THE
WAY
OF EVOLUTION
Philosophical
Essays
and Maxims
Copyright
©
1981–2012 John O'Loughlin
_______________
CONTENTS
PART
ONE:
ESSAYS
1.
The
Essential Goal
2.
Means
before Ends
3.
Post-Egocentric
Art
4.
Natural
Sex and Artificial Sex
5.
Confessions
of an Atheist
6.
The
Literary Revolution
7.
Music
in an Age of Transition
8.
Historical
Analogies
9.
The
Way of Evolution
PART
TWO:
MAXIMS
10.
Maxims
1-83
_____________
PART
ONE:
ESSAYS
THE
ESSENTIAL
GOAL
It
has
long
been acknowledged by a number of the world's greatest thinkers,
including both
Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, that men and women are not equal but,
rather, that
women are decidedly inferior to men - indeed, judged from a sensible
standpoint, a second sex. It has also
been acknowledged that the chief reasons for this inequality are that
women are
physically weaker and more timid than men, with a greater dependence
upon
nature in consequence of their greater physical proximity to it. They are less free in their behaviour and
inclined to resist radical change from the standpoint of natural
determinism. They are apt to be more
emotional and therefore
less stable, more sensual and therefore less spiritual, more intuitive
and
therefore less rational, more realistic and therefore less idealistic, more worldly and therefore less otherworldly, and
so on.
In general, it is fair to
say that much of
this is largely true. For
men
and
women are
fundamentally
different creatures, with separate functions in life, and cannot, by
the very
nature of their differences, both physical and psychological, be equal,
i.e.
exactly the same. Men are, on the
whole, physically stronger than women, more intellectually-biased, more
spiritually progressive, etc., and therefore not susceptible to being
regarded
as the exact equals of women, nor, on those counts, as their inferiors. On the contrary, they are essentially and
morally
superior to women and, if the greatest philosophers are believable,
have long
been so, though not perhaps with any distinct consciousness of the fact. But the modern world has tended to treat men
and women as though they were equal and is
increasingly
doing so, offering women more job opportunities and social freedoms
than ever
before. Literally for the first time in
the world's history, woman is being regarded as man's equal. Why is this?
The answer to such a
question is not, I
think, to be found in the assumption that, previously, men had been
grossly
mistaken in their assessment of women but, rather, that the world has
recently
become so male-biased that women are being treated as though they were
men. Not in every context of course, but
certainly in contexts which relate to professional, commercial, and
industrial
occupational affairs. Now the reason the
world has recently become so male-biased is that urbanization and
technology
have developed to such an extent that we are neither as close to nor,
on the
whole, as much influenced by nature as were our pre-industrial and
pre-urban
ancestors. For nature, being
subconsciously dominated, is essentially a
feminine
phenomenon, and the further away from it one evolves the less influence
the
feminine exerts on life and the more, by a corresponding degree, does
the
masculine come to predominate.
The big city, then, reflects
an
anti-natural environment, one might almost say to the point of
constituting a lunarization of the world,
and what is anti-natural or
artificial is also, ipso
facto, anti-feminine and anti-sensual. The
consequences
of this for women are a
weakening of the traditional feminine roles of sexual and maternal
commitment
and the imposition, in their place, of a masculine role of professional
responsibility. Woman is, to a certain
extent, masculinized under the mounting
influence of
urban expansion and, consequently, she ceases to regard herself simply
as a
female, with traditional domestic responsibilities.
Of course, these responsibilities are still
there, but now they are obliged to make way for such responsibilities
as modern
life in the big city have thrust upon her and no longer, except in
exceptional
cases, completely dominate her life to the exclusion of other things. She won't, however, look upon this as a
misfortune but, rather, as a consequence of liberation, the progress of
women
in the modern world.... To be confined, on the other hand, to
traditional
marital and maternal duties too exclusively would be a
misfortune, comparatively speaking, and thus a mode of oppression which
one is
much better off without. Progress
demands that women take a more active role in the world.
Yes, but it does so at the
expense of the
feminine ideal and at a high cost to women personally!
For with the possible exception of the
witch-hunts of the 16-17th centuries, there has never been an age when
women
were so greatly oppressed - certainly not within the annals of recorded
time. By dint of its masculine bias the
modern world directly makes war on the feminine element in life, and
makes war
so ruthlessly and successfully that the female does not lament the
passing of
her femininity, her sensuous appearance, but willingly joins in the war
against
it for the sake of progress or, more specifically, with a view to
acquiring
liberation from womanhood, which is to say, liberation from nature. So great is the influence of the modern world
over her that she is obliged to regard the gradual eradication of the
feminine
element in life as a good thing, a positive blessing which will pave
the way
for greater social and professional opportunities in the future. Put bluntly, woman is obliged to turn against
her own fundamental interests in the interests of men, and to do so,
moreover,
under the false though necessary assumption that she is thereby serving
her own
deepest interests, which are not now, however, feminine and domestic,
as
traditionally, but masculine and industrial, as required by the modern
world. A sort of 'revaluation of values'
is imposed upon her from without, which leads to a liberation from
traditional
values from within, and a reappraisal of the self in terms of
essentially
masculine criteria of progress. No
longer is she content to remain 'just a woman', with all the maternal,
sexual,
and sensual obligations such a status implies, but is effectively
determined to
become a man, determined to commercialize and intellectualize herself
to the
extent she can. To be the passive,
helpless victim of industrial and urban progress would be too
humiliating. Better to ignore or, at any
rate, undervalue
the coercive element in modern life and act as though one were directly
responsible for one's own transformation - in short, as though one had
personally willed it. Such, at present,
is the general attitude of women, consciously or unconsciously, towards
the
transformations imposed upon them by technological progress. Rebellion is simply out-of-the-question.
So, obviously, the more
urban civilization masculinizes women, the
more reasonable it becomes that
they should be treated like men and granted equal opportunities, not be
discriminated against as women.
And equal opportunities should lead to equal rewards, both
financial and
social. If at present this isn't always
the case, it must be because there is a discrepancy in the system or,
alternatively, because women haven't yet emancipated themselves from
traditional responsibilities to any great extent and thereby proved
their worth
in masculine terms. With the further
development of liberation and, needless to say, urban civilization, it
is to be
hoped that a more consistent and widespread equality of opportunity
will
emerge, as evolutionary progress would seem to require.
But, at present, the tendency of women to
draw away from traditional responsibilities is still a comparatively
new one,
its origin largely confined to the twentieth century, which, in
historical
terms, is an extremely short period of time.
Prior to then, the Industrial Revolution hadn't unduly affected
them. For they were
still, to a large extent, tied to the home, and to the kitchen in
particular. Now, however, things
are very different, and
relatively few women retain the traditional female prerogative of
domestic
confinement - at least not on an exclusive basis. The
great
majority are encouraged by
contemporary environmental and technological circumstances to take
varying
degrees of responsibility in the masculine world. They
are
powerless to resist. Willy-nilly,
evolution continues, and it does
so, at this juncture in time, at the expense of women.
Yet women aren't the only
people to be
affected by it. Men also experience the
consequences of their technological progress and thereby change
simultaneously
with women. They don't remain static,
and neither do they regress and become less masculine.
On the contrary, they become even more
masculine, even more spiritual and intellectual, and thus maintain a
psychological distance, as it were, between women and themselves. If, on the other hand, men stood still while
women continued to advance, a true equality between the sexes could be
inferred. But this, of course, doesn't
happen, and, consequently, men and women remain at different levels:
the former
more masculine than before and the latter less feminine.
Practice dictates that the sexes be treated
as equals, but theory demonstrates that there is now probably as much
psychological difference between them as formerly - a difference,
however,
which is now largely a matter of masculine bias, founded upon the
degree of
one's masculinity, rather than a straight opposition between feminine
and
masculine elements, appearance and essence.
Hence women are increasingly regarded, in effect, as 'lesser
men', or
'men' who are less masculine than genuine men but, nevertheless,
deserving of
equal treatment on the basis of such masculinity as they do
effectively
possess. The external sartorial symbol
of jeans, trousers, or slacks for the internal psychological revolution
in
women largely confirms this fact and facilitates progress among males
in the
identification of the masculine transformation of women.
A jean-wearing female acquires the status of
a 'lesser male', rather than simply a female in jeans.
A female in jeans would have been a
laughing-stock in any previous age.
These days 'she' is a taken-for-granted reality.
Almost all women, particularly those of the
younger generation, wear some form of masculine, phallic-like clothing
on a
regular basis.
But there is a limit as to
just how far the
female can be masculinized.
No matter how advanced the civilization, you
cannot literally turn a woman into a man.
A woman may wear jeans seven days a week, cut her hair short,
eschew
make-up, work in an office, read the classics in her spare time, follow
football, drive around town in an expensive car, smoke and drink, etc.,
but,
fundamentally, she will still remain a woman, with a vagina, an ample
rump,
protruding breasts, fleshy arms, and various other alluring female
characteristics. No matter how much she
endeavours to toe-the-masculine-line of objective spirituality, her
fundamental
appearance as woman will persist, and so too, in some measure,
will the
psychological bias which accompanies it as its logical corollary. She will never catch-up with man and actually
become
male. There will always be a psychological division
between the sexes, a mental and physical distinction which precludes
true
equality. For men and women are ever
different and therefore unequal creatures.
Man is profound but woman superficial, which is equivalent to
saying
that man is essence but woman appearance. Not exclusively of course, neither in the one
case nor the other, but fundamentally, one might even say essentially,
as
befitting the principal characteristics of each sex.
For a woman who was more essence than
appearance, more spirit than flesh, wouldn't really be female at all,
at least
not in any genuine sense. Neither, from
the opposite standpoint, would a man really be male who was
more appearance than essence.
Even the most dandified of men is still a man, no matter how
much he
may, consciously or unconsciously, be in revolt against his sex through
the
placing of undue importance on appearances, just as the most studious
of women
remains fundamentally a woman for all her dedication to masculine
essence. In such extreme instances there
will, of
necessity, be a degree of play-acting and insincerity involved. For it is ultimately as impossible for
appearance to triumph over essence in man as for essence to triumph
over
appearance in woman. Rebellion against
one's own sex is hardly sufficient to actually change it!
Ultimately, it cannot be changed. For
no
matter how dandified he endeavours to
become, an intelligent man will remain the master of his body in
intellectual
aloofness and spiritual endeavour. He
will still, to a certain extent, be dictated to and conditioned by his
essence. And no matter how studious she
endeavours to become, an attractive woman will remain the slave of her
body in
self-conscious pride. She will still, to
a certain extent, be dictated to and conditioned by her appearance. For as Wilde so succinctly put it in The
Picture
of
Dorian Gray: 'Women represent the triumph of matter over mind,
just as
men represent the triumph of mind over morals'.
As far as she is concerned,
woman
represents 'the triumph of matter over mind', of appearance over
essence. She can never become the converse
of this,
for the converse, when we exclude the element of facetiousness from the
above
citation, is man. Yet she can triumph
temporarily and intermittently over herself, as when she dedicates time
to
reading or writing or thinking. She can
also triumph temporarily and intermittently over man, as when she
induces him
to have sex with her, either directly through conscious enticement, or
indirectly through simply being attractive and available.
But her triumph is necessarily limited to the
realm of physical sensuality. It can
never be complete, since by itself matter is incapable of vanquishing
mind. Mind is the stronger and continues
to evolve. Matter remains static, has no
real power to change itself. The body of
a beautiful woman of today would not differ in any marked degree from
that of a
beautiful woman of 5,000 years ago. The
mind of an intelligent modern man, on the other hand, would contain
very
different thoughts and views from the mind of an intelligent man living
5,000
years ago. It would have considerably
expanded in the meantime, embracing not simply a greater knowledge of
the self,
both psychologically and physiologically, but also a greater knowledge
of the
external world, as of the Universe in general.
Essence moves ahead, appearance stays put. The
essence
in woman is obliged to follow-on
behind the essence of man. The
appearance in man pays due respect to the appearance of woman. Thus humanity both perpetuates itself and
progresses at the same time.
Man makes use of and
respects the
appearance of woman. Yet because he is
fundamentally essence he forges ahead, and so rebels against woman. Woman is static, but he is evolutionary. Woman is conservative, but he is liberal, if
not radical. Woman is constancy, but he
is change. Appearance may be beautiful,
but it is aligned with the flesh, the sensual - in a word, nature. For essence is spirit, and whatever pertains
to the spirit is against the Devil and for God.
Thus in his profound self, which is spiritual, man is orientated
towards
the Divine, whereas in her superficial self, which is sensuous, woman
stems
from the world and even, to a lesser extent, the Devil.
Woman is for the world but man is against
it. Woman is the here-and-now, but man
will be the transcendental Beyond.
Evolution is fundamentally a reflection of this struggle by man
towards
God. It is a consequence of the will of
separate essences to become unified essence in the transcendental
Beyond. The will, in
short, of the
spiritual principle to triumph, utterly and completely, over the
sensual one. For appearance wishes
to remain separate, is
indeed admired on an individual
basis in the form of the
unique beauty of a particular woman,
whereas
essence aspires towards unity. Essence
must therefore triumph over appearance or fail to attain to its
transcendental
goal. Needless to say, it is unlikely to
countenance failure! Ultimately, the
goal is the only thing that matters!
And so it will struggle
ahead, as at
present, for the sake of its ultimate fulfilment in maximum spirit. Consequently civilization will continue to
grow more male-biased the nearer it gets to the climax of evolution in
spiritual transformation. The Omega
Absolute, conceived as this climax of evolution, would be an entirely
essential
affair, beyond nature and time. It would
be constituted of pure spirit and remain forever perfect and complete,
the absolute of absolutes. Beyond it
there would be nothing else. Beneath or,
rather, behind it the Devil would gradually lose its remaining grip on
the
Universe and fade away, leaving the void to God. In
other
words, the stars would gradually
collapse and disintegrate, taking their offspring, the planets and
moons, along
with them. Only perfection would remain,
composed of universal essence.
Appearance could never arise again!
If that is the outcome of
evolution, then
we needn't be surprised if, at some future date, women are effectively
phased-out
of society in the interests of men's commitment to the transcendental
Beyond. For as women can never literally
become men but must always, of necessity, remain rooted in and governed
by
appearance, it logically follows that the future development of a still
greater
spiritual bias in society must lead, sooner or later, to the removal of
women
for being insufficiently essential, and thus a threat or hindrance to
spiritual
progress. How this removal of the feminine
element in life will come about, we cannot as yet be certain. Though it seems plausible to suggest that it
won't come about overnight, so to speak, in the form of a mass purge on
women
or anything so gross, but will develop gradually - as, indeed, it
appears to be
doing at present. For the masculinization of the female which her partial
emancipation from traditional responsibilities implies is but a stage
on the
road to her complete emancipation from such responsibilities, which, by
making
woman unnecessary, would signal her effective elimination.
Thus one might speak of a
gradual
phasing-out of the feminine element in life which, at this lower stage
of
evolution, takes the forms we see about us in the everyday world but
which, at
a more advanced future stage of it, could well entail the actual and
total
elimination of the feminine element, not merely the masculinization
of woman. And this would come about, we
may speculate, through scientific progress, which is to say, through
the
gradual introduction and perfection of more artificial methods of
conception,
such as are already incipient in the forms of artificial insemination
and
test-tube reproduction, and the consequent development of techniques
which
would effectively permit science to discriminate against the female and
thereby
make a highly-regulated supply of male life possible.
Thus one is confronted by the prospect of a
society which decreases the female element while simultaneously
increasing that
of the male. A society
tending towards greater unification and therefore away from divisive
dualities. A world in which,
ultimately, only the
masculine element would exist and, moreover, at its most sublime, which
is to
say, unified beyond the flesh to a maximum of essence.
Is all this cruel on the
female? To a certain
extent yes, but
to a certain extent no. 'Yes',
because, as I remarked earlier, the gradual masculinization
of the female is inevitably oppressive, in varying degrees, towards the
fundamentally feminine element in life, which is the exploitation of a
sensuous
appearance. Of course, one could argue
that man has been at war with woman from virtually the beginnings of
civilized
time, to the extent that his essence, as spirit, tends away from the
sensuous
appearance of woman and is thus effectively opposed to it.
But not until comparatively recent times has
he actually developed civilization to a point where woman is being
forced onto
the defensive or even obliged to change sides.
Prior to the twentieth century, women were generally in their
maternal/sexual element as women, with domestic duties to
attend to, and
men were correspondingly closer to nature and hence to the feminine
element in
life, which, springing from the world, is a sensual rather than a
spiritual
reality. Men could not, at that time,
have aspired so ardently towards God.
Neither would women have sought job opportunities in the city,
even if
they had been offered any. Exceptions to
the rule notwithstanding, the great majority of them would have been
perfectly
resigned to their domestic fate as mothers and housewives.
However, with the twentieth century all that
changed, and to such an extent that relatively few women would want to
be just
housewives these days. Urban civilization
has spread so rapidly and developed so extensively that women are
caught-up in
it, whether or not they like the fact, and accordingly obliged to fall
in
line. Consequently the unprecedented
growth of male power must prove oppressive to what remains in woman of
her
natural birthright. Victory in war can
only be oppressive to the losing side.
There is undoubtedly a degree of cruelty and degradation
involved.
Yet to some extent what is
happening in the
modern world isn't cruel on the female but should serve, on the
contrary, to
deliver her from the oppressive burden of her own femininity. For the corollary of female masculinization is her emancipation from
domestic servitude
and the consequent advantage of greater sexual freedom, not only in the
rather
crude terms of promiscuity but also, and more importantly, with regard
to abortion
and contraception, thus freeing her from maternal enslavement. In the long run, greater sexual freedom can
only be beneficial to society, since it points the way towards a total
freedom
from sex which a more advanced civilization would inherit.
And it would inherit such a freedom because
the feminine element in life had been successfully phased-out of
existence, in
accordance with the will and growing power of essence.
For the further essence develops the less
toleration will it have for appearance, which pertains, in particular,
to the
female but is also to be found in the male.
In accordance with man's growing commitment to spirit, the human
body
will gradually be superseded, step by step, by a mechanical or
artificial one;
a non-sensuous body designed not only to support and sustain the brain,
or the
inner self, but to make possible a much more exclusive commitment to
the
cultivation of spirit, as required by evolutionary progress. Essence would wish to be freed from the
obligations imposed upon it by the flesh to eat, drink, walk, sleep,
urinate,
defecate, copulate, etc., and would also know that its chances of
attaining to
the goal of evolution in heavenly salvation would be all the greater
the less
dependent it was on the flesh and, consequently, the less it was tied
to the
natural body.
But woman, being
predominantly appearance,
would not be capable of the same degree of commitment to essence and
therefore
wouldn't desire the artificial transmutation of the body quite so
ardently, if
at all. For if you remove appearance
from woman you destroy her chief pride, leaving only a brain with, on
account
of its relatively smaller size, a lesser capacity for essence. Woman cannot, by her very nature, become man,
and so a war against appearance is also, ipso
facto, a war against
her. Rather than forcing her to
experience the humiliation of what it would mean to be deprived of
appearance,
society would be obliged to entirely transcend the feminine element,
and thus
dispose of woman. In ridding itself of
its own lesser appearance (the male body), essence would accordingly
also rid
itself of the greater appearance of woman (the female body) and the
lesser
essence of woman (the female mind) in one grand sweep, thereby making
possible
a more exclusive commitment to the cultivation of spirit.
