254. If we do not literally see the world as it is,
that is only because the mind superimposes a layer of psychic conditioning upon
what we do see, so that it is intelligible in the context of prior
understanding. I see a dictionary on my
table because I know, from experience, what a dictionary is and where it
stands, practically speaking, in relation to the table. Were I to see it purely, without prior
conditioning, I wouldn't know what to make of it, any more than a cat or a dog
would know what to make of something of which it had no prior
understanding. Seeing objects within the
world purely, that is to say, without reference to prior knowledge of what they
are, would be akin to how an animal generally sees things, would in fact be to
lose one's mind and thus be baffled or even horrified by what one saw, simply
because one had no idea of its meaning or purpose. Now if an animal can live with such a
meaningless state-of-affairs, that is only because it
is relatively unintelligent and not unduly curious about man-made objects. For us, on the other hand, pure seeing is,
short of madness, virtually impossible because we have too much mind and could
not live in the world without projecting onto what we see our knowledge of
it. Certainly, knowledge does not come
to us from objects, but is applied by us to the objects which constitute our
daily world. My pen is only a 'pen'
because I know what a pen is and recognize what I am holding in my hand as such. The subject conditions the object, not vice
versa.
255. Everything that is alpha stemming and natural
is comparatively easy; it is the artificial and omega-oriented tendencies which
require some effort, an effort which we define in terms of civilization, with
its rules of conduct. Thus it is easy to
hate; any fool can hate because hate is an alpha-stemming tendency. But to love takes culture and civilization,
because love is an omega-oriented tendency which is more the product of
evolutionary effort than of natural disposition. It is harder to 'turn the other cheek' than
to strike back, and yet how superior is the person who can do that, in relation
to the one who behaves in a natural alpha-stemming, and hence heathen, way!
256. The old division,
well-known to philosophy, between the deniers of life and the affirmers of life
should be settled, once and for all, on the basis of an
alpha-stemming/omega-oriented dichotomy.
For denial, being negative, is alpha stemming and thus of a proton bias,
whereas affirmation, being positive, is omega orientated and thus of an
electron bias. The alpha-stemming person
is therefore as likely to deny life, whether in the philosophic spirit of Schopenhaurian resignation or in some other cruder way, as
the omega-oriented person to affirm it, whether in the philosophic spirit of a Nietzschean amor fati
or in some other cruder way.
There can be no question, to judge from a transvaluated
standpoint, of life affirmation being folly or immoral or in some way contrary to
spiritual wellbeing, although there are certainly different ways of affirming
it, not all of which would be guaranteed to appeal to an enlightened
person! In fact, the more enlightened
the person, the less likelihood there is of his affirming life in terms, say,
of 'worldly' pleasure or 'purgatorial' pride or even of 'diabolic' love, since
he will prefer the idealistic option of 'divine' joy, achieved or furthered
through the agency of truth.
257. For here, as elsewhere, there are four main spectra
of life affirmation, corresponding to the elements and stretching from realism
at the bottom to idealism at the top (with materialism and naturalism lying
in-between), and whether one primarily affirms the lowest or the highest or,
indeed, either of the intermediate spectra, will depend, to a significant
extent, upon the type of person one is and the nature of the age or society in
which one happens to live. Certainly the
twentieth century was more an age, particularly in the West, of life affirmation
through pleasure and pride than through love or joy; although these higher
modes of its affirmation were nevertheless endorsed by a more enlightened
minority in the face of majority pressures, even if, in the circumstances,
their endorsement necessarily fell short of maximum realization, such as could
only materialize in a higher and better age - one more communist than
liberal. Yet not to affirm life in this
day and age would be a moral failing; though one could be forgiven for choosing
to deny the baser manifestations of life affirmation in favour of a superior,
if currently untypical, manifestation of its affirmation, even at the risk of
being misunderstood by or ostracized from a society largely dedicated, when not
denying life through overwork, to the pursuit of worldly pleasures.
258. One such worldly pleasure is undoubtedly sex,
and if one chooses, in one's wisdom, to deny sex a central or important role in
one's life it is probably because one prefers to affirm some higher ideal than
pleasure rather than because one is a denier of life as such and thus somewhat
morally disreputable, i.e. more alpha stemming than omega orientated, and
therefore more negative (of a proton bias) than positive (of an electron
bias). I prefer, at any rate, to regard myself
as the affirmer of a higher ideal than pleasure, which doubtless owes not a
little to the fact that I am more of a truthful man, or man of the truth, than
a good man, or man of the good act, on account of my being less a body than a
head. Certainly I am not of the world,
in the sense of being a bodily pleasure-seeking insider in such a typically
worldly country as Britain, but, like Christ, am more a man of Heaven or God
beyond and above the world, who knows that before Heaven can become a fact of the
Beyond it must first become a fact of life on earth, and thus eventually
supersede or eclipse the world, i.e. the bodily way of life.
