ON THE SELF

1. Most people do not distinguish between themselves and their selves. They live predominantly in the phenomenal self of the individual, the body, and consequently fail to perceive that there are in fact two selves, of diametrically antithetical constitution. Their 'I' is always personal, pertaining to the body and its psychic master and ally, the soul. They do not refer to the spirit when using the first person and, consequently, they are unaware that the word 'I' can be used in different contexts, and that two minds can make use of the same term to define different objectives. Take these two statements: "I am going to eat" and "I am going to meditate". Are not two distinct minds being referred to here - the first 'I' of the soul (subconscious) in relation to the body, and the second 'I' of the spirit (superconscious) in relation to itself? For how can the spirit wish to eat or the soul to meditate? Clearly, a distinction exists between sensual and spiritual commitments, and no one 'I' could possibly wish to concern itself with both!

2. Being conscious of the distinction between the 'I's' is a mark of psychic development, which will not occur to a person who doesn't live predominantly in his superconscious, or spirit. A man who regularly lives in his higher self will occasionally find himself referring to the body or body's desires in the second person, distinguishing between his self and 'the other', as when he thinks: "You want to eat". It is as though the thought expressed in this context came from the superconscious rather than the subconscious, from an 'I' biased in favour of the self. In actual fact, thought comes from the subconscious being activated, through the ego, by the superconscious. Thought is spirit informing soul, like someone striking sparks from an anvil. The more spirit (up to a point) a man has, the higher the quality and the greater the quantity of thoughts he will extract from the subconscious.

3. But spirit can also turn away from soul, as when a man chooses to meditate and avoid using his spirit to extract troublesome thoughts from the psyche's verbal storehouse in the subconscious. Spirit existing for its own sake rather than as the slave of soul - such is the principle of meditation ... as spirit strives to become more fully conscious of itself and to escape from atomic friction in pursuit of post-atomic (electron) freedom. Also to escape from emotions and dreams which, unlike thoughts, exist independently of the spirit, since specifically appertaining to the subconscious. For emotions, particularly when strong and negative, can trouble spirit, causing it to turn back towards the soul and evoke verbal comment in response to the emotional stimulus. The thought follows the emotion, and spirit is once again enslaved to soul!

4. The superconscious stands to the subconscious as the heart to the sex organs, that is to say, as a superior tribunal obliged to pass judgement on the stimuli from beneath. Although not itself an organ of thought, the superconscious will elicit thoughts from the subconscious appropriate (as a rule) to the emotions it has succumbed to, these in turn being dependent, to a significant extent, on the organs of sense. We feel disgruntled or disgusted by a certain spectacle and that feeling obliges the superconscious to turn towards the subconscious and evoke thoughts appropriate to the situation. Feelings-proper are mental, unlike emotions, which pertain to the heart and, being bodily, are much stronger and, as a corollary of this, longer-lasting. Happiness and sadness are respectively feelings which come and go with the occasion, but love and hate are emotions (at times so powerful as to become passions) which are not transient but lasting, if on a temporary rather than a permanent basis. And this is because they pertain to the body (heart), which is more deeply sensual than the psyche (subconscious/superconscious) and disposed, in consequence, to stronger feelings. Sensations, on the other hand, are purely external, as affecting the skin, and, when positive, are the shallowest of all feelings. Emotions, being internal, are the deepest, and may be evoked in response to either sensual or sexual stimuli, though especially the latter - as when the sensation of pleasure leads to love.

5. But negative sensations like pain far outweigh their positive counterparts and can cause much deeper suffering than, say, the negative emotion of hate. Schopenhauer was certainly correct to maintain that pain is a far stronger sensation than pleasure. This is because pain runs with the grain, as it were, of the flesh, and thus activates its proton-dominated constitution, from the relatively moderate degree of transient negative sensation to the absolutely extreme degree of destructive negative sensation, as when the flesh is assaulted by flame and burns in response to the proton-proton reactions impinging upon it. Anything biased towards protons will respond to flame in a subatomic way and so become flame itself - the flesh being no exception. Such terrible pain as people who suffer burns have experienced is the maximum of negative sensation the flesh can experience - a diabolically destructive sensation far outweighing the maximum of positive sensation obtainable, as pleasure, through sex.

6. The reason wood burns so well is that it is even more dominated by protons than the flesh, and is therefore more susceptible to a subatomic response to proton-proton reactions impinging upon it from without. Coal, as wood that has decayed into mineral formation, is even more susceptible to a subatomic response to proton-proton aggression than wood, since its physical constitution is still more radically dominated by protons. Thus the proton-biased atomic integrity of coal can easily be broken down by proton-proton aggression and transformed into the subatomic absolute of flame, or pure soul, which corresponds to the Diabolic Alpha. By comparison to this pure soul, the human soul (of the subconscious) is impure, that is to say, dependent upon matter and functioning within the physiological context of the old brain. The spirit (of the superconscious) is likewise impure, because dependent upon the new brain for physiological support and therefore subject to a degree of proton constraint. What flame is to proton-dominated matter, hypermeditation will be to the electron-biased matter of the new brain, the principle, in other words, undermining atomic integrities and aspiring, either manifestly or potentially, towards the absolute - in this case, towards the supra-atomic absolute ... of electron-electron attractions in the future heavenly Beyond.

