Op. 23
FUTURE TRANSFORMATIONS -
The Undiluted Truth
Multigenre Philosophy
Copyright © 2013 John O'Loughlin
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CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
PART ONE: MAXIMS
1. Maxims 1–150
PART TWO: ESSAYS
2. Future Transformations
3. Irish and English
4. A Teasing Paradox
5. Millennial Thoughts
6. Post-Dualistic Sexuality
7. Towards a True Equality
8. Concerning Transcendentalism
9. Musical Transformations
10. Safeguarding Freedom
11. Protons and Electrons
12. Two Kinds of Dependence
13. Materialists and Spiritualists
PART THREE: DIALOGUES
14. A Changing World
15. Proletarian Writing
16. The Evolution of Art
17. From the Alpha Absolute(s) ...
18. From the Apparent to the Essential
19. Transformation Points
20. A Fundamental Dichotomy
21. The New Subjectivity
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INTRODUCTION
If there is such a thing as a truth that is too pure for certain people,
less psychically evolved, to take, then may we not suppose this situation may
extend to an entire work, an entire book, in which undiluted truths are the
creative norm. Such books haven't,
admittedly, been too plentiful in the past; for we are only now beginning to
live in a purely truthful age.
Nevertheless books with diluted truths, proportionate to the degree of
evolution manifest in the writer and his society at any given time, have caused
similar problems for people who weren't 'up to' the level of 'truth' therein
recorded. In this respect, such a book
becomes akin to the Hindu metaphor of the Clear Light of the Void, which is too
pure for the egocentric mind to abide with, inevitably resulting in its return
to the world in some other flesh, as part of the recurrent process of
reincarnation, until such time as, become more evolved, it can abide with the
Absolute and thus escape the cycle of rebirths.
Returning to factual
reality, this means that the evolution of human life on earth proceeds by degrees and that, strictly speaking, one can't
'gate-crash' the Divine. One must earn
the right to become an integral part of the Supreme Being, and one can only do
this by improving the quality of life over the generations, from century to
century.
Likewise one must earn
the right to properly appreciate a certain type of truthful book, which
necessarily remains a 'closed shop' to those who are insufficiently
intellectually or morally evolved to do so.
As, in occult mythology, Count Dracula shies away from the Cross,
symbolic of Truth and Goodness, and, in religious mythology, the egocentric
mind shies away from the Clear Light, so, on the intellectual plane, the
reactionary or traditional mind shies away from such revolutionary truths as
are expressed in the foremost books, usually philosophical, of the age. A man who cannot 'take' such truths ...
inevitably passes negative judgement on himself, and reverts, in all
probability, to fiction or perhaps even to poetry.
The great writer and
thinker is thus in the position of being a kind of intellectual Supreme Being
on earth, to whom many are drawn but with whom only comparatively few can
abide. The majority
shy away from his stronger grasp of truth from fear that it will disrupt their
particular psychic or intellectual integrity, causing them to extensively
revise or even change their position.
Perhaps it will be only after several generations that the majority of
men can come to abide and understand his truth.
In the meantime, he remains a kind of lone beacon, shining in the
vanguard of psychic evolution, revered by some, but feared and even hated by
many.
I like to see myself as
such a writer, and I know that not all men can come to me at present and
wholeheartedly acquiesce in what I write.
Nevertheless I live in the hope that, eventually, most men will come to
me if they are to grasp the prerequisites of salvation, and thereby set
themselves on the right road for the only reasonable evolutionary goal. For, unless they abide with the driving light
of my truth, they will continue to flounder in the comparative darkness of
pedestrian illusions, shut out from the promise of Eternity.
John O'Loughlin, 1982 (Revised 2006-08).
__________________
PART ONE: MAXIMS
(Speculations
Concerning the Future)
1. The
Supreme Being should not be thought of as a creature but as a state of mind, a
supreme level of beingfulness.
2. The equation of being
with a creature is pagan. The equation
of being with a state of mind, by contrast, is transcendental.
3. Evolution proceeds from
the materialistic concept of being to the spiritualistic concept of being as a
matter of course.
4. An ultimate communism,
or communality, can only come about with the post-Human Millennium, which will
succeed the transcendental civilization.
5. This ultimate
communality will entail the artificial support and sustain of vast clusters of
new brains, and will stand as the polar antithesis to the primal communality of
plant life, with particular reference to trees.
6. Sensual communality
appertains to the lowest life form on earth, and is manifested in trees and
bushes, whose subconsciously-dominated leaves are supported and sustained
naturally, that is to say, through trunk, branches, sunlight, rainwater, etc.
7. Spiritual communality
will appertain to the highest life form on earth, which will be manifested in
the millennial communes of the Superbeings, whose superconsciously-biased new brains will be supported and
sustained artificially, that is to say, through technology.
8. Beneath
sensual communality are the Alpha Absolute(s) ... of the stars, with
their diabolic sensuality. Above
spiritual communality will come the Omega Absolute ... of the Holy Spirit, with
its divine spirituality.
9. Just as the sensual communality
of the plants evolved out of the Alpha Absolute(s), so the Omega Absolute will
evolve out of the spiritual communality of the clustered new brains.
10. The term 'new brains'
appertains to the collective. But,
individually, the new brain is the intellectual/spiritual, as opposed to
instinctual/ sensual, part of the brain.
11. The
eventual removal of the old brain, or instinctual/sensual part of the brain,
will put the resultant life form in a directly antithetical position to the
leaves of trees, which are subconscious and, hence, devoid of autonomy - rooted
to their branches.
12. In becoming superconscious, the Superbeing
will also be devoid of autonomy, its new brains rooted to their artificial
branches because devoid of egocentric consciousness, and therefore indisposed
to the comprehension of external surroundings.
13. Whereas the leaves of a
tree exist for the sake of the trunk and branches, the artificial supports of
the millennial communes will exist for the sake of the new brains.
14. The
millennial communes of the Superbeing will signify a
distinctly different and higher life form than man, whom one is obliged to
associate with the natural body.
15. Indeed, there will be as
much difference between transcendental man and the Superbeing
as there was between, say, pagan man and the tree.
16. The fact that man is not
static but an evolutionary phenomenon ... is borne out by the successive
transformations from pagan and Christian to transcendental - the latter only
incipient in the West in the twentieth century.
17. An alternative
terminology for the successive transformations listed above would be:
pre-dualistic, dualistic, and post-dualistic, with individual variants on the
respective religious developments.
18. Beneath
pagan, or pre-dualistic, man is man's direct ancestor, the ape, who appertains
to the animal kingdom and is largely dependent on trees. Above transcendental, or post-dualistic, man
will come man's immediate successor, the Superman, who
will pertain to the godlike kingdom and be largely dependent on artificial
supports and sustains.
19. But
what will distinguish the Superman from the succeeding Superbeing
... will be retention of the old brain, and the consequent existence of
visionary, or egocentric, consciousness.
20. This consciousness,
albeit greater than the natural consciousness of transcendental man, will be
less evolved than that of the new-brain components of the millennial communes,
and will consequently signify a stage of evolution directly preceding the latter.
21. The Supermen will be fed
intermittent quantities of LSD, or some such synthetic hallucinogen, in order
to facilitate upward self-transcendence in the lower, i.e. visionary, reaches
of the superconscious, and thereby will be
encouraged, by degrees, to break with traditional subconscious and conscious
modes of awareness.
22. Although clustered
together on artificial supports, the retention of the old brain by the Supermen
justifies one in regarding them as individuals, since each brain will be
subject to periods of personal consciousness, and therefore be capable of
regarding itself as a distinct entity.
Indeed, as one of a number of such entities which bear the generic title
'Supermen'.
23. Likewise apes are
capable, with their animal consciousness, of distinguishing between themselves
as individuals, while simultaneously sharing a common habitat in the branches
of a tree.
24. With the eventual
removal of the old brain, however, the Supermen will be transmuted into a
collective entity, by dint of sharing an identical post-visionary
consciousness, and thereupon become, in the context of millennial communes, a
completely new life-form, antithetical, in essence, to the tree, which, however,
is likewise regarded by mankind as a collective entity, rather than as a loose
conglomeration of separate creatures, i.e. leaves.
25. The Superbeing
of the millennial communes will therefore stand one stage closer, in
evolutionary terms, to the ultimate unity of the Supreme Being, in which
transcendent spirit will constitute an indivisible whole.
26. How many millennial
communes there will be on earth, preceding spiritual transcendence, will depend
on the technological facilities available to the age and the number of new
brains to be supported.
27. It isn't impossible
that, with the eventual removal of the old brain from individual Supermen, the
ensuing increase in space available on the supports will allow for the
introduction of additional new brains on each support, thereby making possible
a decrease in the overall number of supports in existence.
28. Such a hypothetical
decrease in the overall number of supports world-wide would correspond to an
evolutionary progression away from the materialistic Many and towards the
spiritualistic One, thereby signifying a reduction of the materialist component
to an absolute minimum.
29. It should be feasible to
contend that each support, no matter how many new brains it may contain, will
be connected to a single sustain system, so that the individual organic or,
rather, super-organic components of the commune are nourished from a central
source, not dependent on separate sources.
30. Thus, our collectivized
or communal entity would be completely interrelated, and could only function as
an integral whole.
31. To
a certain extent, men protect apes and apes protect trees. Likewise, one can assume that transcendental
men will protect Supermen and the Supermen duly protect Superbeings.
32. Put another way, this means
that the creation and protection of the Supermen will be in the hands of
certain trusted men, specialists in their chosen field, who will tend their
superior creations and know how they feel, what they require, etc., at any
given time.
33. But the Supermen will
themselves create or, at any rate, protect the Superbeings
by the very fact of their existence ... to the extent that they will be the
logical evolutionary forerunners of the latter, rendering the ensuing
maintenance of the artificial supports and sustains obligatory for the trusted
men.
34. And, presumably, if
everything hasn't become completely autonomous and directed by computers and
robots by then, these trusted men - a technological elite - will be entrusted,
at the appropriate hour, with the surgical removal of the old brain from the
clustered Supermen and consequent creation of the collective entity I have
termed a Superbeing.
35. But they, or their
mechanical equivalents, will never act arbitrarily or over-hastily, but will
always bear in mind the evolutionary status of the life forms under their
protection, thereby regulating their professional activity in strict accordance
with the requirements of the hour.
36. This patient,
considerate attention to their 'charges', by the technological leadership, is not, however, incompatible with an element of coercion,
which is an essential element not only to responsible leadership, but also to
evolutionary progress.
37. Thus a delicate balance
must be struck between the requirements of the post-dualistic life forms and
the ambitions of the leadership, too weak a leadership resulting in the danger
of an evolutionary stasis or even regression; too strong a leadership resulting
in the possible destruction of the said life forms and, as a paradoxical
corollary to this, the undermining of the leaders, who would then be deprived
of anything to lead.
38. Just as an able gardener
both protects the plants under his keeping and encourages them to grow, so must
the successive leaderships of the transcendental men, the supermen, and the superbeings strike a workable balance between the two
responsibilities, in order to ensure the steady spiritual growth of their human
and post-human 'plants'.
39. That the state, as
signified by the leadership, will eventually 'wither away', in Engles' oft-quoted phrase, can be confirmed by the
foregoing speculations concerning future developments, and will doubtless
result in the supervision of the evolutionary life forms by trusted humans
eventually being eclipsed by an entirely autonomous, mechanistic supervision
carried out by robots and computers.
40. When current political
and other leaders retire, they do so in the knowledge that their work is in
safe hands and will be continued by their successors. Doubtless this will still apply in the
foreseeable future, even if or when their successors are known to be robots and
computers.
41. Political evolution
presupposes an extension of democratic power to greater numbers of people, so
that, at its highest level, the maximum numbers of people are
being represented by the government.
42. A dualistic system of
democracy, torn between capitalism and socialism, inevitably limits the number
of people being represented, by the acting government, to those whose votes
proved successful, which may be no more than a narrow majority.
43. In accordance with
political progress, a post-dualistic democratic system, centred in socialism,
extends the number of people being represented by the government to the vast
majority of voters, since every vote balloted proves successful to the extent
that it elects or re-elects a socialist candidate.
44. This post-dualistic
system is called Social Democracy, as opposed to Liberal (Capital) Democracy,
and is largely a consequence of the transference of political power to the
proletariat, who are no longer obliged to share power with the bourgeoisie, and
thus suffer the consequences of capitalist exploitation.
45. The
transference of political power to the proletariat is the ultimate political
revolution, in which the vast majority acquire representation and thereby
experience maximum democracy.
46. An erroneous concept of
'more democracy' is to confound maximum representation with the absence of all representation,
and thereupon assume that it should signify freedom from all government.
47. This erroneous concept
of 'more democracy' can only lead to anarchy, which is contrary to political
progress. Consequently it will be
opposed by post-dualistic leaderships.
48. It isn't freedom to do
what they like that will lead the People to their future salvation in a
post-Human Millennium, but ... directive leadership.
49. This post-dualistic
directive is socialism, as opposed to anarchy.
50. And
socialism, conceived politically, cannot 'wither away' until men attain to the
post-Human Millennium, and thus become recipients of spiritual salvation in the
millennial communes.
51. The
State is a materialistic phenomenon that will continue to exist so long as men
are capable of identifying with matter, which is to say, so long as they retain
the old brain and are therefore partly disposed to subconscious allegiance.
52. Thus the State will
still exist, albeit to a less apparent extent, when men are elevated to the
Supermen, or clustered brains artificially supported, in the first, or
'socialist', phase of the post-Human Millennium.
53. But the State, having
'withered away' throughout that time, will completely cease to exist with the
second, or 'communist', phase of the post-Human Millennium, in which the
radically superconsciously-biased new-brain clusters
of Superbeings will have supplanted the partly superconsciously-biased brains of Supermen.
54. For
with the removal of the old brain, the ensuing higher post-human life form would
be incapable of identifying with matter and, therefore, be oblivious of the
State.
55. Likewise trees, which
signify the sensual communality antithetical, in retrospect, to the spiritual
communality of our projected Superbeings, are
incapable, lacking consciousness, of recognizing the State.
56. So,
on the next evolutionary level, are apes, whose rudimentary consciousness,
subconsciously-dominated, keeps them beneath civilization.
57. For
civilization, at any level, appertains to man, and signifies a compromise
between politics and religion, the State and the Church.
58. Such a compromise will
still exist for post-dualistic man, taking the form of socialism and
transcendentalism.
59. With
the transformation of transcendental man into the Superman, however, the State
will 'wither away', as transcendentalism continues to expand, and by the time
the evolutionary metamorphosis of the Superbeing
comes properly to pass, the State will have completely ceased to exist, and
with it civilization, as life becomes exclusively transcendental.
60. And as life becomes
exclusively transcendental, so there will be no further need of directive
leadership, but only of supervision - surveillance by the relevant computers
and/or robots, as required.
61. For
the State is not only a subjective phenomenon, dependent on the ability of
consciousness to perceive and identify with matter, but is also, and more
particularly, an objective phenomenon, embracing the directive capabilities of
government.
62. When direction is no
longer necessary, because the materialistic component of the psyche has been
removed, government ceases to exist and the State along with it.
63. And thus civilization
comes to an end with the full-blown spirituality of the Superbeings.
64. At
some subsequent point in millennial time the Superbeings
will attain to transcendence, and so bring about the Spiritual Globes of the
heavenly Beyond.
65. Broadly speaking, the
development of evolution runs as follows: the Alpha Absolute(s) of the stars
leading via planets (cooled stars) to the sensual communality of the plants;
the plants, including trees, leading to the animals, of whichever type and
degree of intelligence; the animals, including apes, leading to man, of the
lowest, and therefore pagan, type; pagan man, in his successive manifestations,
leading to Christian man; Christian man, and other dualistic equivalents,
leading to transcendental man; transcendental man, in his subsequent
manifestations, leading to the Superman; the Superman, with his
artificially-supported and sustained brain, leading to the spiritual
communality of the Superbeings which, in their
exclusive spirituality, will be antithetical to the plants; and, finally, the Superbeings leading via successive Spiritual Globes of transcendent
spirit to the Omega Point (as defined by Teilhard de Chardin ... as the spiritual culmination of evolution) -
Universal and One.
66. This evolutionary
progression signifies a convergence from the Many (stars) to the One (Holy
Spirit), with all due gradations of improvement in the quality and type of life
coming in-between.
67. Whatever the Alpha
Absolute(s) are, viz. many, separate, sensual, infernal, etc., the Omega
Absolute is their complete antithesis.
There is nothing further apart, in evolutionary terms, than the Devil
and God, alpha and omega.
68. Likewise a less extreme
but, nevertheless, consistent contrast is to be adduced between the various
antitheses which gradually develop along the evolutionary spectrum created on
earth.
69. On
the dividing line between that which stems from the Diabolic Alpha, and that
which aspires towards the Divine Omega, is early transcendental man.
70. Of course, Christian man
also aspires towards the Divine Omega, but not to the extent of completely turning
his back on the Diabolic Alpha. As a
dualist, he always remains rooted in nature.
71. What the television is
to transcendental man, LSD, or some such hallucinogenic equivalent, will be to
the Superman.
72. Transcendental man
allows his consciousness to be invaded from outside himself ... by artificial
visionary images, which affect a mild upward self-transcendence in the lower
regions of the superconscious.
73. The
Superman will allow his consciousness to be invaded from inside his brain ...
by the visionary images of hallucinogens, which will constitute a stronger
upward self-transcendence in higher regions of the superconscious.
74. Appearance always
precedes essence, but can never expand spiritual consciousness to the same
extent, the reason being that appearance appertains to the flesh, whereas
essence appertains to the spirit.
75. Thus, no matter how
ingenious or educative the appearance may happen to be, its ability to expand consciousness
upwards is severely hampered by its contrary nature to that which it is
intended to expand.
76. Only essence can
radically expand essence (spirit), which is why the use of an internal
stimulant, like LSD, would be far more efficacious than the contradictory and
inevitably futile use of an external one, like TV.
77. LSD will be the 'art' of
the future, transcending art as we have known it.
78. If LSD was prohibited in
the twentieth century, it was because such a mind-expanding hallucinogen would
be premature and a danger to society as it is currently constituted.
79. Only with the first
phase of the post-Human Millennium would an official, widespread use of LSD
and/or equivalent synthetic hallucinogens be possible;
for the Superman would be indisposed to riotous or otherwise irresponsible
behaviour.
80. It should always be
remembered that whereas natural drugs, i.e. those grown from the soil, appeal
primarily to the subconscious and are accordingly of diabolic orientation,
synthetic ones, by contrast, appeal to the superconscious,
and are therefore of a comparatively divine orientation.
81. Even the mildest natural
drugs, like tea and tobacco, are fundamentally of a diabolic orientation,
insofar as they result in a correspondingly mild downward self-transcendence.
82. Even for transcendental
man, a degree of downward self-transcendence becomes necessary ... to the
extent that he is the possessor of a natural body with natural needs,
including, not least of all, sleep.
83. It is quite conceivable
that a person who, for one reason or another, lacked the requisite intake of
sensuality for his particular body in one or more important contexts, would be
obliged to seek compensatory sensuality in the regular use of tobacco, alcohol,
coffee, etc.
84. In the future, however,
all natural drugs will be transcended ... as man transcends his body in the
Superman.
85. And the Superman will be
cultivated from birth with the aid of test-tube reproduction, so that he will
be accustomed to existing in an extensively artificial, not to say
transcendental, context from the very first.
86. It would be quite
immoral to create the Superman from a grown man, depriving that man of his body
through an extensive amputation.
87. No grown man will be
forced to sacrifice his body in order to become superhuman. The Superman will be created, in all
probability, from birth.
88. Even a brain that, under
natural circumstances, would have acquired a female body ... will become a
Superman and not a Superwoman. This
first phase of the post-Human Millennium will be predominantly transcendent -
as will the second phase, although, given the removal of the old brain, to a
somewhat greater extent.
89. Transcendence will
signify the complete spiritualization of life ... in and through the Divine
Omega; for it will entail the total overcoming of matter, with freedom even
from the new brain.
90. Transcendence will
inevitably lead to the heavenly, i.e. transcendental, Beyond, though it won't
necessarily lead straight to the Omega Absolute ... in ultimate Oneness.
91. Bearing in mind the
immensity of the spatial universe, it is more than likely that transcendence
will lead to the establishment of 'local', or galactic, globes of pure spirit,
which will gradually converge towards other such globes from remoter parts of
the Universe.
92. Thus a gradual
convergence to the Omega Absolute may also be manifested on the transcendent
plane, constituting (for a time) an antithetical development to planets, which
are themselves intermediaries between the Alpha Absolute(s) ... of the stars
and the sensual communality of the plants.
93. With
the eventual establishment, however, of the Omega Absolute, the evolution of
the Universe, in the fullest sense of that word, would be complete.
94. And the supreme being of the Omega Absolute
would continue, in all likelihood, to expand into space, in contrast to the
gradual contractions and dissolutions of the stars.
95. With the ultimate
dissolution of the remaining stars, the Universe would attain to perfection ...
in the sole presence of the Omega Absolute.
And the Omega Absolute would last for ever.
96. As spirit expands, so
matter contracts. As spirit converges,
so matter diverges.
97. Social evolution begins in tribalism, proceeds
to nationalism, and culminates in internationalism.
98. Parliamentary democracy is a compromise
between conservatism and socialism, and is therefore inherently liberal.
99. Just as the pre-dualistic age was
fundamentally lesbian in character, and the dualistic age ... heterosexual, so
the post-dualistic age can only be homosexual (though not necessarily
literally), if more in terms of a male-biased unisexual absolutism.
100. Each time a man falls
in love, he becomes a spiritual nonentity.
To fall in love is to succumb to the body and its beauty thereof. Spirit is eclipsed by flesh.
101. Just as the ape is beneath sensual love, so
the Superman would be above it.
102. Literature is the
greatest of the arts, because it appeals directly to the mind.
103. The modern literary
masterpiece must necessarily be both short, reflecting a materialistic
contraction, and true, advancing a spiritualistic expansion.
104. Western nations are divisible, in the present
century, between those that are dualistic, like Britain and France, and those
that are transitional between dualism and post-dualism, like the United States
and Germany.
105. As life evolves, so it
becomes more interiorized. The men of
the transcendental civilization won't just be more introspective than those of
the Christian or Christian/transcendental ones.
They will also spend more time indoors.
106. In the post-dualistic
civilization, books will be superseded by computer discs, which will be the
medium through which literature is read.
107. In the post-dualistic
civilization, nothing appertaining to pre-dualistic or dualistic civilization
will be read. An exclusively
omega-oriented civilization requires an exclusively omega-oriented literature. Works appertaining to the past will, for the
most part, be taboo or, at any rate, 'beneath the pale'.
108. A new civilization requires not just a new
literature, but a new art, music, architecture, politics, religion, science,
sexuality - indeed, a new everything.
109. The typical leader of the post-dualistic
civilization will be more of a religious than a political figure.
110. By the time mankind
attains to the post-Human Millennium, the leaders will be exclusively religious
types.
111. That there will always be leaders and led,
coercers and coerced, is a cardinal fact - and necessity - of evolution.
112. The demolition of the
State for its own sake would not lead to a post-civilized society in the
post-Human Millennium, but to a pre-civilized society in barbarous chaos and
anarchy.
113. The demolition or,
rather, contractive 'withering away' of the State ... is only justified on the
basis of the expansion of the Church towards an exclusively religious stage of
evolution, as in the post-Human Millennium.
114. But such an advanced stage
of evolution, commensurate with the superhuman and superbeingful
phases of the post-Human Millennium, will still entail a distinction between
leaders and led, the only difference being that the leaders will then be
exclusively religious.
115. The leaders of a
civilization, however, are divisible between politics and religion.
116. In pre-dualistic
civilization, the political leaders or, rather, rulers preponderate over the
religious ones in the ratio of at least 3:1.
117. In dualistic
civilization, the political and religious rulers/leaders are approximately in
balance, although nominal priority of status is granted to the latter.
118. In post-dualistic
civilization, the religious leaders will preponderate over the political ones
in a ratio of at least 3:1.
119. In the post-Human Millennium, however, only
religious leaders will exist, and their task will be to ensure that the
collectivized brains of the Supermen and, later and most especially, the
new-brain collectivizations of the Superbeings ... are set directly on course for
transcendence, and hence the attainment of spirit to the post-millennial
Beyond.
120. Unfortunately latter-day Marxists, especially
in the West, do not possess such an evolutionary perspective, which is why they
make the lamentable mistake of assuming that the proletariat should be left
entirely to its own devices, without either political or religious guidance,
following the advent of socialism.
121. The consequences of
such an hypothetical eventuality would be too bleak to bear contemplating, but
naive Marxists, who foolishly elevate the common man to the level of a saintly
ideal, could not be expected to know that!
122. Rather, if anything, would these naive Marxists
be inclined to equate the Millennium with literal power to the People, with an
absence, in other words, of any control on and/or guidance of the People, in
the interests of what they mistakenly consider to be true socialism.
123. By treating Marx as an
infallible guide to evolutionary truth, his most literal followers are doomed
to repeat all of Marx's worst errors and limitations.
124. Without my own contribution to the evolution of
post-dualistic thought, one is in the realm of socialist barbarism - a
necessary realm for a certain period of time, but a realm which must eventually
be transcended, if civilization is to reappear on a higher level.
125. As the spiritual
expands, so the material contracts; the bound electron becomes free and the
proton is transformed into or replaced by quasi-electrons.
126. The post-atomic
society will be free of proton control, and thus able to aspire towards the
maximum electron freedom.
127. If the sun, and indeed most stars, convert(s)
hydrogen into helium through proton-proton reactions, then the future Spiritual
Globes, so far from a helium hell, will entail an electron-electron attraction
... as they converge towards one another in the transcendental Beyond.
128. Quasi-electron equivalents, whether socialist
politicians or avant-garde scientists, function in opposition to proton
equivalents, but remain, at bottom, proton-natured.
129. Free-electron equivalents, whether radical
politicians or transcendentalists, oppose bound-electron equivalents, such as
Christians and liberals, and desire to orientate mankind towards the Divine
Omega.
130. By themselves,
quasi-electron equivalents would only minimize the Diabolic, whereas it is
imperative for evolutionary progress that the expansion of spirit towards the
Divine should subsequently be aided by free-electron equivalents.
131. Only when the political quasi-electron
equivalents make way for free-electron equivalents ... will post-atomic
civilization make its first appearance in the world.
132. The present century
signifies a transitional age between the end of proton determinism and the
beginnings of electron freedom, and is accordingly neither atomic nor
post-atomic but ... somewhere in-between.
133. It is thus, par excellence, a
bourgeois/proletarian age, an age of transition from the capitalistic bourgeoisie
to the socialistic proletariat, and its chief representatives are countries
like
134. To an officially
proletarian state, all types and degrees of petty-bourgeois art, which includes
what is commonly regarded as 'modern art', are irrelevant.
135. This would be so even if the proletarian state
were civilized and not barbarous, since the irrelevance of petty-bourgeois art
to a proletarian civilization would then be founded on its inadequate degree of
transcendentalism rather than, from the barbarous point-of-view, on a
materialistic opposition to petty-bourgeois transcendentalism, i.e. painterly
abstraction.
136. The proletarian
society of a transcendental bias, however, would wish to develop post-dualistic
spirituality, and consequently would uphold the more radical transcendentalism
of the proletariat, utilizing a variety of electronic means.
137. This superior
transcendentalism would be derived from the superconscious,
which constitutes the higher subjectivity of transcendental man, rather than
from the conscious mind at or near its 'Pentecostal' peak, as it were.
138. The oldest idealism,
as pertaining to the objectivity of the subconscious, would have no hold on the
civilized proletariat, and consequently they would not be partial to the lower
objectivity of the external cosmos.
139. Rather, they would tend to impose on that
external cosmos the ultimate idealism abstracted from the subjectivity of the superconscious.
140. Only the internal reality of the superconscious is really pertinent to a post-atomic
society, for which the proton-dominated external reality of the Cosmos - and
nature - will be taboo.
141. The civilized
proletariat would look upon that lower diabolic reality with a divine bias, seeing
only the idealism they have imposed upon it, in fidelity to their superconscious subjectivity.
142. And thus post-atomic
society would draw ever closer to the ultimate reality of transcendent spirit,
derived from the superconscious and destined for
unity in the Omega Absolute at the spiritual culmination of evolution.
143. Literature in the proletarian civilization
would be collective and essential rather than individual and apparent, as with
previous levels of civilization.
144. Meaning in literature is the proton of a
sentence, words the bound electrons which revolve around it, so to speak, in
the interests of meaningful sense.
145. Post-atomic literature requires that words be
freed from the constraint of meaning and elevated to the status of free
electrons. This is especially desirable
in the context of poetry, hitherto the most proton-dominated branch of
literature.
146. The convergence
towards an Omega Point on the level of literature not only requires that words
be freed from proton determinism but, as a corollary of this, that literature
be freed from the constraints of one language and composed in multi-lingual
terms.
147. For with the eventual
emergence of post-atomic civilization throughout the world, literature would
have to be international in the profoundest sense.
148. As they grow old,
women contract physically whereas men expand spiritually. Just so does the material side of life
contract as the spiritual side of it expands.
149. Socialism signifies a contraction of the
material, transcendentalism an expansion of the spiritual.
150. As the State 'withers', so the Church will
blossom into the exclusive spirituality of the post-Human Millennium,
post-civilized because post-human.
PART TWO: ESSAYS
FUTURE TRANSFORMATIONS
(Or an attempt to outline a post-human future)
Transcendental meditation wouldn't suffice to take man to the
heavenly Beyond ... of the Omega Absolute, but it
would certainly suffice to take him to the post-Human Beyond ... of the
Superman. For the
Superman is the evolutionary development immediately above man, towards which
transcendental men are advancing.
With the decline of
egocentric religion, the post-egocentric religion of Transcendentalism becomes
the final form religion will take in the evolutionary history of man. Instead of praying and singing hymns, like
Christians did, the Transcendentalists of the centuries ahead will directly
cultivate their spirit through the medium of transcendental meditation. They will learn to meditate and regularly practise
meditation in suitably-designed meditation centres, the institutional
successors to churches. Praying,
singing, chanting, etc., will have no appeal to them
whatsoever. Only the expansion of the superconscious through meditation will be relevant to them,
and this they will prefer to do communally - as part of a large gathering of
fellow Transcendentalists.
Man in his third stage
of evolutionary development (the stage beyond paganism and Christianity) will
be succeeded, however, by the Superman, that is to say, by a brain artificially
supported and sustained, with possible access to artificial hearing, seeing,
and speaking devices, subject to external control. The Supermen - for there should be many such
brains in existence - will be clustered together in tree-like formations, their
brains being sustained and supported from a central energy source. There will be numerous tree-like clusters of
this nature in existence throughout the world, and they will each signify a
life form antithetical, in essence, to animals, particularly with reference to
such tree-climbing, tree-inhabiting animals as apes. The 'tree' in question will be artificial,
but the brains being supported on it will be natural and capable of self-identification. Each brain will be a separate Superman, and
all Supermen will be resigned to a communal life, just as apes are resigned to
such a life in the crowded branches of the trees they inhabit. The great antithetical difference, however,
between these two life forms will be that whereas apes are resigned to a
sensual communality, the Supermen will partake of a spiritual communality, and
this spiritual life will constitute the first phase of the post-Human
Millennium, being conditioned and encouraged by the regular intake of suitably-regulated
doses of LSD, or some equivalent synthetic upward self-transcending,
vision-inducing stimulant, which will be externally administered to the
artificially-supported brains by the future equivalent of priests - the superpriestly spiritual leaders, so to speak, of the
Millennium in question.
Meditation, then, will
terminate with the termination of man, to be superseded by the visionary
contemplation, revealed through LSD-type hallucinogens, of the Superman. Meditation is fundamentally too naturalistic
to be wholly compatible with an advanced spirituality in a more sophisticated
evolutionary context. As evolution
progresses, so the lifestyles of its participants become increasingly
artificial, subject to the substitution of synthetic for natural products and
experiences. A being freed, so to speak, from the natural body wouldn't be
qualified to practise yoga, with its complicated posturings,
and neither would he be able to regulate the flow of oxygen to his brain
through the manipulation of various breathing techniques designed to facilitate
increased awareness. Rather, oxygen
would have to be fed to him artificially, through the medium of special
containers, and its flow regulated according to uniform standards of intake
acceptable to the brain commune as a whole.
It would pass into the blood vessels of the various brains, where it
would be converted into corpuscles and suitably exploited in the interests of
proper brain functioning. There could be
no question of a natural respiratory system being in use at that point in time,
for the lungs would have 'gone the way' of the rest of the body, left behind
with the creature known as man. And, of
course, an artificial pump, replacing the human heart, would serve the brain
commune by maintaining a uniform flow of blood through such artificial vessels
as were deemed necessary to link the pump to the natural blood vessels of the
individual brains. The Supermen would
never experience the human failing of heart attacks but, at worst, only a
temporary mechanical failure of the artificial pump which, hopefully, could be
quickly repaired - assuming, for argument's sake, it were to break down in the
first place!
