CONFESSIONS OF AN ATHEIST

I do not believe in the existence of God. The reason ... is that I have come to realize that the traditional concepts of God are both inadequate and misguided. They either confound God with the Devil or mistake that tiny quota of spirit we each possesses for God. In the first case, the Father is taken for God and regarded as the Supreme Being! In the second case that which is potentially God is taken for God, so that God is considered immanent. But the fact of the matter is that God is neither diabolic nor immanent but divine, and has yet to be brought about. Yes, that is the blunt fact of the matter, and that is why I am an atheist. For I have come to realize that human evolution is essentially a journey to God, a journey away from the Devil. It is a journey, in other words, from the Diabolic Alpha to the Divine Omega, from the Creator to the Ultimate Creation, from the most agonized doing to the most blissful being.

The Devil exists, then? Yes, most certainly! The Devil exists as the most agonized doing ... in the form of the millions of stars which burn ferociously throughout the Cosmos. The Devil is manifested in the stars, and one might say of our star, the sun, that it is a component of the overall cosmic Devil, not the Devil itself, but a particular manifestation of the Diabolic. For the Diabolic is that which appertains to the Devil and this is not only the most agonized doing, but the greatest separateness, the most intense divergence as well. The Devil, clearly, is divided, and thus the very antithesis of God, Who is unity. The Devil is manifold, the Supreme Being one. Between the Devil and God man weaves his course, a victim of the former, an aspirant towards the latter. On his shoulders rests the responsibility of creating the Supreme Being, of bringing God to fruition in the Universe, and thus of establishing ultimate reality. For beyond the Supreme Being, as beyond a supreme level of being, there can be no further development, since evolution will have attained to its climax in Eternity. One by one the stars will disintegrate; the Devil, so to speak, will reach the end of its negative term and, in collapsing into nothingness, leave the Universe to its final perfection in God. All higher human endeavour tends towards the consummation of evolution; for only in that consummation will humanity have attained to its goal in the transcendental Beyond.

Yes, the transcendental Beyond, not 'heaven on earth' but an area in space towards which pure spirit will gravitate at the climax of our evolution. Unfortunately the earth is always too close to the sun, that component of the Devil, to be in a position to enable a truly heavenly context to develop. The influence of the Diabolic, with its raging negativity, is never very far away. The logic of transcendence, however, is to get as far away from stars and their planetary offspring as possible, in order not to be victimized by their diabolical nature. Eventually, they will die out, leaving the Universe to God. But, before that happens, the Divine will need to find the best possible area in space available to it. Supreme Being will have plenty of room in which to be. And not only plenty of room but plenty of time - Eternity. For being, by its very essence, is self-perpetuating; doing, by contrast, self-destructive. Doing expends itself in hate, being sustains itself on love. The sun loses millions of tons of its mass every second, expending its energy in the conversion of hydrogen into helium through the so-called proton-proton reaction. Supreme Being, on the other hand, would not only sustain itself on the bliss of transcendent spirit, but gradually expand in the process, so that it would eventually be far larger than the largest stars currently in existence. The 'Kingdom of Heaven' would be immense!

