201. Faith is a thing of the mind, reason a thing of
the brain. Faith requires imagination,
reason ... logic. Faith is religious,
reason ... political. Faith is both
anterior and posterior to logic; anterior in the guise of alpha-stemming
subfaith, posterior in the guise of omega-aspiring superfaith, this latter
superseding Communist super-rationalism no less than subfaith preceded
monarchic sub-rationalism. Yet what is
superfaith? The reader may well wonder,
and I would have to answer that it is more than Christian faith, i.e. belief in
a posthumous afterlife and salvation through Christ. Rather, it is belief in a long-term afterlife
and salvation through the Second Coming - the next evolutionary stage of
Messianic deliverance which is also the final stage, approximating to the
Jewish concept of a True World Messiah, above and beyond Christ. If I believe myself to be such a messiah or,
at any rate, equivalent of the Second Coming, it is largely on the basis of my
conviction, grounded in reason but inspired by imagination, that Heaven is a
supreme condition, a beatific state-of-mind, which lies beyond man in a
free-electron future of pure spirit that man, under certain spiritual
conditions, is nevertheless able to anticipate and approximate in various
degrees, depending on both individual and social circumstances. Yet to actually attain to the Beyond ... of
pure spirit, which is equivalent to Heaven, man would have to have been
superseded by post-human life forms engineered out of human life by qualified
technicians, and I call these post-human life forms Superbeings and
Supra-beings respectively, the former equivalent to human brains artificially
supported and sustained in collective contexts, the latter equivalent to
new-brain collectivizations no less artificially supported and sustained. These post-human, or millennial, life forms
would respectively hypertrip, i.e. undergo artificially-induced visionary experience,
and hypermeditate, i.e. directly cultivate pure mind, but on a much more
extensive and intensive basis than their superhuman predecessors of the
Centrist civilization; indeed so extensively and intensively that the
corresponding phases of that ultimate civilization would seem only moderately
transcendental by comparison, and certainly at a further evolutionary remove
from definitive Heaven! Of course, I
have gone into all this in earlier writings (not to mention in other parts of
this book), so I will not burden the reader with a detailed résumé of
what has already been discussed thoroughly and comprehensively elsewhere. But it was necessary for me to re-outline the
path to Heaven in order to leave him in no doubt as to the evolutionary
implications of superfaith, which transcends Christian faith on a largely
transcendental basis, placing due emphasis on the necessity of engineering
post-human life forms out of human life, if the ultimate Heaven ... of pure
spirit ... is to be attained. Such an
ultimate Heaven would, I believe, emerge out of the supra-being new-brain
collectivizations at the climatic point of millennial evolution, leading, in
due course, to a process of convergence and expansion of spiritual globes in
the post-Millennial Beyond towards a unitary goal of heavenly evolution in a
definitive spiritual globe, the end-product, as it were, of all convergences -
what I have elsewhere termed the universal globe of pure spirit.
202. So the path to Heaven leads via the
transcendental 'men', or superhuman/supra-human post-humanist life forms of the
next civilization, to the superbeing/supra-being post-human life forms of the
ensuing Millennium, the second of which should achieve transcendence and
consequently evolve, through hypermeditation, into the pure spirit
(electron-electron attractions) of ultimate salvation. This is what, following in the hallowed
footsteps of Nietzsche and Teilhard de Chardin, I believe, and this is what
induces me to regard myself as effectively a Second Coming (which assuredly has
nothing to do with the literal return of Christ but, on the contrary, signifies
a different and more extreme teacher capable of becoming acceptable, sooner or
later, to peoples the world over, not least of all to those of non-Christian
descent). After all, there are two life
forms, or stages of organic life, preceding man, i.e. trees and apes or, more
generally, plants and animals, so why shouldn't there be two life forms, or
stages of organic life, succeeding him, even if they depend upon human
volition? This contention seems
perfectly logical to me, and I trust it will seem just as logical and, more
importantly, credible to others as well.
For superfaith has to be grounded in super-reason, must have rational
foundations, if it is to accord with evolutionary requirement and relate to
man's fate and destiny in the world in a logical, sensible, and practical
way. I am not interested in sci-fi or
fictional chimeras but only in supertruth.
And that is why I created Social Transcendentalism, potentially the
ideology, as I see it, of 'Kingdom Come', which embodies supertruth and must
further it wherever possible.
203. One thing that slightly puzzles me is that if
all men are descended from apes, as suggested by the Darwinian hypothesis, why
are some races inherently idealistic, some inherently realistic, and others
inherently materialistic - distinctions roughly corresponding to black, white,
and yellow, or negroid, caucasoid, and mongoloid racial configurations? Of course, I have no time for Bible-inspired
theories which imply that man was ready-made, as it were, by 'the Creator' and
thus existed in his present physical state from the very beginning. Neither do I attach much importance to
theories which hint of his extra-terrestrial origins on some far-off planet in
the Galaxy or even Universe, where, presumably, he grew to full stature before
colonizing the earth! The Darwinian
concept of gradual evolution from some lower life form is doubtless the most
credible explanation of human life, although it doesn't, unfortunately, explain
the reason for the basic tripartite racial distinctions, nor their apparent
ideological correlations, between men.
Could it be, I wonder, that while some men - namely whites - are
descended from apes, other men - namely blacks - are descended from some
bird-like creature, while yet other men - namely yellows - are descended from
some fish-like creature? A strange and
worrying suggestion! But not as
implausible as it may at first appear, particularly in light of the basic
primal distinctions between worldly realism, divine idealism, and diabolic
materialism which would seem to correspond, on a racial plane, to caucasoid,
negroid, and mongoloid integrities respectively.
204. One could also argue from such a tripartite
hypothesis concerning the origin of species in terms of the basic physiological
distinctions between men of any given race - namely the fat, the muscular, and
the thin, corresponding, in Sheldonian terminology, to the endomorphic, the
mesomorphic, and the ectomorphic, with a contention to the effect that those in
the first category are descended from some kind of sea creature, those in the
second category from some kind of land animal (presumably apes), and those in
the third category from some kind of bird, like, for instance, the now-extinct
dodo. Certainly the upper class,
aspiring to an idealistic lifestyle, have often dressed in such a way as to
suggest or mimic birds, not least of all the males, with tails, spats,
bow-ties, frills, etc., and the upper class are generally of an ectomorphic
disposition, in contrast to both the mesomorphic middle class and the
endomorphic lower class, whose fish-eating habits are no secret to anyone with
a knowledge of fish & chip shops! In
fact, I have often noted a connection between fat people and fish in such shops
which, in my view, owes to more than mere coincidence, particularly when the
fish-shop proprietor is also of a fish-like, or corpulent, disposition.
205. However that may be, there are enough grounds
on a racial, quite apart from a social, basis for questioning whether all men
are descended from apes, though there would seem to be no reason to suppose
that all men of a given race share a kindred descent, even if most of them
arguably do. Were all men descended from
apes, it is probable that the world alone would suffice them and that only the
world would apply, with no possibility of divine and diabolic extremes flanking
or threatening it from opposing points-of-view.
I may be wrong, but I am not altogether hostile to the notion that the true
Irish are descended from some bird-like creature, rather than from some
ape-like creature more suited, if the truth were known, to the worldly-minded
British. At least, that would help
explain their inherent bias for God and, from a traditional standpoint,
consequent papal allegiance, in contrast to the monarchic allegiance of the
stolid British, though especially the English, whose inherent ideological bias
would seem, if history is anything to judge by, to be more materialistic than
realistic. Certainly, there are adequate
historical and social grounds for contending that British realism is rather
more a consequence of the fusion of Celtic and Anglo-Saxon racial influences
and predilections than an innate quality of the English themselves. At any rate, let us settle for a
materialistic realism on their part and, by contrast, for an idealistic realism
on the part of the Scotch and the Welsh.
