Notes from the Alchemist: Evil, Alignment, and the Battle for the Soul
September 19, 2025Alignment and the Paycheck: How to Live Philosophically When You Still Have Bills to Pay
October 13, 2025If the universe is pure consciousness—as many mystics, physicists, and philosophers now suggest—then what does that mean for the idea of a “higher power”? If we are not separate from this universal consciousness, then who exactly are we answering to?
It’s a haunting question. One that keeps philosophers up at night and mystics up at dawn.
Let’s walk through it together.
Option 1: The Divine Is Not Separate
If the universe is made of consciousness, then there may be no “external” God in the classical sense. No throned ruler watching from above, no cosmic referee.
But that doesn’t mean there’s no higher power. It means the higher power is within. It’s immanent, not distant. Think of it like this:
We are not outside the divine. We are cells in the body of it.
You are not the whole thing. But you are made of the same thing. You are a self-aware thread in the fabric of the divine.
In that view, yes—you are answering to yourself. But not your everyday ego or mind-chatter. You’re answering to the larger field of Self that includes you and yet transcends you. Emerson called it the Oversoul. Blake called it the Eternal Man. Jung called it the Self with a capital S.
Option 2: The Universe Becoming Aware of Itself
This is where my own philosophy leans—a blend of Jung, Chalmers, Radin, Hermeticism, and a whisper of quantum weirdness.
If the universe is conscious, then morality isn’t enforced by a sky-father. It emerges through resonance and feedback.
There’s no Book of Judgment. There’s no smiting. But there is alignment and disalignment. There is harmony and distortion.
When you live in truth, love, integrity—things cohere. Your inner and outer life sync up. When you betray your deeper nature—through cruelty, deception, selfishness—things fragment. Energy dissipates. You unravel.
So yes, you are “answering to yourself.” But it’s your potential you’re answering to. Your own resonance. The consequences of coherence vs. chaos.
Option 3: A Higher Power, Reimagined
If you feel something bigger than you—you’re not crazy. You’re aligned with the Mystery.
But maybe the higher power is:
- The field of consciousness you either sync with or defy.
- The archetype that pulls you toward your better self.
- The source code of reality, pushing for coherence, evolution, beauty.
Ignore it, and life unravels. Listen to it, and strange synchronicities appear. Peace returns. You remember who you are.
Final Thought: The Alchemist’s Paradox
You are not God. But you are not not God.
You are a drop of water, animated by the ocean. A spark of fire, burning with the infinite.
So no—you are not answering to a judgmental deity in the clouds. You are answering to the whisper within that knows who you could become.
You are not answering to God. You are answering to your own potential. And your potential is a conversation with the divine.
That is the responsibility and the miracle of being human in a conscious universe.
Written from the desk of The Alchemist
For more reflections, sessions, or mad mystical experiments: [Email: jbprofessor1931@gmail.com]