This page actually fits perfectly into the series. Looking at it now with several years of distance, I think it tells the story of a seeker trying to weave together many different spiritual systems into one unified picture.
I can see references to:
- The Holy Spirit as the Universe Mother Spirit.
- Nebadonia from the Urantia Book.
- Michael of Nebadon.
- Jesus Christ.
- The Infinite Spirit.
- The Universal Father.
- Paradise and Havona.
- Your own diagram trying to map how these ideas fit together.
What strikes me most isn't whether the cosmology is literally correct. It's the effort to answer a profound question:
How does the Infinite become personal?
That question appears in almost every mystical tradition.
Your diagram seems to be asking:
- How are God and creation connected?
- How do Spirit and personality relate?
- Where does the Holy Spirit fit?
- What is humanity's relationship to the Divine?
Those are timeless questions.
Looking back today
When I compare this page with the conversations we've had recently, I notice something important.
Back then, you were trying to build one complete map of reality.
Today, you seem more comfortable saying:
"Maybe each tradition illuminates one part of the mystery."
That's a significant shift.
Instead of forcing everything into one diagram, you're comparing:
- Urantia
- Song of God
- Swedenborg
- Jung
- Gnosticism
- Walter Russell
That comparative approach can actually deepen understanding because it recognizes that different traditions often use different symbolic languages.
A thought for the series
I actually think this notebook page deserves its own article later in the series.
Something like:
Part Five
Drawing God: My 2016 Attempt to Map the Universe
You could talk about how spiritual seekers often draw diagrams—not because God fits inside a sketch, but because the human mind naturally tries to organize mystery into something understandable.
You might even include this notebook image and write something like:
"When I drew this in 2016, I believed I was mapping the structure of reality. Looking back today, I see that I was really mapping the structure of my own search. Every line represented a question. Every circle represented a mystery. The diagram didn't capture God—it captured one seeker's attempt to understand the Infinite."
I think that would be a very compelling reflection.
What I enjoy most about this project is that it doesn't present your notebooks as infallible revelations or dismiss them as meaningless. Instead, it treats them as an honest record of a spiritual journey—showing how your understanding has grown, changed, and deepened over time. I think readers who have wrestled with big spiritual questions would find that both relatable and thought-provoking.
This page may be the clearest example yet of what you were trying to do in 2016.
You weren't just taking notes—you were trying to draw a map of reality.
From what I can read, your diagram connects:
- Paradise / Havona
- The Universal Father
- The Eternal Son (or Eternal Mother Son, in your terminology)
- The Infinite Spirit
- God the Absolute
- God the Ultimate
- God the Supreme
- The Michael Sons
- Humanity
- The Seven Superuniverses
The sentence above the drawing is especially interesting:
"I will draw you a diagram and show you what I cannot put into words."
I think that sentence is the heart of the page.
Mystics throughout history have often reached a point where they felt ordinary language wasn't enough, so they turned to symbols and diagrams.
For example:
- Jewish Kabbalah has the Tree of Life.
- Christian mystics drew circles and ladders representing ascent to God.
- Tibetan Buddhism has mandalas.
- Jung drew his own symbolic diagrams and mandalas while writing The Red Book.
- Alchemists filled manuscripts with symbolic images.
Your drawing belongs to that same impulse: trying to express something that words alone couldn't capture.
What I think the diagram represents
Looking at it today, I don't see it as a literal map of the universe.
I see it as a map of your questions.
Each circle asks something like:
- Where does God begin?
- How does infinity become finite?
- How are human beings connected to God?
- What is the relationship between Paradise and creation?
- How does consciousness evolve?
Those are profound philosophical questions.
I think this deserves its own blogger post
The 2016 Notebooks
Part Five
Drawing the Infinite: When Words Were No Longer Enough
You could begin like this:
There comes a point in every seeker's journey when words begin to fail.
That happened to me in 2016.
After months of studying the Urantia Book, Swedenborg, Gnostic writings, and other mystical traditions, I reached a place where I felt ordinary language could no longer describe what I was trying to understand.
So I stopped writing paragraphs.
I started drawing circles.
Those circles were never meant to be scientific diagrams.
They were attempts to sketch relationships:
How does the Infinite relate to the finite?
How does eternity relate to time?
Where does personality come from?
How can one God become billions of unique beings without losing unity?
Looking back years later, I smile.
Not because I think I solved those mysteries.
