EVOLUTION
Prose Poems
Copyright © 1984-2012 John O'Loughlin
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CONTENTS
1. No Absolute Knowledge
2. Ladies and Gentlemen
3. Canine Nemesis
4. Sunday Worst
5. An Electron Bias
6. From Absolute Evil to Absolute Good
7. A Journey beyond Myths
8. An Evolutionary Bias
9. Evolution
10. From Rock to Jazz
11. The Omega Instrument
12. Electron Freedoms
13. National Paradoxes
14. The Machine
15. Supernatural Voyeurism
16. Spiritual Cultivation
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NO ABSOLUTE KNOWLEDGE
Man can
have a relative knowledge of God, but he cannot know or experience God
personally. He can come to the
conclusion, through careful logical reasonings, that
God would be the ultimate spiritual globe when all separate globes of pure
spirit, from whichever part of the Universe, had converged towards one another
in the future post-millennial Beyond, but he cannot know what it would actually
be like to be a part of that ultimate globe himself - what the
condition of supreme being would actually be like to
the experiencing mind. In fact, there
would be no 'part' of God, because one great indivisible transcendence. No man can get anywhere near fathoming
exactly what the condition of such an ultimate globe of transcendent spirit
would actually be like. Man has but a small,
relatively humble spirit which, in any case, is polluted by the flesh and
dependent on the flesh for its survival.
He can only acquire, at the best of times, a vague intimation of what
that supreme condition of being would actually be like. Yet he has often mistaken his vague
intimation for absolute knowledge of God in the past! Such exaggerations were perhaps a form of
compensation for his earthly shortcomings.
Relative knowledge of God takes the form of
logical reasonings concerning the outcome of
evolution, and should not be confused with those vague intimations of supreme being which saints and other fortunate human beings
have occasionally experienced in the past.
Such intimations appertain to a stronger influx of human spirit upon a
person, and are at a considerable remove from what God would literally be like in
the post-millennial Beyond. The
experience of infused contemplation would not have led the recipient to
apperceive God, but, on the contrary, to apperceive his own quota of spirit
more clearly and intensely than would ordinarily have been the case. One might define this experience as an
indirect, rather partial glimpse of Heaven.
Is it possible, I wonder, that Spiritual Globes
already exist in the heavenly Beyond?
Relative knowledge of God, based on cogent reasoning, should enable one
to answer this question affirmatively.
Yes, I believe that such globes could exist in
the heavenly Beyond, which is to say in space considered as a setting for a
more advanced absolute than the stars.... Though their existence there would
not constitute God but globes of pure spirit en route, as it were, to
the possibility of an ultimate Spiritual Globe, which could only come to pass with
the fusion, following convergence, of all such globes into
ultimate unity, the unity of what Teilhard de Chardin calls the Omega Point. Since we haven't got anywhere near
transcendence yet, we can be confident that an ultimate Spiritual Globe, comprised
of all spiritual contributions throughout the Universe, doesn't exist.
Nevertheless we would be mistaken, I believe, to assume that such individual globes of
transcendent spirit as may exist there, by dint of the possible spiritual
contributions made by more advanced planets than our own elsewhere in the
Universe, exert no beneficial influence upon ourselves. There is no reason why those nearest to us,
which may yet be millions of miles away, shouldn't to some extent draw our
spirit slightly towards them. For if
they attract and converge towards one another in the heavenly Beyond, they must
surely have some tangential attractive influence on what is best in us - namely
our spirit. This proposition doesn't,
however, discount the part played by human struggle in the evolutionary
journey. A pulling teleological argument
would not have much credence on its own.
We must bear in mind the pushing evolutionary one as well, though we may
be excused, in this day and age, for turning against astrological determinism,
which is really the opposite of teleological freedom.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN
A lady is both beautiful and discreet, cultured and intelligent. She doesn't desire to be kissed in public,
nor does she object to one's disinclination there to hold her hand or put an
arm round her waist. One keeps one's
hands in one's pockets, and the lady may place a hand on one's nearest arm if
she so desires. This is perfectly
logical, for it confirms the female's right to a more openly sensual stance.
A lady will usually wear dark clothes,
though she may use bright colours in moderation, either occasionally or
regularly, on top or underneath, on her clothing or as a part of it. Black underclothes are the least seductive of
colours for a female to wear - yellow or red, by contrast, the most. A lady will generally prefer the former to
the latter, spurning flagrant seductions.
Ladies occasionally wear make-up but they
use it discreetly, never glaringly or with ostentatious intent. Before man made art partly transcendental,
he painted his body, and the less-evolved women still do a variation on the
same theme. No wonder ladies are careful
not to draw attention to themselves in this way! They prefer to allow their natural beauty to
speak for itself, and are glad when gentlemen admire them for other than purely
sexual reasons.
As for their hair, ladies are careful not
to let it grow too long, and therefore prefer to have it regularly cut. When their hair is long and
fine, they will take especial pains to tie it up on or near the crown of their
head, which makes for a more civilized appearance. Very often a lady's hair is dark,
approximating more, in appearance, to the essence of transcendent spirit than
to the brightness of the sun. A
gentleman, when of spiritual cast, will generally prefer a dark-haired lady to
a blonde - contrary to popular myth. He
will also require of his lady that she remains slim, and doubtless most ladies,
being of slender build, are perfectly able to do so. Slenderness is, after all, an indication of a
spiritual predilection, a reflection of a more spiritual constitution.
A lady will never wear anything blatantly
seductive, like a very short skirt or see-through blouse. She will dress discreetly, hiding her more
obvious physical charms from the vulgar eye.
No-one should be able to point at a gentleman in public and say:
"You can see what it is about her that he
likes!"
A gentleman is above all things gentle, not
coarse, brutal, violent, or boorish. He
never slams doors but shuts them quietly, with due presence of mind. He would never dream of using physical
violence against an opponent in an argument, intellectual or otherwise, but
will confine himself, at the worst of times, to mental violence - should such
violence be unavoidable. Gentlemen are
occasionally subjected to physical violence by men but, if they survive it, can
always sue for assault. A threat of
suing an ungentlemanly potential assailant for
assault may serve as a useful deterrent, and is, besides, a form of mental violence.
A gentleman rarely or never moves quickly
or acts rashly, but takes his time, is langsam, to cite
Nietzsche, for reasons of propriety, since he should more approximate, in his
conduct, to being than to doing. A
gentleman will spend most of his time sitting still, whether at work or at
play. He won't be one to engage in
active sports!
