STRESSING THE ESSENTIAL
Poems
Copyright © 1982-2012 John O'Loughlin
_____________
CONTENTS
1. The Trinity
2. Evolution
3. No God
4. The Leaders
5. The People
6. Man
7. Transcendental Man
8. The Superman
9. The Superbeing
10. Spiritual Globes
11. Stressing the Essential
12. Why the State Withers
13. Making More Equal
14. Post-Atomic
15. Points 1-10
16. Evolutionary Pressures
17. The Higher Poet
18. Electron Freedom
19. Either/Or
20. Self-Judgement
21. The Ultimate Essence
22. Bright and Dark
23. More God than Man
24. Synthesized Voice
25. Dispelling a Futuristic Myth
_____________
THE TRINITY
The Trinity isn't blessed,
As traditionally believed;
The first part is cursed,
And pertains to the Devil.
The second part is a mixture
Of the Devil and God,
Since Christ isn't pure
But both cursed and blessed,
Who, as the 'Three in One',
Is a man, like us.
But the third, which has still to come,
Will be the blessed outcome of the others.
EVOLUTION
What began in the fire
Must conclude with the light.
What arose in the daytime
Must decline with the night.
The advent of man
Had its roots in the apes,
Who preceded the pagans
As a vine precedes grapes.
Yet man isn't static
But proceeds to evolve,
And from pagan to Christian
Shows greater resolve.
Now the Christian has passed
The transcendent has begun,
And man stands a stage closer
To the Nietzschean superman.
The Superman is post-human
And towards him man will tend.
But his future successor
Is by no means the end.
For from there to the Superbeing
Is the stage on the threshold
Of eventual transcendence
And escape from the flesh-hold.
Then globes of pure spirit
Will expand into space,
Leaving planets behind them
With never a trace.
And expansion will lead
To the merging of separateness.
Where once they were many,
They will end-up in oneness.
NO GOD
Even if more advanced civilizations
Than the Earth's had attained to transcendence
And thereby established
Spiritual Globes in the Universe,
Those globes of pure spirit wouldn't be God,
Any more than planets are the Devil,
But only what precedes God.
Even if every civilization but man's
Had attained to transcendence,
The resulting globes of pure spirit
In the Universe still wouldn't be God,
Irrespective of whether they had all merged
Into one another and formed an indivisible whole.
The absence of man's contribution
And its eventual expansion
Towards the larger globe of pure spirit
Would preclude the formation
Of Ultimate Oneness, which is the Omega Absolute,
In complete contrast
To the separate, manifold nature
Of the Alpha Absolute(s), or stars.
Only with the eventual establishment
Of the Omega Absolute would God
Actually exist as Ultimate Oneness,
Whereas, in the meantime, He would be
In the process of formation,
Like a foetus in the womb,
Struggling to be born.
Just as one should never confound planets
With the Alpha Absolute(s),
So one should never imagine
That God is established, following transcendence.
The Spiritual Globes which emerge
From superbeings, in various parts of
the Universe,
Would be but the final stage
On the road to Ultimate Oneness,
Expanding towards one another in response
To the mutual attraction of Being.
THE LEADERS
The leaders aren't themselves led
But supervise the evolutionary progress
Of the People. They don't
live
Like the People, but in their own separate
And rather conservative worlds.
They understand evolution
But don't actively participate in it,
Since directors rather than directed.
They don't personally enter the 'promised land',
For such is not their fate.
They make personal sacrifices
On behalf of the People,
Standing aside while the latter move ahead.
Their main task is to ensure that the People
Are set on course for the transcendental Beyond,
Never to deviate from it.
They aren't of the People
And therefore they're not with the
People.
They must always remain separate,
Opposed to whatever regressive tendencies
The People may display.
They are the guardians of evolutionary progress,
Who serve the People's best interests.
They lead the People towards salvation
But can never be saved themselves.
THE PEOPLE
The People are often hardworking,
But sometimes lazy,
Often spiritual but sometimes sensual.
They are the crude clay from which
The highest humanity can be formed,
The crucible in which
A new human type can be forged,
Superior to anything that preceded it.
They often live in the city
But sometimes in the country,
Are often artificial but sometimes natural.
They are more paradoxical
Than might at first appear,
For they show an aptitude for the artificial
Without desiring to suppress
What naturalness they possess.