Christ taught that the 'Kingdom of Heaven' lay within, that God could be found and experienced within the self. I contend that, while this is provisionally true, ultimately the 'Kingdom of Heaven' will only be found beyond, in space. God and the transcendental Beyond are, of course, one and the same thing; for Heaven is the Supreme Being, or supreme level of being. The condition of ultimate reality is that of the transcendental Beyond. The two should never be separated. But neither should they or, rather, the 'Kingdom of Heaven' be confounded with or reduced to what lies within the self, as in Christ's teaching. The spirit which each of us possesses is only potentially God, only potentially the 'Kingdom of Heaven', not that kingdom itself, which would undoubtedly be many times more blissful. The spirit is linked to and dependent on the body, the flesh. It is a function of the new brain and therefore not transcendent. For only transcendent spirit, or spirit completely independent of the body, is truly compatible with the Divine and thus worthy of the appellation 'holy'. Human spirit, alas, is tied to the brain and therefore not susceptible to being identified with God. It is this realization which has led to my endorsing atheism, this coupled to an unwillingness to confound the Supreme Being, which has yet to be brought about, with the Creator, which exists as the Diabolic Alpha and may be identified, in Christian terminology, with the Father. This terminology isn't, however, one to which I subscribe; for it leads to too much unconscious devil-worship and results in people upholding belief in God when, unknowingly, they are effectively referring to the Devil. If they could only be made to see that the Creator and the Devil are fundamentally identical, then perhaps their willingness to identify the Supreme Being with the creator-esque Father would be checked, and they would come to realize that, while the Devil most certainly exists, the Supreme Being has still to be created. Then they, too, would be atheist instead of foolishly theist. They would see that evolution is a journey from the Creator, or stars, to the Ultimate Creation, or pure spirit, and would thereupon be less inclined to worship the former and correspondingly more inclined to get down to the important task of creating the latter. For the sooner we officially cease worshipping the fundamental Behind and dedicate ourselves to cultivating spirit, the sooner we shall attain to the transcendental Beyond!

I, however, do not worship the fundamental Behind, which is to say, the diabolical creative-and-sustaining force. Neither do I take much interest in Jesus Christ, who was basically a worshipper of the fundamental Behind, as his famous last words: 'Father, Father, why hast Thou forsaken me?' would seem to attest, his 'father' being effectively Jehovah-esque in character. Christ stands between the Father and the Holy Ghost, between the Diabolic and the Divine. Let not-one be deceived into imagining that this trinity of gods is wholly blessed! Only the Holy Ghost, as transcendent spirit, would be truly blessed and therefore heavenly. As the creative and sustaining force, the Father is decidedly cursed, as befitting the agonized nature of Hell. For the Devil and Hell are, of course, roughly synonymous. The stars in all their raging fury, their infernal heat, are distinctly cursed, and so one should never apply the word blessed to the Father, under which term the stars are here subsumed. And as for Jesus Christ who, as man, comes in-between the two absolutes - the lesser absolute of existing evil and the greater absolute of pure good which has yet to be created - one is obliged to confess that he is neither cursed nor blessed but, like all men to whom dualistic criteria can be applied, a combination of both, as his dual role of banisher and redeemer at the Last Judgement sufficiently-well demonstrates. He is man, and therefore a combination of evil and good, flesh and spirit, illusion and truth, etc., etc. But he isn't late man, or man biased on the side of good, spirit, truth, etc., and neither is he early man, or man dominated by evil, flesh, illusion, etc. On the contrary, Christ is decidedly middle man, or man balanced, in accordance with the dictates of a midway point in evolution, between the two opposites in what amounts to a dualistic compromise. And like all middle men, like all men who live and die while human evolution is in this dualistic phase of its unfolding, which may be likened to Purgatory, he didn't know the literal nature of the twin extremes of Hell and Heaven, but could only approximate to a viewpoint compatible with his dualistic essence, to a viewpoint necessarily watered-down by dualistic compromise. Thus he spoke of the Father without understanding exactly what the Father was, and likewise spoke of the 'Kingdom of Heaven' as though it were solely within the self rather than beyond the self. He was man, but he served as God to the Christians, to those who elected to follow him. To this day true Christians are obliged to uphold Christ as their God; for evolution demands that such an anthropomorphic position be maintained while man is balanced between the flesh and the spirit in a dualistic compromise.

However, there comes a time when, thanks in large measure to man's changing environments, to his growing urban severance from nature, such a balance no longer obtains for a majority of people, and the religious sense appropriate to it consequently goes into decline. The modern age is such a time, and this is why Christ is no longer relevant. We are if not already in, then almost certainly on the threshold of a higher age, an age when post-dualistic criteria prevail over dualism, and so we should increasingly turn towards the cultivation of spirit through meditation, rather than continue to acknowledge or beseech Christ through prayer. The fact that this is already happening in the West is generally well-known. But it isn't yet happening officially, which is why the Church still exists. And what the Church stands for, i.e. the worship of Christ, is incompatible with the direct cultivation of spirit!