The introduction of
hallucinogens like LSD into the Supermen's brains would, of course, have to be
through the blood, so we may surmise that the future equivalent of priests will
inject the desired quantities of them into the artificial blood vessels at
salient, predetermined points in the sustain apparatus, thereby guaranteeing
each Superman a uniform, carefully-regulated dose of the benevolent,
mind-expanding synthetic stimulant, which would be designed to take over from
where television and/or meditation had left off. What follows would be a sustained period of gentle
acclimatization to its vision-inducing properties, as the Supermen contemplated
the jewel-like crystalline images of their turned-on superconscious.
With the termination of 'the trip', which would probably occur after several
hours, the Supermen would be left to sink into their subconscious minds and
either doze or sleep, in the interests of psychic integrity. The following day, however, they would be
given another 'trip', and so on, until, with a gradual increase of the dosage
to peak levels, they became spiritually ripe for the next evolutionary
transformation - namely from Supermen to Superbeings.
Before I go on to
discuss Superbeings, a word or two must be said about
man and his future transformation into Superman. The average transcendental man of the
late-twentieth century is rather like an embryonic superman, and, to be sure,
there are already people living a life which approximates to the one just
outlined and therefore intimates of it.
At the time of writing, I happen to reside next to a couple whom I
understand to be unemployed. They rarely
go out during the day and hardly ever at night.
As a rule, they spend their mornings in bed and their afternoons either
listening to the radio or watching television.
At night they invariably sit in front of their television for several
hours. Now, for me, a quite
conscientious intellectual, their lifestyle appeals to my critical sense and
generally causes me to feel somewhat indignant and even censorious. What right have they, I ask myself, to spend
their days either lying in bed or watching television when I, compelled by a
sense of duty, spend 5-6 hours a day at my writings, with from 1-2 hours study
every evening? Clearly, my moral sense
is offended and I feel tempted to preach to them on the virtue of work,
irrespective of whether or not there may be any work available to such people
under the present economic climate. And
yet my attitude - by no means untypical of people like me - is really quite
beside-the-point and hopelessly one-sided.
I regard my television-addicted neighbours from a reactionary
point-of-view, quite overlooking the more relevant progressive one which, even
if they personally aren't directly aware of it, is at least applicable to the
trend of evolution towards the Superman.
Now since transcendental man is pre-eminently a proletarian phenomenon,
and since the proletariat tend, on the whole, to watch more television than the
bourgeoisie, I must make some attempt, if I'm to do proper justice to this
phenomenon, to view my neighbours' behaviour in the light of contemporary
transcendentalism and thus equate their lifestyle, no matter how alien it may
be to myself, with a proletarian spirituality that is a prelude to the
visionary lifestyle of the Superman.
For, viewed in this light, the hours my neighbours spend in front of
their colour television correspond, on a lower external level, to the hours the
Supermen will spend contemplating the luminous contents of their superconscious minds, as induced by the higher internal
stimulant of LSD. And, of course, the
hours they spend in bed, both before and after television, will correspond to
the rest-periods which the Supermen will require to safeguard their psychic
integrity, following the visionary exigencies of their respective 'trips'. My neighbours are therefore resting, each
night, from their television experiences of the previous day, while preparing
themselves, throughout the morning, for the afternoon and evening viewing
to-come. They are the Supermen in
embryo, and allow me to add, at the risk of scandalizing middle-class
sensibilities, that they are by no means untypical of their class! Perhaps they are just a shade more radical or
thoroughgoing than those who, largely because of job commitments, are obliged
to confine their TV-viewing to the evenings and weekends.... Which
just goes to show that one should be wary of looking at unemployment solely
from a socio-economic point of view, quite overlooking the spiritual or
modernist dimensions which accrue to it and would seem to be compatible with
the unofficial development of transcendentalism in a civilization which, in
regard to the bourgeoisie, is becoming increasingly decadent.
Transcendental man is
therefore clearly in evidence in the context of extensive
television-viewing. Meditation, though
undoubtedly relevant to his future development, isn't the only kind of
spiritual stimulus, even if it is an inherently superior kind to television, by
dint of the fact that it expands spirit directly, through internalizing the
mind, rather than indirectly, through the medium of artificial
appearances. Nevertheless the incentive
provided by television for a mild degree of upward self-transcendence cannot be
dismissed as irrelevant to spiritual development, but should be regarded as a prelude
to higher things, the temperaments of some people probably being such that they
could never come to fully appreciate the virtues of meditation anyway, given
that such virtues tend, as a rule, to be appreciated only by a more
sophisticated type of mind in the twentieth century, and not by what we may
call the lumpen proletariat. If television succeeds in gradually leading
the majority towards transcendental meditation, then it will have achieved more
than at first meets the eye! It does at
least condition people to sit still and remain intellectually passive for a
number of hours, which is what meditation also does, albeit minus an external
stimulus and therefore with an emphasis on one's own spiritual resources. But if the general proletariat are closer, in
their dependence on visionary experience, to the future Supermen, then it could
well be that the meditating elite of the present century are closer, in their
self-containment, to the ensuing Superbeings, and
will doubtless experience a higher degree of collective meditation, pending transcendence. But there is no reason why the proletariat
shouldn't indulge in periodic bouts of meditation in due course, even if only
as a supplement to their television-viewing.
Towards the climax of the transcendental civilization the vast majority
of people, of whatever temperament, should be indulging in a degree of
meditation on a regular basis, pending their transformation into Supermen.
When this transformation
will be brought about I cannot, as someone born into the twentieth century,
know for certain. Yet if decadence, in
one of its principal manifestations, can be equated with the coming to fruition
of the spiritual development of a given class, a kind of spiritual climax to
the overall cultural or intellectual progress of each succeeding class, and we
accept as fact that the aristocracy attained to the zenith of their spiritual
development towards the end of the sixteenth century and, following their
example, the bourgeoisie towards the end of the nineteenth century, then there
would seem to be some justification for our supposing that the proletariat,
i.e. urban men, will attain to the zenith of their spiritual
development some time in the twenty-second century, and that the transformation
from man to Superman will therefore occur at approximately the same time,
which, at the very latest, could be towards the end of the twenty-second
century. Hence we may reasonably contend
that man in his final form has about two centuries to go, after which time he
should be ripe for transformation into the Superman that will constitute the
first phase of millennial life - a phase in which the brain will be
artificially supported and sustained.
With the second phase of
millennial life, however, the Supermen will be transformed, by the
technological leadership, into Superbeings, and will
consequently become a new and higher life form, antithetical, in essence, to
plants and especially to trees. No
longer will each brain be capable of self-identification and limited egohood but, with the removal of the old brain (in which
resides the subconscious part of the psyche), become elevated, instead, to
complete superconscious identification in blissful
contemplation of spirit. From being a
separate member of a commune of independent brains, the new-brain Superbeings will become components in a larger whole (just
as the leaves of trees are components in the larger collective entity known as
a tree), and thereupon cease to differentiate between themselves, to know
themselves, in the manner of Supermen, as separate individuals. These clusters of new brains will in effect
assume the character of one giant entity, and where previously each brain
cluster could be regarded as a commune of individuals, and thus bear the plural
title of Supermen, each new-brain cluster, by contrast, will constitute a
separate Superbeing, the plural being reserved for
reference to whatever number of such clusters may happen to exist in the world
at any given time. So, considered
separately, a Superbeing will constitute a much
higher approximation to the ultimate unity of the Omega Point (de Chardin), and thus reflect an ongoing evolutionary
convergence (in centro-complexification) from the
Many to the One. Furthermore, the new
brains of the Superbeings will doubtless be closer
together on the artificial supports than would have been possible with the
larger ego-bound brains of the Supermen, and will therefore more easily lend
themselves to the appearance of a collective entity - each new brain being
inseparable from the whole.
How long it will take
before the Supermen can be transformed, i.e. engineered, into Superbeings ... I cannot of course say. Though there is no reason for one to assume
that the Supermen will last for centuries.
After several decades they would doubtless begin to tire of their LSD or
equivalent hallucinogenic experiences and to long for a higher type of
consciousness, completely beyond the visionary.
The leadership would remain in regular contact with them to ascertain
exactly what their psychic position was at any given time, and would
consequently know when the transformation to the Superbeing
was apposite. However, the
post-visionary consciousness of the Superbeing
wouldn't be forced upon any brain cluster prematurely. For evolution has to proceed by degrees, as
the Hindu metaphor of reincarnation adequately confirms - the inability of the
devotee's psyche to come to terms with the posthumous Clear Light ... being a
reflection of his egocentric past and necessitating, in the paradoxical logic
of reincarnation, a return to this world, where it is to be hoped that
personal, i.e. evolutionary, progress will better qualify his soul for
unification with the Divine in due course.
Likewise, the actual progress of the Supermen towards the Omega Point
would be a gradual affair, requiring their full acquiescence in
artificially-induced internal visionary experience, before any transformation
to the Superbeing could reasonably be endorsed. Appearance must precede essence, even when it
is internal, and therefore as spiritualized as possible.
With the eventual
removal of the old brain, however, the liberated new brain would be conscious
of nothing but the light of its own superconscious
mind and such a light would be essence, not appearance. It would constitute a higher type of meditation
than anything the more sophisticated transcendental men had known prior to the
post-Human Millennium, being the final form consciousness will take. Eventually - though again it's impossible to
be explicit - this highest collective meditation of the Superbeings
should lead to transcendence, and thus to the establishment, in space, of
Spiritual Globes, which would be the bigger the more spirit they each
contained, that is to say, depending on the number of Superbeings,
from whichever part of the planet, that had attained to transcendence at any
given time. Yet these Spiritual Globes
would not be the Omega Point or, rather, Omega Absolute (to drop de Chardin and revert to my preferred terminology), but that
stage of evolution immediately preceding the establishment of definitive God,
which would be ultimate Oneness. The
Spiritual Globes issuing from the Superbeings would
constitute an evolutionary antithesis to the planets, or material globes, and
would tend towards one another in the heavenly Beyond. Those which issued from the same part of the
earth would probably coalesce into larger wholes as a matter of course, the
larger Spiritual Globes, composed of the spirit of numerous Superbeings
from any one area of the world, exerting a more compelling attractive influence
on the smaller ones which, in being pulled in their direction, would eventually
bring about the formation of still larger Spiritual Globes until, by a similar
process occurring throughout the Universe over an immensely long period of time
or, rather, eternity, all separate Spiritual Globes had converged together to
establish the Omega Absolute, in complete contrast to the alpha-stemming
divergence of the innumerable stars. And
with the Omega Absolute, evolution would be complete and, following the
disintegration and dissolution of the stars, the Universe become perfect -
perfect in an ultimate unity which would last for ever.
It is therefore my
contention that God doesn't yet exist as the Omega Absolute and won't exist as
such until every single Spiritual Globe, from whichever part of the Universe,
had been absorbed into ultimate Oneness some thousands or even millions of
years hence. Gone are the days when it
was possible to be agnostic, contending that one cannot know for sure whether God,
in any ultimate sense, does or doesn't exist.
On the contrary, I believe that one can know, and
this essay is intended to furnish proof of the fact. From now on it will be possible for every man
to be atheist, for knowledge has at last put paid to agnostic doubts. Every man will know that, while alpha
absolutes exist, the Omega Absolute is a creation of the future, stemming not
from men but, more directly, from the Spiritual Globes of the heavenly Beyond. Transcendental man may be a long way from the
realization of that blessed creation at present, but, as a participator in
evolutionary progress, he is certainly tending in the right direction. When he becomes the Superman of the
post-Human Millennium, he will have entered the eternal plane. For, although such a context is at a
considerable evolutionary remove from the Omega Absolute, his brain won't die,
as does man's, but be artificially supported and sustained through to the
subsequent transformation ... of the Superbeing,
until, with transcendence, spirit becomes completely independent of the brain
or, more correctly, new brain and capable, thereafter, of indefinite
self-sustain. Here we are left with the
ultimate paradox, which is that while the Superman won't last for ever, the
spirit appertaining to him, which can be expected to achieve transcendence with
the Superbeing, most certainly will. For everything must pass
but the Omega Absolute, towards which everything tends.
IRISH AND ENGLISH
Ethnic generalizations are sometimes misleading, though not
necessarily impertinent. The distinction
between Anglo-Saxon and Celt is a particularly revealing one, and, in its
extreme manifestations ... between Protestant Englishmen and Catholic Irishmen,
it furnishes us with an objective understanding of the relative merits and
predilections of these two, in many ways, antithetical peoples.
If there is one word
that sums up
Of course, there are
several disadvantages and detrimental consequences from belonging to a people
who generally put being above doing in their scale of values. On the lowest level such a preference often
leads to drunkenness and laziness, an unwillingness or inability to come
properly to terms with the practical demands of life, and no Englishman needs
to be reminded that a significant proportion of Irishmen are either regularly
drunk and unemployed or irregularly drunk and under-employed, as the case may
be! Nor would he need to be reminded
that his ancestors were able to dominate
Yet this is just the
negative side of Irish experience, as largely appertaining to the masses. For on the positive side came the
intellectual, cultural, and religious achievements of men of genius such as
Burke, Boyle, Swift, Goldsmith, Moore, Maturin,
Wilde, Shaw, Joyce, Synge, Yeats, O'Faollain,
O'Casey, and Beckett.
Naturally the English, with their much larger populations, have produced
more writers than the Irish, and some of them have been very good ones,
too. But, with few exceptions, they
haven't produced as many outstanding writers as the Irish - certainly
not in the twentieth century, which, if anything, marked a turning-point in
these two peoples' fortunes, and not just with regard to creative writing. Fundamentally the twentieth century was the
first post-dualistic century in history, and since the Irish are nothing if not
extreme, it is inevitable that the twentieth century should have been more to
their liking than it has been, on the whole, to the rather more
middle-of-the-road English. If England
dominated Irish political life during the centuries when dualism (particularly
in its liberal manifestation) ruled supreme, then it should come as no surprise
to us when we find that, with the emergence of a post-dualistic age, the Irish
have dominated and continue to dominate English cultural affairs. I need only city Joyce in respect of the
novel, Yeats in respect of poetry, Starkie in respect
of biography, O'Faollain in respect of the short
story, and, in the semi-literary context of theatre, Shaw in respect of the
play ... to confirm this Irish domination of literature. And although I have racked my brains over
literally dozens of English authors, from the best, like Aldous
Huxley, to the worst, like D.H. Lawrence, it would be impossible for me to
ascribe pre-eminence in any one field to an Englishman. For modern English writing is not only
comparatively second-rate; it is also deeply pessimistic, reflecting the
disenchantment, anxiety, and regret that many Englishmen feel for the passing
of dualistic civilization and its replacement by an increasingly volatile world
which is difficult if not impossible to reconcile with the English temperament.
It isn't by mere chance
that Joyce's greatest novel, Ulysses, concludes with a
wholehearted affirmation of contemporary life, its very last word being 'Yes'
with a capital Y, whereas Joyce's contemporary and in many ways English
counterpart, Huxley, allows Point Counter Point - as indeed most of his
novels, including Island, the last one - to end on a note of defeat and
despair, reflecting the end of a civilization beset by the twin enemies of
barbarism and decadence. This
pessimistic syndrome in the face of post-dualistic evolution cuts right across
contemporary English literature, from Waugh and Muggeridge
to Orwell and Amis, signifying, as it does, what may
be called the mainstream trend of the age.
Not so where the Irish are concerned, and not so either - at least
nowhere near to the same extent - with
British writers of Irish extraction, like Lawrence Durrell,
Anthony Burgess, Cecil Day-Lewis, and John Middleton Murray, who seem to
reflect an in-between psychological realm of pessimism tempered by optimism,
rather than to stand at either Irish or English extremes.
It is tempting to see in
this Irish literary revival a golden age of Celtic literature which would
correspond to the golden age of ancient Greece in the fifth century B.C., and,
indeed, to equate the 1916 Uprising with the Greek victory over the Persians in
479 B.C., so that the Irish are perceived as being, in some sense, the modern
equivalent of the ancient Greeks. But
this would be an over-facile and quite erroneous analogue, scarcely one based
on real historical logic! That Joyce may
have conceived of such an analogue at the time he was writing Ulysses ...
is a possibility we shall not ignore.
But there is no reason for us to endorse it on the grounds of historical
recurrence. If there is a
kind of cyclical recurrence in history, and one with reversible applicability,
depending on whether the context be pre- or post-dualistic, then there would be
a strong case in favour of our equating the victory of the Americans over the
British in the War of Independence with that of the ancient Greeks over the
Persians in 479 B.C., and of seeing in America the modern equivalent of ancient
Greece.
Thus, in the trend
towards dualism of the ancient world, the Greeks won their independence from a
predominantly pre-dualistic people, only to lose it, eventually, to the Romans,
who were early dualists. Reversing this
cycle through the trend away from dualism of the modern world, we find the
Americans, as antithetical equivalents to the ancient Greeks, winning their
freedom from the late-dualistic British, who can be regarded as antithetically
equivalent to the Romans, and, in all probability, destined to lose it in the
future to an early post-dualistic people, like the Russians or, more probably,
the Chinese, who would then be the modern equivalent of the ancient
Persians. As history tends to reverse
itself on the post-dualistic level, we might well be justified in equating the
modern Irish with the ancient Egyptians or, at any rate, with a development
which is tending towards an antithesis to the world's first great religious
civilization and which, if it continues, may well constitute the basis for the
world's last great religious civilization in due course - a civilization not
peculiar to the Irish alone, but partly stemming from Ireland, or Irishmen, and
spreading throughout the world.
Thus the pre-dualistic
development from Egypt and Persia to Greece (a kind of transitional
civilization) and on, with early dualism, to Rome, would seem to have its
post-dualistic parallel with Britain, as late dualism, leading via America
(another transitional civilization) to Russia and/or China, and on, finally, to
Ireland, the future equivalent, now in embryo, of ancient Egypt, which will
round off the cyclical recurrence of evolutionary civilizations and lead, in
due turn, to a post-Human Millennium, with the transformation of universal man
into the Superman. Ireland, then, will have
the responsibility of determining the shape of the last great civilization,
which will be cosmopolitan, just as Egypt determined the shape of the first,
purely national one, and in such speculation I believe we are some way along
the road to understanding the contemporary Irish domination of literature in
twentieth-century Britain.
As an extreme people for
whom quality prevails over quantity, the Irish are already laying the
foundations of the next civilization, a civilization that will follow on behind
the American one of transition between dualism and transcendentalism. With the ancient world we are always
conscious of a lacuna between the Egyptians and the Greeks, the Persians not
having fashioned a civilization to compare with either their predecessors or
successors, and consequently not being known as a highly civilized people to
contemporary minds. In the modern world
a similar lacuna may be projected as existing between the American civilization
of today and the Irish or Gaelic civilization of tomorrow, since the
Marxist-Leninist materialism of both the former Soviet Russia and, more
especially, contemporary China falls short of genuine civilization, and
corresponds to a neo-barbarism analogous, one can only surmise, to the
relatively barbarous society of ancient Persia.
The twenty-first century may well constitute a new Dark Age for the
passing civilizations, both British and American, but at least, if the logic of
scientific history is to be trusted, we can express hope about the rebirth of
civilization on higher terms in the not-too-distant future.
Not so long ago, in an
earlier volume of essays, my application of a modified cyclical recurrence to
various nations in the overall progression of history led me to refute not only
Spengler, with his assessment of Nazi Germany as a
'New Rome', and Britain, traditionally, as the 'New Greece' (or modern
equivalent of ancient Greece), but also Malcolm Muggeridge
and Simone Weil, the former upholding the theory of Britain as equivalent to
ancient Greece and America to ancient Rome, while the latter maintained faith
in France as the modern equivalent - particularly during the Napoleonic period
- to ancient Rome, and Britain, by contrast, as equivalent to ancient
Greece. I disagreed with each of them
and, I think, wisely, as things turned out.
But I wasn't entirely justified in aligning
Yet the Irish will, I
believe, adopt a completely new religion in the future, one stemming from
Christianity but independent of humanistic influence, and will expand it
abroad, just as Irish monks brought Catholicism to Britain and various
Continental countries during the Dark Ages.
This new religion, though reminiscent of Buddhism, will be more than
just a copy or derivative of oriental religion, since far less influenced by
natural criteria and correspondingly more sympathetic to artificial and
technological ingredients, pointing the way towards the Superman. It won't make the mistake of imagining that
man can attain to God, for it will know that man is but a stage on the road to
something higher (the Superman), who is but a stage to something higher again
(the Superbeing), and so on, until the attainment of
the Omega Absolute at the climax of evolution.
If such a transcendental religion is destined to catch on anywhere, it
can only be in a country with a long tradition of religious devotion, a country
in which quality takes precedence over quantity and, consequently, being over
doing. I believe
An Irish priest is
always somehow more credible, more authentically theocratic, than an English
one, and it would be scant exaggeration to say that an Irish priest is worth an
English bishop, or even several English bishops. Conversely, the Irish politician is usually
inferior to his English counterpart and not taken quite so seriously either by
his own people or by the British. This
is, however, relative to the antithetical predilections of the two peoples, and
isn't likely to change very much in the future - whatever their respective
fates may happen to be. The Irish will
continue to value their religious representatives above their political ones,
while the English will take politicians more seriously than priests. How it is that the Irish and English do differ so
radically in this way must, in some degree, remain an enigma, although there is
evidently something in the blood of the Celt that corresponds to a spiritual
predilection, whereas the typical Anglo-Saxon feels more at home in the realm
of tangible reality. Doubtless the
respective histories of the two peoples have contributed to this distinction,
as, one suspects, have the geological and geographical differences between
their respective islands or ancestral backgrounds, not least of all in respect
of climate. Yet whatever the main
reasons, the moderation of the Englishman and the extremism of the Irishman
remain fundamental characteristics of a centuries-old ethnic divide.
In a transcendentalist
age, however, it is inevitable that the Irish will dominate English cultural
and intellectual affairs, as they did in the twentieth century. The new men will take over from where their
predecessors left off, bringing works of quality to a people who would otherwise
be condemned, in materialistic stagnation, to mere quantity alone.
A TEASING PARADOX
It was by mere chance that the terms 'Left' and 'Right' came to be
applied to political allegiances of, in the one case, a progressive and, in the
other, a reactionary or conservative bias.
For it was the progressive party (Jacobin/Cordelier) that sat on the
left of the chamber in the new French Assembly of October 1791, while the
moderates (Girondists) sat on the right, following
the political turmoil of the French Revolution.
Thenceforth, as a result of this contingency, each successive
progressive party the world over acquired the description 'left wing' and,
conversely, each conservative party the description 'right wing'. We have lived with this habit for so long now
that we tend to take it for granted, convinced that it reflects a logical,
meaningful way of describing the antithetical parties. The thought that evolution, whether political
or otherwise, may not be proceeding from the Right to the Left never really
enters our heads, and we would be inclined to brand anyone who had the nerve to
suggest, on the contrary, that political evolution proceeds from the Left to
the Right as an ignoramus or, more likely, an idiot. Yet the curious fact of the matter is that,
strictly speaking, evolution does indeed proceed in this latter fashion - not
according to the chance arrangement of an historic division in the new French
Assembly!
It isn't simply a matter
of bringing a Nietzschean 'transvaluation
of all values' to bear on the traditional viewpoint. For such a 'transvaluation' can only reasonably be applied to natural
phenomena and their relationship to civilization as it is now constituted. A contingency doesn't permit of a transvaluation, and so we shan't attempt to turn the logic
or, more correctly, illogicality of 'Left' applied to
progressives and 'Right' applied to conservatives the correct way up. Instead, we shall simply reverse the
descriptions, so that, for once, the progressive party are regarded as right
wing and the conservative party, by contrast, as left. This merely as an experiment in logic, not as
a recommendation for a revolution in our political thinking!
Why, then, have I come
to this subversive decision? Because the
brain, as currently constituted, is divisible into a left and a right
compartment - the old brain or, in psychological terminology, subconscious mind
being on the left, and the new brain/superconscious
mind, by contrast, being on the right.
Translated into physiological terms, this means that the old brain is
located to the left of the new brain, not underneath it. Strictly speaking, there is no physiological
entity corresponding to the ego, since it is a function of the brain, a
spiritual attribute that arises from the latter's physiological workings, which
also produce the independent attributes of subconscious and superconscious
psychic functioning. Thus as spirit
arises from matter, it is dependent on matter, and will remain so until
transcendence is attained ... as the long-awaited goal of human evolution.
Now since evolutionary
progress presupposes the gradual expansion of spirit towards its transcendent
goal, it follows that the psyche's evolution proceeds from left to right, which
is to say, from the subconscious to the superconscious
via a continuously-modified ego which reflects, at any given point in time, the
existing degree of consciousness, or the extent to which the one side of the
psyche prevails over the other, in any individual. This degree of consciousness isn't only a
personal affair, depending on the intellectual or spiritual potential inherited
from one's parents, nor, for that matter, is it solely related to the cultural
standards of the society into which one was born, but is also - and perhaps
predominantly - a consequence of the environment in which one lives - the
successive historical transformations from rural to urban via suburban and/or
provincial engendering a corresponding shift in the psyche's constitution, so
that consciousness will reflect either more or less superconscious
influence according to the individual's environmental position, extended over
many years, at any given time. With the
rapid growth of urban environments, in recent centuries, we may note a more
radical shift in consciousness from a kind of twilight balance between the
subconscious and the superconscious to a light
imbalance, so to speak, on the side of the latter, an imbalance which
constitutes the psychic integrity of transcendental - as opposed to Christian -
man. Thus a shift away from the old
brain towards the new or, rather, deeper into the new brain ... is a principal
characteristic of evolutionary progress at this juncture in time, and, as the
former is on the left and the latter on the right, we may infer that, strictly
speaking, political evolution also tends from left to right, reflecting, as it
must, the psyche's evolution.
The fact that the old
brain/subconscious mind is situated on the left and its antithesis on the right
... makes for a corresponding distinction between the left- and right-hand
sides of one's face, most especially with reference to the eyes. The left eye, it will be observed, is usually
somewhat gentler and even sleepier-looking than the right one, and in the
morning, if you bother to scrutinize your face before washing, you will find
that it usually contains more sleep than its neighbour, the reason being that
it is closer to the subconscious and therefore more under subconscious
domination during sleep. A factor which
I have often observed in myself, and which I can only suppose common to others
as well, is a predilection I have to sleep on my left side, so that
consciousness slides down naturally into subconscious domination with the
coming of sleep. When, by contrast, I
have attempted to sleep on my right side ... the almost invariable consequence
has been a nightmare, and this I can only suppose to be related to the fact
that, in such a position, the subconscious is on top of the superconscious
and, with the coming of sleep, tends to oppress one through its essentially
active, negative characteristics. A
reversal of this position doesn't necessarily prevent one from experiencing a
nightmare, but it does at least guarantee that the subconscious, in being
underneath, remains in a less oppressive context, thereby facilitating a more agreeable
dream-life.
As to the right eye, the
fact of its proximity to the superconscious
guarantees it a more penetrating, lucid, aggressive appearance than the left
one, an appearance which, as a rule, will be more marked the greater the
intelligence of the individual concerned, that is to say, the more his
particular psyche is under the sway of the superconscious,
with its intellectual/spiritual bias. A
poster I have of Lenin is particularly revealing of the distinction between the
left and right eyes. For whereas the
former is in shadow the latter stares fiercely out at one from a brightly-lit
section of the face, almost menacing in its fixity. Men like Hitler, Dali, Baudelaire, and
Nietzsche also provide conspicuous examples of the psyche's dichotomy, as
reflected in facial appearance, and more than a few well-known politicians,
including former American president Richard Nixon, have furnished convincing
illustrations of this fact when photographed in a stern mood! It would be misguided, however, to equate
this forceful stare in highly intelligent men with the evil eye of
superstitious tradition. For it isn't
the right eye but the left one which connects with the subconscious, and the
only valid criterion for objectively assessing evil must pertain to the
sensual, not to the spiritual! A
penetrating right eye is no more evil than a highly intelligent mind.
Whether the distinction
between the two eyes is sharp or blurred will, of course, depend on the psychic
constitution of the individual, the vast majority of people probably not
presenting the critical observer with very much contrast, and especially will
this be true of people accustomed to a rural environment. A more marked contrast will only be observed,
as a rule, among the most spiritually-evolved people who, now as before,
constitute a minority of higher types.
In the course of time, this distinction between the two eyes will
doubtless spread to greater numbers of people, in response to social amelioration
in educational and genetic contexts.
Post-dualistic man will be aptly reflected in his facial bias - a bias
corresponding to the stronger influence of the superconscious
in his overall psychic integrity.
Before the discovery or
perhaps I should say acknowledgement of the superconscious,
psychologists were inclined to attribute positive characteristics to the
subconscious in an attempt to explain away the psyche's positive
predilections. Since, to their way of
thinking, consciousness was simply something that sat atop the subconscious, it
seemed perfectly feasible to attribute positive motivations to the latter,
seeing that such motivations had to come from somewhere and, given that the
subconscious was the only other known part of the psyche, so the psychologists
reasoned they must come from there. Thus
Freud and, following his example, Jung each endowed the subconscious with
positive inclinations.
For my part, I contend
that positivity, in the truest sense of that word, is
the principal attribute of the superconscious and
will generally - though not invariably - be found on the right-hand side of the
psyche, which is to say, in the new brain.
Positivity is not, as was formerly believed,
an active thing but a decidedly passive phenomenon, like love, and corresponds
to the spiritual life. Only negativity
is active, since aligned with the sensual, and it is precisely this
characteristic that should be associated with the subconscious. The proof of this, if it isn't already
self-evident, lies in the fact that one's dreams are always active, and thus
negative, whereas the experience of anyone who has expanded his consciousness
through LSD, for example, will show that the contents of the superconscious, as revealed in this hallucinogenic way, are
perfectly still, passive luminosities whose positivity
fascinates the receptive consciousness.
Thus an antithesis may be posited between the restless, active contents
of one's subconscious mind, as experienced during sleep, and the tranquil,
utterly passive contents of one's superconscious
mind, as revealed through upward self-transcending synthetic stimulants like
LSD, whilst awake. Aldous
Huxley's mescaline experiments, as recorded in The Doors
of Perception, provide quite conclusive proof of this matter and clearly
point in the general direction that transcendental man is taking towards the
millennial Superman, when equivalent artificially-induced upward
self-transcending visionary experiences will become the social norm, shared by
the vast majority of fellow-superhuman beings.
If Aldous Huxley deserves to be especially
remembered for anything, over the coming centuries, it must surely be for his
experiments with synthetic stimulants, which arguably constitute the most
interesting and enlightening side of his work.
Hallucinogens like LSD may not be suitable to society as it is currently
constituted, but they must surely presage a future applicability in response to
the dictates of a more evolved psyche than generally exists at present.
I have contended that whereas
the subconscious is active, the left eye, as the one nearest to the old brain,
is relatively passive and sleepy-looking, which would seem, on the face of it,
to be a contradiction in terms. Yet this
is only so if one fails to perceive a contradiction within each part of the
psyche, which corresponds to the mind/brain dichotomy. For whilst it is perfectly true to say that
the subconscious is active during sleep, we cannot accredit it with anything
like the same degree of activity during our waking hours, when the conscious
mind takes over. Thus we needn't be
surprised that the eye most under subconscious influence should be
comparatively passive during the day, whereas the right eye reflects the visio-spatial/analytical activity of the superconscious or, at any rate, of its lower regions
thereof, which correspond to the higher, logico-verbal
regions of the subconscious. Admittedly,
the eyes don't exclusively connect with that part of the cerebral cortex
nearest to them. For they also
cross-connect in the chiasma and thereby link-up with
the opposite brain. But the distinction
between the contradictory appearance of the left and right eyes in highly
intelligent people confirms a bias reflecting the predominant influence of the
nearest brain, whether old or new. The
fact that the left side of the brain controls the body's right side, and,
conversely, the right side of the brain the body's left side, does not
invalidate this contention, since the eyes are arguably too close to the brain
to be subject to the same rules as govern the physical body in general.
The converse of the
intellect's conscious activity in the lower regions of the superconscious,
however, is the utterly passive nature of the visionary contents of the upper
regions of superconscious mind, as revealed by
mind-expanding drugs, which tend to fade into post-visionary consciousness at
the topmost level ... of mystical beatitude.
