Op. 38

 

EVOLUTION

 

Prose Poems

 

Copyright © 2013 John O'Loughlin

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CONTENTS

 

1. No Absolute Knowledge

2. Ladies and Gentlemen

3. Canine Nemesis

4. Sunday Worst

5. An Electron Bias

6. From Absolute Evil to Absolute Good

7. A Journey beyond Myths

8. An Evolutionary Bias

9. Evolution

10. From Rock to Jazz

11. The Omega Instrument

12. Electron Freedoms

13. National Paradoxes

14. The Machine

15. Supernatural Voyeurism

16. Spiritual Cultivation

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NO ABSOLUTE KNOWLEDGE

 

Man can have a relative knowledge of God, but he cannot know or experience God personally.  He can come to the conclusion, through careful logical reasonings, that God would be the ultimate spiritual globe when all separate globes of pure spirit, from whichever part of the Universe, had converged towards one another in the future post-millennial Beyond, but he cannot know what it would actually be like to be a part of that ultimate globe himself - what the condition of supreme being would actually be like to the experiencing mind.  In fact, there would be no 'part' of God, because one great indivisible transcendence.  No man can get anywhere near fathoming exactly what the condition of such an ultimate globe of transcendent spirit would actually be like.  Man has but a small, relatively humble spirit which, in any case, is polluted by the flesh and dependent on the flesh for its survival.  He can only acquire, at the best of times, a vague intimation of what that supreme condition of being would actually be like.  Yet he has often mistaken his vague intimation for absolute knowledge of God in the past!  Such exaggerations were perhaps a form of compensation for his earthly shortcomings.

     Relative knowledge of God takes the form of logical reasonings concerning the outcome of evolution, and should not be confused with those vague intimations of supreme being which saints and other fortunate human beings have occasionally experienced in the past.  Such intimations appertain to a stronger influx of human spirit upon a person, and are at a considerable remove from what God would literally be like in the post-millennial Beyond.  The experience of infused contemplation would not have led the recipient to apperceive God, but, on the contrary, to apperceive his own quota of spirit more clearly and intensely than would ordinarily have been the case.  One might define this experience as an indirect, rather partial glimpse of Heaven.

     Is it possible, I wonder, that Spiritual Globes already exist in the heavenly Beyond?  Relative knowledge of God, based on cogent reasoning, should enable one to answer this question affirmatively.  Yes, I believe that such globes could exist in the heavenly Beyond, which is to say in space considered as a setting for a more advanced absolute than the stars.... Though their existence there would not constitute God but globes of pure spirit en route, as it were, to the possibility of an ultimate Spiritual Globe, which could only come to pass with the fusion, following convergence, of all such globes into ultimate unity, the unity of what Teilhard de Chardin calls the Omega Point.  Since we haven't got anywhere near transcendence yet, we can be confident that an ultimate Spiritual Globe, comprised of all spiritual contributions throughout the Universe, doesn't exist.

     Nevertheless we would be mistaken, I believe, to assume that such individual globes of transcendent spirit as may exist there, by dint of the possible spiritual contributions made by more advanced planets than our own elsewhere in the Universe, exert no beneficial influence upon ourselves.  There is no reason why those nearest to us, which may yet be millions of miles away, shouldn't to some extent draw our spirit slightly towards them.  For if they attract and converge towards one another in the heavenly Beyond, they must surely have some tangential attractive influence on what is best in us - namely our spirit.  This proposition doesn't, however, discount the part played by human struggle in the evolutionary journey.  A pulling teleological argument would not have much credence on its own.   We must bear in mind the pushing evolutionary one as well, though we may be excused, in this day and age, for turning against astrological determinism, which is really the opposite of teleological freedom.

 

 

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN

 

A lady is both beautiful and discreet, cultured and intelligent.  She doesn't desire to be kissed in public, nor does she object to one's disinclination there to hold her hand or put an arm round her waist.  One keeps one's hands in one's pockets, and the lady may place a hand on one's nearest arm if she so desires.  This is perfectly logical, for it confirms the female's right to a more openly sensual stance.

     A lady will usually wear dark clothes, though she may use bright colours in moderation, either occasionally or regularly, on top or underneath, on her clothing or as a part of it.   Black underclothes are the least seductive of colours for a female to wear - yellow or red, by contrast, the most.  A lady will generally prefer the former to the latter, spurning flagrant seductions.

     Ladies occasionally wear make-up but they use it discreetly, never glaringly or with ostentatious intent.   Before man made art partly transcendental, he painted his body, and the less-evolved women still do a variation on the same theme.  No wonder ladies are careful not to draw attention to themselves in this way!  They prefer to allow their natural beauty to speak for itself, and are glad when gentlemen admire them for other than purely sexual reasons.

     As for their hair, ladies are careful not to let it grow too long, and therefore prefer to have it regularly cut.  When their hair is long and fine, they will take especial pains to tie it up on or near the crown of their head, which makes for a more civilized appearance.  Very often a lady's hair is dark, approximating more, in appearance, to the essence of transcendent spirit than to the brightness of the sun.  A gentleman, when of spiritual cast, will generally prefer a dark-haired lady to a blonde - contrary to popular myth.  He will also require of his lady that she remains slim, and doubtless most ladies, being of slender build, are perfectly able to do so.  Slenderness is, after all, an indication of a spiritual predilection, a reflection of a more spiritual constitution.

     A lady will never wear anything blatantly seductive, like a very short skirt or see-through blouse.  She will dress discreetly, hiding her more obvious physical charms from the vulgar eye.  No-one should be able to point at a gentleman in public and say: "You can see what it is about her that he likes!"

     A gentleman is above all things gentle, not coarse, brutal, violent, or boorish.  He never slams doors but shuts them quietly, with due presence of mind.  He would never dream of using physical violence against an opponent in an argument, intellectual or otherwise, but will confine himself, at the worst of times, to mental violence - should such violence be unavoidable.  Gentlemen are occasionally subjected to physical violence by men but, if they survive it, can always sue for assault.  A threat of suing an ungentlemanly potential assailant for assault may serve as a useful deterrent, and is, besides, a form of mental violence.

     A gentleman rarely or never moves quickly or acts rashly, but takes his time, is langsam, to cite Nietzsche, for reasons of propriety, since he should more approximate, in his conduct, to being than to doing.  A gentleman will spend most of his time sitting still, whether at work or at play.  He won't be one to engage in active sports!

     As for clothing, a gentleman's clothes are mostly dark rather than ostentatious or trendy.  He will generally prefer to keep most of his clothes on, even in hot weather, and will never venture out in winter without adequate protection against the elements.  He doesn't like to be brought into too close a contact with rain, and will usually possess the means of protecting himself from direct contact with it.  Men think that braving the rain bare-headed is a sign of manliness, and tend to regard umbrellas and hoods as unworthy of masculine vanity.  They don't realize, as a rule, that a gentleman's reluctance to get his head wet stems from a transcendental bias, opposing its upholder to brute contact with the elements.