Paradoxically, this would avoid the cruelty
inherent in treating women too exclusively as though they were men, and
thus
obliging them to dedicate more time to essence than they were either
capable of
doing or would, in fact, really want to do.
For men and women are not and have never been
equal
creatures, nor can they ever be made such!
The industrial transformation which is currently responsible for
the
partial masculinization of the female is
also
responsible for the further masculinization
of the
male and must continue his progress, over the coming decades, towards
his
ultimate union with God. At some future
date the male will have become so spiritualized, so much the recipient
of
expanded essence, that he will no longer be able to tolerate either the
fundamental femininity-in-appearance or the lesser
masculinity-in-essence of
the female, and so be obliged to transcend her.
When this date with destiny will come, we cannot of course be
certain. But it is to be hoped that, in
the meantime, evolutionary progress will continue as before, and that
men will
accordingly continue to treat women as though they were male.
MEANS
BEFORE
ENDS
Contrary
to
the
opinion expressed by Jean-Paul Sartre in an interview with Michel Contat shortly before his death, people are not
equal, nor
have they ever been. We live in a world
where the differences between men are considerable, where the
inequalities
which exist are of such a radical nature as to be beyond rational
comprehension
or, at any rate, far greater than we may care to believe.
It isn't simply inequality of wealth or
environment or profession or social position or sex or religion that
presents
itself to our comprehension but, most especially, inequality of spirit,
inequality of what we essentially are
in
ourselves. For that is
largely determined by the extent to which our intellect or spirit has
been
cultivated and that, in turn, is linked to, though not necessarily
dependent
on, our psychological make-up.
Men and women are not equal, for essence and appearance are
contrary
attributes, and that which predominantly appertains to the one sex must
inevitably be suspect, if not anathema, to the other.
Thus as the spirit is superior to the flesh,
men and women are unequal and must forever remain so while recognizably
feminine and masculine distinctions obtain. (A woman will normally, by
her very
sensuous nature, attach more importance to appearance than to essence,
and thus
remain spiritually inferior to men.)
But just as some women are
physically
superior to others and accordingly more beautiful, so some men are
spiritually
superior to other men and therefore more intelligent.
To imagine that all men are equal because
each of them possesses two legs, two arms, a penis, etc., is frankly
ridiculous, and one wonders how a clever man like Sartre came to such a
grossly
reductionist conclusion.
The facts of human diversity would not appear
to confirm him in it, since they show the contrary.
But we have now got to a stage of evolution
where the inequalities which exist between men are no longer matters to
be
taken for granted but, rather, grounds for serious concern. Why is this?
Largely, one suspects,
because of the development
of technology, which has revolutionized our way of life beyond anything
dreamed
of in the past. We are becoming
increasingly dependent on technology, in all its ramifications, to
facilitate
social progress, and the more technology succeeds in doing this, the
more
sophisticated and self-regulating it becomes, the less need there will
be for
that rigid social hierarchy between men which has brought us to our
current
pass and is slowly goading us beyond it towards a more equalitarian
future. For in the past it was necessary
for men to
be segregated into widely different classes in order to make survival
possible. It was necessary to have
overlords and underlings, higher and lower men, in order to tackle the
manifold
problems of survival, not least of all in the economic and industrial
spheres. The gross inequalities of rank
and ability were but reflections of the exigencies of material
survival,
reflections, above all, of the natural world which, stemming largely
from a
diabolic creative-force, encouraged the growth of diversity and, hence,
inequality. A civilization at a lower
and more natural stage of evolution can only be diversified, the scene
of gross
inequalities. However, as civilization
advances, so measures are taken to curb the Devil's influence, so to
speak,
which accordingly becomes weaker. The
city expands and nature is pushed back, thinned out and curtailed. Instead of being its helpless victim, men
increasingly aspire to becoming its master and conqueror.
They aspire, in other words, to God. But
they
cannot attain to their goal without
a great deal of effort, and we can be certain, to judge by the world
around us,
that they haven't attained to it yet!
At this juncture in time
civilization, as
we in the West commonly understand it, isn't particularly advanced but
still,
to all intents and purposes, relatively primitive.
Admittedly, we have come a long way from the
caveman. But we are still to some extent
victims of diabolic influence, and consequently remain divided between
ourselves
into numerous occupations and differing abilities.
We may have technology, but we haven't yet
developed it to its full, and thus are confined to the various degrees
of
inequality which circumstances have imposed upon us.
To some extent, it is still necessary to have
overlords and underlings, and it will doubtless remain so for some time
to-come. Only when technology has taken
over the bulk of our work can we really begin to phase-out the
differences
between man and man which make for the hideous inequalities of the
world as we
know it today. For once technology
relieves us of the burden of individual occupations and divisive
interests,
financial or otherwise, we shall have no need of inequalities, but be
largely
beyond the Devil's influence. That age
must surely soon arrive!
However, at this juncture in
time men are
not equal. There are higher and lower
men, the former constituting a minority and the latter a majority. In part, this is a consequence of heredity,
as of the environment in which one was raised, one's education, one's
subsequent environments, the nature of one's profession or occupation,
the
people one has come into contact with, the experiences one has had at
various
times. Yet it is also, in part, an
individual matter, dependent on one's temperament and physique - each
of which
determines one's lifestyle and conditions one's philosophy of life. We have heard much from writers like Aldous Huxley about the Sheldonian
classification of the human being into three basic physiological types,
viz.
the fat, the medium-built, and the thin, which, translated into
Sheldon's
terminology, are described as endomorphic, mesomorphic,
and
ectomorphic respectively.
There exists a correlation, it is contended,
between one's physique and one's temperament, so that, strictly
speaking, the
former cannot be considered in total isolation from the latter. Willy-nilly, we are to a greater or lesser
extent, depending on the individual, what our bodies permit or oblige
us to
be. We needn't be surprised, therefore,
if a fat person (endomorph) has different tendencies and interests in
life from
a thin person (ectomorph), as conditioned
by his
build. And a medium-built person (mesomorph) is likely to be different again, as
befitting
his comparatively muscular build.
Therefore the gut person, the nervous person, and the muscular
person
are not always guaranteed of seeing eye-to-eye with one another, which is one of the reasons why the world is currently
what it is
- a struggle between the dark and the light, the diabolic and the
divine....
Not that I wish to give the impression that fat, or gut, people are
necessarily
diabolical in relation to thin, or nervous, ones! But
they
are
different,
and the physical root of this difference is a significant factor in
enabling us
to assess life's inequalities. It is
unlikely that, with more flesh than is compatible with spiritual
strivings, one
will turn into a saint. But neither is
one guaranteed of turning contemplative or studious if one's muscular
physique
induces one to prefer athletic activities.
On the contrary, one remains a slave of one's build, which is
also
partly related to individual intelligence.
Evolution, I firmly believe,
is a journey
from a Diabolic Alpha to a Divine Omega,
from the stars, in all their infernal heat, to the future spiritual
culmination
of the Universe - call it the Omega Absolute or the Holy Spirit or
simply God -
in all its blissful calm. We haven't yet
attained to that spiritual culmination, by any means!
But at least we are still struggling in its
general direction, a direction that leads up through urban civilization
and
technology towards the transcendental Beyond, which is the heavenly
goal of
evolution. I would say that we are now
about three-quarters of the way along this long journey, no longer
balanced
between nature and civilization, as before, but biased on the side of
the
latter. This, at any rate, would
probably apply to the majority of us, who are distinctly urban-dwellers.
Thus we have entered a phase
of evolution
when it is more reasonable for the great majority of mankind to look
forwards,
as it were, to the creation of the Omega Absolute than backwards to the
existence of the Alpha Absolute; when it is more reasonable, in short,
to put
one's shoulder to the task of furthering God in the Universe than to
spend time
worshipping or blessing and/or cursing (in the 'elemental' fashion of
John
Cowper Powys) the First Cause, which, being diabolic and disjunctive,
appertains to the stars. The Creator
most certainly does exist, though not as a divine reality but, from an
omega-oriented standpoint (which is necessarily transvaluated),
as
a
diabolic one - the very Devil itself!
Now to worship the Devil
isn't a
particularly honourable or enlightened thing to do, even if divine
terminology
would suggest the contrary. For worship
always presupposes an existing deity, and when one understands that -
pedantic
distinctions between one type of alpha star and another notwithstanding
- it
isn't really God but the Devil that exists in the Universe, not really
a
Supreme Being so much as the Primal Almighty, then it may be that one
will be
less inclined to worship the Devil and more inclined to get down to the
much
more important task of actually creating God.
For, ultimately, that is our destiny and privilege as human
beings. We must understand that true
divinity could
only issue from the climax of evolution, not be the force or power
responsible
for the creation of the Universe. To
mistake the Primal Almighty for the Supreme Being, cosmic strength for
spiritual truth, is simply to fall into the trap of mistaking the most
powerful
existing force in the Universe, i.e. stellar energy, for the highest
possible
condition the Universe, through man and man-equivalent life forms
possibly existing
elsewhere, is capable of engendering. It
is tantamount to considering a muscular, athletic, sensual man superior
to a
nervous, intellectually-inclined spiritual man - in short, to regarding
a Mr
World-type figure as a superior creature per se to a brainy
person, be
he a student, artist, philosopher, or whatever.
Now, obviously, while this will generally be the opinion of the
muscular
man, who probably dislikes intellectuals anyway, it is unlikely to
convince an
intellectual, who knows or should know himself, if he isn't a complete
fool or
a self-deceiving hypocrite, to be superior to less spiritually-evolved
men. One cannot serve two masters at
once. Either one cultivates the body,
the muscles, or one cultivates the mind, the spirit.
Those who cultivate the former, whether
through choice or force-of-circumstances, are, ipso
facto,
lesser men than those who cultivate the latter.
They are lesser largely because, evolution being a journey from
the
Devil to God, from alpha to omega, they stand closer in essence to the
Devil
than to God, closer, in other words, to the great cosmic ruler of the
world. The intellectually-biased men are
greater, by contrast, because they effectively aspire towards the
Divine Omega by
cultivating spirit, flying in the face of strength on the wings of
truth. To imagine that all men are equal
is the
height of superficiality! Unfortunately,
men are anything but equal, even though, as a given type of man, one
has one's
equals. One also has one's inferiors
and, depending on one's type and capabilities within the range of that
type,
one's superiors. This has long been the
case and will doubtless continue to be so for some time to come,
regardless of
the opinions of materialist intellectuals!
The lowest men, therefore,
are those who,
in their activities and fundamental nature, stand closer to the Devil
than to
God. The highest men, by contrast, are
those who aspire most regularly and earnestly towards God.
The former are tail-enders in the human
journey to salvation in the transcendental Beyond, the latter its
leaders and
pioneers. And in-between we shall find
the majority of men, a majority which is probably more-or-less balanced
between
the Devil and God in worldly compromise or, at best, acquiring a bias
on the
side of God, becoming slightly more partial to spiritual progress and
thus less
given to Christianity, which is essentially dualistic.
Christianity upholds the
tradition of
Creator worship; I reject it.
Christianity asserts that God exists; I contend that,
ultimately, He or,
rather, it doesn't yet exist.
Christianity assumes an afterlife Beyond
following death; I reject this posthumous Beyond in favour of a
millennial
and/or transcendental Beyond at the climax of evolution.
Christianity maintains that Christ was the
Son of God; I say that Christ was a son of the Diabolic Alpha, as, to
varying
extents, we are all, insofar as we were brought into this world largely
through
the sun's sustaining power and can do no better, if honourable men,
than aspire
towards the Divine Omega in response to a Christian 'rebirth' or, in Nietzschean parlance, 'revaluation'. Christianity presupposes a Last Judgement; I
reject this dualistic position in favour of an evolutionary
transcendentalism
which presupposes the salvation of all
men at the
climax to evolution. Christianity
upholds the resurrection of the Dead on the Last Day; I ask - How can
the
cremated be resurrected? Christianity
treats the world as though it were the centre of the Universe; I
contend that
it is but one of possibly thousands if not millions of life-sustaining
planets
throughout the Universe on which, at some time or other,
Christ-equivalent
figures have lived and died.
Christianity speaks of yesterday; I speak of tomorrow. Today we are in transition!
'God is dead' said
Nietzsche, and by that
he meant, knowingly or unknowingly, the Creator. However,
the
Creator is by no means dead but
continues to burn-on in space, and does so, moreover, in the guise of
the
myriad stars of the Galaxy, as indeed, through due extrapolation, of
the
Universe in general. Our sun is but one
of the innumerable creative and sustaining forces at work in the
Universe, a
tiny component, as it were, of its overall Creator and Sustainer. It isn't
so much the
Creator
itself as a part of the Creator, not so much the
Devil as a
part of the Devil. For the Devil is
necessarily manifold and diverse, as befits the frictional nature of
evil. The Devil is naturally given to
separateness,
and consequently its offspring, in the guise of planets and nature,
reflect
this separateness, this attribute of cosmic evil. But
a
revolt against this condition begins
once the process of civilized evolution gets properly under way in the
face of
nature. For up through man comes the
urge to unity, to togetherness, and the further man evolves the more
this drive
towards unity is manifested in him and the more unity one accordingly
finds in
the world. Man is partly a child of the
diabolic creative force, but, unlike fish, insects, birds, and animals,
he is
capable, through reason, of fighting against this primal force and thus
of
furthering the cause of God in the world.
In other words, he is capable of pitting his civilization
against nature
and of rising above it in order to become divine. For
man
isn't content with the world but
wishes to attain to God, to create the Supreme Being.
He knows that he isn't supreme, since
whatever is supreme wouldn't be tied to nature, like him, and thus a
victim of
the separate. God would be the Ultimate
Unity, the Ultimate Oneness, in complete contrast to the Devil. The highest being, which we variously term
God, the Holy Spirit, the Omega Point (de Chardin),
the
Final
One, etc., would constitute the maximum joining of which life is
capable. Beyond it nothing further could
emerge. It would constitute eternity,
the overcoming of time, the fulfilment of becoming.
What form, if any, this
supreme level of
Being would take we cannot of course be certain. But
we
can hazard a guess that it would be
quite bright, possibly brighter, in a centripetal sort of way, than the
brightest star currently in existence.
And it would be composed, we may suppose, of all
the
superconscious mind of which the spiritual
universe was
capable. It would not be an affair of
the world, or planet, but of the transcendental Beyond, literally of an
appointed area in space beyond
the
world,
and
thus beyond the influence of suns, storms, rains, winds, droughts,
etc. And being a part of it, being in
it, would be more blissful than anything we can conceive of, since
appertaining
to the ultimate life. Man having reached
his goal in transcendent bliss, completely freed from the rule of
nature. No longer man but God. For man is something that should be overcome,
as the prophetic Nietzsche so bravely put it, and only in God is this
ultimately possible.
But we have a long way to go
before our
final overcoming, as the current state of the world around us should
adequately
demonstrate. We are not yet denizens of
the most advanced civilization, even if denizens of a higher
civilization than
any previous one. In some respects the
world is still quite primitive, still tied to the Diabolic in
all-too-many
contexts. (For instance, it is still possible for an intelligent man to
be
tortured by the loud and frequent barking of malicious dogs, i.e.
four-legged
beasts, in some nearby back-garden, and to such an extent that he may
occasionally wonder whether he isn't really living in primeval times,
so
ubiquitous is the beastly!) But progress
demands that the world becomes not only less tied to the Diabolic, in
all its
natural manifestations, but free from the Diabolic, with the passing of
time,
and this it must surely do as civilization continues to develop in an
increasingly artificial direction. God
is the most artificial or, rather, supernatural reality conceivable. To attain to that reality we must do
everything in our power to further the growth of the artificial element
in life
at the expense of the natural, even if this does mean that, eventually,
we come
to replace the natural body with an artificial one, and thus cease to
eat,
drink, smoke, walk, sleep, urinate, defecate, copulate, etc., as would
seem
necessary to the cultivation of both an extensive and intensive
spirituality. For as long as we remain
victims of the body, we shall be tied to nature to an extent which
makes a
truly higher spirituality impossible - a fact, alas, which many people
interested in spiritual advancement tend, for one reason or another, to
overlook.
Clearly, meditation is not
enough! The direct cultivation of spirit
through
meditation is of course a good thing, but I very much doubt that any
man would
get to the transcendental Beyond simply through meditating. Somehow the body's needs would still have to
be attended to, and such attention would inevitably detract from one's
spiritual potential. Again, it is a
question of not being able to serve two masters at once or, rather, of
being
unable to serve one master exclusively.
Yet how can one hope to attain to the transcendental Beyond
when one is obliged to pay certain dues to the Devil as well? It is surely impossible, and I strongly
incline to doubt whether any man has yet succeeded in doing so. In fact, I resolutely contend that no man has
yet attained to the transcendental Beyond. For
no
man has undergone extensive artificial
transmutation and, consequently, no man has been in a position to
cultivate
spirit to any radical extent, least of all to an extent presaging
transcendence! Only through the most
advanced civilization could one hope to achieve ultimate salvation. But such a civilization isn't in sight at
present. We are still victims of the
body, intermittent sensualists.
Meditation without
technology is ultimately
a lost cause. It can never amount to
anything more than a temporary reprieve from the world of active
pursuits, a
kind of pleasurable experience to be indulged in intermittently, as
one's
circumstances permit. By itself it will
not lead to the transcendental Beyond, nor,
contrary
to what traditionalists of various persuasions incline to believe, does
one
come into direct contact with God while practising it.
If one doesn't relapse into a trance-like
state of subconscious sensuality - closer in effect to the alpha than
to our
projected omega - one simply experiences one's spirit more clearly and
perhaps
to a greater extent than might otherwise be the case.
But such spirit shouldn't be mistaken for
God. At best, it is potentially God,
something
that, if cultivated more thoroughly and exclusively in the course of
time, may
lead to God by actually becoming
transcendent. But it could not do so while
there was a
body, and hence flesh, in the way. And
to imagine that one can become pure spirit with a body in the way is
simply to
imagine the impossible!
Clearly spirit,
which
can
be located in the superconscious mind,
and
pure spirit, which will be located in space following transcendence,
are two
different things, not capable of mutual reconciliation.
The former exists here and now in each
individual psyche, the latter has yet to be brought about.
The former is shackled to the world,
the latter will be absolutely independent of it. No
small
distinction! But the one can
lead to the other, and
that is why the direct cultivation of spirit is so important, always
bearing in
mind, however, that spirit can only be cultivated extensively with the
assistance of technology. For it is
technology that will make progress in spiritual development truly
possible - a
technology which will eventually reduce the sensual impediments of such
progress to the brain and, in all probability, to just the new brain -
the
ground, as it were, of the superconscious. This ultimate technology will possibly make
approximation to the spiritual oneness of the transcendental Beyond so
close
that it will consist of a corporate or communal artificial
support-and-sustain
system for numerous brains - a single 'body' with many 'heads', so to
speak.