206. What makes the French language culturally
superior to English is its use of and dependence on liaison, or the linking of
words ending in s, n, t, or x with words beginning in a vowel, so
that a sort of wavicle continuity is often established where, in English, there
would be only a particle apartness of disjunctive words. Obviously, fluency of speech is a mark of
culture in any language. But when
certain words are systematically run-in to, or linked with, certain others as a
matter of grammatical principle, then the end result is a much more
wavicle-biased impression which can only testify, it seems to me, to cultural
superiority established on the basis of an inherently spiritual bent. Certainly, the supra-national language of the
electron-wavicle future ought to owe more to French than to English in terms of
creating, through liaison between various words, an overall impression of
wavicle continuity, as appropriate to a superidealistic age, above and beyond
the idealistic realism of French, and in stark contrast to the materialistic
realism of English, which is rather more suited to a secular age, like the present.
207. But I desire the supersession of the State by
the Centre in the interests of an electron-wavicle salvation of the People in
pure spirit, and I am committed to bringing this about, particularly in
208. It is not by mere coincidence that the Middle
Ages, highpoint of Catholic civilization in the West, were also the ages par
excellence of 'natural' plagues like the Bubonic Plague, or Black
Death. For such plagues are
characteristic, it seems to me, of a proton-wavicle allegiance, being, as it
were, complementary to it on negative and destructive terms. By contrast, we are entering if not already
in an age of supernatural or artificial plagues, as germane to an
electron-wavicle bias, and I list among such 'plagues' the gases from chemical
weapons, the gas used for purposes of exterminating criminals or undesirables,
and the spread of radiation from nuclear explosions, etc. Such artificial plagues are no less
devastating than (were) the natural plagues of medieval times.
209. My view of the police and armed services
vis-à-vis the People is such as to suggest that the former are morally inferior
to the latter and must forever remain so.
I do not see the 'best elements' of a people in the police or army, say,
but as the People, who are more spiritually and culturally
self-indulgent, as a rule, and thus 'of the stuff' from which pure spirit will
eventually emerge. Not that I wish to
mock or underestimate the protectors of the People, who are an indispensable
ingredient of any civilized society. But
I do believe that the People and their protectors should never be confounded,
and that standards applicable to the one are, more often than not, quite
inapplicable to the other. It would not
be my ambition to turn the armed services into saints just because that seems
to be in order for the People generally.
On the contrary, such services must remain less than holy if for no
other reason than the adequate protection of the People from the possibility of
external aggression. They are, in
effect, a necessary evil, and must be respected as such, not be obliged to
compromise themselves in an unduly transcendental or cultural fashion. Thus if traditional sexual relations were to
continue among the uniformed bodies, composed of both sexes, after having been
officially condemned as regards the People in general, that would be perfectly
acceptable, provided they were kept within the ranks and not unduly publicized
to the detriment of the People's spiritual interests. In all probability, the children resulting
from such relations would have to be brought up separately from the People ...
in special nurseries, schools, etc., in preparation for analogous policing or
military responsibilities in later life.
For it seems more logical and sensible to keep the People and their
protectors as two separate and independent societies ... than to allow -
exceptions notwithstanding - for continuous chopping-and-changing backwards and
forwards between them, after the fashion of an open society, with its
everywhichway muddle and more or less middle-of-the-road stasis. Either one will be in the glorified 'sheep
pen' of the Social Transcendentalist '
210. Reading periodicals like The
Socialist Standard, I am often confronted by views to the effect that the
workers - meaning, of course, industrial blue-collar proletariat - should
directly own the means of production and not be exploited for a wage which, on
balance, is less than the total market value of the product manufactured, so
that, instead of the capitalist owner of the factory making a profit from the
product in the form of surplus value, no profit is made because the product is
sold at its production value, i.e. according to the amount of time and work (if
estimable) expended on its construction, and a socialist mode of exchange is
the consequence - infinitely preferable, in the opinion of its advocates, to
the profit system, which necessarily favours the capitalist non-producer at the
expense of his workforce. Such, at any
rate, is the general outline of a view I have encountered quite regularly in
the course of perusing radical socialist essays, and although there are
sometimes variations on it, the view rarely if ever changes. Profit is wrong, equal distribution of wealth
alone right; though, presumably, this implies the furtherance of collective
profit where formerly there had been only individual profit - a presumption
which appears hard to substantiate on a non-profit making basis! However that may be, the authors of such
'hard-line' socialist views invariably fail to take into account a number of
complementary or subordinate expenses which accrue to the maintenance of
industrial, not to say commercial, premises, and which, without surplus capital
deriving from the profit margin, would fail to be met, to the lasting detriment
of the premises concerned, and therefore to the ultimate detriment of the
company, which would surely have to close.
211. But to what expenses am I alluding? Why, to such obligatory expenses as accrue to
the maintenance of adequate lighting, heating, and ventilating, without which
the workforce would be unable to function, particularly in winter, when heating
and lighting are particularly necessary.
But there are of course many other expenses which are no less
obligatory, like the maintenance of telephone facilities; of canteen or coffee
facilities; of adequate water facilities, both hot and cold, which presuppose
water rates and further heating costs; of adequate toilet facilities, including
toilet paper, soap, and towels; of adequate cleaning facilities, which may
entail the employment - at further cost - of professional cleaners to hoover,
polish and/or mop the floors; of industrial overalls, and so on - a veritable
host of relatively petty expenses which, taken together, add up to a quite
formidable yearly outlay of capital, even when company taxes have been excluded
from the overall reckoning. Yet even
this is only a fraction of the total expenses over and above the wages paid to
employees; for one must also account for purchasing costs of raw materials
and/or component parts from other factories, as well as for the maintenance of
industrial plant and the replacement, where necessary, of outmoded or
inadequate (I say nothing of damaged) plant, whether under pressure of
excessive costs or to meet the demands of new technologies or for some other,
no less cogent reason. And then, not
least of all, there is the expense involved in designing a product - be it a
new car, a cassette player, hi-fi system, portable television, stereo
headphones, or what have you - which may well take the form of a company commission
or involve the taking out of a patent to secure exclusive rights of manufacture
for any given product. For while the
workers may manufacture the product, in whole or in part, the original design
and concept comes from elsewhere, either directly from the industrialist
personally or indirectly, through a professional inventor/designer, and the
eventual success of the product will depend, to a large degree, on its inherent
excellence, whether in terms of performance, appearance, social and/or cultural
value, ideological significance, futuristic appeal, safety, or whatever. All that derives, in large measure, from the
inventor/designer himself rather than from the workers, who merely carry out
the instructions of manufacture specified in the design and would not
themselves be capable of designing anything, let alone inventing a new
product! As executors of the original
plan, they function as tools in the assemblage process, and the end-result,
while deriving from their labour, owes its conceptual if not actual origins to
the inventor/designer, without whom there would be no work at all. But, of course, getting the finished product
onto the market and into the shops, salerooms, etc., costs money, not least of
all in terms of advertising, and if these costs are to be met, there must be a
prior fund of money deriving from such profits as the company had previously
made from other or similar products. So
I cannot see that there is anything wrong, morally or socially, with making a
profit from one's products, particularly in light of the many expenses which
have to be met in the interests of survival.