They often bless but sometimes curse,
Often praise but sometimes swear.
Their choice of language
Is offensive to cultivated ears,
Since it betrays a contempt for sex
Which, in living closer to nature,
The older classes tend to reject.
They often live close together
But sometimes far apart,
Are often quiet but sometimes noisy.
They signify a closer approximation
To the Ultimate Oneness of God
Than do their rulers and masters,
And, if they aren't particularly considerate,
Are at least tolerant!
MAN
Man isn't static, like the animals,
But free to evolve.
His pagan beginnings in
A pre-dualistic context of lopsided sensuality
Eventually led to a Christian climax
Of dualistic balance between
The flesh and the spirit,
In which man assumed the mantle of God.
Modern man, however, is lopsided
On the side of the spirit
In the post-dualistic context
Of transcendentalism,
And is accordingly drawing near his end.
The Superman will be as different
From modern man as primitive man was
From his ape-like ancestor,
A species towards which
Transcendental man aspires.
We need not regret the passing of our own.
TRANSCENDENTAL MAN
He no longer lives in a dualistic world
And therefore isn't partial to
Sexual discrimination, which he regards
As a regrettable anachronism.
He doesn't recognize females as women
But increasingly as 'lesser men',
And expects them both to behave
And dress like himself.
He isn't entirely averse to sex with women
But prefers plastic inflatables
Or pornographic models,
Regarding marriage as 'square'.
He prefers television to books
And contemplation to meditation,
Since a cross between man and superman.
He lives in the city and substitutes
An occasional stroll through the park
For life in the country.
He isn't averse to essence
But can only approach it by degrees,
Availing himself of spiritualized appearance.
THE SUPERMAN
The Superman isn't the thing
That Nietzsche's 'great noontide'
Might lead one to believe,
But a life form superior to man
And inferior to the Superbeing.
The Superman won't be God but godly,
For the Holy Spirit will be transcendent,
While the Superman
Will be partly mundane
And therefore tied to the beastly.
But he will be far less sensual than man,
Because freed from the natural body
And thereby elevated
To the post-human heights of
A brain artificially ran.
Having an old brain
Will keep him inferior to the Superbeing
Of the millennial communes
Which are destined to supplant him
With the termination of all pain.
But the old brain will be
Kept under tight control
As he expands the new brain
With the aid of such synthetic drugs
As the leaders may extol.
And thus he will know a superior form
Of upward self-transcendence
To transcendental man,
Whose television spirituality in appearance
Is the contemporary norm.
THE SUPERBEING
Man stands between ape and superman,
But the Superbeing will stand between
The latter and the Spiritual Globes,
Devoid of ego.
The Superbeing won't require
The assistance of synthetic drugs
To expand consciousness upwards,
For it will be beyond the visionary.
Living in the light of superconscious
mind,
The Superbeing will be solely concerned
With the cultivation of spirit, as a means
To the attainment of transcendence.
The new brains of the Superbeing
Will be fused together
Into a collective entity transcending
The communal separateness of supermen,
Each new brain being a component of the whole.
And, like a tree whose leaves
Are packed closely together
And significant of sensual communalism,
The Superbeing will signify
The spiritual communalism of
The highest phase of millennial life.
There will be many such Superbeings
Throughout the planet,
And they will eventually
Attain to transcendence, becoming
Spiritual Globes which will merge
Into one another in the transcendental Beyond.
SPIRITUAL GLOBES
There will be many Spiritual Globes
Throughout the Universe, following
The attainment to transcendence by
The Superbeings, but they will merge
With those nearest to themselves
And thus form progressively larger wholes.
These Spiritual Globes won't be things
But metaphysical states-of-mind,
And because they'll represent
Being at its purest, will be attracted
Towards one another in the transcendental Beyond.
Doubtless those within the vicinity
Of this part of the Galaxy will merge
Into wholes which may in turn be attracted
Towards those in remoter parts of it,
So that, eventually, all Spiritual
Globes there
Will become unified.
And as the attraction of other Spiritual Globes
From other galaxies is felt, so will those
Which exert the strongest attraction,
Presumably because they are larger,
Exert the most influence.