259. Yet Heaven is quite a long way from coming to
earth at present, which is why people like me, who prefer joy to pleasure, and
therefore truth to goodness, can only be outsiders in the kind of society they
happen to inhabit - secret or open opponents of worldly life as they find it
all around them. For such a society puts
a premium on pleasure, which, like it or not, is the lowest form of life
affirmation, a form incapable of expansion towards the Infinite by dint of its
bodily limitations and/or essence. Take
sexual pleasure, for instance. However a
man may achieve this - and masturbation is avowedly no less a method than
copulation - the end result is equally finite; the pleasure is transitory and
brings in its train hours if not days of pain - the pain, more usually, of sore
pudenda or, speaking more bluntly, achy balls.
Ejaculation engenders a kind of uncomfortable hotness in the testicles
which is the physical price one pays for the metaphysical pleasure of
ejaculating, and, on balance, it will be found that the ratio of pleasure to
pain is not such as to warrant too regular a recourse to ejaculation since, quite
apart from the obvious physical impossibility of ejaculating too frequently,
the degree of pleasure is comparatively less than the amount of pain,
discomfort, etc., resulting from the act.
Now this is primarily because the atomicity of the testicles, as of the
flesh generally, is constituted in such a way that the capacity for pain will
always be greater than the capacity for pleasure since, in its alpha-stemming
(naturalistic) constitution, such an atomicity will be more biased towards
protons than electrons and thus disposed to the negative to a greater extent
than to the positive, i.e. to pain to a greater extent than to pleasure, which,
by contrast, requires an electron preponderance. Such a preponderance, it need hardly be said,
can only be achieved in the brain, particularly the new brain, and more in
consequence of psychic conditioning than from any innate disposition of
electrons over protons, so that creating a capacity for greater pleasure or,
rather, joy ... is largely an individual matter, dependent upon our ability to
develop and expand consciousness to greater heights as we evolve.
260. Thus whereas the atomicity of the body is
static, the atomicity of the brain can be modified and transmuted towards an
electron preponderance which, the more evolved the psyche, will permit of a
degree of positivity far in excess of the degree
accruing, as pleasure, to the body and, in this particular case, the pleasure
obtainable from ejaculation. Such
pleasure is finite, but the joy which can be achieved through careful mental
nurturing intimates of the Infinite - indeed, is a foretaste of the heavenly
condition, and one, moreover, which will not bring a greater degree of sadness
in its wake, since the capacity for negativity is less in the new brain than the
capacity for positivity on account of the reduced
proton content accruing to that brain and thus, by implication, to superconscious mind.
The old brain may not be so favourably disposed to a positive bias - and
rare indeed are dreams which, by dint of a strong positive content, make for
happiness - but the new brain is an entirely different proposition, and the
more we cultivate the superconscious at the expense
not only of the subconscious but of the body in general, the greater becomes
its capacity for joy. At the risk of
seeming too futuristic, it could be said that only when the new brain is
rendered physically independent of both the body and the old brain in what I
like to think of as the second phase of the post-Human Millennium will the
capacity for positivity be increased to a near
absolute point - one presaging transcendence and thus the attainment of pure
electron spirit to perfect bliss in the heavenly Beyond, where only
electron-electron attractions would
exist ... in blessed independence of proton sorrow for all Eternity.
261. Of course, all this takes us rather a long way
from the present, and thus from the discussion of relative positivities
we had embarked upon. But, relative
creatures though we are, we still aspire towards the absolute and thereby seek
salvation from the negative on a variety of levels, some of which, as already
remarked, are rather less satisfying than others on account of their dependence
on the flesh and its unchanging atomicity.
Certainly, Schopenhauer was right to belittle pleasure in relation to
pain, since pain is much stronger than pleasure, and we can even regress to a
negative absolute in the event of being burnt to death. Yet we would not be furthering evolutionary
progress and serving ourselves were we to draw the sort of pessimistic
conclusions from that fact which Schopenhauer, in his alpha-stemming bias, saw
fit to do, and thereby resigned ourselves to defeatism in the face of a
preponderating negativity. For the flesh
is not everything, and while we may still have a long way to go before we can
completely transcend it, the mind beckons us towards that joyful wisdom which
Nietzsche glimpsed in his moments of optimistic enlightenment, when light
banished darkness, and happiness came flooding through like an intimation of
eternal bliss. There is no higher
positive than the joyful positive, and one day all humanity will come to it as,
one by one, the lower positives are eclipsed, and all negativity is accordingly
banished.