However, all this is of
course largely
speculative and consequently not something about which we need unduly
trouble
our heads. Yet it should suffice to
throw considerable doubt on our current complacency in natural
spirituality,
and indicate that such complacency is but a stage on the road to
something
higher and more realistic. It isn't for
the meditating minds of tomorrow to be theistic, like so many
contemporary
ones, but to be resolutely atheistic, resolutely committed to the task
of
creating the Supreme Being, rather than to acknowledging, no matter how
indirectly, the Primal Almighty.
But it isn't something that
can happen
overnight. For, at present, even natural
meditation is the province of only a comparatively small minority of
people,
hardly of the masses, who, for the most part, simply aren't interested
in it. Not only are they not interested in
it, but
they are insufficiently spiritually evolved for it.
After all, men are not equal, and what is
meat to the Few is likely to become poison to the Many.
Obviously, we must evolve to a stage where
meditation is acceptable and possible for the Many,
thus giving rise to a concerted effort to attain to the transcendental
Beyond.
It is no good adopting an
attitude of
spiritual elitism, like the somewhat un-American character Propter
in Aldous Huxley's After
Many
a Summer. For that will not result
in the salvation of
mankind, nor even in the salvation of the elitist individual, who, in
any case,
will lack the technological know-how and advanced artificiality to
achieve a
definitive transcendence. The
advancement of technology must affect the broad masses and so make a
much more
equalitarian form of society possible, thereby enabling men to rid
themselves
of the gross inequalities which stem from an earlier stage of evolution. With increased automation in industrial and
commercial contexts, more leisure time will be available to the masses
and,
together with generally improved living-standards, this will result in
their
gradual advancement to a point where formerly elitist interests,
whether
spiritual, cultural, or intellectual, will become the province of all,
not just of a small minority.
Yet increased leisure time
will not, by
itself, be enough to make all men equal.
Some men will still be born with the rudiments of a muscular, or
mesomorphic, physique and thus be disposed,
in adult life,
to the development of athletic tendencies.
Some will be born with the rudiments of a thin, or ectomorphic,
physique and thus develop into intellectuals.
And some will be born with the rudiments of a fat, or endomophic, physique and thereby develop into
sensualists. Of course, such physiological
distinctions do
not invariably lead to dissimilar predilections on the above-mentioned
basis. There are overlappings
of activity between even the most extreme physiological types, the most
disparate of men. But, broadly speaking,
these distinctions hold true and should be recognized as contributory
factors
to human inequality. Clearly, if we are
to progress to a less unequal state, steps will have to be taken to
phase-out
the physiological differences between people, and thus prevent the body
from
conditioning the mind.
A more advanced civilization
would
therefore carry the development of technology a stage further than a
means to
the provision of extra leisure time, by making it the basis of a
revolution
with regard to the human individual personally.
No longer would he be at the mercy of nature's whim, with a body
fatter
or thinner than other men. On the
contrary, he would be directly transmuted by civilization itself into a
uniform
mould which would make for far greater social cohesion.
The natural body would be superseded, as
already intimated, by an artificial one which should result in the mind
becoming more standardized along truly transcendental lines. Then a real social equality between
effectively superhuman individuals would be in the making, and this
would
permit of a greater and more widespread commitment to meditation. With artificial methods of reproduction to
safeguard its survival, society would exist in such a way that not
nature but
the artificial predominated, and to such a considerable extent that the
long-term transformation of man into the Divine Omega would be
virtually
guaranteed. Freed from the oppressive
dominion of the flesh, spirit would expand as never before and
eventually,
following years of sustained spiritual commitment, the potential
components of
the Supreme Being would proceed to emancipate themselves from the brain
and
soar heavenwards towards their unified goal in ineffable bliss. The converging universe to the Omega Point,
about which Teilhard de Chardin
speaks in his remarkable book Activation
of
Energy, would
achieve its fulfilment in the spiritual unity of the transcendental
Beyond,
where only equality would prevail, an absolute rather than a relative
equality
which, as the consummation of evolution, would be eternal.
Such is the idealistic goal
towards which
we are slowly heading, willingly or unwillingly, knowingly or
unknowingly,
directly or indirectly. There are two
possible modes of approach to this goal, depending on one's personal
bent or
social coercion. One can put ends before
means and thus concentrate on meditation now, or, more sensibly, one
can put
means before ends and thereby concentrate on technology and the
progress of civilization. The former mode
implies a tendency on the
part of the Few to act for the Few in defiance of the Many, and is thus
elitist. The latter mode, on the other
hand, implies a tendency on the part of the Few to act for the Many in
defiance
of elitism, and is thus egalitarian. The
one may prove personally rewarding in the short term but is futile in
the long
term, since it cannot lead to the goal by itself. The
other
may prove less personally rewarding
in the short term but is justified in the long term, since it leads to
the type
of society which makes the goal possible.
Those who put ends before means will inevitably end in failure. Those, however, who put means before ends
will eventually triumph in success.
But man is not just a
political
animal. He is political insofar as he
has a body and religious insofar as he has a mind.
We cannot live by bread alone and,
ultimately, socialism isn't enough. It
may suffice for a while but, sooner or later, socialism must extend
into
religion. It isn't a religion by itself
of course, and mistaken are those who imagine the contrary! It doesn't concern itself with God, or the
cultivation of spirit, but appertains to the here and now, the world,
the
welfare of the masses. It is primarily
politics and economics, and consequently it relates to the body. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the
transcendental Beyond. It is a strictly
temporal affair. This is its strength in
the short term. For there are ages in
which it is expedient to grant more attention to the body than to the
spirit,
and this age is evidently one of them.
We cannot hope to cultivate spirit extensively unless, up to a
basic
point, the needs of the body have been properly taken care of in the
meantime,
and this is what socialism strives to do, both as regards society and
the individuals
of which it is composed.
Yet an age which
concentrates on the body,
on the improvement of the social lot of the masses, is necessarily
second-rate,
and must remain so. The immediate
short-term future will probably be even more second-rate than the
present, but
that is a price we shall have to pay.
The putting of means before ends is the important thing, not
whether
life is made better or worse in the short term by so doing. But once the material and technological
foundations have been properly laid, then
we shall be
in a position to build the first-rate civilization which will emerge
out of
them and lead us to our ultimate salvation in spiritual bliss. Then we shall be in a position to cultivate
spirit more extensively, and so dedicate ourselves to the attainment of
transcendence. There will be a long
period of sustained commitment to meditation, a period of the greatest
spiritual striving mankind has ever known - the fruit of a truly
first-rate
civilization. As Henry Miller so
admirably put it in Sunday
After
the War: "The new civilization, which may
take centuries or a few thousand years to usher in, will not be
'another'
civilization - it will be the open stretch of realization which all the
past
civilizations have pointed to."
Yes, it will indeed! But not without a considerable amount of
groundwork first, without the laying of firm socialist foundations. That is why I am fundamentally socialistic,
and that is why my philosophy, much as it may stretch beyond socialism,
isn't
so much a threat to socialism as its justification and fulfilment. We must put political means before religious
ends, or perish. There is no
alternative. That is the way of
evolution!
POST-EGOCENTRIC
ART
Roughly,
artistic
production
falls into three historically chronological stages, which
are the
pre-egocentric, the egocentric, and the post-egocentric.
These three stages correspond to our changing
environments from country and town to city, and the effect of those
changes
upon the psyche or brain. As is well
known, the brain is broadly divisible into two halves, viz. an old
brain and a
new brain, roughly corresponding to cerebellum and cerebrum. The old, or lower, brain is said to conform
to emotional predilections and may be identified, in psychological
terms, with
the subconscious. The new, or higher,
brain is held to conform, by contrast, to intellectual and spiritual
predilections, and may likewise be identified with the superconscious. Between
the
one and the other resides the
ego, or conscious mind, which is the consequence, so I contend, of a
fusion
between these two parts of the psyche - the sensual subconscious and
the
spiritual superconscious.
Now this fusion-point of the psyche, which is
called the ego, will reflect a greater or lesser bias on the side of
one or
other of its psychological components, I shall contend, depending on
the stage
of evolution at which a given society finds itself, as also on the
relative
sophistication of the individual himself.
Thus for an individual whose society exists under the dominion
of nature
in close proximity to the natural world, we needn't be surprised if the
ego
should reflect more subconscious than superconscious
influence, in accordance with the sensuous essence of nature, and so
transpire
to being relatively dark or evil. This
would be the pre-egocentric stage, the artistic productions thereof
corresponding to a predominantly dark and evil context, such as one
finds in most
pagan art and even in some early-Christian art.
It is the body and the senses, rather than the mind and the
spirit,
which are being extolled at this stage of evolution, and consequently
its art
reflects a strong naturalistic bias.
However, with the
development of
civilization away from the natural world to a point where men live in
towns or
small cities, the egocentric stage-proper gets under way in which,
being
approximately balanced between natural and artificial environments, men
come to
reflect a dualistic mentality compounded of roughly equal degrees of
subconscious and superconscious influence. This is the egocentric balance of Christian
man, which results in the creation of a dualistic art, half related to
the body
and half to the mind. One might say that
at this stage of evolution anthropomorphism prevails over animism, and
consequently the figure of Christ is extolled.
We have a good compromise here between senses and spirit.
Yet this compromise can only
last while man
is himself balanced between nature and civilization in the town, which
is to
say, until such time as the further development of civilization, and
hence the
artificial, leads to his living in a lopsided position on the side of
civilization in the big city. For once
this lopsidedness comes about, one is in the post-egocentric stage of
evolution
and one's psyche accordingly reflects a bias in which the superconscious
mind predominates over the subconscious mind by increasing ratios the
further
evolution progresses. Initially, by
perhaps two-thirds to one third; subsequently by three-quarters to one
quarter,
and so on, until the climax of evolution, when the total triumph of the
superconscious is attained to and man
ceases to be human
but, instead, becomes divine. At
present, however, we have quite a long way to evolve before that
happens; for
we are in transition from dualism to transcendentalism, from
egocentricity to
the post-egocentric, and are accordingly victims of our humanity,
recipients of
varying degrees of subconscious influence - some people(s) having a
greater
egocentric bias than others, other people(s) already living in a
post-egocentric phase and reflecting this in their thought and art. Thus post-egocentric art, as practised in the
West predominantly, testifies to a spiritual bias rather than to a
dualistic
compromise between senses and spirit, and is divisible, so I contend,
into
three basic types, upon each of which I shall now briefly expatiate.
The lowest type of
post-egocentric art,
often dubbed decadent or degenerate by so-called revolutionary
political
leaders, corresponds to a kind of slapdash attitude, a naive
simplicity, a
determination to avoid good taste and traditional technical facility,
an
abhorrence of 'great art'. On the
Continent the Dada Movement was essentially post-egocentric in this
fundamental
way, as to a lesser extent were the Expressionists.
Montage was also a useful medium in this
regard, especially as employed by Kurt Switters,
who
specialized
in constructing art or, rather, anti-art out of garbage,
thus
emphasizing his post-egocentric indifference to traditional egocentric
criteria. More recently the American
artist Robert Rauschenberg, an artistic descendant of the Dada/Switters tradition, has specialized in montage
and collage,
producing 'paintings' of an even more radically post-egocentric nature
than his
famous, or infamous, predecessors. Few
contemporary works would appear, on the face of it, more slapdash and
anti-art
than his, and it is therefore difficult to conceive of much real
progress being
made in this highly popular sphere of modern art in the future,
notwithstanding
the well-documented contributions of pop artists like Andy Warhol and
Jim Dine,
who shamelessly parade their indifference to traditional criteria of
artistic
sophistication and aesthetic excellence.
More recently again it has developed into punk art, upon which
subject I
do not feel qualified to enlarge. But it
continues to be a significant part of contemporary art and has no
shortage of
practitioners. It is a legitimate mode
of creation in the post-egocentric context, even if, as the lowest type
of
modern art, it cannot reasonably be expected to win everyone's respect.
But neither, for that
matter, can the
second type of post-egocentric art, which might broadly be classified
under the
heading Surrealism, and which primarily focuses on the subconscious. Indeed, this type of modern art can be
divided into two categories, depending whether the artist's approach to
life is
introvert or extrovert, whether he focuses his attention upon the
contents of
the subconscious mind or upon the external equivalent of this in nature
and the
organic generally. For, as already
noted, there exists a sensual link between the subconscious and nature
- the
former internal, the latter external.
Thus for the Surrealists-proper, that is to say the explorers
and
delineators of the subconscious, it is the internal world of dreams
that
provides the basic material for their art, a material, however, which
is
transformed, in the process of painting, into personal interpretations
of or
variations on the original dream, according to the artist's
psychological bias
and technical facility. Most Surrealism,
however, isn't as dream-orientated as it is generally claimed to be or
might at
first appear, but is blended with a seemingly arbitrary juxtaposition
and
distortion of familiar objects in the external world, in order to
create an
impression of novelty and strangeness - the artist's waking-life
imagination
taking over from his dream-life one and supplementing it with
artfully-contrived
images. This is more the case, for
example, with Salvador Dali, who draws heavily on subconscious memory
to
furnish and shape his surreal world, than with, say, Paul Delvaux,
who is an orthodox dream surrealist and generally succeeds in conveying
a
strong dream-like impression in his paintings.
But no matter what the personal bias of any particular artist
may happen
to be, the typical surrealist painting will reflect an attention to
subconscious influence of one kind or another and, like Abstract
Expressionism,
be more orientated towards the internal world than towards the external
one. It is an art, par
excellence, of the introvert. It
looks back and down on the subconscious from the vantage-point of a
consciousness lopsided on the side of the superconscious
- that psychological function of the new brain.
Yet because no man is
entirely introverted
but also, even in extreme cases, partly given to extroversion, so does
Surrealism often reflect an extroverted approach to reality which
blends-in
with and points towards the other category of this second type of
post-egocentric art, a category which focuses more on the external
world of
nature than on the internal world of subconscious activity. Whether in the guise of Fauvism, Cubism,
Expressionism, or Minimalism, this mode of post-egocentric creativity
is
largely dedicated to discrediting and distorting external reality
either under
the influence of feelings, as in Expressionism, or of reason, as in
Cubism. If it is to be described as a
degenerate art, it is only such in relation to traditional landscape
painting
and the near-literal depiction of external reality, not in relation to
urban
civilization, from which it directly stems.
For in looking back and down on nature from a post-egocentric
vantage-point,
it distorts and discredits natural reality in the name of urban
civilization. Where man was formerly a
slave of nature, he now becomes its master and thus frees himself from
its
influence over him. The process of doing
this is necessarily gradual; for one can't leap straight from nature to
urban
civilization in a single bound, but must gradually weaken the former's hold over one as one grows more
acclimatized to
the latter. And a good way of doing this
is to paint natural phenomena in colours not literally associated with
them,
thereby reflecting a transitional phase, as it were, from natural
enslavement
to liberation from nature, and so paving the way for a complete break
with the
natural world in due course, a break that will manifest itself in the
third and
highest type of post-egocentric art - namely in what may be called
abstract
transcendentalism. For whereas nature
signifies temporal reality and is accordingly finite, it is towards the
ultimate reality of infinite Holy Spirit that such transcendental art
points,
thereby testifying to a superior stage of civilization.
But the second, or extrovert, type of
post-egocentric art, whilst it may not be the highest form of modern
art, is
nevertheless a significant aspect of cultural progress and has the
beneficial
effect of breaking down our traditional respect for and dependence on
temporal
reality, as especially manifested in nature.
In looking back and down on such reality, modern man paints from
the
vantage-point of civilization, rather than as a slave of nature in more
natural
surroundings.
But I haven't quite
completed my outline of
post-egocentric art, so will now properly proceed to the third and
highest type
of avant-garde art which, instead of focusing on the subconscious or
its
external equivalent in nature, tends towards the superconscious
in a transcendental one-sidedness. There
is nothing degenerate about this ultimate type of post-egocentric art,
which is
largely if not exclusively abstract. Its
leading painterly exponent in the twentieth century was undoubtedly Piet Mondrian, who
must rank as
one of the world's all-time great artists.
He more than any other man of his generation dedicated himself
to the
furtherance of abstraction, though to a form of abstraction much
superior in essence
to that practised by the Abstract Expressionists, with their emphasis
on strong
emotions and the effects of the external world upon the self - meaning
principally the soul. The Abstract
Expressionists, by contrast, appertained to the second type of
post-egocentric
art, being the introverted equivalent of the Expressionists. Now where the Expressionists distorted and
discredited external reality under influence of the feelings, the
Abstract
Expressionists allowed the influence of external reality to distort and
discredit the feelings, thereby doing approximately the same thing on
an
internal level, and so encouraging a break with the subconscious - just
as the
Expressionists, Fauvists, etc., facilitated a break with nature. To view a Jackson Pollock is to step into a
hell of subjective emotional writhings; to
view a Mondrian is to acquire, by
contrast, an intimation of
Heaven. The Pollock discredits down, the
Mondrian aspires up.
The Pollock attests to the second type of post-egocentric
approach, the Mondrian to the third.
As a type of art, the former can only be inferior to the latter. But it is no-less valid from an historical
point-of-view. It serves a purpose, and
that purpose is to discredit the subconscious and thereupon indirectly
encourage a greater respect for the superconscious. As already noted,
it
is aligned with Surrealism, though its treatment of the subconscious is
more
radical and indicates a later stage of evolution. It
deals
in emotions, not in the dream or
memory contents of the subconscious. But
the greatness of Mondrian's mature work is
that it
deals in something higher, namely the superconscious,
and
absolutely
refuses to be distracted by anything else.
Order, clarity, simplicity, proportion,
beauty ... are of the essence here, and it is from Mondrian's
pioneering example that later artists, including those in Op and
Kinetics, have
derived so much encouragement. Together
with Ben Nicholson and Wassily Kandinsky,
he paved the way for the subsequent development of transcendental art,
the most
recent flowering of which has been in the domain of light art, with its
slender
fluorescent tubing, laser beams, and holographic projections. How far this third type of post-egocentric
art can develop, in the future, remains to be seen; but we can at least
rest
assured that artistic production has attained to an all-time high with
the best
examples of these transcendental works, and should remain relevant to
humanity
for some considerable time to-come.
NATURAL
SEX
AND ARTIFICIAL SEX
There
are
people,
it has to be said, for whom
pornography, or
reproductive erotica, is less a physical perversion than a spiritual
need. For it must be admitted that
pornography can,
under certain circumstances, enter into the realm of the spiritual,
serving, in
its sublimated sexual essence, to facilitate a break with natural sex
and so
pave the way for a greater dependence upon the artificial.