     In sexual matters, gentlemen are usually moderate, preferring, of the two alternatives, to reduce their sexual commitments to a minimum than to increase them towards a maximum.  Their ladies are generally resigned to a less vigorous sex-life.

     Ladies and gentlemen have existed for centuries and will doubtless continue to exist, so long as the human race survives.  There is no reason to suppose that social progress will put an end to them, though it may oppose certain kinds of ladies and gentlemen whose lifestyles are insufficiently modern.  What social progress would really like to do, over a period of decades or even centuries, is to transform as many people as possible into ladies and gentlemen by improving the quality of life on as equalitarian a basis as possible.  It would be real progress if, instead of men and gentlemen or women and ladies, the great majority of people in the future were ladies and gentlemen in the best sense of the words - the ladies discreet and the gentlemen gentle.

 

 

CANINE NEMESIS

 

Oh, but a civilization that tolerates dogs isn't a particularly advanced one!  It is tied to the pagan roots of life in an atomic integrity, and consequently takes dogs for granted.

     I, however, abhor dogs and would approve of their eventual removal.  Some day a post-atomic civilization will arise, and when it does there should be no more shit on pavements, no more piss on walls, no more coarse, loud, and regular barking, no more dozing advertisements for subconscious stupor, no more scratching of fleas on smelly bodies, no more public exhibitions of primeval sexuality, nor any more examples of a number of similarly disagreeable phenomena!

     Ah, I long passionately for the higher civilization, I who sometimes wonder whether the existing levels of civilization, with their semi-barbarous attachments, won't drag on and on for ever!  Some day, however, beasts will be removed, not just dogs, but cats, horses, hamsters, ponies, and other unnecessary animals, and man will be freed from association with them.  He cannot love beasts and turn towards the future millennial Beyond at the same time.  A transcendental civilization would know what needed to be done to minimize the influence of the beastly and set men directly on course for the post-human millennium - that earthly paradise preceding the heavenly one.  Its chief upholders would teach the People the necessary lessons, making it perfectly clear to them just why such animals as dogs and cats had to be left behind, banished, in a judgemental spirit, from the higher society, in response to evolutionary logic.

     Of course, some people would object and be recalcitrant.  But the great majority would approve of measures designed to further evolutionary progress.  Even now, the great majority of people aren't pet owners, certainly not dog owners, and many of them could only approve of measures designed to free them from the various inconveniences to which dogs give rise in everyday life, including the noise of barking and the smell and sight of excrement.  Too bad if they live in the dualistic or transitional civilizations and not in the future post-dualistic one!  Even post-dualistic barbarians have to put-up with dogs - assuming they aren't dog owners but dogless humans.

     Well, as a writer, I cannot change anything at present.  But if I were given the power I would certainly change things in the future, taking measures to bring society into line with post-dualistic requirement on the level of an ultimate civilization.  Naturally, some people would now think me mad, but I know that what inferior minds often take for madness in others can be a superior form of sanity, pertaining to a mind capable of envisaging future developments through utilization of a higher logic.  Well, a transcendental civilization may be some way off at present, but, believe me, a time will come when to own a dog would be a crime against the Holy Spirit!

 

 

SUNDAY WORST

 

It is curious how on Sundays, the day of rest, so many people dress in their best clothes.  In fact, it is especially curious how church-goers make a point of dressing as smartly as possible.  Do they ordinarily dress shabbily during the week?  No, I don't think so; though they may dress informally in the evenings and on Saturdays, especially if they are staying at home.  Why, then, do they wear their best clothes on Sunday?  No doubt, being seen in public is one reason, since smart clothes help to create a good impression on others and make people feel pleased to be in one-another's company.  But there is, I feel sure, a deeper reason, which has to do with stressing the apparent rather than the essential.

     A Christian, being a dualist, isn't just a man of essence, or spiritual striving; he is also a man of appearance, or sartorial smartness.  It would be unthinkable for him to attend church on Sundays dressed in shabby old clothes, like a tramp.  He doesn't cultivate essence to a point where appearance becomes a matter of indifference, if not contempt, to him.  Appearance is important, because it corresponds to the sensual, active side of Christian dualism.  In church, he may cultivate the spiritual or passive side of that dualistic integrity, but not with a shabby appearance!

     It would therefore be strange if, on Sundays, people went to church looking like tramps.  And yet, in another sense, it would be spiritually significant if they were to do so, since reflecting an indifference to appearances in deference to essential priorities.  How refreshing it would be if, for just one day a week, people demonstrated their contempt for appearances in allegiance to essence!  If, instead of going to church in their 'Sunday best', they all dressed in their 'Sunday worst' and purposely avoided taking offence at one-another's shabby appearances, as they concentrated their attention, if only for an hour, on the cultivation of spirit!

     Ah, so refreshing a change!  And yet such an attitude would more correspond to a transcendentally post-dualistic integrity than to a Christian dualistic one, for which not a church but a meditation centre would be the most logical choice of venue.  Christians, surely, have never adopted such a policy, and neither are they ever likely to!  Sunday for them will continue to be a day when sartorial smartness is emphasized as on no other day, when appearance is honoured in deference to both the Father and the apparent side of Christ.

     Of Irish race, I have often looked less than smart in the street and received the disapproving looks of those for whom an odd button or stain or tear or crease or some other sartorial blemish is a kind of social sin.  My contempt for appearances in loyalty to a spiritual bias is not appreciated by those who are insufficiently spiritual to be similarly contemptuous of it themselves, which includes most women and not a few effeminate men.  They do not possess a superior criterion with which to evaluate appearances, and are obliged, in consequence, to regard one's sartorial predilection as a social defect.... When one has but a rudimentary concept of essence, it stands to reason that appearances will be taken for reality and deemed of greater importance.  I, however, regard appearances in a different light, and so bear my shabbiness with pride.  It is a mark of spiritual earnestness, which is never as appropriate as on Sunday.

 

 

AN ELECTRON BIAS

 

Is it better to leave school in England with four or with eight so-called Ordinary Level passes?  Most people would say eight, but I'm not one of them.  This is why.  To get eight O' Levels you need to be fairly proficient in all subjects, technical as well as arts.  You are something of a general smatterer, disposed to treating all subjects as of approximately equal importance.  This may be on temperamental, class, ethnic, or ideological grounds.  It could indicate that you aren't particularly biased on either the technical or the arts sides, but prefer to strike a balance somewhere in-between.  Many people do, and I shall call them atomists.  Atoms, as you know, are basically divisible into two main components (I make no apology to modern pseudo-science, with its external subjectivity), viz. protons and electrons, the former - one or a number - forming a nucleus around which the latter tend to revolve.

