RETURNING TO ONE'S 'MAKER'

1. There is a sense in which 'As in the Beginning, so in the End' has some relevance to life, though not, I contend, in relation to the distinction between the alpha and omega of things, the Cosmos and the Cyborg, since we hold with the view that the former is more characteristic of the Devil and the latter of God, and that no greater distinction, amounting to a noumenal (absolute) antithesis in time and space between objectivity and subjectivity, could be imagined.

2. No, rather the worth of this biblical proverb is to be discerned in the distinction between psyche-out-of-soma on the one hand, and soma-out-of-psyche on the other, as between that which is female in its particle-hegemonic objectivity and that, by contrast, which is male in its wavicle-hegemonic subjectivity, so that both the Devil and Woman, the Cosmos and Nature, could be said to represent a tendency to return to soma in the end, whereas both Man and God, Civilization and the Cyborg, could be said to represent the contrary tendency to return to psyche in the end, since what began in soma must return to soma no less surely than what began in psyche must return to psyche.

3. There is even a biblical saying about 'ashes to ashes and dust to dust', and if I am not mistaken in my interpretation of this, it would seem to reflect acknowledgement of a gender distinction between female 'dust' and male 'ashes', between soma and psyche, primacy and supremacy, objectivity and subjectivity, whether in relation to devils and women in the case of females, or in relation to men and gods in the case of males, given the class distinctions which exist between those whose principal affiliation is to time and space, viz. devils and gods, and those, by contrast, whose principal affiliation is to volume and mass, viz. women and men.

4. Therefore whether one is primarily of the metachemical objectivity of space-time devolution, like upper-class females, or primarily of the chemical objectivity of volume-mass devolution, like lower-class females, dresses and skirts of respectively eyes-to-heart devils and tongue-to-womb women, one will return to soma in the end, as 'dust to dust', since females represent the triumph of matter over mind, of soma over psyche, whether scientifically, as it were, in relation to the most particles and least wavicles of metachemistry or politically ... in relation to the more (relative to most) particles and less (relative to least) wavicles of chemistry, with apparent and quantitative distinctions between upper-class doing and lower-class giving, the will and the spirit, with only a subordinate psyche characterized by the id and the superego, respectively, of the Daughter.

5. Conversely, whether one is primarily of the physical subjectivity of mass-volume evolution, like lower-class males, or primarily of the metaphysical subjectivity of time-space evolution, like upper-class males, trousers (or pants/jeans) and zippersuits of respectively phallus-to-brain men and ears-to-lungs gods, one will return to psyche in the end, as 'ashes to ashes', since males represent the triumph of mind over matter, of psyche over soma, whether economically, as it were, in relation to the more (relative to most) wavicles and less (relative to least) particles of physics or religiously ... in relation to the most wavicles and least particles of metaphysics, with qualitative and essential distinctions between lower-class taking and upper-class being, the ego and the soul, with only a subordinate soma characterized by the mind and the subspirit, respectively, of the Son.

6. Consequently it takes no great stretch of the imagination to see that what returns, having begun in soma, to soma in the end is unlikely to have much by way of afterlife experience, whereas what returns, having begun in psyche, to psyche in the end is almost sure to experience an afterlife, since such experience is only possible in relation to psyche, to the self, and never more so than in regard to that self which was partial, in upper-class male vein, to metaphysics in life and therefore primarily concerned with the well-being of the soul. For it is in the context of most wavicles and least particles, most psyche and least soma, that the soul comes most alive and lives the life eternal through metaphysics.

7. In almost absolute contrast to that context of most particles and least wavicles, most soma and least psyche, in which the will is predominant and one has a sort of eternal death through metachemistry, through the darkness of soma which, no matter how superficially bright the psychic surface may appear in its id-like radiance, is chiefly characteristic of the context in question.

8. Therefore while gods can expect to go into the light of a metaphysical eternity in the Afterlife, devils can expect nothing more than the darkness of a metachemical eternity, since what began in soma must return via a brief flare-up of instinctualized soul, viz. the id, to soma and fade-out into nothingness, whereas what began in psyche must return via the giving-up of emotionalized spirit, viz. the subspirit, to psyche and rise up into somethingness, the somethingness that owes its being to a soulful plenum as opposed, like the somatic nothingness of eternal death, to a wilful vacuum.

9. But what applies to devils and gods, genuinely upper-class females and males of a space/time highness, also applies, if to a lesser extent, to women and men, genuinely lower-class females and males of a volume/mass lowness, whose soma-over-psyche in the feminine case and psyche-over-soma in the masculine case means that, in the comparative relativity of their phenomenal integrities, soma returns to soma as, in some sense, 'maternal dust to dust' less quickly and completely with women while, conversely, psyche returns to psyche as 'paternal ashes to ashes' less quickly and completely with men, as each gender rots away in relatively intermediate afterlife states which we may characterize as purgatorial in the one case and earthly in the other, since neither women nor men are so somatic or psychic as to warrant either the hellish extreme of virtually total darkness or the heavenly extreme of virtually total light, psychic extinction or somatic irrelevance, but must needs fade-out via the extinction of superego or flare-up via the extinction of mind more modestly in the contexts of a temporal death.

10. Of course, the afterlives or afterdeaths of the respective genders and classes are really somewhat limited in duration, since extensive decomposition of the corpse does not accord with infinite duration of either somatic negativity or psychic positivity, whether on an absolute or a relative basis. I believe I have dealt adequately with this subject in previous texts, and the reader familiar with my work should recall that the prospects for a Christian-type burial these days are not what they used to be, and are hardly likely to improve in the course of time.

11. Neither, of course, is Christianity as relevant as was formerly the case, and many people would choose not to be buried but, rather, incinerated at their local crematorium. In view of the female-dominated nature of the age, of the sensual hegemonies that owe more to objectivity than to subjectivity, including the prevalence of cathode-ray-tube popular culture, this need not surprise us, even though it may be cause for alarm as far as males are concerned, since if, as I believe, they are more likely to experience an afterlife than females, given their psychic predominance, then they must surely be the ones who would have most to lose by opting for cremation instead of burial.

12. And yet, one cannot reverse time and undo existing technologies (though modify and overhaul them one assuredly can), nor expect most people to return to criteria more relevant to a suburban and even town-like culture than to what is chiefly characteristic, in our cosmopolitan metropolises, of the age, as though Christianity was still more applicable than the patently heathenistic and even paganistic parallels which underlie so much contemporary secular culture. The solution to this dilemma has, I believe, already been posed, and it will require that the cities - and therefore the majority of people - take full responsibility for their religious future and opt, democratically and urbanely, for an alternative to crematorial perdition in which, by degrees, the cyborgization of life, commensurate with a more evolved age, will provide the means by which life may continue virtually indefinitely and reach peaks of eternity that not even posthumous eternal life could provide or rival, thereby swinging things back in the male's favour and allowing him to dictate the terms not merely of psychic survival but of the enhancement of psyche in relation to a variety of synthetic and yogic practises.