Religious Integrities
STEVE: What
would be the religious integrity specifically germane to Social
Transcendentalism?
SEAN: A
relatively civilized mode of upward self-transcendence dependent upon LSD or
some such synthetic hallucinogen. In
other words, the indirect cultivation of awareness through the contemplation of
artificially-induced visionary experience - in short, through tripping, which
would take place in public within the institutional context of Meditation
Centres, under the watchful eye of specially-trained spiritual guides.
STEVE: So
tripping would presumably constitute the lower phase of religious evolution
within a civilized proletarian context.
SEAN: Yes,
a relative absolutism on a par with representational holography in art, tonal
synthesizer compositions in music, expressive metaphysical poetry in computer
literature, and so on. Something distinct, in other words, from late petty-bourgeois
absolute relativity, including neo-Buddhism.
STEVE: And
thus currently beyond the pale of bourgeois/proletarian civilization.
SEAN: Yes,
officially speaking! Probably no more
than an intimation of things to come, once People’s civilization gets properly
under way, as I hope it will do in
STEVE: So
it would be a stage on the road to an absolutely free-electron equivalent, once
the introduction of the absolute phase of People’s civilization became
feasible.
SEAN: Yes,
which would be with the transformation from Social Transcendentalism to
Super-transcendentalism in the second phase of the
civilization in question, when hypermeditation became
the relevant religious commitment.
STEVE:
What, exactly, would distinguish this hypermeditation
from transcendental meditation?
SEAN:
Principally the fact that it would be experienced with the body in a vertical
position, free from the ground, through utilization of a special harness
suspended from some support apparatus within the Meditation Centre, an
apparatus which would enable the hypermeditator to
remain suspended from above, in a levitation-like posture. This physical transcendentalism would
correspond to an absolutely post-atomic integrity, conferring a hyperspiritual status on the meditator
in question, his mode of meditation also being hyperspiritual,
i.e. centred on awareness and the cultivation of awareness, elevated above even
the most positive feelings which, in pertaining to the old brain, would be
irrelevant to an absolutely post-atomic civilization, particularly during its
mature phase.
STEVE: So
this Super-transcendentalism, as you call it, would constitute an aspect of the
True World Religion.
SEAN:
Undoubtedly the most important aspect, though not, however, the only one! For, as I envisage it, lectures on the future
course of evolution and certain 'cultural' ingredients, like abstract
holography, pure synthesizer music, and impressive computer poetry, would also
have a place within the overall context of the True World Religion, which to
some extent begins with the first phase of People’s civilization and simply
attains to a climax with its second phase.
STEVE:
After which time the same thing presumably begins again, albeit on higher and
more intensive terms.
SEAN: Yes,
with the introduction of the Millennium-proper and consequent elevation of
post-humanist life to a post-human status, as human brains become artificially
supported and no-less artificially sustained in communal contexts, establishing
thereby the Supermen of the lower phase of millennial evolution, one given to
LSD tripping - as in the corresponding phase of the preceding civilization -
but this time on more extensive and intensive terms, the tripping more regular
and probably stronger as well.
STEVE: Who
will be responsible for creating the Supermen?
SEAN:
Qualified technicians, or men with more than a superficial grasp of
evolutionary requirement, a kind of serving nobility stemming from the
bureaucracy, leadership, scientific community, or whatever. Such men will create and then serve the first
of the post-human life forms, rather as a gardener serves his plants. They will also, in due course, create the
second of the post-human life forms, the Superbeings,
who, as new-brain collectivizations, will duly hypermeditate towards transcendence and, hence, ultimate
salvation, that is to say, the escape of pure spirit from the remaining
new-brain matter.
STEVE: You
mean they will remove the old brain from each Superman and thereupon upgrade
post-human life to an absolute status, with more intensified collectivizations.
SEAN:
Indeed, thereby establishing the ultimate life-form on earth, each Superbeing, or hypercollectivity
of new brains, being the antithetical equivalent of a tree. Well, just as trees preceded apes in the slow
evolution of life on earth, so the Superbeings will
succeed the Supermen who, by contrast, may be regarded as the antithetical
equivalent of apes. Now just as trees
stem from the phenomenal globe of planet earth, so the Superbeings
will aspire towards the noumenal globe of pure
spirit, a transcendence destined to converge towards and expand into other such
transcendences in a heavenly journey towards the definitive unity of the
ultimate Spiritual Globe - namely, the Omega Absolute. However, before all that can come to pass,
life on earth must be directly programmed for transcendence, and this will be
the responsibility of the serving nobility in the post-Human Millennium, who
will create the Superbeings out of the Supermen,
according to the demands of the occasion.