An egocentric man will not,
admittedly,
find such a prospect particularly encouraging; for the more natural one
is the
more must pornography of whatever type be regarded as a perversion -
indeed, an
evil. But for anyone who has gone beyond
the egocentric stage of evolution, for anyone, in other words, who sees
human
evolution in terms of a gradual break with the natural and, at its
climax, a
total independence of nature, then pornography will be regarded in a
very
different light from that normally ascribed to it by the egocentric man. Instead of being regarded as an evil, it will
be seen as a comparative good, a means of leading one from the body to
the mind
and thereby making possible the eventual transcendence of all sex,
whether
natural or artificial, at a higher stage of evolution - a stage when
civilization will be geared to the attainment of the transcendental
Beyond in
spiritual transformation. Thus for the
more sophisticated and spiritually-advanced man, pornography may
signify the
prevalence of a kind of transitional stage between literal sex and the
transcendence of sex, a means of furthering the development of human
evolution.
To such an egocentric man as
D.H. Lawrence,
however, pornography could never be seen in that light.
As is well-known,
But sexual sublimation in
print is one
thing, sexual sublimation in photographic images quite another, and we
can be
confident that
For the higher man, 'sex in
the head' is
less an indication of sexual perversion than of spiritual advancement,
a proof,
as it were, of the triumph of mind over body, of spirit over senses. He may not be wholly given to sublimation -
how many men at this juncture in time actually are? - but
at least he is prepared to treat a bias in favour of the sublimated
with
respect rather than contempt. It is
something for the more evolved man to be proud of, this relative
triumph over
nature. It can only lead to still
greater triumphs for humanity in due course, as evolution continues to
advance
in the general direction of greater artificiality.
Even the ambitions and attainments of a Des Esseintes
will be found wanting in true spiritual
accomplishment as time progresses; for this protagonist of À
Rebours was, after all, the brainchild
of a fin-de-siècle
imagination, reflecting a degree of bourgeois artificiality roughly
compatible
with the extent to which such artificiality can attain, that is to say,
with
the extent to which a given stage of cultural nobility, be it
aristocratic,
bourgeois, or even proletarian, can free itself from the natural and
endorse a
relative degree of spiritual sophistication.
One may recall that the hero
of À
Rebours acquired a passion for
collecting rare
plants. Now rare plants undoubtedly
reflect a more sophisticated approach to life on the part of their
collector
than would the collecting of common ones.
But the 'artificial' aspirations of that bourgeois aesthete
could easily
be transcended by a mind, reflecting a higher degree of spiritual
sophistication, which either avoided collecting plants of any
description, no
matter how exotic their origin, or only specialized in collecting
artificial
ones - for instance, plastic flowers. Huysmans' or, rather, Des Esseintes'
sophistication
evidently
didn't stretch that far, which, under the
circumstances of his time and class, need not really surprise us. Yet a time must surely come when, following
decades, if not centuries, of egalitarian progress, the artificiality
of the
proletariat will be so extensive as to make previous class attainments
in
transcending the natural dwindle to a comparative insignificance.
What, then, does all this
indicate? Quite clearly that the highest
nobility,
which should arise from the proletariat, will entail the greatest
degree of
artificiality the world has ever known - an artificiality in which the
natural
body will be replaced by an artificial support for the brain, while the
latter
is exclusively dedicated to cultivating superconscious
mind. And being so dedicated, a time
will come when the highest humanity, composed of meditating minds, will
free
itself from the last remnants of the natural, namely the brain, and
thereupon
rise clear of its artificial support-and-sustain systems in order to
attain to
the transcendental Beyond in the ineffable bliss of Supreme Being. Humanity will then have reached its true
destiny in eternal unity, a destiny which, in putting an end to man,
will
signify the establishment of God. For God is the most supernatural of all possibilities,
the complete
antithesis of the stars, which, in their flaming negativity, are the
most subnatural.
The stars signify the most agonized doing; the Holy Spirit will
signify
the most blissful being.
Between these two absolutes
- the lesser
diabolic absolute of the stars and the greater divine absolute of the
Holy
Spirit - man weaves his course, 'born under one law, to another bound',
which
is to say, born under the dominion of the natural world but struggling,
through
civilized progress, towards the attainment of the supernatural, the
attainment,
in a word, of God. The fact, however,
that he still has such a long way to go before he attains to divine
salvation
is made perfectly clear by the existing state-of-affairs in the world,
in which
a great deal of the natural, as of nature, still prevails.
For one thing, we still have our natural
bodies, and, for another, we regularly encounter manifestations of the
natural
world in our towns and cities, not to mention far more abundantly
outside them
in the forms of grass, plants, trees, bushes, birds, animals, etc. We don't exactly panic at the idea of a
summer holiday but, on the contrary, are usually eager to go somewhere
bright
and hot, not to say naturalistic. We are
quite resigned to the prospect of relapsing into a quasi-pagan
lifestyle for a
few weeks every year.
But a time must surely come
when,
paradoxically, men will prefer winter to summer, will prefer grey skies
to the
sight of the sun, will prefer their part of the earth to be at its
farthest
possible remove from the sun, which is the most agonized doing, than at
its closest
to it, as in the summer. When such a
time will come for certain, I cannot of course tell you; for it will
depend on
the speed with which evolution progresses over the next century or two. But I should be very surprised if it hadn't
come by the end of that time, in accordance with the growing
entrenchment of
that ‘revaluation of values' which the twentieth century, in
particular, would
seem to have initiated. For
as
evolution advances, so the rate of its advancement quickens,
and what may seem bizarre or implausible to us becomes credible to
those who
come immediately afterwards. Even
the recent development of space stations and space shuttles, as
initiated by
the Americans and the Russians, is crudely indicative of a turning away
from
the earth, the beginnings of a crude approximation to the
transcendental Beyond
in the form of a materialistic acclimatization to and presence in space. Of course, the site, so to speak, of the
transcendental Beyond would be much farther out into space than any
contemporary
space station, since it would be obligatory for transcendent spirit to
get as
far away from stars and their planets as possible.
Yet that doesn't prevent one from divining
the birth and growth of an otherworldly tendency in these artificial
presences
there. The future will doubtless witness
their proliferation.
At present, alas, modern man
is still the
victim, to varying extents, of a transitional angst,
a rootlessness
between two
worlds. This angst, about which,
incidentally, so much has been written ... with numerous
interpretations as to
its basic cause, is essentially attributable to the transitional nature
of the
age from faith in and respect for nature to an isolation from and
contempt of
nature. It is a consequence of the fact
that, for the great majority of people, the old order of society, with
its
dualistic traditions, no longer possesses any real relevance, while the
new
order, centred in a post-dualistic transcendentalism, has yet to be
officially
established. Caught between the natural
past and the artificial future, modern man lacks that sense of
stability and
confidence which would automatically accompany a more settled age, and
is
consequently possessed by the angst of instability. He doesn't know to what extent he ought to
consider the city beneficial to himself and, conversely, to what extent
nature
detrimental. And, quite often, this
problem is reversed, so that it is the city which appears detrimental
and
nature beneficial, according to the individual's standing in relation
to his
environment. Clearly, there are
sufficient grounds for a widespread generalized angst, a kind
of Zeitgeist
angst in this day and age. Never
before has change, together with its
consequences for
good or bad, been so rapid and extensive.
Man isn't quite sure, on the whole, whether he has things under
control
or whether he is the victim of his expanding technology.
Yet one would, indeed, be
mistaken to
suppose that there is only one angst
and that it applies to
everybody; for there are undoubtedly as many kinds of personal angst
in
existence as one might care or dare to name, not the least of which
being the
financial or economic angst, the class or social angst,
the
weather angst, the health angst, the nuclear angst,
the
nightmare
angst, and, needless to say, the sexual angst,
which,
not surprisingly, is often associated with the relationship between the
natural
and the artificial forms of sexual indulgence, and the ratio of the one
to the
other. If one is sensuously biased, then
the artificial is more likely to be regarded as a kind of perversion,
to be
avoided in the interests of mental and bodily health.
One will shy away from pornography, even its
mildest and most innocuous forms, as from a potent drug, fearing its
corrupting
influence upon one. If, on the other
hand, one is spiritually biased, then pornography is more likely to be
regarded
as a blessing than a curse, insofar as it spiritualizes sex by
facilitating the
development of cerebral sublimation. One
realizes that the further civilization develops, the greater will be
the degree
of artificiality inherent in it, and that this process of gradually
overcoming
human nature through artificial means should be regarded as a good.
However, even then there is
a limit to the
extent to which one can allow oneself to be artificial; for one is
still a man
and, having flesh to appease, one is therefore under some obligation to
toe-the-natural-line. Obviously, it is
necessary for each individual to safeguard his human integrity as best
he can,
if he isn't to suffer the detrimental consequences of being too
artificial for
his own good, like the sophisticated protagonist of Huysmans'
À
Rebours, who eventually suffered a
nervous derangement. One is caught
between the natural and the artificial in a complex and often
nerve-racking
way, a way guaranteed to provoke a certain amount of sexual anxiety. For whilst one must to some extent respect
oneself as a sensual being, one is also under obligation, as a man, to
aspire
towards new spiritual horizons, to extend the domain of the artificial
until it
gains the upper-hand over the natural.
One is, to repeat that oft-quoted line of Fulke
Greville's, 'born under one law, to another
bound'. And yet the law to which one is
bound as a civilized being, the law of increased artificiality, must
eventually
triumph over the natural law, if one is to attain to the bliss of
spiritual
transcendence at the culmination-point of evolution.
One mustn't allow oneself to take a
fatalistic line, as though the human condition was eternally fixed and
implied
a stasis of warring tensions. On the
contrary, one must encourage spiritual progress at whatever cost to the
sensual; for in that lies the key to our
ultimate
salvation as a species. Willy-nilly,
this sexual angst ... of being caught between two opposing
tendencies
... must be overcome by and through a lopsided artificiality, if we are
to
fulfil our destiny as men. But that can
only happen gradually, in accordance with our individual capacities and
the
extent to which technology has been developed at the time.
We cannot allow ourselves to lose patience
with the needs of the body, including the dietary.
Yet neither should we fatalistically resign
ourselves to them, as though they can never be overcome.
The evolutionary struggle must go ahead and
people become ever more artificial, achieving through reproductive
erotica the
sublimation of their sexual impulses.
CONFESSIONS
OF
AN ATHEIST
I
do
not
believe in the existence of God. The
reason
... is that I have come to realize that the traditional concepts of God
are
both inadequate and misguided. They
either confound God with the Devil or mistake that tiny quota of spirit
we each
possesses for God. In the first case,
the Father is taken for God and regarded as the Supreme Being! In the second case that which is potentially
God is taken for God, so that God is considered immanent.
But the fact of the matter is that God is
neither diabolic nor immanent but divine, and has yet to be brought
about. Yes, that is the blunt fact of the
matter,
and that is why I am an atheist. For I
have come to realize that human evolution is essentially a journey to
God, a
journey away from the Devil. It is a
journey, in other words, from the Diabolic Alpha to the Divine Omega,
from the
Creator to the Ultimate Creation, from the most agonized doing to the
most
blissful being.
The Devil exists, then? Yes, most certainly! The
Devil
exists as the most agonized doing
... in the form of the millions of stars which burn ferociously
throughout the
Cosmos. The Devil is manifested in the
stars, and one might say of our star, the sun, that it is a component
of the
overall cosmic Devil, not the Devil itself, but a particular
manifestation of
the Diabolic. For the Diabolic is that
which appertains to the Devil and this is not only the most agonized
doing, but
the greatest separateness, the most intense divergence as well. The Devil, clearly, is divided, and thus the
very antithesis of God, Who is unity.
The Devil is manifold, the Supreme Being
one. Between the Devil and God man
weaves his course, a victim of the former, an aspirant towards the
latter. On his
shoulders rests the
responsibility of creating the Supreme Being, of bringing God to
fruition in
the Universe, and thus of establishing ultimate reality. For beyond the Supreme Being, as beyond a
supreme level of being, there can be no further development, since
evolution
will have attained to its climax in Eternity.
One by one the stars will disintegrate; the Devil, so to speak,
will
reach the end of its negative term and, in collapsing into nothingness,
leave
the Universe to its final perfection in God.
All higher human endeavour tends
towards the
consummation of evolution; for only in that consummation will humanity
have
attained to its goal in the transcendental Beyond.
Yes, the transcendental
Beyond, not 'heaven
on earth' but an area in space towards which pure spirit will gravitate
at the
climax of our evolution. Unfortunately
the earth is always too close to the sun, that component of the Devil,
to be in
a position to enable a truly heavenly context to develop.
The influence of the Diabolic, with its
raging negativity, is never very far away.
The logic of transcendence, however, is to get as far away from
stars
and their planetary offspring as possible, in order not to be
victimized by
their diabolical nature. Eventually,
they will die out, leaving the Universe to God.
But, before that happens, the Divine will need to find the best
possible
area in space available to it. Supreme
Being will have plenty of room in which to be. And not only plenty of
room
but plenty of time - Eternity.
For being, by its very essence, is self-perpetuating; doing, by
contrast, self-destructive. Doing
expends itself in hate, being sustains itself on love.
The sun loses millions of tons of its mass
every second, expending its energy in the conversion of hydrogen into
helium
through the so-called proton-proton reaction.
Supreme Being, on the other hand, would not
only
sustain itself on the bliss of transcendent spirit, but gradually
expand in the
process, so that it would eventually be far larger than the
largest
stars currently in existence. The '
Christ taught that the '
I, however, do not worship
the fundamental
Behind, which is to say, the diabolical creative-and-sustaining force. Neither do I take much interest in Jesus
Christ, who was basically a worshipper of the fundamental Behind, as
his famous
last words: 'Father, Father, why hast Thou forsaken me?' would seem to
attest,
his 'father' being effectively Jehovahesque
in
character. Christ stands between the
Father and the Holy Ghost, between the Diabolic and the Divine. Let not-one be deceived into imagining that
this trinity of gods is wholly blessed!
Only the Holy Ghost, as transcendent spirit, would be truly
blessed and
therefore heavenly. As the creative and
sustaining force, the Father is decidedly cursed, as befitting the
agonized
nature of Hell. For
the Devil and Hell are, of course, roughly synonymous. The stars in all their raging fury, their
infernal heat, are distinctly cursed, and so one should never apply the
word
blessed to the Father, under which term the stars are here subsumed. And as for Jesus Christ who, as man, comes
in-between the two absolutes - the lesser absolute of existing evil and
the
greater absolute of pure good which has yet to be created - one is
obliged to
confess that he is neither cursed nor blessed but, like all men to whom
dualistic criteria can be applied, a combination of both, as his dual
role of
banisher and redeemer at the Last Judgement sufficiently-well
demonstrates. He is man, and therefore a
combination of evil and good, flesh and spirit, illusion and truth,
etc., etc. But he isn't late man, or man
biased on the
side of good, spirit, truth, etc., and neither is he early man, or man
dominated by evil, flesh, illusion, etc.
On the contrary, Christ is decidedly middle man, or man
balanced, in
accordance with the dictates of a midway point in evolution, between
the two
opposites in what amounts to a dualistic compromise.
And like all middle men, like all men who
live and die while human evolution is in this dualistic phase of its
unfolding,
which may be likened to Purgatory, he didn't know the literal nature of
the
twin extremes of Hell and Heaven, but could only approximate to a
viewpoint
compatible with his dualistic essence, to a viewpoint necessarily
watered-down
by dualistic compromise. Thus he spoke
of the Father without understanding exactly what
the Father
was, and likewise spoke of the 'Kingdom of Heaven' as though it were
solely
within the self rather than beyond the self.
He was man, but he served as God to the Christians, to those who
elected
to follow him. To this day true
Christians are obliged to uphold Christ as their God; for evolution
demands
that such an anthropomorphic position be maintained while man is
balanced
between the flesh and the spirit in a dualistic compromise.
However, there comes a time
when, thanks in
large measure to man's changing environments, to his growing urban
severance
from nature, such a balance no longer obtains for a majority of people,
and the
religious sense appropriate to it consequently goes into decline. The modern age is such a time, and this is
why Christ is no longer relevant. We are
if not already in,
then
almost certainly on
the
threshold of a higher age, an age when post-dualistic criteria prevail
over
dualism, and so we should increasingly turn towards the cultivation of
spirit
through meditation, rather than continue to acknowledge or beseech
Christ
through prayer. The fact that this is
already happening in the West is generally well-known.
But it isn't yet happening officially, which
is why the Church still exists. And what
the Church stands for, i.e. the worship of Christ, is incompatible with
the
direct cultivation of spirit!
Regarded from an objective
post-worldly
standpoint, Christ is clearly not God.
He is simply the God of Christians, a perfectly legitimate God
for a
given period of time, commensurate with purgatorial dualism, but
destined to be
superseded once that period has elapsed, as I believe it now has. This is another confession of the atheist
who, as writer of this essay, wishes to see the Church removed. He cannot bring himself to worship Christ,
still less the Father, which he equates with the Devil purely and
simply. Rather, he looks forward to a time
when every
effort will be made to create the Supreme Being, when men, whilst
acknowledging
the existence of the Diabolic (though not assuredly through worship),
will be
dedicated to the furtherance of spirit in the world through the
expansion of superconscious mind.
At present, however, such a
fortunate time
is still some way off; for we live in a transitional age from the
dualistic to
the transcendental, and therefore aren't in a position to cultivate
spirit
extensively. For the extensive
cultivation of spirit demands that we be far more civilized than at
present,
which is to say, recipients of a much greater degree of artificiality
than is
currently the case. True, most of us
live in the city and have effectively left nature behind.
But we haven't, as yet, evolved to a point of
replacing the natural body with an artificial one which would act as a
support
for and sustainer of the brain, and so
enable us to
indulge in a much more exclusive cultivation of spirit than would
otherwise be
possible. Unfortunately we are still
victims of our stomachs, bowels, reproductive organs, senses, etc., and
are
consequently at the mercy of nature to an extent which renders an
extensive
and/or intensive cultivation of spirit all but impossible.
We may have spiritual ambitions, be inclined
to read regularly and spend some time in meditation every day. But when one is obliged to eat, drink,
defecate, urinate, sleep, walk, etc., as human beings invariably are in
greater
or lesser degrees, then it stands to reason that those ambitions are
either
unlikely to be realized or, if partly realized, won't extend very far. It should be obvious, I mean, that one can't
fully serve two masters at once, and that one's sensual obligations
inevitably
detract from such spiritual aspirations as one may be committed to,
making it
impossible to cultivate a transcendental potential.
Of course Asians, and Hindus
in particular,
have long been practitioners of yoga and, hence, more given to directly
cultivating spirit than Europeans, whose Christian worship and acts of
charity,
etc., have traditionally had the upper-hand over contemplation and beingfulness. Yet,
despite their spiritual superiority, the practitioners of yoga have
failed to
attain to the transcendental Beyond, and for the very simple reason
that they
haven't been the fortunate recipients of a technology which would make
transcendence possible. In short, they
haven't sacrificed the natural body to an artificial one.
They have striven, on the contrary, to attain
to salvation solely on the basis of their commitment to yoga, to
meditation and
its attendant relatively superficial physical sacrifices.