     May I be so bold as to suggest a similar division between the sciences and the arts, with the former representing the proton side and the latter, by contrast, the electron side of an atomic divide?  Have not the arts hitherto revolved around the sciences?  You will agree that, in the main, they have; though some of them have been freer some of the time, and there always exists, believe it or not, the possibility of the arts being free to 'do their own thing' independently of scientific control or reference, so that a free-electron and truly theocratic orientation emerges ... to signify the culmination of human creative endeavour in the highest art, be it visual, aural, or literary.  That subject is somewhat beyond the scope of this prose poem, but it nonetheless has some bearing on the division between the sciences and the arts, as appertaining to the school curriculum.

     We can list on the proton side: mathematics, physics, chemistry, and geometry; on the electron side: English, history, geography, and art; though we are aware that other related subjects can be added, such as technical drawing on the one side and French on the other.  Eight suffices for our purposes, and anyone who leaves school with that number of Ordinary Levels is more likely to be atomic than post-atomic, or biased towards the electron.  We may regard him as a democratic type, balanced between the sciences and the arts.  A golden mean in some countries, particularly those where atomic, and hence democratic, criteria obtain.  I list merely Britain and France.  But I would describe the British atomicity as favouring the proton side and the French one, by contrast, as favouring its electron antithesis.  (We are of course distinguishing between democracy in a constitutional monarchy and democracy in a liberal republic.)  However, irrespective of these differences of atomic shade, neither country would rule out a bias, one way or the other, for the absolute.

     So it is possible that one could leave school with just four Ordinary Levels, and that at least three of those - if not all four - would be on either the proton or the electron side of an atomic divide, as opposed to two either side of it.  Suppose you get four O' Levels on the proton side - for example, maths, physics, chemistry, and technical drawing.  That would indicate - would it not? - a strong bias for the sciences, which would suggest an autocratic leaning, a thing perhaps more respectable in Britain than in France, given its royalist traditions.  Alternatively, you might get four O' Levels on the electron side - for example, English (literature or language), history, art, and geography, indicating a strong bias for the arts, with the suggestion of a theocratic leaning, which we may suppose more respectable in France than in Britain, given its Catholic traditions.  Nevertheless, not wholly respectable in either country, since both of them are atomic and therefore disposed to a science/art compromise rather than to a strong bias towards each extreme.

     My position, however, is this: better to get four Ordinary Levels on the arts side of the divide than either eight right across the board or four on the science side.  For, objectively considered, the theocratic type is morally superior to both the democratic and the autocratic types - one could say a free-electron equivalent, as opposed to either an atomic or a proton equivalent.  To have only four O' Levels isn't necessarily to be less bright than someone with eight; it may well indicate a different (and effectively superior) ideological, temperamental, ethnic, or class position.  And the four arts O' Levels may be more strongly electron-orientated again, not the average grouping but something like: English literature, art, French, and music.

     As for those autocratic types who leave school with physics (applied or pure), chemistry, mathematics, and technical drawing or, alternatively, with geometry, biology, engineering science, and algebra, all I can say is ... they aren't likely to become hard-line Social Transcendentalists in subsequent years!

 

 

FROM ABSOLUTE EVIL TO ABSOLUTE GOOD

 

Is there besides the relative good and evil with which we are all familiar, whether through nature, animals, or men, an absolute good and evil, a good and evil outside the phenomenal world, whether beneath or beyond it, anterior or posterior to it?  Yes, most assuredly there is!  And we may classify these absolutes as alpha and omega, or the beginning and culmination of the Universe.  Absolute evil would correspond to its beginnings and absolute good to its culmination, though not necessarily only to the ultimate culmination, which we may suppose has still to come about.

     We may distinguish, then, between the subatomic proton-proton reactions of pure instinctuality, which signify absolute evil, and the supra-atomic electron-electron attractions of pure spirituality, which signify absolute good; the one corresponding to the Diabolic Alpha, the other to the Divine Omega, a kind of in-between compromise coming in the person of Christ - and equivalent Man-God avatars - who signifies an abraxas-like relativity biased, however, towards the Divine Omega, a 'Three in One', as theological teachings have long maintained.  Although we shouldn't overlook the fact that theology has also sought to absolutely elevate Christ to Le Bon Dieu, which follows from the Resurrection and can only be applied to a Christ conceived in purely transcendent terms.  We should not forget, either, that while theology has upheld an absolute antithesis between the good Christ and the evil Satan, it has also upheld a relative antithesis between the (less evil) Creator and (the more evil) Satan, regarding the former as God and the latter as the Devil, who corresponds to a 'Fallen Angel' from the 'heavenly' unity.

     This is of course fiction, theology having to do, on this primitive level, with the abstraction of mythical fictions from cosmic facts, namely the existence of stars, both large and small, and the probability that, way back in the infancy of the Universe or of this particular galaxy, our sun did indeed emerge from a larger star which subsequently became the central, ruling star of the Galaxy, around which the sun - one of thousands of other smaller stars that exploded out of a larger whole - was obliged to revolve, less because of an attraction towards the ruling star than because of a mutual interest in the domination of planets, or cooling/cooled stars.  Now if, as I believe, Satan corresponds, in theological terms, to the sun, while the Creator corresponds, in a like-manner, to the central star of the Galaxy, then the distinction between them is, subjectively considered, of a power that directly impinges, through its light and heat, upon the world, and of a power that only indirectly impinges upon it, ruling the Galaxy from a position which is necessarily at a much greater distance from the earth.  The sun, then, is responsible, in its subatomic instinctuality, for a more evil influence upon the world than ever the central star could be, and consequently theology posits a dialectical distinction between the Devil and the Creator, as between Satan and Jehovah - the one diabolic, the other divine.

     In its lowest or earliest manifestation, divinity has to do with the concept of a 'Creator of the Universe', including the planets, nature, etc.  Considered objectively, however, we need not doubt that the Galaxy's central star - as indeed the central star of any galaxy - is a larger, and hence more powerful, star than a peripheral one like the sun and, consequently, that the Creator corresponds to a more evil force than Satan, is, in effect, the archdiabolic inception of the Universe or, more accurately, of that part of it which corresponds to the Galaxy, each galaxy possessing but one central star (or star cluster), there being millions of galaxies in the Universe, therefore millions of first causes, evil being inherently manifold and diverse, the concept of a Big Bang origin to the Universe owing not a little, it seems to me, to monotheistic tradition, though essentially somewhat limited, particularly in view of the vast number of galaxies currently in existence, not all of which could surely have issued from a single source!

