FROM THE ALPHA TO THE OMEGA

ROBERT: Talking of religion, does the Creator really correspond to the Devil, and does Hell actually exist?

PAUL: Yes, I believe that the Creator and the Devil are fundamentally one and the same thing, since theological abstractions from the Galaxy. As to whether Hell exists, you might just as well ask me whether the Devil exists, and I would give you the same answer.

ROBERT: Well?

PAUL: No.

ROBERT: Is that supposed to be an answer?

PAUL: It is. And for this reason: what exist in the Universe, not just the Galaxy, are stars and planets, which correspond to objective reality as it bears on the external world. The stars are really there, we needn't doubt that fact, and they burn both continuously and fiercely. They are rather nasty phenomena, as anyone who has suffered sunstroke or otherwise burnt himself through the sun's power will tell you. Not something to which one would want to get too close!

ROBERT: I know all that. And it makes one think of Hell when you mention it!

PAUL: Ah, but Hell isn't the sun, nor even the central star of the Galaxy, but an abstraction from the sun, an idea in the subconscious which reflects the prevalence of religious objectivity, as appertaining to the pagan and Christian stages of human evolution. Hell only exists in the mind, and so, by a similar token, do 'the Devil' and 'the Creator', since they are all abstractions from the same cosmic source.

ROBERT: But surely the Devil, or Satan, has co-existed with the Creator, or Jehovah, in Biblical tradition, and thus led an independent life, so to speak? We read in the Old Testament of Jehovah as God and Satan as the Devil, who was kicked out of Heaven for what one would now call insubordination.

PAUL: Well, that might signify a distinction of place and power, but it doesn't necessarily prove that the Creator and the Devil are radically different. Rather, I see them as two manifestations of fundamentally the same thing, both of which were abstracted from similar cosmic phenomena. This thing would be the stellar roots, so to speak, of the Galaxy, which is comprised, we now know, of a central star - much the most powerful star - and millions of smaller stars, like the sun. They are basically of a similar constitution, though they differ in size and position in the Galaxy.

ROBERT: Are you therefore implying that the Fall of Satan corresponds to the hypothetical stellar explosion that sent millions of small stars flying out from the large central one at the base of the Galaxy?

PAUL: In a way I suppose I am, since our sun was almost certainly created through extrapolation from some larger source and would have constituted a suitable objective reality from which to abstract the Devil. A mind that contends that God created the sun is referring, willy-nilly, to the far-away central star of the Galaxy out of which it probably arose.

ROBERT: Surely you mean fell?

PAUL: A fall would be the proper pagan interpretation to put on it, since no early Hebrew mind would have been aware of a transcendental goal to be attained to, and would consequently have felt the guilt that comes with a degree of human independence from nature in the face of nature's vast preponderance, both externally - as stars, planets, plants, animals, etc. - and internally - as subconscious mind. From our point of view, however, the emergence of small stars from the big one signifies an evolutionary progression that could be regarded, paradoxically, as a sort of rise. But if the Devil is an abstraction from the sun and the Creator an abstraction from the central star of the Galaxy, then we needn't be surprised by the co-existence, in Biblical writings, of these two manifestations of religious objectivity. Hell, conceived as a place where the Devil reigns, only began to develop as a theological entity with the advent of dualism and the consequent belief in a posthumous Heaven. Before men conceived of Heaven, they had little idea of Hell. It is among the ancient Greeks that we get the strongest belief in Hell prior to the Christians, though they termed it Hades and simply regarded it as the abode of the dead - a rather lacklustre place devoid of the kinds of excruciating tortures so essential to the medieval concept of Hell, and therefore more resembling the Christian purgatory. The Greeks were also polytheistic and thus inclined to abstract gods and goddesses from nature, including the sun, rather than to envisage a monotheistic creative power behind it. The Christians subsequently adopted the Hebrew bias for the centre, while tempering it with a modified extension of Hades and Olympus, which embraced the extremes of Hell and Heaven. But whether a particular deity was abstracted from one source or another, the fact nevertheless remains that neither the Devil nor the Creator correspond to external realities, but are simply idealistic abstractions relative to subconscious illusion.

ROBERT: So one wouldn't be strictly justified in contending that evolution proceeds from the Devil to God or from Hell to Heaven.

PAUL: No, because evolution proceeds from the stars to God, from the stars to Heaven, which is to say, from objective reality conceived externally, as matter, to subjective reality conceived internally, as spirit. Only the subjective psyche truly exists, for the objective psyche is necessarily illusory. And it is necessarily illusory because composed of abstractions from objective reality. Thus in the lower idealism of religious objectivity we get the Creator, the Devil, Hell, and so on, whereas in the higher idealism of scientific subjectivity ... we get curved space, the particle/wavicle theory of matter, multiple universes, and so on. The former was abstracted from cosmic reality, while the latter has been abstracted from the psychic reality of superconscious mind. The former must inevitably precede the latter, but will also be superseded by it. Thus we intellectuals don't believe in the Devil, Hell, the Creator, like our medieval ancestors, but we do believe in curved space, the particle/wavicle theory of matter, and multiple universes, and so we should, even though, from any objectively materialist point-of-view, such beliefs could only be regarded as erroneous and misguided! Just try thinking about curved space for a moment. Imagine space, which is a nothingness or void, as a curve!