Thus not only is there an antithesis between the active dream-world of
the subconscious and the passive visionary world of the superconscious,
but there is a parallel distinction within each part of the psyche between, on
the one hand, active dream and passive thought, and, on the other hand, passive
visionary experience and active intellectual behaviour, depending on whether
one is in a state corresponding to sleep or to wakefulness. In a wider context, an active superconscious mind is paralleled by a slothful
subconscious body, and, conversely, an active subconscious body normally
presupposes a slothful superconscious mind. When the superconscious
is passive, the subconscious comes awake, so to speak. And, similarly, a passive subconscious mind
makes possible the true awakening of the superconscious
in visionary experience. One might say, to extend this paradox, that the superconscious
is only half-awake in visio-spatial/analytical
activity, while the subconscious is only half-awake in logico-verbal/intellectual
passivity. To come fully awake, the
former needs the passive visionary experience encouraged by synthetic
hallucinogens like LSD, whereas the latter needs the active dream behaviour of
sleep. Let us therefore leave the matter
with this teasing paradox: that whereas the subconscious only comes fully awake
with the sleep of the superconscious, so the latter
likewise only attains to full wakefulness with the sleep of the former. Our higher mind is generally only half
awake. It will be our duty and
privilege, in the future, to bring it fully awake, as we are transformed into
Supermen.
MILLENNIAL THOUGHTS
It isn't merely to escape from the natural body that Supermen
would be elevated to the status of brains artificially supported and sustained
in our projected post-Human Millennium, but also to preclude the possibility of
physical irresponsibility or otherwise riotous behaviour, among the populace,
in consequence of high-level LSD tripping or equivalent synthetic
experiences. The gradual supersession of the natural body by an artificial, communal
one will enable the religious life of Supermen to be conducted with a minimum
of physical friction and social disturbance.
No-one will be liable to throw himself out of an upstairs window or
under a car or on unsuspecting females or whatever in the post-Human
Millennium, for no-one who regularly participates in the hallucinogenic
experience will have a body to abuse.
The leadership, responsible for the maintenance and supervision of the
social order, won't have to worry about irresponsible or riotous behaviour from
the 'trippers', since their artificially-supported brains will be immobile and,
consequently, no Superman would be disposed to physical revolt. A perfectly docile society will become the
cherished norm, and this norm won't be violated by any of its members.
Of course, people have
taken LSD in the twentieth century and, as a rule, they've behaved responsibly,
refraining from physical violence. The
more intelligent members of the hippy subculture which arose in the late 1960s
but declined in the early 1970s would certainly have behaved in this way, not
imposing any severe strain on their friends or, indeed, on society
generally. But not everyone would have
done so and, had LSD been legalized, the chances of riotous behaviour resulting
from a more widespread use of this particular hallucinogen could only have been
greater, doubtless leading to serious abuses of personal freedom by people not
psychically qualified to make sensible use of it. Of course, LSD wasn't legalized, and we
needn't expect any radical change in the law relating to its use over the
coming decades. Quite probably, it will
remain illegal until the advent of the post-Human Millennium, when men become
transformed into Supermen and the natural body, or what remains of it, is
consequently superseded by an artificial support/sustain system for the
brain. For so long as man exists, there
will always be the possibility of social repercussions of a violent nature
resulting from a premature legalization of LSD, or equivalent upward
self-transcending synthetic stimulants.
We can't anticipate the widespread use of LSD under present conditions,
even if certain individuals, more intelligent than their fellows, are perfectly
capable of responding to it in a civilized manner - as various people showed
themselves to be during the hippy era.
Unfortunately the persecution, by the liberal authorities, of hippies
for 'drug abuse' was a virtual inevitability in a society where the
legalization of such a potent mind-expanding stimulant remains, for reasons
already discussed, out of the question in the short-term.
There are, however, two
kinds of alleged drug abuse. There is
the reactionary abuse involving recourse to stronger natural drugs than any
given society is prepared to tolerate, and in a society where, in consequence
of evolutionary progress, even comparatively mild drugs like tobacco and
alcohol are becoming less respectable, it stands to reason that the use of
opium, morphine, cocaine, and heroin will be penalized as incompatible with the
moral standards of that society, and stiff sentences accordingly be meted out
to those convicted of 'drug abuse'. Yet
such an abuse should be distinguished from, if not treated more leniently than,
abuses involving synthetic drugs, [Strictly speaking, my understanding of drugs
is of something that deadens the mind in the manner of a narcotic, whereas
substances which, like LSD, enliven the mind or open it up to visionary
experiences I regard as stimulants - the opposite, in effect, of a drug.] some
of which may well be applicable to a future age. LSD is, I believe, an example of the latter,
and whilst its use cannot reasonably be legalized at present, nevertheless a
distinction should be upheld between what may well presage a future
spirituality and what is patently a manifestation of reactionary sensuality. In a society tending, all the while, in the
general direction of greater spirituality, the use or, rather, misuse of
'drugs' reflecting that tendency shouldn't be confounded with the use or misuse
of drugs whose natural constitutions are far more harmful to both the
individual and society in general.
While, from society's standpoint, a smashed window must be treated with
equal severity by the law whether it be the result of hallucinogenics
or narcotics abuse, from the individual's standpoint, however, the distinction
between the two kinds of drug is a marked one, reflecting the difference
between progress and regress. Generally
speaking, the man who is prematurely progressive is a superior phenomenon to
the one who is belatedly regressive, and should, within reasonable limits, be
recognized as such!
Yet I am not here
encouraging the use of LSD. What is
destined to find its niche in society will do so as a matter of course,
irrespective of the opposition or repression it may meet with in the meantime. The absence of 'progressive' drug abuse from
society would doubtless prove a grave obstacle to evolutionary progress, which
is always carried out, no matter what the context, in the face of natural
opposition. A society without LSD
adherents would not be tending towards the Supermen but, on the contrary,
standing somewhat closer to the apes!
Modern industrial society, however, should be progressive, and it would
be an encouraging factor to learn that, of the total number of people convicted
for drug abuse each year, the majority were for synthetic rather than natural
abuses. For a ratio biased on the side
of the synthetic could be interpreted as a good omen of things to come and,
instead of fretting themselves over its increase, the responsible authorities
might be prevailed upon to take a more lenient line which, while still
penalizing the offence, got it into better perspective from an evolutionary
point-of-view.
Positive lawbreakers,
who presage the future, are no less culpable, in the eyes of the law, than
negative ones who resurrect the past.
They are evolution's slaves rather than its masters, a medium through
which change may be effected in due course.... Not wishing to directly align
myself with the lawbreakers, however, I prefer, in my philosophical endeavour
to comprehend evolution, the role of seeking to influence the lawmakers for the
better, so that, through this and similar methods, they may become more
receptive to the possibility of amending or changing the law in the future, at
a time when such a policy appeared not only feasible but desirable. An attempt to have the law changed
prematurely, on the other hand, would be to nobody's advantage, not even the
drug-taker's, since he would then be confronted - assuming he knew how to
respect the drug - by those who simply maligned or squandered it, to the
detriment of his own self-esteem.
For transcendental man,
then, we can take it as axiomatic that television will remain the principal
medium (above both video and cinema) through which a degree of upward
self-transcendence may be achieved.
Television is visionary experience coming at one from outside the self,
and, since appearances precede essences, we needn't expect the widespread
evolutionary leap to artificially-induced visionary experience inside
the self to come about for some time yet - certainly not until the majority of
people are capable of appreciating it!
Which probably won't be during the remaining course of this century, nor
even, perhaps, during the early course of the next (although that isn't
something about which anyone can be certain at present). With the increased pace of evolution
nowadays, we are by no means guaranteed that modern, i.e. transcendental, man
will remain content to continue watching television throughout the course of
the next hundred years. It could well
transpire that the novelty and excitement of television-viewing, even via
satellite, will wear thin some time before then, to be replaced either by the
higher visionary experience of Supermen or, what's more likely, by a wider
interest in transcendental meditation as a prelude to the post-Human
Millennium. At this juncture in time,
transcendental meditation remains a comparatively elitist interest, restricted
to those who are capable of directly cultivating spirit without need of
external assistance, such as television.
It presages not the Superman but the Superbeing
of the succeeding phase of the post-Human Millennium, and is accordingly
somewhat closer, in essence, to the blessed state of the heavenly Beyond. But evolutionary progress should lead, in due
course, to an ever-growing number of people taking-up with transcendental
meditation in the decades or centuries to come, so that it will co-exist and
possibly alternate with television spirituality within the framework of a
higher religion - one institutionalized and collectivized.
A materialist would
probably contend that television will suffice to lead transcendental man
directly to the LSD visions of the Superman, thereby making transcendental
meditation totally irrelevant. But I
don't believe that meditation can be dismissed so easily, as though it were
simply an anachronism which artificially-induced visionary experience, whether
apparent or essential, external or internal, was destined to replace. The need for a religious institution, such as
would be provided by meditation centres, still requires to be addressed and is
absolutely indispensable to religious progress in the world. By becoming part of a meditating community,
one would be on the next evolutionary rung, so to speak, above the church
congregation, and such a communal context necessarily signifies an
approximation, no matter how crudely, to the envisaged ultimate unity of the
Omega Absolute, the divine culmination of evolution. Yet no such approximation is reflected,
however, in the context of an individual sitting either alone or with one or
two others in front of a television screen every night, which is why, it seems
to me, television can't be regarded as the logical successor to religion, but
only as a component of contemporary spiritual progress. What would condemn transcendental meditation
outright, as a useless anachronism stemming from an obsolete society, would be
a lack of applicability to the future, its failure to presage a superior
spiritual development which a later stage of evolution will encourage. If, then, the post-Human Millennium could be
conceived solely as an affair of the Superman, with his artificially-induced
internal visionary experience, we would be justified in condemning
transcendental meditation as a futility.
But since the Millennium in question should extend into a more spiritual
phase, in which the ensuing Superbeing will directly
cultivate spirit pending transcendence, we would be mistaken to consider
transcendental meditation irrelevant, even though it can be shown that, by
itself, such meditation wouldn't suffice to take man to the heavenly
Beyond. This knowledge, however, needn't
preclude us from meditating, since the experience is sufficiently rewarding in itself
to be self-justificatory.
But whether the entire
human population can be induced to take meditation seriously, over the coming
centuries, is another matter, and not one about which I feel confident to
speculate, even given the inevitability of meditation centres as a precondition
of the post-Human Millennium. Not
everyone attends church, and perhaps it will transpire that not everyone will
attend the 'church' of tomorrow, although we may expect a greater degree of
directive persuasion on the part of the relevant authorities than has ever
existed before, with, it should be added, more incentive for the devotees to
attend! And so transcendental man,
full-blown, would be participating in the transcendental civilization, a
civilization presupposing the simultaneous existence, in harmonious
co-existence, of socialism and transcendentalism or, rather, of a fusion of the
one with the other. For unless there is
a community religion, there is no civilization, in the true sense of that term,
but only what precedes it - namely barbarism.
Since pre-dualistic man
had a civilization, in which paganism and royalism
(or some autocratic equivalent) prevailed, and dualistic man also, with his
Christianity and parliamentary liberalism, it would seem only fair for us to
ascribe a future civilization to post-dualistic man, since man is man at any
stage of his evolution and ever in need of a church, where he can rub shoulders
with his fellows. The coming together of
men into crowds isn't by itself a good thing, however. What determines the moral status of the crowd
is the reason why men come together, that is to say whether for sensual or
spiritual purposes. Since a communal
context is relevant both to the lower communality of the plants and to our
projected higher communality of the coming Superbeings,
there is nothing in communal life per se that distinguishes it as
a virtue. One might say that it becomes
a vice when the motivation driving people together is sensual, and such a
motivation was certainly paramount during the era of pagan pre-dualism when, as
often as not, men visited the temple or whatever to express their sexual
predilections, with or without the assistance of resident priestesses! The pagan orgy utilized the crowd for sensual
purposes, so that men came together on the basis of the
lowest-common-denominator, and thereby resembled the leaves of trees.
With the advent of
Christian dualism, however, the emphasis in crowd formations was spiritual
rather than sensual, although a degree of sensuality was necessarily still
upheld, as, for example, in the celebration of the Mass, with the symbolic
offering of Christ's body and blood conducted through the sublimated mediums of
wafer and wine - a far more frugal approach to sensuality than would have been
intelligible to pagan man. But if a
diluted sensuality was the norm of Christian communal life, then for a
post-dualistic age it follows that the motivation driving people together must
be exclusively spiritual and thus, for the first time in history, entirely good. The coming together of people for purposes of
meditation in specially-designed centres will reflect the highest mode of
communal life given to man, and be the nearest approach to the subsequent
spiritual communality of the Superbeings. Because no such motivation has previously
existed in the West, nor, properly considered, anywhere else in the world,
there can be little doubt that it will be endorsed over the coming centuries,
so that man will pass through the entire spectrum of his evolution, from the
beastly to the godly, as he enters its highest phase with widespread
transcendentalism. Tomorrow's crowds
will, in this religious context, be purely virtuous, superior even to Christian
congregations.
There are, however,
strict limits to the degree of togetherness men can experience, since they have
bodies and remain imprisoned in them, prevented, by the flesh, from
experiencing a truly close approximation to the omega goal of evolution in
indivisible spiritual unity. For
transcendental men, the regular practise of meditation in communal contexts
will simply constitute a stepping-stone to a still-closer approximation to
ultimate divinity ... as experienced by the ensuing Supermen of the post-Human
Millennium. These Supermen will, as
already noted, be elevated above the natural body in extensively artificial
contexts designed on a collective basis.
As brains artificially supported and, no less importantly, artificially
sustained, they will stand in a much closer relationship to ultimate divinity
than transcendental men, with their individual bodies. Unfortunately the body is always a grave
obstacle to the attainment of an advanced degree of spiritual togetherness, of
communal oneness, since its varieties of forms and appearances aren't always
pleasant to behold, least of all when radically ugly, and serve rather to
excite disgust, which negative feeling drives men apart. Likewise its exposure to germs of one kind or
another is a repellent rather than an attractive feature, since men fear
contagion and are consequently inclined to maintain their physical distance,
when possible, from the victims of colds, flu, and other common illnesses. Even the division of the sexes is, in its
relativity, a contributory factor in the inhibition of closer approximations to
the Omega Absolute. Obviously, the only
solution to these problems lies with the Superman, who will be elevated above
them through the supersession of the natural,
individual body by an artificial and communal one, and accordingly experience a
greater degree of unity with his fellows - a degree presaging the even greater
spiritual unity of the Superbeings, when individual
consciousness will be eclipsed by the collective, post-visionary consciousness
of the tightly-packed clusters of new brains.
After which it will simply be a matter of time before this comparative
spiritual unity makes way for the most complete spiritual unity ... of the
Spiritual Globes as, following transcendence, they tend towards one another in
accordance with the positive drift of a gradual convergence towards ultimate
Oneness.
However, where space is
concerned, it isn't true, contrary to what modern scientists tend to believe,
that the Universe is expanding. The
stars, we may rest assured, are contracting, and if they are tending farther
apart, they are not expanding but ... diverging, after the fashion of their
infernal natures. The concept of an
expanding Universe should only apply to man and man-equivalent life forms (if
any) elsewhere. Now when we narrow the
Universe to man we find, despite appearances to the contrary, that spirit is
expanding, in accordance with the chief characteristic of being, while
simultaneously converging towards its goal in the indivisible unity of the
Omega Absolute. Thus an antithesis
exists between the divergence of the physical universe on the one hand, and the
convergence of the spiritual universe on the other, as, likewise, between the
contraction of stars and the expansion of spirit.
On what may be termed
the microcosmic plane of global civilization, we see the contraction of the
diabolic side of the Universe in the curtailment of nature, the overcoming of
various pestilential diseases, the penalizing of serious natural drug abuse,
the decline of authoritarianism, the reduction of competitive individualism,
and the gradual undermining of private property. Conversely, we see the expansion of the
divine side of the Universe in the growth of cities, the increase in the use
(or abuse) of synthetic stimulants, the development of collective contexts, the
increase in public spending, the substitution of artificial for natural modes
of sexuality, the growing interest in meditation, and so on - all factors which
point in the general direction of both a post-Human Millennium and subsequent
heavenly Beyond. What is happening on
this planet is probably also happening on the thousands if not millions of
other possible life-sustaining planets throughout the physical Universe, so
that the divine side of the Universe is simultaneously converging towards its future
culmination in the most absolute noumenal
indivisibility. We needn't expect this
culmination to come about for some considerable time yet, however, since there
are definite stages to evolutionary progress, presupposing, in the future, the
emergence of new life forms out of man which will be as spiritually superior to
him ... as apes and trees were and, in some sense, continue to be his spiritual
inferiors.
It would be erroneous,
however, to suppose that man will venture to the far corners of the Universe in
the future, and thereupon come into contact, whether on a friendly or a hostile
basis, with beings from outer space. For
although there will doubtless continue to be a degree of space exploration
during the coming centuries, the fact of evolutionary progress will preclude
him from making the exploration of space his chief priority, since higher
stages of evolution presuppose greater degrees of psychic interiorization,
and consequently less interest in the phenomenal worlds that lie outside
it. As human evolution
draws toward its climax so noumenal essence
predominates over phenomenal appearance, making the cultivation of spirit the
overriding priority of the age.
In all probability, the life-sustaining planets in other parts of the
Universe won't differ too radically from the earth, seeing that life,
particularly on the human plane, requires fairly predictable conditions,
neither too hot nor too cold. This being
the case, we would be foolish to concern ourselves with the altogether futile,
time-wasting explorations of kindred planets!
As transcendental men we would have better things to do with our time
than to dabble in appearances, cosmic or otherwise! And as Transcendentalists we would not have
an indefinite life-span, but no more, at most, than a few centuries before the
transformation to the Superman became apposite.
Our current space explorations should be designed primarily to assist
our spiritual development, not be pursued for the mere sake of exploring! And it is sincerely to be hoped that if, in
the not-too-distant future, we put an end to war between human beings, we won't
proceed to start wars between ourselves and the nearest aliens, since an end to
war as such is commensurate with a higher, more advanced stage of evolutionary
progress. Yet while this is undoubtedly
so, it is also worth remembering that an extension of war from tribal and
national to international and, in all likelihood, planetary levels is also
compatible with evolutionary progress, and consequently that some kind of
compromise, involving a more civilized or sublimated kind of warfare than man
has hitherto waged against himself, may well be required throughout the
duration of the next civilization, in the interests, needless to say, of
safeguarding his spiritual progress.
As to the phasing-out of
aspects of life on the diabolic side of the Universe, the growing freedom from
nature which man will achieve in the centuries to come will doubtless lead to
his dispensing with what might be described as unnecessary animals, such as
dogs, cats, horses, mice, rabbits, and other pets, whilst any dispensing with
necessary animals, including pigs, cattle, and sheep, will probably follow with
the advent of the Superman and consequent supersession
of the natural body by artificial supports and sustains for the brain. There are besides pets, workers, and
livestock, many other types of animal in the world and these, whether wild or
captive, will also be dispensed with in the course of time. What began in the transcendental civilization
would doubtless be finished, by the relevant authorities, during the post-Human
Millennium, so that towards the climax of spiritual evolution on earth very few
beasts would remain in existence. For
their continued presence there would be incompatible with the radically
spiritual bias of a society tending towards transcendence, as well as a
potential threat, if left unchecked, to the safe and proper functioning of that
society in an extensively artificial context.
As man tends towards the spirit so he makes war on the
beast, both internally and externally, since it stems from the alpha side of
the Universe in its intrinsic sensuality. If animals are acceptable to a dualistic
civilization which, in its openness, has pagan roots, they would most assuredly
prove incompatible with and therefore unacceptable to a transcendental
civilization.... Although we needn't expect a radical purge of pets or other
animals to take place over the coming decades, we can certainly anticipate a
gradual reduction in their numbers, as society takes appropriate measures to transcendentalize itself, so to
speak.
Likewise the gradual
elimination of private property is compatible with evolutionary progress towards
the Divine, insofar as property reflects a diabolical inclination on the part
of its owners, who function in the guise of individual suns competing with one
another for planets. Since the most
powerful suns or stars in the Universe are likely to be those which control the
biggest and/or greatest number of planets, so the most powerful men are usually
those with the most property, which stands to them in the ratio of a planet to
a sun. A man with three houses is
equivalent to a sun with three planets, and he can only be more powerful, from
an alpha-stemming viewpoint, than the man with a single house (provided, of
course, that the scale of the latter is smaller than that of the former,
whether collectively or individually).
Nowadays there aren't that many people with three or more houses, but
even one house will be considered excessive in the future, and its owner
doubtless penalized as a matter of social necessity. With the post-Human Millennium there will be
no private property in existence at all, not even for the leaders, who will
live in communal dwellings while their superhuman 'charges' live in the
communal clusters of artificially-supported brains in the various meditation
centres. Thus the world will tend ever
more radically in the direction of God, or the transcendence of all
materialism, in the heavenly Beyond.
Verily, the overcoming of nature and the natural body will be a
significant step on the road to that spiritual destination!
POST-DUALISTIC SEXUALITY
Since everything on earth stems from the polar constitution of the
Galaxy, including the distinction between female and male, which is the essence
of Original Sin, it follows that the gradual overcoming of this constitution
signifies an evolutionary progression away from the natural-world-order towards
the supernatural context of God. Since
stars correspond to the female side of the Galaxy and planets to the male side,
we find that the struggle away from the natural towards the supernatural entails
a rebellion, on the part of males, against female attractive power, a rebellion
which has led to a loosening of traditional sexual ties and to a gradual move
towards a predominantly male-oriented society, a society in which the
post-dualistic bias of industrial, urban man finds its chief sexual outlets in
either homosexuality or pornography, while women, becoming increasingly masculinized, effectively function as 'lesser men', or
'quasi-males', thus giving rise to an extension of 'homosexual' tendencies
within the framework of heterosexual relationships - as manifested, for
example, in the ubiquitous cult of unisex and the practice, intermittently or
otherwise, of anal sex. Thus bisexuality
cuts across heterosexual as well as homosexual relationships, reflecting, as it
must, the growing post-dualistic bias of contemporary man. If the pre-dualistic age was congenial to
lesbianism, then the post-dualistic age will necessarily favour homosexuality,
in accordance with the expansion of the male over the female side of life, as
essential to mankind's struggle towards the Divine.
Thus, in the Western
world, it is fashionable - one might almost say obligatory - to refer to
homosexuals as 'gay' rather than 'queer', since the derogatory implication of
the latter term would reflect too naturalistic a mentality, suggestive of a
poor opinion of deviations from the natural or traditional norm. But to have such an opinion would be to put
oneself in the position of a man, devoid of evolutionary perspective, who imagines
that life should always be lived on natural terms, and that deviations from
such terms are inherently blameworthy and, consequently, something to be
regarded as a perversion. It would be to
condemn evolutionary progress in matters relating to sex, and thus remain
entrenched in a short-sighted materialism that was all-too-ready to brand
manifestations of sexual progress as 'insane' because, according to one's
traditional criteria, arguably perverse.
No, in this age only the
less spiritually-evolved people are partial to the word 'queer' for what they
regard as a deviation from the natural right.
They are the twentieth-century's sexual fascists - people who are unable
or unwilling to recognize sexual progress when they see it, but persist in
applying their own rather short-sighted denigrations to it as a matter of
course. 'Queer' is equivalent to
'perverse', and being homosexual is, according to this value-judgement,
somewhat inferior to the natural, heterosexual norm. In fact, it is to be a kind of sexual
spastic. Not surprisingly, Marxist-Leninist
societies tend to frown upon homosexuality and pornography as constituting a
perversion of the natural norm, which is also symptomatic, in their view, of
bourgeois decadence. Lacking any kind of
transcendental criterion, such societies have no basis for justifying or
understanding it, since, without reference to the spiritual dimension of
evolutionary progress, homosexuality may well appear a perversion of the
natural rather than a development towards the supernatural, in which
increasingly artificial standards come to apply. But such artificiality isn't readily
encouraged in Marxist-Leninist states, since it connotes with an elitist
tendency that would appear to run contrary to the inherent naturalness of the
general proletariat, whose social backwardness or, rather, innocence must be
protected from such 'corrupting' influences as allegedly stem, in the main,
from the decadent West.
To be sure, there is a
certain degree of logic behind this type of thinking, especially with regard to
the presumed inability of the general proletariat to properly appreciate the
merits of so-called perverse activity.
Yet decadence isn't the root from which homosexuality and pornography
spring, even though such phenomena may arise during the decadence of a given civilization. The fact of contemporary Western
civilization's being decadent does not, however, imply that everything which
exists in or springs from it is inevitably decadent, too. Decadence can only extend to certain
contexts, with politics and religion especially conspicuous, and is chiefly
characterized by the inadequacy or irrelevance of the official system, whether
political or religious, from a majority standpoint - by its inability, in other
words, to correspond to the evolutionary changes wrought by environmental and
other factors among the masses. That
certain sections of the masses may develop more relevant unofficial systems to
compensate themselves, in some measure, for this lack ... is a fact which cannot
be denied, and sometimes a context or system that began unofficially, as a
reflection of evolutionary progress outside the prevailing system, is
subsequently absorbed into the decadent civilization in response to both
popular demand and financial expediency.
Pornography is, I believe, one such phenomenon, and its prevalence
throughout the West reflects a manifestation of evolutionary progress which
co-exists with the manifestations of decadence also to be found there. For as a means of intellectualizing
sexuality, pornography - and I use the term loosely in the sense of general
erotica - must signify a development away from traditional materialism ... in
which not concrete but sublimated sexuality comes to pass, as the highest, most
appropriate sexuality for an increasingly transcendental age, with other types
of post-dualistic sexuality, including the homosexual, in fairly close
attendance.
Of course, homosexuals
have existed in the past, long before the dawn of post-dualism, and not all
latter-day homosexuals can be considered truly post-dualistic. Nevertheless it remains a fact that, in
recent decades, homosexuality has become more widespread than ever before, a
fact which must be associated, to some extent, with the gradual undermining of
the traditional female side of life and consequent upsurge of the male side in
its place. If homosexuality is a
reflection of this, then so, too, is pornography, bisexuality, unisex,
celibacy, and, indeed, the sodomizing of women.
Whatever the particular sexual preference of the individual male, it is
evident that he can choose between a number of alternative modes of
post-dualistic sexuality within the broad contexts of the Western dualistic
and, most especially, transitional civilizations. Admittedly, he can also remain traditionally
dualistic and only consort with actual, palpable females in a consistently
orthodox fashion if he so desires or, what's probably nearer the truth, if his
class instincts and environmental/professional conditioning so dictate. He can thus behave, on the conventional
bourgeois level, like any good traditional Marxist-Leninist male, who would
never dream of doing anything unnatural to a woman or of having sexual
relations with a man, never mind casting an appreciative eye over
pornography! But such conventional
types, who are more apt than anyone to regard homosexuals as 'queer' and
pornographers as 'pervs' or 'jerks', are unlikely to
be around for ever, least of all towards the latter stages of the next
civilization when, with the full-blown acceptance of post-dualistic criteria,
adherence to traditional dualistic criteria would be regarded as a gross
misfortune, the subject of derisory contempt if not actual suppression.
To be shamelessly
heterosexual in that more advanced age would be tantamount to being the victim
of atavistic paganism, a kind of anachronism in a wholly transcendental society
that was progressing, all the time, closer to a post-Human Millennium, and thus
to the complete supersession of the natural body by
artificial supports and sustains for the brain - arranged, no doubt, on a
communal basis. To be shamelessly
heterosexual at that time would be even more uncomfortable, from the social
point-of-view, than being homosexual now.
For at least the twentieth century gave rise to the transitional
civilizations of America, Germany, and Japan, which recognize the legitimacy of
a degree of sexual transcendentalism unprecedented in the dualistic
civilizations of the more traditional European West. And even these latter are being obliged, in
coming under the influence of the more advanced civilizations, to extend the
transcendental side at the expense of the pagan side of things, so that
post-dualistic sexuality is a tolerated, if not wholeheartedly encouraged,
aspect of contemporary life. But in a
full-blown post-dualistic civilization the prevalence of natural sexual
activity could hardly be considered compatible with transcendental criteria,
and so more rigorous steps would have to be taken to phase it out. Doubtless artificial modes of reproduction
would be preferred, though not necessarily along the lines envisaged by Aldous Huxley in Brave New World, while women -
assuming they still existed at such a time - would be a great deal more
liberated than at present - so liberated, in fact, as to take artificial sexual
practices, including recourse to vibrators, for granted.
Yet the Western world,
being partly tied to its pagan past, will have its Mary Whitehouses
and Malcolm Muggeridges, not to mention Andrea Dworkins, for some time to come - certainly for the foreseeable
future! It will also, thank goodness,
have its
There are, of course,
various drawbacks to the prevalence of pornography in the West at present, but
they are largely inevitable. The man who
misuses pornography is an example of what I mean, and such men, insufficiently
sublimated to properly appreciate it, tend to react from pornographic idealism
with a greater degree of heterosexual realism than might otherwise have been
the case, in consequence of which they then commit rape or put their
pornographically-induced fantasies into action in socially unacceptable
ways. Instead of being absorbed into the
higher sexuality of the pornographic world, these men rebound off it, so to
speak, with redoubled physical violence, their sexual appetites inflamed by the
seductive spectacles to-hand. They are
akin to the egocentric mind that, according to the Hindu doctrine of
reincarnation, rejects the purity of the Clear Light of the Void and is
therefore obliged to return to the world in the guise of a new person. What the Clear Light ... is to the
insufficiently-evolved person, the pornographic stimulus is to such men as
these, who must needs refer everything back to palpable reality, rather than
strive to live on the higher plane of sexual sublimation. As I said, this is a drawback. But it is one that has to be endured by
society in the name of evolutionary progress and fidelity to transcendental
criteria. There is no justification for
stamping out pornography on the hypothetical grounds that it leads to an
increase in sexual crimes, since such crimes as are committed against
unsuspecting people tend to be committed by a small minority of men, not by the
majority of pornography enthusiasts who, on the contrary, are perfectly capable
of containing themselves and directing their sexual impulses towards the
Ideal. That such masturbation as may
take place in this context is regarded, by less-evolved people, as a perversion
... is perhaps inevitable, if regrettable.
For the people in question remain too tied to the natural to see that it
is only through the perversion or, rather, subversion of natural behaviour ...
that man can progress towards the supernatural, and thereby achieve redemption
as an evolutionary being. Not to be
capable of unnatural or artificial sexual behaviour is to condemn oneself to
the level of a beast, in whom natural determinism
prevails.
Yet masturbation, much
as it may take place amongst a majority of the pornography-buying public, does
not have to take place, and, with the more highly-evolved men, it generally
transpires that voyeurism alone is sufficient to cater for their pornographic
needs. A man who can scrutinize pornography
without feeling compelled to masturbate ... may well be more spiritually
evolved than one who can't, since he reduces sensual commitment to the barest
minimum of optical engagement. But even
masturbation, morally considered, is a less sensual activity than copulation,
and undoubtedly represents a more civilized, because artificial, mode of sexual
behaviour. [For one thing, it cannot be equated with Original Sin and neither,
for another, does it involve the literal use of another body, and of another
body, if female, likely to be more fleshy than one's own.] Of course, D.H. Lawrence wouldn't have
agreed with me here. But, then,
Of course, man is human
at any stage of his evolution and cannot completely escape from the sensual
world into a post-human spiritual one.
There are sensual, sexual obligations to be honoured whether one is in
the pagan, the Christian, or the transcendental stages of human evolution. But whereas the sexual obligations of
pre-dualistic pagan man would be largely if not exclusively natural, those, by
contrast, of post-dualistic transcendental man should become increasingly
artificial, as befits his greater freedom from natural determinism. The former is only capable of heterosexual
copulation, whereas the latter, while still capable of such activity, prefers to
gloat over a pornographic magazine and/or video, and thus displays more free
will, as is compatible with a higher degree of evolutionary progress. For in the age-old struggle between free will
and natural determinism, free will can only triumph over natural determinism as
men grow ever more civilized, and so approximate, by ever-increasing degrees,
to the ultimate freedom of God. In a
transcendental society the ratio of free will to natural determinism should be
in the region of at least 3:1, in accordance with the post-dualistic status of
the age. Eventually, with the advent of
transcendence, natural determinism will be completely escaped from, as the
Spiritual Globes issuing from Superbeings tend
towards ultimate Oneness in the heavenly Beyond. For Salvation (as definitively signified by transcendence)
is, above all, deliverance from the flesh, from, at that incredibly-advanced
juncture in time, the clustered new-brains whose physiological constitutions
would retain a degree of natural determinism right up to the moment of
transcendence, and hence complete spiritual freedom. But, of course, the degree of natural
determinism imposed upon the meditating wills of the Superbeings
would be considerably less than the degree of it imposed upon man, whether
transcendental or otherwise, and be proportionate, moreover, to the stage of
evolutionary progress consonant with that age when, with extensive
technological assistance, the new-brain clusters were artificially supported
and sustained, 'the flesh' having been reduced to the barest minimum compatible
with a truly intensive cultivation of spirit.
