered?
Its called the Initiatic System of the Mystical Kabala (as my memory has it) .
That would have made me run a mile, little more than a month ago, but I'm suspending my automatic responses at present and am able to see the value in it for me at the moment.
The system is based on the integrated use of seven (There is a real fixation on the number seven in "Mystic" circles it seems) mystic arts (read ancient devinatory arts and documents).
These are:
Mystic Kabala - based on the concept and structure of the Tree of Life
Tarot - We have all heard of the cards -fits exactly into the structure of the tree of life.
Numerology - derived from the Hebrew alphabet and again fits exactly into the tree.
Kybalion - Little book of seven (there it is again) "immutable laws" of the universe.
Astrology - Zodiac and planetary forces - we all know of this one.
Alchemy - of the mind, not of base metals into gold.
Emerald Tablets - very old legendary/mythical Egyptian writing/document.
The story goes that all of these individual systems were co-developed as the one system and that they were originated long before the Egyptians or the Hebrews laid claim to portions thereof.

At this stage I am in the reading and learning phase rather than the implementation phase (the long silence period). There is a bunch of stuff that I have come across that is highly provocative to my hard science rational mind, and there are plenty of statements by the authors in the literature that are just "plain straight wrong". They are the usual problem of people making broad statements of "facts" that back up their points of view but that have not been researched and are in fact just statements of opinion. This has the effect in me of causing me to reject the base idea because of the wildly inaccurate justification! However, I am biting my tongue for the present and trying to give the benefit of the doubt and to see through the surface crap and perceive any deeper truths - and there are some.

As Ive mentioned in other posts, Ive also had some very interesting experiences in my head recently and I am absolutely sure there is a whole world in there to explore. So, I'm spending the time to do some exploring and at least expose myself to some other ideas.

Well just have to wait and see what portion of all this stuff "sticks" once I get back to living a life in the city and paying a mortgage. I expect some will stay and some will go, but I'm sure I will muddle along in my own way in my own time to my own conclusions :)