     However that may be, if evolution or the Universe begins in the archdiabolism of a Creator-equivalent, then it must culminate in the archdivinity, so to speak, of the Holy Ghost, must pass from a diversified inception to a unified climax, a final unity of pure spirit in the electron-electron attractions of the Omega Point - the ultimate good.  Yet this entails a terribly long process, even, I imagine, on the supra-atomic plane of the heavenly Beyond itself, where one may suppose only a gradual convergence of spiritual globes towards an omega goal can be anticipated.  But just as there was a relative antithesis between Satan (the sun) and the Creator (the central star of the Galaxy) on the alpha level of religious absolutism, so there must be a like-antithetical relativity between a Spiritual Globe (angel) and what, in relation to the Holy Ghost, could be called the Ultimate Creation (definitive God) on the omega level of religious absolutism, the Spiritual Globe - one of many such transcendences - a greater good, subjectively considered, than the non-existent Ultimate Creation, because closer to the world and tending towards the goal of evolutionary striving in ultimate divinity, but less good, objectively considered, than the eventual culmination of evolution in that spiritual oneness - the absolute good in every sense!

 

 

A JOURNEY BEYOND MYTHS

 

The abstraction of theological fictions from cosmic facts, signifying a distinction between subconscious subjectivity and cosmic objectivity, is paralleled, with the eventual emergence of an antithetical stage of evolution, by the abstraction of cosmic illusions from theological truths, signifying a distinction between cosmic subjectivity and superconscious objectivity.  Whereas the outer world dictates to the inner one in the former case, it is the inner world that dictates to the outer one in the latter case, so that, instead of being the victim of cosmic facts, the inner world, in the antithetical guise of the superconscious, reinterprets the cosmos and its workings thereof according to transcendental requirement, replacing the Newtonian fact with the Einsteinian illusion, the literal with the metaphorical, force and mass with curved space.

     Whereas the subconscious looked up, as it were, to the factual cosmos, the superconscious looks down on it from its truth-oriented vantage point.  The fictional subconscious was partial to Devils and Demons, Hells and Purgatories, Fathers and Creators, not to mention, from an egocentric angle, Christs and Sons, Holy Ghosts and Heavens.  By contrast, the truthful superconscious is only partial to the truth of its own awareness in peaceful being.  The factual cosmos was a comparatively simple affair of stars and planets, moons and comets.  The illusory cosmos, however, is an exceedingly complex affair of curved space and multiple universes, black holes and worm holes, infinitely complex atoms and infinitely small quarks, unaccountable movements and scarcely-credible transformations.  Now it is the Cosmos that is magical and the inner world, by contrast, which holds no surprises - quite the contrary to what was formerly the case!  Divested of its mysticism, the subconscious has become secularized and only fit for the psychoanalytical investigations of guilt-leaden neuroses.  It is the external cosmos that has acquired a mysticism, in accordance with the superficial requirements of a decadent age.

     Ah, but such mysticism won't last!  What began in a factual cosmos will end in a truthful psyche.  People will cease to take an interest in the mystical universe and, instead, turn to the truth of their superconscious worlds - absolutist in their aspirations towards divine truth.

 

 

AN EVOLUTIONARY BIAS

 

The struggle between natural determinism and free will, that which stems from the Father and that which aspires towards the Holy Spirit, continues unabated in this world of atomic relativities, and no less so in the guise of the controversial Creationist/Evolutionist dichotomy in certain American schools ... than in the older and better-known struggles between, for example, man and woman, or Church and State.  On the one side, those who uphold the theory of Creation, as recorded in the Old Testament, and on the other side those who reject it in favour of evolution, as derived from Darwin.  Was man created, along with the other life-forms, by God the Father (not to mention Jehovah, Allah, Zeus, the Ground, etc.), or did he, together with each of the other life forms, slowly evolve from something lower - say, apes of a certain kind?  Did God the Father create the world, or was it formed over many millennia through evolution?

     To my mind, Creationism is simply Pagan/Judaic theology, that's to say, an attempt to explain, in fairly basic mythical terms, the extremely complex phenomenon of existent life on a ready-made planet.  Theology is the fiction abstracted from the fact, or what is assumed to be the fact, and it endeavours, for the benefit of simple minds, to put a kind of sugar-coating over the bitter pill of factual reality.  It is easier to believe that the Father created the world and all the life forms in it, including man, than to attempt an understanding of the extremely complex, longwinded process of a gradual evolution, which proceeded at a considerable remove, both in space and time, from the central (first-cause) star of the Galaxy - the type of star from which, we may suppose, such stars as the sun originally exploded out ('fell'), though only as a flaming star, not as a cooling or already cooled one (planet), which would presuppose a great elapse of time ... prior to which only flaming stars existed, to diverge and contract, one against another, in an everywhichway context of anarchic hell, no move towards the rudimentary formation of galaxies apparent on account of the absolutist constitution of a starry universe, the lack, at that early time, of cooling/cooled stars to establish galactic patterns on the basis of a magnetic reciprocity.

     Of course, such patterns eventually emerged, and, following several millennia, life began to appear on the earth and, we may confidently assume, on earth-equivalent planets in other solar systems throughout both the Galaxy and the universe of galaxies of which this galaxy is but a tiny fragment.  Science can tell us quite a lot, these days, about emergent life, both in the ocean, where it seems to have begun, and, later, on land ... in the forms of plants, reptiles, and mammals.  If God (the Father) created man, he must also have created, at a much earlier date, the fierce dinosaurs and brontosauruses and other large reptiles that inhabited, on extremely barbarous terms, a jungle-infested and lava-ridden planet.  Not to mention the fierce mammals - sabre-toothed tigers and huge-tusked mammoths - that superseded them during and after the Ice Age.  Horrible creatures all!  And early man himself, not a very pretty or polite picture!  Beastly, ghastly, extremely narrow-minded, like everything that appertains to an early phase of evolution.  More abominable than words can describe!

     But man, that paragon of the animals, had more intelligence and resilience than other creatures, and this not only enabled him to thrive at their expense, but to evolve away from his ape-like condition, to become, over the course of many millennia, civilized, which is to say, partial to an aesthetico-religious dimension in fixed communities and capable, in consequence, of inventing myths to explain away the complexity of the world and the extraordinary phenomenon of his presence in it.  Hitherto, as an animal, he would have been content merely to live in it, like Adam in the Garden of Eden.  Now, with an emerging superconscious and the glimmer of an analytical spirit, he sought to explain it and himself also.  He had come down from the trees, left 'the Garden' for the wilderness, or the jungle for the clearing, having secured the possibility of building in and on it a world of his own that would - as we now know only too well - eventually rival and supplant nature.  He had become civilized, aspirant, in some faint or indirect way, towards an Other World, a world the antithesis to the natural one, a supernatural world which could not be glimpsed without an artificial, or civilized, world coming in-between.  And he progressed and, willy-nilly, is still progressing towards this higher world, one owing nothing to nature and less than nothing to its subnatural forerunner, with the cosmic inception of the Universe.