Without profit there would be no possibility of expansion, of opening
new and better factories or of improving the existing ones, and without profit
there would be few if any jobs.
212. Who, then, is the real enemy of the worker -
those who employ him at a set wage to assist in the manufacture of a product
whose market value is above the production costs and will return profits, in
the form of surplus value, to the company, or those who insist upon unrealistic
schemes for bettering his lot which, if put into practice, would lead to
industrial suicide and chaos? Capitalism
may not be the best or ultimate economic system, but the sort of socialism
advocated in The Socialist Standard and other such Marxist periodicals is no
alternative. The only alternatives for
the future, as I see it, are State Socialism (regarded by Marxist socialists
are state capitalism - a sort of Newtonian redundancy in an age of Einsteinian
gloss) or my own Social Centrism, whereby the Centre, in the event of
democratically superseding the republican state, would take upon itself the
trusteeship of the means of production for the People, in order that they may
be absolved from economic responsibility and be rendered all the more
spiritually credible in the interests of the continuous development of their
religious sovereignty, as germane to Centrist guidance. Doubtless a degree of the profits which accrue
to the sale of products over and above their production value would return, via
individual companies, to the Centre, where it would be used to the best
advantage of the People, both in terms of their material and, more importantly,
spiritual wellbeing, i.e. with regard to the building of transcendent centres,
training of Centrists, development of correlative Social Transcendentalist
culture, etc. All employers would
effectively become employees of the Centre, just as employers in Communist
societies are state employees, since the People own the means of production
through the State and no one person is therefore entitled to individual private
ownership, which, in a free-electron society, would be a proton and/or neutron
anachronism, depending on the type of ownership in question, that is to say,
whether of land or of industrial and/or commercial property, natural or
artificial. Only collective ownership on
either level can apply in a Communist society, where the People are politically
sovereign and accordingly free from proton and/or neutron constraints. But in a society, on the contrary, where the
People were religiously sovereign, then no such collective ownership - even if
indirect, i.e. through the State - should apply, the Centre taking the burden
of trusteeship of both land and industrial/commercial property upon
itself in the interests of the People's spiritual freedom from materialistic
responsibility - a step above and beyond Communism which accords with an
electron-wavicle bias in the People.
213. In such a superdivine society there can be no
ownership, whether private or public, of either land or property, and the
Centre, far from owning anything, would simply undertake to protect and
supervise the adequate maintenance of both natural and artificial modes of
production in the People's interests.
Everything should be accountable to the Centre, and the Centre would
have a hand in everything, having drawn both agriculture and industry up
towards itself with a view to regulating supply and demand from the Centre, of
keeping a careful watch on company or farming statistics, accounts, costs,
etc., in order to cream off such profits as were deemed over and above the
survival level required for that company's or farm's maintenance and
re-distribute capital according to public need.
Certainly, large profits made by any given company would be creamed off
by the Centre in the People's interests.
For a situation whereby various companies were becoming too wealthy and
disposed, in consequence, to the creation of private millionaires ... could not
be tolerated within a Social Transcendentalist Centre (any more than it is in a
Transcendental Socialist State), where the concept of private wealth would be
anathema, since bespeaking a proton or neutron status beneath the pale of
free-electron criteria. The Centre alone
would account for surplus capital, as defined above, which would be
redistributed according to public need.
There would be no millionaires.
Everyone would work through and for the Centre, receiving according to
his deserts, but always on a basis which sought to minimize wage differentials
as much as possible, establishing, in due process, a more uniform society,
though not, however, one which sought to deny the immutable distinctions
between leaders, protectors, and masses.
On the contrary, a social hierarchy would still exist, but it would be
on the People's electron level and therefore quite distinct from
across-the-board, open-society atomic hierarchies which, with
aristocratic, bourgeois, and proletarian distinctions, are rather more classful
than classless.
214. Interesting how some authors predominantly use
'that' as a relative pronoun whilst others use 'which' and still others both,
according to the demands, or what they perceive as such, of the literary
occasion. As I see it, the predominant
use of 'which' signifies a right-wing and upper-class bias, whereas use of
'that', as in 'The dog that went for a walk', signifies a left-wing and
lower-class bias, while the compromise position in between suggests a
middle-class and, hence, middle-ground bias.
In other words grammatical idealism, materialism, and realism
respectively. But what is it, you may
well wonder, that lends 'that' a left-wing bias and 'which' a right-wing
one? Well, the only credible answer, to
my mind, is that 'that' is sharp and particle-suggesting, whereas 'which' is
soft and wavicle suggesting - the very dichotomy between materialism and
idealism which is at the heart of the antithetical political struggles of the
age. Of course, there are other and more
pragmatic considerations to bear in mind when selecting a relative pronoun, not
least of all the fact that 'which' can be less ambiguous, since not also used
as a demonstrative pronoun. Additionally,
one may feel that too many 'thats', used as both relative and demonstrative
pronouns as well as a conjunction, spoil the prose no less than too many cooks
the broth, and that it is therefore better from both technical and aesthetic
points-of-view to relieve 'that' of the duty of relative pronoun and to
systematically concentrate on 'which' instead, thereby establishing a kind of
balance between the two words which makes for a more interesting, not to say
logical, result; though such a 'balanced' prose will of course always be open
to allegations of bourgeois relativity and atomic compromise from those of a
more absolutist persuasion, who limit 'which' to a subordinate pronoun status
used only very occasionally, as in 'We did not like the dinner, which was a
pity since we were hungry', in deference to a more conventional prose
technique. Certainly, the Americans
generally prefer 'that' to 'which' in their use of relative pronouns, whereas
educated British writing tends to reflect the opposite choice - in testimony, I
dare say, to a more inherently relativistic bent. Similarly, the distinction between 'z' and
's' spellings in words like 'civilization/civilisation' and
'realization/realisation' tends to an American/British dichotomy with, so I
would argue, left- and right-wing implications respectively. The letter 'z' is rather sharp and therefore
particle-suggesting, whereas 's' is smooth and accordingly of a wavicle
connotation. One doesn't employ both
alternatives in one's writings or within the same piece, as a rule, but sticks
to one or the other according to one's ideological, class, or national
predilection. The employment of 'z'
spellings with a more or less systematic use of 'that' as relative pronoun
would suggest a very left-wing grammatical bias, the employment of 's'
spellings with a systematic use of 'which' in the same context would suggest,
by contrast, a very right-wing grammatical bias. On the other hand, a compromise between
either 'z' spellings and 'which' or 's' spellings and 'that' would suggest a
middle-ground and possibly Liberal grammatical integrity, though obviously with
a different bias and emphasis in each case.
The Irish philosopher Desmond Clarke favours, in Church and
State a paradoxical employment of 'z' spellings together with a systematic
use of 'which', as though reflecting a State/Church dichotomy, and is himself
of Liberal political persuasion.
Flanking him on the grammatical left one might cite the 'z'/'that'
integrity of the Irish-American author Thomas Gallagher in Paddy's Lament
- a brilliantly harrowing account of the 1846-47 potato famine in Ireland,
whilst on the grammatical right one might cite the 's'/'which' integrity of the
British novelist Lawrence Durrell in Quinx, as, indeed, The Avignon
Quintet as a whole.
