text: import React from "react"
  
  import Layout from "../components/layout"
  import SEO from "../components/seo"
  
  import { Container, Col, Row } from "reactstrap"
  import Members from "../components/Members"
  import "../styles/page_content.scss"
  
  import LargeImage from "../components/largeImage"
  import SmallImage from "../components/smallImage"
  const AboutPage = () => {
    return (
      <Layout>
        <SEO title="About" />
        <Container>
          <Row style={{ marginTop: "120px" }}>
            <Col
              md={5}
              style={{
                padding: "40px 0px",
                textAlign: "center",
                justifyContent: "center",
                alignSelf: "center",
              }}
            >
              <LargeImage filename="black-logo.png" />
  
              <br />
  
              <h4 style={{ fontStyle: "italic", fontWeight: "bold" }}>
                {" "}
                Sortem Suam Quisque Amet
              </h4>
              <h6 style={{ fontStyle: "italic" }}>
                ("Let each one love his own destiny")
              </h6>
            </Col>
            <Col
              md={7}
              style={{
                padding: "40px 0px",
                textAlign: "center",
                justifyContent: "center",
                alignSelf: "center",
              }}
            >
              <p>
                The eagle, with a serpent coiled around its neck has been the
                school’s logo since its inception as the School of the Sacred
                Science in the 1920’s.
              </p>
              <ul>
                <p style={{ fontWeight: "bold" }}>
                  The serpent and eagle are ancient symbols:
                </p>
                <li>
                  --The serpent representative of wisdom; its coiled form
                  suggestive of the power latent in the sacral center (the Greeks
                  called it the Power of the Christos).
                </li>
                <li>
                  --The eagle represents ‘spiritual’ vision. It was supposed to be
                  the only creature that could look directly into the sun.
                </li>
              </ul>
              <p style={{ fontStyle: "italic" }}>
                We use these symbols as our logo: the eagle (‘spiritual’ vision)
                carrying the serpent (Christos Power) to “great heights”, the
                ascent of the force to the crown center.
              </p>
            </Col>
          </Row>
          <br />
  
          <div className="wrapper-right">
            <LargeImage filename="vitvan-at-table.png" />
            <h4 style={{ fontWeight: "bold" }}>Vitvan</h4>
          </div>
          <h3 style={{ fontWeight: "bold", marginBottom: "20px" }}>
            The Schools Beginning
          </h3>
          <p
            style={{
              margin: "30px 0",
              textAlign: "center",
              justifyContent: "center",
              alignSelf: "center",
            }}
          >
            The School began in Los Angeles in 1922 and at that time was called
            the School of the Sacred Science... It was founded by Ralph M. deBit
            who was born in Kansas in 1883. He was raised in a Methodist family
            with the Christian bible as his early religious training, and later as
            a young man, he studied Christian Science and various metaphysical
            teachings. He became a forest ranger in Idaho and said that it was
            there, in 1907, that he began to seriously undertake his self
            development with the study and practice of Eastern philosophy. It was
            not long afterwards, in Seattle, that deBit met a man named A.K.
            Mozumdar who became his teacher. He spent seven years of work and
            study with him.
          </p>
          <p>
            Toward the last half of the 19th century, there was a reappearance of
            the pre-Christian gnosis and the Wisdom Teaching as it had been
            presented in the Occident. It was upon this tradition that the School
            was based. It was also correlated with deBit's perception and insight
            of Eastern teachings as he learned from Mozumdar, The School of the
            Sacred Science continued throughout the 1920s and '30s, and during
            this time, deBit came to be known as Vitvan, which in Sanskrit means
            "one who knows." He traveled extensively, lecturing from coast to
            coast and became well known among metaphysical circles of the time.
            The School moved to various locations, and during the '30s established
            in Colorado. It was near the mountain town of Bailey that the School
            built a retreat called the Ashrama from which Vitvan would leave
            during the winter to travel and lecture, and return to in the summer
            to teach seminars and classes.
          </p>
          <div className="wrapper-left">
            <LargeImage filename="dr-john.png" />
            <div className="break">
              <h4 style={{ fontWeight: "bold" }}>Dr. John Gozzi</h4>
              <h6 style={{ fontStyle: "italic" }}>
                The Colorado Chapter of the School of the Natural Order was
                founded by Dr. John Gozzi in 1978, one of Vitvan's longtime and
                closest students.
              </h6>
            </div>
          </div>
          <p>
            During this period of his life, Vitvan was growing increasingly
            dissatisfied with the presentation of the Wisdom Teachings in the
            older metaphysical, occult and mystical framework that he felt did not
            fit the emerging consciousness of the new cycle now dawning. He felt
            it had to be empirically correlated with findings of modern science,
            and that this would be the foundation for a new presentation of the
            ancient gnosis.
          </p>
          <p>
            After reading "Science and Sanity" by Alfred Korzybski, the creator of
            general semantics, he felt he had found the key he had been looking
            for----a method for rearticulating the Wisdom Teachings in language
            and perception suitable for and acceptable to modern man. In 1938, he
            went to Chicago and studied with Korzybski. He subsequently
            reorganized the School as the School of the Natural Order, and began
            to completely rewrite everything he had previously written to conform
            with the new structure he perceived.
          </p>
  
          <p>
            The current literature of the School of the Natural Order was either
            written as lessons in the 1940s, or transcribed from lectures that
            were recorded from 1952 until 1963. The School also moved to
            California and finally to Nevada. Having been a teacher of the ancient
            gnosis for over 50 years and completing his life's work of presenting
            it in a scientific framework, Vitvan passed on in 1964 at the age of
            80.
          </p>
          <br />
          <h6
            style={{
              fontStyle: "italic",
              textAlign: "center",
              margin: "20px",
              padding: "20px",
            }}
          >
            The School of the Natural Order presently has two established
            locations: one in Baker, Nevada, and one in Denver, Colorado. There
            are also study groups in California and around the country.
          </h6>
          <Members />
       <br />
          <p>
            Please feel free to donate and support ongoing creative activities of
            the SNOC: Zoom classes, website and "outreach" programs.
          </p>
        </Container>
      </Layout>
    )
  }
  
  export default AboutPage
  