ROBERT: I can't. Only certain material objects appear curved, since curvature is detectable on their surfaces, being a property of certain objects. But I can't imagine a void being curved.

PAUL: No, and neither can I, although every advanced and truly contemporary Western scientist will endorse Einstein's theory of curved space. Some of them can even purport to prove it, as did Faraday, who was clever enough to invent a machine which created the desired impression, thereby proving, once and for all, that space really was curved and the Universe finite. As to the particle/wavicle theory of matter, anyone can bang their hands against a strong piece of wood and feel the resistance of matter. But certain ingenious devices, like the Bubble Chamber, can prove that, on the subatomic level, matter isn't really what it appears to be on the surface, since composed of numerous particles which interpenetrate one another and also become, at other times and when viewed from a different psychic angle, so to speak, numerous wavicles. Mysterious now-you-see-me-now-you-don't alternations of particles and wavicles are brought to life by this magical device that would shame any traditional materialist. But no contemporary so-called physicist could possibly do justice to matter without it, and neither could he pursue scientific subjectivity so ardently was it not for the fact that our supermystical bias requires being flattered in this metaphysical way, not just recognized. The contemporary physicist becomes, in this context, a sort of scientific theologian, the modern equivalent of the religious theologians of the past. What he tells us is false by any objective materialist standards, but absolutely true to the age - an age in which information concerning the external world is abstracted from the spiritual reality of the superconscious, in conformity with transcendental criteria. Previously, however, it was the other way around, as information concerning the subconscious was abstracted from the material reality of the external world, and internal objectivity accordingly prevailed. Now that we have external subjectivity, however, we should be sincerely grateful for the fact, since it reflects a considerable degree of evolutionary progress!

ROBERT: Although this external subjectivity, as you call it, only prevails in the West, particularly in the United States, where a transcendental bias is permissible, if not always officially encouraged.

PAUL: Yes, the so-called communist world has traditionally remained tied to scientific objectivity, and thus to material reality. If at one time it officially outlawed religious objectivity, it failed to endorse religious subjectivity, and so couldn't encourage abstractions from the superconscious concerning the material world. It was essentially an external, superficial world that corresponded to a post-dualistic barbarism. Civilization on the highest, or qualitative, level requires a religion, but Marxist-Leninist countries didn't really have one, at least not in any morally progressive sense. However, don't blame them for that! They were part-and-parcel of historical necessity and couldn't possibly gravitate to civilization on the next level within the context of the world as it was until quite recently, which, as you know, was largely divided between the dualistic and transitional civilizations on the one hand, and the neo-barbarous post-dualistic powers on the other. To have had three stages of civilization, viz. a dualistic, a transitional, and a post-dualistic, existing simultaneously would have been illogical and therefore quite improbable from an historical point-of-view. Obviously the first two will have to be superseded before the third can truly become a reality, and socialism accordingly embraces transcendentalism. But it won't embrace transcendentalism overnight, so to speak, nor in all the revolutionary post-dualistic countries at once. Only in one country, initially, will socialism tend towards the establishment of post-dualistic civilization, as signified by Social Transcendentalism, and from there such a civilization will spread abroad to eventually embrace the entire world. Then we will certainly be on the road to global civilization. But not before transcendentalism has proved its worth and socialist powers have been persuaded to evolve, via Social Democracy, into post-dualistic civilization.

ROBERT: Which will be atheistic rather than theistic, like the dualistic and transitional civilizations of the contemporary West?

PAUL: Yes, because completely beyond religious objectivity, which upholds the idealism of the subconscious mind. For a post-dualistic psyche, with approximately three times as much superconscious as subconscious influence, the illusory contents of the subconscious fade into the mists of history ... as the mind tends further and further into the light of truth. So, obviously, they can't be upheld as formerly. The external world, with particular reference to the Galaxy, will still exist as before, so that the cosmic phenomena from which religious idealism was abstracted in the past are still there, and consequently still support and sustain the world. But the internal world will have changed so much that the Creator, the Devil, Hell, and other such theological abstractions will hold no place in our references to the external world and, accordingly, have ceased to exist for us. Evolution will be regarded as a progression from the stars to the Holy Spirit which, in more objective language, one might call the Omega Absolute. And the stars and planets will generally be regarded as though they functioned according to divine logic, with mystical rather than materialist criteria, in deference to the transcendental bias of scientific subjectivity. Strictly speaking, however, this could never be the case, since stars are ever infernal and therefore function on the fundamentally Newtonian basis of force and mass. But to a post-dualistic civilization, scientific objectivity would be as irrelevant as religious objectivity.

ROBERT: So considered from the traditional point-of-view, with regard to the infernal nature of the stars, you would have no difficulty in equating the Creator with a more powerful inferno than Satan, who was generally regarded as the Devil.