     Ah, Creationism indeed!  We cannot expect a liberal republican country like America to quash it entirely, since relativities are ever the norm in an open society, the diabolic proton roots of the world still entitled to atomic deference.  But an age is fast approaching when free will must entirely supplant natural determinism, when a truly theocratic closed-society bias will prohibit the teaching of Creationism and endorse only the evolutionary theory of the Universe, including man's part in it, though with especial emphasis on the evolutionary progress still to be made, since a closed society could not but be scornful of everything ... historical!

 

 

EVOLUTION

 

What evolutionary progress, you may well wonder, has still to be made?  I'll tell you what: lots!  Yes, we are still in the world of men, a humanist stage of evolution, and we shall doubtless remain in it for a while longer.  But not, fortunately, for ever, since a time is fast approaching when man, in Nietzschean parlance, may well be 'overcome', as serious efforts are made, by certain qualified men, to create the first of two truly post-human life forms, the Supermen of the early stage of millennial futurity, a life form created out of man, or rather his cyborg-like successor, as human brains artificially supported and sustained in collectivized contexts, their raison d'être being to indirectly cultivate pure spirit through the contemplation - necessarily passive - of the visionary contents of a new brain opened-up by synthetic hallucinogens like LSD.  In a word, to 'trip'.

     However, these Supermen may well be further transformed at a later time, that's to say, the qualified technicians of the post-human millennium will surgically remove the old brain from each individual Superman and re-collectivize their new brains on a more extensive and intensive basis, thereby creating the second of the millennial life forms, the Superbeings, as I usually call them, whose raison d'être will be the direct cultivation of pure spirit through hypermeditation (a sort of intensified and more rarefied transcendental meditation), until such time as transcendence occurs and pure spirit - detached from new-brain atomicity - soars heavenwards, to converge towards other such transcendences and expand into larger wholes in a process that should continue until such time as all transcendences, from whichever part of the expanding spiritual universe, have converged together and expanded into one definitive whole - the Omega Point ... of Ultimate Divinity.

     Such is the prospect in store for an evolving universe, a universe that will attain to perfection - and remain in it for all eternity - in the indivisible unity of the ultimate Spiritual Globe, a unity that will not share space with anything solar or planetary, all naturalism and materialism having passed away, never to return!

     How did the Universe begin?  With stellar energy, the emergence in the void of gaseous stars.  How did it progress?   With the emergence from these stars, or certain of them, of suns (small stars).  How did it continue?  With the emergence from suns, or certain of them, of planets?  All instinctual globes in one degree or another.

     Then what?  The emergence on certain of the planets of ... nature, both inorganic and organic.  And then?  The emergence from nature of animals - fish, reptiles, mammals, etc.  To be followed by?  The emergence from certain of these animals - apes, we think, though we aren't sure exactly what type - of men, which is to say, cavemen and jungle men and desert nomads and mountain men.

     Who preceded?  More civilized kinds of men, whom we now identify as Christians or Mohammedans or Buddhists or Shintoists, who were no longer pagan, or instinct-orientated, but mainly balanced, in the body, between the id and the spirit - in short, dualists.  Though we should make an exception for the Jews, those ... 'holy pagans', who have good reason, in consequence, to be awaiting an ultimate messiah, no mere dualist, but a radical transcendentalist.

     Who will?  Further the development of a new and higher type of man in a new civilization, the antithesis to id-biased fundamentalism in spirit-biased transcendentalism, which should eventually spread throughout the world, bringing it to spiritual unity as a kind of crude approximation to or intimation of the divine goal of all evolutionary striving in the heavenly Beyond.

     And after this third type of man?  The first of the post-human life forms, the Supermen, who will be created out of transcendental man and constitute an antithesis to the apes.  And then the second of the millennial life forms created out of the first?  Yes, the Superbeings, above and beyond all egocentricity, and hence the antithesis of trees, or that sub-egocentric life-form preceding the animals.

     Which leaves?  The emergence from the Superbeings of Spiritual Globes, which will constitute an antithesis to the planets, those material globes, and gradually converge towards and expand into larger wholes.  Or?  Galactic Globes, as we may well call that which will eventually establish an antithesis with suns, or small stars.

     Becoming thereafter?  The one, definitive, Universal Globe of the Omega Point, the antithesis, in every respect, to the inception of the Universe in the Alpha Points, as it were, of the big stars, which emerged in the void.  But not from it?  No, nothing can emerge from a void, though plenty can return to nothingness in it.  Like stars, for instance?  Yes, though not like pure spirit.  Ah, how truly you speak!

 

 

FROM ROCK TO JAZZ

 

Rock is a left-wing democratic art form reflecting, as a rule, a kind of petty-bourgeois/proletarian decadence, by which is meant rhythmic bias - music being predominantly rhythmic in its autocratic youth, harmonic/melodic (a combination of rhythm and pitch, whether rhythm- or pitch-orientated) in its democratic adulthood, and 'pitchful' in its theocratic old age.  Rock suggests, in its rhythmic and chordal essence, a neo-pagan type of integrity, a 'fall' from democratic bourgeois melodic music which, paradoxically, is yet also a 'rise' ... with regard to the use of electric and synthetic instruments.  It's as though the age were reflecting an 'eternal recurrence' of pagan rhythmic vitality on a higher, though parallel, turn of the evolutionary spiral.

     Not entirely, however!  For while Rock is symptomatic of a left-wing decadence, there is also such a thing as Jazz-Rock, which suggests a theocratic aspiration and which, in consequence of its greater complexity, may be accorded a right-wing communist, or Marxist-Leninist, equivalent, distinct, in its improvisational essence, from the rhythmic bias of rock musicians, who seem to reflect a Marxist integrity ... as Rock becomes increasingly rhythmic and thus, in effect, progressively more degenerate, symptomatic of Punk.  If Rock began as a democratic-socialist equivalent, it has arguably ended-up as an extreme left-wing communist equivalent, rhythm being paramount.

     Certainly, Jazz-Rock suggests an opposition to this degenerate trend and is somehow transitional between rock purism and Rock-Jazz, that left-wing theocratic art form which, while being predominantly jazzy, and hence improvisational, is not without a rock aspect, or commitment.  Some have termed it 'Fusion', in contrast to 'Progressive', or Jazz-Rock, which suggests a predominantly white, as opposed to black, ethnic bias.  Rock-Jazz (Fusion) is a black approach to a white democratically-biased music, Jazz-Rock (Progressive) a white approach to a black theocratically-biased music.  They are both hybrid forms in between the democratic, or anti-democratic, and theocratic extremes of ... Rock and Jazz, in the latter case specifically Modern Jazz, that electronically-biased improvisational music in which pitch is if not all-important then, at any rate, considerably more important than in Jazz-Rock or, for that matter, in Rock-Jazz.