Returning from the upper
reaches of our projected post-Human Millennium to the present, we find that the
most advanced men are those in whom free will predominates over natural
determinism to the greatest extent. As a
rule, men of genius are the ones who display the most free will, and this is
virtually a primary criterion of genius, whether we are alluding to a man like
Schopenhauer, who willed to spend most of his adult life in undeviating
fidelity to certain solitary habits, or to one like Salvador Dali, who once
lectured a gathering of students with a loaf of bread tied to his head. Natural determinism, carried to any extent,
is incompatible with greatness, and never more so than today, when transcendental
criteria are on the rise. The leading
minds must be the freest minds, mini-versions of God on earth who intimate,
through no matter what idiosyncratic circumlocutions, of greater freedoms to
come; Christ-like figures with a divine mission - artists and
philosophers. Thus they draw the masses
up towards themselves, and so away from the tyranny of natural determinism.
However, just as it
follows that not all men can be as free as the great, so it usually happens
that not all women can be as free as men - even in the twentieth century, the
first post-dualistic century in history.
As a rule, women are more under the sway of natural determinism than of
free will, and especially were they so in the past, prior to the growth of
female emancipation. Today, however,
while natural determinism still prevails over free will in most women,
evolutionary pressures are ensuring that women, too, become freer than ever
before, thus behaving increasingly like men, whose work-a-day world is no
longer an exclusively male preserve.
Nowadays comparatively few women can expect to have more than three
children. For the emphasis on free will
in an incipiently post-dualistic age ensures that child-rearing becomes rather
more the exception than the rule, and that women accordingly look upon their
professional calling as the main one, with child-rearing a temporary
interruption of their public duties. On
the other hand, in an age with high mortality rates, like the nineteenth
century, this attitude and behaviour wouldn't have been possible, even if other
factors had encouraged it. But, in the
modern age, with extremely low infant mortality rates in the more civilized
parts of the world, it stands to reason that large families and/or regular
pregnancies aren't going to be necessary either to increase or maintain the
population level, and that 1-3 successful first-time pregnancies and
deliveries, per adult woman, will suffice to maintain the population ... as
well, possibly, as enable it to increase.
Thus women are now freer than ever before of maternal responsibilities
and able, in consequence, to regard their public functions, as wage-earning
employers/employees, as their principal ones.
Free will is gradually getting the better of natural determinism in
women as well as in men, and although a significant proportion of women don't
much welcome this fact, it nevertheless remains an inescapable aspect of
evolutionary progress which comparatively few of them can do anything to
reverse. For the post-dualistic age is
hostile to traditional female aspects of life in proportion as it is biased on
the side of those male elements which are gradually bringing the world closer
to Heaven. Future women, you can rest
assured, will be a great deal less naturalistic and correspondingly more liberated
than contemporary ones! We may not yet
have reached a supermasculine stage of evolution, but
we are certainly tending in its direction, as various aspects of the modern
world, including the sexual, adequately confirm.
An historical man (assuming
he could come back to life from a previous century) could only cast a
scandalized gaze over the shapely rump of a liberated young woman walking along
the street in tight-fitting denims. The
more enlightened modern male, however, hardly deigns to be impressed by the
seductive spectacle of such a clearly-outlined female figure. He is simply conscious of looking at another
man, albeit an attractive one, in front of him.
He is post-dualistic and, consequently, if not literally homosexual,
then his relations with such quasi-masculine 'women' are effectively
bisexual. For homosexuality, in one
degree and form or another, is not so much the exception in a post-dualistic
age as ... the general rule!
TOWARDS A TRUE EQUALITY
Are introverts morally superior to extroverts? This is an interesting question and one which
I believe can be answered in the affirmative.
Yes, introverts generally are morally
superior to extroverts, and for the simple reason that whereas the former are
aligned with essence, or the internal, the latter remain aligned with
appearance, or the external. Essence and
appearance are forever antithetical and can never be considered equal. Of course, no-one is completely an introvert
or an extrovert, but the fact that, when not striving for a balance, most
people are predominantly one or the other permits us to distinguish between
them as, in effect, 'the good' and 'the bad'.
To be an introvert is to
value the internal world above the external one, to prefer being 'in one's
head', through reflection or contemplation, than outside it ... in curiosity at
the world around one. An introvert is
thus biased in favour of the spirit rather than of the flesh, and may be
defined as of masculine character, in whom the
profound predominates over the superficial.
Conversely, an extrovert spends more time in the external environment
and may accordingly be described as of feminine character, with a corresponding
predilection for the superficial over the profound. The extrovert is usually a man of action and
may well be highly observant. He notices
what goes on around him with a comprehensiveness and penetration which the
introvert will rarely if ever possess.
To him external events are important, whereas the internal world, to the
extent that he has one, seems relatively trivial.
Generally speaking, this
extrovert/introvert antithesis appertains to the division of the sexes. Women are fundamentally extrovert and men, by
contrast, introvert. A woman notices appearances
with more consistency and penetration, as a rule, than does a man, and this is
because, for her, appearance is what really matters, what really counts in
life, so that, as Schopenhauer well-remarked, she usually takes appearances for
reality (and even, in a certain sense, too seriously). On the other hand, a man, if truly masculine,
will treat essence with more respect than appearance, and thus adopt an
introverted attitude to life. He will be
predominantly immersed in the spirit, whereas a woman will remain aligned with
the flesh. Indeed, it could be argued
that whereas women are rooted in the eyes, men are centred, by contrast, in the
brain.
These distinctions
between the sexes are gradually being eroded and all because the influence of
modern industrial civilization, in slowly masculinizing
women, is driving society towards a post-dualistic status in which the ultimate
objective can only be the complete transcendence of the feminine element in
life. Needless to say, we have a long
way to go before we attain to a supermasculine and
highly introverted society, which, so I contend, will only come about with a
post-Human Millennium, and the correlative elevation of humanity to the
superhuman level ... of human brains artificially supported and no-less
artificially sustained in communal contexts.
In the meantime, women will doubtless continue to exist, but not as
traditionally!
Nevertheless, one would
be a hypocrite to assert that all modern women were already radically masculinized, since the evidence of the senses would seem
to indicate that a majority of them are still sufficiently feminine to be able
to continue behaving in a traditionally seductive, sensual manner, and to
perform the usual female duties in life.
Some women may be more advanced and liberated than others, but they
remain a comparatively small minority of, for the most part,
university-educated intellectual types.
Most women, it seems to me, have not yet betrayed their sex or been
obliged to do so to any radical extent, which is why they continue to treat
appearances as being of more importance than essence.
I shall give you a
typical example of an average woman's concept of the world, as appertaining to
sex. Such a woman will regard the
solitary man as 'bent' by assuming that he masturbates. Whether or not he does so ... isn't
particularly important. What is
important, however, is the light thrown on the woman's psychology by the word
'bent'. It reveals, I mean, that she
cannot conceive of sex in transcendent terms, but must refer it back to nature,
so that anything which may be regarded as a deviation from the natural norm is
deemed perverse, and duly castigated with the crude epithet in question. Lacking a more evolved spiritual dimension,
this average type of woman is unable to relate to a lifestyle or attitude to
life which refutes conventional sexual behaviour. Rather than interpreting the man's celibacy
in terms of spiritual aspirations, she regards it as a failure, a perversion of
the natural sex instinct, and does so because of an inherent bias, in her
psyche, for appearance over essence, the flesh over the spirit. Such women are incapable of appreciating the
virtue of sublimated sexuality. They
remain chained to the concrete, the apparent, the phenomenal, and are thus more
traditionally feminine.
Of course, even the most
advanced women have spiritual limitations, and I do not for one moment believe
that they would be capable of attaining to the same level of spiritual freedom
as a man of outstanding genius - say, a Nietzsche, Baudelaire, Schopenhauer,
Dali, de Chardin, or Prokofiev. The tendency of publishers to employ an
ever-growing army of women readers, these days, can only be a source of lasting
regret to those men - more spiritually advanced than the majority of their
fellows - whose works are bound to prove unattractive to such readers by dint
of being either too complex or too artificial, too transcendental or too
progressive, too moral or too elitist, as the case may be. With a high percentage of women employed in
editorial roles there are always going to be significant drawbacks from a
serious writer's standpoint, not the least of which will entail the female
reader reacting against the content of too radical a typescript for her liking
under the impression that it is erroneous or dangerous when, in point of fact,
it is simply the product of a more spiritually-evolved psyche, one that would
probably find a greater degree of sympathy and understanding from an
intelligent male reader - provided, however, that he was habituated to
appreciating men of genius and could therefore boast of intimate scholarly
connections with the likes of Huysmans, Roussel, Spengler, Sartre, and Koestler. Alas, not
many female readers could do that!
Despite the progress
which has been made, during the past century, in drawing women up higher
towards more masculine criteria, the fact nonetheless remains that a division
between the sexes still exists and will doubtless continue to exist until the post-Human
Millennium, when only Supermen will prevail.
Yes, the traditional feminine/masculine division still exists, but so,
too, does a new dimension, as applying in particular to so-called liberated
women in their relation to the most intelligent males, in which a kind of
spiritual disparity exists along a post-dualistic spectrum in response to male
superiority in things of the spirit. The
more advanced women are doing their best to close the gap, but even they have
to admit, sooner or later, that they are still fundamentally women and cannot
therefore hope to compete with the contemporary world's outstanding male
geniuses. If these geniuses are to be
described as 'greater men', then the leading female intellects effectively
become 'lesser men' in relation to them, and so they must remain. This is not male chauvinism, but fidelity to
truth as I endeavour to push free thought to greater heights, in revolt against
natural determinism. No woman, barring a
sex change, will ever become a man, though she can certainly become more
man-like in the course of evolutionary time, and thus sacrifice a number of
traditional feminine norms or be obliged to modify them in response to
masculine pressures.
As for sex, however,
women are on the whole extrovert and, hence, superficial. They are likely to be more impressed by a
neat, clean appearance than by what a man may know about the Universe or God or
the Millennium, and, consequently, they are inclined to regard a well-dressed
man as superior to a poorly-dressed one, even though the former may be a
money-grubbing scoundrel and the latter a poverty-stricken genius! This is the inevitable consequence of taking
appearances for reality and evaluating people according to superficial
criteria. One cannot be surprised that
some men, predominantly given to essence, choose to dress poorly or informally
as a means of expressing their contempt for appearances. For one can't please the world and genuinely
aspire towards the transcendental Beyond at the same time. A truly introverted man will know in which direction
salvation lies.
The fact that evolution
is tending in the direction of greater spirituality ... inevitably means that
women must be treated increasingly like men, since the post-dualistic age
requires that they effectively become 'lesser men' rather than remain just
women, as before. The move towards
sexual equality in certain contexts is therefore both morally desirable and
inevitable, but one must understand the exact terms on which the world is
moving towards it, else the chances of one's interpreting equality in a
ridiculous way can only be pretty high!
Let me give you an
example. A husband and wife decide that,
since the sexes are equal and women should be liberated from traditional
domestic slavery, they will share whatever domestic duties they may have,
including care of their offspring.
Consequently the husband takes turns with the cooking, washing-up,
sewing, hoovering, bed-making, nappy-changing,
bottle-feeding, etc., while his wife dedicates a correspondingly greater amount
of time to reading, watching television, listening to the radio, practising
yoga, or whatever. Here, in this absurd
situation, evolution has only gone forwards for the wife, whereas for her
husband it has effectively gone backwards, since he now has to take a share in
traditional female duties. But this is
precisely what shouldn't happen, since evolution is primarily furthered
by men, and the modern age signifies not the triumph of women over men but the
coercion of women away from their traditional roles, in response to a
male-oriented technological world. For a
modern husband to take turns with his wife in tackling domestic
responsibilities is really quite ridiculous, since evolutionary progress should
be serving his interests by making him even more masculine, and hence
spiritually-biased, than were his male ancestors, thereby leading him towards a
greater degree of spirituality, whether through culture or religion, than would
previously have been possible. With the
comparatively recent invention of so many electrical appliances for domestic
use, such as dishwashers, washing-machines, spin-dryers, hoovers,
fridges, cookers, electric fires, and so on, the woman is spared much of the
time-consuming manual work which her sexual ancestors formerly had to do, and
should thereby have more free time in which to cultivate masculine, i.e.
spiritual, interests, like watching television, reading books, playing chess,
or painting pictures. This is what
liberation should really mean for the wife - not the absurd imposition onto her
husband of traditional female duties!
So although we speak of
equality, we should be careful not to misspeak of it, and thereupon run the
risk of reversing or impeding evolutionary progress. What we must understand is that the sexes are
only equal, these days, to the extent that women are now effectively becoming
'lesser men' through the influence of environmental and technological progress,
rather than remaining firmly entrenched on the female side of history. But that same coercive influence which has
slowly dragged them across the borderline, so to speak, which separates the
feminine from the masculine, has driven men even further ahead on the masculine
side of it, so that an evolutionary gap still exists
between women and men, but this time on the post-dualistic level ... as a
distinction between 'lesser men' and 'greater men' or, as one could
alternatively phrase it, quasi-men and genuine men, according to the logic of a
male-biased society.
We can exploit a useful
analogy here with a tug-of-war, in which a male team is striving to pull a
female team over a white line which divides the feminine from the masculine
side. Let us imagine that the women are
three feet away from being pulled over the line and that the men are also three
feet away from it on their side. Thus a
gap of six feet exists between the sexes, since the two teams are balanced
either side of the line. With their
greater strength, however, the men gradually pull the women closer to the line
and eventually right over it, so that everyone is on the male side. But the distance the women have been pulled
is also the distance the men have moved deeper into their masculine territory,
which means that a gap of six feet still exists
between the two teams, since the women are now some three feet over the white
line and the men at least (barring a large team) nine feet away from it. This analogy suffices to explain the
spiritual gap which exists between 'lesser men' and 'greater men' on the
post-dualistic side of evolution. The
men have dragged women into a masculine-biased lifestyle, but they have evolved
apace at the same time, and thus exist on a higher level of post-dualistic
evolution. Because women are now
effectively 'lesser men', it is expedient to treat them as men rather
than to discriminate against them as women. What it is not proper to
do, however, is to treat the men, who are now effectively 'greater men', as if they were women,
and so oblige them to share in a variety of traditional female
responsibilities! In truth, an inequality
between the sexes still exists, the only difference being that it is not
now the old gender-based inequality, in which women were women and men were
men, but a completely new, post-dualistic inequality reserving to 'greater men'
the right to take upon themselves tasks and responsibilities which, owing to
their comparative physical or mental weakness, 'lesser men' would be
insufficiently advanced or qualified to do.
The 'lesser man' who now plays a competent acoustic guitar in the manner
of, say, Judi Collins or Joni Mitchell is dwarfed by the 'greater man' who
plays a brilliant electric guitar like, say, John McLaughlin or Carlos
Santana. No equality of guitar-playing
could ever exist between these two dissimilar masculine creatures, though masculine
they both arguably are!
There is, however, a
reverse case to the downgrading of the husband in a domestic egalitarianism
which results in his sharing feminine duties with his wife and, fundamentally,
it is no less absurd, insofar as it entails the downgrading of women. I refer to that aspect of sexual equality
which results in women becoming freak athletes, whether as cricketers,
footballers, long-distance runners, or whatever. Now whilst I'm not altogether opposed to the
concept of women in sport, there are certain sports which seem less to reflect
evolutionary progress, where the emancipation of women is concerned, than
simply to degrade women into types of 'lesser men' who are far below the
'lesser men' whose lifestyles reflect a spiritual bias. Better for women to become
the latter than the former, since evolution is tending towards the spiritual
and thus away from the physical, as reflected, amongst other things, in
contemporary sport.
We are on difficult
ground here, so I beg the reader's patience whilst I redefine my position, this
time solely with regard to men. We can
omit the inverted comas here, for we are now dealing with the literal - namely
the distinction between lesser and greater men, defining the former as physical
and the latter as spiritual. The fact is
that, just as an introvert is morally superior to an extrovert, so a brain
worker is morally superior to a muscle man or a manual labourer, since
evolution tends towards a spiritual culmination. A literary genius is thus a superior type of
man to a sportsman, say, a cricketer or a footballer,
no matter how accomplished the latter may happen to be. The one uses brain power, the other muscle
power. The one is introverted, the other
extroverted. The one aspires towards the
divine consummation of evolution, the other stems, in a manner of speaking,
from the diabolic roots of life in the cosmos.
But the preponderance of sport over war in modern life does at least
indicate that the lesser men are now generally behaving in a less evil, because
more sublimated, competitive fashion than was formerly the case. It is better that this lesser type of man
should be a cricketer or a footballer than a swordsman or a spear thrower in a
much more lethal form of competition - namely, gladiatorial contests or even
war.
Thus for men, competitive sport represents a
degree of evolutionary progress which has to some extent sublimated evil along
less violent and dangerous lines. For
women, on the other hand, competitive sport does not reflect such sublimation,
but is simply something imposed upon them in response to the post-dualistic
nature of the age. Where, formerly, men
were opposed to one another more violently, whether as soldiers or gladiators,
they are now increasingly brought into opposition on terms which don't, as a
rule, lead to bloodshed or loss of life, though injuries of one sort or another
do of course frequently occur. But women
were never - or rarely - opposed to one another in war or gladiatorial combat,
so one cannot regard their adoption of competitive sport as a form of moral
progress. Rather, it signifies a
regression for them which is a consequence of their masculinization and the correlative tendency of men to
treat or regard women as 'lesser men'.
Where, formerly, women were confined to maternal, domestic, and sexual
roles, they are now free to play football or cricket or hockey in a competitive
context. Thus they become 'lesser men',
but only in relation to men who were already lesser when compared with brain
workers. As 'lesser men' in this context
they are decidedly inferior to those women whom we earlier discussed in terms
of intellectual or spiritual predilections, since their masculinization
is physical and therefore not strictly compatible with evolutionary progress. Indeed, it could well be that women whose
lifestyles are now spiritualized to the extent that they become 'lesser men'
are superior to the actual lesser men whose lifestyles, in contrast, are
predominantly physical and competitive.
For if the actual lesser men become 'greater men' in relation to the
sports-playing 'lesser men' on the physical level, why shouldn't 'lesser men'
on the spiritual level become 'greater men' when compared with the actual
lesser men of sport? The distinction
between the physical and the spiritual should still hold true, regardless of
gender. For if a philosopher of genius
is superior to a female novelist, how can the latter not be superior to a
sportsman, whose emphasis is physical rather than spiritual?
One is therefore unable
to contend that all men, just because of their maleness, are, ipso facto,
superior to all women.
There are men who are superior to other men, as spiritual to physical;
there are women who are superior to other women, as spiritual to physical. But there are certain types of women who are
superior to lesser types of men, as spiritual to physical, and certain types of
men who are superior to all women, regardless of how intelligent
or intellectually accomplished some of the latter may happen to be! The fact is that, much as a female
intellectual can outshine lesser types of men, she can never outshine the
greatest, who are always in the vanguard of
evolutionary progress. A Simone de Beauvoir is obliged to take second place to a Sartre, a Woolf to a Huxley, a Plaith to a
Pound, a Weil to a de Chardin, a Gregory to a Yeats,
and so on. Here we come back to the
inevitable gap along the post-dualistic spectrum which cannot be closed while
women remain at least partly female. Only
with the post-Human Millennium will there be an absolute equality, and then
only because all bodies will have been transcended in the
artificially-supported and no-less artificially-sustained brains of the
Supermen and nothing approximating to the feminine will accordingly remain. And because the artificial contexts will
necessarily impose a uniform psychology on the brains being supported, there
will be no distinction whatsoever between male and female - everything having
by then become supermasculine, in advanced
spirituality.
Hence the equality of
the sexes that we superficially speak of, these days,
is but a prelude to the complete overcoming of the feminine element in life, as
essential to evolutionary progress. To
treat women as women would be an unfortunate anachronism in a world with
post-dualistic aspirations. We do not
wish to be reminded of dualistic criteria, since our bias is towards the
post-Human Millennium. We are all the
time becoming more introverted, and we desire that women should become more
introverted or, at the very least, less extrovert as well. They will always lag behind us on the human
plane, but on the superhuman one there will be no distinctions. Men will become Supermen and so, too, will
women. Sex will be transcended, for sex
is specific to the body and the psychology which that body, be it male or
female, imposes upon the mind. An
artificially-supported brain could only be masculine, never feminine! It is precisely by overcoming the feminine
that a true equality will exist - an equality of supermasculine
Supermen. We may have a long way to
evolve before such equality comes to pass, but at least it is my belief that we
are slowly tending towards it.
CONCERNING TRANSCENDENTALISM
Transcendentalism should not be confused with or mistaken for Buddhism
or Hinduism or any other Asiatic religion.
On the contrary, the religion of the future will involve meditation, but
that won't make it Buddhist or Hindu.
There can be no question of Transcendentalism being equated with any of
those old religions. For it will be
superior to all traditional world religions, whether considered separately or
taken together. It will reflect a
religious convergence from the Many to the One, and therefore could not be
described as one of the old religions up-dated.
The Many - and they include Christianity (in all its various
denominations), Mohammedanism, Shintoism, Judaism -
must be transcended in the One, the one true world religion, which, unlike the
many fundamentally false so-called world religions, will take humanity to the
post-Human Millennium. Religious
evolution demands that Transcendentalism supersedes all so-called world
religions, whatever their constitutions.
There can be no question of any of the old religions taking over from
and supplanting the others. All
traditional faiths must be superseded as humanity moves in toto towards the ultimate world religion, based on
meditation.
What will especially
distinguish Transcendentalism from the above-named religions, however, is the
knowledge its devotees will have of mankind's position in relation to the
post-Human Millennium and, beyond that, the heavenly Beyond at the
transcendental culmination-point of all evolution. A Transcendentalist will have an objective
perspective of future evolutionary requirements, and will thus be absolved from
the error of imagining that one can attain to God if only one meditates long
and hard enough. Having a theoretical
foreknowledge of the post-Human Millennium, the Transcendentalist will have no
illusions about the likelihood of his subsequently attaining to God if only he
devotes himself to the task with sufficient determination, but will know that
man is but a link in the evolutionary chain stretching from the stars to God, a
link which fits in between the apes and the Supermen, and therefore not someone
or something capable of personally achieving transcendence. The Transcendentalist won't meditate with a
view to attaining to God, but simply in the interests of spiritual expansion,
so that he may experience a state of mind approximating, no matter how crudely
or humbly initially, to the condition of transcendent spirit. He will know that, hitherto, whether through
paganism or Christianity, men have come together in religious buildings partly
for sensual as well as spiritual reasons, and that now, virtually for the first
time in history, their motive for coming together will be purely
spiritual. No longer will men sing or
chant or inhale incense or partake of the Mass or pray or dance or listen to
sermons. All that will be a thing of the
past! Instead they will simply meditate,
and, in meditating, they'll learn something of the peace and stillness of the
transcendental Beyond.
But they won't expect
meditation to work miracles for them and literally take them to that Beyond. They will
know that, as men, they are subject to certain limitations which can never be
transcended except in the post-Human Millennium, when human brains become
artificially supported and sustained, and thus cease to be human. For in the Millennium in question a more
extensive, not to say intensive, spirituality will be possible, since the
artificial supports will have freed the Supermen from the great majority of
sensual or natural obligations to which men are perforce enslaved, including
the obligations to eat, drink, defecate, urinate, copulate, and take
exercise. If, having an old brain as
well as a new one, the Supermen still sleep, that will
be a limitation of their particular stage of evolution. But such a stage will have to be lived
through, and presumably with the aid of synthetic stimulants like LSD, before
the next and more advanced stage could get properly under way. For, with the Superbeings, meditation will return, but on a much superior
level than before. Each Superbeing, or new-brain collectivization, will experience
the maximum degree of meditation compatible with its more absolutist
constitution ... as the ultimate earthly life-form, until, eventually, such
meditation leads to transcendence and thus to the Spiritual Globes of the heavenly
Beyond, the Beyond of Heaven per se.
Yet these Spiritual Globes won't be God, but only become the Omega
Absolute when they have merged into one another, through a process of
convergence throughout the Universe, and thereby established ultimate spiritual
unity, in complete contrast to the divergent behaviour of the stars.
All this and more the
Transcendentalist will know, and so his religious sense will be radically
different from a Buddhist's or a Hindu's.
Only Spiritual Globes attain to the Omega Absolute, while man must be
content with attaining, in due process of evolution, to the Superman. He won't be deceived on this issue and
therefore have to approach meditation on the human level with the same fanaticism
as a Buddhist set on attaining to the heavenly Beyond. Yet, at the same time, he won't treat
meditation frivolously either, as though the impossibility of literal
transcendence on the human plane justified his doing so! On the contrary, if to approximate to the
ultimate heavenly condition in such a fashion is the best that can be done at a
certain stage of evolution - technology being insufficiently advanced to
establish a Millennium on the aforementioned post-human terms - then
approximate one must, and therefore treat one's relatively humble endeavour
with respect. In due course,
spirituality will be upgraded, as the Supermen carry-on from where men left
off. But everything must take its proper
course. Some form of religious
orientation in a communal context will continue to be both morally desirable
and socially necessary so long as there is intelligent life on earth, and the
transcendental orientation of the next civilization will be no exception! Man must pass through this ultimate phase of
his evolution before the more advanced spirituality of the post-Human
Millennium becomes either possible or desirable.
Another distinction
between the Transcendentalist and the oriental mystic which needs clarification
is the complete absence of any reference to or identification with either the Ground
(of all being) or the avatar who functions in an
anthropomorphic role approximately equivalent to Christ. The Ground in the East is basically
equivalent to the Father in the West, to Allah in the
Meditation, however,
requires a specific building appropriate to a transcendental orientation. It is no good one's imagining that, in the
future, meditation can be carried out in a church, and that churches should
therefore be converted into meditation centres.
As a rule, churches appertain to the dualistic stage of evolution with
regard to their architectural characteristics, including the degree of
materialism inherent in their overall construction. Transcendentalism, by contrast, requires
comparatively idealistic buildings suggestive of space and light, which should
be constructed from synthetic materials.
Everything naturalistic and materialistic would have to be excluded from
them in the interests of as transcendental an environment as possible. For meditation carried out in a
materialistic, brick-heavy building would be a lie, as would a Christian
service taking place in a pagan temple.
Clearly, churches will have to be superseded by meditation centres when
the transcendental civilization gets properly under way, the post-dualistic
nature of which would require the removal of buildings connected, no matter how
indirectly, with pagan precedent.
Unlike dualistic
civilization, the transcendental one would not encourage antiquarianism or
conservationism, and thus preserve old buildings, whether pagan or Christian,
virtually as a matter of historical course.
There would be no pride in the past or in anything stemming from the
Alpha Absolute, but simply a post-dualistic orientation towards the Omega
Absolute, which will only materialize, so to speak, in the future. The emphasis would be on making the human
world as transcendent as possible, and doing this will inevitably require the
removal of everything pre-dating post-dualistic civilization, whether in terms
of churches, castles, palaces, cathedrals, monasteries, or whatever. There could be no question of that which is
not post-dualistic being protected or admired when, eventually, the next
civilization comes properly to pass!
Nostalgia for the historical past would constitute a grave heresy in a
transcendental age! The necessity of
improving the world, of making it as transcendentally advanced as possible,
will certainly preclude the preservation of traditional architectural styles
and monuments - as, indeed, of traditional culture in general. Transcendental man would stand to lose from
an acquaintance with or allegiance to earlier institutions and customs. He wouldn't wish to be reminded of such
things, the sight of which could only detract from his omega-oriented
aspirations. Better that meditation
centres flourish where once churches or temples or mosques or synagogues
did. Better that the
spiritual convergence towards an Omega Point ... of absolute spiritual unity
... be reflected in one transcendental institution of world-wide uniformity.
But it is evident that the
old order could only be overcome through radical measures at some future date,
when the ultimate revolution of apocalyptic transformation brings about the
necessary boost to evolution which would not otherwise materialize. The Last Judgement of Christian prophecy is
somehow relevant to the modern world, though not in terms strictly compatible
with Biblical teachings. A world
exclusively dedicated to the attainment of millennial transcendence would be
one in which the Last Judgement lay in the distant past, when opposition to
post-dualistic criteria still existed and had to be dealt with in appropriately
judgemental terms. Such a judgement,
unfortunately, has still to come, since the world is by no means set directly
on course for the post-Human Millennium at present.
As for the Second
Coming, it should be evident that he corresponds to the world teacher destined,
at this crucial juncture in time, to set mankind on course for the
transcendental civilization. There is no
question of such a teacher being universally accepted at present, though his
teachings will have to take root in his or one country before eventually
spreading abroad ... in the struggle to bring about universal
Transcendentalism. He won't promise the
world any miraculous changes over the coming decades, or petition peoples to
live in peace when they are patently divided into mutually hostile camps which
are incapable of reconciliation and require, in consequence, to be sorted out
on the basis of moral judgements and ideological transmutations. He isn't so superficial as to imagine that
evolution can progress without a revolutionary boost, nor so corrupt as to
consider candour naive. For he knows that only the victory of social progress over the old
civilizations will clear the way for the transcendental civilization. He is no false messiah preaching idealistic
nonsense, but a realist teaching truth.
And he knows that such truth will have to wait a while yet for universal
acknowledgement!
MUSICAL TRANSFORMATIONS
Today's world is a curious, even bizarre, mixture of the old and
the new, the naturalistic and the synthetic.
It is very much a transitional age, an age in which progress away from
dualism is becoming manifest in numerous different contexts, not least of all
music. We have grown so accustomed to
the incongruities resulting from the co-existence of ancient and modern ...
that we tend, in spite of ourselves, to take them for granted. Take, for example, the distinction between
symphony orchestras and rock groups, a distinction which reflects class
differences as much as anything. The
orchestral performers, with their bow ties, black suits, acoustic instruments,
scores, and conductor, obviously appertain to a very different musical world
from the, for example, T-shirted, jean-wearing rock groups whose electric
instruments would be capable of drowning out any orchestra in a competition
designed to discover who could make the most noise or, at any rate, create the
greater volume of decibels. The
orchestra clearly appertains to the bourgeois, semi-naturalistic world in which
acoustic instruments are taken for granted, whereas the rock group is
comparatively proletarian, given their electric instruments of a largely
synthetic construction. The two worlds
exist side-by-side, occasionally overlapping but, for the most part, remaining
distinct - the rock group preferring, as a rule, to evolve further and further
away from classical musicians who, as often as not, remain tied to the
nineteenth century, if not to several previous centuries. How long, one wonders, can this paradoxical
state-of-affairs continue?
My guess is that it
won't continue very much longer, since evolution cannot be reversed or impeded
for ever! The life-span of the symphony
orchestra would seem to be drawing towards a close, although its final collapse
may not be for several years yet - certainly not before the second-half of the
new century. Whatever happens between
the capitalist West and the socialist East in the historical unfolding of our
world over the coming decades, I cannot envisage symphony orchestras outlasting
the twenty-first century. Even today,
with computers, rockets, colour televisions, laser beams, holographs,
microchips, supersonic jets, and other such late twentieth- and/or early
twenty-first century phenomena, the orchestra appears increasingly
out-of-place, a sort of acoustic anachronism in an electronic age. The bowing or blowing or banging of acoustic
instruments contrasts sharply with the latest push-button techniques in the
manipulation of the most up-to-date electronic instruments, and one cannot help
but feel that whereas the latter are very much an integral part of modern life,
the former resemble social dinosaurs in their remoteness from it!
Naturally, works for
symphony orchestra continue to be composed, but even the most avant-garde
compositions are unlikely to be performed beyond the twenty-first century. If these comparatively modern works outlast
the orchestra, it will be because they have been recorded to disc or tape, and
thus preserved for posterity. The actual
performance life-span of these works can only, in the face of evolutionary
pressures, be short - far shorter, I would imagine, than the performance
life-span enjoyed by the works of Beethoven, Mozart, and Bach. For as evolution progresses in the modern
age, so it becomes ever quicker, and consequently the likelihood of Walton or Honegger or Prokofiev still being regularly performed well
into the new century can only be increasingly remote. This is one reason why a contemporary
composer who makes the grade is quickly acknowledged with international success
and recording fame, his music soon to take its place beside the 'immortal'
recordings of a whole galaxy of illustrious predecessors. A Tippett recording
is already somehow part of the musical tradition, and Walton is now regarded as
virtually one of the 'old masters', to be placed alongside the immortals. Simply to have been recorded is confirmation
of one's 'classic' status. And, given
the likelihood of the classical orchestra's impending demise, a delay in
recording a modern composer could well prove fatal - depriving posterity of
access to his works.
But if orchestral
concerts are unlikely to be an aspect of twenty-first-century life, the same
must surely hold true of jazz concerts and, indeed, the recording of modern
jazz. The electric guitar may be a
relatively new instrument, peculiar to the second-half of the twentieth
century, but we need not expect it to outlive the symphony orchestra by a great
many years, since it has already become part of a long musical tradition within
the swiftly-evolving context of modern life.
