MILLENNIAL THOUGHTS

It isn't merely to escape from the natural body that Supermen would be elevated to the status of brains artificially supported and sustained in our projected post-Human Millennium, but also to preclude the possibility of physical irresponsibility or otherwise riotous behaviour, among the populace, in consequence of high-level LSD tripping or equivalent synthetic experiences. The gradual supersession of the natural body by an artificial, communal one will enable the religious life of Supermen to be conducted with a minimum of physical friction and social disturbance. No-one will be liable to throw himself out of an upstairs window or under a car or on unsuspecting females or whatever in the post-Human Millennium, for no-one who regularly participates in the hallucinogenic experience will have a body to abuse. The leadership, responsible for the maintenance and supervision of the social order, won't have to worry about irresponsible or riotous behaviour from the 'trippers', since their artificially-supported brains will be immobile and, consequently, no Superman would be disposed to physical revolt. A perfectly docile society will become the cherished norm, and this norm won't be violated by any of its members.

Of course, people have taken LSD in the twentieth century and, as a rule, they've behaved responsibly, refraining from physical violence. The more intelligent members of the hippy subculture which arose in the late 1960s but declined in the early 1970s would certainly have behaved in this way, not imposing any severe strain on their friends or, indeed, on society generally. But not everyone would have done so and, had LSD been legalized, the chances of riotous behaviour resulting from a more widespread use of this particular hallucinogen could only have been greater, doubtless leading to serious abuses of personal freedom by people not psychically qualified to make sensible use of it. Of course, LSD wasn't legalized, and we needn't expect any radical change in the law relating to its use over the coming decades. Quite probably, it will remain illegal until the advent of the post-Human Millennium, when men become transformed into Supermen and the natural body, or what remains of it, is consequently superseded by an artificial support/sustain system for the brain. For so long as man exists, there will always be the possibility of social repercussions of a violent nature resulting from a premature legalization of LSD, or equivalent upward self-transcending synthetic stimulants. We can't anticipate the widespread use of LSD under present conditions, even if certain individuals, more intelligent than their fellows, are perfectly capable of responding to it in a civilized manner - as various people showed themselves to be during the hippy era. Unfortunately the persecution, by the liberal authorities, of hippies for 'drug abuse' was a virtual inevitability in a society where the legalization of such a potent mind-expanding stimulant remains, for reasons already discussed, out of the question in the short-term.

There are, however, two kinds of alleged drug abuse. There is the reactionary abuse involving recourse to stronger natural drugs than any given society is prepared to tolerate, and in a society where, in consequence of evolutionary progress, even comparatively mild drugs like tobacco and alcohol are becoming less respectable, it stands to reason that the use of opium, morphine, cocaine, and heroin will be penalized as incompatible with the moral standards of that society, and stiff sentences accordingly be meted out to those convicted of 'drug abuse'. Yet such an abuse should be distinguished from, if not treated more leniently than, abuses involving synthetic drugs, [Strictly speaking, my understanding of drugs is of something that deadens the mind in the manner of a narcotic, whereas substances which, like LSD, enliven the mind or open it up to visionary experiences I regard as stimulants - the opposite, in effect, of a drug.] some of which may well be applicable to a future age. LSD is, I believe, an example of the latter, and whilst its use cannot reasonably be legalized at present, nevertheless a distinction should be upheld between what may well presage a future spirituality and what is patently a manifestation of reactionary sensuality. In a society tending, all the while, in the general direction of greater spirituality, the use or, rather, misuse of 'drugs' reflecting that tendency shouldn't be confounded with the use or misuse of drugs whose natural constitutions are far more harmful to both the individual and society in general. While, from society's standpoint, a smashed window must be treated with equal severity by the law whether it be the result of hallucinogenics or narcotics abuse, from the individual's standpoint, however, the distinction between the two kinds of drug is a marked one, reflecting the difference between progress and regress. Generally speaking, the man who is prematurely progressive is a superior phenomenon to the one who is belatedly regressive, and should, within reasonable limits, be recognized as such!