As for clothing, a gentleman's clothes are
mostly dark rather than ostentatious or trendy.
He will generally prefer to keep most of his clothes on, even in hot weather,
and will never venture out in winter without adequate protection against the
elements. He doesn't like to be brought
into too close a contact with rain, and will usually possess the means of
protecting himself from direct contact with it.
Men think that braving the rain bare-headed is a sign of manliness, and
tend to regard umbrellas and hoods as unworthy of masculine vanity. They don't realize, as a rule, that a
gentleman's reluctance to get his head wet stems from a transcendental bias,
opposing its upholder to brute contact with the elements.
In sexual matters, gentlemen are usually
moderate, preferring, of the two alternatives, to reduce their sexual
commitments to a minimum than to increase them towards a maximum. Their ladies are generally resigned to a less
vigorous sex-life.
Ladies and gentlemen have existed for
centuries and will doubtless continue to exist, so long as the human race
survives. There is no reason to suppose
that social progress will put an end to them, though it may oppose certain
kinds of ladies and gentlemen whose lifestyles are insufficiently modern. What social progress would really like to do,
over a period of decades or even centuries, is to transform as many people as
possible into ladies and gentlemen by improving the quality of life on as
equalitarian a basis as possible. It
would be real progress if, instead of men and gentlemen or women and ladies,
the great majority of people in the future were ladies and gentlemen in the
best sense of the words - the ladies discreet and the gentlemen gentle.
CANINE NEMESIS
Oh, but a
civilization that tolerates dogs isn't a particularly advanced one! It is tied to the pagan roots of life in an
atomic integrity, and consequently takes dogs for granted.
I, however, abhor dogs and would approve of
their eventual removal. Some day a
post-atomic civilization will arise, and when it does there should be no more
shit on pavements, no more piss on walls, no more coarse, loud, and regular
barking, no more dozing advertisements for subconscious stupor, no more
scratching of fleas on smelly bodies, no more public exhibitions of primeval
sexuality, nor any more examples of a number of similarly disagreeable
phenomena!
Ah, I long passionately for the higher
civilization, I who sometimes wonder whether the existing levels of
civilization, with their semi-barbarous attachments, won't drag on and on for
ever! Some day, however, beasts will be
removed, not just dogs, but cats, horses, hamsters, ponies, and other unnecessary
animals, and man will be freed from association with them. He cannot love beasts and turn towards the
future millennial Beyond at the same time. A transcendental civilization would know what
needed to be done to minimize the influence of the beastly and set men directly
on course for the post-human millennium - that earthly paradise preceding the
heavenly one. Its chief upholders would
teach the People the necessary lessons, making it perfectly clear to them just
why such animals as dogs and cats had to be left behind, banished, in a
judgemental spirit, from the higher society, in response to evolutionary logic.
Of course, some people would object and be
recalcitrant. But the great majority
would approve of measures designed to further evolutionary progress. Even now, the great majority of people aren't
pet owners, certainly not dog owners, and many of them could only approve of
measures designed to free them from the various inconveniences to which dogs
give rise in everyday life, including the noise of barking and the smell and
sight of excrement. Too bad if they live
in the dualistic or transitional civilizations and not in the future
post-dualistic one! Even post-dualistic
barbarians have to put-up with dogs - assuming they aren't dog owners but dogless humans.
Well, as a writer, I cannot change anything
at present. But if I were given the
power I would certainly change things in the future, taking measures to bring
society into line with post-dualistic requirement on the level of an ultimate
civilization. Naturally, some people
would now think me mad, but I know that what inferior minds often take for
madness in others can be a superior form of sanity, pertaining to a mind
capable of envisaging future developments through utilization of a higher
logic. Well, a transcendental
civilization may be some way off at present, but, believe me,
a time will come when to own a dog would be a crime against the Holy Spirit!
SUNDAY WORST
It is
curious how on Sundays, the day of rest, so many people dress in their best
clothes. In fact, it is especially
curious how church-goers make a point of dressing as smartly as possible. Do they ordinarily dress shabbily during the
week? No, I don't think so; though they
may dress informally in the evenings and on Saturdays, especially if they are
staying at home. Why, then, do they wear
their best clothes on Sunday? No doubt,
being seen in public is one reason, since smart clothes help to create a good
impression on others and make people feel pleased to be in one-another's
company. But there is, I feel sure, a
deeper reason, which has to do with stressing the apparent rather than the
essential.
A Christian, being a dualist, isn't just a
man of essence, or spiritual striving; he is also a man of appearance, or
sartorial smartness. It would be
unthinkable for him to attend church on Sundays dressed in shabby old clothes,
like a tramp. He doesn't cultivate
essence to a point where appearance becomes a matter of indifference, if not
contempt, to him. Appearance is important,
because it corresponds to the sensual, active side of Christian dualism. In church, he may cultivate the spiritual or
passive side of that dualistic integrity, but not with a shabby appearance!
It would therefore be strange if, on
Sundays, people went to church looking like tramps. And yet, in another sense, it would be
spiritually significant if they were to do so, since reflecting an indifference
to appearances in deference to essential priorities. How refreshing it would be if, for just one
day a week, people demonstrated their contempt for appearances in allegiance to
essence! If, instead of going to church
in their 'Sunday best', they all dressed in their 'Sunday worst' and purposely
avoided taking offence at one-another's shabby appearances, as they
concentrated their attention, if only for an hour, on the cultivation of
spirit!
Ah, so refreshing a change! And yet such an attitude would more
correspond to a transcendentally post-dualistic integrity than to a Christian
dualistic one, for which not a church but a meditation centre would be the most
logical choice of venue. Christians,
surely, have never adopted such a policy, and neither are they ever likely
to! Sunday for them will continue to be
a day when sartorial smartness is emphasized as on no other day, when
appearance is honoured in deference to both the Father and the apparent side of
Christ.
Of Irish race, I have often looked less
than smart in the street and received the disapproving looks of those for whom
an odd button or stain or tear or crease or some other sartorial blemish is a
kind of social sin. My contempt for
appearances in loyalty to a spiritual bias is not appreciated by those who are
insufficiently spiritual to be similarly contemptuous of it themselves, which
includes most women and not a few effeminate men. They do not possess a superior criterion with
which to evaluate appearances, and are obliged, in consequence, to regard one's
sartorial predilection as a social defect.... When one has but a rudimentary
concept of essence, it stands to reason that appearances will be taken for
reality and deemed of greater importance.