Doubtless some form of electric music will continue to be composed and
performed during the twenty-first century, but the instruments and instrumental
combinations will probably change, as new tastes and evolutionary pressures
dictate. The possibility that modern
jazz will merge with atonal electronic music, over the coming decades, cannot
be ruled out, since the latter seems destined to supplant serious acoustic
music and will doubtless undergo progressive modifications in the course of
time. Eventually all music should be
composed on the highest possible evolutionary level, which means that even pop
music will be transcended as society increasingly becomes more transcendentally
sophisticated overall, not just within certain sections of the population. Pop music, arguably the musical equivalent of
socialist realism in art, may be necessary and even commendable in a
transitional age like this, but it must eventually be eclipsed by a more
spiritual music, equivalent to transcendentalism in art, if an ultimate
civilization, classless and universal, is to come fully to pass.
One reason why
recordings of whatever type of music are beginning to supplant live
performances ... is that they make for a superior means of listening to music,
in which a perfect instrumental balance can be obtained at a volume suitable to
oneself and in the comfort of one's home.
The use of headphones can further enhance one's appreciation of music by
seeming to interiorize it, and one is of course free to select exactly the
right recordings for one's particular taste or mood. It may be that in improving the technical
aspect of musical appreciation in this solitary fashion, one is obliged to
forfeit the social advantages accruing to a public concert, in which a large
audience comes to share the same enthusiasm, and, doubtless, studio recordings
will never be able to match live concerts for atmosphere. Yet, even then, the advantages of recorded
music are too great to warrant serious criticism, and reflect the ongoing
spiritualization of art through sublimated means of appreciation. The fact that recordings
tend, paradoxically, to undermine the musical necessity or validity of live
performances, whether by orchestra or group, cannot be denied, and is a further
reason why the latter will eventually die out. When, exactly, the last public performance
will be, I cannot of course say. But a
world tending ever more rapidly towards the post-Human Millennium, and thus
towards the complete dominion of being over doing, won't require people to
perform in public for ever. Better that
we should just sit still, in the comfort of our homes, and listen to the latest
studio recordings at an appropriately transcendent remove from the actual
recording session!
SAFEGUARDING FREEDOM
To discover whether the so-called Free World, by which is meant
the West, is actually free, one must have an objective criterion by which to
assess freedom. One must know what
freedom is and how it stands in relation to evolution. One must eschew the relative in favour of the
absolute, and by comparing what currently exists in the world, as a given
system, with this desired absolute, one will see how free, if at all, that
system really is.
Evolution being a
struggle from the Diabolic Alpha to the Divine Omega, from the raging stars in
one absolute context ... to the eventual emergence of pure spirit in another,
it must follow that freedom, in any ultimate sense, can only be interpreted as
a freedom from the former and a dedication to the latter. In other words, the freer a man is ... the
less will he be under the influence or domination of the Diabolic, with its
selfless naturalism. Degrees of freedom
can therefore be ascertained along an evolving spectrum ... from the ultimate
negativity in stellar energy to the ultimate positivity
in transcendent spirit. How, then, does
the 'Free World' stand up to the test of freedom, as defined above?
To answer this question,
one must understand what freedom usually means in the West. Generally speaking, it means the freedom to
worship as one chooses, to vote for one of a number of political alternatives,
to exercise freedom of opinion, to buy and amass property of one's own, to
conduct business in the interests of personal profit, to become an avant-garde
artist, to read what one likes, to practise transcendental meditation, and so
on. These, I think, are most of the main
or, at any rate, obvious freedoms normally found in Western society. Let us now put them to the test, using our
ethical criterion.
The freedom to worship
as one chooses is not really a manifestation of omega-oriented freedom, as we
may call that which aspires towards pure spirit, but an example of alpha-stemming
boundness. To
worship is either to worship God the Father or Jesus Christ. In Christianity it is mostly to worship
Christ, although the Father or, to give Him an alternative name, the Creator
(Jehovah) ... is by no means ignored. On
the other hand, the Holy Spirit cannot be worshipped, for the simple reason
that it is a state of blissful being to aspire towards, rather than an
already-existent fact. One can only
worship what exists, either as a theological entity (Christ) or as an
abstraction from cosmic reality (the Father), and to do this is to be bound to
the Alpha Absolute, even if, as where Christ is concerned, there is an
omega-oriented element involved. With
the Creator, however, there is no omega-oriented element at all, no transcendent
spirituality, since this anthropomorphic deity appertains to the subconscious
... as an abstraction, in all likelihood, from the governing star of the Galaxy
... out of which both the lesser stars and the planets originally 'fell'. To worship is therefore to be bound (to that
star) rather than to be free (from it).
To vote for one of a
number of political alternatives, which is the next 'freedom' under
consideration, isn't quite what it may at first appear, since in a capitalist
democracy one of the parties concerned will always be more bound to
aristocratic and/or bourgeois materialism than the others, which means that a
vote for that party is, in effect, a vote for slavery to capitalist materialism
to a greater extent than would be the case with liberal or left-wing parties,
although they, too, are partly allied to such a materialism. No, so long as there are parties with either
aristocratic or bourgeois loyalties, the politics in question will be largely
bound instead of free. Freedom comes
with an aspiration towards the supernatural, towards pure spirit, and although
politics can never be conducted on strictly religious terms, nevertheless
parties with allegiance to the proletariat, within a context of social
democracy, will reflect a greater degree of political freedom, as a rule, than
any others.
As to the right to
exercise freedom of opinion, this is partly tied-up with dualistic politics and
religion, since appropriate to a stage of evolution when no absolute aspiration
towards the divine omega is under way in post-dualistic terms. It entails freedom to defend or champion what
is bound to the sensual, the material, the diabolic, the galactic-world-order,
and thus, in practice, can fall a long way short of truly free opinion, which
will be aligned with a post-dualistic, omega-oriented system of beliefs.
The 'freedom' to buy and
amass property of one's own likewise entails loyalty to what stems from the
Diabolic Alpha rather than to what aspires towards the Divine Omega, since private
property emphasizes the individual, with his materialistic acquisitions, and is
accordingly an aspect of a process at a sublimated remove from the possessive
tendency of stars to amass either weaker stars (suns) or planets to themselves,
as a matter of cosmic necessity. To have
one's own property is to be bound to materialism, like a star, and to amass
additional property, whether large or small, is to extend the dominion of the
materialistic in one's life at the expense of spiritual freedom.
Likewise the 'freedom'
to conduct business in the interests of personal profit enslaves one to
materialism and makes the acquirement of profit an end-in-itself, quite
divorced, it may transpire, from work satisfaction or quality of work or,
indeed, the nature of the product itself.
Christ is reputed to have said that it was 'easier for a camel to pass
through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of
Heaven', and that may well illustrate why, in the interests of spiritual
freedom, it is better not to become bound to wealth. Those who do so will never be free to any
significant extent!
On the other hand, the
freedom to become an avant-garde artist reflects, in the main, a freedom from
the sensual, apparent, concrete realm of artistic activity, and may well be
indicative of an omega-oriented tendency compatible with evolutionary progress
on the post-dualistic level. Even when
the object of this art is to discredit the external, natural world; even when,
in other words, it is anti-natural rather than pro-transcendental, it connotes
with evolutionary freedom from the natural-world-order to the extent that it
attacks, distorts, and belittles whatever is bound to that order, whether
human, animal, or vegetable, and thus indirectly assists in the re-orientation
of the mind towards supernatural criteria.
As to the freedom to
read what one likes, this too can entail the study of books, magazines, papers,
etc., which do in fact subscribe to anti-natural and/or pro-transcendental
tendencies; although, unfortunately, it can also entail the study of
traditional, reactionary, or anachronistic kinds of writings which bind one to
what stems, in selfless aggression, from the diabolic roots of evolution, and
thus preclude, for large numbers of less-informed people, true
enlightenment. A post-dualistic society,
on the other hand, would only encourage the reading of books, magazines, etc.,
compatible with transcendental criteria, thus preventing the everywhichway cultural or intellectual confusions which
arise in and necessarily appertain to liberal societies, with their atomic
relativity. Freed from the pernicious
influence of writings bound, in one degree or another, to the Diabolic Alpha,
the people would be enabled to acquire an exclusively omega-oriented education
worthy of the highest civilization.
Finally, the freedom to
practise transcendental meditation in public halls, or wherever, is another
aspect of Western life that, carried-on in the right non-mystical spirit, is
conducive towards a freedom from the sensual realm and aspiration towards the
spiritual one. We need not doubt that
this, too, should be encouraged in the future.
Getting back to the
question of whether the 'Free World' is really free and, if so, to what extent,
we can now answer it by contending that in some contexts, not least of all the
freedom to worship as one chooses, to vote for one of a number of alternative
class parties, to amass property, and so on, the so-called Free World is really
bound, in varying degrees, to the diabolic roots of evolution in the
stars. Whereas in certain other
contexts, notably avant-garde art and transcendentalism, it is probably more
free from those roots than anywhere else in the world, and accordingly reflects
an aspiration, whether directly or indirectly, towards the divine consummation
of evolution in the transcendental Beyond.
In all probability, the omega-oriented tendencies outweigh the
alpha-stemming ones in a majority of Western countries these days. But the continual existence of the latter
provides adequate grounds, as I see it, for ideological opposition and their
subsequent elimination, in the event of a truly moral society coming to pass.
PROTONS AND ELECTRONS
There are two kinds of antithesis, and they may be defined as
relative and absolute. The vast majority
of antitheses are relative, though as evolution approaches the antithesis of
the Alpha Absolute(s) in ... the Omega Absolute, we may note an approximation
to or from the absolutes at either end, as it were, of the evolutionary
spectrum. Only the Alpha Absolute(s) ...
of the stars and the projected Omega Absolute ... of undifferentiated
transcendent spirit would constitute an absolute antithesis, however. Such an antithesis is absolute in every
sense, there being no point of contact or similarity between the two extremes
of evolution. On the other hand, a
relative antithesis, such as exists between stars and planets, or men and
women, presupposes points of contact, and may be likened to the North and South
poles of a magnet - the unlike poles of which attract, while the like poles
repel. Those poles which are opposites
are yet similar to the extent that they are both comprised of the metallic
substance of the magnet, and accordingly form a relative rather than an
absolute antithesis.
Such an antithesis we
may note at the basis of the Solar System and, on a larger scale, of the
Galaxy. There is a kind of magnetic
reciprocity between the sun and circling planets of the Solar System formed by
the relative contrast between the negative, i.e. active, charge of the sun, in
which, according with the principles of a proton-proton reaction, hydrogen is
transformed into helium, and the positive, i.e. passive, charge at the core of
this planet, which is gradually cooling.
The sun's core would therefore be radically different from the earth's,
and I wager that while the one is hard, the other is soft, and this contrary to
traditional notions on the subject!
Indeed, in describing the sun as possessing a negative charge and in
equating that with the active, I have already reversed the traditional notions
as to what constitutes a negative charge, and this reversal, corresponding to a
Nietzschean 'transvaluation
of all values', is at the core of my philosophical endeavour, and may be traced
back to the essay 'The Negative Root' from BETWEEN TRUTH AND ILLUSION - my
first step in this revolutionary direction.
The sun, then, generates
energy from deep within its tightly-packed proton core, and is thus active,
whereas the earth has a soft core which feeds upon the surrounding hardness of
its outer layers and is thus dependent on those layers for sustenance, i.e. the
continuation of its existence. This
distinction between an independent hard-core sun and a dependent soft-core
planet is fundamental to the mechanistic workings of the Solar System, which
function in the guise of a magnetic reciprocity - the hard core of the sun
attracting the planet's soft core to itself but having to contend, in the
process, with the attractive forces of other suns (stars), which establish a
dynamic equilibrium between suns and planets, after the manner of an atomic
integrity involving protons and electrons.
Here, of course, the
equation of the sun's hard core with protons gives the lie to the traditional
notion of protons as positive and electrons, by contrast, as negative. For any 'transvaluation
of values' applying to the macrocosm must also apply to the microcosm, since
the inner workings of the latter are at the base, so to speak, of the solar and
indeed galactic orders, which would not exist at all were they not derived from
a microcosmic blue-print in the atom.
Admittedly, it may have been acknowledged that protons were active and
electrons passive, but activity is not, contrary to traditional belief, a
positive phenomenon. On the contrary, it
is only passivity which is positive and the more passive ... the more positive
is it. That is why only a planet, as a
place with a positive core, could be used as a base from which to launch an
aspiration, in the form of mankind, towards a condition of ultimate passivity
in the heavenly Beyond (of transcendent spirit). No star could be so used, for stars are the
very converse of such an aspiration, because the diabolic active roots of the
Universe.
No, if the sun is a negative
phenomenon, corresponding to the proton of an atom, then the planets must be
positive phenomena corresponding to electrons, the overall integrity of the
Solar System corresponding to the interactions of an atom, and the still
greater integrity of the Galaxy corresponding to a cluster of atoms forming a
kind of molecular structure. This
structure, kept in dynamic equilibrium by the relatively antithetical
constitutions of stars and planets, only exists by dint of the common will of
stars for dominion over planets. For
without planets to keep them in equilibrium, the stars would fly-out in every
direction, in accordance with the divergent inclinations of a negative charge,
through anarchic revolt against the dominating influence of the governing star
of the Galaxy, which probably exerts a greater attraction over the planets of
whichever solar system than any of the smaller stars considered either
separately or taken together. Thus
arises the paradoxical situation in which like are kept in the vicinity (a
galaxy) of like because of their mutual interest in the dominion of planets -
phenomena which have the effect of preventing the stars from breaking away.
When this pattern is
repeated on earth, as it must be whenever evolution is insufficiently advanced
to warrant an exclusive aspiration towards the Divine Omega, we get what I have
termed the galactic-world-order, in which a monarch, as personification on
earth of the governing star of the Galaxy, lords it over both nobles, who
correspond to the lesser stars of the Galaxy, and populace, who of course
correspond to the planets. The nobles
and monarch are fundamentally akin, and would tend away from one another were
it not for their mutual interest in the domination of the populace for their
own aggrandisement, an interest which constrains nobles to an oath of
allegiance to the throne. Naturally, the
populace are also bound by loyalty to the throne, but their allegiance is of a
very different order from that of the nobility, who, after all, stand to gain a
share of the spoils. The allegiance of
the populace more resembles the submission of slaves to the will of the
conqueror, and we may infer from the term 'subject' the subjection of such
slaves to monarchical dominion, a subjection which
entails an indirect rather than a direct allegiance to the throne. Only those who are fundamentally 'of the same
stuff' as the monarch are entitled to a direct oath of allegiance, and this
applies no less to a constitutional monarchy than to an authoritarian one - the
only difference being that the sphere of direct allegiance is widened, though
not necessarily deepened, by the admission of the parliamentary bourgeoisie,
who have partly taken over the traditional preserve of the aristocracy.
The relationship of peer
and/or parliamentarian to the populace of his particular sphere of geographical
influence thereby comes to resemble the relationship of sun to planets in a
solar system, and is thus atomic. While
the wider relationship of monarch to peers, parliamentarians, and populace as a
whole comes to resemble the galactic order in being molecular, or composed of
separate atoms which interact and are obliged to remain in place by the
stronger attractive power of the governing proton - namely, the monarch. Since a star is negative, and therefore
active, it may be described as of essentially feminine constitution, and never
is the galactic-world-order so faithfully reproduced on earth than when the
reigning monarch happens to be a woman, as was usually the case in more primitive
societies, given their greater disposition to violence. Then the pomp and ceremony essential to
maintaining the cohesion of nobles, politicians, and populace to the monarchy
was reinforced by the charismatic power of the reigning queen.
I do not wish to go into
the distinction between monarch, nobles, and populace to any extent, though I
should remark that the antithesis formed between the personifications on earth
of the stars of the Galaxy and the populace itself is relative rather than
absolute - there being various points of contact, not least of all in the
common structure and substance of the human body. That the monarch rules by 'divine right'
isn't, however, strictly true, although there is a sense in which it could be
said that he/she does rule by 'diabolic right', which is to say, as the
personification on earth of the governing star of the Galaxy, and therefore
according to the principles of the galactic-world-order. He/she functions in the guise of an
arch-devil. For even if the governing
star of the Galaxy isn't literally the Devil it corresponds to the diabolic
roots of evolution in the Universe and is therefore antithetical, in an
absolute way, to the future divine culmination of evolution there. In truth, the Creator is an abstraction from
this governing star and consequently appertains to the subconscious mind, a
mind, however, which is being outgrown, as modern man tends ever more deeply
into the superconscious, expanding consciousness
upwards rather than remaining a victim of the Given. The monarch is therefore the nearest person
on earth to that abstraction, since he/she functions in the role of the
governing star vis-à-vis society in general.
Compared with the monarch, the various grades of nobles, from a duke
down, correspond to petty devils, having status positions relative to the
lesser stars of the Galaxy. Reversing
this correspondence, one might well argue that our sun is but a
baron-equivalent in the overall hierarchy of the Galaxy, being but a small
peripheral star of only moderate power.
A duke-equivalent would be much larger and, needless to say, would stand
closer, as it were, to the governing star of the Galaxy than a mere
baron-equivalent. The Solar System of
this important star would doubtless be somewhat larger and more imposing than
that pertaining to a star like our own.
But, cosmic speculation
aside, we can say for certain that the twentieth century signified a
turning-point in the evolution of man in which, for virtually the first time in
history, the galactic-world-order was completely overthrown in a number of
countries, in order that he could be set on course for a post-atomic society
tending, eventually, towards the Divine Omega in conscious
transcendentalism. The example of
Of course, I have
described the workings of the Solar System and the Galaxy in rather Newtonian
terms in these pages, stressing the force-and-mass aspect of magnetic
reciprocities in preference to the curved-space notion of latter-day
quasi-mystical physics, and I am fully aware that many educated persons would
strongly object to this, considering me mistaken and hopelessly anachronistic. After all, it is in our interests to regard
the workings of the Cosmos from a quasi-mystical point-of-view, which is a good
deal more comforting than to dig deeply into its basic diabolism and unearth
findings not guaranteed to flatter our transcendental bias or reassure us that
we live in a good universe. Yes, I know
the position well enough! But I also
know it is important that some people, broadly regarded as philosophers, should
commit themselves to a more literal investigation of the Cosmos, the better to
understand how it really works. For
unless they do, the truth of evolutionary progress will be obscured beneath the
'theological' expedience of scientific subjectivity, and no truly objective
knowledge of the Universe will be accessible to us, a knowledge which a small
number of higher minds should be able to live with ... no matter how much the
spiritual progress of the age may demand a subjective interpretation of the
physical cosmos, such as corresponds to our superconscious
bias and reflects our growing allegiance to internal as opposed to external
reality. The literal truth of the
workings of the Cosmos and of the relations between planets and stars would
seem to be very different from what the curved-space mysticism of Einstein
would have us believe! But the truth
concerning the external cosmos isn't necessarily what an age tending towards
the post-atomic absolute should want to uphold.
Rather, it will increasingly view life in terms of the freedom of
electrons from proton control - not their dependence upon them!
TWO KINDS OF DEPENDENCE
It is often said that we live in a woman's world, not least of all
by men. Yet, despite appearances to the
contrary, this is basically untrue, because the world has a positive base in its
soft core which makes for an evolutionary tendency towards the Divine Omega,
and thus towards a transcendental society.
Women are rather like strangers in the world - visitors from the sun or
any nearby star. For, like the sun, they
have a hard core and a relatively soft or urbane exterior, whereas men are
effectively hard outside but essentially soft inside, more disposed to leniency
and compassion than the so-called fair sex.
Since women resemble the
sun, it is perhaps natural that they should generally be more heliotropic than men, and this can, I think, be borne out
by the greater importance they attach to sunbathing and to acquiring a
suntan. Sensing an affinity between
femininity and the sun, women draw sustenance, both physically and psychologically,
from its rays, which they often soak-up for hours on-end, lying perfectly still
and availing themselves of the sensuality imparted by the sun's rays to sink
into their subconscious mind, like animals, and doze or daydream, unconsciously
or perhaps even consciously transmitting signals to nearby males. In this context they reflect a sort of
stemming from the diabolic roots of life, and are almost as far removed from an
aspiration towards the divine consummation of evolution, in transcendence, as
any animal or plant. Communion with the
sun is for many women a form of religion, though, unbeknown to themselves, it
is the lowest form - a kind of devil worship!
Like the sun, women have
a tendency to contract and diverge rather than, like men, to expand and
converge - the former tendency existing on the physical level, the latter on
the spiritual one. Were it not for the
fact that men are attracted to them, we may assume that most women would remain
solitary and independent for life, scorning one another but making no real
attempt to acquire male company, either.
They do of course obtain male company in a majority of cases, but this
is usually because their urbane appearance has attracted a man who has
expressed a dependence on them. Such
dependence is akin to that of a planet upon a star, and will continue to be the
norm for as long as an atomic integrity holds good between proton equivalents
and electron equivalents, viz. females and males. Once evolution reaches the stage where the
atom can be split and mankind sundered, once and for all, from the
galactic-world-order, however, then it is highly probable that men will emerge
who'll be independent of women, going their own omega-oriented way either in
homosexuality or, preferably, celibacy, with or without pornographic
stimuli. Of course, evolution also
affects women; for if it didn't it is doubtful that we would have the Women's
Liberation Movement and other aspects of evolutionary progress which, to some
extent, have the effect of 'masculinizing' women, and
thus causing them to behave, in varying degrees, more like men. Where, formerly, it was the case that men
were dependent on women, just as society was dependent on monarchical
government, so, with the transformation to post-atomic freedom, men duly become
independent of them, just as society becomes independent of monarchical
control. Women, however, correspondingly
become more dependent on men, though not so much in a sensual as in an
intellectual or a spiritual sense.
Here we have slightly
returned to the theme of the previous essay, in which the enslavement of the
populace to the nobility was stressed at the expense of the reverse situation -
namely, that of the dependence of the populace upon the nobility during a given
phase of evolutionary development. Since
I was emphasizing the absolute at the expense of the relative there, I should
now remark that, as the relative preponderates in life, so a paradoxical
situation is the norm. For, indeed, both
aspects of the noble/populace antithesis to some extent apply. The nobility do enslave the populace, much as
stars enslave planets, but so too, at this comparatively early stage of human
evolution, do people in general show themselves to be dependent upon a monarchical
government, since insufficiently advanced, in artificial terms, to be capable
of an independent, self-willed, socialist destiny. Only when evolution has arrived at a more
advanced stage, in which people are for the most part isolated from nature in
their giant cities, can their dependence on monarchical government be broken
and the emphasis accordingly be placed on freeing them from autocratic control
or tyranny, as though only those factors had played a part in the traditional
relationship of nobles to populace! The
truth is of course rather different, but it wouldn't flatter the masses to say
so! Neither would the average man be
flattered to learn that he was only dependent on women because insufficiently
advanced to be capable of an independent, post-atomic lifestyle. Better for him to believe that women were
dependent on men, even though their basic behaviour and attitudes would hardly
substantiate such a belief!
The fact that men have
been dependent on women for thousands of years is no fault of men, any more
than it is the fault of planets that they have been dependent on stars. Evolution proceeds from the natural to the
supernatural very slowly, and while nature dominates human affairs ... the
atomic integrity of the galactic-world-order will continue to prevail. Women will function as protons and men, by
contrast, as electrons - the latter dependent on and revolving around the
former. The man will say that he lives
for his family, and the woman will believe him.
Only when evolution progresses to a point where the artificial
predominates over the natural will a situation arise in which the man -
assuming he has a wife and children at all - will say he lives for his work or
the cause, whether political or religious.
To live for something greater than himself rather than for someone
lesser than himself ... is the distinction between the free man and the bound
man, and it will correspond to the splitting of the atom in a post-atomic
society, whereby electrons are severed from their proton control. The inceptive stages of this tendency are
already manifest in the contemporary West, where the frequency of divorce is
testifying to a disruption of traditional marital fidelity, and where wives as
well as husbands are obliged to take regular employment, a fact which,
logically enough, results in small rather than large families. And wisely, since the minimum commitment to
propagation ensures a greater freedom for both husbands and wives from the
atomic integrity of long-term parental responsibility. Given the much-improved ratio of infant
survival over infant mortality these days, there is no real necessity for large
families anyway. A child or two from
most couples will maintain and possibly even increase the birth-rate level,
while leaving the woman relatively free to conduct her life along
quasi-electron, as opposed to traditional proton, channels. Eventually, however, the further development
of post-atomic tendencies will lead to the supersession
of marriage by a much freer interaction between men and women, compatible with
their higher status in conformity to electron principles. A long-term relationship between specific
couples in such a free society would not only be anachronistic ... but morally
reprehensible, since indicative of a regression to dualistic criteria. Reproduction would, for the most part, be
taken care of artificially, which is to say, with the aid of sperm banks, test
tubes, incubators, and so on, while relationships between the sexes would be
increasingly spiritual rather than, as before, predominantly physical. Functioning as quasi-electrons, the women
would be intellectually and/or spiritually dependent on men, while the men, as
free electrons, would be physically independent of women. Such a society is not as far off as it may
now seem!
MATERIALISTS AND SPIRITUALISTS
The distinction between materialists and spiritualists is an
age-old reality which stems, in large measure, from the fundamental dichotomy
in the Galaxy between stars and planets, the relatively antithetical
constitutions of which give rise to a magnetic reciprocity responsible for
maintaining the orbital integrity of the Galaxy as a whole - as, indeed, the
entire universe of galaxies of which this one is but an infinitesimal
part. On the microcosmic plane this same
distinction is to be found in the relatively antithetical constitutions of
protons as negative charges and electrons as positive charges - the former
active and the latter passive, though galvanized into action by the competing
attractive powers of the nearest protons.
On the human plane, the distinction between active materialists and
passive spiritualists has traditionally manifested itself in the relatively
antithetical constitution of women and men, the women constraining the men to
themselves, after the fashion of stars or protons, and galvanizing them into
action on their behalf, i.e. as fathers to their family, the children of which
resemble tiny protons, or neutrons, in that they revolve around the mother much
the way that a tiny extinct sun, such as the moon, revolves around the
earth. However, I have elsewhere sought
to demonstrate that as evolution progresses towards a predominantly artificial
phase, the atomic integrity of the traditional family unit is gradually
undermined until, with the dawn of post-dualistic civilization ... following a
sudden revolutionary break with tradition which resembles the splitting of the
atom, the electron equivalents are set free of proton constraint and the former
proton equivalents are themselves electronized,
functioning, thenceforth, in the guise of quasi-electrons. The spiritualistic world predominates over
the materialistic one at that juncture in time by quite a considerable margin!
The aforementioned
atomic distinction, however, between female and male on the family plane may be
equated with the human microcosm, whilst a similar distinction between
politicians and priests or scientists and artists will pertain to the human
macrocosm, i.e. to society as opposed to the family, society itself coming to
resemble a galaxy in that it is composed, on the independent level, of numerous
proton-dominated atoms and, on the dependent level, of various professional
interests and contributions, some of which resemble protons, others electrons,
but all of which are subject to evolutionary pressures and may therefore
undergo gender changes corresponding to the transformation, on the microcosmic
plane, from closed atomic families to open post-atomic promiscuity.
Thus it can happen that
a traditional proton profession, such as politics when patterned after the
galactic-world-order, will acquire a sex change, so to speak, and become a
quasi-electron opposing the proton political order in the interests of
evolutionary progress. Hence socialist
politicians, although nominally materialists, function in the guise of what may
be called 'lesser spiritualists' in opposition, in such a transitional age as
this, to the materialistic politicians per se, though on a lower level,
needless to say, than genuine spiritualists, including latter-day gurus. Likewise, in science, a sex change
corresponding to the progress of electron freedom over proton determinism
ensures that quasi-electron scientists, who function in the guise of 'lesser
spiritualists', oppose the materialism of traditional science in deference, amongst
other things, to the higher spirituality of avant-garde artists, who are their
spiritual peers. As quasi-electrons,
revolutionary politicians and scientists oppose proton determinism and thus
behave like spiritualists, which, however, they can never be in an authentic or
genuine sense, seeing that their professions are largely governed by
materialistic considerations. And just
so for so-called liberated women who, in this transitional age, are by no means
absolved from certain traditional female duties and responsibilities! Only with the advent of post-atomic
civilization would the lifestyles of quasi-electron equivalents be radically
influenced by electron freedoms - a situation which today applies neither to the
bourgeois West nor to the proletarian East, the former being insufficiently
civilized and the latter not really civilized at all, despite the considerable
changes for the better which have come to pass since the eclipse of Soviet
Communism by Social Democracy.
Consequently, in the East artists and priests have traditionally had a
comparatively raw deal.
The distinction between
materialists and spiritualists does not of course only apply to politicians and
priests or to scientists and artists, nor indeed to proton politicians and
quasi-electron politicians, proton scientists and quasi-electron scientists,
the former of whom will be more indebted to
A post-dualistic
civilization, however, could only produce free-electron artists, since religion
and art take considerable precedence over politics and science with the advent
of such a high degree of civilization as would be achieved on the post-atomic
plane. In a post-atomic barbarous
society, on the other hand, art and religion can only be bound to politics and
science, since a new state has come to replace the old one and officially
outlawed the religion appertaining to it without, however, creating a new
religion to replace what went before. In
such a society - and the
PART THREE: DIALOGUES
A CHANGING WORLD
DONALD: I have always been puzzled by the uncertainty that exists
- and has long existed - in philosophical circles about the extent to which external
reality is actually there, outside ourselves, and the extent to which our
appreciation of it is conditioned by consciousness - in other words, about the
extent to which objective reality is really objective and not partly a creation
of our subjective minds.
MATTHEW: You have good reason to be puzzled about this matter,
since it isn't one that permits of a straightforward, eternally unchangeable
answer. Rather, one has to answer it
provisionally by saying that the respective ingredients in the determination of
objective/subjective reality will vary according to the evolutionary position
of the psyche in any given age, so that no fixed ratio of objective to
subjective is possible.
DONALD: You therefore agree that our awareness of the external
world is partly conditioned by consciousness.
MATTHEW: Of course! Reality
isn't just 'out there'. It is also in
the mind, and consequently external reality depends, to a certain extent, on
the applicability of this mind for its elucidation - as, indeed, philosophers
have known for quite some time! And not
only philosophers but also scientists, who, like Konrad
Lorenz, would never dream of completely detaching external reality from the
internal world.
DONALD: Yet the doubt apparently lies with the extent to which the
one conditions or is conditioned by the other?
MATTHEW: Yes, and not altogether surprisingly since, as already
remarked, the extent varies from age to age, as from individual to
individual. Let me attempt to clarify
this point by dividing the history of the human psyche into three distinct
stages, viz. a pre-dualistic, a dualistic, and a post-dualistic. The psyche, it should be remembered, is
divisible into a subconscious and a superconscious
mind, with consciousness being the product of a fusion of these two minds in
the ego, or in-between realm of the psyche.
If you accept this proposition, we can continue.
DONALD: I think I can accept it.
MATTHEW: Good! Now the
first, or pre-dualistic stage will be one in which the subconscious
predominates over the superconscious in the ratio of
approximately 3:1, since at that juncture in time man is dominated by nature
and insufficiently civilized, in consequence, to lead an independent spiritual
existence beyond it. The ego, or
conscious mind, of pagan man will therefore be relatively dark, as befits the
psychic ratio just described, and, accordingly, the ratio of the external
objective world to the internal subjective one will also be in the region of
3:1, which is to say, his consciousness of the external world will be very
little affected by internal subjective reality, since that reality will be
insufficiently evolved to colour or condition it to any significant
extent. Rather, the
subconsciously-oriented objective psyche will cause him to invest nature with
hidden and usually malevolent powers, including demons. But the external world will appear to him
basically as it is - a materialistic world at no great remove from himself.
DONALD: Hence we get animism or pantheism at this primitive stage
of evolution?
MATTHEW: Precisely! But the
next, or dualistic, stage reflects a psyche more-or-less balanced between the
subconscious and the superconscious, in which
consciousness comes to reflect a kind of twilight state and, by dint of
environmental progress away from nature, man is in a position to distinguish
between the mundane world and a transcendent one separate from it, which he
invests with supernatural and usually benevolent powers, including angels. Now because the ratio of subconscious to superconscious mind is approximately 2:2, it follows that
the external objective world will be conditioned by the internal subjective one
to a greater extent than formerly, so that man inclines to distinguish himself
from nature (to the extent that he previously identified with it) and thereby
ceases to fear it.
DONALD: Thus the demons or whatever that formerly infested nature
are transformed into angels and other benevolent powers who belong to a
separate transcendent realm, as determined by the growth of superconscious
mind?
MATTHEW: Yes, though not entirely!
