Frater U.D. is a German occultist, a longtime member of the Fraternitas Saturni, and co-founder of the Illuminates of Thanateros. 

From the author: "If this were some ordinary (as in: purely literary) anthology of poems with some fancy but equally conventional illustrations, rest assured we wouldn't bother you with it nor waste your time as well as ours.

Only this isn't quite the case here. As you won't need me to tell you, "gnosis" is generally understood to be "revealed salvific knowledge" i.e. nothing that will easily render itself to the limitations of rationalist cognition and raciocination of the prevalent mainstream kind. This makes the gnostic experience by inference highly personal and more suited, in terms of literary genre, to song and poetry rather than explicatory (philosophic), linear prose - at least not as far as palpable communication of the direct experience as such is concerned. Cosmogonies, detailed mythologies of creation and liberation/redemption, philosophical and intellectual speculation etc. are another matter of course, and indeed that's what constitutes the bulk of extant "Gnostic literature", be it historic or neo-gnostic.

However, there are precious few actual testimonials of the gnostic exposure itself and I'd like to submit that both, my poems as presented here and Hagen's artwork are actually - and primarily - evocative of said gnostic experience: on the one hand, they constitute a personal testimony to the (personal) influx of gnosis as part of both Hagen's and my magical and spiritual praxis; on the other, their task is to serve as gateways to gnostic consciousness, talismans as it were, that will hopefully help to evoke and manifest the gnostic spirit in such readers as are in affinity or rapport with gnosis in one way or another.“

"The gateway topic ties in with my personal preoccupation with Gnosis as "Awakening via the Logos" as promoted by a number of classic schools of antique Gnosticism: rather than embracing set rituals, prescribed magical formulas, canonical sacraments and other formalized tools of initiation, their basic tenet was that if the gnostic narrative in any which form "speaks" to you, this in itself actually constitutes your "awakening", "initiation" or gnostic "arousal" - from which on you can further pursue your gnostic journey however you deem fit."