I, however, regard appearances in a different light, and so bear my
shabbiness with pride. It is a mark of
spiritual earnestness, which is never as appropriate as on Sunday.
AN ELECTRON BIAS
Is it
better to leave school in
May I be so bold as to suggest a similar
division between the sciences and the arts, with the former representing the
proton side and the latter, by contrast, the electron side of an atomic
divide? Have not the arts hitherto
revolved around the sciences? You will
agree that, in the main, they have; though some of them have been freer some of
the time, and there always exists, believe it or not, the possibility of the
arts being free to 'do their own thing' independently of scientific control or
reference, so that a free-electron and truly theocratic orientation emerges ...
to signify the culmination of human creative endeavour in the highest art, be
it visual, aural, or literary. That
subject is somewhat beyond the scope of this prose poem, but it nonetheless has
some bearing on the division between the sciences and the arts, as appertaining
to the school curriculum.
We can list on the proton side:
mathematics, physics, chemistry, and geometry; on the electron side: English,
history, geography, and art; though we are aware that other related subjects
can be added, such as technical drawing on the one side and French on the
other. Eight suffices for our purposes,
and anyone who leaves school with that number of Ordinary Levels is more likely
to be atomic than post-atomic, or biased towards the electron. We may regard him as a democratic type,
balanced between the sciences and the arts.
A golden mean in some countries, particularly those where atomic, and
hence democratic, criteria obtain. I
list merely
So it is possible that one could leave
school with just four Ordinary Levels, and that at least three of those - if
not all four - would be on either the proton or the electron side of an atomic
divide, as opposed to two either side of it.
Suppose you get four O' Levels on the proton side - for example, maths,
physics, chemistry, and technical drawing.
That would indicate - would it not? - a strong
bias for the sciences, which would suggest an autocratic leaning, a thing
perhaps more respectable in
My position, however, is this: better to
get four Ordinary Levels on the arts side of the divide than either eight right across the board or four on the science side. For, objectively considered, the theocratic
type is morally superior to both the democratic and the autocratic types - one
could say a free-electron equivalent, as opposed to either an atomic or a
proton equivalent. To have only four O'
Levels isn't necessarily to be less bright than someone with eight; it may well
indicate a different (and effectively superior) ideological, temperamental,
ethnic, or class position. And the four
arts O' Levels may be more strongly electron-orientated again, not the average
grouping but something like: English literature, art, French, and music.
As for those autocratic types who leave
school with physics (applied or pure), chemistry, mathematics, and technical
drawing or, alternatively, with geometry, biology, engineering science, and
algebra, all I can say is ... they aren't likely to become hard-line Social
Transcendentalists in subsequent years!
FROM ABSOLUTE EVIL TO ABSOLUTE GOOD
Is there
besides the relative good and evil with which we are all familiar, whether
through nature, animals, or men, an absolute good and evil, a good and evil
outside the phenomenal world, whether beneath or beyond it, anterior or
posterior to it? Yes, most assuredly
there is! And we may classify these
absolutes as alpha and omega, or the beginning and culmination of the
Universe. Absolute evil would correspond
to its beginnings and absolute good to its culmination, though not necessarily
only to the ultimate culmination, which we may suppose has still to come about.
We may distinguish, then, between the
subatomic proton-proton reactions of pure instinctuality,
which signify absolute evil, and the supra-atomic electron-electron attractions
of pure spirituality, which signify absolute good; the one corresponding to the
Diabolic Alpha, the other to the Divine Omega, a kind of in-between compromise
coming in the person of Christ - and equivalent Man-God avatars - who signifies
an abraxas-like relativity biased, however, towards
the Divine Omega, a 'Three in One', as theological teachings have long
maintained. Although we shouldn't
overlook the fact that theology has also sought to absolutely elevate Christ to
Le Bon Dieu, which follows from the
Resurrection and can only be applied to a Christ conceived in purely
transcendent terms. We should not
forget, either, that while theology has upheld an absolute antithesis between
the good Christ and the evil Satan, it has also upheld a relative antithesis
between the (less evil) Creator and (the more evil) Satan, regarding the former
as God and the latter as the Devil, who corresponds to a 'Fallen Angel' from
the 'heavenly' unity.
This is of course fiction, theology having
to do, on this primitive level, with the abstraction of mythical fictions from
cosmic facts, namely the existence of stars, both large and small, and the
probability that, way back in the infancy of the Universe or of this particular
galaxy, our sun did indeed emerge from a larger star which subsequently became
the central, ruling star of the Galaxy, around which the sun - one of thousands
of other smaller stars that exploded out of a larger whole - was obliged to
revolve, less because of an attraction towards the ruling star than because of
a mutual interest in the domination of planets, or cooling/cooled stars. Now if, as I believe, Satan corresponds, in
theological terms, to the sun, while the Creator corresponds, in a like-manner,
to the central star of the Galaxy, then the distinction between them is,
subjectively considered, of a power that directly impinges, through its light
and heat, upon the world, and of a power that only indirectly impinges upon it,
ruling the Galaxy from a position which is necessarily at a much greater
distance from the earth. The sun, then,
is responsible, in its subatomic instinctuality, for
a more evil influence upon the world than ever the central star could be, and
consequently theology posits a dialectical distinction between the Devil and
the Creator, as between Satan and Jehovah - the one diabolic, the other divine.
In its lowest or earliest manifestation,
divinity has to do with the concept of a 'Creator of the Universe', including
the planets, nature, etc. Considered
objectively, however, we need not doubt that the Galaxy's central star - as
indeed the central star of any galaxy - is a larger, and hence more powerful,
star than a peripheral one like the sun and, consequently, that the Creator
corresponds to a more evil force than Satan, is, in effect, the archdiabolic inception of the Universe or, more accurately,
of that part of it which corresponds to the Galaxy, each galaxy possessing but
one central star (or star cluster), there being millions of galaxies in the
Universe, therefore millions of first causes, evil being inherently manifold
and diverse, the concept of a Big Bang origin to the Universe owing not a
little, it seems to me, to monotheistic tradition, though essentially somewhat
limited, particularly in view of the vast number of galaxies currently in
existence, not all of which could surely have issued from a single source!