Yet I am not here encouraging the use of LSD. What is destined to find its niche in society will do so as a matter of course, irrespective of the opposition or repression it may meet with in the meantime. The absence of 'progressive' drug abuse from society would doubtless prove a grave obstacle to evolutionary progress, which is always carried out, no matter what the context, in the face of natural opposition. A society without LSD adherents would not be tending towards the Supermen but, on the contrary, standing somewhat closer to the apes! Modern industrial society, however, should be progressive, and it would be an encouraging factor to learn that, of the total number of people convicted for drug abuse each year, the majority were for synthetic rather than natural abuses. For a ratio biased on the side of the synthetic could be interpreted as a good omen of things to come and, instead of fretting themselves over its increase, the responsible authorities might be prevailed upon to take a more lenient line which, while still penalizing the offence, got it into better perspective from an evolutionary point-of-view.

Positive lawbreakers, who presage the future, are no less culpable, in the eyes of the law, than negative ones who resurrect the past. They are evolution's slaves rather than its masters, a medium through which change may be effected in due course.... Not wishing to directly align myself with the lawbreakers, however, I prefer, in my philosophical endeavour to comprehend evolution, the role of seeking to influence the lawmakers for the better, so that, through this and similar methods, they may become more receptive to the possibility of amending or changing the law in the future, at a time when such a policy appeared not only feasible but desirable. An attempt to have the law changed prematurely, on the other hand, would be to nobody's advantage, not even the drug-taker's, since he would then be confronted - assuming he knew how to respect the drug - by those who simply maligned or squandered it, to the detriment of his own self-esteem.

For transcendental man, then, we can take it as axiomatic that television will remain the principal medium (above both video and cinema) through which a degree of upward self-transcendence may be achieved. Television is visionary experience coming at one from outside the self, and, since appearances precede essences, we needn't expect the widespread evolutionary leap to artificially-induced visionary experience inside the self to come about for some time yet - certainly not until the majority of people are capable of appreciating it! Which probably won't be during the remaining course of this century, nor even, perhaps, during the early course of the next (although that isn't something about which anyone can be certain at present). With the increased pace of evolution nowadays, we are by no means guaranteed that modern, i.e. transcendental, man will remain content to continue watching television throughout the course of the next hundred years. It could well transpire that the novelty and excitement of television-viewing, even via satellite, will wear thin some time before then, to be replaced either by the higher visionary experience of Supermen or, what's more likely, by a wider interest in transcendental meditation as a prelude to the post-Human Millennium. At this juncture in time, transcendental meditation remains a comparatively elitist interest, restricted to those who are capable of directly cultivating spirit without need of external assistance, such as television. It presages not the Superman but the Superbeing of the succeeding phase of the post-Human Millennium, and is accordingly somewhat closer, in essence, to the blessed state of the heavenly Beyond. But evolutionary progress should lead, in due course, to an ever-growing number of people taking-up with transcendental meditation in the decades or centuries to come, so that it will co-exist and possibly alternate with television spirituality within the framework of a higher religion - one institutionalized and collectivized.