262. The reader will note
that I made mention of joyful positive in relation to lower positives rather
than of joyful wisdom in relation to lower wisdoms, and this was because, while
joy is certainly a wisdom, indeed the highest wisdom, love and pride and less
wisdoms than follies, and pleasure is only a worldly wisdom. In fact, if we remember that wisdom can be
both negative and positive, not to mention folly as well, then we won't
hesitate to distinguish between the joyful wisdom of a divine omega orientation
in relation to the sorrowful wisdom of a divine alpha orientation, equating the
former with an electron-wavicle bias and the latter
with a proton-wavicle one, as befitting divine
idealism. In this respect, both
Nietzsche and Schopenhauer were wise philosophers - the only difference being
that whereas Schopenhauer was wise in a negative, life-denying way, Nietzsche's
wisdom (at least up until he went mad) took a positive, life-affirming stance,
so that whereas the former was alpha stemming, the latter was omega orientated.
263. Such a polar distinction as accrues to the
idealistic spectrum of heavenly wisdom will also accrue to each of the lower
spectra, from the naturalistic and materialistic to the realistic, except that
the distinction with regard to naturalism and materialism will be between
different kinds of folly, while the distinction with regard to realism will be
between two kinds of worldly wisdom, broadly definable in terms of stoicism and
hedonism respectively, as pertaining to pain at the negative pole and to
pleasure at the positive one. If the
idealistic spectrum affords us two kinds of pure wisdom on account of the wavicle absolutism which equally appertains to its proton
and electron poles, then the realistic spectrum presents us with two kinds of
impure, or worldly, wisdom on account of the atomic relativity accruing to the wavicle bias of both its proton-atomic and electron-atomic
poles, i.e. wavicle-biased proton-atomic relativity
in the case of the negative, or alpha-stemming, realistic pole; wavicle-biased electron-atomic relativity in the case of
the positive, or omega-oriented, realistic pole - the former connoting with
pain and the latter with pleasure. Thus
idealism and realism afford us the clash of two modes of wisdom, whether
negative or positive, rather than, say, of wisdom on the one hand (idealism)
and folly on the other (realism) - the wisdom, one might argue, of air and
earth respectively or, translated into political terms, of Ireland and Britain,
Catholicism and Liberalism. For wisdom
can only be deduced from a wavicle bias, such as both
idealism and realism have in common.
264. Where a particle bias is concerned, however, we
are in the realm of folly, whether in terms of the pure folly of a particle
absolutism, such as accrues to naturalism, or the impure, or purgatorial, folly
of a particle-biased atomic relativity, as in the case of materialism. Thus hate and love are antithetical
manifestations of pure folly, the former negative, as pertaining to a proton-particle absolutism, and the latter positive, as
pertaining to an electron-particle absolutism within the overall context of a
naturalistic (diabolic) spectrum.
Likewise, humiliation and pride are antithetical manifestations of
impure folly, the former negative, since accruing to a particle-biased
atomic-proton relativity, but the latter positive, since accruing to a
particle-biased atomic-electron relativity, each of which appertain, as alpha
and omega, to a materialistic spectrum.
Consequently naturalism and materialism afford us the clash of two modes
of folly, whether negative or positive, rather than, say, of wisdom on the one
hand and folly on the other, the folly, one could argue, of fire and water
respectively or, translated into contemporary political terms, the former
Soviet Union and the United States - the one state socialist and the other
corporate capitalist.
265. Now whereas pure folly is diabolic, whether on
negative (Satanic) or positive (Antichristic) terms,
impure folly is purgatorial, whether on negative or positive terms, and consequently
apt to be more intellectual than soulful.
By contrast, pure wisdom is divine and impure wisdom worldly, the one
flanking pure folly above and the other flanking impure folly beneath, as air
and earth may be said to flank fire and water respectively. Now whereas divine wisdom is spiritual,
worldly wisdom is wilful, using that term in the sense of focusing on bodily
will. Hence we should distinguish not
only between the worldly wisdom of the British in relation to the divine wisdom
of Catholic Ireland, but also between the lunar folly of the Americans in
relation to the diabolic folly of the Russians.