However that may be, if evolution or the
Universe begins in the archdiabolism of a
Creator-equivalent, then it must culminate in the archdivinity,
so to speak, of the Holy Ghost, must pass from a diversified inception to a
unified climax, a final unity of pure spirit in the electron-electron
attractions of the Omega Point - the ultimate good. Yet this entails a terribly long process,
even, I imagine, on the supra-atomic plane of the heavenly Beyond itself, where
one may suppose only a gradual convergence of spiritual globes towards an omega
goal can be anticipated. But just as
there was a relative antithesis between Satan (the sun) and the Creator (the
central star of the Galaxy) on the alpha level of religious absolutism, so
there must be a like-antithetical relativity between a Spiritual Globe (angel)
and what, in relation to the Holy Ghost, could be called the Ultimate Creation
(definitive God) on the omega level of religious absolutism, the Spiritual
Globe - one of many such transcendences - a greater good, subjectively
considered, than the non-existent Ultimate Creation, because closer to the
world and tending towards the goal of evolutionary striving in ultimate
divinity, but less good, objectively considered, than the eventual culmination
of evolution in that spiritual oneness - the absolute good in every sense!
A JOURNEY BEYOND MYTHS
The
abstraction of theological fictions from cosmic facts, signifying a distinction
between subconscious subjectivity and cosmic objectivity, is paralleled, with
the eventual emergence of an antithetical stage of evolution, by the
abstraction of cosmic illusions from theological truths, signifying a
distinction between cosmic subjectivity and superconscious
objectivity. Whereas the outer world
dictates to the inner one in the former case, it is the inner world that
dictates to the outer one in the latter case, so that, instead of being the
victim of cosmic facts, the inner world, in the antithetical guise of the superconscious, reinterprets the cosmos and its workings
thereof according to transcendental requirement, replacing the Newtonian fact
with the Einsteinian illusion, the literal with the
metaphorical, force and mass with curved space.
Whereas the subconscious looked up, as it
were, to the factual cosmos, the superconscious looks
down on it from its truth-oriented vantage point. The fictional subconscious was partial to
Devils and Demons, Hells and Purgatories, Fathers and Creators, not to mention,
from an egocentric angle, Christs and Sons, Holy
Ghosts and Heavens. By contrast, the
truthful superconscious is only partial to the truth
of its own awareness in peaceful being.
The factual cosmos was a comparatively simple affair of stars and
planets, moons and comets. The illusory
cosmos, however, is an exceedingly complex affair of curved space and multiple
universes, black holes and worm holes, infinitely complex atoms and infinitely
small quarks, unaccountable movements and scarcely-credible
transformations. Now it is the Cosmos
that is magical and the inner world, by contrast, which holds no surprises -
quite the contrary to what was formerly the case! Divested of its mysticism, the subconscious
has become secularized and only fit for the psychoanalytical investigations of
guilt-leaden neuroses. It is the
external cosmos that has acquired a mysticism, in
accordance with the superficial requirements of a decadent age.
Ah, but such mysticism won't last! What began in a factual cosmos will end in a
truthful psyche. People will cease to
take an interest in the mystical universe and, instead, turn to the truth of
their superconscious worlds - absolutist in their
aspirations towards divine truth.
AN EVOLUTIONARY BIAS
The
struggle between natural determinism and free will, that which stems from the
Father and that which aspires towards the Holy Spirit, continues unabated in
this world of atomic relativities, and no less so in the guise of the
controversial Creationist/Evolutionist dichotomy in certain American schools
... than in the older and better-known struggles between, for example, man and
woman, or Church and State. On the one
side, those who uphold the theory of Creation, as recorded in the Old
Testament, and on the other side those who reject it in favour of evolution, as
derived from
To my mind, Creationism is simply Pagan/Judaic
theology, that's to say, an attempt to explain, in fairly basic mythical terms,
the extremely complex phenomenon of existent life on a ready-made planet. Theology is the fiction abstracted from the
fact, or what is assumed to be the fact, and it endeavours, for the benefit of
simple minds, to put a kind of sugar-coating over the bitter pill of factual
reality. It is easier to believe that
the Father created the world and all the life forms in it, including man, than
to attempt an understanding of the extremely complex, longwinded process of a
gradual evolution, which proceeded at a considerable remove, both in space and
time, from the central (first-cause) star of the Galaxy - the type of star from
which, we may suppose, such stars as the sun originally exploded out ('fell'),
though only as a flaming star, not as a cooling or already cooled one (planet),
which would presuppose a great elapse of time ... prior to which only flaming
stars existed, to diverge and contract, one against another, in an everywhichway context of anarchic hell, no move towards the
rudimentary formation of galaxies apparent on account of the absolutist
constitution of a starry universe, the lack, at that early time, of
cooling/cooled stars to establish galactic patterns on the basis of a magnetic
reciprocity.
Of course, such patterns eventually
emerged, and, following several millennia, life began to appear on the earth
and, we may confidently assume, on earth-equivalent planets in other solar
systems throughout both the Galaxy and the universe of galaxies of which this
galaxy is but a tiny fragment. Science
can tell us quite a lot, these days, about emergent life, both in the ocean,
where it seems to have begun, and, later, on land ... in the forms of plants,
reptiles, and mammals. If God (the
Father) created man, he must also have created, at a much earlier date, the
fierce dinosaurs and brontosauruses and other large reptiles that inhabited, on
extremely barbarous terms, a jungle-infested and lava-ridden planet. Not to mention the fierce mammals -
sabre-toothed tigers and huge-tusked mammoths - that superseded them during and
after the Ice Age. Horrible creatures
all! And early man himself,
not a very pretty or polite picture!
Beastly, ghastly, extremely narrow-minded, like everything that
appertains to an early phase of evolution.
More abominable than words can describe!
But man, that paragon of the animals, had
more intelligence and resilience than other creatures, and this not only
enabled him to thrive at their expense, but to evolve away from his ape-like
condition, to become, over the course of many millennia, civilized, which is to
say, partial to an aesthetico-religious dimension in
fixed communities and capable, in consequence, of inventing myths to explain
away the complexity of the world and the extraordinary phenomenon of his
presence in it. Hitherto, as an animal,
he would have been content merely to live in it, like Adam in the Garden of
Eden. Now, with an emerging superconscious and the glimmer of an analytical spirit, he
sought to explain it and himself also.