215. To extend awareness not for its own sake but as
awareness of the best possible feelings, the most noble sentiments, the highest
beatitude. To escape the neutron
neutrality of purgatorial everyday consciousness in the direction of heavenly
bliss. The path of divine evolution for
mankind leading from the alpha of essential sensations to the omega of
essential feelings via the Christian compromise of essential emotions; from the
subconscious to the superconscious via the conscious mind. The path of diabolic evolution for mankind
leading from the alpha of apparent sensations to the omega of apparent feelings
via the Liberal compromise of apparent emotions; from the old brain to the new
brain via the mid-brain. In the divine
case, from pleasure to joy via love. In
the diabolic case, from pain to sadness via hate. Idealism verses materialism in ascending
evolutionary stages, until such time as sadness is eclipsed by happiness and,
following the unequivocal triumph of the Divine, bliss reigns supreme. And the body - akin to the world? The body, with its apparent and essential
sensations in the flesh, its apparent and essential emotions in the heart, will
eventually be discarded as mankind outgrow all alpha-stemming loyalties and
approach the post-human era of the Superbeings, or brain collectivizations
artificially supported and no less artificially sustained.
216. Interesting how Christ, as conceived by
Protestants, is on a level with the body rather than the conscious mind, an
abraxas-like dualistic figure torn between apparent and essential emotions,
hate and love, in fidelity to what Yeats would have termed a 'primary', or
cohesive, view of life, a view running contrary to the 'antithetical' one of
those who, like Catholics (and Irish Catholics not least of all) prefer a
God/Devil dichotomy between Christ and Satan, conceiving of the former as
'good' and the latter as 'evil', idealism and materialism in constant polarity
rather than eclipsed by a realistic compromise, in the body, between the
two. Yet such realism is precisely what
detracts from the divinity of the Protestant Christ, since true divinity
presupposes a wavicle idealism of the Good conceived as Love and Beatitude, not
a realistic compromise on the bodily plane between conflicting emotions! Such a compromise makes for a humanistic view
of Christ, of Christ as man or inspired teacher, and from there to the denial
of all divinity in an outright humanism ... is but a short step on the downhill
path to atheistic materialism. No wonder
that so many people of Protestant descent find it hard, if not impossible, to
believe in the divinity of Christ! For
their Christ was never divine to begin with but, rather, a worldly compromise
between the transcendent Christ of the Catholics and His Satanic antagonist,
and consequently it is inconceivable that they should have an idealistic
perspective on Christ or, for that matter, be anticipating his imminent return
in the form of the Second Coming - a notion which is only credible (though not
necessarily on literal terms) if you subscribe to or are traditionally
connected with a religion that emphasizes the divinity of Christ in a
transcendent idealism of resurrected spirit.
Then anyone who approximates to a radically idealistic point-of-view and
wishes to further a transcendental aspiration through the establishment of a
society in which the People are religiously sovereign, and accordingly entitled
to cultivate their spirit through essential means, would be recognizable as
equivalent to the Second Coming - a divinely-inspired figure dedicated to the
furtherance of spiritual evolution on terms which leave no room for
alpha-stemming or atomic attachments and are therefore diametrically opposed to
them. Such an idealistic leader would
not be literally Christ (for Christianity or Biblical accounts of miracles,
etc., should be interpreted on the plane of metaphor where an idealistic, and
hence 'true', approach to religion is concerned, not be vulgarized by attempted
reduction to literal facts which, in their crass realism, only serve to render
one's beliefs absurd), but more approximate, in his ideological uniqueness, to
the Jewish concept of a True World (global) Messiah, someone who, in upholding
an idealistic extremism, would be ideologically acceptable to peoples of
non-Christian belief or terminology, given their separate and no-less viable
religious traditions.
217. Anyone who proclaimed himself 'the Christ'
would be a laughing-stock not only to many Christians or, rather, so-called
Christians (who are not so foolish as to believe that Christ literally rose
from the dead and has been existing, so to speak, in suspended spiritual
animation somewhere in space these past 2,000 years, waiting for an opportunity
to rematerialize on earth), but, no less significantly, to most if not all
Hindus, Buddhists, Judaists, Mohammedans, Zoroastrians, Shintoists, etc., who
are not awaiting the return of Christ and would categorically reject any
attempt on the part of someone calling himself 'the Christ' to convert them to
Christianity or, at any rate, seek to impose literally Second-Coming allegiance
upon them. No, a True World Religion,
which would embrace peoples of virtually all religious traditions and thus be
truly global, necessarily demands a True World Messiah, not one of the old
messiahs come back from the dead or, more correctly from the theological
viewpoint, 'Eternal Life in Heaven' ... to overthrow the other so-called world
religions in the name of his own. On the
contrary, this new messiah brings with him, from his messiah-forming 'higher
environment' ... of the big city, a new religion, and while he may have to
bend, ideologically speaking, in the direction of the Second Coming for peoples
of Catholic descent, he will not make the mistake of literally identifying
himself with Christ and thereby detracting from his own unique ideological
standing in Social Transcendentalist Centrism.
218. Those who, like Bible-punching fundamentalists,
take Biblical accounts of miracles or messianic happenings at face-value,
debase religion from the plane of metaphorical idealism to that of literal
realism, transforming religious faith into rational belief in events which, by
their inherently miraculous nature, are incapable of rational verification and
thus render such belief absurd. Only a
fool would believe that Christ literally rose from the dead and ascended into
Heaven. Regarded as a metaphor for human
or, at any rate, evolutionary possibility, the 'Resurrection of Christ' becomes
a pointer in the direction of spiritual destiny, a testimony to the fact that
there is more to human life than the flesh and its inevitable decay, that the
spirit can survive bodily death, providing it has been cultivated to a degree
compatible with the Divine. As Christ
was a metaphor for the Divine, so his spiritual ascension testifies to such a
survival. But regarded literally? Of course not! No man can survive bodily death and become
pure spirit, least of all by ascending from the grave or, in Christ's case, the
tomb! As I have attempted to demonstrate
elsewhere in my writings, the literal attainment of spirit to the heavenly
Beyond (of the transcendent Holy Ghost) would require much evolutionary
progress beyond man, not just in terms of the Superbeing brain
collectivizations but, following them, the supra-being new-brain
collectivizations ... in the second stage, so to speak, of millennial
evolution, which is compatible with hypermeditation carried-on, over a
protracted period of time, within the transcendent context of space centres -
special centres in space where hypermeditation would proceed more intensively
than could ever be the case on earth, where there is always so much gravity to
contend with. Indeed, hypermeditation
would proceed so intensively there ... that transcendence, or the attainment of
pure spirit to beatitude, would be the inevitable consequence, bringing
evolution to completion in the divine bliss of electron-electron attractions,
in complete contrast to the proton-proton reactions of solar energy. Well, this is a new faith, albeit one
founded, so I believe, in rational considerations and projections.
219. Pure spirit equals consciousness of bliss,
awareness of the most pure feelings, feelings so inherently pure that there can
be no alternative consciousness; consciousness becoming One with the Divine,
consciousness in the Divine - divine consciousness of superconscious
bliss in heavenly perfection. Yet there
is another kind of spirit set apart from this, in human life, and it can be
termed impure spirit, or consciousness of the most impure feelings, feelings so
intensely impure that there can be no alternative consciousness; consciousness
being One with the Diabolic, consciousness of the
Diabolic - diabolic consciousness in new-brain agony of hellish
imperfection. Good and Evil, God and
Devil on the antithetical levels of mind and brain, in an ascending
evolutionary order of sensations, emotions, and feelings, corresponding to the
subconscious/old brain, the conscious/mid-brain, and the superconscious/new
brain, with pleasure/pain, love/hate, and happiness/sadness distinctions
respectively - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit on the wavicle side of the psyche,
with their diabolic correlates on the opposite, or particle, side. For an omega age, in which free-electron
criteria take precedence over atomic compromises, it is neither pleasure and
pain nor love and hate, but happiness and sadness which are the chief spiritual
issues at stake, and whether one is happy or sad will depend, to some extent,
upon the type of society in which one lives and one's ideological bent in
relation to it. A natural-born Communist
would not be the most happy of people anyway, but he would be even sadder if
obliged to live in a Social Transcendentalist society. Conversely, whilst a bona fide
Fascist might not be the saddest of people, he would be less than happy living
in a Transcendental Socialist society.
