Our History

The origin stories of so many religions seem to center around divine intervention in an inevitable cataclysm. Often, the story tells of a mystical entity contacting a man in a forest or cave to warn of this horrible future. The messenger prophesies of a “savior,” a strongman, who will do what humanity is incapable of doing for itself– avoid disaster and return us to a utopian paradise. Thus, the divine hero creates peace on Earth. Unfortunately for the vast majority of us, this only happens once the final battle of a holy war between “good and evil” (or some variation) is won by this savior, and His followers. Only the conversion of the masses and their commitment to follow the messenger’s commandments has any chance to save mankind– it’s all very dramatic! However, since the Enlightenment’s Scientific Revolution changed the quality, quantity, and availability of information, for so many of us, these stories sound less and less persuasive.

Here’s a radical notion: neither spaceships nor holy visitors are required to comprehend the meaning and purpose of the universe– we, together, can do it for ourselves! The seed for the Novel Universe Cult is this assumption that the truth can be sought through nothing more than an interest in valuable ideas, ideas such as the Tao’s linked opposites; Assembly Theory’s description of combined components; Buddha’s focus on suffering; Sheldrake’s concept of morphic resonance; the Biblical afterlife; Wolfram's cellular automata; panpsychism. On-and-on, humanity’s attempts to grasp reality continue to inspire our own.

After studying religion, philosophy, and science, our Founders had not yet found the meaning of life. So, we delved deeper, searching out secret societies, past cults, and even the conspiratorial theories of world history. Still, our attempts to understand metaphysics and mysticism left us with more questions than answers.

Our hinge point came when a pair of independent Near Death Experiencers each described the functionally identical afterlife of what we now call Complete Information within the Concert Hall. In light of the idea that everything in the universe can be deconstructed as data, we find a mathematical logic to the idea that all the information created on Earth returns to us, like balancing an equation– data created in life equals data received in death. We imagine this phenomenon as ripples on a pond’s surface, drawn back to the pebble that created them.

Common ideas such as sin or ascension played no part in the Experiencers’ stories. Instead, they told of information returning raw, without any preconceived notions of right or wrong. Without good and evil, there is no plan, no “enlightened” practices to be followed by the lucky few. A major, logical flaw with most religions is that too often their holy agenda only applies to humans, those created in the “image” of this very same entity who revealed the secrets in the first place. That circular-logic has a nice, tidy ring to it, but then, how is it that from all the things in the universe, only one thing on one planet are the only ones who matter? What about dogs, trees, the very Earth itself? Such narrow frameworks are better designed to manipulate human behavior than to be an honest attempt at unveiling the nature of the entire universe. If a religion is to be true, it must be true for everything, everywhere.

Our core principle of Complete Information evolved into such a solid model of reality, it changed our lives. Viewed through the novel lens of Love, our every interaction built a future from a framework steeped in equal consideration for all involved, as all points of view might be equally known in our beyond-life. Although we believe reincarnation is a choice free from constraint, we accept that this may not be true, and work to prepare ourselves for other outcomes such as samsara– the forced reincarnation of the “soul” based on karma. The Founders began a campaign to embody this model in various stories, artwork, and a set of philosophical texts, destined for our potentially reincarnated selves as a temporal “message in a bottle.” We understand that, even if our model isn’t correct, it still reduces suffering by finally describing a system– based as much on physics as metaphysics– centered by the Golden Rule, but with an important twist: do unto others as they would have you do unto them. Living by this model means we act intentionally, knowing exactly why we treat others the way we do. We act, not out of some sense of morality or fear of punishment, but rather a preference of how we might experience in death the Ripples of our actions in life.

Creating a religion, especially a cult, was not considered until the founding members were struck by the idea that a religion would be the perfect “bottle” for our message, and calling ourselves a cult would not only stand out, but filter through the tedious pantheon of spiritual variants, and attract those special converts eager to participate in our avant-garde organization. Although we readily admit our Founders’ bias for Love, we strive for balance, and seek converts from both frameworks. So many religions, so much alike, always seem to focus on one thing: rewarding the faithful. Our only reward offered is the companionship of clarity.

The Novel Universe Cult has both the capacity to maintain the philosophy for future generations, but also build sustainable structures to develop our principles through its unique, neo-segregated institutions, including the practice of neural-democracy. The Cult embodies a spiritual conversation, within a foundation that forever responds to our current environment. Therefore, our tradition is no tradition at all, except the core idea of expressing novelty through the mixture of Love and Power.

NUC isn’t necessarily about answers, but instead, bringing to light the segregated frameworks of Love and Power. Unlike other religions, we do not believe anyone must understand or adopt our message, because, if NUM is correct, the world will not suffer our absence– there is no “salvation,” no test to be passed, only the choice of a beyond-life in line with one’s preferences. The world does not need saving. Regardless of who or what we are, in death, we will decide, on our own, which “heaven” we want. And no worries, our planet’s going nowhere soon. It’ll eventually remedy the cancer of industry, whether we survive the cure or not.

Instead of finding and following some divine path, the purpose of life is to expose ourselves to choices we might otherwise not make, allowing us messy experiences we might otherwise not have– novelty. Thus, the Novel Universe places us in an intentional state of amnesia, cut off from the knowledge of our complete being, born into a Body of Power, of silence, force, and consumption. With that in mind, we understand that these ideas may– even if true– be counterproductive for those whose ignorance of the Model creates value. For instance, those with the most open and conscientious frameworks have the most to learn from silence, force, and consumption– an education that might only be found by forgetting what’s most salient to them, Love.

We strongly feel that a truth, restricted to the few, fundamentally cannot be the point of the universe, but instead, the point must be the experience of existence itself– something everything does, regardless of status or state of consciousness. Furthermore, the very search for the universe’s meaning and purpose ultimately does nothing for our eternal selves– this amnesia, once removed, will awaken us to secrets, so mundane, that we’ll all realize we already know the answers to. The ultimate twist in our model is who religion and science actually benefit (see our TOE section: The Host), and it isn’t the seekers themselves. So, instead of a thrilling, emotional origin story, filled with hidden treasures and miracles, we tell of a sensible, academic discovery that applies to everyone, from particle to person and everything in-between.

Prophets, aliens, even scientists? They show up with a sales pitch– some pot of gold at the end of their rainbow, albeit salvation, self-realization, immortality, or simply endless growth and prosperity. We do not place our trust in authorities claiming to have the answers. Instead, we collectively add our voice to the conversion with our developing understanding of the Novel Universe.

First, read our philosophy to better understand our Creed.