He had come down from the trees, left 'the Garden' for the wilderness,
or the jungle for the clearing, having secured the possibility of building in
and on it a world of his own that would - as we now know only too well -
eventually rival and supplant nature. He
had become civilized, aspirant, in some faint or indirect way, towards an Other
World, a world the antithesis to the natural one, a supernatural world which
could not be glimpsed without an artificial, or civilized, world coming
in-between. And he progressed and,
willy-nilly, is still progressing towards this higher world, one owing nothing
to nature and less than nothing to its subnatural
forerunner, with the cosmic inception of the Universe.
Ah, Creationism indeed! We cannot expect a liberal republican country
like
EVOLUTION
What
evolutionary progress, you may well wonder, has still to be made? I'll tell you what: lots! Yes, we are still in the world of men, a
humanist stage of evolution, and we shall doubtless remain in it for a while
longer. But not, fortunately, for ever,
since a time is fast approaching when man, in Nietzschean
parlance, may well be 'overcome', as serious efforts are made, by certain
qualified men, to create the first of two truly post-human life forms, the
Supermen of the early stage of millennial futurity, a life form created out of
man, or rather his cyborg-like successor, as human
brains artificially supported and sustained in collectivized contexts, their raison
d'être being to indirectly cultivate pure spirit through the contemplation -
necessarily passive - of the visionary contents of a new brain opened-up by
synthetic hallucinogens like LSD. In a word, to 'trip'.
However, these Supermen may well be further
transformed at a later time, that's to say, the qualified technicians of the
post-human millennium will surgically remove the old brain from each individual
Superman and re-collectivize their new brains on a more extensive and intensive
basis, thereby creating the second of the millennial life forms, the Superbeings, as I usually call them, whose raison
d'être will be the direct cultivation of pure spirit through hypermeditation (a sort of intensified and more rarefied
transcendental meditation), until such time as transcendence occurs and pure
spirit - detached from new-brain atomicity - soars heavenwards, to converge
towards other such transcendences and expand into larger wholes in a process
that should continue until such time as all transcendences,
from whichever part of the expanding spiritual universe, have converged
together and expanded into one definitive whole - the Omega Point ... of
Ultimate Divinity.
Such is the prospect in store for an
evolving universe, a universe that will attain to perfection - and remain in it
for all eternity - in the indivisible unity of the ultimate Spiritual Globe, a
unity that will not share space with anything solar or planetary, all naturalism
and materialism having passed away, never to return!
How did the Universe begin? With stellar energy, the
emergence in the void of gaseous stars.
How did it progress? With the emergence from these stars, or certain of them, of suns
(small stars). How did it
continue? With the
emergence from suns, or certain of them, of planets? All instinctual globes in
one degree or another.
Then what?
The emergence on certain of the planets of ... nature,
both inorganic and organic. And then? The emergence from nature of animals - fish, reptiles, mammals,
etc. To be followed by? The emergence from certain of these animals -
apes, we think, though we aren't sure exactly what type - of men, which is to
say, cavemen and jungle men and desert nomads and mountain men.
Who preceded? More civilized kinds of men, whom we now
identify as Christians or Mohammedans or Buddhists or Shintoists,
who were no longer pagan, or instinct-orientated, but mainly balanced, in the
body, between the id and the spirit - in short, dualists. Though we should make an
exception for the Jews, those ... 'holy pagans', who have good reason, in
consequence, to be awaiting an ultimate messiah, no mere dualist, but a radical
transcendentalist.
Who will?
Further the development of a new and higher type of man in a new
civilization, the antithesis to id-biased fundamentalism in spirit-biased
transcendentalism, which should eventually spread throughout the world,
bringing it to spiritual unity as a kind of crude approximation to or intimation
of the divine goal of all evolutionary striving in the heavenly Beyond.
And after this third type
of man? The first of the
post-human life forms, the Supermen, who will be created out of transcendental
man and constitute an antithesis to the apes.
And then the second of the millennial life forms created out of the
first? Yes, the Superbeings,
above and beyond all egocentricity, and hence the antithesis of trees, or that
sub-egocentric life-form preceding the animals.
Which leaves? The emergence from the Superbeings of Spiritual Globes, which will constitute an
antithesis to the planets, those material globes, and gradually converge
towards and expand into larger wholes.
Or? Galactic Globes, as we may
well call that which will eventually establish an antithesis with suns, or
small stars.
Becoming thereafter? The one, definitive, Universal Globe of the
Omega Point, the antithesis, in every respect, to the inception of the Universe
in the Alpha Points, as it were, of the big stars, which emerged in the
void. But not from it? No, nothing can emerge from a void, though
plenty can return to nothingness in it.
Like stars, for instance? Yes,
though not like pure spirit. Ah, how
truly you speak!
FROM ROCK TO JAZZ
Rock is a
left-wing democratic art form reflecting, as a rule, a kind of
petty-bourgeois/proletarian decadence, by which is meant rhythmic bias - music
being predominantly rhythmic in its autocratic youth, harmonic/melodic (a
combination of rhythm and pitch, whether rhythm- or pitch-orientated) in its
democratic adulthood, and 'pitchful' in its
theocratic old age. Rock suggests, in
its rhythmic and chordal essence, a neo-pagan type of
integrity, a 'fall' from democratic bourgeois melodic music which,
paradoxically, is yet also a 'rise' ... with regard to the use of electric and
synthetic instruments. It's as though
the age were reflecting an 'eternal recurrence' of pagan rhythmic vitality on a
higher, though parallel, turn of the evolutionary spiral.
Not entirely, however! For while Rock is symptomatic of a left-wing
decadence, there is also such a thing as Jazz-Rock, which suggests a theocratic
aspiration and which, in consequence of its greater complexity, may be accorded
a right-wing communist, or Marxist-Leninist, equivalent, distinct, in its
improvisational essence, from the rhythmic bias of rock musicians, who seem to
reflect a Marxist integrity ... as Rock becomes increasingly rhythmic and thus,
in effect, progressively more degenerate, symptomatic of Punk. If Rock began as a democratic-socialist
equivalent, it has arguably ended-up as an extreme left-wing communist
equivalent, rhythm being paramount.
Certainly, Jazz-Rock suggests an opposition
to this degenerate trend and is somehow transitional between rock purism and
Rock-Jazz, that left-wing theocratic art form which, while being predominantly
jazzy, and hence improvisational, is not without a rock aspect, or
commitment. Some have termed it
'Fusion', in contrast to 'Progressive', or Jazz-Rock, which suggests a predominantly
white, as opposed to black, ethnic bias.