For some malevolent powers are still associated with nature, in
accordance with the dualistic criteria of this stage of partly subjective
psychic evolution. But, fortunately,
human progress in the face of nature eventually leads to a situation, such as
we find today, in which the superconscious is getting
the upper-hand over the subconscious and a psychic ratio emerges which is the
converse of the pre-dualistic one. In
this post-dualistic age, the ego of transcendental man is relatively light,
reflecting three times as much superconscious as
subconscious influence, and so the external world is accordingly coloured by
the internal one to a greater extent than ever before, which makes for a
complete reversal of pagan criteria in an assessment of nature and matter in
terms of the transcendent rather than the mundane, the divine rather than the
diabolic. Indeed, we cannot now speak of
an external objective world and of an internal objective one, as formerly, but
are obliged to reverse the qualities of these worlds in response to the superconsciously-biased subjective nature of the modern
psyche. Hence it is the external world
that becomes subjective and the internal one that is seen to represent the
higher, truer reality of the spirit.
What we see outside ourselves is conditioned by our transcendent psyche
to a greater extent than ever before, becoming, in the course of time, but pale
abstractions of palpable materiality, which are to be explained away in terms
of mystical generalizations stemming from our internal subjectivity. For instead of being brute matter now, nature
must conform to our spiritual bias and display a similarly-biased constitution. To make it do this or, at any rate, appear to
do this ... we invent machines like the Bubble Chamber and ideas such as the
quantum theory, which goad nature into conforming, seemingly, to our
wishes. A people without a spiritual
bias would never have got around to it.
But we impose our bias on the external world as a matter of course,
quite happy to deceive ourselves as to its actual nature. Thus from being a reality to which our
ancestors applied idealistic theories involving demons and evil spirits, nature
has become a repository for an idealism abstracted from the higher reality of
our superconsciously-biased psyche. Where, formerly, we abstracted from
materialistic objectivity, we now abstract from spiritualistic subjectivity,
and accordingly bend nature to our desires.
To speak of an objective internal world now would be an anachronism or,
at best, a partial truth applying to that part of the psyche which conforms to
the subconscious. Consequently there is
no justification for our using the expression 'objective' vis-à-vis the
internal world. For now it is the external,
traditionally objective world which becomes subjective reality for us, and it
does so because the subjective reality of the post-egocentric psyche stands to
it in the ratio of approximately 3:1, making our interpretations of it
correspondingly biased on the side of internal subjective reality, which is to
say, on the side of mysticism ... with a spiritualistic integrity. It is as though, at some propitious future
occasion, matter will dissolve altogether if only we stare at it long enough
from our superconsciously-biased psyche. But, in reality, matter hasn't changed one
iota since our distant ancestors encountered it under pressure of subconscious,
objective domination and invested it with demonic powers. Only we have changed and so drawn away from
it, in accordance with evolutionary progress.
DONALD: This is incredible!
Are you really saying that the external world isn't literally what our
foremost scientists would have us believe?
MATTHEW: Absolutely! And I
am saying this in camera, to the chosen few who can be trusted to appreciate
and respect the fact. Not for a moment
would I wish things to be any different - don't think otherwise! But I am too much a man of truth to be wholly
satisfied with the relative 'truths' of scientific idealism. I can now see why they should exist and am
thus in a better position to uphold them.
For it is no good imagining that a return can be made to scientific
realism in the objective spirit of Newtonian man. The age necessarily belongs to Einstein and
must continue to do so in the future, whatever the extremism of scientific
subjectivity may happen to be and, needless to say, irrespective of any Marxist
materialist opposition in the short term.
For the psyche cannot now be expected to regress to a predominantly
objective status, but must continue to grow ever more subjective as the superconscious is developed further.
DONALD: And thus we must oppose purely
materialist interpretations of the external world which, though literal, are
obsolescent from a transcendent standpoint?
MATTHEW: Indeed, and which, if upheld, would constitute a grave
obstacle to our spiritual aspirations.
But, of course, such materialistic interpretations can only be upheld in
a materialist state where, under Marxist-Leninist influence, transcendentalism
is supposed not to exist. Hence in the
former Soviet Union, traditionally, it wasn't so much curved space ... as force
and mass that explained the workings of the Solar System from an orthodox, or Newtonian,
point-of-view. Perfectly
correct, of course, from an objective angle, but on a lower evolutionary plane
than the Einsteinian subjectivity which was to
characterize Western science in the twentieth century. Yet such subjectivity is only relevant to a
society that to some extent acknowledges transcendentalism, not to one that
outlaws it. In other words, such
subjectivity is relevant to civilization, which is politics plus religion, not
just politics! More specifically, it is
relevant to the transitional (dualistic/post-dualistic) civilization which the
leading Western countries, including America and Germany, signify. That there will be a final, or
post-dualistic, civilization in the future, I haven't the slightest doubt, and
when it comes you can be certain that scientific subjectivity will be pushed to
the limit, as it abstracts from the higher subjectivity of the transcendent
psyche. We haven't seen the last of
materialistic idealism yet, believe me!
DONALD: But, presumably, we have seen the
last of spiritualistic idealism, the religious idealism of our ancestors, who
were under subconscious domination to an extent which made religious realism
impossible.
MATTHEW: Yes, there can't be too many people left in the
more-advanced parts of the world, these days, who believe everything recorded
in the Bible, even though the Bible still officially prevails in the West. What might be defined as lower mysticism, in
which objective interpretations of and abstractions from external reality
apply, is increasingly being superseded by the higher, subjective mysticism
which has conditioned the findings of modern science. Religious objectivity isn't particularly
influential in intellectual circles these days, whether scientific or literary.
DONALD: So you don't subscribe to the Fall of Man, which is
essentially a pagan concept?
MATTHEW: No, although I do respect the doctrine of Original Sin,
which is a Christian one. The Fall of Man, however, could only apply to a pre-dualistic
context, in which a guilt complex exists as a consequence of the development
from animal to man which evolutionary progress imposed upon man in the face of
nature. With the advent of man, the
close identification with nature, peculiar to the animal world, is lost, and so
the distinction he then feels between nature and himself is interpreted as a
fall - it being remembered that, at such an early stage of psychic evolution,
the subconscious predominates ... with its naturalistic affiliation. To have fallen out of nature's bosom is
regarded as more of a curse than a blessing, since pagan man lacked an
evolutionary sense corresponding to the transcendent and, in consequence, could
only regard his fate in terms of his immediate circumstances. Only with the advent of dualism was it
possible for man to look towards the transcendent for his (future) salvation,
rather than simply to regret that he had fallen out of nature. And in an incipiently post-dualistic age it
should be obvious that man is on the rise towards the supernatural and therefore
towards his transformation, in due course, into the Superman, as a life form
one stage closer than man to the ultimate Oneness of the heavenly Beyond.
DONALD: And what of Original Sin?
MATTHEW: That is destined to be left behind with the future
transformation of man. Not that I adopt
an orthodox attitude to it, as if one should avoid sexual contact
altogether. For, after all, it is only
through sexual contact, resulting in propagation, that mankind survives and
thereby evolves towards Heaven. If now,
as formerly, sex is essentially an evil or sensual phenomenon it is
nevertheless a necessary evil which has to be endured for the sake, above all,
of evolutionary continuity. Life abounds
in such necessary evils, and while the odd individual here and there is
entitled, in his capacity of saint, to rebel against them to the extent he can,
the majority of people must bow to them in the interests of survival. These days, however, the justification for
sainthood is more fragile than at any former time in the history of civilized
man. For whereas the majority of
Christian saints firmly believed they would be rewarded for their mundane
hardships in a transcendent afterlife, living as we do, in a more-advanced age,
we lack this incentive and can only take a more realistic, down-to-earth
attitude to salvation in consequence.
Like it or not, salvation will only come about with spiritual
transcendence at some more fortunate future age, not happen following
death. And knowing this, we would be
extremely foolish to starve ourselves of sensual needs for the mere sake of
starvation. The Christian saints were at
least wise enough to starve themselves or, more correctly, eat only the most
frugal meals ... for an ulterior purpose, which is something we oughtn't to
forget! They may have been deluded to
expect a posthumous salvation, but at least they acted in accordance with the
logic of their times.
DONALD: Which is also, I believe, the official logic of the
contemporary Christian West or, at any rate, of Christian officialdom in the
West.
MATTHEW: Yes, up to a point.
But, as I said before, it is only the unofficial logic which is truly
contemporary and which, in infiltrating the decadent dualistic and transitional
civilizations, has ennobled them with a transcendentally objective bias. We may be a long way, at present, from the
official transcendental civilization of universal man, but we are certainly
tending in its direction, whatever the upholders of religious objectivity may
happen to think of the fact.
DONALD: Yes, I can only agree!
PROLETARIAN WRITING
FRANCIS: Where modern writing is concerned, it would seem that the
age is more spontaneous than ever before and therefore, in a sense, more
careless than ever before. Would you
agree?
GERALD: Yes, in a way I would.
For spontaneity is pertinent to a comparatively
advanced age, in which intellectual dynamism has come to signify the
appropriate momentum. Where,
formerly, it was the body that was especially active and the mind that remained
relatively inert, nowadays it is the converse which increasingly applies, and
this is compatible with evolutionary progress from the material to the
spiritual realm, from the physical to the mental one. To deliberate overmuch on a script one was
writing would be to acquiesce in a degree of mental inertia out-of-step with
the essential intellectual dynamism of the age.
As a truly contemporary writer, one should be hard-pressed to keep-up
with one's thoughts and, consequently, if one writes before typing, one will be
obliged to adopt a kind of shorthand in order to ensure the quickest possible
conveyance of one's thought to paper.
For it normally happens that one's best thoughts come to one 'on the
wing', so to speak, and must be captured for letters before they disappear
again.
FRANCIS: Yet, to return to the second part of my question, surely
this results in a degree of carelessness unprecedented in literary history?
GERALD: In the aesthetic sense I suppose it
does, since one won't have either the time or inclination to carefully
arrange and, as it were, chisel one's sentences into harmonious shapes. But in another, dynamic sense one must
remember that the contemporary literary mind is so much more highly charged
than the traditional one ... that it is able to both muster and master thought
more quickly and efficiently than ever before, and thus mould it into
intelligible sentences with the minimum of hesitation. The struggle is mainly carried out before the words
reach paper, so that only a minimum revision is required for the completed
script. It is no use one's coming to the
work with a lazy or disordered mind, as various writers did in the past. The test of one's credibility as a
contemporary writer will rest with the fluency of one's style, and that is dependent
upon the dynamic workings of the mind.
FRANCIS: Yet, even so, it cannot be denied that such writings as
you endorse are less than perfect from a grammatical standpoint. I mean, there will be instances of split
infinitives, prepositions ending sentences, conjunctions out of place, adverbs not
close enough to the adjective or noun they are intended to define, subordinate
phrases occurring in ungainly or even unlikely places, punctuation logically
inconsistent, phrases less than wholly apposite, choice of words sometimes
inappropriate, tenses not properly followed through, elision, and so on -
through a whole host of academic failings.
GERALD: Yes, there will doubtless be lapses - sometimes frequent,
sometimes occasional - from textbook criteria ... as expounded by pedants. But so what?
Does that necessarily disqualify the contemporary writer from artistic
or intellectual credibility, turning his work into an example of how not to
write? No, I don't believe so, and for
the simple reason that textbook criteria and serious literary endeavour are two
entirely separate things, which rarely if ever overlap!
FRANCIS: Oh, but really...!
GERALD: I assure you this is no exaggeration, but a wholehearted
confession of fidelity to contemporary literary requirements, irrespective of
what the case may have been in the past.
Of course, it is true that bourgeois and, to an even greater extent,
aristocratic authors have taken great pains with their work in the past, not
least as it bears on grammar. But such a
fastidious attitude, by no means uncommon in the present century, is hardly
justifiable as an eternal verity, to be scrupulously adhered to in the
interests of professional dignity and integrity. On the contrary, we find that as writing
progresses from class to class, so it becomes increasingly bolder in defying
strict grammatical rules and establishing new criteria for itself in the face
of tradition. Where, in less enlightened
ages, writing was shackled by numerous grammatical fetters, it is now
comparatively free of them and must become even more so in the future, if there
is to be any further literary progress.
FRANCIS: But why must it become ever freer in this way? After all, grammatical rules exist to assist
our understanding of writing, not to hinder it.
GERALD: Doubtless that is fundamentally true. But it should also be remembered that, if
adhered too rigorously to, such rules can also serve to impede or obscure our
understanding. No, the real reason
behind the gradual emancipation of letters from grammatical fetters is that, by
so freeing itself, writing can become a medium for the conveyance of essence
over appearance, as it should be in any advanced stage of its evolution.
FRANCIS: How, pray, do you distinguish between essence and
appearance?
GERALD: Very simply.
Essence appertains to the thematic content of a work, appearance to the
means used to convey it. The one is
subject-matter, the other technique. Now
the fact is that the ratio of the one to the other has been steadily changing
ever since man first acquired the rudiments of civilization and put pen to
paper. If you'll permit me to
generalize, we shall discover that appearance predominates over essence in
pre-dualistic writings; that appearance and essence are approximately
in-balance during a dualistic age; and that now, as we enter a post-dualistic
age, essence predominates over appearance, in accordance with the spiritual
bias of the times. Thus less attention
is given to technique in post-dualistic writings than was given to it at any
previous time in the history of letters, and this is compatible with the fact
that much more importance is attached to content, to what is being said rather
than the way in which one says it.
Content is the all-important factor, and because it is recognized as
such in the best and most progressive writings of the age, less time is wasted
on apparent factors than ever before.
Indeed, a concern with appearances could only detract from the content,
as well, no doubt, as impede the fast flow of thought so crucial to the
intellectual dynamism of the times. To
unduly deliberate over the choice and arrangement of words like an aristocrat
or pseudo-aristocrat, such as Edgar Allan Poe, would constitute a gross
anachronism in an age which is tending, willy-nilly, towards greater spiritual
mobility. What Poe was to
pseudo-aristocratic writings, Baudelaire was to bourgeois writings, and neither
of them should be emulated now - certainly not by proletarian authors, at any
rate!
FRANCIS: Would this development away from appearance, as applied
to literature, also apply to poetry then, so that the absence of rhyme from
modern poems is regarded as a mark of their evolutionary superiority over
traditional, rhyming poems, rather than as a reflection of technical
disintegration or prosy degeneration?
GERALD: Most assuredly! And never more so than when we are dealing with the free verse of
the best proletarian poets. Not
for nothing is Poe regarded as a jingle-jangle man. For to write verse in the manner of Poe now
would be to fall way behind the foremost developments of the day, which are
becoming ever more biased on the side of essence. Rhymes of whatever sort primarily appeal to
the senses, to eyes and ears, rather than to the mind, and so, too, do such
apparent devices as alliteration, assonance, regular metres, vowel placements,
and stanza divisions - all of which have constituted an irreplaceable and, I
regret to say, irreproachable aspect of pre-dualistic and even dualistic
poetry. In the final analysis, however,
appearance can only detract from or limit the applicability of essence, never
enhance it! The rhyming poetry of the
past can never be resurrected in any seriously progressive context, and in
general one finds that only the most conservative poets of the twentieth
century continued to write it, as did W.B. Yeats and Robert Graves, doubtless
with some justification within the context of dualistic civilization. But such rhyming poetry can certainly be
bettered, and it is and will continue to be the fate of petty-bourgeois and/or
proletarian poets to do so. Compare
Yeats' early poems with Allen Ginsberg's late ones, and you'll see what I
mean! Yet poetry is only one branch of
literature, and what applies there must also apply elsewhere, in response to
evolutionary progress. Thus the
spontaneous attitude of D.H. Lawrence to novel writing is, despite the
reactionary or traditional nature of much of his thought, inherently superior
to and somehow more contemporary than the deliberative, rather formal attitudes
of novelists like James Joyce and Thomas Mann, whose large attention to
technique could only detract, in the long-run, from the importance attached to
content. With Joyce, words become
important in themselves, as things to be looked at and listened to, juggled into
amusing or teasing juxtapositions, riddles or puns. He retains a traditional poetic attitude to
writing, so that his novels become - most especially in the case of Finnegans Wake - exercises in poetic prose. How different from D.H. Lawrence, who conveys
the impression that words are all on the same level, with no hierarchic
preferences, and need scarcely be looked at except as means of conveying
thought! Truly, Lawrence's is the more
progressive attitude, and although I despise much of his thought, I can't help
but admire his spontaneous approach to writing, which gives maximum priority to
essence.
FRANCIS: You would obviously admire the spontaneity of John Cowper
Powys' writing, too.
He must surely be among the most prolific novelists of the century.
GERALD: Yes, though once again I am obliged to admit that I
despise his thought and would not wish to champion it! The age of nature-worship is long dead and
unlikely ever to be resurrected in the future, as the world tends ever more
radically away from nature in pursuit of the supernatural. Powys is, it seems to me, a kind of neo-pagan
anachronism in the modern world, a remnant or rehash of the old world rather
than a pioneer of a new one. If his
literary facility is commendable, his philosophy, in my opinion, is
considerably less so, and we need not expect it to be influential in building
the next civilization. He is really one
of those curious hybrids or chimeras which the twentieth century, as a
transitional age, seemed prodigal in producing, whose class bias, while
fundamentally bourgeois, isn't exempt from proletarian leanings, whether
technical, as in Powys' case, or thematic, as in the case, for example, of Aldous Huxley. A
wholly post-dualistic writer we haven't as yet seen, which isn't altogether
surprising, since the West remains fundamentally bourgeois and, hence,
dualistic. Even America, which
represents the higher, transitional civilization between dualism and
post-dualism, hasn't produced a full-blown transcendentalist, although it has
fostered a number of transitional (bourgeois/proletarian) writers whose works
are, on the whole, more progressive than those of their European
contemporaries.
FRANCIS: I presume you are alluding to writers like Henry Miller
and Jack Kerouac, whose novels are not only more transcendentalist than is to
be found in the general pattern of European writings, but more technically
spontaneous as well?
GERALD: Yes, especially is this true of Kerouac, whose
quasi-mystical novels are among the most free and enlightened literature of the
age. Kerouac went a step further than
Miller in developing the American novel, and, no doubt, others have since gone
a step further again, using a more spontaneous technique in the service of a
more enlightened transcendentalism. But
there are limits, as I said, to the development of such literature within the
confines of a transitional civilization.
For truly proletarian literature is only relevant to a post-dualistic
civilization, and nowhere in the world does such a civilization currently exist.
FRANCIS: Not even in the former Soviet Union?
GERALD: No, since the Soviet Union was essentially a neo-barbarous
post-dualistic state, not a civilized or partly religious one. The absence of an official post-dualistic
religion, such as Transcendentalism, from the Soviet Union inevitably limited
the scope of proletarian writings to political and social propaganda,
precluding the development of an avant-garde technique in pursuance of
spiritual ends. What one usually
encounters in Soviet literature, as in the other Soviet arts, is a bourgeois
technique, in which deliberation and appearance balance content, put to the
service of proletarian propaganda - not the utilization of a truly proletarian,
spontaneous technique in response to the intellectual dynamism of the times. Technically, Soviet art was very
conservative, and this fact could only hinder the progress of proletarian
literature which, as in the Soviet Union, necessarily remained confined within
materialist limits. No, the highest
proletarian literature, whether novelistic or otherwise, will only come from a
post-dualistic civilization ... where technique and content can be developed
along the most transcendental lines. If
Ireland is destined to become such a civilization before any other country in
the world, then it will be there that this literature will first arise ... in
accordance with post-dualistic criteria.
FRANCIS: And what, exactly, will these
criteria be?
GERALD: Adherence, above all, to the intellectual dynamism of the
age, with the inevitable corollary of spontaneity in writing and the reduction
of appearances to the barest minimum.
The further development of truth as essence is expanded as much as
possible. The organization of one's work
into a collectivistic format, so that the traditional procedure of keeping the
various literary genres separate is transcended in a divine-oriented literature
that reflects an evolutionary convergence to the Omega Point, to cite Teilhard de Chardin. The use of computers, so that discs replace
books as the medium through which this ultimate literature is read. An adherence, all along the line, to
post-dualistic ideology, whether political or religious.... Thus the full-blown
proletarian literature of the future will bring literature to its consummation,
and so prepare the way for the post-literary epoch of the post-Human
Millennium. It will eventually spread
throughout the world, becoming universally accepted, as the ultimate
civilization supersedes the neo-barbarism of socialist materialism in response
to historical necessity.
FRANCIS: So what the Americans, with their transitional
literature, are to the contemporary dualistic world, the Irish, in their
subsequent development of post-dualistic civilization, will become to the
neo-barbarous one - cultural leaders on the world stage.
GERALD: I see no reason why not, especially as I am an Irishman
and the world's first truly post-dualistic writer, whose literature awaits its
due recognition.
Sooner or later my hour will come, and when it does you can rest assured
that proletarian literature will be here to stay, never impeded, any more, by
bourgeois realism or neo-barbarous materialism.
Who knows, but if such writings are allowed to develop to the full, they
may well transcend appearances altogether one day, as increased spontaneity
pushes them towards the maximum freedom in total abstraction, thereby
transforming literature once again. For
once truth has been attained to, in meaningful sentences,
there is nothing left for us to do ... other than begin to free ourselves from
words by breaking-up meanings. Verbal
concepts are all very well for man, but they won't be of much use to his
superhuman successor, believe me!
FRANCIS: I almost do, although, to be honest, I'm not entirely
convinced that such abstract writings would constitute the ultimate literature,
since, without meaningful sentences, they would be a bore to read.
GERALD: You are speaking more from an egocentric than from a
post-egocentric point-of-view. As it
happens, there are three main approaches to art, of whichever kind, in the
post-dualistic age. In the first
approach one can be post-egocentric in the sense of free from self-aggrandizing
penchants for aesthetic finesse and embellishment. One's work will accordingly be somewhat
simplistic in construction and seemingly slapdash or careless in
appearance. It will be a literature
approximating more to D.H. Lawrence than to James Joyce, with a fairly high
degree of spontaneity. In the second
approach, however, one can create in the post-egocentric context of disrupting
and discrediting the natural world, whether this is the external world of
nature or the internal world of the subconscious. With the former one gets Expressionism in one
degree or another. With
the latter ... Surrealism in one degree or another. Perhaps where the development of a truly
abstract literature is concerned, one would be a proponent of this anti-natural
type of post-egocentric creativity, so that the meaninglessness of one's
sentences was largely designed to discredit and disrupt the subconscious as a
means of partly freeing man from its influence ... in the interests of superconscious development.
But in the third approach, which I believe applies most especially to
myself, one's commitment to post-egocentric writings would be with intent to
explore and expand the superconscious, and for that
it would be necessary to retain meaning, in well-ordered sentences, as one
sought to elucidate spiritual progress.
This is the highest type of post-egocentric creativity because wholly forward-looking,
and a good example of it can be found in the mature novels of Aldous Huxley, which aspire to the status of religious
literature on a transcendent plane. In
painting, we find Mondrian generally signifying the
same thing, and, in music, Michael Tippett has
displayed a consistently transcendental bias.
One can only suppose that, eventually, this third type of
post-egocentric creativity will completely eclipse each of the others, as
evolution tends ever more deeply into the superconscious.
FRANCIS: Thus a kind of creative hierarchy exists, on the
post-egocentric level, which stretches from the simplistic and/or slapdash to
the transcendental via the expressionist and/or surreal, and such an hierarchy
might well be reflected in twentieth-century literature by the novels of D.H.
Lawrence, James Joyce, and Aldous Huxley
respectively; in twentieth-century painting by the canvases of Pablo Picasso,
Salvador Dali, and Piet Mondrian
respectively; and in twentieth-century music by the works of John Cage, Karl-Heinze Stockhausen, and Michael Tippett
respectively.
GERALD: In general, I think that would be
approximately correct, even given all the creative changes which any one artist
may undergo. But post-egocentric art, in
whatever context, has yet to develop to the full, and when it does you can rest
assured that the attainments of most of the leading artists of the twentieth
century will appear comparatively moderate.
Only the next civilization will be radically post-egocentric. In fact, so radically post-egocentric
as to be wholly superconscious.
FRANCIS: That I can well believe!
THE EVOLUTION OF ART
PETER: Do you agree with Keats that 'A thing of beauty is a joy
forever', or that 'Truth is beauty, beauty ... truth'?
GRAHAM: No, I don't! And
neither do I agree with his near contemporary, Goethe, who said: 'The eternal
feminine draws us up'.
PETER: Oh and why is that?
GRAHAM: Because the feminine aspect of life is merely a temporal
affair and, except in the erotic sense that Goethe probably intended, only
serves to draw us down towards the beastly rather than up ... towards the
godly. When one makes love to a woman
one is in the feminine world, which is inherently sensual, and consequently
turning one's back on the world of spiritual striving. One's responsibilities there are feminine
and, hence, negative, not masculine and positive. Baudelaire defines the situation well when he
says: 'Love greatly resembles an application of torture or a surgical
operation', and, later, when he goes on to record: 'There are in every man,
always, two simultaneous allegiances, one to God, the other to Satan', and
proceeds to define the latter as a 'delight in descent' involving, amongst
other things, woman, he directly refutes the aforementioned maxim of Goethe - at
least as it may apply to moral standards!
PETER: Which is, I suppose, only to be expected, since Baudelaire
was an ascetic Catholic and not, like Goethe, a hedonistic Protestant. But, really, I asked you a question about
Keats and still haven't received an enlightening answer.
GRAHAM: I told you that I didn't agree with Keats' lines, and my
reasons for saying so are similar to my reasons for not agreeing with Goethe's
oft-quoted line - namely that, like the feminine, beauty isn't eternal, and
therefore is incapable of being 'a joy forever'. You see, beauty appertains to appearance, an
attribute which is quantitative and, hence, temporal. Truth, on the other hand, appertains to essence,
an attribute which is qualitative and, hence, eternal. To write: 'Truth is beauty, beauty truth',
like Keats, is to write nonsense from any higher or objective point-of-view,
seeing that essence and appearance are forever antithetical, and therefore
incapable of being reconciled. The
beauty of a beautiful woman is apparent, whereas the truth of a truthful man is
essential, and never can the two attributes be harmonized, let alone become
equal. For whereas the former leads down
to sensuality the latter leads up to the spirit. Only a dualist could confound them and
strive, no matter how self-deceptively, to reconcile the two in one
equation. Yet as Baudelaire said
somewhere else: 'The more a man cultivates the arts, the less he
fornicates. A more and more apparent
cleavage occurs between the spirit and the brute'.
PETER: Doubtless that is true within certain limits. But surely it also contains a contradiction,
since the arts are more often apparent than essential, and thus more aligned
with beauty than with truth?
GRAHAM: Traditionally, and on the lowest artistic levels, that may
well be the case.
But the highest art, especially during the last century or so, is primarily concerned with truth, not beauty. The criteria of artistic excellence have
changed, in accordance with the dictates of evolutionary progress away from the
natural, material world towards a supernatural, or spiritual, one. To be concerned overmuch with beauty, in this
day and age, would hardly help to place one's work in the vanguard of artistic
progress. Rather, one would be producing
anachronisms, only fit for the most popular or old-fashioned appreciation.
PETER: But the fact nevertheless remains that art is largely
apparent, if only because it stands outside the self and obliges one to
contemplate it from a distance.
GRAHAM: Ah, if you are specifically alluding to the art of
painting, then that is undoubtedly true!
But, you see, modern art utilizes appearance in the service of essence
to the extent that appearance can be so utilized. Of course, one is going to be at cross-purposes
to some extent, and this is an unfortunate limitation of art as we currently
understand the term. For no matter how
much the artist may strive to convey truth as opposed to beauty in his work,
appearance inevitably remains tied to the sensual, temporal, material world.
PETER: Then what is the point of the artist's working at
cross-purposes with himself if the end-product is going to fall short of
perfection, as defined in terms of the essential?
GRAHAM: The point is not to attain to
perfection, as just defined, but to intimate of it, no matter how crudely, by
utilizing apparent means. Improvements
from the spiritual point-of-view on the physical constituents of art are always
possible and continue to be made, whilst its content can likewise be improved
upon through increased abstraction.
Where painters were once dependent on heavy frames and thick canvases,
not to mention stodgy oils, they now have access to much lighter frames -
assuming frames are used at all - and thinner canvases on which less
materialistic pigments, like acrylic, can be applied. On the content side of artistic improvements
we find a progression from, say, the religiously pictorial paintings of Tintoretto and Rubens to the completely abstract paintings
of Mondrian and Ben Nicholson via the bare interiors
of Protestant churches, as revealed by de Witte and Saenredam. Thus, in the material context, we find that
the materials used in modern paintings are, on the whole, less materialistic
than those used in the paintings of earlier centuries, whilst, in the spiritual
context, we find that the subject-matter of the best contemporary works is far
less apparent than with paintings at any previous time, and therefore signifies
a closer approximation to essence. An
abstract painting may not constitute essence, or spirit, but it is at least a
superior symbol of essence than could have been attained from a
representational or pictorial work of religious objectivity, as produced in
earlier centuries.
PETER: But surely art conceived in terms of abstract painting must
inevitably reach a dead-end, if what you say is true, with a maximum
approximation to essence beyond which it cannot evolve.
GRAHAM: Oh, indeed! And, to
all appearances, this is what has
happened. Or, more accurately, painting
has attained to its consummation in the pure abstractions of masters like Mondrian, Kandinsky, Nicholson,
Klein, et al., beyond which no reasonable progress is possible. What began with Turner and the Impressionists
in the nineteenth century has attained to completion in the twentieth. Indeed, whenever I look at an Impressionist
painting these days, whether by Monet, Sisley, or Pissarro, I am conscious of looking at crude abstract art,
at the beginnings of a process of spiritual development that was furthered and
brought to perfection in the twentieth century.
The Impressionists thus become for me somewhat primitive, I might even
say too materialistic and apparent for comfort.
I prefer the superior developments of Mondrian,
Nicholson, et al.
PETER: Then, assuming these developments have attained to a climax
now, it would seem that art has got very little left to do and is essentially a
thing of the past.
GRAHAM: When conceived solely in painterly terms I agree that that
must undoubtedly be so. But to imagine
that art ends with painting would be to underestimate its evolutionary
capabilities, since moving from the canvas to the air or electric-light bulb is
as inevitable a progression as was the one which led from the cave or wall to
the canvas. Like biological evolution,
which takes the form of successive transmutations of species, art also changes
its constitution in the interests of both survival and aesthetic improvements,
with the latter consideration dominating the former in this day and age. Thus light art, as reflected in fluorescent
tubing and various types of light bulbs, becomes the successor to painting ...
as a better means of approximating appearance to essence. An abstract arrangement of slender neon
tubing provides a superior spectacle to abstract painting ... to the extent
that it conforms to a less materialistic context, both as regards content and
materials. The slender transparent
plastic tubing is less materialistic than a canvas, with or without frame, and
the light, created by electricity, is likewise less materialistic than the
pigments utilized in the creation of paintings, which congeal into hard layers
of paint capable of being touched. But
you can't touch electric or neon light, since it is an impalpable medium
diffused throughout the tubing by the process of molecular action on
chemicals. In the case, for example, of
fluorescent lighting, it is the electron bombardment of phosphor that produces
the impalpable glow. Thus light art is
far better suited for an approximation to essence than painting, and has
accordingly superseded painting in this respect.
PETER: But isn't light art a kind of sculpture rather than
successor to painting?
GRAHAM: Doubtless some of the more cumbersome light works,
involving bulbs and tubes, can be regarded as a kind of modern sculpture. But I incline to regard most light works as a
step beyond painting, rather than as a new manifestation of sculpture. And I do so because, fundamentally, sculpture
is a tactile art and must remain so ... if it isn't to become transmuted into
something else. Modern sculpture, as
produced, for instance, by Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth,
Archipenco, Arp, Brancusi, and Viani, remains
fundamentally tactile, and especially is this so with such outdoor works as are
accessible to the public. A large bronze
by
PETER: So, presumably, to contemplate sculpture instead of to
touch it would be as absurd, in your view, as to touch paintings or light works
instead of to contemplate them?
GRAHAM: I didn't say that, although I am in no doubt that,
traditionally, sculpture should be touched as well as contemplated. If, however, we prefer to contemplate than to
touch sculpture these days, that is simply a reflection of the spiritual bias
of the age, which induces us to treat matter more spiritually, as it were, than
our ancestors would have done, and so elevate sculpture to solely optical
appreciation. Probably it would be bad
form now for people to go about touching sculptures, particularly those housed
in galleries, since the solidity experienced by their fingers would contradict
the modern preference for spiritual or partly spiritual interpretations of
matter, as upheld by contemporary science, and only serve to remind people that
matter is still solid, after all.
Doubtless they would be more willing to touch sculpture in
Marxist-Leninist societies, which are materialist, than in quasi-transcendental
ones, if you follow my drift.
PETER: Indeed, though whether they would be encouraged to do so is
another matter! However, getting back to
the subject of light art and assuming, for the sake of argument, that such art
does indeed signify a step beyond painting rather than a new type of sculpture
- how can it be improved upon if it is to intimate more closely of essence in
the future, bearing in mind that it will always be tied to appearances no
matter what happens?