Needless to say, neither type of person would be particularly happy
living in an open society, where too many contending allegiances and ideals
would exist in competition with happiness and sadness, not least of all on the
worldly plane of the body, which has its own ratio of positive and negative
sensations, positive and negative emotions, and even, in a certain limited
sense, positive and negative feelings, all or some of which may be of paramount
concern to inherently worldly types, who fight shy of intellectual and
spiritual commitments in their overriding devotion to physical ones. Now even thoughts about sensations, emotions,
and feelings, whether of the body or the head, are a kind of worldly or, more
accurately, lunar irrelevance, a reflection on other terms of innate
experience, a seemingly neutral or impartial observer and commentator that may
take a balanced view of psycho-physical dualism or, alternatively, come down in
favour of one side or the other, depending on which pole tends to predominate
in any given individual, whether on the psychical or physical levels.
220. Fundamentally considered, man is but a
microcosmic reflection of the Galaxy, containing within his psycho-physical
totality equivalents of the central star of the Galaxy, the sun, the moon, and
the earth itself, and all these cosmically-derived components play some part in
his overall integrity as a human being, even if, in the process of evolving
towards Holy Spirit, he tends to outgrow most of them and to forge new, higher
attributes commensurate with his more advanced psycho-physical
development. Thought, too, must
eventually be abandoned as he steers a course towards the heavenly Beyond ...
of the most pure feelings, feelings that require no verbal commentary, being
their own transcendent witness and justification. Yet before the horizon of blissful eternity
is glimpsed and becomes a permanent norm, the superevil of sadness must be
overcome by the supergood of happiness, both personally and on a social or
universal basis, and all psychic dualism and its ideological correlations duly
be eclipsed by the perfection of the blissful absolute which is alone
commensurate with Holy Spirit. This
absolute is not only above all negative or apparent feelings, but (is) above
all consciousness as well, since consciousness derives from the fusion, or
juxtaposition, of the Devil and God in the psyche, being a worldly compromise
between the two, and once this compromise is transcended in the Divine, so
consciousness becomes transcendental and is eclipsed by the bliss of the
highest feeling, which is pure spirit.
221. As evolution proceeds from a proton base in
pure soul to an electron culmination in pure spirit via an atomic compromise in
worldly materialism, we may alternatively speak of the pleasure/pain dichotomy
on the subconscious/old-brain level of the psyche as corresponding to good soul
and to evil soul respectively, with the happiness/sadness dichotomy on the
superconscious/new-brain level of the psyche corresponding to good spirit and
to evil spirit, and, in between, the love/hate dichotomy on the
conscious/mid-brain level of the psyche corresponding to a combination of good
soul and good spirit on the one hand and ... of evil soul and evil spirit on
the other, which we may also describe as good materialism and evil materialism,
regarding 'materialism' in a worldly and therefore realistic light. Hence the three levels of psyche correspond
to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost on the wavicle side, and to Satan,
the Anti-Father (Luther, Henry VIII, Cromwell?), and the Anti-Christ (Marx,
Lenin, Stalin?) on the particle side.
Soul, like spirit, can be good or evil, deriving from the central star
of the Galaxy or, alternatively, from the sun, on the level of mind or brain,
but all soul, even when part of an atomic compromise, should be outgrown in the
name of spirit and, needless to say, of holy spirit in preference to unholy
spirit. Naturally, this view of the
psyche and its polar antagonists corresponds, in Yeatsian terminology, to an
'antithetical' rather than to a 'primary' intellectual position, in which a
clear distinction is drawn between each side as well as level of the psyche, in
preference to any cohesive materialism of a worldly compromise. Even a consciousness which, like that of the
Protestant idealists (Puritans), stands as a compromise between good soul and
good spirit ... is of the cohesive or materialistic variety, albeit on somewhat
higher terms than the consciousness which experiences both good and evil soul
plus good and evil spirit in a quintessentially worldly atomic fusion of
Protestant realism, not to mention its bodily counterpart lower down. If the Society of Friends belongs in the
higher materialistic category, then the majority of Protestant denominations
appertain to the lower materialistic category of a truly realistic compromise,
suitable to the world but not particularly close to divine truth.
222. Yet if Roman Catholicism upheld, in its
antithetical constitution, a closer approximation, in the Father, to subdivine
truth, and sects like the Society of Friends upheld a closer approximation, in
Christ, to divine truth, then it remains for Social Transcendentalism to uphold
a closer approximation, in the Holy Ghost, to superdivine truth - the
supertruth of Messianic Revelations.
Here, in accordance with free-electron criteria, we are concerned with
the Third and highest part of the Trinity ... of divine levels of God, and we
are concerned with aspiring towards that superideal condition through the
furtherance of superconscious bliss achieved, with the aid of contemplation and
meditation, here on earth as a matter of evolutionary necessity. Once the world has been overcome, Heaven is
not in the Beyond but the Beyond in the world and bliss is now, not something
to be deferred until bodily death. For
there is no Heaven for man that is not of man's making!
223. Consciousness is of the world, being a
consequence of the fusion between protons and electrons in the brain, a sort of
spiritual flame perpetually burning on the atomic materialism of the
brain. It treads a middle-ground path
between good soul and good spirit on the wavicle side of the psyche, and
between evil soul and evil spirit on its particle side, preponderating over
both. When one is conscious one isn't
necessarily conscious of sensations, emotions, or feelings. Consciousness of consciousness or consciousness
of external phenomena tends to be the psychic norm. The Diabolic and the Divine only enter into
this consciousness intermittently, when called upon or permitted entry. Left to itself, my consciousness is biased
towards good spirit, but this doesn't mean to say that everyone's is. On the contrary, there are types of
consciousness which are biased towards evil spirit and even some that are
biased towards soul of one kind or another, distinctions to a large extent
dependent upon hereditary factors, racial configurations, temperament,
character, experiences, environment, class, and so on. In this respect, men are not equal, for
consciousness differs in degree and kind from person to person, making for both
dissimilar views of the world and dissimilar situations and/or occupations in
it. Were all men equal, there would be
no frictions or disparities between them, and humanity would be at peace with
itself.
224. But even in their subconscious and
superconscious minds men differ from one another, though these two minds are
closer to the alpha and Omega Absolutes respectively, and therefore are more
perceptual than conceptual. Some men
experience pleasant dreams with warm sensations as a norm, others tend to experience
more of the opposite kind, while yet others follow a straight or zigzagging
path between the two extremes, doubtless according to whether they are of the
'primary' or 'antithetical' varieties of humanity. At the other end of the psyche, it is a well-known
fact that not all those who take or have taken LSD invariably experience
pleasant trips. Some have bad trips,
whilst others, probably more numerous, experience something that is neither
particularly good nor bad but somewhere in between the two ... in a sort of
no-man's-land of psychic neutrality, doubtless on account of their own habitual
psychic neutrality between daydreams on the one hand and thoughts on the other,
which correspond, so I contend, to stellar and lunar equivalents, respectively,
within the 'cosmic totality' of the natural psyche. Those who are largely of pure consciousness,
and therefore most worldly, will experience neither any great hardship nor any
great pleasure in their dreams or trips.