For neither can be described as wise societies, in view of their
materialistic and naturalistic bents. If
the Americans conquered the moon, it could well be the Russians who eventually
conquer the sun or, at any rate, the planet Venus. However that may be, the distinction between
wisdom and folly derives from a wavicle/particle
dichotomy and therefore is not polar, in the sense that alpha and omega are
polar. On the contrary, we can only
distinguish between negative wisdom and positive wisdom on a polar basis, as
regarding alpha and omega divine or worldly antitheses. And the same of course applies to folly,
albeit with regard to alpha and omega diabolic or purgatorial antitheses, as
described above.
266. When we come to the distinction between virtue
and vice, however, we can and must distinguish the one from the other on a
polar basis, because here we are dealing with terms which, having to do with
moral and immoral conduct, can be deduced from or equated with a
centrifugal/centripetal dichotomy, and this is the alpha and omega of each of
our elemental spectra. Consequently, no
less than there is such a thing as vicious pure wisdom in relation to virtuous
pure wisdom, or alpha sorrow in relation to omega joy, there is virtuous pure
folly in relation to vicious pure folly, or omega love in relation to alpha
hate - the first pair of opposites divine and the second pair diabolic, as
germane to idealism and naturalism respectively. Likewise, no less than there is such a thing
as vicious impure wisdom in relation to virtuous impure wisdom, or alpha pain
(stoicism) in relation to omega pleasure (hedonism), there is virtuous impure
folly in relation to vicious impure folly, or omega pride in relation to alpha
humiliation - the third pair of opposites worldly and the fourth pair
purgatorial, as germane to realism and materialism respectively. The vicious is alpha stemming and, hence,
centrifugal, whereas the virtuous is omega orientated and, hence,
centripetal. Sorrow and joy, hate and
love, humiliation and pride, pain and pleasure - each of these alpha and omega
options can be regarded in a vicious/virtuous light, although the degree to
which vice or virtue may be attributed to the relevant pole of any given pair
of opposites will depend on whether we are considering that pole in terms of
natural or artificial alternatives, i.e. whether we are dealing with, say,
alpha (natural spectrum) or alpha-in-the-omega (artificial spectrum), or,
conversely, with omega (artificial spectrum) or omega-in-the-alpha (natural
spectrum). For whereas the alpha will be
unequivocally centrifugal and thus absolutely vicious, alpha-in-the-omega will
be compromised by the centripetal bias of the omega or, more correctly, the
artificial spectrum in relation to omega, and therefore be only relatively
vicious. Likewise, whereas the omega
will be unequivocally centripetal and thus absolutely virtuous,
omega-in-the-alpha will be compromised by the centrifugal bias of the natural
spectrum in relation to alpha, and therefore be only relatively virtuous.
267. Thus if sorrow corresponds to the negative
(vicious) divine pole in contrast to joy at the positive (virtuous) divine
pole, then sorrow is immoral and joy moral.
But as immorality and morality can be absolute or relative, one would
have to distinguish between sorrow-for-others and sorrow-for-oneself
(self-pity) on the basis of an alpha/alpha-in-the-omega division, with the former
mode of sorrow being absolutely immoral because unequivocally centrifugal
('others' being an objective focus of one's sorrow), but the latter mode
relatively immoral because compromised by the centripetal bias of the
artificial spectrum in relation to omega ('oneself' being a subjective focus of
one's sorrow), and this would enable us to perceive not only the
natural/artificial distinction between sorrow-for-others and
sorrow-for-oneself, but, more importantly, that self-pity was a more evolved
and therefore less immoral form of negative divine emotion than pity directed
toward others. Conversely, we would have
to distinguish between joy-for-others and joy-for-oneself on the basis of an
omega-in-the-alpha/omega divide, with the former being relatively moral because
compromised by the centrifugal bias of the natural spectrum in relation to
alpha ('others' being an objective focus of one's joy), but the latter
absolutely moral because unequivocally centripetal ('oneself' being a
subjective focus of one's joy) - a distinction which, as with sorrow, enables
us to equate the one kind of joy with the natural spectrum and the other kind
with the artificial spectrum, and to perceive self-joy as an altogether more
purely moral spiritual ideal than joy for others.
