THE BOOK

OF AGERE

Spirit for the New Millennium

Emilie J. Conroy
 Contents

Preface

Welcome

Agere in a Nutshell

Tolerance Is Rule Number One!

The Seven Rules

The Pandect

A Simple Magical System

Meditations

Author's Note
 Preface

Don't look around you.

Don't ask for directions.

Don't whip out the road map.

Don't move.

Not an inch.

You don't have to.

You're already there.

 Welcome

If you're looking for a religion that reads like a Craftsman manual and contains the

passion of a bowl of Cheerios (without sugar or fruit), you will most likely not find what

you want in this book. Heck, what is suggested here isn't even a religion. It's more like a

method. So, if you're feeling pretty unfettered and are looking for some spiritual fun,

stick around. You might like Agere.

The Book of Agere was first written in 1994 as a text to be used among a variety of

alternative spiritual groups. The text has basically gone unrevised, and now appears for

the first time in a formal print medium.

"AGERE" is a Latin infinitive verb meaning to act or to do. It implies vital existence, and

so has been adopted as a name for this path.

But don't go looking up your local Agere temple in your local phone book or guide to

alternative religious organizations. You won't find it. Agere exists entirely as an

unstructured option available to anyone.

Agere does not push any definition of deity. The point is to make the most out of the here

and the now, and not waste precious energy worrying about any kind of hereafter. If you

need to grovel before a divine figure, chances are you won't like the philosophy presented

in this book.

So why write anything? Well, it's the closest thing around to reaching a global

community. It's convenient. But most importantly, Agere is not about joining--it's about

being an individual. This is most effectively accomplished with a published nucleus. I

throw out some ideas for your consideration. Now it's up to you to figure out what to do

with them.

Of course, Agere does stand for a few unwavering things. Freedom of religion and

fostering religious tolerance is one important matter. Agere stands behind the right of

every individual to pursue his or her spiritual path without interference or harassment. We

respect everyone's right to religious freedom, and we expect to be respected in return.

The basic idea of Agere can be found in its alternative life as Church of Perpetual

Change. Everything is changing all the time. Nothing truly remains the same. As such,

this Church is a church without walls and without limits. There are some ideas and some

suggestions which are aimed at helping improve your life, should you desire

improvement. Essentially, what you do with Agere is your own call.

 Agere In A Nutshell

Know that there exists a force, an impetus, a universality. For purposes of clarity in

expression, let us call it the ylem. It is responsible for all and everything, and that you and

everything and everyone around you are its manifestation and its essence. Know that you

are loved and you will be guided and rewarded.

You need only have faith that you do indeed have a relationship and an existence in the

ylem that is one-on-one. You need no mediator, for the ylem already knows everything

about you and accepts and understands you unconditionally. The ylem is you.

Confide in, and seek the counsel of, the ylem. Work acknowledgment of its existence into

your life, and you shall find inner joy.

It is most important to keep your conscience at peace in your relationship with the ylem.

What needs to be and not be done to obtain and sustain this peace varies as much as each

of us is unique. Know that the ylem acknowledges and respects your individuality in your

mortal incarnation, and will help you to establish your own moral paradigm. The ylem

will let you know when you have gone astray, and will gently guide you back to the path

of peace.
In your society there will be many who will not accept this path. That is fine. Remain

strong in your knowledge and faith, and allow no one to sway or frighten you. The ylem

protects and loves those who attempt to know it. But never enter into debate for the sake

of conversion or condemnation of the opposing opinions. You must respect the rights of

others to follow their own paths.

 Tolerance Is Rule Number One!

This is rule number one on the Agere roster. Let's think on it some more.

In the United States, the right to practice religion according to individual beliefs is

theoretically guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution. Much has been

made of the bitter and sometimes violent opposition to alternative spiritual paths. Little of

the internal strife is ever addressed.