GRAHAM: Well, what applies to painting applies no less to light
art, so that the progressive reduction of its material side will constitute a
mode of improvement, as, no doubt, will the progressive expansion of its
spiritual, or abstract, side. Thus what
is all the time happening on the macrocosmic plane of contracting suns and on
the microcosmic plane of expanding spirit, is also
happening in art, with regard to its changing constitution. The diabolic side of art is reduced in
proportion that its divine side increases.
Consequently, where light art is concerned, the next obvious
evolutionary improvement will free light from the plastic tubing, or whatever
its material envelope may happen to be, and place it in the air, in the sky, in
space. So not only will light be free of
the plastic tubing, it will simultaneously be free of the support wall or floor
or stand on which the tubing rests. Now
with this contraction of its material side will come an expansion of its
spiritual side, as light is concentrated into purer and brighter globes, with
the convergence towards one central point in space of the beams of numerous
searchlights or equivalent powerful lighting apparatuses, like a convergence to
Teilhard de Chardin's Omega
Point.
PETER: Thereby taking light art outdoors?
GRAHAM: Yes, although there will also be scope for indoor light
shows of a progressively more transcendent order, which may involve the
projection of kaleidoscopic colours onto walls or ceilings. But the most spectacular effects with light
will be outdoors, and should come from laser beams projected into space as an
approximation of appearance to the ultimate essence of pure spirit in the
future transcendental Beyond. There have already been a number of
laser-light works on display in the West, particularly
PETER: Presumably not only with regard to the light-producing
mechanism, but with regard to the appearance of light in the sky as well?
GRAHAM: Yes, undoubtedly. For essence, conceived transcendently, would not be phenomenal but noumenal and therefore totally beyond appearances. The Spiritual Globes that should issue from Superbeings, at the transformation point from the
post-Human Millennium to the transcendental Beyond, could not be detected as
visible presences looming large. For the
spiritual world is necessarily invisible to the senses, since antithetical to
what is sensual. Traditionally, we have
realized and acknowledged this fact by conceiving of ghosts as impalpable,
scarcely perceptible entities that float aloft like transparent clouds. Our egocentric status in the past did of
course lead to ghosts being anthropomorphized, or given human form, as though
the spirit was patterned on the entire physical body and stemmed in bodily form
from the body with death! This, of
course, isn't the case. For, in reality,
it is only the most noble organ of the body, namely the brain, that truly
produces spirit, and then only in its higher, or new-brain, part, which,
translated into psychological terminology, we call the superconscious. It is from this new brain/superconscious
symbiosis that, with transcendence, spirit will emerge as the climax to the
post-Human Millennium, and it won't have human shape for the simple reason that
- apart from the aforementioned absence of divine spirit from the body in general
- the human body will have long before been superseded by the artificial
supports and sustains of the Supermen and Superbeings
respectively.
PETER: Then, presumably, ghosts were figments of the imagination
and little else?
GRAHAM: Yes, though inevitable figments, given the evolutionary
limitations of the age of religious objectivity, with its notion of man being
made in God's image and the consequent fact that spirit was believed capable of
surviving death and returning to its Maker.
But these beliefs would now be incapable of standing up to logical,
rational opposition, which is why they should be discarded, like a dead
husk. If at death the spirit dies it is
because the body, being mortal, has killed it off, snuffed out something that
would have been capable of lasting for ever if only it had been given more
adequate or long-term support. For
spirit remains dependent on matter so long as it is insufficiently cultivated
to manage without it, which is to say, until transcendence is achieved as the
fruit of so much spiritual striving ... carried out in collective and
extensively artificial contexts. But
whether, depending on the age into which one was born, one's spirit is destined
for immortality or not, the fact nevertheless remains that, being essence,
spirit is aligned with truth and isn't therefore capable of being detected,
like beauty, on the plane of phenomenal appearance. Consequently all attempts to depict
transcendent spirit, whether by paint, electric light, laser beams, or
whatever, are intrinsically contrary to the truth of spirit as noumenal essence, and can only be misleading from a
strictly subjective standpoint. Even the
Hindu conception of God as the Clear Light of the Void is fundamentally
inadequate, since it presupposes appearance and consequently induces one to
visualize, in the mind's eye, some clear light shining in the 'heavens', like a
purer kind of star, perceptible to sight.
Yet that isn't what the Omega Absolute would be,
nor even the Spiritual Globes that will precede the ultimate unification of
pure spirit. One could never know the
Omega Absolute in the sense of perceiving it.
One could only conceptually experience essence as pure spirit, which
would be the condition of Heaven. Light
art, however, will always remain partly tied to Hell, no matter how sincerely
it is used to intimate of Heaven. For
one will always see it, just as one can see the hell specific to our world if
one looks up at the sky on a clear day.... Contrary to traditional belief,
there is not one hell but literally billions of hells scattered throughout the
Universe, which correspond to individual stars.
Our star is therefore but one of millions of petty hells which revolve
around the great star at the centre of the Galaxy - part of the overall pluralism
of the Diabolic Alpha. Given the
limitations of the ancients as regards the true extent and nature of the
Universe, it is possible that the Creator was abstracted from the sun rather
than from the central star of the Galaxy, which, then as now, would have been
too remote to be seen. However, this is
a debatable point, since it is well known that primitive societies have
responded differently to the concept of a 'Creator', doubtless by abstracting
from different cosmic sources. Thus if
some of them, like the Aztecs, referred religion directly to the sun, others,
like the Jews, abstracted from a something assumed to be the sun's creator -
quite possibly the central star of the Galaxy.
Hence when the sun is regarded as Creator, we get polytheism. For the other stars that can be glimpsed in
the Galaxy or outside it are likewise regarded as gods. But when the sun is considered as merely a
part of nature, and not its sole creator, we get monotheism, and can surmise
that the religious sense appertaining to the Creator will be abstracted from
the central star of the Galaxy, since that would probably be the star
responsible, directly or indirectly, for the creation of such minor stars as
the sun, and need not be known to mankind to be placed in a creative role. The important thing to remember, however, is
that when we refer to 'the Creator' we are primarily referring to a creator of
this world and, by implication, everything naturally in it, not to the Creator
of the Universe. For the latter would
have been created from an explosion of gases giving rise to the star clusters
we now refer to as galaxies. Yet such a
Creator, or First Cause, would have no relevance to man, and could not be
prayed to as something that was believed to exist in the Universe. Only the stars exist there, and if it was the
case that ancient man, with his cosmic myopia, abstracted the Creator either
from the nearest star or the unglimpsed central star
of the Galaxy, then there is no reason for us to attempt to equate it with all
the stars. After all, the Lord's Prayer,
beginning 'Our Father ...', suggests a relative rather
than an absolute frame-of-reference, doesn't it? There is no reason for us to doubt that there
are other 'Fathers' in the Universe, or that other peoples or whatever on other
planets haven't likewise prayed to their specific 'Father', during the period
of evolutionary time in their historical destinies when such a prayer was
deemed relevant. For the post-dualistic
civilization of the future, however, no such alpha-oriented prayer could
possibly be relevant, since people would be exclusively concentrating their
religious attention on the cultivation of spirit in an omega orientation, not
referring back to a cosmic creator for assistance or forgiveness. Religion at that fortunate epoch in time,
beyond the tyranny of priests and all those who would uphold alpha in the face
of ongoing omega, would be purely subjective, not abstracted from the
materialistic objectivity of the external cosmos in objective illusion. And art, you can rest assured, would be
superior to what it had ever been in the dualistic and transitional
civilizations of the contemporary West.
PETER: Although, presumably, it would still remain tied to
appearance, and thus be no more than a crude intimation of essence?
GRAHAM: Yes, and that would apply to holography no less than to
laser art, since holograms, as three-dimensional reproductions of objects
projected into surrounding space through the use of mirrors, would still be
apparent, if the nearest thing to the ghost of an object. A telephone, for instance, can be projected
into surrounding space in this way, positioned no more than a few feet above
the ground.
PETER: I have actually seen this done, and felt very tempted to
put my hand through the holographic 'phone, in order to verify that it really
was an illusionary projection and not a factual reality. But as other people were verifying that fact,
I was content merely to gaze at it, charmed and intrigued by its pale-green
luminosity.
GRAHAM: You behaved wisely!
For holograms, being a form of light art, are primarily there to be seen
rather than karate-chopped. Of course,
they are novelties within the context of dualistic civilization, and so they
will remain. But the next, wholly
post-dualistic civilization will develop them to unprecedented heights and take
a special pride in them, a pride commensurate, one might say, with the extremes
of scientific subjectivity, in which a wavicle theory
of matter will probably come to replace the compromise particle/wavicle theory of twentieth-century physics, and art forms
seemingly reflecting this new theory duly be accorded a place of honour. Doubtless a hologram through which one can
put one's hand will be more suited to the spiritual bias of transcendental man
than an impervious object! And the
translucence and gem-like lustre of the hologram will provide him with an
aesthetic foretaste, as it were, of the still higher art of the Superman, which
won't be external but internal.
PETER: To what, exactly, are you alluding
here?
GRAHAM: The internal visionary experience
induced by LSD, or some such hallucinogenic stimulant, which will constitute
the highest possible use of appearance put to essential ends. For whereas the hologram, no matter how translucent
or bright, still remains tied to the external world, with hallucinogens like
LSD, however, art is brought into the internal one, into the lower reaches of
the superconscious, where it is closer than ever
before to essence. Here, in the
spiritual landscape opened up by LSD, the Superman will apperceive the
translucence and gem-like lustre of the utterly passive, crystal-clear contents
of his visionary superconscious, the spiritual
contents of the transcendent psyche.
PETER: You mean, he will be apperceiving a kind of internal
hologram, or series of internal holograms?
GRAHAM: That is probably not very far from the truth! Although, in his case, there will be no
holographic apparatus. And consequently 'art'
will attain to its apotheosis in the maximum approximation of appearance to
essence ... achieved through the complete internalization of the former. Every Superman will become an artist, the
witness of his own psychic creations.
PETER: Like watching an internal television show?
GRAHAM: In a sense, though television
programmes are usually negative, or active, whereas the visionary contents of
the superconscious are purely positive and, hence,
passive, like a hologram. What
holography is to LSD experience, television is to dreams, which are always active. Watching
television is rather like dreaming externally, dreaming, one might say,
objectively instead of subjectively.
Looking at holograms, on the other hand, is rather like tripping
externally, tripping objectively instead of subjectively. A confusing distinction perhaps, because the
external objective ends with material reality, whereas the internal subjective
really begins with the spiritual reality of the superconscious. Thus dreams, which appertain
to the subconscious, are ever objective, while the visionary contents of the superconscious are subjective, in accordance with internal
reality. Dreams, you see, are
rather like the idealistic abstractions from the external material world of
religious objectivity. They distort and
reinterpret external reality. The
visionary contents of the superconscious, however,
strive to illuminate internal reality, which is purely spiritual and, at its
highest levels, completely beyond appearances.
Beauty still clings to visionary experience, but it is a beauty through
which the light of truth shines as an intimation of things or, rather, essences
to come. Eventually, with the advent of
the second phase of millennial salvation, the light of truth will eclipse the
illuminated beauty of LSD visions, as the Supermen are transformed into the Superbeings of spiritual communality, the true and ultimate
earthly communes in which new-brain clusters, artificially supported and
sustained, will meditate their collective way towards transcendence and, hence,
the heavenly Beyond. What LSD was to the
Supermen, intensified meditation will be to the Superbeings
- a meditation in which not appearance but essence will prevail, as the
full-blown superconscious experiences the undiluted
truth of post-visionary spirit. Here
life will be completely beyond art. For
no longer will the mind be in need of guidance towards the essential through
the exploitation of progressively refined-upon-appearance. It will be in the
essential, and accordingly almost at the long-awaited goal of spiritual
striving. Almost! For the earthly paradise of Superbeings will be superseded by the transcendent paradise
of Spiritual Globes, and they, in turn, will expand into one another in the
heavenly Beyond, to form the ultimate paradise of the Omega Absolute. It is a curious fact that truth, oneness,
pure spirit, and transcendence will not only be the attributes of ultimate
divinity, they will also be the attributes of Spiritual Globes on route, as it
were, to the Omega Absolute. They will
even be the attributes, to a lesser extent, of the Superbeings. They won't be unknown to the Supermen. And neither will they be completely alien to
transcendental man, who will glimpse them but faintly through the barrier of
his human psyche. That is why, as a
Transcendentalist, I speak to you of these matters in the hope that you, too,
will find a place for them in your psyche.
PETER: Those words aren't wasted on my ears, for I am not deaf to
truth, like so many people. But perhaps
I shall become blinder to beauty than formerly, and therefore disinclined to
agree with John Keats that 'Truth is beauty, beauty truth, that is all ye know
and all ye need to know'? There's no
beauty in his words for me now, and neither is there much truth. Like you, I have become deaf to
illusion. I see and hear only truth.
GRAHAM: That is better. But
it will be even better when the time comes for minds like yours to experience
truth, and so escape from the senses.
Until such time, let us be content to improve and refine upon art - of
whichever kind.
FROM THE ALPHA ABSOLUTE(S)
TO THE OMEGA ABSOLUTE
ROBERT: Talking of religion, does the Creator really correspond to
the Devil, and does Hell actually exist?
PAUL: Yes, I believe that the Creator and the Devil are fundamentally one and the same thing, since theological
abstractions from the Galaxy. As to
whether Hell exists, you might just as well ask me whether the Devil exists,
and I would give you the same answer.
ROBERT: Well?
PAUL: No.
ROBERT: Is that supposed to be an answer?
PAUL: It is. And for this
reason: what exist in the Universe, not just the Galaxy, are stars and planets,
which correspond to objective reality as it bears on the external world. The stars are really there, we needn't doubt
that fact, and they burn both continuously and fiercely. They are rather nasty phenomena, as anyone
who has suffered sunstroke or otherwise burnt himself through the sun's power
will tell you. Not something to which
one would want to get too close!
ROBERT: I know all that.
And it makes one think of Hell when you mention it!
PAUL: Ah, but Hell isn't the sun, nor even the central star of the
Galaxy, but an abstraction from the sun, an idea in the subconscious which
reflects the prevalence of religious objectivity, as appertaining to the pagan
and Christian stages of human evolution.
Hell only exists in the mind, and so, by a similar token, do 'the Devil'
and 'the Creator', since they are all abstractions from the same cosmic source.
ROBERT: But surely the Devil, or Satan, has co-existed with the
Creator, or Jehovah, in Biblical tradition, and thus led an independent life,
so to speak? We read in the Old
Testament of Jehovah as God and Satan as the Devil, who was kicked out of
Heaven for what one would now call insubordination.
PAUL: Well, that might signify a distinction of place and power,
but it doesn't necessarily prove that the Creator and the Devil are radically
different. Rather, I see them as two
manifestations of fundamentally the same thing, both of which were abstracted
from similar cosmic phenomena. This
thing would be the stellar roots, so to speak, of the Galaxy, which is
comprised, we now know, of a central star - much the most powerful star - and
millions of smaller stars, like the sun.
They are basically of a similar constitution, though they differ in size
and position in the Galaxy.
ROBERT: Are you therefore implying that the Fall
of Satan corresponds to the hypothetical stellar explosion that sent millions
of small stars flying out from the large central one at the base of the Galaxy?
PAUL: In a way I suppose I am, since our
sun was almost certainly created through extrapolation from some larger source
and would have constituted a suitable objective reality from which to abstract
the Devil. A mind that contends that God
created the sun is referring, willy-nilly, to the far-away central star of the
Galaxy out of which it probably arose.
ROBERT: Surely you mean fell?
PAUL: A fall would be the proper pagan interpretation to put on
it, since no early Hebrew mind would have been aware of a transcendental goal
to be attained to, and would consequently have felt the guilt that comes with a
degree of human independence from nature in the face of nature's vast
preponderance, both externally - as stars, planets, plants, animals, etc. - and
internally - as subconscious mind. From
our point of view, however, the emergence of small stars from the big one
signifies an evolutionary progression that could be regarded, paradoxically, as
a sort of rise. But if the Devil is an
abstraction from the sun and the Creator an abstraction from the central star
of the Galaxy, then we needn't be surprised by the co-existence, in Biblical
writings, of these two manifestations of religious objectivity. Hell, conceived as a place where the Devil
reigns, only began to develop as a theological entity with the advent of
dualism and the consequent belief in a posthumous Heaven. Before men conceived of Heaven, they had
little idea of Hell. It is among the ancient
Greeks that we get the strongest belief in Hell prior to the Christians, though
they termed it Hades and simply regarded it as the abode of the dead - a rather
lacklustre place devoid of the kinds of excruciating tortures so essential to
the medieval concept of Hell, and therefore more resembling the Christian
purgatory. The Greeks were also
polytheistic and thus inclined to abstract gods and goddesses from nature,
including the sun, rather than to envisage a monotheistic creative power behind
it. The Christians subsequently adopted
the Hebrew bias for the centre, while tempering it with a modified extension of
Hades and Olympus, which embraced the extremes of Hell and Heaven. But whether a particular deity was abstracted
from one source or another, the fact nevertheless remains that neither the
Devil nor the Creator correspond to external realities, but are simply
idealistic abstractions relative to subconscious illusion.
ROBERT: So one wouldn't be strictly justified in contending that evolution
proceeds from the Devil to God or from Hell to Heaven.
PAUL: No, because evolution proceeds from the stars to God, from
the stars to Heaven, which is to say, from objective reality conceived
externally, as matter, to subjective reality conceived internally, as
spirit. Only the subjective psyche truly
exists, for the objective psyche is necessarily illusory. And it is necessarily illusory because
composed of abstractions from objective reality. Thus in the lower idealism of religious
objectivity we get the Creator, the Devil, Hell, and so on, whereas in the
higher idealism of scientific subjectivity ... we get curved space, the
particle/wavicle theory of matter, multiple
universes, and so on. The former was
abstracted from cosmic reality, while the latter has been abstracted from the
psychic reality of superconscious mind. The former must inevitably precede the
latter, but will also be superseded by it.
Thus we intellectuals don't believe in the Devil, Hell, the Creator,
like our medieval ancestors, but we do believe in curved space, the particle/wavicle theory of matter, and multiple universes, and so we
should, even though, from any objectively materialist point-of-view, such
beliefs could only be regarded as erroneous and misguided! Just try thinking about curved space for a
moment. Imagine space, which is a
nothingness or void, as a curve!
ROBERT: I can't. Only
certain material objects appear curved, since curvature is detectable on their
surfaces, being a property of certain objects.
But I can't imagine a void being curved.
PAUL: No, and neither can I, although every advanced and truly
contemporary Western scientist will endorse Einstein's theory of curved
space. Some of them can even purport to
prove it, as did Faraday, who was clever enough to invent a machine which
created the desired impression, thereby proving, once and for all, that space
really was curved and the Universe finite.
As to the particle/wavicle theory of matter,
anyone can bang their hands against a strong piece of wood and feel the
resistance of matter. But certain
ingenious devices, like the Bubble Chamber, can prove that, on the subatomic
level, matter isn't really what it appears to be on the surface, since composed
of numerous particles which interpenetrate one another and also become, at
other times and when viewed from a different psychic angle, so to speak,
numerous wavicles.
Mysterious now-you-see-me-now-you-don't alternations of particles and wavicles are brought to life by this magical device that
would shame any traditional materialist.
But no contemporary so-called physicist could possibly do justice to
matter without it, and neither could he pursue scientific subjectivity so
ardently was it not for the fact that our supermystical
bias requires being flattered in this metaphysical way, not just
recognized. The contemporary physicist
becomes, in this context, a sort of scientific theologian, the modern
equivalent of the religious theologians of the past. What he tells us is false by any objective
materialist standards, but absolutely true to the age - an age in which
information concerning the external world is abstracted from the spiritual
reality of the superconscious, in conformity with
transcendental criteria. Previously,
however, it was the other way around, as information concerning the
subconscious was abstracted from the material reality of the external world,
and internal objectivity accordingly prevailed.
Now that we have external subjectivity, however, we should be sincerely
grateful for the fact, since it reflects a considerable degree of evolutionary
progress!
ROBERT: Although this external subjectivity, as you call it, only
prevails in the West, particularly in the United States, where a transcendental
bias is permissible, if not always officially encouraged.
PAUL: Yes, the so-called communist world has traditionally
remained tied to scientific objectivity, and thus to material reality. If at one time it officially outlawed
religious objectivity, it failed to endorse religious subjectivity, and so
couldn't encourage abstractions from the superconscious
concerning the material world. It was
essentially an external, superficial world that corresponded to a
post-dualistic barbarism. Civilization
on the highest, or qualitative, level requires a religion, but Marxist-Leninist
countries didn't really have one, at least not in any morally progressive
sense. However, don't blame them for
that! They were part-and-parcel of historical
necessity and couldn't possibly gravitate to civilization on the next level
within the context of the world as it was until quite recently, which, as you
know, was largely divided between the dualistic and transitional civilizations
on the one hand, and the neo-barbarous post-dualistic powers on the other. To have had three stages of civilization,
viz. a dualistic, a transitional, and a post-dualistic, existing simultaneously
would have been illogical and therefore quite improbable from an historical
point-of-view. Obviously the first two
will have to be superseded before the third can truly become a reality, and
socialism accordingly embraces transcendentalism. But it won't embrace transcendentalism
overnight, so to speak, nor in all the revolutionary post-dualistic countries
at once. Only in one country, initially,
will socialism tend towards the establishment of post-dualistic civilization,
as signified by Social Transcendentalism, and from there such a civilization
will spread abroad to eventually embrace the entire world. Then we will certainly be on the road to global
civilization. But not before
transcendentalism has proved its worth and socialist powers have been persuaded
to evolve, via Social Democracy, into post-dualistic civilization.
ROBERT: Which will be atheistic rather than theistic, like the
dualistic and transitional civilizations of the contemporary West?
PAUL: Yes, because completely beyond religious objectivity, which
upholds the idealism of the subconscious mind.
For a post-dualistic psyche, with approximately three times as much superconscious as subconscious influence, the illusory
contents of the subconscious fade into the mists of history ... as the mind
tends further and further into the light of truth. So, obviously, they can't be upheld as
formerly. The external world, with
particular reference to the Galaxy, will still exist as before, so that the
cosmic phenomena from which religious idealism was abstracted in the past are
still there, and consequently still support and sustain the world. But the internal world will have changed so
much that the Creator, the Devil, Hell, and other such theological abstractions
will hold no place in our references to the external world and, accordingly,
have ceased to exist for us. Evolution
will be regarded as a progression from the stars to the Holy Spirit which, in
more objective language, one might call the Omega Absolute. And the stars and planets will generally be
regarded as though they functioned according to divine logic, with mystical
rather than materialist criteria, in deference to the transcendental bias of
scientific subjectivity. Strictly
speaking, however, this could never be the case, since stars are ever infernal
and therefore function on the fundamentally Newtonian basis of force and mass. But to a post-dualistic civilization,
scientific objectivity would be as irrelevant as religious objectivity.
ROBERT: So considered from the traditional point-of-view, with
regard to the infernal nature of the stars, you would have no difficulty in
equating the Creator with a more powerful inferno than Satan, who was generally
regarded as the Devil.
PAUL: If the Creator was abstracted from the biggest star of the
Galaxy, then He would certainly be more powerful than anything abstracted from
the sun. If the Creator created the
Devil, whether by mistake or otherwise, then Satan could only be a minor
inferno by comparison.
ROBERT: And do you think there was one Creator or many?
PAUL: There would have been many Creators throughout the
Universe. For each galaxy has a
governing or central star around which the millions of smaller stars
revolve. To imagine that the Universe
began with a Big Bang ... from one huge mass of gas which sent stars, or the
rudiments thereof, flying out in every direction ... would, I think, be to
overlook the fundamental nature of the Diabolic Alpha in utter
separateness. If evolution is destined
to culminate in the indivisible unity of transcendent spirit, then I don't see
that one should ascribe a unity in indivisible sensuality to its beginnings! Rather, one should envisage numerous separate
explosions of gas throughout the Universe which, issuing from what we now call
the central star of each galaxy, sent suns flying out in every direction, to
bring about the rudiments of individual galaxies. Possibly some of these suns were of a
different internal constitution than others, they may even have come from other
galactic explosions in which the gases were differently constituted, and
thereby set up a kind of magnetic equilibrium in tension when they encountered
their opposite numbers, so to speak, in the gradual formation of galaxies. But it was solely from and within the context
of this galaxy, rather than from the totality of galaxies making up the
Universe, that religious objectivity was subsequently abstracted.
ROBERT: Which means, I take it, that the ancients, whether Hebrew
or otherwise, took the Galaxy for the Universe, since they lacked the
scientific means by which to acquire a more comprehensive knowledge of the
various galaxies, and accordingly imagined that the Universe was simply
compounded of all the stars they could see, and that it revolved around the
earth.
PAUL: Yes, so they abstracted from a fragment of the Universe
under the mistaken assumption that they were in fact abstracting from the
whole, and thereby arrived - at any rate, in the case of the Hebrews - at a monotheism only relative to this galaxy. In reality, there are or were literally
millions of creators in the Universe, because millions of separate galaxies
with their respective governing stars, and these creators each gave rise to
millions of devils, because billions of separate stars in all the galaxies of
the Universe taken together. This,
however, is to extend religious objectivity farther afield,
and it can have no applicability to the modern world! We speak of galaxies, not creators, and so we
should. I am not now expecting you to
resurrect the past and modify it by substituting creators for the Creator,
devils for the Devil, hells for Hell, or the lot for galaxies! But, to get the record straight, I am quite
sure that the traditional religious reference to the Creator, the Devil, etc.,
was, so to speak, cosmically provincial, relevant only to this galaxy, and that
there were in fact millions of creators being worshipped throughout the
Universe, with millions of devils being feared there - each alien 'people'
acknowledging their own abstractions in whichever solar system they happened to
exist.
ROBERT: So the old enigma as to whether there was only one First
Cause of the Universe or numerous First Causes has been solved at last, if what
you say is true?
PAUL: I believe so. And I
believe that intelligent life forms in any particular galaxy would only
acknowledge the First Cause relative to their specific galaxy, not to anyone
else's, even though they would probably have abstracted the Devil from
different sources, depending on which solar system, if any, they
inhabited. Thus if certain of our
ancestors on earth abstracted the Devil from the sun, there would be plenty of
other suns in the Galaxy to serve a like-purpose for other human equivalents in
different solar systems, and consequently they would all be referring to
different devils. As to the fact that,
in most traditional political arrangements, the king and nobles derive their
justification from the workings of the Galaxy and may be thought of as
corresponding, in their relationship with the general populace, to the
relations of suns to planets, I have little doubt that the king corresponds, in
his privilege of 'Divine Right', to the governing star of the Galaxy, and thus
functions as the human equivalent on earth of the Creator. His nobles, being fundamentally of the same
stuff as himself, correspond to the numerous smaller stars that revolve around
the large central one, and therefore are aligned with devils, functioning as
the human equivalent on earth of the devils of a particular galaxy. The populace, by contrast, correspond to the
planets of each solar system and are therefore aligned with demons, functioning
as the human equivalent on earth of the demons of a particular galaxy. This is a thoroughly diabolical system which
prevails while man is under the dominion of nature, of the natural status quo,
and has not yet begun to exclusively aspire towards the supernatural. Thus to some extent it prevails right up to
the advent of post-dualistic civilization, when everything appertaining to the
monarchic/aristocratic system of government would have ceased to exist. A constitutional monarchy, such as exists in
dualistic Britain, is fundamentally a diabolic system that has been diluted by
bourgeois democracy, whilst a republic, such as exists in transitional America,
is a worldly system characterized by bourgeois/proletarian democracy. Only in a post-dualistic civilization will
the undiluted truth of a divine-oriented system become possible, as men turn
exclusively, in Transcendentalism, towards the cultivation of spirit, and thus
cease to fear or worship or slave for the human equivalents on earth of the
galactic order. At that fortunate time there
will be no such equivalents, for they will have ceased to exist, having faded
into the misty past, along with scientific and religious objectivity. Only the divine-oriented class of the
proletariat will continue the progress of human evolution, and they will do so
not as the human equivalent on earth of demons, like the peasant masses and,
more especially, soldiery of the feudal and pre-feudal past, but as
Transcendentalists - angelic aspirants towards the post-Human Millennium ...
and beyond.
FROM THE APPARENT TO THE
ESSENTIAL
MICHAEL: I know that, in this day and age, one sometimes
encounters men with long hair and women with short hair, but in general it is
the other way around, and this has often puzzled me. I mean, why should a woman's hair be longer
than a man's?
LIAM: The obvious answer to your question is that women allow
their hair to grow longer. But if you
probe beneath the surface to the, as it were, moral or metaphysical
implications of such a tendency, you will find, I think, that women wear their
hair longer than men because they are more natural, as a rule - not, as might
at first be supposed, because it necessarily makes them look prettier. Being closer to nature than men, it is
natural for women that what grows naturally should be encouraged to grow rather
than be cut short. Their acquiescence in
the natural order of things is greater, on the whole, than a man's.
MICHAEL: An interesting theory, I must
admit! Perhaps that explains why women
generally grow their fingernails longer than men as well?
LIAM: Yes, I believe so, since fingernails are no less natural
than hair. Having short hair and
fingernails is the mark of a being who desires to keep nature down, so to
speak, and prevent it from dominating him.
The mark of a more civilized being - in short, of a
man. Now for this reason a man,
when he is truly civilized, tends to trim his beard or, better still, shave his
face clean every day. A clean-shaven
face is a more civilized-looking face than one with a beard or a moustache on
it, even when the latter are regularly trimmed.
What grows naturally, in this context, has been removed or, at any rate,
curtailed in the interests of an artificial and, hence, civilized appearance.
MICHAEL: You embarrass me slightly, since I habitually sport a
beard, albeit one that is regularly trimmed.
Nevertheless I am sure you have a point, seeing as the majority of men
tend, these days, to prefer a clean-shaven face to a bearded one, just as they
also prefer short hair to long hair - at least on their own sex.
LIAM: Yes, the heyday of the hippy cult of long hair, beards,
moustaches, bell-bottoms, and sandals has well and truly passed now, which is
why long hair on men is seen much less frequently than was the case in the late
1960s and early 1970s. A majority of
that generation have abandoned long hair for a more civilized appearance; they
have returned to the ongoing masculine trend of evolution instead of being in
rebellion against it, as youths almost invariably are.
MICHAEL: Are you implying that the hippy cult was reactionary?
LIAM: Yes, up to a point; though I am aware that there were
progressive aspects to it, like rock music, psychedelic drugs, festivals, the
desire for peace, and so on. But long
hair on young men wasn't one of them, since connoting with a naturalistic and,
hence, feminine predilection which could only be at loggerheads with the
male-biased character of the age. Rather
than showing a contempt for nature by cutting their hair short, these young men
preferred, in this respect, to identify with it, and so adopt a lifestyle that
was partly reactionary and, in effect, neo-pagan. It was almost as though they had decided to
opt-out of the evolutionary pressures on their own sex in response to the fact
that women were rebelling against their
traditional role in society by wearing jeans, using contraceptives, travelling
about the world more freely, taking jobs, studying for degrees, and generally
expressing themselves in ways which their grandmother's generation wouldn't
have understood, let alone attempted.
The roles of the sexes seemed, at that point in time, to have been
reversed or, at any rate, cross-fertilized.
A man could wear a pair of lightweight sandals as shamelessly as a woman
could wear a pair of monkey boots. The
only thing one didn't see men doing, as a rule, was wearing skirts, which just
goes to show that, despite their long hair, there were definite limits to the
degree of reactionary neo-paganism they permitted themselves.
MICHAEL: Just as well, I think!
However, now that most of the males of our generation have returned to
the masculine fold as short-haired, shoe- or boot-wearing individuals, would it
not seem that the females have carried on as before, preferring jeans to skirts
a lot of the time?
LIAM: Yes, in quite a number of cases, and for the very sound
reason that the overall trend of evolution is towards a supermasculine
society in which women become progressively more 'masculinized',
and thus effectively acquire the status of 'lesser men'. Of course, not all young women frequently
wear jeans, but most of them do at least wear pants of one description or
another, which is a step in the right direction. Yet a majority of them are still pretty
feminine, as can be borne-out by the fact that, in addition to wearing skirts
or dresses, they also wear their hair fairly long and allow their fingernails
to grow longer than would be acceptable on a man. They may shave their armpits, but only a
comparatively small minority of them are given to short hair, and these aren't
necessarily the most sophisticated types either! As a rule, women prefer their hair to hang
down, in confirmation of their basic adherence to nature and naturalistic
criteria in general. And, by a similar
token, they prefer to grow their fingernails.
MICHAEL: As also to paint them, which must surely indicate that
they desire to bring a degree of civilization to bear on their natural
appearance and thereby improve it.
