Liber ab Genesis (Book of Creation)^41
Shakespeare or any of my other favorites. It was just some Joe trying to squeak out an
existence by writing computer programs. The phrase that saved my life is just some-
thing someone made up. But isn’t that what mythology is—bits and pieces of knowl-
edge that folk created in their effort to understand the nature of life such that they can
exist within its confines? Sure, some mythology is incredibly old and some was invented
yesterday. But the test by which we determine if it is or is not sacred should not be its
age or lack thereof. The test is if it is empowering. That simple quote from some Joe
that I have never met saved my life, so it is sacred.
I was not there at the beginning of the world and will not pretend to know what I
have not seen first hand. Neither was anyone else. I don’t know how the world was
created, and I don’t know for a fact that its creator is evidenced by our creativity, but it
works for me. Failing first-hand knowledge, we soothe our desire to understand with
the explanations that we can muster; we create what I call ‘constructs of understand-
ing.’ These are the stories that help us to understand things that we cannot know by
science alone. In a way, they are magick because they give us the ability to understand
the nature of something whose nature has not yet been explained. In reading the Book
of Genesis, it is important to understand that this is a construct for understanding.
What follows is not sacred because it was written by a great prophet of any one god
or goddess. It is sacred because I wrote it. Now before you think I am the most pomp-
ous author you have ever encountered, note that I did not say it was sacred to you. This
is my sacred truth, just as I imagine the motto of that computer programmer is sacred
to him. While I do hope you gather inspiration from this story, as did I from that motto,
it should in no way be cited as a supreme truth.
It might sound a bit strange, but I hope that no one takes this book so seriously as to
interpret much of it literally or any of it fundamentally. While I have pulled from an-
cient lore spanning thousands of years, the fact is I made it up. That’s right, I took what
I believe and made the story fit. Now, while that might not sound like the ideal way of
addressing the issue of creation, the truth is none of us were there. So why would some-
one else’s story be any better than that which someone creates for himself or herself? I
just cannot judge a story based on the depth of the dust that has accumulated on it.
New or old, if it works it works and if it does not work then it does not work.
I have created this story because the others just weren’t working for me. I looked at
the creation stories of major world religions and found the same great gaping hole. I
look at my own religion and there I find the same gaping hole again. For a time, I
thought I could live with that problem. I thought I could just believe what I believe and
find other people who believe much the same. But then I turned on my television set
and realized that not only can I not live with the problem, neither can anyone else. You
see, that problem is that we have given a name to the Creator and called that Creator
our own. Could a person become more pompous than to think they have a copyright on
anything that grand?h WB Chap 01.p65 41 7/11/2003, 5:48 PM