268. Naturally, what applies to the alpha and omega
poles of the divine, or idealistic, spectrum in both its natural and artificial
(supernatural) manifestations, applies no less to each of the other three
elemental spectra in like-fashion, since they are also susceptible to an
immoral/moral polarity which will be either absolutely or relatively the case,
depending on the pole in question. Thus
hatred-for/of-others contrasts as diabolic (naturalistic) alpha with love-of/for-others
as diabolic (naturalistic) omega-in-the-alpha of the natural diabolic spectrum,
the former absolutely immoral and the latter relatively moral, whereas
self-hatred contrasts as diabolic alpha-in-the-omega with self-love as diabolic
omega of the artificial diabolic spectrum, the former relatively immoral and
the latter absolutely moral. Both of
these poles correspond, as we have seen, to folly rather than to wisdom, but
they do so on antithetical terms, with vicious (negative) and virtuous (positive)
distinctions respectively. So do the
purgatorial (materialistic) poles of humility and pride -
humility-towards-others contrasting as alpha purgatorial with pride-of-others
as omega-in-the-alpha of the natural purgatorial spectrum, while self-humility
contrasts as alpha-in-the-omega with self-pride as omega of the artificial
purgatorial spectrum. But the worldly
poles of pain and pleasure are of course wise, to the extent that we are
dealing with a wavicle bias in connection with this
(realistic) spectrum, and whilst inflicting pain on others is absolutely
immoral on account of its identification with worldly alpha,
causing-oneself-pain is relatively immoral on account of its identification
with alpha-in-the-omega. By contrast,
causing-others-pleasure is only relatively moral in relation to self-pleasure,
insofar as the one has to do with omega-in-the-(worldly)-alpha, while the other
has to do with the worldly omega as such - the former compromised by the
centrifugal bias of the natural realistic spectrum in relation to alpha, the
latter unequivocally moral on account of the centripetal bias of the artificial
realistic spectrum in relation to omega.
And, in every case, the omega position of positive self-indulgence is
morally superior to the omega-in-the-alpha position of positively indulging
others, whereas the alpha-in-the-omega position of negative self-indulgence is
less immoral than the alpha position of negatively indulging others. Morality is subjective, immorality objective. Whether we call the one positive, virtuous,
or centripetal, and the other negative, vicious, or centrifugal, the situation
remains the same, as between essential and apparent antagonists.
269. Having dealt with the immoral and moral poles
of each of the elemental spectra, I should briefly like to turn my attention to
the comparatively amoral positions in between, and contend that similar
negative and positive distinctions will apply to them in view of their
antithetical constitutions either side of a proton/electron divide,
constitutions which owe something, though not everything, to the wider polar
antitheses which flank them.
270. Thus, taking the divine (idealistic) spectrum
first, we shall find that guilt and innocence are the two principal amoral
positions in between sorrow on the one hand and joy on the other, and that no
less than guilt is a consequence of sorrow, innocence is a precondition of joy
(Christ's injunction to become as little children), both of which feelings can
be either more or less amoral depending on whether they take place within the naturalistic
context of being-towards-others, i.e. guilty towards others/innocent towards
others, or, alternatively, within the artificial context of being self-centred,
i.e. self-guilt/self-innocence, so that we are distinguishing, once again,
between absolutely and relatively amoral positions. Of course, this applies no less to the
distinction between contempt and respect in relation to hate and love,
respectively, on the diabolic (naturalistic) spectrum, as to that between, say,
doubt and confidence in relation to humility and pride on the purgatorial
(materialistic) spectrum, not to mention fear and hope in relation to pain and
pleasure on the worldly (realistic) spectrum.
For these intermediate types of feelings are just as susceptible to a
dualistic others/self manifestation as their immoral and moral counterparts,
and we can gauge the degree and type of amorality involved according to whether
objective or subjective reference-points are at issue in any given context,
negative amoral feelings like guilt, contempt, doubt, and fear being either
absolute or relative, depending on whether they take place vis-à-vis others or
oneself; and the same of course applying to positive amoral feelings such as
innocence, respect, confidence, and hope.
Not only are such feelings either post- or pre-conditions of their
respective immoral and moral poles; they are to some extent also attenuations
of and alternatives to them, and therefore more the psychic norm for people
whose feeling spectrum is less extreme than middle ground, or moderate.
271. Only a muddled thinker like Dame Vera Alder
would make an antithesis, as she does in her book Secrets of the Atomic
Age, between involution and evolution, deeming the one commensurate with a fall
from God into the cruder atoms of the material world, and the other
commensurate with a return to God (not incidentally an advancement to the Holy
Spirit so much as a return to the Creator), as man refines upon the atoms of
his mind. Not only is she wrong to use
the word 'involution' in relation to evolution in this way, she fails to see
that involution and evolution go together as two aspects of the same
progressive tendency. For evolution is involutional to the extent that progress manifests a centro-complexifying tendency in loyalty to its centripetal
essence. You can no more speak of
involution and evolution as antithetical ... than of
devolution and convolution as such. For devolution is no less convolutional
than evolution is involutional, and consequently the
only valid antithesis to involution is convolution. Had she spoken of a
devolutionary/evolutionary antithesis or even of a convolutional/involutional
one, all would have been well, logically speaking. Unfortunately, Vera Alder's 'antithesis' was
as paradoxically improbable as it is possible to be ... short of settling for
convolution and devolution instead!