A materialist would probably contend that television will suffice to lead transcendental man directly to the LSD visions of the Superman, thereby making transcendental meditation totally irrelevant. But I don't believe that meditation can be dismissed so easily, as though it were simply an anachronism which artificially-induced visionary experience, whether apparent or essential, external or internal, was destined to replace. The need for a religious institution, such as would be provided by meditation centres, still requires to be addressed and is absolutely indispensable to religious progress in the world. By becoming part of a meditating community, one would be on the next evolutionary rung, so to speak, above the church congregation, and such a communal context necessarily signifies an approximation, no matter how crudely, to the envisaged ultimate unity of the Omega Absolute, the divine culmination of evolution. Yet no such approximation is reflected, however, in the context of an individual sitting either alone or with one or two others in front of a television screen every night, which is why, it seems to me, television can't be regarded as the logical successor to religion, but only as a component of contemporary spiritual progress. What would condemn transcendental meditation outright, as a useless anachronism stemming from an obsolete society, would be a lack of applicability to the future, its failure to presage a superior spiritual development which a later stage of evolution will encourage. If, then, the post-Human Millennium could be conceived solely as an affair of the Superman, with his artificially-induced internal visionary experience, we would be justified in condemning transcendental meditation as a futility. But since the Millennium in question should extend into a more spiritual phase, in which the ensuing Superbeing will directly cultivate spirit pending transcendence, we would be mistaken to consider transcendental meditation irrelevant, even though it can be shown that, by itself, such meditation wouldn't suffice to take man to the heavenly Beyond. This knowledge, however, needn't preclude us from meditating, since the experience is sufficiently rewarding in itself to be self-justificatory.

But whether the entire human population can be induced to take meditation seriously, over the coming centuries, is another matter, and not one about which I feel confident to speculate, even given the inevitability of meditation centres as a precondition of the post-Human Millennium. Not everyone attends church, and perhaps it will transpire that not everyone will attend the 'church' of tomorrow, although we may expect a greater degree of directive persuasion on the part of the relevant authorities than has ever existed before, with, it should be added, more incentive for the devotees to attend! And so transcendental man, full-blown, would be participating in the transcendental civilization, a civilization presupposing the simultaneous existence, in harmonious co-existence, of socialism and transcendentalism or, rather, of a fusion of the one with the other. For unless there is a community religion, there is no civilization, in the true sense of that term, but only what precedes it - namely barbarism.

Since pre-dualistic man had a civilization, in which paganism and royalism (or some autocratic equivalent) prevailed, and dualistic man also, with his Christianity and parliamentary liberalism, it would seem only fair for us to ascribe a future civilization to post-dualistic man, since man is man at any stage of his evolution and ever in need of a church, where he can rub shoulders with his fellows. The coming together of men into crowds isn't by itself a good thing, however. What determines the moral status of the crowd is the reason why men come together, that is to say whether for sensual or spiritual purposes. Since a communal context is relevant both to the lower communality of the plants and to our projected higher communality of the coming Superbeings, there is nothing in communal life per se that distinguishes it as a virtue. One might say that it becomes a vice when the motivation driving people together is sensual, and such a motivation was certainly paramount during the era of pagan pre-dualism when, as often as not, men visited the temple or whatever to express their sexual predilections, with or without the assistance of resident priestesses! The pagan orgy utilized the crowd for sensual purposes, so that men came together on the basis of the lowest-common-denominator, and thereby resembled the leaves of trees.

With the advent of Christian dualism, however, the emphasis in crowd formations was spiritual rather than sensual, although a degree of sensuality was necessarily still upheld, as, for example, in the celebration of the Mass, with the symbolic offering of Christ's body and blood conducted through the sublimated mediums of wafer and wine - a far more frugal approach to sensuality than would have been intelligible to pagan man. But if a diluted sensuality was the norm of Christian communal life, then for a post-dualistic age it follows that the motivation driving people together must be exclusively spiritual and thus, for the first time in history, entirely good. The coming together of people for purposes of meditation in specially-designed centres will reflect the highest mode of communal life given to man, and be the nearest approach to the subsequent spiritual communality of the Superbeings. Because no such motivation has previously existed in the West, nor, properly considered, anywhere else in the world, there can be little doubt that it will be endorsed over the coming centuries, so that man will pass through the entire spectrum of his evolution, from the beastly to the godly, as he enters its highest phase with widespread transcendentalism. Tomorrow's crowds will, in this religious context, be purely virtuous, superior even to Christian congregations.