Those, on the other hand, who tend in their consciousness either towards
daydreams above or thoughts below are more likely to experience equivalent
levels of psychic reality in their dreams or trips - the former having pleasant
dreams and good trips, the latter unpleasant dreams and bad trips, a sort of
wavicle/particle dichotomy of God- and Devil-tending biases respectively, with
right- and left-wing political implications in each case. Daydreaming or fantasizing is an idealistic
psychic predilection, thinking or reasoning ... a materialistic psychic
predilection; the one tending up, as a rule, towards good soul and/or good
spirit; the other tending down, as a rule, towards evil soul and/or evil
spirit. Again, there are two types of
realist in relation to these psychic poles: the 'primary' realist who steers a
middle course in neutral consciousness between them, and, by contrast, the
'antithetical' realist who alternates between them, now dreamy, now thoughtful,
never one or the other for very long, and, consequently, more Catholic than
Protestant, more Celtic, I dare say, than Anglo-Saxon, but still a worldly type
nevertheless!
225. Just as there is an unconscious beneath the
subconscious which, in its dreamless sensuality, is closer to the alpha of
evolution, so there is a supraconscious above the superconscious which, in its
tripless spirituality, is closer to the omega of evolution. If the former is experienced in heavy sleep
or as a consequence of one's having been anaesthetized or - perish the thought!
- knocked out, the latter is experienced in the hyperawakefulness of transcendental
meditation. If the one is fundamentally
pre-civilized, the other is post-civilized.
226. Consciousness of consciousness or
consciousness-for-consciousness'-sake is a religion of the world. We have consciousness to help us get about
the world, not for any specifically religious reason. We also have consciousness in our bodies,
though to a much lesser extent than in our brains where, as mind, it generally
overrides physical consciousness, whether of sensations, emotions, or
feelings. Only in consciousness of the
highest, or mental, feelings do we approach the Holy Spirit; though
consciousness of the highest emotions or, alternatively, highest sensations
will place us on the planes of Christ and the Father respectively - planes
which would be an obstacle to true spiritual enlightenment if indulged in too
frequently or intensely.
227. The antithetical equivalents of 'nobs' and
'plebs' are 'freaks' and 'straights': an electron equivalent to proton
precedent. Generally, 'freaks' are of
the Holy Ghost whereas 'straights' are of the world; but there are also 'fallen
freaks', or punks, who are of the Antichrist and his materialist legions. Doubtless there were (and probably still are)
'fallen nobs', or rebels, who were of the Devil and his barbarous hordes.
228. The age of the wind-up clock, with its hands
and numerals, is coming to an end, along with the civilization that gave birth
to it. The new age calls for digital
clocks and watches, in accordance with an absolutist predilection for
numerals. If sundials, with their lone
'arm', appertained to the alpha age, then digital clocks and watches most
assuredly appertain to the omega age, and no apparent/essential compromise
between the two, suggestive of an atomic integrity, is permissible, whether in
terms of clock or watch. Even the
customary tick-tock, tick-tock of wind-ups suggests and confirms an atomic
dualism, as though between church and state, particles and wavicles. But, of course, wind-ups will continue to be
manufactured and bought so long as the atomic societies of contemporary Western
civilization continue to exist. They are
still 'establishment' time-pieces, whereas digitals of one kind or another are
comparatively proletarian and therefore, like all such phenomena, relative to
an unofficial vanguard.
229. Categories of white-collar workers: clerks,
secretaries, petty civil-servants, typists, shop assistants, publishers'
readers, postmen, low-ranking teachers - in short, a whole variety of contexts
involving millions of people who, particularly in the big cities, tend to
preponderate over blue-collar workers (not that colour of collar or indeed the
use of a button-up shirt necessarily figures in an age transitional between
atomic and free-electron criteria).
Unlike a Marxist, I don't automatically limit myself to the lowest
strata of the People, conceived in a variety of blue-collar, and therefore
manual, contexts. On the contrary, I
focus first and foremost on the highest strata of the People, conceived in a
variety of white-collar, and therefore intellectual, contexts, and subordinate
all other contexts to them. This is what
makes me a Social Transcendentalist rather than a Socialist, and consequently
anti-Marxist. I was myself a clerk for
several years, and it is inconceivable that I could identify with or have a
bias towards blue-collar workers, whose materialism, derived in part from the
manual nature of their labour, is at loggerheads with my own idealism, the
fruit of much intellectual activity. In
a
230. Traditions ought more to be respected as a
pointer towards the future than as a landmark of the past. Thus one sort of idealism will lead to
another, one sort of materialism to another, and so on.
231. The open-society tripartite class distinctions
between upper, middle, and lower classes suggest, at first appearance, a
vertical hierarchy between idealism, realism, and materialism on a uniform
atomic level. But this is not actually
the case, since the upper class, or aristocracy, are generally biased towards
protons, the middle class, or bourgeoisie, generally biased towards neutrons,
and the lower class, or proletariat, generally biased towards electrons, so
that class distinctions on a traditional tripartite basis are rather more
horizontal than vertical ... with the past, the present, and the future
juxtaposed in open-society toleration.
From a proletarian standpoint, which is closer to the Holy Ghost than to
the Father, the only class that could in some (albeit limited) sense be
described as 'upper' in relation to the People, i.e. as vertically above them,
would be People's leaders, or commissars, within the electron-particle context
of a People's state. Similarly from a
middle-class standpoint, which is closer to Christ than to either of the divine
extremes, the only class that could in some (albeit limited) sense be described
as 'upper' in relation to the bourgeoisie, i.e. as vertically above them, would
be parliamentary representatives, or ministers, within the atomic context of a
democratic state. For the aristocratic
class, regarded in their traditional proton perspective, are only upper in relation
to peasants and/or soldiers within the vertical hierarchy of a feudal society,
and it would be a form of hypocrisy or self-deception of the most contemptible
sort to suppose that the bourgeoisie, who after all wrenched political power
from the nobility, genuinely look-up to the aristocracy, still more so to
imagine that the proletariat, which in some countries have wrenched political
power from the bourgeoisie, genuinely look-up to the bourgeois class. History does not confirm this supposition,
even if, in open-society countries like
232. Yet so, too, does the rudiments of a future
proletarian society exist alongside the established order, and it is altogether
doubtful that those who are actively committed to this alternative society
actually look-up to the democratic representatives of the bourgeois class for
their leadership. On the contrary, they
look to leadership among themselves, which, in the event of their attaining to
power, would be as different from the bourgeois representatives ... as these
latter are from the aristocratic rulers of feudal antiquity, but just as much a
complete class as the nobility. For a
vertical hierarchy must also exist on the People's level of social evolution,
as between leaders and led, and this no less than on the preceding feudal and
parliamentary levels. Yet this would
still be classless compared with the class-bound tripartite open-society
distinctions between proton aristocracy, neutron bourgeoisie, and electron
proletariat. Classless to the extent
that everyone exists on an electron level, artificially and without wealth, be
they leaders, police, or led; the political antithesis to the no-less, from
this vertical standpoint, classless societies of feudal antiquity between
rulers, soldiery, and ruled, all of whom existed on the proton level within an
alpha-stemming absolutism. And, no less
certainly, most latter-day People's leaders regard themselves as belonging to a
sort of elite class in relation to the proletarian masses, with the police
assuming a kind of middle-ground status in between the two electron
extremes. But if, formerly, the
aristocratic elites ruled and therefore exploited the toiling peasant masses,
then the revolutionary People's elites lead and therefore serve the proletarian
masses, which is an important distinction!