272. But devolution from
the alpha is one thing, evolution towards the omega quite another, and no more
resembles a return to the alpha than devolution could possibly resemble a
progression towards the omega. We
evolve, as I have elsewhere shown, towards a level of divinity, or supreme
condition of being, which is as far removed from the primal level of divinity,
in the Creator, as it is possible to be - a level which, as electron-electron
attractions, contrasts absolutely with the proton-proton reactions at the roots
of the Universe ... from which the majority of stars and all of the planets
derive.
273. Whereas the proton content of the old brain
corresponds to alpha, the electron content of the old brain corresponds to
omega-in-the-alpha. And whereas the
electron content of the new brain corresponds to omega, the proton content of
the new brain corresponds to alpha-in-the-omega. In the old brain a
preponderating proton content and a subordinate electron content. In the new brain, by
contrast, a preponderating electron content and a subordinate proton content. Thus the subconscious, which is a psychic
substratum of the old brain, can be both negative and positive, biased towards
protons or electrons, but, as a rule, it will be more negative than positive,
particularly in a young and therefore relatively less-evolved head. Likewise the superconscious,
which is a psychic substratum of the new brain, can be both negative and
positive, biased towards protons or electrons, but, as a rule, it will be more
positive than negative, particularly in an older and therefore relatively
more-evolved head. Negative subconscious
is alpha, positive subconscious omega-in-the-alpha. Positive superconscious
is omega, negative superconscious
alpha-in-the-omega. Negative
subconscious is pagan, positive subconscious Christian. Positive superconscious
is communist (transcendental), negative superconscious
fascist (neo-pagan). The Second Coming
operates on both negative and positive terms or, more precisely, there is a
negative Second Coming (fascist) and a positive Second Coming (communist), and
whereas the one is false, the other is true.
274. The trouble with smoking is that it obliges one
to accept fire as one lights one's cigarette, and thereby compromises one with the
alpha of things to the extent that a match or wick has been lit. There is a kind of open-society,
alpha-stemming accommodation of flame involved with smoking which could only
prove morally unacceptable to those whose ideological integrity is essentially
closed society and omega orientated - in other words, to those who regard flame
as beneath their moral pale. That alone
would be a good enough reason why not to smoke, quite apart from considerations
of expense, health, social standing, etc.
Yet even if recourse to flame can never be truly moral, we can still
distinguish, relatively speaking, between four different modes or levels of
striking flame for purposes of smoking, and accord them a separate status
either as alpha, omega-in-the-alpha, alpha-in-the-omega, or omega, depending on
the means employed. In other words, we
shall have to distinguish between lighting, say, a cigarette with the aid of
matches and lighting one with the aid of a lighter, and then further
distinguish between a box of matches as alpha (on account of its convolutional construction - the box being effectively a
somewhat horizontal, centrifugal phenomenon) and a strip of matches as
alpha-in-the-omega (on account of the involutional
compromise imposed upon the matches by the strip which, in contrast to a box,
is effectively a kind of vertical, centripetal phenomenon), next proceeding to
contrast each of these with a distinction between horizontally-biased (usually
metallic) lighters as omega-in-the-alpha (on account of the convolutional
compromise suggested by their horizontal bias) and vertically-biased (usually
plastic) lighters as omega (on account of the involutional
connotation of their vertical bias). Thus if the alpha is immoral and the omega moral, then
alpha-in-the-omega and omega-in-the-alpha are each, in this context,
comparatively amoral, the one negatively and the other positively, as between
centrifugal and centripetal attributes.
Use of a box of matches would therefore be comparatively immoral in
relation to use of a strip of matches, which, as alpha-in-the-omega,
corresponds to negative amorality, whereas use of a vertically-biased plastic
lighter would be comparatively moral in relation to use of a
horizontally-biased metallic lighter, which, as omega-in-the-alpha, corresponds
to positive amorality.
275. Man may broadly be defined as the bad
(negative) appearance and the good (positive) essence, whereas woman may likewise
be defined as the good (positive) appearance and the bad (negative)
essence. For the masculine is positively
essential and the feminine positively apparent, and when a man is true to
himself rather than effeminate or 'bovaryized', he will
be more good essence than bad appearance, just as a woman, when true to
herself, will be more good appearance than bad essence. The modern age, however, seems to be one,
particularly in the West, when the traditional roles of the sexes have been
reversed, so that women are becoming more negatively essential and men, by
contrast, more negatively apparent, though this is hopefully only a temporary
situation and not an indication of things to come! For positive essence will eventually eclipse
negative essence to such an extent that the feminine will all but cease to
exist ... as we enter an age of unisexual one-sidedness in anticipation of messianic
salvation.
