As far back as I can remember, something felt slightly out of place. Like something was missing.

Not wrong.
Just incomplete.

Like I’d been dropped into the world by an alien. And they forgot to give me the user guide: )

School was hard.

I could never see the point of it all.

The teachers taught. I tuned out.

I spent most of my time staring out of the window.

They probably assumed I wasn’t paying attention.

They were right.

I wasn’t interested in what was happening inside the classroom.

I was fascinated by what lay beyond it.

As I fell further behind academically, the other kids noticed.

Children quickly identify weakness, and they are not always kind.

As I got older, I discovered ways to temporarily quiet the feeling that something was missing.

Some were healthier than others.

For a while they seemed to work.

The discomfort would fade.

The questions would grow quieter.

The feeling of separation would loosen its grip.

But only temporarily.

Looking back now, I don’t think those things were the problem.

I think they were solutions.

Imperfect solutions to a pain I didn’t yet understand.

A pain that felt like separation from something larger.

Something eternal. 

A sense of having lost touch with a home I couldn’t remember, yet somehow missed.

Looking back, that feeling began around the age of six.

I don’t have the words to explain, but it felt as though something precious, my true home, was slowly receding into the distance.  The expectations, assumptions and pressures of the world began to crush my soul.

Perhaps we all experience something like this.

Perhaps not.

But it has stayed with me my entire life.

As the years passed, another fear began to grow.

Not the fear of failure.

Not the fear of uncertainty.

It was the fear of conformity.

The thought that life might consist of following a well-worn track without ever stopping to ask where it led.

School.

Job.

Marriage.

Retirement.

The end.

For many people there is nothing wrong with that path.

For me, it felt unbearable.

So, in my mid-twenties, I boarded a plane to Australia.

There was no job waiting for me.

No plan.

Very little money.

Just a feeling that staying where I was had become a greater risk than leaving.

And for the first time in my life, uncertainty felt alive.

Looking back, I can now see that the window gazing, the restlessness and the move to the other side of the world were all expressions of the same thing.

A search.

A call to adventure.

A longing for home.

Not a physical home.

Something deeper.

Something sacred.

Over the decades, that search led me down many unexpected paths.

Some useful.

Some misguided.

Some transformative.

But the questions never disappeared.

If anything, they became clearer.

I found myself asking questions that never seemed to leave me.

Who are we?

Why are we here?

What is this reality we find ourselves in?

Why do so many of us feel that there is something missing from modern life?

Eventually, that lifelong search became this website.

Gnosticism.info is not an attempt to preach, persuade or provide definitive answers.

It is simply a place to explore questions that have fascinated me for most of my life.

Questions about consciousness.

Meaning.

Mysticism.

Mythology.

The hidden patterns that seem to appear throughout human history.

I don’t claim to have the answers.

In truth, I trust people who claim certainty less and less as I get older.

But I remain fascinated by the questions.

If you’ve known me for many years and wondered what I’ve been up to lately, perhaps this page answers that question.

And if you’ve ever felt that something important lies just beyond the edge of understanding, then perhaps we’re fellow travelers after all.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.
Love,
— Howard