     Modern Jazz is a right-wing theocratic art form, suitable to a supernatural ideological bias, particularly one of approximately Social Transcendentalist integrity.  In this music, the rhythm, whether from drums or bass, generally functions on a quasi-pitchful level, suggesting a tendency in the direction of pitch absolutism.  This, however, will only come about in the future, by which time Modern Jazz will have been superseded, in all probability, by Superjazz, as percussive and rhythmic ingredients are pitchfully transcended in an improvisational purism, and music attains to its culmination in the wise old age of a theocratic supernaturalism.

     A radically theocratic society would have no use for Rock, none even for Jazz-Rock and its Jazz-based counterpart - Rock-Jazz.  Neither would it tolerate Soul, the black equivalent of Rock, nor its degenerate successor Funk, which stands to Soul as Punk to Rock.  In both cases, the internal has given way to the external, essence to appearance, content to form, melody to rhythm, and they are equally decadent and, by implication, antinatural.

     Likewise Pop, the unsophisticated music of the broad masses rather than of a minority elite, whether petty-bourgeois or proletarian, democratic or theocratic, will cease to exist in the coming supernatural society.  Only the highest theocratic music will prevail, and predominantly within a religious context.  It won't be Jazz in any traditional sense, but stem from Modern Jazz to the extent that it is synthetic and largely improvisational, or pitchful.

     The bourgeois classical and petty-bourgeois avant-garde traditions, both pertinent to the right-wing of a democratic society, will have been consigned to the rubbish heap of musical history, from which, in conjunction with left-wing antinatural music, they will never arise again!  Only free-electron criteria will be relevant to the ultimate closed society.

 

 

THE OMEGA INSTRUMENT

 

A conductor stands to an orchestra as a proton equivalent to a collection of bound-electron equivalents, the combination thereby formed constituting an atomicity appropriate to an atomic age or society.  With the emergence of a post-atomic age or society, however, such an atomicity will cease to be viable ... as orchestras and conductors are regarded as obsolescent and consigned, in consequence, to the rubbish heap of bourgeois, democratic history.  You can't have a baton-wielding proton equivalent dominating a collection of instrument-bearing electron equivalents, reminiscent of a tyrant lording it over his subjects, in a radically theocratic society.  All such relativities would be morally taboo, quite apart from the inapplicability of acoustic instruments to a supernatural age, or the no-less inapplicable reference to music-scores, which, through intellectual appearances, maintain a relativity with the music being played - the music not solely essential, or stemming from internal memory/improvisational sources, but derived, as notes, from a source extraneous to the self.

     When music is essential, and thus stemming from the musician's spiritual self, there is need neither for scores nor conductors, since free-electron absolutism is then, as in the best Modern Jazz, the norm, and the music will reflect this internal freedom largely through improvisation.  But better, of course, is the use of synthetic or electric instruments to reflect such a freedom than ... acoustic ones, which, being naturalistic, are more applicable to an atomic, and hence bourgeois, context.  Modern music is best served by electric instruments, though we can distinguish, I believe, between the antinatural and the supernatural even here, so that while some types of guitar and keyboard will be better-suited to antinatural Rock, other types, being differently constituted, will prove more appropriate to a supernatural context like Modern Jazz, which depends much more on pitch than on rhythm.

     Where electric guitars are concerned, one can distinguish between the flat, solid type of instrument, suited to Rock, and the guitar synthesizer which, with its piano-like keyboard, is more appropriate to the supernaturalism of Rock-Jazz.  On the other hand, there may well be a Marxist-Leninist equivalent about synthesized guitars, or synth-axes, which would make them specifically appropriate to Jazz-Rock as opposed to either Rock-Jazz or Modern Jazz, the latter of which, by contrast, would profit, as it so often does, from the use of semi-electric guitars (not to be confused with the raised, hollow type of guitar that is more relevant to Pop and was, in some sense, a forerunner of the solid electric guitar) and even from the use of modern folksy kinds of acoustic guitars ... appropriate, in their partly plastic construction, to the supernatural, in contrast to the natural, wooden/catgut acoustics used in bourgeois classical music - the classical guitar properly so-considered.  Certainly the supernatural seems, as a rule, to have more in common with the natural than with, say, the antinatural, even if the anti-supernatural, Marxist-Leninist equivalent appears a little closer to it when all the ingredients have been taken into account.

     And what holds true for guitars must also apply to other types of instrument, keyboards included, where one can note a natural/antinatural distinction between acoustic (specifically upright) pianos and flat, horizontal electric ones, the latter applicable to Rock.  No doubt, the incorporation of a synthesizer or synthesizing capacity into the electric piano brings it closer to the supernatural ... with regard to synthesizers-proper, and may be said to constitute an anti-supernatural (Marxist-Leninist) equivalent ... to the extent that a supernatural element, viz. the synthesizer, has been brought to bear on a basically antinatural instrument, as applicable to Jazz-Rock.

     However, for a truly supernatural integrity, applicable to Modern Jazz, nothing short of a genuine, unadulterated synthesizer will do, its appearance reminiscent, to a degree, of a harpsichord, its sound transcendental.  If Modern Jazz is to evolve into Superjazz, a pitchful absolutism, it can only do so, one suspects, via a synthesizer, that most supernatural, and hence theocratic, of all musical instruments.  Guitars, keyboards, strings, wind, brass, and percussion instruments are all, in varying degrees, either democratic or autocratic, whether on a positive or a negative basis.  Not even the use of transparent plastics - perspex, vinyl, etc. - turns electric guitars and violins into truly supernatural instruments, though it marks a distinct radicalization of the antinatural.

     Only the synthesizer can transcend all historical instruments and their antinatural successors by combining them within its own uniquely synthetic integrity, and thus rendering them superfluous.  For if you can play a guitar-like or a flute-like sound on the synthesizer in addition to its own specific sound, of what use are guitars or flutes?  Why have the Many when you can settle for the One which, in its multifaceted capacity, subsumes the Many into itself while simultaneously transcending them all through its own uniquely synthesized sound?  And which, as well as being manually playable, can be programmed to play any sound or combination of sounds in whichever way one specifies, thereby doing away with the relativity between different performers and elevating the musician to an absolutist status vis-à-vis his compositions.

     Ah, so quintessentially theocratic!  And no need for a conductor to ensure that the music is performed correctly or, more usually, according to his personal preferences.  No individualism where an autonomously-generated performance is concerned.  Nor even any performer.  Does not the machine rid man of the burden of manual work?  Or, in the case of musicians, of repeating the same work over and over again, no matter how pleasurable it may once have been?  Yes, of course!