Rock-Jazz (Fusion) is a black approach to a white democratically-biased
music, Jazz-Rock (Progressive) a white approach to a black theocratically-biased
music. They are both hybrid forms in
between the democratic, or anti-democratic, and theocratic extremes of ... Rock
and Jazz, in the latter case specifically Modern Jazz, that
electronically-biased improvisational music in which pitch is if not
all-important then, at any rate, considerably more important than in Jazz-Rock
or, for that matter, in Rock-Jazz.
Modern Jazz is a right-wing theocratic art
form, suitable to a supernatural ideological bias, particularly one of
approximately Social Transcendentalist integrity. In this music, the rhythm, whether from drums
or bass, generally functions on a quasi-pitchful
level, suggesting a tendency in the direction of pitch absolutism. This, however, will only come about in the
future, by which time Modern Jazz will have been superseded, in all
probability, by Superjazz, as percussive and rhythmic
ingredients are pitchfully transcended in an
improvisational purism, and music attains to its culmination in the wise old
age of a theocratic supernaturalism.
A radically theocratic society would have
no use for Rock, none even for Jazz-Rock and its Jazz-based counterpart -
Rock-Jazz. Neither would it tolerate
Soul, the black equivalent of Rock, nor its degenerate successor Funk, which
stands to Soul as Punk to Rock. In both
cases, the internal has given way to the external, essence to appearance,
content to form, melody to rhythm, and they are equally decadent and, by
implication, antinatural.
Likewise Pop, the
unsophisticated music of the broad masses rather than of a minority elite,
whether petty-bourgeois or proletarian, democratic or theocratic, will cease to
exist in the coming supernatural society.
Only the highest theocratic music will prevail, and predominantly within
a religious context. It won't be Jazz in
any traditional sense, but stem from Modern Jazz to the extent that it is
synthetic and largely improvisational, or pitchful.
The bourgeois classical and petty-bourgeois
avant-garde traditions, both pertinent to the right-wing of a democratic
society, will have been consigned to the rubbish heap of musical history, from
which, in conjunction with left-wing antinatural
music, they will never arise again! Only
free-electron criteria will be relevant to the ultimate closed society.
THE OMEGA INSTRUMENT
A conductor
stands to an orchestra as a proton equivalent to a collection of bound-electron
equivalents, the combination thereby formed
constituting an atomicity appropriate to an atomic age or society. With the emergence of a post-atomic age or
society, however, such an atomicity will cease to be viable ... as orchestras
and conductors are regarded as obsolescent and consigned, in consequence, to
the rubbish heap of bourgeois, democratic history. You can't have a baton-wielding proton
equivalent dominating a collection of instrument-bearing electron equivalents,
reminiscent of a tyrant lording it over his subjects, in a radically theocratic
society. All such relativities would be
morally taboo, quite apart from the inapplicability of acoustic instruments to
a supernatural age, or the no-less inapplicable reference to music-scores,
which, through intellectual appearances, maintain a relativity with the music
being played - the music not solely essential, or stemming from internal
memory/improvisational sources, but derived, as notes, from a source extraneous
to the self.
When music is essential,
and thus stemming from the musician's spiritual self, there is need neither for
scores nor conductors, since free-electron absolutism is then, as in the best
Modern Jazz, the norm, and the music will reflect this internal freedom largely
through improvisation. But better, of
course, is the use of synthetic or electric instruments to reflect such a
freedom than ... acoustic ones, which, being naturalistic, are more applicable
to an atomic, and hence bourgeois, context.
Modern music is best served by electric instruments, though we can
distinguish, I believe, between the antinatural and
the supernatural even here, so that while some types of guitar and keyboard
will be better-suited to antinatural Rock, other
types, being differently constituted, will prove more appropriate to a
supernatural context like Modern Jazz, which depends much more on pitch than on
rhythm.
Where electric guitars are concerned, one
can distinguish between the flat, solid type of instrument, suited to Rock, and
the guitar synthesizer which, with its piano-like keyboard, is more appropriate
to the supernaturalism of Rock-Jazz. On
the other hand, there may well be a Marxist-Leninist equivalent about synthesized
guitars, or synth-axes, which would make them
specifically appropriate to Jazz-Rock as opposed to either Rock-Jazz or Modern
Jazz, the latter of which, by contrast, would profit, as it so often does, from
the use of semi-electric guitars (not to be confused with the raised, hollow
type of guitar that is more relevant to Pop and was, in some sense, a
forerunner of the solid electric guitar) and even from the use of modern folksy
kinds of acoustic guitars ... appropriate, in their partly plastic
construction, to the supernatural, in contrast to the natural, wooden/catgut
acoustics used in bourgeois classical music - the classical guitar properly
so-considered. Certainly the
supernatural seems, as a rule, to have more in common with the natural than
with, say, the antinatural, even if the anti-supernatural,
Marxist-Leninist equivalent appears a little closer to it when all the
ingredients have been taken into account.
And what holds true for guitars must also
apply to other types of instrument, keyboards included, where one can note a
natural/antinatural distinction between acoustic
(specifically upright) pianos and flat, horizontal electric ones, the latter
applicable to Rock. No doubt, the
incorporation of a synthesizer or synthesizing capacity into the electric piano
brings it closer to the supernatural ... with regard to synthesizers-proper,
and may be said to constitute an anti-supernatural (Marxist-Leninist)
equivalent ... to the extent that a supernatural element, viz. the synthesizer,
has been brought to bear on a basically antinatural instrument,
as applicable to Jazz-Rock.
However, for a truly supernatural
integrity, applicable to Modern Jazz, nothing short of a genuine, unadulterated
synthesizer will do, its appearance reminiscent, to a degree, of a harpsichord,
its sound transcendental. If Modern Jazz
is to evolve into Superjazz, a pitchful
absolutism, it can only do so, one suspects, via a synthesizer, that most
supernatural, and hence theocratic, of all musical instruments. Guitars, keyboards, strings, wind, brass, and
percussion instruments are all, in varying degrees, either democratic or
autocratic, whether on a positive or a negative basis. Not even the use of transparent plastics - perspex, vinyl, etc. - turns electric guitars and violins
into truly supernatural instruments, though it marks a distinct radicalization
of the antinatural.