Thus they will attract
The smaller Spiritual Globes to themselves,
To some extent being pulled
But to a greater extent pulling,
Until Spiritual Globes from separate galaxies
Duly become merged.
And with the gradual merging
Of these 'galactic globes' of pure spirit,
The convergence to the Omega Absolute
Will be nearer completion, requiring
Only the merging of more distant globes
To form the ultimate 'universal globe' ...
Of God ... the Supreme Oneness.
STRESSING THE ESSENTIAL
Considered in its ultimate manifestation
Supreme being would be
Antithetical in constitution to the stars,
And therefore it wouldn't shine
With a star-like radiance.
Rather, this supreme state-of-being
Would be all but invisible to sight,
Since essence rather than appearance
Is the attribute of an ultimate life.
Supreme being could only be
Noumenally
experienced, never phenomenally seen,
And it would amount to a density
Of pure spirit glowing in the void of space.
Such a density, if detectable, could
More resemble a Black Hole than a star.
Indeed, it might well constitute
What are now regarded as Black Holes
From the viewpoint of the optical sense.
If this were so, then terms like
The 'Clear Light of the Void' are inadequate
For describing Ultimate Reality, since stressing
The apparent rather than the essential.
God as supreme being wouldn't possess
The apparent attributes of a star,
But would be inner light - the opposite
Of outer light, whether clear or not.
The Holy Ghost is a better term for approaching
The noumenal essence of Ultimate
Reality,
But 'pure spirit' is better again,
Since more noumenally specific.
A bias for any traditional world religion
Would be inappropriate to
The ultimate world religion.
We must adopt new terminology for
A fresh religious perspective.
WHY THE STATE WITHERS
If the State 'withers away',
In Engels' oft-quoted phrase,
It is because religion flourishes.
The State cannot 'wither away' by itself,
But only in relation to the flourishing of religion.
If religion doesn't flourish,
The State has no business 'withering away'.
It cannot abandon the world to chaos,
But must protect religious progress.
The Christian religion, being dualistic,
Caused the State to 'wither away' partially.
The transcendental religion of the future,
Being post-dualistic, will cause it
To 'wither away' completely.
And after
The State has disappeared
There will only be religion, the religion
Of the supermen-superbeing phases
Of the post-Human Millennium, tending ever nearer
To the culmination of spiritual evolution
In the post-Millennial Beyond.
Eventually
There will be no religion at all, but only God.
For God is the outcome of all striving
Towards divine transcendence.
MAKING MORE EQUAL
It is easier to treat woman as the equal of man
When she makes a determined attempt to be equal
Than when she insists on her womanhood.
A woman with short hair and fingernails,
No make-up, dressed in pants and low-heels,
Is more likely to strike men as equal
Than one whose appearance is traditionally feminine.
If she is well-educated and cultured to boot,
That is an even better reason
To regard her as an equal.
But too many women insist on being considered
The equals of men
When they make no real effort to be so.
This is wrong; for a woman
Will only be treated as a 'lesser man'
When she looks and behaves like one.
At present sexual equality
Still has a long way to go,
Especially when women insist on taking
The seats offered them by well-intentioned,
Though fundamentally deluded, males
In crowded buses or trains.
A truly liberated woman, or 'lesser man',
Would refuse such an offer,
Deeming it unnecessary for one man
To abandon his seat for another.
And so it is, though
Only equals would know that!
A woman who doesn't look like an equal
Is likely to be treated unequally.
If, in future, women are treated more equally,
It will be because they'll be
More masculinized than at present.
A post-dualistic society should never
Think dualistically, though there will, of course,
Be occasional lapses, not least of all
In regard to propagation!
POST-ATOMIC
In the post-atomic society
There will be no particles,
For the proton aspect of the atom
Will be taboo to minds
Accustomed to electron freedom.
There will be only wavicles,
And so 'matter' will have been de-materialized,
In accordance with the transcendental bias of
A post-atomic society.
As nuclear fission split the atom,
So republicanism wrenched man away from
The galactic-world-order in which
The atomic integrity at the basis of life prevailed.
No longer would proton humans
Lord it over an electron majority,
As stars dominate planets.
For in the post-atomic age
Such a majority must be
Free from diabolic constraint
In order that it may be set on
A direct course for transcendence, and hence
The attainment of life to the transcendental Beyond.