Admittedly, they haven't worshipped nature,
at least not as a rule. But, in turning
towards the transcendental Beyond, they have quite often become the
victims of
nature through either starvation or disease, or a lethal combination of
both. And where this misfortune has been
avoided
through a degree of compromise with nature, with the relatively good
fortune,
it may be, of having been born into a higher caste, they haven't
greatly
profited from the application of water enemas or clean towels down
their
throats, by attempts, in other words, to purify the body.
For even after the most rigorous application
of purificatory procedures, the body still
remains an
obstacle to spiritual transcendence simply by its continued existence
as a
sensual phenomenon. There is still too
much flesh, too much subconscious influence to contend with, making the
degree
of one's spiritual cultivation comparatively limited in scope. Alas, even with the best will in the world,
even with a thin half-starved body which has received thorough purificatory attention, one is still incapable
of attaining
to the transcendental Beyond! For let
there be no doubt on this point; unless the natural body has been
superseded by
an artificial support-and-sustain apparatus for the brain, there isn't
the
slightest chance of one's being in a position whereby a truly
transcendental
potential can be cultivated. So long as
one has natural, sensual needs to attend to, Heaven, alas, will remain
no more
than a pipe-dream, a faint possibility.
To approximate to the transcendental Beyond is to live
continuously and
permanently in a context akin to it, where sensual indulgences are
entirely
excluded. It is also to live at the
furthest possible environmental remove from nature, from the sensuous
influence
of the plant world, which is something that even the Buddha didn't do
and, at
that distant and more naturalistic epoch in time, wasn't really in a
position
to do, cities not having developed to any significantly artificial
extent.
Clearly, then, meditation by
itself isn't
enough! We must bring, in the course of
time, the maximum of technology to bear on it or, rather, on those who
practise
it, so that, in a very literal sense, the East can meet the West and
both
become fused into a single civilization.
Of course, to some extent this is already happening, albeit on a
comparatively rudimentary basis at present.
Centuries will have to pass before humanity can be expected to
attain to
its collective goal in spiritual transcendence.
Heaven is still a condition of the future, a
sphere of
being signifying the most artificial and supernatural existence
conceivable. We are still
relatively naturalistic.
But the Supreme Being is in
our sights, so
to speak, and now we should see more clearly than ever before the
direction we
must take in order to become it. We
should be able to see through the religious illusions and limitations
of the
past, inevitable as they were for their time, and advance towards our
goal with
fresh determination. Under the
supervision of socialism, technology will take us to a stage of
evolution
whereby meditation will become a truly viable means of attaining to the
transcendental Beyond. But it won't be
the only means; for, bearing in mind the progress of the artificial
element in
life commensurate with civilized evolution, the use of synthetic
hallucinogens
like LSD will doubtless play a part in facilitating upward
self-transcendence
and, accordingly, in opening the mind to higher visionary experience. How great a part the introduction of synthetic
hallucinogens will
play, in this respect, remains to be seen. But if such experiments as have already been
made with LSD are anything to judge by, then it is more than probable
that
drugs of this type will play a highly significant role in the
advancement of
spiritual consciousness. For by their
very artificial essence such synthetics result in upward
self-transcendence,
and may therefore be regarded as a good, whereas natural drugs, from
tea and
tobacco to opium and heroin, result in varying degrees of downward
self-transcendence, and are comparatively evil.
The present age has by no means escaped the evils of natural
drugs, of
which addiction is the chief, but it is at least to some extent
discouraging
their use. The future will doubtless
discourage them far more thoroughly and efficiently, with a
compensatory
encouragement, however, of artificial drugs.
How long it will be before mankind outgrows drugs altogether
also
remains to be seen. Yet I am disposed to
the belief that the highest civilization will have developed beyond
recourse to
even the most artificial drugs, having advanced to a stage where the
cultivation of spirit is so extensive as not to require any artificial
stimulation. And this could well be
because the old brain, in which reposes the subconscious part of the
psyche,
had 'gone the way' of the natural body and thereby left humanity free
of its
sensuous influence. Elevated to the
status of new-brain collectivizations,
humanity or,
rather, its godlike successors would be in the most advantageous
position to
achieve ultimate transcendence, having acquired a gradual
acclimatization to a
consciousness predominantly composed of pure spirit.
All that would thereafter remain to be done
would be for these highly-charged spiritual minds to break away from
the new
brain and soar heavenwards to their ultimate destination in
undifferentiated
spirit. At that point in time evolution
would have reached its zenith, the earth being left to the now-empty
artificial
supports which had sustained the highest civilization.
We, however, are a long way
from that
hypothetical civilization, since recipients of so much sensuality. For all our boasts of progress, we are
relatively primitive and will doubtless remain so for some time to come. We haven't yet earned the right to an
exclusive spirituality, but must work for technological and social
progress in
the world at large. Naturally, we can be
proud of what we have
achieved to-date. Yet we
mustn't allow such achievements to make us complacent or distract us
from the
greater things which have still to be achieved.
For the world is ever a place where
improvements can
be made, if we are to attain to our goal in spiritual perfection. The world is simply a stepping-stone to
something higher, not a place to be worshipped in and for itself! Non-attachment
to
the world is now, as
before, the key to salvation in the transcendental Beyond.
But it should not be a non-attachment that
leads to starvation or disease, to the triumph of the natural world
over the
spirit, which we cultivate at this juncture in time, as too many people
have
been traditionally exposed to doing in the East. We
must
come to accept that a true, higher
non-attachment has to be earned through civilized progress, and that it
is
therefore in our best interests to attend to the affairs of the world
which
make for social progress, not to shirk them as though they constituted
an
impediment to salvation.
THE
LITERARY
REVOLUTION
Not
so
long
ago Aldous Huxley was my literary guru, or
spiritual
guide. I read everything by him that I
could lay my hands on, and read it, for the most part, with
considerable
pleasure. These days, however, I am no
longer the respectful disciple but rather more the disrespectful rebel,
a
critic of my one-time mentor. Like
Nietzsche, I have rebelled against my master and gone my own separate
way,
dismissing Huxley with the ease and willingness with which Nietzsche
was to
dismiss Schopenhauer. To some extent I
am a twentieth-century Nietzsche, a kindred spirit of the author of The
Anti-Christ, Beyond Good and Evil, and Thus Spoke Zarathustra, just as, to some extent, Huxley
was a
twentieth-century Schopenhauer, a kindred spirit of the author of The
World
as
Will and Representation, The Parerga
and Paralipomena, and lesser works. There are, of course, certain
differences. But, broadly speaking, it
is possible for me to identify with Nietzsche, and not simply as a
rebel
against a former master but, more importantly, as the advocate of a
short-term
positivistic attitude to life which radically conflicts with the
long-term
spiritual views upheld by both Schopenhauer and Huxley.
For they were largely
negative in their advocacy of non-attachment to the world through a
form of
Buddhist renunciation. They were
pessimistic in their attitudes to social progress as reflecting the
welfare of
the masses, the social collectivity, and
were
consequently inclined to stress the importance of personal salvation
through
individual effort. They distrusted
political means of improving the world and, because they rebelled
against the
social collectivity, were obliged to
uphold the
individual in the face of large-scale communal effort.
In sum, they were philosophically and
politically conservative, if not reactionary.
Nietzsche, by contrast, was
revolutionary,
which is why he has had a much greater influence on the twentieth
century than
Schopenhauer. Like him, I too am
revolutionary, and to the extent, I hope, of having a greater influence
on the
twenty-first century than Huxley will.
At present, Huxley is still regarded as an outstanding writer
and
thinker, probably the most outstanding writer and thinker in
As a novelist, Huxley was
superior to the
great majority of novelists of his time by preferring an approach to
the genre
which gave far more importance to theory than to practice, to
speculation than
to action, to truth than to illusion - in a phrase, to philosophy than
to
fiction. He disliked story-telling,
which is of course the traditional or conventional approach to
literature, and
endeavoured, especially in his late novels, to grant as much space to
philosophical discussion and speculation as possible.
This, alone, is the mark of a higher type of
literature, a type of which the twentieth century has witnessed the
development,
and which may be said to reflect the predominance of the superconscious
over the subconscious, in accordance with its author's degree of
spiritual
sophistication. To some extent, the
environmental shift, over the past hundred or so years, from the town
to the
city has contributed to this change in priorities from illusion to
truth,
fiction to fact, insofar as the modern sophisticated city-dweller no
longer
experiences the sensuous influence of nature to the same extent as his
forebears, and consequently is in a position to cultivate more spirit. Being cut-off from nature to a greater extent
than ever before, the modern intelligent city-dweller is less under the
sway of
subconscious dominion than would otherwise be the case, and therefore
is more
disposed towards the superconscious. In the case of writers, such a disposition
leads to the traditional criteria of literature being superseded by
criteria
reflecting a superconscious bias, in which
truth, or
something approximating to it, will take the place of illusory
fictions, and a
new type of literature, broadly termed philosophical, duly arises.
Now this new literature will
only arise, it
goes without saying, from the most intelligent writers, those who are
the
recipients of a greater degree of superconscious
influence than lesser men, and it will even be possible for such
writers to
continue writing in their predominantly philosophical style whether or
not they
spend all of their time in the city.
Provided they don't spend too much time amid the
subconsciously-dominated
plant world of nature, they are unlikely to become any-the-less
intelligent. For one can flit from one
environment to another, one town or city to another, and still maintain
this
higher kind of writing - as, indeed, Aldous
Huxley
managed to do, despite a distaste for large cities.
He was, however, too much of a bourgeois, and
therefore too fond of suburban environments, to be wholly content with
a
metropolitan context, and mostly lived, in consequence, on the
outskirts of
cities. Had he been less bourgeois in
this regard, he might have become an even greater writer.
But his suburban integrity necessarily
restricted his mode of thought to a level compatible with bourgeois
ethics, and
so prevented its development into the reaches of what might be termed
higher
proletarian writing. For it must be
stressed that the highest writing, the greatest thought, can only
emerge from a
writer of superior intelligence who is resident in a large city, where
the
sensuous influence of nature is negligible and a truly transcendental
mode of
writing can accordingly develop. Those,
on the contrary, who confine themselves to the provinces or to the
country
inevitably detract from their spiritual development and, to a greater
or lesser
extent, fall behind the times. They
develop a complacency in nature and,
frankly, such a
complacency is incompatible with higher spirituality, with writings
that
reflect a severance from and contempt of nature!
As an example of this, I
might cite a
remark made by Colin Wilson in the first instalment of his
autobiography, Voyage
to
a
Beginning, in which he claimed to be the foremost genius of the age
-
indeed, one of only two geniuses then at work in the world (the other
apparently being a relatively unknown friend of his, whose name eludes
me). Now Mr Wilson claimed priority in
respect to his pre-eminent genius on the grounds that he had gone
beyond
Existentialism and furthered the development of a philosophy with a
positivistic rather than a nihilistic outlook.
No doubt, there is a justification of sorts for such a claim. For, these days, anyone who doesn't go beyond
Existentialism, in one way or another, has no business considering himself a serious writer and thinker, let alone a
genius! In fact, he is unlikely to be
published. However, what especially
intrigues me here is
that the author of this immodest autobiography doesn't find his
confinement to
a small cottage on the Cornish coast a hindrance to his genius, but, on
the
contrary, regards life in Cornwall as generally very acceptable, if not
preferable to the city. Clearly, his
genius isn't disturbed by the close proximity of temperate nature, but
is able
to live in harmony with it, in spite of its sensuous essence.
Now anyone who lives for any
length of time
in such a simple environment, as Mr Wilson has apparently done, isn't
likely to
develop the most anti-natural sentiments, to become a contemporary
Baudelaire
or Mondrian, and consequently his range of
thought
will be restricted, in its formation, by
complacency towards the natural, whether inorganic or organic. The fact that Mr Wilson hasn't waged a verbal
war against nature would seem to be borne-out by the content of his
writings,
in which no overtly, nor even covertly, transcendental
attitude
is to be found. He does,
however, prefer writings of a philosophical order to mere
story-telling, and
this is something for which we can admire him.
But whether he is the foremost genius of the age is, under the
circumstances, a somewhat debatable issue, especially in light of
certain more
recent developments in contemporary thought which have led to a
condemnation of
the natural and to a reappraisal of the transcendent, with particular
reference
to what I have called the transcendental Beyond. That
Mr
Wilson may have had a justification
of sorts for considering himself the foremost genius of the age some
thirty or
more years ago, we shall not question.
But whether such a justification still holds true now is highly
questionable, and had better be left for posterity to decide. No doubt, it ought not to be forgotten that
he was evaluating himself in relation to his contemporaries, not in
relation to
either his predecessors or his successors.
He wasn't, for example, comparing himself with Aldous
Huxley.
But was Huxley a genius,
then? There have been times when I was
inclined to
think so, bearing in mind the content and scope of his work,
particularly his
late work. Nowadays, however, I am not
so sure. There is a tricky borderline
between men of genius and the clever-clever, and sometimes it is
possible to
confound those on the one side of that borderline with those on the
other side
of it. The clever-clever may, at times,
have the appearance of genius, but they are generally either
too pedantic and pedagogic or, conversely, too flashy and
superficial. Huxley undoubtedly had a
fair amount of the former about himself, while Evelyn Waugh might serve
as a
useful illustration of the latter.
Genius, on the other hand, doesn't labour over textbook
citations or
strive to impose a superficial cleverness upon one.
It is somewhat unique in that its recipient
is motivated by deeply personal or original thoughts which fight shy of
textbook authorities. Besides possessing
the necessary intellectual credentials of exalted thought, the genius
is rather
one who pursues his own vision over the heads of and beyond the reach
of lesser
men, and to such an extent that it often takes generations for the more
progressive members of society to catch-up with him and to properly
appreciate
what he had to say. Rather than being
hampered by textbooks or numerous citations, the genius remains in the
grip of
his particular thought, regardless of how radical it may be from a
traditional
viewpoint. He is something of an
outsider and a rebel, a challenge to the literary establishment and a
champion
of a higher sense of freedom. He leads
the intellectual or creative field by dint of his innate ability to
transcend
the narrow boundaries of the conscious self.
He has 'intimations of immortality', in Wordsworth's oft-quoted
phrase.
Now, given these criteria,
there was
doubtless something
of the genius about Aldous
Huxley, though not a very great deal, considering his dependence on
and, like
so many well-educated Englishmen, gentlemanly deference towards
traditional
authority. At best, he might be
described as one of the clever-clever who occasionally attained to a
level of
genius - in short, as a minor genius.
For it should not be forgotten that exalted thought was not
always to be
found in Huxley's writings, and that he was more often than not a
pedant and
expounder of other men's theories, including, as we have seen, those of
the
American psychologist, W.H. Sheldon.
Moreover, he wasn't always particularly consistent with himself,
and if
consistency is a hallmark of genius, as I incline to believe, then his
lack of
it with regard to intellectual positions must inevitably tell against
him. Nevertheless, what he did
achieve
in terms of intellectual clarity and earnestness is sufficient to
distinguish
him from the majority of his contemporaries, and to accord him an
honourable
place in the eyes of posterity. In a
generation that produced no outstanding revolutionary genius, his
status as a
minor genius is certainly not without merit.
It simply wasn't given to him to be another Nietzsche or
Strindberg. And neither, seemingly, was
it given to anyone else.
Yet it was given to D.H.
Lawrence to be an
outstanding traditional genius, and this fact we must readily
acknowledge, if
we are not to do the man a grave disservice.
For it has long been contended among reputable literary critics,
including Richard Aldington, that D.H.
Lawrence was
the finest English novelist of his day, a contention which, strictly
within
traditional terms, isn't without some justification.
Compared with Huxley,
Now anyone who judges
writers solely by
traditional criteria must accord
Nor are Lawrence and Huxley
the only
examples of this transitional dichotomy.
Of more recent writers connected with the English literary
scene, one
might cite the difference between
But what applies to
However, before I deal with
that subject at
greater length, let me go on to point out some further examples of this
transitional dichotomy, as manifested in twentieth-century literature,
this
time German, and thereupon equate Thomas Mann with the traditional
approach
and, conversely, Hermann Hesse with the
revolutionary
one. Mann wrote
primarily
with a view to telling a story, Hesse with
a view to
propounding his religious philosophy.
The former philosophizes in moderation, the latter makes of
philosophy
his raison
d'être. Between
their last novels, The Confessions of Felix Krull,
Confidence
Trickster in Mann's case, and The Glass Bead Game in
Hesse's, there is that radical distinction
we have
already noted with regard to, amongst others, Huxley and Lawrence. Of the two writers,
Which state-of-affairs
applies no less
amongst Americans than Europeans, so that we may accredit Henry
Miller's work a
special priority over that of, say, Ernest Hemingway, despite the
latter's
unquestionable abilities from the traditional point-of-view. Hemingway spins stories, and does so well
enough to win world-wide recognition.
Miller, by contrast, dedicates himself to telling the story of
his life,
and spices this up with speculations of a philosophical order. He eschews literary fictions in the interests
of autobiography, which could be defined as subjective fact, and to
this is
added the subjective truth of philosophy - at any rate, of theoretical
speculations and contentions about life in its entirety, both as
experienced externally
and, especially, as reflected upon internally.
From this twofold approach to literature he scarcely ever
deviates, so
that his novels remain consistently revolutionary and, in the best
sense of the
word, contemporary. It would be a
mistake, however, to describe him as a major genius.
For, at best, he is only a minor one, and a
minor one, at that, without even the compensatory factor of being
clever-clever. Yet his consistently
radical approach to the novel is sufficient to establish him as the
most
revolutionary American author of his generation, and to accord him an
honourable place in the ranks of the international avant-garde. As a type he approximates more to the
subjective approach to the world than to its opposite, and may thus be
described
as a transcendentalist. He is, in a way,
a less sophisticated version of Aldous
Huxley. His nearest contemporary
equivalent in
American writing is probably Norman Mailer, whose philosophical
approach to
literature may be contrasted with the story-telling approach of, say,
Gore
Vidal, an author who, on the whole, would appear to be aligned with the
narrative tradition.
We see, therefore, that the
twentieth
century gave rise to a split between what in historical terms could be
defined
as the ancients and the moderns - in other words, between the
tail-enders of
the literary tradition and the pioneers of the literary revolution. Generally speaking, the former have been blessed with more genius in their own
sphere of
creativity than have the latter in theirs, nor need this surprise us. For as a tradition reaches its climax, it
stands to reason that the finest writings in that context will occur at
the end
rather than at the beginning of its development, to round it off in an
appropriately climatic fashion, in accordance with the dictates of
literary
evolution. Consequently, where the
finest works of authors such as D.H. Lawrence, Lawrence Durrell,
Albert Camus, Thomas Mann, Ernest
Hemingway, and Gore
Vidal are concerned, the literary tradition would seem to have reached
its peak
and is unlikely to surpass itself. The
fruit of the past three centuries has attained to full ripeness in the
great
works of these men, on whose shoulders rested the responsibility of its
fulfilment. The narrative tradition was
brought to a
fruitful end. Not altogether surprising,
therefore, if its practitioners should generally be blessed with more
genius
than their revolutionary counterparts!
