CYCLE TWENTY-ONE

1. ART AND RELIGION. Whereas the artificial transmutation of nature makes for art, the spiritual transmutation of culture is religion. The more artificial the transmutation of nature, the higher the art. Likewise, the more spiritual the transmutation of culture, the higher the religion. The highest art and religion can only be the most artificial and spiritual manifestations, respectively, of their natural and cultural preconditions.

2. CULTURE VIS-À-VIS NATURE. One should distinguish true culture, which is masculine, from what may be called the nurture of nature, or the cultural aspects of a natural norm. In other words, it is not nurture which is necessarily the antithesis to nature, but culture, which is nurture of a masculine order ... such that transcends nature, pretty much as the conscious mind transcends the unconscious mind, or religion transcends art. The nurture of nature and the nurture of culture are thus as distinct as art and religion, for the one stems from a feminine precondition, whereas the other is largely if not purely masculine. In familial terms, this would mean that whereas the nurture added to nature by mothers was aesthetic, the nurture added to culture by fathers was religious. For when nurture comes from woman, who is primarily a natural being, the result is dissimilar from the nurture which comes from man, the nurture of culture, since man is primarily a cultural being, for whom religion takes precedence over art.

3. CULTURAL NURTURE AND NATURAL NURTURE. An example of the nurture of nature would be the instrumental accompaniment, no matter how extensive or sophisticated, to a song, which is primarily a natural phenomenon ... to the extent that it is a vocal composition involving the human voice. Now the instrumentality accompanying this vocal composition would be akin to the nurture of nature, and thus not really a cultural but an aesthetic phenomenon owing its origins and allegiance to feminine conditioning. By contrast to this, a piano composition, shall we say, which was purely instrumental ... would be a cultural phenomenon, since something that transcends nature, and thus aesthetic considerations, through the conscious nurture of its masculine essence. Such would continue to be the case even in those instances where the pressure of cultural transcendence appeared to drag vocal-like sounds from its practitioner (as in the case of a certain well-known and much-respected American jazz pianist), since it could be argued that such sounds are more the by-product of cultural effort than genuine vocal productions, and correspond to a sort of perversion of nurture by nature, which rises-up from the unconscious in seeming revolt against the cultural resolve. Yet culture is still in the ascendant in such a paradoxical situation, since the result is far from song-like. Good table manners are a more obvious and blatant example of the nurture of nature, which is feminine, whereas the ability to read music would constitute an example of the nurture of culture, which is masculine.

4. ALTERNATIVE CULTURES. One might distinguish the natural culture of, say, Christianity (Catholicism) from the cultural culture of Superchristianity (transcendentalism). For the one is rooted in sin, whereas the other is centred in grace. Conversely, one could speak of the civilized culture of, say, Heathenism (Protestantism), but the barbarous culture of Superheathenism (fundamentalism). For the one is centred in crime, whereas the other is rooted in punishment.

5. BARBARISM OR CULTURE. Whereas Heathen peoples are rooted in barbarism, whether genuine (and noumenal) or pseudo (and phenomenal), Christian peoples are centred in culture, whether pseudo (and phenomenal) or genuine (and noumenal). The former do not usually extend (ascend) towards culture (regarded in spiritual, or visionary, terms), whereas the latter do not usually extend (descend) towards barbarism (regarded in antispiritual, or emotional, terms). Hence the British have the Father but no Holy Ghost, while the Irish have the Holy Ghost but no Father - at least not in the active antispiritual terms of Heathen pseudo-fundamentalism. Whether they subsequently achieve the Holy Spirit of Heaven through the Superchristic Second Coming, and thus abandon the pseudo-transcendentalism of the Holy Ghost for something better ... remains to be seen. Certainly the British are now exposed, as never before, to the genuine fundamentalism of Allah and other such Superheathen deities!