The Ten Lamps Philosophy
Guidelines for living found in my Assembling Terrania Cycle.
Craig Chalquist, PhD, PhD
5/8/20242 min read
The Ten Lamps are found in the novel Soulmapper and in "Ten Lamps," a story in the free collection Tales of Terrania Rising. They are basic cosmic and earthly operating principles written down by philosopher Simeon Mackenzie.
The Lamp of Creative Diversity. The nature of the cosmos is ever-unfolding creative diversity, an infinite variety of affiliating voices, entities, and presences.
The Lamp of Animate Being. Everything in the cosmos at every level is alive and communicative in its own way.
The Lamp of Universal Sympathies. We are inwardly linked to the intelligence of Earth, the cosmos, the presence of place, and one another in relations of mutual reciprocity.
The Lamp of Imaginal Gnosis. The imaginal realm has its own reality and inspires not by absolute belief but by belief in; not by the “real” but by the ideal.
The Lamp of Guiding Stories. When our guiding stories come from fear and constriction, we block our humanity and cause harm; when they are humane and expansive, they allow us to appreciate each other and the beauty of Earth and cosmos.
The Lamp of Collective Maturation. Humanity is a social species on a long adventure toward full humanness and maturity, which blossom through the sense of ourselves as part of the greater whole and responsible for the consequences of what we do.
The Lamp of Cosmic Alignment. Humanity must learn to relate as appreciative adults to the primal powers of the cosmos—Source, Wisdom, Attraction, Destruction, Expansion,
Contraction, and others imaged as deities—instead of either ignoring them or subordinating ourselves to them.
The Lamp of Fivefold Caring. Each of us is of immeasurable worth and worthy of inclusion in our fivefold caring: care of others, self, Earth, story, and possibility.
The Lamp of Flourishing Governance. Leadership and social structures that support equity, creativity, liberty, and maturity move us forward; those that diminish these capacities are regressive and must be outgrown for us to reach true adulthood as a species.
The Lamp of Collective Dreaming. Humanity can create a just, equitable, delightful, and Earth-appreciating civilization worthy of our labors and struggles, but only if we relearn how to dream together.
Benefits of following this path may include a sense of purpose, a cause to struggle for, a spacious worldview, an ethical compass, permission to enjoy the beauty of existence, goals to work toward, a governance ideal, a path of healing, reenchantment in human possibilities, a liberation of imagination, and noetic hope.
~ side note of Simeon to himself