In terms of painting, one
might cite the
difference, in this regard, between, say, Salvador Dali and Piet
Mondrian, the former having been blessed
with a
considerable degree of genius to bring an egocentric representational
tradition
to full maturity, the latter not requiring any great genius to execute
his
simplistic, post-egocentric paintings, which were destined to initiate
a new
development in art. Admittedly, to some
extent Dali is also post-egocentric, insofar as his work, particularly
when
surreal, often reflects a looking back and down upon the subconscious
from a
higher psychic vantage-point. But the
fact that he uses a highly-accomplished egocentric technique in the
service of
figurative painting renders his work more closely aligned with the
tradition
than that of virtually any other Surrealist of his or, indeed, any
other generation. Paradoxically, however,
one is obliged to
contend that, despite his considerable representational genius, he
ranks lower
in the evolution of art than Mondrian, who
should
therefore be regarded as his artistic superior.
Returning to literature, we
may infer that,
in contrast to the tail-enders of a tradition, the pioneers of a new
development are unlikely to be men of outstanding genius, but either
men of no
genius at all or only very minor genius, its being understood that only
towards
the climax of a tradition, especially an egocentric one, can great
genius come
to the fore, a level of genius commensurate with the perfecting and
completing
of that tradition. Thus we needn't be
surprised that the post-egocentric writers have not, on the whole, been
men of
outstanding genius but, rather, highly-talented foundation layers for
the
subsequent erection of the higher, predominantly philosophical
literature. Whether in the guises of
Huxley, Koestler, Sartre, Hesse, Miller,
or Mailer, they have initiated or furthered a break with the fictional
tradition, and so paved the way for a much greater fidelity to fact and
truth
in literature. We must respect them as
pioneers and leave it to other men, of greater genius, to complete the
new
tradition in due course, whether or not such a completion is likely to
occur
during the next hundred years.
I spoke a little while ago
about appearance
and essence in literature and, in expanding on that subject, must now
draw the
reader's attention to the fact that avant-garde writing in literature,
as in
art, is divisible into that which focuses primarily on means and,
conversely,
that which attends more closely to ends.
The first of these two categories, whether in terms of politics
or
science, has found its leading practitioners in writers like Sartre, Koestler, and Mailer, who may broadly be
described as
Social Realists. The second category,
essentially being concerned with religion and art, has found its
leading
practitioners in writers like Huxley, Hesse,
and
Miller,
who may broadly be described as Transcendentalists.
Those in the first category are aligned with
appearance, and thus means. Those in the
second category, by contrast, would seem to be aligned with essence,
and thus
ends. The first category adopts an
extroverted
approach to the world, the second category an introverted one. Both, as already remarked, are necessary and
justified, but they aren't necessarily so at the same time. It could well be that, in the necessity of
putting means before ends, those who adopt the objective approach are
more
relevant in the short term, whereas those whose approach is subjective
appeal
to long-term solutions, and are accordingly less relevant at present. The former would be equalitarian, the latter
elitist. However, the former's
art would not be the highest but, rather, a
comparatively second-rate art which was simply of more applicability to
the
short-term goals of social evolution.
The highest art could only issue from the Transcendentalists,
who, by
concentrating on essence, point the way towards Eternity.
For, in the long run, spirit must take
priority over matter.
Clearly, then, in an age
which stresses
equalitarianism and is tending, willy-nilly, towards a more equal
society, the
Social Realists are the most relevant of avant-gardists. It may seem strange that Socialist Realism
should be equated with the avant-garde, but its approach to the world
is
contemporary, if from a completely different angle than
Transcendentalism. After all, there is
nothing more contemporary,
from a revolutionary standpoint, than the urban proletariat. In the West, with the general acceptance of
Transcendentalism by the Establishment these days, the Social Realists
are the
only genuine revolutionaries, whether in art or in literature. The Establishment can accommodate the
long-term solutions of Transcendentalism because it doesn't feel
directly
threatened by them in the short term. In
the former Soviet East, on the other hand, the Transcendentalists, as
traditionally manifesting in unofficial avant-garde art, have been
regarded as
a revolutionary or subversive threat to the short-term interests of the
At the beginning of this
essay I remarked
that I was once a disciple of Aldous
Huxley, but had
subsequently grown beyond him. Seen in
the light of the above contentions, my reasons for no longer regarding
Huxley
as my guru should be sufficiently clear.
I do not wish to make the fatal mistake of putting ends before
means and
concentrating on essence when the world cries out for a short-term
solution in
appearance. Like Nietzsche, I have
turned against essence-mongering in the interests of world betterment. I can no longer sympathize with the
individualist,
elitist attitude propounded by Huxley; for it is destined to failure,
no matter
how earnest its practitioner may happen to be.
The attitude of de-centralist Ghandi-like self-sufficiency, as
illustrated by the guru-like figure of Propter
in After
Many
a
Summer, is totally inadequate to meet the requirements of ultimate
salvation. For such a salvation can only
be brought about through the most rigorous adherence to urban
civilization and
the accompanying development of higher technology.
Naturalistic means of cultivating spirit in
close proximity to nature are invariably limited in scope, restricting
the
practitioner of such means to a spirituality hampered by the sensual
and, above
all, by the natural body itself. Unless
we develop our technology, in centralized cohesion, to a point where it
will
enable us to gradually supplant the natural body with an artificial
support-and-sustain system for the brain, including the brain-stem and
central
nervous system, we shall never attain to holy (pure) spirit in the
transcendental Beyond. Unless
we
concentrate first on appearance and then on essence,
making the transformation of the phenomenal a precondition of enhanced noumenal sensibility, we shall remain the sordid
victims of
a delusive philosophy.
The modern world and,
indeed, the modern
novel have need, above all, of a correct philosophical approach to the
difficult problems which confront the age.
We needn't dismiss the Transcendentalists out-of-hand, but we
would be
well-advised to give Social Realists more credit in the short term. Their political and scientific approaches to
the world will serve as a foundation for and springboard to the highest
culture. They will pave the way for the
greatest genius!
MUSIC
IN
AN AGE OF TRANSITION
Like
art
and
literature in the twentieth century, music has reflected a wide
variety of
approaches and styles, making for an eclecticism
virtually unprecedented in the entire history of its evolution. Never before have so many different types of
composer existed simultaneously or contemporaneously in the Western
world and
provided the interested public with such a wealth of heterogeneous
material
from which to choose. One is confronted
by composers as far apart as Berkeley and Stockhausen, Martinu
and Schoenberg, Elgar and Varèse,
Walton and Cage. That in itself should
be sufficient to excite ambivalence, confusion, and scepticism in
anyone's
head, were it not also for the fact that, in addition to the marked
differences
between different types of so-called serious composer, one is
confronted by the
vast differences which accrue to the domain of jazz, both traditional
and
modern, and obliged to confess that much of what passes here, to the
average
philistine, for a form of light entertainment is in fact a
highly-sophisticated, progressive music which is entitled to be taken
seriously
and treated as a viable alternative to certain other types of serious
composition. But in addition to an
outpouring of heterogeneous Western music this century, one is
confronted by
musical styles from all other parts of the world - from places as far
apart as
Yet we live in an age of
transition between
two distinct developments in the history of Western evolution, that is
to say,
between the Christian dualistic and the transcendental post-dualistic. According to Arnold J. Toynbee's historical
classifications, the latter has been referred to as the post-modern and
corresponds to an era dating from the last two decades of the
nineteenth
century, when the iconoclastic and prophetic Nietzsche gave voice to
the
assertion that 'God is dead', thereby proclaiming the end of the
Christian
era. In theory, such an assertion is
doubtless justified, having long been common knowledge among the
various
intelligentsia of the Western world. In
practice, however, we in the West are still officially living under the
institutional influence of Christianity and cannot therefore speak of
the
transcendental, or post-modern, age as officially existing. There are, of course, many aspects of this
most recent development in the history of human evolution which are
patently
manifest in the Western world, not least of all in the arts. But although that virtually goes without
saying, the official acknowledgement of a transcendental age has yet to
come
about. Consequently we have a right to
speak of an age of transition, whether this is taken to imply a gradual
shift
away from dualistic into post-dualistic criteria or, as a possible
climax to
this gradualism, the subsequent revolutionary overthrow of Western
civilization, with particular reference to its Christian and democratic
traditions. To speak of a post-modern
age as already officially existing would be to overlook the glaring
facts of
contemporary Western life which point to the contrary!
Granted, then, that we are
in transition
from one development in the history of Western evolution to another, it
becomes
less surprising that there are so many different types of composer in
existence, or that their compositions reflect a wide variety of styles. The age is not homogeneous but decidedly
heterogeneous in its constitution, which is why such unprecedented
variety
currently exists. However, I am not
saying this is a good thing; goodness isn't a word that can be applied
here. Rather, it marks a stage of
Western evolution, whether or not we approve of the fact.
A tradition in the arts
reaches a climax
whilst, simultaneously, a new development begins to get under way. Roughly, the twentieth century reflects the
transition from acoustic classical music to electronic avant-garde
music, from
the modern, in Toynbee's terminology, to the post-modern, from the
dualistic to
the post-dualistic, from egocentricity, in subconscious/superconscious
balance, to post-egocentricity, reflecting a superconscious
bias. We are tending, all the while,
towards a more artificial civilization, a civilization composed of a
much
greater degree of superconscious bias than
is
currently the case. The fact, however,
of our being in transition means that much of what pertains to the
subconscious, and hence to an egocentric viewpoint, still prevails and
will
doubtless continue to do so for some time to-come.
We aren't exactly on the point of dispensing
with the large modern orchestra and completely going over to
electronics;
though the rising costs of maintaining orchestras may well prove a
contributory
element in their eventual demise.
Another element, however, will undoubtedly be our preference for
artificial over naturalistic modes of sound reproduction - a preference
which
is already significantly evident among the general and higher
proletariat who,
as a rule, prefer electric to acoustic instrumentalists.
On the other hand, the Western bourgeoisie
and their middle-class or professional equivalents in totalitarian
countries
are the people primarily responsible for maintaining an interest in
acoustic
music, as evidenced by bourgeois adherence to the orchestra.
It has often been said that
the People are
closer to God. What, exactly, does this
mean? Or, rather, how can it be
interpreted in a truly contemporary sense?
It can be interpreted, I believe, by reference to my
Gnostic/Manichean Weltanshauung,
in
which evolution proceeds from
A - Z, as it were, in accordance with an aspiration towards a supreme
level of
being, otherwise more conventionally regarded as the Supreme Being. Evolution begins in the Manifold, as
manifested by the diabolic stars, and aspires, through man, towards the
One, as
will be manifested in the Holy Ghost.
One might speak, echoing Teilhard
de Chardin, that great Catholic theologian
and man of science,
of a convergence to the Omega Point, a convergence from the Devil to
God. Provided one doesn't fall into the
trap of
his theology, but rejects all belief in an already-existing Omega Point
composed,
as it were, of the transcendent spirit of the Risen Christ, as derived
from
Gospel accounts of the Resurrection, one will be in a position to adopt
a
logical, long-term view concerning this convergence to omega, which is
compatible with an aspiration towards the creation of supreme being,
and
therefore with a contemporary atheism.
To treat the Resurrection of Christ at face-value, as a literal
fact, on
the other hand, would be to fall into an anthropomorphic stance
relative to the
Christian myth, rather than to take a stance compatible with a
scientific
transcendentalism, such as the age increasingly requires.
When it is understood that evolution proceeds
from A - Z, one won't ascribe supernatural significance to a simple
carpenter
who lived two-thousand years ago and had no access to an advanced
technology -
in other words, to a technology which, by supplanting the natural body
with an
artificial support-and-sustain system for the brain, would ultimately
make
transcendence possible. On the contrary,
one will endorse the contemporary view that attainment to the
transcendental
Beyond is dependent on our will and ability to create it in due course,
in
accordance with civilized progress.
Thus the Supreme Being will
be regarded as
the furthermost development of which ascending life is capable, and
therefore
as the culmination of evolution in the distant future.
For supreme beingfulness
can only be the outcome of evolution, not its initiator!
To conceive of the Supreme Being, or supreme
level of being, having created the lowest of the low, the most agonized
doing
of the stars, is simply madness.
Evolution doesn't begin at the end but works forwards, ever so
slowly
and painfully while the going is particularly tough, as it must be the
more we
live under nature's dominion. Our goal,
however, is the supernatural, or that which lies above and beyond
nature and is
accordingly the most artificial of outcomes to life.
It is in this sense of consummate
artificiality that the 'super' of Nietzsche's superman should be
understood,
not in any muscular sense of brute strength.
For musclemen are, by and large, a thing of the past - certainly
so far
as any serious claim to true superiority is concerned!
Given these aspects of my
revolutionary
philosophy, it should be apparent that when we say that the People are
closer
to God than, for example, the aristocracy or the bourgeoisie, we are
implying a
greater approximation on their part not only to Oneness, to the
ultimate
spiritual unity which the Supreme Being would signify, but also to a
more
artificial state-of-affairs which can be presumed to exist to a greater
extent
among them than among their historical class enemies and/or commercial exploiters. Traditionally,
the
view that the People are
closer to God was of course associated with their comparative poverty
in
relation to the wealth and materialistic opulence of the ruling classes. As transcendent spirit, God is if not at the
furthest possible remove from wealthy property-owning men, then
certainly at a sufficiently far remove from them to grant credence to
the
theory that the poor are closer. To some
extent, this theory still holds true; for even in this day and age the
People
aren't, generally speaking, wealthy property-owning individuals, but
tenanted
rent-payers. They may be materially
better off, on the whole, than their less-fortunate predecessors, but
they are
still far from wealthy! However,
progress does not require that the People become wealthy in due course;
for
that would simply lead to a spiritual regression on their part. On the contrary, it requires that they become
ever more spiritual and therefore less under the influence of
materialism and
sensuality. This will doubtless
eventually be put into effect through the assistance of technology. But, in the short term, it requires the
assistance of socialism in order to ensure moderate means for all in
equalitarianism, as opposed to the perpetuation or resurrection of
extremities
in elitism.
Returning to the
contemporary light thrown
by my philosophy on the relationship of the People to God, one can
posit a
closer approximation on their part to the projected Oneness of our
hypothetical
supreme level of being on the basis of the fact that they generally
live in closer
proximity to one another in bedsitters,
flats,
terraced houses, etc., rather than distant from one another in detached
houses,
country houses, mansions, etc., like the bourgeoisie and aristocracy
generally
do. This is far from saying, of course,
that such a cramped arrangement isn't at times a form of hell on earth
for most
of those who are obliged to experience it; but simply to point out that
the
enforcement of such a cramped context of living gives rise to a closer
approximation to the future Beyond (of ultimate spiritual unity) than
does the
prevalence, in middle-class suburbs, of detached housing, which
necessarily
reflects individualistic separateness.
The People, then, are obliged to live closer to the envisaged
climax of
evolution than the bourgeoisie. Whether
this gives rise to pleasure or pain is fundamentally irrelevant.
The other aspect of the
People being closer
to God has to do, as already intimated,
with the
artificial and its relationship to the supernatural.
The average bourgeois lives, you will recall,
in a suburban context of complacency in a partly natural environment. He isn't cut off from nature in an urban
context, like the proletariat, but is free to cultivate his garden and
take
pleasure in the gardens belonging to his neighbours, as well, of
course, as in
the areas - sometimes quite extensive - of public land accessible to
him. He wouldn't greatly relish the
prospect of
having to live in an area of the nearest big city where there was very
little
verdure, but is only content in the semi-rural/semi-urban setting which
is
suburbia. By contrast, the proletariat
do not, in their bedsitters, flats,
terraced houses,
etc., have regular access to all that much land, but are confined to a
largely
artificial environment. This is another
reason why they are closer to God than the bourgeoisie; for the Supreme
Being
would be the most artificial and supernatural of all existences, having
nothing
whatsoever to do with nature. Now the
People are less under nature's sway.
Consequently, they are more susceptible to the artificial, as
fostered
by the anti-natural essence of an urban environment, and so aspire,
whether
consciously or unconsciously, towards the Supreme Being, in accordance
with
evolutionary pressures. Of course, they
aren't highly artificial at this juncture in time; for evolution still
has a
long way to go before it attains, through man, to a supernatural climax. But they are certainly in the requisite
environmental context for the furtherance of evolutionary progress in
due
course. They portend a continuous
development.
So what, you may wonder,
does all this have
to do with music, the subject with which we began our essay? The answer to this is frankly that it has a
lot to do with music. For only by
grasping the significance of urbanization in relation to the artificial
... can
one begin to understand the revolutionary break with the past which the
rise of
electric music, of one type or another, signifies, and why it is
therefore
plausible for me to contend that electric music, or music dependent on
electricity, signifies a superior development to acoustic music, and
is, by
dint of its greater artificiality, closer to God. Paradoxically,
one
is forced to admit that
the leading jazz or rock guitarists' wailing electric sounds, so dear
to the
People, are a step nearer to God than the acoustic sounds so dear to
the
bourgeoisie, which necessarily reflect a more natural state-of-affairs. The electric sounds, by contrast, reflect a
higher stage of civilization.
When one understands that
nature stems from
the diabolical solar roots of the Universe, one will hardly be
surprised by the
fact that the use of natural means won't make for a particularly close
approximation to the Divine. On the
contrary, one will see only too clearly that wood, ivory, sheep's gut,
horsehair, etc., no matter how well-shaped or refined upon in the
process of
transformation, partly or entirely, into a musical instrument,
inevitably
preclude the achievement of a truly transcendental potential in sound,
and
thereby restrict music to the relatively humble level of a
semi-artificial
achievement. The instruments - violins,
cellos, pianos, organs, etc. - may be beautifully made, but they won't
be able
to escape the influence of their materials, which stem from nature. Only through the development of synthetic
materials, coupled to the assistance of electricity, can one hope to
create
music with a truly transcendental potential, a music which reflects the
influence not of nature but of civilization in a more artificial mode,
and is
thus closer to the supremely transcendent climax of evolution in the
supernatural. Only by replacing wood
with such man-made materials as plastic, plexiglas,
fibreglass,
perspex, steel, etc., is one likely to
achieve a significant musical aspiration towards the transcendental
Beyond, an
aspiration powered, so to speak, by the man-made miracle of electricity. The musicians who perform on synthetic
instruments would stand at a higher level of evolution than those who
don't,
creating sounds which could only be described as more civilized, i.e.
indicative of a greater degree of artificiality. Such
musicians
would be in the best possible
instrumental position to create a spiritual rather than a sensual
music, a
transcendental rather than a mundane sound.
And, of course, we have witnessed, with our music-prone ears,
plenty of
highly-talented musicians, including Frank Zappa, John McLaughlin,
Jean-Luc Ponty, Chick Corea,
Jan
Hammer,
and Carlos Santana, who have
created such music, such a sound
in recent decades, to the greater glory of the age.
They have created this music not, as a rule,
through naturalistic means, but through electric guitars, violins, and
keyboards. Some musicians, including Herbie Hancock and Patrick Moraz,
have
even
taken to putting their voice through a synthesizer and thereby
transmuted it, rendering it less natural to the artificially-inclined
ears of
their musical admirers. Who is to say
that this doesn't result in a more civilized order of singing than
purely natural
singing? Clearly, the use of artificial
means must have some bearing on the quality or status of the sound
being
produced. It isn't simply a question of
volume, but also of timbre, tone, resonance.