Only the synthesizer can transcend all
historical instruments and their antinatural
successors by combining them within its own uniquely synthetic integrity, and
thus rendering them superfluous. For if
you can play a guitar-like or a flute-like sound on the synthesizer in addition
to its own specific sound, of what use are guitars or flutes? Why have the Many when you can settle for the
One which, in its multifaceted capacity, subsumes the Many into itself while
simultaneously transcending them all through its own uniquely synthesized
sound? And which, as well as being
manually playable, can be programmed to play any sound or combination of sounds
in whichever way one specifies, thereby doing away with the relativity between
different performers and elevating the musician to an absolutist status
vis-à-vis his compositions.
Ah, so quintessentially theocratic! And no need for a conductor to ensure that
the music is performed correctly or, more usually, according to his personal
preferences. No individualism where an
autonomously-generated performance is concerned. Nor even any performer. Does not the machine rid man of the burden of
manual work? Or, in the case of
musicians, of repeating the same work over and over again, no matter how
pleasurable it may once have been? Yes,
of course!
ELECTRON FREEDOMS
I used to
think the State worse than the Church, democracy worse than Catholicism, but
these days I'm not so sure. Or, rather,
I perceive in the State a 'fall' (forwards) from the wavicle
side of the proton to the particle side of the neutron, a progression, as it
were, from proton wavicles to neutron and/or electron
particles. I don't confound the State
with the Kingdom, that proton-particle predecessor of the Church which, having
died-out in most countries, still exists in
Thus began the ascendancy of man over
woman. The State may, on account of its
particle constitution, be feminine, but it is the feminine side of a male
integrity, founded on reason and not, like the Catholic Church, on intuition,
that masculine attribute of a female integrity, which embraces the visionary. Reason, on the other hand, embraces rights,
and the rights, not least of all, of the greater number to live in freedom, and
hence happiness. Freedom,
above all, from persecution, whether this stems from the Kingdom or the Church. Freedom if not to be
spiritual ... then at least to be rational. A new-brain freedom as
opposed to an old-brain and/or subconscious enslavement. Better the free than the bound, but better
again than the freedom from the Kingdom/Church is the freedom for the
Centre, the freedom of the superconscious.
Yes, for the superconscious
pertains to the wavicle side of the electron, its
truly liberated side, and just as the Church stemmed, in its wavicle bias, from the particle Kingdom, so the Centre must
stem from the particle State, bringing electron evolution to a positive climax
of wavicle awareness, ushering in an age of
super-enlightenment, when nothing of the proton, whether in Kingdom or Church,
will remain, an electron absolutism having superseded all atomic relativity,
the Virgin Mary dethroned from her statuesque pedestal, woman no longer
enslaved to man but ... effectively free to be Superman, to cultivate spirit.
Then the superconscious
will reign supreme, first indirectly ... through contemplation of the
artificially-induced visionary contents of the new brain, then directly ...
through the spiritual self-realization of hypermeditation. A relativistic absolutism of State-Centre
particle/wavicle electrons will precede the Centrist
absolutism of electron wavicles. Social Transcendentalism will lead to
Super-transcendentalism, the new-brain superconscious
to the transcendent superconscious, superhuman man to
superbeingful man, visionary
truth to pure truth.
NATIONAL PARADOXES
Relative
life is ever paradoxical, and certainly the fact of Catholic
Nevertheless, one perceives within this
Republican/Protestant dichotomy a crude absolutism, whereas the older nations
like Britain and France are more relative, and in the most paradoxical kind of
way - Britain a Protestant Kingdom and France a Catholic Republic, the one
evincing a neutron-wavicle/proton-particle dichotomy,
the other ... a proton-wavicle/neutron-particle
dichotomy, each effectively the opposite of the other, both of them mutually
repellent, the British relativity more extremist than the French, there being
no atomic contiguity between proton particles and neutron wavicles,
the Kingdom and Protestantism, which flank the Catholic/Republican dichotomy
or, if you prefer, compromise of the French.
Thus while the Catholic Church/Republican
State dualism is paradoxical enough, the Kingdom State/Protestant Church
dualism is even more so, and to the point of absurdity. Are not the British the most paradoxical
people on earth? And
not simply with regard to politics and religion, the
Yet, as if that weren't paradoxical enough,
there is a further complication where Northern Ireland is concerned, which at
the time of writing [1984-85] still forms part of the United Kingdom (of Great
Britain and Northern Ireland) but is distinct from Great Britain, appertaining
not to the British island but to the Irish one, which, paradoxically, is part
of the British Isles. For like the
British, the Irish, particularly in the North of Ireland, are also divided ...
between Northern Irish nationality and British and/or Irish identity, not to
mention between Protestant Loyalism and Catholic
Republicanism, a division within a division which has been the source,
traditionally, of bitter conflict.
While the
THE MACHINE
It has been
said that man is fashioned in the image of God (the Father), but while we may
have our doubts about that, these days, we know for sure that God (the Son) was
fashioned in the image of man. It has
also been said that man is conditioned by his machines, and while there may be
some truth in this, we need not doubt that machines are made in man's
image. By which I mean that man creates
from his own order the order of the machine, that man precedes the machine, not
the machine man, and that the machine stands to him as he used to stand to the
Creator - a reflection of a preordained order, in the one case natural, in the
other case artificial.
Man, then, becomes God twice over, first in
being, then in doing; first in Christ, then as creator of the machine, though
we may suppose this latter assumption of divinity a decadence compared with the
former. Yet man needs the machine and
the machine, seemingly, needs man, or, at least, this used to be the case ...
before it became autonomous and thereby capable of leading a completely
independent existence, as in computers and digital watches, much the way man
outgrew his dependence on God (the Father) and became, via Christ, independent,
and hence fully human. Now the machine
has become fully mechanical, liberated from man and free to do its own
business, regardless of what human beings may think of the fact. At one time God took orders from man; now man
takes orders from the machine, which he trusts to do his business for him, much
as God was expected to answer prayers.
These days only the most backward of people
still pray. For the machine is capable
of fulfilling most human needs, having been fashioned in man's image. We are fed by it, entertained by it, educated
by it, informed by it, transported by it, warmed by it, pleasured by it,
clothed by it, dried by it, cooled by it, repaired by it, tanned by it,
reproduced by it, and even killed by it.
What it ultimately cannot do, however, is to save us, for this is
something that man can only do by and through his mind, striving, in the
process, to overcome his body ... with the assistance, needless to say, of the
machine. For just as he became liberated
from God (the Father), so he must become liberated from himself, if he is to
attain to the Superman and subsequently be engineered beyond that post-human
stage to the Superbeing. So the machine will come to support his
successors, no less than God (the Father) once supported men. And their ultimate goal will be liberation
from the machine, which is nothing less than Heaven and, inevitably, full
attainment to God (the Holy Spirit).