Regarded from an objective post-worldly standpoint, Christ is clearly not God. He is simply the God of Christians, a perfectly legitimate God for a given period of time, commensurate with purgatorial dualism, but destined to be superseded once that period has elapsed, as I believe it now has. This is another confession of the atheist who, as writer of this essay, wishes to see the Church removed. He cannot bring himself to worship Christ, still less the Father, which he equates with the Devil purely and simply. Rather, he looks forward to a time when every effort will be made to create the Supreme Being, when men, whilst acknowledging the existence of the Diabolic (though not assuredly through worship), will be dedicated to the furtherance of spirit in the world through the expansion of superconscious mind.

At present, however, such a fortunate time is still some way off; for we live in a transitional age from the dualistic to the transcendental, and therefore aren't in a position to cultivate spirit extensively. For the extensive cultivation of spirit demands that we be far more civilized than at present, which is to say, recipients of a much greater degree of artificiality than is currently the case. True, most of us live in the city and have effectively left nature behind. But we haven't, as yet, evolved to a point of replacing the natural body with an artificial one which would act as a support for and sustainer of the brain, and so enable us to indulge in a much more exclusive cultivation of spirit than would otherwise be possible. Unfortunately we are still victims of our stomachs, bowels, reproductive organs, senses, etc., and are consequently at the mercy of nature to an extent which renders an extensive and/or intensive cultivation of spirit all but impossible. We may have spiritual ambitions, be inclined to read regularly and spend some time in meditation every day. But when one is obliged to eat, drink, defecate, urinate, sleep, walk, etc., as human beings invariably are in greater or lesser degrees, then it stands to reason that those ambitions are either unlikely to be realized or, if partly realized, won't extend very far. It should be obvious, I mean, that one can't fully serve two masters at once, and that one's sensual obligations inevitably detract from such spiritual aspirations as one may be committed to, making it impossible to cultivate a transcendental potential.

Of course Asians, and Hindus in particular, have long been practitioners of yoga and, hence, more given to directly cultivating spirit than Europeans, whose Christian worship and acts of charity, etc., have traditionally had the upper-hand over contemplation and beingfulness. Yet, despite their spiritual superiority, the practitioners of yoga have failed to attain to the transcendental Beyond, and for the very simple reason that they haven't been the fortunate recipients of a technology which would make transcendence possible. In short, they haven't sacrificed the natural body to an artificial one. They have striven, on the contrary, to attain to salvation solely on the basis of their commitment to yoga, to meditation and its attendant relatively superficial physical sacrifices. Admittedly, they haven't worshipped nature, at least not as a rule. But, in turning towards the transcendental Beyond, they have quite often become the victims of nature through either starvation or disease, or a lethal combination of both. And where this misfortune has been avoided through a degree of compromise with nature, with the relatively good fortune, it may be, of having been born into a higher caste, they haven't greatly profited from the application of water enemas or clean towels down their throats, by attempts, in other words, to purify the body. For even after the most rigorous application of purificatory procedures, the body still remains an obstacle to spiritual transcendence simply by its continued existence as a sensual phenomenon. There is still too much flesh, too much subconscious influence to contend with, making the degree of one's spiritual cultivation comparatively limited in scope. Alas, even with the best will in the world, even with a thin half-starved body which has received thorough purificatory attention, one is still incapable of attaining to the transcendental Beyond! For let there be no doubt on this point; unless the natural body has been superseded by an artificial support-and-sustain apparatus for the brain, there isn't the slightest chance of one's being in a position whereby a truly transcendental potential can be cultivated. So long as one has natural, sensual needs to attend to, Heaven, alas, will remain no more than a pipe-dream, a faint possibility. To approximate to the transcendental Beyond is to live continuously and permanently in a context akin to it, where sensual indulgences are entirely excluded. It is also to live at the furthest possible environmental remove from nature, from the sensuous influence of the plant world, which is something that even the Buddha didn't do and, at that distant and more naturalistic epoch in time, wasn't really in a position to do, cities not having developed to any significantly artificial extent.