Tolerance begins from within. To be tolerated, we must learn to be tolerant. As in any

group, Agere cannot fall under generalizations. But it is particularly fruitless to make

generalizations in this instance, based on Agere's very structure and organization--or lack

thereof. This spiritual fellowship is composed of individuals, all autonomous. Granted,

there are common threads that link us all together.

A mistake is the emphasis on the intolerance that exists outside the group, while in- group

conflicts and discrepancies appear to be overlooked. It is foolish to present groups as

unfractured wholes, with everyone practicing in harmony with one another.

Before we can expect to be wholly accepted into our society, we must learn to accept

each other, and each other's differences. We are not simply victims of everyone else's

ignorance. It is up to us to fight that ignorance, where we can. But it cannot be fought

with rage or vitriol. If we truly understand the meaning--that all things are one, that all

paths to the divine are valid--we must open our arms, our hearts, and our minds. We must

educate ourselves to understand other faiths, so that we may gain perception and attempt

to understand.
 The Seven Rules

That’s right. Seven.

All paths to the divine are valid to the people who walk them. Therefore, be forever

mindful of others' rights to believe what is proper for them.

Recognize your duty to care for all of your brothers and sisters.

Discriminate against no one, not ever, and be tolerant to all.

Know that the universe is not bipolar. Your choices must be made from options far more

complex than good and bad. Choose well.

Shun pride, ego, conceit, haughtiness, arrogance and immodesty. Do not criticize to

soothe your own heart. Always qualify what you say and do.

Do not act with the intent to do harm.

Free yourself from want, from money and material needs. Never give these things

precedence in your life.

 The Pandect

Most systems of spirituality refer back to some kind of authoritative work or writing. For

Agere, that work is called The Pandect. Here, the essentials of working within Agere and

applying its principles are summarized and recorded for the benefit of the curious.

The Pandect is in four parts: the Disclaimer, the Affirmation, the Schema, and Guidelines.

May all your paths bring you great joy and your life great depth.

Disclaimer

We cannot be named. We are no brand of alternative spirituality. We are what we are.

We are in no way associated with any religious/spiritual/etc. movement, aside from a

common interest in the workings of nature and in religious freedoms.

We co-exist with all paths, and exist contrary to none.

We seek no converts.

We do not propose that this way is right for everyone. If it is right for you, the way is

open for you.

We are admittedly full of it. We talk about individualism and not joining, yet here we

are writing in the first-person plural. Well, okay, talking with your friends and getting

ideas together is very different from following a flock. Affiliates of Agere don't get

together to "practice" or "discuss the path". We're just like- minded folk who get

together to play street hockey, see movies, etc.

You don't need to call us hypocrites. We're already doing that for you.

The Affirmation
I am that which I am and no other.

I recognize my responsibilities to my planet and all of the life and non-life upon its

surface.

No longer shall I tread in the shadows of doubt and fear and oppression, for I know

my right to be what I am, and my love and my spirit fill me up and spill over so that I

can keep myself a secret no longer.

I believe I am solid in my relationship with the universe, and I shall let this energy

propel me into service and charity for my entire community.

I will seek to correct misunderstandings with peace and tolerance.

As I will seek to teach, so will I seek to learn, that I may better understand.

I will bear in mind:

 --I will depend on my intuition.

--I will be fiercely independent.

--I will never be a joiner, because my spirit is far too fiercely independent.

--I don't care if you call me Satanist or Girl Scout or Big Tree Eater. It doesn't matter.

Titles and labels mean nothing.

--I understand that the universe is not bipolar and cannot be divided into black and

white, good and bad.

--I will celebrate when and where I want to.

And that is the Affirmation.

Schema

We are all, every day, surrounded by a universe of mystery.

Naturally, there are some small mysteries that we manage to solve, some subjective truths

that we uncover. We create a smaller world for ourselves, full of things we think we

understand, and try to block out what we cannot understand. Most of us wake up in the

morning, though living by day and sleeping by night might not accommodate our inner

selves. As it is difficult to conceive of the world's bounty as possible breakfast options,

we reach for the socially approved "breakfast foods". We work for money so that we may
buy the things we need to exist, only occasionally wondering why money exists in the

first place.