276. Negative appearance: naturalism or doing;
positive appearance: realism or the given; negative essence: materialism or the
becoming; positive essence: idealism or being.
277. If we accept that the alpha is immoral and the
omega alone moral, then it will be logical for us to define (as, in fact, we
already have done) alpha-in-the-omega as negatively amoral and
omega-in-the-alpha as positively amoral, so that we have, say, realistic and
materialistic positions in-between naturalistic immorality on the one hand and
idealistic morality on the other hand.
To revert to our Spenglerian categories of historical
epoch, we can equate 'Historyless Chaos' with
(naturalistic) immorality, 'Culture' with (realistic) amorality, 'Civilization'
with (materialistic) amorality, and, finally, 'Second Religiousness' with
(idealistic) morality. 'Culture' and
'Civilization' afford us examples of two kinds of amorality, the former
positive (the given), and the latter negative (the becoming) - the one
corresponding to the paradoxical relativity of positive appearance, or
omega-in-the-alpha, and the other corresponding to the no-less paradoxical
relativity of negative essence, or alpha-in-the-omega. Only the coming epoch of 'Second
Religiousness' can be truly moral and, hence, centripetal (in being), and it
will contrast absolutely with the centrifugal (doing-oriented) immorality of
the epoch of 'Historyless Chaos'.
278i. Dreaming corresponds to the soulful
subconscious and can be either negative or positive, biased towards the proton
or towards the electron.
ii. Fantasizing
corresponds to the intellectual old brain and can be either negative or
positive, biased towards the proton or towards the electron.
iii. Visionary
experience corresponds to the spiritual subconscious and can be either negative
or positive, biased towards the proton or towards the electron.
iv. Film-viewing
corresponds to the soulful superconscious and can be
either negative or positive, biased towards the proton or towards the
electron.
v. Video-making
corresponds to the intellectual new brain and can be either negative or
positive, biased towards the proton or towards the electron.
vi. Tripping
corresponds to the spiritual superconscious and can
be either negative or positive, biased towards the proton or towards the
electron.
279. Thus we have alpha and omega polarities in both
the old and the new brains, not to mention in both types of subconscious and superconscious, with soulful, intellectual, and spiritual
distinctions corresponding to particle, atomic, and wavicle
spectra - the alpha of the old brain and subconscious minds more powerful than
the omega-in-the-alpha there, but the omega of the new brain and superconscious minds more powerful than the
alpha-in-the-omega there, given the contrasting atomic structures of each
brain/pair of minds and their effects or influences upon soulful, intellectual,
and spiritual life. To take a single
example, in this case spiritual, the visionary subconscious will traditionally
have been more biased towards the possibility of bad visions than good visions
(for protons predominate over electrons in the atomic structure of the old
brain), whereas - at the risk of anticipating the future - the visionary superconscious will, as a rule, be more biased towards the
possibility of good trips, i.e. synthetically-induced visionary experience,
than bad ones (since electrons predominate over protons in the atomic structure
of the new brain). Alternatively, one
could argue that bad visions would have been stronger than good visions in the
visionary subconscious, bearing in mind that the former correspond to alpha and
the latter to omega-in-the-alpha of the natural idealistic spectrum, whereas
good trips will be stronger or more vivid than bad ones in the visionary superconscious, because the former correspond to omega and
the latter to alpha-in-the-omega of the artificial idealistic spectrum. Moreover, whereas good visions and bad trips
are alike amoral, the one positively and the other negatively, bad visions are
immoral and good trips moral. Indeed,
whereas good visions correspond to the Given and bad trips
to the Becoming, bad visions correspond to Doing and good trips to Being.
280. Now what applies to the polar opposites of the
spiritual psyche, whether subconscious (and natural) or superconscious
(and artificial), applies just as much to those of the soulful psyche in both
its subconscious and superconscious manifestations,
as well as to those of the intellectual brain in both its old and new
manifestations. (Bad dreams, or nightmares, are immoral; good dreams ...
positively amoral. Bad films, or horror
movies, are negatively amoral; good films ... moral.)