STEVE: And
when they have achieved their objectives in this matter?
SEAN: There
will be nothing more for them to do, in consequence of which they will
gradually withdraw from active service and, eventually, die out, leaving behind
an absolutely classless society of Superbeings -
god-like beings perfectly capable, one imagines, of looking after themselves
or, rather, their selves, i.e. of hypermeditating
towards complete salvation.
STEVE: This
presumably isn’t something that the meditators of the
preceding post-humanist civilization would be capable of doing.
SEAN: No,
they would be unable to attain to pure spirit in space, but could, at any rate,
make the most of their situation by attaining to pure spirit within a relative
context, their superconsciousness elevated above the
intrusion of troublesome feelings, not to say thoughts, and elevated, moreover,
above the contemplation of the visionary contents of their new brains. Theirs would certainly be a more absolute
phase of transcendental evolution!
STEVE: Yet
before this higher phase could be seriously contemplated and extensively
introduced by the leaders, post-humanist life would presumably have to pass
through a phase of LSD tripping?
SEAN:
Correct.
STEVE: All
over the world?
SEAN: I
believe so. After all, it would be a
precondition of being able to successfully hypermeditate
that evolving life had passed through a phase of indirect hypermeditation,
as it were, through LSD tripping; that the relative had preceded the absolute,
and thereby opened-up the new brain to a degree which made an absolute
orientation both possible and desirable.
LSD would force consciousness up towards the visionary contents of the
new brain, up towards superconsciousness. You can't expect people to hypermeditate who have spent the greater part of their
lives drinking beer or wine, indulging in various degrees of downward
self-transcendence in contexts of sensual stupor! When you are dealing with the proletariat,
you are dealing with the urban masses, people whose psyche isn't necessarily
disposed to upward self-transcendence.
Therefore a precondition of making it so disposed is first to ban or
phase-out alcoholic and other such sensual indulgences, and then induce them to
trip and thus have their psyche almost physically wrenched away from the
sensual - a precondition of their eventually being in a position to take hypermeditation seriously.
For hypermeditation won't be like
transcendental meditation, that petty-bourgeois extreme relativity. It must lay claim to an absolute integrity,
as appropriate to a civilized proletariat.
But before the proletariat can become absolutely civilized, they must
become relatively civilized, and they will only become this, it seems to me,
through the assistance of LSD tripping, the trip constituting a form of
quasi-meditation. Once alcohol, tobacco,
and other such sensual drugs have been banned, as would be the case in a
post-atomic civilization, commensurate, so I believe, with 'Kingdom Come', then
a substitute stimulant must be made available not only as a means of
compensating the masses for the loss of traditional drugs but, more
importantly, of upgrading their religious bias from the sensual to the
spiritual or, at any rate, quasi-spiritual.
STEVE: So
it appears that if LSD is for universal export, once the drive towards People’s
civilization gets properly under way in certain countries, Social
Transcendentalism must also be so, since corresponding to the relative phase of
post-atomic civilization as a quasi-religion.
SEAN: Yes,
I believe you are right! For Social
Transcendentalism is primarily a religious ideology, and it would therefore
have to take root in all countries before Super-transcendentalism, or the
absolute phase of People’s religion, became possible. It signifies the Centre, that transcendental
successor to the Christian Church, not to mention every church-equivalent
throughout the world, and must be orientated towards the establishment of a
universal centre, or global community of Transcendentalists, which will signify
the total eclipse of statehood come the absolute phase of People’s
civilization. Statesmen are at best
petty-bourgeois democratic types, but proletarian leaders, when genuine, should
be theocratic centrists, dedicated to the furtherance of a
free-electron absolutism throughout the world. If they cannot be absolutely such throughout
the relative phase of People’s civilization, they can at least be
statesman-like centrists, and thus testify to a relativity biased towards the
theocratic absolute.
STEVE: In other words, theocratic quasi-centrists.
SEAN: Yes,
and therefore opposed to state-like designations, because fighters for the
development of religion and associated cultural achievements towards the
absolute. Wherever Social
Transcendentalism takes root, you can rest assured that it will be 'all up'
with the State. Free-electron
equivalents, even when 'quasi', cannot abide anything proton- and/or
neutron-constituted.
STEVE: And neither are they deeply enamoured, one imagines, of
pseudo-electron equivalents, with their people-as-state integrity.
SEAN: No,
but they understand such pseudo-electron equivalents and are determined to
convert their upholders to a quasi-electron status in the course of time. For Social Transcendentalism is the root from
which the flower of Super-transcendentalism will stem!