Forcing order out of chaos, however, can only succeed so long and so far before it

inevitably fails. As we live, we also know we will eventually die. This inevitability

compels us to seek some explanation of what happens after death; hypotheses on the

unknown. Our homes get flooded, our towns rocked by earthquakes, our islands

pummeled by hurricanes, and we cannot help but acknowledge a power truly beyond our

reckoning. We look at the earth and each other, and wonder just how we all got here in

the first place, what we're doing here, and how much longer will it all last.

All religions are essentially means of "understanding" the great unknown. As it is an

unknown, we can never be certain of one religion's validity over another. In a way, we are

all reaching out to that which is beyond us, in a way that suits us. Agere is no different

from other paths in this respect. It is a path by which practitioners attempt to determine

their place in the universe.

And so it comes down to this:

There was the one, there is the one, there shall always be the one. Yet the one falls into

many forms and divisions.

Know that in the beginning, there was one being, and the one being was everything in the

universe. And now, though we think there are many beings in the universe, all of us and

everything unique, but still, we are all part of the one.

As humans, it is difficult for us to fully comprehend the one universality. It is, in fact,

beyond human comprehension until that time the human spirit is freed from the physical

body.

Acknowledge this, and do not claim to be able to conceive the inconceivable. Know that

it exists in every one of us, and rejoice and celebrate in knowing of our oneness with it.

There is but one universal force, one ylem. Its existence is known, and felt, and revered,

and loved. It is called by many names and believed to exist in many forms, and is

sometimes objectified or categorized. But it is all one.

Guidelines
It is virtually impossible to lay down any kind of guidelines for a path which divides into

as many paths as there are individuals. Ultimately, the best path has but one follower.

You must first know yourself. None can define this, nor can anyone tell you how this

must be done.

You must know within yourself.

Also part with the notion that you will be celebrating your path with lots of other like-

minded folk. We are individuals. To be among us, you must simply walk among us. Don't

join or cleave.

We believe in perspective as everything. There is no ultimate truth, and no concrete good

and bad. You must choose wisely.

Magic is instinctive. It must come from within you. You must be able to sense what needs

be done at any time, and how to do it. No book ever written can unleash the power of

instinct.
Your will has the power to destroy you. Dedicate yourself to the training of your will.

Let all your doing be for the doing's sake. Seeking reward only reaps disappointment.

Revival is useless. Know the past, but live in the present.

Seek to attune yourself with the rhythms of nature, and with the life force of the universe

which is everything and us all.

Seek to live in harmony with the natural world and with your fellow beings. Believe that

the best followed path is that of the least resistance.

The universal life force can be though of as the divinity. Though it is those entities that

we, as human beings, do not perceive to be alive, still it is the lifeforce. There is nothing

that is not this life force.

There is but one being in the universe.

Power lies within you, and does not come from symbols or tools. You may need such

external cues to evoke that power within yourself. Thus is the journey from outer

confidence to inner confidence to be undertaken.

Use what external cues you like, so long as you keep in mind that you do not need them.

Acknowledge the interaction between what appears to us to be this universe and other

planes, for all does not exist in a linear fashion.

The universe is constantly changing.

Acts of evocation effect change.

Here ends The Pandect.

A Simple Magical System

Agere promotes the practice of magic as mentioned in The Pandect. However, the type of

magic used is not of the high ceremonial nature, nor is it tool-oriented play acting. This

magical system is no ornate set of rules and fancy practices.

Magic is the art of affecting change through concentration. It is necessarily a spiritual act

which requires evocation, or the tapping of an inner divinity.

Consider the following paradigm:

EVOCATION----------=Reaching Within----------------------=Magic

INVOCATION---------=Reaching Without--------------------=Prayer

That is, for these purposes consider prayer to be the reaching out to a power beyond the

self to affect change. In magic, one turns within to contact that power.