7. Thus while the psychic aspect of the old brain (a proton-dominated realm of the entire brain) is impure soul, as manifested in feelings, the psychic aspect of the new brain (an electron-biased realm of the entire brain) is impure spirit, as manifesting in awareness. Likewise, while the 'psychic' aspect of the heart (a more deeply proton-dominated realm of the body) is impure soul, as manifested in emotions, the 'psychic' aspect of the flesh, particularly the sex organs, is impure soul, as manifesting in sensations, which are evoked directly from the flesh. Soul extends, in varying degrees, from the sex organs to the old brain, and so extends on both a positive and a negative basis, though never more strongly than when negative. Spirit, by contrast, is mostly confined to the new brain, from the lower psychic regions of which it may analytically impinge upon the old brain and evoke thoughts from the subconscious. It may do this as the slave of feelings or, as in philosophy, independently of them and primarily in the interests of truth. This latter policy will be transitional between spirit being used in the service of soul and spirit becoming completely independent of soul in an orientation which favours the Divine Omega, or the future attainment of impure spirit to the absolute purity of electron-electron attractions.

8. Man, as we all know, is a talker, which is to say, a creature who often conveys thoughts through the flesh (tongue) for the benefit of communication with his fellow man. Spoken word is thought made audible, thought manifested in the voice. Before the evolution of language, however, man's prehistoric ancestors were dependent on the flesh for communication. The caveman relied, for the most part, on facial or bodily gestures to transmit information of a largely practical nature from group to group. This sign language, or language of the body, preceded the human compromise between signs and thoughts which we recognize as speech and which, even these days, isn't entirely free, with many human beings, from the accompaniment of what, in the guise of gestural confirmation or explanation, might be termed sublimated sign language. The man who gestures as he speaks betrays, if unconsciously and rather tenuously, an ancestral connection with the pure sign language of the caveman. However, while speech marks an evolutionary progression over purely apparent sign language, it is by no means the highest mode of communication between sentient beings, but merely a mode coming in-between two extremes, viz. the pre-human and the post-human, appertaining to man alone. With the probable future termination of the human stage of evolution in the millennial Beyond, when human brains become artificially supported and sustained in communal contexts, we can anticipate that telepathic communication will prevail between the ensuing Supermen, and thereby signify the climax of communication in maximum essence, completely independent of the flesh (tongue) and thus elevated beyond the apparent. Probably a minority of human beings will be capable of telepathy even before the post-Human Millennium - as, to a limited extent, are an extremely small number already.

9. The long-standing controversy concerning the mind/body dichotomy can at last be set aside, and on these terms: that there is indeed a dichotomy between mind and body when the former pertains solely to the superconscious (spirit), as the upper part of the conscious mind situated in the new brain, but that such a dichotomy doesn't exist, at least not in opposition, between the subconscious (soul), as the lower part of the conscious mind situated in the old brain, and the body generally, including lower manifestations of soul in emotions and sensations, as pertaining to the 'psychic' aspects of the heart and the sex organs respectively. There is therefore a dichotomy in the one context but not in the other! The spirit is not of the body (though it has been traditionally enslaved by and subordinated to the body), so confirms a mind/body dichotomy. By contrast, the soul is of the body and exists, in varying degrees, with the body in a mind-body reciprocity of interconnected feelings and sensations, from the weak to the very strong and even, in unfortunate instances, to the absolute level of maximum pain, as evoked by fire.

10. We have returned, it would seem, to the distinction alluded to, several aphorisms ago, concerning the two minds or selves, viz. the lesser or bodily self, and the greater or spiritual self. In the one case, we use the term 'myself', in the other ... 'my self'. The first can refer either to the body or the soul, in whichever manifestations, and embraces the subconscious as the repository of thought. The spiritual self does not think, however, so that even this recorded thought isn't of the higher self but of the subconscious being activated by a part of it, according to the strictest analytical principles of philosophical endeavour. Were I to become indisposed to philosophical activity in the interests, amongst other things, of evolutionary progress, my true self could be more profitably employed on its own account and in relative freedom from the subconscious and, for that matter, soulful life generally. I have known such freedom but, quite frankly, I don't wish to indulge it at the expense of everything else. Literal transcendence is, in any case, too far into the future for me to have any radical ambitions concerning my spiritual life! Of course, the successful practice of meditation is its own reward; but I am not one to 'go over' to the Eastern camp entirely at the expense of the West. Rather, I endorse a synthesis between East and West (as between mysticism and technology) which, stemming wholly from neither, transcends both and thus brings the world closer to ultimate unity. I will continue to respect 'myself' as well as 'my self'. But 'myself' in the interests of 'my self'.