POINTS 1-10
Evolution begins with the gaseous mass of stars
And proceeds from point 1 to
The formation of planets at point 2.
Then comes the development of life
On the planets that, at the lowest level,
We can designate as plants
Which, at point 3, are subconsciously-dominated.
With point 4, however, we arrive
At the autonomous life forms
Of the beasts (whether bird, fish, insect, animal,
Or reptile), and evolution then proceeds
To point 5, which is pagan man,
Who is also subconsciously-dominated,
Though capable of further development.
This leads to the dualistic stage
Of human evolution at points 5/6,
When the subconscious and the superconscious
Are approximately in balance,
And with the further development
Of the superconscious we proceed from
there
To transcendental man at point 6 -
The opposite of point 5. Transcendental
man
Is then superseded by the Superman who,
As a brain artificially supported
And sustained in communal contexts, signifies
A further development of the superconscious,
And stands at point 7,
The opposite of the beasts at point 4.
With the removal of the old brain
From the superman's stage of evolution,
And the intensified communization
Of artificially supported and sustained new-brains,
We arrive at point 8, when
A life form antithetical in constitution
To the plants (and particularly to trees)
At point 3 is established,
Which has been called the Superbeing.
Now evolutionary progress has only to attain
To a point antithetical to the planets
For the Spiritual Globes of point 9
To bring it closer to its ultimate consummation.
From there, these separate globes of pure spirit
Have only to merge into one another
In the transcendental Beyond to form, at point 10,
The Omega Absolute, antithetical in every respect
To the Alpha Absolute(s) ... of the infernal stars.
EVOLUTIONARY PRESSURES
Every human being stems from the Diabolic Alpha
And also aspires towards the Divine Omega,
But no two human beings stem from
Or aspire towards to exactly the same extent.
The higher the man, the more will he
Aspire towards the Divine Omega.
The lower the man, the more he will
Stem from the Diabolic Alpha.
Generally speaking, babies, children, youths,
Women, and tyrants stem from the Diabolic Alpha
To a greater extent than they aspire
Towards its antithesis in transcendent spirit,
And for this reason such creatures
Will rarely be popular with higher men,
Who as often as not lead a saint-like existence,
Scorning all but the minimum of sensuality
In allegiance to their spiritual aspirations.
But higher men are comparatively rare
Even in this ostensibly advanced age,
And are generally regarded as cranks or perverts
By the vulgar majority.
Nevertheless evolutionary progress requires
That an aspiration towards the Divine Omega
Be stepped-up at the expense of
A stemming from the Diabolic Alpha,
And therefore that mankind become
More spiritual the higher they evolve.
Doubtless babies, children, youths, women,
And tyrants will remain victims
Of a certain inescapable level of sensuality
For as long as they exist.
Nonetheless the pressure will be on adults
To improve their level of commitment
To the Divine Omega over the coming centuries.
Eventually there will be no human beings at all
But only Supermen, and so man
Will have been 'overcome' in the interests
Of a greater spiritual commitment
Than ever he could manage, what with
His natural body and sensual obligations.
Only a brain artificially supported and sustained
Would really be in an evolutionary position
To expand spirit to any radical extent,
An expansion which could only presuppose
Subsequent transformations ... as appertaining
To still higher stages of post-human life.
But there will be fools and ignoramuses among
The People who will persist
In trying to thwart evolutionary progress
And prevent such an eventuality
From finally coming to pass.
These fools and ignoramuses will stem
From the Diabolic Alpha to a greater extent
Than they aspire towards the Divine Omega,
Opposing those who are morally above them.
Life is often a struggle between
These two opposing tendencies,
Which respectively reflect 'the bad' and 'the good'.
No matter what the situation 'the good'
Must continue their struggle against 'the bad'
In order to improve the quality of life
In this world, and should eventually
Triumph over them altogether, bringing
Higher life on earth closer
To salvation in spiritual transcendence.
To the extent that the world is natural
It is bad, because barbarous.
To the extent that the world is artificial
It is good, because civilized.
The world only becomes better to the extent
That the artificial predominates over the natural.
For the more artificial it becomes,
The closer it draws to the Supernatural, and thus
To the attainment of the highest life form,
In the guise of collectivized new-brains
Artificially supported and sustained, to
The transcendental Beyond in which, ultimately,
Only the Omega Absolute
Of undifferentiated transcendent spirit
Will prevail for all eternity.