LIAM: Undoubtedly. Although
one should beware of assuming that a woman who regularly uses make-up of one
kind or another is necessarily more civilized than those who don't. Generally speaking, this won't, I think, be
the case. For there are also instances,
perhaps subconscious, in which make-up is used not so much to enhance the
natural ... as to draw attention to it, to become a kind of body art
reminiscent of the art practised by primitives, both male and female, in the
interests of a crude degree of civilization.
After all, before man put art on walls or canvases, and thereby made it
partly transcendental, he applied it to himself, and to some extent this is
what many women still do, since insufficiently psychically-evolved to prefer
the former to the latter. Even the
appreciation of a great painter's work is if not beyond them then certainly
less interesting to them than the application of make-up to their face. And so, at heart, they remain primitives,
preferring the mundane to the transcendent.
Admittedly, there are women who prefer to study or create works of fine
art than to paint themselves, and therefore don't wear make-up, at least not
conspicuously. But they are by no means
a majority, as I think you would have to agree.
MICHAEL: Indeed! Although
if what you say about not wearing make-up is true, then it follows that, as a
rule, only the most sophisticated women will tend to avoid it, since they
prefer to adopt a masculine attitude towards life in pursuance of certain
intellectual or spiritual goals.
LIAM: Oh, absolutely! The
paradox of the situation is that while make-up constitutes the application of
civilization to nature, it only does such on a crude and relatively primitive
level. For even the most tastefully
made-up woman is still drawing attention to appearance instead of transcending
it by concentrating on essence, i.e. on her spiritual or intellectual
interests. Instead of behaving like a
'lesser man', for whom intellectual matters are of greater importance, her
allegiance to nail varnish or lipstick emphasizes her status as a woman, or a
creature for whom appearance, and hence beauty, is paramount. But the truly liberated, progressive woman
eschews such make-up, since she is above the practice of body art and thus
insists that she be respected for her cultural and intellectual abilities - to
be regarded, in effect, as a 'lesser man'.
MICHAEL: A fascinating theory!
And doubtless one that explains why it is normally the less-educated and
least intellectual women who sport the brightest nails. Could the shift from appearance towards
essence, in recent decades, be the chief reason why beauty in art has become so
suspect?
LIAM: Oh undoubtedly! For beauty is ever aligned with appearance rather than with essence
which, by contrast, is a matter of truth. Beauty is on the diabolic rather than the
divine side of the evolutionary divide, as, I think, Baudelaire maintained, and
could only be suspect in an age tending towards truth. By being non-representational, or abstract,
modern art signifies, at its best, an emphasis on the essential rather than the
apparent side of life, and is accordingly omega-orientated: the enigmatic or
nondescript appearance it entails symbolizing the higher, internal world of
truth instead of the lower, external world of illusion or beauty. At its worst, however, modern art isn't so
much pro-transcendental as anti-natural, content merely to distort the external
world of nature and thus deprive it of beauty, thereby assisting us to turn away
from it. Much Expressionism is of this
order, and although we may not derive a great deal of aesthetic pleasure from
such art, we can't dismiss it as bogus or poor.
On the contrary, it is highly significant, since aesthetic pleasure is
precisely what we need to avoid if we are to acquire a greater respect for
truth. And what applies to art applies
no less to music, literature, and sculpture.
MICHAEL: I am sure you're right, though one's feelings, alas,
can't always keep-up with the pace of one's thoughts! Nevertheless if beauty is a thing of the
Devil, then it stands to reason that ugliness should be embraced as a means to
enlightenment, ugliness being beauty distorted rather than the opposite of it,
which is truth. The preponderance of
ugliness in much modern art would seem to constitute a sort of Nietzschean 'transvaluation of
values' so necessary and crucial to the age.
LIAM: Indeed, and not just in modern art but in various other
aspects of modern life too, including the punk cult, which was more enlightened
than it may at first have appeared. By displaying their contempt for beauty,
punks at least demonstrated that they were on the road to salvation, if rather
indirectly so.... Incidentally, whilst on the subject of transvaluations,
you may be interested to learn that one of the most important transvaluations we need to make concerns the respective
status of light and darkness, the former having traditionally been equated with
spiritual enlightenment and, hence, good, while the latter was equated with
spiritual ignorance and, hence, evil.
MICHAEL: Are you trying to tell me that light ought to be equated
with evil instead of good?
LIAM: Yes, at any rate, when external; and for the simple reason
that light stems from the sun, which is equivalent to the diabolic creative
force behind life and not to its future divine consummation in transcendent
spirit. External light is a matter of
appearance, not essence, and is therefore an inadequate symbol for God, which,
ultimately, could only be pure essence.
The use of the word 'light' to define God, as in the oriental term Clear
Light of the Void, betrays a diabolic orientation or, more specifically, the
contradictory application of apparent terminology to an essential context. Strictly speaking, transcendent spirit could
never be seen, since essence is at the furthest possible evolutionary remove
from appearance. Therefore if, at the
inception of evolution, the stars are perceptible as bright, one can only
conclude that, at the climax to evolution, transcendent spirit would be if not
dark then, at any rate, beyond sensuous perception - would, in fact, resemble a
Black Hole, or dense void of spirit, from a sensuous point-of-view. Which is why I have recently come to equate
Black Holes with Spiritual Globes, as I call manifestations of pure spirit en route,
as it were, to the Omega Absolute at the spiritual culmination of evolution.
MICHAEL: You could well be right, although the current scientific
theory tends to equate Black Holes with collapsed stars, as you probably know. But if a denser void, composed of compressed
spirit, were to appear to a telescoped eye as a sort of black hole in space,
then certainly the term Clear Light of the Void would be inadequate for
defining or suggesting God?
LIAM: Yes, and consequently we ought perhaps to transvaluate these traditional values, so that spiritual
enlightenment comes to be symbolized by respect for the darkness rather than
for the light, the respect of a person given to the inner light of his
spirit. I, for one, have no difficulty,
these days, in regarding the night as a better time than the day, since we are
then at a further remove from the diabolic sustaining force of the sun. And this being the case, we are enabled to
cultivate spirit to a greater extent then than during the day, when the sun's
sensuous influence is never very far away.
Only with sleep do we slide into sensuality again, to experience, in
dreaming, a sort of night sun.
Curiously, however, what the night is to the day, winter is to summer,
which is to say, a time of year when one's part of the earth is at a greater
remove from the sun and, consequently, the conditions for cultivating spirit
are much more propitious. One could
describe summer as a pagan season and winter, by contrast, as a transcendental
one, a season when nature is stripped of its beauty to an extent which makes
the cultivation of essence, among human beings, more desirable than the
contemplation of appearance. Winter is
decidedly a masculine season, whereas summer is fundamentally feminine. Women are more in their element in summer,
for they can exploit the heat to show off their bodies and thus entrap men in
appearance. They also incline, as a
rule, to bright colours - yellows, reds, pinks, whites, bright blues, etc. -
rather than to dark ones, which tends to confirm what I have just said about
spiritual enlightenment having to do with darkness instead of light, since
bright sun-like colours are precisely what appeal to the majority of women.
MICHAEL: Perhaps that also explains why priests and nuns dress in
black, since black could be said to approximate to the condition of
transcendent spirit or, at any rate, to the renunciation of the flesh, whereas
white is too close to sunlight?
LIAM: Yes, I think so and consequently I believe you will find
that all those who are in any way intellectually or spiritually advanced tend
to prefer dark clothes to bright ones - the latter, by contrast, appealing more
to the spiritually superficial. I, for
one, have always worn dark clothes, and I know of no intellectual of any standing
who makes a habit of wearing bright ones, like an attractive young woman bent
on making herself as phenomenally conspicuous as possible. Those, as a rule, who draw
attention to appearances are the superficial, the extrovert - in a word, the
heathen. Most people probably
wouldn't want to accept this truth, but that is only because, in our
ostensibly-enlightened but in reality morally ignorant age, they are more pagan
than transcendental.
MICHAEL: One can only suppose that fact to be particularly true of
the fair sex, who must constitute a majority of the 'most' in question.
LIAM: Indeed, and for reasons already touched upon, including the
retention of long hair, long fingernails, and make-up. But this is a consequence of the fact that
human life is caught between nature and an aspiration towards the supernatural,
and has not yet evolved to a wholly omega-oriented civilization. Such a civilization - post-dualistic and,
hence, transcendental - will only materialize in the future, following the
collapse of the partly diabolic, alpha-stemming ones. Then the drive towards sexual equality will
be much stronger than at present, since women won't be encouraged to emphasize
appearance at the expense of essence, but will become more spiritual, in
accordance with the requirements of a post-dualistic society.
MICHAEL: You mean, they will be expected
to wear their hair short and to regularly clip their fingernails into the
bargain?
LIAM: Quite probably.
Although you mention but two aspects of what will doubtless be a large
number of expectations, including, one can only suppose, the avoidance of
make-up. Still, if women are to become
more spiritualized, in the interests of sexual equality, then they can hardly
expect to carry on as before, with specifically feminine allegiances to the
natural order of things. The emphasis on
appearance must be reduced with each step of evolutionary progress. For only by reducing appearance can essence
be encouraged to expand. The world has
not evolved at the expense of women, as certain deluded feminists like to
believe, but in spite of them, which is to say, in opposition to them. Where women were formerly in their
feminine/domestic element, as wives, mothers, courtesans, etc., they are now
being forced out of it by the pressures of a male-oriented technological and
urban society. It took men a long time
to evolve to this stage of evolution, for nature had the better of them right
up to the last century. And women,
needless to say, were an integral part of nature - not, as feminist theologians
prefer to believe, the victims of men!
That the bitter truth of the matter should have been coated with the
sugar of feminist theology ... is something I can quite understand. But there is a great deal of difference
between theology and philosophy, as all students of Schopenhauer will know, and
the philosopher's task, now as before, is to expound truth for the benefit of
those capable of appreciating it, which is to say, for the benefit of those who
aspire to rise towards the inner light.
That, at any rate, is what I believe I have done, and
whether or not you approve of the fact ... is a matter of complete indifference
to me. I have simply done my duty.
TRANSFORMATION POINTS
PHILIP: What is there about meditation that makes it so important
in your eyes? I mean, why should
transcendental meditation become the religious norm of the future, as you
assume it will?
SEAN: Precisely because it makes an approximation to the heavenly condition
of the transcendental Beyond possible by emphasizing stillness, peace, freedom
from worries, wellbeing, self-contentment, identification with an agreeable
state-of-mind, and so on. Admittedly it
will be a crude approximation, quite inferior to the actual condition of
transcendent spirit, of which we mortals can have only a faint inkling. But even a crude approximation to that is
better than nothing at all.
PHILIP: Presumably people would experience this approximation to
the transcendental Beyond in communal contexts within the overall setting of a
meditation centre?
SEAN: Yes, for solitary meditation is really a contradiction in
terms. It is not to emphasize the
solitary individual that one meditates, but to partake of the multitudinous
collective. Being solitary is a
limitation of our worldly phenomenality, whereas
being part of a group in spiritual togetherness is to aspire towards the divine
consummation of evolution in the maximum unity of undifferentiated spirit. Meditation should only be practised in the
latter context.
PHILIP: Thus one would be indulging in a form of spiritual
communality?
SEAN: Absolutely! However,
the spiritual communality of the transcendental devotees in meditation centres
would be merely a prelude to the ultimate spiritual communality, on earth, of
the Superbeings in the second phase of millennial
life. For this latter communality would
involve what I like to call hypermeditation, or
supercharged meditation made possible by the removal of the old brain from
individual Supermen at the termination of the first phase of millennial life,
and their consequent elevation to the intensely collectivized new-brain status
of Superbeings.
PHILIP: How many new brains would constitute a Superbeing?
SEAN: A great many - possibly several thousand. For the object of placing so many new brains
in close proximity to one another on a common artificial support would be to
approximate more closely to the projected unity of transcendent spirit in the
heavenly Beyond, and so bring the communality of meditating brains to the
highest possible pitch on earth. The old
saying that two brains or, rather, heads are better than one ... for solving a
problem ... would certainly apply, if only slightly, to the creation of a large
'brain' out of thousands of individual brains whose capacity for meditation was
enhanced in proportion to the number of brains or, more correctly, new brains
interacting with one another to the level of what I have called hypermeditation - the direct means of attaining to transcendence.
PHILIP: Whew, this is beginning to surpass my powers of
comprehension! What you are saying, I
take it, is that only the interaction of so many new brains in an intensely
collectivized context would generate the necessary spiritual potential for
transcendence, and the consequent almost nuclear detachment of spirit from the
new brain as such.
SEAN: Precisely! Without
the interaction or mutual stimulation of the numerous new brains upon one
another, there could be no ultimate salvation.
For salvation requires not meditation but hypermeditation,
such as only the Superbeings would be capable of
experiencing. Each Superbeing,
incidentally, would be the antithetical equivalent to a tree.
PHILIP: How do you mean?
SEAN: Well, a tree is a natural entity composed of a support, viz.
trunk and branches, and innumerable leaves, which may or may not flower. The leaves are subconscious and therefore
devoid of autonomy. They are components
of the tree. One can't speak of leaves
as though they were individual life forms subject to egocentric
consciousness. The tree is a communal
entity and functions in terms of a sort of sensual communality. The antithetical equivalent to a tree will
also be a communal entity, composed, as I have said, of numerous new brains
which will be artificially supported, through a trunk- and branch-like
apparatus, and exist on a superconscious plane,
likewise devoid of autonomy, in which spiritual communality prevails. What flowers are to the leaves of a tree,
transcendence will be to the new brains of a Superbeing.
PHILIP: Fascinating! And
these new brains presumably won't think of themselves as distinct or separate
entities - anymore than would leaves on a tree?
SEAN: No, they will be no less above egocentric consciousness than
leaves are beneath it. Only the Supermen
of the first phase of millennial life would be capable of or, rather, disposed
to self-identification. For the
persistence of the old brain from earlier stages of evolution would entail a
degree of egocentric consciousness - at least during those periods when the
Supermen were relaxing or recovering from their LSD trips, or equivalent
synthetically-induced visionary experiences.
PHILIP: And would these Supermen be collectivized, too?
SEAN: Of course, since evolutionary
progress would be emphasizing collectivization on the preceding level of the
transcendental civilization, and that could only be stepped up, as it were,
within the first phase of the post-Human Millennium. Here, then, brains would be artificially
supported on a common branch-like apparatus, but instead of being the
antithetical equivalent to leaves on a tree, they would exist as an
antithetical equivalent to apes on a tree, i.e. as so many individuals gathered
together in a loosely communal context.
As apes precede man in chronological time, so the Supermen will succeed
him - each artificially-supported brain being a distinct Superman.
PHILIP: And why will they be injected, or whatever, with LSD?
SEAN: Because it makes for upward self-transcendence on the
visionary plane, and before the psyche could be expected to live on a wholly
post-visionary, or essential, plane ... it would doubtless have to pass through
an intermediate stage of internal visionary experience, in which a limited
degree of appearance would prevail. Such
appearance, however, would be static, in accordance with the predominantly
omega-oriented constitution of the lower regions of superconscious
mind, not be active like dreams, which reflect, by contrast, the alpha-stemming
constitution of the subconscious. Having
a subconscious mind, because an old brain, the Superman would still sleep, like
us, and so experience his own dream world.
But during the day he would trip, i.e. experience artificially-induced
visions, and thereby thoroughly familiarize himself with his superconscious. The
leaders - priest equivalents of the post-Human Millennium - would be on-hand to
tend him, injecting the requisite dosages of LSD into each Superman, presumably
via an arrangement of plastic tubing responsible for conveying blood and
nourishment to the brain. After all, it
isn't enough that the Supermen should be artificially supported; they must also
be artificially sustained, so that one is led to envisage a large mechanical
pump, common to all brains, being used to convey blood and oxygen, via plastic
tubing, to the individual Supermen. If
apes and trees are naturally sustained, through sunlight, oxygen, rain, earth,
and so on, then their antithetical equivalents ... could only be sustained
artificially - in the aforementioned manner.
It's as simple as that!
PHILIP: I wish I could believe you! However, now that I am more or less in the
picture, what particularly puzzles me is the transformation from Supermen to Superbeings. I mean,
when would the leaders know the time had arrived for them to remove the old
brain from each Superman and create that more intensely collectivized entity
which you have termed a Superbeing?
SEAN: One would have to be alive during the post-Human Millennium
to know the answer to a question like that, since only the most complete
understanding between the Supermen and their overseers would put the latter in
a position to know when to set about creating the Superbeing. Obviously, no attempt would be made to
transform Supermen before they were thoroughly acquainted with internal
visionary experience and therefore sufficiently acclimatized to the superconscious to be capable of gravitating to
post-visionary consciousness, following the surgical removal of the old
brain. A premature transformation from
the one post-human life form to the other would be foolhardy, assuming it were
possible, which is by no means guaranteed, since the technological know-how of
performing such a delicate operation would take time to develop, and preliminary
experiments would doubtless have to be carried out long before the Supermen
were considered ripe for transformation.
Only when the leaders were technically capable of effecting the desired
transformation from the one post-human life form to the other would they
proceed with their task, since evolutionary progress requires a certain amount
of initiative from the leadership at any given time, and cannot depend upon the
wishes of the led alone. Doubtless those
wishes have to be taken into account, but they must be supplemented, as it
were, by the progressive ambitions of the leadership, if evolution is to
continue. Yet what applies to the
transformation from Supermen to Superbeings applies
no less to the earlier (in relation to this) transformation from men to
Supermen, which is also something that would have to await its proper
time. We can have no certainty, at
present, of when this earlier transformation will be brought about, though we
need not expect it to happen for 2-3 centuries yet.
PHILIP: You mean, towards the culmination of the next and,
presumably, final civilization?
SEAN: Yes, the universal civilization of transcendental man, in
which meditation will be practised in suitably-designed meditation centres and
the State continue to 'wither away', as religion gradually takes over from
politics. By the time the People have
grown accustomed to this civilization, and their leaders have developed the
technology for supporting and sustaining brains artificially, the
transformation to the post-Human Millennium will be possible, and therefore
man's correlative upgrading into Superman.
At present, we are still at quite an historical remove from that
momentous turning-point, however.
PHILIP: So it would appear!
For, in the West, one has the old dualistic, or Christian, civilization
of countries like Britain and France, together with the more recent transitional, or Christian/transcendental, civilization of
the United States. Whilst in the East
one has ...
SEAN: What, under Soviet Communism, could formerly have been
regarded as the barbarous opponent of those civilizations but which, with the
development of Social Democracy, may well be something on the way to becoming
the ultimate civilization.
PHILIP: Let us sincerely hope so!
A FUNDAMENTAL DICHOTOMY
MARTIN: Would you regard being reserved as a good or a bad thing?
DONAL: Why do you ask?
MARTIN: Well, I recently read of the British temperament being
described by no less a writer than Anthony Burgess as frightfully eclarté but, nevertheless, preferable to
the French one, which, as you know, is rather the opposite.
DONAL: Ah, I see! And
presumably you don't know whether or not to agree?
MARTIN: No, I suppose not.
DONAL: Well, in my opinion, the French temperament is preferable
to the British one, even though it has its nasty side. And I regard it as preferable because it
reflects an uninhibited approach to life which indicates a divine rather than a
diabolic orientation.
MARTIN: I'm not sure that I follow you.
DONAL: Doubtless because you are unaware that to be reserved is a
star-like tendency in which one is shut off from other people in one's own
little consciousness, in the assertion of one's individuality and
separateness. The stars, corresponding
to the diabolic roots of evolution, tend to diverge from one another ... rather
than to converge towards one another, to contract rather than to expand. Well, a temperament described as eclarté does pretty much the same thing, since other
people are not seen as presences to converge towards but, on the contrary, as
something to avoid. One prefers to
remain imprisoned within one's own identity, reserved in one's conduct and
speech. The other person isn't someone
to open up to but, more usually, someone to fear as a potential enemy or
competitor.
MARTIN: Yes, but one can open up to people in a nasty way, abusing
them with foul language, and I am sure the estimable writer I read had that in
mind when he described the British temperament as being preferable to the
French one.
DONAL: Maybe he did. But
such unpleasant speech is simply the reverse side of opening up to others in a
pleasant way, and needn't imply that an uninhibited attitude to people is
necessarily bad. At least one is
prepared to acknowledge others and to impose one's soul upon them, which is
arguably better than to ignore them altogether, as if they didn't exist or were
so many inferior creatures, scarcely human.
One embraces others spiritually, drawing them into one's world,
affirming the communion of human beings, the fact that, although possessing
distinct bodies, they are in some sense linked together mentally and should
share a common aspiration towards spiritual unity. Being reserved is to deny this, to prefer the
separate to the unitary, the individual to the collective. Of course, there are times when it is
expedient to be reserved, when an uninhibited attitude to others would be
foolhardy or simply out-of-place. But I
cannot agree with your author that a reserved temperament, such as the British
are alleged to possess, is preferable to an unreserved one.
MARTIN: But why, as a rule, are the French so different from the
British in this respect?
DONAL: Why indeed? I think
you will find that it has something to do with the respective national
constitutions of the two peoples, with the fact, I mean, that nations are
normally divisible into those which are predominantly materialistic and those,
conversely, which are predominantly spiritualistic. This is a fundamental dichotomy traceable, so
I believe, to the basic antagonism at the root of the Galaxy between stars and
planets, the one effectively feminine, the other masculine, and is the reason
why some countries acquire a star-like materialistic tendency whilst others, by
contrast, acquire a planet-like spiritualistic one. Evidently the Protestant British developed
from the former, whereas their French counterparts, more given to Catholicism,
developed from the latter. Hence the
traditional antagonism between the two peoples, an antagonism which isn't
entirely allayed even now, although it is certainly past its prime, so to
speak, since we no longer live in a world dominated by dualism. The British and the French came to power as
imperialist nations at the dualistic stage of evolution, albeit as late
dualistic powers. They have since been
superseded by the transitional powers ... in between dualism and post-dualism
... of, amongst others, Japan and the United States.
MARTIN: And presumably this same dichotomy between a predominantly
materialistic and a predominantly spiritualistic orientation still applies on
the transitional plane to which you allude.
DONAL: Yes, except that, as they are a little further up the
evolutionary ladder, so to speak, the Japanese will be a shade less reserved
than the British, while the Americans, by contrast, will be a shade more
uninhibited than the French. The
diabolic side of evolution contracts while the divine side of it expands.
MARTIN: I seem to recall that the only time a complete stranger
ever started a conversation with me was in a small public garden off the
Boulevard de Clichy in Paris, and that he happened to
be an American.
DONAL: Well, that speaks for itself, doesn't it? An American is usually the best bet, these
days, for an uninhibited attitude towards strangers, and where better to
display it in Europe than Paris, capital of the civilization preceding the
American one on the spiritualistic side of evolution. I trust you enjoyed the conversation?
MARTIN: To be sure, it was one of the
most interesting conversations I have ever had, I who had grown
all-too-accustomed to a reserved life in London.
DONAL: Considering you are an Irishman, that
is a most unfortunate thing! For we are
also on the spiritualistic side of evolution, though we haven't as yet
blossomed into the fully-uninhibited attitude or approach to life we shall
adopt, once the next civilization gets properly under way and we are enabled to
take our rightful place beside China on the full-blown post-dualistic level of
evolution.
MARTIN: How do you mean?
DONAL: Well, what America is to France, Ireland will subsequently
become, in conjunction with several other countries, to America, as
post-dualistic civilization takes over from where transitional civilization
leaves off. As a spiritualistic people,
we could only develop a more uninhibited attitude to life than the Americans
currently possess, since evolutionary progress demands that spiritual expansion
be stepped-up with each successive stage of civilized advancement. And, simultaneously with this, it demands
that the materialistic contracts, so that the Chinese will be less reserved, on
the whole, than the latter-day Japanese, albeit still essentially a reserved
rather than an uninhibited people.
MARTIN: Thus there will be progress along both the positive and
negative sides of evolution, as the former becomes more uninhibited and the
latter less reserved.
DONAL: Precisely. And from
Ireland, positivity will spread throughout the world
... to establish the ultimate human civilization, universal and
transcendental. The planet-like
countries are destined to completely triumph over the star-like ones as the
world becomes exclusively omega-orientated.
However, during the coming decades, the negative side of evolution will
continue to exist, principally in the guise of China, though on a less reserved
level, as I said, than is currently manifested among the Japanese. But the Irish will begin to acquire a more
positive outlook, compatible with Ireland's destiny as the next spiritualistic
nation in the evolution of the world. At
present, they are still partly victims of the centuries-old influence of
British imperialism on their country and therefore somewhat akin to
convalescents recovering from a lengthy illness. But once the last traces of bourgeois
imperialism disappear from their system, they will be in a better position to
develop their considerable spiritual potential, and thus take over from America
the expansion of positivity in an even more
unreserved attitude towards one another.
Why, in comparison with them, even the French might well appear
reserved!
MARTIN: While the Chinese, as a less reserved people than their
alleged national predecessors on the materialistic side of evolution, might
well appear similar to the French, whose uninhibitedness
you regard as less radical than the Americans'.
DONAL: Whether a lower stage of uninhibitedness
could ever approximate to a higher stage of reservedness,
or vice versa, is a moot point, though you may not be all that far from the
truth in what you say! Anyway, you would
soon notice the difference between the converse situation,
which would contrast, say, Victorian Britain on a lower stage of reservedness with the future transcendental Ireland on a
higher stage of uninhibitedness. However, that is merely intellectual
speculation, unworthy of serious philosophical discussion! We should concern ourselves with the actual
and potential, not the imaginary. And as
long as we accept the fact that evolution progresses from Britain to China via
Japan on the materialistic side, and from France to, amongst other countries,
Ireland via America on the spiritualistic side, then I believe we shan't go far
wrong - not, at any rate, as far as the progression from late dualism to early
post-dualism is concerned.... Incidentally, the fact that Ireland is a small
country materially is all the more reason why it should become a big one
spiritually. By contrast, China is such
a big country materially that it could only be a relatively small one
spiritually, since the one factor tends to condition the other.
MARTIN: There would certainly be a materialistic contraction
involved in the development of civilization from America to Ireland, although
the contention that China signifies a materialistic expansion over Japan
precludes your theory from being logically consistent. Nevertheless, irrespective of the countries
concerned, there is probably something to be said for your underlining argument
concerning the basic dichotomy between reserved and unreserved nations,
whatever the respective size or shape of any given nation may happen to be, and
I now incline to agree with you that the overall tendency of evolution is to
contract the former and expand the latter, thereby gradually improving the
moral constitution of the world. If the
British, Japanese, and Chinese would be less than flattered by your
contentions, you can at least take some consolation from the likelihood that
the French, Americans, and Irish would find them progressively more flattering,
in accordance with their respective levels of uninhibitedness. From now on I will know the truth about being
eclarté, deeming it preferable to have a sociable
rather than an unsociable, or reserved, national temperament.
DONAL: Had you not lived so long in England, you would have known
the truth sooner. But, frankly, I can't
blame you for your ignorance!
THE NEW SUBJECTIVITY
KEVIN: Feminists have a habit of saying that women are socially
rather than biologically conditioned, that their traditional responsibilities
were not so much biologically inevitable as forced upon them by men, and that
men only progressed and prospered at the expense of women. This, at any rate, is how that estimable
feminist Simone de Beauvoir speaks, and she does so
with general feminist approval. Yet
while she may be justified from a feminist standpoint to speak in such fashion,
she is quite wrong from an objectively philosophical standpoint.
DAVID: Oh, in what way?
KEVIN: In the same way that a scientist would be wrong to speak of
curved space as the causal explanation of the planets' rotation about the sun
when, in reality, the Newtonian factors of force and mass are the only ones
literally applicable to the conduct of planets and stars, particularly the
latter, which correspond to the diabolic roots of evolution and behave in an
appropriately forceful fashion. But the
modern physicist doesn't explain the workings of the Cosmos in literal terms,
but in terms corresponding to Western man's growing predilection for the superconscious, which reflects, in its omega orientation,
his mystical bias. To speak literally of
such workings, as did Newton, would show the Cosmos to be a less agreeable
place than modern man evidently wishes to see it. Even if his transcendental bias, largely
conditioned by countries like America and Germany, has a long way to go before
it becomes radically transcendent, nevertheless a quasi-mystical interpretation
of how the Cosmos works remains necessary.
Largely through environmental progress from nature to the contemporary
city Western man has acquired a higher consciousness and must project this
consciousness onto the Cosmos, deeming the conduct of both stars and planets to
proceed along gentler lines than would have been envisaged by Newton. His self-deception in this matter is
essential to his spiritual self-esteem.
For modern consciousness is not, as formerly, connected with appearance
in the external environment, whether cosmic or worldly, but appertains to the
internal realm of superconscious mind, and consequently
science must take its cue from essence and so become subjective. This is especially true of transitional, or
bourgeois/proletarian, countries like America and Germany. But the more traditional dualistic countries
have also been affected by it, and thus dragged into the transcendental
perspective.
DAVID: Although most countries of the communist or
former-communist East have seemingly refused to countenance this subjectivity,
and instead remained aligned with Newtonian objectivity.
KEVIN: Yes, to some extent they have, since transcendental
criteria were officially taboo under Marxism-Leninism, although there could be
nothing more communist, from a scientific point-of-view, than the curved space
theory of the Universe, with its quasi-electron transcendentalism. However that may be, communist societies also
remained partial to traditional and, hence, objectively correct valuations of
women, which is why feminism was largely a dead letter with them.
DAVID: You mean women really are biologically conditioned,
contrary to what Western feminists insist?
KEVIN: Of course! Although they were never wholly so, not even in the past, long
before the Women's Liberation Movement was ever dreamed up. What curved space is to the modern physicist,
social conditioning is to the feminist - a convenient illusion for masking the
sad truth of biological conditioning, since such an illusion is flattering to
the liberated woman's social vanity and enables her to have a better opinion of
herself than would otherwise be the case, were she to regard herself literally,
which is to say, as a creature striving to overcome biological hurdles.
DAVID: So although one would not be objectively correct to define
women as victims of social conditioning, one is subjectively correct to do so,
and for similar reasons as pertain to science.
KEVIN: Absolutely! The
higher reality of the superconscious imposes a
spiritual bias upon one's assessment of women which contradicts the external
reality of the flesh. Rather than give
the lower reality of the flesh its objective dues, one submits to the higher
reality of the superconscious, projecting that
reality onto women. Feminist
subjectivity is no less necessary in a society with a transcendental bias than
scientific subjectivity. You can't
really have the one without the other.
DAVID: And yet, if people are able to see
through the illusions of contemporary Western society, as you apparently can,
surely those illusions will be less efficacious in achieving their desired
ends?
KEVIN: It depends what those ends happen to be. Though if you are querying whether or not one
ought to crack such illusions, then I can only say that, so long as there are
philosophers in existence, illusions will be cracked, whatever their status or
nature! However, not everyone is
inclined to read philosophy and, by a similar token, not everyone is inclined
to crack illusions, particularly when they are absolutely pertinent to the age
or civilization. But a philosopher - who
is, par excellence, a man of truth - will be morally entitled to do
so, since only by cracking illusions is he enabled to extend the realm of
truth. On the other hand, a theologian,
using that term in a loosely Schopenhauerian sense,
must uphold such illusions as are deemed suitable to the age. For he/she relates to the
generality, and must accordingly put expedience above objectivity.
DAVID: Are you therefore implying that Simone de Beauvoir, for example, was essentially a theologian in this
respect?
KEVIN: Yes, unlike Sartre, who was a philosopher. A feminist is always a theologian, as is a
Marxist, who of course puts expedience above objectivity in his assessment of
the proletariat. But whereas Marxist
subjectivity is derived from the objectivity of the external world, with
particular reference to the economic relations of the employer/employee
classes, feminist subjectivity derives from the subjectivity of the internal
world, or superconscious. The one speaks truthfully of the external
world but untruthfully of the proletariat.
The other speaks truthfully of the internal world but untruthfully of
women. Both untruths, however, are
equally necessary and inescapable. They
may be despised by the philosopher, but they cannot be discarded as untenable.
DAVID: Although philosophers are apparently unnecessary in
societies based on theological expedience?
KEVIN: Yes, because philosophers pertain to the pursuit of truth
and are therefore essential to civilization, where religion is officially
upheld. A barbarous state, on the other
hand, can manage without them, since, as you correctly observed, it is
expedience and not objectivity that matters there.
DAVID: Do you, as a philosopher, pertain to civilization then?
KEVIN: Most assuredly!
Although within the context of both the dualistic and transitional civilizations
of the contemporary West ... I am something of an outsider. Rather, I presage a future post-dualistic
civilization which will, I believe, take root in countries that, like Eire,
have achieved Social Democracy in one form or another, and spread abroad when
the time is ripe. Thus I am currently a
stateless philosopher who projects his work into the future and thereby hopes
to contribute towards the creation of a post-dualistic civilization.
DAVID: They say all great philosophers are ahead of their time, so
you must be in the tradition in that respect.
KEVIN: Yes, I guess so!