SUPERNATURAL VOYEURISM
Better than sexual fantasies are sexual videos, for they
correspond to the supernatural, whereas the daydreams of fantasy life are subnatural, and thus morally inferior. It is better that we watch other people
dreaming for us than to dream ourselves.
And it is better that we watch other people having sex on video than to
watch ourselves, since the supernatural is ever preferable to the natural, no
matter how pleasurable we may find the latter to be. Morally preferable, I mean. For anyone who dismisses moral considerations
is either a scoundrel or an idiot, and quite possibly degenerate to boot!
Supernatural voyeurism conforms to a
theocratic status, whereas natural voyeurism clings to a democratic status and subnatural voyeurism to one that is autocratic. Whereas supernatural voyeurism has to do with
the superconscious, no matter how indirectly, subnatural voyeurism is a thing of the subconscious, of the
subconscious conjuring up and regulating and/or manipulating images from the
old brain. Natural voyeurism, coming
in-between, is of course an egocentric indulgence, as consciousness
contemplates the sexual parts and/or activities of another, who is both free
and externally manipulated. Voyeurism,
of whatever kind, is the wavicle side of a sexual
atomicity, whether one is dealing with autocratic instinctuality
or theocratic spirituality or, indeed, with a democratic compromise, in
intellectuality, coming in-between the two, as when the natural voyeur
alternates between contemplation and manipulation during the indulgence of oral
sex, that quintessentially relative form of voyeurism, bespeaking a particle/wavicle compromise.
Of course, naturalistic voyeurism can also
be of a supernatural persuasion, as in straight contemplation, whether
involving two or more persons, and this is the lesser supernaturalism, one
might say, of a modified naturalism (not to be confounded with video or
magazine sex, which transcends the natural through the artificial medium of
film and/or photography). Ideally,
supernatural voyeurism should be as divorced from physical participation, on
the voyeur's part, as subnatural voyeurism, whereas
natural voyeurism will generally entail some physical commitment, though no
more than oral, whether with a bias for cunnilingus or fellatio or, indeed, a
balance between the two, depending, in some degree, on the class and/or moral
integrity of the participants.
Whatever the individual case, such wavicle sex is morally preferable to its particle, coital
complement, and no-one can consider himself sexually civilized who does not
have a voyeuristic tendency, even if this inclination is diluted, as it were,
by physical commitments of one kind or another.
Eventually, physical sex will die-out altogether, leaving a more
civilized, supernatural humanity with the wavicle
absolutism of a free-electron sexuality, to be indulged in private and
alone. Supernatural voyeurism will
become the rule, not remain the exception.
Everyone will possess a video and/or alternative pornographic outlet,
and few people will desire to fantasize.
SPIRITUAL CULTIVATION
You don't
cultivate spirit by keeping the body as fit and strong as possible. Symptomatic of the decadence of contemporary
Anglo-American civilization is the notion that physical fitness is a means to
spiritual enlightenment, that bodily exercises should be indulged in not only
for their own sake ... but with a view to improving one's spiritual life! Yet this is a rather contradictory notion,
since the cultivation of spirit can only be pursued at the expense of the body,
not by placing special emphasis on physical prowess! You don't become learned through jogging, and
neither will you soar to the contemplative heights during a physical work-out
or weight-lifting exercise. People who
imagine the contrary are simply deceiving themselves
as to the true nature of spiritual enlightenment!
Admittedly, the physical and the spiritual
are to some extent intertwined in human affairs. But cultivating the spiritual through the physical,
the mind through the body, is a rather indirect, medieval, tangential way of
attaining to enlightenment, and one would have to scourge oneself extremely
hard to experience anything approaching a beatific vision or moment of
contemplative lucidity! Why go the long
way around when a simpler, more direct approach to spiritual fulfilment would
prove of far greater efficacy? Assuming
one is really interested in developing spirit and is not simply an outright
athlete, for whom the development of muscle is the primary concern! Could it be that, of all categories of
mankind, young women are particularly prone to an indirect, masochistic
approach to the spiritual life, being unable to surmount their bodies? Certainly there is much contemporary evidence
to support that hypothesis, though one cannot, in all fairness, exempt all
young men from a similar query, nor doubt that extensive publicity of athletic
events must have a deleterious effect on some people's conduct.
But whether the health-freaks are genuinely
interested in cultivating spirit indirectly or simply use this notion as a
cover for purely athletic activities, the fact remains that not everyone is
destined or intended to be genuinely spiritual.
By which I mean that while spiritual cultivation is relevant to some, it
is quite irrelevant to others, and maybe most of those who regularly jog and/or
lift weights ... are in this non-contemplative category.
Is this bad? No, not necessarily! No matter how civilized a particular segment
of society becomes, there will always be others who will be less spiritual, and
hence more physical, and their proper place would be ... outside the meditation
centre, whether in the armed forces, the police, the bureaucracy, business,
manual work, or whatever. We must remember
that while some people are entitled, by their intelligence, temperament, and
physical constitution, to be the brains of society, there are others who, for
quite different reasons, must remain its body, and who will continue to do so
even while cultivating spirit, whether directly or, more usually, indirectly.
Furthermore, we might also distinguish
between the spiritual 'sheep', who in a higher civilization ought to be the
majority, and the physical 'sheep dogs', or those who, whether as soldiers or
police, protect and safeguard the interests of that majority, keeping them in
the 'pen' of any given social system, and defending them from external
encroachments by alien systems. Nothing,
therefore, could be more foolish than to treat the 'sheep dogs' as 'sheep' or,
conversely, the 'sheep' as 'sheep dogs', when they must forever remain distinct
on account of their respective natures and duties. The important thing is to know how to
distinguish the one from the other, and ensure that they are not obliged to
behave in a manner contrary to their respective natures. Now this also implies the weeding-out of
potential 'sheep dogs' from the 'flock' and their subsequent cultural
segregation.
In a higher social system, such as I equate
with Social Transcendentalism, those who were manifestly unsuited to the direct
cultivation of spirit would be debarred entry into the meditation centres and
obliged to fulfil themselves according to their more physical dispositions,
either as police or soldiers, or something analogous. In such fashion the idiocy of trying to turn
athletes into contemplatives would be avoided, and greater spiritual progress
could accordingly be made by those entitled to make it, who would, of course,
cultivate spirit directly ... under Centrist guidance.