And where volume and its relation to size is concerned, one
might note
that the convergence from the Manifold to the One, from the Devil to
God, is
aptly illustrated by the preference of electric musicians for small
groups
rather than large orchestral-type ensembles.
If there is a reflection of diabolic influence on life about a
large
orchestra, then there is certainly something divine about the handful
of
musicians in a group whose concerted and finely-integrated electronic
sound
signifies a greater approximation to ultimate Oneness.
The People, clearly, are closer to God!
HISTORICAL
ANALOGIES
Strictly
speaking,
there
is no 'eternal recurrence' in history, nothing corresponding to
a repetition of previous developments in identical terms.
History continues to develop in response to
evolutionary pressures; it doesn't remain static in a predetermined
mould. Yet we can
contend
that, although history doesn't exactly repeat itself, a pattern
nonetheless
accrues to it which reflects the influence of previous tendencies,
suggesting
not so much a cyclic development as a continuation and expansion of
cyclical
tendencies in extended form. Analogies
with past civilizations do of course present themselves.
But they can never be anything more than
approximations tentatively held in the name of order and clarity. We cannot treat them as manifestations or
proofs of an 'eternal recurrence'. We
must allow for the gradual unfolding of historical development in its
changing
guises, from the pre-dualistic to the post-dualistic via the dualistic,
which
is to say, from pagan to transcendental via Christian.
To ascribe pre-dualistic criteria to
dualistic civilization, for example, would be to overlook the reality
of
evolutionary change. Humanism will
inevitably give rise to a different pattern of development, a
development
reflecting not pre-dualistic but dualistic influence.
Let us take a closer look at
this
point. It has been tempting for
twentieth-century historical thinkers to adduce analogies between pagan
civilization and their own Christian civilization in its expiring
twilight, and
thus to contend, for example, that Britain is the modern equivalent of
ancient
Greece and America, by contrast, the modern equivalent of ancient Rome. This analogy, suggesting a cyclical
development,
was put forward by Malcolm Muggeridge, no
mean
student of Spengler, who had earlier
adduced a
similar analogy suggesting not Britain but Germany as the new Rome, so
to
speak. Another similar analogy was drawn
by Simone Weil which, whilst ascribing Grecian attributes to Britain,
left one in
no doubt that France had behaved in the manner of ancient Rome during
the
Napoleonic period.
Thus whilst all three
thinkers agreed on
the resemblance of
However, if analogies are
to be
drawn between ancient and modern on the basis of successive
developments, then
I would reverse the analogy relating
Generalizations are, of
course, always
suspect. But if analogies between the
ancient and the modern have to be drawn, then a generalization which
ascribes
Greek characteristics to the French and Roman characteristics to the
British
would seem of more applicability than one taking the opposite
viewpoint, in the
manner of Simone Weil. After all,
If a classic/romantic
dichotomy can be
inferred from the respective attitudes and approaches to life of the
two
peoples, the British down-to-earth, sober, ruthlessly efficient; the
French
inspirational, optimistic, gallant, then the former certainly deserve
the
appellation 'classic', in contrast to the colourful romanticism of the
latter. They are classically prosaic
rather than romantically poetic, puritanical rather than licentious,
moderate
rather than extreme, materialistic rather than spiritualistic,
extrovert rather
than introvert, and so on. Their puritanism finds its religious outlet in
Protestantism,
their moderation in parliamentary democracy, their materialism in
science and industry,
and their extroversion in sport and ceremony.
In war they have shown greater determination, discipline, and
tactical
shrewdness than the French, acquiring a reputation for military success
second-to-none. Their regiments of
well-drilled, closely-packed infantry could be said to have resembled
the Roman
legions in formation, and more than once proved capable of aspiring to
similar
conquests. With relatively small armies
of superior tactical strength they were generally able to defeat the
larger, though
less disciplined, forces of their adversaries, and so extend their
influence
throughout the world. And wherever they
went they invariably built imposing monuments to their conquest,
bringing
imperial civilization to the defeated in a manner once more resembling
ancient
Thus if we are to adopt a
generalization
relating the growth and conservation of the British Empire to that of
the Roman
one, we have no alternative but to regard the British as the modern
equivalent
of the ancient Romans, their imperialism, however, being of a dualistic
rather
than a pre-dualistic order. If they were
less ruthless, on the whole, than the Romans in dealing with subject
peoples,
it was largely on account of the fact that they reflected Christian
criteria,
being inheritors of a humanism undreamt of in pagan times.
But they were sufficiently ruthless, all the
same, to extend their empire far beyond the boundaries of the Roman
one, and to
hold it down with a firm hand! Very few
rebellions against them proved successful while they were at the height
of
their imperial power. Only with the
twentieth century did rebellion on the part of subject peoples lead to
significant results, and then largely because the British were
otherwise
preoccupied with stronger external enemies, like
Yet the British weren't
simply conquerors
and governors of subject peoples but colonists and explorers as well,
so that
new nations were created which, like
However, between the
extremes of what one
might call colonial expansion and government through conquest, one
finds the
development which marks a combination of these in areas of the world,
like
black Africa, where a compromise was forced upon the British in
consequence not
so much of an already-established civilization, as in India, but of
sheer
weight of numbers. The natives could not
be significantly disposed of, after the fashion that the Anglo-American
settlers in North America had disposed of the Red Indians or the
British
settlers in Australia of the aborigines, but had to be conquered and
transformed into workers of one kind or another, in accordance with the
environmental and social dictates of the situation.
The African regions annexed by the British
were not destined to be transformed into predominantly white countries,
like
Having slightly deviated
from my original
thesis, I must now return to it and draw some further conclusions
relating to
However, the transformation
of England into
Great Britain with the Unions of Scotland, Wales, and, finally, Ireland
(the
latter of which established the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Ireland in
1801), marked the rise of the modern equivalent of ancient Rome and the
decline
of its Greek counterpart, so that, by the end of the nineteenth
century, Great
Britain was decidedly the stronger of the two nations, able to assert
itself
over France to an extent it could never have dreamt of doing while
France was
in the ascendancy as an imperial power.
The defeat of Napoleon at
Having applied our
historical analogy on a
more-or-less successive basis to
However, in the dualistic
world there could
be no undisputed master but, at its height, two great nations
struggling with
each other for worldly spoils. Of the
two, the more dualistic one was destined to reap the biggest dividends,
though
it couldn't very well expect to reap them all.
The modern equivalent of ancient
To this day
But then there are contexts
in which it
would be inconceivable for the separate countries that constitute Great
Britain
to participate in sporting or other activities individually, when it is
categorically imperative for them to merge into a single nation, as at
the
Olympics or in professional tennis tournaments or world-contest boxing
matches
or grand-prix races or chess competitions, where Great Britain is ever
the term
on everybody's lips. To
imagine
Yet how symptomatic all this
is of British
success in the dualistic stage of evolution!
How significant of dualistic civilization! The
French,
despite their status as
Having discussed Britain's
credentials as
the leading dualistic power in the age of bourgeois imperialism, and
compared
her to France, her chief rival, I trust the reader will now be in a
better
position to sympathize with my argument concerning the essentially
simultaneous
rather than successive nature of dualistic civilization, as represented
by the
modern equivalents of ancient Rome and ancient Greece respectively. Analogies with the past can of course prove
treacherous; for, unlike authors, history never exactly repeats itself! Accordingly,
Similarly, the analogy put
forward by
Simone Weil, in which
Be that as it may, the
analogy put forward
by Simone Weil, on the strength of these historical 'aberrations' in
the
British and French temperaments, scarcely passes muster on a long-term
scale,
and so should be dispensed with on any but a provisional basis. The two or three decades which Britain
dedicated to the cultivation of Grecian characteristics, giving special
priority to the Ionic columns of Nash, should be seen in perspective to
the
much longer period when it remained resolutely itself - the modern
equivalent
of ancient Rome.
Thus when Spengler
speaks of
In reality, however, the
inception of a new
And yet
THE
WAY
OF EVOLUTION
I
have
sometimes
used the term 'God' in these essays, though more often than
not with
reference to the Holy Spirit than to either Jesus Christ or the Father. Nevertheless the use of such a term, when
applied to the former, isn't something that I am particularly happy
about! For no matter how convinced one is
that the
Holy Spirit would be an 'it' rather than a 'He', an association of 'He'
with
God still clings to the term and prejudices one's thought accordingly. In other words, the traditional usage of the
term 'God' implies anthropomorphic associations which, in relation to
the Holy
Spirit, can only be irrelevant.
Consequently we needn't be surprised if it has fallen into a certain disrepute with the more advanced minds
of the age,
who fight shy of anthropomorphic projections.
Even Eastern spiritual adepts are apt to fall into an
anthropomorphic
trap when they refer to God, according various human attributes to
'Him'. But the fact of the matter is that
the
Supreme Being, the Holy Ghost, the Omega Point, or whatever else you
choose to
call that which will signal the climax of evolution through our
transformation
into pure spirit, is an absolute, and therefore beyond
all
anthropomorphism. The only suitable
pronoun for this absolute would be 'it', not 'He'.
Accordingly the word 'God'
should generally
be avoided in future since, compliments of the tradition, one almost
invariably
links its usage to 'He'. Moreover, since
the age is becoming ever more scientific, words associated with
traditional
concepts can only become increasingly suspect and inadequate, no matter
how
well-intentioned their employment.
Instead of the theologically-oriented term 'God,' which carries
more
weight with regard to the Creator than ever it does with regard to an
Ultimate
Creation, the employment of terms like the omega absolute, transcendent
spirit,
supreme being, ultimate reality, etc., would presuppose a scientific
bias
commensurate with the age's demand for truth rather than illusion, fact
rather
than fiction. There could be no
possibility of one's applying a 'he' to any of those!
Like the omega absolute, the
alpha absolute
is also an 'it', although of a very different order from what
presupposes
ultimate reality. The stars, which in
their entirety appertain to the diabolic side of the Universe, a side
emphasizing contraction and divergence rather than expansion and
convergence,
correspond to what traditional anthropomorphic theology designates as
the
Creator, the Father, or, depending on the context, the Devil. Again, in a post-egocentric age such terms
can only become obsolete, since we require a scientifically objective
terminology which avoids the anthropomorphic associations accruing to
them. To assert that the alpha absolute is
a 'she'
would be no more objectively correct than 'he', if used to designate
the omega
absolute, because we are dealing with the non-human, which must
necessarily be
an 'it'. An absolute that is entirely
sensuous, like the sun, is no closer to being human than one that, like
the
omega absolute, would be entirely spiritual.
'He' and 'she' only apply to human beings, and they do so
because human
beings aren't absolutes but relativities, combinations of sensuality
and
spirituality to a greater or lesser degree, depending on one's gender,
intelligence, temperament, and physique.
No woman is entirely sensual but, at any rate, traditionally
more
sensual than spiritual, and therefore 'she'.
Likewise, no man is entirely spiritual but, as a rule, more
spiritual
than sensual, and therefore 'he'. These
pronouns presuppose a compromise, a dualistic relativity, and they can
only
remain relevant until such time as this compromise is transcended at
the
culmination of evolution and man becomes superman, becomes, in effect,
ultimate
divinity, which is necessarily an 'it'.
A woman cannot, as a rule,
become a man,
and vice versa. A woman isn't a man in
skirts, as certain shallow thinkers tend to imagine, but a different
creature,
one in which sensuality has the upper-hand over spirituality, no matter
how
intelligent or scholarly the individual woman may happen to be. Appearance over essence is the feminine mean,
just as, conversely, essence over
appearance is the
masculine one. The mean can be tampered
with, but it cannot be denied! Strictly
speaking, there is no such thing as a woman who is more spiritual than
sensual. Such a person wouldn't be a
woman at all, but effectively a man. Of
course, a woman can go against her natural grain to some extent, she
can even
be obliged
to go against it and thus 'bovaryize'
or subvert herself to a point where she appears masculine.
This situation is fairly widespread in the
contemporary industrialized world, which is male-orientated and likely
to
become ever more so as evolution progresses towards an eventual climax
in the
omega absolute. But even the most 'bovaryized' woman will remain fundamentally
feminine, with
various sensual predilections and needs which somehow have to be met,
no matter
how fugitively or clandestinely. She
won't be able to entirely overcome her basic femininity, which
presupposes a
sensual bias. And if she is pretty, she
will be subject to the attentions of men and thus have her basic
femininity in
appearance thrust back upon her, making her conscious, at such times,
of her
physical beauty rather than of her spirit.
To a certain extent men
enslave women in
their sensuality simply by admiring their physical appearances, and so
preclude
the female from developing her spirit.
Yet this isn't to say that men are entirely responsible for this
sorry
state-of-affairs. For the great majority
of women are so made that an absorption in appearances is perfectly
acceptable
to them, though not, I need scarcely add, all of the time.
After all, they are not absolutes but
relativities, not 'its' but 'shes',
and therefore remain partly spiritual.
In general, however, their leading string is the
apparent, and it
is on the basis of appearances that, until such time as they cease
being
physically attractive, they stake their chief pride in life. With late adulthood, on the
other hand, a gradual reversal sets-in, so that, as Carl Jung rightly
contended, they become less feminine and correspondingly more
masculine, more
absorbed in spiritual affairs.
But while they remain youthful and attractive, it is rather
unlikely
that the spirit will take precedence over the flesh!
Their appearance will generally predominate.
When Shaw asserted that
women are sexually
positive, or active, and men sexually negative, or passive, he wasn't
saying
anything particularly foolish. Although
a superficial analysis of their respective roles might lead one to
question
that assertion and conclude, instead, that because the man makes love
to the
woman he must be sexually active and she passive, I believe a deeper
analysis
will confirm one in it. Yes, men do
behave positively during coitus, but that is only in response to the
woman's
beauty and sexual allurement, not completely independent of it. A man may superficially take the initiative
during the sexual act, but such an initiative pales to insignificance
compared
with the overall initiative taken by women in terms of appearance and
seduction
prior to it. Sex for men is rather the
exception to the rule. For women,
however, it is
the rule, about which their lives revolve as a matter of
life-and-death. A woman can fail in life
through not having succeeded sexually and fulfilled herself both as a
lover
and, more importantly, as a mother, irrespective of how professionally
successful
she has been. Not so a man!
He will be a success in life if his
professional work has won him respect inside his profession and
admiration
outside it, no matter how barren his sexual relations may happen to
have
been. A man doesn't come into the world
primarily to be a lover and father but a professional success, with
sexual
relations as a subsidiary concern. In
fact, with the very greatest men, men of genius, history teaches us
that their
sexual relations were either few-and-far between or virtually
non-existent, as
in the cases of Michelangelo, Beethoven, Delacroix, Tchaikovsky,
Baudelaire,
Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Spengler, and
Shaw. Admittedly, not all great men have
been
celibate. But a significant number of
the very greatest have, and this fact
needn't surprise
us. For when a man is relatively free of
female influence, it stands to reason that he will have more incentive
to
develop his spirit than would otherwise be the case, since not subject
to
regular sexual temptation at the hands of a wife or mistress. He will be beyond the reach of that
spiritually-restraining influence which a woman who is in any degree
physically
attractive will inevitably exert, and thus be free to explore deeper
into the
spiritual, the artificial, the transcendental, as his genius develops. Now the less of a part physical sex plays in
his life the more, by a compensatory token, will spiritual sex enter
into it,
making of his nocturnal fantasies or pornographic investigations a form
of
sexual sublimation.
Naturally, there are those
who, not being
particularly spiritually-advanced themselves, will contend that such
sublimated
sex is a type of perversion, and therefore hardly something to be
countenanced
by any right-thinking man. This is,
needless to say, a relative viewpoint, without eternal credibility or
justification. If life were a static
affair, in which a given naturalistic mode of sexual behaviour was the
only
feasible option, then yes, the man disposed to sublimations of one kind
or
another would
be a pervert. But since
life is evolutionary, embracing the gradual expansion of the spiritual
over the
sensual until such time as the latter effectively ceases to apply, it
should be
apparent that the man disposed to sublimation is simply on a higher
level of
sexual evolution than the more naturalistic man - is, in effect, his
sexual
superior. For the latter, unbeknown to
himself, is simply a victim of what might be called the
'non-evolutionary
delusion' and, in his insistence that the former is essentially a
pervert, is
really advertising his spiritual backwardness and moral simplicity.
That D.H. Lawrence was such
a man is (as we
saw earlier) a well-documented fact, since he wrote against 'sex in the
head'
as a perversion. His attitude was
fundamentally that of the man who believes there is a golden mean to
correct
living which shouldn't be transgressed in any way if one is to remain
healthy
and sane. It conformed to the
'non-evolutionary delusion' and was to have a temporary influence on Aldous Huxley, who expressed this philosophy in
such books
as Point
Counter
Point (where it takes the form of Rampionism,
or
the 'all-round' life according to Rampion)
and Do What You Will (where a number of,
according to Lawrence's criteria, 'great perverts', including
Baudelaire and
Pascal, are analysed from the viewpoint of the golden mean and, not
altogether
surprisingly, found wanting). In
reality, however, it is Lawrence and Huxley who are found wanting in
evolutionary perspective; for they show themselves incapable of
grasping the
moral significance of the spiritual lopsidedness of the great men under
scrutiny. When, in Point Counter
Point, Rampion shows Walter Bidlake,
the Huxleyian protagonist of the novel,
paintings in
which there is an explicit criticism of Shaw and Wells (which takes the
form of
a depiction of their heads on a platter), for their intellectual
lopsidedness,
we can be under no doubt that bourgeois humanism is being advocated at
the
expense of proletarian transcendentalism, and that the progressive
proclivities
of Shaw and Wells, the two leading socialist authors in England of the
time,
have not been appreciated in their true light.
One suspects that Huxley's readiness to criticize these authors
via Rampion was founded as much on social
snobbery as on the
'all-round' philosophy he partly inherited from Lawrence and partly
grew into
as a consequence of former spiritual disillusionments.
Regardless of the book's literary merits,
however, it can only detract from whatever claims Point Counter
Point
may make on the realm of progressive thought.
We are merely given a record of bourgeois reaction to
proletarian
aspirations and idealism, the tail-end, as it were, of dualistic
civilization
confronted by the inception of post-dualistic criteria.
Oddly enough, the idea of
the heads of Shaw
and Wells depicted on a platter is curiously prophetic of the
development of
post-dualistic society towards a stage when the body will largely be
overcome
and men are accordingly elevated to the supernatural status of so many
artificially-supported and/or sustained meditating brains.
No doubt, Lawrence, in particular, would have
found such a prospect extremely unattractive, had it ever occurred to
him. Huxley would have been ambivalent,
half in
favour and half against, whilst our two 'proletarian' authors would
probably
have endorsed it as a matter of course.