281i. Fire, corresponding to Doing, is the immoral
element par
excellence.
ii. Air,
corresponding to Being, is the moral element par excellence.
iii. Earth,
corresponding to the Given, is the positively amoral element par excellence.
iv. Water,
corresponding to the Becoming, is the negatively amoral element par excellence.
v. Likewise it stands to
reason that whereas Heaven is moral and Hell immoral, granted that the former
is the abode of light (spirit) and the latter the abode of heat (soul), both Purgatory
and the World are amoral, since the former is the abode of coldness
(intellect), while the latter is an abode of darkness (will).
282. Man endeavours to mitigate the pain and humiliation
of death through the concept of a blissful afterlife. Take away such a concept and there is nothing
but the pain and humiliation of death.
But since there is no afterlife and it becomes less easy for people to
believe in such a concept, so it is logical that we should strive, instead, to
prolong life as much as possible and thus push the pain and humiliation of
death - nowadays usually somewhat less intense than formerly, owing to the
availability of a variety of analgesics, anaesthetics, etc., which render
compensatory concepts of posthumous bliss unnecessary - further into the
future. Now at last we have the right
attitude, born of evolutionary progress.
We no longer look forward to death as the gateway to a better life but,
in dismissing such an assumption, prefer to devise stratagems for prolonging
and enriching life, stratagems which at least have the merit of setting us on
course for the eventual possibility of eternal life. For eternal life can only evolve out of
existing life, not be attained to following death! But, in the meantime, we must learn to live
with the emptiness of modern death and die in comparatively painless fashion,
without recourse to afterlife compensations.
283. Just as Schopenhauer and Nietzsche form
negative and positive philosophic poles, so, it seems to me, do Bergson and Sartre, albeit the other way around, since
Sartre was rather more pessimistic and life-denying than optimistic and
life-affirming, quite unlike his great compatriot, and accordingly qualifies,
in my estimation, for comparison with Schopenhauer - as, I would argue, does
Arthur Koestler, whose pessimism concerning the
future of mankind and near pathological insistence on man's being a biological
mistake will hardly serve to ingratiate him to those of us who pursue a more
optimistic long-term view of human evolution and of man's eventual salvation
through self-overcoming. Indeed, it
could well be that I am to Koestler what Nietzsche
was to Schopenhauer - that is to say, the positive pole of a philosophical
dichotomy which began in pessimism and can only end optimistically.
284. However, even if I see myself as a kind of
positive antithesis to Koestler, I have to admit my
indebtedness to him as a formative influence on my philosophy (as of course was
Schopenhauer on Nietzsche's), since it was from books like The Act of Creation
and Janus - A Summing Up that I first acquired
knowledge of an old-brain/new-brain dichotomy ('old brain' and 'new brain'
being the exact terms Koestler favoured, in
preference to terms like lower brain and higher brain, or cerebellum and
cerebrum), and the reader familiar with my work will doubtless be aware that I
have since made ample use of such a distinction, using it in addition to such
psychological terms as subconscious and superconscious
- indeed, equating the former with the old brain or, more correctly, a location
in the old brain, and the latter with a location in the new brain ... in the
interests of a more comprehensive and, so I believe, truer perspective.
285. To be sure, there are many ways in which I have
profited from Koestler's philosophy over the years,
including my recourse to diagrams - a not-infrequent explanatory factor in his
works - and it would be both dishonest and unfair of me to pretend
otherwise. But, on balance, I do not
think he has made a particularly positive contribution to modern philosophy,
even if his influence on me has been greater than that of virtually any other
modern philosopher ... including Sartre, whose work I find too obscure and whom
Koestler regarded, quite rightly in my opinion, as
philosophically inferior to himself, since Sartre was largely a materialist
whereas Koestler was essentially a naturalist and
therefore closer, as heat to light, to myself.
In fact, one could argue that Koestler to some
extent derives from Sartre, as Bergson from
Nietzsche, except that whereas Bergson and Nietzsche
were both optimists, Koestler was fundamentally
pessimistic, like Sartre, and thus more alpha stemming than omega
orientated. It seems that only I am truly omega
orientated and hence somewhat closer in spirit to Nietzsche and Bergson, not to mention Teilhard
de Chardin, who, if not quite a philosopher, was
nevertheless of considerable importance in shaping and influencing my own
omega-oriented philosophy - perhaps the most important single influence after
Nietzsche and ... Spengler, whose monumental tome The Decline of the West
taught me more about history and the scope and destiny of civilizations than
any other book I know. Therefore it is
only fitting if, at the termination point of this particular philosophical
excursion, I draw attention to such men as these, without whose guiding
influence little if any of this would have been possible.
Preview ELEMENTAL SPECTRA eBook