 

 

ELECTRON FREEDOMS

 

I used to think the State worse than the Church, democracy worse than Catholicism, but these days I'm not so sure.  Or, rather, I perceive in the State a 'fall' (forwards) from the wavicle side of the proton to the particle side of the neutron, a progression, as it were, from proton wavicles to neutron and/or electron particles.  I don't confound the State with the Kingdom, that proton-particle predecessor of the Church which, having died-out in most countries, still exists in Britain, where it seemingly co-exists with democracy.  To me, the State is essentially a republican phenomenon, a relatively recent development, stemming from the eighteenth century.  Then it was that neutrons first began, in America and France, to get the upper-hand over protons, even if only from a particle and materialistic point-of-view.  The insurgent State, fired by the philosophers of the Enlightenment, attacked both the Church and the Kingdom, and if it didn't entirely vanquish the former, it at least supplanted the latter, ushering in the age of republicanism - an age which, to all appearances, is still with us....

     Thus began the ascendancy of man over woman.  The State may, on account of its particle constitution, be feminine, but it is the feminine side of a male integrity, founded on reason and not, like the Catholic Church, on intuition, that masculine attribute of a female integrity, which embraces the visionary.  Reason, on the other hand, embraces rights, and the rights, not least of all, of the greater number to live in freedom, and hence happiness.  Freedom, above all, from persecution, whether this stems from the Kingdom or the Church.  Freedom if not to be spiritual ... then at least to be rational.  A new-brain freedom as opposed to an old-brain and/or subconscious enslavement.  Better the free than the bound, but better again than the freedom from the Kingdom/Church is the freedom for the Centre, the freedom of the superconscious.

     Yes, for the superconscious pertains to the wavicle side of the electron, its truly liberated side, and just as the Church stemmed, in its wavicle bias, from the particle Kingdom, so the Centre must stem from the particle State, bringing electron evolution to a positive climax of wavicle awareness, ushering in an age of super-enlightenment, when nothing of the proton, whether in Kingdom or Church, will remain, an electron absolutism having superseded all atomic relativity, the Virgin Mary dethroned from her statuesque pedestal, woman no longer enslaved to man but ... effectively free to be Superman, to cultivate spirit.

     Then the superconscious will reign supreme, first indirectly ... through contemplation of the artificially-induced visionary contents of the new brain, then directly ... through the spiritual self-realization of hypermeditation.  A relativistic absolutism of State-Centre particle/wavicle electrons will precede the Centrist absolutism of electron wavicles.  Social Transcendentalism will lead to Super-transcendentalism, the new-brain superconscious to the transcendent superconscious, superhuman man to superbeingful man, visionary truth to pure truth.

 

 

NATIONAL PARADOXES

 

Relative life is ever paradoxical, and certainly the fact of Catholic France being a republic and Protestant Britain a constitutional monarchy is not the least paradoxical of relativities!  For if the Kingdom leads to the Church and the State to the Centre, then it seems to me that the Liberal State is aligned with Protestantism, that Protestantism and Republicanism go together, as in America, where they constitute two sides of a neutron absolutism, the wavicle and particle sides respectively - Protestantism being, in origin, a meditative (intellectual) as opposed to a visionary religion but, understandably, not a particularly advanced one, since Christianity is ever relative.

     Nevertheless, one perceives within this Republican/Protestant dichotomy a crude absolutism, whereas the older nations like Britain and France are more relative, and in the most paradoxical kind of way - Britain a Protestant Kingdom and France a Catholic Republic, the one evincing a neutron-wavicle/proton-particle dichotomy, the other ... a proton-wavicle/neutron-particle dichotomy, each effectively the opposite of the other, both of them mutually repellent, the British relativity more extremist than the French, there being no atomic contiguity between proton particles and neutron wavicles, the Kingdom and Protestantism, which flank the Catholic/Republican dichotomy or, if you prefer, compromise of the French.

     Thus while the Catholic Church/Republican State dualism is paradoxical enough, the Kingdom State/Protestant Church dualism is even more so, and to the point of absurdity.  Are not the British the most paradoxical people on earth?  And not simply with regard to politics and religion, the Liberal State and the Catholic Church co-existing with the Monarchic Kingdom and the Protestant Church, but ... in their sense of nationality as well?  For is not an Englishman also a Briton, whilst a Briton may also be a Scotsman or a Welshman, and each of these may be British or Scotch, Welsh or British, depending on the occasion - the English themselves British and English by turns, never British when playing the Scots at football or rugby, never English when competing in the Olympic Games.

     Yet, as if that weren't paradoxical enough, there is a further complication where Northern Ireland is concerned, which at the time of writing [1984-85] still forms part of the United Kingdom (of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) but is distinct from Great Britain, appertaining not to the British island but to the Irish one, which, paradoxically, is part of the British Isles.  For like the British, the Irish, particularly in the North of Ireland, are also divided ... between Northern Irish nationality and British and/or Irish identity, not to mention between Protestant Loyalism and Catholic Republicanism, a division within a division which has been the source, traditionally, of bitter conflict.

     While the Ulster Protestant may be entitled to U.K. nationality, he is doubtfully British.  And while the Ulster Catholic may technically be a U.K. citizen, he is definitely Irish and in favour, more often than not, of Irish citizenship within a republican, though not necessarily Sinn Fein, context.  And yet both of them are Northern Irish, albeit in different degrees, the Protestant more Northern Irish, because loyal to Britain, than the Catholic who, paradoxically, is more Irish - indeed, in favour of Irish unity between all Catholics.  Perhaps this is the paradox of paradoxes?

 

 

THE MACHINE

 

It has been said that man is fashioned in the image of God (the Father), but while we may have our doubts about that, these days, we know for sure that God (the Son) was fashioned in the image of man.  It has also been said that man is conditioned by his machines, and while there may be some truth in this, we need not doubt that machines are made in man's image.  By which I mean that man creates from his own order the order of the machine, that man precedes the machine, not the machine man, and that the machine stands to him as he used to stand to the Creator - a reflection of a preordained order, in the one case natural, in the other case artificial.

     Man, then, becomes God twice over, first in being, then in doing; first in Christ, then as creator of the machine, though we may suppose this latter assumption of divinity a decadence compared with the former.  Yet man needs the machine and the machine, seemingly, needs man, or, at least, this used to be the case ... before it became autonomous and thereby capable of leading a completely independent existence, as in computers and digital watches, much the way man outgrew his dependence on God (the Father) and became, via Christ, independent, and hence fully human.  Now the machine has become fully mechanical, liberated from man and free to do its own business, regardless of what human beings may think of the fact.  At one time God took orders from man; now man takes orders from the machine, which he trusts to do his business for him, much as God was expected to answer prayers.