PAUL: If the Creator was abstracted from the biggest star of the Galaxy, then He would certainly be more powerful than anything abstracted from the sun. If the Creator created the Devil, whether by mistake or otherwise, then Satan could only be a minor inferno by comparison.

ROBERT: And do you think there was one Creator or many?

PAUL: There would have been many Creators throughout the Universe. For each galaxy has a governing or central star around which the millions of smaller stars revolve. To imagine that the Universe began with a Big Bang ... from one huge mass of gas which sent stars, or the rudiments thereof, flying out in every direction ... would, I think, be to overlook the fundamental nature of the Diabolic Alpha in utter separateness. If evolution is destined to culminate in the indivisible unity of transcendent spirit, then I don't see that one should ascribe a unity in indivisible sensuality to its beginnings! Rather, one should envisage numerous separate explosions of gas throughout the Universe which, issuing from what we now call the central star of each galaxy, sent suns flying out in every direction, to bring about the rudiments of individual galaxies. Possibly some of these suns were of a different internal constitution than others, they may even have come from other galactic explosions in which the gases were differently constituted, and thereby set up a kind of magnetic equilibrium in tension when they encountered their opposite numbers, so to speak, in the gradual formation of galaxies. But it was solely from and within the context of this galaxy, rather than from the totality of galaxies making up the Universe, that religious objectivity was subsequently abstracted.

ROBERT: Which means, I take it, that the ancients, whether Hebrew or otherwise, took the Galaxy for the Universe, since they lacked the scientific means by which to acquire a more comprehensive knowledge of the various galaxies, and accordingly imagined that the Universe was simply compounded of all the stars they could see, and that it revolved around the earth.

PAUL: Yes, so they abstracted from a fragment of the Universe under the mistaken assumption that they were in fact abstracting from the whole, and thereby arrived - at any rate, in the case of the Hebrews - at a monotheism only relative to this galaxy. In reality, there are or were literally millions of creators in the Universe, because millions of separate galaxies with their respective governing stars, and these creators each gave rise to millions of devils, because billions of separate stars in all the galaxies of the Universe taken together. This, however, is to extend religious objectivity farther afield, and it can have no applicability to the modern world! We speak of galaxies, not creators, and so we should. I am not now expecting you to resurrect the past and modify it by substituting creators for the Creator, devils for the Devil, hells for Hell, or the lot for galaxies! But, to get the record straight, I am quite sure that the traditional religious reference to the Creator, the Devil, etc., was, so to speak, cosmically provincial, relevant only to this galaxy, and that there were in fact millions of creators being worshipped throughout the Universe, with millions of devils being feared there - each alien 'people' acknowledging their own abstractions in whichever solar system they happened to exist.

ROBERT: So the old enigma as to whether there was only one First Cause of the Universe or numerous First Causes has been solved at last, if what you say is true?

PAUL: I believe so. And I believe that intelligent life forms in any particular galaxy would only acknowledge the First Cause relative to their specific galaxy, not to anyone else's, even though they would probably have abstracted the Devil from different sources, depending on which solar system, if any, they inhabited. Thus if certain of our ancestors on earth abstracted the Devil from the sun, there would be plenty of other suns in the Galaxy to serve a like-purpose for other human equivalents in different solar systems, and consequently they would all be referring to different devils. As to the fact that, in most traditional political arrangements, the king and nobles derive their justification from the workings of the Galaxy and may be thought of as corresponding, in their relationship with the general populace, to the relations of suns to planets, I have little doubt that the king corresponds, in his privilege of 'Divine Right', to the governing star of the Galaxy, and thus functions as the human equivalent on earth of the Creator. His nobles, being fundamentally of the same stuff as himself, correspond to the numerous smaller stars that revolve around the large central one, and therefore are aligned with devils, functioning as the human equivalent on earth of the devils of a particular galaxy. The populace, by contrast, correspond to the planets of each solar system and are therefore aligned with demons, functioning as the human equivalent on earth of the demons of a particular galaxy. This is a thoroughly diabolical system which prevails while man is under the dominion of nature, of the natural status quo, and has not yet begun to exclusively aspire towards the supernatural. Thus to some extent it prevails right up to the advent of post-dualistic civilization, when everything appertaining to the monarchic/aristocratic system of government would have ceased to exist. A constitutional monarchy, such as exists in dualistic Britain, is fundamentally a diabolic system that has been diluted by bourgeois democracy, whilst a republic, such as exists in transitional America, is a worldly system characterized by bourgeois/proletarian democracy. Only in a post-dualistic civilization will the undiluted truth of a divine-oriented system become possible, as men turn exclusively, in Transcendentalism, towards the cultivation of spirit, and thus cease to fear or worship or slave for the human equivalents on earth of the galactic order. At that fortunate time there will be no such equivalents, for they will have ceased to exist, having faded into the misty past, along with scientific and religious objectivity. Only the divine-oriented class of the proletariat will continue the progress of human evolution, and they will do so not as the human equivalent on earth of demons, like the peasant masses and, more especially, soldiery of the feudal and pre-feudal past, but as Transcendentalists - angelic aspirants towards the post-Human Millennium ... and beyond.