CYCLE ONE HUNDRED

1. Strictly speaking, video recorders are less omega in relation to televisions than a sort of middle-ground precondition of televideos, or television and video recorder in one, which are more genuinely omega in orientation. Likewise, CD-ROM drives that are actually built-in to computers are more genuinely omega orientated than auxiliary CD-ROM drives, or CD-ROMs used in conjunction with conventional computers. One could in fact argue that the use of an auxiliary device with the original format is transitional to composite entities of the above-mentioned order.

2. Words like transcendentalist, fundamentalist, nonconformist, and humanist would seem, at face-value, to be open-ended, broad-based definitions that can be used, if rather loosely, in either an alpha or an omega context. Yet, strictly speaking, they should only be used in relation to the omega, since the alpha, which is scientific, is better served by terms such as idealism, naturalism, materialism, and realism. Hence the distinction between, for example, stellar transcendentalism and heavenly transcendentalism, though philosophically intelligible, would be enhanced by reference to stellar and/or cosmic idealism on the one hand, and heavenly and/or divine transcendentalism on the other hand - the former implying a scientific description germane to the alpha, and the latter a religious description germane to the omega. Science speaks of light, for light is based on the alpha, whereas religion speaks of spirit, since spirit is centred in the omega. A partisan of science would not, one imagines, speak of the omega from a religious standpoint but, rather (assuming he acknowledged it at all), from the viewpoint of science ... as anti-light. Conversely, a man of religion should not speak of the alpha from a scientific viewpoint, but from the standpoint of religion ... as antispirit. For light corresponds to the stellar alpha no less than spirit to the heavenly omega, and to speak of the former in relation to religion and the latter in relation to science ... is simply to subvert and confound the two in-many-ways antithetical contexts. Strictly speaking, the scientist has no more right to speak of spirit, and hence transcendentalism, than the priest to speak of light, and hence idealism.

3. The Cosmos would, one imagines, speak only of the light and God of the spirit, since the Cosmos can only relate to the light and God to the spirit.

4. 'Religions' based on the light are 'pseudo' and therefore quasi-scientific, whereas 'sciences' centred in the spirit are 'pseudo' and therefore quasi-religious. A scientific age, based on the alpha, demands a scientific 'religion', whilst, conversely, a religious age, centred in the omega, demands a religious 'science'. Scientific 'religion' is in the service of science, whereas religious 'science' is the servant of religion.

5. We carry both alpha and omega about with us on all spectra of life - idealist/transcendentalist, naturalist/fundamentalist, materialist/nonconformist, and realist/humanist. Eyes are an idealist alpha, lungs a transcendentalist omega; ears are a naturalist alpha, the heart a fundamentalist omega; the tongue is a materialist alpha, the brain a nonconformist omega; the flesh is a realist alpha, the womb a humanist omega. Hence the scientific nature of eyes, ears, tongue, and flesh, as opposed to the religious nature of lungs, heart, brain, and womb. Eyes (and hence sight) derive from the stellar alpha, whereas lungs are aligned with the heavenly omega; ears (and hence hearing) derive from the solar alpha, whereas the heart is aligned with the hellish omega; the tongue (and hence taste) derives from the lunar alpha, whereas the brain is aligned with the purgatorial omega; the flesh (and hence touch) derives from the planar alpha, whereas the womb is aligned with the mundane omega.