In this respect, the revolutionary elites are closer to the masses than
(were) the traditional elites; for society assumes a more homogeneous
constitution the closer it approximates to the omega absolutism of the Holy
Spirit - in marked contrast to the heterogeneous distinctions characterizing
open societies.
233. If Western civilization began in an idealistic
absolutism favouring the aristocracy, there is reason to believe that it has
effectively ended in a materialistic absolutism favouring the proletariat,
having passed through a realistic relativity between the bourgeoisie of one
shade or another, not to mention bourgeoisie and workers, regarding 'workers'
as pertinent to this relativity rather than independent of it and therefore
properly proletarian. In which case, we
could regard the greater part of, in particular,
234. In contrast to the above, one could cite the
alpha civilizations of pagan antiquity, including the Graeco-Roman, ancient
Chinese, Indian, Persian, Hebrew, Egyptian, Irish, and so on, as existing on
the pantheistic and Creator-bound level of proton particles. Antithetical to those numerous pagan
civilizations - reflecting the fragmentation of primitive evolution - we can
project the envisaged transcendental civilization of the Centrist federation
which, in its electron wavicles, would signify the inception and development of
a new 'Culture' ... far superior to the Catholic 'Culture' of medieval Europe,
and inevitably opposed to the continuation of Western civilization on
materialistic terms. It is this omega
civilization, with its superidealism, which will eventually challenge the West
for global hegemony, seeking to replace Socialist materialism with Centrist
idealism, in order that the world may be brought to an omega culmination in the
ultimate 'Culture', a 'Superculture' that should lead, in due course, to the
post-Human Millennium (of the Superbeings and Supra-beings), and thus to the
supersession of all human limitations in the name of divine transcendence - a
process of spiritual evolution destined to culminate in the electron-electron
attractions of the heavenly Beyond. If
the alpha civilizations are best described as Cultural civilizations, then this
omega civilization could be described as a civilized Culture, beyond and above
all 'Culture/Civilization' dichotomies, and superior to any barbarous civilization
of a materialistic absolutism.
235. If Western civilization began in idealism,
proceeded to realism, and ended in materialism, then we have a Catholic,
Protestant/Liberal, and Socialist progression which stretches from subdivine
proton wavicles to superdiabolic electron particles via an atomic compromise in
worldly realism, a tripartite progression which broadly accords, it seems to
me, with Latin, Teutonic, and Slavic racial distinctions, as though in
confirmation of an inherent idealism in the first, a realism in the second, and
a materialism in the third. The original
schism in Christianity between Roman Catholicism in the West and Eastern
Orthodoxy in the East largely followed a Latin/Slav dichotomy indicative of a
split between idealism and materialism, salvation and damnation, the true
Christ of love and the false Christ of hate, hope and despair, redemption and
judgement, and we may believe that this fundamental split has continued on a
largely ethnic basis right down to the present day, not only in the obvious
context of religion but, more significantly from the contemporary viewpoint, in
the politically extreme contexts of Fascism and Communism, with the Latins
traditionally more susceptible to the former (Italy being the home of Fascism)
and the Slavs mostly living, in one degree or another, under the latter. Yet, in between, the Protestant/Liberal
middle ground of Teutonic realism, as especially applying to Germany, England,
Sweden, Holland, Norway, Denmark, and the USA, which is quintessentially
symptomatic of the world, conceived from a theological angle, and thus of
capitalist imperialism.
236. Father - Virgin Mary; Christ; Second Coming -
Holy Ghost. Greater subgod - lesser
subgod(dess); God; lesser supergod - greater supergod. Major evil deity - minor evil deity; atomic
deity; minor good deity - major good deity.
In contrast to Satan - the Anti-Father (Henry VIII?); the Anti-Virgin
(Cromwell?); the Anti-Christ (Marx?) - the Anti-Spirit (Lenin?). Greater subdevil - lesser subdevil; Devil;
lesser superdevil - greater superdevil.
Major evil devil - minor evil devil; atomic devil; minor good devil -
major good devil. Better the good devil
of superdiabolic electron particles than the evil god of subdivine proton
wavicles. But better still the good god
of superdivine electron wavicles. Here
we are alluding to the Holy Ghost and, to a lesser extent, its messianic
advocate rather than to the Antichrist.
We are alluding to Social Transcendentalism at the expense of
Transcendental Socialism.
237. Helicopters are to the air what underground
trains are to the land and submarines to the sea: namely, Marxist materialist
equivalents vis-à-vis realistic and idealistic types of transportation. Certainly they are the lowest form of air
transportation, as well as the most low-flying.
238. Better to nod one's head in rhythm to
contemporary 'funky' music than to tap one's foot; the most idealistic people
nod their heads, while the least idealistic or, rather, most materialistic ones
tap their feet and/or shake their heads.
Vertical and horizontal, masculine and feminine, head and feet, idealism
and materialism. Combinations of nodding
and shaking probably make, provided the nodding is preponderant, for a Social
Transcendentalist equivalent, whereas - the converse possibility not excepted -
combinations of shaking (a bogus theocratic equivalent?) and tapping make for a
Transcendental Socialist equivalent.
Only to nod or, alternatively, tap one's foot and/or stomp would suggest
a Fascist/Communist dichotomy of idealistic and materialistic extremes
respectively, whereas the alternative combinations mentioned above make for the
more realistic latter-day relativistic compromises, with idealism preponderant
in the one and materialism predominating in the other - God and Devil on the
electron-biased levels of wavicle superconscious and particle new-brain
polarity, while superphysical realism comes somewhere in-between. For 'freak dancing', or the shaking of one's
entire body to the 'funky' rhythms of popular music, is a superworldly
alternative to nodding and tapping extremes, a supernatural, or absolutist,
form of body dancing with more moderate ideological implications.
239. Philosophy - literature - poetry: Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost of a Literary Trinity. In
a transcendentally closed society, only poetry would prevail, though it would
have to be on the superpoetic level, and thus beyond any atomic relativity.
240. The further narrative literature, or
literature-proper, evolves within an open-society atomic context, the more
absolute it becomes, whether on the idealistic plane of a supernovel or,
alternatively, on the materialistic plane of an antinovel. Essence and appearance, dialogue and
description, speculation and action.
Combine these polarities on a relatively cohesive basis and you are back
in the realistic tradition. Alternate
between one polarity and another on a more absolutely antithetical basis and
you are extending that middle-ground and quintessentially narrative tradition
into an extremist age on super-realistic literary terms - the literary
equivalent of Liberal Democracy.
241. Unlike a petty-bourgeois revolutionary, who
hives off into one extreme or another, a bourgeois revolutionary wishes to
retain relativity, principally by alternating between one absolutist extreme
and another, now right/now left, now idealistic/now materialistic, never either
for very long. The primary, cohesive
realism of the conventional bourgeois is replaced by the antithetical,
oscillatory 'realism' of the radical bourgeois, and the result is Liberal
Democracy - a superworldly rather than simply worldly politics.