They were, after all, sufficiently progressive to know, in
Nietzsche's
memorable words, that man is 'something that should be overcome'. They weren't static or reactionary. And, of course, what applies to man applies
no less to woman, who must also be 'overcome' if man is to attain to
the
culmination of evolution in transcendent bliss and thus become pure
spirit. That, too, is the way of
evolution. For the spiritual bias of men
must inevitably lead to their overcoming women before, having overcome
themselves, they enter the transcendental Beyond. At
present,
they haven't entirely overcome
women by any means, but are certainly making it less attractive or
necessary
for women to assert their traditional roles and influences. The 'masculinization'
of
the
female through urban and industrial expansion has resulted in more
women
adopting masculine criteria in life than ever before, and it can only
lead to
still greater feminine concessions, as evolution dictates.
There are, of course, women
who are able to
defend their own interests to a significant extent and continue life in
the
guise of lovers and mothers, as traditionally.
They are in many respects the strongest and most feminine women,
and one
can respect them for their resistance to masculine pressures. There are also, however, women who would seem
to have betrayed their sex and 'gone over' to the masculine cause,
demanding
greater sexual freedoms or professional opportunities, as the case may
be. Beatrice Webb was a prominent example
of the
latter type of woman, which, in a sense, is rather surprising, since
she was
highly attractive. Yet she was also
highly intelligent, and it often happens that highly intelligent women
are
among the first to desert their sex, as it were, and go over to the
enemy
camp. Why? Simply because intelligence
cannot be satisfied with sensual gratification alone, but requires
intellectual
stimulation.
Now although I have a deep
respect for
people like Beatrice Webb, I cannot reconcile myself to the puritan
attitude
towards sex which she advocated, largely in consequence, one suspects,
of a
Victorian legacy. Sex, Beatrice felt,
should be confined to propagation and indulged in only when necessary,
not made
an isolated pleasure. Sex
as
a
kind of duty rather than sex-for-sex's sake.
Sex in
naturalis....
Not the most enlightened attitude when compared to that advocated by
the
promiscuous society in which, despite the horrors of
sexually-transmitted
disease, we apparently continue to live these days, is it?
Yet that was how Beatrice reasoned, and,
despite its puritanism, such reasoning
isn't entirely
devoid of merit. At least, it is likely
to result in a more spiritual life for those who literally adhere to
it,
provided, however, that they don't have too many children and can
refrain from
sex for long stretches at a time! It is
a rather Spartan attitude, possible for a minority of higher types, but
hardly
liable to win favour among the less-intellectualized masses. Its chief weakness resides in the fact that
it leaves the natural intact, maintaining a respect for concrete sex
which
could only prove incompatible with the overcoming of sex through
various forms
of sexual sublimation. For, paradoxically,
sex-for-sex's sake does signify a step in the eventual overcoming of
sex and
hence women, especially when promoted through the use of various types
of
contraception which, when successful, overcome the natural.
I have, you will recall,
touched upon this
matter in an earlier essay, so I won't enlarge upon it here. Suffice it to say that the development of
sex-for-sex's sake is an integral part of evolutionary progress away
from
nature, and must eventually lead to the complete termination of sex. Even pornography, both photographic and
literary,
is an aspect of the gradual overcoming of women which should be
encouraged by
all right-thinking progressive males. A
man reading about sex in a novel or magazine is indulging in a form of
sexual
sublimation which, temporarily at least, renders actual physical sex
irrelevant. If he prefers reading about
sex to actually indulging in it, the chances are that he exists on a
more
evolved level than the purely or predominantly natural man, who remains
a
victim of the sensual. In fact, he would
be a more civilized man, since given to the artificial to a greater
extent than
to the natural.
This is really the essential
crux of the
matter, where nature and civilization are concerned, and no writer
understood
the difference between them better than Ortega y Gasset,
who
emphasized
the artificial status of civilization in contrast to the
natural
world. He knew that civilization cost a
great effort on the part of man, and that it could so easily be undone
by
reactionary or barbarous elements in society, if not rigorously
protected. There are always those who wish
to impede
human progress towards the supernatural and drag humanity down closer
to the
Diabolic, and they aren't invariably uneducated or unintelligent people
either,
still less women! But civilization must
go ahead, no matter what the Rousseaus, Whitmans, Thoreaus,
Lawrences, Hardys,
Powyses, or Gides
of this world
may have to say against it. For in the development of civilization towards ever more
artificial
and supernatural standards lies our raison
d'être for living, the essential justification for our presence
here. We have made considerable
strides in recent
centuries, but are still a long way from achieving our heavenly
objective in
the ultimate spirituality of the transcendental Beyond.
To take but one example and
not a
particularly superficial one either, we are all-too-frequently nature's
victims
where cricket matches are concerned. How
many times, in the past, have cricket matches been disrupted by the
weather -
by bad light or rain! Players and
spectators, commentators and radio listeners or television viewers are
all-too-often the victims of nature's inclemencies. So what is to be done about it?
Clearly, a time must come when cricket is no
longer played because too competitive and physically orientated. That much is obvious. Such
a
time, however, is no-less obviously
still some way into the future! But in
the meantime, if civilization is to progress, steps should be taken to
ensure
that cricket, which is an aspect of civilization, ceases to be at the
weather's
mercy. Now one of the ways of doing this
would be to erect Buckminster-Fuller type Geodesic domes over the
cricket pitch
in order to preclude interference from rain.
Additionally, electric lighting could be installed at salient
points in
the dome in order to ensure that bad light won't adversely affect play. If footballers can play under floodlighting,
there should be no reason why cricketers shouldn't manage to play under
something similar when the need arises.
That way continuity in the game would be guaranteed and no-one,
least of
all the players themselves, need ever be inconvenienced by the adverse
intrusions of nature. When the weather
is fine, on the other hand, the dome could be collapsed or rolled back,
depending on its construction. There is
no need for it to be in permanent use, at least not initially. For evolution generally proceeds by degrees,
rather than in leaps and bounds. Too
complete and sudden an imposition of artificial aid would amount to a
revolution
in the game which could prove detrimental to both players and
spectators
alike. Conversely, a revolution could
prove beneficial to the game in the long term, if detrimental in the
short. We haven't yet witnessed the
wholesale
adoption of artificial equipment, such as aluminium bats and plastic
pads, or
the introduction of synthetic pitches.
No doubt, the future will render such innovations respectable. After all, they would signify a greater
degree of artificiality and thus reflect a higher stage of evolution. Civilization cannot afford to remain
static. It requires constant attention,
if it isn't to stagnate or regress.
Yet what applies to cricket
should also
apply to other sports and outdoor contexts in general, which are
all-too-frequently disrupted or ruined by bad weather.
One feels that there is a real future for
such Geodesic domes as Buckminster-Fuller, one of America's foremost
architects, has designed - a future in which civilization gains the
mastery
over nature and continues to progress in transcendent isolation from it. Yet nature isn't only external to us but, as
I have frequently pointed out, internal as well, which means that the
enemy, so
to speak, is also to be found within, in our very physical, sensual
selves. The enemy is also the flesh, and
until we overcome that, there is not the slightest prospect of us
abandoning
our humanity for the divine salvation of the transcendental Beyond.
Traditionally, the thought
of overcoming
the flesh has implied an abstinence from sex coupled to a frugal diet -
in
short, a kind of Christian asceticism.
That is all very well but, unfortunately, it isn't nearly enough
by
itself to guarantee salvation. For
salvation requires a much more thorough and complete overcoming of the
flesh
than that! It requires we become so
biased on the side of the spirit that we have no use for the body. It requires we develop our technology to an
extent whereby such a transformation becomes possible.
It requires the development of a
post-dualistic philosophy, a philosophy with no sympathy for any Rampion-like 'all-round' attitude to life, a
philosophy
which is decidedly Beyond-aspirant rather than man-centred, and which
really
does spell out the terms by which man ... should be overcome.
Such a philosophy does exist
in the
contemporary world and will doubtless continue to develop over the
coming
decades and centuries, as we increasingly embrace post-dualistic
criteria. Already, in medical science, the
removal of
troublesome parts of the body, such as tonsils and appendix, is
indicative of a
trend towards the complete overcoming of the flesh, and is but a rung
of the
evolutionary ladder we must ascend if we are ultimately to attain to
transcendent spirit. In time, more
extensive removals of natural organs and insertions of artificial ones
will
occur, raising us above nature to a degree undreamt of by our dualistic
ancestors. Such cyborg-oriented
artificial
transplantations
will follow the trend of evolution towards the
transcendent 'it', or Holy Spirit, which is our ultimate destiny. But we shall necessarily remain identifiable
as 'he' or 'she' for some time to-come, despite our technological and
spiritual
progress. In the post-dualistic age,
however, 'she' will give way, on superhuman terms, to 'he', and,
eventually,
'he' to 'it'. For that is the way of
evolution!
PART
TWO:
MAXIMS
1. Life is a process of evolution from the
Diabolic Alpha to the Divine Omega, as from the Devil to God.
2. Nature is the enemy of civilization,
but,
like all enemies, it can be vanquished.
3. The stars are
many,
the Holy Spirit is one.
4. Women signify appearance
over essence, men, by contrast, essence over appearance.
5. Art progresses from illusion to truth,
from fiction
to fact.
6. Human life embraces three principal
class
stages, viz. an aristocratic, a bourgeois, and a proletarian, and
progresses
from the first to the third, as from rural and suburban to urban
environments.
7. The more we
isolate
ourselves from nature, the more civilized we become.
8. There are three stages
of religious evolution, viz. a pagan, a Christian, and a
transcendental, which
roughly correspond to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
9. Political evolution also
passes through three stages, viz. a royalist, a liberal pluralist, and
a
socialist.
10. The state can be
the
master of the People or their servant, depending on the stage of its
evolution. In the one case it is
royalist, in the other case socialist.
There is also an in-between realm in which, under liberal
pluralism, a
compromise between rule and service prevails.
11. The post-Human(ist) Millennium, or highest civilization, should
lead
directly to the transcendental Beyond.
12. At bottom the
Universe is, and always has been, evil.
Only evolutionary civilization aspires towards goodness.
13. The stars signify the most agonized
doing. The Holy Spirit will signify the
most blissful being.
14. He who imagines that, by itself,
Transcendental Meditation will suffice to ensure his future salvation
... is a
misguided idealist.
15. The Supreme Being
comes at the climax of evolution, not at the beginning!
16. Between two
absolutes
man weaves his course - a creation of the alpha absolute, a potential
creator
of the omega absolute.
17. The stars will eventually collapse and
disintegrate. Supreme being, on the other hand, will last for ever.
18. Christianity, being a dualistic phenomenon,
embraces both a diluted paganism and a diluted transcendentalism. Jesus Christ, the 'Three in One', is both
body and spirit as well as will. But He
is less will than the Father and less spirit than the Holy Ghost. Being good, He can save the body through love. But instinctual strength and spiritual truth
are respectively anterior and posterior to Him.
19. From the pre-dualistic to the post-dualistic
via the dualistic - that is the path of evolution.
20. Everyday consciousness is a product of the
fusion-point between the subconscious and superconscious
parts of the psyche.
21. One day the superconscious
will triumph over the subconscious.
22. The natural world must inevitably lead to the
supernatural one, to that which will come about when man abandons the
former
for the latter, and thus becomes superman - a creature of the Holy
Ghost.
23. The stars are components of Hell.
The Holy Spirit will alone be Heaven.
24. The pronoun 'He' in relation to God is only
relevant during an anthropomorphic or egocentric stage of evolution. With the arrival of a post-egocentric age,
however,
we should refer to divinity as 'it'. For
the Holy Spirit is beyond anthropomorphism.
25. Never forget that supreme being is in the
making, not an already-existent fact!
26. Never confound spirit with Holy Spirit. The former is flesh-bound.
The latter will be transcendent.
27. Spirit is only potentially divine, not
divinity itself. Strictly speaking,
there is no tat twam asi (thou art
that).
28. The transcendental Beyond,
composed
of
undifferentiated transcendent spirit, will be ultimate reality,
beyond which evolution could not go, having attained to its culmination
in
perfect unity.
29. At death, the
spirit
simply expires. Death signifies the
mortal overcoming of the spirit by the flesh.
30. We must get beyond the flesh if the spirit is
to
survive.
31. Technology should gradually replace the
natural body with an artificial support/sustain system for the brain. Spirit will therefore be able to avoid the
death that the natural body would otherwise have inflicted upon it. Its eternal potential, or potential for
eternity, will thereby be fully realized.
32. We must become increasingly technological if
we are eventually to attain to our goal in transcendent spirit.
33. As we overcome
nature, so we become increasingly artificial.
The attainment of the supernatural can only be effected through
the
maximum artificiality.
34. In the future, propagation will be
artificially regulated.
35. In reflecting an
urge
towards sexual sublimation, the use of pornography is but a stage on
the road
to our complete liberation from the flesh.
36. Sex in the head is the logical evolutionary
development beyond sex in the body.
37. Man eats and drinks, but he will cease to eat
and drink once he becomes artificially transmuted.
38. Man defecates and urinates, but he will cease
to defecate and urinate once he becomes artificially transmuted.
39. Man copulates and reproduces, but he will
cease to copulate and reproduce once he becomes artificially transmuted.
40. Man sleeps and dreams, but he will cease to
sleep and dream once he becomes artificially transmuted.
41. Man is thus a victim of the sensual, but he
will cease to be a victim of the sensual once he becomes artificially
transmuted.
42. The human world must tend towards unity on the
material plane before it can hope to achieve unity on the spiritual one. It must put social means before
transcendental ends.
43. Sensual love will give way to spiritual love -
love, in the subconscious, for another individual, to love, in the superconscious, of the self.
44. The impersonal
self,
or spirit, will replace the personal self, or body.
45. Never confound socialism with religion. It is politics.
46. A socialist society is not a civilized
society. It is a society on the road to
civilization.
47. Civilization presupposes politics and religion
harmonized with the existence of a compatible
nobility. Thus pre-dualistic
civilization embraces royalism and
paganism
harmonized with aristocratic nobility.
Dualistic civilization embraces liberal pluralism and
Christianity
harmonized with bourgeois nobility.
Post-dualistic civilization will embrace socialism and
transcendentalism
harmonized with proletarian nobility.
48. A class with a politics but no religion is a
class in the process of evolving towards nobility, not a
completed nobility. In
contemporary terms, the proletariat are such a class.
49. When urban dwellers accept and participate in
both socialism and transcendentalism, becoming socialistically
transcendentalist, they will constitute a new
nobility
- the proletarian one.
50. An age of transition between one civilization
and another is necessarily barbarous.
51. The new barbarism takes the form of a
materialistic one-sidedness. Post-dualistic
civilization
will
embrace a materialistic/spiritualistic compromise which will
give way, in the post-Human Millennium, to a spiritualistic
one-sidedness
leading, ultimately, to the transcendental Beyond.
52. Have no fear, Christianity wasn't an
aberration but an integral part of civilized evolution.
They weren't madmen or fools who conceived of
a Beyond. They simply conceived of it
from an egocentric and therefore misguided viewpoint.
We should know better!
53. The post-egocentric age is also
post-dualistic. Hence
an intolerance, wherever post-egocentric criteria obtain, of humanism. Man is something, in Nietzschean
parlance, that should be overcome. What are you doing to overcome him?
54. Men aren't now equal, but one day they shall
be.
55. A classless society will only truly exist when
all men are engaged in the same pursuit - namely, the cultivation of
spirit.
56. The further we
progress, the more do we advocate and experience being over doing.
57. The stars, through
their ferocious conversion of hydrogen into helium, are the maximum
negative
doing, and therefore the most evil of all phenomena.
The Holy Spirit will be the maximum positive
being, and therefore the most good.
58. Each succeeding nobility attains to a higher
concept of being over doing, and so
experiences
greater being.
59. The more negative
doing one indulges in, the closer one stands to the infernal
creative-and-sustaining force. The more
positive being, on the other hand, the closer one draws to the divine
consummation
of evolution.
60. Truth is a liberator; it frees one from
illusion.
61. Space is infinite but the stars are
finite. There can never be an end to the
former, but there must certainly be a limit to (the number of) the
latter.
62. Time is finite but eternity will be
infinite. There is a limit set to the
former, but there can be no end to the latter.
63. Space and time cannot be harmonized, any more
than could the stars and eternity.
Eventually time must give way to eternity and the stars to space. The Universe will culminate in infinity -
without limits!
64. The omega absolute presupposes indefinite
expansion - an expansion without limits and a lifespan without end.
65. The Universe isn't expanding with regard to
the stars. Only spirit will continue to
expand in the Universe, and most especially transcendent spirit. Stars, on the contrary, diverge.
66. By its very
frictional nature, doing expends itself on reaction.
Being, on the other hand, sustains and
enlarges itself on attraction.
67. The omega absolute will never cease to expand
in the infinity of endless space. For if it did, it would not be living or, rather, being.
68. A static omega absolute would be dwarfed by
the infinity of space, rendering such infinity somewhat superfluous.
69. Only through the omega absolute's indefinite
expansion would the infinity of space serve a logical purpose by
ensuring its
eternity.
70. The temporal contraction of the stars (solar
devolution) should be seen as the converse of the eternal expansion of
the Holy
Spirit (spiritual evolution).
71. Thus while the Universe contracts materially,
it expands spiritually through man and (presumably) man-equivalent life
forms
elsewhere.
72. Those that confound the Supreme Being with the
Almighty, or truth with strength, are just as likely to confound the
spiritual
nature of the expanding Universe with galactic divergence.
73. An imperfect Universe will be brought to
perfection via man in the perfected essence of transcendent spirit.
74. Whether a convergence of universal spirit to
ultimate spiritual unity will be achieved simultaneously or gradually
and
successively, following the amalgamation of simultaneously-expanding
globes of
transcendent spirit, remains open to dispute.
75. It isn't, however, impossible that, given the
immensity of the physical Universe, there will be a number of omega
absolutes,
or spiritual globes, simultaneously in existence, which will converge
towards
one another prior to the establishment of ultimate spiritual unity, or
the
definitive omega absolute.
76. But even this definitive omega absolute, the
sum-product of all previous convergences of individual spiritual
globes, would
continue to expand in infinite space according to its essential nature
in
blissful being, until it was far greater than the greatest stars had
ever been,
and yet never static, never nearing a maximum scale.
77. For one cannot set dimensional limits to that
which would be the highest existence the Universe had engendered or
could ever
engender.
78. Only the stars have limits, and they are not
the highest but the most primal existences in the Universe - namely,
the alpha
absolutes.
79. In collapsing, the stars will leave the
Universe
to divine perfection; for it will then be the omega absolute.
80. But the Universe isn't
divinely perfect at present, at any rate not, in particular, with
regard to the
stars! For they are
simply infernal, and will continue to preclude the Universe from
attaining,
through man, to ultimate perfection as long as they exist.
81. Pantheism, through which
God is identified with the Universe, is essentially unconscious
diabolism, in
which the Devil is taken for God, and Hell for Heaven.
82. But true divinity does not exist.
We have a moral duty to create it, and so
bring about the supreme beingfulness of
the omega
absolute.
83. We have our spirits and one day they will be
transformed into Holy Spirit - pure and transcendent.
For that is the way of evolution!