THE HIGHER POET
The transcendental poet
Will die to the outer world
The better to create
The superior poetry of the inner one.
Essence will supplant appearance
In his creative rebirth
As a transcendentalist.
ELECTRON FREEDOM
Not like a bourgeois,
Bound victim of an atomic integrity
In his enslavement to grammatical determinism,
But as a proletarian,
Free creator of a free-electron poetry
In pursuit of post-atomic freedom.
EITHER OR
The lower philosopher leans towards science,
The higher one towards literature.
The higher novelist leans towards poetry,
The lower one towards philosophy.
The lower poet leans towards literature,
The higher one - towards the Infinite.
SELF-JUDGEMENT
Not everyone can come to my work
With an open mind.
There are many who will
Shy away from it,
Like Dracula from the Cross,
In fear of what it reveals.
THE ULTIMATE ESSENCE
What began externally must end internally.
Transcendent spirit won't shine
In the transcendental Beyond, like a star, but will entail
A deeper depth within the depths of space -
The ultimate essence,
Not the primal appearance.
BRIGHT AND DARK
People who dress garishly,
In ostentatious colours,
Approximate more to the Diabolic Alpha
Than to the Divine Omega.
Those who dress in dark clothes
Are usually of a constitution
More spiritual than sensual.
The former are generally
The most ignoble females,
The latter more often the noblest males;
The former more often young than old,
The latter generally old.
MORE GOD THAN MAN
A genius is made, not born.
There is no such thing as a natural genius.
Men of genius are the most artificial people,
The ones furthest removed from nature
In their conduct of life.
Circumstances and effort have combined
To make them what they are -
The nearest human beings to the Divine Omega.
SYNTHESIZED VOICE
Musician, if you must sing,
Put your voice through a synthesizer,
In order that it may be rendered
Artificial in tone and produce sounds
At a transcendent remove from the natural.
You will create the most civilized singing!
DISPELLING A FUTURISTIC MYTH
The Universe is assuredly very vast
But there's no reason for us to attempt exploring it all.
Exploring the Solar System
To which our planet belongs is no mean task,
And should suffice to satisfy the curiosity
Of space-oriented adventurers for some time to come!
Eventually man may extend his curiosity
To other solar systems in the Galaxy;
Though there is no guarantee of the fact,
And I rather doubt that such an extension
Would serve him much good.
It is more probable that the nearest solar systems
Won't differ too greatly from our own than
The converse and, that being the case, there can be
Scant justification for man's exploring them,
Since they won't have all that much to teach him.
The idea that he will come into contact
With creatures from outer space is also suspect,
Especially when such creatures are envisaged
As being superior to him
In intelligence and evolutionary sophistication.
For a life form superior to man,
And particularly to the transcendental men
Of the ultimate human civilization, could only be
At the Superman's stage of evolution - assuming
It wasn't a Superbeing - and to be at
such a stage
Is to have the human brain artificially supported
And sustained in communal contexts
For purposes of spiritual expansion.
No life form superior to man
Would therefore be inclined to explore space,
After the fashion of transitional or transcendental men,
And risk contact, for better or worse,
With space-exploring humans.
Beyond man, the pattern of evolution
Would seem to lead, via the post-Human Millennium,
To the transcendental Beyond, which is space considered
As the setting for separate globes
Of transcendent spirit to converge and expand,
Tending, all the while, towards definitive unity
In the omega point ... of the ultimate spiritual globe.
The transcendental Beyond is synonymous with Heaven;
Though beneath this there is also
The earthly Beyond ... of the post-Human Millennium,
Here we are, men tending towards
The transcendental civilization,
And ahead of us we glimpse the post-Human Millennium,
Which, as its name suggests, is beyond
The human stages of evolution.
But the transcendental Beyond ... of Heaven
Is beyond even the post-Human Millennium,
And thus isn't set on earth but in space,
So that evolution will attain to a culmination
With the establishment of the Omega Absolute
In the same setting as the Alpha Absolute(s) ...
Of the stars are now in
And have always been in - namely space.
So what began in space will also end there,
Though on the most antithetical terms conceivable.