242. There are examples of Surrealism in painterly
art which give one the impression that the artist has endeavoured, in
juxtaposing diverse and seemingly unconnected images, to combine a number of
paintings in one work and thus create a sort of collective or omega
painting. Generally speaking, Surrealism
is to art what Liberal Democracy is to politics: the extension of a realistic,
representational tradition into quasi-absolutist and super-realistic
juxtapositions suggestive of a schizophrenic oscillation between one extreme
and another, with no apparent connection between them. Viewed in the round, Surrealism is both
representational and abstract at the same time, its peculiar abstraction
deriving from the uncanny juxtaposition of seemingly unconnected images.
243. To live only for essences, to become pure in
absolute fidelity to transcendental idealism: the ultimate literature of
superliterary truths. One character (the
author); one concern (the development of truth); one voice (the expounding of
truth). A fascistic avant-garde
antithetical to communistic Socialist Realism, God and Devil on the People's
democratic levels of superidealism and supermaterialism either side of
superworldly realism (the popular novel).
Land-speed rocket cars and racing cars flanking hot-rods. All contradictions resolved in the chimerical
struggle towards unified knowledge within an ideologically integrated
personality.
244. Men of genius tend to be either 'minds' or
'brains' rather than 'heads' (a combination of the two). Whether one is a mind or a brain will depend
on whether one has an idealistic or a materialistic commitment to life. Artists and priests tend to be in the first
category, scientists and politicians in the second - wavicle and particle
dichotomies symptomatic of divine and diabolic extremes. The 'great mind' is usually theoretical, the
'great brain' usually practical. Creator
and inventor, enlightener and governor.
245. Film and photography are 'in focus' when in
colour; then they are on a similar level of evolution and may be said to have
attained to maturity. Music draws into
line with colour film and/or photography when electric and therefore of a
popular or People's cast. Prior to its
becoming electric, such music is also in its formative stage, short of a
transcendent maturity and thus pre-pubic, so to speak. Acoustic or trad jazz is no more a
specifically bourgeois art form because of its acoustic nature than
black-and-white film or photography is specifically bourgeois on that
account. Like them, jazz is an
inherently People's medium of cultural expression, and whilst it may appear to
be going through a bourgeois phase when acoustic, it is really on a
comparatively primitive or early level of its inherently proletarian
status. Consequently trad jazz isn't
only not bourgeois because of its acoustic nature; it isn't a fully mature or
perfect expression of jazz but, on the contrary, a merely formative one. Jazz only comes into its own and attains to
true adulthood on an electric basis, which is commensurate with modern jazz. Contemporary forms of acoustic jazz, no matter
how sophisticated, are an expression and extension of trad jazz into the
modern, or electronic, age. Yet what
applies to jazz applies no less to film and photography, where colour is the
determining factor in the comparative status of each supernatural medium, the
lack of it (as in black-and-white film) simply indicative of a traditional, or
'juvenile', status, equivalent to pre-pubic innocence.
246. If the roots of jazz were in the blues - a
more-or-less realistic music between rhythm and pitch, harmony and melody,
vocals and instrumentals, then so were the roots of rock which, contrary to
jazz, hived off into a predominantly rhythmic and therefore materialistic
integrity antithetical to the pitch-oriented improvisational idealism of jazz. Rock is not simply decadent jazz (though
there is a sense in which that may apply); it is a completely alternative
People's music which indicates a left-wing status commensurate with proletarian
materialism, neither more nor less contemporary than modern jazz, and perfectly
capable of achieving its own decadence in punk.
But rock and jazz can draw closer together while retaining their
respective rhythmic and pitch-oriented biases, and in doing so we get
jazz-rock, or jazzed rock, and rock-jazz, or rocked jazz, which I relate,
amongst other things, to streamlined motorbikes and to stripped-down scooters
respectively - those latter-day Transcendental Socialist and Social
Transcendentalist radical modes of People's private road transportation. It is almost as though what Jung wrote about
men becoming more feminine and women more masculine, as they grow older, was
borne out, in musical terms, by the jazz-rock and rock-jazz compromises
mentioned above - ample testimony to a wise old age!
247. Video is to film what rock is to jazz: a later
and somewhat more materialistic left-wing form of visual entertainment, private
rather than public, single instead of double.
And the same may be said of instamatics in relation to conventional
cameras, the wavicle continuity of film-rolls negated in the particle
distinctness of each individual print-out, relativity giving way to the
absolute.
248. If the blues is at the roots of both jazz and
rock, a sort of middle ground in between pitch-oriented and rhythmic extremes,
then we may account it a relatively Liberal or worldly status, in contrast to
the fascistic and communistic equivalents ... of the more radical
alternatives. But just as we argued that
acoustic jazz was formative in relation to modern jazz, so it can be argued of
the blues that it only comes into full maturity on an electric basis, with
superliberal or superworldly implications, whether it remains strictly true to
itself or veers towards either jazz or rock, as much contemporary 'superblues'
effectively does, going beyond the blues into either jazz-blues or rock-blues
combinations. Yet such hybrid blues
remains more or less a middle-ground form of electric serious music, like most
forms of electric popular music - soul, pop, and funk not excepted. On the one hand, the serious or heavy
electric music of 'freaks', whether Extreme Right, Centre, or Extreme Left, and
on the other hand the popular, or light, electric music of 'straights' (or just
plain folks), whether Centre-Right, Centre, or Centre-Left. The antithetical equivalents of proton 'nobs'
and 'plebs' on contemporary electronic, or People's, levels.
249. Doubtless neutron, or bourgeois, music is
divisible on a similar tripartite basis into centrist, right-wing, and
left-wing tendencies, and I fancy that while the symphony pertains to the
centrist tendency, ballet and/or operatic music pertain to the left wing, while
the concerto, with its pitch-oriented and quasi-improvisational bias, pertains
to the right wing, being, in effect, the bourgeois equivalent of jazz. Of course, there is also what might be
described as bourgeois popular music, which takes the form of light orchestral
works, operettas, songs, certain solo works for piano, guitar, etc., and we
need not doubt that 'freaks' also have music to relax to rather than 'groove
to' or get enraptured about - popular forms of rock (soft rock), jazz (funk
jazz), and blues (rhythm 'n' blues), which are yet distinct from the run of
popular music, doubtless to the degree that popular bourgeois music was (and
continues to be) distinct from the folk music of the broad, uneducated masses
within a bourgeois age or society. The
evolutionary progression from folk music to pop music, by the broad masses of
the People, is paralleled by the progression from classical music to
contemporary music of the People's elites, or 'freaks', who respond to
electronic criteria on different and usually more sophisticated terms - some
preferring, in their fascistic idealism, electron-wavicle pitch, others, in
their communistic materialism, electron-particle rhythm, yet others, more
realistic and possibly ecology-minded, seeking some kind of balanced compromise
between the two.
250. Hitherto I have written of a distinction
between People's theocratic and democratic levels of ideological and/or
cultural commitment, and whilst, in conjunction with jazz and rock, blues music
would appear to accord with the former, if on middle-ground and therefore
superworldly terms, it seems feasible to attribute a parallel superworldly, or
super-realistic, status to rock classical in respect of the latter which,
stemming from orchestral and acoustic traditions, is closer in constitution to
classical music generally, even on the extremist levels of right-wing
avant-gardism and left-wing socialist realism.
Thus rock classical, deriving its inspiration from classical precedent,
would be to those more radical forms of People's democratic music what blues is
to the more radical, or theocratic, forms - namely a superworldly or, to borrow
Yeatsian terminology, 'primary' musical form sandwiched in-between the
'antithetical' extremes of superidealistic and supermaterialistic musical
forms, with, in all probability, a radically Liberal Democratic political
connotation vis-à-vis Nazi and Marxist alternatives.