There is no secret to the practice of magic. You must simply feel strongly enough about

what changes you want to affect or make (from becoming more alluring to your choice of

gender to simply giving thanks for an incredible bit of luck) than when you evoke, when

you touch the ylem within you, the power of your passion will work for you.
And now, more on evocation.

Evocation is the central concept of this magic. In all reality, there's not much point to

magic without it. It is both an easy and difficult concept to get.

For starters, please imagine:

A rain drop falling into a puddle

A stick of wood being consumed by a fire

Several candles melting together into a pool of wax

In each of these instances, an individual object becomes part of a greater whole. Now

imagine a film of each of these events. You run the film backwards, so that the individual

object emerges from the whole.

This is the basic concept of evocation. You are attempting to reunite your divine self --

that part of you beyond the physical self-- with the greater divine being all around you.

As opposed to invocation, which is an appeal to a higher power, evocation summons the

divine self from within to join with the greater universal being. Yes, you are divine all of

the time. You do not become divine for a few minutes, and then have it disappear until

your next evocation. However, we are not always aware of this inherent connection to the

extent that evocation can bring us. This awareness-- the euphoria of actualizing our

universality, if even for a few moments- -is what evocation is all about.

Evocation is both simple and difficult at the same time. If you are in the proper mindset

and you have achieved comfort with the notion, you can perform evocation at any time.

All you need is to feel yourself fall away. However, it cannot be done while the mind is

laden with mental baggage. If you are preoccupied with being John Smith or Jane Doe,

your evocation will not be as successful as if you are able to let go of the shell.

You may require some physical cue to help you in your evocation. Candles, incense,

flowers, tea, a favorite tree, a spot by a running stream--your cue can be anything which

triggers evocation within you. There are no right or wrong cues.

 Meditation

The final aspect of spiritual practice in Agere is meditation. The following are brief

phrases and sayings to assist you in your meditation. Some of these are teachings of the

Buddha, others are the works of Buddhist monks; and still others are original.
To use these. simply choose one to your liking. Focus on it. Concentrate. As you repeat

the words in your mind, develop an image, feel a sensation that you associate. Let your

mind become the meditation.

There is no right or wrong way to use these. I cannot tell you what they are supposed to

mean.

Discover for yourself.

Earth, air, water, sun

We are all, and all is one

As the leaves of the tree and petals of the flower

I too am one with the divine power

Clothe me in the fabrics that do not exist

I see with my own eyes

But I do not see with them

 Be like the ocean that births no waves

Be awake

Let your mind be so full of love

that it may pervade the world

Perfume compares not to the fragrance of virtue

If you cannot find a friend, travel alone

Even a good thing isn't as good as nothing

White clouds hold lonely rocks in their embrace

Scoop up water, and the moon is in your hands

 The ten directions are without walls

The four quarters are without gates

The flute without holes is the most difficult to blow

Sun and moon cannot illuminate it completely

Heaven and earth cannot cover it entirely

Though we're born of the same lineage

we don't die of the same lineage

The instant you speak about a think you have missed the point
 Author's Note

I had the notion to write down some ideas of a free-form, completely open, supportive

without being preachy spiritual system which by definition didn’t have any absolute

structure. This was a tract that was meant to be open to the interpretation of the

individual, a way of being without being the only way.

The Book of Agere has served that purpose admirably. But above all, this is a work of

love and hope—love of the human experiment and hope for a peaceful future.

Here in 2007, we need hope and love more than ever, which was my inspiration to get

Agere into print and available to a wide audience.

Anyone regardless of creed is welcome among the ambiguous membership of Agere.

Having completed reading the Book of Agere and thoroughly understood its contents,

you may consider yourself clergy, in as much as such a thing exists.

Learn from the past, live in the present, hope for the future.
Wisdom be with you.

Emilie J. Conroy

October, 2007