There are, however, strict limits to the degree of togetherness men can experience, since they have bodies and remain imprisoned in them, prevented, by the flesh, from experiencing a truly close approximation to the omega goal of evolution in indivisible spiritual unity. For transcendental men, the regular practise of meditation in communal contexts will simply constitute a stepping-stone to a still-closer approximation to ultimate divinity ... as experienced by the ensuing Supermen of the post-Human Millennium. These Supermen will, as already noted, be elevated above the natural body in extensively artificial contexts designed on a collective basis. As brains artificially supported and, no less importantly, artificially sustained, they will stand in a much closer relationship to ultimate divinity than transcendental men, with their individual bodies. Unfortunately the body is always a grave obstacle to the attainment of an advanced degree of spiritual togetherness, of communal oneness, since its varieties of forms and appearances aren't always pleasant to behold, least of all when radically ugly, and serve rather to excite disgust, which negative feeling drives men apart. Likewise its exposure to germs of one kind or another is a repellent rather than an attractive feature, since men fear contagion and are consequently inclined to maintain their physical distance, when possible, from the victims of colds, flu, and other common illnesses. Even the division of the sexes is, in its relativity, a contributory factor in the inhibition of closer approximations to the Omega Absolute. Obviously, the only solution to these problems lies with the Superman, who will be elevated above them through the supersession of the natural, individual body by an artificial and communal one, and accordingly experience a greater degree of unity with his fellows - a degree presaging the even greater spiritual unity of the Superbeings, when individual consciousness will be eclipsed by the collective, post-visionary consciousness of the tightly-packed clusters of new brains. After which it will simply be a matter of time before this comparative spiritual unity makes way for the most complete spiritual unity ... of the Spiritual Globes as, following transcendence, they tend towards one another in accordance with the positive drift of a gradual convergence towards ultimate Oneness.

However, where space is concerned, it isn't true, contrary to what modern scientists tend to believe, that the Universe is expanding. The stars, we may rest assured, are contracting, and if they are tending farther apart, they are not expanding but ... diverging, after the fashion of their infernal natures. The concept of an expanding Universe should only apply to man and man-equivalent life forms (if any) elsewhere. Now when we narrow the Universe to man we find, despite appearances to the contrary, that spirit is expanding, in accordance with the chief characteristic of being, while simultaneously converging towards its goal in the indivisible unity of the Omega Absolute. Thus an antithesis exists between the divergence of the physical universe on the one hand, and the convergence of the spiritual universe on the other, as, likewise, between the contraction of stars and the expansion of spirit.

On what may be termed the microcosmic plane of global civilization, we see the contraction of the diabolic side of the Universe in the curtailment of nature, the overcoming of various pestilential diseases, the penalizing of serious natural drug abuse, the decline of authoritarianism, the reduction of competitive individualism, and the gradual undermining of private property. Conversely, we see the expansion of the divine side of the Universe in the growth of cities, the increase in the use (or abuse) of synthetic stimulants, the development of collective contexts, the increase in public spending, the substitution of artificial for natural modes of sexuality, the growing interest in meditation, and so on - all factors which point in the general direction of both a post-Human Millennium and subsequent heavenly Beyond. What is happening on this planet is probably also happening on the thousands if not millions of other possible life-sustaining planets throughout the physical Universe, so that the divine side of the Universe is simultaneously converging towards its future culmination in the most absolute noumenal indivisibility. We needn't expect this culmination to come about for some considerable time yet, however, since there are definite stages to evolutionary progress, presupposing, in the future, the emergence of new life forms out of man which will be as spiritually superior to him ... as apes and trees were and, in some sense, continue to be his spiritual inferiors.

