CYCLE TWENTY-THREE

1. To contrast the meditation of God, in both sensuality and sensibility, with the contemplation of the Devil. For contemplation is too often confounded with or substituted for meditation when, in point of fact, the one has relevance to subjective values and the other to objective values. Hence one can no more meditate objectively than contemplate subjectively. Whether one's meditation be divergent or convergent, of sensuality or sensibility with regard to the ears or to the lungs respectively, it will contrast absolutely with that which, involving either the eyes or the heart, appertains to contemplation.

2. Thus we should distinguish not only between divergent and convergent forms of meditation, the former naturalist and the latter transcendentalist, but also between divergent and convergent forms of contemplation, the former idealist and the latter fundamentalist. In the one case, that of meditation, we are dealing with a distinction between an aural and a spiritual relationship to air, whereas in the other case, that of contemplation, we have a distinction between an optical and an emotional relationship to fire. The person who meditates divergently does so in relation to his ears, in contrast to the convergent meditation of the person for whom the lungs are paramount. Similarly, the person who contemplates divergently does so in relation to his eyes, in contrast to the convergent contemplation of the person for whom the heart is paramount. The divergent meditator will be listening to music, maybe even to a concert performance by a convergent contemplator, or someone who is feeling his way, via emotional sensibility, through his music, whether instrumentally or vocally or, indeed, a combination of both. Conversely, the convergent meditator will be focused on his breathing, whereas the divergent contemplator will be staring, in Zen-like vacuity, at a fixed point in front of his gaze. Salvation for the godly individual will be from the divergent form of meditation to its convergent antithesis, as from naturalism to transcendentalism. Salvation for the devilish individual, on the other hand, will be from the divergent form of contemplation to its convergent antithesis, as from idealism to fundamentalism. The former is effectively to rise from submasculine sensuality to supermasculine sensibility. The latter is effectively to fall from superfeminine sensuality to subfeminine sensibility. To rise from chemical subjectivity to metachemical subjectivity, but to fall from metachemical objectivity to chemical objectivity. To rise from the ears to the lungs. To fall from the eyes to the heart. Meditation is the cultural technique of God (whether outwardly in sensuality or inwardly in sensibility), whereas contemplation is the barbarous technique of the Devil (whether outwardly in sensuality or inwardly in sensibility). The one leads to Heaven, the other to Hell.

3. Besides the more obvious forms of contemplation and meditation, as germane to the aforementioned distinctions between idealism/fundamentalism and naturalism/transcendentalism, there are intermediate forms whose standing is 'quasi', which is to say, quasi-fundamentalist and/or idealist with regard to contemplation, and quasi-transcendentalist and/or naturalist with regard to meditation. Both Hinduism and Judaism, although respectively rooted in idealism and naturalism, contain quasi-fundamentalist and quasi-transcendentalist forms of contemplation and meditation, the former intimating of the heart and the latter of the lungs, whereas both Mohammedanism and Buddhism, although respectively centred in fundamentalism and transcendentalism, contain quasi-idealist and quasi-naturalist forms of contemplation and meditation, the former intimating of the eyes, the latter of the ears. (I shall not burden anyone with additional explanatory material on this paradoxical subject!)