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The Tim Maroney Web Collection |
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Welcome. I am Tim Maroney, a software architect, user experience lead, spiritual practitioner, published writer, and bon vivant living in Berkeley, California. The Book of Dzyan is my first book. I am working on my second book, Scientific Meditations. An excerpt is available at Descent: A Meditation. This web site collects many of my writings from the last two decades.
I am a spiritual skeptic. My spirituality and my skepticism enhance each other symbiotically. My studies in science and philosophy bring a unique perspective to my intimate treatment of mysticism and the occult. I withhold belief from astrology, reincarnation, God, the spirit world, psychic powers, magic spells, archetypes, and the afterlife, but I have long cultivated a speculative and operative interest in non-mainstream religion and other spiritual and imaginative traditions and practices. As well as reading, contemplating and writing about spiritual subjects, I practice yoga, meditation and rituals intended to strengthen and balance my mind and spirit.
My psychological approach to mystical experience is based on phenomenology, a paradigm that treats mental phenomena as real on their own plane without concern for their external truth or falsehood. While I do not think that anything in the objective world is sacred in itself, I recognize and honor the mental process that attaches the human category of sacredness to phenomena. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder but it is there.
For more about me, see About the Author.
This work from the Summer of 2001 is a guided meditation through the realms of science, inspired by the works of Carl Sagan, Heinz Pagels, Richard Ely, Alan Moore, Phylis and Philip Morrison, and others. It is the closing of the presentation "Scientific Meditations," and the kernel of my book in progress of that name. It was first delivered at NOTOCON III in Long Beach, and since then at Pantheacon 2002 and Mons Abiegnus Oasis in Mill Valley, California. This meditation has appeared in The Scarlet Letter.
The Book of DzyanI am appearing at readings and signings for my first book.
I have updated the promotional materials for the book, which is available now at occult book shops.
The variant on The Gnostic Mass known as The Tetragrammaton Mass has been made public to encourage discussion and performance. It is not an approved OTO or EGC ritual, nor are any restrictions placed on its performance at this time.
An essay on the classical skepticism of Sextus Empiricus and how it relates to various forms of skepticism in religious and mystical traditions, including a critical look at Crowley's claims of skepticism.
Google Groups has a partial USENET archive going back to the early 1980's. After appearing in newspapers as a teenager, I turned my attention largely to the new form of computer networks, publishing only the occasional magazine article in print for over a decade. My participation was controversial to say the least, and it remains so today judging from current comments.
I enjoy the archive and sometimes flip around in it on a lazy day. My main regret is that so many pieces did not survive, including a comic book parody entitled "Hill-of-Beans-Influence Lad," which survives only in fragments preserved by others, and a discussion on sf-lovers of the relationship between Star Trek's Ferengi and traditional anti-Semitic stereotypes. If you have or can find these (or other pieces or threads of interest), please let me know.
Decide for yourself, but be warned, I wrote very differently twenty years ago than I do now. Both my interests and my attitudes toward people have changed quite a bit -- for the better, I hope.
Nov 2002: This web site has been rebranded and integrated with my LiveJournal. The changes are meant to make the site simpler, clearer, and more focused. A LiveJournal is a "blog" or online diary with links. I have placed many new short pieces in my journal, as well as a few oldies but goodies. Many pieces have generated discussion, and you can join in.
The word "Studies" has been removed from the title of the Introduction to Crowley (in Five Voices). Watch for the appearance of a new, corrected and expanded version with six voices and two additional chapters in the next disinformation anthology, coming in 2003!
The essay on Hekate and the Satanic School, formerly known as "Twilight Crossing," has been divorced from its organizational context. It stands as a statement of principles for the informal school of thought known as the Satanic school, and for my personal vision of Hekate and underworld spirituality.
I long ago gave up my esoteric links collection, definitions and taxonomy to the Google Web Directory's Esoteric and Occult Links, where it has been merged into a link repository maintained by a succession of volunteer editors. If a software package makes links easy for me to maintain, I may create and integrate a new link repository.
The old "Villa of the Mysteries" theme and title are no longer used. Old bookmarks and links should still work. If you have online links with the Villa title, such as in a web directory you maintain, then I'd appreciate it if you could refresh the titles.
Redirection is used on this site to accomodate as many old URLs as possible. Some material has been obsoleted, such as old publishing and personal links.
All technical content is now gone from this writings site. Watch in the future for a web site on my software and design interests. You may, if you wish, view my resume, or download it in Word form.