It would be erroneous, however, to suppose that man will venture to the far corners of the Universe in the future, and thereupon come into contact, whether on a friendly or a hostile basis, with beings from outer space. For although there will doubtless continue to be a degree of space exploration during the coming centuries, the fact of evolutionary progress will preclude him from making the exploration of space his chief priority, since higher stages of evolution presuppose greater degrees of psychic interiorization, and consequently less interest in the phenomenal worlds that lie outside it. As human evolution draws toward its climax so noumenal essence predominates over phenomenal appearance, making the cultivation of spirit the overriding priority of the age. In all probability, the life-sustaining planets in other parts of the Universe won't differ too radically from the earth, seeing that life, particularly on the human plane, requires fairly predictable conditions, neither too hot nor too cold. This being the case, we would be foolish to concern ourselves with the altogether futile, time-wasting explorations of kindred planets! As transcendental men we would have better things to do with our time than to dabble in appearances, cosmic or otherwise! And as Transcendentalists we would not have an indefinite life-span, but no more, at most, than a few centuries before the transformation to the Superman became apposite. Our current space explorations should be designed primarily to assist our spiritual development, not be pursued for the mere sake of exploring! And it is sincerely to be hoped that if, in the not-too-distant future, we put an end to war between human beings, we won't proceed to start wars between ourselves and the nearest aliens, since an end to war as such is commensurate with a higher, more advanced stage of evolutionary progress. Yet while this is undoubtedly so, it is also worth remembering that an extension of war from tribal and national to international and, in all likelihood, planetary levels is also compatible with evolutionary progress, and consequently that some kind of compromise, involving a more civilized or sublimated kind of warfare than man has hitherto waged against himself, may well be required throughout the duration of the next civilization, in the interests, needless to say, of safeguarding his spiritual progress.

As to the phasing-out of aspects of life on the diabolic side of the Universe, the growing freedom from nature which man will achieve in the centuries to come will doubtless lead to his dispensing with what might be described as unnecessary animals, such as dogs, cats, horses, mice, rabbits, and other pets, whilst any dispensing with necessary animals, including pigs, cattle, and sheep, will probably follow with the advent of the Superman and consequent supersession of the natural body by artificial supports and sustains for the brain. There are besides pets, workers, and livestock, many other types of animal in the world and these, whether wild or captive, will also be dispensed with in the course of time. What began in the transcendental civilization would doubtless be finished, by the relevant authorities, during the post-Human Millennium, so that towards the climax of spiritual evolution on earth very few beasts would remain in existence. For their continued presence there would be incompatible with the radically spiritual bias of a society tending towards transcendence, as well as a potential threat, if left unchecked, to the safe and proper functioning of that society in an extensively artificial context. As man tends towards the spirit so he makes war on the beast, both internally and externally, since it stems from the alpha side of the Universe in its intrinsic sensuality. If animals are acceptable to a dualistic civilization which, in its openness, has pagan roots, they would most assuredly prove incompatible with and therefore unacceptable to a transcendental civilization.... Although we needn't expect a radical purge of pets or other animals to take place over the coming decades, we can certainly anticipate a gradual reduction in their numbers, as society takes appropriate measures to transcendentalize itself, so to speak.

Likewise the gradual elimination of private property is compatible with evolutionary progress towards the Divine, insofar as property reflects a diabolical inclination on the part of its owners, who function in the guise of individual suns competing with one another for planets. Since the most powerful suns or stars in the Universe are likely to be those which control the biggest and/or greatest number of planets, so the most powerful men are usually those with the most property, which stands to them in the ratio of a planet to a sun. A man with three houses is equivalent to a sun with three planets, and he can only be more powerful, from an alpha-stemming viewpoint, than the man with a single house (provided, of course, that the scale of the latter is smaller than that of the former, whether collectively or individually). Nowadays there aren't that many people with three or more houses, but even one house will be considered excessive in the future, and its owner doubtless penalized as a matter of social necessity. With the post-Human Millennium there will be no private property in existence at all, not even for the leaders, who will live in communal dwellings while their superhuman 'charges' live in the communal clusters of artificially-supported brains in the various meditation centres. Thus the world will tend ever more radically in the direction of God, or the transcendence of all materialism, in the heavenly Beyond. Verily, the overcoming of nature and the natural body will be a significant step on the road to that spiritual destination!