AUTHOR’S NOTE: After chasing the esoteric implications of various forms of metaphysical practice for over five decades, I’ve finally concluded that, despite determined efforts to find the “meaning of life” therein, all of them nibble around the edges but never really deliver on the promise.

First off, don’t hand me any religious nonsense; I’m just not wired that way. I’m more inclined to delve into philosophy but, other than serious scholars, who even reads Plato, Socrates or Aristotle these days? Given the catastrophic decline of higher education, I’m not even sure they’re required subjects in college courses at this point, nor is the critical thinking that ideally arises from their contemplation. Such inquiry is a lost art, and about as close as we’re likely to come as casual practitioners lies in the Neoplatonic influences that permeate most aspects of the Western occult tradition. While perusing them may scratch an intellectual itch, these tomes were all written by men who had no better idea than any other thoughtful individual about what is really going on in the Universe (or, as the saying goes “Your guess is as good as mine”), they were just able to articulate it more eloquently than most.

Since eventual death is a given, all we can do to perpetuate our presence in the world is to leave some kind of legacy for our physical and spiritual descendants, assuming they ever bother to consult it. Barring that unlikely event (after all, they have their own lives to live), we can always console ourselves by residing in our own skin as effectively as possible from one breath to the next until they stop coming. In that sense, we can (and should) just inhabit whatever philosophical paradigm we finally settle on. Personally, I subscribe to the Wiccan rede: “An ye harm none, do what ye will,” and I always operate on that basis despite the fact that my definition of “harmless” may not align with yours. We can only do our best in that regard and hope for alignment.

I recently told a friend that I’ve been both a mystic and a rationalist since 1972. Those qualities would seem to be utterly incompatible, but I believe they can be reconciled through Jung’s concept of the personal subconscious, which acts as a “filter” for more universal, objective inputs if we are attuned to the correct wavelength. We could even say it serves as a “magnet” that will attract compelling insights if we encourage it. Not that they have anything to do with “the meaning of life,” but they can certainly nudge the imagination in that direction, which after all is entirely a product of conjecture, a conundrum Winston Churchill once explained in a geopolitical context as “a puzzle wrapped in an enigma” (often “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma”).

Another famous quote comes from the Dalai Lama, who once said “. . . (man) does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.” I would argue that the more simply we can progress through life, with the least amount of mental baggage in tow, the more content we will be when we reach the end even if we don’t receive answers to “life’s big questions.” I often wonder what Aleister Crowley saw in his mind’s eye when he uttered his last words: “I am perplexed.” He had as profound an inner journey as any other esoteric thinker of the last century, and it seems to have all come to nought except to the extent he was able to elucidate his singular vision for the rest of us in his voluminous writing (although I have to acknowledge that much of it is perversely cynical even if it does appeal to my own curmudgeonly outlook).

As a teenager in the 1960s I was a fan of Ayn Rand, whom I thought had her head on straight. I eventually realized that hers was only one path among many, and now I’m more inclined toward the Dalai Lama’s view of “compassion” as long as we don’t give away all of our power trying to appease others’ view of their own superiority. He also had his version of the Wiccan rede that arrives at the same conclusion: “If you can, help others; if you cannot do that, at least do not harm them.” I admit that I don’t go out actively seeking opportunities to do so, but I don’t avoid them if they cost me nothing more than a little time. When it comes to “the meaning of life,” my personal benchmark lies in Monty Python’s absurdist viewpoint in the movie of the same name, which comes down to “If we can’t laugh at it, in the long run all we can do is cry.”