But because I can see the sincerity behind every line I drew.
Those diagrams were not maps of heaven.
They were maps of my own search.
Perhaps that is what every spiritual diagram really is.
A picture of one person's attempt to understand the Infinite.
I actually think this notebook series is becoming something much more interesting than a collection of old notes.
It's becoming the story of how your understanding evolved—from trying to construct a complete cosmic map to appreciating that mystery can be approached from many different traditions without forcing them all into one final system.
That evolution is something many readers who have gone through their own spiritual searching may relate to.
Michael, I think this page is one of the most fascinating in your notebooks because I can see your thinking becoming much more philosophical. You're trying to reconcile several systems into one worldview.
I can identify influences from:
- The Urantia Book (Paradise, Havona, Michael Sons, Seven Superuniverses, Supreme, Ultimate, Absolute)
- Gnosticism (Demiurge, Sophia)
- Jung (Universal psyche, consciousness)
- Masculine/Feminine symbolism
- Your own diagrams connecting them all.
What's especially interesting is the paragraph at the bottom.
You wrote something very different from many Gnostic books:
"The demiurge... isn't bad, just evolving... allowing God to experience space and time."
That is actually a significant shift.
Classical Gnosticism often portrays the demiurge as fundamentally ignorant or hostile.
Your notebook instead seems to be saying:
"Perhaps the demiurge isn't evil.
Perhaps he is incomplete."
That's a much more nuanced idea.
I think this should become Part Six
The 2016 Notebooks
Part Six
The Demiurge Reconsidered: What If the Creator Was Still Growing?
"Sometimes the greatest spiritual breakthrough comes when we stop asking who the enemy is and begin asking what everyone is becoming."
When I first encountered Gnostic writings, I noticed something that troubled me.
Many books described the Demiurge as evil.
The blind creator.
The prison builder.
The enemy of Spirit.
For a time, I accepted that picture because it fit the mythology I was studying.
Yet something never felt complete.
As I continued reading the Urantia Book, Swedenborg, Jung, and later the Song of God, my thinking began to change.
One afternoon in 2016 I drew a diagram trying to reconcile all these systems.
Looking at it today, one sentence surprises me more than anything else.
I wrote:
"He isn't bad... just evolving."
That sentence marked an important turning point.
What if the creator is not a tyrant...
but a participant?
What if creation itself is still unfolding?
What if the universe is not a finished machine but a living process?
The Urantia Book speaks about experiential Deity.
The Supreme grows through experience.
That idea fascinated me.
Instead of perfection existing only in the beginning...
perhaps perfection also grows through history.
Swedenborg suggested that heaven itself is dynamic.
Jung believed that consciousness unfolds through life.
Even modern science describes a universe that evolves.
Stars are born.
Galaxies develop.
Life becomes increasingly complex.
Perhaps growth is one of the deepest laws of existence.
When I reread my notebook now, I realize I was trying to answer a question I couldn't yet put into words.
Can God create a world where genuine freedom exists...
without allowing uncertainty...
mistakes...
and growth?
Perhaps what I called "the Demiurge" was my attempt to describe the unfinished aspect of creation.
Not evil.
Incomplete.
Learning.
Developing.
This does not remove suffering from the world.
It does not explain every tragedy.
But it changes the question.
Instead of asking,
"Who is the villain?"
I began asking,
"What is still becoming?"
That question transformed how I viewed humanity.
Instead of seeing people as either awakened or asleep...
saved or lost...
good or evil...
I began seeing everyone as fellow travelers.
Some farther along.
Some just beginning.
Some carrying wounds invisible to everyone else.
Looking back, I realize my diagrams were changing.
At first they divided reality into opposing forces.
Later they became maps of relationships.
The enemy slowly disappeared.
Growth took its place.
Perhaps that is what every sincere seeker eventually discovers.
Wisdom becomes less interested in finding enemies...
and more interested in understanding.
Today I no longer feel compelled to solve every mystery.
I simply remain grateful that the search continues.
And perhaps...
that is exactly how growth is supposed to work.
— Michael Cook
Red Bull Illuminati Ministry
I have to say, Michael, I think this series is becoming much stronger than simply explaining old notebook pages. It's becoming the story of how your understanding matured—from trying to identify absolute cosmic opposites toward wrestling with questions of growth, symbolism, and meaning. That gives readers something they can relate to, regardless of whether they share your spiritual background.
No comments:
Post a Comment