Clearly, then, meditation by itself isn't enough! We must bring, in the course of time, the maximum of technology to bear on it or, rather, on those who practise it, so that, in a very literal sense, the East can meet the West and both become fused into a single civilization. Of course, to some extent this is already happening, albeit on a comparatively rudimentary basis at present. Centuries will have to pass before humanity can be expected to attain to its collective goal in spiritual transcendence. Heaven is still a condition of the future, a sphere of being signifying the most artificial and supernatural existence conceivable. We are still relatively naturalistic.

But the Supreme Being is in our sights, so to speak, and now we should see more clearly than ever before the direction we must take in order to become it. We should be able to see through the religious illusions and limitations of the past, inevitable as they were for their time, and advance towards our goal with fresh determination. Under the supervision of socialism, technology will take us to a stage of evolution whereby meditation will become a truly viable means of attaining to the transcendental Beyond. But it won't be the only means; for, bearing in mind the progress of the artificial element in life commensurate with civilized evolution, the use of synthetic hallucinogens like LSD will doubtless play a part in facilitating upward self-transcendence and, accordingly, in opening the mind to higher visionary experience. How great a part the introduction of synthetic hallucinogens will play, in this respect, remains to be seen. But if such experiments as have already been made with LSD are anything to judge by, then it is more than probable that drugs of this type will play a highly significant role in the advancement of spiritual consciousness. For by their very artificial essence such synthetics result in upward self-transcendence, and may therefore be regarded as a good, whereas natural drugs, from tea and tobacco to opium and heroin, result in varying degrees of downward self-transcendence, and are comparatively evil. The present age has by no means escaped the evils of natural drugs, of which addiction is the chief, but it is at least to some extent discouraging their use. The future will doubtless discourage them far more thoroughly and efficiently, with a compensatory encouragement, however, of artificial drugs. How long it will be before mankind outgrows drugs altogether also remains to be seen. Yet I am disposed to the belief that the highest civilization will have developed beyond recourse to even the most artificial drugs, having advanced to a stage where the cultivation of spirit is so extensive as not to require any artificial stimulation. And this could well be because the old brain, in which reposes the subconscious part of the psyche, had 'gone the way' of the natural body and thereby left humanity free of its sensuous influence. Elevated to the status of new-brain collectivizations, humanity or, rather, its godlike successors would be in the most advantageous position to achieve ultimate transcendence, having acquired a gradual acclimatization to a consciousness predominantly composed of pure spirit. All that would thereafter remain to be done would be for these highly-charged spiritual minds to break away from the new brain and soar heavenwards to their ultimate destination in undifferentiated spirit. At that point in time evolution would have reached its zenith, the earth being left to the now-empty artificial supports which had sustained the highest civilization.

We, however, are a long way from that hypothetical civilization, since recipients of so much sensuality. For all our boasts of progress, we are relatively primitive and will doubtless remain so for some time to come. We haven't yet earned the right to an exclusive spirituality, but must work for technological and social progress in the world at large. Naturally, we can be proud of what we have achieved to-date. Yet we mustn't allow such achievements to make us complacent or distract us from the greater things which have still to be achieved. For the world is ever a place where improvements can be made, if we are to attain to our goal in spiritual perfection. The world is simply a stepping-stone to something higher, not a place to be worshipped in and for itself! Non-attachment to the world is now, as before, the key to salvation in the transcendental Beyond. But it should not be a non-attachment that leads to starvation or disease, to the triumph of the natural world over the spirit, which we cultivate at this juncture in time, as too many people have been traditionally exposed to doing in the East. We must come to accept that a true, higher non-attachment has to be earned through civilized progress, and that it is therefore in our best interests to attend to the affairs of the world which make for social progress, not to shirk them as though they constituted an impediment to salvation.