We, however, exist on the planet Earth
And therefore can look in two ways:
Either 'back' to the stars or 'forward' towards
The future attainment of spirit to the transcendental Beyond.
We are already a bit transcendent on the Earth;
For the stars are akin to the roots of evolution
And accordingly set in space on the most basic terms.
Christian theology wasn't mistaken to posit Hell as 'below';
For, indeed, in looking at the sun
And other nearby stars we are effectively
Looking back and down, as it were,
To the diabolic roots of evolution,
Even if our heads happen to be inclined-up
At an acute angle in the process.
Sensual indulgence of one form or another
Was punishable, at death, by banishment from Heaven,
And artists valiantly strove to depict
The Damned being pitchforked down
towards Hell,
Where fire was the cardinal element.
Theology exaggerated, but it did so with reason,
Since the man who is more sensual than spiritual
Stems from the Diabolic Alpha
To a greater extent than he aspires
Towards the Divine Omega, and,
When his respective predilections have been added-up
And weighed in the theological balance
At the conclusion of his earthly life,
May well be more qualified for damnation than salvation.
In the Christian schema most people
Of early-Christian times were
Foregone candidates for damnation; since
The ratio of sensuality to spirituality can only be greater
The lower the stage of human evolution.
Damnation scenes rightly preponderate
Over salvation ones in medieval iconography.
Saints were then, as now, the exception to the rule.
But we of a post-Christian age
Should be struggling more towards Heaven
Than sliding or falling back towards Hell.
We may look at the stars,
But few of us would desire to embrace them!
We prefer them where they are
And to distance ourselves from them.
Our aspirations tend towards the transcendental Beyond,
Even if unconsciously and without fanaticism.
Evolution continues whether or not we know why.
It happens all around us and we are caught-up in it.
Even when we don't directly participate
In a particular aspect of evolutionary progress,
We read or hear about it or see a recording of it
And are influenced by it.
Spacemen are a part of our mental universe,
Just as we are a part of the physical one.
For the Universe isn't just stars and planets
With space in-between, but also (at higher levels),
Plants, animals, and humans,
And so evolves from a physical to a spiritual level
Via intermediate life forms.
Eventually the Universe will culminate
In pure spirit, or one vast globe of transcendence,
But it cannot get to that ultimate stage
Without the interim life forms struggling up
Towards the goal of evolution in supreme being.
Transcendental men of the coming world civilization
Will continue the struggle
From where Christian men left off,
And then be superseded by Supermen,
Who in turn will be superseded by Superbeings,
Before spiritual globes emerge from the Earth.
Only on the higher human levels,
The transitional and transcendental ones,
Is there any possibility of contact being established
With aliens from other solar systems;
For no superman would desire to waste time
Exploring farther afield in space
When there was spirit to cultivate in his psyche on Earth.
As evolution progresses, so life becomes
Increasingly interiorized, rendering
External adventure of progressively less importance,
Until, with the Supermen, it ceases to play any role at all.
The space-research programmes
Of both the Americans and the Russians
Of contemporary transitional civilization
May well constitute a kind of
Human peak of space exploration,
Since men of the future transcendental civilization
Will generally be more interiorized than contemporary men,
And correspondingly less inclined
To indulge in external adventure.
Doubtless, some space research will continue;
But there is no reason for us to suppose
That it will bring transcendental man
Into contact with aliens from outer space
Or extend very far beyond this solar system.
There shouldn't be any space wars
Between humans and aliens, at any rate,
Because the most advanced stage of human life
Should be categorically above war,
And would not have put an end to war
Between human beings simply in order
To start it up with aliens
On a much wider and possibly more horrific scale.
As men progress to higher levels of civilization,
So they become more spiritual, and hence passive,
Not given to historical levels of violence.
We needn't expect transcendental men
To go looking for trouble with their alien counterparts
In the farthest reaches of the Galaxy.
Such men may initially have cause
To rage space conflict between themselves
(Or, more specifically, between advocates of
Transcendentalism and upholders of materialism), but
With the advent of the post-Human Millennium on earth
All possibility of such wars should cease.
For the Supermen will be beings of peace in the truest sense -
Dedicated to the contemplation
Of internal visionary experience, and hence
The expansion of the superconscious
mind.
Space, fortunately, would be beneath them!
LONDON 1982 (Revised 1983-2012)