     These days only the most backward of people still pray.  For the machine is capable of fulfilling most human needs, having been fashioned in man's image.  We are fed by it, entertained by it, educated by it, informed by it, transported by it, warmed by it, pleasured by it, clothed by it, dried by it, cooled by it, repaired by it, tanned by it, reproduced by it, and even killed by it.  What it ultimately cannot do, however, is to save us, for this is something that man can only do by and through his mind, striving, in the process, to overcome his body ... with the assistance, needless to say, of the machine.  For just as he became liberated from God (the Father), so he must become liberated from himself, if he is to attain to the Superman and subsequently be engineered beyond that post-human stage to the Superbeing.  So the machine will come to support his successors, no less than God (the Father) once supported men.  And their ultimate goal will be liberation from the machine, which is nothing less than Heaven and, inevitably, full attainment to God (the Holy Spirit).

 

 

SUPERNATURAL VOYEURISM

 

Better than sexual fantasies are sexual videos, for they correspond to the supernatural, whereas the daydreams of fantasy life are subnatural, and thus morally inferior.  It is better that we watch other people dreaming for us than to dream ourselves.  And it is better that we watch other people having sex on video than to watch ourselves, since the supernatural is ever preferable to the natural, no matter how pleasurable we may find the latter to be.  Morally preferable, I mean.  For anyone who dismisses moral considerations is either a scoundrel or an idiot, and quite possibly degenerate to boot!

     Supernatural voyeurism conforms to a theocratic status, whereas natural voyeurism clings to a democratic status and subnatural voyeurism to one that is autocratic.  Whereas supernatural voyeurism has to do with the superconscious, no matter how indirectly, subnatural voyeurism is a thing of the subconscious, of the subconscious conjuring up and regulating and/or manipulating images from the old brain.  Natural voyeurism, coming in-between, is of course an egocentric indulgence, as consciousness contemplates the sexual parts and/or activities of another, who is both free and externally manipulated.  Voyeurism, of whatever kind, is the wavicle side of a sexual atomicity, whether one is dealing with autocratic instinctuality or theocratic spirituality or, indeed, with a democratic compromise, in intellectuality, coming in-between the two, as when the natural voyeur alternates between contemplation and manipulation during the indulgence of oral sex, that quintessentially relative form of voyeurism, bespeaking a particle/wavicle compromise.

     Of course, naturalistic voyeurism can also be of a supernatural persuasion, as in straight contemplation, whether involving two or more persons, and this is the lesser supernaturalism, one might say, of a modified naturalism (not to be confounded with video or magazine sex, which transcends the natural through the artificial medium of film and/or photography).  Ideally, supernatural voyeurism should be as divorced from physical participation, on the voyeur's part, as subnatural voyeurism, whereas natural voyeurism will generally entail some physical commitment, though no more than oral, whether with a bias for cunnilingus or fellatio or, indeed, a balance between the two, depending, in some degree, on the class and/or moral integrity of the participants.

     Whatever the individual case, such wavicle sex is morally preferable to its particle, coital complement, and no-one can consider himself sexually civilized who does not have a voyeuristic tendency, even if this inclination is diluted, as it were, by physical commitments of one kind or another.  Eventually, physical sex will die-out altogether, leaving a more civilized, supernatural humanity with the wavicle absolutism of a free-electron sexuality, to be indulged in private and alone.  Supernatural voyeurism will become the rule, not remain the exception.  Everyone will possess a video and/or alternative pornographic outlet, and few people will desire to fantasize.

 

 

SPIRITUAL CULTIVATION

 

You don't cultivate spirit by keeping the body as fit and strong as possible.  Symptomatic of the decadence of contemporary Anglo-American civilization is the notion that physical fitness is a means to spiritual enlightenment, that bodily exercises should be indulged in not only for their own sake ... but with a view to improving one's spiritual life!   Yet this is a rather contradictory notion, since the cultivation of spirit can only be pursued at the expense of the body, not by placing special emphasis on physical prowess!  You don't become learned through jogging, and neither will you soar to the contemplative heights during a physical work-out or weight-lifting exercise.  People who imagine the contrary are simply deceiving themselves as to the true nature of spiritual enlightenment!

     Admittedly, the physical and the spiritual are to some extent intertwined in human affairs.  But cultivating the spiritual through the physical, the mind through the body, is a rather indirect, medieval, tangential way of attaining to enlightenment, and one would have to scourge oneself extremely hard to experience anything approaching a beatific vision or moment of contemplative lucidity!  Why go the long way around when a simpler, more direct approach to spiritual fulfilment would prove of far greater efficacy?  Assuming one is really interested in developing spirit and is not simply an outright athlete, for whom the development of muscle is the primary concern!  Could it be that, of all categories of mankind, young women are particularly prone to an indirect, masochistic approach to the spiritual life, being unable to surmount their bodies?  Certainly there is much contemporary evidence to support that hypothesis, though one cannot, in all fairness, exempt all young men from a similar query, nor doubt that extensive publicity of athletic events must have a deleterious effect on some people's conduct.

     But whether the health-freaks are genuinely interested in cultivating spirit indirectly or simply use this notion as a cover for purely athletic activities, the fact remains that not everyone is destined or intended to be genuinely spiritual.  By which I mean that while spiritual cultivation is relevant to some, it is quite irrelevant to others, and maybe most of those who regularly jog and/or lift weights ... are in this non-contemplative category.

     Is this bad?  No, not necessarily!  No matter how civilized a particular segment of society becomes, there will always be others who will be less spiritual, and hence more physical, and their proper place would be ... outside the meditation centre, whether in the armed forces, the police, the bureaucracy, business, manual work, or whatever.  We must remember that while some people are entitled, by their intelligence, temperament, and physical constitution, to be the brains of society, there are others who, for quite different reasons, must remain its body, and who will continue to do so even while cultivating spirit, whether directly or, more usually, indirectly.

     Furthermore, we might also distinguish between the spiritual 'sheep', who in a higher civilization ought to be the majority, and the physical 'sheep dogs', or those who, whether as soldiers or police, protect and safeguard the interests of that majority, keeping them in the 'pen' of any given social system, and defending them from external encroachments by alien systems.  Nothing, therefore, could be more foolish than to treat the 'sheep dogs' as 'sheep' or, conversely, the 'sheep' as 'sheep dogs', when they must forever remain distinct on account of their respective natures and duties.  The important thing is to know how to distinguish the one from the other, and ensure that they are not obliged to behave in a manner contrary to their respective natures.  Now this also implies the weeding-out of potential 'sheep dogs' from the 'flock' and their subsequent cultural segregation.

     In a higher social system, such as I equate with Social Transcendentalism, those who were manifestly unsuited to the direct cultivation of spirit would be debarred entry into the meditation centres and obliged to fulfil themselves according to their more physical dispositions, either as police or soldiers, or something analogous.  In such fashion the idiocy of trying to turn athletes into contemplatives would be avoided, and greater spiritual progress could accordingly be made by those entitled to make it, who would, of course, cultivate spirit directly ... under Centrist guidance.

 

    

LONDON 1984–5 (Revised 2012)

 

Evolution